The Big Heat Read online

  A den lay to the right. What would’ve been a parlor to the left. “This is original wood? That’s fantastic!” She ran a hand over the worn banister that had known a hundred and fifty years of touches.

  “All of the interior wood’s original. Most of the exterior’s been replaced.” He put the bag of takeout on a small table in the foyer and gestured for her to mount the stairs. “The bedrooms and the bath are up here.”

  She preceded him up the stairs, aware of him behind her, his body heat, his energy pulsing around her with each step she climbed. She paused at the landing at the top, unsure where to go next. He stopped behind her, his breath stirring against her hair. He indicated a door to the right, halfway down the short hallway. “That’s my room. Take a right.”

  She stepped aside and let him take the lead. He bypassed the first door in favor of the one farthest from his. He switched on a bedside lamp. “Here you go. The bathroom’s at the end of the hallway. There’s only one. I’ll get you sheets for the bed and a towel and washcloth.”

  She nodded absently, looking around, taking in the room. Cream-colored walls, a white counterpane on a pencil-post bed, white cut-lace curtains at the window, an arts and crafts nightstand, an antique chifforobe and a cream upholstered chair filled the room. A multicolored rag rug and a watercolor of a wildflower field in bloom lent the room a burst of color. A pool of light spilled over the bed and part of the floor from the bedside lamp.

  After the day—make that the month—she’d had, it settled about her like a balm to her soul. She suddenly knew without a doubt that coming with Cade Stone was exactly what she’d needed, as crazy and irrational as it had sounded. She needed a brief hiatus from her world.

  Sunny turned to face Cade. He stood, arms crossed, his tawny eyes watching, his chiseled features inscrutable.

  “This is a wonderful room,” she said, breaking the quiet, her breath catching in her throat at his nearness. What was it about this man that affected her so?

  “Glad you like it.” He didn’t smile but she saw a glimmer of approval in his eyes. “You wanted a shower first, right?”

  “Dinner would taste a lot better if I was clean.” She hadn’t been ill-treated at the jail, but it had smelled of sweat and God knew what else. She shuddered. “I literally need to wash the day off.”

  Cade nodded. “I’ve never been arrested, but just taking in skips I shower twice a day.”

  Him in the shower. There was a thought. A dangerous thought considering she was in his house, in a bedroom. With him. Bed conveniently located right behind them. The memory of his hands tangled in her hair, his mouth devouring hers, his tongue mating with her own fed her imagination. Her pulse shifted into high gear and she tried very hard to push aside the mental image of him naked, wreathed in steam, hot water sluicing over his broad shoulders and chest, streaming down the flat plane of his belly, his jutting erection…. Enough!

  But the damage to her equilibrium was done. He seemed to fill the bedroom, his scent drawing her. Like a movie that refused to be paused, she saw the two of them together in the shower, his big hands with those lean fingers soaped and tracing lather over every inch of her, paying special attention to her arousal-slicked feminine folds, her breasts, the curves of her hips, her buttocks. She wasn’t sure if she liked him, but there wasn’t a bit of doubt that she wanted him.

  His eyes darkened and his gaze swept her lips and they tingled as if he’d traced them with his finger. The air nearly crackled with the tension between them.

  Cade turned abruptly on his heel. “I’ve got to put the car away. I’ll leave the sheets and towels outside your door. Come down when you’re ready to eat.”

  Three strides carried him to the hall. He closed the door behind him, leaving her alone.

  There were several moments of silence, then Cade’s measured tread approached her bedroom door and Sunny’s pulse accelerated to warp speed. There was a pause and then his retreating footsteps.

  “Wait,” she called out. She crossed the room and opened the door. He stood poised at the top of the stairs, his tawny eyes watchful, leashed strength in the sculpted lines of his body.

  A sudden case of nerves shifted her from one foot to the other. She pushed her hand through her hair. “I don’t have, um, any clothes to change into. Do you happen to have any women’s clothes here?” Part of her hoped fervently that he did. A green-eyed portion of her hoped not.

