One Hot SEAL (2 page)

Big mistake.

“We need to go,” Luke said in a
perfectly calm voice, like the hill wasn’t on fire and they weren’t going to
burn alive. “You’re going to pull out in front of me, and I’m going to follow
behind you. It’s a straight shot to the main road. If, for any reason, the road
is blocked, I’ll flash my lights at you and you’ll stop.”

“Were you always this bossy?” She
vaulted over the side of the Caddy. If she flashed him panties, too bad.

“I’m with the Black Mountain hotshot
team. We’re responsible for evacuating this campground. You weren’t at any of
the registered sites,” he said pointedly.

Oops. Yeah. She’d preferred being a
little more off grid given her probably illegal living-in-her-car act.

She opened the driver-side door,
slid in, and rummaged around. Five seconds of searching produced a pair of
bright purple Crocs. Pants would have been nice, but she preferred not burning
to a crisp. Plus Luke had already seen her legs. When she turned the key, nothing
happened, and wasn’t that just the cherry on her shit-day sundae? A hundred and
twenty thousand miles and her car picked
now
to poop out on her.

She tried again, and all she got
was an irritating, terrifying clicking sound. She didn’t have the money to fix
the car anymore that she had wings to fly out of the forest fire’s range.

“Problem?” Luke tapped on her
window, and she rolled it down.

She demonstrated. Turn. Click.
Nada
.

Being a guy, of course he leaned in
and tried turning the key himself, as if she didn’t know how to stick the key
into the ignition. She might not be rocking the executive suite in a big city,
but she knew how to start her car.

He cursed, which she mentally
seconded. “When’s the last time you changed your battery?”

She shrugged, because honestly she
had no idea. When stuff broke, she fixed it.
If
she had the cash. “The last time it died on me? Maybe five years
ago.”

She’d been dating a mechanic that
month, which had been an awesome coincidence she’d really appreciated. He’d
driven her to the auto parts store and had even popped the new battery in for
her. Maybe her car woes had scared him, because he’d come back for one more
night—which, in retrospect, made her feel vaguely sleazy—and then
he’d hit the road. She hadn’t seen him again.

“New plan.” Luke opened her door. “You’re
riding in my truck. Grab anything essential, and let’s go.”

She stared into his brown eyes,
wondering if he’d been this bossy twelve years ago. “I’m not leaving my car.”

Because
it’s the only thing standing between me and homelessness.

He sighed. The radio in his truck
squawked. “Take a look at the horizon. Then take a look around your campsite.”

She wasn’t blind. Her pretty
woodland campsite had several new additions, including flying sparks and orange
embers, which was reason number one thousand twenty six that she wanted to get
in her car and drive like hell.

“We don’t have time for me to jump
your car, and that’s assuming that the problem really is a dead battery. The
alternative is that I reach in there,” he continued. Maybe he’d learned how to
read minds while he’d been away from Strong, because he’d managed to hit on her
biggest objections without her ever opening her mouth. “I can pull you out and
put you in my truck, but that’s doing things the hard way. It’s your choice.”

She gaped at him. “Really?”

He shrugged. “If you’re into BDSM
and enjoy being manhandled, we’ll have to renegotiate after we’re out of the
burn zone.”

She tried the key one more time,
but all she got was that stupid clicking. Okay.
Think
. She got out and grabbed the hobo bag stuffed with her
clothes, Vicious’s kibble, and her stack of paperbacks from the library because
replacing those would probably bankrupt her.

“Come on, Vicious.” When she made
kissy noises and the dog popped over to the side of the Caddy, she scooped her
up.

“You need any of the stuff in the
back here?” Luke nodded to the truck bed.

“That bag.” She nodded toward a
jute bag in the corner.

“Got it.” He grabbed the bag and strode
toward his truck. “Jesus. What are you packing, rocks?”

She choked. Yeah, actually she was.
The bag held a collection of sticks, rocks, and leaves that she’d use to make
the custom wallpaper prints she flogged on Etsy. Business wasn’t booming, but
she had hopes. Big, tall financial pie-in-the-sky hopes. Letting them go up in
flames wasn’t happening.

