“Your most meaningful relationship, I assume?”
He grinned. “All my relationships are meaningful—they mean I’ve still got what it
takes.”
She tutted. After a pause, she said in a more serious tone, “When I was a child, about
six or seven years old, there was a fire on our street. We were all out there, watching.
My dad and some of the neighbors were using garden hoses, but they weren’t getting
anywhere. It was terrifying, and then the fire trucks arrived. The firefighters had
a reassuring presence. They created some semblance of order out of the chaos, and
they saved all of the people who were sleeping in that house. And the dog.”
“Of course. There’s always a dog in the best stories. So, you wanted to save people
like they did?”
“Yes, I wanted to help people, but in a way that wasn’t…girlie. I wanted to be the
reassuring presence because I had the skills to fix the problem. Not that it’s always
possible to fix it.”
“No.” He grimaced, then shook his head. “You’ve always been one of the boys, huh?”
“Yes. So, that’s my reason for joining.” She studied his shadowed profile. “What about
you? What was yours?”
“Well, it wasn’t always my dream job. In fact, I’d never given it a thought until
I met Joe. Remember Joe?”
“I’ve heard of him.” All she knew was that the senior firefighter had died on the
job. That had been before she joined the service. “Because he was a firefighter, you
wanted to be one too?”
“That was part of it. Thing is, I had a liking for adrenaline, but I decided to put
it to good use by fighting fires. That way, I could get my fix, and I’d be helping
the community as well.” He paused. “You live in Parkside, don’t you?”
With a start she saw that they’d arrived in the neighboring suburb without her being
aware of it. She’d been so focused on listening to Aaron, he could have taken her
anywhere and she wouldn’t have noticed. Well, that was embarrassing.
She directed him through the leafy streets to her home, and they came to a stop outside
her small, turn-of-the-century, stone-fronted house.
As Aaron twisted in his seat to give it an assessing look, she suddenly saw the house
with impartial eyes. “It’s not like this inside,” she said in a hurry. “I’m renovating
it bit by bit, and the garden is the last thing on my list. I’ll get around to it
eventually.”
“You’re renovating it by yourself?”
“Pretty much. It’s slow work, but I’m not in a rush, so it doesn’t matter. The good
thing about living alone is that there’s no pressure.”
One eyebrow rose as he said, “There are other benefits.”
“Well, naturally. No arguments about the color of the paint. No complaints about my
choice of appliances.”
“You can eat pizza as often as you like, watch sport all day long on TV rather than
painting.”
“True. There’s that too.”
He laughed. “Definitely one of the boys.”
Was it her imagination or had he moved closer while she was looking at the house?
“And yet you don’t look anything like a boy tonight.” He tugged on one of the curls
sitting on her shoulder. “I wonder if it’s all an act.”
She swallowed. Definitely closer. His scent surrounded her and it was more than just
his aftershave, she realized. It was all him, and it was intoxicating. She tried to
conjure up a facial expression that said she was immune to his masculinity.
“You look beautiful.” Shuffling nearer still, he reached out a hand.
She drew in a sharp breath. “What are you doing?”
His eyes narrowed, and one side of his mouth kicked up into a knowing smile. “I was
going to lift your bag out of the back. What did you think I was doing?”
Cringing inside, she tried to hide her embarrassment by saying quickly, “Nothing.”
His hand, which was still in midair, lowered slowly till it rested on her shoulder.
“This, maybe?”
She started to speak, to deny thinking any such thing, but he stroked her cheek with
his thumb, and her words evaporated, leaving only a whimper behind.
“Or what about this?” He slid his hand around to the back of her head, cupped it,
and leaned forward to touch his lips to hers. Lightly. The barest of contact, really,
but it was enough to make her hormones fizz like the bubbles in the champagne she’d
been drinking.
He pulled back, and she gaped at him. She couldn’t believe he’d kissed her. She couldn’t
believe that she wanted him to do it again, but it seemed her body had taken control
of her brain, and every molecule of it was crying out for a rerun.
But he wasn’t moving. Why? Why wasn’t he moving?
And then she understood. If she wanted more, she’d have to make the first move.
With a shudder of excitement, and without giving herself a moment to second-guess
what she was about to do, she reached up to take his face in her hands and pressed
her lips to his. For a frozen moment he didn’t react, and she could feel her heart
thudding in her throat, but then he groaned into her mouth and pulled her tightly
against him. And God, he was a good kisser. She’d certainly never been kissed with
such expertise. Somehow he was making her
feel
the kiss in places he wasn’t even touching.
