The Hot Spot Read online

  His heart raced as he pulled to a stop by his pickup truck. Zaria!

  She turned to face him, but he didn’t recognize the woman. He couldn’t deny the sharp disappointment he felt that it wasn’t Zaria. Over the last week, memories of her had come to him at the oddest moments. Her smile. The brightness in her eyes when she laughed. The smell of her neck. The feel of her legs around his waist. The way she purred like a kitten and then roared like a lioness when she was climaxing. The steady pulse deep within her walls.

  His nature stirred at the thought of her, but that and his excitement instantly deflated when the woman started speaking.

  “Mr. Strong? Kaleb Strong?” she asked, giving him a smile.

  Kaleb climbed out of the Mule. “Yes, ma’am,” he said politely, adjusting his baseball cap lower over his eyes to block the sun. “Can I help you?”

  “Aren’t you the Southern gentleman?” she said teasingly with a false Southern accent as she leaned against the railing of his porch.

  Kaleb eyed her as he climbed the stairs slowly. She was tall and curvy with a cute round face and a pouty mouth. “I try,” he said with a smile.

  She continued to stare at him.

  Kaleb began to feel awkward as he reached the top step. “Ma’am, can I help you with something?” he asked again.

  “Actually, I’m Ellie Hunt. I’m an insurance agent. Your mother thought you might need some additional policies for yourself or any of your properties,” she said, extending her arm with a business card in her hand.

  Kaleb hid his face as he looked down at the card. The last thing he needed was more insurance. As his primary benefactor, his mother was well aware of that fact. Sending Miss Ellie to his home was pure matchmaking. And if his mom had given her the thumbs-up, he was sure Ellie was a single, churchgoing woman with no children and lots of manners.

  Kaleb held her card out to her with a shake of his head. “Miss Hunt—”

  “Ellie,” she offered.

  “Ellie, I have all the coverage I need,” he said. “To be honest, ma’am, I hope I can avoid the whole sales pitch because I have an appointment—”

  “No problem at all,” she said, nodding in what he thought was understanding. “Let’s quickly set up a time for me to come back and discuss some alternative policies.”

  Kaleb began to inch his body toward his solid black front door as she continued her sales pitch. “Ma’am,” he began, any interest in asking her out ending. His hand was already surrounding the cool metal of the doorknob and turning it slowly.

  “Yes, I’m sorry. I’m just running my mouth,” she said, digging into the briefcase she held to pull out a handful of brochures. “I’m just compassionate about life and making sure the needs of you and your family are protected through adequate coverage. We can even review your current policy and compare it—”

  Kaleb had opened the door and stepped inside his home, the cool rush of the central airconditioning pressing up against the back of his body. “You have a good day, ma’am.”

  Her face shaped into a look of surprise as the door began to close and block her—and her sales pitch—from his view. “But—”

  CLICK.

  Kaleb wiped his eyes as he walked away from the door and deeper into the spacious open layout of his home. He didn’t mean to be rude, but Miss Ellie the Insurance Lady didn’t know how to take no for an answer. He understood she had a job to do, but she had ignored that he politely informed her he had another appointment. That same relentless nature might just translate into how she acted in relationships—Kaleb wasn’t willing to risk it.

  He frowned a bit as he looked around. Damn. He really needed to clean up. With the entire front portion of the house being one room, he felt that, as a large man, he wasn’t confined by rooms and walls, but it also meant that his lack of consistent cleaning was glaringly displayed. Dirty dishes, old takeout containers, and random mail littered the low-slung wooden coffee table. His kitchen was in need of some serious elbow grease. Laundry needed to be washed—and some just needed to be folded and put away.

  Seven years ago, the Jamison twins had built his home to his specifications. The women in his family called it the ultimate bachelor pad. His walls were bare. His tables were free of accessories. There was a fine layer of dust everywhere. All of the furniture was chocolate leather—comfortable and functional.

  With the right woman’s touch, Kaleb knew his home could be a real showplace. The light streaming in through the dozens of floor-to-ceiling windows on the far ends of the house was meant to highlight beauty and not man clutter.

