The Strong Silent Type by Marie Ferrarella Read Free Book Online

I want to enjoy this little breach.” The sound of her own voice egged her on. “Don’t get me wrong. I like tough guys. My cousin Patrick could spitnails—until his fiancée came into his life.” And good luck to her, she thought. She adored her cousin, but living with him was going to be a tough thing. Patrick had his demons.
    Not unlike the man next to her.
    He had to stop her before she was off and running in another direction. He’d thought she was bad before, but that didn’t hold a candle to the way she could run off at the mouth with this painkiller in her.
    “Look, I don’t know what gave you the idea that I’m interested in your family history, but I’m not, so save your breath.” He glanced at her as he came to a light. She was smiling broadly at him. “Now what?”
    “It’s not working.”
    He knew he should just keep quiet. After all, that was his way, wasn’t it? Allowing himself to enjoy silence? But something about the look on her face had him ask, “What’s not working?”
    “Your tough-guy act. I’ve seen the light.”
    He just bet she had. And it was probably all the shades of the rainbow. “That’s the pain medication. It distorts things.”
    “Not enough to fool me.”
    There was no point in arguing with her. He’d already learned that she could argue the ears off a stone statue.
    “Look, Cavanaugh, just save your breath,” he repeated. “Okay?”
    “Okay.”
    He’d won that round. Hawk found that difficult to believe. She never retreated like that. It wasn’t like her. As he came to a stop before another light, wondering if she was all right, Hawk looked at her.
    The next thing he knew, Teri was kissing him.

Chapter Four
    I t just happened. She hadn’t planned it, or even thought it out.
    To say she had never thought about kissing Hawk would have been a lie. She had. Several times. The man was tall, dark and handsome by absolutely anyone’s standards. But she wasn’t really attracted to him, she’d insisted. Brooding men weren’t her type. She liked outgoing, gregarious men. Men who knew how to have fun and didn’t mean anything by it once the good times were over.
    Simple. That was the way she liked it.
    Jack Hawkins, on the other hand, just breathed complexity. Every word he uttered—when he deigned to utter any—all but screamed the word.
    No, she wasn’t attracted to him. Nope, not a whit.
    If anything, Hawk was her pet project. She meant to drag her partner out among the living if it was the last thing she did on this earth. She had to get him to loosen up and smile more than once every nine, ten months or so. Nothing else, just that.
    Kissing him hadn’t been a means to that goal.
    What had brought her today to this junction of skin pressed against skin was extreme gratitude, or at least that was the excuse she fed herself. Hawk had remained by her side at the hospital when she knew every single inclination inside his body leaned toward walking away. That he didn’t meant a great deal to her.
    So she was kissing him because she was filled with gratitude. Gratitude and a healthy dose of Vicodin, or whatever painkiller the nurse had injected into her.
    And maybe it was the Vicodin spiking up through her system, but suddenly, the outside world faded away. The wound, the traffic, the car itself that Hawk was driving—all melted into oblivion as she became aware of this intense rise of heat all around her. Not like when she’d gotten shot and yet, somehow oddly similar.
    Except without the pain.
    No matter which way you sliced it, Teri felt she was definitely having an out-of-body experience and not really minding it one bit.
    What the hell was going on here? Always awareof his surroundings, Hawk had not seen this coming. Not in his wildest dreams. Not Cavanaugh.
    It wasn’t even as if they had particularly easy access to one another and her lips had accidentally bumped against his. The car had bucket seats, for Pete’s sake.
    One hand on the wheel, he