Free The First Time Again: The Braddock Brotherhood, Book 3 by Barbara Meyers

thought she’d caught fire, the way everything he did made her hot. Her skin burned and her blood simmered. Surely she’d burst into flame. Though she’d only been fifteen, he made her body ache in ways it never had before or since.
    Somehow, he got her out of most of her clothes. His hands never seemed to still, and she was so caught up in the newness and excitement of being with a boy, along with having her normal inhibitions lowered courtesy of the beer buzz, that she didn’t protest.
    Trey’s skin was hot and slick beneath her fingertips. His shirt was unbuttoned and untucked, which gave her access to his entire upper body. All those boy muscles thrilled her. The scent of him intoxicated her. The hair on his chest tickled her fingers. She didn’t recall panicking when she heard the slide of his zipper. Not even when she felt the brush of him, foreign and completely male, against her thigh, or when he positioned himself between her legs, like a heat-seeking missile searching for access to its target.
    She was lost, swept away in the never-before-experienced sensation. But suddenly, like a broken reel of an old movie, everything stopped. With a sigh, Trey wilted above her, his weight crushing her. It took Baylee’s inebriated brain a moment to realize Trey was not moving. She was lying on a pile of straw in a dusty hayloft with her clothes undone or twisted around her and the dead weight of Trey Christopher on top of her.
    “Trey?” she whispered.
    He didn’t answer. Had he fallen asleep? Was she that boring? She shoved at him enough so she could get out from under him. Embarrassment burned her cheeks. She tugged her clothes back on or back into place, trying not to look at Trey, who was sprawled on his side, half-buried in the hay. His shirt was off his shoulders; his fly was still unzipped and he was sort of spilling out of it, but not in an attractive way. She looked away, embarrassed for him and disgusted with herself.
    She’d left him there as she half-stumbled, half-fell down the ladder from the loft. She found Jenny and Bart, both of whom were ready to leave. To this day, Jenny was the only other person who knew what had happened in the loft.
    Trey had graduated with his class two days later. Afterward he’d gone on a week-long class trip to the Bahamas. She had never seen him or heard from him again until last year at his grandmother’s funeral.
    Baylee jumped when she realized Trey had snapped his fingers not once but twice in front of her face. “What?” she said irritably, trying to hide the blush rising in her cheeks.
    “I said would you like more coffee? In fact, I said it twice. Are you prone to seizures or something?”
    “Of course not.”
    He gave her an assessing stare. “Well, you were definitely out of it.”
    He got up and retrieved the carafe from the counter and brought it back to the table to refill his mug. He lifted the carafe in her direction. She nodded and he topped hers off before taking his seat again.
    He’d finished eating and pushed the dirty dishes to the side. “Let’s talk.”
    Baylee added some more cream to her coffee. She composed herself, banishing the nightmarish memory to the furthest recesses of her mind, refusing to think about the impact it had had on her subsequent choices in life, and held Trey’s gaze.
    “Do you think you could work two days a week?”
    Baylee couldn’t help it. Her eyes bugged out and she set her mug down harder than she meant to on the scarred oak. “Two days? Are you that much of a slob?”
    Trey grinned and emitted a slight chuckle. “I was wondering if your duties extend beyond housecleaning.” He inclined his head in acknowledgment of the empty dishes next to him. “And cooking.”
    “That depends. What did you have in mind?”
    “Laundry, for one thing. Grocery shopping. Maybe the occasional errand.” He glanced toward the screen door. “I’d like to get my grandmother’s flower garden back in shape. At least pull the