Smokin' Hot by Lynn LaFleur Read Free Book Online

before she could stop it. She appreciated the change of subject, but hadn’t expected him to say anything like that. “What?”
    “Everyone has done something crazy, something they wish they hadn’t done. I know you have, too.” He stretched his arm along the back of the couch, his fingers barely an inch from her shoulder. “Tell me about it.”
    Julia sipped her wine while she thought back over some of the things she’d done that she probably shouldn’t have. Several things popped into her mind, but one stood out among all the others.
    “Okay, I’ll tell you, but remember it was for a good cause, so you can’t laugh.”
    “I won’t crack a smile,” he said, his tone serious, but his eyes twinkling with humor.
    A little unsure whether she should tell Stephen something so personal or not, she took another sip of wine for courage. “I . . . posed for a calendar.”
    Stephen blinked. “Excuse me?”
    “It was a fund-raiser for a wing of one of the local hospitals. A bunch of the gals in the Forest Service posed for a calendar three years ago.”
    “How did you pose?”
    “In a pair of really short denim cutoffs and a pink tank top.” She stopped and cleared her throat. “A wet pink tank top.”
    She saw his throat work as he swallowed. “Bra or no bra?”
    “No undies at all.”
    He released a low whistle. His gaze briefly dipped to her breasts. “Do you still have any of those calendars?”
    “I kept three or four, but they’re in storage at my mom’s.”
    “Damn,” he muttered.
    He sounded so disappointed, she couldn’t help but laugh. “Sorry. I guess I shouldn’t have told you without being able to show you.”
    “You can model your outfit for me any time.”
    He sounded like a little boy asking for a puppy for Christmas. Julia struggled not to laugh again. “You’re much too eager.”
    “Well, you can’t blame a guy for trying.” He took another sip of his wine. “I guess since you told me a secret, I should tell you one, too.”
    “I love secrets.”
    “Do you have a computer?”
    His question threw her for a moment. She didn’t understand what a computer had to do with telling her a secret. “I have a laptop in my room.”
    “Great.” He set his wineglass on the coffee table, took her hand, and tugged her up from the couch. “I want to show you something online.”
    Julia set down her glass, then led the way to her bedroom. She stopped by the small desk beneath the window, turned on the lamp, and gestured to her laptop. “Go for it.”
    “Are you connected to the Internet?”
    “Yes, Dolly has wireless.”
    She stood behind his left shoulder and watched as Stephen opened the computer, started the browser, and keyed in an address. A Web site for something called Hot Shots popped up.
    “What is Hot Shots ?”
    “It’s a magazine published by Maysen Halliday. She’s the girlfriend of our fire chief, Clay Spencer. Maysen came here last month to do an article about the fire department. She fell in love with our town, and with Clay.” He looked at her over his shoulder and grinned wickedly. “We were voted the sexiest firefighters in Texas by the magazine’s readers.”
    She’d met few of the firefighters so far, but the ones she’d seen in Boot Scootin’ last night would definitely qualify for the sexiest something.
    Stephen added more letters to the URL address. “She came up with the idea of putting together a calendar as a fund-raiser to help us buy our new tanker truck. It’s supposed to come out in September.”
    A page full of thumbnails appeared when Stephen pressed the return key. “She put all the pictures on a hidden page on her Web site so we can see them.” He scrolled down the page, bypassing several photos of hunky men . . . some in full firefighter gear, some in only pants, some alone, some in groups. She got a glimpse of a few pictures of females before he stopped scrolling. “Here it is.”
    He double clicked on the picture. Stephen’s face filled