Controlled Burn (13 page)

Rick cupped her face in his hands and bent to kiss her. It was slow, simmering, and she felt her pulse quicken
in anticipation. His tongue flicked over her lips and she opened her mouth to him. She felt as though she could kiss him forever and never grow tired of it.

Then his hands left her face, skimming down over her shoulders and arms before his hands cupped her breasts through the soft knit of her sweater. She sucked in a breath when his thumbs brushed over her nipples and she felt his smile against
her mouth.

Jessica took matters into her own hands and grabbed the hem of the sweater. She had to break off the kiss to pull it over her head, but she didn’t want fabric between her body and Rick’s hands anymore.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he told her, his voice rough. He tucked his hands under her arms and lifted her so she was farther back on the bed before sliding one finger under the
strap of her bra. “And I do love this color.”

She touched her fingertip to his mouth, intending to trace his lip, but he caught it between his teeth before sucking gently. When he swirled his tongue over the tip, she moaned and pulled her finger free so she could kiss him.

“You do love kissing,” he said after a few minutes.

“I’ve never really thought much about it,” she confessed.
“I think it’s you.”

“Good.” He nipped at her lip. “I like kissing you.”

He kissed her mouth again before moving to her jaw and the hollow at the base of her throat. Then he unhooked the yellow bra and slid it over her arms so he could kiss her breasts. She dug her fingers into his biceps when he closed his mouth over one nipple and then the other, sucking hard enough to make her squirm.

His fingers skimmed over her stomach to the button of her jeans. He popped it with one hand and then worked the zipper down. “I don’t want to stop touching you long enough to get these off of you.”

“The sooner you get them off, and get yours off, the sooner you can be inside of me.”

He groaned against her breast, then ran his tongue over a nipple. “Are you in a hurry?”

“For
you to be naked? Absolutely.”

He chuckled before pushing up off the bed. It only took him seconds to pull her jeans and socks off, though he did take a moment to appreciate the yellow lace panties before adding them to the pile of clothes on the floor.

Then he stripped out of his jeans and boxer briefs, and Jessica had a moment to fully appreciate his ruggedly built body before he stretched
out alongside her. He ran his hand over the flat of her stomach and she laughed.

“You’d think a man as experienced as yourself would know better than to touch a woman’s stomach like that. It makes us self-conscious.”

“I love every inch of your body.” He rolled so he was looking down at her. “Did you just call me old?”

She reached down and ran her fingers up the length of his erection,
watching his jaw clench. “Definitely not.”

“Jesus, Jess. You can’t do that.”

She closed her fingers around him. “I want you now.”

“I think I’m supposed to be proving a point about experience versus stamina or something and you are not helping.”

Still stroking him, but not with too much pressure, she captured his bottom lip between her lips and kissed him again. “Just kissing
you feels amazing. I don’t want to wait anymore.”

He shifted his weight so he could reach his nightstand and open the drawer to pull out a condom. Jessica reluctantly stopped touching him long enough for him to put it on, and then he was kissing her again. Rough and demanding, he kept kissing her while reaching between their bodies to guide his cock into her.

Jessica dug her fingernails
into his shoulders as he slowly filled her, each slow stroke deeper than the one before until she’d taken him completely. He pushed her hair away from her face and his gaze locked with hers as he moved his hips.

She said his name and he smiled, a slow grin that made her smile back at him. “That feels so good.”

“
You
feel so good.” He cupped one of her breasts and lowered his mouth to
hers, kissing her just the way she liked as he moved between her thighs.

Jessica wrapped her legs over his, her heels digging into his calves. “Please, Rick.”

“Please what?” he said against her mouth.

“Faster.”

He obliged and she scraped her fingernails over his back as he thrust into her. Her back arched off the bed as she came, biting down on the side of her hand to keep
from screaming his name.

He hooked his hand under her knee and lifted so he could thrust harder and it was only a moment before he found his own release with a guttural moan.

Jessica, still breathless from her own orgasm, ran her hands over his back as he came. Then he buried his face in her neck and pressed small kisses against her skin. Smiling, she stroked his hair as their breathing
slowly returned to normal.

Then he tossed the condom in the trash basket under the nightstand and rolled onto his back, pulling her with him. She pressed her body along the length of his, loving the feel of his naked skin.