And then she stopped thinking.
Her body reacted with the speed of flammable foam to fire, her nerves zapping and
buzzing with a desperation she’d never known and couldn’t control. She slid her hands
around his neck, then upward into the short, silky hair at the back of his head.
He pushed the tracksuit jacket off her shoulders and pulled away from her mouth, long
enough to drop a tormenting trail of kisses along her shoulder and up the side of
her throat until she was stretching her neck to give him better access and squirming
with desire. She moaned and turned her face, searching for his lips, needing to taste
him, and then he was kissing her again, and his hands were sliding over the satin
fabric leaving burning trails across her skin.
When he slid his fingers around to her bodice, and then under the edge of the fabric,
she let out a moan, one that vibrated in her throat, and she felt his lips curve into
a smile against her mouth. She felt like she’d been swept up by a wave and had left
solid ground a long way behind.
She wanted to touch him as well, and she fumbled at the shirt buttons beneath his
tie and suit jacket—he was wearing far too many clothes. She’d just managed to slip
one hand inside his shirt and run her palm across his muscular chest, when he drew
back and said, “You have a couch? A bed? Somewhere more comfortable than this?”
With the gearstick and the hand brake in the way, she couldn’t touch him the way she
wanted to, and the frustration was killing her. She nodded. “I knew this car was too
small.”
Before she’d finished speaking, he was out of the car and around her side, holding
open the door. She grabbed her purse, stepped out of the car, and straight into his
arms. He kissed her again, long and hard.
The sound of a car door closing somewhere nearby infiltrated the haze enveloping her.
The wave she’d been riding deposited her on the ground with a mind-clearing bump.
She jerked away from him with a gasp of dismay. A few meters from them, her elderly
neighbor was locking his car. To add to her embarrassment, he gave her a nod before
heading through his front gate.
The reality of what she’d been doing hit her with force. This was
Aaron
. What was she
thinking?
“Oh my God.” She pushed away from him and straightened her bodice. “You have to go.”
“Wait…”
But Jasmine wasn’t waiting for anything. She dug into her purse for the key on her
way to the front door, doing her best not to trip over the hem of her dress.
Inside, she groaned at the sight that confronted her in the hallstand mirror. Her
hair had come loose from its pins and curls floated around her face, making her look
wild and…wanton. From the state of her swollen lips, there was no doubt that she’d
been thoroughly kissed, and shivers of remembered desire shook her.
She slumped against the door. She couldn’t believe what she’d done. What she’d been
about to do. And…with whom.
…
Aaron hadn’t been able to sleep. Finally, he’d given up trying, had an early breakfast,
and gone down to the apartment building’s health club to lift weights. It was the
only way he could think of to get Mac out of his head—not that it had been very effective
so far. He couldn’t remember the last time a simple kiss had stayed in his mind this
way. It was all about the person he’d been kissing, rather than the kiss itself, and
the problems this…incident…could stir up.
Damn. This was going to make working together interesting, to say the least.
It still floored him that he’d worked with her for years without the slightest urge
to kiss her—hell, he’d been as likely to kiss Dave, who, quite frankly, had a face
like a twisted Ugg boot—and suddenly, because she’d looked stunning in a dress, and
because she’d looked at him with copper-colored eyes that seemed even bigger than
normal, he hadn’t been able to stop himself. Not that it had been one-sided at all…which
made it even more mind-boggling.
…
Jasmine awoke, surprised that she’d managed to sleep at all, with a raging thirst
thanks to downing enough champagne to float a small sailing boat. Well, not so much
in truth, but way more than she was used to, and enough to give her a pounding head
and make her swear to stay away from Zoe at any future parties Leanne might throw.
As she drank her third glass of water, the full horror of the kiss returned to her
with appalling clarity. Aaron might have kissed her first, but
she
had
flung
herself at him.
Groaning, she bent over till her forehead met the countertop with a satisfying
clunk
. But it wasn’t satisfying enough, so she lifted it and let it drop again. And again.
How could she have been such an idiot? Of all the dimwits in the world, she was the
award-winning, cake-taking number one of all time.
For pity’s sake, if she’d had to lose control, why couldn’t it have been with someone
else? Someone she didn’t work with. Someone she didn’t hold in such contempt—outside
of work, that was. She had nothing but respect for him as a fellow firefighter. His
private life was another matter entirely.
