One Fine Fireman (7 page)

Fury such as she had never known swept Maribel to her feet. “Consider it finished.” She threw her car keys on the table. “I’ll grab a cab.”

“Mari, chill out. For God’s sake.”

She ignored him and made for the exit, afraid she’d throw his Portuguese bouillabaisse in his face if she stuck around any longer. She could put up with a lot—she did put up with a lot, probably too much, but that was another story—but she absolutely would not put up with someone dismissing Pete in such a callous way. It wasn’t in her; she couldn’t do it. Even for Duncan, who she . . .

But
did
she love him?

Luckily, a cab was just dropping someone off in front of the restaurant. She snagged it and gave the driver Kirk’s address. She spent the drive fuming over Duncan’s attitude. How could she marry him? How could she marry a man who thought Pete was just like any other little boy, that they were all the same, not worth the trouble of getting to know individually? The need to be with her son, her precious, one of a kind son, beat through her veins like a bongo drum.

Kirk opened the door with a finger to his lips. Barefoot, he wore drawstring workout pants and nothing else. His chest was a muscular blur in the dimmed light of his living room. “He fell asleep during
Hannah Montana
,” he mouthed.

“Hannah Montana?!”

“I knew he’d think it was boring and I figured he needed some sleep.”

“How’d you know?”

“What?”

“How’d you know he wouldn’t like it?” She edged past him to check on Pete, who was sprawled on Kirk’s blue-plaid sofa, his mouth open, eyes shut tight. With one part of her mind, she took note of Kirk’s bachelor décor. With another, she realized Pete must really trust Kirk to fall asleep so deeply on his couch. But most of her mind was taken up with one all-consuming question. “Is it because all nine-year-old boys are the same?”

“What?” Kirk looked nervous. He ran his hand over the back of his neck, a gesture she’d seen him make before. “Of course not.”

“Prove it.”

“Excuse me?”

“What, am I being too demanding? Prove it!”

“Huh?” Poor Kirk seemed truly bewildered, and she couldn’t blame him. She was bewildered herself. None of this had anything to do with Kirk. But for some reason she found it a lot easier to yell at him than at Duncan.

“Tell me why my son, Pete Boone, wouldn’t enjoy an episode of
Hannah Montana
.”

“Well,” said Kirk slowly, as though drawing out each word in the hopes she’d calm down. “As you know, I’m sure, Pete’s not really into music or TV or singing, which is what
Hannah Montana
is about. He’s more into fantasy and magic-type stuff. He wanted to work on his book but he’d left it behind. He told me the plot. At length. Pretty cool, what I can remember.”

She felt tears well in her eyes. In all the times Pete had told her the plot of his book, she rarely remembered the details either. They seemed to change too. It was a work in progress, as was her occasionally temperamental, sometimes fierce, always wonderful son.

“I’m done with Duncan,” she said, almost choking on the words. “He doesn’t deserve to be in Pete’s life. And he can’t have me without Pete, can he?”

Kirk went very still. Now that her eyes had adjusted to the light, she couldn’t help staring at his bare chest. It was spectacular, though it looked as though a shark had taken three bites out of his torso. The wounds had scarred over, but they didn’t affect his magnificence anyway. It was as if Michelangelo had returned to chisel a flesh-and-blood work of art. Ripped muscles ran in a syncopated pattern from the waistband of his pants to his taut shoulders. In the center of his chest, a light covering of blond fur begged to be petted.

“Sorry,” Kirk said, pulling on a T-shirt. “When he fell asleep, I decided to work out for a bit. I’m still trying to get my strength back.”

“That’s okay,” she said in a strangled voice. “It’s fine with me.”

“So you were saying, about Duncan.”

Who?
she almost asked. Then the temporary daze created by his bare chest wore off, and the memory came flooding back. “He thinks all nine-year-olds are alike. And he thinks I’m a haven. Translation: I’m supposed to shut up and not bother him.”

“Are you sure about that?” Kirk gestured for her to follow him into the kitchen so they wouldn’t wake Pete up.

She waited until they’d reached the cozy kitchen and he was pouring her a glass of water from the faucet. “You weren’t there, watching him with his Brie and his bouillabaisse and his stupid phone.”

“It’s just that . . . never mind.”

