Playing With Fire (2 page)

Sunlight glinted off Matt's short brown hair, the damp ends sticking up in spikes across the top of his head. The aviator sunglasses he wore hid a pair of chocolate brown eyes, dark and delicious as a thousand-calorie dessert. His well-muscled shoulders and arms defined male masculinity. Lindsay itched to run her hands up the length of those arms, collecting the droplets of water clinging to his skin. Then she'd slide her hands over his...

Thunk!

A baseball missed the target entirely and hit the wall behind Matt. The woman in the halter top scowled at the target as if it were surrounded by a force field which deflected oncoming objects.

"Rats."

"Try again, Suzy,” a friend encouraged.

Suzy did, screwing up her face with determination. Her next pitch came closer, but not close enough. “Damn!"

"I'm still waiting, darling.” Matt pretended boredom, the corners of his mouth twitching with amusement.

He swung his legs back and forth, drawing Lindsay's attention to the fine hair which covered their entire length. She hadn't considered body hair a turn-on until the first time she'd seen Matt in a pair of denim shorts and nothing else. He'd been running laps around the track at the academy and when finished, came to sit beside her on the bleachers. She very nearly dropped the manual she'd been studying. They'd conversed. Well, Matt conversed. Lindsay babbled and stuttered, unable to take her eyes off him.

He'd said something flirtatious. Flustered, Lindsay tried to respond, succeeding only in biting her tongue. While she swallowed a sob and blinked her watery eyes, Cassandra Hughes, another cadet, sashayed by, shaking her plump, heart-shaped fanny practically in Matt's face. He mumbled an excuse and left, following Cassandra. Not that Matt had been interested in Lindsay anyway. Flirting was as instinctual to him as swimming upriver to spawn was to salmon. And like the fish's annual journey, served as a preliminary to reproduction.

Another thunk from a misfired baseball brought Lindsay back to the present. Six more baseballs followed in rapid fire succession, all glancing off the target.

The blonde woman shook her arm, working out the kinks. “Hmph. I must be getting rusty."

"Come on, lady,” an anxious customer near the end of the line hollered. “We ain't got all day."

"Cool your jets,” the blonde retorted, then took aim and fired.

The baseball struck the target dead center. A bell clanged, and a fountain of water rose in a pillar behind Matt. The blonde and her friend exchanged high fives, their squeals loud enough to rupture eardrums. With a loud
whump
, the platform dropped. Matt plummeted into the tank, making a giant splash. The spectators cheered.

He popped up from beneath the water a few seconds later, sunglasses in hand, to a round of applause. With a wave to the blonde, who blew him a kiss in return, he waded to a stepladder leading out of the tank. Grasping the handles firmly, he hauled himself up the ladder. Water sheeted off his back, and his skin glistened in the sunlight. Each step he took revealed more and more of his torso, then his backside. A hush fell over the crowd. Matt's wet trunks clung to his body, outlining his butt in perfect, mouth-watering detail.

"Turn around,” the blonde yelled.

Matt did when he reached the top rung, and a collective sigh rose from the audience, Lindsay included. Then he hopped off the ladder and disappeared behind the wall.

"We're glad you enjoyed Douse the Flame,” Melodie's voice blared from the overhead speaker. “The Glendale Fire Department wishes to thank you for your generous contributions to Habitat for Humanity. Firefighter Matthew Callahan would also like to thank you. He's finished his shift for the day, but don't despair. Next up is firefighter Lindsay Pfeiffer."

The crowd groaned in unison and immediately dispersed, with the exception of two customers; a teenaged boy whose overactive hormones manifested themselves in a severe case of acne and an elderly gentleman with a walker.

"Lindsay,” Melodie called from the front of the tank. “You're up."

"You can run, but you can't hide,” Lindsay mumbled to herself. Determined to make the best of a bad situation, she plunked her ball cap on her head and thrust out her chest, not that it made much difference. Pausing long enough to draw a breath, she stepped out from behind the tank ... and ran smack dab into Matt.

He caught her and for one wild, lust-filled moment, held her against the downy soft mat of curls covering his chest.

"That's quite a crowd you've drawn,” he said in her ear, then reluctantly pushed her back upright.

