Read Online Ripped! by Jennifer LaBrecque - Free Book Online

he’d never been tied up before. And the hell of it was, he kind of liked it. Mitch knew for certain he felt more energized and alive than he’d ever felt before, and he’d been in some combat situations where his adrenaline had definitely been flowing. Maybe her particular brand of crazy was catching.
    She turned her midnight-blue eyes on him. “I like this place,” she said.
    “I had a feeling this was what you had in mind.” Funny how he felt tapped into her. Even though they were obviously vastly different in some respects, he felt an indescribable connection to her. It was as if one kiss this morning had plugged him into her. But that kind of logic was no logic at all. “Raeleen’s is an institution with the locals.”
    Raeleen’s Rib Shack served the best damn fall-off-the-bone smoked ribs smothered in a peppery saucethat begged to be washed down with an ice cold sweet tea. Sides of coleslaw, Brunswick stew, French fried sweet potatoes and banana pudding rounded things out. Eden struck him as a woman who indulged in whatever she had an appetite for. “Every bite’s homemade by Raeleen and her daughters Shirleen and Jolene.” She leaned forward, listening intently to what he was saying. He knew these were the kind of details that would fascinate her…and it was heady stuff, being the object of her fascination. Damn. He needed help. “Every once in a while Raeleen’s husband, Paul, will call out for Lena, just to mix things up.” Eden laughed and everything inside him tightened. “They all answer to the nickname.”
    “That’s exactly the kind of stuff I like to know.” Bingo. Was he seducing her or was she seducing him? And did it really matter? “Do you come here often?”
    “Maybe once a month, sometimes more.” But he always came alone or with Murdoch and Tara. He’d never brought a date here. “So, you never said how you wound up working on the calendar project when you didn’t want to.”
    “I left the decision to be decided by my friend Patti, a bottle of limocello and a deck of Tarot cards.”
    Okay. This wasn’t exactly the way he ran his life, but he found himself more fascinated than anything. “Do you ever make normal, rational decisions?”
    She narrowed her eyes at him across the red-and-white checked plastic table cloth. Her entire demeanorscreamed, don’t screw with me . Whatever and whoever she was, she had backbone in spades. “Just because my decision-making process is different than yours, it doesn’t make me irrational.”
    “But you’re telling me you took this project because you’d been drinking and playing around with Tarot cards. And you kissed a total stranger because he reminded you of a garden statue.”
    “What? Would you rather hear that I found you utterly irresistible?”
    “That wouldn’t make any more logical sense than the fact that I reminded you of a statue. How could you, in less than a minute, find me so irresistible?” And what the hell was he doing having this crazy conversation with her. Eden Walters Disease. He’d caught it apparently.
    “Now that’s disappointing.”
    She could turn him on more with just a look than any other woman could with full-body contact. “What?”
    “Here I thought you were the perfect man. But you can’t be if you don’t believe in instant irresistibility.”
    Yet once again, Mitch found himself laughing. She was so talking trash. There was nothing perfect about him, but it was fun to hear her say it. She brought out a playfulness in him he’d never known he possessed. Hell, she even inspired him to flirt, something he’d never been good at. Tough, commanding, take-charge. These were all adjectives he’d heard used to describe him. But flirtatious and playful? Who knew, maybe hewasn’t good at it now but this soldier was going to give it a try. “How often do you find men instantly irresistible?”
    “Until today? Never.” She leaned across the table and whispered, “Now’s a good time to tell me