Her Sexy Challenge (Firefighters of Station 1)

by Ballance, Sarah

  She’d worry about the rest later.

  Like how little difference there was between casual contact with his hand and touching her tongue to a 9-volt battery. Or how strong he had to be to so easily hoist her onto the seat behind him. She tried to keep her distance, but with a backward tug, he managed to lodge her tightly against his back.

  Breath whooshed from her lungs. Her thighs hugged his. She’d seen enough television to know her upper body was supposed to follow suit. Tentatively, she moved her arms forward to his sides. Electrical tingles fired everywhere they touched.

  “All you need to do is stay with me,” he said. “Lean the same way I lean, and you’ll be fine as long as you hold on.”

  With virtual fireworks blinding her to everything but the damning strength and heat of his body against hers, he couldn’t have been more wrong. Everything was not going to be fine. She was going to lose her grip on something, and with any luck it would be him. He could dump her in the parking lot and she’d find her way back to the town square.

  Where the milkshakes were.

  Then she’d be fine.

  He fired up the bike, startling her to the point that she almost fell off before they’d moved an inch. The noise and vibration had her locking her arms around him in fear, but all thoughts of survival flew straight back toward lust when her fingertips rested on his abdomen. He was a rock. That soft tee felt like her favorite sheets, which did nothing to keep her thoughts out of the bedroom, but the muscles beneath it were the kind best seen in sweaty, low-light photos, where shadows threw light over every ridge and ripple and—

  The bike lurched.

  She bit back a screech before realizing he’d only walked it forward a couple of inches. “Wanted to make sure you were paying attention!” he yelled over the roar.

  The words vibrated deliciously in his chest, spreading a tingle from her fingertips to her core, which already tingled thanks to straddling both him and the leather seat.

  “Just get it over with,” she muttered. She gripped his shirt, not caring one bit if she stretched it out in knots, because clinging to his abs would not end well.

  He kicked off against the pavement. The roar she expected didn’t materialize. The speed felt more like coasting, and the traffic was sparse enough to waylay her fears of playing speed bump to a jacked-up Ford. She tensed every time the bike jolted, but overall, the whole riding-a-motorcycle-with-a-hot-guy thing wasn’t bad.

  For about five minutes.

  Everything changed when they neared the bridge. What had been a pleasantly warm evening turned chilly with the sudden river-driven blast of cold air, and without buildings to block the wind, all she could think was that she was about to be blown off into the water sloshing murderously in the river bed.

  He made an easy turn, then yelled, “Hold on.”

  She traded her grip on his shirt for an actual embrace. If she was going down, it wouldn’t be alone.

  As soon as her hold tightened, he gunned it.

  Bright lights flew by in a blur, their reflections skidding across the distant water like living art, but it wasn’t the view that left her gasping.

  It was exhilaration.

  She didn’t feel the bridge shake or hear the rush of the water. The motorcycle ate up the pavement, but the moment passed in thrilling slow motion, her senses alive with the scent of whatever laundry detergent he used and the utter warmth of his skin beneath. His muscles flexed as he maneuvered the bike, the ease of his ability to control such raw power the kind of turn on that dragged her thoughts to horizontal positions. Ones that happened between hot bodies and cool sheets.

  Ones that definitely shouldn’t happen between the two of them. Not that reality killed her fantasies, for which she’d have kicked herself if doing so didn’t greatly increase the likelihood of scraping the pavement.

  To her disappointment, he slowed on the other side of the bridge, then steered straight to her house. She hadn’t given him her address, so there was no reason she shouldn’t find his sense of direction presumptive, if not creepy, but rather than being thrilled for the solid ground beneath her feet, she wanted more.

  And she really wanted to cross that bridge again.

  Another confession that would never see the light of day.

