Read Online Adam: Braddocks, Book Two by Starla Kaye - Free Book Online Page A

turned pink and her eyes flashed indignantly at him. “It has nothing to do with you.” She reached out a hand. “Now, give it to me.”
    He moved the paper out of her reach. “No! Tell me you weren’t seriously thinking about sending this off.” He wanted to shake her for such a crazy idea.
    “I’m posting it with the next stage headed east.” She stepped in front of him and pressed, “Give. It. To. Me.”
    Instead, he lowered his hand and before she could grab hold of the paper, he tore it into pieces. They fell at his feet. “That is the nuttiest idea you’ve had yet. If your father heard about it…”
    A mulish look settled over her face. “He wouldn’t like it, I know. But since I no longer live under his roof, I can do whatever I please.”
    He’d had it with her today. First, she’d gone against Doc’s advice to come down and work in the store today. Second, she’d caused him an endless amount of frustration all day as he’d thought about her standing so close to him that morning in only her nightgown and a quilt. If he’d been less than the gentleman he was, he would have ripped them both away and she’d have been naked and vulnerable in front of him. Third, she’d tested his patience by remaining in her store all day. And now she’d planned to do something so incredibly foolish.
    He fumed, swore under his breath, and stormed over to close and lock the front door.
    “What are you doing?” she asked warily.
    He faced her, the woman he didn’t want…but wanted. The woman was too stubborn for her own good, for his either. What he needed to do was pull her into his embrace and kiss the devil out of her. What he would do, though, was something he’d wanted to do for over a week. Actually, for months.
    “I’m going to burn your butt.” He walked in her direction as her eyes widened and she inched back around the case again.
    “You can’t spank me,” she sputtered and hurried away faster. “You have no right.”
    “Maybe not, but I’m going to do it anyway.” He inhaled the scent of her, watched her nostrils flare and knew she was as sexually aware of him as he was of her. His erection swelled, but he ignored it.
    She stood her ground now, eyes flashing defiance. “If you touch me, I swear I’ll have Daniel arrest you for…for indecency.”
    He cocked an eyebrow. “Daniel agrees with me, that you shouldn’t be living here alone. That you’re behaving improperly and should move back home until you get married.”
    She had the nerve to nod at the bits of paper on the floor. “That was to help me get married.”
    “That was going to invite all kinds of men here, probably more unsavory ones than good men. That was a foolish idea, a dangerous one.” He moved within an arm’s reach of her. “I’ve wanted to tan your backside for a good long while.”
    He watched her swallow hard, saw her face heat.  “It isn’t proper, Adam Braddock. You aren’t my husband. You aren’t anything to me besides a bother.”
    “Face the shelves, Faith. Hold onto one of them.” He glanced around and picked up a lady’s brush from a small display of brushes and combs on the end of the case. “This’ll do, because you’re right, it wouldn’t be proper for me to lay my hand on your bottom.”
    She stiffened, staring uneasily at the hard wooden brush. “When my father finds out what you did…”
    His gaze locked with hers. “You’d tell him that I blistered your butt? Really?”
    Her cheeks flamed and she shook her head. “Well, no,” she said meekly. “You don’t need to do this, Adam.”
    “Yes, I do.”
    Looking desperate, she put a hand around her ribs. “But I’m hurt.”
    “You were well enough to work here all day. So you’re well enough to take a licking you’ve needed for months.” He wasn’t going to back down now. She’d pestered him for too long and now she’d pushed him to edge of his patience. “Turn around, Miss Paddington.”
    For a second, she didn’t move.