Hot and Bothered Read online

  k, continue reading Frenzied And Excited...

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  Recommended Books

  Did you enjoy this book? I recommend reading these related books, available on Amazon:

  A Wild Night's Encounter

  To Date, Or Not To Date

  Mr. Perfect? Or Mr. Right?

  I Do, I Do!

  C.J. Wants to Give You a Gift!

  Do you want a free book?

  Thank you for reading, Hot And Bothered. If you feel this story was the perfect little treat you needed, please leave a review at Amazon

  I'm always looking for feedback and will provide anyone who completes a review about this book with a free book, passionately written and fresh from my tiny writer's enclave. Here's how to get it:

  1. Write a short review at Amazon

  2. Email me at [email protected] with a link to your review and I'll reply with my favorite book for free!

  * * *

  Get a free book now, write a short review on Amazon

  Free Bonus:

  Frenzied And Excited

  Chapter One

  ELIZE REALIZED SHE was actually having a lot of fun in the party in the Governor’s Mansion around one thirty in the morning, as she toured the basement clinging to Gerald's arm. Jude and Tamara were a few rooms ahead of them, checking out the sights that the subterranean part of the building offered.

  At some point around midnight, the Governor had led most of the guests into the basement. It became very clear because of that that this would not be the average cocktail party. The Governor's estate also served as a kind of reservoir for the Historical Society, to include a vast collection of torture devices, fun house mirrors and other odds and ends that they didn't have any sort of calling for at the moment.

  The Governor, whose name Elize never caught, seemed to be happy to drunkenly lead the charge into the basement and allow everyone else to figure it out behind him. The few stragglers who remained upstairs either trickled down in short order, or were so left behind that some of them went home.

  The “junk” in the rooms, junk being the word the Governor used for the stuff the Historical Society had piled up in a kind of haphazard piles in his vast basement, varied from room to room. Sometimes, the they were displayed either in glass cases or laid out on tables, but other times the stuff was left in piles in corners. The torture devices were all looking menacing safely behind the glass tops of scratched up display cases. Thumb screws, cat-o-nine-tails, iron maidens and tiger cages were oooh-ed and aaah-ed at by the crowd of bourgeoisie guests the Governor was leading room to room.

  “Honey,” Elize said. “What do you think of these things? Isn't it gruesome that any of this is even real?”

  “Well, I suppose so, sweetheart. But this is how the world works,” Gerald said. “I mean, I wish it didn't. I wish there was a way for me to snap my fingers and make all of the bad things go away. But I can't. And neither can you. But maybe it is enough that we see these things and know how fortunate we all are to never be on the business end of any of it.”

  The flowing drink had turned many into pseudo-intellectuals that liked to hear themselves talk. Elize didn't really mind, and actually found Gerald to be cute when he talked intelligently, even if he was drunk while he did it, but she was making the conscientious effort to steer her fiancé and herself at least an arm’s length away from the rest of the couples that were on the tour of the basement with them.

  It wasn't that she disliked anyone, but some of the couples kept squabbling over petty things that really only amounted to a struggle for power in the relationship coming to froth because of the suds and bubbly everyone had been drinking all night.

  Sometimes it was all right, or even cute, to hear some of the older couples quibble. Younger couples’ spats could be pretty cringe worthy, though.

  Elize guided Gerald over to an Iron Maiden standing in the middle of a room off the beaten path and they stopped to examine it. Quickly, they were joined by a two other couples that looked vaguely familiar.

  “What is this thing?” a woman asked, who was too drunk to stand up on her own, leaning heavily against her husband. Both were plump and in their late fifties, with wrinkled faces and white hair. Instead of being sweet and old, they were more surly than anything else, their money giving them a kind of arrogance the privileged get when mixed with old age. kth ng eldiv>“I can't really remember,” the older man said.

  The three couple stood there and stared at the coffin-like thing in front of them, it's only feature being a few small slits where a face should have been.

  “It's an Iron Maiden,” Elize said, breaking the silence.

  The younger couple nearest to them nodded in agreement while the older couple seemed to deepen their frowns as if any affirmation that Elize could be right was somehow too much for them to bear.

  “Yes,” the husband of the younger couple said. “Did you know that Sadam Hussien used this on Iraq's soccer team's players if they made errors during matches?”

  The older husband looked from Gerald then over to the younger husband and shook his head slightly. “I'm not sure it is in fact called an Iron Maiden,” he said sarcastically. “How can we be so sure? It's not like any of us can use our phones to look it up with so much concrete and steel above our heads. This contraption could have any manner of name, and I'm sure that the country of its origin doesn't even speak English.”

  Elize stiffened. The old man seemed like he was drunk and looking for a fight, and from the leering smile his wife had on her face, she didn't seem to mind at all.

  “I assure you, sir, that this is in fact an Iron Maiden,” Gerald said, using his courtroom voice that Elize found so sexy. “It’s like an upright coffin with spikes on the inside intended to pierce the person standing inside after they have become exhausted and collapsed on them.”

