The Hotter You Burn (10 page)

Cameron had narrowed his eyes. “If you live in the Glass house, you shouldn't throw stones. I'm no woman beater, but if ever there was one in need of a good flogging, it's that one. She only wants the guys she can't have. But you think you're different because you want her so bad, and I get it. Just like I get that you're not really here to warn me about my behavior. You just want an open playing field.”

“What I want doesn't matter right now. Only what you do in the future.”

“Man to man, I'll give it to you straight. She's poison, and she'll ruin your life.”

“Man to man-child, your bitterness is showing. You need to get over the past, and you need to do it fast.” The past only served as an anchor, dragging you down, down, and only when it was too late did you realize you were drowning. Wasn't that what Jase had tried to tell him every time he'd urged Beck to move on? To let go of his guilt and shame and grab on to hope...to the future. “What she did to you, she did a long time ago. She's not the same person.”

Cameron had laughed. “You're a goner, there's no question about that. When you get the Glass Pass, don't say I didn't warn you.” He'd shut the door in Beck's face.

He'd nearly ripped that thing from its hinges to get to the guy. Harlow deserved a flogging? Them be fightin' words. But as much as Beck protected what was his, she wasn't his—not really—so he'd walked away.

He downed the rest of his beer in a single gulp, his mind jumping to another incident. A few weeks ago, Jase had had too much to drink and prattled on and on about the difference between sex and making love. How making love was an expression of deep and abiding affection, that it meant something, that it was an act of importance with an extreme emotional payoff.

Leaves you vulnerable in the best way
, Jase had added.
You adore the woman you're with. She's your partner, that one special person, and she adores you right back.

If that
one special person
had the power to drive you insane, then Harlow was certainly Beck's. But for every healthy relationship like Jase mentioned, there were a thousand terrible examples. Could someone like Beck really be one of the few lucky ones?

Was it worth trying, just for the chance to be as happy as Jase?

A hard rap at his door. “Beck,” West called. “You got a moment?”

For his friends? “Always.” He switched on the lamp next to him and set the empty bottle aside. “What's up?”

West entered, wearing his new favorite attire. A pair of sweatpants. He'd been working out again. Trying to keep his mind off a certain blonde? He eased onto the edge of the bed, saying, “I've been thinking about your girl.”

“She's not my girl.” But the words left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Did he want her to be?

“Stop lying to yourself. You would give up your left nut for a taste of her and you know it,” West said.

“You're right. I would.” Staying away from her hadn't done him a bit of good. Maybe it was time to give in and go to her.

“Well, that's a start.”

He noticed the wrinkled-up piece of paper in his friend's hand. “Whatcha got?”

Tension radiated from West as he said, “Before I show you, you need to know I haven't encouraged her.”

Beck went still. No. Damn it. No! If West claimed to have interest in Harlow...

I won't be able to walk away.

“Jessie Kay went snooping through her things and gave this to her sister, who gave it to Jase, who gave it to me.” West held out the paper. “Now I'm giving it to you.”

Beck snatched it up and fell back into his chair. He unfolded it and found an etching of his face. A very lifelike rendering.

Harlow had drawn this, no doubt about it. And the expression she'd chosen to render? The one he'd thrown at her while they were in his office, when he'd had to fight to remain in his seat, hungry for a taste of her.

Satisfaction filled him, and he grinned.

Then West said, “Turn it over.”

He obeyed and discovered a letter. As he read, he lost his grin, a low growl rising from his chest.

My dearest
West. Meeting you has the potential to be the greatest thing to ever happen to me. You seem to be a man of unparalleled
sexiness
character, and I'd love the chance to get to know you better. How about
dinner a movie
coffee?
Yours
Talk soon, Harlow

Rage unlike anything he'd ever known consumed him. She desired West.

“I'll meet with her, but only to tell her I'm not interested,” West assured him.

Can't force the one you want to want you back. Can't convince a woman determined to leave you to stick around.
The reminders grounded him, even as they reopened wounds that had only just begun to heal.

“Wouldn't matter to me if you were interested,” he managed to grit out. “You deserve to be happy.”

“I won't be. Not with her.”

He said that now. But if Harlow came after him with all she had, West would eventually give in. She wasn't the kind of woman a man could resist for long.

Beck almost kicked the wall again.
Not grounded, after all.

