Hot In Here (Ashton Heights Fire # 3) (2 page)

She flashed him a grin that
made Leo’s toes curl. “Great. I’m waiting for someone, and he’s
late. If he’s not here by the time you guys finish, can I play the
winner?”

Leo’s heart sunk. She was waiting for
someone. A boyfriend, no doubt. Or husband. He subtly checked out
her ring finger, which was curled around a beer bottle—the same
brand of domestic that he and Blue were drinking, he noted.

Nope, not a husband or fiancé. Still, there
was the boyfriend thing, which was disappointing enough. “Are you
good?”

Boyfriend or not, that came out flirty. The
woman seemed to notice too, because that smile of hers curved wider
and she responded with a cheeky, “Only when I’m not being bad.”

Oh boy.

She stuck out her free hand. “I’m Ally, by
the way.”

“
Yes, you
are.”
Wait—what?
Leo took her hand, impressed by her confident shake. “The
name’s Leo.”

“
And mine’s
Blair.”

Blair appeared out of
nowhere. He had a way of doing that when a beautiful woman showed
up. Ally turned to Blair and shook his hand too, offering him that
sizzling smile. “Nice to meet you, boys. Which one of you is better
at pool? My guess is…” she narrowed her eyes, sizing them both up.
Eventually her gaze settled on Blair. “You. I sense a killer
instinct behind those eyes.”

Blair grinned. “You sense right.”

Leo frowned. Did she prefer
a man with a competitive streak?
Doesn’t
matter either way. She has a boyfriend.
Still, he couldn’t let Blair get away with big-noting his pool
skills unjustifiably. “I’d say it’s too close to call.”

“
Really?” Ally’s intrigued
blue gaze swung back to him. “Care to take a bet? If Blair wins,
you buy the next round of drinks.”

“
And if he
doesn’t?”

“
I’ll buy. I can admit when
I’m wrong.”

“
Sounds like a good deal to
me,” Blair said.

“
You would say that,” Leo
retorted. “None of the outcomes end up with you getting the
drinks.”

“
I wasn’t going to no
matter what happened.”

Leo remembered the scorned bartender and
turned to Ally. “You’d better watch out for him, Ally. He’s a
heartbreaker.”

“
And you’re
not?”

Blair laughed as he inserted the coin into
the table’s slot, releasing the balls. “Not Chats. Girls always
want to stay friends with Chats.”

If they stuck around long
enough to get to know him, they usually did. It was Blair they
tended to get pissy at when he reminded them he wasn’t relationship
material. Probably because subtlety wasn’t his strong suit. Or
maybe it was because he had that broody bad-boy persona that women
seemed irresistibly drawn to.

Was Ally attracted to Blair? Leo had
definitely felt a zing when they’d shaken hands. Had she felt the
same when she’d touched Blair?

Given that he and Blair routinely shared
women, Leo had no idea why that thought bothered him.

The boyfriend’s going to arrive any second
now, dickbrain.

Shaking his pointless attraction to Ally off
with a shrug, Leo picked up the pool cue and applied chalk to the
tip. “You want to flip for the break?”

“
You take it,” Blair said
generously as he set up the balls in their neat
triangle.

“
Don’t do me any favors,
Blue. I’m going to kick your ass.”

Blair flashed him a
shit-eating grin. “Go for it, killer.”

Leo stifled a curse as he lined up the first
shot. Sometimes he wondered why he was still friends with a wanker
like Blair Bowman.

Ally Wachawski watched the
two men play pool with all the intensity of gladiators fighting to
the death and tried not to laugh. It was difficult, and she kept
having to hide her amused smirks behind her beer bottle. They were
trash talking each other with colorful inventiveness, the kind of
insult-trading that bespoke long friendship. It was such an
Australian trait, and something she’d missed dearly in all the
years she’d spent overseas.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have
fired them up with that bet, but the devil on her shoulder had
spoken, and this time the little red-caped minx just had to get her
way. Not that that was different to most other times. That little
devil was a persuasive woman.

There were no available
tables, but Blair had managed to wrangle a spare stool from some
other patrons. She sat on it by the window and pretended to watch
the bustle of the city outside, when she was really watching Leo
and Blair duke it out with an interest that was…

Let’s call a spade a spade
and say sexual, Ally.
Yep, she was
definitely watching with more than a little sexual interest. How
long had it been? Six months, she calculated. No—seven. Since
Christian in Montreal. No wonder she was getting antsy.

“
You need another drink,
Ally?”

It was Leo, asking because he saw the empty
bottle resting on the windowsill beside her. She sent him an
expectant look. “I’ll wait.”

Leo grinned, displaying perfectly even white
teeth. “He’s not going to win you know. I hope you have cash on
you.”

Ally’s breath hitched and
she wondered if she’d underestimated the man’s killer instinct.
“Always, but I won’t need it.”

Determination flashed in
his eyes. They were green, almost verdant and extremely pretty. Not
that pretty seemed the right word, not for him. Leo didn’t have the
hard edge or penetrating icy-blue stair that Blair had, but he was
by no means soft. Not with that body. No siree. The only soft
things about him appeared to be his light brown hair and his lips,
which were kissable by anyone’s standards.

Christian had been a
nice-looking guy who’d made her blood stir a little. But he was
nothing next to Leo. He also hadn’t been anything spectacular in
the sack. Ally couldn’t help but wonder if Leo would excel where
Christian had failed in that department too.

