Read Online Hope Entangles: A New Adult Romantic Comedy (Book 2 of 3) by Alice Bello - Free Book Online

hungry, and spine-tinglingly
predatory.
    Slowly he took in a breath, and then
said, “I play with hot things all the time. You should try it
sometime.”
    It felt as if the temperature of the
room had spiked to a hundred and ten, and even though he hadn’t
moved a muscle—any of his simply yummy looking muscles—it felt as
if he was too close, way too close…
    And part of me didn’t seem to
mind.
    My next breath came in a gasp, and I
broke eye contact with the bastard.
    Not going to happen… I was not going to
go down that road.
    I closed my eyes, searching for the
darkness it usually afforded me—but there he was, that predatory
look in his eyes. That look made him the biggest, baddest wolf on
the planet, blowing Billy’s glower right out of the
water.
    It was like the difference between a
roaring fire in your fireplace, and a forest fire.
    Oh boy, was I in the wrong damn place
with the wrong-est man alive.
    “ So, what smells so good?” I
said, walking away from him and looking at a long loaf of some kind
of bread cooling on a shiny metal rack. The rack was suspended in
the air with four identical white coffee mugs.
    Didn’t the man own a mug that didn’t
belong to a matching set?
    My mind drifted on a fun thought, of
buying him a novelty mug, probably from Spencer’s, probably an
insulting one.
    “ That’s zucchini
bread.”
    My nose wrinkled up at the
thought.
    “ It’s my mother’s recipe…
with a few, minor changes.”
    I raised an eyebrow at him. “I’ll
bet.”
    He pulled a perfectly white, perfectly
plain dish from his cupboard—the thing was filled with those bland,
boring dishes—and then pulled out an eight inch bread
knife.
    I gulped seeing such a big, dangerous
looking thing in the man’s hand. It was just yesterday that he’d
been trying to chainsaw down my sycamore tree.
    He caught my unease. “Nervous?” he
teased.
    I shook my head and took another drink
of his amazing coffee. What the hell did he put in
there?
    “ Just surprised you feel you
need to overcompensate on every front, whether it’s your car, your
hair,”—I glanced up at the semi Mohawk on top of his head—“or your
bread knife.”
    “ That’s just style, chica …” he said, his tone
serious and even. “It has nothing to do with content.”
    That… wasn’t the comeback I had
expected.
    “ So,” he said as he sliced
off a thick piece of the delectable smelling, but gross to
contemplate zucchini bread, slid it on a plate and handed it to me.
“What upset you so much you forgot you hate me,”—he gave me a
knowing look—“and sent you over here to mooch coffee off
me?”
    I glowered at him as he sliced off
another piece and pulled it apart with his long, strong
fingers…
    What did he do for a living again? Did
it have something to do with those hands?
    Well, duh! Almost every job on earth
involved the use of your hands.
    I glared one more time and then took a
nibble of the bread.
    Oh god it was good… it was
really, really good. I took another, much bigger bite, and chewed slowly,
savoring the warm, lovely explosion of taste on my
tongue.
    I looked at him. He was waiting, that
infuriating smirk firmly fixed on his face.
    Damn him. How could I hate
someone that could make such good coffee, and bread this yummy!
    I rolled my eyes. “Work.”
    He pursed his thick, soft looking
lips.
    Bastard was so much prettier than I
was.
    Wasn’t freaking fair.
    “ Bette tells me you’re a
photographer.”
    Bette? The traitor!
    I closed my eyes and bit my lip. I so
wasn’t going to tell my woes to this… this…
    “ You aren’t going to have a
stroke or anything?”
    My eyes snapped open, and he was giving
me that look you give the mentally challenged.
    “ No,” I said tartly. “I’m
just wondering why the hell I’m telling you anything.”
    He did this shrug thing, which between
his subtle body movements and his placid expression, said nothing
and everything all at the same time.
    Good god, this man