The Chase by Lauren Hawkeye Read Free Book Online

glossy black wood and marble. There’s an artsy ceramic bowl on the counter, filled with fat red grapes. My mouth waters—I get a lot of my necessary vitamins in pill form because healthy food is so damn expensive. I waver, knowing that surely no one will miss a handful of grapes. But they’re not mine, so in the end I leave them there.
    T hrough the kitchen is a large living room, decorated in a very Zen kind of style... low leather couches, natural wood, framed prints of nature. And there, sitting cross legged on one of those low couches, is Adam Kincaid.
    Some how I’m not surprised, but still, this makes no sense at all. I close my eyes, then open them again, suddenly certain that this entire day has been something conjured up in my stressed-out brain. Adam Kincaid is famous. Hugely famous. Like, got his start on a popular reality show, toured with an iconic band who had lost their lead singer a decade ago, effectively breathing new life into their music... then released three number one solo albums back to back famous.
    And yet there he is, sitting on a couch in front of me, wearing nothing but pajama bottoms. Pajama bottoms with Wonder Woman flying all over them, I realize with an inward quirk of my lips.
    At least he has good taste in superheroes. A small sound escapes my throat at the absurdity of that , and it cuts through the sounds that Adam is seductively coaxing from the guitar. He looks up, pinning me with the intensity of those eyes, and a jolt passes through me.
    Down girl. He doesn’t do women. And he’s kind of an asshole. Plus you were just assaulted. Oh yeah, and you have no idea where you are.
    A sobering reality, but it does nothing to dissipate the slow burn that only gets warmer as I slowly, cautiously edge into the room and sit down on a chair facing the rock star.
    I don’t want to be the Disney princess who falls in love because her hero has saved her.
    But the warmth buzzing through me tells me that I’m not entirely immune to the glass slipper complex.
    “How are you feeling?” He looks diffe rent, even more so than when I saw him earlier. Before, it had taken a moment to recognize him because he wasn’t wearing the glitz and leather that is his stage persona. And now he’s different yet again. After puzzling over it for a second, I realize it’s because his face is scrubbed clean of the dark eye makeup he usually wears.
    His naked face is heartbreaking. No one should be that good looking. Especially not when I’m sitting here in a shredded, bloody silk dress, mascara gluing my eyelids together, my normally silky hair a snarl at the back of my head.
    Adam clears his throat, and I realize that he asked me a question... and I’ve been staring. Pursing my lips with annoyance, most of it directed at myself, I tear my eyes away from the way his tattoos stretch over his solid biceps as he sets aside his guitar.
    “I’m okay. Shaken up.” Now that I’m awake, my body’s aches and pains are clamoring to be heard , especially the place where I hit my head. “A bit woozy.”
    Hitching forward on the couch, Adam braces his elbows on his knees and studies me for a long moment. I squirm a bit under the scrutiny, relaxing only when he reaches for a bottle that’s sitting in a bucket of ice.
    He pops the cork with the ease of someone who’s done it a million times before. The low lights in the room gleam on the green glass bottle, on that sexy hoop through his brow, on the windows...
    The airplane windows, I realize. When I look around, I take note of the seatbelts that are on every available seat.
    Oh, what the...
    “Where are we going?” My voice is high, a million thoughts running through my mind. Have I gotten out of one bad situation just to land in another? Does Miss Black know where I am? I don’t have my bracelet anymore.
    He doesn’t answer, instead reaching for one of the half dozen crystal champagne flutes that sit upside down by the ice bucket. He pours a generous amount of