How to Seduce a Fireman: HarperImpulse Contemporary Romance (10 page)

“Leave them open,” Micah growled, his eyes obliterated by the dark shades he wore. “I’d demand my woman show me some skin.”

She fiddled with the button at the front clasp of her bra. “Yeah, but I’m not your woman. Quinn won’t know what your preferences are.”

He shoved the car into Park and turned off the engine. “He will as soon as he sees me. I’ll make sure of it. I’ll have him so damn jealous he’ll charge at me like an Angus bull.” He unsnapped the seat belt, and the leather squeaked when he angled toward her. “I’ll be doing little things to make him jealous. Nothing overt,
bébé.
Just enough to send him over the edge.”

“I doubt it’ll make any difference.” Her insecurities were fighting with her sensual bravado.

His hand curled around her thigh. “You really are naïve, aren’t you? Don’t you know how hot you are? How you still radiate innocence even if he’s already tapped that?” He dipped his head in the direction of her crotch.

Is “lost my virginity yesterday” engraved on my forehead, or what?

“He’ll be able to tell if I’ve touched you. If we’ve kissed.” He leaned toward her, one hand slipped under her hair to cup the back of her neck and his other drifted from her thigh to open two more of her buttons.

“Hey!” She knocked his hand away. What a macho creep. “If you don’t keep your hands off my buttons and my leg, the only thing he’ll be able to tell about you is that you talk funny. High-pitched. Like a soprano.”

Quinn’s head peeked out from the back of the moving trailer, his ball cap pulled low over his eyes. Even so, by the set of his square jaw and the scorching glare he aimed their way, he’d zeroed in on Micah’s hand inching up her leg.

Oh hell.

Who the hell was Cassie with and what the fuck was his hand doing on her damn thigh?

Quinn stepped away from the U-Haul, assessing his options while his blood pressure ratcheted into the stroke zone. Even though he didn’t want to spend time with her, he sure as hell didn’t want to see her with another guy. He pressed the heel of his palm to his heart and rubbed, trying to ease the pain.
Christ, this hurts
.

The driver’s door opened and six-foot-four of muscled mass hopped out and sauntered around the hood of his highly waxed Escalade to lift Cassie out of his SUV. Where in God’s name had she met this bald, inked son of a bitch? Quinn’s hands curled into fists. Was this bastard the one who’d taught her how to give such incredible, enthusiastic head?

A jealous rage, cavernous and foul, bubbled in his soul as if it were a gigantic cauldron holding all his negative emotions. This stranger was not the kind of man he’d choose for his angel. He’d pick some knock-kneed, hollow-chested paper-pusher. A nice man, for she deserved to be treated with gentleness and respect, but not someone she could care for more than she did Quinn. No, he was a selfish bastard; he wanted to be the one she yearned for, dreamed of, thought about—for she’d damn sure be the one invading his thoughts forever.

The stranger bent to kiss Cassie’s neck before he backed away. Quinn’s heart stopped. Her blouse was unbuttoned to her navel and she was wearing that damned red leather skirt again. And, God help him, she wore black leather, over-the-knee, stiletto boots. Blood rushed from his brain to his cock. Possessiveness took hold. She was his, dammit. He’d been her first. A part of her would always belong to him. Always.

“Hi Quinn. Sorry to drop by unannounced, but I wanted to return these things of yours.” She extended his flippers and an old CD he didn’t give a good rat’s ass about.

He snatched the items from her hands and tossed them in the back of the trailer. His hands on his hips, his narrow-eyed gaze raked her from head to toe. This woman—his angel with the heart-shaped face—who he’d made love to yesterday, was all dressed up for a date with another man. A man who would inhale her sweet essence, taste her lips, trail his fingers over her soft skin, hear her needy moans and sink into her wet tightness. His gaze shifted to the man poised in a military “at ease” stance behind her. Damn the motherfucker all to hell. Quinn’s scrutiny settled on her again.

A blush kissed her cheeks. They knew each other so well they could almost read each other’s thoughts. She retreated a couple of steps.

The stranger’s large hands enveloped her waist, pulling her to his chest. “Easy,
bébé
, I don’t want you to fall.” His hand shifted to splay over the juncture of her thighs. A slow smile of ownership spread like muddy water over a beautiful garden as his middle finger circled an area that, up until today, only Quinn had touched.

Cassie squirmed in embarrassment. “Don’t.”

“You should know I don’t take orders from any woman I date.” His hold on her tightened.

She elbowed him and spun away.

Quinn lunged and shoved the slimeball against his vehicle. Two quick jabs to his firm stomach, a punch to his jaw and a couple of karate chops to his neck, and the bastard crumbled down the side of his Caddy.

“You’ve hurt him!” Cassie scurried to kneel over the man shaking his head, no doubt wondering which direction the truck had gone that had run him down.

“I’ll be okay,
bébé.
” His hand rose to cup her cheek.

