Firecracker: A contemporary romance

by Kelly Jamieson

  His face heated. “What?” Fuck, he was busted.

  “You told him to keep an eye on me, didn’t you?”

  “Uh. No. Course not.”

  “Oh my God. Tyler!”

  Jamie laughed and slapped Tyler on the back. “Don’t worry. I had a word with him too.”

  Arden glared at them both. Then, to Tyler’s horror, her eyes actually got all shiny and her bottom lip quivered. What the fuck?

  “I have to go.” She whirled around. “I have buns in the oven.”

  Tyler met Jamie’s eyes, full of as much concern as his. “Jesus, I hope not,” Jamie muttered.

  Mila turned to them with wide eyes. “What just happened?”

  Tyler rubbed his forehead. “She doesn’t want us looking after her.”

  Mila’s forehead creased. “What? Why? And how do you know that?”

  Tyler wasn’t sure what to say to that.

  “Because of what happened with her asshole husband,” Jamie said. “Fuck.”

  “She hasn’t really talked about it,” Mila said.

  Arden hadn’t told Tyler much either. Why was her husband an asshole?

  “I’ve been walking her home from work at night,” Tyler said. “When I’m off.”

  Jamie gave him a curious look. “Yeah? Well, thanks.”

  Tyler shrugged. “It’s late, it’s dark…I just felt like I should. Even though it annoys her.”

  “Should I go talk to her?” Mila asked.

  “Maybe I should.” Jamie frowned. “It was Tyler and me who pissed her off.”

  “I will.” Tyler strode to the door, just barely catching the bug-eyed look Mila gave Jamie. Yeah, yeah, they were probably wondering what the hell was going on. Well, nothing was going on, sadly.

  He took the stairs two at a time, knocked softly on Arden’s door and entered. He was greeted by the delicious yeasty scent of bread. “Hey,” he called, seeing her on her couch. She turned her head, and though she wasn’t crying, her eyes were pink.

  He shut the door, walked over, and sat beside her. Not too close. Not as close as he wanted. Fuck, he wanted her on his lap with his arms around her. “I’m sorry.”

  She sighed. “I know.”

  “You have to believe us, princess.” He winced, remembering she didn’t like the nickname. But she didn’t react, just regarded him with a steady gaze. “We didn’t talk to Liam because we don’t think you can look after yourself. He’s a buddy, and you’re…Jamie’s sister, and you’re beautiful, and we know every guy in that bar is absolutely going to hit on you.”

  Her lips twitched, the corners lifting. “Well. I guess you sort of made up for it with that compliment.”

  “Are you pissed at us?”

  “Yes. And no.” She pursed her lips. “I know Jamie’s worried about me. Because he’s my brother. So I get that he’s just looking out for me, and it’s nice that he cares. But you…” She met his eyes, hers wary. “I don’t get why you think you have to look out for me.”

  “You don’t think I should care about you.”

  Her eyelashes fluttered as she broke the connection and dropped her gaze. The air thickened around them. “It’s not true, you know.”

  “What?”

  “Not every guy in the place hits on me.”

  One side of his mouth lifted. “Hard to believe.”

  “And when they do, I can handle it.”

  “I know you can. Don’t be mad. Because you know what?”

  “What?”

  “Liam would be watching out for you whether we asked him to or not. Because he’s your boss. And because he’s a good guy.”

  She tipped her head to one side, meeting his eyes again. “You’re probably right.”

  “I usually am.”

  She huffed out a laugh. “But it still feels like you both think I’m some helpless little female. I know I was stupid about Michael, but I’ve handled it. I’m doing okay.”

  Again, what did that mean? He didn’t really want to ask, so he said, “Jamie said your husband was an asshole.”

  “Did he?” She wrinkled her nose. But she didn’t offer anything more.

  Rain drizzled down outside and the wind had picked up, pelting water at Arden’s windows.

  “Looks like we’re in for a storm.” Tyler nodded toward the windows.

