In Hot Water

Dawson

Speeding ticket? Sure.

Handcuffs? Why not?

Getting arrested by the prettiest deputy in the county? Absolutely worth it.

From the moment Isla Merrill slaps cuffs on me, I’m hooked. She’s serious, focused, and impossible to charm—and it only makes me want her more.

Everyone sees me as the Hot brother who lives for the rush, but Isla makes me want something real. She doesn’t believe in easy wins or smooth talk, and she definitely doesn’t believe a guy like me could be what she needs.

Good thing I like a challenge. Because Isla Merrill is worth slowing down for—and fighting like hell to keep.

Isla

I cuff guys like Dawson Hot all the time. Cocky smile, fast car, bad decisions.

Only Dawson isn’t just another ticket. He’s the fire inspector everyone in town adores, the brother with the big grin and bigger heart.

He makes me laugh when I shouldn’t. He makes me wonder what it would feel like to let go for once.

But dating him would be reckless. Letting him past my guard would be even worse.

He says he likes it hot. I’m about to find out just how dangerous that heat can be—if I’m brave enough to take the risk.

The clock on my dashboard taunts me as I accelerate around a tight curve. Fuck me. Right now, I’m running a cool thirty-seven minutes late to Sunday brunch at Mom and Dad’s. I’m never going to hear the end of this. 
I come out of the S-curve and see the empty, open road ahead. Figuring I have nothing to lose, I gun it, listening as the twin-turbo V8 gives me the kind of roar you feel in your sternum. The speedometer blurs past eighty, then ninety, and I know I’m really pushing my luck here. It’s the kind of raw, irresponsible thrill that should cure my bad mood, but it only makes me hungrier and more reckless.
Which is why the universe, in its infinite sense of humor, waits until I’m cresting the last hill before the turnoff to my parents’ house to throw a brown-and-white sheriff’s cruiser my way. My heart seizes in my chest as I pass the other vehicle. And because my luck is absolute dogshit, I catch a full-face view of the deputy as she clocks me through the windshield. Holy shit. Even from this distance, I can tell she’s hot. Like fucking goddess gorgeous.
I hit the brakes out of pure reflex, but it’s too late. She whips a perfect U-turn, lights on, siren barely necessary with the way she’s closing the distance. I have just enough time to mutter “fucking hell” before I pull over and cut the engine, heart racing so hard I can feel it throbbing in my ears.
She parks right against my bumper, a power move if there ever was one, and I watch in the side mirror as she unfolds herself from the cruiser. She’s shorter than I expected and built like a goddamn pin-up model, all curves and a heart-shaped ass. She’s dressed in a standard tan uniform, starched to hell, gun belt with every pouch in place, and a nameplate I can’t read but desperately want to. Her blonde hair is wrangled into the kind of sleek ponytail that makes her cheeks seem sharper.
I keep both hands on the wheel and stare straight ahead as she approaches. My window’s already down. She leans in just far enough for me to get a whiff of something sharp and clean, and her sunglasses reflect my own dumb, sheepish face back at me.
“Good morning, sir. License and registration, please,” she says. No southern drawl, but her voice is low and calm, the kind that would be a sedative if it didn’t make my cock hard as a goddamn rock.
I fumble the wallet from my pocket and hand her my driver’s license, but the registration’s still in the glove compartment, probably under the owner’s manual and that weird envelope the dealership gave me. I pop the latch, dig around, and finally hand over the whole stack of paperwork.
She takes it all without a word, eyes scanning my license. “Dawson Hot,” she reads, then looks at me, one eyebrow raising so fractionally it might as well be a tell in professional poker. “Any relation to Beckett Hot?”
“Yeah. He’s my older brother. Deputy Chief.” Fuck. I hope Beckett doesn’t have something going with her. If he does, my goddamn brother is going to be solely disappointed because this woman is mine.
Son-of-a-bitch. Where the fuck did that come from?
I’m still reeling from my inner thoughts when she nods, unamused, and goes back to the paperwork. “Are you aware of how fast you were going, Mr. Hot?”
I weigh my options here. The truth, a lie, or just plain old acting stupid.
She doesn’t blink. “Clocked you at ninety-three in a fifty-five. That’s reckless driving.”
I wince and blurt out before my mind has time to catch up with my brain, “I’m late for brunch at my parents’ house.” 
She blinks several times, then takes a deep breath and holds up one palm. “That isn’t an excuse for putting yourself and others in danger with your reckless driving.” Then she turns on her heel and walks back to her cruiser, and I get to watch the aforementioned heart-shaped ass do a precision strut that’s both awe-inspiring and holy-fucking-sexy. I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t be thinking about a woman’s ass when she’s deciding whether or not to ruin my week, but that’s a battle I lost the second she stepped out of the car.
She’s gone for five minutes, probably running my name and record. I scroll the family group chat in the meantime, ignoring the string of GIFs from my brother Atlas and the all-caps threats from Mom. Beckett’s already weighing in with “You’re in deep shit,” and now I’m torn between sibling rage and the sick realization that I might, in fact, get arrested in the next five minutes.
I don’t look up until she’s back at my window, sunglasses off, and a dead serious look in her eyes. Her eyes are light hazel with an emerald green ring around the iris, which isn’t fair because I was already drowning in the rest of her, and now I have to add “gorgeous fucking eyes” to the list of things making things harder, and I mean that literally.