Flirting with Fire (Hot in Chicago #1) (6 page)

Luckily, she had more than enough imagination to picture him in nothing at all.

The noisy cheers were deafening, but who needed auditory senses when every other one was heightened? Her skin tingled with the need to touch. Her mouth watered with the need to taste. In her nostrils, motor oil and pheromones created an intoxicating concoction of pure, raw sex. But sight was the victor here. There was no beating the image of a half-naked firefighter putting on a sexy show.

The photographer coaxed him out of his shell with soothing instructions, not that he needed much encouragement. The man was born for this. His earlier discomfort apparently forgotten, brazen grins came easy. Each turn revealed more smooth planes and defined muscles of his sculpted body. Playfully, he’d dip his head, then peek past his dark eyelashes with a “come hither” look for the camera.

For her.

As if he didn’t have enough going on with the drop-dead bod and rough-hewn jaw, those tattoos were completely badass—
Sean
and a pulsing green shamrock on the left,
Logan
and the CFD’s seal on
the right,
Semper Fidelis
emblazoned across his chest: Family, Duty, Country. Coupled with his request to donate the calendar’s proceeds to his foster kids’ charity, the whole package hinted at something more than an inked-up, brawling thug. Yet another layer to the surprising Luke Almeida.

Her lips felt as dry as tinder, and she darted her tongue to wet them. She crossed her legs and squeezed her thighs together, desperate for relief, yet eager to agitate and enjoy this moment for as long as possible.

He was teasing her, driving her insane with lust as payback for having put him in this position. Wasn’t revenge supposed to be a dish best served cold? Well, the delicious sight before her just went to prove that the best revenge was a man served hot, hot, hot.

Bring it on, Mr. Almeida.

Out of the corner of her eye she caught the ghost of movement, and she turned to take in a stunning redhead. Rail thin with creamy, freckled skin, she wore a gray pinstripe suit and peep-toe leopard-print pumps. Last season’s Louboutins. Super cute.

“Hi,” Red said, offering a hand with an easy smile. “I’ve seen you around city hall, usually on the upward slog when the elevator craps out.”

Smiling back, Kinsey took her hand. “I thought you looked familiar. Where do you work again?”

“Legal on the third floor. I’m one of those people everyone loves to hate.” She laughed a little too long at her joke. “My, my, quite the display, huh?”

“Something for everyone,” Kinsey said with an eyebrow waggle.

They spent a minute or two chatting about the new fro-yo place in the city hall food court and how
summers were so much better with cute college-age male interns and their cute college-age asses. It was easy, kind of nice. Maybe she’d found a new friend. It had been tough these last couple of months in a strange city, and her misery over David had kept her locked in a bubble of gloom.

Feeling optimistic, she was about to suggest that they meet for drinks Friday after work when Red spoke first.

“So you’re working with Luke to turn him into a good little boy?”

Something about her tone rankled. Kinsey felt her gaze being dragged back to Luke, but he was no longer looking at her. All his heat was now reserved for her new friend.

“Just a word to the wise,” Red continued, passing smoothly over the fact that Kinsey hadn’t answered her question, which had sounded more like an insult. “Luke’s only ever been good at three things: firefighting, sex, and being a Dempsey. His family has always come first and there’s no room for anyone else.”

Kinsey mentally recoiled as if struck. “And you’re telling me this because . . . ?”

“He used to look at me that way.”

Kinsey’s mouth felt like an ash pit. “I didn’t catch your name,” she said, compelling her voice to calm when every cell in her fingertips burned to scratch this woman’s eyes out.

“Lisa Sullivan,” she said, walking away. “Formerly Almeida. Good luck with the Dempseys.”

That ash in Kinsey’s mouth ignited to flame. An ex-wife? And from the way Luke’s gaze had scorched over Lisa, “ex” was a moving target.

Kinsey was so taken aback by what had just transpired that it took a moment to notice that the photographer was calling her over. “I need someone with decent nails for the next shot.” Lili looked down at Kinsey’s nails boasting a three-day-old manicure. “You in or should I poll the crowd?”

