Feel the Heat: A Contemporary Romance Anthology

“Yep.”


“First one dressed gets the fancy star fruit!”

Should he tell her that star fruit, while pretty, were one of his least favorite tastes? “Sure. Race ya.”

Nope. He took his time getting dressed. He hadn’t brought a suit because the only one he’d packed for Atlanta was the one he’d worn on her wedding day and he’d burn it sooner than remind her of that, but he had a couple of dress shirts. He went for the white one, with his spare pair of black dress pants. No tie, shirt unbuttoned at the collar. Belt and dress shoes that he’d taken the extra time to polish.

He took all the extra shit out of his wallet so it didn’t bulge in his back pocket, then waited for her door to open before he grabbed the villa key card and followed her into the living room.

“I won,” she said gleefully, doing a little fist pump that made her tits bounce.

Eyes off her tits. Easier said than done when the little black dress she was wearing put them on display.

He blandly raised one eyebrow in acknowledgment of her victory. “Lucky girl.”

She hummed in pride as she reached for the thinly sliced star fruit. “Right?” She took a bite, then hesitated as the tart yet bland taste registered. “Huh,” she said around the mouthful and he cracked up. She swallowed and pointed at him. “You knew it tasted like that!”

“Yeah. Sorry. I was not in a hurry to win that race.”

“Jerk,” she said lovingly, and just like that, it really was fine that he’d kissed her earlier. Because that momentary foolishness didn’t change the fact he’d been yanking her chain for twenty years, would keep doing so for hopefully another twenty, and another after that. Nothing else mattered.



Tori leaned back in her chair and took another sip of her wine. Behind her, the ocean crashed against a rock retaining wall that edged the restaurant terrace. In front of her, her best friend was digging into a glorious looking steak.

Her own dinner, grilled chicken and a corn and tomato salad, sat mostly untouched. Not because she wasn’t hungry—she was, and she’d get back to it in a minute.

But she couldn’t stop sliding little glances Logan’s way when he wasn’t looking.

She couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. Kisses, really. Make-out session beneath the waterfall.

“I don’t think of you as my sister. I never have, and never will.”

She’d rolled that statement around in her head a million different ways tonight. And she’d been forced to realize that she’d never thought of him as her brother, either.

Which was a good thing, given how she’d reacted to his kisses earlier.

But where the hell did that leave them?

She set down her glass. She wasn’t going to find the answer at the bottom of a bottle. And her dinner wouldn’t eat itself.

“How is it?” Logan asked, glancing up.

“Delish.” She took a bite of the salad. It was, in fact. “Yours?”

He smirked. “Delish,” he said softly, mocking her word choice.

“Come all the way to the Caribbean and you go for steak and potatoes,” she teased right back. “How adventurous.”

His eyes darkened. “I had fish last night. But I usually expend all my adventurous spirit in other arenas.”

It was a total Logan thing to say, and she’d heard variations on it many times before. Tonight, though, the sexual overtones were more obvious.

How had she missed how hot he was? How casually dirty at every turn?

Although, no, she hadn’t missed that. But she’d never had first-hand knowledge of how accurate his bold statements could be. She’d always assumed he was just another player.

She frowned.

He frowned, too. “What?”

“When was the last time you dated someone?”

His mouth tightened. “Dated?”

Ew. “Don’t answer that if it was more than ten random hook-ups ago.”

“Jesus, Tori.”

And she’d ruined a perfectly good dinner in less than a minute. Her face heated up and she ducked her head. “Sorry.”

“Do we need to talk about what happened this afternoon?”

“Nope.” She speared another bite of her fish. “I was out of line.”

“The answer’s gonna surprise you. But it’s also opening Pandora’s box, too.”

She couldn’t look up at him. “I was supposed to get married two days ago.”

“I know.”

“This is my honeymoon.”

“I know.”

Evelyn Adams, Christine Bell, Rhian Cahill, Mari Carr, Margo Bond Collins, Jennifer Dawson, Cathryn Fox, Allison Gatta, Molly McLain, Cari Quinn's books