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Fiona asked her outrageous friend, “Are you suggesting I use sex to get what I want?”
Tammy laughed. “Don’t look so horrified. Women do it all the time.”
Fiona opened her mouth, but no words came out. She didn’t know if she was insulted for just herself or for all women. “I haven’t...”
Tammy leaned in and nudged her shoulder. “But since you’re such a prude, you wouldn’t have to actually have sex with him. Just make him think you would if he’d get Matt to change his mind about the whole firefighter thing and go back to college.”
Fiona tilted her head as she considered her friend’s suggestion. For Matt, she was tempted to try it. “There’s only one problem with your plan...”
Tammy arched a dark brow. “Yes?”
“What if he doesn’t want to have sex with me?”
Tammy snorted. “Why do you think he wanted you to go home with him? To play cards?”
“He said to talk.” And maybe that was all he had wanted to do, talk about Matt. But then she’d chickened out—because of that kiss, because of how it had made her feel.
Tammy snorted again. “If you believed that, you would have gone home with him.”
It wasn’t him she’d been concerned about, though. She’d worried that if they were alone at his place, that she might want to do more than talk. But that was crazy. No matter how sexy he was or how exciting his kiss, she didn’t want anything to do with a man like him.
But for Matthew...
She had to try to talk to Wyatt Andrews again. Had to convince him to help her change Matthew’s mind. And if talking to Wyatt didn’t work, maybe she would actually consider Tammy’s suggestion.
* * *
“WHO’S ALL TENSE and edgy now?” Braden teased Wyatt.
He shrugged, trying to ease the tension that kissing Fiona had wound tightly inside him. “It must be all your talk about a fire...”
Or a fiery redhead.
The grin slid off Braden’s face. “It’s out there...”
Wyatt didn’t doubt him. He could almost feel it himself now. “You have to get out there,” he said. “That’s why I brought you here.”
But he paused outside the door to the new club, reluctant to step inside. Cody was right; the place was packed. That was why he’d brought Braden here—because of all the women. Usually he would have been interested himself. But he doubted anyone inside the club could make his pulse race as Fiona had. If only she’d gone home with him.
But it was a good thing that she hadn’t. He didn’t need to get involved with a woman like her. He didn’t need bossy and controlling. He just needed a good time. Maybe he’d find one inside.
“We might as well check it out,” he told his boss.
The bouncer holding open the door gave him and Braden a quick once-over. “I thought all the dancers were already inside.”
“Dancers?” Braden repeated with confusion.
Wyatt hadn’t shared everything Cody had told him about the club opening. If his boss had known about the male strippers, he never would have agreed to check out the place.
Braden hadn’t gone many steps inside before he turned around and slammed into Wyatt. “This was a bad idea. I’m leaving.” But before he could get anywhere near the door, two women grabbed his arms and pulled him onto the dance floor.
Wyatt laughed at the look of horror on his friend’s face. Maybe he should have advised Braden to change out of the Huron Hotshots Firefighter T-shirt he was wearing with khakis. But the women would soon realize their mistake when they discovered that Braden couldn’t dance.
His boss was going to kill him. But at least Wyatt was getting a good laugh before he died.
If Wyatt bought him a drink, Braden might loosen up, and maybe after a few drinks he would forget that coming here had been Wyatt’s idea. He turned toward the bar. Despite the crowd around it, his gaze went immediately to the bright flame of her red hair.
It wasn’t Fiona. Not here...
But he couldn’t mistake that particular shade of red. Or the alabaster of her silky skin. She’d said she was going home, but she was here.
All her hair was loose and flowing around her shoulders now. And one of the dancers had strayed from the floor. Shirtless but for suspenders and yellow pants, the faux firefighter leaned close to her, trapping her between his naked chest and the bar.
Anger coursed through Wyatt along with a fresh flash of jealousy, a feeling he’d been unfamiliar with until tonight—until his friends had checked out Fiona. This man was no friend and definitely no firefighter.
Wyatt hurried over to her. His grip probably a little too hard, he grabbed the man’s shoulder and peeled him off her. The guy whirled toward him with a glare.
“What’s your problem?” the dancer asked.
