Their Summer Heat Read Free Page B

importantly, real. He’d seen enough silicone to know the difference, and hers would fit well into his hands. Her long red hair cascaded like a waterfall down her back, curls dancing when she moved. He could use those tresses to control her.
    When her pink lips formed words, he had a hard time hearing—all he could envision was his cock sliding in and out between them.
    Not only did her name put all sorts of things in his mind, she smelled just like her name. Like summer, with all its flowery fragrances. And heat, a smoldering, seductive scent.
    She wore a perfume he didn’t recognize, but he sure as hell wanted to know what it was. The fragrance mixed with her natural scents, floated on the subtle air current in the room, and made him want to rub up against her—bare skin to bare skin.
    No doubt, if he were a vanilla guy, Summer would fit him perfectly in bed. But he wasn’t vanilla, and she wouldn’t fit him. She hid behind a phone, playing it safe. He prowled in the shadows, and the only safe he knew was his partner’s safe word.
    But still, he had to have her.
    Beneath him.
    Just a taste to appease his curiosity.
    The judge cleared her throat and forced his mind back to credit card statements. The answer was in these charges; he just had to find it. It wasn’t his fault she’d refused to take a continuance, as if she had something to prove by challenging him. Summer Heat was smart, the best competition he’d had in a long time. She knew her stuff, wasn’t afraid to use it, and had an uncanny gift for reading people, for knowing what made them tick. She pushed his buttons left and right.
    And she had nailed him. He knew the dynamics of the judicial hierarchy, and even though the judges, clerks, and other lawyers weren’t aware of it, he was the alpha in this arena, and others reacted to his presence on a subconscious level.
    And she’d ticked him off several times.
    “Mr. Preston,” said the judge. “Any other items you want to bring up.”
    “Yes, Your Honor.” Flipping, flipping. Huh? This made no sense. “Miss Heat. Were you in school in February, 2012?”
    “Yes.”
    Her southern drawl was deep, seductive, sliding over his skin like velvet. “The entire month?”
    “Yes.”
    “You didn’t take a vacation anytime during the month of February?”
    “No.”
    A delicate brow arched, causing a little dip between her eyes that he wanted to kiss away.
    “According to your credit card statement, you were at Bill’s Gambling Hall and Saloon in Vegas on Tuesday, February 17, 2012.”
    “Yes.”
    “You stayed a day over three weeks, checked out on the eleventh of March.”
    “Yes.”
    “Yet, you’ve never taken a vacation during this time. How do you explain these charges on your card?”
    “It doesn’t matter. The charges are mine.”
    He leaned down and whispered to Madeline to research a hunch of his. He flipped two more pages. “And in April, 2012, you were in Atlantic City, yes?”
    “I’m sorry. I don’t remember.”
    “Really? Who doesn’t remember Atlantic City? Tell me about the Black Diamond.”
    She stared at the table, chewed on her lower lip. This is where he’d usually say “gotcha” and close in for the killing bite, but Summer Heat nullified the instinct that had made him so successful.
    All he wanted to do was tug her into his arms and kiss the hell out of her.
    “Well, Miss Heat? You know—the place you stayed back in April.”
    Madeline tapped on his arm and swung her laptop toward him.
    “It was okay,” Summer replied.
    “Miss Heat. The Black Diamond is a riverboat casino and its port is Palm Beach, not Atlantic City. You were never on the Black Diamond, never in Atlantic City, and never in Vegas. Your father, however, was.”
    Her head snapped around, her gaze riveted to his. He broke the connection and read from the screen. “Your father’s been arrested several times since 2011, in lots of states for DWI, public drunkenness, careless and reckless, public