  He nodded his head, “Yeah.” Figured. “My sister has some stuff here—” he eyed her from head to toe, lingering at the pertinent parts in between, leaving her horribly self-conscious but enflamed nonetheless “—but you’re a lot bigger than she is.” Oh, great.

  “Thank you. It’s nice to know I’m a Sasquatch.”

  He threw his head back and laughed and Sunny felt something indefinable tug inside her. He shook his head, smiling. “Everyone’s a Sasquatch compared to Gracie. Linc and I are big like Martin—” she assumed Martin was his father “—but Gracie, she’s tiny like Mom was.” She caught a glimpse of a shadow in his eyes and then it was gone.

  She could’ve sworn the house offered a sigh of sadness.

  She really, really wanted to ask about his mother but a sense of overstepping bounds held her back. Instead she pursued the clothing issue. “Do you maybe have something an old girlfriend left behind? At this point, I’m not picky.” She wrinkled her nose. “I can’t bear the thought of putting these clothes back on with Shelby County Jail all over them.”

  “No girlfriend clothes.” He ran a hand over his head. “Go in the bathroom and strip down. Throw your clothes out into the hall and I’ll toss them into the washer for you.”

  “That’s great except that leaves me sitting naked in the bathroom until they wash and dry.”

  A wicked, wolfish smile curled his lips and glinted in his eyes. “No need to stay in the bathroom.”

  “I…uh…”

  He grinned. “I’m just kidding. I’ll give you a T-shirt to put on.” Another one of those assessing looks that hardened her nipples into tight pearls. “It’ll be longer on you than some of the skirts you would’ve seen tonight at the Three-Star. Hold tight.”

  He disappeared into his bedroom, flipping on the light. She caught a glimpse of a rather Spartan room with dark gray linens edged in black. He returned and walked over to her carrying a gray T-shirt. Gray wasn’t her best color, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. He held it up to her, setting her heart racing at the feel of his hands against her shoulders, his broad chest at eye level. “Yep, it’ll work.”

  “Thank you.” She practically snatched the garment, willing him to step away, give her some distance, take his tantalizing scent and touch out of sensory range.

  “The shirt’ll work, but as for the rest, even my sweats are going to be way too big on you.”

  Something wild and slightly wicked and daring danced through her. He was, after all, responsible for her being here without even a pair of spare panties. She offered her sweetest smile. “Then until you finish my laundry, I guess I’ll just have to go commando.”

  Chapter 8

  “Watch your step,” Cade cautioned Sunny, his heart thumping faster at the sight of her standing in the kitchen doorway. “It’s two steps down.”

  She paused at the top step and looked around the room, her violet eyes lighting up with interest. She looked far more relaxed after her shower. He, however, felt far from relaxed.

  Her hair, still damp from the shower, framed her face in soft waves. She’d taken care of the smeared mascara raccoon eyes. She looked slightly rumpled and sexy as hell—as if she’d just pulled on his T-shirt after a round of making love. Desire thrummed through him like a steady summer rain. He itched to run his hands through her thick, soft hair, plunder the hot sweetness of her mouth….

  He’d barely made it out of her bedroom earlier without tumbling her backward onto the mattress. Her eyes had reflected her willingness. Even with his eyes closed he could have felt the attraction arcing betw
een them. But she needed a shower, food and a good night’s rest a hell of a lot more than she needed sex.

  Walking away hadn’t been easy and he’d taken his own sweet time putting away the car after he’d grabbed her clothes and tossed them in the washer. It had been damn impossible to put them in to wash without seeing the black panties and black bra she’d worn beneath her jeans and sweater.

  It was better not to hear the shower running and know she was naked upstairs in his house. Being in the same room with her and not having his belly knotted with lust should’ve been easier now that she was downstairs. It wasn’t. Maybe because she was one lousy T-shirt away from being naked. Granted, his T-shirt hung halfway to her very shapely knees and he saw women on a daily basis showing more leg but damn it to hell, he knew with gut-clenching, ball-tightening certainty that she was, as she’d so thoughtfully pointed out, “going commando.”

