Read Online Break Away (Away, Book 1) by Tatiana Vila - Free Book Online Page A

back a breath and threw my hands
over my stiff shoulders. Who’d left the doorway open? I stopped
before the edge of the solid wooden door, not wanting to cross that
stream of polar air slicing through the middle of the foyer, and
leaned over to see if I could spot the villain who’d done this. The
lights in the porch were sleeping, a dark veil wrapping the front
of the Lady. I frowned. I looked back at the far end of the hall.
The lights in the living room were off duty as well. Purposely,
maybe. I could hear Buffy’s dim voice buzzing somewhere. Snuggling
and making out with her darling on the couch most
certainly—or rug. It would’ve given them more space to…
    The snap of a car door outside ripped my
hot-blooded visions. I jerked back my eyes to the porch and focused
on the tall shape crossing the road, the lights of the fancy Range
Rover blinking behind it in acknowledgment. So I’d been wrong about
the tonsil hockey game on the couch, then. I shouldn’t have been
surprised. Of course the villain was Ian. Who else?
    “I should’ve known that uppity car was
yours,” I said when he reached the porch steps, stepping out
straight into the polar stream breaking through the threshold.
There was nothing shaky about my stance, even if I was freezing my ovaries by standing in that torturous spot, even if my
toes were purple-colored. But I wasn’t going to give it away.
    He stopped on the first step and looked up
at me. The light in the foyer cast shadows over his face,
sharpening his angles and hollows in a dazzling way—a beautiful
ballet of contrasts, worthy of a 2B and 6B pencil—not that I would
ever sketch his annoying face. His eyes were rimmed with surprise
and a pinch of nervousness danced in there—which was remarkably
odd. If there was something steady about him, it was his
steel-confident nature.
    He cleared his throat after a moment of odd
staring and looked down. “A gift for good behavior,” he explained
the car, climbing up the last four steps.
    “From whom this time? Daddy?” I cocked my
head.
    “Your psychic skills amaze me.” He strode
through the threshold and circled around me, leaving behind him a
soft breeze suffused with the cold nocturnal breath. My arm
shivered.
    “You were patting those leather seats,
weren’t you?” I turned and closed the door behind me, mentally
grateful for cutting off that stream of ice inside. “I bet you
can’t stay away from your rocking Rover for more than two hours. I
bet you even sleep in it, cuddling that dead skin you love so
much.”
    He snorted a laugh and spun on his heels to
look at me. “Yeah, I even take my naps there and fantasize about
you wearing that dead skin . It makes the whole experience
more pleasant and addictive somehow.” He paused and stared at me,
crooking a wicked smile. “Though I think I won’t need to fantasize
anymore since you’re considering the PETA photo shoot more
seriously.”
    “What the hell are you talking about?” I
snapped confused at the swerve the conversation had taken.
    “I have to say the view is now very
promising.”
    The view? I lowered my eyes to my body and
almost plummeted to the floor. Oh. My. God. My arms and feet hadn’t
been the only things that had reacted to the cold. And Ian’s X-ray
male vision had certainly noticed it. No wonder he’d stared at me
that oddly. With the open view I’d given him when standing there
under the full light with my two friends saying hi, no more
explanations were needed.
    I flung my arms around me in a flurry of
deep embarrassment, and anger for not putting on a well worthy bra,
and for wearing that stupid, treacherous, white camisole. Tornadoes
and fires paled next to this.
    “You’re actually blushing,” he said in awe,
amusement edging his voice. “How interesting this day ended up
being. First you cry and then you blush—victim of soft emotions. I
guess you’re not the ice queen everyone thinks.”
    In a regular situation, I would’ve shoved
back