Aaron knew how she felt about his lifestyle; he could hardly be unaware, since she’d
made it as clear as she possibly could during the time they’d worked together. And
she’d been equally critical of the women who fell for his charm—the charm she’d always
claimed to find unfathomable. Now, she’d behaved no better than a woman he’d picked
up in a pub.
Like her mother.
Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them away. After years of trying to show everyone—especially
herself—that she was nothing like the woman who’d betrayed her family, she’d behaved
exactly the same way. And with Aaron of all people.
It wasn’t just his lifestyle that bothered her, it was his smugness. He was sexy and
he knew it. For years, she’d worked hard to convince him that he didn’t have the same
effect on her as he seemed to have on every other female he came in contact with.
And now all that effort was wasted.
Okay, she had to put this into perspective. She hadn’t slept with Aaron. It had been
a kiss, no more than that. Although, it could have been more…it so nearly
had
been more.
All it had taken for her to melt into a puddle was for him to touch her cheek, to
give her a tiny peck of a kiss, and to look at her as if he saw straight through her
tough facade to the attention-starved woman underneath.
Oh, God, she would relive the embarrassment every single time she saw him, knowing
that he of all people had witnessed her loss of control. Now he would know that the
attitude she gave him was fake, that she was no less vulnerable to him than any woman
in the universe, and that bugged her big-time.
She was never going to drink again, that much was a given. Definitely nothing containing
bubbles. As sensible as the resolution might be, it didn’t help her now, did it? She
had one more day off before the start of her next shift rotation.
One day before she had to face him.
Chapter Three
Shift handover probably wasn’t the time to be thinking about anything other than the
day ahead. Aaron made an effort to focus his mind on the station officer’s voice.
It wasn’t easy. Jasmine had hijacked his thoughts since Saturday night, and no matter
what he’d tried to do on Sunday to clear his head, she’d still been the first image
he saw when he’d woken this morning. And Jasmine had been the name on his lips, not
Mac.
They’d barely finished the regular equipment cleaning and functional checks before
the station alarm sounded. Pump One, the truck to which both he and Jasmine had been
assigned for this shift rotation, was the one responding to the emergency. He raced
to put on his turnout gear but was the last to reach the truck. As Dave was rostered
to drive, he climbed into the rear of the cab, beside Jasmine.
She glared at him.
Right. He got the message. They needed to talk, but this was not the time, especially
with Dave looking in his rearview mirror at them. He gave her a nod and took his seat.
“All right, guys?”
He nodded. “All right, Dave. Let’s go.”
He didn’t miss the fact that Dave’s eyes had narrowed, nor that it took him a fraction
longer than necessary to withdraw his gaze and start the truck. That was all he needed,
for Dave and the others to get wind of the fact that something had happened between
him and Jasmine. He went cold just thinking about it.
The thing was, he didn’t do serious relationships. He certainly didn’t do commitment,
and his workmates were all well aware of that fact. They were a team; they were supposed
to watch out for one another’s safety, and they wouldn’t want him anywhere near Jasmine
in anything other than a work capacity. They’d be justified too—he’d feel the same
way if there were someone else in his position—and he also knew that if he did anything
to hurt her, he would lose their respect. That was the very last thing he wanted.
His friend Joe had taught him that if you didn’t have the respect of your fellow firefighters,
you had nothing. Respect for one another was vital to the successful operation of
a firefighting crew, crucial to the confidence they needed in everyone’s abilities.
The crew was like a family. And after years of being alone, he’d liked the sound of
what Joe described and wanted to be part of it. He’d yearned to have the security
of a family without the emotional investment that came with a biological connection.
He’d believed that in the fire service he’d found the safe place that a family should
be, without the risk of having his heart ripped out.
Then Joe’s death on the job had torn him apart. He’d put Joe on the pedestal his father
had vacated, and losing his friendship had taught Aaron that biology wasn’t the key
to heartbreak; it was love.
He’d loved his father. They’d been a normal, happy family. Then, one day, his father
had decided he couldn’t tolerate domesticity any longer and had taken off. For good.
He’d loved his mother, but she, unable to cope with the loss of her husband, had withdrawn
from him. Withdrawn physically, because she’d shut herself away with a bottle, and
withdrawn emotionally, because she’d had no more love to give him. By the time she’d
died, he’d effectively lost her anyway. There’d been nothing left of the mother he
remembered from his childhood.
Losing Joe had been his third strike, and he’d finally learned that the only way to
avoid the unimaginable pain of losing someone he loved was to avoid putting himself
in a vulnerable position in the first place. It was obvious, really. So now, he didn’t
give anyone the opportunity to leave him. He was always the one to do the leaving.
