Read Online In Bed with the Enemy by Kathie DeNosky - Free Book Online Page B

night in the inn’s courtyard. The memory of his kiss, the way she’d clung to him, caused her cheeks to burn and a languorous heat to flow throughout her body.
    Had she lost her mind? How could she be heating up over a man she didn’t even like. And how could she have ignored her hard, fast rule of not fraternizing with anyone she worked with?
    But as she thought of Cole holding her, kissing her like she’d never been kissed before, her lips tingled and her stomach fluttered as if a flock of butterflies had been released inside.
    Finding it hard to sit still, she pushed away from the desk, stood up and walked over to stare out the window at the inn’s garden below. The pretty, white gazebo at the back of the courtyard was hidden from view by the canopy of live oak trees surrounding it.
    Why Caveman Cole? What was there about him that she suddenly found so…tempting?
    He was the same overbearing man he’d been two years ago. Wasn’t he? She nodded. Of course he was. Why was she even doubting it? And why was she finding it so hard to forget about him—his smile, the deep, rich sound of his laughter and the feel of his firm male lips on hers?
    A delicious tension suddenly gripped her body, and her knees didn’t want to support her. Walking back over to the desk, she marked her place on the printouts, jotted down the figure on the calculator screen, then shut it off. Some things were better left unexplored and her sudden attraction to Caveman Cole Yardley was one of them. What she needed was something to get her mind off the man and back to the business of finding the paper trail she was sure connected the Mercado family to the gun smuggling ring.
    Glancing at her watch, she walked over to the bureau to pull out a hot-pink spandex sports bra and matching shorts. She shoved them into a canvas gym bag, then as an afterthought added her swimsuit and a clean change of clothes. She’d work off the unwarranted tension in the Lone Star’s fitness room, then swim a few laps in the indoor Olympic pool for good measure. By the time she finished, she’d be relaxed and ready to get back to finding the link between the guns being funneled to the El Jefé terrorists in Mezcaya and the Mercado crime family.
    She smiled as she grabbed her car keys and headed for the door. With the entire town shutting down for the weekend, and converging on the club for its annual summer festival, she was sure Ricky Mercado and John Valente would be present. She might have the opportunity to observe them doing something that led to a break in her investigation.
    And the sooner that happened, the sooner she could go back to Virginia and distance herself from Cole Yardley. Maybe then she’d regain her good sense.
    Â 
    The huge indoor swimming area was relatively deserted when Elise finished her workout and changed into her two-piece swimsuit. Most everyone was outside on the country club’s patio and lawn enjoying the outdoor-barbecue buffet, and choosing their partner for the relay games that would follow immediately after lunch.
    A young couple passed her on their way out, leaving her alone with a man swimming laps in the huge pool. As he neared the end where she stood, she found herself staring at the way the corded muscles in his arms and back bunched and flexed with each stroke.The man had a very impressive physique and she could tell he was in the habit of working out regularly. When he reached the side and did a perfect underwater turn, his powerful legs pushed off the side of the pool, propelling him through the water much like a torpedo, and well into his next lap. Having been on the swim team all through high school, she recognized the smooth way he sliced through the water with a minimum of disturbance as the moves of a very experienced swimmer.
    But there was something about the man that was familiar, something that made every nerve in her body tingle to full alert. As he reached the near