Putting Out Old Flames (8 page)

Chance dug his hand into his front pocket, digging for his keys. “Leon's had quite a bit to drink. Maggie's going to get him some coffee, but as of now he's not driving you anywhere.” He took her hand with his free one and led her to his SUV.

She tugged away when he opened the passenger door. “Well, you're not taking me home, either.”

Staring at the sky, Chance rolled his shoulders. Her own drooped. Yeah, that didn't sound like she wasn't still hung up on him. Crap, was she still hung up on Chance? She'd thought she'd grown past that teenage angst. She should have just thanked him, slid into his car, and engaged in polite conversation on the ride home. Like one person completely indifferent to the other. But something about Chance punched all her buttons. Not all of them in bad ways, she had to admit.

“Jane.” His voice had a forced quality, like it was a struggle to keep it even. “Leon wants to keep playing. You want to go home. I have a car.” His gaze lowered, his eyes pinning her in place. In the dimly lit parking lot, his normally milk-chocolate eyes had turned very dark. At least 85 percent cacao. “The math is simple.”

Her mind raced, trying to think of a rational argument, something that wouldn't make her sound like a petulant child. He stepped closer, and her mind blanked. Even through the brisk chill, heat rolled off his body, causing parts of her to tingle. He placed his hands on the SUV's roof, his arms on either side of her head, probably to keep her from stalking back into the Legion. It just made her want to push to her toes, lean into him.

It had been so long. So long since she'd been in his arms. So long since she'd wanted to be wrapped up in a man. His aftershave was certainly different from the Aqua Velva he'd worn in high school. But the masculine scent underneath was still the same. He smelled of heated flesh, expensive spice, and her next mistake.

He sighed, seemingly unaware of the dirty thoughts roaming her mind. “I just watched Leon down his fourth cocktail. I repeat, you're not going home with him. Now”—he dipped his head, came nose to nose with her—“Get. In. The. Car.”

C
hance watched her face as Jane struggled with his demand, saw the exact moment when she gave in. She pushed her lower lip out the slightest bit. Those who didn't know her as well as he did would never know she was pouting.

As commander of his division in Cal Fire, he was used to his orders being followed. That Jane gave in to his command surprised the hell out of him, however. He knew he was a jerk for bossing her around. He didn't have the right. But he had followed her out of the building with the plan to get her home safely, and the more she'd fought, the more he'd dug his heels in to do just that.

Call it a character flaw.

Her tongue darted out, licked that bottom pouting lip, drawing his attention back to her lush mouth. God, he wanted nothing more than to suck that plump lip between his teeth. Did she still like a light bite? He frowned. No, he had to keep his mind from going there. This was Jane, the woman he'd done wrong, and who he suspected had dreams of castrating him.

Licking her lip again, Jane tilted her head. Bringing her mouth within a hairsbreadth of his. Everything inside of him lit up, like she'd flipped a switch. He should push away from her, give her some space. Really, he should.

Chance pressed his body closer, inhaled her delicate scent. She'd push him away soon enough. Any moment now . . .

“Chance,” she whispered, her voice turning all throaty.

And that was it. All self-control gone.

Chance took that last inch, crushed his lips to hers.

Sweet. Damn, she tasted sweet. Sweeping his tongue along the seam of her lips, he moaned when she opened for him, welcomed him inside. Annette had never been a big one for kissing, preferring to just get to the main event. He'd forgotten the intimacy that was created when two partners sank into a kiss, the shiver that raced down his spine at the slide of a warm, wet tongue against his.

He lifted his hands from the SUV, brought one to the back of her neck, the other to the base of her spine. Pulling her closer, he took it deeper, held her head at just the right angle. A soft sound from the back of her throat encouraged him. He sucked on her tongue, used his teeth to scrape along the sensitive surface.

Her body melted into his, every inch of her, from chest to thigh, touching him. He needed more. Sliding his left hand down her back, he gripped her butt, pulled her snug against his erection.

Which, in hindsight, he realized was a mistake.

Jane stiffened, stopped dueling him with her tongue. It went from kissing a hot, eager woman to kissing an immobile blow-up doll. Not that he'd know what that was like.

Lifting his head, he stared down into her narrowed eyes. Her mouth was pressed into an angry line, as if she hadn't been right there with him in the doing. In the wanting. She could rearrange her face into all the expressions of disgust she wanted, but her heaving chest betrayed her.

“No?” he asked, nothing more articulate coming to mind. That kiss had reduced his brain to the basics.

Reaching behind her, she grabbed his hand off her ass. “No.”