“Aaron? Are you with us?”
“Sorry, John. Yes, I’m listening.” Damn, he couldn’t allow his rambling thoughts to
interfere with his job. He had to put everything other than work out of his mind or
he would be a danger to himself and others. “What have we got?”
“Accident on a construction site,” John, the crew leader, responded. “Worker stuck
between studs on the sixth floor of a building. No lift operating as of yet. Sounds
like we’ll need to put the ladder up to a window to bring him down.”
At the construction site, the company’s safety officer, an attractive woman in her
early twenties, briefed them. It was clear that she’d been overwhelmed by the events
of the morning and was out of her depth when it came to handling their questions.
When her phone rang, she took it from her pocket and, looking close to tears, left
them to get on with the rescue.
Aaron nodded in the direction of the safety officer while she explained to the caller
what had happened. “She’s pretty young, isn’t she?”
Jasmine rounded on him. “
What?
Don’t you ever stop? Is everything a womanizing opportunity to you?” Her expression
blazed. “We’re at work now, and this is the
fire
service, not a dating service.”
After glowering at him for another long moment, she made an exasperated sound and
stormed toward the truck.
John and Dave looked at him, waiting for an explanation.
He shrugged. “I was only going to say that she doesn’t look old enough to be responsible
for the safety of a site like this.”
“You could be right,” John said. “It might be a contributing factor to the accident,
but we’ll work that out later. Let’s get the ladder up.”
“So what’s wrong with Mac?” Dave asked as he walked beside Aaron. “Why is she such
a cranky pants this morning?”
Aaron blanked his face. “You’ll have to ask her.”
“Hmm. Her anger seems to be aimed at you. Any idea what that’s about?”
“Not a clue.”
Dave shook his head. “It’s not like her. She’s normally so levelheaded.”
As he separated from Dave, Aaron caught sight of her, jaw set, lips pursed. His guess
was that she was as distracted as he was by memories of that kiss on Saturday. “Hey,”
he said as he went to grab a harness. “That was unnecessary, you know. I wasn’t going
to ask her out.”
She appeared unconvinced as she took equipment from the truck, every movement jerky.
“I said that girl was pretty
young
, not
pretty
.” He looked for a reaction, but she turned her back. “And why do you care, anyway?”
“We’re supposed to be working, that’s why.” She swiveled and pointed to the half-completed
building. “There’s a man up there counting on us, and all you can think about is women.”
“Huh.” He shook his head. “That’s not true, and you know it. But arguing the point
isn’t getting him rescued, is it?” He picked up equipment from the ground. “I still
have your bag, by the way. You left it in my car when—”
“.” She swung back to face him. “Not now,” she said with a warning shake of her head.
“Somebody might hear you.”
“Fine.” He strode away from the truck. Heck, he didn’t want people knowing about Saturday
night any more than she did. She must know that. And he would never let his private
life interfere with his performance on the job. She was way out of line to suggest
he would.
…
That afternoon, once all the chores and meetings were completed, Jasmine made her
way to the station gym. She couldn’t settle to any one item of equipment, though,
and after working out for twenty minutes, she grabbed a basketball from the rack by
the wall and took it outside where there was a square of concrete and a hoop. As if
dealing with Saturday night’s incident wasn’t bad enough, now she’d made things worse
by acting like a jealous girlfriend around Aaron. Where had that come from? It wasn’t
like her at all, and unprofessional too—they’d been
working
.
She was hot and sweaty when she heard the door open behind her, and she knew without
taking her eyes from the hoop that it was Aaron who’d joined her outside. She guessed
it because all the little hairs on the back of her neck stood on end and because a
shiver made her miss her shot.
She smothered a groan while her stomach turned somersaults. She’d been bracing herself
for the moment when she’d have to face him, and still he’d managed to catch her off
guard.
As the ball bounced along the ground, he intercepted it and held it against his chest.
His old gray T-shirt was fraying at the edges and so soft from repeated washing that
it clung to his muscles, much as she was clinging to her anger.
Anger was easier to handle than embarrassment.
She grabbed her towel and mopped at the sheen of perspiration on her arms.
He aimed the ball at the hoop. “You know that school visit we’re scheduled to do this
week?”
“What about it?”
“First one to ten. Loser does the safety talk. Deal?”
