Read Own (Command Force Alpha #1) for Free Online Page A

live? New Hampshire?”
    He was calming so thoroughly, just by breathing air that smelled of cool weather, that he actually smiled. “Not quite.”
    Katsu kept watching him. He felt her stare like a touch. From some angles, her jawline appeared rounded, but her chin was always pixie sharp. Those dark eyes could clear a man’s head of even the fresh night air and replace it with thoughts that were nowhere near so clean.
    Maybe not any man. Maybe it was just Evan. Right then it didn’t matter. His calm faded, because he was nearing his house. Only necessary techs had been there, to set up security and surveillance. He didn’t have people over for fun. Not Nicky or Laurie or any of his brief, doomed relationships with women who didn’t understand him. Could never understand him.
    What did it say about him that he kept his home so private? Probably as much as Kat’s tornado living room said about her.
    They weren’t normal people.
    He turned off the main road and guided the Lexus up his three-quarter-mile driveway.
    “This isn’t some rescue operation,” she said, her voice somewhat teasing, somewhat awed. She peered through the window, where light bounced from bough to bough. “This is a full-on kidnapping.” She flipped midnight hair behind her ears and angled him a sly look. “I said it from the start. You’re a Neanderthal dragging me back to your cave in the woods.”
    “Think what you want.”
    “I can and I will. You have a lot to make up for after what you said about Loki and my purple kitchen lights.”
    “Don’t put words in my mouth, Kat. I never said anything against Loki.”
    “Maybe you have a shred of taste after all.”
    His palms were sweating. She used to love teasing him. “Teasing you back from the ledge,” she’d once called it. That felt especially important now.
    First, he had to drive her past the red-painted fences and the custom-built two-paddock barn.
    “You… You have a barn ? I hope all you keep is feral cats.”
    “Yes. I have a barn. I also have a woodshed and a private stream. Any other questions before you level more sarcasm at me?”
    “Defensive much? I was just asking. It’s an odd choice for a guy who might be gone by 2:37 in the morning.”
    “I’ll be wherever you are until any possible threat has passed and you can go back to your life.”
    He put the car in park and got Katsu’s bag and backpack out of the trunk. She emerged, chin tilted up, gaze taking in the redwood exterior. Barn and house and paddock and fencing blended so completely with the fall-burnished surroundings. Evan liked that it looked old. Seriously old, as if it’d been here since colonial times and had persevered over centuries. He couldn’t have that permanency, but he could live somewhere that wrapped him in that feeling.
    “This is beautiful,” she said softly. She aimed those dark, perceptive eyes at him and shook her head a little. Her precisely angled bob skimmed her round cheeks. “Never would’ve thought it of you.”
    “Is that a good or bad thing?” Suddenly it meant a great deal to him, though he couldn’t give two damns why.
    “Just…different.” She turned and walked up the shallow front porch steps. With her jeans that tight, Evan zoomed right back to thoughts of her amazing ass. He didn’t think she was doing it on purpose, like Marilyn Monroe giving a natural extra swish of sex appeal to every step. If Katsu meant it, he’d know—probably after it was too late.
    Time to get ahold of himself, and of her. He didn’t need to keep hauling her out of various buildings. He only had to keep her in this one. The remoteness worked in his favor. The remoteness also meant he’d be locked up with Katsu for the next few days. Just how was he supposed to keep his hands off her, when he ached to clutch her ass and squeeze? Hard. He wanted that ass in the air when he turned her over the arm of his couch and stripped those tight, tight jeans. Then he’d make her suck him—