Playing with Fire by Desiree Holt Read Free Book Online Page A

whole thing off, but her reporter’s nose was twitching. Both people she had brought this up with wanted her to forget it, which just made her more determined to pursue it. She was stuck in town anyway, so she might as well get what information she could.
    Just maybe she could at last shut the door on Griffin Hunter.
    “Call me Monday afternoon if you haven’t heard from me by then,” Dangler told her. They shook hands, and he ushered her out.
    Everything today served to remind her more and more why she hated this place so much.
    Next, she stopped at the grocery store. Cleaning supplies. More food than she first planned on since it appeared she was going to be stuck here for a few days. She rushed along the aisles, pushing herself to be home by early afternoon. She needed to call Neil and check on his progress and also see what he had been able to do about arranging a real estate agent to come out to see the house. She’d been in Stoneham less than a day, and already she could feel it suffocating her.
    She wheeled her cart out the door to the parking lot, and stopped, frozen in place. Griff Hunter leaned casually against her car, watching her.
     

Chapter Seven
 
    Her breath was trapped in her chest. Swallowing hard, she made her feet move, one in front of the other, doing her best to ignore him, her gaze still drawn to him. This was a different Griff than the daredevil who lived in her darkest dreams. He was not only older but harder, less yielding. His hair was still sun-bleached and too long, but his body was fuller, though still tanned and muscular. Aviator sunglasses hid the remembered blue of his eyes, but his mouth that had pressed such passionate kisses on every part of her body was set in an expression of bitterness. There was something almost lethal about him now. If she hadn’t known him so well, she might have been afraid of him and thought people were right about him.
    Something else defined his posture. Anger? Sadness? She didn’t want to know. More than anything she didn’t want to feel the quickening of her heartbeat, the tightening of her breasts, the instant hardening of her nipples, and the primal beat throbbing between her legs. The heat had burned her once—scorched her—and she wasn’t about to play with fire again.
    But her brain seemed to have taken a vacation, along with her ability to make a sensible decision and stick to it. All these years, all that pain, and it only took seconds for her body to leap to life in the once familiar response. She detoured to the trunk of the car, her keys in a hand that trembled despite her best efforts.
    Griff reached out one arm and pressed against the lid of the trunk so she couldn’t open it. “I heard you were in town. I came to see for myself.”
    “Please let me open my trunk.” She tried to make her voice as flat as his.
    “We have things to talk about, Cassie.”
    “You’re wrong. We have nothing to say to each other.” Not anymore, anyway.
    “Oh, but we do.” He moved until he stood right next to her, crowding her. “We have a lot to say. We have unfinished business between us.”
    She looked up at him, anger heating her blood. She hated him for what he’d done to her, and even more for the memories he’d left her with. Every one of her failed relationships could be traced back to her inability to get Griffin Hunter out of her system. No one’s kisses sparked such passion, no one saw into her soul the way he did. She wanted to kill him for destroying her life.
    “Our business was finished a long time ago,” she spit out. “We’re done.”
    He lifted his hand, and she opened the trunk, stowing the groceries inside.
    “I was sorry to hear about your mother.”
    “Thank you.”
    She slammed the trunk lid shut, but when she moved to get into the car, he blocked her path. She forced herself to stare up at him, hoping her face gave nothing away of the turmoil inside her. “Please let me by. I have things to do.”
    “This is far