Quinn grabbed her wrist and hauled her to him. “I’ll kill him if he ever touches you again.” He leaned close until he was nearly nose to nose with Cassie. “I will fucking kill him,” he enunciated through clenched jaws.

“How? You’ll be gone.” Her green eyes, smoking hot with all the make-up she’d applied, bore into him. Possessiveness, the likes of which he’d never thought possible, burned in his gut. That heart-shaped face of hers was so beautiful, it nearly stole the breath from his lungs. And, dammit, she was his.

“Until I cross Courtney Campbell Causeway, you belong to me and I’ll be damned if I’ll share you with the likes of that lowlife bastard, or anyone else.” His fingers coiled around her bicep, and he marched her toward the door to his building. “I mean, what the hell, Cassie? After what passed between us yesterday?” He jerked open the door and ushered her inside. “The next freaking day, you want to move on to someone else?”

She jerked her arm out of his grasp and rounded on him, her dark hair flying about her head like a dusky storm cloud. His Cassie was never one to back down from an argument. “Oh, you’re a fine one to talk. You all but kicked me out of your apartment once you got your rocks off, so don’t hand me some song and dance about how much it all meant to you.” She jabbed her finger in his chest. “Because it didn’t mean diddly.” The strap of her handbag slipped off her shoulder and she yanked on it, wrapping the leather around her wrist a couple of times before swinging her purse to belt him across his arm. “You are such a cold-hearted bastard. I gave you everything…
everything
…and you gave me the boot.”

She’d zeroed onto the heart of the guilt ripping at him the last twenty-four hours, and he didn’t like it.

He shook his finger under her nose. “You want me to give you something? I’ll give you more than you can freaking handle.”

She bit his finger.

He tossed her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and marched up the steps. She yelled and cursed, beating his back, but he was so agitated he didn’t give a flying fuck. His fingertips slid into the front pocket of his Levis for his keys, and he unlocked the door. As soon as he’d closed it behind him, he slid her down his body into the corner between the entrance to the foyer and the coat closet.

“Cassie, you better settle your ass down!”

“And you better go to hell!” Her disheveled hair billowed away from her face when she screeched.

A streak of grey fur charged back down the hallway toward Quinn’s bedroom. “Hush, angel, you’ve scared Furball.”

He brushed her tumbled curls back only to find two big pearly tears glistening on her lower eyelashes. God, he hated seeing her cry. Knowing he was the cause of her distress wounded him far more than he’d expected. He forked his fingers into her hair and made slow, comforting circles on her scalp. He lowered his head. “Angel.” His lips found hers as if they were a part of him he needed to connect with in order to live.

On a moan, she opened her mouth to his and their tongues met and mated, swirled and seduced, touched and tortured. He leaned into her as if she were the other half of his being and, for a few minutes, he feared she was. How would he exist without his angel? Yet staying with her would only bring her pain, for, in his soul, he lugged around deep agony and an innate ability to hurt others, while she carried goodness and light and happiness in hers. Added to all that was this new threat he hoped he’d averted with all those emails, because, frankly, when it came to Cassie’s safety, he didn’t trust anyone.

A moan of feminine need pulled him from his dark thoughts. He nuzzled her neck and swept a hand down her back to cup her sweet behind, bringing her against his erection, rubbing and easing the pain for a few blessed seconds before the ache grew so powerful he thought he’d lose his mind. He bit her jaw and soothed it with his tongue. “Sweetheart.” His teeth grazed the column of her slender neck, and she shivered before tilting her head to grant him access.

There was no way to measure how much he needed her. She was the only good thing God had set on the path of his obscure, emotionless, desolate existence. A glowing daisy in the dark miasma of his guilt, bending and tilting with the winds of life.

His glorious, glowing daisy tugged on his t-shirt. “I want you naked. I need to touch you.” Her breathless plea turned him on even more.

His hand fisted in her hair and he jerked her head back so her gaze focused on his. “You are mine, Cassie. Mine and no one else’s. From now until the moment I leave, you belong to me. Do I make myself clear?”

Her hand rose to cup his cheek. “I’ve always belonged to you.”

He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and brought her hand to his lips, placing a kiss in her palm. He’d give anything if his life was different, if his history hadn’t destroyed the young man he’d once been. “Don’t ask for what I can’t give.”

She pulled her hand back. “But I want more. I need more.” She swiped at a falling tear. “I want you now and tomorrow and next week.” A wobbly grin tried to form and failed. “I want you next month and all summer long. I don’t understand why you’re leaving and you’re determined not to tell me.” Her green eyes regarded him for a few beats, and then, as if a decision had been made, she trailed a finger up his arm. “I want you naked. Now. If this is all you’re prepared to give me then, by damn, I’m taking it.”

Swooping her into his arms, he carried her into his bedroom. She wanted to see him naked, did she? Oh she would, but he’d not let her touch. Not until he was damn good and ready.

