Flirting with Fire (Hot in Chicago #1) (14 page)

“Robbie!”

Dropping to the floor where the heat was less intense, Luke started a catlike crawl, feeling his way to the door. In a smoke-filled room with senses diminished and adrenaline competing with reason, the space always felt vast, though it might be no more than eight feet square.

With thick gloves, distinguishing a table leg from a kid’s can be tough. He grabbed what felt like a drafting desk. That sizzle in his ears only intensified with every hard-fought foot of floor covered.

He found an edge and Brailled his way upward for a couple of feet. The door. The damn open door. He swung it shut.

Instantly the temperature dropped and his visibility improved, the air more charcoal than squid ink.
Jesus, kid, where the fuck are you?
If he’d left the room, he was a goner, because no one was making it off that landing alive.

First check was behind the door he’d just closed. Ignoring it was a rookie mistake. No kid.

“Robbie!”

Kids usually gravitated to the bed, thinking the fire and smoke won’t find them there, but not this one. Nothing over, nothing under. That left . . .

Score! A sneakered foot poked out of a half-open closet. Pulling the door out with one hand, Luke grabbed the limp kid from inside.

“Robbie, can you hear me?”

The kid moaned, and Luke’s heart, already pumping overtime, kicked his ribs with joy and gratitude. His seventh grab, and no save had ever felt sweeter. Damn, this day just rocked.

“Come on, kid. Let’s get outta here.”

 CHAPTER THIRTEEN

D
espite a restless night, her dreams steamy and studded with Luke, Kinsey was showered, shaved, and caffeinated by 7:30 a.m. She had already ignored a “too early for God, but not too early for the mayor” call on the grounds it was Independence Day, and that went double for the chains that bound them. Unless city hall was burning with him in it, she didn’t want to know. On hearing Eli’s voice mail asking if she’d like to stop by the barbecue he was hosting for a few friends (assumption: you must be lonely), she was glad she’d let the call go. It would be hard to say no to him personally and, with Luke on his way, she’d rather play the day by ear.

Not unlike this entire thing that was happening between them.

Casual relationships were not her thing. She had started dating David in college, but they had parted when he did his residency in New York, the long-distance thing too much pressure. If they were meant to be, they would get together again. Postresidency, he ended up as an attending at UCSF (his third choice, by the way) and they picked right up where they left off. But for the three years they were on a break, she had dated a couple of nice guys in San Francisco.
A lawyer who did pro bono work. A guy who ran a software start-up in Silicon Valley. The operative word being
dated
. Three dinners before they got to second base, two more before they saw her special-occasion lingerie. Sleeping with a man based on little more than animal attraction was not her usual.

No one could mistake what Kinsey and Luke were doing for dating. This was a down-and-dirty affair.

Kinsey tried to assess the flutter in her stomach. Was she apprehensive because this was not standard Kinsey behavior and she felt a little slutty, or because she wished there was more to it? Luke Almeida was a man of many faces: the hothead, the family stalwart, the guy who gave back, the hero. But ultimately, he was a man who knew his way around a woman’s body without needing GPS. As attractive as those other facets were, she needed to remember what this was about. Sex. Pure and simple.

And yet, something did not agree with her sensible, reasoned conclusion. Something nagged at her brain, insisting to be heard.

It was those godforsaken flip-flops.

After she had pulled a Luke Almeida on David at North Avenue Beach, her fantasy-made-flesh had wrapped her in his arms, then kneeled before her in the sand to take care of her feet. The solicitude didn’t end there. She flexed her hand, enjoying the memory—and not just because she had gone batshit on her ex. What followed had lodged its way into her bruised heart. In his practical manner, Luke had taken care of her stinging knuckles with ice, and later, her other desperate needs with fire.

In all her time with David, not once had she felt
cherished like that. Ten years together off and on, planning a life on the corner of picture and perfect. Throughout their relationship, she couldn’t recall a single moment that rivaled the tenderness Luke Almeida had shown her yesterday.

Yeah, dating was so overrated. Brain-scrambling orgasms with the inked thug fireman were the way to go. Glad they got
that
cleared up.

An incoming FaceTime call on her laptop saved her from further navel gazing: 5:45 a.m. in San Rafael, and the Colonel was on the line. Always an early riser, her father still lived life like he was on the base at the Presidio back in the good ol’ days. Better known as the Cold War.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Happy Fourth, punkin.”

