Heartbreaker Read Online Free PDF

face was still and
expressionless as he looked down at her hand for a long minute; then he caught
her other hand and examined it, too. His grip gentled, and he traced his
fingertips over the scratches and half-healed blisters, the forming calluses.
    Michelle sat with her lips pressed together
in a grim line, her face deliberately blank. She wasn't ashamed of her hands;
work inevitably left its mark on human flesh, and she'd found something healing
in the hard physical demands the ranch made on her. But no matter how honorable
those marks, when John looked at them it was as if he'd stripped her naked and
looked at her, as if he'd exposed something private. She didn't want him to
know so much about her; she didn't want that intense interest turned on her.
She didn't want pity from anyone, but she especially didn't want him to soften
toward her.
    Then his gaze lifted, those midnight eyes examining every inch of her proud, closed
expression, and every instinct in her shrilled an alarm. Too late! Perhaps it
had been too late from the moment he'd stepped onto the porch. From the
beginning she'd sensed the tension in him, the barely controlled anticipation
that she had mistaken for his usual hostility. Rafferty wasn't used to waiting
for any woman he wanted, and she'd held him off for ten years. The only time
she'd been truly safe from him had been during her brief marriage, when the
distance between Philadelphia and central Florida had been more than hundreds of miles; it had been the
distance between two totally different life-styles, in both form and substance.
But now she was back within reach, and this time she was vulnerable. She was
broke, she was alone, and she owed him a hundred thousand dollars. He probably
expected it to be easy.
    "You didn't have to do it alone,"
he finally said, his deep voice somehow deeper and quieter. He still held her
hands, and his rough thumbs still moved gently, caressingly, over her palms, as
he stood and drew her to her feet. She realized that at no time had he hurt
her; he'd held her against her will, but he hadn't hurt her. His touch was
gentle, but she knew without even trying that she wouldn't be able to pull away
from him until he voluntarily let her go.
    Her only defense was still the light mockery
she'd used against him from the beginning. She gave him a bright, careless
smile. "Of course I did. As you so charmingly pointed out, I'm not exactly
being trampled by all my friends rushing to my rescue, am I?"
    His upper lip curled with contempt for those
"friends." He'd never had any patience with the bored and idle rich.
"You could've come to me."
    Again she gave him that smile, knowing he
hated it. "But it would take so
long
to work off a
hundred-thousand-dollar debt in that fashion, wouldn't it? You know how I hate
being bored. A really good prostitute makes—what?—a hundred dollars
a throw? Even if you were up to three times a day, it would still take about a
year—"
    Swift, dark fury burned in his eyes, and he
finally released her hands, but only to move his grip to her shoulders. He held
her still while he raked his gaze down her body again. "Three times a
day?" he asked with that deceptive softness, looking at her breasts and
hips. "Yeah, I'm up to it. But you forgot about interest, honey. I charge
a lot of interest."
    She quivered in his hands, wanting to close
her eyes against that look. She'd taunted him rashly, and he'd turned her words
back on her. Yes, he was capable of it. His sexual drive was so fierce that he
practically burned with it, attracting women like helpless moths. Desperately
she dredged up the control to keep smiling, and managed a little shrug despite
his hands on her shoulders. "Thanks anyway, but I prefer shoveling
manure."
    If he'd lost control of his temper then she
would have breathed easier, knowing that she still had the upper hand, by
however slim a margin. If she could push him away with insults, she'd be safe.
But though his hands tightened a little