Resisting the Musician (a Head Over Heels Novel) (Entangled Indulgence) by Ally Blake Read Free Book Online Page A

“Chop chop! Honestly!”
    A flash of heat shot through his widened eyes, his nostrils flared and he seemed to grow a size bigger. She wondered if she’d awakened a sleeping beast. If she’d finally pushed him too far.
    Until his jaw ticked, his fingers crunched into fists at his sides, and he appeared to literally absorb every ounce of the energy crackling between them. Then, without another word, he spun on his heel and headed down the hall.
    Heart racing and extremities tingling from the shot of adrenaline still zinging through her, Lori jogged to keep up. And, because it was the only way she knew how to be, she pushed some more. “So, I’ve created a spreadsheet detailing how we’ll run each hour’s lesson. First a warm up. I’ve been Googling and found RSI can be a prob—”
    Dash stopped, so unexpectedly that she barreled into him. He caught her by the upper arms.
    “One rule,” he said, his voice so deep, awakened-beast deep, it made her toes scrunch into the cool floor.
    “And what might that be?”
    His grip tightened, his long fingers nearly circling her arms whole. “Every time you walk in my door and it feels like…like something’s about to snap. I don’t like it. Out there, in the big wide world, you might be a high-powered…whatever you are. But here? In my home? No plans, no calendars, no organizing me, or telling me what to do. I don’t enjoy being micro-managed, Lori, and one of the perks of living the life I live is that it simply never happens.”
    His thumbs made small circles against her arms as if it might make her more amenable to listening. Ha! “Was that one rule? Seemed like more.”
    His mouth kicked up at one corner but no humor hit his eyes. “If we are going to do this, Lori, from the second you step over that threshold…chill.”
    The deep echo of his voice dragged against her insides and his scent curled around her tongue; warm, woodsy, and oh so male. He loomed over her blocking out the skylight so that his face was in shadow, his enormous form wrapped in a golden man-shaped aura. And he wanted her to chill?
    “What if I’m not a chilled kind of gal?”
    He tugged her an inch closer, so that she scooted up onto her toes and felt the heat of him rolling down her front. And his voice was little more than a rumble behind her ribs as he said, “Then we’ll have to find out what it’ll take to make it so. Honestly .”
    Callie owed her so big for this escapade she was going to need more than a fabulous shoe. Lori wanted a diamond. Or a yacht.
    “Now,” Dash said, his forehead creasing a fraction as he let her sink back to the floor, his hands sliding down her arms then away. “Let’s start over.”
    “Fine,” she gritted out, crossing her arms now they’d been returned to her.
    “Are you sure I can’t get you something to eat?”
    Lori licked her dry lips, his gaze followed. “No, thank you. I’d appreciate it if we could get straight to the lesson.”
    When his gaze moseyed back to hers his eyes glinted with a mix of heat and anger that she understood only too well. “That’s…better,” he murmured, even though a vein had now popped out in his neck. And he definitely appeared less casual than he had before.
    With a grunt, he waved her before him, and this time she acquiesced. She could pretend to relax, but only so far as it got her what she wanted. Despite the fact that Dash Mills seemed intent on making her work for every step of this project it would happen, it would be fabulous, and it would change everything. Because the alternative was unbearable.
    Lori spilled out of the hall and into what must have been Dash’s living room, and it occurred to her—compared with her ultra-feminine Pacific Heights apartment with its white on white décor and vibrant jewel-toned accents—it would be clear to anyone who entered Dash’s home that A Man Lived There.
    Rough-hewn beams criss-crossed the thirty-foot vaulted ceiling, not a single decorative pillow