Authors: Jennifer Bernard
“Get off me,” she yelled, shoving furiously at him.
“Give me a second.” His voice sounded strained.
“Are you okay?” His body was hard and muscled, every inch of him. She felt his heartbeat, heard his labored breathing. Saw his dark eyes taking her in. Noticed his broken nose, wondered if it had come from a baseball game or something more dangerous.
“I’m fine, except some chick knocked me off my feet. Are you okay?”
She remembered that she’d been called “out” and scrambled out from under him. The umpire, a firefighter from Porter Ranch, helped her up. “Ump, that’s a bullshit call. I was safe. I saw my foot touch the plate right before he tagged me.”
“You never touched the plate,” said Mulligan, slowly unwinding himself from his position on the ground. “You rolled away from it.”
“Because . . . because . . .”
“Because I was about to tag you out.”
Standoff. The air crackled between them. Maybe another guy would have given in to please the pretty girl, but the expression on Mulligan’s face told her he took the game seriously and would never patronize her like that. He acknowledged her as an equal competitor. Since she’d grown up fighting to make her brothers take her seriously, she could have kissed him for that.
And suddenly she wanted to, more than anything.
“Fine. Nice play, fireman.” She walked off the field, catching Mulligan’s surprised expression.
Good.
She wanted to keep him on his toes. He was entirely too sure of himself. Not that he wasn’t justified, with his ripped physique and bad-boy looks. But he didn’t need to know how he affected her; it would just go to his head.
The EMTs lost the game, so by the time everyone adjourned to the Easy Out, a nearby sports bar, she was more than ready to toss down a beer and flirt with the nearest cute guy who wasn’t Mulligan.
She picked Ace, the brand-new rookie. While plenty good-looking, he did nothing for her in terms of chemistry. But they had a good time laughing about the game over mugs of amber ale. Maybe he was getting a little too friendly, and playing with her hair a little too intimately. But that was a matter of opinion, and certainly not Mulligan’s business. So she was shocked when Mulligan, wearing a dire expression, interrupted her pleasant flirtation by dragging her onto the patio, currently deserted due to the Dodgers game playing on the screens inside.
“What do you think you’re doing?” His dark eyes flung a wild challenge at her.
“Excuse me?” Astonished, she hid behind a sip of her beer, but he plucked her mug out of her hand and set it on a nearby table.
“You’re Freddie Breen’s little sister, aren’t you?”
No sentence could have infuriated her more. She’d spent her whole life being people’s “little sister.” “I wouldn’t phrase it that way, but Fred’s my brother, yes. What’s wrong with that?”
“You shouldn’t be flirting with the new probie, that’s what’s wrong. If Fred was here, he’d tell you.” He looked very sure of that fact—arrogant, even. She assessed the bump in his nose, the way his biceps bulged from the sleeves of his T-shirt, his air of absolute assurance. Another girl might be intimidated, but she’d grown up with four brothers who’d become soldiers and a firefighter. She’d outgrown intimidation by the age of six.
“Fred knows better than that. I’m a grown woman.” Since something about Mulligan made her wild and reckless, she added, “If I want to have sex with the new probie, I will.”
His face darkened. “The hell you will. We don’t even know him yet.”
“
We?
The only person whose opinion matters here is me. Besides, you’re almost as new as Ace is. He’s from the South and he’s sweet.”
“Sweet?” His eyebrows drew together. She noticed a white scar bisecting one of them. “That’s what you like? Sweet?”
“Who doesn’t?” Although right now rough around the edges was looking pretty good to her. Too good, the way her belly kept fluttering. She lifted her chin, determined to stand her ground. “Ace is also very polite and charming.”
“He’s trying to charm you into bed.”
“So what if he is? I’m twenty-four years old. I know what I’m doing.” Of course she had no intention of sleeping with Ace, but that wasn’t Mulligan’s business.
“So, you shouldn’t fall for his act.”
“Why are you so suspicious of Ace? He’s part of the brotherhood, isn’t he?”