Matt had spotted Lindsay watching him when he stood on the top rung of the stepladder. At the sight of her in a bathing suit, his line of vision narrowed to a pinhole, centering on her legs. Blood drained from his extremities to pool in his groin. He went from hot and sweaty to cold and clammy in a matter of seconds. She didn't see him, which was just as well. With her emergency medical training, she might mistake his symptoms for shock and attempt to treat him. Maybe that wasn't such a bad idea, he mused. He'd like to be under Lindsay's care. Hell, he just plain wanted to be under Lindsay. Naked, and with her long, luscious legs straddling his waist.

His feet had moved toward her on their own accord. He lived for this opportunity, dreamed of it twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Now it would become a reality. Lindsay's legs at close range. All of them from ten toes to two thighs. No slacks, no shorts, no socks or shoes. Just miles and miles of skin au natural. Since the age of thirteen, when he'd peeked into his older sister's bedroom window during a slumber party and glimpsed Mary Beth Shoemaker in a pair of babydoll pajamas, Matt had been a leg man. Unlike Mary Beth, however, Lindsay's limbs were the stuff of pure
adult
male fantasy, and Matt indulged himself often.

Probably not very smart to be constantly obsessing about his roommate's girlfriend.

"S-s-sorry. I d-d-didn't see you.” Lindsay stared at the ground and tried to back away.

She was stuttering again. Matt liked it when she stuttered, liked knowing he was the cause. Whatever her feelings were for Joey, she wasn't immune to him, and that pleased him in a way it shouldn't.

"No problem.” He didn't lessen his grip on her arms. If anything, he tightened it. They were close enough to kiss. And could if he angled his head slightly and lowered his mouth. She had kissable lips, full and bow-shaped. And short, cinnamon-colored curls that any red-blooded man with an ounce of testosterone in his system would like to have spread over his pillow. Or better yet, trail down his stomach.

Matt's own stomach clenched as a mental picture filled his mind. Lindsay had no idea of her appeal to the opposite sex. If she ever figured it out, she'd have suitors crawling over each other to get to her. And Matt would be right there, fighting for his place at the head of the line.

Wait. No, he wouldn't. Lindsay and Joey were dating and one thing Matt didn't do was horn in on another guy's territory. Especially a friend. But if Lindsay and Joey ever parted ways ... well, then it was every man for himself.

Abruptly, Matt released her. The moment of truth had arrived. Afraid he'd not withstand the impact of seeing her legs all at once, he started with her feet. Millimeter by millimeter, he raised his gaze, taking in her slim, shapely calves, dimpled knees, and endless span of taut thighs. When he reached the vee where her legs joined, he almost lost it. Underneath the puckered yellow material of her bathing suit, he detected the slight mound of her sex. The pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

"You're shivering,” Lindsay said, almost in a whisper.

Shivering? Hell, he was shaking. “Am I?"

"If you're cold, I can get you a towel."

"I'm not cold.” In fact, he was burning up. In another few seconds, he'd combust. “Did you bring any sunscreen?” He tapped the tip of her nose with his index finger. “You don't want to get burned."

"No.” She gulped, her green eyes flashing. “I forgot."

"I didn't. Want to borrow mine? I'll rub some on your back for you. Get all those hard to reach places, like under your straps.” She flushed, and Matt grinned.

"No th-thanks. I don't burn easily."

"Another time, then."

"I don't think so."

She was wise to decline. He wasn't the least bit trustworthy. Only her reluctance, Joey's friendship, and the fact they worked together kept him from putting the moves on her. Twice during the six weeks they attended the academy together he'd made a pass, hoping she'd respond. She hadn't, clamming up and retreating behind an invisible wall instead.

After graduation—his and Lindsay's, Joey bombed the oral exam—they went their separate ways, not seeing each other until nine months later when they were both assigned to Station 156. By then, Lindsay had a chip on her shoulder the size of a tree trunk and dating a coworker was out of the question.

Regardless of what progress had been made in the last two decades, female firefighters still had a difficult time being accepted. The men didn't help matters by refusing to cut them any slack. There were even a few who took perverse pleasure in making certain women's lives miserable. It was no wonder Lindsay had become defensive. The toughest battles she fought were in her own station house, not in the field.

"How's the studying going?"

"Fine,” she answered cautiously. “How's it going for you?"

"Okay, I think. Hard to tell."