  “What an absolutely awesome room,” she said. “It’s…incredible.”

  She’d liked the rest of the house. He’d known she’d love this room. Despite her enthusiasm she swayed slightly on her feet. He recognized exhaustion and hunger.

  “Sit. Eat. I’ll tell you about it over dinner.” Yep, boring the hell out of her with house info was a heck of a lot better than him standing around aroused because she was nearly naked. “What do you want to drink? Beer? Wine? Water? Milk?”

  “Beer.” She smiled, a mixture of rue and sheepishness. “But I’ll forego the knee-crawling drunk part.”

  Cade shrugged. “If you need to get knee-crawling drunk, here is a much better choice than the Three-Star. I promise I’ll get you to bed safe.”

  Her eyes darkened and her tongue darted out to moisten her lower lip. “I’m not sure how safe you getting me to bed would be.”

  The getting her there wouldn’t be a problem. Not climbing in with her, well, that was a different story. “I knew you were a smart woman.” Don’t talk about bed. Don’t think about bed. Focus on food and drink. “Lager or ale?”

  “Lager.”

  She settled on the worn leather bar seat while he pulled two bottles out of the fridge, snagged a couple of frozen mugs from the freezer and served them up. He’d set the take-out plates on the breakfast counter. Seemed sort of silly to sit at the table when it was just the two of them. He sat at the far end, leaving an empty stool between them, as much distance as possible.

  She wrapped her fingers around the mug’s frosted handle and took a long swallow. She made a low moan in the back of her throat. “Mmm. That’s good. Just what I needed.”

  He’d be taking the mother of all cold showers if she ate and drank the entire meal with that level of enthusiasm. He’d seen women fondle a beer bottle with exaggerated suggestion or slowly, deliberately lick a spoon in a seductive way. He knew a deliberately seductive move when he saw it and Sunny’s was totally spontaneous, which made it all the hotter because that was her instinctive response. She had his full attention, some parts more attentive than others.

  He drank from his own mug. It was cold; maybe it’d cool him down.

  She broke off a bite of barbecue sandwich. “So tell me about this room. I’ve never seen anything like it. I love it.” She popped the bit into her mouth.

  “It’s my favorite part of the house. Has been since I was a kid.” When he was young and they’d come for holidays or for an afternoon visit, this space had drawn him. It was one big room that ran the length of the rear of the house. From the hallway, the right half of the room held an enormous fireplace flanked by wooden rocking chairs. A long plank table with benches on either side sat in the middle of the room. To the left of the doorway was the kitchen and what he thought of as the greenhouse.

  Christ, even the way she chewed her food turned him on—sort of slow, as if she was savoring every bite. She swallowed and broke another bite off the sandwich.

  “So you grew up here?”

  “No, the house has been passed down on my mother’s side of the family. When I was a kid, my grandparents lived here. We lived on the other side of Memphis but this is where we had all the family get-togethers. Still do, in fact.”

  “How’d you come to live here?” She dragged a French fry through ketchup.

  “My mother was an only child. She would’ve inherited the place. When Granny died, it went to me as the oldest grandson. I’ve always loved the place so I was happy to move out here and take care of it.”

  She gave him a sort of odd look. “So you protect it from encroaching development for future generations?”

  He’d never really thought about it that way, he just did what he did instinctively. “I guess you could say that.”

  A smile played about her lips. “And this is your favorite room? You spend a lot of time in here?” She seemed genuinely interested.

  “Not as much time as when I was a kid. When the weather was too lousy to be outside this was our room of choice. My brother and I spent lots of rainy afternoons playing in our fort.” He grinned at the memory. “We’d drape one of Granny’s quilts over the table, while Mom and Granny baked or canned fruit and vegetables or just sat by the fire and exchanged gossip. We were rowdy boys. One of us would piss the other one off, we’d fight and because I was the oldest and should have known better, I got sent to the parlor to cool my heels.” Damn, he hadn’t thought about that in years. He laughed. “It’s still my least favorite room in the house.”

  She grinned and he felt a funny twinge inside. “I was always the one getting Nadine in trouble.”