“Not yet,” Mulligan said with decisive finality, as if everything had now been settled. “You stay here, and I’ll tell him to get lost.”
“You will not!” She grabbed his arm as he brushed past her. It felt like grabbing a log, that’s how thick and strong his forearm was. “It’s none of your business.”
“It is my business. Freddie’s my business. We’re tight.”
“If you were that tight, you’d know that his only involvement with my love life is feeding me ice cream after a breakup,” she snapped. “Stay out of it, Mulligan. You have some nerve, you really do. I’ve never even met you before, and you’re trying to tell me who to sleep with.”
He stopped dead. She kept her hand on his arm because it felt so good. His tendons tightened under her touch, and she saw his jaw flex.
A quick flick of his wrist, and suddenly she was pressed against him, chest to chest, thighs to thighs. Sensation poured through her; it felt like standing next to a volcano. “I’m not telling you who to sleep with. I’m telling you who
not
to sleep with.”
“Oh, really?” she snapped, furious. “Who should I
not
sleep with?”
“Anyone but me.”
Then he kissed her, ferocious and searing, as if his lips were a branding iron. For a moment she froze, but then her body took over, responding like fuel to a match. The kiss stole her breath, left her trembling, her heart just about jumping out of her chest. Even though the meeting of their lips was a physical act, it felt more than physical, as if he was pouring some kind of intense, wordless communication into the contact.
When he finally lifted his mouth from hers, they stared at each other in shock.
Then he set her aside and stalked back into the bar. They didn’t speak again for a month.
W
HEN
M
ULLIGAN CAME
to again, Dream Lizzie was gone. Feeling fuzzy-headed, he assessed his situation again, but nothing had changed. The Christmas tree lay diagonally on top of him. Even if he could roll out from under it, he was surrounded by other pieces of unidentifiable charred junk.
Flames still flickered at the edges of the room, but they’d lost energy and intensity. They’d burned through all the fuel in the room, except the tree on top of him. But there was a good hundred feet separating him from the dying flames, so he didn’t think they posed a threat, unless a sudden gust of wind entered the space.
His bottle must be nearly out of air. Maybe that’s why he kept drifting in and out of consciousness. While smoke still hung heavy in the room, gray and murky, he could see more clearly than when he’d first woken up in here. The smoke must be dissipating.
If only he could reach his radio. He needed to tell the others that he was alive. He knew they were out there, working their asses off to get him out. If they knew he wasn’t dead yet, it would give them more energy. It was a lot more satisfying to make a successful grab than to haul a dead body out of a fire. He strained toward the radio, willing his arm to reach just a bit further, his shoulder screaming in pain. An inch. Half an inch. No more.
He lay back, panting, exhausted by his effort. The smell of smoke permeated everything, even the inside of his nostrils. With his limp and screaming right arm, he pulled one of the Christmas tree’s branches close to his nose. The needles pricked his skin. The scent of Douglas fir cut through the smoky smell like a faraway song, fresh and cool.
With the prickly handful of needles pressed against his nose, he breathed more freely, his lungs expanding to take in the extra oxygen. A Christmas tree was giving him mouth-to-mouth, he thought goofily.
Thanks, Christmas tree. Sorry for all the bad things I said about your holiday. Nothing personal.
Okay, he was getting giddy again. Any minute now, Dream Lizzie would come back. Hope flared. “Come back, Dream Lizzie,” he whispered hoarsely. “It’s lonely here without you.”
He waited, but heard no sign of her lively voice and saw no flash of hot-elf costume. Disappointment made him release the branch and close his eyes.
Strange that he’d dreamed about Lizzie so clearly. They’d broken up. He’d told her she should find someone else, that he wasn’t right for her. That she deserved better. That he didn’t want to let her down. That Fred would kick his ass if he hurt her.
But none of that meant that he didn’t want her.
God, he wanted her.
