The Hotter You Burn

She peered up at him, incredulous, then stunned. Waning sunlight hit him just right, stroking him with muted golden rays, making him almost inhumanly beautiful. Definitely otherworldly. The ache returned to her chest.

“The day my panties drop for you,” she said without any sharpness, “is the day I want to be taken behind one of the sheds and shot.”

“Because you’ll know you’ll never have me again and you won’t be able to live with the pain?”

She snorted, oddly charmed by his warped sense of humor.

No. Not oddly. He knew what he was doing.

“Yeah,” she said drily. “Something like that.”

Mirth glittered in those golden eyes, the corners of his mouth twitching. “Very well. I promise to make it as quick and painless as possible.”

How kind. “Let’s backtrack. Earlier you looked at me as if you knew me. You also hinted you’d searched for me. Why?”

His amusement drained in a snap. “Perhaps you’re mistaking shock for familiarity.”

She wasn’t the greatest at reading people, but she wasn’t the worst, either. “The two aren’t even close to similar.”

“You find the thought of meeting me and forgetting me more plausible?”

Well. That was certainly a good point, wasn’t it?

As they passed the line of trees, Tawny came into view. The girl waited on the porch, her hands braced on the railing where the initials H.G. were carved, her upper arms pushing her breasts together. As if she really needed the help. She was short and curvy, a real live pinup compared to Harlow’s too-slender frame.

Eyes of the coldest steel narrowed, and Tawny hissed like a rattler about to strike. “I was hoping I’d had a waking nightmare.” A gust of wind lifted strands of her punk-rock hair as she flew down the steps to meet them at the railing. “But nope. Here you are. A demon in the flesh.”

Harlow remained silent. The formerly overweight Tawny had once been a victim of her cruelty, so Harlow accepted the insult as her due.

Looking back, she knew there was no excusing the hateful things she’d said to anyone. A bullying dad? A desire to feel better about herself? Please.

At least she’d gotten hers in the end.

Out of habit, she rubbed the scars on her torso, proof she’d gone from bully to victim in a blink.

Beck wrapped an arm around her waist, the contact electric, jolting her from her thoughts. Tawny noticed and cursed.

Harlow stepped away from the playboy. When it came to repaying the sins of her youth, she couldn’t give Tawny much, but she could give her an open playing field for the affections of the town he-slut.

Problem. Beck refused to let her go, putting his delicious muscles to good use to hold her steady. The connection unnerved her, an instant, undeniable and almost unbearable high.

Get it together, Glass.

“If you know what’s good for you,” Tawny said to Beck, “you’ll cut out her viper tongue and leave her on the side of the road to bleed to death.”

Ouch.

“Maybe later,” he said. “Right now, she and I have some business to discuss.”

At the top of the steps, he paused to wrap his other arm around Tawny. The blonde gave another hiss, clearly not wanting to be linked with Harlow, even through association.

Very well. At the door, Harlow wrenched away from him under the pretext of tying her sandal that had no laces.

Beck, who was proving stubborn to his core, simply stopped and waited for her to rise, then once again pulled her close to herd her into the kitchen.

“Stay,” he told her with a pointed glare. “If you run, I’ll catch you and you won’t like what happens next.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “Is that a threat?”

“Honey, it’s a promise. I’ll be on the phone with Sheriff Lintz so fast your head will spin.”

Sheriff Lintz, who had every reason to hate her. In tenth grade, she’d publicly dumped his son, and none too nicely. “I’ll stay,” Harlow vowed.

As he dragged a protesting Tawny down the hall, Harlow picked up the muffled sounds of their conversation—her whining, him placating—until she more clearly heard him say the words “Wait here.”

A door closed. Footsteps echoed. He rounded the corner, reentering the kitchen, then stopping to lean against the marble, his hands flattening on the surface. His gaze locked on Harlow, hot enough to burn.

She licked her suddenly dry lips.

“Now then,” he said. “This is the part where I don’t have to ask you a thousand questions about how and why—because you’re just going to tell me. Or else.”

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_8a9b9425-1c07-5f98-a52d-5e90ffae052f)

BECK WOULD RATHER make a jump rope from his small intestines than accept a change. Change sucked. Even moving to Strawberry Valley, Oklahoma, a few months ago had been a special kind of mental and emotional torture for him, and only at the urging of the friends he loved like brothers had he managed it.

He was still adjusting. In the city, he could go to the grocery store or bank without being hassled. Here, everyone stopped him to ask for a favor, or advice, or simply to inquire about what he was doing, as if they had a right to know.

Though Miss Harlow Glass had no idea, she’d already changed his life in more ways than one, and it had nothing to do with her visit today.

“I told you I wouldn’t admit to anything.” She shifted from one sandaled foot to the other. “I meant it.”

He admired her refusal to buckle under the pressure of his narrowed gaze. But every word she uttered was a stroke of sin and heartbreak, and he wasn’t quite prepared for the instant, intense effect she had on him.

“I don’t care what you told me, honey. You don’t make the rules. I do.”

“Rules were made to be broken?”

“Were they? You don’t sound very sure.”

She raised her chin, a pose he recognized.

He knew her, this black-haired beauty with features so feminine, so delicate, his deepest masculine instincts pawed at their cage, ready to be unleashed. She’d invaded his dreams for weeks.

When he, Jase and West had first moved into the Glass house—as everyone in town still called it—Beck had found an old box of photos left behind by the previous owner. In them, a girl ranged in age from infant to adult, every image fascinating him. As a child, Harlow Glass had been sad, haunted and haunting. She’d kept her chin down and her shoulders tucked in, a position he’d adopted far too many times at the same age. An involuntary way of making himself a smaller target.

As she’d grown into a teenager, the sadness had faded, overshadowed by calculated sharpness. A loss of innocence. As she’d blossomed into a woman, her eyes—the most beautiful ocean blue—had projected guilt, sorrow and pain. Emotions reflected back at him every time he looked into a mirror.

A sense of possessiveness had taken up residence inside him, and he’d kept the photos a secret. Not exactly a surprise. A former foster kid, he’d had his toys and clothes taken every six to eight months, causing him to develop a keen distaste for sharing.