Sparking the Fire (2 page)

He was speaking and she had missed what he said.

“Excuse me?”

“It's been nice talking to you, miss.”

What?
Oh, Marine. “You, too.”

He stood, careful not to brush against her accidentally or give her any relief whatsoever—the tease!—and left the bar, an empty Coke bottle his legacy.

Two minutes later, Molly headed toward the elevator without a backward glance. The show's final performance had been tonight, and she had to pack her bag, print out her boarding pass for her 6 a.m. flight back to LA, and read the sides for her audition. Coming in overly rehearsed would be disastrous, but neither did she want to appear too blasé about her big chance to play movie star Ryan Michaels's love interest in his next shoot-'em-up extravaganza. Summer popcorn fare, not her cup of tea at all. But twenty-four-year-old theater actresses looking to make it in Hollywood couldn't be choosy.

With this role, she might finally get her break.

In the elevator, she pressed the button for the twelfth floor and pushed thoughts of the hot Marine to the back of her mind. A pleasant diversion for the final week of this gig in Chicago, but that was all. The doors closed—

A large hand separated them, and they sprang apart.

“You forgot your book, miss.”

Miss.
Oh boy, that politeness masking a brute did it for her. As did that muscle factory with the keen blue-gray eyes and kissable laugh lines.

“Thanks.” She pushed the glasses she never wore to the top of her nose and held out her hand for the book.

He stepped inside, dropped the book to the ground, and had her pinned to the elevator wall before the doors closed. All that masculine heat seared through her silk blouse, hardening her nipples to pleasurably painful buds.

“A garter,” he whispered against her lips, his granite-hard body covering her like a sex blanket. “You know that ain't fair.”

“You in those jeans ain't fair, soldier.”

“I told you not to call me soldier.” He took swift possession of her mouth and punished her for her infraction. She knew former marines didn't appreciate the moniker, more evidence that he was late of the Corps. Not only that, he had the body of one, and without a doubt the stamina, too.

Five nights of her nameless lover worshipping her with his mouth, hands, and cock were confirmation enough.

“Know what else isn't fair?” she whispered when he let her up for air. “I left my panties in my hotel room.”

He groaned. “All night you're sittin' there with no panties on? And there I was thinking you couldn't beat that tight little dress you wore last night or the leather skirt the night before. Sexy librarian might be the hottest yet.” His fingers teased the inside of her thigh, then higher until he found her soaking and ready.

“This for me?” Coarse, workingman fingers abraded her plush folds, teasing, easing. Maddening.

“Nope. Shakespeare always turns me on.”

He huffed a laugh, but his next words held no traces of humor. “Gonna need to take you here. Again.”

They'd already done it once in the elevator this week, a quick, furiously blissful fuck two nights ago when she'd worn a leather skirt and blond wig borrowed from wardrobe at the theater. She'd been raiding the costume racks all week in anticipation of these nightly trysts—it was the least the company could do after the pittance of a salary they'd paid her for the show's run.

She should have been tired of him by now, but when she was in this hero's strong arms, familiarity only bred hunger and a dangerously heightening affection. The temptation to tell him more fluttered in her chest like a panicked bird. Her plans. Her dreams. She wanted to ask if he knew more than four lines of Shakespeare or had an opinion on sunshine all year-round.

Snap out of it, Mol.

The doors opened before he could make good on his sensual promise. They stumbled out of the elevator—or she stumbled out in a lust fog—and he held her steady with his big, blunt hand cupping her ass as he marched her to the room. For the last five nights, their room.

She fiddled with the key card, put it in the wrong way, then not quickly enough to get green for go.
Come on, come on!
His hand over hers stilled her nervous motions.

“Our last night together.” Not a question.

“Yes,” she whispered, the word a puff of longing she was unable to disguise.

Against her rear, she felt him, huge and ready. Against her back, the beat of his heart found a rhythm with her own. In this space, they existed as one. All he knew about her was that she liked dressing up in sexy costumes to lure near-mute marines into her web and that she was free after 10:30 in the evening. And one other thing: come tomorrow, Chicago, and the best week of her life, would be a distant memory.

But they still had tonight. She still had a few precious hours to watch that sexy-stoic expression of his light up in ecstasy as he rocked in the cradle of her body.

With the hand not dwarfing hers, he tunneled in her dyed-for-the-role auburn hair and directed her to face him. So hard to read, but an expression she hadn't seen before played on his brutally handsome face: regret. It fled so quickly she suspected she'd imagined it.

“Then let's make it a night we won't forget,” her tall, dark, badass marine said before he claimed her mouth in an unforgiving kiss and pressed the hand holding her key card into the slot.

The lock clicked, the door opened, and like the last two people on Earth, they fell inside.

 CHAPTER ONE

Five years later . . .

“Y
ou can go right in, Lieutenant Fox. He's waiting for you.”

Wyatt Fox nodded curtly at Kathy, the firehouse's perky admin, as he stood outside the cap's office contemplating his next move. The going-in part was a foregone conclusion—he had been summoned, after all—but how he would handle what lay behind that door was still up in the air. Normally he would have knocked. Raised his right hand, curled his fingers into a fist, and rapped his knuckles on the door. But he had a pass to just waltz in, so mercifully he didn't have to complete even that simplest of motions. He didn't have to be reminded that the tendons in his shoulder were shredded like Mini-Wheats after he'd wrenched it during a tricky rescue two weeks back. It was either that or let that shithead—sorry,
citizen
—take a header off the LaSalle Street Bridge.

Suicide attempt averted. Three months off squad his reward.

Unless he could persuade the cap that it wasn't as bad as all that.

