Sparking the Fire (25 page)

Gage opened his mouth.

“And guys,” Wyatt finished.

Gage shut it.

He could feel the entire table staring, though he only had eyes for the saucy grin of one Molly Cade. While Wyatt really had no problem talking up his love of pink or his fine-grained opinion of the hottest movie superheroes, he sure was glad none of the other guys were here to witness this vigorous defense of his masculinity.

Gage gave an incline of his head and a flourish of his hand. “We bow down to your unparalleled comfort levels with your sexuality and how darn tootin' evolved you are, Wy. In fact, you're a whole other species of het.”

“Heteromaximus,” Molly offered with a cheeky wink that only Wyatt saw.

Gage stood up and pounded the table. “Heteromaximus! We've found it, the missing link between Luke and Homo sapiens. It's Wyatt Fox.”

The entire table cracked up, but only Molly's melodious giggle filtered through to harmonize with
Tommy
's epic closing anthem in his head.
Listening to you, I hear the music . . .
He loved her laugh even when he was the butt of the joke.

She leaned toward the bread basket, giving him a prime view of the valley between her gorgeous breasts.
Groan.
“Gage has it all wrong, you know,” she murmured, low enough that she couldn't be heard above the table's buzz of good cheer.

“Oh yeah?”

“You're not such a bad flirt.”

S
neaking out of Gage's house, Molly closed the door quietly and did a quick check-in with her brain.

How old are you again?

Twenty-nine,
an embarrassed voice offered weakly.

Yet here she was, using the light on her phone to illuminate a path so she could meet a guy for a spot of under-the-radar nookie. She was far too old and not nearly drunk enough for this.

The side door to Wyatt's garage opened and a strong hand yanked her inside.

“Evenin',” her captor murmured against her lips before covering them with that hot, sexy mouth of his. His body rocked hard against her, his need insistent. She let herself fall deep into the pleasure overloading her neurons.

He broke the kiss. “Hardest thing in the world to sit across from you at dinner and not lay hands all over you.”

“I felt like you were touching me. The way you looked at me . . .” It was exciting in every possible way. The secrecy, the man, how fluttery she felt in his outsize presence. “But we have to be careful.”

“Can't help how my body reacts around you, Molly. I'm like some horny teenager who can't stop staring at the girl I've got a crush on. And my cock knows what it wants—it wants in you. Wants to feel you tight and wet around me. It's just . . . I also want to respect you, and doing you in a dirty garage on top of a Camaro is not very respectful.”

Was he serious? She drew back to check his expression, barely lit by the soft glow of a security light shining through the garage's window. Moonlight by ComEd. “Now, listen here, Wyatt Fox. When did we decide you choose the sex locations?”

“Mol . . .”

“Don't Mol me. It's been a week and this secret fling has failed to launch.”

“I've been waiting for Roni to sleep over at one of the others'. She couldn't get enough of them before you moved in, now she's decided to be a homebody.” She heard the guilt in his voice at the idea that he wanted to be rid of Roni so he could indulge in a bout of sexy high jinks with his hot-to-trot neighbor.

“Wyatt, I think you're missing the point of the illicit affair. It's supposed to be comprised of desperate quickies wherever we can find a flat surface. In waiting for it to be perfect, we are missing out on all the amazing, hot sex we should be having!”

He frowned at her outburst.

Must she do everything herself? She sidestepped him and opened the back door of the Camaro. “Like in here.”

“You want to do it in the Camaro?”

“I do.”

“You want to have sex in the backseat of my '69 Camaro?”

Sheesh, guys were so weird about their stupid cars.

“Maybe we could lay down a blanket or something.”

He kissed the ever-loving stuffing out of her. “I must have been a saint in a previous life.” Switching their positions, he maneuvered his big body into the backseat and flipped on the car's dome light. “Get out of my dreams and into my car.”

Billy Ocean? Oh boy. Giggling like a schoolgirl, she climbed in. The dimly lit interior bathed them in a sepia-tinged soft focus. She leaned close, closer,
oh yeah
—strong fingers arrested her incline to bearded paradise.

