Read Online Her Spy to Hold (Spy Games Book 2) by Paula Altenburg - Free Book Online Page B

and grab some acetaminophen for her headache before digging through a dresser drawer in search of a clean pair of shorts and a T-shirt. It only took a minute to clip her hair up with a plastic claw. She’d wash it later. After she made her bed and hung up her discarded clothes from the previous night, her ten minutes were up. The thought of Kale in her kitchen, however, remained overwhelming.
    She’d have to face him eventually and might as well get it over with.
    He stood at the stove with a spatula in his hand, his white shirt unbuttoned and the tails hanging free, the sleeves rolled up his forearms past his elbows to biceps as thick as her thighs. His feet were bare. He’d tidied his hair, the blond man bun smoothed into place.
    He was gorgeous. She could watch him all day.
    A hunger shot through her that had nothing to do with food. The attraction between them wasn’t a figment of her imagination. Since she appeared to be enough woman for him, why should he be too much man for her?
    As Beverley had said, why not have fun?
    He glanced up from stirring the contents of the frying pan. Morning light caught the incredible blue of his eyes. The gleam in them suggested he knew what she’d been thinking and that his thoughts were running along the same lines.
    “Hey, there. How’d you sleep?”
    “Like the dead.”
    His lips quirked into a sly, sexy grin. “You were breathing. I checked.”
    There wasn’t much she could say about that. She wanted to have fun, yes, but she’d never be able to pull it off to the same level he did. She couldn’t change who she was—a dull and boring computer scientist.
    Her gaze flitted from his to settle on her laptop bag. She wandered over and dug in one of the side pockets for her phone, then sat down to go through her messages.
    “Your breakfast is getting cold.”
    She looked up from her phone, startled to discover that while she’d been reading, the table had been set with placemats and napkins and he’d served her bacon and scrambled eggs. A glass of orange juice sweated beside her plate. Coffee steamed in a mug. He sat across from her, blue eyes studying her face, his own plate half empty.
    “Sorry,” she said. “I sometimes get lost when I’m working.”
    “No kidding. I tap danced and sang show tunes before I finally gave up trying to get your attention.” He pointed his fork at her breakfast. “Now put the phone away and eat. We have rules in this house.”
    “Yes, sir.” She set the phone beside her plate. He raised his eyebrows and flattened his lips with such an expression of mock patience that she had to smile. She picked up the phone and tucked it into the laptop bag pocket. “Let me guess. Your mother was strict about mealtimes.”
    “When we managed to sit down at the same time as a family, yes. You better believe it. Those were rare events and she kept them special. She raised four sons. We’re all terrified of her.”
    “The giantess Jord must be fearsome, indeed.”
    He paused in the act of spearing a piece of bacon. “You think my mother’s a Norse goddess?”
    “No one’s ever compared you to Thor before?” She found that hard to believe.
    “Well…yeah,” he admitted. “But they think Thor’s mother’s name is Frigga, after the comic book character. You know. The one in the Avengers movies?”
    “I’ve never seen those movies,” Irina confessed. She’d heard of them though. She spent her work days with nerds after all.
    “What kind of movies do you like to watch, then?”
    “I don’t really have a preference. I usually read.” Making her the biggest nerd ever.
    “I’ve seen your reading material.” He made a gesture as if he were hanging himself. “You need to expand your horizons. We’re going to watch a movie tonight.”
    That sounded…cozy. “Aren’t we supposed to be working? Trying to find out what’s going on with those pop-ups on my computer?” She reached for her coffee. “And what about that talk you said