Her eyes met Luke’s unbelievably blue gaze and slid to the blood-tinged color that flagged his cheeks. A tsunami of passion waved off him. Because of her.
Lisa.

Knowing that every single woman in that audience—maybe even the former Mrs. Almeida—would jump at the chance to grope the hunky fireman, Kinsey made an instantaneous decision. There had to be some perks to being the founder of the feast.

Keeping her focus on Luke, she spoke to Lili. “I’m in.”

“Miss Taylor,” he said, tipping his helmet.

“Mr. Almeida.”

Lili glanced up from her viewfinder. “Kinsey, stand behind Luke and place your palm under his arm and over his pec. Then wrap your other arm around his waist.”

Kinsey rounded Luke’s imposing form and rested her palm between his shoulder blades.
Oh!
Volcanic heat dueled with barely leashed fury at her touch. Both sizzled through her fingertips, buzzing her skin, sparking her body to glittering life. Slowly, she coasted her right hand along the crease where his ink-cuffed arm met his body. Weaved it through under the strap of his suspenders. Explored the thrilling new territory of this man’s incredible body.

She palmed his chest and encountered a pebble-hard nipple. He shivered.

“Oh yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout,” a female voice rang out, whipping the lady horde into a frenzy of emphatic appreciation.

Kinsey had to tiptoe to whisper into his ear and the urge to brush her lips against his skin almost undid her. Was he sensitive there, in that soft hollow behind his lobe? Where else might her touch produce sensuous shivers?

“We okay?”

After a long beat, he coughed out, “Fine.”

Why she had chosen “we” was beyond her. There was no “we” here, just two people forced to work together toward a common goal, but as soon as it passed her lips, she recognized its unerring rightness. David, an expert in healing physical hearts, had taken a scalpel to hers, and Luke was battling demons of his own. Whatever had happened between him and his ex had left him angry. Hurt.

He held his body iron-rigid, every muscle straining to break the skin barrier, including that scar tissue on his shoulder. It appealed to a very womanly instinct deep within her. What daring feats had he performed to earn that badge of courage? Who had lived to see another day because Luke Almeida exuded heroism from every pore?

Slowly, as if she were dealing with a dangerous, caged animal, she encircled his waist with her forearm and splayed her palm over his rock-hard abs.
Gently does it.

“Screw her,” Kinsey whispered, and then she drew a nail across his nipple, absorbing another delicious shiver into her skin. “Sorry, am I cold?” she asked, knowing she wasn’t.

“Yeah, you’re as cold as ice.” Within the span of a heartbeat, the stress in his body vanished and he relaxed in her arms. “Get in close, sweetheart, I’ll keep you warm.”

Yowza.
Unable to resist that offer, she molded her body flush to his. At shoulder level, he was twice as wide across as she, the perfect male specimen. A perfect fit. His strong back felt like the reason she had breasts. Her nipples, already stiffened to bullets, now registered painful, the only relief for which would be a friction-inducing rub. With every fiber of her being, she resisted doing just that.

Ninety-seven erotically charged seconds passed while the photographer took several shots. Off in the corner, where the Engine 6 crew had gathered like a witches’ coven, boisterous cheers rose up, punctuated by a shout of, “Pay up, McElroy. Told you he wouldn’t last.”

Luke’s growl rumbled in his chest, an animalistic vibrato that rolled through her body like the precursor to a brain-melting orgasm.

“Okay, that’s it,” Lili said. “Kinsey, anything else?”

Kinsey extracted her hand—and her overheated breasts—from the hazardous cocoon of Luke’s body, but it felt like she lost something in the separation. Crossing her arms over her nipples, she wrapped her palms around herself, desperate to hold on to that life-affirming male heat for a few more precious seconds. Behind his back, a few shallow breaths started the rocky road to composure.

When her mind had defogged somewhat, she glanced at her watch. “We have a few minutes before break, so I think we could get some more shots. For
fun.” Because, dang, that had been way too serious. She needed to get control of her hormones—and her emotions—pretty damn quick.

