Hot & Bothered Excerpt

From: Heat of the Moment

Shelby peered past Carson’s impossibly broad shoulders, trying to catch a glimpse of Garrett. Apparently the game had ended, because most of the men in the other room were pushing back their chairs and heading for the door. A few approached the doorway, poking their heads in and thanking her for opening up the bakery. She just smiled, waved and wondered where the hell Garrett had run off to. Probably to find a woman who was into kinky sex and threesomes.

Too bad. Because if he’d ever bothered to ask her, he might be surprised to know that she was exactly that kind of woman. Just because she’d never acted out any of her fantasies didn’t mean she didn’t have ’em.

“So we’re taking off,” Carson was saying. “But we thought we’d help you clean up a bit before we left. Garrett took the beer bottles out to the recycling bin. I came in here to get a rag so I could wipe down the tables.”

She was genuinely touched. “You guys don’t have to do that.”

“It’s the least we could do. You didn’t have to open the café up tonight but you did. Might as well repay you with some clean-up.”

He shot her a crooked smile, and a flicker of heat sparked inside her belly. Carson really was an attractive man, she realized. She’d been lusting over Garrett for so long she’d barely noticed what any of his friends looked like, and for the first time, she actually took the time to look at Carson Scott, really look at him. And she definitely liked what she saw. Dirty blond hair, cut short but not short enough that he looked like all the crew cut boys who walked around Coronado. His eyes were blue, his features classically handsome, and he was as ripped as his friend Garrett. Obviously you couldn’t be a Navy SEAL without possessing one of those hard, sleek bodies that never failed to make a girl drool.

“Do I have icing on my chin or something?” Carson teased. “Damn, I knew I shouldn’t have eaten one of those cupcakes you brought out to us.”

“No, nothing on your chin,” she said, cheeks warm as she turned away and stopped checking him out.

She rounded the counter and grabbed a rag, then walked back and handed it to him. Trying not to stare at his ass, she trailed him into the café and watched as he efficiently wiped down all the tabletops. Carson had just finished when Garrett returned, the chimes over the door jingling as he walked inside.

Shelby’s heart immediately did a couple of jumping jacks. Damn it. Why did John Garrett always manage to make her pulse race?

“Thanks for having us,” Garrett said, his voice slightly gruff.

“No problem.” She swallowed when she saw him edge back toward the door, suddenly anxious for him not to leave.

She still couldn’t believe he thought she was vanilla, and maybe it was crazy—fine, it was crazy—but she got the feeling a golden opportunity was staring her square in the eye. That tonight would be her one chance to show him that she wasn’t the sweet freckle-faced prude he obviously thought her to be.

“Well…good night,” Garrett added.

Their gazes locked, and she could swear the air hissed and crackled with mutual attraction.
Fine, it was probably the heat making the crackling noise, but still…

She broke the eye contact, slowly glancing over at Carson, who’d dropped the rag on one of the tables and was moving toward his friend.

Don’t let them leave.

The urgent voice inside her head caught her off-guard, but only for a second. Because after that second was up, she realized that she really was looking at a golden opportunity. A delicious, ridiculously tempting opportunity.

She’s too sweet. She’s definitely not the type who’d be uninhibited in the bedroom.

God, it would be so wickedly satisfying to prove them wrong. Show Garrett that his wild ways didn’t scare her and that she was perfectly capable of taking him on. Taking them both on.

Heat simmered in her belly, radiated in her limbs and made her weak with…desire. Oh God. She’d always imagined what it would be like. Two men. At the same time. The guys she’d dated in the past would have been aghast if she admitted to that particular fantasy. Even Matthew, who had seen nothing wrong with sleeping around on her, would have been horrified.

Was she crazy? Perverted? Suffering from heat stroke?

Maybe, but who the heck cared? They were all adults here. And yeah, maybe she was a little tipsy from the tequila, but like Lieutenant Asshole had said, tipsy shmipsy. What was so wrong with acting wild and crazy every now and then?

If wild was what she needed to be to show Garrett she could rock his world, then why not?

“See you later, Shel,” Carson said.

Garrett’s hand was on the doorknob.

“It’s still early,” she found herself blurting. “You guys should stay and hang out a while longer.”

His hand froze and he glanced at her over his shoulder. “You want us to stay?”

She managed a feeble shrug. “Sure. Sleazebag Paul left his tequila bottle here. We might as well put it to good use.”

Both men just stared at her, but Garrett’s hand did drop from the door handle…

“Besides,” she added, “it’s so hot out there.”

“Pretty hot in here, too,” she heard Carson murmur.

She met Garrett’s gorgeous brown eyes and offered a little smile. “So what do you say?”