Finding Chris Evans: The 9-1-1 Edition (8 page)

She pressed into his touch. “I think I need a little more of a boost.”

He swatted her lightly. “Be good. You already got me in trouble in the art room and I totally looked like a dumbass on the rock wall because of you.”

She snorted at that. They’d been making out in the art room when her sister-in-law Katherine walked in on them. And she’d started it. So it was kind of her fault that Chris now had glitter in his hair too. But the rock wall hadn’t been her fault at all. Okay, so she’d started the trash talk with her brother that had led to him challenging her to a climbing race—which of course she couldn’t do because of her thumb, which meant that Chris jumped in to rescue her by saying he’d like to race Matt instead. But, since Chris had never climbed on a real rock or on a fake rock wall, he hadn’t done very well.

Britt giggled. “Yeah, sorry about all of that.”

His big palms were still on the curve of her butt, heating her skin through the denim and making her wish there weren’t still two hours of party left. Now that they’d slept together, she was seriously addicted. She’d never been horny like this, ever.

The angle of the tube evened out, and his hands dropped so he could crawl on his hands and knees. Britt winced as she leaned too hard on her thumb, but got her weight distributed, kind of, and started forward.

“I intend to get you back for everything later,” he promised as they moved through the giant plastic cylinder.

“Get me back for
everything
? You sound like you didn’t enjoy feeling me up behind the windmill.”

They’d made out for a few minutes while mini-golfing too. By hole six, she simply hadn’t been able to keep from kissing him any longer. Of course, her thumb wasn’t a problem with the mini-golf because he’d said he’d never played before and asked if they could partner up. Since she couldn’t grip the club, he’d done most of the actual swinging, pretending to really suck, while she’d given him instructions.

Britt appreciated that he was willing to act like an idiot for her. But she also suspected her mother didn’t believe that Chris had never golfed before—or, even if he hadn’t, that he actually needed her helping him with it. But she’d caught her mom smiling at Britt and Chris together, and she knew her mom thought they were cute…and in love.

Her heart clenched slightly. She did not like lying to her mother. No, she hadn’t said that she and Chris were serious, but she knew her mom was thinking they were acting plenty serious. And Britt couldn’t help but hope that maybe they were on their way to serious for real.

“It’s your fault I’ve been walking around here hard as nails,” he fake-griped.

“You actually started it.”

He’d kissed her first. He’d carried the cake into the kitchen and then backed her up against the fridge and told her that he’d forever get hard just seeing chocolate cake frosting.

“It was the smell of caramel corn on top of the cake frosting on top of you.”

“What did I do?” she asked. She wanted to keep doing it.

“Just being you.”

Damn, and then there were those sweet moments. She looked back at him. She really wanted this to be on the way to serious. “If you get horny because of caramel corn, you’re going to be very uncomfortable around here, you know.”

He moved in beside her, which was a very tight fit in the tube, pressing a kiss to the side of her neck. “I can deal with it. I love this place.”

Britt felt her heart expand in her chest. He loved the Fun Zone. She had not been expecting that.

After a mind-blowing orgasm in bed, in her shower and against her dresser that morning, she’d almost hoped the Zone trip would be a huge flop. Chris was…awesome. She loved his take-charge attitude at work. She loved how commanding and in control he was. He was an excellent EMT and she admired him professionally. She also found him cute and charming when away from work—or so she’d learned watching him frost a cake, of all things. And then the sex…she was quite simply ruined. She never wanted to have sex with anyone but Chris Evans ever again.

So she’d been almost hoping that he’d be a huge stick-in-the-mud. She’d hoped that he’d be absolutely no fun and would ruin her mother’s birthday party.

But none of that had happened. At all. He’d not only been sweet to her mother, he hadn’t let her brothers intimidate him, and he’d humored her nieces and nephews during all the games and activities.

And most all, he was having fun. And making the day even more fun for her. He’d thrown himself into the games and activities. And he’d laughed. Genuinely smiled and laughed all day. Britt wanted to take her clothes off just hearing the sound of his laughter.

In addition, he’d been protective and caring all day without feeling clingy or overdoing it. No one had a clue she was hurt. They just thought she’d finally found the perfect man.

