Kate Hoffmann - Hot & Bothered

He gently teased at her nipple through her silk blouse.

Libby thought back to the night they’d spent together twelve years ago, to the trust he’d broken. If she let him touch her again, then she’d be doomed to suffer that humiliation all over again.

“Please don’t do this to me,” she begged.

“What is this, Libby? Just because you deny the desire between us, it isn’t going to go away.” Trey took her face between his hands and kissed her. “I was there in your bed the other night,” he murmured against her mouth. “I know what I made you feel.”

She drew a ragged breath and backed out of his embrace. “That was lust,” Libby said, her voice thin and tight. “One night was enough.”

He stared into her eyes, as if searching her soul for answers. “One night every twelve years? Hell, if that’s all I can hope for, then I guess I’ll see you in another twelve.” Then he turned and walked out.

Dear Reader,

I’ve traveled back to the South for the setting of my newest Harlequin Temptation novel, Hot & Bothered. And while you might be reading this book on a warm summer day, it was written in the midst of a snowy Wisconsin winter.

Trey Marbury and Libby Parrish are caught in both a meteorological heat wave and a heat wave of their own making in the fictional town of Belfort, South Carolina. Those of you familiar with the Low Country might recognize the real town that Belfort is based upon, although I’m not sure that a real Southern town would have quite so many charming and eccentric characters living within its limits. Or maybe it would. Maybe that’s exactly what I love so much about the South.

In any case, I hope you enjoy the ideas Trey and Libby come up with to beat the heat….

Happy reading,

Kate Hoffmann

HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

795—ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT

821—MR. RIGHT NOW

847—THE MIGHTY QUINNS: CONNOR

851—THE MIGHTY QUINNS: DYLAN

855—THE MIGHTY QUINNS: BRENDAN

933—THE MIGHTY QUINNS: LIAM

937—THE MIGHTY QUINNS: BRIAN

941—THE MIGHTY QUINNS: SEAN

963—LEGALLY MINE

Hot & Bothered

Kate Hoffmann

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Epilogue

A BUMBLEBEE BUZZED in lazy circles around a potted jasmine, the sound breaking the silence of the oppressive midday heat. A few steps away on the wide veranda of the house on Charles Street, the Throckmorton sisters stirred the heavy afternoon air with rice-paper fans. A silver tray rested on the table between their two wicker chairs, holding a pitcher of iced tea and two sweaty glasses.

“We’re doomed,” Eulalie Throckmorton said, her fan fluttering like the wings of a hummingbird.

Eudora Throckmorton took in the morose expression on her twin sister’s face and sighed. “It’s just the heat, Lalie. When I’m drenched in perspiration, I don’t feel like chatting. Neither do the rest of the ladies of the Thursday Ladies’ Bridge and Luncheon Club.”

“But it was as quiet as a Quaker wake.”

Eudora shifted in her chair. “If you’d just agree to install air-conditionin’ in the house, then we wouldn’t have this problem. Grace Rose Alston just had air-conditionin’ put in her house and she says it’s been a godsend with this mid-summer heat.”

“We don’t need air-conditionin’, Dora. We have this lovely veranda. Mama and Papa lived here for over fifty years and they never had air-conditionin’. Besides, we’d just shut ourselves up in the house and never see our neighbors strolling by. Out here, we’re part of the world. Good gracious, if I wanted to live in the cool and dark, I’d run down to Wilbur Varner’s funeral home, buy myself a nice coffin and move in next to Mama and Papa at the cemetery.”

“There’s no need to get all dramatic about it,” Eudora replied. “I swear, you’ve always had a way of pilin’ on the agony. You should have taken up a career on the stage. You could have given that Driving Miss Daisy lady a run for her money.”

“And you should be sellin’ gadgets on the Home Shopping Network, with your fondness for new-fangled inventions. Need I remind you that we have an electric juicer sittin’ in our kitchen that you’ve never even used?”

“Air-conditionin’ is not a new-fangled invention,” Eudora countered. “Some would argue it’s a necessity in the heat of a South Carolina summer. And we are approachin’ an age where personal comfort is all we can look forward to on a good day.”

“Let’s be honest, Dora. It isn’t our lack of a temperature-controlled environment that will spell the end of our beloved bridge club. It’s the shortage of decent gossip. There’s just nothin’ left to talk about in this backwater town!”

The Thursday Ladies’ Bridge and Luncheon Club was nearly a century old. Founded by Eulalie and Eudora’s grandmother and a group of her friends, members were all prominent socialites in the town of Belfort, South Carolina. The club was a Belfort institution that had weathered two World Wars, Prohibition, the Great Depression and an attempted seditious coup by several members who wanted to replace the bridge games with gin rummy. But through it all, the ladies had always shared lively conversation among the sixteen members. Eulalie might call it gossip, but Eudora preferred to think of it as…illuminating discourse.

“Maybe we should consider bringin’ in some new members,” Eudora suggested. “Some ladies who might have some interestin’ topics to share. I met a lovely widow at the Winn-Dixie who just moved from New York City.”

“The ladies would never tolerate a Yankee.” Eulalie shook her head. “Besides, we’ve always had sixteen members and until one of our ladies goes to her great reward, we can’t bring in a new member. It’s in our bylaws, and you should know our bylaws since you’ve served as president twice!”

“According to Charlotte Villiers, she herself is circlin’ the drain as we speak,” Eudora muttered. “If I have to listen to one more recitation of her medical woes, I do believe I might just get great-granddaddy’s dueling pistol from the gun cabinet and kill her myself.”

Eulalie chuckled, her mood lifting at her sister’s audacious remarks. Still, this was serious business. If the bridge club struggled under her watch as president, the ladies might find some way to put the blame on her. “It wouldn’t have to be anything major,” she murmured. “Just somethin’ juicy. Perhaps a nice political scandal would spice things up. Bribery, blackmail, corruption. Or even better, a scandal of the—” she lowered her voice to a whisper “—private kind, if you catch my meanin’. You know, I always believed Desmond Whitley was a homosexual. Maybe we could convince him that this would be a nice time to come out of the woodshed.”