Excerpt of Hot and Bothered by Dianne Castell

Griff’s neck snapped as someone grabbed his tie and yanked him inside the carriage house, the dark interior making it impossible to see who did the yanking.

“What the...!” he gasped as the wood door clicked closed. He stumbled, his body flattening a woman’s against the wall giving him a soft landing that made the choking worth it. He caught the faint aroma of coffee and doughnuts as breasts swelled against his chest, his body reacting as if he hadn’t had sex in months. Hell, maybe he hadn’t. “Charlotte?” he croaked through a shrinking trachea.

“We need to talk.”

“Wish I could.” He loosened his tie and gave a quick glance around the narrow hall, his eyes adjusting to the dim light. “Consider using a telephone?”

“Someone might overhear and I know you don’t want that and I was heading for my house to change and I saw you coming and...” She took a deep breath, her face scrunched in question as she peered up at him. “So why did you really come to the office?”

“The will? The missing daughter? Keeping things quiet? Stop me if you’ve heard this before. You sure you didn’t whack your head when you fell off that chair?”

Her breath came fast and getting faster. Her eye lit with fire, even in the dim light he could tell. “Why me?” she whispered, the implication having nothing to do with the case but the two of them together now in this hallway after all these years of dancing around.

His brain refused to function probably because the part of his anatomy below his belt was over functioning. “You run an ad in the yellow pages.” Maybe? He had no idea about anything right now except Charlotte and wanting to kiss her and knowing he shouldn’t. Things between them were complicated, always had been and getting worse by the minute. He studied her delicious mouth wanting and waiting for his. Make that getting more complicated by the second and if his plan worked, complicated would be a huge understatement and their lives would be totally fucked.

He touched Charlotte’s cheek, her skin soft and smooth as her body leaned into his, setting him on fire.

“We don’t have an ad.” She bit her bottom lip. “You’re right, I should have phoned,” she said with a shiver. “But we’re here now.” She yanked his tie again, bringing his face to hers and she kissed him right on the mouth, her lips full and moist and delicious and opening. Did they have to open! Closed lips were a lot easier to dismiss but this was not a dismiss kind of kiss especially since he’d wanted it for so many damn years he lost count.

She released his tie, her arms sliding around his neck as his tongue toughed hers and he lost his mind. Dumbass!

Their tongues mated and his hands dropped to her sweet round bottom pressing her softness to his hardening dick. There’d always been an attraction between them but this was pure jump-her-bones-and-do-her-right-now lust... and he liked it more than he ever imagined.

She sucked his bottom lip into her mouth, the motion suggestive as hell as her legs parted nesting his erection tight against her heat. God she had great heat! He slid his hands into the waistband of her skirt, her firm rump fitting so well into his palms. His mind warped, there was a ringing sound...no kiss or ass-grabbing had ever made his head ring before, especially to the tune of Moon River...A Johnny Mercer song...his favorite. Ah fuck! His cell!

It was like a bucket of freezing snow dumped on his head and instant sanity punt gut-tightening lust through the goalpost of are you out of your freaking mind? He stepped back, his vision clearing, his body in big pain from what it wanted but couldn’t have.

“I...I didn’t come here for this,” Charlotte panted as she raked her red tangle of curls away from her flushed face. “Least I don’t think I did, not that I’m complaining. I am so not complaining.”

“It has nothing to do with thinking. In fact, not thinking is what got us both to this point.” Did that make sense? Nothing right now made sense.

She stared at him, her eyes liquid green pools, her lips parted, Moon River jarring his brain. He wanted nothing more than to stomp the phone flat and take her fast and hard and deep right here against the wall satisfying what they’ve both ached for, for half their lives. Instead she yanked opened the door and ran off into the bright sunlight leaving him with the biggest hard-on of his whole damn life.

He knew when he stepped into that office only Charlotte would be there, alone without RL, and that he didn’t have a choice in what he had to do and that things could get sticky. He hadn’t planned on it getting this sticky this fast. Damn Otis! Damn his damn cock. Griff snapped open the phone and growled, “What!”