Sparking the Fire (15 page)

His stomach rumbled. Those grilled cheese samples hadn't cut it.

“How 'bout we delay that run for a bit?”

Her lips formed a grim seal. “While I'm always up for procrastinating when it comes to exercise, I'm supposed to be on a strict diet. For the movie.”

“If you want to get a firefighter's diet right, you need to chow down on about three of those bad boys.” He nudged her with his elbow. “Think of it as research, Molly.”

A few minutes later, they were seated on the steps of the museum with “research” in hand, hers ruined by greenery because she wanted healthy, his a Nutella-and-banana beauty because he had a sweet tooth he refused to be ashamed of.

He scarfed his down quickly, licked his lips, and took a moment to secretly watch Molly. Chewing, she tipped her face up to the sun, and a curious grin quirked the corner of her lips. He couldn't see her eyes hidden behind the sunglasses, but he'd take good odds they were crinkling with joy.

“Penny for 'em,” he said.

“Tabloids would pay a lot more than that.” Her smile turned self-deprecating. “Though they wouldn't be worth it. I'm just liking this moment of peace.”

“They're hard to come by.”

“Your family isn't a quiet bunch, are they?”

“Not one of them knows the meaning of the word.” Sometimes he questioned if he was a fit for the Dempseys. They were such an effusive lot and he was far from it.

“What about your people?”

“My mom and dad were doctors. They died in a car crash in Africa when I was fourteen, and I went to live with my grandparents in New Haven, Missouri, population 647.”

“And the Camaro.”

“And the Camaro.” She looked pleased that he'd remembered. “Granddad died just over ten years ago, Gran five months back.”

“Proud of you, I'll bet.”

The downturn of her mouth registered her discomfort. “She was. Before.”

Before the photos. The Internet had pretty much collapsed when those hacked photos of Molly were released on some scumbag gossip site. Bad enough they were taken in the first place, but every double standard you could think of applied because she had supposedly invited her husband to do it. Private shots for her husband's eyes.

“Pretty messed up how that all went down,” Wyatt said carefully.

She faced him, considering. “You think I was dumb to let Ryan take those photos?”

Had he sounded critical? He'd been going for sympathetic. “I'm in no position to judge how a man and his woman get their kicks.” Ryan Michaels's woman. Thinking of Molly belonging to someone else, even in the past tense, constricted his chest uncomfortably.

“They weren't recent. They happened just after he and I were married, six months after I met him at a screen test. I'd never been the daring sort, but after you and I . . .”

“After we what?”

A flush crept up her neck, painting her cheeks with a watercolor-pink bloom.
Fuck me.
Shock barreled through him. Was she actually relating her sexual bravery in posing for those photos to her time with Wyatt in Chicago? Had another man gotten the benefit of Wyatt opening up this beautiful woman? He'd been the one to make her beg and scream and suck and beg some more and—
Way to make it all about you, shithead
.

She coughed out a laugh filled with regret. “Learned my lesson, that's for sure.” She still wore her sunglasses, so he couldn't see her exact expression, but he'd guess it was as hard as the concrete steps cushioning their asses. “Did you look at them?”

“You mean, am I like every other red-blooded man on the planet when faced with naked photos of a beautiful woman?”

She nodded slowly.

“Nope. You didn't give me or anyone else permission to look at them. Besides, I've got a memory like a steel trap and the use of my right hand.” Leaning in, he pulled her sunglasses forward on her nose. He needed to see right into those beautiful, haunted eyes. “I've had the privilege of kissing every inch of your body, of plunging deep inside you, and hearing your orgasm-hoarse moans. Don't need some crappy stolen photos when I've had the real thing.”

A sob cracked in her throat.

“Molly.” He curled a hand around her neck and pulled her close with a press of his lips to her forehead. “You've been through it these last few months, haven't you?”

“Longer than that.”

So the rumors about her marriage being on the rocks for a while were true.

“Sean used to say that when you're on the floor, the only way is up.”

She sniffed. “Well, the floor tastes like shit.”

