You've Got Male by Elizabeth Bevarly Read Free Book Online Page B

If she dropped this command and added a different one instead…Or if she clarified that command a little better…Hmm…
    What had she done wrong?
    She squinted at the numbers and letters and symbols again, then removed her glasses to rub her eyes. She’d been up for thirty-six hours straight now, her mind completely engaged during the majority of them. She hadn’t even stopped working long enough to eat anything since that last bowl of Cajun popcorn. Maybe she needed to take a break for a little while. Clear her head with a nice Starbucks double shot.
    Yeah, that’s the ticket.
    She tossed her glasses onto the table and stood, reaching as high as she could above her head, arching her back to relieve the kinks that had set in. Oh, man, that felt good. The sudden activity stirred her cat, Skittles, who had curled herself into a meatloaf shape on one of the other dining room chairs. After mimicking Avery’s stretch with one of her own, she leaped down, curling her lithe silver-and-black-striped body around and between Avery’s calves. Avery smiled and bent to pick up the cat, cuddling her under her chin and calming immediately at the soft hum of the animal’s contented purr.
    It was always good to have someone in your life you could count on, no matter what. Skittles was that for Avery. She’d shown up as a stray kitten outside the gates of the Rupert Halloran Women’s Correctional Facility during the final month of Avery’s term, and after much urging and cajoling from the inmates, one of the guards had brought the scrawny little thing inside for the women to fuss over. They’d decided whoever was the next released would take the kitten with her. Avery had been the winner. In more ways than one. Skittles had been with her ever since.
    She strode, cradling Skittles, into the kitchen. It was still a mess, unfortunately. No friendly little house-cleaning brownies had come by while she’d been working to clean the place up. Dang. Although, speaking of brownies, hadn’t she put some Sara Lee brownies on her grocery list? she recalled now. She put down Skittles and padded in sock feet over to the counter, where she had at least cleared a place for the two sacks of groceries, even if she hadn’t quite gotten around to unpacking them all yet. Well, she’d needed the space on the dining room table to work and then she’d been too preoccupied by that work to worry about putting away anything but the stuff that needed to be refrigerated.
    She had dug out the brownie tin and peeled back the paper lid from the foil—oh, boy, just the sight of all that icing was enough to send her into spasms of orgasmic chocolaty euphoria—when there was a knock at her front door. She jerked up her head upon hearing it. Two visitors within a matter of hours was extraordinary. It was also very suspicious.
    As quietly as she could, she made her way to the front door and leaned forward to peer through the peephole. When she saw who stood on the other side, her heart kicked up a ragged rhythm and heat flooded her belly. Because it was the delivery guy from Eastern Star Earth-friendly Market again, only this time he wasn’t carrying groceries.
    She told herself to ask him what he wanted but feared she already knew. Hey, a scrawny, ill-favored woman living all alone? Avery knew what an easy mark she was to creeps. Look at what had happened with Andrew. Even if this guy was here for a legitimate reason, Avery didn’t feel like answering the door. She had everything she needed, thanks, and preferred to be left alone. She didn’t like talking to strangers. She didn’t like talking to anybody. She liked keeping to herself and hoping the world—and the grocery delivery guy it rode in on—stayed away.
    She started to move away from the peephole, pretending she wasn’t home so he’d leave. But he called out through the door, his words stopping her cold.
    “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Ms. Nesbitt.”
    It didn’t surprise her that he