Desperately Seeking Fireman (7 page)

“Really?” One slim dark eyebrow rose meaningfully. “Are you thinking of pulling a shift at the nail salon?”

“I swear I’m never putting on a damn apron again. I was thinking we could take a quick tour of the island.”

“A tour? That sounds so . . . touristy.”

“I am on vacation, after all. When’s the last time you had a vacation?”

With her hand on the door handle of the Suburban, she cocked her head, considering the question. “Where have I heard that before? Oh right. My mother.”

He let out a curse. “Fucking apron. Never again.”

She laughed, throwing her head back. If you asked him, she was getting better at the laughing thing. Maybe it was like riding a bicycle. Or like sex. A pleasant little flare of anticipation flickered in his belly.

“Hop in,” she said. “Let’s take a tour.”

As he slid into the passenger seat, he remembered his rented Maserati, now sitting in a parking garage on the mainland. He thought about the girls who had checked him out, the interested glances he’d collected up and down the Pacific Coast Highway. And he realized he’d rather be right where he was. In a rattletrap Suburban driven by the sexy, incredibly appealing Nita Moreno.

The “zing.” It was all about the “zing.”

Nita steered the van along the road that ran through town. She gave him a rapid run-through of the highlights—the town hall, the best fish burger in town, the Maritime Museum, the original homestead from the island’s first settlers. As they passed the fire station, she said, “By the way, the fire chief stopped me at the grocery store. He said you’re to keep the hell away from his crew.”

He shook his head as they rumbled off the pavement onto the gravel road at the edge of town. “Aw, he shouldn’t have done that. Now I’m going to have to go.”

“Excuse me?” She glanced over at him. The wind from the open window whipped her hair against her cheek, with a few strands getting caught in her mouth. She tried to flick them away with her tongue, a maddeningly sexy effort that did nothing to the hair and everything to his dick.

“Here, let me,” he said in a suddenly gruff voice. He reached over and gently tugged the wet hair away from her face. “Where’s your hair tie?”

“Don’t tell me you do hair too?”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but I have opposable thumbs and I know what to do with them.”

Her eyelids flickered. Pink appeared on her cheeks. Oh, he was getting to her, he just knew it. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, giving him another glimpse of her tongue. He remembered the taste of her, sweeter than peaches.

“Don’t stop there,” she told him, carefully keeping her eyes on the road. “What else do you know how to do with your thumbs?”

“See, I’m not good with words the way you are. I’m better at demonstrating.” He took a chance and put his hand on the back of her neck, under the wind-tangled mass of hair. He made a slow circle with his thumb, rubbing the tight tendon he found there.

She made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a groan. “You have no idea how good that feels.”

“You don’t relax much, do you?”

“Sometimes I do. I watched a Bones marathon just last week while sampling all the Ben & Jerry’s flavors the island carries.”

“Bones? Isn’t that about a coroner? Doesn’t sound very relaxing.” He ran his thumb down the slope of her neck to her collarbone, found some more tense muscles along the ridge of her shoulder and got to work on those. Her skin felt incredibly soft to him. He’d given Belinda plenty of backrubs over the years, but they’d lost their erotic charge, and her skin didn’t have this effect on him. This galvanizing, seductive effect.

“Are you trying to make me pull over?” She tilted her head to the side, offering him more access.

“Is it working?”

“Well, I was going to take you to the abandoned lighthouse. It’s at the top of this hill and has an incredible view. I haven’t been inside yet.”

“Drive,” he ordered her, removing his hand from her neck. “I work much better at a stationary location.”

They drove in loaded silence. Jeb wanted to burst into song—some sort of triumphant, male victory chant. At the moment, all he wanted in life was to get this woman naked. Images skittered through his brain. Lovely amber skin, long legs, that shadow between her breasts, dark hair falling across her bare breasts, eyes half-lidded in sleepy arousal, her hands reaching into his pants . . .

He made an involuntary sound in the back of his throat.

She whipped her head toward him. “What is it?”

“Just drive fast, would you?”

