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  “Hey.”

  Yeah, so they were night and day, with Lettie in jeans and a t-shirt. Clearly, she hadn’t received the memo that Lettie wasn’t trolling for men, which was obviously what Becca was doing.

  Becca tugged her hand. “These guys are really nice.” Her whisper-shout was laughable, and Lettie shook her head even as her stomach dropped.

  “I’m just gonna sit over here for a minute. Get my bearings.” That was as close to the truth as she was going to go right now. Becca had gotten the wrong idea about tonight, and if she was planning to pick up men, Lettie wasn’t having anything to do with it. Even so, just having her here helped her resolve. Just knowing she had one friend in town, in this bar, boosted her confidence to meet more.

  Lettie sank into a bar stool and waited for the bartender to come over. A girl next to her smiled brightly.

  “Hiya! You new around here?” She held out her hand to shake, and Lettie took it, marveling at the ease of her mission.

  “Yeah, I’m Lettie. I run the animal shelter.”

  “I’m Katie. I own the lingerie store on the square, Hidden Intimacies.” She grinned wickedly, and Lettie cringed inwardly. “What sort of trouble are you trying to get into tonight?”

  “Uh, none. I was just a little bored. I’m housesitting for a friend.” Those words sounded weird coming out of her mouth. Sure, Zane was a friend, but it was obvious he wanted to be more. She was holding him at arm’s length for reasons of her own, but how upfront should she be about them? Some part of her didn’t want to have to explain herself. If she said no, it should mean just that. But she was afraid she was putting out mixed signals and didn’t want him to get the wrong idea. Her head said one thing, but her body was clearly saying something else.

  “Yeah? Who’s the friend?” Katie stirred her drink absently with her straw. Lettie’s white wine had come, and she took a sip, grateful for something to do with her hands.

  “Zane Wilkinson.”

  A cackle of laughter left Katie’s mouth. “Girl, that boy hasn’t ever had a friend. I’m guessing the friend thing,” she used air quotes as she spoke, “is your idea?”

  Lettie nodded, gobsmacked at the revelation. Sure, she could tell Zane was used to getting what he wanted with women and wasn’t used to hearing no, but Lettie had no idea random people would be bringing up his proclivities in random conversation. That gave him an all new status of “playa” in her mind. He probably had rap songs written about him. Not that she listened to rap, so she wouldn’t know, but she could totally see a song named “Zane’s Bitches” or something like that.

  “I didn’t realize he had a reputation.” Lettie took another sip of the crisp wine. “Have you—” She couldn’t finish the question, realizing she was about to ask a total stranger about her sexual history.

  “Gawd, no! But I would if I weren’t otherwise occupied.” Her eyes were focused on someone over Lettie’s shoulder, but she didn’t look, still thinking about Zane’s reputation.

  She reminded herself of the proper rules of etiquette when meeting someone new. Reciprocation of conversational tactics.

  “Oh, so you have a boyfriend?” People generally liked talking about their significant others, right? But her new acquaintance simply stared into her glass, shaking her head.

  “Nope. He doesn’t see me as anything like that.”

  So Lettie was free to go on about her previous line of thought. Men were stupid, as were relationships.

  “Yeah, men suck.”

  She was a conquest. A challenge. Someone who’d actually told Zane no. She wasn’t sure whether to be mad or laugh at the hilarity of it all. He was pulling out all the stops, trying to charm the pants off her. He couldn’t be taken seriously.

  That made this all so much easier.

  Lettie changed the subject, desperate to talk about anything but Zane. “So you sell panties?” Okay, this was why she was awkward.

  Katie didn’t seem to mind though. They chatted while Lettie drank her glass of wine, and Lettie found talking and interacting didn’t hurt. By the time her wine was finished, she knew Katie lived with her younger brother who was out with friends tonight. She was always looking for girls to hang out with to escape the testosterone exuded by living with a teenage boy. Eventually, Lettie made her excuses to get up to leave.

  “Aw, so soon?”

