Read Eagle's Redemption for Free Online

virgin.” She moved closer so she could feel the heat emanating from this body. “I haven’t had a lot of lovers, but he’s always been okay with the ones I choose. In return, I don’t mention his weekly visits to a certain widow in town. We keep an eye on each other, but we don’t try to control each other’s lives.” She was stretching the truth, but only a little. There’d been exactly two lovers in the past five years, neither of them lasting very long.
    “I don’t know,” Dash said. Beneath hers, his hand gripped the edge of the wooden sofa table so hard it had to hurt. She knew his hands had been damaged in the fire he’d survived. “It’s been—awhile for me.” There was a tremor in his voice she could tell had nothing to do with desire, though his taut posture told her he was interested.
    “Since before you were hurt?” Ah, performance anxiety. That she could understand, though she was pretty damn sure Dash wouldn’t have any problems in that category. Not based on how hard he’d been when they danced.
    She knew he nodded—she’d already tuned into him almost the way she usually only did with animals. There were only a very few people she’d ever become that comfortable with, and almost all of them were family. Never had that intimate connection happened in conjunction with sexual awareness. That unique combination made her crave a deeper exploration of the possibilities.
    She reached up and touched his cheek. “What about you? Do you want to stay? No harm, no foul if you don’t. I promise not to even tell Leah or Granddad.”
    “I want to stay,” he rumbled. “I’m just not sure I should. You’re a tempting woman, Carmen Whitefeather. The thing is, I like you too, a hell of a lot. I don’t want to mess up what might turn out to be a good friendship.”
    “I promise.” She held her hand up over her heart. “We stay friends, regardless of how the with-benefits part goes.”
    30
    Eagle’s Redemption
    “And if your grandfather tries to kill me?” He brought his hand up to cover the one she’d rested on his cheek. “Will you promise to protect me?”
    Carmen laughed. She didn’t think Dash would have trouble defending himself from anyone, let alone a seventy-five-year-old man. “I promise. But don’t worry, he rarely scalps anyone these days.”
    His answering chuckle was deep and rich, if just a little rusty. “Okay, even I’m not enough of an inner-city boy to believe in that stereotype.” He lifted the hand that wasn’t over hers to rub his shaved head. “Besides, I’ve got that covered on my own.”
    Carmen lifted her fingers from his cheek and smoothed them across the unmarked side of his head, from his ear, down to the back of his neck. “It suits you,” she said, marveling at the texture, smooth skin roughened by just the slightest stubble. “Have you always shaved it?”
    “No, just since the hospital,” he admitted. “It—doesn’t grow in well where the scars are.”
    Carmen went up on her toes and kissed the skin just below his left ear where she remembered the scarring started. “Want to see the rest of my house, Dash?”
    31
    Cindy Spencer Pape

Chapter Four
    Dash didn’t think he could have said no if a herd of cattle had stampeded through the room. For the first time since the fire, he felt alive. His heart pounded in his chest while blood coursed through his veins and pooled in his cock.
    Dash had been dying to get a closer look at the illustrations on the drawing table, but right now he was even more interested in seeing a bed.
    Dash lifted two glasses of wine in one hand as Carmen took his other and led him over to the rustic log staircase, moving with a calm assurance that would have given a stranger no indication she couldn’t see where she was going.
    He paused as they emerged onto the second-floor loft.
    It only covered the front third of the cabin—basically the kitchen and laundry areas, leaving the living room ceiling to soar to the