Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Renee Dominick. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Entangled Publishing, LLC
2614 South Timberline Road
Suite 105, PMB 159
Fort Collins, CO 80525
[email protected]
Scorched is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.
Edited by Brenda Chin
Cover design by Cover Couture
Cover photography by illustrissima/Shutterstock
ISBN 978-1-64063-552-4
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition May 2018
For R, whose love and support has made embracing my dreams possible.
Chapter One
This is going to be it, Jenna thought as the chauffeur started up the limousine. Her Grade-A prime opportunity to convince her best friend’s smokin’ hot brother, Rob, to finally hook up. Finish the night he and Jenna had started all those years ago.
Eight years ago, to be exact. It was a long damn time to wait for the down and dirty, but it’s what she got when the object of her lust was too upright, too stubborn, to admit that the sexual tension between them needed some serious relieving.
Jenna’s best friend, Chloe, had invited her entire wedding party to a weekend getaway at a luxury dude ranch, and Jenna sat facing backward in the limo, which was how she saw Rob bolt through the automatic door outside baggage claim and come to a skidding halt, scraping his thick, blond hair off his forehead with an annoyed gesture as the SUV pulled away from the curb.
Talia, the only other bridesmaid Jenna knew well, elbowed her in the ribs. “Damn, should we tell the driver to stop to let Rob in?”
“No.” Jenna may have been sending him all the go signals since that oh-so-close night, but Rob had himself convinced she was a villain from the dark side, come to corrupt the Lindgrens like a suburban she-devil. He’d even told her so once. To her face. “The other limo hasn’t left yet. He’ll be fine, and you have all weekend to drool over him.”
“Yes,” Talia said wistfully. “He is fine.”
Indeed. Fine, smokin’ hot, and bangable as fuck.
Still, being stuck in a car with him for two hours might be too much torture. “He just would have scowled at everyone the whole way,” Jenna said.
Talia leaned forward for the last view of him as they accelerated away from the airport’s pick-up zone. “But it’s such a hot scowl.”
That was true, too. As much time as she’d spent at the Lindgrens’ house in high school, and later, during college breaks, Jenna had been subjected to it hundreds of times. Maybe thousands. She could see it now: straight blond brows clenching together, two vertical lines etched deep atop his nose, his Nordic-blue eyes swirling with annoyance. That scowl had showed up in her dreams plenty of times, but it was his lips that had been her kryptonite from day one. Full, sharply outlined, and begging to be drawn over with a tongue. Her tongue.
She’d done it once, that night she’d discovered him watching porn. She’d pulled away his laptop, straddled his thighs, and…well, it hadn’t been her best idea. Licking had turned to kissing, kissing to touching, and from there, she’d ended up on the floor after Rob unexpectedly shot his load when she’d whispered fuck me, and then vaulted out of his chair, angry and embarrassed.
Getting her mouth and hands on him would have been worth every bit of the angsty aftermath, if only it hadn’t left her wanting more, more, more.
No, Rob’s scowl had never put her off. She still wanted her do-over, to fuck the man into exhaustion, do all kinds of dirty, wonderful things with him until he was completely unraveled, lying at her feet, limp and tangled as a pile of overcooked spaghetti.
She stifled a groan because the odds of it actually happening were not good. If there was one thing Jenna could claim to be, it was practical. She knew better than to count on the impossible, and if someone told her to describe Rob Lindgren in one word, impossible would be it. In every way. Impossibly hot, impossibly repressed, impossibly untouchable.
…
“We’re here.” Rob was jostled awake by his twin sister, Natalie.
He struggled upright and scrubbed his fingers through his hair, trying to jog his brain awake, along with his body. He hadn’t taken many vacations in the last four years, not on his assistant professor’s salary, and certainly not the weekend before finals. This was a special weekend for Chloe—he wouldn’t have missed it for anything—but attending meant he’d had a late night getting his tests ready in advance, and an early morning flight from Salt Lake City. It only took five minutes of road-drone to knock him out.
Despite the small hassles, this getaway had come at just the right time. Rob was holding on to a secret, one he hadn’t mentioned to anyone in his family yet: he was about to be offered tenure. He had some significant life choices to consider, not the least of which would be relocating permanently to the Southwest.
The law school dean was a sixty-something, repressively conservative woman who didn’t much care that her one condition—that he would have to “set down roots and marry the right girl”—would not pass a legal challenge. It was an unwritten job requirement while she was in charge, and everyone knew it.
He didn’t mind the settling down part. It was the dean’s idea of the “right” girl that made him uneasy. He’d been dating those women for the last four years, and they left him…uninspired.
If only he hadn’t been exposed, in the most mind-fucking way possible, to the kind of woman the dean would consider “wrong.” The kind that might show up to the staff holiday party in a prom dress and thrift store motorcycle boots. The kind that wouldn’t be meek and passive but who could seize control of his body with a kiss and a hand on his junk and a whispered, “Fuck me, Rob.”