 
“Seat belt,” he grunted when she got in
his truck.

Right. Like she was worried about
dying in a car crash? Another ember landed two feet away, and a little flame shot
up.

“The grass is on fire,” she
volunteered. “Maybe now would be a good time for you to start driving.”

“In a moment.” He handed her two
wet towels. “Hold this over your mouth.” He pointed to Vicious. “See if you can
do the same for baby doll.”

Then he put the truck into drive, and
holy moly, he had a powerful engine. The truck leapt forward, gunning up the
road. She slammed a hand against the dash, steadying herself. No wonder he’d
recommended a seat belt. She snuck a peak at him.

His face was intent, focused on the
road, strong hands gripping the wheel as he guided them over the dirt surface.
She bounced as he hit a pothole, her butt slapping the seat.

“You know how to show a girl one
hell of a Friday night.” The next bounce drove her breath out of her. Vicious
curled up on her feet, whimpering.

He gave her a small grin. “At least
I’m taking you home.”

“Right.” She chewed on her lower
lip. Nope. No need to tell him that she had nowhere to go. It just figured that
she’d end up on a wild truck ride wearing only Monday panties (on a Friday, no
less), a man’s flannel shirt, and a wifebeater. Unfortunately, when she checked
the side mirror, it became horribly, pressingly clear that her wardrobe
limitations weren’t her biggest problem. That honor went to the wall of flame
moving down the hill toward them.

Did he realize that they were about
to be baked alive in his truck? Because she had to believe he could drive
faster. Fly. Levitate. Hell, she’d take any bone Karma chose to toss her at
this point.

“Luke?” Shoot. She sounded scared
and she
hated
that.

He took one hand off the
wheel—
so
not his best
idea—and squeezed her thigh gently. Her
bare
thigh. She wasn’t sure he’d even intended to get so
personal—based on their track history tonight, the man had terrible
aim—but her hormones gave a happy squeal anyway. She should take him
home. Make him hers for the night. Or better yet, since she didn’t currently
have a place of her own and she didn’t want to think about what might be
happening to her Caddy, he could take her to
his
place and that would kill two birds with one stone.

“We’re good,” he said gruffly.

“I’d feel better if you said that
when we didn’t have a twenty-foot wall of flame riding our butts.”

He looked. She’d give him that. “Good
thing you weren’t any further down the road,” was all he said.

She gaped at him. “Do I want to
know why?”

He removed his hand and put it back
on the wheel. “Because then we would have had to shelter in place, and neither
of us would have enjoyed that.”

She didn’t want to know. “Tell me
later.”

The next ten minutes were the
longest of her life. Then the wall of flame filling up the rear view mirror fell
away and the temperature in the cab dropped. He slowed down a little as they
approached a roadblock. When the cop waved them down, he brought the truck to a
stop, which didn’t seem like the best idea because she’d have been happy to gun
the motor all the way to Canada or, better yet, someplace on the ocean where
there was unlimited water and no raging inferno.

Leaning out, he exchanged a few
words with the guy who came up to them. He wore the matching outfit to Luke’s
and, if possible, was even larger and rangier-looking. Apparently, “broad
shoulders” and “manners fit for a feral wolf pack” were job requirements for
the Black Mountain hotshots crew.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” he said,
turning to look at her. “I need to get back to work. We’re hoping to stop the
fire here.”

He’d brought her to the
front lines
? What did that make her
campsite—Armageddon?

“Take my truck,” he continued. “Go
back to Strong.”

She slid him a look. “You’re going
to trust me with your keys?”

He shrugged, like it was no big
deal. “You need a ride to town. I can’t leave right now, but I can catch a ride
back with one of the other hotshots. It’s only logical.”

Trust wasn’t something she had too
much of. She was the rule-breaker and the wild child, which generally made
people
distrust
her. They certainly
didn’t loan her pickup trucks without first extorting some kind of collateral
like a kidney. The feeling was kind of… nice. She thought about that while she
shimmied into a pair of yoga pants. When she looked up from sliding her feet
into a pair of bedazzled flip-flops, he was staring at her.