“What? Are you taking his side? What is it with you men? Maybe
you’re
all alike!” She put down the glass of water with a click, the liquid sloshing onto the table.

“The word ‘haven’ doesn’t sound like an insult, that’s all.”

“Forget it.” She turned away, intent on collecting Pete and getting the hell out. Of course he didn’t understand. Why should he? Just because he was nice to Pete and cared about dogs didn’t mean he knew anything about her. Or cared, for that matter. “I’d better go.”

“The hell with that,” she heard him mutter through her blur of frustrated tears. Then strong arms came around her. Her feet were lifted off the ground. She was being held tight against a hot male chest.

Chapter Six

I
T WAS THE
wrong move. Of course it was. He was supposed to be showing her how much he respected her, not mauling her the second she dumped her fiancé. But she felt so good in his arms, a bundle of warm, sexy, tender woman. And the fact that she hadn’t even blinked at the sight of his scars made him want her even more.

“Kirk!” She gaped at him, but she didn’t look like she minded.

He stared down at her hazel eyes, noticing the way the gold-flecked irises had nearly disappeared as her pupils went wide and dark. “You’re so beautiful,” he said in a whisper.

Oddly, that statement seemed to confuse her. “You think I’m beautiful?”

“Why do you think I can never put two words together when I’m around you?”

Her mouth fell open, and that was that. He couldn’t resist a second longer. Lowering his head, he brushed his lips against hers, savoring the incredible softness of her mouth. It wasn’t a kiss so much as a question, tender and tentative. Her lips tasted so sweet—was that coconut? What had she been eating at dinner with Duncan? The reminder of Duncan made him draw back. This was stupid. Asking for trouble. What if they’d just had an ordinary fight and would be back to normal by tomorrow?

Then she wrapped her arms around his neck and all regrets were obliterated. She grabbed him with passionate enthusiasm and suddenly her mouth was on his, hot and eager. This one wasn’t a kiss so much as a statement.
I want you. I will have you.
He kissed her deeply, completely, irrevocably. Unable to get enough of her, he explored her mouth with his tongue: the slippery hardness of teeth, the pointed tip of her tongue, the delicious slickness of the roof of her mouth. She slipped out of his arms and pressed her entire body against him. He gripped her head in both his hands, tilting it to dive deep, to take her into him like air into lungs.

Then the rest of her body called to him, and he slid his hands down her sides, brushing the slight swell of her breasts crushed against him. He felt her shudder and nearly came in his workout pants. Speaking of which, she must be feeling every bit of his fierce erection pressed against her pelvis. All of a sudden he felt too exposed. All this time he’d hidden his longing for her. But you couldn’t hide a boner the size of a tire iron behind a thin layer of cotton.

Not that she seemed to mind. She pushed her hips closer to him—
oh God!
—and made a moaning sound.

He got even harder and fought not to embarrass himself by coming all over her like a teenager under the bleachers. “Maribel,” he forced himself to say, “I don’t know about this.”

“Why not?” Her breath was coming in quick, jagged gasps, and her glorious hair tumbled around her head like a halo of sunset. She looked like a fallen angel. “If you’re worried about Pete, forget it. It practically takes a fire alarm to wake him up. You want me. I can tell.”

He snorted, then groaned as the motion pushed his cock against the soft gap between her legs. “You think?”

Her eyes closed halfway, as if desire was dragging her eyelids down. “I want you too,” she said, like a siren crooning to her next victim. “You can probably tell.”

She put his hand on her breast and he wanted to weep, she felt so tempting. He caressed her soft, round apple of a breast, her aroused nipple nudging through her clothes. She was wearing a silky-looking dress with one of those peasant-type necklines, like a country wench in a tavern. It was held up by a ribbon tied in a bow right at the front, and lord help him, there was no possible way he could resist a gift-wrapped Maribel. His hand shaking slightly, he pulled the end of the bow and drew down her top so her breasts peeked out from a satiny, creamy nest of a bra. Her skin was one shade darker, more pink, than the bra, and a thousand times silkier. He drew his finger reverently across the rise of her breasts and into the dip between.

