Slow Burn by K. Bromberg Read Free Book Online Page A

door. Her words run through myhead over and over now that Howard Stern’s voice is no longer filling my ears.
We said no strings
. But there was no fucking
we
about it. She said no strings. She made it clear over and over that we were a one-night stand.
No strings, my ass
. I feel like she threw a goddamn lasso around me and pulled it tight.
    No strings, yeah … but rope? She didn’t say a fucking thing about any rope.
    I knew I should have done more to resist her advances last night, knew that one goddamn taste wouldn’t be enough. Shit, that’s why I’ve kept her at arm’s length this past year and a half. Haddie being sexy was a given, but getting tangled with her in the sheets was something I didn’t want to risk since she was Rylee’s best friend. And best friends dating best friends usually always turns ugly.
    So I tried to play it safe. Lot of good that did me since I fell off the cliff last night and don’t even think I want to be rescued from the rope I’m dangling from.
    I reach up and adjust my ball cap, and then I grab my bag out of the bed of the truck. This is the problem with pussy: When you want it you can’t get it, and when you don’t want it, you get it and then you can’t get it out of your fucking head.
    And fuck if I can erase sweet goddamn Haddie’s from owning my thoughts.
    “Hey, asshole?”
    The voice shocks me from my thoughts. I snap my head up and look toward the porch. “What the fuck are you doing here, Walker?”
    “Glad to see you too, dude,” my brother says as he leans over to get a sloppy kiss from Rex. He laughs and ruffles his fur before looking back up at me.
    I look around to make sure I didn’t miss seeing my brother’s truck on the way in, but nope, it’s not here. “I didn’t know you were going to be up here.” I pull my bag over my shoulder and start walking toward the old ranch house.
    “Yeah, well, it was last minute. Aubrey had a bachelorette party in Vegas.” He shrugs as he lifts the beer in his hand to his lips. “I figured I’d head out here for a couple of days while she was gone. Recharge. Relax. Become one with nature,” he says with a raise of his eyebrows as he repeats the motto our mom used to say when she hauled us off to this old house in Ojai. It has been in her family for years. We used to roll our eyes at the motto as kids, but understand it as adults.
    “My truck’s behind the barn. I was letting Raul use it,” he explains, causing me to look over toward the barn to see if the caretaker is there to wave a greeting to, but he’s nowhere in sight. “What’s your excuse for coming up?”
    “I was looking for some time.
Alone
,” I say as I climb the steps.
    “Oh, poor baby,” he teases. “Is my big brother sad that his bromance has been interrupted by a little wedding?”
    “Fuck off,” I tell him, even though I already know he’s not going to. He never does, when it comes to how close Colton and I are. “I just needed some R and R. I drank too much last night … thought I’d come up for the weekend and recover.
By myself
. Leave it to my dumb-ass little brother to ruin my plans.”
    He slaps my back and laughs. “Good thing he did, because he stocked the fridge with ice-cold beer.”
    “Seriously?”
Sweet
. Saves me the trip into town to get more.
    “Seriously. Dontcha love me now?” he says as he heads toward the kitchen while I head toward the bedroom to drop off my stuff.
    “I’d love you even more if you grabbed me one. Or two or three,” I yell down the hallway to him.
    Pulling the brim of my hat down, I sink down in the chair a bit more. The sun feels good on my skin and the ice-cold beer sliding down my throat feels even better. Walker keepsyakking on and on like a woman, and I tune him out. He definitely got our mother’s talk-about-fucking-nothing-ad-nauseam gene.
    I close my eyes, and my thoughts wander back toward last night. And then they drift to how fucking great the sex was. How great Haddie was.