Sparking the Fire (4 page)

She savored the glorious image for a moment while another giggle gathered inside her. No man had ever exhibited the capacity to unhinge her like this, not even Ryan. With him she had been starstruck, but never man-struck.

Desperately, she turned to Cal with a helpless shrug of
I think it would be best if you speak now.

Cal had witnessed several breakdowns from Molly in the past year, so this latest turn did not surprise her. Deftly, she picked up the conversational slack. “I understand our original CFD contact is injured, Mr. Fox. I hope he's okay.”

“He'll make it. And it's Lieutenant Fox.” He crossed thick-as-oak-branch forearms over his immense chest, a move that made his biceps bulge indecently.

Oh. My.

Directing his stark gaze back at Molly, he said, “This isn't my usual gig, but as long as you do as I say, we should get along fine.”

Somehow, she found her producer voice. “Already bossing my crew around?”

“Who said anything about your crew?”

All the blood she needed to stay upright rushed to her face in remembrance. Back then, the man had held on to regular conversation as if every word cost a sliver of his soul to speak it. But he had been expressive in other ways. Throaty commands. Raspy instructions.
Touch me. Suck me. Take it all, baby.
Every order designed to maximize their joint pleasure.

A loud clanging sound cut through the sexual tension as thick as the lust fog in her brain. Gideon was at it again, playacting about thirty feet off near the museum's entrance.

“Hey,” Wyatt said quietly, forcefully, and with what sounded like great restraint.

Gideon raised both hands, all innocence, because the brass bell had clearly rung itself. If he didn't quit playing the part of a ten-year-old trapped in a thirty-year-old's body, Molly was going to shove that bell in a very uncomfortable place. He was definitely not her first choice to play Macklin Chase, the heroic fireman who loses his best friend and has to deal with the soul-shattering consequences, but the studio refused to green-light the project without him. Apparently, some suit at Sony thought he projected the appropriate gravitas.

Some suit should have seen him mooning the cast and crew at yesterday's meet and greet.

“He with you?” Wyatt asked Molly.

“Yes. One of the actors.” Just in case Wyatt cared if she and Gideon were together.

Which by the look on his face, he did not.

A bemused Cal shook her head at this exchange and cleared her throat. “In any case, Lieutenant, we appreciate you stepping in at the last moment. I'm not sure if Captain Ventimiglia told you, but our original plan was to spend a day at the academy observing the trainees, giving the actors a feel for the typical job of a firefighter. I understand that you'll be meeting with our tech people tomorrow.”

“Uh-huh. So you want to learn the ins and outs of life in the CFD in two hours.”

“Well, we realize that we can't cram years of knowledge into such a short time.” Molly offered her most persuasive smile, feeling on a more sure footing. That smile was her fortune. “But we were told we could watch a class and then maybe ride the truck from your firehouse for a day. At Engine Company 6.”

Ancestral seat of the Dempseys.

He didn't take the bait. “Not sure watching the class is going to help much,” he said with another squint. He really had that Old West gunfighter thing down. “Doing will give you a better feel for the physical endurance and skill set needed to be a firefighter. Ladder drills, hauling equipment, the smoke box. How's your stamina?”

Pretty damn good, if you recall.

There was that imperceptible eyebrow lift again, henceforth known as a Wy-brow. He did recall.

Before Molly could answer, Cal cut in. “There are insurance issues. We can't let the talent climb ladders or enter smoke-filled boxes.”

Wyatt stepped forward, right up close, and addressed Molly. Of course he smelled incredible, because how hot he looked wasn't already sending her hormones into a Wyatt-fueled frenzy.

“You want to make this movie as authentic as possible, feel what it's like to come home with smoke pumpin' out of your pores, grime in your hair, your muscles ragin' and your body itchin' to find release?”

Yes, yes, all of that.
She blinked, swallowed, and nodded when really she wanted to ask more about the body-itching-to-find-release part. And those dropped g's. She remembered that coming out more, how his vocabulary contracted, when he was losing himself inside her body.

“Well, you'd need to train for a year, then spend three more in a firehouse.”

She was glad to hear that humor as dry as the California brush in August threaded through his graveled voice. So laconic you had to rewind your brain to check for the joke.

“But if you let me do what you're paying me to do, I can give you a damn good approximation of it. You interested in what I got to offer?”

“Yes,” she whispered, and then more forcefully, “Yes. I want to make it real.”

“Good.” Without missing a beat, he spoke to Gideon. “Touch that bell again and I'll take an ax to your hand.”

Gideon stepped back, looking suitably chastened. Maybe he wasn't such a bad actor after all.

“Don't worry, Miss Johnson,” Wyatt said to Cal. “I'll take care of your talent. With me. Now.” So decreed, he turned and strode toward the entrance to the academy barracks, housed next door to the museum.

Cal wagged her finger at Molly and gestured at Wyatt's departing back with a murmur of, “Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do.”

I know, I know.

“But while we're on the subject of Great Butts of Western Civilization . . .” Cal made a box gesture with her hands, composing Wyatt's very fine ass in her imaginary viewfinder. “Cut that one out, frame it, stick it in the Met.”

“No. Bronze it.” And another more crucial part of his anatomy, Molly thought, before her manic giggles finally got the best of her.

