Wildfire Hurricane (A Ryder Boys Novel Book 1) (2 page)

CHAPTER 1

Fifteen Years Later…

Dash leaned back in his chair and let the noontime sun hit his face, squinting as a breeze ruffled his companion’s blouse and exposed the fat nipple he’d given a tongue bath a few weeks ago. Their short, passionate romance had burned itself out quickly. Cassandra had wanted more, but he’d refused to hand over his heart so easily. They’d maintained a professional relationship, which sometimes crossed the line into too familiar flirting.

She bent forward and stuck her fork in her salad, apparently unaware the wind blessed him with another revealing peek. Dash snatched a glass of water and drank until the ice sloshed forward and hit him in the face. Policy forbid him from drinking alcohol while on duty, but the peep show from his companion provided a pleasant buzz.

He shifted and adjusted his stiffy under the table. “My dick remembers when I would’ve tasted your pussy for dessert.” He winced and nearly bit through his tongue as the line between professional and highly inappropriate withered and died. How did those words come out of his mouth when the sentence in his head had been much prettier?
My body remembers tasting your sticky honey for dessert.
Still dirty, but nicer.

Her eyes widened and she swallowed hard. “Keep it down.” She forced the words out in a harsh whisper.

“Oh, I will.”
Huh?
But the flush on her cheeks spread to her breasts, so obviously his odd suggestion revealed his carnal memories. He could write beautiful words on paper, but he couldn’t make them come out of his mouth. Probably shouldn’t have said anything since he had no intention of being with her again.

Dash took a bite of his burger and scanned the surroundings as he tried to ignore his growing sexual appetite. He’d never heard of Belladonna’s Peak, this small mountain city, until he moved here a little over three years ago. ‘Best kept secret on the west coast,’ the city limits sign proclaimed. The residents liked it that way. Winding streets and neighborhoods that sprawled up into the mountain forests made his job as superintendent of Wilhelm County’s wildfire hotshot crew a challenge, but he’d whipped his men into the bravest and baddest team on the west coast.

The wind flipped Cassie’s red shirt open just as a waiter appeared out of nowhere and refilled their water glasses. “Would either of you like dessert?”

Cassandra’s eyes lit up when he handed her the menu, but Dash intercepted and directed it back to the man. “Just bring us the check.” Dessert. The loaded connotations showed themselves on Cassie’s face, but he fully intended to be somewhere else before she could act.

Her smile froze as the waiter’s gaze lingered on her chest. Then she noticed her gaping blouse and sat up straight. “Now.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The waiter scurried off while Dash snickered.

“How long have you been staring at my breasts?” She glanced down and adjusted her bra.

“Since the moment you played tour guide for me at the TV station six months ago.”
Sunshine lit the room with golden hair and glowing skin. She brought my heart to life, but it refused to let her in.

“Obviously.” She sat back and relaxed one shoulder, letting the wind catch her collar and blow it open again. Soft mounds of toasted peach flesh squeezed together into an enticing line, leading his gaze down below the table where he imagined her tight black skirt sliding up her thighs as her leg brushed his. She sneezed and drew his attention back up to her face. “Something in the air.” She swept a lock of blonde hair off her cheek and tucked it behind her ear.

He inhaled but the over-powering scent of grilled meat obliterated anything that might’ve been sneeze-inducing. A sudden breeze pushed his napkin across the table, and he slapped his hand down on it. “Damn windy today.” And unusually hot for late September.

“A low pressure ridge off the coast is pushing wind gusts onshore.” She turned her face into the breeze and frowned. “Coming from the south, which is odd.”

Her forecaster tone made him cringe. Cassandra Storm, the local weather babe, girl…uh…woman, also worked with the county’s Emergency Management Services. She’d never told him if Storm was her real name. When she introduced herself, he’d choked on a laugh and asked if her name ever got in the way of her job. She asked him if his ego ever got stuck in his zipper. His cock had gotten hard on the spot, and he asked her out. She said yes before he finished his rambling sentence. They’d ended up fucking against her front door—before dinner—and they still teased each other even after they’d broken up.

“A high pressure ridge in my pants is pushing against my zipper.”
Stop flirting before she takes you seriously.
Dash muffled a groan in his water glass.

Her blue eyes sparkled as she leaned close and brushed her lips on his ear. “That sounds like real trouble.”

“You would know.”
What the hell does that even mean?
He grunted and for the thousandth time wished he could be as charming and smooth as his brother, Malcolm. Mal’s gift with words made him a chick magnet and a damn good lawyer. Golden boy Wyatt attracted women without using words. One perfect smile from him and they melted at his feet like chocolate left in a hot car. Dash exploited opportunities as they presented themselves, quickly calculating the risks while he forged ahead. Sometimes he got burned, but most of the time he came out on top—of her.

An electronic chime cut into his indecent thoughts, and Cassandra picked up her phone.

“Put that thing down. We’re still having lunch.” He tried to wrestle the device away from her, but she pulled her arm back. Then his phone buzzed.

She frowned at her screen. “You probably got this email too. Read it.”

He rolled his eyes and released his grip on her, fully intending to resume his pursuit as soon as he deleted the blasted email, but the subject line thwarted him:

EMS Appoints New Manager.

“We have a new boss.”

“Simon Lev Q? Leveek?” Cassandra botched the name.

The hair on his arms prickled while he scanned the email for the details.

Wilhelm County
Emergency Management Services has hired Simon Leveque as its new operations manager…

The rest of the words blurred as that name brought back memories he’d never managed to forget. “It’s pronounced LeVeck.” But the name he knew had been Simone—female—not Simon.

“It sounds French.”

