Stripped by Edie Harris Read Free Book Online Page A

‘the cantina.’ This Latin hole-in-the-wall south of here that brings in a live salsa band three nights a week.” Rick’s smile had been far more friendly than his daughter’s. “There’s a group of us that like to go drink too many margaritas and dance too many sambas every once in a while.”
    “Will Fiona be there?” The words had snuck out before he’d realized he was asking her father, and what that father might infer from the question.  
    Unsurprisingly, that smile had lost some of its friendliness, and the back of Declan’s neck prickled.  
    At that moment, Ryan, the sound engineer Sadie had been stalking earlier, had walked by, equipment propped over his shoulder. “Fi never misses the cantina, man,” he’d said with a waggle of eyebrows before shooting Rick a chummy grin as he wandered off.
    The look on Rick’s face had been indecipherable when Declan glanced his way again. “Yes, my daughter will be there. She loves to dance.”  
    A familiar face on the television screen in front of him snatched Declan from his thoughts of the day and had him yanking out his earbuds. The push of a button slowed his treadmill to a steady walk.
    “…TMZ reports that Christopher Lunsford, Hollywood bad boy and star of the blockbuster Raine trilogy, has checked into rehab for drug addiction. An official statement released by the actor’s management states that Lunsford is ‘very sorry’ to have disappointed his fans, and that he will ‘be back in the game sooner than you think.’ This is Bianca James, reporting….”
    Declan watched an unsteady camera shot of Christopher Lunsford as he pushed through a crowd of paparazzi with the help of a bodyguard, tanned face wan under the blinding flash of photographers’ bulbs. The actor didn’t look sick or strung out so much as exhausted—exhausted, and angry.
    Lifting the hem of his shirt to mop the sweat from his forehead, Declan pulled his gaze from the TV screen, neither needing nor wanting to see any more of his predecessor’s fall from grace. He surveyed the gym as he stepped off the treadmill, noting it was nearly empty of patrons, and considered his options.
    He could do as he had been for the past nine nights in a row: finish his routine with an hour on the weights before showering and crashing for the evening. Or he could skip straight to the showering part, throw on some fresh clothes, and hit the cantina.  
    Where Fiona would be.
    Screw the weight circuit. Declan had some dancing to do.

FOUR

    Less than an hour later, Declan paused in Lucero’s doorway, gaze searching out a braided, bespectacled makeup artist…  
    …And finding, instead, a leggy goddess in a flirty little skirt the color of fresh clover spinning fluidly across the dance floor into the arms of a Latin man wearing a shit-eating grin.  
    Fiona O’Brien, leggy goddess. Who would’ve guessed?
    Also, Latin Dude looked far too pleased to be holding her.  
    No glasses to hide her eyes, no huge shirts to shield her shape, and Declan drank in the sight of her. Slender, defined upper arms, lovely legs silky and tan and long, so long, Fiona had legs that gave a man ideas, and if Declan were honest, he’d been having ideas for days.
    She smiled at her partner, cheeks flushed, as her limbs seemingly draped around the man and a shaft of painful longing ripped through Declan’s gut, twisting with excruciating slowness when the man’s hands swept over her curves. Curves Declan could now see, for the first time. Curves he wanted to spend the next couple of hours exploring with his own hands, and mouth, and—
    No. They were coworkers. More than that, there was what they weren’t , and what they weren’t was together, because almost-kisses didn’t count. What he ought to have done before now was ask her out for a drink, or coffee, something casual and nonthreatening that people who worked together might conceivably do after hours. Seeing Fiona smile like this, however, put his desires in