Summer Heat (Wyoming Fever Book 2) by Elizabeth Lennox (books for new readers TXT) 📕

the time to really get to know any of them.  They’d been fun in bed, but other than a good time, he hadn’t really been interested in getting to know them.

Which, now that he thought about it, was a really bad character trait.  He was kind of a prick.

“Is this okay?” she asked, pushing open the door to the second bedroom.  “It’s a bit…” she bit her lip, waving her hands around in a fluttery way before she finished with, “girly, I suppose.  But I really loved that shade of green and I found this old bed frame at a yard sale a few weeks ago.  It has beautiful lines, but the finish was all scratched up and messy, so I just…”

He glanced down at her, his eyebrows lifted in question.  “You what?”

She waved a hand dismissively.  “Sorry.  I ramble when I’m nervous and…”

“Why are you nervous?”

Sage sighed, tucking her curly, blond hair behind her ear and looked down at the floor, the middle of his chest, the bed…anywhere but into his eyes.

“You’re…” she paused, choosing her words with care, “a very handsome man, Arik.”  She rolled her eyes, shifting on her feet.  “But you know that.  Of course you know that you’re gorgeously hot.”  She tugged her ear, toying with her earring.  “I’m sure that women throw themselves at you all the time.”

“Not all the women,” he replied, his voice husky.  She thought he was hot?  That was definitely progress!

She stopped rambling, her lips forming an “O”, her eyes wide with surprise.  After a long moment where he could have sworn he could feel her heart pounding, she pulled herself together.

“Right.  We’ll…I’m not sure…I should just…” she blinked and stopped again.  She pressed her lips together, glanced over at the bed and then, involuntarily, her feet backed up again.  “There are clean sheets on the bed and clean towels in the bathroom.  And new toothbrushes in the cabinet.  Help yourself to whatever you need.” She bowed her head and stepped out of the room.  “Sleep well.”

A moment later, she disappeared into her own bedroom, which was right next to the guest room.  The bathroom was right across the hall from his door and he sighed as he stepped into it.  For a long moment, he stared at his reflection in the mirror, his body throbbing with desire, but also an almost painful need to simply pull her into his arms and reassure her, tell her that he would fight whatever monsters were haunting her.

Unfortunately, Sage wanted to fight those monsters herself!  Damn it, that was his job!  He couldn’t sit down and write a novel like Sage could!  He didn’t know how!  He wasn’t even slightly interested in writing a freaking book!  He left the writing to the authors, the experts who knew how to weave a tale and keep someone’s attention!  Arik knew how to solve mysteries!  He was an expert at finding bad guys and making sure that people weren’t hurt!  So, why the hell wouldn’t Sage let him do his job?!

Every instinct screamed to go into her bedroom and demand answers.  And yet, those same instincts warned him to let her do this her own way, in her own time.  So, the only thing he could really do was to stay close and make sure that he was near when she needed him.

He washed his face, found a toothbrush in the cabinet and glared at it.  Why the hell did she have spare toothbrushes?!  A jealous haze settled over him as he brushed his teeth.  When he was finished, he went back into the bedroom and, as quietly as his jealousy would allow, closed the door and stripped off his clothes.  Automatically, he set his gun on the bedside table and slipped between the cool, soft sheets.  They were actually pretty nice sheets, he thought, staring up at the ceiling.

The moon was bright tonight and it lit up the room.  He thought about getting up to close the blinds, but he was too irritated.

Sage kept spare toothbrushes!  Why the hell did she have spare toothbrushes?

Chapter 3

Sage woke up the following morning feeling…alive!  Alive and well rested!  She hadn’t slept this well in…too long!  There hadn’t been any noises last night.  Or if there had been noises, she hadn’t noticed them.

Was it just the fact that Arik had been less than twenty feet from her with his big, strong body and intimidating glare?  Or had the person who had been tormenting her noticed his enormous pickup truck in the driveway and left her alone?

She wasn’t even sure if it was a ‘someone’.  The subtle changes from night to morning were small.  Too often, she wondered if she’d just forgotten that she’d moved a potted plant or that maybe an animal had stepped on her flowers.  The scorpion yesterday…that had been terrifying!  But she lived in a different environment now.  This wasn’t New York City and she didn’t live on the tenth floor of a brick apartment building.  The worst she’d seen while living there had been rats.  And yeah, those had been some huge rats!  They’d probably been the rats that ate the alligators in the sewer system.

So, maybe the scorpion was just…normal?

Stretching, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and smiled at the beautiful sunshine streaming in through the windows.  It was going to be a beautiful day!  And not just that, because she’d actually gotten a full night’s rest, she could be productive today!!  What a thrill!

She stepped into her own bathroom and chuckled at her crazy hair and lack of makeup, relieved that Arik hadn’t seen her like this.

Pulling off her pajamas, she stepped into the shower, closing her eyes as the warmth seeped into her bones.

Twenty minutes later, she stepped out of her bedroom, feeling much better, and almost danced to the kitchen, her nose