“Sure does, but you just keep looking up, Molly. The papers, the gossip, the fair-weather fans—fuck 'em. None of them get to define who you are. Only you do that. Remember you are fierce, that inside you beats the heart of a warrior.”

It felt so good to hold her like this. Be useful. But it was more than a little self-serving. Comforting her was a sneaky way to steal his own slice of heaven.

Seeming to recognize that they were hovering on the line here, she drew back with a mental hitch of her bootstraps. Sunglasses back on, shoulders squared, tough girl to the fore.

She stood and reached for her bag of purchases but he was already there, throwing it over his good shoulder. “So you weren't tempted even just a little, Marine?”

He heard humor in her voice, and he allowed himself the luxury of thinking he might have put it there. Being splashed naked all over the tabloids was shitty, but eventually you had to put it into perspective. Wyatt was the king of perspective.

“Course I was. I'm not dead.”

If her grin was anything to go by, it was the right thing to say. The guys at the firehouse had drooled all over those pics and it had taken every ounce of strength not to pummel their self-satisfied faces. Taking the high road had always been his preferred path. He didn't butt into anyone's business. He let people do their thing.

But with Molly Cade . . . why did it feel like she was
his
business?

With her bodyguard in tow, they continued in comfortable silence until they reached her three-story townhouse, one that likely cost a few million more than Wyatt had in his bank account. A wry grimace almost made it onto his face as he thought of his tiny duplex in Andersonville. Sure, it had appreciated well as the neighborhood became more gentrified in recent years, but the idea of Molly there conjured an untimely gust of want in his chest. He lifted his gaze to Molly Cade's summer rental, and he bet even this was subpar for a woman who probably had multimillion-dollar properties in Malibu and St. Tropez and other places a guy like him would contaminate by merely uttering their names on his filthy lips.

Molly in his little old house?
You're a fucking moron, Fox.

“Did you want to come in?” She motioned to the front door once they had reached the top step.

He handed off her farmers' market haul. He didn't want to be rude after he'd carried her stuff like a lovelorn schoolboy, but going in would only make him feel lower than something she'd scrape off her shoe. “Nah. I'll wait here.”

She nodded and headed inside while he used the extra moments to get his shit together and assess the surroundings. Quiet enough except for a few older folks enjoying a walk with their dogs and more moms with gold-plated strollers. The bodyguard—Farmers' Market Guy—stood across the street, chatting with what Wyatt assumed was the rest of the security team. Thick necks, thick skulls, likely thick as two planks, they sat in a black Escalade. A three-fer, which probably switched out at night. Not cheap.

He ambled over, ready to make introductions. Holding out his hand, he gripped FMG's outstretched one. “Wyatt Fox. I'm”—
what, exactly?
—“with Miss Cade.”

FMG's shake was firm. “Keith Dennison. She mentioned you'd be stopping by. Said you were CFD, former corps.” The guy rattled off his own unit. Wyatt wasn't surprised. A lot of marines went into law enforcement.

“You planning to run with us?”

“I've been chasing her the last couple of days.” He gave a droll smile. “She won't even slow down to take it easy on me.”

Yeah, he could see that. This woman would give no quarter. “We're gonna take the lake path. Probably forty-five minutes there and back. No need to follow.”

Dennison slid a glance at the suit in the driver's seat, likely the team leader. An imperceptible nod followed, and Wyatt shook hands with Dennison again.

Morons, the lot of them. Wyatt could have promised that every single one of the Dempseys and the entire offensive line of the Hawks would be flanking Molly as she jogged down the lake path, and that should not have been enough to have this so-called security hand over the reins of her protection to someone not on the team. If they were slacking in this, then they were slacking elsewhere. He'd discuss it with her later.

The front door opened and for a moment, he was frozen, just flattened by the beauty of her as she hurtled down those steps. She betrayed no hesitation, either, no hitch in her step, no wavering in her stride, when the last year had given her plenty of reason to be wary about setting foot outside the door.

“Ready?” Challenge tinged her voice. Clearly not similarly affected by
his
beauty.

“I'll try to keep up.”

