Free His Captive Lover (The Thorpe Brothers Series) by Elizabeth Lennox

following him.  His body was already hard and ready for her, his jaw clenching with the need to touch her soft cheek, to see if those tender lips tasted as good as they looked.  And he wanted to fill his hands up with her full, luscious breasts and test their weight, feel the hard points that he could see through her tee-shirt with his thumb and watch her reaction.
    Damn!  He was just making it worse. 
    But he’d probably help her relax a hell of a lot more than doing yoga!  Or maybe it would just help him relax!  He certainly wasn’t relaxed watching her doing yoga.  And he was fairly sure that men’s bodies didn’t move like she’d been moving, nor did he want to attempt any of those poses.  Maybe he should just call up one of his brothers and tell him to meet him at the gym.  A good boxing match would do the trick since he couldn’t touch the lovely lady sitting primly across the counter from him. 
    He moved behind the island until he could get his body back under control.  To occupy his mind, he poured her a glass of red wine.  “I hope you like pasta,” he said more gruffly than he’d intended as he lifted the glass to hand it to her.  He cleared his throat, trying to get a grip on his raging lust.  But every time he thought he might have it under control, he looked at her, saw her soft curls dancing around her pretty face and he pictured her in one of those damn yoga poses again! 
    “I love pasta,” she said evenly, oblivious to his lust-filled state of mind, slipping onto one of the odd looking chairs warily.  She was surprised when it was much more comfortable than it looked.  “This is really nice,” she said, taking a sip of the wine and looking around.  “Who was your designer?” she asked, looking at the beams above her, the rough, brick wall and the enormous fireplace over in the corner that was so big, she suspected it would still be able to heat the kitchen area on a cold, winter’s afternoon.
    “I did it all myself,” he replied, taking a plate and spooning an enormous pile of pasta onto the center.  He then ladled rich, fragrant red sauce, topping it all with a handful of cheese.  “Dig in.”
    Mia looked at the enormous amount of food he’d given her. It was about the same amount she would make whenever she cooked pasta, but she would also divide this up into four portions, freezing the other three for future dinners that she could easily heat up in the microwave.  “Goodness, this is a lot of food.”  She tried not to laugh at his grim face, but she couldn’t help a bit of the amusement she was feeling at his serving sizes.  Amazingly, he served himself more than twice what he’d given her. 
    He took the chair next to her, ignoring her laughter as he pointed towards her plate, indicating she should eat up.  “You’ve had a lot of stress today.  You’re going to need the energy to regroup.”
    She laughed softly.  “That’s sort of what yoga does,” she replied back, but picked up her fork.
    Ash mentally disagreed with her.  Mia Paulson doing yoga definitely did not reduce his stress level.  In fact, his stress level was pretty high right about now despite his attempts to calm down. 
    To help distract himself, he opened her file and read through the details.  As they ate, he asked her questions.  But when she answered, their conversation diverged and he asked her more personal questions than he would ask of his other clients.  The conversation ended up being less about the case and more about him just learning about who she was as a person.  And he was surprised to find her funny and intelligent. 
    Mia couldn’t believe how relaxed she was just sitting here talking with him.  Once there was a lull in his questions and she piped up, eager to gain her own insight into the man she’d been around for what seemed like days or even weeks although it was only hours.  She sipped her wine and worked on whittling down the enormous pile of pasta he’d