by Anne Marsh
He didn’t retreat, because he had a feeling he’d do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. He looked at her, and something inside him rolled over and surrendered.
“You want to have sex in my truck?”
He was pretty sure he was reading through her obvious lines correctly, but confirmation would be good. Deelie had moved fast twelve years ago. Apparently, she moved even faster now.
Instead of answering, she shrugged.
“I’d like to see you,” he said, feeling his way through the conversational land mines.
“Here I am.” She spread her arms wide. “If you ask nicely, I’ll take off some clothes so you can see even better.”
“Shhh,” he said, pressing a finger against her bottom lip. She nipped him, sliding her tongue over the tiny sting. Hello, unwanted erection. “I’m keeping my clothes on.”
For the moment.
“Your loss.” She shrugged. “You married?”
“Jesus. No. If I was, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Because you’d have better things to do.”
And again… Jesus. “Because I keep my promises.”
The look in her face said she didn’t believe him.
He should let it go. He should let her go, the same way she’d cut him loose all those years ago. Trying for something with Deelie was crazy. She was difficult and stubborn and so damned perfect that not trying wasn’t an option.
Man up. Be clearer.
“I want to date you.”
Not fancy words, but he was a former SEAL and a firefighter. If she wanted poetry and Hallmark sentiments, she’d need to find another man. She looked at him, her eyes widening. Yeah. She hadn’t seen that coming, and that made him mad. Apparently, no one in Strong could see what she was worth. His gain. Their loss.
And then she laughed. Deelie laughing was a pretty sight to see. Her eyes lit up, looking happy for the first time all night, and she didn’t hold back. Her laugh filled up the cab, filled up an empty spot he hadn’t known he had.
There was no good reason he could think of that she would want to date a man like him, but he also didn’t think she was mean. So he leaned against the truck, arms folded over his chest, and waited for her to explain her thinking.
Eventually she stopped. Frowned. “You’re serious.”
Dead serious. “I am.”
“Why would a guy like you want to date a woman like me?” She sounded genuinely curious. The anger was a slow burn in his gut, another bad habit he was trying to kick, but anger management had taken a backseat to not pickling his liver and drinking himself stupid.
He tried again. “What makes me such a prize?”
“You’re a veteran and a firefighter. You’re gainfully employed.” She ticked her reasons off on her fingers. “You rescue damsels in distress and pass out your car keys without requiring collateral. I’ll bet you vote in every election and call your parents every week.” She reached out and ran a finger down his forearm. He probably wasn’t supposed to imagine her stroking his dick that way.
“I’m not a white knight.”
“You’re pretty hot for Medieval Dude. Why wouldn’t I want to date you?”
“All sorts of reasons, but I’m not going to list them for you. You might want to try that approach.”
She shrugged. “I’m easy. You don’t have to go to all this trouble. At the end of the night, I’m a sure thing.”
He gave her a long once-over. “And then what happens tomorrow?”
She really didn’t want to have to answer that question. “What is it with you and plans?”
“Plans are good. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Experience says we go our separate ways.”
Something tightened inside him. He’d let her go once, or more accurately, she’d thrown him back into the dating pool like an undersized fish. He was older now, which made him more banged-up and busted, but it also made him smarter. He’d learned a thing or two on the streets of Afghanistan, and one of those was when to stand his ground.
“You have a one-night rule?”
She looked at him, a wicked smile curling her mouth. “Honey, I don’t have any rules.”
~*~
If Luke hadn’t figured that out by now, then he hadn’t been paying attention that night by the waterfall. And Deelie was fairly certain he had been, or more accurately, nine inches of him had been. Luke had a gorgeous penis, one of the best she’d ever seen. And she’d seen plenty.
“And you’re not easy,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken at all. “You’re a challenge.”
No one had ever called Deelie Jacks a challenge, unless it was her Sunday school teacher. Or her grade school teacher, her high school guidance counselor, or the unemployment counselor at the EDD. She’d prided herself on proving them right too. She’d put them through their paces, showing them all the reasons why she was positively unredeemable.
“I’m thirty-one. I work part-time at Ma’s, and I sell wallpaper on Etsy. I can’t remember the last time I had a four-figure month.”
He shrugged like none of that mattered to him. That made sense, except that he didn’t seem to be looking for easy sex either. “You want to see my checkbook?”
“What?” He asked the strangest questions.
“If I’m dating you for your money, you should do the same thing.” He grinned at her. “Although you might want to trade up. I can keep the lights on and buy you beer, but I don’t have oceanfront property in Maui.”
“You want to date me?”
“Wrong question. Do you want to date me?”
Oh, yes. Her girl parts had definitely cast their vote. The hope that sprang up in her was stupid. Luke was a nice guy, and he was only asking her out on a date because that was what nice guys did when they met a girl they wanted to sleep with.
“Is date a euphemism for have wild sex with?” Because she totally rocked the sex thing.
He snorted. “You’ve got a one-track mind.”
Well, yes, but no one had ever complained about that before. “Guys don’t come knocking on my door because they like the way I think.”
And again, that was true. She was easy, and Strong’s guys got lonely too or wanted a quick hookup.
