Too Hot to Handle Read Online Free PDF Page B

uncomfortable passion.”
    “I wasn’t worried about you doing the luring!”
    “Okay. No, Shane did not butter me up with Star Wars trivia and then ‘accidentally’ fall on me with his penis out.”
    “Merry, be serious! Where were you?”
    Finally accepting that she wasn’t going to get any more sleep, Merry crawled out of bed and headed to the kitchen to start coffee. “I went out to Providence. My phone must have been searching for a signal for an hour or two and it ran out of power. Sometimes I get four bars out there, and sometimes I get zero. I’m not sure how that works. Is it the wind? The clouds? What—”
    “Okay, what about later?”
    “Grace, what is your deal? First of all, why do you hate Shane so much? Second…I haven’t had sex in two years. Two years . If I miraculously talked a man into wanting to have sex, wouldn’t you be thrilled for me? I have needs, you know.”
    Actually she didn’t. Not anymore. Those needs had finally dried up and died six months ago, at the exact moment that her cheap, knock-off vibrator had buzzed into a slow death. She’d replaced it with an even cheaper knock-off model but hadn’t even bought batteries for that one. She’d just put it away, still in its tacky packaging, and never thought about it again.
    Grace seemed to have deflated to her normal petite size. She always seemed four inches taller when she was pissed, but apparently she’d gotten past it, because she sighed and opened a cupboard door to take out coffee mugs. “Why haven’t you been having sex?”
    “You know why.”
    “I don’t want to hear it, Merry. You’ve got an amazing body, you’re funny as hell and you’re cute.”
    “I’m not like you, Grace.”
    “What? Slutty?”
    “You know that’s not what I mean! I just…I don’t know what to do with men. I get nervous. I make too many jokes. I act like a kid sister instead of their fantasy sex machine.”
    “Come on, Merry. Men don’t want a fantasy. They want something real.”
    Merry frowned but tried to hide it by turning back to the coffeepot, which was trickling out that last little bit of caffeine. That was easy for Grace to say. Grace, in all her reality, was a fantasy. She was edgy and strong and striking. She intimidated men in a way that turned them on.
    Merry, on the other hand, was a friend . A perpetual friend. The girl who always had a good joke and a smile.
    She didn’t know how to be sexy. And it didn’t seem to be something she could learn, damn it.
    “Whatever,” she finally said. “It doesn’t matter. My point is you don’t have to worry about Shane. Shit, I wish you did.”
    “Okay, I’ll drop it. I’m sorry, I just… You came here because of me. I feel like I need to watch out for you.”
    “Bullshit, Grace. You always say the same thing.”
    Grace shrugged and pushed the mugs forward for coffee. “None of those guys have been good enough for you. You know that’s true.”
    “Good Lord, I’m not the Virgin Mary. If he’s got a job and a penis, he’s already halfway up my scale. And I don’t really care about the job.”
    Grace choked on laughter. “Shut up. That’s not true. It’d better not be true or you’re grounded, young lady.”
    Merry just shook her head. “You’re the one who let me move into a place called the Stud Farm.”
    Grace rolled her eyes, but Merry laughed as hard as she ever did at the joke.
    The apartment building was really the two-story house of the old Studd farmstead, converted into four identical apartments, two on the ground floor, and two upstairs. She didn’t know if it had an official name, but everyone called it the Stud Farm after Aunt Rayleen’s tendency to fill it with single young men. Young compared to her, anyway.
    When Grace had blown into town last year, even Rayleen hadn’t had the heart to send her away. She’d let Grace stay for a few weeks, and even though the old battleax tried to hide it, Merry could tell the woman loved her niece.