He gripped the doorknob with purpose, ignored the wince even that small action produced, and strode in like a man without a care in the world.

“Fox.”

Captain Matt “Venti” Ventimiglia lifted his gaze from a file on his desk. A pretty cool cat, he wasn't one for small talk, which Wyatt appreciated, especially as his own family could talk the hind legs off a herd of mules. Sitting at the dinner table with the Dempseys—his cobbled-together foster family—was like an episode of
The
Brady Bunch
on steroids. And now that the rest of them had hearts-and-shamrocks happy-ever-afters to call their own, it approached Disney to the nth degree at every gathering.

Wyatt took a seat.

“At least three months, according to the doc,” the cap said.

Good, straight to it. “Docs can be wrong.”

“If you push it and make it worse, then you could be looking at six months or more.”

“I'm not good at sitting around.” As if that was a valid enough reason to put him back on active duty. It was a family trait, both Dempsey and the original. His biological father, Billy Fox, was never one for letting the grass grow under his itchy feet, always keeping Wyatt and his half brother Logan on the move. Needs must, when you're trying to stay one step ahead of the law.

The cap sniffed. “You hear about Dave Kowalski?”

The subject change gave Wyatt pause, but as he wasn't having any luck going against the tide, he figured he'd swim with it for a while.

“Hollywood Dave? Word's out that he's looking at ten weeks in traction.” Kowalski was the Chicago Fire Department's designated consult for that TV show about firefighters, the one where the station bunk room looked like the Ritz (nope), fires broke out every ten seconds (hardly), and everyone was screwing their coworkers (if only). Years with his nose permanently wedged in the asses of his actor pals had apparently dulled Dave's reflexes to mush because he'd neglected to step out of the way when a roof had caved in on him last week. If Venti was trying to compare their situations . . .

The cap smiled a crooked grin, knowing that Wyatt's mind had crashed that particular gate and was hurtling down the track.

“They need someone to fill in for him.”

Wyatt scrubbed a hand across the two-week growth on his jaw. Usually he'd have to stay clean-shaven to ensure his mask retained the proper seal, so he was enjoying the only perk of rehab—the pleasure of ignoring his razor. Add a hunting rifle, a haunch of hog meat, and a cabin in the woods, and you had the makings of a profile worthy of the FBI's Most Wanted list.

“Before you shut it down,” Venti continued when Wyatt remained silent, “let me tell you it's not for the TV show. It's an eight-week movie shoot, starts in less than a month, July through August. You know how the city is always looking for revenue and to up its appeal for production companies. Cade Productions asked for someone from Engine 6 to be the consult.”

Something pinged in his chest. As a firefighter—a rescue squad firefighter—Wyatt had learned long ago that his instincts were that guardian angel on his shoulder, keeping his ass in one piece. But the reason behind this hitch in his lungs was escaping him this second.

“Why Engine 6?”

Venti grinned and waited a beat until Wyatt got it.

“Because of Alex. They think they'll get more play if they have an in with America's Favorite Firefighter.”

Last year, his sister, Alexandra Dempsey, had made a name for herself slicing up the Lamborghini of some rich D-bag who'd insulted the family during a traffic accident run. And as if that wasn't enough, she'd gotten herself involved with Eli Cooper, Chicago's mayor, who proceeded to tank his campaign and subsequently lose his reelection bid to prove he loved her. The whole mess had Hollywood written all over it, but his sister had turned down offers to have her romantic shenanigans immortalized on-screen. Looked like the vultures were looking for another way to skin that kitty cat.

“Might be better to keep these movie people on a short leash, don't you think?” Venti offered with a cocked eyebrow, reading Wyatt's mind. Or at the very least recognizing that “Don't mess with the Dempseys” was as ingrained in Wyatt as it was in the rest of his crazy motherfucking family.

Wyatt sighed. There was logic here, but hanging with Hollywood types and artistes was not how he wanted to spend his rehab. It was the kind of thing his brother Gage would enjoy, he of the billboards and firefighter calendars and all-around exhibitionist tendencies. Kid had never met a camera he didn't want to bang.

He was just about to offer Gage's services instead when something Venti had said poked his brain matter like a Halligan through termite-ridden drywall.

“Back up a sec. What's that about production companies?”

“The city wants to encourage more production companies to come here—”

“No, the other thing. The name of the production company that asked for the consult from six.”

Venti squinted. “Cade Productions. Headed up by that actress who had all that trouble last year. The public divorce from Ryan Michaels, the hacked photos, the ‘I'm so exhausted' rehab.” The captain was well known for spending more time reading
People
than
Fire Engineering
magazine. Anyone who dared touch the latest issue before Venti laid his eyeballs on it had better find latrine duty enjoyable. “This is supposed to be her big comeback.”

The ping now ratcheted up to a full-on four-alarm. “And is she in the movie? Molly Cade?”

That garnered more than a squint from Venti; it earned a skin-penetrating stare because Wyatt had sounded . . . animated. He didn't do animated for anything or anyone.

Except for Sean and Logan, his foster father and biological brother, both long gone. For Roni, very much alive and vexing.

And once, for Molly Cade.

A smile spread slowly across Venti's face. Asshole. “I believe she
is
in the movie. Fan of Ms. Cade's work, are you?”

Big fan. Of how hard her tongue had worked when wrapped around his cock. How good her curvy body had worked his until every one of his atoms had exploded in the kind of pleasure he'd never experienced before or since. They had crossed paths at a strange time in Wyatt's life. In the intervening five years, whenever he saw her on the screen, a cavalcade of what-might-have-beens marched through his brain. Ridiculous, for sure. Oscar-nominated actresses who commanded multimillion-dollar paydays weren't exactly his usual diet.