  “Yes. It was so muggy today.”

  “Well.” Tyler stood, feeling like he was trying to drag himself away from a powerful magnet. “Just wanted to make sure you were okay. And apologize.”

  “Thank you. I guess I’m just not used to having people around who look out for me.”

  “Well, that fucking sucks.” If that was true then hell yeah, her husband had been an asshole, because wasn’t that what a husband was supposed to do?

  She chuckled.

  “Now you do,” he added. “Get used to it.”

  She looked up at him, a little smile playing on her mouth. “Yes, sir.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Okay, good night, Arden.”

  “Night, Tyler.”

  He crossed to his own apartment.

  How hard was it going to be to sleep tonight, remembering Arden spinning around that pole? And not just thinking about those legs wrapped around him, or his hands on her breasts…but also wondering what had happened with her husband.

  Tyler had been asleep for about an hour when a ferocious crack of thunder shook the building. He jerked away, staring into the darkness. Wow. That was a good one.

  He loved thunderstorms.

  It was a tiny rush, a little thrill of danger, even though the risk was small. Nothing like the adrenaline rush he got from fighting a fire. Which he loved. Over the years, he’d learned to control the adrenaline rush, to keep himself safe, but he still felt it, still loved it. The stress hormones that flooded his veins could be harmful, but he’d learned ways to come down off that high. Sex was the best way.

  Fuck, he was thinking about sex again.

  He rolled to his back and watched the flashes of lightning out the window, waiting for more thunder. Then he heard a crash of breaking glass from the other side of the wall. The wall that separated his bedroom from Arden’s.

  Without thinking, he leaped out of bed, charged through his suite and across the hall. Arden’s door was mercifully unlocked—good girl—and he flung it open and strode in. “Arden?”

  “Wh-what?”

  She opened her bedroom door, long dark hair messed, eyes huge, legs bare. She wore a strappy little black sleep shirt showing lots of pale skin in the darkness. “Tyler? What?”

  “I heard something break.” He frowned. “Are you okay?”

  “Oh. Shit.” She rubbed her face. “Yes, I’m fine. The thunder woke me up. I was startled and I knocked a glass of water off my night table.”

  Thunder rumbled around them.

  “Did it break?” His gaze dropped to her feet.

  “Yes. But—”

  “And you’re walking around in bare feet? Goddammit!”

  She shook her head. “I’m fine, Tyler.”

  “You could have stepped on broken glass in the dark.”

  “Well, maybe if someone hadn’t come barging into my apartment in the middle of the night, I would still be in bed.” She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at him.

  “Shit.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “You’re right.”

  The apartment lit up again and he tried not to drool over her skimpy attire. Then a crack of thunder had her feet leaving the floor and she let out a little shriek.

  Tyler lunged toward her and closed his hands around her upper arms. Her skin was soft and warm. “Hey. It’s just thunder.”

  “That one was loud! I felt the building shake.”

  “I know.” He grinned. “Cool, huh?”

  She frowned as he rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “You like thunderstorms?”

  “Love ’em. They’re fun.”

  “Uh…” She tipped her head to gaze up at his face in the dusky light
. “What if we get struck by lightning?”

  He laughed softly. “I think we’re pretty safe here. I mean, you do have to be cautious in certain situations. Maybe that’s why a storm is exciting, because there is an element of danger.”

  She stared at him wide-eyed. “You’re crazy.”

  “Possibly. But life’s boring without a little danger. A little risk-taking.” Although he was the one who tried to keep everyone else safe, he liked a little adrenaline rush in his own life.

  “Um…”

  “But we’re safe here,” he added hastily. “Just enjoy the amazing power of it. It’s really kind of fascinating, that light can create such a loud noise.”

  “Th-the lightning creates the noise?”

  “Yeah. A bolt of lightning opens a hole in the air, and then when the light is gone the air collapses back in and makes a sound wave. That’s thunder.”

  “Huh.”

