The Hotter You Burn

Confused, Harlow blinked at him. “Me?” He knew her?

“What are you doing inside my house?”

My house! But Harlow didn’t stick around to correct him. Nothing would placate him or save her stupid hide, so she bolted around him, remaining just out of reach as she headed for the door, yanked it open and at last soared outside.

“Hey!” Beck called. “Stop.”

She quickened her pace, aiming for the bank of trees ahead: a giant oak, several mature pecans and two magnolias in full bloom. Locusts buzzed. Grasshoppers sang. Birds squawked. The three created a macabre soundtrack as the familiar scent of wild strawberries and dewy roses lodged in her throat, forming a hard lump.

Almost there... Just a little farther...

While the fifty-two-acre spread had come with a greenhouse, a small dairy, two barns, three work sheds and multiple vegetable gardens Harlow had tried and failed to tend, there was a shadowed section in back filled with gnarled trees, sharp sandburs and crunchy brushwood where snakes and scorpions liked to nest. A section none of the guys had ever dared venture. It would have been the perfect place to hide if she hadn’t set up camp there.

Once she passed the embankment, she veered in the opposite direction, whizzing by the towering oak she used to climb...the weeping willow where she’d experienced her first kiss...the tire swing her father had made during one of his rare moments of affection.

“Stop,” Beck commanded. “Now.”

He sounded close, too close, but he didn’t sound winded. She clutched the pie closer—try to take it from me, I dare you—and glanced back. Crap! He was almost on her. She picked up the pace...until several burs lodged in her heels, causing sharp spikes of pain to slow her down. Any second now, Beck would overtake—

Hard hands snaked around her waist, two hundred pounds of muscle bearing down on her. As she fell, the pie went flying.

“Noooo!” she shouted.

Impact emptied her lungs. Tears welled in her eyes, but she wiped the droplets away with a shaky hand, a whimper escaping when she spotted the dark blueberry splatters now streaming across rock and dirt, the crust now sprinkled with dirt.

“Pie killer!” Hello, dark side. “If there’s any justice in the world, you will fry for this.”

“Really? That’s what you say to me?” He sat on his haunches, freeing her from the bulk of his weight.

“You tackled me. I should sue you for everything you own.”

“Yes, please do so. Meanwhile, I’ll press charges for trespassing. Now tell me what you were doing with my pie.”

My pie! She’d stolen it fair and square. But the trespassing reminder sobered her. “If you think about things like a reasonable adult, you’ll see your crime is worse. Your actions led to the painful death of an innocent dessert.” Now she would go hungry for yet another night.

Her stomach, the whore, grumbled in protest.

“The pie was going to die one way or another tonight. I just assumed my mouth would be the weapon of mass destruction, not a dirty little thief determined to blame someone else.”

He stood, then surprised her by offering her a helping hand. A trick, surely. She declined by pushing to her feet under her own steam. Besides, she’d seen some of the places those hands had been. And, really, she didn’t need to know what they felt like. If they were callused and rough...hot enough to make her burn and quiver the way Tawny and countless others had.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

Why not tell him the truth? He had only to ask the townsfolk about her to hear a thousand stories detailing her reign of terror in high school. Perhaps some kind soul would even mention the time a poll was pinned to the corkboard in the town square: “If given a choice, who would you rather torture? The devil or Harlow Glass?”

Harlow had won by a landslide.

“I’m Harlow Glass, and I used to live here.”

His gaze raked over her once, then again far more slowly. “I’m honored. Harlow Glass in the flesh. A sighting rarer than Bigfoot.”

How did he know? It wasn’t as if he’d ever had a reason to look for her.

And oh, wow. His voice. He’d pumped up the smoke, making it even better than before, captivating and temping, sending cascades of pleasure rippling through her.

Danger! Danger! She widened the distance between them.

“Oh, no, you don’t. We’re going back to the house.” He waved her forward.

Stay strong. “How cute. You made a funny.”

His expression hardened, promising severe consequences if she refused him a second time, and yet his tenor softened, no longer quite so menacing. “My apologies for not being clear, sweetheart. You’re coming with me, and that’s that.”

“No, that’s not that. I have no desire to watch another mouth-to-mouth sesh with Tawny. Let’s just conclude our business here.”

The smile he unveiled lacked any sort of humor, and yet it utterly devastated her senses, leaving her reeling. “You have two options. One—we discuss the theft and destruction of my pie within the privacy of my home, and just how you’re going to make it up to me. Or two—I call Sheriff Lintz.”

Dang it! He had her by the lady balls, and he knew it. “Look. You could waterboard me, but I still won’t confess—”

“Good to know I have your permission to waterboard.”

“—to a crime, so why don’t I say I’m sorry for interrupting your evening, and we call it good?”

“Does that sorry come with a side of pie?”

“No,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Then we won’t be good.”

Figured. “So...what? You expect me to bake you another one?”

“Yes, ma’am, I surely do.”

“Are you going to ask me a thousand questions about how I did what I allegedly did, or why I did what I allegedly did?”

“Do I look like a guy who cares about how and why?”

No. No, he didn’t. He looked like a guy who didn’t care about much of anything—except pleasure. “Okay. All right.” Anything to (1) continue to keep him away from her camp, (2) speed up their parting and (3) appease him so the matter stayed between the two of them. But he was in for an unpleasant surprise. Her mother hadn’t given her the title of Worst Chef in History for nothing. “You win.”

Head high, she marched past him. He didn’t lag behind for long, was soon keeping pace beside her, his hand light on her lower back. The action was meant to ensure she stayed the course, but the heat of him pricked at her, made her itch for...something.

“You do know baking a pie takes several hours, right?” At least, it had for her mother. “Are you going to trust me in the kitchen, alone, while you and Tawny conclude your business?”

“Tawny will have to wait.In a contest between sex and pie, sex will lose every time.”

“Wow,” she said, rolling her eyes. “No wonder panties drop in your presence. Your words are poetry.”

“Are you trying to tell me your panties have already dropped?”