“What the—?” He sat up and held her at arm's length. “What the hell are you wearing?”

She had to check. “My Cardinals shirt. I sleep in it.”

“Let's have sex in the Camaro, Wy.” His voice sounded different, sort of . . . higher.

“Are you imitating me? Badly?”

“Knew it was too good to be true. Funny, sexy, great ass, knows cars.” He blew out an annoyed breath. “And a freakin' Cards fan.”

She sat back in the seat, a move that displayed the butter-soft, overwashed Cards tee molding perfectly to braless breasts with puckered nipples. Puckered! She looked damn hot in this shirt, and yet the mere sight of it apparently pissed off the man who'd been looking at a sure thing until about ten seconds ago.

“Are you saying that me in this shirt is enough to give you a de-rection, Marine?”

“You could just take it off.”

“I could just go back to bed and leave you with balls as blue as a Cubbies ball cap.”

“Babe, that's just cruel.” He reached for her hip and pulled her easily over him so she straddled his thighs. “It's okay. I'll just close my eyes and think of Wrigley.”

She punched him in his annoyingly resistant chest. But in the muted glow, she caught . . . there it was, that slight upturn of his lips. “You need a light on your forehead signaling when Funny Guy Fox is in.”

“Molly Cade, you could be wearing a White Sox shirt, a Yankees thong, and a Packers Cheesehead and I would still want to do you.”

She sighed. “Such a romantic.”

He slipped his hands under her skirt and coasted rough-hewn fingers along her inner thighs. Higher and higher until he reached . . . “Christ. You're already there.”

Just the mere thought of him was enough to ready her body, but his reverence tipped her over. The scent of her arousal filled the small space.

“Wyatt, please.”

He stroked a thumb through her. Just one solitary stroke that liquefied every bone in her body.

“Kiss me, Mol,” he whispered.

She did, softly at first, her hands framing his face so she could enjoy that beard on her palms, her lips, tickling her chin. He opened up to her slowly, as was his way. There was no rushing this man. Both large thumbs rubbed through her pulsing, wet flesh while his beautiful mouth seduced her with purpose.

The slow build fooled her, because within a minute, she was a bundle of pure sensation, her need clawing, her body not her own, and his thumb pressed to that nerve-packed nub of desire and she was gone, gone, gone.

And still they kissed. Through the wave, the fall, the soft landing. Most guys—again with the comparisons!—used the kiss as preparation and abandoned it when it no longer served its use. Not Wyatt. With this man, pleasure was the journey.

“Could kiss you all night, Marine.”

He smiled against her mouth, light shining like flickering flames in his eyes. Such warmth and desire, and it was all for her.

“Then pucker up, Hollywood. By the time I'm finished with you, the neighbors are gonna need a cigarette.”

“D
oin' it in the Camaro,” Molly said on a sated sigh. She lay in Wyatt's claiming embrace, her back against his chest, her body pleasure-stung and gorgeously used.

“If I had a better way . . .”

“No, no,” she urged, turning in his arms. “This is wonderful.” Who'd have thought Molly Cade would be getting her brains banged out in the backseat of a muscle car in a quiet residential Chicago neighborhood? Urban sanctuaries for the win. “We just have to be discreet. I can't give them any more ammunition.”

“So you hate it, then. Being famous.”

“I . . .” She paused, considering how to phrase it. “I hate it like I hate those last five pounds I can't lose from my ass. They happen to be the five pounds that sell me as Best Booty in Hollywood. They're necessary to keep me in the hearts and minds and porn stash of the movie-going public. Hating it is futile. It just is.”

“Your life can't ever be normal.”

“Define normal.”

He waved around the car.

“This is normal?”

“It's close.”

It's lovely
. “If I retired, I suppose.”

“But you love what you do.” There was admiration in those words, maybe a touch of regret. Loving her job placed her life in another world from his. Parallel lines, not crossing, except for this brief intersection for a few hazy, lust-filled weeks.