“I’m so glad we didn’t agree not to do this again,” she murmured after a few minutes.

He ran his fingers through her hair, making her shiver. “No shit. Although,
even if we had, I’d be trying to break it in about fifteen minutes or so.”

She kissed his chest. “I should come watch hockey with you more often.”

“God, I hope they play Wednesday.”

Chapter Twelve

“Hey.”
Thump. Thump.

Rick opened his eyes to see Jeff Porter standing over him, kicking the base of the couch. The station was relatively quiet from what he could hear, so resting his eyes hadn’t turned into sleeping through alarms. “What?”

“You have company,” Jeff said. “Downstairs.”

Swinging his feet to the floor, Rick sat up so fast he was surprised
he didn’t get dizzy. “Jess is here?”

“Jess? You mean your landlords’ granddaughter?” Jeff narrowed his eyes. “You sure jumped to that conclusion pretty quickly.”

It made sense he’d wake up thinking of Jess, since he’d nodded off thinking about her. “Is it her or not?”

“Sorry, guy, but it’s not her.”

Rick scrubbed his hands over his face, trying to shake off not only the lingering
sleepiness, but the disappointment, as well. It was probably stupid to be sorry she hadn’t shown up at the station when he’d spent last night with her. And if she was smart, she’d told Joe and Marie she had a lot of work to do and holed up in her bedroom to catch up on her sleep. They hadn’t gotten much last night.

“Who is it?” he asked Jeff after pushing himself to his feet.

“As much
as we’d all get a kick out of seeing your face when you’re caught off guard, I like you today so I’ll give you the heads-up. It’s the friendly lady with the nightgown and the false alarms.”

“Shit.” It had been a couple of weeks since the last time she’d called for help she didn’t need, so he’d put her out of his mind.

“She’s carrying a plastic container, so there might be food in it
for us. Maybe even the freshly-baked-from-scratch kind of food.”

“If she has baked goods, I’m surprised she didn’t leave them in the oven long enough to set her smoke detectors off.”

Jeff laughed, but Rick wasn’t amused as he walked down to the ground floor and toward the front of the open bay. Aidan and Scott were making a big deal out of inspecting a length of hose, but Rick suspected
it was their way of keeping an eye on the woman while having a good excuse not to make conversation with her. While their house hadn’t had any problems, there were cases of people taking their infatuation with firefighters to dangerous levels.

The woman in question was clutching her plastic container and looking at everything she could see from the doorway with wide eyes. She was pretty and
she’d seemed nice in the past, but Rick knew he had to shut her down as firmly as possible without upsetting her.

“Hi,” he said, stepping up to her. “I heard you’re looking for me?”

She smiled, her face flushing as she nodded. “I just wanted to stop by and thank you again for helping me.”

“We’re just doing our jobs, ma’am.” He managed to deliver the corny—but true—line with a straight
face.

She giggled. “It’s Deena. And I still want to thank you. I baked you some muffins. I wasn’t sure what kind you’d like, so there are blueberry and cranberry and chocolate chip.”

“We’re not really supposed to accept gifts, so—”

“I make good muffins,” she interrupted, “but they’re not worth more than fifty dollars.”

So she knew the rules. Maybe she’d looked them up just
to be on the safe side, or maybe she had some experience in showing up with muffins for firefighters. He couldn’t be sure, but he knew there was no way out of accepting the token thanks without hurting her feelings, which he’d hate to do. And next she’d introduce the possibility of returning soon for the plastic container while dropping strong hints that she wouldn’t mind if he dropped it by her place.

“Okay,” he said, accepting the box. “We’ll all enjoy these, I’m sure.”

“I hope so. Maybe I can stop by in a couple of days or whenever you’re here and pick up the container.”

“Sure.” He looked down at the box in his hands. “They won’t last that long, though. I’ll probably have to hide a cranberry one in my truck to sneak it home to my girlfriend. She loves them.”

“Oh, definitely.
Like I said, I’m pretty good at muffins.” She gave him a smile. “On second thought, the container’s one of those disposable ones, so you can just toss it when they’re gone. It’s not really worth coming back for.”

