Free The 48 Hour Hookup (Chase Brothers) by Sarah Ballance

catch it. But he did, and held her just a little closer, just in case she needed it. Louder, she said, “Scars can be arranged.”
    She seemed so sweet on television that he couldn’t imagine her leaving behind collateral damage, unless she used the chainsaw, but his mind had gone straight for the sex-induced kind. The idea of her dragging her nails down his back had him as hard as any one of those stones that made up that massive, wall-sized fireplace.
    “Some people like it rough,” he said, teasing her. And even though he’d known her less than 12 hours, it felt like real flirting, not like another mouth seizure.
    “If I liked you at all,” she said with an adorable, mischievous grin, “rough could be arranged.”
    “You like me,” he said without hesitation, feeling a bit hopeful, not that he’d tell her that.
    “I might like you,” she admitted.
    Well, that didn’t make him the least bit harder—something he hadn’t thought possible. For her to tease him left him wondering what else was there, just waiting to be uncovered. Beyond the literal, that was, because the stretchy pants she wore, without an inch of skin visible, showed off enough to convince him it was going to be a kickstand problem kind of night.
    “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, meaning every word.
    There wasn’t a thing about that moment that wasn’t surreal, starting with how he’d gotten there and ending with the fact that they were drinking wine straight out of a shared bottle, but mostly centered around the fact Claire Stevens was no runaway bride. The rest of the world might see her that way, but she was the kind of woman—sexy with a smart mouth and a wicked sense of humor—he couldn’t hope to hold. Only, inexplicably, he was.
    And she was letting him.
    He didn’t drink enough of the wine to feel it, but he felt every inch of her, soft and warm. Especially a couple hours later, after the alcohol was gone and the fire was once again reduced to a pile of glowing embers. Eventually, amid the kind of small and not-so-small talk he didn’t think himself capable, they’d ended up stretched out on that rug, burrowed beneath blankets, talking about silly stuff like pizza toppings and overpriced designer bags and the time her second-grade boyfriend pulled her hair and she shoved him into a puddle. Her first breakup.
    She didn’t mention the last.
    Wanting her was as natural as breathing, but lying there with her felt nice, too, in a different, far more dangerous kind of way. Because for the first time in way too long, he was just Liam Chase, room-temperature HVAC guy.
    And she, Claire Stevens, runaway bride, wasn’t running.

Chapter Eight
    Claire hadn’t felt so blissfully warm in a long time, but it wasn’t just warmth. It was contentment. She’d felt off kilter since she caught her first fiancé in the supply closet, and she hadn’t really gotten back on an even keel since. She hadn’t realized it at the time, but her guard had been up with every guy she’d dated since, including her second fiancé and certainly making no exception of the blogger, despite the way he’d weaseled around that wariness. Not trusting sucked. Not trusting anyone and feeling the need to keep her guard up and her head down, lest anyone recognize her as the Runaway Bride, sucked even more.
    But right then, nothing sucked.
    Except for the fact that when morning came, heralded by rays of sunlight creeping through the dusty windows, she woke to find she’d ended up tangled with Liam, her head on his shoulder, and everything about that should have sucked, starting with the fact that she’d enjoyed it. She wanted to blame the wine, but in conjunction with that huge sandwich, there’s no way she felt it enough to lose touch with her inhibitions. And if she’d really lost touch with those , she’d have taken him up on that request to leave a mark.
    She could so leave a mark on that man.
    At least, she could here. In the woods, isolated from