Hot Nights with the Fireman (8 page)

“How long have you known Valerie?” he managed to ask casually while one of the Dukes was up at the tee. They stood a few yards back under the leafy shade of an ancient tree.

“A few years now,” Lance answered. “We kept running into each other at various events around town.”

The kind of events to which he would never receive an invitation, no doubt. Lance was exactly the type of guy he expected Valerie to date. “Ever date her?” He gave in to his insecurities and dared to ask the question that had been scratching at his brain since meeting Lance.

Lance turned and gave him a sharp look, seeming to see deeply into him past the seemingly casual nature of his question to the burning desire below. “One date. We're better off as friends,” Lance said.

“Mm.” Jason nodded as if that were the end of the matter, but Lance didn't let it lie.

“Valerie's a very nice woman. I wouldn't want to see her hurt.”

Jason turned away and fiddled with his golf club, pretending to take a small practice putt.

“She's not the kind of woman you do casually,” Lance continued.

Jason turned back. “My relationship with Valerie is none of your damn business.” Ironic, really, to call what he had with Valerie a relationship. It was more of a fantasy in his mind. He realized he'd changed the club grip in his hand, turning it from sporting equipment into weapon. “I'm not going to hurt her.” No,
she
was going to rip
him
apart, coming from different worlds as they did.

“Glad to hear it,” Lance said and strolled to the tee for his turn. He hit it long, low, and straight, landing near the green with a perfect setup for the next shot. Jason grimaced, knowing his effort wouldn't produce half the result.

Lance strolled back from the tee-off point and Jason took his place. He was annoyed Lance had questioned his interest in Valerie and took it out on the ball, which protested by zooming off to the right in the middle of a small forest. “Shit,” he muttered.

“Take a mulligan,” Lance called and tossed him another ball. His second shot was better than the first, and soon they picked up their clubs and hiked out to their balls. Duke and Duke had opted for a cart and zoomed off ahead. Lance continued to talk about Valerie.

“She's very competent at her job. She'll likely be the youngest partner ever at her firm,” he said as they strolled on the velvet ultra-green grass of the fairway.

Jason stopped and looked at Lance. “You seem awfully interested. Are you sure you don't want more with her?”

Lance smiled. “I told you, we went on one date. The chemistry wasn't there. I'm happy to see she found a man, even though…”

“Even though, what?” He deliberately didn't clue Lance in that he and Valerie weren't a couple. Not yet anyway. He'd do everything in his power to make it a reality.

“Nothing,” Lance said.

“Even though I'm not her type,” he said, guessing at what Lance had been chicken to say.

Lance shrugged. “Hey, to each his own. Who am I to play matchmaker? I'm happy she picked someone I'll be happy to hang out with. The last guy…” He gave an exaggerated shudder.

“Total tool?”

Lance swung his club bag onto his back as if it weighed less than a school backpack. “Total asshole. Asked me twice where my family ranked on the Forbes list.”

Jason hefted his own bag of clubs. “Dick.” It was hard to reconcile the easygoing guy strolling next to him as one of the wealthier men in the country. He was glad to get the inside info about Valerie's love life and if he had a real shot. “I thought you were a Secret Service agent—don't you carry a gun? You could've shot the guy.”

Lance laughed. “I'm riding a desk job at Treasury currently while waiting for a shot to work the presidential detail. No guns in my daily routine. Yet.” He held up crossed fingers. “Hopefully soon.”

Four hours later they were finally on the last hole. He was pretty sure he'd led their team to a grand last place finish. Lance didn't seem to mind and was chatting as amiably now as at the beginning. They tossed their clubs into Duke and Duke's golf cart and headed back to the main clubhouse for the final speeches and awarding of trophies. Jason was ducking out. He wasn't getting any applause for the size of the check he'd written to the charity, nor was he winning a trophy for his golf game.

He shook Lance's hand with an agreement that they'd get together soon for a beer and he headed out to the parking lot in search of his truck. There'd been valet parking, but he'd ignored it for a moment just like this, hoping he could leave without undue ceremony.

He'd reached the rear bumper of his truck when he heard Valerie calling his name. Busted. He turned back thinking up excuses for why he was ducking out early.

“How did it go?” she asked with a warm smile. “Lance said you played pretty well for a novice.”

He'd have to thank Lance later for his lie. He'd sucked ass. “It was fine.” He glanced behind him at the driver's side of his truck then back at her. “Listen, I have to…”

“Leave?” she asked, still smiling. “I'd leave, too, if I weren't helping run the thing. I have to run back in a second. I hate to bring up an obviously sore spot, but I'm curious. Did you ever call any of the tutors?”

“The what?” he asked stupidly, relieved she wasn't upset he was leaving early.

“The reading tutors. We'd discussed it at the school that day,” she added when he still stood there silently.