She nodded in agreement. They were both undergoing the arduous testing process for engineer, along with twenty-two other firefighters. Competition for the coveted position was fierce, and Matt knew Lindsay worked twice as hard as the rest of them. A quality he admired in her.

"Guess I'll see you around then.” He smiled and because he wanted her to look at him, hooked his finger under her chin and lifted her face to his.

He shouldn't have done it. Need flared inside him, then raged, growing fast and hot as an uncontrolled gasoline fire. Ignoring the warning bells going off in his head, he skimmed his fingers along her jaw line, tickling the delicate skin on her neck. She went still, and her breath caught, but she didn't retreat. Bad move on her part. Matt took further liberties he had no business taking by tucking a single silky curl up inside her ball cap. Then he crossed the line further by tracing the outline of her ear with the pad of his index finger. Through sheer force of will, he managed to resist hauling her into his arms and tasting those Cupid's bow lips.

"Matt.” She spoke his name on a wisp of air. “Don't."

"Don't what, Lindsay?”
Don't touch you? Don't want you? Don't think about you day and night until I swear I'm going crazy?

"Don't tease me."

"Who said I'm teasing?"

This was lunacy. She was dating his roommate, Joey, and for reasons that defied logic, they weren't sleeping together. At least, Matt didn't think so. Unlike the guys at the station, Lindsay didn't brag about her sex life. And Joey, for all his open friendliness, kept more to himself since his ex-girlfriend Karyn dumped him last winter.

As rough as the breakup had been for Joey, Matt didn't think a previous relationship gone sour was any reason to pass up a new opportunity. Especially an opportunity like Lindsay. Where else could a man find a beautiful women with the figure of a super model who not only tolerated his reckless lifestyle, she embraced it for herself?

If Matt were the one dating Lindsay, he'd do everything in his power to lure her into his bed. And once he had her there, he wouldn't let her leave until he'd loved her in every way imaginable, with his hands, his mouth, and the part of him that swelled huge and hard, filling the front of his swim trunks.

"Come on, Lindsay. What's the hold up?” Melodie's voice echoed across the water. Arms crossed under her ample bosom, she cast an annoyed look their way.

Matt thought he'd better leave before the annoyed look turned into a suspicious one. Melodie possessed superhuman radar abilities when it came to detecting possible gossip fodder.

"I need to ... to g-g-go. It's my turn in the dunking tank."

Reluctantly, he dropped his hand, already missing her warmth. “Have fun."

"See you tomorrow at work.” She stepped sideways, then past him.

Matt turned around so he could watch her walk away and let his gaze linger. Viewing her long legs from the back was every bit as enjoyable as from the front. By the time she climbed to the top of the ladder, his entire body was rigid with hunger.

Joey must be a saint. Matt sure wasn't, not by a long shot. And if Lindsay ever gave the slightest indication she preferred him over Joey, he'd oblige her in a heartbeat.

Chapter 2

"I saw that old man with the walker dunk you at the fair Friday afternoon."

"He had a mean fastball.” Lindsay's fingers slid over Matt's when she took the dirty coffee cups he was handing her. “A regular Randy Johnson at the plate.” She hid the sexual jolt zinging through her by placing the coffee cups in the top rack of the dishwasher. “But it was for a good cause and we raised a lot of money."

"Your nose is pink. I told you to use sunscreen.” He moved sideways, reaching for a stack of plates on the far end of the counter.

Their hips bumped.

Lindsay gritted her teeth.

In the field, she was a pro and acted accordingly without fail. But working alongside Matt at the fire station always put her on edge. The inadvertent brushing of various body parts during seemingly mundane chores sent her system into overdrive, leaving her flushed, breathless, and highly agitated by the time they were finished.

"And you were right. It'll probably peel.” Lindsay ignored the TV blaring in the other room and focused all her energy on making small talk with Matt. She wouldn't let him know how much he affected her for anything in the world.

Why didn't Joey's proximity do funny things to her voice and wreak havoc with her system? She sighed softly. He was certainly nice looking, and his muscular physique set plenty of female hearts aflutter. Just not Lindsay's. She did like him. A lot. They'd been friends since she, he, and Matt attended the training academy together. But they'd only been dating the last three months. Lindsay kept hoping for sparks to fly between them, but so far, zip.