  “Yeah. As long as Zane’s out of town, I have a standing Skype date with him. Gotta go or he’ll think his house burned to the ground with his dog inside or something.”

  Katie’s face turned pensive. “We should do something.”

  “Yeah, we should. See you around?”

  Lettie waved to Becca to say goodbye, and the woman bounced up off a guy’s lap who looked familiar—another firefighter she recognized from the shoot.

  “You leaving already? You seriously just got here.” Becca’s disappointment was obvious.

  “Yeah. I have to get back to Otis before Zane Skypes me tonight.”

  Becca sat on Lettie’s vacated stool and raised her eyebrows at Katie. “O-ka-ay. Talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah.”

  Leaving, Lettie felt good about her first foray into friend-making. This might not be such a shitty gig.

  “So … what happened the other day? With the exception of the dogs and falling down and stuff, I thought we were hitting it off.” Zane had been calling her for three days now, and for two of those days, he’d called late enough to find Lettie in his bed.

  His. Fucking. Bed.

  He couldn’t take just watching her lying there like she owned the damn thing, with every right to be there. Of course she did. He didn’t have a guest bed, and his couch was chewed to smithereens by now, so there was no place else for her to sleep.

  “I have a theory about kissing men. That’s why I allowed it in the first place.” Lettie was blushing, which told Zane this would be good.

  He raised his eyebrows expectantly. “Allowed it? You kissed me,” he pointed out, but she ignored him.

  “Guys’ kisses tell a lot about their personalities and the way the relationship would be. Your kiss told me everything I needed to know to see we won’t be compatible.” She sat back on his pillows with her hands entwined across her stomach. She was hotter than she intended.

  Zane couldn’t take his eyes off of her as he sat on the floor in the corner of his old bedroom and watched her. With wide, innocent brown eyes, dark hair falling around her shoulders, she wore pajamas—the old man kind, with stripes and big buttons. She looked sleepy and, with his pillows propped up behind her, hot as fuck. It was the first time he’d seen her with her hair down, and it made her look different, more carefree, softer.

  “What do you mean? That was a great kiss!” He was hard just thinking about it.

  “Exactly. But it ended disastrously. Which, based on my experience, is exactly how the relationship will go. I’m telling you. I’ve been testing this theory for a while.”

  “How many guys?”

  “What?”

  “How many guys have you tested it with? How long did you test the theory?”

  “Enough, and long enough to know I’m right. I didn’t need to go any further with you.”

  “Sweetheart, you have no idea the gauntlet you just threw down.” He lowered his voice in a seductive move and watched for her reaction.

  She paled, her hands going from the laidback, entwined position over her stomach to clenching the sheets. “What do you mean?”

  He grinned wickedly and opened his mouth to answer.

  At that moment, Lettie cocked her head to the side and Zane watched, helpless, as a man came into his bedroom and set down a stereo. She shifted in the bed, and it moved the laptop so he saw it was fucking Hollywood.

  “Hollywood? What the fuck are you doing there?”
Hollywood was the pretty boy of the fire station. They weren’t really friends, but everyone knew the guy picked up spare change moonlighting as a stripper. And the doctor’s outfit he currently wore had Zane seeing red.

  “What the fuck is that dipshit doing in my house?” he demanded, even as his eyes took in the details. “In my bedroom!”

  Following Hollywood, came Katie and another girl who Zane thought worked at the animal shelter, but wasn’t sure. “Hey, chica! I told you we’d do something!” Zane watched as Katie waltzed over to the laptop, the booming bass of Snoop Dog’s “Wet” filling his ears.

  Hollywood started gyrating in his fucking bedroom, using the post on his bed for what-the-fuck-ever he was doing. The girls piled up on the bed, and Zane was forgotten—stuck in hell as he listened to the gasps of shock as Hollywood stripped off the doctor’s coat to reveal he wore nothing but a pair of scrub pants underneath it. Snoop Dogg rapped about being a doctor and promising to get someone wet, while Zane suddenly had massive plans to disinfect his bed post. Then Katie looked over at the laptop.

