Her Firefighter SEAL (8 page)

“You are a god among men.”

“I’m a useful guy,” he agreed.

For example, he definitely wanted to pull her over onto his lap and kiss her again. Or let her kiss him again. Either way worked for him. In fact, they could do it
both
ways and then compare notes. See which approach was best, and if she still made that cute humming noise when she was really, really into a kiss.

Okay. He just wanted to kiss her as many times as she’d let him.

“Marshmallow,” he said, pointing to the corner of his own mouth.

She blinked at him.

“You have marshmallow on your mouth,” he clarified.

She licked the corner of her mouth, her tongue sliding over her lips. Jesus. He should have made a cake. Brownies. Something, anything, that didn’t involve
licking
.

She sighed and turned to him. “Can I use you?”

––––––––

Chapter Six

T
wo cold water swims hadn’t been enough to take the edge off his attraction to Abbie. There were other emotions in the mix as well, but he focused on the desire. Sex was familiar ground.

“You want to clarify that for me?”

Please don’t let me have misunderstood
. Because he almost thought she’d offered him sex, and that just didn’t go with the Abbie Donegan he knew. Sure, she’d climbed on top of him and kissed him in the boat, but he’d put that in the
crazy temporary aberration column.
Or possibly in the
making my point in some incomprehensible female way
column.

“We’re friends now, right?”

He wasn’t stupid. He knew a loaded question when he heard one. “Yeah,” he said gruffly, because he had to go with the truth. Plain and simple? He’d be whatever she needed.

She took a deep breath and set her marshmallow stick down. “Can we be friends with benefits?”

He’d lost his head in the lake or at least some critical brain cells because, kiss or no kiss, he definitely hadn’t seen this coming. “You want to define that for me?”

She made a face, but her cheeks were pink. Yeah. He’d understood correctly. His heart—and other parts—gave a happy leap. “I want us to have sex.”

“You broke up with me. You don’t even like me.” Way to go sabotaging his own sex life.

“I do.” Was it wrong that the certainty in her voice made parts of him leap? Yeah, probably. “When you’re not pissing me off which, admit it, you do intentionally at least half the time.”

He wasn’t admitting to that. “You want to have sex with me.”

He was pretty sure her word choice meant something.

She eyed the front of his pants pointedly. “I don’t think I’m the only one who feels that way.”

He cleared his throat. Were they actually on the same page here? “So you’ve gone from being pissed off at me”—he raised a hand when she made a noise of protest—“most of the time, to wanting to strip naked and have your way with my body?”

She blinked at him. “Are you protesting?”

Not really. He just felt like he was missing something, and it wasn’t just a rocking sex life. “I’m all yours. Should I get naked right now?”

She laughed, and the tension lightened. “We smell like lake water.”

“And fish.” Not that he minded. She looked cute and sexy as hell in his old gym clothes.

“I’m lonely,” she admitted, and then she turned to look at him. “And I think you are too. So why can’t we be less lonely together?”

“Less lonely means more naked?”

She grinned. “It was the first plan that came to mind, and we used to have awesome sex.”

“It’s a perfect plan,” he said gruffly. “But there’s one thing we need to be agree on. I can’t be Will.”

“All I need you to be is Kade.”

He could do that much.

“And—” She hesitated.

“You just told me to take my clothes off,” he pointed out. “Whatever you’re thinking now, just say it.”

She looked amused. “Surely I didn’t shock you?”

He wasn’t stupid.
Yes
wasn’t crossing his lips.
Ever.
“I am pretty unshockable.”

“Which is why you fell out of the boat when I kissed you.”

That wasn’t exactly how it had happened, but she could tell herself whatever version of events she wanted if he got another kiss.

“If we get naked—”

“When,” he said, interrupting her. “You can’t order me to get naked and then take it back. I’m a weak man and you’ve made me promises.”

“Good to know.
When
we get naked, I need to know that you’re doing it for me and not because Katie asked you to do something for me.”

He raised a brow. “Are you accusing Katie of pimping me out?”

She sighed. “You know what I mean. She’s worried about me. I get that. In another month, another year, I’ll even appreciate her concern. I just need you to tell me that whatever the two of us do, it has nothing to do with Katie.”