  The older gentleman reared back on his heels and stared at Gerald. Elize could feel Gerald's weight slowly rock forward onto the balls of his feet and she knew that he was about to use his sharp tongue to humiliate the older man. Just when he opened his mouth, she shifted her weight and dug her elbow into his ribs.

  “Maybe you're right,” Elize said. “I mean, I don't really know what I'm talking about. Maybe you know more? I'm sure you are right.”

  The older man's eyes widened and he smiled at Elize. “Of course you don’t know what you’re talking about, and of course I’m right.”

  “I'm not sure I like your tone,” Gerald said, ignoring Elize the second time she elbowed him. “Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, but I also realize that you seem to think that for whatever reason, anyone is somehow at some kind of disadvantage to whatever you say.”

  The younger couple quickly drifted out of the room, not wanting to bear witness to any kind of squabble that might break out over torture device trivia. The older man became enraged, sputtering over and over again like an engine that wouldn't start. Gerald and Elize took a few steps back from him, wondering if his red face was a sign that he might explode at any moment.

  Just when it seemed like the old man would shake to pieces with his own rage, Jude and Tamara walked into the room.

  Chapter Two

  “SIMON,” JUDE SAID. “I trust that you aren't about to lose your mind on my friends here.”

  The old man, whose name was evidently Simon, simmered down and his wife nuzzled deep into his arm. “I'll have you know that this young man here is quite the buffoon and that his wife is a blowhard. They seem to think that they know everything there is to know about the tort—”

  Jude cut the man off mid-sentence. “Simon I'll have you know that both of the fine people you are arguing with are high powered attorneys-at-law,” Jude said. “Corporate law to be exact. So you may well have met a few that know a thing or two about what they speak about. Besides, they’re my friends. You might kds.e ex want to use their services in the nearest future because from what I heard from your accountant, you’re going to run some issue
s with your contracts — beginning with your bank loans. I certainly will feel much better handling the delicate details of the agreement if it’s Elize here, who happens to be a former classmate of mine, who will pour over them and re-negotiate.”

  Simon stood there, obviously flustered but trying to calm down as quickly as he could. Jude's ownership of the bank where he got his loans undoubtedly had much to do with his sudden change of heart. After taking a few moments to compose himself, he spoke.

  “Allow me to apologize to you and your friends,” he said. “I and my wife will be on our way.”

  The older couple quickly left the room and made their way down the corridor that the rest of the guests were filing through, past the torture devices on to whatever was stacked up in the basement catacombs next.

  “Interesting how when some people age they turn into vinegar instead of fine wine,” Jude said as he slowly paced around the Iron Maiden, careful to take every rivet and crease in the metal cocoon. “What's funnier still is this contraption and how Simon didn't know what it was. Or maybe he did and he just wanted to fight about it. That could just as easily explain his little show.”

  After circling the Iron Maiden a few times, Jude looked around the walls of the small room, carefully examining the refuse that had built up in the corners. He walked over to a pile of stuff that may or may not have been from the Historical Society, and could have been just a pile of rags and other garbage and picked at it with the toe of his shoe. The brogues he was wearing must have been at least five hundred dollars, but that didn't seem to cross his mind as he dipped the shiny toe into the pile of waste that dissolved into dust bunnies and rags.

  “I wonder how all of this garbage got in here,” Gerald said. “Do you think it's just build up from all the years?”

  Elize was uneasy about the situation. Sure, Jude had come to the rescue, but now he was lingering and pretty obviously biding his time until he built up the courage to do something. Or maybe courage wasn’t the right word. Maybe he just was naturally that — brazen. Often times, Elize observed powerful people take their time to pounce, and she had the feeling this would be another one of them.

  On the other hand, it was taking her a bit hard to adjust to this Jude from her memory of “Joey”. She was so comfortable with Joey in his beach get up and his easy smile. He even talked differently, so easy and goofy. She took a deep breath when she realized she wanted to meet “Joey” again.

  “Well, I just don't know that, but you may be onto something,” Jude said. “But what I do know is that your fiancée and I must go get refreshments from upstairs while you keep my wife-to-be company. It would be wonderful to catch up with Elize about the good old days and what’s really happening to her now. As I’ve said to Simon, I really am suddenly interested in collaborating with her father’s law firm, now that I’ve met her again I remember how she was the highly smart classmate. I’m a very busy man and I’d like this opportunity to ask her a few important questions that will help me decide what cases I need her help with. So if you don’t mind...?”

  A second of hesitation passed before Gerald spoke.

  Chapter Three

  “WELL OF COURSE! I have no objection to that at all. When it’s business and her career, I leave all decisions to her. Her father will love the idea of... collaboration.” Then he turned to Tamara and charmingly smiled at her. “As long as your beautiful fiancée doesn’t mind b ksnr will leing left with me, then everything is alright.”

  For a second, Gerald's voice faded out as her mind spun. She thought back to the lie that Jude had told when he and his wife had first run into Elize and her fiancé, Gerald, at the start of the night. The lie had been small and seemingly innocent. Jude had said that he remembered Elize from dating her briefly many years ago, when they were still “classmates” in high school.

