Play It Safe (The Safe House Series Book 2) by Leslie North Read Free Book Online

road, to the Third Street Promenade, to her brother, Samson had become her drug of choice. He represented knowledge of this foreign cloak-and-dagger world, confidence in the face of overwhelming realities. Most of all, he represented safety. And during at least a dozen or so of those four hundred opportunities, the impulse to slip free of the covers, of his warmth, died a slow and self-loathing death.
    And now, her chance to leave was gone.
    She gripped the feather pillow to her mouth and let loose a silent scream. Hot tears threatened, but she put effort into controlling her breathing and steadying her spiked pulse. Samson’s scent—forest-like, sandalwood or dry birch mixed with clean mountain air—lingered on the bedsheets. One deep, lung-expanding inhale later, his trace softened the edges of her frustration.
    She shouldn’t be here, in the middle-of-nowhere California, away from her time-sensitive experiments and ledgers and a team that counted on her. She told Mike that enrolling in a lesser-known doctor relief organization was dangerous. Why didn’t he listen? He had assured her the physicians had their own security team in addition to those supplied by the local government—two layers of protection, should things go south. That, more than anything, made her wonder if protection was a dangerous illusion that derailed natural human instincts of survival.
    Angela breathed in Samson’s sexy, masculine perfection once more and slipped from the covers. At his bedroom door, she heard his voice beyond.
    “How many Julians can there be? Look into it will you? I sent you his voice file. Run it.”
    He stood in the foyer, barefoot and shirtless, cellphone pressed against his ear, steaming mug in his other grip. Angela lingered in the doorway to observe him. She was treated to a morning view of his sleek, tan pectorals, his taut abdomen, and a sculpted six pack that made her wish she had paid better attention in anatomy class. Every one of those ridges had a name, and she wanted to know them all. Intimately. He was magnificent in a surreal sort of way. Men like him just didn’t pass into her sphere.
    “Come on, Rockwell. She looks nothing like her.” His tone was pitched, confrontational.
    Samson turned, alerted to her presence despite his apparent distraction with his phone call. At her perusal of him, an amused twitch played at his lips. He raised the mug to his lips without breaking eye contact. Always with the bulldozer eye contact. She knew she was the topic of morning conversation.
    “It isn’t the hair. The wig and glasses and outfit are fine, the height is good. It’s just not her.”
    “What’s not me?” asked Angela.
    “Start with the chest. Bind her if you have to.”
    A vein at Angela’s temple pulsed, total simultaneity with a tingling jolt of awareness that he had studied her breasts. She crossed her arms. “What?”
    “And no makeup, but to play up the lips.” His scrutinizing stare ascended from her chest to her mouth and the sweet ache in her breasts tenderized and slipped lower. “They’re fuller up close.”
    His frank objectification should have incited her to revolt, but it had quite the opposite effect. Women like her just didn’t get noticed in his sphere. Plus, she needed more information. Fast reactions were silver nitrate and sodium chloride, the explosion of hydrocarbons, not level-headed scientists who made lists about lists.
    He ended the call and took another casual swig of his hot drink as if he hadn’t just called her tits small, her hair wig-like, and her lips plump. She pushed past him to the kitchen to pour a glass of water she didn’t want.
    “Morning…” His voice was dip-your-toes-in, hope-it’s-not-flesh-eating-acid.
    “Ordering up your next conquest? Oh, wait, I forgot. Your sweet spot is the range between double-C to double-D.”
    Samson rolled his eyes. “A cyber-crimes specialist out of the L.A. FBI office vaguely matches your description. We’ve got a