Read Renegade Millionaire for Free Online

he reached around her to add another spoonful of grounds to the cup, his chest brushing against her shoulder. That simple contact had her knees threatening to dissolve like the three spoonfuls of sugar she’d heaped into her own coffee.
    He leaned back against the cabinet. “Are you feeling calmer now after your encounter?”
    For a moment she wasn’t sure which encounter he spoke of, the pleasant one a moment before or the disgusting bus-stop experience. She sipped her coffee, yet tasted nothing. She needed more sugar, less Rio to distract her. “I’m calmer, but I’m also feeling a little stupid. I should have walked back to the hospital when I first noticed the big one.”
    â€œThey probably would’ve followed you.”
    â€œCould be. Never trust a man with a tattoo.”
    He frowned, then his mouth turned up into a world-rocking grin. “Oh, yeah?”
    Setting his cup on the cabinet, he faced her and tugged the hem of his shirt from his waistband. Before Joanna could respond, he slipped the shirt over his head, taking the band securing his hair with it. And there he stood, bare-chested and gorgeous, his hair flowing to his shoulders like an ebony waterfall.
    Before Joanna could ask just what he thought he was doing, her eyes centered on his chest. Lean muscle defined his torso; a triangular tuft of dark hair covered the space between his nipples. Although she knew better, she couldn’t stop her gaze from tracking the path leading to the band on his low-riding jeans that he had managed to unsnap without her noticing. Slowly he lowered his zipper partway, leaving her speechless, excited, unable to move. Then the tattoo came into view.
    Below his navel, a black jungle cat horizontally spanned the tight plane of his abdomen, interrupting the trail of masculine hair leading downward. Joanna’s mouth dropped open but she snapped it shut to muffle her sharp, indrawn breath. The tattoo looked powerful, provocative, impressive.
    When Joanna finally looked up, she found his smile absent and his expression disarming. “Does this make me untrustworthy?” he asked in a low, spellbinding voice.
    Her gaze traveled back to the tattoo and she took in the details, while the awareness that he was watching her sent electricity racing along her nerve endings. As far as Joanna was concerned, this particular artwork made him that much more sensual, seductive, mysterious. She had the overwhelming urge to touch it, to seeif it was as silky as it looked. She was as drawn to that tattoo as she had been to its owner on New Year’s Eve—as she was tonight. Without regard for common sense, she breezed a fingertip across the cat—only to be stopped by the doctor’s grip on her wrist.
    He released a slow, strained breath. “Normally I might say, ‘Feel free to keep touching,’ but I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Not unless you realize you’re stirring up trouble.”
    Joanna’s eyes moved to the obvious bulge below the waistband of his jeans, which were faded to a bleached-out blue in some hard-to-ignore places. Her face flamed from mortification, from totally forgetting herself, forgetting whom she was with, what she was doing. Again.
    She dropped her hand to her side but couldn’t bring herself to contact his powerful golden gaze. “I’m sorry. It’s just that…I don’t know. It looks so soft.”
    â€œTake my word for it, it’s not.” His tone was wry, his voice grainy, deep and deadly.
    She raised her eyes to his, finding them as enticing as they had been after he’d kissed her that night in the ballroom. Grasping for an innocuous question, she asked, “Is it a panther?”
    He looked down at the tattoo. Joanna couldn’t seem to stop herself from looking, too. The muscles in his abdomen clenched as he ran one sturdy, square finger along the jungle cat’s back, much the same as she had,