Closing her mouth with a quick snap, she drove. He stared out the window, determined to get a firmer grip on his excitement. They wound their way up a hill covered in scrubby, low-growing grasses. A few cows grazed among the clumps of grass. Beyond the hill, the periwinkle ocean basked in the sunshine. The setting was pure beauty, and he didn’t give a crap. All he wanted was to get to the damn lighthouse.

And then, there they were, pulling up outside a charming little lighthouse, its white paint peeling, its windows cracked. A fence ran along the perimeter, with a big sign that said “Keep Out.”

It didn’t seem to worry Nita, so Jeb shrugged and followed her around the building. And there, at the side, was a gap in the chain link fence.

“Angie told me about this,” said Nita as she ducked through the hole. “It’s sort of a Lover’s Lane kind of thing. They say if you drive up here and see a car, it’s common courtesy to turn right back around. And . . .” She pushed open a door built into the lighthouse. Inside, a cozy little room glowed with hazy sunlight that filtered from slits of windows high above. Cushioned benches ran along each of the six walls. Colorful pillows were piled in one corner, and a stack of blankets filled another. When both of them had stepped inside, she closed the door behind them and turned the lock. “The best part is, it locks from the inside only.”

She turned in a slow circle, checking the place out while he checked her out. When she was done, she dragged her gaze to meet his. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, looking suddenly uncertain. “What are you thinking? Is this stupid? Too much? Bad idea? Too forward?”

Hot lust flooded Jeb’s entire being. He wanted to rip her clothes off, spread her open on one of those window seats and fuck her until his head exploded. In two strides, he was beside her. “Not a bad idea,” he managed through his lust-tightened throat. “Great idea. Do you mind?”

Somehow, his hands were at the zipper on the back of her sundress, and she was pressed against him, leaning forward so he could unzip her. Underneath he found nothing but smooth skin.

“No bra,” he said in a raspy voice, as if he’d smoked a pack of cigarettes in the last second.

“I’m not the bustiest of women,” she said, a little shaky.

He worked her dress off her body, watching each inch of skin appear. Sleek thighs, white cotton boy-shorts underwear, a belly with the cutest hint of extra flesh. He paused, soaking her in.

“Could you get me out of here?” Her voice was smothered in sundress.

“Working on it,” he murmured, touching the tender skin of her stomach. A shiver rippled across her muscles. She squirmed. “Okay, okay.” He lifted the dress the rest of the way, exposing her breasts, perfect little pears just begging to be nibbled. His mouth watered, but he held off until he’d freed her from her clothes.

When she stood mostly naked before him, breathless and tousled, all lovely amber nudity, he wanted to drop to his knees and worship her. With his tongue, with his lips—

She must have read his intention, because she jerked her head at him. “Oh no, big guy. Your turn.”

The determination in her voice made him harden even further. He gave a strangled laugh. “Is that your ‘managing your staff’ voice?”

“I told you I was good at my job. Off with that shirt. We’ll get to your staff in a minute.”

“At your service.”

He ripped off his T-shirt and tossed it on one of the window seats.

N
ITA GULPED, TORN
between wondering what she’d gotten herself into and thanking the universe for sending this man to Santa Lucia. Good grief, he was built. Everywhere she looked, she saw hard ridges of sculpted muscle. She saw a lean waist with not a speck of flab, mighty shoulders rippling with restrained power. The men she had known in L.A. worked out, but this was a different kind of strength, the kind that tested itself against heavy equipment and fallen debris every day. And won.

She released a soft sigh, and along with it her last remaining qualms. Not that she had any doubts. She’d left those somewhere along the road to the lighthouse, or maybe she’d left them in the Knit, Purl, and Tea, when the sight of him scowling in that crazy apron had made her heart burst open.

Okay, so this was probably going nowhere. Who cared? Jeb was sexy, caring, totally hot, and he made her laugh. After the last two years, didn’t she deserve some fun? Fun of the mind-blowingly-orgasmic variety? Didn’t she deserve a little sexual healing?

“Pants,” she told him.

Raising an eyebrow at her, he obeyed, unbuttoning his jeans and sliding them down, the muscles of his arms flexing as he bent, then straightened again. He kicked away his jeans and boxers, then stood naked before her in nothing but wind-mussed hair and a spectacular erection.