“Pants,” he said. “Nice touch.”

She rolled her eyes. “You really
trust me with your truck?”

He gave her an unreadable look. “I
know you.”

Her lips curved up in a grin, and
his eyes dropped to her mouth.
That
was familiar territory. Her firefighter was more than a little interested in
her body. That, or he was remembering where she’d had her mouth the last time
they’d met. Memories were a fantastic thing.

“Do you?”

He shrugged again and popped the
door to the truck, swinging down effortlessly. While he rummaged in the back
for his stuff, she climbed over the gear shift and into the driver’s seat. He
had a really nice truck. Vicious promptly hopped up into the spot Deelie had
vacated. She hoped he was okay with a little dog hair.

She leaned out the window. “Stop by
Ma’s, and I’ll return your keys and buy you a drink.”

The flirtatious smile was
automatic. She looked him over while she waited for his answer. God, he was
gorgeous. Absolutely beautiful. She didn’t usually go back for seconds, but
since she hadn’t really
had
him, that
rule didn’t apply, did it?

Plus she lived to break the rules.

He gave her a small smile. “I don’t
drink.”

And wasn’t he just a boy scout? He
hadn’t always been that way. “Come by the bar anyhow.”

He nodded and then proceeded to go
over where the registration and insurance papers were and the major safety
features of the truck. She got it. Don’t speed. Don’t ding it up. Try to avoid
firestorms. Shockingly, she was on board with that plan.

Leaning out the window, she blew
him a kiss and hit the road.

Then she fishtailed the backend,
spitting a little gravel as she hit the gas just because she could. Too bad she
couldn’t see his pretty face.

2

Ma’s was hopping. It was Friday
night, the place was the only bar in town, and the entire firefighting
population had just wrapped off the ten-thousand-acre fire that had swallowed
up Deelie’s campground. Luke had blown off steam with the guys many times in
the past, celebrating another mission won or—more often—another
mission survived. Recognizing that he was alive and mostly in one piece was a
good thing, but it wasn’t the reason he was here.

There was only one thing he wanted,
and that was Deelie herself. He didn’t think she’d gotten the memo though. He’d
have to be clearer. She was cute and a total flirt, but he got the feeling she
used her looks as a way of keeping people at a distance.

He pushed open the door and stepped
inside. A blast of country music hit him. A line formed out on the teeny tiny
square of hardwood that doubled as a dance floor as what seemed like half
Strong put their dancing shoes on. He recognized several hotshots from the
Black Mountain crew, along with at least half the local smoke-jumping team
whooping it up. Since he didn’t dance, he looked around the crowded bar for Deelie.

Working hard, Deelie slung drinks
onto a tray. Even from twenty feet away, he could see the cherry-red lines of
her bra through the tight T-shirt with the bar’s logo on her chest. She wore a
short black skirt and cowboy boots that showed off her long bare legs. She’d piled
her hair up on top of her head in sexy, loose curls. The only thing prettier
had been the sight of her waking up at the campground, all sleepy-eyed and
relaxed. Even better, as soon as she spotted him, she came over. Something warm
uncurled inside him.

“Hey, soldier.” For a moment, he
thought she’d lean up and plant a kiss on his mouth, but at the last moment she
settled for patting him on the chest. Deelie wasn’t predictable. He had no idea
what kind of man appealed to her, although clearly she liked variety. She
attacked dating with the same kind of glee his sisters pawed through a
chocolate box. A bite here, a bite there.

“I guess you came for that drink or
something.” She smiled at him, a sexy grin that lit her eyes up with mischief
and made his fingers itch to touch her.

“Or something,” he agreed. Christ,
she was pretty.

“What’ll it be? We’ve got all the
usual frozen things—piña coladas, margaritas—but Mimi has some
excellent single-malt whiskeys. I’m guessing that’s more your kind of thing.”

