Read To Have and to Hold for Free Online

hand.
    "Oh, yes, I do," she laughed, struggling to get her hand away from that steely grasp.
    She wrestled with him furiously, trying to get the grainy sand onto that massive chest, but all she succeeded in doing was getting it all over herself.
    "My Uncle Henry...warned me about...men like you!" she gasped, laughing as he finally tired of the conflict and rolled her over onto her back, holding her wrists above her hand on the towel.
    "You should have listened to him," Cal chuckled softly. He looked down at her flushed face, the wild spray of auburn hair making a halo around it. The rare smile left his chiseled mouth as he looked at her with narrowed, darkening eyes, letting them sketch the soft curves of her body with an intent boldness that left her breathless.
    Abruptly, he let her go and rolled over to find his cigarettes and lighter. "Miami's a lot like this," he said conversationally as he lit a cigarette. "Salt, sea smell, sultry breezes, white s and and long horizon... ever been there, Burgundy?"
    She sat up and toyed with her hair in a haze of self-consciousness as her mind acknowledged that she hadn't wanted him to let her go.
    "Miami?" she murmured. "No, I haven't."
    "You hadn't flown in a long time, had you?"
    She let her eyes drop to the sparkle of the white sand, as the crowds made a dull din around them. "Not since it happened. It wasn't bad at all, though," she admitted with a tiny smile. "The anticipation was really the worst of it. Once we were in the air, I was too airsick to care what happened."
    "I thought you were a smart girl," he remarked, propped on one elbow, "or I'd have told you to fill your stomach before we went up. You're backwards in some ways, little one."
    She felt her cheeks going red. "Are you always so flattering?" she asked sarcastically.
    He reached out and caught a long stand of auburn hair, giving it a far from gentle jerk. "I don't have to pull my punches with you, honey, any more than you have to pull yours with me. I'm used to saying what I think, and I'm too old to change."
    She glanced at him impishly. "Are you old, Mr. Forrest? Gracious me, my Uncle Henry used to say that old men could have evil designs on us young girls," she said in her best Southern drawl.
    His eyes narrowed, and he very deliberately jabbed the cigarette into the sand. "You'll pay for that one, young woman," he said, and she saw the narrow flesh of intent in his eyes barely in time to leap up and run for the ocean.
    He caught her before she reached the water, and she found herself being lifted high in those big arms, held tight against a wall of vibrant power with glittering gray eyes burning down into hers.
    "Old am I?" he growled, swinging her back as he aimed at an incoming wave.
    She clung to his warm, hard shoulders with all her might, burying her face in his throat.
    "Oh, don't, please don't, Mist' Rhett, you wouldn't throw me to the sharks, would you, Mist' Rhett?" she pleaded impishly.
    He stopped, looking down at her with a thoughtful smile on his lips. "You're right, the sharks don't deserve that kind of punishment."
    She swung her small fist at his chest. "Beast!"
    He caught her fingers and unclenched them as he set her back on her feet, slowly, deliberately moving her hand into the back hair over his warm muscles.
    Stunned, she looked up, met his searching gaze and froze there, her heart racing as they stood there in the boiling sun. She'd never been more aware of a man. Never. This close, he filled the world, and she wanted to touch him, to explore that vibrant masculinity. Involuntarily her fingers began to move....
    "Look out, Mister, oh look out!" came a childish squeal behind him, and the next instant Madeline and Cal both went down under a massive wave bearing two wet youngsters on air mattresses.
    Cal came up for air, tossing his hair with grace as his eyes opened. He reached out a big hand and helped Madeline to her feet.
    "Gee, Mister, we're sorry!" a boy called as he ran back toward the