Smolder (Firefighters of Montana Book 1) (9 page)

“Listen, Ivy, I’ve still got”—Laurel frowned as she leafed through her textbook—“six more sections of business law to get through tonight. I want to knock out as much studying as I can while Tyson is away. Can I take a rain check on Hugh Grant?”

“Oh sure.” Ivy said. “I just wanted to check in and see how you were doing out there. Alone. In the rain.”

She’d been doing just great until Ivy reminded her of her situation.

“I’m fine.” She glanced over at Oreo, who was sound asleep. Not that he’d be any help if something came up. “The barn is closed up tight,” she lied. She just realized she’d slept through night check. As soon as she hung up with Ivy, she’d go secure the barn.

“Well, Hugh and I will be here all night. Call me if you need a study break.”

“I’ll do that,” Laurel said as she slid her feet into her Ugg boots. “Let’s plan on dinner tomorrow night. Unless, of course, you’re too busy with Hugh.”

“I was planning on spending tomorrow night with Channing Tatum, but a girl’s gotta eat. Call me in the morning.”

Laurel disconnected with Ivy but kept her phone in her hand as she made her way into the barn. Thunder boomed outside the wide-open doors and she hurried to pull them closed. A scream caught in her throat when a bolt of lightning lit up the barn, exposing Sam Gaskill lurking in the dark.

He was the picture of natural vitality sitting on the tack box outside of Tator Tot’s stall, dressed in dark jeans, and an untucked white button-down shirt. The sleeves were rolled up to reveal his tightly corded, tan forearms. The sight of him unnerved her. Not just because he was unexpected, but because of the gnawing want the man always seemed to stir up in her.

“What are you doing here?”
Stupid question.

Her eyes had adjusted to the dim light in the barn. She watched as Sam lifted a bottle of beer to his lips and took a long pull. Even the way the muscles in his neck contracted as he swallowed was sexy.

“I’m checking on my horse,” he said, finally.

“You mean your
wife’s
horse.”

His head snapped around and his amber eyes bored into hers. Laurel shifted uneasily. She’d gone too far again. She had no idea why she continued to play this game with him.

“My
late
wife’s horse.”

Lightning crackled in the distance as if to punctuate his words.

Laurel wrapped her arms around her middle, wishing she’d pulled on a jacket or something to cover up her revealing cami. “Either way, the company’s likely better at The Drop Zone tonight.”

“Company’s just fine right here,” he drawled before turning his head back toward Tabitha’s stall and taking another drink from his beer.

A rumble of thunder shook the barn and the horses groaned in their stalls, their hooves moving restlessly over the shavings. Laurel could honestly say she knew how they felt. She turned her back on Sam and began shuffling down the aisleway, checking water buckets and stall doors as she went. When she turned back, he was still there, eyes closed and the beer bottle dangling from his long fingers. She wanted him to leave. Unfortunately, not quite as much as she wanted him to stay. And that was the problem.

The words were out before she could stop them. “The storm is going to take a while to move off. I have coffee upstairs.”

He was still for an agonizingly long moment before he turned to face her again. His mouth was drawn tight. “You don’t want to invite me upstairs, Laurel. You’re working on your impulsiveness issues, remember?”

“Yeah, but right now, you’re looking a whole lot more interesting than my business law study guide.” And just like that, Impulsive Laurel was back in charge.

*

What the hell
was he doing here? After three days clearing trails and sleeping outside, Sam was tired and sore. He should have stayed in the A-frame, downed his beer, and hit the sack. But he couldn’t seem to get this woman off his mind. Laurel had told him very plainly that she didn’t want him. The trouble was her body sang a very different tune every time he got near her. And Sam couldn’t quite get his own body to settle down and stop humming that song.

Being the jerk that he was, he knew the good girl persona Laurel was so desperately trying to hide behind wouldn’t take much work to peel away. Hell, deep down, she was as impulsive as Sam was. Sam had gambled she wouldn’t turn him away, and it had just paid off.

