The Harder They Fall Read Online Free PDF

stomach clenching. “What do you do for pleasure?”
    He could tell her what he wanted to do.
    “Okay, tell me this. How many pairs of jeans do you own?”
    The question threw him. “What?”
    She laughed and shook her head. “Never mind. Even if you do have a pair, you probably have them starched and ironed.” She sobered. “What’s going to happen?”
    The bubbly, cheerful woman had him so completely flustered with the quick conversation changes, he could hardly keep up. Then there was the way she kept moistening her lips with little darts of her tongue, even as she let out those verbal shots he thought might be meant as insults. “What’s going to happen with what?”
    One corner of her red mouth quirked. “You’re definitely not a rocket scientist, are you?”
    That comment, he decided, was most positively meant as an insult, and he straightened, frowning.
    “I don’t want to leave this place.”
    “I know.” Though he had decided right then and there, with the sunlight pouring in the huge windows, with the wonderful, if a little scuffed, hardwood floor beneath his feet, that he didn’t want to leave either.
    He wanted to live here.
    He just didn’t want a wild female neighbor above him—he didn’t want a wild female anywhere near him—but until he figured a way to break the lease without hurting Trisha, he’d have to make do.
    “My lease—”
    “I know,” he said with a sigh. “You’re not breaking your lease.”
    “And neither are you.” Trisha tried with everything she had to hold back the hurt, yet she knew by the flicker of understanding in his gaze that he’d seen it. But she didn’t want compassion, she wanted permanence. “Why are you clearing out this apartment?”
    “Well...” He walked across the room, ran a finger over a particularly gaudy high-backed green sofa embroidered with red roses, making her smile when he shivered with distaste.
    But her amusement faded instantly at his next words.
    “I’m thinking of moving in.”
    “Moving in,” she repeated stupidly.
    “You sound thrilled,” he noted wryly.
    Thrilled? It was her worst nightmare. Her landlord would practically live with her, and he was self-righteous, unbending, stubborn ... gorgeous.
    Oh, get ahold of yourself, she thought furiously. Having Dr. Adams live below her would be like having Aunt Hilda and Uncle Victor back in charge of her life, no matter what her hormones believed.
    “You could leave,” he suggested with great expectation.
    “Never.”
    His eyebrows rose at her vehemence, but he said nothing.
    “I’m not leaving,” she said again firmly.
    He just looked at her.
    So he was one of those people who used silence as a weapon. She hated that. “I’m not leaving,” she said again, firmly. “I’m staying. Forever .” His words surprised her.
    “Don’t you think we’d make good neighbors?” he asked.
    His eyes mocked her, dared her to protest. But Trisha had adopted a new policy in her life, and she refused to be cowed by anyone. “I think we’d make rotten neighbors.”
    His gaze remained directly on her, his hands in his pockets, but she could feel the inexplicable sensual tug between them as if they had been wrapped around each other.
    She wasn’t sure it was an entirely bad feeling, which annoyed her into baiting him. “I won’t change my lifestyle.”
    Though he didn’t crack a smile, he was definitely amused. She could see it in the line of his straight shoulders, in his easy stance, in his shining green eyes. “You mean you’ll continue to peek through holes at me while I’m in the bathroom? You’ll crank your music until the windows shake? You’ll manage to destroy every floor in your apartment? Or...” And now his gaze did dip, ran with leisure over the peekaboo lace camisole revealed by her scoop neckline. His amusement vanished and the heat of his gaze scorched her skin. His voice seemed husky, thick. “You’ll continue to model your stock on a regular