Hot Ice (A Hostile Operations Team Novel - Book 7) Read Online Free PDF

they teach you anything about sexual harassment where you work? Or is that a bit too much for your muscle-bound brain to process?”
    He snorted a laugh. “Why don’t you tell me what you really think, Grace?”
    Her name on his lips was even more shocking than when he’d called her princess. She wanted him to say it again so she could see if the same shiver slid along her nerve endings, and that only made her mad.
    “I think you’re a jerk.”
    He yanked his glasses off and met her eyes in the rearview. The effect of those gray eyes in his tanned face made her heart pound for a very different reason.
    “Come on, honey. You can say it. You think I’m an asshole .”
    “Right now, yes. Five minutes ago, I just wished you’d go away and leave me alone.”
    He flipped on the signal and made a turn. Then he glanced at her again. “You don’t want me here, and I don’t particularly want to be here. But this is the job, and if we’re going to get through it, we’re going to do it my way. You might as well get used to that now. I don’t need you to like me. I don’t need you to talk to me, or bake me cookies, or any other damn polite thing you might think you need to do for the hired help. All I need is for you to do what I tell you. And what I’m telling you is that we’re going to your house, and we’re staying there until this benefit tonight. After the benefit, we’re going back to your house, and not leaving again until morning. I don’t fucking care if you have a problem with any of that, but if I have to put my ass on the line for yours, the least you can do is trust my judgment.”
    Grace could feel her jaw slip open as he talked. She closed it with a snap when he finished his little speech. And she felt more than a bit angry and chastened all at once. Because he was putting his butt on the line for her.
    “You believe in laying it all out there, don’t you? Cards on the table?”
    “Yes, I fucking do.”
    She shook her head. “You really have a mouth on you. Does your employer like you talking to clients like that?”
    “My employer probably says worse.”
    She sniffed—and sounded prissy as hell doing it, dammit.  
    Garrett snorted, but she lifted her chin and ignored him.
    “The English language is filled with words that would get your point across just as well—and not be so offensive in the process.”
    As if she never swore. As if she’d never said fuck in her life—well, she hadn’t done it often, that’s for sure, but she’d definitely been angry enough from time to time.  
    “Yeah, but they’re so hard to remember with this muscle-bound brain of mine. Best to stick to the basics, don’t you think?”
    Grace decided not to answer that. She turned her head and looked out over the Potomac as they crossed into Virginia. She’d had bodyguards before, when she was a kid and her father was running for reelection or introducing a particularly polarizing bill and receiving death threats, but she couldn’t remember any of them acting like this one. Though if they had, they certainly wouldn’t have done it around a teenager.
    “I don’t think you like me much,” she said. “And I’m fairly certain I don’t like you. But I guess we’re stuck together for the foreseeable future. I think this will work best if you don’t talk to me unless you have to.”
    “That’s good with me. Just follow my instructions, Grace, and we’ll get along fine.”
    His eyes sparked as he glanced at her in the rearview, and that same shiver of anticipation as before slid through her when he said her name.  
    Somehow, she didn’t think they were going to get along at all.

CHAPTER THREE

    GRACE CAMPBELL LIVED IN A FEDERAL-STYLE town house in Alexandria, Virginia. In fact, she was one street over from where Sam “Knight Rider” McKnight’s fiancée, Georgie, had her town house. Small fucking world. Also damn helpful because it meant the guys were close by. Georgie had given them enthusiastic