Alpha Me Not Read Online Free Page A

females through his front door? It’d be best to nip this in the bud.
    “You’ve met your match then, cowboy. I’m not a white-picket-fence kind of woman. And definitely not the settling-down type. No husband, no kids, no ties. No emotional entanglements. But as the saying goes, I don’t eat where I muck. You’re my neighbor. Let’s set the rules right here and now. No kissy-kissy. You can lump me right in there with Terri.”
    She folded her arms and jutted her chin and plain hated that she had to crane her neck to meet his gaze. One of the few pluses of being five-eleven was she could look down on most men; it gave her a power edge she relished.
    “There isn’t a gay bone in your body. My cock knows that as well as you do. I’ve lived next door to Terri for three years, and not once has the sight of her naked given me a boner. Even when I thought you were her, I was as hard as a steel girder. No way are we going to be platonic friends, Susan Elizabeth White.”
    Maybe, just maybe this could work out. Gawd, was he temptation personified. The notion of running her fingers over his forged-of-steel muscles had her salivating.
    “I don’t want your friendship. That involves emotions. Now, there is an arrangement I might go for. The kind that involves a certain type of buddy.”
    The grin that swept his mouth showcased the type of dimples clean-cut Ralph Lauren male models claimed, and gave him a boyish air she would never have associated with his menacing, mercenary, razor toughness.
    He cupped her elbow and urged her around the corner and onto Birch Close.
    “You’re preaching to the converted, sweetness. I’d say we have ourselves the makings of a—”
    His nostrils flared.
    His gaze went distant.
    He lifted his head.
    Susie’s stomach clenched.
    Predatory couldn’t begin to describe the hunter stance he assumed in a heartbeat—legs spread wide, hands jammed on lean hips, eyes narrowed. He sniffed and whipped his head to the left.
    “Gas. I smell gas. Are you sure you turned off the tanks?” He met her stare full on.
    She resisted the urge to smack him. Gas? She’d all but asked him to screw her, and he asked about gas? She inhaled and smelled nothing but the metallic aroma of asphalt baking under a semitropical sun.
    He shook her. “Think. Did you lock the tank?”
    She dashed his hands away. “Of course I did. I am not some simpering female. We’ve had a gas stove all my life. I know the rules. I disconnected the old tank, screwed the valve shut, and took it to the laundry room. I never even opened the valve on the new one because—”
    “Crap. It is gas. And damned if it’s not going to blow any minute.” He’d turned around, poised to take off.
    Susie backtracked. “I disconnected everything when I couldn’t figure out how to switch the tanks around. And how in heck can you smell gas from here?”
    The boom thundered between them, an explosion so loud and so unexpected they both jumped.
    “Jesus!”
    He took off like a horse taking the final curve in the Belmont.
    Susie sprinted after him. Raced to catch his wide-legged stride, panting to keep up with his pace, until, until…
    Shit. Terri’s house had blown up.
    Her arms plopped to her sides. She stood there following the leaping blue and yellow plumes, watching the points flare and sizzle, her mouth hanging open, too stunned to move an inch.
    Terri’s cute little bungalow was on fire.
    Correction—the house was consumed by fire. The porch was ablaze, the quaint milk cans with their nostalgic petunias and ivies charcoaled and crumpled in a slow dance of destruction. A conflagration of vaulting flames attacked the front door, the walls, the charming carved white window frames, as she stood there unable to budge.
    This couldn’t be happening. She shook her head. No way.
    Just a few weeks ago she’d left Chabegawn, Michigan, on the first real adventure of her life—college, and being on her own. Claiming her own space, doing all the