And saying goodbye to that man at the end of the weekend and going back to being co-workers was going to hurt more than her stupid thumb ever would.

That thought brought her down and she’d been struggling to ignore it ever since it had occurred to her. Somewhere around an hour into the party.

“Not everyone gets lucky the way you have around here,” she said of his love for the Zone.

He grinned at that. “You might be surprised. There are lots of hidden corners around here.”

He had a point.

“But,” he added. “I’m honestly having a good time. Even without the kissing.”

Her brothers had handily beat him at skee ball, her nieces had done a double flip on the trampolines while Chris hadn’t even been able to handle one, her two nephews had out-eaten him on the hot dogs
and
the cake and he’d made her mother laugh. So everyone officially loved him.

She loved him.

Crap. She’d been trying to avoid that particular revelation. It had been there in the back of her mind, niggling and teasing her, since he’d first put the apron on in her kitchen last night. But there it was. She was in love with Chris Evans.

“Hey, you’re blocking the way.”

Britt twisted her neck to look back at her mother who was climbing up the tube behind them.

“If you’re going to get frisky, the second storeroom is a lot better choice than this,” Maggie said, crawling into the space at Britt’s feet.

Chris didn’t act one bit embarrassed, which Britt knew her mother would also love. “Is there caramel corn syrup in there by any chance?” he asked.

Britt’s eyes widened. Uptight, no-fun Chris Evans had just insinuated that he wanted to get naughty with her and caramel corn syrup to her
mother
?

Maggie laughed. “Well, there’s no such thing, but there is corn syrup in there—which we use for the caramel corn.”

“That’ll work,” Chris said with a wink.

Maggie nodded. “But, fair warning, it’s sticky. You might want to just take some home.”

Britt’s eyes widened even further. Her mother was a free spirit, a spontaneous, fun, silly big kid a lot of the time. But she was still her
mother
, and she was teasing with Chris about him and Britt having sex with corn syrup?

“
Mom
,” Britt said, feeling her cheeks heat. “Really?”

“Oh for sure. You want to be near a shower,” Maggie said. “If you put clothes on over corn syrup, you may never get them back off.”

“Mother!” Britt said.

“Oh, Britt, don’t be so uptight,” Maggie said.

Britt was taken back by that.
She
was uptight? Her mom didn’t know Chris. “Excuse me?”

“You think I don’t know you and Chris are sleeping together?” Maggie asked. “It’s there every time you look at each other.”

Britt felt her face heat further. And here she’d been thinking her mom thought she and Chris were in love. Instead, she was just happy that Britt was getting some. “Mom, I don’t—”

“And it’s great,” Maggie interrupted. “I haven’t seen you smile this much in a long time. You’re having fun today. Usually you think of this place as work. I love that you’re letting go and just enjoying yourself,” she said. “Clearly getting laid has done exactly what it was supposed to do.”

Britt knew she shouldn’t be surprised by anything Maggie said or did. If the past two years had taught her anything, it was to expect the unexpected. But her mother had just shocked her.

“It’s not just getting laid,” Britt said. “It’s not just sex.”

“Well, even better,” Maggie said. “And all the more reason to use the corn syrup. I wish I’d used corn syrup more back when—”

“Stop,” Britt said firmly. “I can’t hear this. Especially if ‘your father’ is at all a part of the sentence.”

She crawled quickly, in spite of her thumb, to the end of the tube. Her mom’s laughter followed her down the slide at the end.

By the time Chris had slid down behind her, she was frowning. And he was grinning. Big.

“What are you smiling at?” she asked.

“You.”

“What about me?” But she was pretty sure she knew what he was about to say.

“You have uptight moments too.”

Yep, that’s what she’d been expecting. “Well, seriously. She’s my mom! And…” She wasn’t sure what else to say to that.

“And you’re having fun. With me. Because of me.” He looked extremely smug.

Britt crossed her arms, in part to hide her thumb from her mom who had just come down the slide, and in part because she was feeling a little exposed with Chris.

“I’m a fun, spontaneous, scattered person all on my own, remember?” she asked.