West stood, patted him on the shoulder. “I love you, man, and I would never do anything to upset you.”

“I love you, too. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine.”

Unconvinced, his friend said, “Nothing is more important to me than your happiness. You stood by me when I was nothing but a junkie. You supported me every time I tried to get clean and cheered me on when I finally found the strength. There is nothing I wouldn't do for you.”

Beck stared into his friend's concerned gaze a minute longer, certain the guy had romanticized their past. Help? Him? No. Then he cut the tension with an insolent shrug. “Right now I'm going to need you to get lost. If you think a mug this gorgeous happens naturally, you're wrong. I need my beauty z's.”

West lingered as if he had more to say, sighed, then finally left, quietly shutting the door behind him.

CHAPTER NINE

S
LEEP
 
NEVER
 
CAME
. Beck tossed and turned for hours before finally giving up, climbing out of bed with a dark curse and dressing. He had to get out of here.

He drove without a destination in mind, ending up in the city, at his favorite hotel bar. He drank way too much whiskey and flirted with every woman who approached him. His go-to type of woman. The kind he'd always preferred. Easy and fun. No muss, no fuss. But after a while, the strangest thing happened. The women began to irritate him. They coyly played with locks of his hair while leaning into him to give him a whiff of too much perfume and a glance at ample cleavage. Predators determined to use him for his goods and services.

Eventually he became gruff and rude, and they scattered. Good riddance!

He threw back a few more shots of whiskey before acquiring a room. He sobered by morning and called West to mention he wouldn't be making it into the office. Then he phoned a woman he'd once hired to try to get Jase out of prison early. A woman he'd never slept with, putting business first.

Patricia, a thirty-five-year-old defense attorney, had always seemed as leery of commitment as he was. She wouldn't make him feel as if he teetered on the brink of collapse. She wouldn't demand a relationship, and she wouldn't make him feel as if his entire world was careening out of control.

Harlow wanted West. Fine. She could have him. Beck wouldn't stand in her way. He would return to his old ways. What he preferred.

He picked Patricia up at her condo in the heart of Oklahoma City. Her walls were beige, and seeing them made him want to put a fist through them. But he merely flirted as they ate dinner at Mickey Mantle's, keeping things nice and light. Afterward they walked through Bricktown. Gold, pink and purple lights shone from multiple buildings, reflecting off the canal as ducks swam past. The air was cool, the perfect temperature, but missing the scent of wild strawberries.

The scent of home, as necessary as his heart or his lungs.

When had that happened? At first, he'd hated the inherent sweetness and had actually missed the smell of car exhaust, clashing perfumes and colognes.

“Whoa there, tiger. Your grip is crushing me.” Patricia shook free of his hold, then withdrew an electric cigarette from her purse. She took a drag, vapor wafting on the breeze. “Something wrong?”

Get it together
. “I'm with you. What could possibly be wrong?” How easily those words would have fallen from his lips in the past. Tonight? He cringed inside.

Patricia studied him, her eyes shrewd. “I know you're only telling me what you think I want to hear, but that's okay. I like what I'm hearing.” She straightened his tie, and he almost backed away—like a puss—as if even that much contact was a betrayal to Harlow. “Let's go back to my place and forget the rest of the world exists.”

A moment of bliss, nothing more, nothing less.

A moment without Harlow. The only woman he really wanted.

The ache in his chest, the one that had plagued him since he'd first met her, returned full force. Damn it, if he wanted to get over her, he had to get inside Patricia. But using another woman as a substitute was as ugly to him now as it had been with Kimberly.

Why? Sex was just sex. Right?

How can I know the truth when I've never experienced something better?

“Shit,” he snarled. He pulled Patricia off the redbrick path and onto cement, out of the way of passersby. “I can't do this. I'm sorry. I want to, but I can't.”

Her eyes rounded. “You're kidding me, right? I've seen you in action. You've never said
can't
before.”

“I know, but things have...changed.” Just saying the word was more painful than taking a double right cross to the jaw.

Patricia sputtered for a moment. “You, Beck Ockley, are committed to someone?”

He tried to think of something to say to lighten the mood—
there's no one else in the world when I'm with you, sweetheart
—but much as he tried, he didn't have the energy to charm and flatter. He released his breath and accepted the truth, finally nodding. “She doesn't want me, and right now, I'm not even sure I like her, but still she has this pull on me.”

