Free BTW: I Love You (Mills & Boon M&B) (One Hot Fling - Book 1) by Heidi Rice Page A

she sounded prissy. But she wasn’t about to go into the sordid details of her childhood—and the real reason the thought of workplace sex made her nauseous. This conversation had already got far too personal. ‘Can I go now?’ she said, making it very clear it wasn’t a request.
    ‘Sure,’ he said, finally letting go of the handle.
    She leapt out of the car, determined not to look back.
    ‘Goodbye, Maddy. And thanks for an incredible evening.’
    The statement sounded genuine—and final—and she turned back without intending to.
    He shot her a casual salute. Was that supposed to be ironic? But, as the car sped off down the road, the tail lights disappearing into the darkness, Maddy felt the brutal pulse of heat at her core and the strange little hiccup in her heartbeat. And despised herself for it.
    She walked to the cottage, took the key from under the eaves of the porch entrance, determined to wipe the pointless spurt of melancholy at his departure from her consciousness. But, as she shut the door and leant back against it, glad to be back in the homely surroundings, she noticed the vacant spot in her hallway where she parked her bike. Her head dropped back against the door with an audible thud.
    ‘Damn.’
    She hadn’t seen the last of Rye King after all.
    Rye braked at the junction and swore. Her bike was still in the boot of the car. He shifted into reverse, looked over his shoulder. Then stopped. And swung back round.
    He couldn’t go back, not yet. Everything was too damn close to the surface. He’d behaved like a jerk back at the house. The mention of her former boyfriend and then Phil had made something coil in his stomach that he didn’t understand. And suddenly he’d had to know whether she’d slept with his friend. He’d handled the situation badly, though. He could see that now. Accusing her when all he’d really meant to do was ask.
    But why had he been so determined to know?
    He rubbed his thigh, the muscles cramping, shifted back into first and accelerated.
    Probably temporary insanity, brought on by extreme stress.Bringing her to orgasm, watching her come apart in his arms had been incredible—but rediscovering all the wonders of a woman’s body had brought with it a painful side effect. He’d spent the whole afternoon and most of the evening hard as a rock. And he suspected he had a sleepless night ahead of him, lying in a bed still infused with her spicy exotic scent.
    The desire to bury himself deep inside her had been all but unstoppable and, while he’d welcomed the pain in many ways because it signified the return of his libido, by the time she’d strolled into the kitchen and he’d listened to her putting on her freshly laundered clothes while he scrambled eggs, his control and his willpower had pretty much reached breaking point.
    He hadn’t been in the mood for polite conversation. So, when she’d asked him that innocuous question, he’d had to stop himself from snapping her head off. He’d been sure he knew what was coming.
    When he’d re-entered London society after the accident, he’d been brutally aware of the hushed whispers when he entered a room, the furtive glances at the sight of his ruined leg. Women in particular had tiptoed around the subject of his disability, trying to make him feel better by either not referring to it or referring to it all the time.
    He’d expected Maddy to be like all the rest.
    But she’d surprised him again. She’d genuinely forgotten about it. Her astonished response to his snarled accusation hadn’t only been refreshing, it had been a revelation. Forcing him to face the fact that, after six long months, instead of dwelling on what he had lost, maybe it was about time he started making the most of what he had. The fact that, since Maddy Westmore had stepped into his life, he now had much more than he thought, hadn’t escaped him either.
    But the minute that bolt had hit him, another had struck him right afterwards. He still