Angie and Cindi laughed louder than ever and took turns pretending to be Olivia’s clients trying to get her attention with outrageous confessions.
“Oh, ha ha, you’re both so hysterical,” she said drily. She pointed an accusing finger at Cindi. “Do I need to remind you of how you acted when you first met Mike? You couldn’t even mention his name without your eyes going all starry, and the number of times I caught you daydreaming with that goofy-ass look on your face probably added up to a week’s worth of vacation time.”
The humor fell from Cindi’s face and was replaced with a sudden flush, causing Angie to laugh even harder. But her bestie wasn’t getting off that easily. “And you, Miss Thing, have no room to talk.”
Like a record scratch, Angie stopped laughing and crossed her arms over her ample chest, then lifted a challenging brow. “You don’t have any dirt to dig up on me, bitch. At least not when it comes to men. I’m perfectly happy going home to play with my B.O.B. He doesn’t make false promises and he doesn’t require reciprocation. He’s the perfect partner.”
“A Battery Operated Boyfriend can’t be the perfect partner,” Olivia argued. “It’s not even a partner, much less a perfect one.”
Cindi made a mm! sound to grab their attention as she sucked down the last of her margarita. “Fun fact,” she said excitedly, as though she believed this fact might actually be fun. “In Dutch, a B.O.B. is a Bewust Onbeschonken Bestuurder, which is a designated driver.”
Angie raised an eyebrow. “And what exactly makes that fact so fun?”
Cindi laughed. “Well, if you ever party in the Netherlands and announce to the crowd at large, in your sassy Latina way, that you’re leaving to go play with your B.O.B., they’d think you were going home to play with your designated driver.”
Now that everyone in the area was in on the joke, they joined Cindi in laughing at the idea of how many guys Angie would have suddenly volunteering to be her sober chauffeur for the evening.
“Whatever,” Angie said as the chuckling started to wind down. “My only point is that I’m not a hearts and flowers kind of girl.”
“Maybe not anymore, but I’m remembering a drunken GNO with enough tequila shots to put a few holes in that tough-girl exterior of yours.”
“Nope,” Angie said. “Never happened.”
Olivia laughed. “Oh, yes it did. And in said weakened condition—”
“Stop changing the subject, Dr. Jones,” Angie said, leaning forward in her seat.
“—you told me all about your first love from high school, who I, in my professional opinion, think—”
“That’s it, bitch, you’re cut off. No more margaritas for you.” Angie sat back and folded her arms across her body. “You always get doctory when you drink.”
“Stop interrupting me, Angie-Pangie-Pumpkin-Pie, kissed the boys and made ’em cry.” Uh-oh, she was nursery rhyming. Maybe she should slow down on the margaritas, too… Nah. “I think,” Olivia said again for emphasis, “you never really got over him, and that’s why you’re not a hearts and flowers kind of girl.”
Angie’s light brown eyes narrowed, almost fusing her long, dark lashes together. “You’re loco, chica, you know that?”
Olivia tapped a finger on her chin as she thought aloud. “Now what was his name? Hmmm…I know it started with a hard G. Garret? No. Gaelen?”
Cindi held her margarita high and shouted, “Gandalf!”
“Nice try, Cin, but no. Surprisingly, Angie’s first love was not Gandalf the Grey.”
“Gavin,” came a deep voice from behind them.
“That’s it,” Olivia repeated triumphantly. “Gavin.” Turning in her seat, she smiled up at Dozer, who’d tossed her the assist, and another one of Erik’s team members, Sean, aka Bowie. “Thank you, Dozer. That was an excellent guess.”
Bowie huffed a bark of laughter. “You’d be a lot less impressed if you knew D-man’s real name, Doc. One hell of a coincidence, though, I’ll give you that.”
Coincidence? Olivia looked at Dozer. “Your name is Gavin?” She racked her brain, trying to remember a time when Erik had referred to his right-hand man as anything other than Dozer, but she couldn’t think of a single one. Erik used the other men’s first names interchangeably when talking with her, but Dozer had always just been…Dozer.
“Bowie has a big mouth,” said the man in question.