A sad smile curled the corners of Patricia's mouth. “Don't worry. I get it. I've been where you are.”

“What happened?”

“What always happens when the fairy tale ends, I suppose. I lost him.”

Beck's heart pumped faster, his breath coming in short pants. Then she made everything worse by adding, “I've never recovered.”

* * *

S
OMETHING
 
WAS
 
WRONG
 
with Beck. For the next three weeks, he spoke very little to Harlow. Every morning at seven, he knocked at the RV's door. Two hard raps, that was all, but he never came inside, and he never complimented her on the new clothes. He remained silent as they drove to the nerdatory, and while there, he just handed her pages typed with instructions. Draw this set and that character. He would then leave her in his office while he worked inside West's, pretending she didn't exist.

Despite his current abysmal treatment, she found herself watching him interact with others. On a purely scientific basis, of course. She had to acknowledge he was an even better guy than she'd realized. He coached a youth soccer team. He donated money to charity and time to town members who came in looking for advice. He checked on Cora to make sure she had enough sweet tea. He was even nice to his discarded conquests.

When Tawny came to visit him, hoping to rekindle their flame, he'd kindly said, “Any man would be lucky to have you, honey, but you deserve to be the center of his world, and that's just not my style.”

Kimberly had eavesdropped—the slag—and given Beck a hug. “That was considerate of you,” she'd told him.

Harlow had mentally flipped them both off and thought they should run away together and have a thousand considerate babies.

Hate myself.
Kimberly was everything Harlow was not, everything she wished she could be, and envy was eating her up inside.

She hadn't had a chance to continue her seduction of West, mainly because she hadn't gathered the courage to present him with one of her letters; but then, she hadn't yet written the right one. Something was off about all of them. And she hadn't been able to forget the way West had pulled her aside not too long ago, blurting out, “We're going to be friends, nothing more. Get used to the idea, fast.”

At the time, she hadn't been worried. Friends? Awesome! As a dedicated lover of romance novels, she knew a great passion could bloom from a friendship. But nowadays West left a room anytime she walked into it, as if she were toxic waste.

Hope was dwindling fast.

The door to her office sprang open, startling her. Beck entered, his stride as graceful, powerful and sleek as a panther's. He wouldn't look at her as he said, “Hungry? Brook Lynn is here with lunch.”

“Really!” Harlow was on her feet and racing around him a second later. Her shoulder brushed against his chest, the heat of him instantly spearing her, all her girlie parts singing at once.

Keep walking. Just keep walking.

Brook Lynn clutched a basket filled with sandwiches, telling everyone in the office, “I need test subjects for a few of my new recipes, and you guys are going to be my guinea pigs. So. I've got honey and cheese, turkey and cranberry chutney, peanut butter and banana, marshmallow and bacon, and salmon with pickled tomato. Take your pick.”

“I want the bacon and marshmallow!” Harlow rushed out, reminding herself of a hungry dog who'd spotted the only bone in miles. Brook Lynn created the best foods out of the weirdest ingredients, but nothing could beat bacon. Ever.

But Kimberly had said the same words at the same time, and they ended up staring each other down, willing the other to cave. Nice did not exist in a battle for bacon.

Five step plan, remember?
“I'll take the turkey and cranberry,” Harlow said, her disappointment keen but hopefully hidden. “Unless someone else wanted that one?”

No one spoke up.

Brook Lynn's gaze stayed on Harlow a second longer than was probably polite, an odd—confused?—expression on her face as she handed over the sandwiches.

“Thank you,” Harlow said.

“After you eat,” Brook Lynn announced, “I'd like everyone to tell me if the sandwich was totally awesome, on the border of awesome, or not even close to awesome.”

“Will do,” Harlow said, clutching the precious sandwich to her chest. What did she have to complain about, anyway? One bite of this one would blow a gasket in her mind, no doubt about it, making her forget bacon ever existed.

Too far!

Rephrase: making her forget bacon for a moment or two.

Better.

She turned and discovered Beck watching her with the same befuddled look as Brook Lynn, as if he didn't know what to think about her. Which she totally didn't understand! She hadn't done anything wrong.

She forced a smile. He was the reason she had any sandwich at all, really. Without the job he'd given her, Brook Lynn never would have spoken to her, much less gifted her with a morsel straight from heaven.