The ball dropped through the hoop and she caught it as it bounced. None of them liked
doing the safety talk, or at least, none of them admitted to liking it. Secretly,
she thought the kids were cute, and watching Aaron with them, it was hard to believe
he didn’t get a buzz out of the whole thing. And it was easy to see why the children
would hero-worship him; he looked the part without even trying. It wasn’t the uniform—they
all wore the same clothes—but there was something about the way Aaron carried himself
that made him appear more…well, more heroic. Of course, they didn’t know what he got
up to out of uniform.
Still, whether the crew enjoyed it or not, they routinely came up with challenges
in order to get out of it. Beating Aaron at anything gave her satisfaction, but she
was particularly good at basketball. She’d spent many hours shooting hoops with her
brothers, and they’d never taken it easy on her, which had been a pain at the time
but had improved her skills no end.
“You’re on.” She tossed the ball, scored, grabbed it again, and turned her back to
Aaron. He reached around her. She was too quick to throw the ball up and it dropped
through the hoop again.
Aaron stuck out a hand and caught the rebound. “About last Saturday,” he said as he
prepared to shoot.
She glared at him. “Yes, about that. It should never have happened, and it will never
happen again. I hope you realize that?”
“I was going to apologize, but I don’t understand why you’re so angry with me. What’s
that about?”
Because it was easier than admitting that she’d been so out of control as to hurl
herself at him. She caught the ball and dodged past him to shoot. “You kissed me first.”
“And you kissed me back. Quite eagerly, in fact. You could have pushed me away, but
you didn’t.”
Okay, she couldn’t argue with that. It was mortifying, but it was the truth. “Like
I said, it will never happen again.”
He pushed a hand through his short, dark hair, leaving it sticking up in spikes, and
yet he still looked good in a scruffy, been-through-a-spin-dryer way. He reached out
to snag her rebound with ridiculous ease. “Well, we’re agreed on that much.”
“We are?”
“Absolutely. You’re the last person I want to get into anything with.” His shot went
wide.
While she retrieved the ball, she didn’t know whether to be offended that she had
so little to attract him, or pleased that they were in agreement. Well, it was humiliating
to be so unattractive, but it could have been worse. He could have reminded her that
after all the time she’d spent telling him how much she despised his attitude toward
women, she’d tossed aside her supposed standards and launched herself into his arms.
He could have laughed at her.
He caught her rebound, then turned to her with a shrug. “It was good, though, wasn’t
it?”
She couldn’t argue with that either, so she didn’t bother. She made a long shot, then
said, “You won’t tell anybody what happened?”
He blinked. “Of course I won’t.” He grabbed the ball and took aim. “You don’t think
I want people to know?”
No, of course she didn’t.
As the ball dropped through the hoop, the station bells started to ring.
“I would have won,” she said as she scooped up her towel and followed him inside.
“No, you wouldn’t.” He shot her a grin. “Not a chance.”
“I would. I was in the lead.”
Really
, she thought as she joined the others and scrambled to pull on her turnout gear,
I’m the loser in all of this
. She’d revealed herself to be a real pushover when it came to resisting his so-called
charm, and now he knew she wasn’t as tough as she made herself out to be. She hated
that when he looked at her from now on, he would see straight through her act. And
as if that weren’t enough, she’d never get to repeat the experience, never feel his
firm lips on her mouth, his strong hands on her body.
The memory made her shiver.
Not that she wanted to repeat it, of course, but she hadn’t had such an overwhelming
physical reaction to a man in a long time. After Craig, she’d suspected that she never
would again. She’d thought that when Craig broke her heart, he must have destroyed
that part of her as well. Although the whole situation with Aaron was impossible,
it was kind of pleasing to know that everything was still in working order after all.
“Truthfully, I’m shocked at you, Jasmine.
Shocked
, I tell you.”
Sasha’s words made Jasmine want to crawl under the stark white table of the trendy
bar, but she resisted the urge. She wouldn’t fit anyway—it was a tiny table and she
was taller than the average woman.
“I mean, you were the one telling
me
to stay away from him.”
“I know,” she said, cringing. “I shouldn’t drink champagne. I should stick to beer.”
Sasha grimaced. “Leanne doesn’t know about this, does she?”
“No. As if I’d ring her up on her honeymoon to tell her that I’m a lunatic.”
“That can wait till she gets back.” Sasha drained her glass and put it down on the
table. “Now, I’ve known you forever, and I know that nobody makes you do anything
you don’t want to do. So maybe you’ve had repressed feelings for him all along.”
Jasmine huffed out a breath. “No, I haven’t.”