Bowie opened his arms wide. “I’m just saying let’s not give the big guy too much credit for guessing his own name. His gigantic ego doesn’t need any stroking.”
“I wouldn’t stroke him if my life depended on it.” Angie rose and turned a flirtatious smile Bowie’s way. “Now you, on the other hand… Got anything you need stroked, handsome?”
An animalistic growl rumbled from deep in Dozer’s barrel of a chest. Bowie chuckled, seemingly unaware of Dozer’s unsettling reaction. “Always did like a woman who gets straight to the point.”
But when he went to take a step forward, Dozer’s hand shot out and slapped dead center against Bowie’s chest. The men exchanged a glance that could have meant anything, but that glance was all it took to communicate one very important message.
Bowie placed a hand over his heart and put on a mock look of pain. “Sorry, babe. Looks like you’re spoken for.”
“The hell I am,” Angie said through clenched teeth as she aimed her barely suppressed rage right at Dozer.
“No one’s touching you while I’m around, sweetheart. Get used to it.”
“Let me get this straight,” Angie said, her eyes sparking with fire. “You don’t want me, but you plan on cock-blocking me from anyone who does?”
“You don’t know the first goddamn thing about what I want, Angel.”
Olivia’s jaw dropped as the last piece of the puzzle slid into place. “Holy shit, Angie, Dozer is your Gavin?”
Cindi’s drama radar must have hit soap opera level because she was suddenly an eager participant. If she was any more visibly excited, she’d be bouncing in her seat and clapping. “Oh shit,” she squealed with glee. “Dozer is your Gavin. This. Is. Awesome.”
Was it awesome? As her gaze darted from the beast of a man to her fun-size friend, Olivia wasn’t so sure. It was like witnessing the initial stare down at the battle of David and Goliath. Only “David” didn’t express determination as much as she did hurt and disbelief. From what she knew of Dozer, Olivia liked the gruff man, but her loyalty was to her best friend, and right now Angie needed her.
“Come on, girl,” Olivia said, grabbing Angie’s hand. “I need your help in the kitchen with some obscure and random tasks.”
“Oh good,” Angie said drily. “I love obscure and random.”
Dozer stepped into their path, and his eyes made Angie silent promises to aid his verbal one. “This isn’t over.”
“Funny, I seem to remember you saying something similar to me a long time ago, but that wasn’t quite it, was it? Do you remember what you said to me that day? No?” Ever the proud Latina, Angie raised her chin. “Let me refresh your memory. Your exact words were ‘It’s over.’ Now you want to bulldoze your way back into my life and change the fucking rule you set to begin with? Hell no. So, you’re wrong, Gavin. This is very over.” And with that, Angie stalked into the safety of the big house, Olivia trailing close behind her.
…
Several hours later, Olivia and Angie plopped onto the stools at the breakfast bar after getting the last of the food put away and cleaning the kitchen. They’d insisted on everyone else staying outside to enjoy the bonfire, assuring them that they’d be out to join them momentarily.
Just as soon as they polished off the last piece of Olivia’s mom’s famous Death by Chocolate seven-layer cake.
“Oh my God,” Olivia said, pulling the small plate between them. “I’ll have to run all damn weekend to work this off.”
“It’s so worth it, though,” Angie replied before indulging in her first bite and moaning around her fork. “Besides, with all the hot sex yo
u have these days, you’ll probably burn off half of it as soon as Mr. Perfect gets you alone.”
Olivia felt her cheeks burn, and she quickly reached for her glass of water, hoping the cool liquid would help before—
“You’re blushing, which means you’re feeling either guilty or embarrassed about something.”
“What? No, I’m not.”
“Uh-uh, mija, don’t even. Spill it or I’ll start guessing, and you know my imagination is always way worse.”
With bravado she didn’t feel, Olivia raised her eyebrows in a challenging see if I care manner and ate a bite of the cake.
“Okay, you asked for it.” Angie set her fork down and rubbed her hands together with a truly devious look in her eyes. “Let’s see…you went cherry when I mentioned your hot sex, so my first guess is that it made you think of his huge, thick—”
“OhmyGodshutthefuckup,” Olivia hissed at her friend, who she was seriously considering unfriending at the moment. “I give, I’ll tell you.”
