Hot & Bothered Excerpt

From: Heat of the Storm

“Let me in, Mackenzie.”

She slowly opened the door then stepped aside as a very wet Will Charleston pushed his way inside.

“What are you doing here?” she blurted. “It’s past midnight. And in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a hurricane out there.”

“Thunderstorm,” he corrected. “It was a bitch driving all the way out here from Coronado in this rain, but I needed to see you.”

Her mouth grew dry. “Why? What’s so important that you risked getting into a car accident over?”

“I think you know.”

Four words. Smoky with seduction and shrouded with erotic promise.

This couldn’t be happening.

And yet everything about the situation, everything about him, spoke otherwise.

His dark eyes glimmered with passion. His sensual mouth was set in a firm line, his defined jaw tight, as if he’d come here prepared for her to fight him. She’d never seen Will like this before. Raw masculinity seemed to ooze out of his pores. It teased her, taunted at her, wrapped around her like a lover’s touch and caused every nerve in her body to tingle.

He shrugged out of his navy blue windbreaker and tossed it on the wooden bench next to the front door. Next he kicked off his boots. Drops of rain slid from his dark hair, down his rugged face and dripped onto the floor.

He strode into the living room without invitation. Not that he needed one. Will had always been welcome in her home and he was there often, filling the house with his comforting presence.

Tonight she wasn’t comforted. Tonight his presence was…different. Masculine. Passionate. Dangerous.

“It’s time we talked about what happened last week,” he said in that rough voice of his.

She gulped. “Nothing happened last week.” Darn it, why did he have to bring it up? She’d hoped that during the past seven days, while he’d been traipsing around in the jungle, he might have forgotten about it.

He tilted his head, those bottomless dark eyes piercing right through the lie and glittering with challenge. “I beg to differ.”

He moved closer and the spicy scent of his aftershave wafted into her nostrils. She inhaled it, nearly keeling over backwards as the sexy aroma surrounded her and grasped her senses. God, he smelled good.

“You kissed me,” he said gruffly.

“It was a mistake.”

“We both know that’s not true.” Another step toward her. “Do you know that this past week has been torture for me? You kissed me, Mac, and the next morning I had to get on a chopper, without getting the chance to talk to you about it.” He visibly swallowed. “The entire time I was gone, I was thinking of you. Aching for you. So don’t try to shrug it off, or call it a mistake. Because we both know it wasn’t.”

Warm hands cupping her breasts.

A pinch to her nipples.

Pain.

Pleasure.

Her thighs squeezed together and a gasp escaped her lips.

He was at her side in an instant, stroking her temples with his long fingers. “Hey, you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she squeezed out.

“What did you see?”

Damn it, why did he have to know her so well? She wished she’d never confided in him about the visions. Past experience told her that most people didn’t understand the visions. Hell, she didn’t understand them either.

What she did understand was that it scared people. Men, especially. Her former boyfriends had never seemed to be able to handle the visions. They fled the moment a particularly upsetting one hit her, looking at her like she was the angel of death or something. Though they vehemently denied it, claiming they were dumping her for an entirely different reason, she knew they considered her a freak.

And hell, sometimes she didn’t blame them. Sometimes, usually after seeing the death of someone she knew, she felt like a freak.

“What did you see?” Will repeated.

Their gazes collided and the fire she saw in his eyes sucked the breath out of her lungs like a vacuum. He was so sexy. Magnetic eyes, chiseled features, and a sexy body that looked way too good in a pair of faded jeans and a snug T-shirt. His job as a SEAL assured that he always stayed in shape, hard, sleek, and muscled. He was the best-looking man she’d ever known, and the one man she’d never allowed herself to get involved with. Her lovers never stayed in her life long. Her best friend, on the other hand? Well, he was always by her side.

But would he remain there if he knew her intimately? If they shared a bed, if she woke him up from sleep with her screams and tears after a nasty vision? Not to mention her complete inability to lose control in the bedroom. She wasn’t one to give in to self-pity, but when it came to relationships, she was a mess. A freak.

And it would crush her, losing her best friend just because she’d been foolish enough to fuck him.

“Either we talk about what you saw, or we talk about the kiss.” Will’s brows were drawn together in a frown. “Your choice, Mac.”