Light Her Fire Read online

  “Bluelick, you are so ready—no, not just ready—you’re entitled to a screaming orgasm. Hell, you practically give me one just by breathing.” Yeah, maybe he wasn’t Mr. Romance, but that put a little glow back in her cheeks. “Let me prove it. Tomorrow night.”

  The suggestion had her reaching for her shoes. She shoved her feet into the heels, grabbed her purse, and then stood. “Josh, I appreciate the follow-through, honestly I do, but let’s face it, I—”

  “You know, despite me having my hands, and mouth, on almost every inch of you, there’s one very important thing I overlooked tonight.” While he said it, he caught her hair in a tail at the back of her head.

  She blinked and swallowed. “You did?”

  “Yeah.” With a twist of his wrist, he wound her hair around his hand just the way he’d imagined doing, and tugged her head back a fraction. Her gaze fixed on his. Her lips parted.

  “What did you overlook?”

  “This.” He brought his mouth down on hers.

  He’d intended to use the kiss to show her how much she wanted to say yes to tomorrow night, but as soon as he touched her, he wasn’t sure he could wait twenty-four hours. One deep, hot sweep of his tongue inside her mouth had him ready to say yes to right then and there.

  Apparently he wasn’t the only one. Her purse hit the ground. Her hands came up to mold to the back of his head, while her thighs parted around one of his. Her sigh slipped into his mouth along with the tip of her tongue, and the combination drove him a little bit crazy. He angled her head back more, precisely where he wanted it, and dived into the kiss. She took everything he dished out, sucking his tongue so hard he felt the pull all the way to the base of his cock. An image of him, balls-deep in her mouth, flashed through his brain and he groaned. The sensation of her teeth sinking into his lower lip had him groaning again and returning the favor until she cried out and rocked her hips against his thigh.

  Fingernails scraped down his neck. Her cries grew pitchy. The pace of her movements increased, making it hard to keep their lips locked. The kiss turned slippery and imprecise, and the wildness of her response tempted him to let her keep right on chasing the prize until she hit the finish line. But a greedy part of him hit the brakes. Not because he refused to give without getting in return, but because he had a sneaking suspicion if she got what she’d been after all night, she’d be done with him. He wasn’t anywhere close to done with her yet, which meant he had to leave her wanting more.

  He broke the kiss and brought his hands to her hips to still her. She made a pained sound and tightened her hold on his shoulders, trying to pull him back to her. The sight of her, with her eyes closed, her face flushed, and her lips swollen and wet from his kisses, qualified as one of the sexiest things he’d ever seen—just behind bound at the wrists and braced on an exam table, begging him not to stop.

  “Tomorrow night,” he said, and watched her eyelids click open and those blue eyes focus on him.

  “What?”

  “We’ll finish this tomorrow night.” With that, he turned and walked to the door.

  …

  Finish what tomorrow night? It took a moment for his words to work their way past all her clamoring hormones, and then her mouth dropped open in disbelief. He meant this. Her. The sex. He’d wound her up again with the kiss—whoa, what a kiss—and now he wanted her to wait? She almost burst into tears. “Tomorrow night?” Every bit of disappointment she felt must have shown on her face, but he held the door open for her and grinned.

  “I plan to do this right. Instant gratification is overrated.”

  A decade of a bullshit engagement, a freaking firehouse tour, a night that would probably result in her getting fired from a job she really liked—there was nothing instant about this gratification he kept promising. Worse, tomorrow night wouldn’t work.

  “I can’t tomorrow night. I have plans with Roger, and I can’t break them.”

  His grin disappeared. “Roger, your ex?”

  Okay, yes, that sounded bad. Their plans had nothing to do with second thoughts or fruitless attempts to put the relationship back together or any of those ill-fated-relapse things people did, but she wasn’t at liberty to say, I’m meeting Roger’s boyfriend for the first time, before they leave on a romantic vacation together. Roger would kill her. He lived in fear of his friends and family finding out the truth.

  She hurried through the door and then paused to lock up behind them. “We’re still friends.” Thinking that sounded defensive, she laughed and shrugged. “I mean, he’s my best friend.” Nope. Not better. “Strictly friends,” she added lamely, and hustled out of the building so she wouldn’t volunteer any more information that made her seem like a lost cause.

