Too Hot To Handle

This is how it goes…

Chapter One: Jenny

“Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.”
—William Congreve

Jenny Eastman buried her face in her trembling hands. It was exactly twenty-four hours since Jared Cates had sunk into her like a bear cub discovering a honey pot. She’d given it all up. He’d had access to every crevice and cranny of her body and her soul, and played her like a virtuoso on a violin. He’d made her moan and groan in perfect tune with his every move.

Once she’d believed that it wasn’t possible for a man to be all that. A man was a man. They all had the same basic equipment and the same way to get from point A to B in the lovemaking department. But Jared had to be all that and a bag of chips. Thirty-five years old, six feet two, he was muscled and lean with burnished pecan skin and strong, chiseled features, and so good-looking that grandmothers turned their heads to look wistfully after him, remembering younger days. To top it off, he was a doctor, a genuine MD, with smarts, confi­dence, and a sense of humor. Jared Cates was more than a notion.

The memory of their lovemaking made her moisten her lips. She’d been greedy, greedy, greedy. Jared had filled her up like dark, amber nectar—her silky, sweet-sticky thang. She couldn’t get enough of him.

When she’d left his apartment, she’d been walking on a rainbow-colored cloud of optimistic emotion. Had she found her soul mate? Their connection had been beyond the physi­cal. It had been beautiful, soul-stirring. Perfect passion. She’d regretted the time she’d wasted resisting him. She’d been wrong about him. Didn’t a man who could love so good and hard, who could make her feel so beautiful, have to be more than a low-down dirty dog?

So why hadn’t he called? She could barely credit that he hadn’t found time to pick up the phone. Jared had been after her for months. He’d asked her out repeatedly. She knew with every woman’s sense she had that he’d wanted her bad.

She’d vowed to keep her distance because Jared Cates was Heartache with a capital H and she’d had enough of that in her twenty-eight years to last her twenty-eight more. The man needed a warning stamped on him, Involvement could be hazardous to your peace of mind, not to mention your heart.

So she’d been cool. Chill to just the right degree, despite Jared’s wriggling and worming his way under her skin. Until last night. Oh Lord, last night.

So why didn’t he pick up the phone and call? Jenny slid her hands down her face and sighed deeply. It made it worse that Jared was her newly acquired stepbrother. It wasn’t as if they could avoid each other. He had to have had more in mind than to hit it and quit it.

You thought he was in love with you last night, silly fool, a savage voice—her own—whispered to her. And what did you say to him? You didn’t stop at screaming his name and begging for more of him. You said you wanted him, needed him. Did she tell him she loved him? She probably had, when she whimpered and shouted his name as she begged him for mercy.

He hadn’t found the time to leave a message? He’d given her no reassurances, no sweet words, no nothing. Take a deep breath, girl. Live your life and do what you have to do. He’ll call. He’s just…busy. Busy, that’s it.

***

Four days later Jenny sat in a lounge chair by her apart­ment complex pool. The August St. Louis sun scorched and drained every iota of her energy while the heat made it hard to breathe, much less to think.

Kids weren’t screaming and splashing in the pool as usual. They moved slowly through the over chlorinated water, which appeared steamy and yellow-tinged, rather than its usual crisp and refreshing blue.

Jenny’s fellow tenants lay on the loungers around the pool like beached, dead fish. She wondered if they’d also felt obligated to get some fresh air at the final dregs of a summer weekend spent watching too much television and reading too many escapist novels. She wondered if they needed to flee their thoughts and longings. Did they have regrets, too?

“Jenny! There you are.”

Jenny squinted through her sunglasses at her friend, Stacie Veach, who looked cool and bouncy in a pair of cut-off blue jeans and spring-green tank top.

“I dropped by your place and decided to check by the pool.” Stacie mopped her brow. “I want to talk to you about something.”

“Sure, have a seat.” Jenny gestured to the lounger beside her. “What’s up?”

Stacie dropped into the chair and dug in her bag, pulling out a bottle of what must have been one-thousand-SPF sun­screen. She started to carefully slather it on every exposed inch of her reddish-bronze skin.

“It’s time we stood together and screamed to the world, we’ve had enough and we’re not going to take it any­more!” Stacie’s animated voice cut into the overheated air like flames flashing up on a barbecue grill.