  Releasing a heavy breath filled with the fatigue of a hard day’s work, Kaleb blocked out the clutter and made his way across the wide expanse and down the hall running across the length of the home and separating the three large bedroom suites from the rest of the house—each equipped with its own bathroom and sitting room.

  It was a home for a family.

  Kaleb began to strip off his dusty clothes, leaving a trail on the floor behind him as he made his way into his master suite. Again chaos reigned. It was as if his clothes had been shoved into a cannon and then shot up into the air to explode in odd places around the room. No time for that now.

  He rushed through a steaming hot shower and was just wrapping a towel around his waist when he heard voices from the outer area of his house. Frowning, he held the ends of the towel together with one strong hand as he made his way out of the bedroom. Feminine laughter filled the air. His eyebrows joined his mouth and deepened downward. No, that heifer did not walk into my house, he thought, expecting to find the Insurance Lady.

  What the hell . . .

  His step halted at the sight of three twentysomething ladies all looking at him, their mouths open.

  “Surprise, surprise,” one of them said with a tiny bite of her bottom lip as her eyes locked on his imprint against the towel.

  “Hey, Big Bubba, you’re home,” his sister Kaitlyn called from the spacious kitchen area.

  Eyeing the whispering, ogling, and pointing women warily, Kaleb backed into his room. “Excuse me,” he said.

  One of the women let out a girlish catcall just as he closed the door securely. He was happy to see his wild, always-on-the-move sister, but a call—or at least a ring of the doorbell—would be great first. Curious about her sudden reappearance, he rushed into boxers and sweatpants and a V-neck T-shirt. Barefoot, he padded back out into the house and found Kaitlyn and her crew now in his kitchen.

  Kaitlyn turned, her once-long and flowing thick hair now a jet-black pixie cut that framed her slender face and emphasized the bright eyes she inherited from their mother. Her slender frame was in a strapless jumpsuit that he knew cost his father a small fortune. Kaitlyn was the baby of the Strong clan and the only girl. Her wish was their father’s command. She had the old man snuggled into the palm of her hand. She was the princess diva of their family.

  “Hi, Kaleb,” the ladies all said in sweet unison and they waved their manicured fingertips at him.

  “Cool down, girls,” Kaitlyn said, moving her five-foot-ten-inch frame forward to wrap her arm around his strong neck. “This is one of my big brothers and not one of those Brazilian lover boys we left on the beaches.”

  Kaleb frowned. “That’s more than I need to know,” he drawled, kissing her cheek before moving around the stone island to grab a personalsized juice from his double fridge.

  “Well, we just got back from Brazil, and I had to use the bathroom and you know I don’t do public restrooms . . . although yours wasn’t much better,” Kaitlyn said with a dismissive wave of her hand. She eased her body up onto the edge of the island and lightly kicked her feet back and forth like she didn’t have a care in the world.

  That’s because she didn’t. Kaleb actually thought his parents and their oldest brother Kade weren’t doing Kaitlyn any favors by spoiling her. She’d never had a job, she didn’t take college seriously before she dropped out, and she knew absolutely nothing about the family b
usiness—or any other business for that matter.

  Except shopping and going on vacations.

  “You could help your brother out and handle it,” he joked, pointedly ignoring the way her friends eyed him as if he were raw flesh to a pack of werewolves.

  All of their faces shaped into looks of horror and shock.

  Kaleb just laughed. “Well, I have plans, so if you and the pretty committee are through visiting . . .”

  Kaitlyn’s friend waved at him as they made their way to the front door on gold high heels that reminded him of Zaria. And that made him think of Zaria. And made him want to see Zaria. And have Zaria. Be in Zaria.

  But his life was about settling down and starting a family. . . .

  As amazing as their chemistry had been and probably still was, as much as he still thought of her, as deeply as he found himself missing her, Kaleb honestly didn’t know if he was comfortable settling down with a woman who was willing to have a fling weekend. And if she was having this carefree lifestyle of clubbing and having flings, was settling down remotely on her list of things to do?