“
We’ll see,” he said. Ally
watched those lips move as he spoke and couldn’t help imagining
them whispering sweet nothings against her neck. Or her inner
thigh.

She crossed her legs, as
though Leo might detect the heat gathering between them.
Take it easy, you horny shrew,
Ally told the devil on her shoulder.

Get me laid and I will.

If the first sign of
madness was talking to yourself, was the second sign conversing
with an imaginary miniature demon?

Leo turned his attention
back to the game, and Ally forced herself to do the same. Blair was
bending over to take his shot, and Ally bit her lip. The
term
buns of steel
came to mind.

Her little devil was having
a lot of fun with this, and Ally kept reminding herself she was
expecting her brother any moment. Her very protective older,
muscle-bound, firefighter brother who’d probably try to drag her
away from all the fun she was having.

As though her thoughts called out to him,
Ally’s phone began to jingle and vibrate in her bag. She pulled it
out and saw the name Corey on the caller ID before she answered.
“Hey, bro.”

“
Al, hey, glad I caught
you. You haven’t left for the pub, have you?”

“
I’m here
already.”

“
Damn. Sorry, I know we
were supposed to have a drink, but I’ve had to bring Erica to the
doctor.”

Worry instantly gripped Ally. “Is she
okay?”

“
I’m not sure. She’s having
weird pains. We’re concerned they might be contractions, so I’m
having her checked out to make sure.”

Erica was only six months
pregnant. If she was having contractions, that was seriously bad
news. Ally really hoped Corey was overreacting. He was so obviously
excited about this baby. “Do you need me for anything?”

“
Nah, I have it covered.
Griff is on nightshift, but he’s only a phone call away if I need
him.”

Must be
nice
, Ally thought,
having someone there whenever you need them.

Ally pushed aside the
twinge of envy immediately. She had that too, now that she was back
home. All she had to do was reach out for it. Corey might seem
wrapped up in his new life with a girlfriend
and
boyfriend to occupy his time—and
boy, hadn’t that development in her brother’s life knocked her for
six!—but Ally knew he’d do anything for her if she asked. And then
there were her parents and her sister, Sasha.

But her family’s love had
always come with strings. They all wanted her to still be the cute
little sister, the sweet youngest daughter. But Ally had never been
very good at doing
sweet
.

“
Okay, if you’re sure,”
she said into the phone. “Call or send me a text as soon as you
know what’s up with Erica.”

“
Will do. Be
good.”

Ally laughed. “Aren’t I always?”

She heard her brother groan
as she pressed the disconnect button. Poor Corey, perennially
worried about his little sister. She’d been causing him headaches
since she was a teenager and boys had started showing an interest
in her. Being the protective type and a teenage boy himself, he
hadn’t trusted a single one of the guys who’d asked her out, and at
times had been openly hostile. Corey had been six foot tall at the
age of seventeen, so he’d scared off more than one potential
suitor. Between him and her police sergeant father, dating had been
next to impossible.

One of the many reasons
she’d decided, at the age of twenty-one, to head overseas for
adventure and the unfettered fun her cloistered teenage years had
not delivered. She’d lived overseas for four years, working here
and there and traveling on the money. She’d seen much of Europe
working as a nanny for a British family, crewed yachts around the
Greek Isles after that and spent the last year and a half in
Canada, moving from the ski resorts on the west coast to the cafés
in Montreal, where she’d picked up a passable skill in the French
language. She’d had an awesome time and she wouldn’t change any of
it.

Except maybe for the
occasional bouts of isolation that were a side effect of her search
for independence. At some point, she’d realized she’d made no
lasting connections while living abroad. She’d missed her family,
her old friends. Heck, she’d missed Australia and guys who trash
talked each other over pool and called each other
mate
or
dickhead
with equal
amounts of affection.

“
You’ve missed your chance
now, dickhead,” Blair said, bringing Ally back to the present. She
watched the man smirk with supreme confidence as he lined up the
eight ball, which Leo had narrowly missed sinking. Leo flipped
Blair the bird and Ally hid her grin, understanding the sentiment.
She could tell already that Blair could be an aggravating
individual, with his tendency toward braggadocio and
arrogance.

He was also as sexy as hell for those same
reasons. There was something about a man who believed in himself,
who knew what he wanted and exactly how to get it, that fired all
Ally’s erogenous responses. The way Blair swaggered around a pool
table made her all sorts of hot.

But not so hot that Ally
wouldn’t enjoy seeing the man taken down a peg or two. That little
devil on her shoulder played havoc again, and Ally decided that
watching that smirk drop from Blair’s face would be worth losing
her bet. She leaned down to grab her handbag from where she’d left
it at the foot of her stool. Ostensibly, it was for the purpose of
returning her phone to the bag’s side pocket, but the move had the
added advantage of causing her loose-fitting top to gape at the
front and her denim mini-skirt to ride up.

She was directly in Blair’s line of sight.
When he missed the easy shot into the corner pocket and let out a
colorful curse, it was Ally’s turn to smile.

“
Too bad mate,” Leo said,
not meaning it at all. “I guess you missed your chance.”

“
That was unfair play,”
Blair said, turning those laser-like eyes on Ally in
accusation.

Ally widened her own eyes,
all innocence. In reality, she was thrumming with a sense of
triumph that was difficult to keep under wraps. It always gave a
girl a boost to know her cleavage could derail a man’s
concentration. “But I’m not playing.”