The Hotter You Burn (The Original Heartbreakers 2)

“Wouldn’t matter to me if you were interested,” he managed to grit out. “You deserve to be happy.”

“I won’t be. Not with her.”

He said that now. But if Harlow came after him with all she had, West would eventually give in. She wasn’t the kind of woman a man could resist for long.

Beck almost kicked the wall again. Not grounded, after all.

West stood, patted him on the shoulder. “I love you, man, and I would never do anything to upset you.”

“I love you, too. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

Unconvinced, his friend said, “Nothing is more important to me than your happiness. You stood by me when I was nothing but a junkie. You supported me every time I tried to get clean and cheered me on when I finally found the strength. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

Beck stared into his friend’s concerned gaze a minute longer, certain the guy had romanticized their past. Help? Him? No. Then he cut the tension with an insolent shrug. “Right now I’m going to need you to get lost. If you think a mug this gorgeous happens naturally, you’re wrong. I need my beauty z’s.”

West lingered as if he had more to say, sighed, then finally left, quietly shutting the door behind him.

CHAPTER NINE

SLEEP NEVER CAME. Beck tossed and turned for hours before finally giving up, climbing out of bed with a dark curse and dressing. He had to get out of here.

He drove without a destination in mind, ending up in the city, at his favorite hotel bar. He drank way too much whiskey and flirted with every woman who approached him. His go-to type of woman. The kind he’d always preferred. Easy and fun. No muss, no fuss. But after a while, the strangest thing happened. The women began to irritate him. They coyly played with locks of his hair while leaning into him to give him a whiff of too much perfume and a glance at ample cleavage. Predators determined to use him for his goods and services.

Eventually he became gruff and rude, and they scattered. Good riddance!

He threw back a few more shots of whiskey before acquiring a room. He sobered by morning and called West to mention he wouldn’t be making it into the office. Then he phoned a woman he’d once hired to try to get Jase out of prison early. A woman he’d never slept with, putting business first.

Patricia, a thirty-five-year-old defense attorney, had always seemed as leery of commitment as he was. She wouldn’t make him feel as if he teetered on the brink of collapse. She wouldn’t demand a relationship, and she wouldn’t make him feel as if his entire world was careening out of control.

Harlow wanted West. Fine. She could have him. Beck wouldn’t stand in her way. He would return to his old ways. What he preferred.

He picked Patricia up at her condo in the heart of Oklahoma City. Her walls were beige, and seeing them made him want to put a fist through them. But he merely flirted as they ate dinner at Mickey Mantle’s, keeping things nice and light. Afterward they walked through Bricktown. Gold, pink and purple lights shone from multiple buildings, reflecting off the canal as ducks swam past. The air was cool, the perfect temperature, but missing the scent of wild strawberries.

The scent of home, as necessary as his heart or his lungs.

When had that happened? At first, he’d hated the inherent sweetness and had actually missed the smell of car exhaust, clashing perfumes and colognes.

“Whoa there, tiger. Your grip is crushing me.” Patricia shook free of his hold, then withdrew an electric cigarette from her purse. She took a drag, vapor wafting on the breeze. “Something wrong?”

Get it together. “I’m with you. What could possibly be wrong?” How easily those words would have fallen from his lips in the past. Tonight? He cringed inside.

Patricia studied him, her eyes shrewd. “I know you’re only telling me what you think I want to hear, but that’s okay. I like what I’m hearing.” She straightened his tie, and he almost backed away—like a puss—as if even that much contact was a betrayal to Harlow. “Let’s go back to my place and forget the rest of the world exists.”

A moment of bliss, nothing more, nothing less.

A moment without Harlow. The only woman he really wanted.

The ache in his chest, the one that had plagued him since he’d first met her, returned full force. Damn it, if he wanted to get over her, he had to get inside Patricia. But using another woman as a substitute was as ugly to him now as it had been with Kimberly.

Why? Sex was just sex. Right?

How can I know the truth when I’ve never experienced something better?

“Shit,” he snarled. He pulled Patricia off the redbrick path and onto cement, out of the way of passersby. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry. I want to, but I can’t.”

Her eyes rounded. “You’re kidding me, right? I’ve seen you in action. You’ve never said can’t before.”

“I know, but things have...changed.” Just saying the word was more painful than taking a double right cross to the jaw.

Patricia sputtered for a moment. “You, Beck Ockley, are committed to someone?”

He tried to think of something to say to lighten the mood—there’s no one else in the world when I’m with you, sweetheart—but much as he tried, he didn’t have the energy to charm and flatter. He released his breath and accepted the truth, finally nodding. “She doesn’t want me, and right now, I’m not even sure I like her, but still she has this pull on me.”