  Of course, he had the fling as well, but even in 2011 the standards for a man and his sexuality were lower than those for women—especially in the South. His mama had taught their sister early that a man could sleep with a hundred women and be called a playboy. A woman dared to have a hundred known lovers and she was called a whore. To add insult to injury, that label would stick with that woman forever—even if she settled down and remained faithful to one man. Then the whispers would be, “Whooo-wee she used to be a ho back in her day.”

  He thought of the reaction of his father and brothers at the news of his friend marrying a woman with a “reputation.” They instantly thought he was a fool looking for trouble and headed for a life of men slipping in and out through the back door of his home while he was away.

  Things were just different for men and women. Right, wrong, or indifferent. It is what it is.

  He had doubts about anything more than a casual “see you when I see you” relationship with Zaria.

  Still, he couldn’t stop thinking of her. It had been a very long time since a woman had claimed such a big part of focus. A very long time.

  “Anyway, Big Bubba Number Three, your baby sister saw the cutest shoes at the mall, but I’m a little strapped for cash with my little vacay and all,” she said, giving him that smile she’d used on all of them since she was big enough to toddle.

  Had to use the bathroom my ass. Kaleb walked back to his bedroom to swoop up the dirty pants he’d worn that day. He grabbed his wallet and headed back out of the bedroom. “You need to fill out an application at all those stores where you shop,” he said, pulling two crisp fifty-dollar bills from the wads snuggled there.

  Kaityln looked down into the wallet, took the hundred dollars he gave her, and pulled out a hundred more—with that smile. “Thanks, Bubba,” she said sweetly with an exaggerated Southern accent that was so fake but so adorable.

  “All you need is the right man with the balls and backbone to straighten you out, Kat,” he called behind her.

  She stopped and looked at him with her shaped eyebrow arched and a twinkle in her eye. “That man doesn’t exist because I always get what I want,” she said, shaking the crisp bills at him before she blew him a kiss and walked out the door.

  By the time she hit up every member of the family, his sister would have well over a grand or better to blow at the mall. He just shook his head because he helped spoil her just like all the other Strong men, and that spelled trouble for a man fool enough to try and tame her.

  Zaria poured herself a glass of her favorite brand of Moscato before she danced her way to the living room as Kanye West and Jay-Z’s duet “H.A.M.” blared through the surround-sound system. Dressed in a thong and an oversized striped men’s dress shirt, she paused long enough to do an old-school wop before settling down in the corner of the chair and then tucking her feet beneath her.

  It was midnight. Her feet hurt from working in heels all night, and she didn’t feel like going to sleep. In fact, this last week, sleep had become its own kind of hell for her. In her slumber, she had no control of the content of her dreams. There were no distractions . . . from memories and recreations of her time with Kaleb.

  “Ugh!” she growled, lightly pounding her fist against her bare thigh as she shook her head to free the image of him—sexy and silver and strong.

  She didn’t want to be caught up . . . or be in a relationship.

  During the weekend together, they had shared explosive sex, but there was also something about him that made her feel secure and comfortable. It was those feelings—plus that damned vibe—that led her to invite a complete stranger into her home and her bed after just a few hours of dancing together closely in a club.

  Her first one-night—or one-weekend—stand.

  Zaria pretended she didn’t feel her neck and cheeks fill with warmth as she focused on the music and her wine. “I’m about to go H.A.M. Hard as a motha—”

  Bzzzzzzz . . . bzzzzzz . . . bzzzzzz . . .

  She set her goblet on the low-slung coffee table as she picked up her vibrating cell phone. She used the remote to mute the volume on the sound system and flipped the phone open. “Hello, ladies,” she said, knowing that although Hope’s number was on the caller ID both of her friends were on the line.

  “Hey, girl.”

  “Hello, hello, hello.”

  “It took y’all long enough to call me back,” Zaria said.

  “But we did call back, so what’s the nine-one-one?” Hope asked.

  “I met a cute guy last weekend—”

  “What else is new?” Chanci interrupted.

  Zaria shifted her eyes heavenward. “We spent the whole weekend together,” she admitted.