She sought out Josie, who was getting her flirt on with one of the barely clad firemen.

“Josie, we’re ready.”

Her assistant jumped into action and brought a carrier to the front.

With her game face back on, Kinsey turned to Luke, now refastening his bunker pants and hiding all that manly magnificence. So sad, but it was really for the best. It would be too easy to lose herself in his dangerous heat. In those eyes.

“Haven’t you had your pound of flesh from me yet, Miss Taylor?” Luke murmured as he finished buttoning up, languor in his motions.

She fisted her hands at her hips and shook her head.

“Not quite, Mr. Almeida.” Meeting his smoldering gaze head on, she issued the next order in her brightest voice.

“Josie, release the kittens.”

 CHAPTER SIX

L
uke balled his fists against the cool tile and let the spray crash over his body. He had no idea how long he’d spent in the shower. Long enough for the water to run cold. Long enough for the crew’s ribbing to dwindle to chirps and for the ravenous crowd to clear out.

But not long enough to quit his brood over his ex-wife’s appearance, apparently. Who the hell did she think she was showing up in his house?

Of course, that was just the beginning of the Lisa torture fest. Not enough to waltz in with her smug airs and expensive perfume, she had to cozy up to Kinsey in that conspiratorial huddle. Two sophisticated, out-of-his-league women getting a kick out of the man meat on display. That’s what had truly enraged him. Not just that Lisa had shown her face in the last place she was welcome, but that she might have been corrupting Kinsey. Telling tales out of school about what a terrible husband he had made, how inadequate he had been as a provider, maybe even a dig about his family.

Lisa really hated his family.

His ex and Kinsey gettin’ chatty. His past and his . . . nothing. An easy-on-the-eye distraction, the
PR princess was barely his present, never mind his future.

But she had sure felt shockingly present when she’d gotten up close, those bombshell curves molding to him perfectly. She had put her slender arm around his body, curving in an almost protective sweep, and whispered those two beautiful words in his ear.

Screw. Her.

Damn, he didn’t need her defense. He wasn’t used to it, either. From his family, sure, because that was their default setting. But another woman—a strong woman like Kinsey—stepping up like that confused him with its heady brew of territoriality and care. More likely she was playing some game to make him look like a dumb, horny beast in front of his crew.

And now he was stupid with anger again.

Out in the locker room, he took a moment to absorb the blessed quiet now that the firehouse was back to its usual state of watchful readiness. The lull before the twister. He grabbed at his locker door hard enough to send the picture of Logan and Sean floating to the floor. As he bent to pick it up, a taunt of heels broadcast her arrival.

Miss Kinsey Taylor.

His eyes traveled upward, his crouch giving him an excellent view of her well-toned legs, skirt-hugging thighs, the flare of her hips. Standing, he caught the scent of fragrant citrus that made him dizzy.

Unable to think above the haze of emotion short-circuiting his brain, he deposited the photo in his locker. Then he slammed the door shut, making a lot of noise while he did it.

Kinsey raised an eyebrow. “Use your words, Luke.”

Good fuck, she had not just said that. This woman was determined to drive him insane. Between her know-it-all flounce into his house last week and this day from hell, her edging under his skin was city-sanctioned torture of the highest order.

She leaned against Gage’s locker. “Want to know what she said to me?”

Speech was impossible, but she must have taken his raging silence as permission to continue because she went on. “She said you were only good at three things. Two of them I already knew about. All those commendations for bravery.”

He strained to hear the derision in her tone, but his mock-o-meter was off.

“She said you’ll move heaven and hell in defense of your family.”

He doubted Lisa had put it in quite those terms. Her resentment of Luke wouldn’t allow a kind word. Kinsey’s slightly crooked smile acknowledged her reworking of whatever his ex-wife had said about the Dempseys.

“The third thing she mentioned . . .” She looked him up and down, her visual dissection turning him hard. “I can only imagine.”

Sex. That’s what Lisa had said. Damn straight, that had never been a problem.

“A woman who can make you mute, Mr. Almeida? Or perhaps all the blood that’s usually fueling your cerebral cortex is busy elsewhere.” The challenge in her tone was unmistakable. She was goading him into losing his head, compelling him to play to type.

