Read Online Surrender To Sultry by Macy Beckett - Free Book Online Page A

Leah asked, ignoring the question.
    He shook his head. “My sister’s. You never met Avery. She was still in Oklahoma when
     my folks sent me to live here. She moved to town about seven years ago, right before
     she had Emma.”
    “Nice to meet you,” Leah said, crouching down to Emma’s height. “I like your sparkly
     pants. Oh, and your sticker! She’s my second favorite, right behind Ariel.”
    With that, Emma was sold. She skipped over to her new best friend and began twirling
     Leah’s hair between her fingers. “I like Ariel, too, but I don’t think Uncle Colt
     does.”
    “No?” Leah asked. She raised her gaze to his. “Why not?”
    Colt shrugged. He didn’t know Ariel from an areola.
    “’Cause he don’t like it when girls show off their belly and their bubbies.”
    Leah tipped back her blond head, laughing in a warm, high tinkle that settled in Colt’s
     chest and radiated outward until his fingertips went tingly. She glanced at him with
     those crystal-blue eyes all lit up like the noonday sky, and for an instant, she was
     his angel again.
    It felt like heaven, but it didn’t last nearly long enough. The smile died on Leah’s
     lips, her gaze dimming as she pushed to standing and took two steps toward his desk.
    “Rachel said you wouldn’t give her my license.” She pressed her lips together and
     peered at him a moment before taking a sudden interest in his stapler. “I need it
     so I can get tags for my car.”
    “Oh, sure.” He stiffened his spine in an effort to hide his disappointment. “Got that
     right here in my desk,” which was a bald-faced lie. He kept her license in his shirt
     pocket, where he could pull it out during the day and gaze at her. To appease her,
     he tugged open his center drawer and rooted through paperclips and invoices until
     he found Benito Alvarez’s registration.
    “Here you go,” he said, handing it across the desk. “By the way, who is this guy?”
     Based on what Colt knew of Alvarez—age sixty-one, widowed, one child, clean record,
     owner of B&A Home Health Services—he guessed Leah worked for the man, but some secret
     part of him feared Alvarez was more than just a boss. Colt added with a wink, “You
     didn’t steal his Escalade, did you?”
    Leah took the document but didn’t meet his eyes. “If I did, you think I’d be stupid
     enough to tell the town sheriff?”
    “Probably not,” he conceded, pretending to search the drawer for her license. “You
     always were a smart girl.”
    A humorless chuckle shook her chest. “That’s debatable.”
    “Hey, I wouldn’t have passed Senior Chem if it weren’t for you.” After Colt had transferred
     to Sultry High, the science teacher partnered him with Leah, who’d offered to bring
     Colt up to speed. Within a couple of weeks, they’d started meeting after school in
     his granddaddy’s shed to make a little chemistry of their own. “You were a real good
     tutor.”
    The light flush that stained her cheeks told him she remembered all the study sessions
     where they’d never once cracked a book. Where he’d memorized each fragrant curve of
     her body instead of chemical equations. Where he’d lifted her onto a sawdust-coated
     worktable, stroked her into a frenzy with his fingertips, and then taken her virginity
     to the backdrop of a violent late-summer storm.
    He remembered, too, and the mental echo of her gasps of pleasure made his pants suddenly
     snug in the front. He rolled his chair forward until his belly bumped the desk. For
     good measure, he did an algebra problem in his head.
    “I don’t remember it that way.” Leah went quiet when her eyes darted to Emma. Clearly,
     she had more to say, but not in the company of a princess-in-training.
    “Well, you put up with a dumb jock like me.” Emma tugged on Colt’s sleeve. He ignored
     her and added, “I was mighty grateful.”
    Leah seemed to warm at that, shrugging one shoulder and favoring him with half a smile.
     “You