Read Online The Muscle Part Two by Michelle St. James - Free Book Online Page A

protect you.”
    “I don’t want to be protected anymore,” Isabel said, standing up and leaning on the balcony railing. “I want to be free.”
    He watched her from the chair for a minute, her curves accented underneath trim white shorts and a loose top that left her shoulders bare. Her dark hair blew in the breeze, and he had the sudden urge to take her from behind, feel her breasts in his hands as he slid between the expansive curves of her ass.
    He stood, came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “You will be. I promise.”
    She turned in his arms. “I don’t want to be rescued, Luca. I don’t want to be rescued any more than I want to be imprisoned. Neither of those things put me in charge of my own life. I’m…” She reached up to touch his face. “I’m grateful for your help. Truly. But you have to let me participate in the saving of myself.”
    He nodded, leaned his forehead against hers. “I don’t want anything to hurt you ever again.”
    She smiled a little. “Pain is part of life, and I want to live it. I’ll take my chances with everyone else — hurt, love, risk. Then I’ll really be free.”
    He drew in a breath. “So you’ll search the study. And I’ll station myself outside the terrace doors and listen for Diego. If he comes into his office, it will be through the interior hallway, not the outside entrance. I’ll be able to hear him, but he won’t see me until I enter the room.”
    “What about the other guards?” she asked, wrapping her arms around his neck.
    “I’m going to send them on a scouting mission around the property to assess the security system’s weaknesses,” he said. “Marco will be with them. He’ll make sure they’re gone long enough for you to search.”
    She nodded. “I just hope the key is where I think it is.”
    “I do, too,” he said. “Diego is supposed to be gone for awhile tomorrow. I overheard him on the phone; there’s a shipment coming in at the harbor. It’s big, and Diego say he wants to be there to supervise.”
    “Tomorrow it is,” she said.
    “How’s Sofia?” he asked.
    “She’s okay, I think,” Isabel said. “Although it’s hard to tell sometimes. She told me the other day that Diego scares her. That she’s afraid he’ll hurt me. It’s not good for her to be scared at her age.”
    “I agree.” Luca’s voice was gruff. He couldn’t help it. Isabel was so caring, so good. He knew firsthand what it was to be scared at Sofia’s age, and he couldn’t help wondering what his life might have been like if he’d had even one person like Isabel in his life. “She’s lucky to have you.”
    Isabel reached up, touched his face. “Not ready to talk about it yet, querido? ”
    “About what?”
    “The shadow in your eyes,” she said. “You don’t want me to see it, but I know it’s there.”
    He shook his head. “The past shadows us all.”
    “It doesn’t have to.” She stood on tiptoe, touched her lips to his. “I’ll be here when you’re ready. In the meantime, I’m sure we can think of other things to do.”
    She pressed her hips into his to make her point, and his cock responded like the obedient soldier it was.
    “You’re a naughty little girl,” he murmured against her lips, pulling her more tightly against him, burying his hard-on into her belly.
    “Only for you.”
    Their lips were inches apart, and Luca bridged the gap in under a second. Her mouth, extravagant and soft, was made for him. She opened her lips and allowed his tongue entrance, then met him as he swept her mouth, pushing his hand into the hair at the back of her neck and tipping her head so he could taste every bit of her beautiful mouth.
    She was backed up against the railing now, the sea breeze mixing with her smell — vanilla and oranges and something that might have been jasmine — to create a heady backdrop to the fire building inside him. He didn’t want her pressed up against the hard iron. He wanted her laid out on