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How to Seduce a Fireman
Vonnie Davis
The heat is on…Book 2 in the ‘Wild Heat’ series – the hottest firefighter series of the year!Cassie Wolford has crushed on fireman Quinn Gallagher ever since he moved to Clearwater three years ago. There’s just one problem: he’s always made it clear dating is out of the question. But once a Wolford sets their sights on someone, that person doesn’t stand a chance! Cassie decides it’s time for Quinn to get a dose of his own medicine… and sets out to show him what he’s missing!Quinn knows only too well what Cassie’s up to but he can’t give her what she wants. He isn’t good for anyone, much less someone as sweet as his angel. Fighting her off hurts like hell, but giving her false hope of a happy ever after would be damn cruel. That’s why he has to leave Clearwater.Unfortunately, someone from his past has different ideas and when Cassie’s life is threatened this former CIA operative is staying put, prepared to crawl through hell and back to keep her safe. And it looks like he might just have to.
How to Seduce a Fireman
Book One in the Wild Heat Series
VONNIE DAVIS
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First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2014
Copyright © Vonnie Davis 2014
Cover images © Shutterstock.com
Vonnie Davis asserts the moral right
to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are
the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is
entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © October 2014
ISBN: 9780007594511
Version 2014-09-16
Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.
To all the fire personnel who keep our homes and our lives safe and to their loved ones who worry about their safety on a daily basis. Thank you.
Contents
Cover (#uafe3b8a1-62e9-50cb-b28d-2b39d83da487)
Title Page (#u9b6b813e-d1ab-5529-b228-7863a9f56eda)
Copyright (#u3c89d544-2f12-590b-92b4-ec584ab8a4b5)
Dedication (#uc7596657-8256-5b6c-bdc0-13062b761d97)
Chapter One (#ud91d52b5-3d65-5b96-b64a-4ccb9ae59c93)
Chapter Two (#u6d9095ef-5184-511f-abcd-d4c96eb0bd27)
Chapter Three (#ud0245210-8b91-530c-9e53-f9be87ce3893)
Chapter Four (#uff0f72ef-1e28-5e12-a9d0-cffa8b880282)
Chapter Five (#ucea4537a-b39d-5e21-b11b-6fb223eb1151)
Chapter Six (#u1fca0cee-041c-5885-9baa-9ce5dd75df08)
Chapter Seven (#ub121ce8a-a736-50c7-b036-bb554bd594cb)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Coming Soon From Vonnie Davis… (#litres_trial_promo)
Coming Soon From Vonnie Davis… (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Vonnie Davis… (#litres_trial_promo)
Vonnie Davis (#litres_trial_promo)
About HarperImpulse (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u3fd04c6f-0cba-5c9f-9b93-90ce5838dc84)
Quinn Gallagher was dead meat.
Cassie Wolford marched to the side door of Fire and Marine Rescue Unit Thirty-two in Clearwater, Florida. She swiped the entry pass she’d purloined a year or so ago from her oldest brother and yanked the handle when the light in the security lock turned green. Propping her hip against the door, she maneuvered the large box containing the remainder of her birthday cake through the doorway. Quinn better have a damn good excuse for being a no-show at my party last night.
She’d asked him twice if he was coming and, both times, he’d used that wicked smile on her before claiming he wouldn’t miss her twenty-first birthday for the world. So unless he was inside hobbling on crutches with two broken legs or wore a body cast from face to feet, he was about to get his jaw jacked. I don’t care if he does have a body built for sin and I want to be his number one sinner.
With both of her brothers serving as firemen in this top-notch unit, Cassie knew her way around the building. She crossed the threshold into the firemen’s living quarters, slapped the cake on the large dining room table and pivoted toward conversation floating in from the TV area amid the battle sounds of a warrior game on Wii.
Masculine laughter, deep and sensual, slithered straight to her core before spreading out to spark all her nerve endings. Quinn Gallagher did that to her, no matter if it was his laughter, his voice, or his eyes that fluctuated between blue and grey. Why Quinn? Why not a guy who is as crazy for me as I am for him? But no, I have to fall hard for Mr. I-Could-Give-a-Shit.
