Smolder (Firefighters of Montana Book 1) (6 page)

“Depends on what you mean by ‘friends’,” he drawled.

And then he was kissing her. It wasn’t one of those tentative, nice-to-meet-you first kisses, either. Sam Gaskill kissed her with authority, as though he already possessed her, easily opening her mouth with his own and sliding his tongue home without so much as a ‘may I please’. He tasted like hops and smelled like a man who spent all day outdoors. And Laurel, sexually starved woman that she was, submitted without protest, savoring the feel of his warm mouth melding with hers. Her hands slid beneath his leather jacket, trailing along the soft flannel shirt he wore to explore the contours of his chest. Sam’s fingers fisted in her hair, anchoring her mouth beneath him. A soft moan escaped the back of her throat when her hips collided with his. He deepened the kiss with a groan of his own and the ache within Laurel’s belly spread like wildfire.

“Please,” she pleaded when he lifted his mouth to let his lips trail along her neck. Although, she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what she was begging for. The man was a stranger, a client. Worse, he was an adrenaline junkie like Bryce. If Laurel was going to end her sexual drought, Captain Cowboy was the last guy she should choose.

Sam’s hands found her ass and the last wisps of rational thought left Laurel’s brain. His lips captured hers again, but now she was the one eagerly exploring. Her fingers bracketed the sides of his face as she delved deep into his mouth with reckless abandon. Desire, hot and fierce, coursed through her. It roared so loudly in her ears, she nearly missed the sound of Oreo’s yipping.

Fortunately, Sam did hear it, quickly breaking away before her father’s boots hit the barn floor. Laurel pulled in a few quick breaths while Sam put three giant paces between their bodies.

“I thought that was your truck out there, captain,” her father called as he strode down the aisle, Oreo at his heels. “Is everything okay with the mare?”

Laurel sank down into the collar of her coat, hoping her father wouldn’t notice the beard burn Sam had left behind. The last thing she needed was her dad figuring out that she’d been climbing the man like a tree just moments before.

Sam turned back to face them, his face devoid of any telltale signs that he’d just had his tongue lodged halfway to her spleen. “No problem,” he said. “I just wanted to check on her. Force of habit, I guess.”

“Of course,” her father said. “But she’s safe and sound here, rest assured. That’s not to say you’re not welcome to stop by anytime. You should drop in earlier in the evenings when Laurel will be working with her. You’d be amazed at what my daughter can do when she gets her legs wrapped around a powerful animal. She’s pure athleticism and poetry in motion.”

The hot, hard gaze flickered briefly in Sam’s eyes and she watched him swallow roughly. “I’m sure she is.” Laurel felt the heat blazing on her cheeks before Sam shuttered his expression again. “But with the fire season approaching, I’ve got my hands full at the station.” He looked at the palomino longingly, as though he was trying to glean some subliminal message from her, before turning back to her father. “I’ll check in when I can. G’night.” With nothing more than a nod, he was striding out of the barn. Laurel watched him go, unsure whether the emotion she was feeling was relief or disappointment.

F
ive days later,
Laurel’s thighs screamed in protest as she gingerly climbed the wide log steps leading to the forest service station. It turned out the mare wasn’t the only one out of shape. Her evening sessions training Tabitha had reacquainted Laurel with muscles she hadn’t used in years. The bulk of the riding she’d done during the past decade had been for pleasure—simple trail rides with guests and friends. But that kind of riding didn’t prepare her for steering a horse through intricate patterns while using only her legs as a guide. Her father hadn’t lied, though. Tabitha was well trained. It was a sad commentary on the state of her life that the horse would regain its suppleness and range of motion much more quickly than Laurel would.

The joy her mother was getting out of the whole experience helped to ease the ache in Laurel’s cranky body, though. Freezing evening temperatures kept the ground hard, forcing them to work in the indoor arena, but her mother now had a reason to leave the house each day. And the bond her mom had already formed with the horse was uncanny. As much as Laurel hated the way her father had manipulated her into the whole situation, she had to admit his motives were good ones.

“Change in plans,” Miranda said as Laurel stepped through the double doors and into the lobby of the sprawling log cabin that served as a base for the smokejumpers. “I can’t have lunch. I have to shuttle a crew over to Glacier.”

