Unbound (Crimson Romance) by Nikkie Locke Read Free Book Online Page A

sweater.
    “I like it. What shoes?”
    “How about my navy flats?”
    Maddie considered. “I like it.” She walked over to Payten and hugged her. “I’m going back to bed now. Good luck, Payten.”
    “Thanks.”
    Maddie closed the door behind her. Payten threw the jeans and sweater on her bed. She moved across the room to her dresser. She opened her underwear drawer to debate.
    Payten admittedly had a more than slight obsession with underwear. She had a bra and panty collection big enough to outfit an army. Victoria’s Secret was definitely her friend. She decided on a pair of white, lacy boy shorts and a matching bra. She turned back toward her bed and caught sight of the clock.
    “Shit!”
    She dressed in a flash. In the foyer, she grabbed a coat off the coat tree and scooped her purse up off the floor where she had left it the night before. She locked the door on her way out. She never noticed Maddie asleep on her couch.
    • • •
    Dean sat at the round table drinking his second cup of coffee. It was a quarter to eight, and Payten hadn’t showed yet. With her parents out of town, she had to be there in time to take breakfast orders when they officially opened at eight.
    He didn’t worry, though. He finished his coffee and his conversation with one of the morning regulars before heading into the kitchen. He was pulling a carton of eggs and a package of bacon out of the refrigerator when she walked in the back door. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her taking her coat off. He set the eggs and bacon down on the counter to turn and look at her.
    Whoa, he thought.
    Her shoulders were bare. He swore he could count every freckle scattered across her pale skin. Her hair wasn’t braided. Instead, it was slung up in a high ponytail. The blue jeans she wore fit her like a second skin, hugging every curve.
    “Hi,” she said.
    “Hi.”
    “I kind of overslept this morning, so I don’t really have any baked goods in my car that need unloaded.”
    “That’s good news. Cold out, huh?”
    “Yeah, a little bit.”
    Dean tried to think of what to say next, but nothing came. He knew she was nervous, but didn’t know what to say to fix it. When he’d made up his mind to convince her she wanted him as much as he wanted her, it had seemed so easy sitting in the dark. Now that she was standing in front of him looking so tempting, it was hard not to swallow his tongue.
    “So, Mary Beth went into labor?”
    He gave a mental sigh of relief. “Yeah. Finally. Coop said he’d call when there was news.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Yeah.”
    Well, shit, he thought. There went that topic.
    He watched as she reached for her apron. She slipped it over her head, then paused. It took him a moment to realize what she apparently already had. Her apron wasn’t going to work with her sweater. With the sweater off her shoulders and the apron going over her head, things weren’t going to lay flat.
    She took the apron off, smoothed her sweater as flat as possible, and tried again. She didn’t have any better luck the second time. He couldn’t keep from grinning as a blush slowly colored her cheeks.
    He stepped toward her. Moving slowly, he pried the apron out of the death grip she had on it. He slipped it off over her head and folded the top half behind the lower half. Reaching around her slowly, he looped the strings of the apron through one of the belt loops of her jeans and brought them back around to tie at her waist.
    “Now you look like me,” he teased.
    “Thank you.”
    “I like the shirt.” He reached up and run a finger across her bare shoulder. “It’s nice.”
    Her blush slowly faded. She grinned at him. “Thanks. I thought so too.”
    “I think I’m going to kiss you,” he warned.
    She leaned closer to him. Her chest brushed his, and he felt her breath on his face. “I think I’m going to let you.”
    He groaned. “There’s a roomful of people on the other side of that wall.”
    “I don’t care.”
    How on