She gasped and leaned her upper half toward him. Color came and went in her cheeks. The knowledge that he was turning her on went to his head like a shot of vodka. He moved his hand to cup her breast, pulling down the edge of her bra with his thumb. Her nipple seemed to leap into his hand as if it belonged there, as if that velvety morsel was created to be touched by him. It swelled deliciously hard, begging for more attention.

He bent down, put his hands on her curvy ass, and picked her up, depositing her on the kitchen table.

“Oh!” she said, her mouth open in a shocked oval of surprise.

“You have no idea what you do to me,” he muttered as he bent to her breasts, which were somehow, miraculously, both exposed now. Had he done that? Maybe he possessed magical powers of undressing women he wanted, women he . . . well,
loved.
No getting around it.

He gorged himself on her breasts as if they were snow cones on a hot day. Helped himself to her nipples as if they were chocolate-covered cherries. She threw her head back and let his hands roam at will, welcomed his ravaging tongue, writhed under the long sucklings of his mouth.

“That . . . feels . . . so incredible . . .” she panted. “Is there somewhere . . . else . . . ?”

He knew what she was trying to ask. They could go only so far on the kitchen table. Pete might be a sound sleeper, but then again, what if a fire alarm did go off? Catching his mother and his friendly neighborhood fireman screwing on the kitchen table might cause all kinds of nightmares.

His bedroom was just down the hall. It had a door. They could put something under the knob so no one could open it, so that if Pete woke up and wandered around looking for them, they’d have enough time to get decent before explaining that Kirk had been showing off his collection of . . .

A cold wave of sanity hit him. He couldn’t let her inside his bedroom. Kirk closed his eyes, battling the drumbeat of lust and the throbbing of his cock. He’d started this, in a moment of sheer, panicked refusal to see her walk out of his kitchen. But if they didn’t stop now, they’d end up in bed, and as much as he wanted that, she’d probably regret it quicker than a cat in a bathtub. He called upon all his higher angels, every speck of moral fiber, every ounce of the endurance he’d honed during chemotherapy.

And he firmly put her aside.

“Maribel.” He gritted his teeth. “We can’t do this. What about . . .” He cast around for something to throw cold water on the moment. “Duncan?”

“Duncan’s a dick.” She looked shocked at her words and clapped a hand over her mouth. “I didn’t mean to say that.” But his mention of her fiancé had done its intended job.

“Dick or not, he’s probably waiting for you. Maybe he wants to apologize.”

“He’s probably sulking because I ditched him.” She wrenched herself off the table and stalked around the kitchen, wringing her hands. “He sulks. He doesn’t appreciate my son. He assumes I’m going to move to New York and stay home and be his haven.”

Kirk prayed for the right words. The name Duncan, fortunately, had worked like magic on his erection. Time to start thinking with his head. The real one. “You don’t want to move to New York?”

“No, I do. I think. I mean, I did. Oh fudge! What am I doing?” She squeezed her hands together in apparent agony.

“It’s my fault. Don’t blame yourself.”

She cast him a skeptical glance. “Don’t you dare let me off the hook here. I would have had sex with you on the kitchen floor.”

Arousal pulsed again through his cock.
Focus, man, focus. Even if it hurts like a motherfucker.
He braced himself. “Do you love Duncan?”

Her face went flaming red. “I’m the wrong person to ask.”

He let out a surprised snort of laughter. “Who else would know?”

“What I mean is, I’m not a big fan of love. I thought I loved Pete’s father because his hair flopped over his forehead when he played the drums. It’s important to know your flaws and shortcomings, right? I make bad decisions about men. I realize that. So I have to make decisions based on what’s best for Pete.”

He supposed that made sense, in an odd sort of way. And a tiny tendril of hope awoke in his heart.
She hadn’t said that she loved Duncan
. “Okay, I can buy that. You’re a single mother; you have to watch out for your son. So what is best for Pete?”

“Well, moving to New York, of course.” She frowned, giving him the impression she was trying to convince herself. “It’s the greatest city in the world, after all. All the writers live there, and he loves to write. Publishers too. He’d get a much better education, especially because Duncan wants to send him to private school. Probably so he can make connections with famous people’s kids, but even so. It’s a great opportunity for Pete . . .” She trailed off.

“And what about you?” He made himself ask the question. “Are you excited about the move?”

“Sure!”