A Hard Man to Forget Read Online Free

would
even look suspicious, that she would be in a car accident so soon
after he found her. The police might hold him up, keep him from
seeing her long after she woke. It was as he’d feared when he’d
seen her with the cop that afternoon. She would have a chance to
escape. She could get away again, permanently this time.
    No.
    Every part of him immediately recoiled, his body tensing under the
strength of his reaction.
    No. He couldn’t let her get away again. Not this time. Not
before he had answers. He’d waited long enough.
    Slowly he lowered the phone. And as he looked down at the woman
before him, he knew what he had to do.

Chapter
Two

    Laura awoke so suddenly it didn’t seem as though anything had
changed at first. One moment she was floating, weightless, in a black
void, not exactly asleep, but not conscious either. The next her eyes
were open. She remained surrounded by darkness, and the lush softness
beneath her preserved the illusion of floating.
    She slowly became aware of the texture of the fabric beneath her
fingers, the feel of the blanket she was lying on. Her eyes adapted
to the dark, enough so she could see the outlines of a canopy above
her head and the posts at the four corners of the bed. There was a
dim yellow glow visible out of the corner of her eye. She turned her
head, but could see nothing but the voluminous folds of the bed.
    Confusion settled in like a heavy weight on her mind, along with a
vague sense of unease. This wasn’t her bed. Not even close. Her
mouth was dry and her limbs sluggish. And for the life of her she
couldn’t remember how she’d gotten here. She couldn’t
remember anything she’d gone running, and—
    An involuntary gasp bounced from her lips. It was quickly swallowed
up in the layers around her.
    “So you’re awake.”
    The voice, low and unmistakably masculine, drifted to her from the
shadows. Panic shot through her muscles, revealing a thousand aches
all over her body. Ignoring them, Laura scrambled into a sitting
position and retreated to the back of the mattress.
    Narrowing her eyes, she focused on the spot of light at the end of
the bed. The rest of the room was dark, the details indistinct. It
took a moment for her eyes to make out the figure of a man sitting in
the light. A lamp, she realized. His features pulled together into a
familiar face.
    Recognition settled in. “You!”
    The look in his hooded eyes was sardonic. “At least you’re
no longer pretending you don’t know me.”
    “You’re the man from the park.”
    It was the wrong thing to say. Every trace of humor fled his
expression, and there hadn’t been that much to begin with.
“Still playing games, Meredith? I thought you would have
realized the jig is up.”
    There was no warmth in his voice. That wasn’t why she trembled
at the sound of it. Sandpaper rough, the husky bass of it seemed to
set off a seismic reaction in every cell of her body, causing them to
reverberate off the low timbre. She didn’t like the feeling. Or
maybe she liked it a little too much. Because his voice told her he
was a sensual person.
    His words told her he was insane.
    She struggled to keep her voice calm and meet his relentless gaze.
“Where am I? Why did you bring me here?”
    “You haven’t been gone that long, Meredith. Surely you
haven’t forgotten your own bed. You picked out the damn sheets.
I thought you might like one night at home before you face the
consequences of your actions tomorrow.”
    She definitely didn’t like the sound of that. Laura knotted her
hands in the comforter to keep them from shaking. “Listen, pal.
I think there’s been some kind of mistake. If you let me go, I
promise no one has to know about this. I won’t tell the cops.
You won’t go to jail or anything.”
    The man—she didn’t even know his name—had the
audacity to look amused. “If anyone goes to jail, it won’t
be me.”
    “You kidnapped me!”
    “If you say so.”
    “Well, what would you call it?” she