“Give me two weeks.” He looked at her, and she couldn’t figure out what he was thinking. The man had a poker face that didn’t quit, but his body language screamed all sorts of things. Like interested and in her space. So what did he want? Two weeks of exclusivity? Two weeks of marathon sex? Two weeks before they started any of the above? That last option would probably kill her, so it was definitely time to seek clarification.
“To do what exactly?”
“To convince you to be mine.”
Wow. He didn’t pull any punches. “I’m not into the whole possessive caveman thing.”
He shrugged. “I’m not going to drag you off by the hair, but I think we belong together and I want a shot at convincing you.”
Definitely time to establish some ground rules. “No kinky stuff. No ropes, no bondage, no demanding I call you Sir or Master. You don’t get to ask where I’ve been or what I’m doing.”
Although she preferred to break rules rather than follow them herself, he was a guy, and guys, like pets, did best with some guidelines. Sometimes, when she got too lonely, she’d treat herself to a guy. Have a little sex, have a little fun. If her loaner guys tended to think less of her because she wasn’t a virgin princess who’d been saving herself for the one perfect man, that was their problem. In all truth, the female population of Northern California should be thanking her because she was like quality control for the dating pool. She’d probably found every single loser out there.
Then Luke said the magic words. “I dare you.”
“Really? Are we ten?” Never mind that glee warred with excitement somewhere near the pit of her stomach—or lower. God, who knew Luke Dawson could be so much fun out of bed?
His answering grin was slow, wicked, and downright
panty melting. “Does that mean you’re not going to do it?”
He had her number. He also had the most gorgeous brown eyes. It simply wasn’t fair for a guy to have such long lashes—or to know how to use them. Because she was almost certain that Luke was working her. For some reason, he really, really wanted to date her. She’d tried to tell him that she didn’t require euphemisms. If he wanted sex, she was on board with that plan. It would be nice to have someone to spend the nights with, a little less lonely making, although it was going to get awkward fast since she was currently between places.
“Stop thinking so hard,” he said.
Funny how most guys believed she didn’t think at all but Luke was convinced her head worked overtime. That was kind of nice too, being appreciated for her more than her boobs.
She made one more attempt to explain. “I don’t date. I just have sex. Most guys don’t have a problem with that.”
He stared steadily back at her. “I’m not most guys.”
Hello, Captain Obvious. “I like variety.”
It was always easier to be the one who walked away. She’d learned that the hard way. She had a feeling that if Luke walked on her this time, she wouldn’t be able to wave it off like it didn’t matter. There was something about him. Something that told her he’d be the kind of man you wanted to keep by your side even if she didn’t do permanent.
“And I’d like a chance to convince you otherwise.”
“We need ground rules.”
He snorted. “I thought you were anti-the-rules.”
“Most of the time.” It was true she’d never met a rule she didn’t need to break, but apparently, Luke was going to be the exception to that particular rule.
He nodded slowly. “I get to date you. For two weeks.”
Yeah. He’d already stated that particular need, so she got to make a demand of her own. “And I get to have hot monkey sex with you.”
Grin curving his mouth, he stepped closer, between her legs. “You’re going to have to define ‘monkey sex’ for me, but I’m happy to oblige. Tell me where to pick you up tomorrow.”
Crap. That was a problem. She chewed on her lower lip while she thought it over. “I’m probably going to be at Laura Jo’s.”
The small pucker in his forehead said it all. Mr. I-Can-Fix-Everything had just smelled a potential issue. “Just give me your address. I promise I’m not going to stalk you.”
“Yeah. Problem. I’m between places.”
Silence.
She snuck a peek at his face, but he clearly had come to the correct conclusion.
“You were camping in your car because you lost your apartment,” he said.
It didn’t sound good when he put it that way. “It’s not a problem. I’ll have the deposit for a new place in another week or two.”
He exhaled roughly, clearly moving on to problem number two. “Tell me all your stuff wasn’t in that car.”
It was just stuff. It sucked to lose it, but she had Vicious and she wasn’t dead. Those were two wins for the Plus column right there. “I put some of it in a friend’s garage, but yeah… I’d like to get my car back.”
He cursed, but she didn’t think it was directed at her. “I’ll pick you up at Laura Jo’s tomorrow at ten.”
They needed to finish getting their ground rules straight. “Is that our first date?”
Part of her really hoped he’d say no, but that piece certainly wasn’t her girly bits or any other hormone-affected part of her body. She had one secret she’d managed to keep. It was funny, really. The rest of her life was pretty much an open book. Living in Strong, California pretty much from birth until her thirty-second birthday two months and six days ago (which meant she could no longer pretend that she was “almost” or “just” thirty), everyone knew everything about her, from her first grade report card (the start of a not-so-illustrious school career) to who she’d dated.
And there had been lots of dates. First dates.
He gave her a look that she couldn’t quite interpret but then nodded. “It’s a date.”
Okay then. Perhaps she should warn him. Somehow she never made it to the second, third, and fourth dates. She was easily bored, too hard to please, and almost always plagued with buyer’s remorse.
