Exclusive Prologue of INTO THE HEAT
for Newsletter Subscribers!
Finding a starfish on Palmira Island was rare and magical, and Jessica Clarke gasped when the incredibly cute guy held it toward her as if he were offering a precious jewel.
The delicate bone-white creature spanned Leo Villeneuve’s palm. It had thin tentacles and in its middle, an imprint of another star. Leo was eighteen, on the skinny side and a few inches taller than her. Which was awesome, because Jessica had always been the tallest girl in her school.
“I found this on the beach when I was out running this morning. I thought of you.”
Her heart thumped fast because he was standing so close and she stammered a response. “Oh! That’s a sea star. We almost never find them in perfect shape like this. It’s gorgeous.”
“Like you,” he murmured. “Here. It’s a gift.”
He gently slid the starfish into her cupped hands. Hopefully, he didn’t notice she was shaking from his compliment. Being around him made her nervous, in a good way. Leo from New Orleans was positively adorable, with his unusual Louisiana drawl, short near-black hair and a mouth that curved upward even when he wasn’t smiling. And he smelled incredible and fresh, like pine trees and soap.
Leo was eighteen, a year older than her, and on Palmira Island for the winter holidays with his father.
“Thank you.” her eyes met his slate blue gaze and they stared at each other, unblinking, mesmerized. She had to get back to cleaning the rooms in her family’s small hotel. But as they stood at the end of the hallway near a window, she couldn’t move because she was captivated by the way the sunlight played with his eyes, making them shimmer like the Gulf of Mexico on a bright day.
Leo lowered his gaze from hers slowly, and the way his long eyelashes shyly brushed the top of his cheekbones when he blinked made Jessica’s insides melt.
“See?” she said softly. “This one has five arms. Some have nine, or more. And if they lose an arm or a part of themselves, they can regenerate and still live.”
God, she was stupid, talking about amputee starfish. What was she thinking? He traced the delicate, whip-like arms lightly with his long index finger and she yearned for him to do the same on the skin of her palm.
“I wanted to ask you something, Jessica.”
She noticed that he swallowed hard and seemed nervous, and that endeared him to her even more.
“Yes?” Her voice wavered as she tilted her head to look him in the eye.
The words tumbled from his lips. “Would you watch the fireworks with me tonight? Your mom’s giving a party for the adults here at the hotel. My dad said it was okay if I go with you and I’ve already asked your mom if we can hang out together.”
Wow. So his flirting wasn’t her imagination. Leo must really want to hang out if he went to the trouble of asking her mom. “Did she say yes?”
“She did.”
Her eyes widened. Palmira always had a fireworks display on Christmas Eve, for all the tourists who were away from their families and their snowy northern homes. It wasn’t very holiday-like to most visitors, but it was a blast — and a beach party seemed normal to Jessica and everyone who lived on the small island.
“Sweet,” she whispered, unable to think of anything else to say.
He laughed softly. “So you wanna go with me tonight?”
It was hard to believe that her mother would let her watch the fireworks alone, with a guy. She hadn’t let Jessica date yet, but it wasn’t like anyone at school had asked. She had a few guy friends, but none were interested in her in a romantic way. Maybe because she was super tall, or because she was curvy, or because she had different taste in music and movies and books…but she tried not to think about that, now that Leo was grinning down at her.
And Mom was a bit overprotective, for seemingly no good reason. They were on an island, for God’s sakes. But Mom had been acting strange since Leo and his father had come to stay at the hotel. Jessica suspected it had something to do with the fact that Mom and Leo’s dad had been friends long before she was born. But she hadn’t paid attention to Mom since Leo had arrived.
“I would love to go with you.” A giddy feeling bubbled inside her and it took everything she had not to squeak with excitement.
Leo beamed, then bit his lip. “Awesome.”
She excused herself, saying she had to put the starfish in a safe place in her room. She tore down two flights of stairs, hoping to race the nervousness away.
Jessica and her mother lived on the hotel’s first floor, in a modest, converted two-bedroom apartment just past the reception desk. Her older sister Nicole had recently gotten married to a local cop and was pregnant, so she was out of the house. Which meant Jessica finally had a room to herself. The aqua-and-white Art Deco hotel on a small, sleepy barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico was the only home she had ever known.
“Mom!” Jessica burst into the apartment. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
Susan Clarke was sitting at her paper-strewn desk in the cozy living room, pen in hand and reading glasses halfway down her nose. She looked up, amused. “For what, sweetheart?”
Jessica ran into her bedroom and gingerly set the starfish on her bureau, then rushed back to her mom and folded her into a giant hug. “For letting me watch the fireworks with Leo tonight.”