“Already? It flurried last night. How can Glacier be dry enough for a fire?”

Miranda rolled her eyes. “You’ve lived here all your life and you still think that’s all we do. We have other jobs besides that. One of them is to get the parks ready for summer tourism season.”

“In other words, we’ll be picking up pine cones and unclogging toilets for the next three days,” Ace Clark said from where he sat on one of the four leather sofas in the station’s vast two-story lobby area. The rest of the place seemed to be deserted, but he was carefully packing his gear into a giant backpack. Smokejumpers carried nearly a hundred pounds of equipment with them when they jumped into a fire zone—some of it in one of three packs strapped to their body and the rest stowed into pockets of their handmade Kevlar suits. Laurel had once tried to lift Liam’s pack and she’d ended up on the ground with the heavy thing crushing her.

“Not exactly how I planned to spend my last few free nights before boot camp,” Ace complained.

“Quit your grumbling,” Miranda said. “You’ve been itching to jump out of an airplane for weeks now.”

Ace’s mouth turned up into a quick smile as he winked at Laurel. “The thrill of it is second only to sex.”

“She wouldn’t know,” Miranda said with a laugh.

Laurel shot a murderous look at her cousin. “Hey!”

“I only meant that you’re afraid of heights.” Miranda responded innocently before she ticked off on her fingers. “And planes. And elevators. And caves.”

Ace stood up, his brown eyes twinkling as he effortlessly hefted the backpack over his shoulder. “I’m happy to be your guide into any of the
thrills
you’d like to experience, Laurel. I promise you’ll enjoy the ride. I haven’t had any complaints yet.”

Miranda made a gagging sound. Laurel shook her head with a smile. Ace Clark was tall, dark, and charming. And from what she’d overheard in the ladies room at The Drop Zone, he was telling the truth about women having no complaints. He just wasn’t
that guy
. Laurel looked at most of the smokejumpers as the band of brothers she’d never had. She’d grown up with many of them and was related to a few more. The thought of ending her sexual drought with any one of them was ridiculous.

“Clark!” Sam Gaskill’s voice boomed through the cavernous building, startling Laurel. “The drill commences at thirteen hundred.”

With one exception
.

Laurel glanced toward the back corner of the building to see Sam standing at his office door. Her breathing became less steady at the sight of him. He was wearing another pair of well-worn jeans, a long-sleeved, gray T-shirt with an army insignia emblazoned across his muscled chest and a hard look that had Ace muttering a “yes sir” before heading out past the reception desk and into the ready room.

“You’re flying to Glacier?” Laurel whispered to her cousin. The entrance to Glacier National Park was only thirty miles from the station. She’d just assumed Miranda would be driving the crew in one of the two vans the forest service used to pick up the smokejumpers after they’d hiked out of a fire zone.

“Captain wants a practice run,” Miranda replied. “I think he wants to assess if anyone in the crew might make a good spotter.” The spotter’s job was to identify a safe area for the smokejumpers to land. After Russ Edwards’ accident, fingers had been pointed at the spotter’s reliability to accurately gauge the wind and the conditions that accompanied a safe jump. He’d retired immediately, taking a job as a high school shop teacher.

Both women’s eyes drifted to the loft above. Hanging from the railing was a red, white, and blue parachute with Edwards’ name stitched along the bottom, along with the numeral one and an asterisk. The jagged rip in the chute had been sewn up, too. The makeshift memorial was a sobering reminder to all who entered the building that lives were on the line every time a crew went out.

“I should get going,” Miranda said solemnly. Though she hadn’t been the pilot on the jump that cost Russ his life, Laurel knew her cousin still felt the loss of the captain as deeply as the rest of the smokejumpers.

Laurel quickly reached over and pulled her best friend in for a hug. “Be careful, okay.”

Miranda scoffed. “I’m the best pilot they’ve got. I haven’t dropped one of these idiots yet. And like Ace says, I haven’t had any complaints either.” She gave Laurel a saucy wave before following Ace toward the ready room.