He stepped close. “You’re not scattered. I was wrong about that. The rest? Yeah, you are fun and spontaneous. And gorgeous and brilliant and amazing. But,” he said, when she started to respond, “you’re also having more fun today than usual. Because of me.”

Well, how could she deny it? Her mother had outed her. “Getting laid didn’t hurt, I guess.”

He grinned. “But it’s more than sex.”

Oh yeah, she’d said that. Out loud. In front of him. Crap. “I just didn’t want her to think—”

“It’s more than sex for me too, Britt,” he said, his voice low and with that firm tone she really loved.

She wasn’t sure how to respond to that. She wanted to grab him and kiss him, but there had already been a lot of that and, honestly, she wanted to do a lot more than that. Like talk. And say some pretty serious things. She wasn’t sure that was a good idea. Yet.

But it felt like a good idea.

Thankfully, she was interrupted by a little voice before she said anything crazy.

“You were
not
playing paint ball.” Nathan, the oldest of her nephews, stood looking at them accusatorily.

“Uh…we were too,” Britt said.

Chris stepped close and gently took hold of her left hand to cover the discoloration of her thumb. She loved that. He’d been taking care of her all day. He’d done everything from helping her wash her hair that morning to getting dressed to setting up the food for her mom’s party. And the hair washing and getting dressed had taken them longer than it would have if Britt had simply been doing it with only one thumb. Showering with Chris—especially bossy Chris who loved to have her at his mercy and only got her that way when she was naked—had taken all of her hot water and what had been left in her bottle of body wash “helping” her.

“No you weren’t,” Nathan said. “We were in there and looked for you everywhere.”

Well, not
everywhere
because they had, in fact, been in there. It was just that Britt knew more hiding places than her nephews did. Her thumb had started bothering her with holding the gun and she’d needed a break. So she’d pulled Chris into a corner where no one would find them.

“Yeah, you don’t even have any paint on you,” Jase, her other nephew, pointed out.

They all wore jumpsuits in the paintball maze, but inevitably there were paint smears in hair and on hands and faces when people emerged.

“We just did really well,” she said with a shrug. “No one got us.”

“Because you were hiding the whole time!” Jase accused.

They sure had been. And interestingly, in spite of the close confines, they hadn’t done more than kiss. Well, not more physically anyway...

“Hey, paint ball was maybe my favorite part of the whole day,” Chris said. He held his arm out. There was a streak of yellow paint just above his wrist. “Don’t hate just because I’ve got more stealth, man.”

Britt couldn’t help her reaction to that. Not the stealth thing, because that was funny. She was the one who’d kept them out of sight. But the part about it being his favorite part of the day. Because all they’d really done in the paint ball maze was talk. Actually, they’d whispered. In the dark. And it had felt intimate and wonderful.

They’d started off talking about her mom and how great she looked and how much Chris loved her attitude even more now that he’d met her. They’d also talked about his dad. He’d died of a massive heart attack while mowing the lawn. Eleven-year-old Chris had run outside just in time to watch his father die. He’d told her how it had made him feel so helpless and how he’d determined then and there to become a doctor so he could save people. It was five years later when he’d realized that he wanted to be an EMT instead, so he could be first on the scene and the first line of defense between the people and death. It had all made so much sense to her—why Chris took the job so seriously, why he was so focused and determined at the scenes and why he demanded that of all of the entire crew—that all she’d been able to do was hug him. And he’d welcome her arms around him.

“Cheating and stealth aren’t the same thing,” Nathan finally said. Then he frowned. “Are they?”

Britt laughed. “No, not really. But fine. We were hiding. You caught us.”

“Why were you hiding?” Nathan asked suspiciously. “That
is
cheating.”

She shook her head. “No it’s not. We aren’t saying we won or anything. We just didn’t play. But you can’t tell grandma. You know she likes everyone to play everything.”

“But why were you hiding?” Jase asked. “You love paint ball.”

“Well—” Britt looked up at Chris and decided to go with as much truth as she could. After all, the kids were probably going to tell on her and she needed to have a good reason for sitting the game out. “Chris and I wanted to go off somewhere together alone for a while.”