  But really, what he remembered her from was their fling a few weeks before when they had run into each other at a low key resort in the Caribbean Islands.

  They had it extremely raunchy and terrific. Each had told the other a fake name that was now, of course, caught up with them. When she thought of how they had fucked at Jude's pad just a few hundred meters away from the beach, she couldn't help but blush.

  Now, Jude was asking Gerald to let him have private time with her to talk about the “good old days” that never really happened.

  Elize had no doubt that Gerald was going to comply with the request, but not until after a bit of pomp and fanfare to get the point across that Jude should return the favor sometime in the near future.

  Jude and Gerald were talking, but she was too deep in thought to hear what either were saying. She could gather what was being said without even paying attention just from their body language.

  Gerald was motioning with his arm toward her with a big smile on his face, probably not saying much about anything really, just treading over the not so fine point, once again, that indeed she was his fiancée and that he didn't have to let Jude hang out with her away from him, but he would because he was a nice guy.

  Jude was looking from his fiancée to Gerald and back to his fiancée, trying to get Gerald to believe that what he was leaving him was the height of honor bestowed on him, when he was going away with Gerald’s woman to begin with.

  God, I need a drink! Elize though to herself as, the most fucked up of all, she watched her fiancé smile and talk with the man she had fucked silly in an island tropical paradise.

  “Well, it's settled then,” Jude said, finally. “Elize will accompany me upstairs to retrieve drinks for all four of us then while you will keep my beautiful fiancée company.”

  “Absolutely,” Gerald said, and then turned to Tamara, offering her his arm. “Shall we?”

  “Why, of course,” Tamara said. “We should hurry to catch up with the rest of the group. Whatever is just ahead seems to have people very interested in it...”Tamara's voice faded as she and Gerald walked out of the room together, deeper in this huge labyrinth they called basement.

  “Ah,” Jude said. “Time alone at last.” He offered her his arm. “Shall we head upstairs to see what refreshments we can scrounge at this late an hour?”

  Elize wasn't sure if she wanted to confront the situation head on or let it play out a little bit. If she confronted it, she might be able to grab the bull by the horns, so to speak. But if she let it play out, she would have a better idea of what exactly Jude wanted to achieve by telling Gerald the little lie about how he had dated Elize in the past.

  Elize hesitated for a few moments, but then figured she didn't have much to lose by going with him and playing along at least for a little bit.

  “Sure,” Elize said as she slipped the crook of her arm into his. “Let's head upstairs and see what we can find.”

  They both walked away from the Iron Maiden and headed up the stairs. The stairs twisted a few times before coming to a door that would let them out onto the first floor right by the kitchen.

  Elize was finding that although the ho kthothe lituse looked very modern from the outside, much of the layout was just a jumble of rooms and passages. None of it really seemed to make sense. The Governor had explained that the mansion had exchanged hands several times during the time of its building, and that it took more than a few decades to finally get the last brick in place.

  This lead to a lot of haphazard thought processes being put forward by different architects hired by the state to try to speed things up. The only thing that had sped up, though, was the confusion that some of the design choices caused.

  For instance, why would there be a twisting, cobblestone staircase that led to the basement from the kitchen? Elize didn't expect to ever find an actual answer and just figured she should go with it.

  Jude slipped his arm out of hers as they walked into the kitchen and he opened the refrigerator door.

  “Well, let's see what we have here. There is some wine, and some beer. I guess there is a little bit of everything. I'm not really sure what your taste
s are, so maybe you could help me?” Jude said.

  “You do have some idea of how I taste,” Elize said with a smirk on her face.

  Jude's movements in the fridge stopped for a moment and he glanced over his shoulder at her before continuing. “You really do look stunning tonight,” Jude said.

  Elize did look stunning wearing a strapless black dress that pushed up and showed off her cleavage — and she knew it. She'd caught Jude casting glances at the crease between her two creamy breasts all night.

  “Well, you look very handsome yourself in that tailored suit,” Elize said. “But I must admit my curiosity is getting the best me.”

  Jude stood up from leaning into the fridge with a bottle of champagne in his hands. He turned to face her, and just when it seemed like he was going to say something, he instead pressed his thumb against the cork just a little more and it shot out of the bottle with a sharp POP sound.

  The cork hit the ceiling and ricocheted into a cupboard that had been left open. Elize burst out laughing at the sudden outburst, then clamped her hand over her mouth, realizing she was more than just a little bit drunk.

  * * *

  About the Author

  C.J. McLane was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to a family that runs a business in the music industry.

  He grew up listening to demos of aspiring musicians which molded him into a man with a great passion for art. It was a different kind of art, however, that C.J. wanted to pursue academically.

  C.J. fell in love with photography because he was constantly amazed by the fact that one picture could tell a lifetime's story. He did an excellent story-telling job behind the lens. But when he purposefully acquainted himself with photo descriptions, he found a new love - words. He always dreaded writing, mostly because his cursive was so incomprehensible that his essays in middle school received low grades. But he's got a keyboard now, and a pool of writing ideas backed by his journeys and experiences - which he likes to call the rocking party life of a college guy.