She smiled at his weathered face upon hearing the endearment. As much as she liked to present to the world as the take-charge career woman, hearing her father’s soft words made her squishy. “You, too, Dad. Everyone coming over for the cookout-slash-animal sacrifice?”

Retired army physician and colonel Jackson M. Taylor IV spent his days coming up with new ways to flavor chunks of dead cow. Kinsey’s vegetarianism was a source of playful conflict between them.

Her father chuckled. “Cole and Tina are stopping by with the girls. Jax is bringing some flibbertigibbet he met at a bar.”

“He’s not with Alison anymore?”

“No, that’s who he’s bringing. Alison.”

She rolled her eyes. “They’ve been dating for a year, Dad.”

“Until he puts a ring on her finger, she’s only temporary.” Thirty-five years ago, then Lieutenant Jackson Taylor IV, on leave from Okinawa, had wooed Kinsey’s teacher mother by showing up at her first-grade classroom to sweep her off her feet. The Colonel’s views on love and romance were clear: find woman, claim woman, marry woman.

Needless to say, David had never measured up.

Her father seemed to realize that his comment might be considered insensitive to his recently dumped daughter. “Sorry, Kinsey. I wasn’t thinking. How’re you holding up?”

In other words, had she collapsed into a self-loathing mess? Not quite. After the farce with David yesterday, she really should be feeling pretty ropy, but she was surprisingly okay. Revenge orgasms for the win.

“Not bad. I’ve met some—”
Steady there, girl.
“People. Making friends, you know.”

“That’s great, Kinsey, but . . .” He trailed off, his hesitancy surprising her. The Colonel did not usually mince words.

“What’s up, Dad?”

“Now might be a good time to reconsider things. You got great scores on the LSAT and you know I’d help you out. Berkeley’s law program is one of the best.”

“I love what I do.”

He shook his head disapprovingly. “Working with crooked politicians? How can you get any job satisfaction out of that, punkin?”

This tired old argument had been making the rounds for seven years. In a family of overachievers like the Taylors, her ambitions were far too small for highly motivated military men, physicians, and law
yers. At times like this, she wished her mother, with her softening influence, was still around. She had died when Kinsey was eight, leaving Kinsey in a cauldron of overbearing men. Character building, but exhausting.

“If I was working with a crooked politician back in California, would that make you feel better? I’ve got some feelers out to see if Max Fordham needs someone for his campaign.” She had interned with Max while getting her degree, when he was still a small-time San Francisco councilman. Word was out that he was considering a run for state senate—and she wanted to be in on that.

She could feel her father’s attitude adjustment all the way from the Bay. He’d tolerate her cozying up to corrupt politicos if it meant seeing her more regularly.

“Kinsey, I’d love to have you here every Sunday lunch, eating the big steak I grill for you.”

She laughed. “How can a salad lover resist?”

Her intercom buzzed and she checked the time on her laptop. Only 8:06, but her heart thudded insanely fast. It had to be him. Luke.

“Hey, Dad, I’ve got to go—um, delivery.”

“On the Fourth?”

“Give my love to everyone. And eat two steaks for me.” With her father’s chuckle echoing in her ears, she headed to the door to let in the man who was about to set her body on fire. She’d be having her own cookout right here in her apartment.

“D
o you smell smoke?”

The woman in the elevator up to Kinsey’s apartment wrinkled her nose and stared pointedly at Luke.

He cleared his throat, flashed his pearly whites, and proceeded to lie his ass off. “No, ma’am, I don’t.”

Momentarily thrown by his politeness, she squinted, then clutched her tiny yapper of a dog to her low-hanging bosom. Mercifully, she elected to stay on her side of the car, because if she were to get any closer, she’d smell smoke all right. On his clothes, in his hair, whispering from every pore.

It had been one helluva night. When oh when would people realize that splashing kerosene on charcoal was not the way to get a nice, healthy blaze going on the grill? But then nobody ever called the fire department for doing something smart. He supposed he should be grateful for the job security.

Saving that kid, though—there was something both elating and humbling about it. After the shit storm of the last couple of weeks, he felt renewed again.

Might also have something to do with Kinsey. With her, he just
felt
again.

At the twelfth floor, the woman left with her dog, but not before they both treated him to a suspicious glare. Only four more floors to go and the excitement was heightening in his chest.
Th-thunk. Th-thunk.

The elevator stopped and the doors parted. Two steps out. Look left, look right.