Susan pushed her reading glasses up the bridge of her nose and sent a pointed look to Jessica. “I’m letting you go because I know you two will be bored here with the adults. But remember, he’s a boy. Actually, he’s almost a man. And you have to be careful around men.”
“Okay, whatever, mom.”
“And I want you to check in every hour. That’s why I gave you a cell phone. Make sure you stay with the crowds of people and your curfew is ten-thirty. Sharp. That gives you two enough time to watch the fireworks and get home.”
“Fine. But I need to figure out what I’m going to wear,” Jessica said, twirling around the living room, feeling like a princess even though she was wearing a hot pink tank top and black yoga pants. Was it possible that sophisticated, handsome Leo who went to a private school in New Orleans liked her?
“You need to clean those two rooms on the fourth floor,” Susan chuckled. “Wait. Let’s make a deal. If you clean all six rooms, I’ll buy you a new outfit. You don’t have much time to clean and shop, so get going.”
“I love you!” Jessica planted a kiss on her mom’s cheek and skipped out the door. Never had she been so eager to clean.
***
“Are you cold?” Leo spoke low in Jessica’s ear and slipped his arms around her waist. Jessica looked up at the green and red fireworks booming in the sky and shivered when his chest pressed against her back. The salt-scented breeze was a little cool for Florida, but her whole body tingled with heat from Leo’s arms. She should have worn a sweater over her cute, new pink cotton dress with spaghetti straps, but the way Leo kept looking at her, like he was hungry, made the slight chill worth it.
“No,” she lied.
“You are, Jess. Here.” He shrugged off his dark blue hoodie and wrapped it around her shoulders. She pushed her arms through the holes, inhaling his clean scent and worried he would stop hugging her. She went to do up the front and he circled her with his arms and zipped it for her from behind.
“There. Between the hoodie and this,” he hugged her tight again, “you’ll be warm.”
She couldn’t wait to tell her best friend Catalina about her night. She kind of wished Cat was here and not in North Carolina for the holidays, but really, she was glad she had Leo all to herself.
They'd spent hours together, getting pizza, then ice cream. Finally, they sat on the sand and talked for a solid two hours. Their voices drowned out the sound of the surf and the noise from nearby bars. She discovered that his mother had died when he was young, and Jessica had wanted to hug him when he talked about how he missed her. She settled instead for grabbing his hand and holding it awkwardly. He’d told her that his father was trying to get him to join the Marines, as he had, but Leo wasn’t sure.
“I think I might want to go to culinary school. I already know how to bake because of my family,” Leo said. His dad owned a chain of bakeries in New Orleans, she’d found out.
Jessica told him about how she loved drawing and reading manga comic books, and he didn’t make fun of her for being a geek like the guys in school did. Because Leo seemed so sweet and kind, she also shared some things she had never told anyone. Like how she had never met her father and how frustrated she got when her sister treated her like a baby.
About a half hour before the fireworks, they walked to the pier and stood in the waiting crowd. Just minutes before the explosions, Leo whispered in her ear, telling her he was thinking about looking into culinary schools in Florida in the fall. Maybe somewhere in Tampa, or Sarasota or even nearby Fort Myers, he said.
“That would be great,” Jessica said, trying to contain her happiness. “We could hang out.”
“I’d want to do more than hang out. I’d want you to be my girlfriend.”
Leo wrapped both of his arms around her, right in public, as if she was already his girlfriend. She put her hands over his, squeezing his fingers. She pressed her body back into Leo’s, his warmth spreading through her. He responded by dipping his head to kiss her neck. Goose bumps formed on her skin.
Jessica grinned to the heavens, her eyes searching the stars as the fireworks exploded. It was as if every burst was a constellation of shooting stars, ripe for all of her hopes and wishes.
Jessica spun around in Leo’s arms. As the throngs around them oohed and ahhed and while sparkling white fireworks rained down from the sky, he cupped her face with both hands. Everything went silent, and all she could focus on was the feel of his soft lips on hers. His mouth was warm and she yielded to him, not knowing how his body could feel so hard and his lips could be so gentle. Jessica’s body was deliciously dizzy, almost faint from the fluttery, needy sensation inside of her. She didn’t understand the feeling, didn’t want to understand it because it scared her a little and left her aching. It made her think something big was about to happen.
What was she doing? She had never really kissed a guy, not like this. Oh sure, she had pecked and smooched with one boy after school her sophomore year, in the shadow of the pale pink lifeguard shack on the beach. But he’d shown no interest afterward, and the kiss was nothing like this.
Leo’s kiss was reverent. Searching. Hot.
They kissed long and slow while the chaos of celebration erupted around them.