“Oh, uh. No.” He really didn't want to snap at her again for her innocent question, but if the topic never came up again, he'd be happy.

She frowned. “Why not?”

“No reason. Just didn't get around to it, I guess.”

“But I thought making that special rescue team was important to you?”

“It is.” He started to feel like an ass as she stared at him with a bewildered look on her face.

“So why not call?”

He shrugged and took a step back toward his car door. She took a step closer as if they were in some kind of dance.

“Because.” He regretted his words as soon as they came out of his mouth. They made him sound like a dumb ass. One word,
because
, as though he were a kindergartner. “Because it's embarrassing,” he finally said, running a hand through his hair.

The look on her face softened. “You shouldn't be embarrassed,” she said. “Plenty of people have learning issues.”

“Maybe you can tutor me?” The words were out of his mouth before he had a chance to think.

“Me?” Her eyes narrowed. “You'd want me to tutor you?”

“Sure. Why not? Didn't you go to that fancy Ivy League school, and…we'd get to spend time together.” The more he talked about the idea, the more he liked it.

Her body shifted as she stood on one leg rubbing one ankle behind her calf. Her wide-eyed stare was a punch in the gut. “Please?” he begged, knowing he was making a fool of himself over a pretty girl. “I'd be more comfortable with you than a strange teacher.”

“Okay,” she finally agreed. “I'll call you to set up a time, but I have to get back to the award ceremony now,” she said.

“Bye.” He wanted to grab her and steal another kiss, but they were alone in the parking lot and he couldn't think of a valid excuse.

“Bye, and thanks for participating in the tournament. I know you hated every second of it.”

He laughed. “Nah. It was okay.”

She gave him a face that called him on his bullshit.

“Busted. The free beer was cool. And seeing you. I always like seeing you.” Without meaning to, his voice had deepened and lowered, injecting meaning into his words. A pink flush washed over her cheeks and she opened her mouth, but no words came out. He took advantage of her fluster to tug her close and plant a kiss on her full sweet lips. Val's reticence meant he'd have to steal every opportunity offered.

He deepened the kiss, slipping his tongue into her mouth. She'd been drinking a Sprite and the fizziness bubbled on her tongue. It was his new favorite soda. Her arms wound around his neck, and their bodies pressed together from chest to toe. It was a cool fall day, but his body heated and he wished they weren't in a public setting so he could explore her luscious mouth to the degree he wanted. Like forever.

All too soon, she pushed back and stared at him with wide eyes. “I—I really have to get back. Bye, Jason.” She spun on one heel and jogged out of the parking lot.

He watched her go, inwardly cursing. He'd scared her off. Damn it.

V
alerie fiddled with one of the pens on her desk in her bedroom and stared off into space, absently talking to Ari on the phone. Ever since Jason had kissed her in the parking lot, she'd been distracted, with her head in the clouds. Hands down, it had been her best kiss ever. Bar none, no vote required.

It was ridiculous; he was the wrong man for her. Why then was she liking his kisses so much? She was afraid she knew the answer, and it had everything to do with the six-foot fireman scheduled to ring her doorbell very soon. He'd rocked her world this past weekend when he'd told her he liked seeing her. If he'd flirted, she could've dismissed it, but he hadn't. His voice had been soft, serious, and when he'd stared intently at her then kissed her, something inside her had melted. It had taken every bit of her willpower to turn around and go back to the country club. A good part of her had wanted to stay wrapped in his arms and start exploring the mass of muscles under his shirt.

Speaking of shirts, she still had the T-shirt he'd worn to the golf tournament. She'd hung on to it when he'd changed into the blue golf one. If she'd held it up to her face and inhaled Jason's scent over the past day or so, that was her secret. The shirt was now neatly folded downstairs, ready to be returned.

“I have to go, Ari.” She hung up with her friend, neglecting to mention Jason's visit, because she knew Ari would read too much into it. She'd push Val to have a wild fling with Jason, and right now she was nearly past caring that Jason wasn't a man she could trust. His Internet pictures demonstrated the kind of man he was, and despite what he'd said about being in the wrong place at the wrong time, he'd still been naked in his place of work with a bunch of sorority girls.

She was attracted to him to a combustible degree, and neither had any visible baggage. The only baggage was of the invisible variety, which she carried every day. Jason's job scared her. She couldn't hear a siren or see an ambulance without being mentally transported back in time. A relationship with a firefighter was impossible. She'd be in constant mental anguish.

So have torrid meaningless sex with him
, she could almost hear Ari say. It was tempting, but she couldn't imagine revealing her body to someone she didn't trust implicitly. She didn't think she was cut out for meaningless sex. Jason could break her heart.