The guy who’d looked so good the night before when he’d been buying her drinks at the bar tended to look not so hot the morning after when he was flat on his back and snoring in whatever cheap motel room they’d ended up in. The night before, she’d been convinced that he was The One or at least Someone Who Mattered.
If he slept with her, she could almost convince herself that she mattered. He’d liked her enough to stick with her, which counted for something. She’d made him feel good, and while her mouth was sliding up and down his penis, she’d been the center of his goddamned universe. A goddess and not a loser, a screwup, or a disappointment. That was the power of the orgasm right there.
Unfortunately, right after the orgasm (and sometimes “right after” had really meant right after, leading to painful memories she preferred to forget), her guy had remembered an appointment, a work obligation, any face-saving excuse to slink out of their shared motel room and hit the road. She’d gotten pretty good at guessing which excuse she’d be hearing.
The other disadvantage to living in a small town was that the dating pool was horribly small. While she hit up Sacramento whenever she got too lonely, most of the time she was in Strong—and Strong had precisely one bar and a dearth of eligible men. She wasn’t all that picky—single, decent hygiene, and a place of his own because she never, ever took a guy back to her place.
Conveniently, since she was between places and her car was sitting out in a campground by its solitary self, she wouldn’t be able to break that rule.
See? Another win for the Plus column.
3
The hotshot team had returned to the ten-thousand-acre burn. Someone, somewhere, would come up with a clever name because people were always labeling stuff, but for now Luke just thought of it as the Campground Fire. The flames had jumped the hill all right, burning through the campground like a marshmallow on a stick. He was just grateful that he’d been able to find Deelie and get her the hell out of there.
The team had spent the night of the fire on scene, catching catnaps on the ground and in the back of the trucks. Good thing he hadn’t made Deelie wait for him, because she would have been in for a long night. After they’d cut themselves a semblance of a safety zone, they’d spent the night busting spot fires because, even after a fire had passed through, hotspots would break out for the next few days as smoldering trees went up and leftover embers found fuel to work with. As a result, the team had dug ash for the next twelve hours straight. By the time he’d staggered into Ma’s, he’d been out in the field for four straight days and had just had his first shower of the week.
Yeah. He’d singlehandedly blown the romantic stereotype of the firefighter to hell and back. He stank. His eyes were bloodshot. And all he really wanted was a twelve-hour nap on a decent mattress.
Fortunately for him, he wasn’t shacked up in the bunkhouse for the temporaries. Some of the locals like him had their own places, so he wouldn’t be fighting for hot water that way. He had plenty of room for Deelie too.
Focus on the work. A cockstand right now would be embarrassing as hell, but he didn’t seem to be able to stop thinking about her. The way her chin went up right before she insisted on doing something impossible. That grin she got when before she said something outrageous. And the way her body all but melted into his, in the best kind of invitation…
He drove his Pulaski down into the dirt. Dig more. Fantasize less. Today’s line needed to be five feet wide and two inches deep. Given the rocklike consistency of the dirt, digging wasn’t going to be quick.
A Pulaski slammed into the ground beside him, and he shot a glance left. Pick nodded briefly, matching his Pulaski to Luke’s rhythm. “Saw you dancing with Deelie Jacks last night.”
/> The downside to working a twenty-man crew was that everyone knew his business.
“If you can call it dancing.” Baryshnikov he was not, although Deelie hadn’t complained.
“Didn’t know you were tapping that,” the guy said, oblivious to the sudden surge of anger that had Luke’s fingers tightening on the tool’s handle. The trench was only eighteen inches deep, which was nowhere near deep enough to bury a body. Plus Pick undoubtedly had motorcycle-club friends who were probably of the eye-for-an-eye opinion.
“She’s a friend. I pulled her ass out of our fire. She wanted to buy me a beer.” He shrugged like it was no big deal.
“Uh-huh,” Pick said mildly.
Luke had no idea how the guy could put so much subtext into two syllables. “You might as well say it.”
“You don’t drink.” Pick pounded his Pulaski into the iron-hard dirt.
“It was a gesture.”
A nice one too even if Deelie hadn’t had any way of knowing he was on the wagon. She’d worked around it. He had to smile remembering the cherry-filled Coke. Sweet as shit, that stuff, and kind of funny too. Deelie wasn’t predictable.
Pick paused and leaned on his Pulaski. The guy looked like a zebra, his face ash-striped. Not that Luke himself was winning any prizes in the looks department—he had ash in places ash had no business being. “Deelie gets lonely. Hell, man, we all get lonely sometimes, and I’m not judging her for that. Or maybe she just really, really likes sex.”
“You really want to go there?” Luke muttered.
Apparently, Pick did, because the idiot kept right on talking. “She’s hooked up with half the guys in Strong.”
“Maybe you all suck in bed. Did you ever think of that?”
He was not going to ask if Pick had slept with Deelie.
Pick shrugged. “I’m not worried about my dick’s performance, but she tries on guys like my last girlfriend tried on shoes.”
Hitting his teammate with his Pulaski wouldn’t be nice, but it would be satisfying. Unfortunately, it would leave the hotshots short a man right as fire season was heating up, so Luke restrained himself. He deserved a fucking medal for being such a team player.