Good God. She put a hand to her head, feeling slightly faint. It wasn’t a matter of size, though he did just fine in that sense. It was about
arousal
. He was so male, so hard, so potent, it was nearly too much for her system. For two years, everything had been sadness and doctors and anxiety and abandonment.

Now this.
Him
.

Wanting her.

Very badly, if that stiff penis was any indication.

Everything female within her responded. Suddenly she felt like a goddess, or a siren. She dropped her hand to her side, reveling in the way he feasted his eyes on her body. Her nipples hardened under his stare. She resisted the urge to hide that telltale sign, especially when she saw what it did to his erection.

She was a woman wanting a man. What was wrong with that? Nothing, her body told her. Nothing at all.

When his eyes met hers, she gave him a smile that would have been a purr, if she were a cat.

“Come here,” he said roughly. “Before I lose my mind.”

She stepped forward, into his arms, and into a world of heat and need and clenched muscles and bare skin. Her nipples hardened to an ache against the hard surface of his chest. She rubbed against him, delighting in the slight friction of the furry patch of hair.

He ran his hands down her back until he reached her ass, then yanked her against him. She groaned, going weak in the knees at the feel of his hot shaft pressing into her pelvis and belly. His arms vibrated like twin steel cables.

“Remember how I mentioned those five years?” His voice came in a painfully strangled shadow of its normal deep self.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“I’m feeling every one of them right now. I don’t know if I’ll be able to go slow, Nita. I want you more than you’ll ever know.”

“No slow.” She put her mouth to his ear. “Take me. Right now. We’ll go slow later.”

“In a minute.” He reached down between them, between her legs, and tenderly touched her wet cleft. She gave a little cry as sensation soared through her. Closing her eyes, she tilted her head back to give herself fully to the glory of it. Oh, how he touched her, exploring her body with his full attention, his entire being tuned to her reactions. And she didn’t hide them. She let him see every jolt of pleasure, every new shiver of happiness, every uptick in the need that tightened her body. He pushed her legs apart with his knee, and that movement alone gave her a shock of desire.

The feel of his strong thigh separating her legs, the sense of power in the hand that touched her so deliberately, the way he supported her with his other arm—everything built until she couldn’t hold back her need. She let out little whimpers of urgency—
there, oh God, please, yes, more, oh my God don’t stop
—pushing her mound against his hand. But he was so strong, he wouldn’t let her control the contact. Instead he kept working his magic, stoking the fire until it burst into full, glorious life, sparks filling every corner of her mind with brilliant joy.

And then, only then, when she’d ridden the last current of that wild orgasm, he donned a condom, lifted her up, wrapped her legs around his hips, carried her to the wall and speared her.

She felt the impact all the way down to her toes—tingling waves of obliterating pleasure. Unbelievably, she came again, nearly instantly, though maybe she’d never really stopped. With his big hands supporting her ass, he corkscrewed into her with a couple of slow, intense strokes, then let all restraint go. With a deep-chested groan, he threw his head back and surrendered to his own orgasm. The sight of him, this powerful man shaking from his release, holding her as if he never wanted to stop, made a tear leak down her cheek.

Or maybe that was just the aftereffect of the most sorely needed orgasm of all time.

Seriously, she felt like a new woman. As if she could sing an opera, or dance on the Empire State Building. She still had her arms around him, and could feel his shuddering breaths.

“Thank you,” he whispered in her ear. “Thank you. You have no idea.” He let her slide down his body until she was back on her feet.

“You’re wrong,” she told him. “I know just how you feel.” Sexual healing, that’s what this was. Definitely for her, maybe for him too. Maybe his confidence had taken a hit the same way hers had. “That was incredible.” She kissed his chest tenderly, feeling it rise and fall. “Those five years don’t show at all.”

He laughed, his tiger-gold eyes bright as pennies. “Oh, they show, all right. I could make love to you again right now. Can you make up for five years in a few days?”

A shadow dimmed her joy. Of course. He’d be leaving soon. In her ecstatic afterglow, she’d forgotten that detail.
That’s all right
, she told herself.
Take the sexual healing and enjoy. Nothing lasts forever.