Page 55 of Turn Up The Heat

Bellamy’s mouth curved into a catlike grin. “I said I wasn’t stayingbecauseof him. I didn’t say I wasn’t going to see him again.” She thought of Shane’s promise to call her later and it sent her grin into overdrive.

“I knew it!” Holly said through a giggle, sliding down from her bar stool to wave a finger at Bellamy, who held up her hands in defeat.

“Yeah, yeah, so sue me. He’s still a good kisser.”

“How good?” Holly pressed. Even Jenna gave a subtle lean in Bellamy’s direction to hear the answer.

Bellamy’s overdrive went into overdrive. “Good. Really, really good.” The breathy, sigh-y thing wasn’t normally her gig, but her vocal cords and her chest were bound and determined to conspire against her in an epic coup against good sense.

Oh, screw it. Good sense had gone out the window days ago.

“I knew you two would hook up again,” Holly said, coming into the main room to plop down on the couch, motioning for Bellamy to do the same.

“See, and here I had my money on you two hating each other forever.” Jenna grinned, abandoning her coffee cup on the counter to curl up in a chair across from Holly. “But the look on your face makes up for my being wrong.”

“There’s no look on my face,” Bellamy said, losing the battle of wills with her smile.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Holly said, shrugging.

“Okay, fine.” Laughing, Bellamy gave in and told them enough to get them up to speed yet still keep her dignity intact. Holly, who tended to turn everything into either a Hallmark movie or a romance novel, sighed happily as Bellamy finished with Shane kissing her goodbye just before Jackson had led her back to the resort.

“I assume you’re going to see him again, since you’re staying here all week?”

Bellamy nodded. At least this part was uncomplicated. “He’s going to call me later, yeah. And I’ll obviously have to see him at least one more time to get my car.”

She glossed over the issue out loud just as well as she did in her head. There really were more important things to consider, like finding a decent meal, making sure she had a place to stay for the rest of the week and trying to pick up the pieces of her career. In that order.

But oh, God, she really wanted to see Shane again. And again and again…

Jenna’s eyes flicked over hers, and Bellamy was grateful when she didn’t push it. “I wish we could stay here with you, although now I’m not quite as worried that you’ll be all by your lonesome. Are you sure you’ll be okay up here for the rest of the week?”

Bellamy nodded, snuggling deeper into the couch cushions. “Yeah. It’ll be good for me.”

“Well, call us if it’s not. I’m not going to have you stuck here if you want to be at home.”

“Okay,” Bellamy said. But what she really wanted was about as far from the city as a girl could get.

She’d intentionally left the butterflies in her stomach out of the re-telling of events, as well as the fact that she and Shane had fallen asleep in each other’s arms. There was no need for Holly and Jenna to go jumping to conclusions, and definitely no need for them— or anybody— to think she was doing something insane likefallingfor Shane.

Yes, she’d slept with him, and yes, the sex had been good enough to curl her toes (both times). Yes, too, it had been far more impulsive than her norm. But Shane had surprised the hell out of her by being all tender and sweet about the stupid crying thing. Her defenses had been tongue-tied and twisted the minute he’d brushed the tears from her face, and they’d only gotten more turned around when he’d laid that kiss on her at the workbench, like some kind of sexual voodoo that would’ve brought a convent full of nuns to their knees.

That kiss had been her undoing, like a loose strand of yarn on a sweater begging to be pulled. Bellamy hadn’t planned on letting him unwind her until she was nothing more than a pile of soft thread on the ground, but that’s exactly what had happened. And now she had to face facts.

The acrobatics going on between her chest and her hips every time she thought of Shane’s deep, rumbling laugh or every time she caught a whiff of his scent from her sweater were just a byproduct of the multiple orgasms he’d given her. It was just sex. Great sex, but still.Justsex. Period. End of story.

No matter how much those backflips in her gut suggested otherwise.

* * *

In the threehours since he’d gotten home, Shane’s cell phone had morphed into something roughly the size of a moose, and it did everything but dance and sing and screampick me up and dial, buddy!every time he so much as glanced at it.

He’d stuck around the garage for more than half the day, fielding a handful of phone calls from people who’d been in fender benders or needed to be dragged out of ditches. Grady’s wasn’t set up to do body work, which was a damned shame considering that was the extent of what the fender bender people needed. Still, Shane was happy to keep his body and brain occupied so they wouldn’t gang up on him and drift back to the rush of Bellamy’s skin on his, and how what he really wanted to do was call her even though he had nothing to say.

Eh. Scratch that. He had plenty to say, it’s just that he was pretty sure “I dig you way more than I should and I can’t for the life of me forget the incredible way you smell and would youpleaseshut me up by saying you’ll let me take you out to dinner” would make him look like the biggest idiot on two legs.

But something had clicked inside of him the minute his lips had found hers at that workbench, something seamless and daring and good. He hadn’t been able to put his finger on it all day, even though he’d eventually given in and let himself linger on his thoughts of Bellamy in an effort to get it out of his system. It had finally hit him on his way back to the cabin, and he hadn’t been able to shake the idea since it had popped into his mind.

She felt right.

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