The kind he was about to come face-to-face with at the top of this hill. The thought alone made his cock twitch.
The limo climbed a long driveway bordered by white fencing, and Rob took in the full scope of the ranch. Living and working at a place like this had been his dream, one he’d reluctantly abandoned when he got into law school. It had seemed like a common-sense decision. Now, looking out the window, he couldn’t remember why common sense had won out over passion, except that with him it seemed to be a pattern. He let out a low whistle as they passed half a dozen beautiful Andalusian horses grazing and lazing in the sunny pasture.
“Told you,” Natalie said.
There’d been a Lindgren family vacation here once, years ago, but Rob’s summer employment as a tutor meant he’d had to miss it. The limo rounded a bend in the road, and a magnificent barn came into view, with Appaloosas and Paints, no less fine-looking in their ow
n way than the showy Andalusians, standing around in nearby paddocks. “There’s telling me,” Rob said, “and there’s seeing it for myself. Did you check with—what’s his name, again?” Natalie had never confided the details of her past relationship with the ranch’s owner to him, only that there had been one. A significant one.
“Javier, and yes, I spoke to him. He knows you’ll be skulking around the barns.”
They rolled to a stop below a two-story log guest lodge. The driver opened the door and Rob stepped out, breathing in a deep draught of air so heavy with pine resin, it almost felt sticky. He wanted to head right to the barns, but he had to wait for Chloe to arrive. He hadn’t seen his sister since the holidays. The least he could do was say hello to her first.
A burst of laughter from the group standing by the other limo drew his attention, and all thoughts of the barn and Chloe ceased. There she was, his template for the “wrong” woman, only today she wasn’t wearing a prom dress and boots, or a graphic T-shirt and low-top Chucks. Or barely there pajamas. Today she looked…practically practical.
“She’s changed, hasn’t she,” Natalie said, tapping him beneath the chin.
Rob firmed his jaw. “No.” Yes. God, yes. She’d cut her long, unruly hair into a dark, sleek style that barely brushed her shoulders, for one thing, and she was wearing a blouse fitted enough to show off her enticing shape. His fingers curled. He’d made himself familiar with that shape once. Only once.
“Thus, the drool,” Natalie muttered, her eyes on her phone. “Give in, Rob. Stop being so bullheaded.”
He glared at his sister sidelong. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Your particular forms of self-denial are…ridiculous.”
He glanced over at the crowd again. Fine, Jenna looked different, on the surface. But he’d bet a future slightly-larger-but-still-cramped office she was the same underneath. Fearless when she should be cautious, playful when she should be serious, and passionate when cool calculation would serve better. And her cowboy boots were pink.
A cloud of dust announced the arrival of Chloe and Dave’s limo. When they emerged from the vehicle—dancing and groping each other—the bridesmaids engulfed them in a shrieking knot. All but Jenna. She stood apart, frowning down at her phone.
There was one thing he could admire about her. For all her brashness, she didn’t scream her excitement. She saved whispers for that.
Shit. Rob stepped to the rear of his limo to grab his bag and his Stetson, in case he needed a shield. He had to give Chloe a kiss hello, then he would haul his ass to the barns and contemplate his future alone. Away from people, and far away from bad influences like Jenna McCaffrey.
“Rob! You made it!” Chloe barreled into him and threw her arms around his neck. “You hadn’t arrived when Dave and I left the airport.”
He picked her off her feet. “Of course I made it, goof. Wow, this place is unbelievable.”
“I knew you’d love it. But I forbid you from spending the entire two-and-a-half days in the barns.”
Rob gave her an exaggerated frown. “First you forbade me from missing the trip, now this? When did you get so bossy?” He leaned past Chloe to shake Dave’s hand. His soon-to-be brother-in-law was both a good guy and gainfully employed, the complete opposite of Chloe’s long list of discarded boyfriends. Rob heartily approved of him.
“Har har. I’ve always been bossy. You just ignored me. Did you say hi to Jenna?”
Frowning for real this time, he turned to face his nemesis. “Hello, Jenna.”
“Hi, Ro-ob.”
She always said his name in a way that drew out the O just past normal. Mostly as a sneer, but on occasion it had been…spine-tingling. Dick-hardening. The kind of sound that sped down his spinal cord, tightened his balls, and altered everything he thought he knew about himself.
Jenna stood there watching him with her lips quirked to one side, as if she knew exactly where his mind had gone. Rob fixed her with the expression he’d perfected to discourage first-year students from asking him questions they could answer by reading the syllabus. Neutral, with a trace of intimidating. “How are you?”
Unfortunately, Jenna wasn’t one of his first-years. Her grade didn’t depend on his goodwill. “You brought your cowboy hat. How cute.”
“And you wore pink boots. How cliché.”
“Oh, knock it off, you two,” Chloe said. “This is supposed to be a fun weekend. I’m not having you at each other’s throats the whole time.”