A
n hour later, they were back off the lake path and winding their way homeward through the Gold Coast streets. The twinge in Wyatt's shoulder was burning like a mother now. Pushing through it with every step as he kept pace with Molly was torture.

“Not bad, Fox,” she said, grinning, but her face crumpled at whatever she saw on his. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just an old football injury.” He rolled his stiffening shoulder. No joy.

“Seriously, what's up?” She placed a hand on his bicep. He'd noticed she liked to touch it and he also noticed that he liked to feel it there, right over Logan's name.

“Six weeks ago I wrenched my shoulder during a rescue. That's how I'm on ass-watch-to-the-stars.”

She crossed her arms, a move that pushed up her cleavage. Even through his pain, he could appreciate the hell out of that. “So you're overdoing it right now to prove you're Mr. Tough Guy/screw the docs/pain is optional, is that it?”

“Pros far outweigh the cons.”

She growled her annoyance. “We're going to ice it. Now.”

His mind jumped ahead to sitting on the sofa in her fancy summer mansion. Removing his T-shirt so she could look after him, maybe removing her T-shirt so he could look after her. Pros trumping cons all over the place. So embedded was he in his dirty little fantasy that they were halfway down her block before he realized it.

“Shit,” she muttered.

In the time it took for their run, the population of the neighborhood had increased. Outside the gate to the townhouse, two girls Roni's age were on phones, taking photos of the front door. Selfie hunters, perhaps. At his nine o'clock, a leggy blonde in very tight shorts was draped all over the driver's side of the security team's Escalade, one leg bent behind her so her tee stretched taut against her rack and gave the suits something to look at. No sign of Dennison.

Okay, two teenagers. No biggie. Yet heat prickled Wyatt's neck, that warning he got when a shitstorm was hurtling around the corner with him in its crosshairs. Because if two girls knew where Molly was staying, then the undesirables of her fan base weren't far behind. He pulled his sunglasses down, his hood up, and tucked a hand beneath Molly's elbow.

“Let's go in the back way.”

Too late. The teens were already surging forward with phones raised, snapping and gushing, and Molly smiled and obliged like the good little starlet she was. Thirty seconds with the fans and they'd be on their way, because he didn't like how exposed she was. Not one bit.

They didn't have thirty seconds.

A dark shadow split the girls apart, knocked them roughly aside, and wedged into Molly's personal space. A photographer?

An admirer.

And he was admiring his hand on Molly's forearm, especially how it gripped her tight enough to bruise.

“Molly, Ryan doesn't deserve you!” the shadow said.

Molly yanked back but the admirer held on, soulless eyes unfocused, spittle-flecked lips working to proclaim his adoration. Definitely on something, and not just the high of getting this close to his favorite movie star.

Wyatt's
don't dare fuck with me
training kicked in.

He chopped the heel of his right hand against the admirer's throat, neutralizing him with a single blow, and absorbed the sting of pain barreling all the way up to his wrecked shoulder. The admirer fell. The girls screamed. The security yelled.

Pande-
fucking
-monium.

With his left arm wrapped around Molly's waist, Wyatt carried her up the steps to her front door. “Key,” he grunted.

She blinked terrified eyes at him, then over her shoulder. “The girls—”

“Will be fine.” The downed target was on his knees clutching his throat and hauling in air while the teens took photos and the security—finally—surrounded him. Not that Wyatt was looking, because his eyes were locked on Molly. But he knew two things with certainty: Wyatt's hands were lethal and teenage girls were ruthless.

“Key, Molly.”

Visibly shaken, she fished it out of a side pocket of her shorts and handed it to him. He unlocked the front door and ushered her inside.

Shutting the door, he scanned the wall for the beeping alarm panel. “The code.”

Her hand shook as she raised it. Her fingers slipped on the buttons. “I ca—I can't . . .” The beeping turned shriller, a countdown to drawing every dog, cop, and reporter to the house.

He curled a hand around her neck and turned her to face him. Wide-eyed, flushed, and so damn beautiful even in her terror. “You've got this.”