It had been, right after he’d
landed stateside after his last tour. Hanging out with the guys, knocking back
a few beers, had become a few Jack and Cokes, a little whiskey to put him out
at night because the nightmares sucked. He’d come home, but his head had stayed
behind in Afghanistan. A few had become more, and the more had changed into
many.

“I don’t drink.”

“Bad night last night?” She nodded
sagely. “Mimi has some awesome hangover cures.”

“I don’t drink anymore. Ever. I did
too much of that after my last tour of duty, and it needed to stop.”

“So you stopped.”

He had no idea how to interpret the
look on her face, but thank Jesus, it didn’t look like pity. He’d had more pity
tossed his way than he cared to remember.

Sobering up had been harder than he
liked to admit.

“Do you do meetings?” The question was
one hundred percent genuine curiosity. She’d probably met every kind of
alcoholic working here. No judgment though, which he appreciated. He’d made
plenty of mistakes, but he should have known better than to pickle himself in
whiskey. He’d done high school health class—and he’d seen his fellow
SEALs make the same mistake of drinking too much in too many bars.

“Sometimes,” he said, and she
nodded.

“We have soda,” she said after a
pause.

“That works.”

She brought him the soda—with
a pink-and-white umbrella and four bonus neon-red cherries—but then she
got back to work. He watched her for the next hour, making plans. At some
point, she’d take a break, and then he’d be ready. He had no idea for what, but
he’d be ready. Having a good plan was essential.

Eventually, she hollered something
about
taking her break
over to Mimi,
who was working the bar. The redhead nodded, and then Deelie laid in a course
for him. Of course, she didn’t sit down in his booth. Nope. She planted herself
right on his lap.

“Hi,” she said, grinning at him.
She clearly didn’t have an inhibited bone in her body, and he loved that about
her. “Can I convince you to take me out to my car tomorrow?”

He had a bad feeling about her car,
but if nothing else, he could get her to the spot and help her get the
insurance going. “Sure. I’m off tomorrow. Are you free?”

She patted his chest. “I can be for
you.”

Damned if he could tell if she
meant her playful words, if flirting was simply a habit, or if it was part of
the armor she wore for the world. He’d heard plenty of stories about Deelie
when they’d been in high school, but it had been hard to make that talk jive
with his memory of their night by the waterfall and skinny-dipping. That was a
good memory, one of his best right up until the moment when she’d walked away
from him. When he was around Deelie, he liked how he felt. She made him feel… right.

And it was probably wrong to go
after her. He was a former SEAL and no prize. His head wasn’t screwed on
straight and liked to take unpleasant detours down some real ugly memory lanes.
He’d never been a Boy Scout, Captain America, or any kind of hero. Deelie
deserved the best, and he knew that even as he wrapped an arm around her. If
she wanted to get close again, he’d take whatever she offered and push for more.

~*~

Luke Dawson made one hot
firefighter. The years had been kind to him. Where she’d gotten softer on the
outside—and harder on the inside, a small voice said—he’d just
gotten tougher in the sexiest possible way. Faint lines from squinting into the
sun or laughing fanned out from the corner of his eyes, and from there it was a
short delicious drop to the rough stubble on his jaw. The hands on her waist
were banged up, nicked, and scarred. He’d left Strong, been places, and done
important stuff, and he wore those memories on his body.

Funny how she liked everything
about him.

Of course, the man was only here at
Ma’s because he needed his car keys back. As long as she had those, he was all
hers, and she wasn’t in any rush to let him go. He was like a bag of chips that
she’d regret in the morning but that she absolutely, positively needed to
devour now.

“You want to dance?” She really
should get off his lap, because she was tempted to scoot closer, park her butt
right over his crotch, and find out if he was as turned on by their proximity
as she was. On the other hand, on the off chance that he wasn’t, she really
didn’t want to know. She’d enjoy her hot firefighter SEAL fantasy without a
dose of reality, thank you very much.

“I’m not much of a dancer,” he
said, his voice a low, rough growl. She could probably come if he recited the
alphabet in bed. Or maybe he’d be up for reading aloud from some of her
favorite books. She could definitely go for that.