Rob straightened, unnerved by the receding sensation of the world having zoomed to close-up, just him and Jenna in the bright center of a black void, as if the dozen people surrounding them didn’t exist at all.
That was…not good. Natalie wasn’t entirely wrong about him denying himself certain pleasures. He’d shoved carnal Jenna-thoughts deep into the cupboards of his mind more than once, but even from there, she had the ability to prey on him.
“It’s nice to know you haven’t changed, Rob,” Jenna whispered loudly.
“And you,” he said, risking Chloe’s wrath. “Predictability is important.”
When Chloe opened her mouth, he cut her off, annoyed at himself for rising to Jenna’s bait. “I’ll see you on the boat at four,” he told his sister. “I’m going to the barns.”
“Three forty-five, Rob. I mean it. Do not be late.” Chloe poked his arm with every word.
“Yes, Mom.” He walked off, but after a few steps, he remembered he wasn’t dressed for mucking around the stables. So instead, he redirected to the lodge and altered his plan. Once he got himself checked in, he would track down Jenna for a quick word, then go to the barn. If the two of them couldn’t agree on some basic civility going forward, it was going to be a brutal weekend.
Chapter Two
Jenna sauntered into the lobby and took her spot at the very back of the long check-in line. She still hadn’t been able to shake the image of Rob’s face as his gaze had trailed over her out there. Cool, but far from mysterious. It had been like a radio transmission straight to the sex center of her brain. She was lucky she hadn’t popped a blouse button from heavy breathing.
God, she’d never forgotten what he looked like as lust had swamped him the one and only time she’d witnessed it, up close and very personal. The rosy flags that flared on his cheekbones, how his eyes had gone from bright blue to dark as dusk. How his lips parted, just begging for a tongue to be slipped into the gap.
This time wasn’t quite that. His lips hadn’t parted, but all the rest? Check and check.
Why she’d reacted like such a brat out there wouldn’t stand up to any scrutiny. Getting attention from a boy by being a jerk was so sixth grade. On the upside, the encounter had left her warm and feeling mildly victorious. And more important, it had distracted her from the battle her mom and brother were trying to draw her into via text.
When she’d turned her phone on before Chloe arrived, fifteen messages had rolled in at once, all from her mother. She didn’t talk to her mom for weeks at a time, then, on the day Jenna leaves town, there’s suddenly an urgent need for Jenna to call, to speak to her brother, to do something, because he won’t listen to his mother, or some shit.
Please.
The last thing she wanted to do this weekend was deal with her troubled parent, but her phone continued to vibrate as her mom and brother both looped her in on the argument. Jenna sent her own flurry of texts, to her mom and Stephen separately, telling them to figure it out because she was turning off her phone for the entire weekend. Then she did, trying not to feel guilty for leaving her baby brother on his own to deal with their parent. He was eighteen. He didn’t need Jenna’s protection anymore.
She stuffed her phone in her tote and rocked back and forth to relieve the ungodly pain in her feet. These cheap, pink cowboy boots had to go. Rob had scored a point with that jab. What the hell had she been thinking, wearing these damn things? She raised her foot behind her and accidentally kicked someone.
Her hand went up instinctively when she spun to apologize, and her fingers met the soft cotton of a dress shirt and surprisingly firm pecs beneath. Rob glared at her hand, then at her.
“Oh, it’s you.” Without her highest heels on, Jenna only came up to his nose, a disparity he exploited by looking down on her, physically and otherwise. “Why are you crowding me?” She tried to straighten her arm to back him off, but he didn’t budge. Instead, she wound up taking a step back.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“I thought you were going to the barn.” She never had understood his thing for horses. According to Chloe, it had spawned from some Scout organization he’d joined as a kid, but that didn’t mean much. Jenna had been a Scout for a year, too. Didn’t mean she was obsessed with cookies.
Of course, Rob had been more serious about it. He spent his high school summers working at a horse-therapy ranch, helping kids on the autism spectrum and teaching emotionally troubled foster kids to care for the ranch’s horses and dogs. He was so pure. No wonder he’d become a professor instead of an attack-dog lawyer.
Jenna, on the other hand, had spent her summers working at DQ and eating cookie-dough ice cream. It had taken her four years after graduating from the University of Washington to land her dream job as a digital video editor for Talos, a tech-centric philanthropic organization. She worked on their endangered species film projects. Not a bad way for a creative techie to earn a living.
“How is this weekend going to go, Jenna?” Rob’s sharp tone dragged her out of her thoughts, and she found him practically on top of her. “Are we going to be civil, or do we have to avoid each other?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Does civil include your nose down my shirt?”
Rob’s head jerked up. “My nose wasn’t— Don’t be ridiculous.”
She was just trying to yank his chain, but from his vantage point, he could probably see down to the little bow in the center of her bra. “Define civility for me, then.”
“Behaving like normal people. Not having you trying to get a rise out of me every time we are near each other.” His eyes bored into hers, as if it took everything he had not to glance downward.
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