  “Far be it for me to come between friends. Friday night.”

  He didn’t pose it as a question, which should have offended her, but the fact that he sounded so sure after the way she’d just rambled about Roger made her want to say yes. “Um. Okay. I’m free Friday. Actually, I’m likely free most days, seeing as how I’m probably fired.”

  He took her hand as they exited the building and held it while they walked across the square to where they’d parked in front of the fire station. “When I was a rookie, my chief caught me and dispatcher Francesca Giordiano doing a stop, drop, and roll in the back of the heavy rescue vehicle. I was off shift, but the truck wasn’t. I got some shit duty for a while, but I didn’t get fired. You won’t, either.”

  Affection bloomed in her chest like a big, bold sunflower. Sweet of him to try to reassure her. She nudged his shoulder. “Francesca, huh?”

  “Si.”

  “Whatever happened to good old Francesca?”

  “She’s my friend. My best friend. We have plans tomorrow night.”

  She slugged him in the arm. “You have no idea where she is nowadays, do you?”

  “No clue. Last I knew she was married with a baby on the way. She dropped me for an EMT. I guess the back of the ambulance affords a lot more privacy than the back of a fire truck.”

  “I’ll have to take your word for it. All I know is the firehouse and the doctor’s office offer none whatsoever.”

  He laughed. They stopped in front of her white BMW convertible—a gift from Roger when he’d extended their engagement, yet again. He’d given her a getaway vehicle when she’d wanted a wedding ring, for God’s sake. How could she not have known? She rested a hip against the car and looked at Josh, and all thoughts about Roger flew from her mind. She couldn’t think past the blue-green eyes fixed on her.

  “Tell Ellie I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. Coming to the office tonight was my lamebrain idea. Oh. Ha. You’re sorry she interrupted.”

  “Yep. But you don’t have to put the rest out there for her. I’d stick with the ‘Josh is sorry’ part, and leave it at that.” He looked as sorry as Satan at a sinner’s convention.

  “Why do I feel like I’m headed to hell in a handbasket?”

  “What? Because of tonight?”

  “Because of everything I’ve done since I met you.”

  “Still only adds up to one night of sin, Bluelick. No need to start flameproofing your handbasket.”

  There might have been a teensy part of her determined to torture him for making her wait, or maybe she really had stepped onto a slippery slope when she’d rolled her cart over to his in Boone’s and propositioned him, but whatever the reason, she leveled what she hoped was a suggestive look at him and said, “No. I met you a couple months ago. I’ve committed several…um…let’s call them solo sins since then.”

  His grin never faltered, but he leaned nearer and his eyes seemed to darken. “Maybe you should confess. I hear it’s good for the soul, and as an emergency responder, I’m trained to take confessions. You never know when a citizen in distress will need to unburden herself.”

  “Well, there’s this recurring dream I have when I’m alone in my bed.” She paused to let the image sink in. “In
my dream, I’m so hot, I’m practically burning up. I take off all my clothes, run an ice cube over my skin, but try as I might, there’s nothing I can do to cool down. There’s a fire inside me, and I can’t put it out on my own. And then, magically, you appear—a big, strong firefighter—and you plunge right in and…save me.”

  He stared at her like a man in need of a cold shower.

  “So”—she drew back and pulled her phone from her handbag—“I’ll hear from you Friday?”

  Instead of answering, he took her phone from her, called up her contacts, and entered his number. Then he handed it back to her. “You’re going to call or text me tomorrow and let me know what happens with your job.”

  Slick of him, putting the ball back in her court. “I really do like the job. Hopefully if I beg forgiveness, she won’t fire me.”

  …

  Melody let herself into the office a good half hour early, dropped her purse on the reception area counter, and then beelined to the exam room to erase any traces of last night’s indiscretion. No need to leave any reminders for Ellie. Her boss no doubt already had quite a picture indelibly imprinted on her brain.