One quick glance in his direction, and she sucked air. Quinn, in his typically jovial manner, was recanting a story to her youngest brother, Jace, and a new fireman she’d yet to meet. All Quinn wore was a white towel slung low around his narrow hips.
Water drops lazily forged a trail down his tanned and toned body. Moisture dripped from his freshly shampooed dark hair, trailed over his perpetual five-o’clock shadow and plopped onto his collarbone, splatted onto his hardened pecs and washboard stomach, before skiing the hills and valleys over every ridge of his abs. Oh, to be a droplet of water.
Even though they’d jogged together often under the hot Florida sun, seeing his tribal tattoo over his broad shoulder, left pec and upper arm still made her fingers itch to touch and fondle, especially that strange indentation between swirls of ink that decorated his shoulder blade.
He was such a perfect specimen of male hotness with those magnetic eyes and firm lips that smiled easily and often, creasing his cheeks with deep dimples. Cassie wanted him so badly, she ached. Yet he treated her more like a little sister or a family friend. She scowled. Hell, why not spray-paint some black spots on me? Let him scratch behind my ears like he does the firehouse Dalmatian.
The new guy spied her first. “Hey, how’d you get in here?”
Jace’s head whipped in her direction. “Looks like my sister overrode the security system—again. Somehow she’s been doing it for years.” Jace strode toward Cassie and wrapped his arm around her shoulder before kissing her hair. “Boyd, meet my baby sister, Cassie. Sis, this is the newest pair of boots in our unit, Boyd Calloway.”
She extended her hand. “Nice to meet you, Boyd. Since I turned twenty-one yesterday, I now decree I’m to be classified as Jace’s youngest sister.” Her brother smirked when she elbowed him. “I’m serious, Jace, I won’t put up with being called the baby anymore.” She patted the cake box. “There was so much cake left from last night’s party, I brought it by for the guys. Not everyone who promised to come showed up.” She aimed a glare at Quinn.
“Hell, peanut, was that last night?” He shook his head, flinging droplets in every direction.
Did she mean so damn little? She’d had such high hopes for last night. She’d dreamed of a birthday kiss from him, and not one of those baby ones on the nose or forehead, either. A lip to lip, tongue to tongue, make-her-insides-quiver adult kiss. Tears threatened and she fought to blink them away. She would not cry in front of him. “You know damn well it was.”
“Hey, when a sexy woman shows up on a man’s doorstep with a bottle of tequila and a proposition, he’s prone to forget what day it is.” Quinn flashed her a cocky grin that flayed the edges of her heart.
The rest of the guys in the unit cheered in affirmation.
Jace’s arm tightened around her shoulder, his lips next to her ear. “Don’t let him get to you, sis. You know how he is.”
Yeah, she knew. Quinn was a player. She wasn’t; she’d crushed exclusively on him for three years, waiting for the jerk to notice her. What a fool she’d been to think once she turned twenty-one, he’d accept her as an equal, as a woman old enough to date. The man moved from woman to woman like she moved from one shade of fingernail polish to another. Just how was she to get him out of her system? Maybe she needed to play a little herself. Wasn’t that what tonight was about?
She breathed a kiss on Jace’s cheek. “Gotta go. Sara and Misty are waiting in the car. We’re going to Iguana Ike’s. Have some beers. Party a little.” She wiggled her hips. “Dance a lot. Girls’ night out.”
Quinn dared to take a couple steps toward her, his eyes narrowed. Gone was his previous fun-loving insolence. In its place was macho authority. “You’re going out, dressed like that?”
Geesh! Talk about mood shuffling.
Jace grabbed the cake box and headed toward the kitchen. “Boyd, let’s get some coffee to go with the cake. We’ll get the hell out of the way, and let kerosene and a match deal with their inevitable explosion in private.”