  “Huh?” one of them said.

  “I met a guy. We clicked. I mean we really clicked, and I brought him home for the weekend.” Zaria winced as she waited for her friends’ reactions.

  “Z, I know damn well you did not invite a stranger into your house!” Chanci squealed.

  “O-kay,” Hope chimed in. “What if he was a rapist?”

  “Or a murderer?”

  “What were you thinking?”

  “Yes, what in the hell were you thinking, Z?”

  Zaria rubbed her hand over her eyes. “It was dumb and I was blessed that he wasn’t those things. I won’t ever do it again. Are we all done?” she asked. “Can I get to my real problem?”

  “Being chopped into a million pieces and being made into stew ain’t a problem?” Hope snapped.

  “I couldn’t exactly be on the phone with you heifers if I was in a pot of Zaria stew right now. Mo-ving on.”

  They both sighed.

  Zaria closed her eyes as she weaved her fingers through her hair. She thought of Kaleb. “Great googa-mooga, he was fine,” she said, envisioning the first moment she looked up at him in the crowded foyer of the restaurant.

  “Tall and muscular and handsome with silver hair—”

  “Silver? You talking about an older dude?” Hope asked. “You?”

  “He’s prematurely gray and it works for him. Believe me. It works. It just really works.”

  “We got it. It works,” Chanci teased dryly.

  They all laughed.

  Zaria lay back against the chair as she fanned between her thighs playfully. “I will spare you the intimate details, but the man is built to please,” she said. “Over and over and over again.”

  Chanci hummed approvingly. “He sounds like my man.”

  “Mine, too, baby,” Hope said.

  Zaria could clearly hear the happiness of her formerly lovelorn sistahs. They both were in fulfilling and committed relationships, and although it wasn’t her thing, she honestly was happy for them. “That reminds me,” she began, sitting up to retrieve her wine goblet for a deep sip of the sparkling sweet wine.

  They both remained silent.

  “I’m waiting on you bot
h to tell me I was right.”

  “For?” Hope asked.

  “Yes, do tell,” Chanci added, sounding amused. Zaria smoothed her jet-black hair back behind her softly rounded shoulders. “I been schooling you horny heifers on the wonders of a younger man way before your young bucks got your noses—and your legs—wide open.”

  “Ozi’s not exactly a young man,” Hope insisted, even though the truth was in her crisp tones.

  “But he’s younger than you,” Zaria countered, stretching out to lie on the sofa and cross her legs at her shapely ankles. “And, Chanci, your little roughneck probably wears his Timbs when you do the do, right? And you like it . . . don’t you?”

  The laughter that bubbled out of Chanci’s throat was all too telling.

  “Yes, but what you told us about had everything to do with sex—”

  “And nothing to do with love,” Chanci finished in pure satisfaction.

  “Well, I’m not looking for love,” Zaria said with honesty, her eyes seeking and finding the nowempty spot over the fireplace where her wedding photo had sat for her entire marriage. “Been there. Done that. Got screwed—and not in a good way.”

  “There’s more to life than nine inches, Zaria,” Hope admonished, easily slipping into mother mode.

  Zaria imagined Kaleb naked, hard, and ready. “You’re right. There’s ten,” she said decidedly. “Even eleven.”

  “Okay, so you ran into a sexy young guy with a big woo-woo. What’s the nine-one-one?” Chanci asked, sounding like she was chewing on ice.

  “I can’t get him off my mind. I think about him a lot. And that’s not what I want.”

  “We all know you got what you wanted,” Hope said dryly.

  Zaria closed her eyes and rested her forearm against the closed lids. “And I want more. Lots more. And not just the incredible sex . . . but the laughing and joking, and the way he likes to hold me after sex and rub my lower back, and the way he likes to kiss, and his smell. I want more of it all. All of it.”

  “So call him, Z.”

  Zaria shook her head as she wiggled her toes. “He’s too addictive. He is too necessary. He is . . . is like drugs. I just have to say no or I’ll be ’round here shaking and shit. Out in the middle of the night with a damn dick radar and a flashlight looking for it, you know?”