Free Lovers and Madmen(Sasha McCandless 4.5) by Melissa F Miller Page A

one of
Clarissa’s coworkers, had entered into a plea bargain in which he pled guilty only
to the other murder. He’d maintained at his sentencing—and continued to
maintain—that he hadn’t killed Clarissa, although he’d planned to.
    The denials of an admitted murderer who had an
incentive to lie carried no weight, according to Larry. Under the pecking order
that existed at Western Penitentiary, Vickers’s life would get considerably
more unpleasant if he was known as the guy who’d killed a pregnant woman.
Killing a non-pregnant woman was, apparently, not a social handicap.
    Let it go, she told herself, knowing she
couldn’t. It was a weight she’d carry for the rest of her life.
    She returned to the reading chair and shut down
the computer, then sat cross-legged on the floor and stared out the window
until the sun rose.
    As light streaked the sky, she turned to happier
thoughts. Valentine’s Day was just one day away, and she had a surprise planned
for the man dreaming peacefully upstairs in her bed.
     
    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
     
    Connelly bounded down the
stairs to the kitchen, full of energy even before his first cup of coffee.
    “Good morning, sunshine!” he enthused, reaching
for the coffee.
    She joined him at the counter and extended her
empty mug for a refill. He filled it and then pressed his lips against her ear.
    “Hi,” she said.
    His smile faded and concern filled his eyes.
    “You couldn’t sleep again?”
    She raised the oversized mug to her mouth and
shrugged.
    “Guess not.”
    Connelly placed his cup on the counter and took
hers from her hands, lowering it to the counter as well. He searched her face.
    “Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?” he pressed.
    Because I can’t , she thought. It’s
against the freaking rules.
    Instead she said, “Nothing’s wrong—other than the
fact that you hog the covers. And sleep like a windmill. Snore like a buzz saw.”
    She reclaimed her coffee mug.
    He tried to maintain his serious face, but she saw
his lips beginning to curve. She stretched onto her toes and gave him a quick,
coffee-flavored kiss.
    “Don’t forget—tomorrow night you’re all mine,” she
told him over her shoulder as she started for the stairs to take a quick
shower.
    He caught her by the waist and pulled her toward
him.
    “What about every other night?” he said, pressing
his mouth beside her ear.
    Her legs melted, and she leaned back into him.
    “And every other night, too,” she managed as he
moved his lips to the hollow at the base of her throat.
    His hands were on her hips now, tugging at the
waistband of her yoga pants. Warm against her cool skin.            
    “What about the mornings?”
    She tried to form a sentence or even a thought,
but desire flooded her body and overrode her brain. She turned and abandoned
her coffee then slipped her hands up under his thin t-shirt.
    The shower could wait.
     
     
     

CHAPTER 2
     
       
    Sasha glared down at the
freckled hand clamped around her wrist. Her own left hand and the eight-inch
blade in it were pinned down against the surface of the counter by the firm
grip.
    With little effort, she could twist to her right
and swing her elbow around with sufficient force to knock her tormentor across
the narrow room and into the stainless steel shelving behind him.
    With only marginally more effort, she could break each
of the small bones in the hand that trapped hers.
    But she did neither.
    Instead, she waited for Chef Rouballion to finish
his series of dramatic sighs and launch into the diatribe she knew was coming.
    Three, two, one ...
    “That is not a chiffonade. I do not know what it
is, but I know what it is not. You, Miss McCandless, are wasting your money and
my time,” he sniffed in the heavily accented English that she had begun to
think was an act.
    She counted to ten before she answered him. And
then did it again for good measure. She just had to get through this final
lesson without killing the man.
    Mastering