Flirting with Fire (Hot in Chicago #1) (10 page)

She winced at his cavalier reference to the danger he faced on a daily basis. “But you’re not legally siblings, so it doesn’t apply to you.”

“And there’s no one left behind, just us looking out for each other. Wyatt and I worked our asses off to ensure we all ended up at Engine 6. After Sean and Logan died, we had to be certain the kids would be protected. That
we
would be the ones protecting them. And your boss wants to take what we’ve created here and rip it apart. He said as much to the commissioner.”

“I didn’t know about that—”

“No, I don’t suppose you did. But you know now. I might not share the same gene pool as Sean or any of my family, but I’ve got something better and stronger running through my veins. Fire and smoke and ice. Wyatt, Beck, Alex, and Gage are who I care about. I’m not doing your bullshit campaign to save my ass. I’m doing it to save theirs.”

The Dempsey dynamic coalesced into clarity. Luke was the rock, the one who waited up to ensure his siblings came home safe from a night on the town, the one whose heart beat faster with every second they were out of sight. His family was the mission.

Her hand crept over to his and curled around his clenched fist. “I don’t want to split you up, Luke. I have family, too.” Family she craved like a piece of her heart was missing. “I’m just trying to do a job here.”

Not unlike when she wrapped her body around him at the calendar shoot, he seemed to relax at her touch. Unexpectedly, he opened his fist. Entwined his
fingers with hers. The serrated breathing that lifted his chest with every roughly grasped inhale steadied to an even draw. The effect she had on him surprised her—she wasn’t a restful person by nature, so that she was capable of inspiring calm in this passionate man both stunned and electrified her. Something about how they connected just worked.

The moment seemed to expand between them, until suddenly the back door flew open and two bodies crashed in. She jumped at the intrusion. Luke released her hand.

“You ever heard of knocking?” he barked.

The new arrivals, African American boys in their midteens, presented a mix of mildly chastened with challenge to authority.

“Thought Wy was here,” one of them said, his curious gaze slipping to Kinsey.

“Eyes forward, soldier,” Luke said. He stood and did some complicated fist bump/handshake move with each kid. The tallest one snuck another look at Kinsey, one at Luke, and chuckled.

“Is that yo woman?”

“Have they stopped teaching English in school, Anton? The word is
your
, not
yo
.”

Kinsey’s heart clattered, though she knew Luke was just using the yo/your example to make an excellent point about grammar, not to actually claim her as his.

“You eat any breakfast this morning?” Luke asked the boys.

“Just the Grape-Nuts shit they serve up on Saturdays,” Anton muttered. “And fuckin’ apples,” he added, as if those green-skinned suckers had offended him deeply.

“Grab a couple of forks and have at the cinnamon rolls. One each, then out to the garage. Wy’s expecting you.”

The boys moved around the kitchen knowledgeably, grabbing plates and forks before settling in at the table. Standing at the counter, Luke speared them with a paternal gaze, then caught her eye.

“You can get that idea out of your head, Miss Taylor.”

The kids looked up as if they had forgotten she was there. “I’m Anton,” the tall one said to Kinsey around his chewing. He thumbed to his friend. “That’s Kevin.”

“And she’s leaving.” Luke placed a hand of brook-no-argument on the back of her chair. “C’mon, I’ll drive you home.”

“You don’t have to—”

“It wasn’t an offer.”

Got it. Kinsey went to grab her clothes, blood boiling. Mr. July was Mr. Mercurial today, it seemed; one moment warm and fuzzy, the next cold as a Chicago winter. Kinsey guessed feeling threatened in all manner of ways could do that to you: his family, his job, these kids he mentored. Luke clearly felt like everything was at stake, and that it was up to him to protect everyone around him. But he didn’t need to treat her like a soulless PR junkie at every opportunity.

After taking her time grabbing her jeans and shirt, she met up with him at his pickup truck, unsurprised that this man’s man would own a Chevy Silverado with a turbo diesel V8. Fewer cylinders might be misinterpreted as sensitivity. In torturous silence, except for her directions, they headed to her
home on Erie in the River North neighborhood. Luke drove like he was on a five-alarm-fire run, weaving in and out of traffic, apparently hyperfocused in his goal to offload her from his life. Ten minutes of meat-locker cold blew between them, rivaling the truck’s air-conditioning, but inside her body heated with the fire of a thousand planet-destroying suns.