She’d made it clear he wasn’t what she was looking for long-term and that was fine with Sam. He wasn’t looking for happily ever after either. That ship had sailed. But he was looking for happy tonight. Whether she knew it or not, so was she. As he followed Laurel’s Hello Kitty-clad ass up the stairs to the loft, he vowed he’d make sure she wouldn’t regret her decision in the morning.

Sam wasn’t sure what he expected Laurel’s home to look like, but the elegant apartment with bleached wood floors and sloped cherrywood ceilings looked more like something out of
Architectural Digest
than a hayloft above a barn. Three large dormer windows spread along the length, and French doors at one end kept the space from feeling closed in. Pendant lamps mixed with canned lights gave the place a welcoming glow even on the stormy night.

At the loft’s entrance there was a white galley kitchen with a center island constructed from an antique wood cabinet. The other end of the island was held up by giant milk pails that were painted a vivid blue. A quick glance to his left revealed a sliding door constructed of weathered wood. The door partially concealed a bedroom large enough for a queen-sized iron bed and two craftsman dressers. Lightning flashed in the window high above the bed, momentarily giving the room a mystical glow.

Sam’s boots were loud on the floor as he walked over to a table in the center of the loft. It was stacked with open books and a laptop. Obviously she’d been too absorbed in her studies to hear his truck on the gravel a half hour ago.

Oreo yipped from his perch on the leather sofa next to the table. The dog nearly toppled off when he stood on the cushioned arm to bark at Sam. As he had the other day, Sam grabbed the dog by the scruff of its neck and stared into Oreo’s eyes. No commands were necessary this time. The dog swallowed a gulp before subduing. Sam gently laid him on a round dog bed in a corner by another sliding door—this one painted red like a barn.

He gestured at the door, assuming her son was asleep behind it. “Tyson?”

Laurel leaned her hips against the island in the kitchen and shook her head. “With his dad.”

Her mouth took on a wistful expression and Sam wondered whether she missed the boy.
Or the boy’s father
. Something stirred inside of him—lust, most likely—and he prowled over to the kitchen. It didn’t matter who she was missing. Laurel was his tonight. He had every intention of making her forget whatever was making her sad.

Sam carefully put the empty beer bottle on the island before placing his hands on the wood, one on either side of her. Laurel sucked in a sharp breath when his hips came within an inch of hers.

“Can I, um, can I get you something else to drink? Coffee maybe?”

He closed the gap between their bodies and her pulse began its telltale wild beat at her neck. “I didn’t come up here for coffee, Laurel.” Sam sealed his mouth over the soft flesh at her throat. She tasted like lemon and smelled like summer, and when she sighed at the contact, the zipper on his jeans became damn near unbearable. “Last chance, Laurel,” he said against her skin. “I need you to be sure you want me here tonight.
All night
.”

“You’d really leave now?” She sounded so incredulous, he had to pull back to look at her face. A sexy pink flush had formed on her skin and her nipples were hard beneath her flimsy top.

Not without a team of horses dragging me out,
he wanted to shout. “If that’s what you really want,” the soldier deep inside of him said instead.

She gnawed on her lip as she fiddled with the buttons on his shirt. The rain pelted the roof even harder, the beat of it synchronizing with the blood pounding in Sam’s groin.

“It’s just sex, right?” she whispered, as though she were trying to convince herself. “We’re both grownups. No one needs to know.”

That last part stuck in his craw a bit. Not that he went around boasting of his sexual conquests, but it sounded like she was ashamed of who or what he was. Damn it, why did women always have to make sex so complicated?

He hadn’t realized she’d undone the buttons until she’d spread the sides of his shirt wide and her lips were blazing a path over his pectoral muscles. He felt her smile against his skin when his cock jumped at the contact. “You can stay all night,” she murmured. “And if you’re really a good boy, Captain Cowboy, I might even throw in breakfast.”