  “Really? That’s a shocker.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him and pointed to the left quarter of the room that was all glass, ceiling included. “When was that done? I’m assuming it wasn’t when the house was built.”

  “No. The house was built in 1857. This was originally three rooms. The dining room with the fireplace was the kitchen. This part where the kitchen is now was a pantry and the greenhouse section was a child-birthing and sick room. If someone had a fever they couldn’t afford for the whole household to catch it.”

  She nodded and pushed her hair behind one ear. A small diamond sparkled at the top of her lobe. “Makes sense.”

  “I’m sure things were changed some through the years, but there was a fire in 1958. Lightning struck that corner of the house. Luckily it was during a thunderstorm so the fire didn’t do too much damage, but it was enough. My mother loved plants and had a green thumb. Grandpa, a farmer, had read about conservatories. He came up with this after the fire. It caused quite a stir. The neighbors thought Grandpa had lost it.” He’d always loved the way his grandfather, a normally quiet man, would cackle when he recounted that story.

  He caught himself. He didn’t normally talk so much, especially not about his family, but Sunny’s eyes hadn’t glazed over yet. In fact, she seemed fascinated.

  “That’s a wonderful story. And did he have the pavers installed at the same time? You see it a lot now but not in the fifties.”

  His grandfather had laid six-by-six terra cotta pavers in the kitchen and glassed area. “Grandpa was a man before his time.”

  “She must’ve loved it. Do you keep the plants now?”

  Potted herbs, a small lemon tree, ferns, an enormous pink Christmas cactus in full bloom and God and Gracie knew what else thrived. “Hardly. My sister inherited Mom’s green thumb. Another lager?” he asked, nodding toward her now-empty mug.

  “I’m good. The barbecue was excellent, by the way.”

  “Glad you liked it.” A smear of barbecue sauce clung to the corner of her lower lip. What would she do if he leaned over and licked it off? The trouble was once he licked that plump, ripe spot on her mouth, he’d want to lick other plump, ripe places. She hadn’t signed on for come home with me so I can screw you blind.

  He pointed to the corner of her mouth. “You’ve got some barbecue sauce…”

  She teased the tip of her tongue against the spot. “Better?”

  “Yep.” No! Couldn’t the woman use a damn napkin?
That wouldn’t send all the blood rushing to his cock. At least he didn’t think it would.

  She shifted on the bar stool and her T-shirt slid off of one shoulder. A small tattoo gleamed on the back of her right shoulder.

  “What’s the tat?”

  “It’s a hummingbird.” She glanced over her shoulder with a smile. “Not your typical hummingbird design. It’s a Native American interpretation.”

  “Right. I can see it now.” A turquoise, red and black hummingbird hovered midflight against her shoulder’s pale skin, its wings sweeping forward. He quelled the urge to reach out and trace it with his finger. “Why a hummingbird?”

  “It’s my totem.” He must’ve looked perplexed. “You know, like a spirit guide. If I have a strong connection to someone, I can sense their totem.”

  “That’s cool. It’s a gift.” Her deep-purple eyes widened in surprise. “My sister, Gracie, has touches of—” he didn’t know what to call it “—not exactly clairvoyance but now and then she glimpses snapshots of the future.”

  He realized with a start that he’d divulged more to her in one dinner than he had to any of the women he’d ever dated for a four-week stint.

  He stood abruptly. “Your clothes should be ready to go in the dryer.”

  * * *

  “Point me in the right direction and I’ll take care of it,” Sunny said. Maybe if she hadn’t realized his wolf connection earlier his abrupt shift now would’ve disconcerted her. But she knew exactly what had happened. She’d gotten too close, his guard was down and the moment he realized it he’d retreated. Men! And this one in particular.

  Dinner had been…interesting. She’d loved hearing the house’s history and about his family. It kept her mind off of Cecil and jail and fines and attorney fees that all had to be dealt with, but tomorrow was another day.

  And underneath the conversation and the mundane task of eating her sandwich there’d run a current of awareness, of energy that hummed between them.