Who the fuck did this guy think he was? She would put this job to bed ASAP—but not in his bed with his hard body spreading her thighs wide and pistoning into her with those trim hips and—
argh!
It was time to wrap up Engine 6 Makeover: Asshole Edition stat, and move on to projects where blockheads were thinner on the ground.

The craptastic Chicago parking situation meant no space was available outside her building, but to her surprise, Luke flipped on the hazards and skipped around to the passenger side. He opened her door as he looked up at the awning for Burnham Corporate Apartments. “Temporary accommodation?”

“Temporary everything,” she snapped back, ignoring his outstretched hand as she stepped into the street. In a snit, she marched to the entrance of her building, mentally warning herself to let it slide. To just go inside. To just
—oh damn him!
She turned and pounded back. Poked a finger in that hard chest. Got all up in his grille.

“I took this job, Luke, because it was the best one I could get in the city where the man I planned to spend the rest of my life with had moved. Now the reason for upping sticks and coming here is no longer part of the equation, but that doesn’t mean I get to bail on being a professional. You might not like it, but this is what I do. Fix big fucking problems.”

“Like me?”

“Like you.”

That would have made such a fine scene-ending line, if this infuriating man had the decency to let her have the last word. But then she guessed that the definition of
decency
must be fluid as far as Luke Almeida was concerned. Because while he was shaping up to be one of the most decent men she knew . . .

Exhibit A: his family.

Exhibit B: those foster kids.

Exhibit C: he had held her hair
and
rubbed her neck while she hurled her guts out last night.

. . . there was nothing remotely decent about how his granite body maneuvered her flush to the truck’s door. As for the proof of his arousal, thick against her belly?

Not decent, but decently sized.

More than decently sized.

“You’re lucky that right now your job objectives coincide with mine, Kinsey.” Brute hands caged her on either side. Sweet breath, flavored with sugar and cinnamon, fanned her lips. “But when you stray your honeyed ass onto my turf, in my firehouse, in my bed . . .” He brushed his lips against her ear. “When you come within a five-mile radius of my body, which is so fucking hard for you, baby, you need to leave your job at the door and let me take charge.”

Pleasure howled through her, but it was immediately tempered by disappointment. Luke Almeida was no different from David. Yet another nitwit who felt threatened by a strong woman.

And “baby”? Honest to God, the man was not to be believed.

“What if I want to leave my job at the door and still bust your balls, Almeida?”

He rubbed his stubble-rough jaw against hers. Want coiled deep in her belly. Deeper.

“I think I can get down with you on top as long as you’re prepared to spend equal time underneath me.”

Oh, mama
.

“It’s hard to strike that balance. Someone always feels like they’re losing.”

“Then you haven’t been doing it right,” he said before stamping his perfect mouth on hers and showing her just how right it could be. Their tongues tangled and parried, thrusting forward, drawing back. Shared dominance and surrender, control and submission.

No losers here. Luke Almeida was just one fantastic kisser.

Too soon, he unlocked those fantasy lips from hers. Was that a whimper she heard from her throat? Surely not.

“You stayin’ in town for the Fourth?”

She nodded, still dazed by the sensual assault.

“We’ll be at North Avenue Beach this afternoon at one, near the volleyball courts. Wear the least amount of clothes possible while keepin’ it legal.”

Indignation snapped her out of her sex-addled haze, but as she was learning, this infuriating man was ten steps ahead of her.

“I’ll be the one in the barely there Speedos.”

She laughed. Nice way to defuse, Mr. Almeida. Even so, as the fog cleared from her brain, the need to set something straight kicked in.

“You know that while we’re working together, Luke, we have to keep our interactions professional.” Or more professional than what they had been doing.

Amusement brightened his eyes. “Just askin’ you to hang at the beach, Kinsey. Don’t fret now, we’ll have chaperones, so you’ll have to keep your greedy little hands to yourself.”

Right, because
her
hands were the problem. With a devilish grin and a wink, he started to head back to the driver’s side of his truck.

Not so fast, Mister. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Don’t think so.”

“How about an apology for being a card-carrying jackass earlier?”