She jumped up and headed to the mostly marble bathroom to touch up her makeup. She'd changed outfits twice, torn between staying in her clothes from work or her usual post-work pajamas. She'd settled on something in between, and wore black yoga pants and a soft gray V-neck T-shirt. Sometimes a little too much cleavage was visible if she leaned over too far, but she wasn't planning on doing much leaning. She and Jason would be at the dining room table. Working. Not on her couch snuggled up. And definitely not on her bed upstairs.

When she was satisfied her face was acceptable, she hurried downstairs to look over the stack of books she'd amassed to help Jason. Part of her was worried. Tutoring an adult had to be very different than tutoring a third grader. She'd spent a few hours yesterday researching dysgraphia and tutoring plans. She'd give it a try, but if she couldn't meet Jason's needs, she'd insist he call a professional.

She aligned the edges of the books again unnecessarily and her breath caught as headlights came into view from the front window. And passed by the house.

“Get a grip, Val,” she muttered to herself. She was simply spending an hour or two alone with Jason. No biggie. Except…He liked being with her. He'd admitted it. It probably meant nothing. Maybe he liked her as a friend or as a teacher. Except men didn't kiss their friends or teachers the way he'd kissed her.

Another set of headlights shone through the front bay window of the house, and this time, they didn't pass. She heard Jason's truck purr into the driveway and shut off. Her heart pounded as she walked to the door, forcing herself to walk slowly and not run. She opened it before Jason had a chance to knock. He stepped back as she swung open the door with a wide smile.

“Welcome. No problem finding the house?”
Tone it down, girl. Don't scare him off.

He stepped through the doorway and smiled at her. “I had no problem finding the house, but then finding houses in the dark is kind of a necessary job skill.”

“That's true.”

“Here. I brought these for you.” He handed her a gorgeous bouquet of fall flowers with their stems tied with an orange and brown grosgrain ribbon.

She accepted them, feeling her heart pound harder.
Not a date, not a date
, she reminded herself. “Thank you, but this was unnecessary.”

He stepped farther into the entry hall and glanced up at the high ceiling with its intricate light fixture. “I knew you wouldn't accept payment from me, and I had to bring you something.”

“No. You didn't, but it's appreciated. Let me grab a vase from the kitchen.” She walked a few feet through the foyer toward the right of the first floor where the kitchen was. Jason followed closely on her heels. They passed by a large framed photo of her dad, mom, and her posed on her father's shoulders in front of the large glass triangular entryway of the Louvre. It had been taken the summer before she turned five. Sometimes she hated that picture because it reminded her of everything she'd lost. The smiling four-year-old in the picture wore shorts and sandals on her perfect unscarred feet. That girl grinned out of the frame with no notion that in one year, her life and her body would be altered forever. Jason paused to look at the photo.

“Nice,” he commented. “I've never been to France. Never been abroad actually, unless you count a driving day trip to Canada. At the time, I didn't even need a passport.”

“It counts, but I love going to Europe.” She crouched to dig through a lower cabinet for an appropriately sized vase.

“It's one of the reasons I want to join the International Search and Rescue Team,” he said, leaving the picture and entering the large airy kitchen. “I'd get to see some of the world on someone else's dime. Of course, it's unlikely I'd ever see the more developed European countries.”

She straightened, holding a Tiffany cut-glass rectangular crystal vase. “Yeah, there aren't too many major disasters in London or Paris that require search and rescue assistance from other countries.”

“One can always hope,” he said.

She laughed and carefully filled the vase with water and arranged the flowers in it. “My stepmother will love these. Fall is her favorite season,” she said as she carried the flower arrangement out to the dining room and placed it in the center of the glossy wood table.

Jason looked around. “Is this your parents' house?”

She nodded. “A pipe broke in the apartment above mine and I'm living here for a few weeks while my apartment is being dried, fixed, and painted. But now that I'm here, I'm considering staying at least for a while. I'm thinking about buying a place. In a few months I'll have enough to put a down payment on a house.”

He frowned. “You wouldn't mind the lack of privacy?”

“Not at all. This house is obviously big enough for all of us to live here without tripping over each other.” The house was in a nice suburb of McLean, Virginia, with a large yard, four bedrooms, and four-and-a-half baths.

“What about when you're dating? What then?”

She frowned and stared at the glossy wood table top for a minute. “Hasn't been an issue for a while.” Her cheeks felt hot, and suddenly she thought that inviting Jason to her house—no, her parents' house—for tutoring hadn't been very smart. He had a way of poking at her plans and emotions and making her feel raw, exposed. Every time she'd been with him for more than ten minutes, she'd found herself talking too much and sharing things even she barely knew about herself. If she could reverse time, she'd rethink her decision to tutor him.

