The Hot Line

by Cathryn Fox

Cassie’s hand closed over hers and squeezed. “Absolutely. How do you think I met Nick?” There was honesty in her eyes when she spoke, and nothing in her voice to suggest otherwise. “It’s also a very well-kept secret.” She grew quiet for a moment and then said, “I trust you know what to do with it.”

  Suddenly Sara’s entire body went on high alert. She knew Mitch was standing behind her, felt him long before she saw him. His heat reached out to her, his scent closing around her like a warm blanket. She inhaled, pulling his spicy aroma into her lungs, noting the way her body stirred to life whenever he was near. Lust burned through her, and her mind sifted through all the ways Mitch could help stoke that fire.

  Mitch leaned over her shoulder and grabbed a handful of nuts. Sara drew a shaky breath, cream pooling between her legs. She closed her hand over the card, and angled her body to face him. The sight of him up close and personal had her libido reacting with urgent demands, clamoring for his undivided attention. His bad-boy smile did delicious things to her insides. Her body flushed, immediately. The man made her feel so edgy, so out of control, so fucking hot.

  In a hushed tone, he spoke to her, and her alone. “I have to take off. I’ll be at the firehouse.” His voice was low, deeply intimate. His sexy tenor curled around her, her nipples tightening in response. As sexual tension whipped between them, basic elemental need took hold. Her mouth salivated, and her pussy ached to slide down his pole and ride him with wild abandonment.

  A round of “G’nights” followed a path around the table as he prepared to leave.

  Before Mitch stepped away, he cast Sara a suggestive look and touched her shoulder, his knuckles brushing her cheek in a gentle caress that stimulated all her nerve endings. Something compelled her to touch him in return. When her fingers closed over his, it brought passion to his blue eyes. His dark, seductive gaze told her that not only could he fuck her, and fuck her good, but he could also make all her fantasies come true. His glance went to her other hand, the one covering the card.

  Did he know what she had hidden under there?

  He paused for a moment, as though weighing his words carefully. Then, with his expression tender and hot, he whispered to her in the deepest, sexiest tone, “Later,” and disappeared into the crowd.

  Holy. Shit. That one word, combined with everything in his voice and everything in his manner, spoke volumes and had her aching to discover the truth behind the Hot Line.

  Did these firefighters risk their lives daily to put out dangerous fires, save little kittens from trees, and rescue libidinous women? She took a moment to entertain the idea. If she dialed the number, would a very sexy, very “well-equipped” Mitch Adams show up at her door and help tamp down the flames of desire engulfing her?

  She swallowed. Hard.

  Her mind raced, the reporter in her perking up. With casual aplomb, she scooped up the card and slipped it into her pocket, realizing that if the Hot Line really did exist, she’d just been presented with the perfect opportunity to write a hot-topic story. And if she gave it her own sexy spin, it could be just the article she needed to launch her career at Entice.

  She looked up in time to see Mitch slip out the door. The scrumptious sight of his tight backside made her shiver with longing. She drew a centering breath and worked to push back the rising lust.

  As her fingers toyed with the edge of the card, her mind filled with wild and wicked ideas. Naturally, like any good reporter, she’d have to do a little investigative research of her own before she wrote the article. And in the process, she planned on exploring a few firefighter fantasies along the way.

  “I’m out.” With a disgruntled huff, Mitch tossed his cards onto the table and pressed his palms to his eyes. Jesus, he’d never felt so antsy or so on edge before. Here it was, hours since he’d last set eyes on Sara Jack, yet he still couldn’t shake his goddamn arousal.

  His mind wandered, envisioning what it would be like to lose himself in those gorgeous mocha eyes of hers. To run his fingers through her silken auburn curls and caress her curvy body until she gave herself over to him, completely, his to do with as he pleased.

  There was a wholesomeness about her, a fresh girl-next-door look that really got under his skin and warmed his blood faster than a quick shot of Scotch. It surprised him, really. With her good-girl features and curvaceous body, Sara was the antithesis of the hip, polished urban women he normally dated.

  But, with just one smoldering look, Sara could set a fire to his libido—a fire that if left unattended, would likely rage out of control and reach dangerous proportions.