He narrowed those stunning blue eyes. “Thought I just did.”

That kiss might have been on the upper end of the Richter scale for moisture creation, panty scorching, and nipple hardening, but as far as apologies went, she was unimpressed.

Her expression made that clear.

Back in her personal space, he drew a thick finger across her jaw, all while staring deep into her eyes. “I’m sorry for being a dick, Kinsey. Feel free to call me out on it anytime.”

Then he squeezed her ass, and for the briefest moment the words of one of those foster kids in his care came back to her:
Is that yo woman?

As her butt cheek was shaped by his rough hand, her hormones chanted,
Hell, yes.

“Now go sleep off that hangover, Miss Taylor.”

 CHAPTER TEN

A
lex had a theory that farmers’ markets had replaced bars for the quality hookup, but as Gage surveyed Green City Market on this fine Saturday morning, he was extremely doubtful. Spread out before him were couples, gay and straight, as far as his hungover eyes could see. This market might be loaded with potential of the homosexual variety, but all of it appeared to be taken—and not looking.

At least if you ran into a so-called committed couple at a bar, the chance of being invited into their fucked-up sex games was high on the list. Between the lighting, the music, and the alcohol, the atmosphere conspired to toggle those “Ooh, I’d never” switches to “We’re just a block away, handsome.”

Nobody got laid with kale as the backdrop. Or gleaming chrome professional kitchens in the heart of Restaurant Row, apparently.

Fucking Brady Smith.

Three times Gage had gone over to his kitchen so far, with zero to show for it but a recipe for pork carnitas empanadas. The man barely spoke. Barely spared him a glance. Didn’t even admire his ass when he thought Gage wasn’t looking. Gage was not a happy camper.

Enticing the Grumpster over to Dempsey’s bar in
Wicker Park, where Gage might have a chance at loosening him up, was a similarly dead end.
Too busy,
Brady had said. He worked every day from noon to 2 a.m., a fact Gage was mildly embarrassed to have come by during a stakeout of Smith & Jones one night, thinking that maybe Brady was seeing someone. But no, he closed up and walked half a block to the loft building on the corner. The next night, the same. Gage checked and found Brady’s name on the buzzer. The guy lived there, and not once had he hinted that they could get away for a little afternoon delight at chez Smith.

Gage had turned into a stalker, and this morning, he was at it again.

One of the servers at Smith & Jones had tipped him off that Brady hit the market on Wednesdays and Saturdays around eight, scoping out fresh produce for the restaurant’s specials. An oh-so-casual, accidental meet-up might put some fire under this thing that was going nowhere. Once they had fucked, Gage would get this guy out of his system and move on to easier pickings.

“Bit early for you, isn’t it?” he heard behind him.

God, he loved that man’s voice. A spot of Google-fu had thrown up that Brady was from Louisiana, and that lazy-as-fuck drawl that occasionally crept into his speech made Gage so damn hard. Tamping down his triumphant grin, he turned to find Brady in his usual stance: arms crossed in defense, face bored with,
Who are you again?

Gage’s hackles rose. What the hell was he doing here, chasing an uninterested guy? While he was hungover, no less!

“I like that Wisconsin cheddar they sell over there,” Gage muttered, with a nod to the Michigan cheese monger near the entrance. The Wisconsin cheddar on the Michigan cheese stand. Genius
.

Brady’s response was so weird that Gage had to rewind his brain for verification.

The guy smiled.

If he’d known Brady was turned on by Gage acting dumber than a pail of bait, he would have played up his blond weeks ago. Quicker than double-struck lightning, the smile disappeared, leaving Gage to wonder if he had imagined it.

“Saw you on the news,” Brady said with a derisive sniff. “And on those billboards.”

“I know, it’s crazy. Kinsey—she works for your pal the mayor—is crafting a PR campaign to rehab the reputation of my house. And you’ll never—” He had been about to spill about the modeling agency interest, but he stopped short. Brady didn’t look so much stoic as just plain bored.

Okaaay
. “So what’s on the menu today?” Gage asked instead.

“We’ll see,” was the cryptic response.

Gage fell into step with Brady and, like a golden retriever, followed him around as he made his purchases. About five minutes in, Gage accepted the position of assistant-without-benefits, carting around two bags filled to bursting with produce. Twenty minutes later, and still nothing verbal from Brady. Christ on a cracker, could this get any more painful?