He thanked her again, hoping the relief at extricating himself didn’t show on his face, and she seemed happy enough when she waved goodbye to the guys behind him and walked away.
As soon as she turned the corner out of sight, Aidan and Scott appeared next to him.

“Did she say chocolate chip?” Scott asked.

“I’m not sharing.”

“You told her we’d all enjoy them,” Aidan pointed out.

“You two didn’t seem to be in a hurry to help me out. An urgent call I needed to take or something would have been nice.”

Aidan shrugged and grabbed the container while
Rick was off guard. “You were holding your own. If she hadn’t taken the girlfriend hint, we would have stepped in.”

“Pretty slick, the way you threw that lie in there,” Scott added.

He supposed it had technically been a lie. Though he’d spent the night with Jess and would like to spend a lot more nights with her, she was going back to San Diego on Thursday and he had no idea if or when
she’d be back. “If anybody knows that claiming to have a girlfriend is a standard way of getting out of a situation, it would be you, Kincaid.”

“I’m reformed.” When Rick just stared at him, Scott finally snorted. “Okay, I’m thinking about reforming.”

“I think that translates to him running out of women to date,” Aidan added.

Rick listened to the two best friends swap insults for
a few seconds, and then pulled out his phone to type a message to Jess.
Hey, what’s your favorite kind of muffin? Blueberry, cranberry or chocolate chip?

The response came so quickly, he guessed she was probably working with her phone in hand.
Blueberry.

“Hold on,” he said before the guys could wander off. “Give me one of the blueberry ones.”

“I thought you liked cranberry,” Aidan
said. One of the problems with practically living with a bunch of guys was that they got to know you too well, making it hard to put one over on them. “And you said your imaginary girlfriend likes cranberry, too, so who’s it for?”

“Don’t worry about it. Maybe I just want something different.”

His phone chimed in his hand and he looked down at the screen to see another text from Jess.
Why?

Leaving the guys to the muffins, Rick walked around to the far side of Ladder 37 and sat in one of the metal folding chairs that were always kicking around.
We
got
a
thank
-
you
batch
of
muffins
and
I’m
saving
you
one.

I wouldn’t bet money on its chances of making it out of the station.

He laughed, and then immediately stifled it because he didn’t want to attract attention. If
the guys figured something had finally happened between him and his landlords’ granddaughter, it would go one of two ways. They’d think he was just getting lucky with a pretty woman who was sleeping under the same roof, and that sounded cheap. He didn’t like that. Or they’d think he was getting into a real relationship and, since he didn’t know how to respond to that, he’d rather not open the door.

Seniority means nothing if I can’t keep one muffin off-limits.

He imagined her smiling at her phone and wanted to call her so he could hear the smile in her voice, instead. But he didn’t want to talk to her with the guys around, and he had no idea if she was in her room alone or downstairs with Joe and Marie nearby.

If you declare two of them off-limits, we can have a muffin date
tomorrow.

“Hey, Hunt! Kincaid!” Rick stood and rushed back across the bays and caught the two of them halfway up the stairs. “Give me one of the cranberry ones, too.”

Once he’d secured the second muffin, he cradled the two of them in one hand while texting with the other.
I’ve got two, so it’s a date.

He’d never had a muffin date with a woman before, but as the remainder of the
tour loomed in front of him, Rick thought maybe he’d never looked forward to a date more.

* * *

Jessica not only set her phone down on the table when Marie walked into the kitchen, but she put it facedown, as if she’d been doing something she didn’t want her grandmother to see. It was silly, of course. She and Rick were adults and they were having a conversation about muffins. There
was nothing wrong with that.

Still, she couldn’t help but feel it was best if her grandparents didn’t know she and Rick had taken their relationship to an intimate level. Joe was still something of a closed book to her, but she had no doubt Marie would start making them all one big, happy family in her mind. And when it didn’t turn out that way, she might feel torn between the two of them
and Jessica didn’t want that.

“You’re still working?” Marie asked, heading to the refrigerator. “You’ve been sitting at that table for hours.”

“We had to hire a new caterer for the holiday party this year and Alicia had some concerns, so she forwarded the contract and a few email chains to me. It looks like they want to charge us top-shelf prices for the bar, but they’re not serving
top-shelf liquor.”