  He parked on her drive, killed the engine, and eased off the bike, easily dislodging her embrace only to draw her back into full body contact when he helped her off the machine. After she took off her helmet, she saw that he’d done the same, and that his slightly disheveled hair once again had her mind back in a bedroom. She definitely blamed him, but the wrong reasons clamored in her head. It wasn’t that he dragged her over the bridge. It was that she’d ridden him—er, with him—over one.

  He had a curious look in his eyes, like he was trying to figure her out. Or maybe the pieces were falling into place. Whatever he thought made him smile, and a moment later, do that maddening thing where he brushed her hair out of her face and made her knees buckle.

  “Thanks for the ride,” she managed. “And the walk. And dinner.”

  The more she stumbled over her words, the more disarming that grin. Her gaze dropped to his mouth before she realized that was the mother of all bad ideas. She shouldn’t stand three inches from a man and look at his mouth, because despite any rumblings from her inner feminist, that practically begged for a kiss.

  A sane, normal person with an ounce of perseverance would have stepped away, but she just stood there. In the longest moment in the history of moments, she rationalized that he blocked her escape, but she wasn’t all that into getting away.

  “You’re welcome,” he said.

  “I guess I’ll, uh…maybe not see you then.” Please, no. Because she couldn’t fathom why she’d have to call the fire department next, but she had no interest in finding out. “Have a safe trip to Denver.”

  “I’m walking you to the door,” he said.

  Great. Now she was headed for her second awkward good-bye moment in all of three minutes. Not even she, the queen of all awkward moments, would have anticipated that. Of all times to become an overachiever, she’d nailed it.

  On her porch, she fumbled with the key but managed to get the door unlocked. “Thanks for the ride,” she said. “It didn’t suck.”

  “Good,” he said. “Because I don’t think it sucked, either.”

  His agreement caught her off guard, and she looked at him in surprise. She’d known how close he stood, so she shouldn’t have been startled to find his face inches away. He’d done that in the parking lot, completely out of nowhere, his lips grazing her ear. It still burned from his touch, and if that crackling of lust didn’t calm itself, she’d willingly become the next Van Gogh in her effort to escape it. Tangling anything of hers with anything of his was on her nope list, so for her gaze to once again drift to his mouth meant nothing.

  Until his lips touched hers.

  Honest-to-God sparks lit the sky. She went numb, all except the party happening on her lips. Every bit of her hard-won resistance shattered, and the stark reality that her bed was the only thing she’d wholly unpacked went screaming through her head. It was the longest brushing-of-lips in the history of human copulation, and she’d have wallowed naked in it if she could.

  Walking away would have been a much better idea, but she hadn’t exactly batted a thousand on those lately. The only thing she’d managed consistently since she arrived in Dry Rock was to stumble into one awkward moment after the next, each and every one witnessed by the fire lieutenant. And now here she stood, wanting him, and there was no way it wasn’t obvious. Seriously, what the hell?

  It had just been a simple kiss.

  They parted by millimeters, and she whimpered, the moment hanging heavily between them for a split, indecisive moment.

  Then it exploded.

  With a groan, he grabbed the back of her head and captured her, pulling her mouth to his, tasting and teasing, driving a spike of need through her that left her falling deeper, drownin
g in something that made rafting through a class five rapid seem sane. She clung to him as he pulled her close, voicing a quiet verse of profanity that made her want to beg him to come inside.

  Again and again he drove the kiss while she clutched uselessly at his shirt, drawing him deeper, burning for more.

  Wanting everything.

  He tasted amazing. He moved like a god. He…let her go. Their eyes met, and she could have sworn through her own lust-filled haze that he was doing a little drowning of his own. But then he straightened and stepped back, and the cocky hero facade was on.

  While she stood there, dazed and unblinking, he threw back a careless grin and said, “Hey, how about bringing that book by the station for my next shift? I kinda liked it.”

  He didn’t wait for a response.

  Just walked back to the bike, threw his leg over, and left her standing in shambles on her unfamiliar front porch while he roared off into the night.