Finally, after one last gunfighter squint at the stands, the big chef made tracks toward the main entrance.

“Gotta get some Wisconsin cheddar,” Brady said gravely. “I hear those Michigan cheese mongers use a special recipe to give it the Wisconsin flavor.”

“Jesus, is that you making a joke?”

Brady’s mouth contorted again into something approximating a smile, and yet again, as if it pained him to do it, he shut down. Shit, this was so messed up. Rising panic dogged Gage’s steps as he followed Brady to Cannon Drive where he had parked his SUV. Wordlessly, he took the bags from Gage, loaded them in the trunk, and shut the door.

“Icameherelookingforyou,”
Gage said in a single burst, as though he had been gagged for the last half hour.

“Why?”

“Why do you think?”

“Dunno. Judging from your billboards, looks like you could have anyone you want.”

“I could, but I want you.”
Conceited much, Simpson?
Well, when that’s all you have, you may as well play it to the hilt. “Are you not attracted to me?” Gage took a step forward, and Brady edged a shaky step back. “If you’re not interested, just say so.”

Brady flashed him an answering grimace and Gage was suddenly struck with an unpalatable and wholly unexpected conclusion.

The man was just not that into him.

“Sorry to have wasted your time,” Gage bit out, feeling cold and shaky, the disappointment heavier than a bowling ball in his gut.

He turned to leave, but got no farther than a few steps before his body was slammed against the back of the SUV. Brady’s callused palm curled around his
neck and drew him closer, closer, so close until
fuck, yeah,
his lips found Gage’s mouth and seized possession. Brady drove his tongue deep, searching, at the same time as Gage anchored his hands to Brady’s hips and pulled him in for some cock-on-cock action. Holy smokes, that felt so right. It had been a long time coming, and like a man who hadn’t eaten in days, Gage wanted to experience it all even if it left him with a stomachache.

The man kissed like he had been custom built for it. Those lips were made for Gage’s, that tongue couldn’t make anyone else feel this good. A moan escaped Gage’s throat, answered like a mating call by Brady slanting his mouth to find a more penetrating angle.

Perfect. So frickin’ perfect.

But it was over much too soon. Brady pulled away, breathless, and gaped at Gage. Then he edged back farther, out of Gage’s immediate reach.

“Can’t do this,” he rasped.

“Can’t do what?” Gage looked around. Sure, it was a bit public, but the liberal-minded set of Lincoln Park could handle it. “I need you to take me back to your place. I need you to fuck me. Now.”

“I-I can’t. I can’t do this.”

Gage fisted Brady’s shirt, absorbed the thud of the man’s heart. “Do not tell me you don’t want me because your body says different. It’s begging for my touch, for my greedy mouth. I could make you feel so fucking good, Brady. Best you’ve ever had.”

Brady was breathing hard, his broad chest rising and falling. Apparently, he had been struck mute, so Gage continued to coax. Calling on skills he rarely had to use.

“If you’re worried about people knowing you’re gay . . . I can work with that.” He would despise the dishonesty of it, but for a chance with this man, even once, he would put aside what few scruples he possessed. “Brady, I want you. Any way I can have you.”

“That’s not it. I’m not hiding who I am. I just can’t do this.” Brady scrubbed his mouth, removing all traces of that kiss. Of Gage. He placed a hand over Gage’s fist and unfurled his grip like he was dealing with a grasping child who needed a stern talking-to. “Can’t do you.”

Shock froze Gage in place and numbed his throat, and hell if Brady didn’t take advantage of his compromised state. Two seconds was all it took for him to make like the wind and hightail it out of there in his SUV.

With those squealing tires sounding like a bank robbery getaway, it was easy to believe that someone had just committed a crime.

“K
insey, over here!”

Alex’s strong voice carried over the heads of sun worshippers and families soaking up the midday sun at North Avenue Beach. Perfectly situated on a curl of land, the beach was made even more spectacular by the impressive Chicago skyline watching over it like a steel-and-glass guardian. Passing by a restaurant shaped to look like an ocean liner, Kinsey picked her way across the sand to the volleyball section, where the Dempsey crew had set up camp.

