Free Iced by Diane Adams Page A

which was the main thing that had led to our parting ways the last time. Now I wasn’t looking for anything well defined either. I didn’t know where things might go, or not go, with Z, and I was still a little heart-sore over hurting Jake. I didn’t want serious, and Adam’s free thinking, fluid way of living his life was perfect. We’d hooked up several times recently and he was just as much fun, and just as hot, as I remembered. At six feet tall, with close-cropped curly brown hair, dark eyes, and a body well developed from frequent gym visits, he was a walking wet dream. Add his naturally optimistic nature to the mix and he was a pleasant person to have around; not a bad thing at all for someone as perpetually moody as I am.
     
    My desire for company won out over my need to pretend I was cooling off. The truth was the sluggish 90º temp wasn’t affected very much by the frantic whirring of the electric fan. I leaned over and snagged the phone just before it reached the end of the song. My practiced thumb hit the talk button.
     
    “Yeah?” I said, turning on the speaker phone. I dropped it on my lap and laid my head back against the couch.
     
    “Thought I’d come by,” Adam said. Just the sound of his voice made my dick demand a vote. I frowned. Heat. Sex was heat.
     
    “It’s hot,” I whined. Adam laughed. He almost always laughed when I whined. I guessed it was good for me, but mostly it seemed annoying.
     
    “Of course it’s hot, you’re there,” he teased in his best sultry voice, which was pretty damn good. Adam was something when it came to phone sex. More heat curled in my belly, which was not good at all.
     
    “No, no, no—too hot.” My protest was weak; it was hard to sound convincing when your dick wanted to be included in the conversation. I shifted position on the sofa, seeking a cooler spot and giving thanks to the furniture gods that it was covered in cloth and not leather. Adam laughed again. Jerk.
     
    “Never too hot,” he said. “I’ll be there in a bit.” And the phone went dead. I cracked an eye to look at it. Adam was coming. Things were going to get a whole lot hotter. Maybe if I took a cold shower... but not even the thought of cold water streaming over my steamy flesh got me to move off the couch. I closed my eyes and waited for the inevitable knock on the door.
     

     
    I was in a heat induced stupor by the time the knock came. “Come in,” I yelled without moving. The door opened and closed but I was dozing again and couldn’t be bothered by little things like opening my eyes to say hello.
     
    “Holy crap,” Adam muttered from somewhere near the front door. He hadn’t come the rest of the way in, so I opened my eyes to see what he was doing over there. Turned out he was staring—at me. I got a brief vision of how I must look to him, spread eagle on the couch, skin glistening with sweat. My smile should have been smug; instead it was just grateful that I looked hotter than my sweaty rumpled self felt. His eyes were hot and he kept them fixed on me as he walked across the room to the kitchen. I started to get up but he waved me back down.
     
    “Stay there,” he said. “This won’t take a minute.” I took him at his word and let my eyes close, listening to him messing around in the kitchen. The refrigerator opened and closed, water ran, and I dozed off again listening to him talk to Nicky. Back when we were going out the first time, he’d bought a puppy just like Nicky. I’d thought he was in love with me and the puppy was an attempt to give us something in common; turned out he’d just wanted a puppy. The memory wasn’t hurtful. I’d worried for a long time that he was more involved than I was because of that little misunderstanding. It was weird that in the end it was the other way around. Ah well, no harm, no foul. We’d both emerged from our last involvement mostly unscathed; it gave us very little baggage to worry about this time