Page 5 of Hot & Bothered

He backed his truck in, which was a tight fit between the Chevy Tahoe and the Toyota Sequoia. A pang of envy flashed through him. The row of vehicles across from him was full of mid-sized sedans and compact cars. There were even two SMART cars parked there. And yet, they thought it was fine to shove all the big vehicles together. It was only a matter of time before one of them got a dent in their door.

“On second thought,” he said with a pause. “Why don’t you hop out before I back in? It’s a tight squeeze and I don’t want you to risk knocking the other vehicles with the door.” He pulled ahead and Peyton hopped out, then he backed in properly. He had to hold his breath and nearly got his cock lopped off it was such a precarious wedging out of his door, but he emerged at the grill victorious and with all his body parts intact.

“You need to put in for a different parking space,” Peyton said, eying the pathetically small space between Jace’s truck and the Sequoia.

“I have. Many times.”

She wrinkled her face. “That’s a bummer.”

“I’m barely home right now, so it’s not that big of a deal.” He looped his arm over her shoulder. “This way, m’lady.”

She wrapped her arm around his waist. “Lead the way, Officer …” Then she glanced up at him. “I should probably know your last name before we … you know.”

He grinned down at her. “It’s Shepherd.”

“All right then. Lead the way, Officer Shepherd.”

They reached the elevator and stepped inside. Even though she had her white fake fur shawl over her forest-green dress, she gave a little shiver.

Ever the gentleman his mama raised him to be, Jace slipped the jacket of his serge off his shoulders and draped it over hers. It nearly hit the ground. It was so big on her.

“Damn, you’re big,” she exhaled, marveling at how his serge swamped her frame.

“Always love to hear that from a woman’s lips.”

She snorted and rolled her pretty gray eyes. “What floor are you on?”

“Twelfth.”

They rode the elevator to his floor in silence, but the tension crackling around them was tangible. The stolen glances and coy smiles had his cock surging to life in his pants, and his lower belly grew warm. They’d already kissed several times—and she was a great kisser. He could only imagine she was also great at other things, too.

When the elevator stopped and dinged, the doors slid open. Given the time of day—or night, for that matter—he wasn’t expecting to find anybody waiting for the elevator, let alone on his floor.

Peyton let out a little squeak of surprise when a man Jace didn’t recognize took a sudden step back so they could exit first.

“Hello,” the man said, his voice deep and scratchy.

“Hello,” Jace greeted, suspicion rising through him like an incoming tide.

The man stepped onto the elevator, bringing with him two large Christmas gift bags. He stared at the ground, his hoodie pulled up over his head and obscuring his face. “Have a good night.”

Jace nodded and did his very best, honing into his skills to take in every bit of physical description he could about the man before the doors closed. Blue eyes. Tall. Muscular. Probably as big as Jace but maybe not quite as big as the Harty Boys. But he was no slouch, either. Late twenties or early thirties. Dark gray hoodie, black jeans. Motorcycle boots. And the most memorable feature: a big brown birthmark on the left side of his jaw in the shape of an almond and maybe twice as big.

He had no idea why he felt compelled to memorize the man’s appearance, but he did.

And something about that birthmark niggled familiarly at the back of Jace’s brain.

The building was huge, and Jace was a busy man, but he knew nearly all his neighbors. And he didn’t know this guy.

However, it was also Christmas, so perhaps the guy was just visiting a friend. Peyton wasn’t a resident of the building, either, after all. And the man had gift bags with him. It was probably just a friend of a resident and they exchanged gifts.

But Jace’s spidey sense was rarely ever wrong and there was just something weird about this guy that rubbed Jace in the wrong kind of way.

“You okay?” Peyton’s voice and a squeeze of her arm around him made Jace snap back to reality. That’s when he realized they’d stopped in the hallway and were just staring straight ahead at the closed elevator door.

Jace cleared his head and grinned down at the striking redhead. “Totally. Come on.” He spun them around and led her down the corridor toward his unit.

The hair on the back of his neck still stuck up and the hollow sensation in his belly had him telling Peyton to stay in the hallway while he unlocked hisunit, flicked on all the lights and slowly stepped inside. He didn’t have a big apartment. It was only one bedroom. Maybe seven-hundred square feet in total. So it took only a minute to scan the entire thing for any threats, determine there was none, and go back to the hallway to get Peyton.

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