Alex sat in a collapsible chair, as did Wyatt, Gage, and a few other firefighters she recognized from the
Engine 6 crew. Gage made the introductions—Jacob Scott, Derek Phelan, Murphy (
just Murphy
), but Kinsey couldn’t help the disappointment chilling her gut that the one person she had been expecting to see was nowhere in sight.

“Glad you could join us,” she heard in a deep rumble behind her.

Mental fist bump.
She turned and looked her fill.

Gloriously bare chested, and wearing black board shorts that indecently covered his tree-trunk thighs, Luke stood sentry behind her with his arms crossed, aviators gleaming. Like a lifeguard ready to come to her rescue or a Secret Service agent itching to bounce her back to city hall if she made any threatening moves.

“Expected a bit more skin, Almeida.” She punctuated that with a pointed glance at the shorts area. The man
had
promised Speedos.

“Think Chicago’s seen enough of me, don’t you?”

Chicago might have, but Kinsey most definitely had not.

Feeling flirty, she dropped her bag to the sand and peeled off her midthigh-length Tommy Bahama cover-up. The red bikini she wore underneath was a favorite, though David had thought it too revealing.
M
ay as well be wearing napkins, Kinsey
.

“I see you followed my instructions,” Luke murmured, his aviators-covered gaze reflecting heat off her skin.
Dayum.
One look was like twenty minutes of foreplay.

“What’d ya bring?” Gage cut in with a nod to the plastic bag at her feet.

“Just some cinnamon rolls from Ann Sather.”

“Goddamn it, woman, why didn’t you say so?” Alex made a dash for the box. “The perfect hangover food.”

Like ravenous wildebeests, the crowd demolished the sweet rolls Kinsey had bought on the way to the beach. “Now we can eat,” Gage pronounced, licking a sliver of sugar from his lips.

Cooler lids were unleashed and out came lunch; evidently Gage had spent all morning in the kitchen. On a fold-out table, he lay out the spread of hummus, dips, and raw veggies—cucumber, zucchini, colorful peppers, cherry tomatoes. One of the firefighters whose name she missed during the introductions tended to hot dogs and burgers on a portable Weber. A couple of beautiful salads rounded out the selection, perfect for the vegetarian. Guess she wouldn’t need that bag of pretzels she’d brought along after all.

Wyatt stood and gestured to his seat. “Kinsey, sit.”

She obeyed, partly because she wanted to and partly because Wyatt was a wee bit intimidating. No man scared her, but she suspected that if she were to encounter the eldest Dempsey on a badly lit street, she might cross to the other side with her finger hovering on that last digit in 911. She wondered what his story was. What all their stories were.

As foster kids, it had to have been rough. No one escapes that kind of upbringing completely unscathed, but all of them came across as well adjusted. Tight. If the bond between them wasn’t obvious from the good-natured insults and ribbing, the commemorative tattoos they all sported on their biceps—even Alex—said it as clear as day. Family, duty, Dempsey.

Throughout lunch, Kinsey tried to focus on eat
ing and laughing, but mostly on restraining herself from staring at Luke. He lay stretched out on a beach towel, skin glistening like his billboard counterpart, thick, corded forearms crossed behind his dark head. Her fingers itched with the need to wander over those sunbaked muscles and spend time exploring. Lord, the man was a visual orgasm.

But there were only so many times she could get away with diverting her not-so-surreptitious gaze. After her fourth attempt at covert glances, Luke curved his wicked lips, making it abundantly clear he had caught her admiring stare from behind his obscuring aviators.
Busted.
She blushed and looked away, insisting she was unmoved by that sexy grin. There had been a lot of insisting lately.

Gage stood and stretched. “Think I’ll go for a swim.”

“Don’t forget, little bro,” Luke threw out.

“Forget what?”

“Wrap it before you tap it,” all the Dempseys, even tight-lipped Wyatt, chorused.

Gage caught Kinsey’s eye. “See what I put up with? Frickin’ homophobes. You wouldn’t say that if I was hetero.”

Wyatt snorted.

“Dad said it to us all the time,” Luke said, leaning up on one elbow and eyeing his little brother over his sunglasses. “No glove, no love. He shoved so many condoms in my pocket I could’ve opened a rubber stand.”