“You serve alcohol? That’s not a problem?”

Though Jessica hadn’t said too much about her father’s life because she felt caught in a weird conflict of loyalties, she’d said enough so Marie knew alcohol was an issue. “Dad never drinks in the office and especially not at the holiday party. Sometimes he’ll have a drink if he’s out in a social situation, but he never drinks
too much unless he’s at home.”

“That’s good. I hope you get your catering issues sorted out so you can enjoy the party.”

“I’ve got a handle on it, I think. I made a couple of phone calls and then followed them up with an email. I think they got the hint.”

“I’m going to miss you when you leave,” Marie said, sitting at the table with her. “I’ve gotten used to you being here.”

“I’m going to miss you, too. If not for the party, it would have been nice to stay for Christmas.” She picked up the pen next to her laptop and fiddled with it. “Maybe I could come back.”

“Oh, honey, you are welcome to come back anytime you want. And I’d love to spend the holidays with you. You know that. But I don’t want Davey alone, either. We’ve obviously had troubles, but I’m still his
mother and he’s been going through a hard time. It would break my heart to imagine him all alone for Christmas.”

“This particular hard time is of his own making,” Jessica pointed out.

“That’s true, but he’s going through a divorce and you coming out here hasn’t been easy for him, I’m sure, on either a personal or a professional level. You don’t want to throw too much at him at one time.
Not that his well-being is your responsibility, but I know you’ve always worried about him.”

Marie’s immediate willingness to sacrifice her own happiness for her son’s despite the fact he’d abandoned them and broken her heart was something Jessica had a hard time understanding. Her father loved her and he’d done his best raising her, but his needs came first. Maybe it was because his needs
were so often wrapped up with the needs of Broussard Financial Services, but Jessica couldn’t remember the last time she’d been number one on the family priority list.

“You’re right, I guess,” she said finally. “Before I leave, though, I’d like to get you a smartphone for Christmas. So we can keep in touch.”

Marie laughed. “Even that fancy phone of yours will accept calls from an old
landline.”

“True. But it would be nice to be able to text sometimes, too. And send each other pictures.”

“Joe did say maybe I should get one so we can do that.”

“I’d love for it to be my gift to the both of you, even though I know you’ll have to twist his arm to get him to do a video chat. It would mean a lot to me to keep in touch.”

Her grandmother wrapped her arms around
her. “I don’t care if we have to send carrier pigeons back and forth across the country. We’re not losing touch with you.”

Jessica blinked back tears and squeezed Marie. “I totally agree. A smartphone would definitely be faster, though. We can go get one today so I can show you the basics before I leave.”

“That does sound like fun. And I want you to be able to send me pictures of your
office and your home. I want to see what your life looks like.” She let go of Jessica and wiped at her eyes. “Maybe you could sneak me a picture of Davey. Not the fancy picture on his website, but a candid shot from the party or something like that.”

“I can try,” Jessica said, hedging. She wouldn’t try to sneak a picture of her father to send to his parents because that felt like an invasion
of his privacy. But she would try her best to get him to agree to let her send one. It seemed like the least he could do at that point. “And I want you to promise you’ll keep me in the loop when it comes to your health and any decisions you make about the house.”

“Of course we will. I think Joe and I have a lot of conversations about it in our near future, but it’s a hard thing to wrap your
mind around.”

“You can call me anytime to talk about it. It’s a big decision.”

“The biggest.” Marie was quiet for a few seconds, and then she clapped her hands together. “Okay, we only have today and tomorrow left together, so that’s enough with tears. Let’s go have some fun.”

* * *

Rick tried to stifle a yawn, but he was bone-tired and he couldn’t stop it, though he did cast
an apologetic glance at Jessica. “Sorry. I swear it’s not you.”

“Usually somebody yawning every five minutes in my company would give me a complex, but you had a busy night according to the morning news. And you didn’t get a lot of sleep Monday night.”

“I don’t regret a single second of Monday night,” he said, putting his empty paper plate on the coffee table before sitting up straighter
on the couch. “How’s your muffin?”

“I feel like I shouldn’t be enjoying it so much since it was baked for you by a woman who was so infatuated with you she was using false alarms to get close to you.” She sighed deeply. “It’s a really good muffin, though.”