Jenny flinched at Stacie’s words. “I think I’ve heard that somewhere before,” she murmured, glancing at Stacie applying a second layer of sunscreen over her face and neck. Jenny bet that Stacie would stroke out if her skin turned one shade darker than her present color.

“Of course you have heard it before, but you’ve never heard it from us,” Stacie said.

“Us?” Jenny asked.

“Us women, especially us black women. It’s about time we drew a line in the sand and stood up to the enemy.”

“The enemy?”

“The enemy! You know—men,” Stacie said.

“Men?”

“Stop repeating me. You sound like a parrot, girlfriend. I know you’ve spent too much time around the dog pound to deny the basic characteristics of the brothers—”

“Brothers have not cornered the market on doggish char­acteristics,” Jenny interrupted. “Have you been with any white guys lately? I could close my eyes and, believe me, there would be no difference whatsoever.”

Stacie’s eyebrows rose. “Really? I can’t say that I’ve ever been with a white guy.” Her brow furrowed. “Is it true what they say about…?” Stacie shook her head. “Never mind. I digress.”

Jenny chuckled, and stifled the near-irresistible urge to shock the sunscreen off Stacie by making up lurid tales of erotic adventures with white men. “I admit that I’ve come across my share of dogs of every variety, but what do you propose we do about it?”

“We’ve set up a chapter of an organization in St. Louis and I want you to join.”

“You set up an organization to change the nature of men? Seems a little ambitious to me.”

“It’s an organization of sisterly support and information sharing. United, we can make a difference. We can set our collective feet down and say this far and no further. We can overcome!”

Jenny eyed her friend as if she were measuring her for a straitjacket, but thought about Jared Cates, MD, and decided that maybe Stacie had a point.

Stacie rummaged through her bag and pulled out a piece of paper. “Here’s our first newsletter.” She thrust it toward Jenny, who looked at it and started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Stacie demanded.

“SCORNED? The name of the group is SCORNED? That’s a little extreme, wouldn’t you say? Y’all ever heard of self-fulfilling prophecy?”

“It stands for Sisters Committed to Overcoming Rejecting Narcissistic Egomaniacal Dogs. Our tag line is Hell hath no fury like a sister SCORNED.”

“Ain’t that the truth?” Jenny said. “I bet the men of St. Louis are barricading their apartments in terror.”

“There’s a meeting coming up. You should come. It’ll be packed.” Stacie glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. “Speaking of dogs…how is Jared Cates?”

Jenny couldn’t stop from frowning at the mention of his name. She shifted in her chair. Stacie had been involved with Jared in the past to the point of being engaged, and Jared dumped her—not once, but twice. He’d since turned his attentions to Jenny, but she had prided herself on being immune to his charms. Now that she’d thrown every vestige of pride to the wind, along with her clothes the other night, she wanted to confide in Stacie. If anyone could empathize, it would be her, but she hesitated.

“What about Jared?” Jenny asked.

“Is he still sniffing after you?”

One could hardly call downright avoidance sniffing. “He can sniff all he likes,” she answered, evasive.

“I know firsthand how Jared can be hard to resist,” Stacie said. “I had to do some serious inner work to get over him.”

“I’ve found out how hard he is, too.” Jenny resisted the impulse to clap her hand to her mouth. The words had slipped out like boiled eggs in butter.

Stacie’s eyebrows shot up. “Do tell.”

“My stupidity collided with a moment of weakness. Don’t quite know how it happened, but it did. One moment I was soothing his fevered brow and the next I was flat on my back,” she murmured, studying her nails.

Stacie gasped “You didn’t!”

“I did.”

“Damn,” Stacie said. “He didn’t call, did he?”

“Nope, he hasn’t.”

“That dirty dog.”

Jenny nodded, thinking that Jared Cates was her worst nightmare come to life. She felt like used tissue paper. He trailed a mile-long string of broken hearts behind him and had so many notches on his bedpost it was near whittled down to a pencil. He’d just added her on both counts. She was a fool, that was for certain, a stupid fool who tossed her panties in his face at the slightest twitch of his too-fine finger. Or twitch of his other member, as the case actually was, if she’d remembered correctly.