  “We see the light first because light travels faster than sound.”

  “I knew that, at least.” She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t know you were a science nerd.”

  “Really? You didn’t know that?” His voice was low and teasing. “Jamie and I won first prize in the tenth grade science fair for our project on how fast light travels in water versus in air.”

  “Oh.”

  “You don’t even remember that, do you?”

  “Jamie won all kinds of awards in high school. I couldn’t keep track of them all.”

  “You weren’t jealous, were you?”

  “Of course not.” She tossed her hair back. “Well. There may have been times I wished I was as smart as he is.”

  Tyler snorted. “You are smart.”

  “Eh. Not like he is.”

  “Maybe if you’d spent more time studying and less social butterflying…”

  She jerked back, but he kept his hands curled around her arms. “What?”

  “Oh, come on. You didn’t care enough about getting awards to spend your whole life studying.”

  She blinked at him. How did he know her that well? “That’s the second time you’ve implied I’m lazy.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying! I’m not criticizing you. You think Jamie and I weren’t envious of all your friends and the parties you went to and how easy it was for people to like you? The teachers loved you. Even the principal loved you.”

  She could only gaze back at him for a moment. “I guess things look different through someone else’s eyes.”

  “And with ten years of hindsight.” He smiled. “You lived life the way you wanted to. Nothing wrong with that.”

  Her eyes grew distant and the corners of her mouth drooped. Huh. What had he said?

  The room flickered into light then darkness, and another boom of thunder vibrated the floor. Arden flinched, then laughed. “I’m okay.”

  “It’ll pass over quickly, I think.” His skin tingled everywhere, as if electrified from being so close to her. Or maybe it was the electricity in the air from the storm. Yeah, right, that was why his dick was thickening in his boxers.

  He released her arms and moved behind her, then gave her a little nudge. “Go make yourself some herbal tea or something. I’ll clean up your broken glass.”

  He grabbed the big broom he’d left in the hall from his work earlier and headed into her bedroom. He turned on her lamp, swept up broken glass, mopped up with a towel he found neatly stacked on her dresser, and deposited the shards into the waste basket.

  When he returned to the kitchen, she’d flicked on the overhead light, had the kettle on the stove, and was pulling a tin of loose tea out of a cupboard.

  “Do you want some tea?”

  “Sure. All cleaned up. Dried up the water so my beautiful wood floors don’t get wrecked.”

  “Oh.” She bit her lip, her gaze dropping to his bare chest, then lifting quickly back up. “Did I do any damage?”

  “Nope.” He rested his hands on the counter on the other side of the island, looking down at the two cups with tea infusers sitting on top. “What are we having?”

  “Honey Lullaby.”

  “Uh. Okay.”

  “Not a tea drinker?”

  “Not really. I like nice strong coffee to keep me awake.” He rubbed his face. “But not right now. Need sleep.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Hey, I didn’t mean this is your fault. I was already awake from the storm.”

  “Enjoying the storm.”

  “Yeah.”

  She poured boiling water over the tea leaves, and the scent of honey and chamomile rose from the cups.

  “That smells good.”

  “This is one of my favorites when I can’t sleep.”

  She removed the tea infuser and pushed his mug across the counter to him, then fixed her own. She lifted the steaming cup, breathed in the aroma and sipped the hot beverage.

  Tyler did the same and wrinkled his nose.

  “You don’t like it?”

  “No, it’s fine. Just different.”

  They were both standing at her island to drink the tea. “I need to get stools,” She said. “It would be nice to sit here, maybe eat my meals here. Somewhere for guests to relax while I cook.”

  “Yeah. That would be good.”

  “Not in the budget right now, unfortunately. I need to make some money.”

  Yeah…again he wondered why she seemed so broke.

  She picked up her tea. “We can sit in the living room.”

  Tyler followed her to the couch, his eyes lingering on her legs.

  Seated there, they eyed each other. Tyler’s body heated, and tension arced between them. He gulped his tea, damn near scalding his mouth.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Arden curled her legs under her, aware of how skimpily she was clothed.

