The Hotter You Burn (The Original Heartbreakers 2)

What!

I mean, whatever. Wasn’t as if an old flame of Beck’s mattered. He never went back for seconds. “You are here to help me, right?” Harlow asked, hesitant.

“Yes,” Brook Lynn and Jessie said in unison.

“Yes?” Kenna asked. She was a beautiful woman, her hair like living flames, her eyes steel gray and her pale skin adorably freckled. And, lightbulb! She would be the perfect model for Midnight Romp, one of the characters in West’s game. Fierce avenger by day, seductress by night.

Harlow was making a mental note to ask her to model when Brook Lynn said, “So...how was the kiss?”

“Oh, she liked it, no doubt about it,” Jessie Kay piped up. “She didn’t have to tell me that part. I just know from experience.”

A twinge of jealousy. Not important, either.

“Jessie Kay is right. I liked it. But now I don’t know what to do about it,” Harlow said. “I would have done more than kiss him, but I want forever and he wants a single night, so we called it quits and now he’s treating me like I’m the devil.”

Kenna opened her mouth.

“I’m not,” Harlow insisted, and Kenna closed her mouth. “Not anymore.”

“This sounds made-up. Beck is always nice,” Jessie Kay said. “Even to his leftovers. Again, I know this from experience.”

“I guess I really ticked him off. But I have no idea how.”

Jessie Kay tapped a fingertip against her chin. “I have a suspicion, but I need more info before I voice it. Tell me how he’s treating you, exactly.”

Easy. “He snaps at me. He glares at me, and he’s stopped opening my car door for me. He doesn’t call me lollipop or dove.”

“Wait. Let’s backtrack just a bit. We want to help Harlow Glass...why?” Kenna asked.

“There’s a good chance she isn’t the girl we once knew,” Brook Lynn explained.

Not quite a shining endorsement, but she’d take it.

“So we like her now?” Kenna asked.

“We’re deciding.” Brook Lynn settled deeper into the chair. “But either way, we are helping her today.”

“Can you?” Harlow asked, not daring to hope. “What was your suspicion, Jessie Kay? You never said.”

“Well, I think he still wants you, despite your desire for forever. And since you denied him, and he thinks he can’t give you what you want, he’s acting like a baby whose favorite toy was taken away.”

The storm raging inside her stopped, just stopped, the sun suddenly shining brightly.

“Game changer, right?” Jessie Kay asked. “Do you now just want Beck to be nicer to you—or do you still want him to commit to you?”

“Both?” Could he commit? Why did he go for so many women? Just because he could, or was there a deeper reason behind his he-slut behavior, the way there’d been a deeper reason behind her bullying?

What did she know about Beck’s past? The loss of his mom, the rejection of his father, the family members who’d kicked him out. The foster system. No telling what he’d seen, heard and experienced as he was shuffled from one home to another.

Mental note: study problems foster kids might develop later on in life.

Fingers snapped in front of her face. She blinked, found Jessie Kay leaning over the desk in a bid to gain her attention.

“Where’d you go?” the girl asked.

Harlow propped her elbows on the desk, rested her chin against her knuckles. “That’s not important. What is? Boys.”

“Boys?” Brook Lynn echoed.

“They’re all I know, but Beck is all man, and I’m out of my league with him. My last date took place my junior year of high school, and I rarely ever went out on a second with the same guy, and never... Well. You know.”

“Never what?” Jessie Kay perched at the edge of her seat. “My mind is going to some strange places right now.”

If she said it, there would be no going back. These girls would know one of her secrets, and as Brook Lynn had said, they hadn’t yet decided if they were her friends or not. They could betray her, strike at her while she was down the way she had once struck at them.

Just do it. Tell them. How they responded would reveal their true intentions toward her. And perhaps ruin what little happiness she’d managed to eke out for herself, but whatever.

“I’m... I’ve never...been with anyone, okay?” she finished in a whisper.

“What!” Jessie Kay yelled. “No way my sweet little ears just heard such a lie. Are they bleeding? They feel like they’re bleeding.”

Would throwing a pen at her be considered an act of bullying?

“Are you sure you haven’t slept with someone?” Brook Lynn asked her.

“You mean is there a chance I slipped, fell on a man’s penis and then just forgot all about it?” Her tone was as dry as a yearlong drought. “No. No, I’m not sure.”

“But...a virgin,” Kenna gasped out. “You were the parking queen.”

“I don’t know if you’ve been told, but parking doesn’t always lead to sex.”

The redhead frowned. “I distinctly remember Scott Cameron, Tyler Bishop and Cory Yinny saying—”

Harlow threw her hands up, exasperated. “I’m sure the boys said a lot of things, but I’ve never gone further than second base. And I’m not embarrassed about it.” She was glad she’d waited. Back then, sex would have been about control rather than connection. A power play, without any involvement from the heart. “Everything you heard was an exaggeration.”