  She gave Zane a wicked grin, but her words were spoken to Lettie. “Say goodbye to your cockblock for the evening.”

  “Oh, hell no!” But it was too late. The screen had gone dark. “FUCK!”

  Chapter Six

  “What in the ever-loving hell are y’all doing in here?” Lettie was more than a little weirded out about her “friend” Katie just showing up with Becca, letting herself in, and bringing a— She turned to the man with her. “Are you a fucking stripper? Or are y’all just trying to piss me off?”

  He waggled his eyebrows and started messing with his pants. He looked familiar, but she had never in her life paid for a stripper and couldn’t imagine how she would know him. She held out her hand as if that would stop him. “No. Just no.” She turned to Katie, who was grinning brightly, like she was hosting a surprise baby shower or something. And Becca wasn’t any better, not taking her eyes off the guy, as if willing him to rip his pants off.

  Lettie should have felt more than annoyance. Granted, this was a little creepy, but it wasn’t her house, and for all she knew this was how Zane was with his friends. If that were the case, she would happily go back to her hermit-like existence. People were weird.

  “Okay.” Katie plopped herself on the bed next to Lettie like this was a slumber party. “I read between the lines with you and Zane. I might have read wrong, but I figured getting Hollywood to show up while y’all were Skyping would piss him off and force him to make a stronger move. Something not like his old standbys, which clearly aren’t working with you. You’re a woman of substance and need better wooing than he’s working on you.” Katie gestured to Hollywood, whom she belatedly realized was one of the firefighters from the shoot the first day.

  Lettie recognized him now. She didn’t know how to tell Katie she wasn’t trying to make Zane take anything up a few notches. Any notches. Notches were bad.

  “Besides, leaving Mo’s with him was a twofer. We got to piss Zane off, and I was trying to make Logan jealous. Becca and me hanging all over him when we left might have made him see red.”

  Hollywood blanched and took a step backward. “You used me to make Logan jealous? Seriously, Katie? I was all about playing with Zane, but nobody tries to manipulate Logan. Do you have any idea what you’ve done? I have to work with him!”

  His voice had gotten all high-pitched and whiny, and as visually attractive the guy was, Lettie couldn’t help the smile that came with his rant. He suddenly sounded like a scared brat, and his attractiveness lost a few points.

  Katie stared after him as he started out the door. “Okay, he’s our ride. I guess my work here is done. Drinks tomorrow night?”

  “We’ll see.” Lettie suddenly wasn’t sure about this friendship at all. It felt it would be more self-destructive than anything.

  “When is Zane coming home?”

  “The end of the week. He wanted to make sure his mom was gonna be okay after the funeral.”

  “Well, good luck!” Katie crossed her arms and fingers in a move reminiscent of The Parent Trap with Haley Mills. Lettie had no idea if the remake had that gesture—she had never seen it. Principles and all that. Why all the remakes when the original was perfectly fine?

  “I don’t need luck! I’m not dating him!” Lettie was trying not to be exasperated as she followed her “friends” out of the house and locked the door behind them.

  Back in the bedroom, she got under the covers and sighed.

  That was weird, but it had pissed Zane off. She giggled into the comforter as she rolled over and went to sleep.

  And, of course, Lettie dreamed of Zane all night long. Sexy dreams. The kind of dreams that had her waking throughout the night with sweat coating her body and then huffing at herself and rolling her eyes before finding a cool spot on the bed and going back to sleep.

  She slept a fitful, dream-filled slumber where Zane’s rough, scarred hands would caress her heated skin. Where he knew exactly how to touch her. Where he would swallow her moans right before branding her body with his mouth. The kind of sleep where the dreams overrode everything else.