“Katie has absolutely, positively nothing to do with us getting naked. She’s a friend, a good friend. I owe her one for everything she’s done for me.”

Abbie didn’t look entirely convinced. “You always think you owe people.”

Because he did.

“Sweetheart, I have a balance sheet that’s operating in the red.”

She was silent for a moment. “So what do other people owe
you
?”

“Nothing,” he said, sliding fried fish onto a paper plate and handing it to her.

“You served as a SEAL. I don’t think the correct answer is
nothing
.”

He nudged her shoulder with his. “How did we get from
when can we have sex
to death and dying? Because I’d rather talk about sex.”

Death—and
not
sex—had been a big part of his SEAL days, especially those last three months in Khost. He’d seen people die, he’d lost friends. And yeah, he’d pulled the trigger and killed people. No matter what label he slapped on those people—insurgent, dangerous, murdering bastards—he’d killed them. He was okay with that, but not everyone was.

The smile Abbie gave him looked more fragile than he liked. “More sex, less death. I’m in full agreement with you there. Was it really bad in Khost?”

“I did my job,” he said. “Eat.”

“You’re distracting me.” She stole a bite off his plate. “And I’m going to let you.”

Thank God. Her eyes were warm and more than a little bit sad. “You don’t like to talk about death and dying either,” he pointed out.

“It’s not the same thing,” she said.

It really was. Like Abbie, he’d lost vital members of his team, people he cared about and worried about and fought for. Unlike Abbie, however, he hadn’t been part of a team of two, and he’d worn a uniform. He had a feeling the emotions were the same though, although he’d never wanted to have sex with any of his fellow SEALs. He grinned. That would have complicated the shit out of his missions.

“I don’t do love and happily ever after,” she said eventually. “That’s not my thing anymore.”

She was back to the “let’s have sex” idea again. He had a feeling she’d change her mind someday. She’d meet some nice guy—a nice guy who wasn’t him—and she’d realize that Will was part of her past and it was time to get on with her future. Kade was just a pit stop on this journey she was on.

“I have flashbacks,” he admitted. “You’re not going to want to sleep with me at night. The nightmares make me restless and pissy.”

She tossed her empty paper plate into the fire. “Do they make you violent?”

“I would never hurt you or the baby.”

She nodded. “I’m a bed hog. I’ll steal your pillow. And Baby will kick you. We’ll figure it out.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he said easily, wondering what she would do next.

“So.” She looked at him. “We’re going to use each other. We’re going to be company for each other.”

“Yeah,” he said, right as his pager went off. They both stared at the device vibrating on his hip. He’d left it in his truck while they went out to fish, so it had survived their unplanned swim. Maybe that had been a mistake.

“You get reception out here?”

“Guess so.” He checked the pager and discovered a message to report to the Strong firehouse. Ben Cortez was short an EMT and wanted to know if he was available. He got up and got busy putting their fire out. She got up and started collecting their clothing from the bush. Too bad the reason their clothing was strewn around the beach had nothing to do with sex.

“Are you joining the firehouse permanently?”

He grabbed a bucket of water from the lake and drowned the fire while he considered the answer to her question. “Nope,” he said finally.

“Why not?” Finished with her clothes, she moved on to his, and his brain took a temporary vacation. There were better ways for her to get her hands on his clothes, and he wanted to investigate those ways now.

“Because the firehouse is a temporary gig.”  Being grounded permanently wasn’t happening. He jumped. End of story. Since anything else was impossible, he started mixing the fire ash with dirt. Getting careless and setting the lake on fire wouldn’t set the right example.

“Your knee’s okay?” She eyed his leg doubtfully, like his medical history was pinned to his kneecap. And because he was the king of wishful thinking, he lied through his teeth.

“It’s fine. I’ll be approved to jump in a week or two, and then I’ll be back to jumping with Donovan Brothers.”

He jabbed the remnants of their fire with a stick, looking for hidden hotspots. The new fire season would be a bad one. California seemed to live in one perpetual drought, and each summer seemed drier than the last. He’d fallen in love with smoke jumping when he’d volunteered during his annual leave days from the military. No way he sat out the fight. No way he was too broken to help.

