Read Online While the Fire Rages by Joan Hohl - Free Book Online

the huge bed.
    “No, brother mine, soiling your own nest would definitely not be your style. You would ensconce her expensively, but apart.”
    The document Brett unfolded was the deed to the apartment he had so recently retreated from.
    Retreat appeared to be Brett’s order of the day, for now he backed away from his brother’s sleeping quarters, quietly closing the door as he went.
    If Brett had found it a struggle coming to grips with his unexpected, unwanted physical need for Wolf’s partner in dalliance, that struggle was as nothing compared to facing the reality of a deeper emotional need.
    Never a coward, Brett nevertheless decided that there were times when facing reality was better done with a few stiff belts. Striding out purposely, he went back downstairs to the bar and the comfort of twelve-year-old Scotch.
    It was while sipping on his third glass of barely diluted whisky, his elongated frame perched tiredly on a leather-covered, thickly padded bar stool, that Brett finally conceded defeat to the indefinable emotion commonly called love.
    God, he hated it.
    No doubt about it, chum, he taunted himself wryly. This time your engine has completely jumped its tracks. One might be forgiven for falling hard for the wrong woman once. But twice? Brett shook his head sadly. You, sir, seemed to have developed a penchant for loose-limbed, loose-moraled, shockingly beautiful females. But at least the first one had not been staked out by another man—and that man the silver-eyed Wolf, no less. Brett’s soft, self-mocking laughter skipped the length of the short bar.
    If she finds out, she will rip you apart.
    So how do you go about keeping the very beautiful, very sexy, Jo Lawrence from finding out?
    Propping his elbow on the polished wood bar, Brett held his glass aloft and frowned at the amber contents, a self-derisive smile curving his lips.
    You are not going to find an answer at the bottom of a bottle of Scotch, he advised himself judiciously. Finish your drink and go rustle up some food to soak up the booze.
    The refrigerator, kept well stocked by Wolf’s part-time housekeeper, yielded the makings of a Reuben sandwich, which Brett prepared with the same ease as he had breakfast earlier that morning.
    Deciding coffee would be the prudent drink to have with his meal, Brett brewed a full pot and polished off the sandwich in between deep bracing swallows, all the while resisting the surge of memories of his first disastrous foray into the baffling emotion called love.
    As a rule Brett was successful at keeping all recollection of his time with Sondra at bay, but this evening, taut with anger, actually aching with physical frustration, and saturated with whisky, the self-imposed mental barrier refused to stay in place.
    Sighing in defeat, his beautiful male lips curling in a sneer of self-mockery, Brett refilled his cup, stretched his long legs out under the table, and let the memories rip.
    * * * *
    Sondra Malone had taken Brett’s breath away from the first moment he saw her, greeting passengers as they entered the jet bound from Chicago to Atlanta. His first thought had been that she was overall gorgeous. Of average height, Sondra had a neat, trim body with delectable curves, a fantastic mane of fiery red hair, and a face that could, and often did, stop men in their tracks. Of course, there was no outward indication betraying the fact that she also possessed the morals of a back-alley feline. Completely bowled over by her, it was a long time later that Brett learned, the hard way, that Sondra would sleep with anything that wore pants—if the pockets in those pants were heavily lined with gold.
    Sipping at the strong black brew, Brett allowed his mind freedom to wander down the pathway to yesterday, allowed his senses to experience the trauma of the time he’d spent with Sondra.
    Now, from a five-year distance, Brett realized he’d been a prime target for any Sondra who happened along. He’d been more than tired.