  Zane drove almost all night. He apologized to his mom, promised to come visit as soon as he could, and had gotten the hell out of dodge. His brothers were staying through the weekend—she’d be fine. But after seeing Hollywood in his fucking bedroom, with Lettie in his fucking bed and Katie calling him a cockblock, his blood was boiling. Was Lettie playing him? Was she manipulating him? Was that what all this was about? It didn’t make sense, but he was getting to the bottom of it.

  Now.

  He couldn’t understand this pull to her, but it was undeniable. There was no way he was giving up on her without a fight, and if Hollywood was the ass he needed to kick, he was down for that.

  By the time Zane pulled into his driveway, it was almost three in the morning. Quietly, he opened his door, noting it was locked and wondering about that. Had it been locked when Hollywood had come over? Had she left it unlocked for them?

  Did it being locked mean they were finished with their orgy or whatever and had left? Or did it mean they didn’t want anyone else busting in and interrupting them?

  He tiptoed to his bedroom, ready to kick some major Hollywood ass, and let out an exhale of relief when he found Lettie in bed alone.

  In those sexy fucking pajamas.

  Jesus. She slept like a starfish.

  Her face to the ceiling, her arms and legs spread wide, he saw the outline of her body under his covers. Her deep breaths were even and strong, and he leaned on the doorjamb to watch her for a little while.

  Torn. He was torn.

  Was this the sleep of the recently satiated? Or was this the sleep of the righteous, who’d kicked the culprits out and salvaged her purity? Not that he thought she was a virgin.

  He’d hired her to housesit so he could have some sort of future with her, not for fucking Hollywood and some random chicks from the bar to go jumping in his bed.

  He stopped leaning and stood in his doorway. Like getting struck by lightning, he realized that’s what this was about. He was jealous. His every nerve was on fire at the realization and its implications. He cared more about this chick than he’d admitted to himself. Now, it was clear as day. He was fucking jealous. His plan—to get to know her, to appear human in her eyes, to make her like him—totally backfired. Because now he had to deal with the green-eyed monster inside him rearing its ugly head.

  Zane nodded to himself. Yeah, jealousy was gross. It was a little bit of a foreign emotion for him—one he didn’t fucking like. It left an acidic taste on his tongue. He stared at the woman, making a herculean effort to stop imagining what might have happened with Hollywood to make her appear so sated.

  He didn’t want anyone else to touch her.

  Now he just needed to
make her realize she was his.

  It sounded domineering and control-freakish, but it was the truth. Zane didn’t want anyone else touching her, kissing her, anything with her. Lettie needed to realize he was serious about her, and he didn’t know how to make her see that.

  She shifted in the bed and let out a soft moan, her breathing getting a bit ragged. His cock twitched at the noise that sounded exactly like sex in his room.

  Without another thought about the repercussions, he stalked over to his bed, toeing off his shoes as he went. Crawling up from the foot of it, he lingered over her body as her head turned to the side, exposing a long, elegant neck as if in offering.

  He would accept it.

  Zane dipped his head and inhaled, smelling her scent. He’d missed this in all the Skyping. He hadn’t been able to smell her. She had an earthy scent which reminded him of something feral and female and all the things he wanted to do to her.

  Now that they were both in his bed, she was at his mercy and didn’t even realize it.

  God. Damn. That was heady.

  He stuck out his tongue and raked it up the side of her neck, and she let out a long, low moan that went straight to his dick. He hovered above her, and with her words in his head, he looked at her lips.

  Soft, kissable lips just waiting for him to claim them.

  With a groan of his own, he lowered his head to taste her.

  Unable to hold back, Zane eased the weight of his body on hers and kissed her for all he was worth. She may not be awake, but she clearly believed her theory about kissing was valid, and nothing was going to make this kiss go up in destructive flames. Zane saw this as another chance, and he was going to take it.

  Zane tasted her tongue. Her flavor was so sleepy-sweet, unlike the way she smelled yet sort of similar. Lettie tasted light and sweet, like lemonade in the summertime, with an earthy, feminine undertone. As he explored the recesses of her mouth, he pinned her body to the mattress, unable to let her escape.