Fiona was his problem.
But instead of admitting that, Wyatt asked his own question. “Aren’t you supposed to be out on the dance floor?”
“Break,” the guy replied. But he glanced nervously around before returning his attention to Fiona. “I have time for a drink.”
She shook her head. “I already said no.”
Ignoring Wyatt, the guy moved in on her again—thrusting his waxed chest in her face. “But—”
This time Wyatt grabbed him even harder and jerked him away from Fiona. Raising his voice to be heard above the din of conversation and the blare of the music, he shouted, “The lady said no.”
The dancer snorted. “Lady? There isn’t a lady in this place.”
Instinct and anger had Wyatt pulling back his fist to swing. But before he could, silky hands locked around his forearm. “Don’t...”
The dancer grinned. “You don’t want him to hurt my handsome face.”
She snorted now and said, “I don’t want him to hurt his hand.”
“I wouldn’t hurt my hand,” Wyatt assured her. Maybe Braden was right about him being the frustrated one now, because he really wanted to hit the jerk.
“I would tear you apart,” the man threatened, but he glanced around nervously—as if looking for backup.
Wyatt never had to look; he always knew his team had his back. But he didn’t need them now. He laughed at the other man’s claim, and Fiona’s grasp on his arm tightened. His skin heated and tingled beneath her silky touch, distracting him so much that he nearly missed the dancer winding up to swing. But he easily dodged the blow.
And the guy stumbled forward and almost fell. He’d obviously already had a drink, or several, himself. He hadn’t needed another.
Maybe he needed a slap upside the head to sober him up. But recognizing it wouldn’t be a fair fight, Wyatt stepped back, and unfortunately Fiona’s hands fell away from his arm.
All icy dominatrix, Fiona pointed the dancer back to the floor. “Break’s over...”
The guy shivered at her tone and turned away.
“Maybe I didn’t need to come to your rescue,” Wyatt mused.
She lifted her chin and glared at him. “I didn’t need rescuing.”
“Yet I keep finding you fighting off advances in bars,” he said. He gestured around at the bustling club. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
“I’m not,” she said, and turned to push her way through the crowd.
Wyatt followed, his gaze dropping to her ass wriggling inside that tight skirt as she hurried to the exit. “Sure looks like you...” He would know that ass anywhere.
She brushed past the bouncer as she stepped through the door. The man whistled in appreciation and nudged Wyatt’s shoulder. She glanced back to glare at them both before stalking across the parking lot. Wyatt lengthened his stride to keep pace with her. “You don’t have to follow me.”
“I have to make sure you make it safely to your car,” he said. “Don’t know who else might try to buy you a drink on your way there...”
She shook her head, and her hair flowed around her shoulders. “He didn’t want to buy me a drink,” she said, and her pale skin flushed with embarrassment. “He wanted me to buy him one.”
“He didn’t need any more.”
She nodded. “That’s what I thought.”
“Thought you weren’t here,” he reminded her. “But now I understand why you wouldn’t come home with me—even though you claimed that you have to get up early in the morning.”
“I do.” She stopped beside a silver sedan and squeezed her keyless remote. The locks clicked and the lights flashed. He recognized the make and model for having the highest safety rating. He’d thought she hadn’t come home with him because she wasn’t attracted, but maybe she was playing it safe.
Though he’d found her at this club—where she’d known there would be male dancers... Another stupid twinge of jealousy struck him.
“But you couldn’t resist stopping here to check out the male strippers,” he said.
She laughed as if the idea was utterly ridiculous. “I just stopped here to talk to a friend.”
“That guy’s a friend?”
She shook her head. “Tammy is female.”
“Tammy wasn’t with you at the bar,” he pointed out. Not that he would have noticed anyone but Fiona. He reached out to open her door for her. But he just held the handle, his arm stretched in front of her. Then he leaned closer and braced his other hand against the roof of her car, loosely encircling her. She lifted her hand and pressed it against his chest. “I thought you weren’t into firefighters...”
She pushed against his chest, the warmth of her palm penetrating the thin layer of his shirt to his skin beneath. “I’m not...”