  She stared after him until he was gone, and long after that. What was she doing? She didn’t just kiss guys on her porch. She barely knew him, and now she’d wanted to drag him to her bed? The man was supposed to put out fires, not set them. And she…she wasn’t sure what happened when she got close to him, but she couldn’t afford to get burned.

  She thought of the card he’d given her with his name and number. It would be so easy to pull it out and shoot him a text. Despite his determination to annoy her at every turn, she’d bet he’d come right back over for a drink, and if not, the rejection contained to the screen of her smartphone would be the easiest possible letdown. But that wouldn’t do anything to waylay her need to clench her thighs together.

  If anything, it’d be worse.

  So much worse.

  She closed the front door and withdrew the card from her bag. And then she did the only thing she could if she was going to survive the next two weeks with him in Dry Rock.

  Throw it in the trash and leave it without a backward glance.

  Chapter Eight

  Shane knew he was going to catch hell when he showed up for his next shift. He’d actually expected more of that from the guys at the diner, but they’d held back. Probably because Caitlin was new to town, but more likely because they wanted a read on the situation.

  And whatever they thought they’d seen worth reading, they were dead wrong.

  Not that that would change anything.

  He had a mouthful of a bacon and egg-white concoction Matt had put together on an English muffin when it started.

  “Not cool to get involved with her when you have one foot out the door,” Matt said. “Now none of us get a chance.”

  Shane took his time chewing, appreciating the attempt at humor despite the fact that it didn’t hide that Matt was calling him out for being a jerk. “As if you had a chance anyway,” Shane finally threw back, though without taking his attention from the Formica tabletop. Actually, he was surprised he’d had a chance. Most of the women he dated were…compliant. Caitlin seemed to enjoy driving him nuts, and a rejection would have been right up there. Not that they were dating, much less out of rejection territory.

  But that kiss. Goddamn. It was all he could do to get out of there, and then he’d spent the whole night awake, thinking about going back. Wondering if she’d actually stop by to see him, then deciding he was crazy for thinking she’d consider it. He’d caught her off guard, and unless he managed to forget that hold she’d had on his mouth and every touch that went along with it, he’d be paying for that for a long time to come.

  If he knew her at all, she’d see to that.

  “You don’t know I didn’t have a chance,” Matt said. He wiped his hands on a dishtowel and went back to the bacon. While on shift, they all took turns with dinner and were mostly on their own for lunch, but Matt usually took the helm at breakfast. No one knew why, nor did they complain. Anything hot was better than granola or cereal…unless it was something Lexi fixed. That woman had actually ruined PBJ—and to some extent, an entire departmental picnic—an extraordinary feat which in itself was the extent of her talents in the kitchen.

  Shane measured his words. As long as Lexi was in the picture, he doubted a bus full of swimsuit models would turn Matt’s head, but Matt would be the last person on earth to admit it. He settled for neutrality. “I don’t know the last time you went out on a date, so don’t blame your drought on me. And on that note, what the hell is on this sandwich? Who has bacon and egg white in one place?” Egg whites, he thought, were for health nuts. Bacon was…bacon. Not exactly a match made in heaven, at least if you were the type to dispute a yolk.

  “And butter,” Diego added, catching the conversation as he walked through the door, the napkin in his hand all that was left of his own breakfast sandwich. “It’s all over the English muffin.”

  “It’s not just egg white,” Matt said dryly. “You may have noticed the yolk is smaller and tends to be in the middle, surrounded by the white. Perhaps if you took a man-sized bite?”

  “He’s been watching Food Network again,” Jack cut in with a laugh. He’d walked in behind Diego, both having beaten Shane to the breakfast table and cleared out before he settled in. Shane wasn’t normally last in, but then again, he didn’t normally spend a few extra moments staring at himself in the mirror, wondering if his mouth looked as different as it felt. None of his paramedic training explained the weird tingling that lingered on his lips long after he’d left Caitlin on her doorstep.

  “He did have a date last night,” Jack said. “He’s probably worn out.”