“Okay.” Chance dragged in a shaky breath, took a step back. “Okay.” Her puffy, reddened lips beckoned him to take another taste. “Any particular reason why?”

She snorted, seeming to have recovered much faster than he had. He ground his teeth together. “Do you want the list chronological or alphabetical?” she asked with so much sass if it had come from Josh he would have given his son a time-out.

The denim clinging to her curvy hips caught his eye. Maybe a spanking would be more appropriate. Before his mind could disappear down that delightful rabbit hole, she continued. “Can't decide? Well, I'll just start with the headliner then.” She poked him in the chest. Hard. “You're married!”

Her face paled, and she turned and gripped the open door. “Oh God, I just made out with a married man.”

“Legally separated!” Okay, he wasn't too proud of kissing a woman before the divorce papers came through. He hadn't planned on getting into another relationship until he'd recovered from his marriage. And with all the ups and downs with Annette, mainly downs, he'd thought it would be a long time coming. But that was before he'd found Jane again.

She shot him a scornful glare. “Don't bother threading that needle. It doesn't matter. We're not getting back together in any case.”

And if that wasn't just a donkey kick to the gut. Chest tight, he growled, “I wasn't asking.”

Hands on her hips, she made a sound that could only be classified as a snarl. Now he knew where Cyclops had learned it. “Good,” she spat out.

“Fine.” He crowded her against the SUV. “You know what your problem is?”

“Oh, please, do tell.”

“You were always asking for too much,” he said. “We were kids and you were plotting out our whole damn future, like it was just assumed we'd always be together.” He ignored the flash of pain across her face, relieved when her chin tilted up defiantly. “And this was just a kiss, not me asking you to go steady.”

“And
your
problem is you never offered enough.” Jane's hands clenched her opposite biceps, her folded arms giving a boost to her lush breasts. The sight almost derailed Chance from the fight he was raring to have. “You weren't as serious about me as I was about you, fine. That happens. But you should have offered me some honesty. Some decency. A breakup card, Chance!” She turned her head, giving him her profile. He still caught the slight tremor of her lower lip. “That was a shit move. I thought better of you.”

His heart did a belly flop. Onto cement. With that rebuke, Chance felt like he was eighteen again, uncertain and insecure. He hadn't broken up with Jane lightly. He'd looked over all his options and determined UC Berkeley was his best shot at achieving his goals. He planned to become the youngest neurosurgeon in history, and he knew if he and Jane remained a couple, she'd slow him down. Marriage and babies would have been inevitable.

Of course, that had happened anyway. And with a woman he hadn't been able to envision spending the rest of his life with, not the way he sometimes had with Jane.

He hadn't meant the card to hurt her, even though he'd known it would. He was just too much of a coward at eighteen to face her tears. Rubbing his chest with his knuckle, he bit back a bitter laugh. Fate was a bitch he couldn't escape. He had to face Jane now.

Except now she wasn't crying. Thank God. Chance had never been good with women's tears, and seeing Jane's would have slayed him.

“I can only say this so many times.” He waited for Jane to look at him. “I'm sorry for what I did back then. Truly sorry.”

She opened her mouth to say something, but changed her mind. She gave him a curt nod.

Wasn't the wholehearted forgiveness he'd hoped for, but he'd take it. “Now, unless you want to wait here an hour or two for Leon to sober up, I'd be happy to take you home.”

She nodded again and slid into the passenger seat. Making sure all her bits were in, Chance shut the door and circled around to the driver's side. He didn't know when, but somewhere along the line tonight, his plan to reestablish a friendship with Jane had gone off the rails.

Probably when he had his tongue down her throat.

Sliding into his seat, he started the engine. He missed Jane as a friend. If they were going to live in the same town, he wanted that back. A new, mature friendship between two adults.

Chance squared his shoulders. So that was that. If he wanted to forge a solid relationship, one thing was clear.

From now on, hands off Dispatch Jane.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, watched her breasts rise and fall beneath her thin sweater.

And lips off of her, too, he told himself sternly. And tongue. No touching her with his tongue.

She leaned her head against the back of the seat, exposing the long, silky column of her neck. His body tightened.

Christ. This friendship was doomed.

* * *

The clacking of pins kept beat with the pounding rock music coming from the bar. The Pins 'N' Pints was hopping for a Tuesday night, the bowling alley and bar combo filled with the raucous shouts of the patrons at the bar, on the dance floor, and down at the lanes. The local watering hole was popular with people of all ages and all walks of life, and the sawdust on the floor told anyone entering that the hotspot didn't tolerate pretensions.