  Who knows why Ellie had stopped by the office so late, but she surely hadn’t expected anyone else to be there at that hour. Discovering she wasn’t alone must have been frightening, and then, to walk down the hall and see… Oh, God. She cringed just imagining what Ellie had seen.

  After putting the exam room in order, she retraced her steps and made sure there were no other telltale signs in the office. No stray sock in the hallway. No condom packet left lying somewhere after their hastily aborted adventure. Everything looked good except…uh-oh. She hurried to the waiting room and knelt by the table, quickly retrieving and arranging the magazines she and Josh had knocked to the floor on their way in last night. She smiled, despite her nerves, thinking of how he’d stared at her sternly and promised to teach her patience when she’d reached for his fly…

  The door swung open and Ellie nearly stumbled over her.

  “Hi, Ellie.” Melody stood and smoothed out the skirt of her peach dress. “Sorry. I know I’m early.” She glanced around the waiting room to gather her courage, and then looked at her boss. Pretty, dark-haired, and normally down-to-earth Dr. Swann looked decidedly dreamy-eyed. Not exactly the expression Melody expected. “I aimed to get here early this morning in case you wanted to…you know…fire me.”

  The faraway look in Ellie’s deep brown eyes promptly disappeared, replaced by surprise. “Oh, God no.” She grabbed Melody’s arm and shook her head. “I’m relieved to see you. I was afraid you were going to quit.”

  “Are you kidding? I love this job. I don’t want to lose it.” She closed her eyes and braced herself to…go there. “I can’t believe I did something so crazy and unprofessional.”

  “Um, wasn’t it you who walked in on Tyler and me kissing in exam room one a few weeks ago? I’d be kind of a hypocrite, calling you unprofessional.”

  “This was worse,” she heard herself respond, and immediately wanted to yank the words back. She doesn’t want to fire you. Are you trying to change her mind? And yet, she couldn’t seem to stop talking. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Actually, that’s not true. I was thinking it had been so damn long since a gorgeous, sexy, incredibly attentive guy literally wanted to tear my clothes off and have his merry way with me. And then I just completely stopped thinking.”

  Ellie nodded, but Melody could see the cogs in the good doctor’s brain turning. Roger and she had broken up because, according to the rumors Melody herself had started, she couldn’t abide by Roger’s wild sexual appetites. Now she was desperate to have someone tear her clothes off and go at her. Why wouldn’t that someone be Roger?

  Luckily, Ellie didn’t ask the question so obviously in her mind. Instead she said, “Who could blame you? Not any healthy, red-blooded woman in the county between the ages of eighteen and eighty, because I hear there’s been a suspicious uptick in small kitchen fires since Chief Bradley landed in Bluelick.”

  What a sweetheart. After giving Ellie her best grateful smile, she walked through the door leading from the waiting room to the office proper and paused at the counter where she’d racked the day’s charts. “I really am sorry, and mortified, and I promise nothing like last night will ever happen again.”

  Ellie laughed, and put her Jiffy Java to-go cup on the counter. Then she leafed through the charts. “Hey, for your sake, I hope it happens all the time, just not anyplace where a bonehead like me will bumble along.”

  “Oh, you’re not a bonehead. I’m sure you were terrified, and then horrified.”

  “Try surprised, and then relieved. Honestly, Melody, don’t give the incident another thought. I know you didn’t plan it.”

  “I didn’t. I hadn’t even planned on seeing Josh last night, much less getting naked with the man. But I ran into him at Boone’s Market and it felt so good, talking with him, feeling that zing of attraction when he looked at me, realizing he felt the same chemistry. When he invited me to take a tour of the firehouse, I knew we were both looking for an excuse to…ah”—have sex—“spend more time together. But the firehouse is a busy place, full of other firefighters and what have you, so afterward, I offered to take him on a tour of my workplace. As soon as we were alone, things just sort of ignited. I really am sorry.” Thinking of Josh’s “apology” last night, she stuck her tongue in her cheek and added, “Josh is, too.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Ellie waved the apology away. She picked up her coffee and started to head to her office, then stopped and looked back. “So…are you going to see Chief Bradley again?”

  “You’ve seen him as naked as a newborn, Ellie. I think under the circumstances, you should call him Josh.”

