Forbidden Heat

Thirteen

Trey sipped his green tea, then set the cup on the coffee table. Hickory lay curled up beside him, purring softly. Trey petted him as he flipped through the channels on the television, but nothing interesting caught his eye. Of course, he’d much rather be sitting here with Danielle. She’d left only an hour ago and he missed her already.

The phone rang. He crossed to the computer desk and grabbed the phone from the dock.

“Hi, Trey. It’s Suzie. How’s it going?”

Suzie was a couple of years younger than he and still lived in Baltimore, where he’d grown up with his family, and where both his younger sisters and his parents still lived. Suzie had her own place, but Tasha, the youngest, was still in high school, so she still lived with his mom and dad.

“Pretty good. Tasha is thinking about which universities she might go to and she’s considering Carleton Falls. I suggested we come for a visit to check out the campus . . . and visit with our big brother. So what do you say? Can we stay with you?”

“Yeah, absolutely. When? I’ll arrange to take a few days off to spend time with you.”

“Well, if it’s okay . . . next weekend works out for us. We could come up Friday and stay until the following Friday. Maybe even the weekend.”

He walked toward the desk and glanced at the calendar. “I shouldn’t have any problem getting the time off, and I’d love to have you both visit.”

“Why don’t you invite your new girlfriend over while we’re there? I’d love to meet her.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Danielle, silly. Remember I talked to her on Friday?”

Danielle. Oh, damn. He wouldn’t be able to see Danielle for a weekend, possibly two. He did not want to go that long. But he couldn’t very well have her stay here with him and Jake. Maybe she could stay at Jake’s house. But he couldn’t really sneak away to spend time with her while his sisters were here. He wanted to see his sisters, and if he visited her at Jake’s, he would spend more time away from his sisters than with them.

“You know, we’ve never met one of your girlfriends. Rumors are starting about you.”

Trey almost dropped the phone. It was just a silly, teasing remark. She didn’t mean anything by it . . . but what if she did suspect? What if his family thought he didn’t like women? What if they thought he was gay?

He’d worried about it so much during his teenage years when he’d thought he was gay. Then when he and Jake had become a couple, he had hidden it from his family. As far as they knew, Jake had simply been his roommate.

He didn’t think they’d stop loving him, but he honestly didn’t know if they’d be disappointed in him. Even if they accepted it, would things be awkward between them? Would they look at him differently?

“So what do you say?” Suzie asked.

Danielle glanced at the clock. Trey had e-mailed her at work today asking what time she would get home, telling her he wanted to call her to ask about something. It was 5:35 P.M. so he should be calling any minute. She sat down on the couch with the cordl

ess phone on the side table and picked up her book. She’d start cooking dinner after the call.

What did he want to talk to her about? Probably something about plans for the weekend. Maybe he’d gotten tickets to the new play at the local theater and he wanted to check times with her or something.

She stared at the phone, but it did not ring. A knock sounded at her front door. She stood up and walked to the entrance, then peered through the narrow window beside the door.

Trey!

She pulled open the door. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I told you I wanted to talk to you, and I thought, Hey, what the heck . . . why not take you to dinner?”

“You came all the way here to take me to dinner?”

He stepped forward and pulled her into his arms, then captured her mouth with his. The feel of his hard, muscular body pressed against the length of hers, his lips caressing hers, his hands cupping her head while he consumed her mouth with passion, sent her heart thundering in her chest.

He smiled at her. “Of course. I missed you. In fact, I started missing you the moment you left my house on Sunday.”

His words insinuated their way into her heart and her lips turned up in a broad smile. She felt wanted. And she liked the feeling.

She drew him into the house and pushed the door closed behind him.