Laurel stood in the now empty reception area, watching the dust motes dance in the midday sunlight that was streaming through the high windows. She told herself she should head to Starbucks and use her free lunch hour to cram in some studying for the CPA exam. But her eyes kept darting back to the open office door Sam had disappeared into.

She impatiently blew out a breath as her mind seemed to be fighting some internal war. Sam had obviously seen her. Even more exasperating, he’d overheard the conversation she’d had with Miranda and Ace. Laurel was embarrassed by their astonishing make-out session in the barn the other night, not to mention the way she’d given herself over to him without question. Each evening, she’d forced herself to remain in her apartment, listening—while her body practically vibrated with desire—as he came to the barn, presumably to check on Tabitha. Some nights he stayed for a few minutes, but the previous evening he’d hung out in the barn for an agonizing half hour.

Laurel wondered if he’d been waiting for her. Did he think she was that easy? That she’d fall into his arms a second time? Her face burned in humiliation because the message she’d given him that night was
yes, she was that easy
. Once again her impulsiveness had gotten the better of her.

She needed to clear things up with Sam if he was going to keep his horse at Whispering Breeze. Laurel needed to let him know that their close encounter of the lips was just an aberration. Because no matter how strong the sexual attraction, if she was going to bring someone into her life—into her son’s life—it wouldn’t be a man who risked his neck on a daily basis. Not this time.

Laurel hesitated outside Sam’s office, watching as he performed the same task Ace had moments before—meticulously combing through the gear in his backpack. With his head bent and his jaw set, his long fingers rummaged through the contents as he appeared to be silently checking things off a list. She knew smokejumpers had to survive for forty-eight to seventy-two hours in the wilderness on each mission. The contents of a smokejumper’s pack were essential to his or her survival when fighting a fire.

Her eyes drifted over her shoulder to Russ’ solitary parachute. Sam was about to do what Russ had done—leap out of an airplane with nothing but the hope his jump cord wouldn’t malfunction. Or that an errant wind wouldn’t catch him and toss his defenseless body into the jagged limb of a tree.

A shiver of apprehension rocked through Laurel as she forced her gaze back into the office where it collided with Sam’s own hard stare. He’d finished with his backpack. Now he waited silently with his hip propped against his desk and his arms crossed over his chest. This time Laurel’s shiver was brought on by the hungry look in his eyes.

“Hi,” she said feebly.

A terse nod and a quirk of an eyebrow were all she got in response.

“Umm, Miranda says you’re going out on a jump?”

He nodded again. His arrogant silence was really beginning to get on Laurel’s nerves.

“Well, were you even going to let someone know?” she demanded.

There was a painful pause before he finally spoke. “Someone being who exactly?”

Laurel huffed in annoyance. “Someone being Tabitha, perhaps?”

A corner of his mouth turned up at the idiocy of her words, and that made Laurel even more annoyed.

“What’s she going to think when you don’t show up tonight, hmm?”

A slow grin spread across his face, revealing a mesmerizing dimple on the right side of his mouth. The potency of his unexpected smile had Laurel reaching for the doorframe to keep her balance.

“I mean, you should let one of us know when you leave so if something should happen to Tabitha. . .well, we’d. . .” Her voice trailed off when he gently wrapped his fingers around her wrist and tugged her further into the office. Before she could react, the door was closed and her back was pressed against it while his mouth laid claim to hers.

He kissed her slowly this time, as though he was taking her as a prize for some victory. Laurel wanted to be offended, but the feel of his tongue sliding suggestively against hers had rendered any arguments mute. Her fingers had somehow found their way into his short, wavy hair, surprisingly soft between her fingertips. His hands slid underneath her cotton sweater where he let his palms skim over her skin, leaving a trail of arousing heat in their wake.

“Say what you really came here to say, Laurel,” he murmured against her lips. “Admit that you wanted me to come upstairs and finish what we started the other night.”

“Did not!” Laurel’s protest might have sounded more convincing had her hands not been exploring Sam’s ass.

He grinned again. This time it had a bit of a ruthless edge to it, making Laurel’s insides somersault. Her body quickly made a liar out of her when Sam took possession of her lips one more time. She was sure he could feel the wild jolt within her as his mouth crushed hers. Her hips rolled restlessly at his, and she all but conceded defeat.