“Good choice.” Angie gave her a playful wink and ate another bite. Her eyes nearly rolled into the back of her head. “Jesus, I can’t believe how sinfully good this is. Your mom’s skills are out of this world. I’d gladly give up sex if I could eat this every day without gaining weight. I’m not even joking.”
“Still on a bad streak, huh?”
“Epically bad. The only reason I haven’t thrown myself in front of a bus is because I can finally fuck vicariously through you. So if you love me at all, you’ll get back to the story.”
Olivia chuckled but humored her best friend and spilled about the night Erik had gone straight to her apartment after his training. “He was an hour later than I was expecting and his phone was dead, so he had the guys drop him off on the way back to the station.”
“Wait, so he basically used Rescue 2 like his own personal Uber?” Olivia laughed at that but had to agree it was sort of true. “This is already awesome. Please tell me he kept some of his gear on. And by that I mean, if he didn’t, I want you to lie to me.”
“I don’t have to lie,” Olivia said with a half grin. “He left it all on and then pounded on my door, announced himself as the BFD, and demanded entry for my own safety.”
Angie stared, a look of awe on her face. “Sweet Jesus, you role played. Who were you? No wait, let me guess. You were experiencing shortness of breath and needed mouth-to-mouth with the new tongue-sweep technique when checking for objects.”
Olivia laughed. “What? No.”
“Your clothes were on fire and he had to pat you down all over and cover your body with his to smother the flames.”
“Not even close.”
“Okay, there’s always my personal favorite: he was answering a call about a gas leak and busted in to find you collapsed on the floor and not breathing, so he had to check you for a pulse…” A wicked gleam lit up her eyes as she leaned forward and whispered, “In your vagina.”
Olivia laughed so hard she almost choked on a bite of cake and had a damn hard time making sure she didn’t need real emergency response. “You have an overactive imagination, you know that?”
“I beg to differ,” she said, pointing her fork in Olivia’s direction. “The problem is my underactive sex life, which leads to excessive fantasizing during my daily runs, which, thanks to your new beau, have all been fireman related.”
“Yeah, I’m sure that’s the reason.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Seriously, Angie? I know this is my field of expertise and all, but a ten-year-old would know the reason for your firefighter fixation.”
“Okay, Freud, tell me why, if it isn’t because my best friend is always talking about, to, or with her super-hot—pun intended—BFD boyfriend.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Olivia said with more than a hint of sarcasm, “could it have anything to do with a certain gigantic member of my boyfriend’s squad whose nickname rhymes with Hozer?”
“Now I know you’re crazy. I told you what happened. What part of ‘he broke my heart and left me and now I hate his frigging guts’ don’t you understand?”
“It’s not a question of understanding it, it’s a question of believing it. You might be able to convince yourself that you hate Dozer, but I think deep down you know it’s bullshit. I know you too well, and I know how you work when you’re scared. And, sweetie, your feelings for that man scare you shitless.”
“That’s loco,” she said with a forced chuckle as she cleared their place. “The only thing I’m scared of is ending up in prison orange when I decide to let him know how I really feel.”
Olivia’s heart went out to Angie as she needlessly busied herself with hand-washing the plate instead of putting it in the dishwasher with the rest. The strain around her eyes belied her flippant comment, but Olivia knew when to let something go. Now was not the time or place to coax the truth from her friend.
After drying her hands, Angie dropped the towel and rounded the counter to link arms with Olivia. “Come on, mija, let’s go make some s’mores.”
“Are you kidding me?” Olivia said as they stepped outside and started walking toward the back of the large yard where the rest of the guests were sitting around the fire. “We just ate our weight in chocolate cake.”
“Yeah, but they don’t know that. So now we get to have ‘second dessert.’”
Olivia giggled at the typical Angie nonsensical logic. “What are we, hobbits?”
“I don’t care what we’re called as long as we pretend it’s normal to eat cake with roasted marshmallow chasers. But you might want to do the roasting for me.”
