LITMIR.BIZ

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      She found Lewis’s door and stopped. What if he was in there with someone? What if the reason she and Jessie couldn’t reach him was he’d turned off his phone so as not to be disturbed during his four days of debauchery.

      “Please, Scarlet. You have to go. What if he’s lying on the floor dying and there’s no one to help him?” Boy Jessie had a vivid imagination.

      She lifted her hand to knock. Stopped.

      What if he answered the door partially dressed and reeking of sex? She swallowed down a lump of regret-coated disappointment—which made no sense since they’d only known each other for two weeks and could barely even qualify as friends.

      But that kiss.

      She shook her head to dislodge the memory. Not that it’d worked any of the other five dozen or so times she’d tried.

      Best to just get it done and be gone. With a fortifying breath she knocked.

      And waited.

      She knocked harder.

      Nothing.

      She slid her hand into the front pocket of her jeans, closed her fingers around his key, and prayed she didn’t have to use it.

      “Lewis,” she yelled, knocking even harder. “It’s Scarlet. Open up.” She pressed her ear to the door to listen for any sounds coming from inside.

      Nothing.

      Scarlet removed the key from her pocket, and trying to ignore an overwhelming feeling of dread, inserted it into the lock.

      * * *

      Lewis stood under the spray of hot water hoping to wash away his funk. He missed his old life, but it turned out, not as much as he missed Jessie. Talk about a totally unexpected twist. And since he’d dropped her off at his parents’ house the night before, he’d spent a large chunk of his ‘I’m finally free to do whatever I want’ time thinking of her, wondering what she was doing, regretting not going to Lake George, wishing he could be the one to teach his daughter to swim, to help her overcome her fear of the water, bemoaning the missed opportunity to reinforce the tenuous bond that’d formed between them over the past week.

      But if he suddenly barged in on her vacation Jessie would know he’d lied about having to work, to get rid of her, exactly as she’d suspected.

      Tenuous bond severed.

      Served him right for lying in the first place.

      More than once he’d picked up the phone to call Scarlet, to fill the quiet. To cheer him up and make him smile. But at some point in their conversation she’d undoubtedly bring up his request that she help him with Jessie’s room and look to make arrangements to get together. And even though it’d been three days since he’d changed his mind about having her over, he had yet to tell her. He wasn’t ready to put an end to the possibility. And she’d no doubt want to know why—women always wanted to know why, and he had no idea how to answer.

      “I want to have sex with you so bad I don’t trust myself to be alone with you without a thirteen-year-old chaperone?”

      What if the stars aligned and she admitted, “I want you, too.” Because after their kiss, he could tell she did.

      What then?

      They’d pack a lifetime’s worth of sex into the next seventy-two hours and it’d be great—Lewis would make sure of it. But she’d want more. They always wanted more, more of his time, his attention, his lifestyle, and money.

      Things Lewis was not prepared to give.

      And he couldn’t risk hurting Scarlet’s feelings or making her angry. Not with her close relationship to Jessie which she could easily use to turn his daughter against him. A woman scorned and all.

      So what if Scarlet didn’t seem the type?

      You never could tell. His mother had managed to hide her true self from teachers and neighbors. Lewis wouldn’t risk it.

      But that didn’t stop him from thinking about spending time with her. Doing...anything. He smiled. She could probably make a root canal enjoyable. Pleasurable. He pictured her sitting beside the exam chair, her hand on his bare leg—because he’d chosen to wear shorts that day—caressing him, moving up the sensitive skin of his inner thigh, sliding higher, the feel of her sensual touch obliterating the oral surgeon and the drill.

      His body reacted the way it always did when images of him and Scarlet alone together popped into his head.

      All the confirmation he needed that calling her to cancel their shopping/decorating date had to be done, and out of fairness to her and her weekend plans, soon.

      Lewis turned off the shower, grabbed his towel from the hook and dried himself.

      No more putting it off. He set his towel on the counter. He’d call Scarlet now. After the weekend he’d hire a professional decorator. Or he and Jessie could work on the room together, their first father-daughter project.

      He opened the door leading to his bedroom, and along with a rush of cool air came a voice that sounded alarmingly similar to Scarlet’s. “Please tell me you’re alone.”

      Great. He’d progressed from conjuring up images to actually hearing her. Lunatic.

      “And that you’re appropriately covered up,” she added.

      What? He grabbed his towel, wrapped it around his waist and stepped out of the bathroom. Sure enough, Scarlet Miller, star of his nighttime/daytime/all the time fantasies, sat perched on the corner of his bed, fully dressed with her hand covering her eyes.

      “What are you doing here?” he asked.

      “Are you decent?” she responded.

      He stared at her enticing lips as she spoke, noting a hint of shine. Residual lip gloss? Or had she run her plump tongue over those luscious lips while visualizing him in the shower?

      “Why are you so quiet?” she asked.

      He smiled, crossed his arms over his bare chest, and leaning his shoulder against the doorframe, stared at her. The ponytail she always wore, in the basic hairband she used for work, expensively distressed skintight jeans, open-toed trendy, strappy sandals, enticingly manicured peach-colored toenails, and a sleeveless, silky, peach-colored button-down blouse.

      She created a tiny V-opening between her fingers and looked at him. Then she let out an annoyed breath, moved her hand to point toward the bathroom and whispered, “Is there someone else in there?”

      Lately she was the only one he wanted in there. “What are you doing here?” he asked again. “In my bedroom? On my bed?” His body liked seeing her there for real and the part of him already hardened with interest from the mere thought of her, got even harder and started to rise up to check things out.

      Scarlet eyed his crotch and jumped up like she’d seen a cobra. “Sorry.” She backed toward the door to the hallway.

      Lewis demonstrated a level of restraint he didn’t know he possessed when he stood his ground rather than give in to the powerful urge to stop her.

      “Jessie’s been trying to call you,” she said.

      “Dammit.” Lewis strode over to his nightstand and flicked on his cellphone. “I turned it off so no one from the hospital would bother me.” He scrolled through his messages counting thirteen from Jessie and five from Scarlet. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

      “Newsflash, papa bear,” Scarlet said, her calm confidence returned. “Fathers of scared little girls are not allowed the luxury of turning off their cell phones.”

      He dialed Jessie. She answered on the first ring, like she’d been sitting there waiting for his call, and immediately started to cry.

      “Don’t cry, honey,” he said, feeling like the worst parent ever. “I’m sorry. My phone was off. I

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