  “You’re evading the question, Miss Merritt.”

  She was, wasn’t she? Stupid to feel self-conscious admitting she planned to go on a date with the man. Especially considering everything Ellie already knew via direct and in-person observation. “Yes. He asked me to dinner Friday night. I accepted before I could talk myself out of it.”

  Ellie scrunched her brow. “Why would you want to talk yourself out of it?”

  “Please. I’ve got ‘woman in transition’ written all over me, and I know it. I’m coming off a long-term relationship and a broken engagement. My head’s telling me stuff like, ‘Take things slow. Have fun. Don’t dive into anything serious.’”

  “Sounds logical.”

  Leave it to Ellie to appreciate logic. “Yeah. Too bad my”—hormones—“um, heart took one look at Josh and said, ‘Mine, mine, mine!’”

  “It’s a little-known medical fact. The heart’s got a mind of its own. I guess yours is over Roger, then?”

  “Yes. For a long time.” Uh-huh, keep talking. This is what you need people in Bluelick to focus on now. “We’d drifted into friendship well before we called our engagement off. It just took us a while to admit as much to each other.”

  Ellie appeared to weigh the information carefully. Then she drew in a breath. “Okay, well, the thing is…” She let the breath, and her words, out in a rush. “Roger and I are going on a date when he gets back from vacation.”

  Wha…? “Roger asked you out?” There had to be some sort of explanation.

  Ellie looked sorry she’d said anything. “He did. We’re having dinner at my place.”

  What was he thinking? She knew she was staring. Knew she ought to say something, but she fumbled for the right response.

  Ellie rushed to fill the silence. “I’ve always liked Roger. In school, I had a big crush on him. Now that we’re both back in Bluelick, I realize my crush never completely faded, but maybe evolved into something new. I think he sees me in a new light, too.”

  Yeah, as his new, unsuspecting, beard. Anger heated her blood, but she bit back the words.

  “You’re mad.” The hurt in Ellie’s voice only made her feel worse.

  “Not with you, no. But I’m mad as hell at him b
ecause…because…” She closed her eyes and counted to ten. “I can’t even tell you why I’m upset, because I can’t think of a way to explain without breaking a promise. But it’s not because I’m some crazy, jealous ex.” She rubbed her palm over the invisible band tightening across her forehead and stared at the wall, hoping the perfect answer would magically materialize. “I don’t want to see somebody else’s time wasted.” Dammit.

  Now Ellie found some fascination with the wall. “I…ah…I know what I’m getting into.”

  Yeah, right. You’ve cast Roger as Christian Grey, not Christian Gay. The slam of the waiting room door pulled her attention to the reception window. Ms. Van Hendler hobbled over. Melody handed Ellie the older lady’s chart and said in a low voice, “I know you think you do, but you don’t. I know I’m not making any sense. Just remember, I’m here for you.”

  “What’s that, dear?” Ms. Van Hendler smiled at them from the other side of the window.

  Melody pasted an answering smile on her face. “I said, ‘Ms. Van Hendler, we’re clear for you.’ Come on back.”

  Chapter Five

  Josh pulled his phone from his pocket and nodded at Earl Rawley, the steel-haired, leather-skinned bartender and proprietor of Rawley’s Pub. He claimed a stool, put his phone on the bar¸ and scanned the score on the large flat-screen TV while Earl finished adding drinks to a tray for one of the waitresses looking after the tables.

  A minute later, Earl came over. “You’ve caught the tail end of happy hour, Chief. Domestic drafts are two bucks and house wines are five. What can I get you?

  He ordered a beer. Earl headed off to get his drink, and Josh annoyed himself by glancing down at his phone again. No word from Melody. He’d spent his entire day off checking his phone every ten minutes like a teenage girl waiting on her prom date. Worse, he’d actually held silent debates with himself about whether he should text her, call, or just leave it alone and wait for her to get in touch. He’d left it alone. Now the clock ticked toward six. The evidence—no word from her, and the fact that she wasn’t sitting in a booth at Rawley’s, drowning her sorrows—suggested she hadn’t gotten fired. Probably she’d had her hands full with a busy day of work.