But he was here and expecting tutoring. Better get it over with. “Let's sit. I have lots of books here.” She gestured toward the neat stack of books on the dining room table and pulled out a wood chair with upholstered seat cushions.

Jason sat willingly, but said, “I don't know, Valerie. If you were my woman, I'd want you close. No tame visits that end with a kiss at your parents' door before curfew.”

Of course he felt that way. She didn't know what to say. “It would just be for a few months.”

He looked her steadily in the eye. “You could live like that for a few months?”

“It hasn't really been a problem for a few years,” she muttered under her breath.

Jason understood and thankfully misinterpreted. “Sounds like you're dating dickless wonders who care more about their jobs and their cars than they do about you.”

She preferred his interpretation to the truth, so she didn't argue.

“My wife and family would be my first priority, my job second. If you were my woman, you'd come first.” He put his palm over her hand and stroked gently.

She absorbed his touch for one dizzying glorious second, and then yanked her hand away. His statement was calculated. It had to be. No real man said things like that. When he'd spoken of family as his first priority, she'd nearly believed him. His sincerity rang through the bullshit words. She was a PR expert. She recognized bullshit. “Don't say things like that.”

“Why not? I was speaking hypothetically, of course. I know I'm just your client.” He allowed her to pull her hand back, but she noticed he'd scooted his chair as close to hers as possible. He was completely in her space, and she couldn't take a breath without absorbing his masculine scent or wondering whether his forearm would brush hers.

She inched away on her chair and reached for the first thing on the top of the stack, ignoring his statement about simply being a client. He knew as well as she did that clients didn't kiss each other. “Let's see what we're dealing with. Why don't you read out loud?” She'd struggled to find appropriate reading material. An obvious children's book would've been humiliating, but the newspaper may have been too hard. Finally, she'd found a sample paragraph from a literacy website. It was on a fourth grade reading level, but with adult subject matter.

He tensed in the chair beside hers, but gamely pulled the paper closer and started to read. She was relieved to hear he read it fine. He'd never be an orator or a college professor, but his reading was perfectly adequate. He'd skipped a few words here and there, but as they hadn't changed the meaning of the text, she didn't think it was a big deal.

She showed him how to take a blank piece of paper or an index card and cover the rest of the text so only the line he was reading was visible. She'd read it helped visually, and it seemed to. By the last sentence, he hadn't missed any words.

“Hey, that's a good trick,” he said, looking up from the paper and smiling at her. She grinned back, loving the elation soaring within at helping a student. It was a rush she'd rarely felt in her PR job.

“I'm glad that works for you. I've also heard that getting an e-reader is easier for some people, because you can make the text really big,” she said.

He looked thoughtful. “I'll have to try that. Maybe I'll even read a book.”

She looked at him a long minute before she realized he'd been joking.

“I do read books,” he said quietly. “Did you think I was such an idiot, I couldn't even do that?”

“No, I never assumed anything,” she said, placing a conciliatory hand on his arm. “You told me you struggled as a student, so I had no idea what you did or didn't do.”

“I like action books,” he said. “Clive Cussler, that kind of stuff.”

“My dad loves those also.” They sat in smiling accord for a long minute before she realized she was stroking his muscular forearm, and it felt way too good to be touching him. She moved her hand back to her own space. “Let's move on to writing,” she said. “That's what has you the most worried for the application process, right?”

“Yeah. I can think of everything I want to say in my head, but then when I go to write it, it comes out differently on paper. I can't explain it, but I guess that's the definition of dysgraphia.”

“I think I understand. Let's try writing a paragraph on why you became a firefighter. Is that an easy question for you to answer?”

He picked up a pen and applied it to the notebook paper she'd left out for this purpose. After five minutes, he slid the sheet over to her. She read it, and then read it again.

“You look worried,” he said.

She looked up from the paper with five sentences punctuated by grammar errors and no compound sentences. “I'm not worried. I'm thinking.”

He scowled. “Shit. I knew it. We shouldn't have started this. It's a waste of time. Now you think I'm a stupid idiot.”

She leaned in toward him. “You are
not
a stupid idiot.”

He lowered his head a fraction. “I'm stupid for doing
this
.” He closed the distance between them. Butterflies did backflips in her stomach at his nearness as he planted his lips on hers. For a moment, she was too stunned to respond, and then she found herself kissing him back.

His lips were warm and soft, yet commanding. She was helpless to do anything other than respond to them slanting over hers. His tongue sought hers and she allowed him access. His breath was minty, as though he'd known the night might progress to kissing.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, trying to get closer, but the arrangement of the chairs made it tricky. He pulled away for a moment to scoot his chair back and hoist her onto his lap. He lifted her easily as he would have a doll. Her hands untangled from around his neck to caress his biceps and back. She could feel his muscles rippling to life under her hands, and one muscle stood out insistently against her thigh.