Everyone was having a good time.

Everyone except Jane.

It was the night of her monthly girls' night out and she and her friends had opted for a fun night of bowling. Which Jane loved. She'd been whooping it up with the rest of her ladies, forgetting the mess that was her relationship with Chance, when the devil himself walked through the door.

Chance and four of his fellow firemen had sauntered across the wooden floor, chatted with the girl behind the shoe-rental desk, and taken a lane. Right next to hers.

Jane gritted her teeth. She just couldn't catch a break. She'd ignored her cochair's texts, which patiently explained why, if she couldn't accept their little kiss and move on, she needed to forget it happened. For the good of the fundraiser.

Glaring at Chance's back, Jane raised a bottle of beer to her lips. Little kiss? What the blasted man described as insignificant had shaken Jane's world, a veritable 6.0 on the Richter scale. Chance had been living in earthquake country too long if a kiss of that magnitude didn't register.

Maybe it hadn't been good for him. She darted a look out of the corner of her eye. Chance high-fived Martinez, laughed at something the young firefighter said. He'd probably been with a slew of women in college before settling down with his wife. Probably made out with the kind of woman who could knot a cherry stem with her tongue. To him, the kiss had meant nothing.

“Earth to Jane.” Sharon waved a manicured hand in front of Jane's face. “Girl, it's your turn. If you throw at least a seven on this one, Sarah's buying the next round.”

“Sorry.” Putting her beer down, Jane moved to the ball return, found her red nine-pounder.

She reached for it, but another hand got there first.

“You never called me back,” Chance said, keeping his voice low. “Didn't respond to my texts. Didn't even smile at me when I came in here. And I waved at you.”

She grabbed for her ball, but he held it tight to his flat stomach. “I'm beginning to think you're giving me the silent treatment.”

“The silent treatment?” Hands on her hips, Jane raised her eyebrows. “What are you, twelve? I just didn't want to talk to you.”

His brows drew down. “You have to talk to me. We're cochairs of the charity ball.”

“Was any message you left or texted me yesterday about the fundraiser?”

“Well, no—”

“Then I don't see the problem.” She looked pointedly at her ball. “Do you mind? I'm up.”

He slowly handed it to her. “Janey, it was just a kiss. We don't have to—”

Spinning on her heel, she stomped up to the top of the lane, not wanting to hear how unimportant their lip-lock was, yet again. He just had to keep pounding that nail home. It must be nice to be a man, able to easily separate physical intimacies from emotional ones. When Chance had kissed her, not only had it made her toes tingle, but it had made her feel reconnected to her ex. His kiss had told her he missed her. Wanted her.

His kiss had lied.

And she'd been an idiot for reading anything into it other than physical pleasure, even for a second. Her behavior Sunday night had been an aberration, a moment of weakness. She gritted her teeth. She was stronger than that.

Her ball skipped across the lane, knocking two pins off the end.

Sharon and their coworker, Sarah, booed, and Jane gave them a half shrug. Shuffling back to the ball return, she focused on the metal aperture, not on the man standing in front of her, arms crossed over his chest.

“Jane.” His voice held a hint of warning, a thread of irritation.

Where was that damn ball? “Look, I'm fine. We're fine. What happened Sunday is already a distant memory. I won't let it affect our working relationship.”

Putting his finger under her chin, Chance raised her face, his eyes examining hers. She tried for an expression of bored nonchalance, but feared her eyes whispered
I missed you
instead.

Whatever he read there, Chance didn't like. A furrow appeared between his eyebrows. “Okay.” He hesitated, but whatever he was about to say next was lost in the rattle of the returning bowling ball.

Jane hefted it in her hands. “Gotta go.” Rushing away, she stumbled, caught her balance, and tossed the ball down the lane, no longer caring about form or the score. Through sheer luck, her ball knocked down five more pins, and a loud groan emanated from behind her.

Sarah rose to her feet. “I'll be at the bar, putting in the order for our next round.” She frowned. “Tonight's going to seriously deplete my shoe fund.”

“Well, if you'd concentrate on your game instead of flirting with the firemen, maybe you wouldn't have to buy,” Sharon said. “And I want a Corona this time. With a lime,” she shouted after their friend's retreating form.

Climbing the steps to the bar, Sarah waved, one finger suspiciously raised.

“Did she just flip me off?” Sharon's red lips rounded in disbelief. “I think she just flipped me off.”

Jane downed her beer, eager for the next round. It would have to be her last for the night, she was driving, but she hoped it would give her world a little haze so seeing Chance so close didn't hurt. At least for the next half hour or so.