Had he imagined earlier that she’d kissed him back? Had it just been wishful thinking on his part? Temptation tugged at him, joining the tension. He wanted to lean down a little farther and brush his mouth across hers—to see if she tasted as sweet as he’d thought. To see if he’d imagined the heat and the passion...
Her breath caught as she stared up at him. Maybe she’d seen the hunger in his gaze. “That’s why I didn’t go home with you...”
He stepped back and lifted his hands. “Hey, I just wanted to talk. I thought that’s what you wanted, too—to talk about your brother.”
“I do,” she insisted. “Even if you don’t agree with me that the job he wants is too dangerous, you have to agree that it’s crazy Matthew quit school when he applied to the forest service. He might not even get in.”
It was clear that she didn’t want him to.
“The kid might have acted rashly,” he admitted.
“And the whole firefighter thing,” she said, “that’s ridiculous enough. But to want to become a Hotshot, too...”
Wyatt had a lot of pride in his job. And her disdain for it stung. “If you actually wanted to talk to me about this,” he said, “you should have come to my house.” He gestured back at the building. “Instead you came here to pick up exotic dancers.”
Her eyes narrowed, and he braced himself for another slap or to dodge a blow as he had in the club. But she laughed instead. “I came here to talk to a friend,” she repeated. “She was the one preoccupied with the dancers.”
And Fiona was preoccupied with her brother. He saw the worry on her face, and he’d heard it earlier in her voice. Beneath her anger with him, there was fear. “You can talk to me,” he said, “about Matt...”
“Thank you.”
Maybe he could get her to go home with him now—just to talk, of course. He opened his mouth to issue the invitation when a voice called out from the club. “Hey!”
He turned to the bouncer.
“Your friend’s in trouble in here.”
He groaned. Braden was going to kill him. But maybe he’d also saved him—from doing something crazy, such as being alone with Fiona O’Brien. Because Wyatt knew that if they were alone—truly alone—he wouldn’t be able to resist temptation. He would have to kiss her again.
5 (#ulink_c3f0b906-941b-5fa5-ae3e-3b77aaa89d9a)
A DOOR CREAKED, jerking Fiona awake. She blinked her eyes open and tried to focus. The computer screen in front of her had gone black. How long had she been asleep?
Her brother, Matthew, stood in the doorway to her office, watching her. Whenever she looked at him, she saw a child—the towheaded toddler she’d had to leave when her grandparents had been awarded custody of her. But he’d grown up. He was tall and so broad that he nearly filled her doorway. His curls had turned dishwater blond, and there was none of the adoration with which he used to look at her in his brown eyes.
“This is what you want for me?” he asked with a shudder of revulsion. “A desk job so boring that you can’t even stay awake?”
The desk job wasn’t why she couldn’t stay awake. She blamed Wyatt Andrews for that, as she did for so many other things—such as her younger brother’s attitude and poor decisions. Every time she’d closed her eyes the night before, she’d seen Wyatt’s face and his bare chest and sculpted abs...
She’d even been able to feel his mouth moving sensuously, hungrily over hers. How could she blame her brother for letting Wyatt Andrews get to him when the man had so easily gotten to her, as well?
“I haven’t told you to get a desk job,” she said. She knew that wasn’t for everyone. She couldn’t imagine Wyatt Andrews behind a desk—but she had imagined him last night—in other places. Like the backseat of her car...
Her bed...
Heat flashed through her, and she wished for a glass of ice water instead of the cup of lukewarm coffee sitting on the linen blotter on her driftwood-colored desk.
Resentment tugged her brother’s mouth into a grimace. “It’s what you want, though.”
“I want you to finish college,” she said. “And to choose a profession that’s right for you.” Not for Wyatt Andrews.
Matthew stuck out his chest and stabbed it with his thumb. “Being a Hotshot,” he said. “That’s right for me.”
“Why?” she asked. “I looked it up.” Years ago. “I know how dangerous it is—even more dangerous than being a regular firefighter.”
It was also incredibly physically demanding—which explained why her formerly scrawny brother had started working out so strenuously. She’d thought that, too, had been his trying to emulate Wyatt. She just hadn’t realized how much.
