Hard to Hold Read Online Free PDF Page A

better than to hope her slip of the tongue would escape his
     notice. But that didn’t mean she had to share the intimate workings of her body with
     him. He’d given up that privilege five years ago.
    She forced what she hoped was a casual laugh. “Look, I don’t need your prying or your
     help. I’m already on first-name terms with half the detectives at the local precinct;
     I’ve even dated a few of them.”
    “I’m not interested in the finer details of your love life, Anna.”
    Yeah, he was. Which was why she’d deliberately dropped that nugget of information.
     Nick Marshall was fiercely possessive. Always had been. It was his flash point. No
     one got to take away what was his. Even if he didn’t want it anymore. He’d box it
     up, lock it down, store it somewhere cold and dark. She should know. That’s what he’d
     tried to do to her.
    And she’d just lit his fuse deliberately. To get him to leave. The look he gave her
     was arctic.
    “I’d forgotten how irritatingly blasé you can be about the chaos you wreak.”
    Okay, he wasn’t moving. She could huff at her bangs and fiddle with the ragged ends
     of her short black bob all she wanted, Nick wasn’t going anywhere without full disclosure.
     Time to give him more information so he’d have a bone to chew on and might finally
     leave her alone. “I knew you’d find a way to make this my fault. I didn’t ask to become
     some schizophrenic’s obsession.”
    He drew his strong brows together in thought, the black-ops agent taking over. Yes . “What do you mean by schizophrenic?”
    She reached for a royal-blue presentation box that had been tucked away in a corner
     of the counter, under a pile of junk mail, and pushed it toward him. “First, he sends
     me flowers—always yellow roses which, as you know, I hate—and other extravagant gifts.
     Then he turns all grim reaper on me, and now we’re back to gifts again.”
    He raised the lid, his eyebrows soaring when he registered the probable cost of the
     delicate, retro, platinum Rolex. He didn’t say a word as he lifted it clear, his long
     fingers tan against the impossibly pale precious metal, and flipped it to see the
     back of the casing.
    With little she could do about the speed of blood chasing through her veins, she held
     her breath instead.
    “Why the hell’s it got ‘Thank you’ engraved on the back?
    “Beats me.” She shrugged, snatching back the timepiece and slamming home the lid of
     the box. She could just imagine the nasty suspicions dirtying Nick’s mind. “And that’s
     all you’re getting. You can be irrational when it comes to someone else trespassing
     on what you mistakenly consider your territory.”
    “Consider yourself safe then. I gave up any claim over you long ago, and I’m not looking
     to restake one.”
    “Excellent, because I don’t need two dysfunctional beings messing up my life.”
    Just as in the old days, the combustion was appallingly instant. He’d bruise, she’d
     scratch right back, leaving the air heavy with waves of hot resentment, swollen with
     angry accusation and guilt.
    She recognized the familiar danger, and judging by the blue glitter in his eyes, so
     did he. Once, he’d have had her up against a wall by now, his hands tearing at her
     clothes. Hers at his. Tempestuous makeup sex that had never solved a damned one of
     their issues.
    They stared at each other in the long, drawn-out silence, her afraid to breathe—him
     too, judging by the absolute stillness of his chest, the way his knuckles whitened
     as his long fingers curled his mug more tightly. Long, talented fingers that had once
     danced across her skin. Seeking, finding, playing, little wild fires igniting as he
     trailed his deliberately erratic path. Fingers so fiendishly clever they’d teased
     her inside and out, until she’d lost all sense of time and self and hadn’t cared.
    She clasped her thighs together and then, swallowing thickly, stepped back a pace,