Take the Heat

“So, you found them.” His voice gave him away. Gravelly and thick with leftover sleep.

“You bought my paintings,” I said, shaken.

“Yeah, well. You’re a good artist. I always said that.”

He had told me that. Back when we’d been kids and I’d squeezed every last drop from the tubes of paint to make them last. Later, I’d assumed he was just being nice to the little girl from the same trailer park, the one with a crush on him.

My tongue felt tied up in knots. “You said you’d wait for me.”

“I said I’d wait for you to grow up. And you did.”

“Then why…all this?” I waved my hand. Why the Magnolia Hotel and my brother? Why force me?

“Would you have come any other way?”

No, he was right about that. I would have slammed the door in his face, hurt about what he had turned into. Afraid of it. He still scared me, but I also knew now that he loved me.

He shrugged. “I told you. I’m not a martyr. I take what’s mine.”

But he wouldn’t really, I knew that too. What he’d said as he came over me, that it might be our last time, it was because he wouldn’t force me to be here if I didn’t want to. He wouldn’t force me to come back.

There was only one problem with that. I wanted to stay.

“I won’t fight you,” I whispered.

He tried to hide how that affected him; he really did. He swallowed and looked away. “Grace, I know this is wrong.”

I shook my head, but he didn’t see. So I went up to him. I reached out and turned his chin toward me. His gaze met mine. I reached down, to that honest and vulnerable place, the same place I painted from. “This is the only thing that’s ever been right in my life.”

I meant him, most of all. But I also meant the Magnolia Hotel and the sex we’d had and the unholy deal we had made. They were all connected now, meshed like paint on the canvas, inseparable.

His eyes burned with emotion, spilling over. “I’m never going to let you leave.”

And I took it for the promise it was. He took me again, right there in the office, making a mess on the antique desk. He made love to me there and in every single room, and I loved the Magnolia Hotel after all.

Unlawful Seduction

Pam Godwin

At some point in Dev’s forensics career, he’d landed smack in the middle of Kansas, where the people were as predictable and mundane as their crimes. And now in the hard thrust of winter, he questioned the wisdom of choosing a place where the windchill sucked his dick into his body and dried out his balls.

But Ms. Joni Torpey wasn’t flying in from LA to meet with him about the weather. The ass-clenching journalist represented Flotter Film, a documentary production company. She was due for their seven PM meeting to interview him on the motivations of sex crimes, a subject in which he’d received numerous accreditations. Detective Devon Burgess, the country’s leading expert in paraphilic behavior. An authority on serial debauchery and sexual rituals.

There was a reason he understood the blurred lines between arousal and transgression. It was the same reason he’d left his niche in New Orleans, the city of temptation. But no one knew about that. Besides, it wasn’t that bad. He was still employed in detective work. He was still considered an expert. He still hadn’t acted out his darkest fantasies.

The heady roast of coffee flavored the air and warmed Dev’s gut. He swallowed the smoky dregs of his second cup, and swung a foot over his knee. He’d chosen the chair by the fireplace for its angled view of the back counter and the front door.

The only two customers—men who were too young to spark his sexual interests—straddled old wood chairs at the bar and frowned at their handheld devices. Buttery leather couches and low-lit lamps invited extended lounging. The coffee shop was reminiscent of a rich man’s den and not much larger.

The twentysomething barista fidgeted with the espresso machine. She kept her eyes down but grumbled to herself with more volume than was needed. If she wanted male attention, she should lose her eternal scowl. It was remarkable how much one could achieve with a smile alone.

The door rattled open. He shifted his focus to the glass counter filled with specialty cheeses and pastries, keeping the entrance in his periphery. Casual and unassuming, he was a man enjoying a coffee in a little hidden nook. He was not a leashed predator, scoping and waiting for something…enticing. Like an unsuspecting man or woman to follow home, with begging lips to gag and a tight body to paint with his come.

His cock twitched against the seam of his slacks, but his desires were internal, stalking him and him alone.

A gust of frigid air bustled in with the shuffle of heels. In a tangle of long blonde hair, a woman skidded to a stop in the entryway. She rubbed her hands together, staring at them with a shell-shocked look on her face. Then she glanced up at the barista and the two men at the bar, and blinked rapidly. “I’m not from around here, but seriously, it’s as cold as…” She sniffed. “Okay, nothing’s that cold. I just lost my friginity out there.”

And just like that, grins sprouted through the room, cracking every expression, including his.