That was pretty much all the encouragement he needed. Sam let her have her fun, tangling her fingers in his chest hair a moment longer, but when her hands headed south toward his zipper, he cupped her ass and lifted her onto the island so they were face-to-face. Laurel was breathing deeply, but she met his stare without blinking, her green eyes challenging. She would likely be as impulsive at sex as she was with the rest of her life, and the thought suddenly made Sam hard as hell.

She draped her arms around his neck, cocking her head so her ponytail swished from side to side. “Are we gonna do this or not, captain?”

“Oh, we’re gonna do this.” He leaned in and nipped at the corner of her mouth. “Multiple times, in fact.” Sam swallowed her gasp when his lips crushed hers.

He let himself get lost in the sweet taste of her mouth and the intoxicating feel of her body rubbing against his. Desperate for more of her, he slid his fingers beneath the thin fabric of her top. A soft, keening sound escaped the back of Laurel’s throat when he found her pebbled nipples. She wrapped her thighs around his waist and arched her body toward his in invitation. Breaking their kiss, Sam let his lips trail over her feverish skin as he nudged the spaghetti straps of her top down to her elbows.

Laurel nearly jumped off the counter when Sam gently blew on her aroused nipple. “Sam, please.” She embarrassed herself by begging.

She felt his chest rumble with a laugh. Laurel was about to end the drought of a lifetime and the damn man thought it was funny. She squeezed her legs around him more tightly. He got the message and flicked his tongue over her before taking the nipple in his mouth and sucking. Laurel nearly exploded right then and there. Tears stung her eyes she was so frenzied—both to find the release she hadn’t had from a real man in years and to make this last more than three minutes.

“Please what, Laurel,” he teased.

“I-I…It’s been, um, kind of a while,” she admitted. “I’m not sure how long my body can hold out before we get to the good stuff.”

His chest rumbled again. “Are you saying this isn’t good?”

Sam teased her other nipple with his tongue and she thought she might shatter right there. “This is good,” she said with a gasp. “Really good. That’s the problem.”

He slowly lifted his head and his gaze landed on her chin, then her cheeks. It lingered on her mouth before finally meeting her eyes. What she saw reflected there stunned her.
He knew.

He understood. Her body sagged with relief, and if she hadn’t been wrapped around him like a sloth, she might have fallen to the floor in a puddle.

He placed a gentle kiss on her lips. “You’ve got some catching up to do. Nothing to be ashamed of. But the ‘good stuff’ might be more enjoyable if we take this someplace else. Someplace where I can touch all of you.” Laurel shivered at his words. “And where you can return the favor.”

She kissed him frantically as he carried her into her bedroom, mostly because she had to but also because she wanted to distract him so he wouldn’t notice her messy room. Of course, it didn’t work. He tossed her down on her unmade bed before quickly giving her bedroom the once over with that military way of his.

“I wasn’t expecting company,” she explained, perhaps a tad too defensively.

“Mmm,” was all he said when he sat down on the edge of the bed and began pulling off his boots. His shirt was next. Then Sam stood and undid the button on his jeans.

Panic began to set in. Technically, it had been longer than “a while” since she’d actually done this, and Laurel wondered if she’d be able to keep up. She would die if she did something wrong or, worse, somehow disappointed Sam.

“You’re taking off your clothes?” Oh damn, she’d said that out loud.

To his credit, Sam didn’t flinch. Or laugh. Instead, he continued to methodically strip in front of her, pushing his jeans and his briefs—
red Calvin’s, Laurel noticed with a sigh
—down his muscled thighs.

“I’ve found that the good stuff is a lot more fun if you’re naked,” he said as he bent to pull his jeans over his feet. When he stood back up, Laurel sucked in a breath; his aroused body was so beautiful. He must have heard her because that hot, hard gaze of his landed on her mouth. She licked her lips, the reflexive gesture eliciting an immediate response from the part of him she most wanted to touch right now.

He strode purposefully toward the night stand and laid several foil-wrapped condoms between a glass of water and the assortment of creams Ivy kept foisting at Laurel.