“She cheated on me with Detective McGinnis.”

Okay, that was
not
what he had planned to say. He
had planned to put his mouth to a more rewarding use, meet her expectation of him as the brute who led with his emotions. But something checked him at the last nanosecond. He wanted her to know that he wasn’t a complete animal. That occasionally he had God’s honest reasons for his outsize behavior.

Kinsey drew a sharp, audible breath. “When?”

“Over a year ago, she left me for him after they had been . . .” Fucking for months. In the bed they had shared. In the bed he no longer slept in.

Christ, he needed to eighty-six that bed.

A flicker of something in her eyes registered his pain and offered understanding. He resented it despite the fact that he had invited her sympathy by basically handing her his balls on a platter.
Would you like them sautéed or roasted, Miss Taylor?

“The fight in the bar was about your ex-wife?”

“He used to be a friend of mine. We’d play hoops, get sauced together, dinners at my house.” Luke had invited the bastard into his life and he stole it. Stole her. Dan and Lisa hadn’t even gone the distance, but broke up not long after Luke’s discovery of them one fateful March morning over a year ago. “He got grabby with Alex at the bar but she could have taken care of it. Instead, I did. Because that’s what I do.”

She laid a warm palm on his arm. Sparks ignited beneath his skin. “I’m sorry—”

He coughed out a caustic laugh. “No, you’re not. Because my little outburst just gives you a chance to shine, right? You’re having a blast, Miss Taylor.”

Her eyes widened in shock. It was bordering on mean, but right now he was the meanest sonofabitch who ever lived.

He stepped in close, a howl of pleasure ripping through him when she placed a hand on his chest to keep him at bay. “I’m just some panting piece of flesh to you. The assignment. A means to my end.”

His gaze fell to her lush, full mouth and then she—Christ Jesus—moistened her lips with the briefest flash of her tongue. This woman knew exactly what she was doing to him. Somewhere between his cock thickening in need and grasping a lungful of her intoxicating scent, he made a decision. Unable to cage the beast any longer, he pushed back against her hand and crowded her until she met the next locker over. Gage’s with its rainbow sticker. Then he stamped his mouth on hers and let his emotions be his master.

So good to give in.

So good to give in
to her
.

If he had expected her to go meekly, then he clearly needed to think again. When he could think clearly. Dominance was something that came naturally to him. It suited his need to punish—his birth parents, the people who took Jenny and couldn’t take care of her, the whole world. Sometimes his head was more demon than human, and heaven help whoever got in his way.

Most women surrendered to him. Lisa had, then complained later he had been too rough because he abraded her skin and left his stubble rough mark on her.
My bedroom brute
, she had called him.

Kinsey was . . . different. Against his lips, she gave in by degrees, then fought her way back up to equal his carnal assault. She kissed like he imagined she did everything. With fervor and passion and a healthy dose of,
Screw you
.

“Luke,” she rasped when they both came up for air.

Oh, the way she said his name, like the whisper of a fallen angel. It was a long time since he’d heard it uttered so desperately, so loaded with need. The sound stroked his spine, tightened every cell.

Her hands rose to rake his hair, pulling him closer, marking her nails over his scalp. Tingles started there and rippled through his body, the same prickle he got when he sensed danger. A roof ready to collapse, a door too hot to touch. This woman might be the next thing to pull him down, the bullet around the corner.

He tore his mouth from her sweet lips and held her lust-sparked gaze. Hands splayed on his chest, her dreamy expression gave way to reality, and she pushed him back and away from her pliant body. He blew out a breath, already knowing the spell had been broken and he wouldn’t like what was coming.

The fact that nobody would be coming.

“That,” she murmured, “probably shouldn’t have happened.”

She was right. Fooling around with the woman who held his career in her hands was a dumb-as-dirt move. But he had no intention of letting her off the hook just yet.

“Are you going to admit to your animal impulses getting the better of you, or am I to be the villain here?”