  Naturally he had no intention of leaving said fire unattended. As a firefighter, it was his duty to tamp down every blaze, even if it meant taking matters into his own hands. Nostrils flaring, he clenched and unclenched his fingers at the mere thought of doing so.

  Although he’d been duly warned to stay away from Sara, she’d been invading his dreams as well as his every waking thought for the last few days. Christ, he’d never met a sexier woman. And the way she looked at him with dark, passionate desire smoldering in her eyes had his cock swelling to the point of pain.

  “What’s the matter? Can’t take the heat?” Dean Beckman taunted, laying his cards out to reveal three jacks. “Or is Shelly at it again?” He nodded toward the private phone kept near their sleeping quarters.

  “She called here earlier,” Brady Wade piped in before he, too, tossed his cards down. He then bent to pat Jag, his chocolate Labrador retriever. Since Brady had a love of Labs, Station 419 was the only one around without the requisite dalmatian.

  Mitch cursed under his breath and rocked his chair back on two legs. Shelly, his ex-girlfriend of over a year now, never failed to call on the heels of a bad breakup. The woman went through men faster than their trucks went through water.

  “She sounded upset, like she’d been crying. I guess she’s looking for a strong shoulder to latch on to,” Dean said.

  “That’s one way to put it,” Mitch replied. They all knew it wasn’t his shoulder she was looking to latch on to, and he certainly had no intention of being her bedmate between guys.

  A while back, he’d thought that he loved her and that she actually cared about him. But he quickly learned that like every other woman he’d been with, she merely wanted the fantasy. It was his dangerous, heroic job that attracted women, not the man beneath the uniform—a man who worked long hours and was away from home frequently. Since his last breakup, he’d finally learned to shut down emotionally, giving himself physically while keeping a cool, hardened exterior.

  At the sudden thought of giving himself physically, his mind raced to Sara. She wanted the fantasy with him, he could tell. One night of hot lust while on vacation. He’d seen it in her eyes, read it in her every gesture.

  Although Mitch was more than willing and capable of fulfilling Sara’s wild firefighter fantasy, he’d been duly warned by Nick Cameron to keep his distance. Since Mitch had a reputation as a one-night kind of guy, Nick had cautioned him that Sara was a small-town girl who didn’t delve into brief affairs. According to Nick’s fiancée, Cassie, Sara didn’t take sex lightly; therefore Nick asked Mitch to keep his distance because the last thing he wanted was to see one of Cassie’s best friends hurt while in Chicago for the wedding.

  Not only was Nick Mitch’s coworker—he was also his friend. A friend who’d saved his ass a time or two in the line of duty. Mitch held Nick in high regard and owed it to him to abide by his wishes.

  Which meant that tonight, and every night hereafter, until Sara returned to Iowa and he managed to work her out of his system, he’d be taking matters into his own hands.

  Literally.

  Still he could lie in bed and fantasize about her, couldn’t he? Imagining what it would be like to taste her mouth and her breasts or to open her soft pink lips with his tongue and taste her sweet femininity. To have her climb over him, impale herself on his hard cock, and ride him feverishly until her juices poured down his shaft.

  Mi
tch gritted his teeth and shifted uncomfortably in his chair, deciding it was well past time to call it a night and answer the ache in his groin.

  The shrill of their special phone pulled him from his musings and helped marshal his thoughts. “I got it.” Welcoming the distraction, he jumped to his feet and pushed away from the card table. Without haste, he made his way across the room.

  Fuck. Maybe tonight he’d take the call. Although it had been a long time since he’d participated in the Hot Line, perhaps a soft bed and an even softer woman would help take the edge off and get his mind off Sara.

  When he glanced at the caller ID, his heart raced, his blood pressure soared. Jesus H. Christ. Everything in him reacted to the name displayed in the small glass window. Tension rose in him as his cock urged him to answer the phone, along with the sexual demands of his body.

  What the fuck was he supposed to do now?