  “If you say what I think you’re about to say,” Shane warned, “I’m going to put you on the floor.” He may have entertained a few dozen thoughts about what he’d wanted to do to that woman, but if any of them voiced a single one, he’d follow through on that threat before they finished the first sentence.

  Jack gave him an incredulous look. “You want to beat me up because I think you hurt yourself begging?”

  Like hell that was what he meant, but Shane let it go. “I didn’t beg,” he said, “because it wasn’t a date.”

  Diego snorted. “Note the implication that he does beg on actual dates.”

  “Don’t you have an engine to wash?” Shane asked, trying not to glare. He didn’t have a thing with Caitlin, and he knew they were just kidding around, but something fiercely protective clawed at him, and he wasn’t sure what to do with it.

  Diego and Jack scattered.

  Shane stuffed half the sandwich in his mouth so he could ignore whatever Matt was about to say.

  Naturally, he said it anyway. “Don’t you think it’s fucked up to get involved with her when you’re leaving?”

  Shane took his time chewing. And swallowing. “I’m not involved,” he finally said. “And it’s not her concern where I go. As long as she doesn’t forget how to call dispatch, her odds of survival are the same whether I’m here or in Denver.”

  Solid argument, he thought.

  Matt apparently disagreed. “I’ve seen you look at a lot of women in the last few years, and I don’t think I’ve seen you look at one like that.”

  Shane toyed with his food. He wasn’t convinced he’d looked at her in any kind of way, though he had to admit—if only to himself—that she was different. No one before her had made him feel this way, which didn’t make it deep or monumental, but damned if he wasn’t struck by it anyway. “We had to rescue her twice in less than six hours. It’s self-preservation.”

  With a knowing look, Matt said, “Yeah, I think I’d call that the opposite of self-preservation. Maybe you should stick around and see where it goes. It’s not like Denver is going anywhere.”

  The suggestion was deceptively casual, but it hit a nerve. Shane did a half-ass job of tamping down his irritation. “Yeah, but I am. Period. I’ve done what my mom wanted, or my sister wanted, most of my life. This is for me, and it’s long overdue.” Too long. What had started as a guilt-driven nicety had taken control of his life, and he wanted it back. “As f
or what is or isn’t going on with Caitlin, I’ll tell you what, Matt. You admit you’ve got a thing for Lexi and we’ll talk. Until then, you’re the last person to call BS.”

  Matt stared for a moment before shaking his head and walking off.

  Shane studied his sandwich. Damned if the thing didn’t have a yolk after all. He finished it in one large bite and rinsed the dishes Matt hadn’t gotten to yet, then headed out after the rest of the guys. The line about the engine hadn’t been an excuse. The equipment had to be washed every morning, which tended to suck in the dead of winter, but it wasn’t so bad during the warmer months.

  He found his gaze drifting toward the bridge and the neighborhoods beyond. He hadn’t spoken to Caitlin since he’d left her standing on her porch, staring after him in shock. He’d been grateful then for the chance to turn his back and throw on a helmet, because that kiss was supposed to put that irritated fire in her eyes, not send him into a tailspin at the thought of her little whimper. She’d probably forgotten all about it, whereas he’d spent the last thirty-six hours thinking about nothing else.

  She must have gotten to work the day before. Probably this morning, too, though it was still early. She had Uber and a footbridge under her belt, besides which, she was a grown, capable woman. She would cross the bridge a thousand times without him, and he’d be gone without a second thought, so he wasn’t sure why he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

  Which was probably why he didn’t see it coming when the first blast of water hit him in the chest.

  He sputtered.

  Matt hit the ground laughing.

  Jack stood to the side, hands out in a gesture of innocence he didn’t quite sell, but he obviously wasn’t the one controlling the spray.

  Which only left one.

  Diego peered nearly hidden from behind the engine, a telltale pool forming at his feet. Shane hid a grin. The leaking nozzle gave it away every time.