One Hot SEAL (3 page)

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.

Pick cursed as Luke “accidentally” dropped
a load of dirt on the guy’s boots. “Deelie’s a legend. Every week has a
weekend—and she’s the weekend gal. She’s fun and she’s all about the good
times, but her relationships come with a forty-eight-hour shelf life. She’s
just not the kind of woman you go home to.”

“People change.” He’d survived more
than one firefight in Afghanistan by listening to his gut, and right now his
gut said Deelie was exactly right for him. Joining the hotshots had been his
fresh start. He’d cashed out of the SEALs, earned a shiny new degree in
forestry management on Uncle Sam’s dime, and now he had a new team at his back.
When the guys weren’t going all Dr. Phil on his life, they had his back. What
he didn’t have was a good woman in his bed or his heart. He planned to fix
that.

Deelie Jacks was single, she was
available, and they had a history.

She was also sexy as sin, and she
was a challenge.

Pick flipped him the bird. “You got
a magic penis? Because when she does that compare-and-contrast thing, you’re
going to have competition.”

The crew chief wandered over right
before Luke could put his government-issued Pulaski to a non-government-sanctioned
purpose and beat some sense into Pick. “If you ladies could stop your gossiping
and dig faster, we might finish up here sometime this century.”

~*~

Deelie had spent the night on Laura
Jo’s couch. The company was good, but she needed to find her own space stat. It
wasn’t that she didn’t like Laura Jo. She absolutely did. Laura Jo had jet-black
hair thanks to the magic of Clairol, energy that never stopped, and a mouth
without a filter. Her days started and ended with mad, hair-raising ambulance
runs to rush local mountain residents down to the hospital in Sacramento or to
a waiting medical chopper. She lived life on fast-forward and seemed to enjoy
every minute of it.

Deelie wanted to high-five the
woman whenever she came into the bar because she didn’t take any bullshit from
the guys and she was a nonstop party. What Deelie
didn’t
want was to freeload off Laura Jo. Sure, the couch in the
living room was hers as long as she needed it, but having to ask for the favor made
her gut burn. Not having money sucked, but giving up her independence was
worse. Fortunately, it was only another week to payday. Then she’d figure
something else out. There had to be a spare room somewhere in Strong that she
could afford, although she might have to set her sights on a garden shed.

At precisely one o’clock, Luke
pulled up, his truck all sparkly clean. He must have washed it, because when
she’d
parked it at Ma’s, the black paint
job had been gray from ash and dirt. He killed the motor and unbuckled, which
had her wondering if he actually planned to hike up to the door and walk her
back to the truck. After all, it wasn’t as if she could get lost navigating the
twenty feet of sidewalk on her own.

“Are you up for a ménage?” She
bellowed the words, enjoying the expression on his face. Shocking Luke—or
at least keeping him off-balance—was fun and it was free. And it wasn’t
that she wouldn’t try something adventurous if Luke wanted, but a ménage à
trois had never been on her sexual bucket list. She pointed to the dog panting
happily by her feet and watched as he took in Vicious’s pink bow collar.
Whenever the dog turned her head, the purple stones hot glued onto the leather
made little rainbows on the porch. Some days required sparkle.

“Kinky.” A smile creased his face. “I’d
love to spend the day with Vicious.”

“That’s me.” Hopping down from the
porch before he could get out and escort her to the passenger-side seat, she grabbed
her bag and threw it into the back of the truck. Naturally, Luke’s truck bed
was immaculate. In addition to the stainless steel toolbox bolted onto the
frame, he had three milk crates full of neatly ordered guy crap. There wasn’t a
soda can or chip bag in sight.

“You’re OCD,” she announced.

He paused, his door half-open. Guess
he was going to insist on playing the gentleman and open her door for her. She
didn’t need that kind of stuff though. She could open her own doors. Close them
too.

With a sigh, he settled back in his
seat and watched her, clearly waiting for her to buckle up and explain. Well,
it was his lucky day. She was feeling chatty, and he provided such lovely
material.

“All that stuff in the back,” she
said. “It’s so… organized. Do you own a label maker too?”

“I was a librarian in a former
life,” he said solemnly.

Right. Because he looked like every
hot librarian fantasy she’d ever had. Wow. She should really think about that
some more. Not that Luke was skirt-and-high-heels material, but he gave stern
face so well, and she could
definitely
imagine all sorts of naughty possibilities if he busted her for talking in the
stacks…

“I didn’t know you were capable of
being speechless,” he said dryly as he signaled to turn onto the highway a few
minutes later.