  Despite his rock-hard cock screaming at him to pick up that phone and give Sara exactly what she wanted, he took a measured step back, but not far enough that he still couldn’t reach it. If he wanted to. But he didn’t want to. Okay, he wanted to, but he wasn’t going to.

  He was not going to pick it up.

  No way.

  No how.

  Walk away, Mitch. Just walk away.

  Before he could stop himself, his fingers closed over the receiver and squeezed until his knuckles turned white.

  Just then Dean poked his head around the corner. Grinning like the crazy, intuitive son of a bitch he was, he asked, “You want me to get that?”

  “I got it,” Mitch growled and ripped the phone from the cradle. He pressed it to his ear and said gruffly, “Hello.”

  Sara’s soft, sexy voice sounded on the other end. “Mitch?”

  “Yeah?”

  Forgoing pleasantries and getting right to the point, she said, “My kitty stopped purring. I think it needs to be resuscitated.”

  Sweet Mother of God! Mitch slapped his hand to his forehead and drew a steadying breath, working overtime to tamp down his roaring libido. He failed.

  Lust ripped through him like a raging forest fire, making him tremble with pent-up need. He growled low in his throat, unable to tame the primal animal rising up inside him, crumbling his resolve to keep his distance. Despite knowing better, he had every intention of breathing life back into her kitty, over and over again, using every means possible, if he had to.

  If she expected anything less, she’d called the wrong guy on the wrong night.

  TWO

  Heart racing in a mad cadence, Sara snapped her cell phone closed and dropped it onto the kitchen table. She swallowed, loving how Mitch reacted to her naughty, suggestive words.

  She wasn’t normally so sexually aggressive, but the second she’d heard Mitch’s voice on the other end of the line, the inner vixen in her had stirred to life, demanding she play out her fantasies to the fullest.

  As her gaze darted to the front door, a quick flash of nervousness stole through her, because she’d never indulged in a wild affair before. Nor had she ever slipped between the sheets with a rugged, untamed guy like Mitch.

  It was utterly scandalous.

  And so damn exciting!

  The vanilla sex she’d had in the past had left her wondering if she’d ever reach an earth-shattering orgasm. Something told her that not only would Mitch bring her to the moon and back—he’d rock her world and alter it forever.

  Sara tiptoed through Cassie and Nick’s cozy bungalow in the suburbs, taking care not to wake Nick, Cassie, or her friends, Jenna and Megan. She noted that Cassie’s place wasn’t all that different from the homes in Trenton. But here on the outskirts of Chicago, she was fortunate enough to have big-city living at her fingertips—a city where Sara could get lots of hot-topic ideas for Entice magazine, no doubt. And soon, if her article garnered the attention she hoped it would, she’d be packing her bags back home and permanently taking up residence near Cassie.

  Sara pulled back the white lace curtain and stared up at the star-studded sky. A summer breeze rushed over her face and chilled her flesh, but did little to help cool the heat blazing inside her. She dropped the curtain, tightened the belt on her housecoat, and padded barefoot to the front door to peek out.

  Until Mitch arrived, she wouldn’t know for certain whether the Hot Line truly existed. She had to wait for him to show up to know if he’d come to rescue her kitty, or if he’d come to…“rescue her kitty.”

  Time slipped by much too slowly for her liking as she paced restlessly. She’d practically worn a hole in the carpet by the time headlights appeared in the quiet cul-de-sac. She noted that Mitch had parked on the street—to keep their indiscretion private, she assumed.

  Stomach swaying more than a trapeze artist’s, Sara made her way to the door, but before she opened it, she smoothed down her hair and then wiped her damp hands on her housecoat. Her entire body heated in excited anticipation as her fingers closed around the brass knob. She drew a quick breath to pull herself together.

  Without giving him time to knock, she swung the door wide-open. The second she set eyes on him, her heart lurched and lust sang through her veins. His primal essence completely overwhelmed her. Light-headedness overcame her as she took in the erotic vision standing before her. Grin reckless, stance casual, Mitch leaned against the doorjamb, looking like a knight in shining armor or, rather, a knight in firefighter gear. When she met his smoldering baby blues, she knew all she needed to know.

  Mitch Adams was there to…“rescue her kitty.”

