Hot and Bothered Read Free

figure up from down.
    It wasn’t that he
felt
anything for her besides good all-American, red-blooded lust, but . . .
    Rochelle Burton. Here. What the hell?
    The last night they’d seen each other had started out in the usual way, with them laughing and joking, flirting as they’d done every summer since they were fifteen. Cat and mouse, mouse and cat, they’d say saucy things to each other but never cross any lines. Her cousins would’ve kicked his ass if he had—or if they’d known.
    But that night, as they’d walked around the ranch, knowing that she’d soon be off to college in California, where she lived with her divorced dad, he’d noticed that the boundaries weren’t quite the same. The laughing had turned to tickling in an abandoned barn, and there on the hay, they’d started kissing.
    Feverish, sloppy, this-is-finally-happening kissing. With most girls, he needed something physical, never emotional—just enough screwing to soothe the teenaged hormonal aches that seemed to be hardwired in him. But with Rochelle? He’d wanted her more than any girl he’d ever met, and he wasn’t sure why.
    But that didn’t matter, because she wouldn’t be around soon—he’d probably never even see the college girl again after this summer. Yet instead of making him feel better about banging her and making the break between them easy, it almost made him feel worse. No more hanging out with her, no more laughing. No more trying to figure out just what she was to him.
    Before he’d known it, her clothes were off, then his. Fumbling, heavy breathing . . . it should’ve been the culmination of every fantasy he’d had about her, but she’d been so nervous, shaking, and he’d tried to please her but . . .
    Shit, even though he’d held up his end of the bargain, it’d been no good in the end, tawdry and empty and wrong. So wrong that neither of them had looked at each other afterward. And when he’d reached over to put a hand on her, to touch her because he wasn’t sure what to say for the first time in his life, she shut down. And when she’d kiddingly thanked him, trying to brush off the encounter with more jokes, her voice had been quivering.
    Had he hurt her somehow? He felt bad about that, because he hadn’t meant to hurt anyone. He never did.
    Before he could puzzle anything out, she’d left the barn. Then, early the next morning, her car was gone.
    She’d driven back to SoCal.
    They’d never spoken again, and he’d told himself it was for the best—he was a one-night kind of guy and she was off to college anyway. They didn’t fit into each other’s lives.
    So he’d left it at that, never knowing at the time that he wouldn’t be able to just let go of that night, that he would replay every caress and kiss and wonder how he could’ve done it better. He wasn’t used to being left—he always did the leaving—and the way she’d gone off without a word had stung. It had lingered, undefined, unfinished, a mystery that he couldn’t solve in himself.
    Even though he’d grown up, moved on, joined the Army, and come back here a few years ago, every once in a while he’d feel a flicker of her essence in him. That was especially true recently since his friends at the R&T began dropping like damned flies, falling in love, taking off, and leaving him behind.
    And behind for what? Poker games with tourists that supplemented his income? Whisky shots, Jell-O Fight Nights, and Tubs o’ Beer at the bar every weekend?
    But there was also his job—a job he was very shittin’ good at.
    Still, he wasn’t the only freelance bodyguard in the area, so why should he be bothered because her cousins wanted to hire him?
    â€œVegas is crawling with BGs,” he said, tightening his arms over his chest.
    â€œThe boys don’t want a