Hot damn.

Kinsey stood at the entrance to her apartment, three doors down. There was highfalutin art on the hallway walls and plush carpeting underfoot, but the details were fuzzy because all he could see was her.

“Mr. Almeida.”

The way she said that, rolled it over her tongue,
pumped an extra shot of blood to his groin. As did her outfit, a Berkeley tee, and that was about it. It hit her thighs at butt-skimming level and all he could think was,
Turn around, baby. Show me that heart-shaped ass of yours.

“Hey, sweetheart.”

“Tough night?”

“No more than usual.” He locked his arms around her perfect ass and hoisted her up around him. Kissed her slow and deep. He had missed her taste. “I really should take a shower.”

She tunneled her fingers through his hair, coming away with ash and grime.

“Shower later. Right now, I want to smell what you do on my body. I want to smell what means so much to you on my skin.”

Those words rendered him mute—and unbearably aroused.

He carried her inside and closed the door with his foot. The possibilities tripped through his lust-mushed brain . . . against the door, on the floor, on the . . . yes, the counter. He sat her down beside her laptop. Knowing Kinsey, he bet she’d been working before he arrived.

Peeling off her shirt with a languor that surprised him considering the speed of his depraved thoughts, he took a moment to appreciate her body as every delicious inch was revealed. He had washed his hands but missed a couple of black streaks on his knuckles. He grazed the pink buds of her breasts, gratified when they dirtied up under his touch. His mark.

She tugged at his tee and he pulled it off with one hand.

“How did you get this?” Her cool hand stroked the scar tissue on his shoulder.

“Dumb move during my rookie days. Kind of mistake I wouldn’t make now.”

She laid feather-soft kisses over the sign of his stupidity. “Tell me.”

“Two months out of the Quinn—that’s the Firefighter Academy—and I—”

“Hello . . . Kinsey?” A strange male voice boomed God-like into the room.

“Oh shit!” She slammed the lid shut on the laptop.

Yeah, the laptop.

A shiver of dread curled through Luke’s overheated blood. The Fourth, a time for connecting with friends and family. Please, Christ Jesus, don’t let that be—

“Sweetheart, tell me that was an old college pal. Or your personal shoe shopper. Or the assistant to your personal shoe shopper.”

Both hands covered her flushing face. “That was my father. I was talking to him before you arrived and I must have forgotten to end the call.”

Unable to help himself, Luke burst out laughing. Fucking priceless. “You are determined to destroy your reputation, PR princess.”

She looked like she was going to slap him. Then she did. Well, more of a punch to his shoulder.

“Not funny!” In a mad scramble, she pulled on the shirt she had been wearing pre-strip, forcing him to agree with her assessment wholeheartedly. A not-naked Kinsey was not funny at all.

She bumped him aside with her hip, then took a deliberate moment to compose herself and arrange
the laptop so Luke was out of the frame. With a couple of shallow breaths, she flipped it open and redialed.

“Hi, Dad. Ah . . . again.”

“Hey, punkin, sorry about that. I was getting ready to call your brother in Park City. Realized sort of late that the previous connection was still up.”

An awkward pause joined forces with a downright uncomfortable one.

“So,” her father finally said. “Package delivered okay?”

The old man sounded amused, thank God, so Luke felt safe in raising an eyebrow in Kinsey’s direction. Too soon, apparently. She blasted him with a look of outright censure.

“Yes, Dad. Safe and sound.” Seeming to come to a decision, with an exasperated wave, she adjusted the laptop to face Luke. A white-haired man with bushy eyebrows and a strong jaw stared out from the screen. “Luke, this is my father, Retired Colonel Jackson Taylor IV. Dad, this is Luke Almeida. He’s—”

“—a Devil Dog,” her father finished.

That’s right. Luke was shirtless with his Semper Fidelis chest tattoo on display.

In the apartment of the daughter of a retired colonel.

At 0800 hours on the Fourth of July.

Kinsey’s crafty smile told him she was back on top.
Luke, meet my father, the tough-as-nickel-steak, all-American hero who could happily
arrange to have a Tomahawk cruise missile shot up your ass before breakfast.

“Former Devil Dog, sir. Discharged in ’07. First
lieutenant, 2/24, Chicago’s Own,” Luke said, referring to his Marine Corps service as part of the Second Battalion, Twenty-fourth Marines, also known as the Mad Ghosts.