Sheltering His Desire by Allyson Lindt Read Free Book Online Page A

we get this
done, it helps, right? Shows people the shelter is the real
deal?”
    “I suspect it’ll help.”
    She focused on the sentiment, and the
business of things, and dropped into her desk chair. She navigated
to the files automatically. He would have placed them on their
shared folder on the cloud.
    A knock echoed through the room, and she
jumped at the sudden banging. She giggled at her own antics. Tate
gave her one more glance, furrowed his brows in concern, and
smoothed down his shirt before unlocking the door. She pulled her
hair back and twisted it into a knot, sticking a pen through to
hold it in place. At least if it was a mess, tying it up would hide
it a little. Would people be able to tell? Were her cheeks flushed?
Mouth swollen and red? Her fingers twitched against the keyboard as
she resisted the urge to trace her them over her lips to check.
    Greg—the guy who was taking video of the
animals—hovered in the doorway. She’d met him a couple of times at
company parties. He was a nice guy. A little hard core when it came
to his love of video, but Jared was the same about machines so it
didn’t faze her.
    The moment her brother’s name popped into her
head, she dropped her face into her palms. Would Greg know what
they’d been up to? Did the rest of the office know? He was going to
tell her brother. Shit. She’d have to deal with another lecture
about why she couldn’t get involved with his colleagues, or anyone,
really, as far as she could tell. Why he’d be happier if she joined
a convent…
    “What do you think?” Tate’s question
shattered her out of control thoughts, and she yanked herself back
into the conversation. Greg was gone, and her office door stood
wide open. Tate was on the other side of her desk, thumbs hooked in
his pockets, watching her. “Do you need a couple more minutes to
read?”
    Right, she was approving the storyboard and
script. “Yeah, give me a sec. Sorry.”
    She could stay as calm and collected as he
was. What they’d done was meant to take the edge off her stress,
and it had done that. She was going to ignore the new layer of
tension that had drifted in instead. Besides, she promised Tate she
didn’t want more.
    So she’d swallow the impulse—her
preprogrammed desire to make sex into something emotional—and she’d
move on, just like he was. She glanced up from her monitor,
surprise filling her when she saw his fingers drumming on his leg,
and his toes tapping.
    She pushed the observation aside and went
back to work. All she had to do was act normal and it would all be
fine. Right?

Chapter Six
    Tate counted to ten as he breathed out. Last
night’s ‘stress relief’ session with Lys had been amazing, but the
world kept turning during and after. If anything, the one thing it
did for him was give him a painfully erotic fantasy to slide into
every time he remembered how she tasted, her scent, her soft lips
wrapped around his cock.
    “Did you see the news about the animal
shelter?” His assistant, Alan’s voice floated from the speaker
phone.
    Tate shook the images away. He wouldn’t let
the question get to him—the implication that the news report last
night was anything more than an irritating splash in the media
pool. There was a solution, he just had to keep his cool. He spoke
into his speaker phone. “I did.”
    “Do we need to worry about backlash?” Alan’s
voice was hollow, echoing through the Tate’s office. “They’re not
live yet. Are we sure this is a good pilot group for us? If people
buy into the hype, and that spreads onto us for supporting them… We
look like we’re backing animal abuse.”
    Tate choked back a snarl. This was why he’d
hired Alan. Why the guy made such a great assistant. He thought of
these things, and he didn’t keep the thoughts to himself. But damn
it, this wasn’t what Tate needed to hear right now. The bad press
wouldn’t be an issue. He already knew Lys would be able to stop the
rumors before they became