“I plan to take on fewer projects, ones that are closer to my heart, and do more producing. Provided this movie is a hit.” If it wasn't, she'd have a hard time funding any future projects. Less time in the public eye might take her fame footprint down a notch.

But her light would never be muted enough to work for a man as private as Wyatt Fox. And there she went again, regretting something that she didn't even want.

“I hate what happened to you,” he whispered against her ear. “I wanted to kill someone—anyone—everyone when I heard about it.”

Her heart turned molten. Wyatt always seemed so low key except when he wasn't. She couldn't speak, because talking about it, even thinking about it, reminded her of how it had come about.

Fucking Ryan.

Wyatt clearly took her silence for a different type of discomfort. “I know I have no right to feel that way. I didn't know you—”

“Except you did.” He knew the real Molly, the one who was untainted by the tawdry business of making movies. Or perhaps she was just feeling nostalgic. Who really knows anyone after a six-day sex romp with no names exchanged?

“I'm not that different. Just a little older, a little jaded. But those pictures hurt me.” At the time, she hadn't even realized how much. How it would be the final nail in the coffin of her already tenuous relationship with her grandmother, how it would change forever her outlook on relationships. “I know people say I deserved it for being so dumb to trust that my private business would remain secure. These days, keeping my business my own is the number-one priority, and neither do I want to expose anyone I'm involved with to that scrutiny. We both have too much to lose if we're seen together in public. Besides, I know how much you'd hate it. My research says so.”

“Your research?”

“Only blurry pictures of you online. There isn't even a picture of you on the CFD site, and that site has photos of everyone looking hot in their dress blues. In the family portraits, you're always in the back.” Plenty of them adorned the walls where she was staying, all showing an unsmiling Wyatt. With them, yet separate. A man apart.

But tonight at dinner, another side of him had revealed itself. Joking with Gage, taking the good-natured teasing of his sisters-in-law, his loving gaze never far from Roni. Mostly she'd noticed his expression softening when he'd laid a big palm on Darcy's belly. Awe and yearning overcame him for a moment. He wanted that for himself.

“Guess I'm the guy in the shadows.”

“Deliberately.”

“The headlines I leave to the rest of the family. They thrive on the attention, but that's not my bag. When I was a kid, I was pretty shy.” The subsequent pause was as loud as a shout.

“What?”

He shook his head again, the friction of his beard against her temple delicious.

Her life was an open book; his was leather bound and locked. She needed to know something, anything personal about him. Turning, she cupped his pirate jaw. “Tell me.”

“Didn't help that anytime I opened my mouth I sounded like a grunting animal. I stuttered, which was a real liability in my line of work.”

“Your line of work as a kid?”

He gave one of those wry
I've said too much
smiles. “Story for another day. Anyway, I had a hard time getting the words out, even my own name. The stress of having to talk to anyone I didn't know would just shut me down. First few months with the Dempseys, I talked to no one but Logan, and that was only when we were alone. But”—memories transformed the hard planes of his face into softness—“they wouldn't shut up. Gage and Beck weren't with us yet, but there was Sean and Mary, Luke and Logan, and Alex, the youngest and loudest of the lot. The noise was constant, and for some reason it soothed me, but still, I hardly said anything. Then Mary figured out I wanted to speak. Don't know how, but she and Sean had a sixth sense about those things. Knew when all of the kids needed a shoulder or a push. She said Alex wanted me to start reading to her, which was probably bull, but I grasped at it all the same. Mostly I'd sit and play with her. Dolls driving dump trucks—this was Alex after all—reading storybooks, shit like that. She was three years old and had a better vocabulary than me. I learned to communicate through my little sister.”

Molly's heart almost imploded. She had never heard anything so amazing. “She must be so proud.”

He huffed a short laugh. “She doesn't even remember, and don't mention it now or she'll never let me hear the end of it. She thought I was just playing with her, sounding out words she already knew when really she was saving my life, teaching me how to read and speak. How to be a Dempsey.”

“And soon you were gobbling up Shakespeare and quoting it at unsuspecting girls in bars.”