 CHAPTER TWO

W
yatt's heart pounded so loud it was a wonder the whole damn academy didn't shake with the vibration. Five years. Five years of her face on that big screen, sometimes as a brunette or a redhead, but more often as her natural blond—information he knew intimately—and she was here. Looking more stunning than he'd imagined in his fevered dreams. She'd scraped her honey-colored hair back off her face and shoved it under a Cubs baseball cap. Sunglasses sat perched over the brim, ready to descend and protect her anonymity once she hit the streets. Her features were largely unchanged: perky nose, cupid bow lips, sink-into-me eyes in that unusual violet-gray shade, but it was her eyebrows that had always set her apart. Those brows transformed her girl-next-door looks into something wild. Feral.

Unknowable.

He had wanted to know her that first night he saw her, sipping from a wineglass at that hotel bar downtown, swinging one long, tan leg back and forth. That leg had mesmerized him like a pendulum used by a hack magician in a hypnosis trick.

A week later, he'd woken up from whatever spell she'd put on him to find her gone.

He stopped at the entrance to the training facility. Turned. Molly snapped her gaze north and blushed furiously while the assistant laughed.

Checking out his ass, it would seem.

He couldn't remember the last time a woman had done that. Though he'd need eyes in his ass to be able to say so with certainty.

“A new class of recruits starts up tomorrow, but in the meantime, you can see the facility. Then visit a firehouse.”

Molly's eyes burned brighter at the mention of the firehouse visit. If she had done her research, she would know by now his Dempsey connection and that his mission was to keep her on a short leash. A cheeky lift at the corner of her mouth told him they were on the same page, along with something else.

Challenge accepted.

Suddenly his brain locked up. He'd had some crazy notion of showing her and her crew around. Maybe boost her up a ladder. Check out
her
ass. But now he realized that he couldn't just pretend. Walk around with these strangers and act like he and Molly meant nothing to each other.

“Wait here.” Sixty seconds later, he returned with company in tow. “This is Lieutenant O'Halloran. He's going to continue the tour.”

The graceful column of Molly's neck bulged on her swallow, and Wyatt couldn't help the thrilling surge in his chest that enjoyed her obvious disappointment.

“Is there something wrong?” Miss Johnson asked.

“I need to speak with Miss Cade alone, so the lieutenant will be taking over.”

She looked at Molly. “I'm not sure—”

“I figure that since you're the producer,” Wyatt said to Molly, “we should probably discuss some of the logistics about our time together.”

Color spotted her cheeks at his words, which had sounded mighty intimate. Totally his intention. Without waiting for an answer, he headed toward O'Halloran's office, the thud of his heart finding a triumphant rhythm with the
click-clack
of her heels behind him. Once she arrived, he took a few necessary distancing steps back to the desk and waited.

She leaned against the closed door, but he knew better. That was the least casual lean he'd ever seen.

The urge to pin her to the wall punched holes in his chest.

“You've changed,” she said.

“You haven't.”

A small sound erupted from her. So her life was a million miles away from five years ago, but fundamentally she hadn't changed. That energy in her body still rippled the air. It fired him up now, a feeling he hadn't enjoyed in a while. A feeling he hadn't craved in a while.

He took a moment to survey the rest of her, his gaze roving up and down her length in a way he hadn't permitted himself outside, around her people. A bright yellow top clung to her breasts above white pants that stopped halfway down her calves. One of those casual looks that probably took a couple of minutes and a boatload of money to throw together. She stood almost a foot shorter than him, but that had never been a problem, given most of their conversations had been horizontal. The years had filled out her curves, and she wore those few extra pounds of plush well, especially below the flare of her hips. The ass that dethroned JLo, or some shit. Her shapely figure had its own press corps.

A woman like this was built to be bedded, and often.

She kicked off from the door, like she needed to propel herself forward into the room. Into this conversation. The momentum brought her to O'Halloran's display shelf with his league hockey trophies and the signed baseball from the White Sox's game three during the 2005 World Series.

“So what did you want to talk about?”

“Think we should lay things out. Clear the air.”

Her fingers grazed the edge of the shelf. “What you did out there—well, I'm grateful.” She raised her eyes, the color of a summer storm over the lake. “I appreciate your discretion. It's not something I'm used to in my business, where everybody is looking to take a piece. You could have . . .”

“What could I have done?” Bragged about sucking begging moans from her gorgeous lips? Reminded her how he'd made her come repeatedly until she'd nearly passed out? Told the world about every filthy thing he had done to her?

“Oh, I see,” she said, a flash of anger in her eyes. “You'd rather unnerve me in private.”

She wasn't wrong.

“You want to lay things out,” she said into the taut silence. “Clear the air.”

Yes, but not how she imagined. They didn't need to talk about what had happened all those years ago because it was here, between them, fueling this organ-crushing torrent of sexual energy. Those memories were as vivid now as if they were projected onto the wall.

“You want to use my sister's story for your movie.”

She betrayed no surprise at his plain speaking. “Busted.”

“You thought maybe you could work your Hollywood charm on some poor sap from Engine 6 and get the inside track.”

She picked up the baseball. Turned it over. Put it back. “You've got me.”

“And now that the poor sap is me, maybe you're thinking our past connection will work in your favor and I'll be eating out of your”—he paused—“hand.”

“Nothing gets by you, soldier.”

He'd let her have that one, even though he'd told her once he didn't like the term.

“You've done your research on my family.”

Her face softened, positively transformed. But then, she was a great actress. “I have. Loyal, generous, big-hearted, prepared to do violence when necessary. You're a TV series waiting to happen.” She canted her head. “Or a movie.”

“You're also aware that my sister doesn't want her life to be made fodder for Hollywood.”

“And you're here to play junkyard dog.”