She ran her hands over her skirt, smoothing fabric that didn’t need smoothing. He had the distinct impression she was stalling.

“I’m not going to pretend that was all you. I take responsibility for pushing your buttons, but it probably shouldn’t happen again.”

“Probably?”

“Definitely.” She swallowed. Loudly. Kinsey Tay
lor, ball breaker extraordinaire, was nervous—and it was cute as all hell.

“Let me guess. Something about blurring professional lines and you’ve got a job to do. Etcetera, etcetera.”

“Uh-huh.” She lowered her dark golden lashes, eyes widening when she found a button on her blouse that had popped open. With visibly shaky fingers, she set it right.

Well, depending on your perspective.

“I should go.” She moved a few steps to her left. Then a few more.

As orgasms were no longer on the menu, Luke resigned himself to getting his kicks elsewhere. With heightening satisfaction at Kinsey’s obvious discomfort, he let several seconds pass before speaking up.

“It’s that way,” he said, thumbing the opposite direction.

“Oh, I know. Just wanted to check . . .” Without missing a beat, she popped her head around the wall that led to the shower room. “Just as I thought. Good-sized shower.”

Chin pushed high, she strode by him toward the exit on her gravity-defying heels. Just the tiniest wobble. “Nice work today, Mr. Almeida.”

“You, too.” Smiling at her departing back, his gaze followed her world-class ass as it switched all the way out of his locker room.

Very nice work, Miss Taylor.

I
n the bunk room at Engine Company 6, an hour after the shoot, Gage paced between the single, neatly
made beds, psyching himself up. He took a seat on one of the bunks and pulled out his phone. Stood. Sat down again. Finally, he clicked the number on the restaurant’s website and waited.

Ring frickin’ ring.
Not even a voice mail pickup. Was that normal in the restaurant industry? It was only one in the afternoon, but shouldn’t someone be around to take reservations?

Maybe it was the universe telling him that this was the worst idea since Jimmy Dean Pancakes & Sausage on a Stick. If the guy really wanted him to call, would he have been so—what was the word?—ambivalent about it? He was Gage Fucking Simpson. On any night of the week, he could walk into a bar on Halsted and score a blow job within sixty seconds. Thirty. Calling a guy—an ambivalent guy, no less—was not his style.

Still ringing.

Still holding on to the damn phone.

Screw this.

“Smith & Jones.”

Not him. “Could I talk to Brady?”

There was mumbling in Spanish, the thud of the phone hitting the floor, what sounded like a rooster, then about two minutes of nada.

Finally, a gruff “Yeah?”

“Is this Brady?” Nothing but strained silence and the echo of Gage’s thudding heart. “Hey, you there?”

“Call back after three to make a reservation.”

That crusty baritone walloped him like a fifth of Jack to his bloodstream.

“It’s Gage,” he said, though he suspected Brady knew exactly who he was talking to. “We met the
other night when the mayor brought me back into your kitchen.” Long, intimidating moments of quiet ticked by while his heart tripped out a ragged beat. “I thought I’d see if you wanted to get together for a drink sometime.”

More lengthy beats passed, each one weighted with Gage’s increasing sense of stupidity and humiliation. If the man didn’t want to talk, then why the hell was he on the damn phone?

Ticktock.

“I work a lot,” Brady said.

Brady. Said.

Result!

“Yeah, I know what that’s like. Sometimes it feels like all I do is work but I can usually find the time.” He swallowed around a lump the size of a hose coupling in this throat. “When it’s important.”

You don’t care. It’s no big deal. Just forget—

“You said you cook.”

Oh yeah. Gage could feel a smile conquering his face and he just knew his next words would be filled with the sweet joy of that smile. “I said I
love
to cook.”

“Come over now.” The line went dead.

Huh. Pretty cheeky, that chef. What if Gage was working or had a previous appointment or didn’t answer to barked orders followed by rudely ended phone calls? Brady had hung up like people did on TV. Whenever some character on a show did that, Alex and Gage would exchange incredulous headshakes.
That guy just hung up the phone and he didn’t even say good-bye. No one does that in real life.