Predator's Kiss by Rosanna Leo Read Free Book Online Page A

back at the lodge and Marci was booking Lia into the room. As she did, he took the opportunity to warn his security team, comprised of two bear shifters and a wolf, about Scott the super fan and the reporters hounding Lia. He also told them about Floro Valdez, shaking his head the whole time. And then he stared at Lia and realized he had no idea what to do with her. All he knew was he didn’t want the world finding out her whereabouts and he didn’t want his brother even in the same room with her. In the interval, until she figured out what to do next, she could spend a quiet night at the lodge.
    And when she left, he’d forget her.

Chapter 4
    A couple of days later, Lia stared at her laptop screen, her eyes unseeing. She’d been reading the same passage now for at least an hour, and had only managed to type three words: her swollen nipples.
    Her swollen nipples . What about them?
    She was in the middle of a love scene between Adelaide and Claudio, in her follow-up to Love in Chains , and was having trouble getting beyond the third chapter. It wasn’t like her to have writer’s block. Since she’d first put pen to paper, the words had flowed out of her like waters from a broken dam. And writing sex scenes was one of her favorite things to do. She always found they wrote themselves, truth be told. Once she had her characters in bed, or against a wall, or in a moonlit lake, nature took over. Writing sex was usually enjoyable and a big release for Lia as well.
    However, in the two days she’d been ensconced at the Ursa Fishing Lodge, under the strangely watchful eye of Ryland Snow, writing had become a chore. Considering her looming deadline, writer’s block was not an option.
    “Argh,” she grunted at her laptop. “Just write something, dammit!”
    Lia pushed away from her chair and stared around the comfortably appointed room as if it were a prison cell. Surely that was it. She was having trouble because she was away from home. It made sense. There was nothing wrong with the room or the lodge. In fact, it was rather homey. She liked the thick carpets and overstuffed upholstery and often found herself wondering how involved Ryland had been in choosing the furnishings.
    She found herself wondering about Ryland a lot, period.
    Lia bent down to the little minibar fridge and opened the door. She reached inside for a Perrier water, wrenched off the cap, and took a long swig. Then she took another. And she realized her thirst was in no way being quenched by the designer water.
    She thought of Ryland again, pondering the powerful curve of his shoulder muscles, flexing through his shirt as he gestured. She contemplated the fine lines around his mouth, how she’d seen them transform into crinkles of happiness when he talked to his staff, but how they always tightened when he was near her. She wondered how it was that even the set of his strong jaw seemed to call to her.
    She sipped some more water, shook her head to clear her thoughts, and sat back down at her laptop.
    Lia put the Perrier down on the desk and once again peered at her computer screen. “Her swollen nipples … her swollen nipples.”
    Lia remembered how Ryland had come to her room on her first day there and personally stocked the minibar with all sorts of treats he claimed were on the house. She thought of the conversations they’d shared since she’d arrived, short but frequent conversations in which he inquired into her stay. He was always asking if he could make things more comfortable for her, if she needed any supplies from the mainland. And although his eyes were just about always narrowed with suspicion, he never once balked when she asked to stay another night and then another. She didn’t mean to put him out. She just didn’t know where else to turn.
    There was something about him that was instinctively nurturing, even though he operated under a distinctly surly vibe most of the time. He didn’t like her, she understood that. Still, he was