  Hot damn!

  As she stole a glance at his attire, her knees liquefied, and her breath hitched. She clenched her jaw to stop it from dropping. Dressed in his work wear, Mitch was the epitome of sex, sin, and seduction. A real live walking fantasy. Her pussy creamed, gearing up for the ride of her life.

  She nearly faltered backward when his richly seductive gaze raked over her body. She gripped the knob tighter in an effort to balance herself.

  His helmet was tucked under his arm, and his dark hair looked mussed, as though he’d been running his fingers through it. The air around them sizzled as she clenched and unclenched her fingers, itching to do the same.

  He didn’t speak. He just stood there, looking at her, his hungry gaze appraising her. The fire in his eyes licked over her skin and burned hotter than molten lava. His jaw tightened and his nostrils flared. With two measured steps, he invaded her personal space. He looked edgy, dangerous, carnal. And so damn sexy. Sara bit back a heated moan and rolled her tongue around her dry mouth.

  As silence stretched between them, his eyes fixated on her robe, on her knotted belt to be precise. Setting his helmet down, he gripped her hips and backed her up, matching her step for step. With his mouth parted slightly, his tongue made a slow pass over his lips, as though preparing them for a kiss.

  Head spinning, she became delirious with pleasure and began to tremble when his rich, spicy scent singed her senses. The feverish attraction between them was undisputable.

  With single-minded determination, he nailed her to the wall and pressed his body to hers, his arms going on either side of her head, pinning her in place. He gave her a look that conveyed his hunger, his need for her.

  Warm wetness dripped down her thighs when she felt his huge cock through his suit. Arousal flamed inside her stomach. Heat spread like wildfire through her body.

  Eyes burning, he stared at her for another endless moment. She could feel the passion, the desire, and the untamed lust rising in him.

  Her skin grew tight, her libido restless. She parted her mouth in invitation. When his kisses didn’t come, she started to speak, to protest, but his lips crashed down on hers, silencing her objection. The soft blade of his tongue pushed inside her mouth in a mad frenzy, claiming her, branding her with his heat. Raw desire seared her insides. Her hands went to his coat, attempting to rip it from his shoulders so she could touch his gorgeous, athletic body all over.

  Mitch gave a lusty gro
an. His breath washed over her face, causing her flesh to quiver in erotic delight. Without warning he was all over her, his hands pulling, pushing, taking, and giving. Desire slammed through her. Her heart raced like she’d just conquered Everest.

  Large palms kneaded her aching breasts through her cotton housecoat, lifting them high as his thumbs circled her pebbled nipples with precision. His pelvis thrust forward, pressing his arousal harder against her pussy, letting her know in no uncertain terms he was more than capable of fulfilling her every fantasy. Her fingers moved onward and upward, to tangle in his thick midnight hair.

  Mitch’s mouth moved to her neck for a long, thorough taste of her skin. The sexual tension between them was so palpable, surely even the neighbors could feel the electricity crackling in the air.

  He pressed his lips to her ear and spoke in whispered words. “Where is everyone?” She heard the raging lust in his voice and sensed the effort it took for him to leash his control.

  Still shaken from that incredible, mind-numbing kiss, she could barely breathe, let alone speak. With effort, she found her voice, but the two simple words came out broken, fractured. “In…bed.”

  He slipped his big hands around her waist so that his large fingers splayed over the small of her back, one finger slipping lower to caress the crest of her buttocks. He put his mouth close to her ear. “Come with me.”

  Sara obliged without hesitation and followed him outside. She glanced around, curious yet excited, her mind racing a hundred miles an hour, wondering where he was taking her. Truth be told, as long as it was somewhere they could be alone, quickly, it didn’t matter.

  A few minutes later, after padding barefoot across the cool, damp grass, she found herself standing outside the pool house at the edge of the property. While Mitch lifted the mat in search of the key, her gaze went to the kidney-shaped pool. With her body burning from the inside out, the water looked damn refreshing, but she suspected jumping in wouldn’t even begin to extinguish the fire inside her. She suspected there was only one way and only one man capable of putting out those flames.