“Deelie?” He sounded amused. Right.
She was stuck in fantasyland.

“Come on.” She jumped off his lap
and grabbed his hand. His palms were callused, probably from all that digging
he did on the fire lines, brushing against her skin with an intensity that was
unexpectedly erotic. Plus, bonus, he held on, didn’t pull away or leave his
fingers loose in hers. Great. That was commitment enough.

“I promise you’ll have a good time,”
she said and towed him toward the crowded dance floor. She loved dancing,
always had. She’d cheered in high school and had been on the dance team. On a
good day, if she inhaled and held her breath, she could even still squeeze into
the uniform.

His mouth brushed his ear. “I’m not
worried about me, but I’d hate to put you off by my lack of dance skills.”

“It wouldn’t be fair if you were
perfect.” She grinned up at him.

A new line was already forming, and
she maneuvered him into the middle. There was no point in dancing on the edge,
not when they could be front and center. As soon as the music started, she lost
herself to the beat and the rhythm. She loved this, loved feeling like part of
the group, the way the line took off, everyone moving together. Luke danced
beside her, following her lead, and she’d bet this dance floor it was the first
and last time he’d let her be in charge.

 
Not that he was actually much of a dancer.
Ma’s offered line dancing, which wasn’t all that hard, provided a person could
move in a relatively straight line and copycat the other dancers. Luke did so
methodically, his movements holding strength and confidence, but not an ounce
of rhythm. If the apocalypse started while they were at Ma’s, he’d be able to
singlehandedly decimate a flood of zombies while she hightailed it to safety,
but he definitely would be the first guy eliminated on Dancing with the Stars.

She only had twenty minutes, so
she’d make the most of it. Not that her boss, Mimi, would mind if she took
twenty-two minutes or even an entire hour, but the place was packed and there
was only one other server working that night. The girls would be run off their
feet if Deelie didn’t pull her weight. Plus if she didn’t work, she didn’t earn
tips, and her checking account was on its last gasp.

She could afford five more minutes.
Luke’s hand rested on her waist as the song came to an end, the heavy weight
almost possessive. His fingertips stroked back and forth, working their way
beneath the hem of her T-shirt.

His mouth brushed her ear. “Happy?”

Especially
if you do that again
. She shivered, wondering if she really wanted to go
for the sexual repeat with Luke. Yeah, she decided. She did. It got old being
alone, and she didn’t think he’d mind either. It wasn’t like she could take him
back to her place—since she didn’t have one at the moment. She was couch
surfing until she could get back to her car. Plus without her car, her Etsy
business was going to be in the toilet. She needed to be able to get to the
post office to mail her handmade wallpapers.

“You bet.” She pulled him outside
and headed across the parking lot. “Your truck’s parked right over there.
Follow me, soldier, and I’ll give you what you came for.”

~*~

“Sailor,” he muttered, wondering
how he’d lost control of the conversation so fast. “US Navy SEALs belong to the
Navy
. That makes us sailors, not
soldiers.”

“Uh-huh.” She bounced along by his
side, her shoulder bumping his with each step she took. Since she’d been
walking for a few years, he figured the touch wasn’t accidental. He could feel
the warmth of her, smell the strawberry of her shampoo. Too bad the parking lot
was only about a hundred yards long, because he’d have been happy to walk to
China and back with Deelie.

“Safe and sound.” She patted the side
of the truck and then opened the driver-side door (having apparently skipped
his lock-the-truck-up instructions), hopped up, and stared down assessingly at
him. She looked good in his truck. He caught a flash of something in her eyes,
but then she patted the wide seat. “I’ve got an excellent imagination, fifteen
minutes left of my break, and a spot with your name on it.”

Except… that wasn’t the
seat
she was pointing to. He closed his mouth.
Deelie just wanted to rile him up, and she was doing an outstanding job,
because the way she rubbed a finger down her front, over her stomach, and the
top of her pussy got him hotter than any forest fire ever had.

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.