“It is. A friend of mine…”

More than that.
She’d been his constant companion since he’d walked her to the nurse’s office in junior high after she missed a step while staring at him and rolled down the stairs. He rushed to help her, but she’d jumped up and cheered, “Ta-da!” and got a laugh from the kids watching.
Classic Simone. Always playing to the crowd.
Then he’d noticed her arm bent in the wrong direction.

“My high school sweetheart was named Simone Leveque.” His heart hammered as he said her name out loud for the first time in years. Sweat dotted his forehead and he grabbed the glass of ice water.

Cassandra put her phone away. “That’s an unusual name. Maybe he’s a relative.”

“I doubt it.” Dash shook his head. An image of Simone’s brown fingers curled around his cock rattled his spine, and he gnawed his lower lip to keep a moan from escaping. Cassandra had said something. He blinked and focused on her. “I don’t remember a Simon in her family.”

A devious smile curled her lips. “Maybe it’s a typo and it’s actually her.”

“Ha. No.” Dash tightened his grip on the icy glass as his chair seemed to spin. “That would not be…” What would it be like to see her again? Sweet memories warred with the sour poetic verses their breakup had inspired. Awkward teenage sex with passion and enthusiasm that had never been equaled by anyone else. Pain that had shattered his young world, leaving him to put the pieces back together alone. “Not good.”

“What happened?”

“We broke up.” He mashed his lips together, refusing to relive the argument that had finally driven them apart. But images and anger plagued him. The accusations, the necklace he’d given her. His brother.

“No kidding.” Cassandra laid her hand on his arm. “Come on, she must’ve meant something to you. The ice in your glass is rattling.”

He shoved the glass away and it bounced off the budvase in the center of the table.
Yeah, she’d meant something, all right.
His whole life. But he wouldn’t admit that to Cassie. “She was my first…” First love, first-time sex. First everything. “You know.”

“Ah. What was it like?”

Focus on the sex.
“Good—for me. It didn’t last long enough for her to be impressed.” Quick and awkward, the first time for both of them, but fueled by the tense undercurrent that always seemed to ripple between them and a long-denied desire to get in each other’s pants. “We did it in my truck after a football game I lost…after a fight.” He allowed a brief smile to twist his lips. “Makeup sex.”

“She’ll always have a special place in your heart.”

“Something like that.” He’d kept that place locked up tight for years, and he had no idea where he’d stashed the key. After they split, he started writing down the poetic lines in his head. Therapy, he’d called it. A couple of years later, he published a collection. Closure, his agent had called it. Dash had tried to believe that, and he stopped writing for almost a year. But when Wyatt dragged him to a Lincoln High homecoming game, those old wounds ripped open and the words bled out again.

He signed the check with a slashing scrawl, left a decent tip, and stood up. “Let’s go.”

Cassandra clutched her blouse closed as the wind threatened to expose her again. “I need to get back to the news station and check the radar.” She stepped between Dash and the exit. “But I have time for a quickie.”

Dash’s gaze drew downward as her fist uncurled, and she let the breeze expose her persistent quest to get him back in her bed. “Quickie?” He allowed her to clasp his hand and lead him to the parking lot. “I have no idea what that word means.” He hadn’t done quick since his first time with Simone, and that had been quickly followed by a repeat performance.
Damn it, let go of her!

Cassie shoved him up against his truck, pinning him against the door while her fingertips trailed down his chest to play with his belt buckle. He should’ve fought her off, should’ve turned his head when her lips claimed his. His eyes drifted shut as memories assaulted him. Simone had always made a good show of resisting him, pushing his hands away from her breasts, grabbing at his shirt, clawing and scratching until he realized she’d maneuvered his hands between her thighs and pulled his shirt off. He twisted her hair in his fist and slipped his fingers into her open blouse, groaning on her lips. “I need to fuck you.”

“Not here.”

His eyes snapped open and he frowned, slightly shocked to see blonde hair instead of black, pale skin instead of dark. Dash released his grip on Cassandra and stepped aside. “Right, sorry.”

She rearranged her hair and covered her bra. “What got into you?”

Hunger he hadn’t felt in far too long. “Old habits.” He sucked in a shuddering breath while his racing heart returned to a normal pace, taking the aged memories to the darkest corners of his mind where they quietly haunted him. Serious relationships had become an aversion after Simone left him, but this thing with Cassie could’ve been meaningful…if he’d let it.

Cassandra smiled and slid her hand up his arm. “Well, do it again. Please.”

“No.” His stomach turned on itself as she rose up on her toes and kissed his cheek.

An odd-looking low cloud cast a shadow over them. His nose wrinkled as a whiff of a campfire hit him. He scanned the horizon and spotted a column of gray smoke rising from the mountainside west of town. “Shit. That’s not good.”

Cassandra ran to her car.

The two-way radio in Dash’s truck crackled to life and barked orders. He scrambled into the driver’s seat and cranked the engine. The radio spit out Keith Richard’s distinctive guitar riff from “Jumping Jack Flash,” bringing back memories of Simone arguing with him about the lyrics. Jesus Christ, they’d argued about everything: music, sports, even whether or not the sky was actually blue. He stepped on the gas and tightened his grip on the steering wheel to still his quivering fingers. They’d fought hard and made up harder. He’d fallen in love with her slowly, unaware until his brothers mocked him for it.

The CB issued more instructions, snapping Dash back to reality. He switched the music off and turned the radio up, speeding toward the fire’s location. Gravel flew in all directions as he spun around a corner and skidded into a thick bank of smoke. The fire engine pulled up behind him, and he grabbed his mask, shouting orders to his crew. Red hot ashes rained down on them, bouncing off helmets while they dug a fire line. A noise like ten thousand fire crackers exploding at once ripped the air, and Dash jumped in front of Ray, pushing him out of danger as a burning tree toppled across the road, just missing them.