Burn 2 by Dawn Steele Read Free Book Online

herself.
    She li ked to be by herself more and more lately, after her breakup with Ari.
    She thought about Ari from time to time. Thought about how his hands opened wide as they slid down her stomach and then lower, between her parted thighs. She thought about how his fingers would tease her clit – rubbing and flipping it from side to side.
    Ari was one year younger than she was, but he was far more skilled than she in the erotic arts. She was still on a discovery phase, but he was already on Intermediate, or whatever level they gave out for such things.
    Ari was the one she lost her virginity to.
    She remembered her first time with him. How she was so afraid it would hurt.
    “It’ll hurt,” he said.
    “That’s reassuring,” she said.
    He laughed. His dark eyes were flashy and his curly hair a mussed-up mess every time they made out on the couch or whatever surface they could make out on. And there were plenty of flat surfaces in bayou country, as well as plenty of secluded spots. You just had to watch out for mosquitoes, alligators and snakes, in that order.
    Abby went to school in New Orleans, as did Ari. But it was summer and he came down for a visit. He had a sole purpose for that visit, and it was to take her virginity.
    He picked her up at her plantation house. He whistled when he saw how large the place was.
    “You never told me you were rich,” he said.
    She blushed. “I’m not rich. My father is rich.”
    “Same thing.”
    “Not quite.” Though she knew that was not technically true. She would come into part of the inheritance her grandfather left her when she was eighteen, as did her father before her.
    Ari drove a twenty-year-old Chevy.
    “My Dad gave it to me,” he said proudly as she hopped in. “Where’s your Dad?”
    “At the factory.”
    “Your father works in a factory.”
    “Yeah. He has a job like everyone else.”
    He shot her a quizzical look and stepped on the gas. They were off, and she had never felt so happy.
    After a while, he said, “Let me guess. He owns the factory, right?”
    She didn’t like his line of questioning. It had too much to do with her family finances, and she was trying to play down that fact. In school, she never let anyone know she was rich, though there were rumors that she was moneyed. She lived a normal life like everyone else, living with her aunt in New Orleans during the months she went to school and going back to Cat’s Creek during the weekends to visit her Dad.
    She said, “Yeah, but really, it’s a job like anyone else’s.”
    He said, “My Dad has a real job. He’s a stockbroker.”
    “Can we not talk about this?”
    He glanced at her and grinned. “OK.”
    A pause.
    Then he said: “I can think of a lot of things I’d rather talk about. Then again, I’d rather not be talking . . . if you know what I mean?”
    She blushed again. Oh yeah, they had ‘talked’ about this many times. About her going the final step.
    “Do you know any place we can shag up in without raising suspicion?” he said.
    She had thought about it. She had thought about it all week when she knew he would be coming to visit.
    She nodded. “Yeah. I know a place.”
     
    *
     
    She brought him to the log cabin. He loved it from his first sight of it.
    “Neat,” he said, alighting from the car and looking all around.
    She smiled. She knew he would like it.
    “And this place is, what . . . ten thousand miles away from civilization?” he teased.
    “Sort of. Come in and take a look.”
    She had the key to the front door. She inserted in and the charming wooden door opened with a creak.
    Inside, the central air-conditioning was kept on eve n when the house was unoccupied – to battle rot and damp. The sudden cool made the humidity-inspired sweat on her body turn clammy. The mission-styled furnishings were rustic and charming, with coated log walls, a high-beamed ceiling and a huge brick fireplace. The floors were polished flagstone, and there was a large Indian