“I'll, uh, be in my office,” she said.

“I think you mean
my
office,” he corrected.

“I think you gave up your rights the first time you refused to enter because I was inside.” She sauntered around him and kicked the door shut.

Kimberly came in behind her, smiling yet rueful. “I thought we could have our lunch together. You know, do a little girl bonding.”

Harlow wanted to hate the woman with the passion of a thousand suns, but couldn't quite manage it and motioned to the couch. “I'm a little rusty, but I'm willing to try.”

The redhead reclined on the couch and dug into her bacon sandwich, moaning with delight. Harlow bit into her own sandwich—and had an instant mouth-gasm.

What happened next would have embarrassed both of them if they'd been aware of anything but the food. They attacked the sandwiches like savages, no hint of manners, and they did not come up for air until the last crumb was consumed.

“I have to ask you a question, and I hope I'm not overstepping,” Kimberly said, wadding up the wrapper and tossing it in the wastebasket.

“Go for it.”

“Is Beck seeing anyone?”

Harlow tensed. “Define
seeing
.”

“Dating.”

“Define
dating
.”

Kimberly chuckled, as if they were playing a fun new game. “Is he sleeping with anyone?”

“No. I don't think he does much sleeping when he's with his girls.” Harlow tapped her chin and added, “I see him more as a wham-bam, out-the-door-the-moment-the-sex-ends-without-a-thank-you-ma'am.”

Kimberly sighed. “I suspected he was a player. I'd hoped otherwise.”

“You...want him?”

“I do. He's just so
delicious
.”

Attack!

No, no. “Yeah, well, you're actually perfect for him.” Harlow's nails dug into her thighs as her gaze landed on Beck, who stood in the lobby with Cora. His sleeves were rolled up, his hands in his pockets. A man without equal. Strong, beautiful and unattainable. A dream that would flitter away with the rising of the sun.

Don't water a dead flower
,
 
her mother used to say.

Wise words. If only her body cared.

“You like him,” Kimberly gasped out. “Oh, Harlow. I'm so sorry. I didn't know, didn't realize...”

She sputtered for a minute. “I don't... He's not... He's my boss. And my friend.” Or rather, he used to be. Before he'd started giving her the silent treatment. “I'm interested in West.”

Kimberly blinked, shook her head. “West? Seriously? But... I've never seen you look at him the way you just looked at Beck.”

“You're wrong.” The girl had to be wrong. “What do you think about Strawberry Valley?” she asked, changing the subject.

Though it appeared she wanted to protest, Kimberly went along with her, saying, “It's hot, but pretty.”

“Pretty? It's gorgeous. Exquisite!”

Smiling, Kimberly brushed a sandwich crumb from her skirt. “You're right, you're right.”

“That would be a first,” Beck said as he entered the office.

Every nerve ending Harlow possessed jolted in sudden awareness.

“Kimberly, honey.” He used his most devastating tone, pricking Harlow's hackles. “I need a moment alone with Miss Glass.” He waited at the door, holding it open. “If you'll excuse us...”

“Of course.” Kimberly cast Harlow an encouraging smile before pushing to her feet and walking to the door.

“I think you've gotten what you need for the day,” Beck told her. “Why don't you head out? I'll pick you up at seven.”

The moisture in Harlow's mouth dried. “Seven?”

“For our date,” Beck replied.

Kimberly's gaze darted to Harlow. “I, uh, really need to talk to you about that, Beck.”

“I'm afraid that's gonna have to wait, honey. My meeting with Miss Glass is urgent.” He gave her a gentle push from the room and shut the door.

“Date?” Harlow croaked.

His features were blank, revealing nothing. “Earlier today she asked me out. I said yes.”

“She's sweet,” she said, her voice hollow. “You'll have a great time.”

“I don't want to talk about her.” He claimed the spot Kimberly had vacated, and Harlow felt a stab of something dark inside her, not liking the fact that the girl's lingering body heat now radiated around him. “I noticed you've been wearing your new clothes, but only the same ones over and over, and not any of the others.” He draped an arm over the top of the couch and leaned back, a pose of rugged relaxation and total seduction. With so many glass walls and windows, sunlight was able to stream inside, catching on the rich hues of his hair. “Why?”