Bring the Heat by Margot Radcliffe (13 ebook reader .txt) 📕

She wrapped her scarf tighter around her neck and I stopped myself from mourning the loss of the sight of her satiny skin.

Even in the cold, my libido was racing feverishly. I cleared my throat. ‘So, what was that with your mother?’

Stubborn fire lit her eyes. ‘I’ll allow you to stay on condition we don’t talk about my mother. Or any member of my family.’

I didn’t protest her condition. Families like mine were complicated and she didn’t need to vocalise her feelings towards hers for me to get it. Why that little commonality turned me on, I refused to contemplate.

In silence we walked along a dark red-bricked pavement until we reached a tall iron gate set into a walled-off section of the garden. Pushing it open, we followed the path until we reached a tall hedge the size of a barn door that remained full and thick despite the low temperatures. Wren’s hand disappeared between the leaves and a section of the hedge sprang open.

With another glance at me, she stepped inside. I followed and stepped onto two diverging paths. She took the left one, her footsteps barely making a sound on the grass as we walked between tall hedgerows. Further chunks had been cut out intermittently and lower hedges transformed into shapes of animals, with a large space transformed into a picnic area with benches and seats.

We went deeper into the maze, her head bent forward as if weighed down by her emotions. I wanted to reach out and cup my hand over her nape, test the suppleness of her skin, feel that electricity between us. Instead, I shoved my hands into my pockets, willed the urge to pass. Jumping her right now would be the wrong move.

Eventually her steps slowed. ‘We’re almost at the centre,’ she said, her voice low, as if she didn’t want to speak.

‘How big is this place?’

She shrugged. ‘Big enough when you’re a child seeking adventure. Not big enough when you’re a teenager, attempting to flee from your demons.’

I wanted to ask about her demons but her pursed lips suggested she already regretted her revealing statement. I tried a different tack, hoping to take her mind off whatever was bothering her. ‘Tell me one good memory you have of your maze.’

She didn’t speak for several seconds, and I watched as she trailed her fingers over the tall green foliage. ‘That’s easy. I had my first kiss in here.’

Envy knotted my stomach. ‘It was that good?’

She shook her head. ‘It was that bad. It’s what happened afterwards that makes it a good memory.’

‘Tell me more,’ I said, intrigued by the barely there but infinitely more genuine smile tugging up the corners of her full lips.

‘I told Winslow Parker I didn’t want to be kissed.’ She shrugged. ‘Call me shallow but I didn’t want my first kiss to be from a boy named Winslow with a wet nose and clammy hands. He went ahead and stole a kiss anyway. So I blocked the exit to the maze and left him to freeze his arse off for three hours. When I came back to rescue him, he was crying.’

My lips twitched, a wicked part of me enjoying hearing that her first kiss had been less than memorable. ‘So you enjoy making boys cry?’

We reached a dead end and she turned to face me. ‘If they deserve it? Absolutely.’

A compulsion I didn’t want to fight pulled me closer until I towered over her. Until she had to raise her head to meet my gaze. Despite the darkness around us, every inch of her stunning face and graceful neck was exposed to my keen gaze. ‘What else do you enjoy making boys do?’

‘I’m not nine years old any more. I’m a grown woman and I prefer grown men to boys now,’ she murmured, her gaze fixed boldly on mine. A shiver caught her a second later and I drew closer, locking my fingers in the trellised hedge, caging her in.

‘And what do you want this grown man to do for you?’ I asked, aware my voice was gruff with the lustful urges running rampant through my bloodstream.

She stared at me for a minute, then cast her gaze around her, looking a little lost for a minute. ‘Is it bad to say I don’t want to be here? That if I could leave right now, get on a plane and go far away, I would?’

‘Because of your mother?’

Her eyes darkened and she didn’t repudiate me for ignoring her condition. ‘Amongst other things.’

I got it. A long time ago, I’d accepted that it was better my parents lived in another country. Out of sight...out of mind...out of heartache... ‘There’s absolutely nothing wrong with wishing to be elsewhere.’

‘But I can’t, can I?’

I didn’t answer because there was no right answer to that. I was born into a family where bullshit and dysfunction were the norm but where conversely fierce loyalty and absolute dedication to duty were the cornerstones that held most of us together. I suspected the Binghams were the same.

‘Tell me what you want, Wren,’ I said instead.

I watched a hot, determined look slowly fill her eyes. She shivered again and my gaze dropped to where her nipples had turned into twin points of succulent torture. Whether her body’s reaction was from the cold or the arousal gathering heat in her eyes, I wasn’t completely sure. Still, I shrugged off my jacket, draped it over her shoulders, wrapped my hands around her trim waist.

And waited.

Slowly, she slicked her tongue over her bottom lip. I bit back a groan as blood gleefully rushed south.

‘Distract me,’ she said, a mixture of challenge and pleading in the low, thick words that hardened my rousing cock. ‘I don’t want to go back to the party. I don’t want to make stupid small talk. So just...make me stop thinking about all the crap I have to deal with now that...’ She stopped and took a shaky breath.

Despite the flames licking through my veins, I hesitated. ‘Are