Desiree Holt

Her breath was frozen in her chest. Swallowing hard, she made her feet move, one in front of the other, doing her best to ignore him, her eyes still drawn to him. This was a different Griff from 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, his body fuller but still tanned and muscular. Aviator sunglasses hid the remembered blue of his eyes but his mouth, which 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 something else defined his posture. Anger? Sadness? She didn’t want to know. She especially 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 that began 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 apparently had taken a vacation, along with her ability to make a sensible decision and stick to it. All these years, all that pain and it took only seconds for her body to leap to life in the once familiar response.

She detoured to the trunk of the rental car, her keys in her hand, which trembled despite her best efforts.

Griff reached out one arm and pressed down 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.”

“Oh but we do.” He moved until he was standing right next to her, crowding her space. “We have a lot to say. We have unfinished business between us.”

She looked up at him, anger flashing in her eyes. 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 spat out. “We’re done.”

He lifted his hand and she opened the trunk, methodically 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 away nothing of the turmoil inside her. “Please let me by. I have things to do.”

“This is far from over, dewdrop.”

“Dewdrop?” She wanted to smack him. “Don’t you ever, ever call me that again.”

“Fine, Cassie.” His voice had a hard edge to it. “Whatever you want me to call you, this time you won’t be able to run away from me.”

“Run away?” She looked up at him furiously. “I wasn’t the one who ran off and married someone else. I wasn’t the one who made false promises that I didn’t keep.”

His face was totally expressionless, everything hidden behind the dark glasses. “There’s a lot you don’t know.”

Her eyes blazed at him. “Did you have a good laugh, Griff? Seducing the baby sister of your lover, taking a naïve virgin to your bed, then dumping her? Did you all have a good chuckle over that?”

She stopped, drawing a deep breath and fighting for control. She hadn’t meant to let him provoke her that way and her anger was directed as much at herself as at him.

Griffin yanked off his sunglasses and gripped her arms with his strong hands. His blue eyes flashed in the sunlight. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said in a tight voice. “And you’re wrong. We aren’t done. Not by a long shot.”

As suddenly as he had grabbed her, he released her and stepped back. “We will be seeing each other, Cassie. Make no mistake.”

Then, like smoke in the wind, he was gone.