“Why’s that?”
Angie’s eyes narrowed and locked onto Dozer as they approached. Lowering her voice, she said, “Because if you give me a sharp, pointy object while drinking, I’m liable to try roasting something other than the marshmallows.”
Olivia mentally cringed at the image of the double-pronged metal skewers sticking out from the crotch of Dozer’s jeans. She nodded and patted her friend’s hand. “You grab the crackers and chocolate. I’ll handle the marshmallows.”
…
“Jesus, how much time do you think we have before it’s here?” Erik hid his smirk with his Heineken as he took a pull from the green bottle. He was riding an emotional high and it made him want to screw with his best friend, who was having a less-than-stellar evening. It was his brotherly duty.
The day had been fucking fantastic, from the moment he opened his eyes and saw the beautiful angel sleeping soundly next to him, naked and flawless, to now as the small group of friends that remained—the major and the chief having left about an hour earlier—sat around a sunken fire pit, talking and laughing. All day long, Erik had been aware of Olivia, like their love-making that morning had tethered them in some cosmic way. Even when she hadn’t been in his line of sight, it was like he could feel her exact location and how long it would take to get to her, bare her to him, and bury himself deep inside her.
The little minx knew it, too. Whenever she thought no one would notice, Olivia’s eyes blazed a path to his as she bit her lip and then slowly dropped her gaze until it settled on his dick, so heavy it felt like she used her hand to stroke it and cup his balls. More than once he’d cornered her with very little privacy and retaliated with a little teasing of his own. Only his kind did stroke and cup her pussy, thanks to her Daisy Dukes giving him easy access. Payback’s a bitch.
Dozer’s brows slashed into a V between his eyes, the light from the dancing flames casting shadows across his face. “Before what’s here?”
“Armageddon, brother,” he said, clapping a hand on the man’s giant shoulder. “Figure the end of the world’s coming if you finally found a woman capable of telling you no.”
Erik tipped his beer in the direction of where Angie held everyone’s rapt attention as she told a story in dramatic fashion. The woman had a presence much larger than her small stature when she was sober, but after her brief encounter with D
ozer that he’d witnessed from the grilling area, she’d had a steady flow of margaritas in her hand. The alcohol had taken care of that huge chip on her shoulder with Dozer’s name on it, and she’d eventually relaxed enough to have a good time, but not so much that she didn’t consciously avoid D.
Dozer followed Erik’s line of sight and, for a split second, Erik saw longing and pain flash in his brother’s eyes before the stone mask settled back into place. “Don’t worry, partner. When it comes to Angie, Armageddon would be more likely if she ever said yes.”
Well, shit. That little thing had one of the biggest dudes he’d ever known turned inside out in a way Erik never thought he’d see. He felt sorry for the poor bastard and more than a little guilty for giving him shit, not that Dozer would want an apology. Even the thought of not being with Olivia made him fucking violent.
Good thing he didn’t have to worry about it. He didn’t plan on making Dozer’s mistake by pushing Livvie away, and may God have mercy on the soul of anyone who tried to take her from him.
In his periph, he saw her rounding the fire toward him. He turned his head in time to receive a kiss as she perched her pretty ass on his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Mmmm, what did I do to deserve that? Tell me so I know to do it again,” he said.
“When I looked over at you, you seemed…” She had several words swimming in that genius head of hers, but he could tell by her reservation that she was searching for the right one. “Angry, in a way. Like you were preparing for battle.”
He had been, in his mind. Ready to battle anyone or anything for this woman who’d come to mean so much to him in such a short time. “You thought I could use a distraction.”
Olivia gave a small nod. “Are you feeling okay? Do you want to call my uncle for anything?”
“No, baby, I’m good. All I need is you. The rest’ll work itself out.”
She smiled and stroked the side of his face. Erik buried a hand at her nape and pulled her in for another kiss, a kiss less innocent than the one she’d greeted him with seconds before. Unfortunately, Olivia’s sense of decorum didn’t let him get very far before she broke away, leaving him needy and desperate.
Hot for the Fireman Page 19