––––––––

Chapter Seven

W
orking as a volunteer firefighter and EMT helped fill up the hours. Or so Kade told himself. Never mind that it chafed, riding along at the back of the posse, hitting cleanup. And he absolutely understood the value of a cleanup crew—the military’s had done one hell of a job patching him up after the damage the Afghani insurgents had done to him—but he wanted to be in the thick of things. He didn’t watch.

He damned certain didn’t wait.

Today’s fire was ten miles outside of Strong.  Some Farmer Fred wannabe had decided to burn a pile of trash, and the wind had kicked up, tossed a few sparks around, and voilà. Insta-fire. At least their civilian firebug had possessed the good sense to phone it in. When the fire truck had pulled up, the guy had been sprinkling the four-foot flames eating up his fence and garden shed with a puny stream of water from a bright green watering can. Dick jokes had ensued immediately, because that had been one tiny hose and none of the team could resist.

Or so he’d
heard
, because here he was, his ass stuck inside the ambulance, watching shit through the windshield. He drummed his fingers on the wheel. In addition to being inside instead of outside, he was also parked at a safe distance. Go him. Undoubtedly the Bubble Wrap came next.

When Ben Cortez strode over and tapped on the window, he rolled it down gratefully. Maybe there was something for him to do after all. Broad-shouldered and grizzled, Ben had devoted his life to singlehandedly building a fire department in Strong.

Ben didn’t waste time on chitchat. Of course, he was also playing a meaningful role at the fire scene, unlike Kade, who was purely decorative. “You got your Firefighter 1?”

He’d gone to firefighter academy the year before he’d joined the SEALs. He’d planned to test for the San Francisco Fire Department, but then he’d changed his mind and gone for smoke jumping instead. Once he’d deployed, he’d spent his annual thirty days leave from his SEAL unit jumping because he’d loved the adrenaline rush of jumping so much. Going back to a firehouse, feet stuck to the ground? That had been the last thing that he’d wanted.

“It’s not shiny new, but yeah, I’ve got my certification.”

The older man nodded. “You’ve been helping out at the station since you landed.”

Inactivity made him go stir-crazy. He’d had months of that after his Khost incarceration, and his new motto was
never again.
As soon as he’d hit Strong, he’d purchased a string of run-down rental cabins with some of his enlistment bonuses, but that was a weekend renovation project and more than halfway done. He wasn’t sure what he’d do when he finished.

“You’re back for good.” Ben made the words a statement, not a question.

Kade patted his knee. “One souvenir’s enough.”

“Heard about that.” Ben watched as the garden shed gave up the ghost, the roof caving in with a shower of sparks. “Roof’s going.”

For a long moment, they both stared at the fire truck and the guys manning the hose. Kind of like watching fireworks or hanging at a barbecue, he decided, and that made him think of Abbie and their marshmallow roast. Leaving her had been the last thing he wanted to do, but she’d been married to a firefighter. She knew what the job demanded.

“Almost out,” Ben said casually.

“You’ve got a good team,” he said, meaning it. Ben had built the Strong fire station from the ground up and had only just moved the guys into the newly renovated historic firehouse.

“Yeah.” Ben nodded, like he was coming to some conclusion only he could see. “That’s why I’d like you to join us.”

Whoa. Kade hadn’t seen that one coming. He knew he should be honored, because dollars were tight and Ben hadn’t added headcount in at least a year. But fuck, he wasn’t a stationhouse guy. He didn’t fight fire from a truck. He jumped. That was what he’d always done, what he’d come home to do.

He kept his
hell, no
to himself. Barely. It was true that the majority of smoke jumpers quit eventually because of bad knees. Or because of broken ankles, torn ligaments, and other souvenirs from bad landings. Ben’s assumption wasn’t a bad one—but it was wrong. He’d be jumping this week. Next week at the latest.

“Don’t answer me now,” Ben said, pushing off the truck. “Think about it. Let me know in a couple of weeks.”

“I jump,” he said, because there was no other way to put it.