“Shhh,” she said. “I’m imagining
you as Hot Librarian in a pearl-button cardigan and heels. It’s the best
fantasy I’ve had all day, so let me enjoy it.”

“Make sure you give me the red
fuck-me heels. What? I’m a guy.” He captured her elbow with his hand before she
could make contact with his ribs. “And if you distract me, I might drive us off
the road.”

“Good point.” She curled up in her
seat and alternated between staring out the window and sneaking peeks at her
chauffeur. Luke wasn’t wearing his hotshot uniform today, which was almost
disappointing. Nomex was a good look for him, the heavy fabric making his legs
look even bigger and stronger. Not that he didn’t fill out the pair of faded
blue jeans he wore today, because he certainly did. And—yeah, she leaned
over to confirm—he was wearing a beat-up pair of steel-toed work boots. God
bless the military, because all the SEALs Deelie had met in Strong loved their
boots, and she in turn loved boots on a guy. Just in case she’d missed the “former
sailor” message his sexy shoes sent, he wore a Navy T-shirt with a wash-worn
inspirational slogan. Less sexy was the probability that he was the kind of guy
who chanted motivational affirmations right before he bounded out of bed at
four a.m. for a ten-mile run.

He followed her interested gaze. “Lose
something?”

“You have the hottest footwear.”
Shoot. That had come out as a sigh. Oh well. It was no secret she lusted after
his body. Only because it had been months since she’d gotten any, she told
herself.

His forehead crinkled, like he
actually had no idea what he’d put on his feet this morning or why Strong’s
female population would find a pair of steel toes and the man filling them so
mesmerizing. Maybe he was the kind of guy who owned two pairs of shoes and
rotated between them. Didn’t matter. She was still enjoying her view.

“So I should take red pumps off my
shopping list.” He nodded. “Duly noted.”

She grinned. “Or you can borrow
mine.”

She propped her feet up on the
dashboard. Her own shoes were as far from steel toes as Siberia was from
Florida. The wedge espadrilles sported navy-blue polka dots and pink ribbons
that wrapped around her ankles. The sandals were completely impractical for
tromping around the woods, but hiking wasn’t part of her plans anyhow. She’d
borrowed them from Laura Jo’s closet when she’d realized that her own footwear
choices were currently limited to a pair of black rubber flip-flops and a pair
of battered sneakers. Laura Jo, on the other hand, had a shoe fetish and wore a
size seven, which was a bonus.

Luke’s eyes followed her feet.
Apparently, he liked her borrowed shoes too.

While teasing Luke was fun, the rhythmic motion of the truck
and the sun pouring in the windshield were sleepy making. She hadn’t slept well
on Laura Jo’s couch, which wasn’t her hostess’s problem. She never liked
playing sleepover. Her mom had parked her on one friend’s couch after another
growing up, and sometimes houses came with other guests or owners who got
handsy when the lights went out. She’d learned to sleep with one eye open.

“I’ll wake you up when we get
there,” Luke offered when her eyes were at half-mast. He reached over and
flicked on the radio, Luke Bryan filling the cab. She had a rule about not
sleeping around guys, but Luke seemed to be in a one-man category of his own.
Distantly, she heard words coming out of her mouth. Babble. He snorted with
amusement, and then, as her eyes drifted closed, his flannel shirt settled over
her. Huh. She felt safe.

Safe was good, but she made her own
safe.

~*~

Sleeping Beauty woke up when they
started bumping down the access road. The campground was only about an hour
outside Strong, which still seemed like way too far for Deelie to be commuting.
Christ. She shouldn’t be sleeping in her car period. He’d have to be blind and
dumb to not realize that her life had challenges, but he planned to change
that. He admired her for wanting to stand on her own two feet, but he could
take care of her.

She certainly was cute as hell when
she let loose and fell asleep. She’d twisted her blond hair up in some kind of
tall coil and secured the mess with what looked like a rubber band and two
pencils. He wondered if she even knew they were there. She wore denim shorts
and a pink tank top. Deelie definitely liked her pink. She’d thrown on a thigh-length
kimono made out of white lace. He could see her skin through the fabric and,
yeah, it drove him crazy. It was the kind of thing a woman wore in the bedroom
if he was lucky.
Very
lucky. He’d
like to see her naked and in just the kimono.