The Strong Silent Type by Marie Ferrarella Read Free Book Online Page A

grabbed Teri by the shoulder with his other for the purpose of removing her mouth from his. He was as surprised as anyone when he found himself holding on to her instead.
    Surprise very quickly turned into something that involved not just his brain but his whole body. Desire moved through it like a sleeping snake uncoiling itself after an aeon of inactivity.
    Worse still, Hawk could feel himself reacting to her in ways he didn’t welcome. Sure, the woman was attractive—anyone with eyes could readily see that. But she was also a walking mouth, someone who never knew when to cease and desist—which for him would have been before the very first word was uttered. As it was, Cavanaugh had more words in her arsenal than could be found within the pages of a congressional investigation.
    So why the hell did he feel as if someone had just knocked him off his feet by swinging a wrecking ball into him?
    The sound of horns blaring directly behind his vehicle pulled Hawk out of the center of the vortex he found himself in and pushed him quickly back out into the real world.
    Finally wedging a space between them, he turned and quickly clamped both hands firmly on the steering wheel before he was tempted to repeat the offense.
    Before he was tempted to initiate the next kiss himself.
    The woman tasted sweeter than anything he’d ever had.
    The moment his eyes were back in focus, Hawk took his foot off the brake and stepped down on the gas pedal.
    Hard.
    They flew through the intersection.
    He realized that they’d come extremely close to having an accident. It would have taken very little for his foot to have slipped off the brake while his attention had been directed to other regions. Although there was no car in front of them, there was an intersection. They could have been smack in the middle of it with through traffic slamming into them before his brain would have registered the danger.
    That had never happened to him before.
    His pulse was racing harder than if he’d just done a 10K run.
    Once they were on the other side of the intersection, he glared at her. She’d made him lose control and he didn’t like that. It didn’t go with the image he had of himself.
    “What the hell was that?”
    Teri took a deep breath. It didn’t help. Her heart was pounding harder than a drum soloist showing offhis expertise. She took another breath before slanting her eyes in his direction. “Boy, you do need to get out more. That’s commonly known as a kiss.”
    If he clenched the steering wheel any harder, he had a feeling it would shatter. “I know what the hell it is, I want to know why it was coming from you.”
    She’d come on to him, she realized. Oh, God, how had that happened? What was she acting on? Did she really feel that attracted to him? No, it was the medication—that’s what it was—taking away the restraints, the walls. Her judgment. Her mind fuzzy, she searched for something plausible to use as an excuse. “I kiss, Hawk. I kiss a lot. Don’t look so uneasy. A kiss isn’t always a prelude to sex—”
    “I wasn’t uneasy,” he snapped. The next moment, he got himself under control. It was a lie. He was uneasy and he had no idea why he was uneasy, why his nerves felt as if they were being pulled apart, which just made the situation that much more irritating. “And before you and I have sex, hell will be selling overcoats.”
    “Charmingly put,” she said. He probably had no idea that if she hadn’t had a healthy self-esteem, that would have gone a long way toward destroying it. “Have I told you how great you are for my ego?”
    Hawk snorted. She was the last person who needed to be treated with verbal kid gloves. “You don’t need me for your ego. You’ve got other guys for that, hanging around like mindless flies.”
    She shook her head, then regretted it. The insideof the car spun a little. “Honey, pure honey on that tongue of yours.” And then she smiled. Well, well, well, he was aware of other men