He laid her on the bed. “Stay. You want my clothes off?” She nodded, her eyebrows waggling in delight. He toed off his ratty sneakers and, with one hand over his shoulder, tugged off his t-shirt. His cock nearly sighed in relief when he unbuttoned his jeans, the rasping of the zipper echoing in the silent bedroom. He shucked them and his boxers to the floor in one swift motion.

Cassie’s gaze shone with passion and hunger when it traveled down his chest and abdomen, snagging on his erection. It was the kind of visual inspection, laced with appreciation, men dreamed of, and his cock grew and stiffened in response, a wonderment given how hard he’d had been minutes earlier.

Her manicured hand reached for him. “Let me touch you.”

“Not yet.” He strode to her side of the bed and sat. Yanking the edges of her black shirt together, he quickly buttoned them all.

“What are you doing?”

“A little trick. Wait and see.” He unbuttoned the cuffs and tugged her shirttails from her skirt. To raise her upper torso off the bed, he slid one arm under her and pulled her shirttails over her head. Then he laid her back down, her head covered by her shirt.

“If you wanted to take it off my—” her voice got muffled when her shirt covered her mouth. “You thoulda left the buttonth open.”

He tied the cuffs of her sleeves around one of the posts of his brass headboard.

She wiggled and kicked, pulling on her arms. “What did you do?”

Furball hopped onto the bed and sniffed at her covered head.

“I tied you to the bed. Don’t. Stop flailing around or you’ll tear your shirt. Can you breathe?”

Her mouth drew the cotton material in and out with each frantic breath. The material’s movement snagged the kitten’s attention and he pounced on her mouth. Cassie shrieked. The cat sat back, tilting his head to watch his prey. “Behave, Furball.”

Quinn fought the urge to laugh. God, he was going to enjoy this. He worked to open the button through the fabric near her nose so she could take in air. “Can you breathe better now?” He kissed the tip of her nose. The cat moved in and sniffed it before he bit it.

No response.

He shifted the material so he could see her one eye.

Narrowed in anger, it all but exploded fiery daggers at him.

“Just checking to see if you’re still awake. Looks like kitty-cat wants to play while I undress you.”

She made an annoyed sound in the back of her throat and, when he pulled the opening over her mouth, she stuck out her tongue at him. God, she was so much fun. He was going to miss her temper and the teasing banter he’d enjoyed these last three years. Sadness squeezed his heart with sharp, frigid tentacles, so intensely he could barely breathe.
How can I leave her?

He willed away the pain and doubt to bring himself back into the moment, back to enjoying her. He moved the hole over her nose again. “This is a bit of punishment for hooking up with that bald bastard. I’m going to undress you and kiss your soft skin, and all the while you won’t be able to touch me in return.

“I don’t want to touch you, you bossy asshole.” She squirmed on the bed as if she wanted desperately to get her hands on him—no doubt around his throat.

He smiled against her one bare shoulder and tsked a few times. “Is that any way for an angel to talk?” He bit her freckled flesh until she inhaled in shock, or arousal. Then he soothed it with the tip of his tongue and solid kisses. “I love these freckles. I might play connect the dots with a Sharpie and send you home with my brand all over you.”

She mentioned an uncomfortable place he could shove his Sharpie pen and he smirked. God, she was a vocal piece of work when she was pissed.

With a well-practiced flick of his thumb and index finger, he unsnapped her black lacy bra. Furball dove in to claim the underwired cups. Quinn shoved him away. “I do love your choice in lingerie, but I think I want to see you naked again.” He cupped her breasts and, bestowing kisses on each one, thought of something else to make her mad. “I’m thinking of a tat above each one of these beauties. Above the right one, you need the word ‘Quinn’s’ and above the left one ‘tits’. He rolled off her in self-preservation.

She kicked air with her boots, no doubt hoping to make contact. If he didn’t get this leather footwear off her, he’d have one stiletto in his ankle and the other rammed into his knee.

“Easy, now.” He leaned across her thighs, grasping the decorative pull on one zipper. “Are these new?”

“No.”

“I don’t recall you wearing them.” He tugged one long boot off, his fingertips trailing the soft skin on her legs as he exposed it. Four crumpled tissues floated onto his sheet once he removed the footwear. The cat dove for white paper butterflies. “Let me guess. These are Sarah’s boots. She’s got damn big feet. Hold on while I put the cat in the hallway. He’s liable to use my cock for a scratching post.”

“Huh, he’d need a pair of glasses to find it first.”

“Now is that any way to talk?” He scooped the kitten in his arm, set him out in the hallway and threw down the tissues to attract the feline’s attention. Quinn quickly closed the door. When he returned to the bed, he removed her other boot as slowly as he’d slipped off the first. Yes, slow and deliberate would be the modus operandi for the evening. He’d slowly drive his angel insane with need.