  As was Tyler.

  Um, yeah. She was sitting in her living room in her nightie, with a man wearing a pair of boxers.

  She and Tyler had seen quite a bit of each other’s bare skin in the last couple of weeks. Although he’d been working a lot of the time, they had managed to run into each other—on top of that time she’d tried to sneak out wearing a towel, there was also the day she’d gotten mixed up about his shifts and walked in to find him wearing nothing but a towel around his hips. It was a good look on him, for sure.

  Then there were the days he was working in her place. Despite the air conditioning, he seemed to have to take his shirt off a lot. She wasn’t complaining, mind you. When he wore his tool belt low on his hips, it was jaw droppingly sexy. He was always screwing and nailing and finding studs…and it all made her think very inappropriate thoughts about her little brother’s friend.

  Tonight, when the lightning had flashed, she’d taken in the boxers sitting so low on his hips she could trace with her eyes the thin line of dark hair trailing from his navel, lower, lower… Then he’d been holding her, so close the heat of skin enveloped her along with a spicy, woodsy scent that was…delicious.

  She took a big mouthful of her tea.

  “Do you often have trouble sleeping?”

  “Um, what?” She blinked at him, nudged out of her contemplation of his hot body.

  “You said you like this tea when you have trouble sleeping. Just wondered if it happens a lot.”

  “Oh. Yeah, I do.” She grimaced, cupping her tea. She’d been having nightmares and insomnia since the night the police arrived at her Phoenix home. But she didn’t need to share all her shame with him. That was in the past, and she was starting over. “Do you have trouble sleeping?”

  “Nope.” He grinned. “Never. I fall asleep in seconds, and I’m usually out unless the alarm at work wakes me up.”

  “Or a thunderstorm.”

  “Yeah. At work I never know how much sleep I’m going to get, so I’ve trained myself to shut things down and crash fast.”

  “I guess that’s a good skill to have in your job.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you like your job?”


  “I love it.”

  “I never pictured you as a firefighter.”

  “No?” His mouth twisted into a wry smile. “Should I even ask what you pictured me doing?”

  “I don’t know. Something like Jamie, I guess.”

  “I’d go crazy sitting in an office all day.” He dropped his gaze. “But that was what my parents wanted me to do.”

  She tilted her head. “They wanted you to work in an office?”

  “They wanted me to go to college. ‘Make something of myself.’” He held up two fingers and moved them in air quotes. “My dad and his family came here from Puerto Rico when he was a baby. He worked in construction, like his dad did. My grandma cleaned houses. They wanted me to do something more white-collar—like an accountant or something. Make lots of money.”

  She sighed. “Money’s not everything.” As she well knew.

  “True. After the summer my dad died, I applied to the fire department and never went back to college. My mom was so pissed at me for that. But it’s not that she’s money hungry. She just wants the best for…for me.”

  “Well, I guess that’s not that unusual. I think most parents want their children to be successful. But it’s not fair if she pressures you to do something you don’t want to.”

  “Being an educated white-collar professional was her idea of success, and a firefighter isn’t that.”

  “You are a professional.” She set her jaw. “Firefighting is an admirable profession.” Her body tensed, thinking that his mother wasn’t proud of the man he’d become, the profession he’d chosen.

  He met her eyes, and his warmed. “Thank you.” One corner of his mouth lifted. “I also wanted to do something that helped people.”

  A fist squeezed her throat. “That’s great, Tyler.”

  “Jamie helps people too.”

  She blinked. “Yes, I guess he does.”

  “Just in a different way.”

  Jamie’s web analytics company helped small businesses—lots of small businesses, judging by his success—by giving them detailed information about how their online sales were doing. He also helped millions of other users with trend information from his business’s global statistics services. It was a bit of a stretch to compare that to running into a burning building to rescue someone. But Tyler’s modesty and generosity of spirit melted her inside.