Had since the very beginning, even before he’d tagged her out in that softball game. After that, he’d spent a month avoiding her. Avoiding her in real life, but jerking off to the image of her every night. He couldn’t shake the memory of how she’d felt in his arms. Couldn’t stop thinking about her, couldn’t stop coming alive at every offhand mention of her by Fred or the others.
Then had come the Southern California Firefighters Chili Cook-Off.
Mulligan smiled, his mouth watering from the vivid memory of the spicy beans created by Chief Roman.
“I think he’s having an orgasm,” said Fred. Mulligan opened his eyes, still blissed out from the incredible flavor of cayenne and cumin. Fred and Lizzie stood on the grassy slope of Los Feliz Park a few steps from him.
“They call that a chili-gasm, I believe.” Lizzie’s eyes danced with laughter. She wore tight pants with vertical black-and-white stripes and a Florence and the Machine shirt with the neckline torn out. She looked smoking hot. “Got a thing for chili, Mulligan?”
“That’s his fifth bowl,” Roman grumbled from behind his white table with a steaming slow cooker atop it. “If he eats it all, I won’t get enough votes to win.”
Mulligan swallowed the rest of his mouthful, then offered his bowl to Fred and Lizzie. “You should try it. Best thing I’ve ever tasted.” Then, with a shadow of a wink, and a surreptitious look at Lizzie, “Maybe second best.”
Lizzie made a scolding face at him. Her hair was loose today. He’d never seen it loose before, since she usually wore a ponytail. It curled at the ends. He wanted it spread across his pillow, brushing against his chest, swaying with her movements as he thrust into her.
He shoved the hot thoughts aside. “Did you enter a chili recipe, Fred? I think there’s a category for ‘Chili Not Even the Firehouse Dog Would Eat.’ ”
“Ha. Ha.” Fred’s poor cooking was notorious; everyone teased him about it. “Pretty good challenge though, especially if Stan was the judge. He’d eat anything. Even the pot the chili came in.”
“Lay off Stan. He’s not here to defend himself.”
Lizzie smiled at him, which made him feel like king of the world. “I’m glad someone stands up for Stan.” He smiled back, and the two of them stood for a moment locked in some kind of mutual bubble of appreciation.
Fred looked from one to the other. “Oh hell no.”
The spell broke. Lizzie poked her brother in the ribs. “Pipe down, big brother.”
“Not him.” Fred glared at Mulligan. “Why him?”
“What are you so worried about?” Lizzie cast Mulligan a teasing look. “We haven’t even done anything. I’ve been waiting and waiting but he still hasn’t asked me out.”
Mulligan opened and shut his mouth. He was rarely at a loss for words, having mastered the art of fast-talking for survival’s sake. “I . . . uh . . .”
Fred was shooting death rays at him again. “You’d be lucky to go out with my sister.”
“I know. Believe me, I feel the same way.”
Lizzie lifted her eyes to the sky and shook her head. “Men,” she muttered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Fred demanded.
“It means you just don’t get it. Because you’re a man and men never get it. Mulligan, can I have a word, please?”
Mulligan shot Fed an alarmed glance, but he got no help from that quarter. Clearly, Lizzie did things her own way. He followed her to the vendor area behind the stands, to a relatively private spot just past the generator truck. No one would be able to hear them over the rumble of the generator. He stuck his hands in his pockets to keep from putting them on the tender flash of skin between the swell of her breasts. Why had she ripped out the neckline so low? Was she trying to torture him?
“What’s up, Lizzie?”
She put her hands on her hips. “Don’t play innocent. Have you forgotten what happened at the Easy Out? One minute you’re telling me not to sleep with anyone else, the next minute you’re ignoring me for a month.”
“You didn’t sleep with anyone else, did you?” Of all the things he could have said, that was the worst. He knew it right away, even before her eyebrows drew together in fury.
“I’d say that’s definitely none of your business. If you want to make it your business, that’s another story. But you shouldn’t say something like that to a girl and then just . . . disappear.” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth.
Finally, clueless idiot that he was, he realized what he’d done. “You’re hurt. I hurt you. Oh God, Lizzie, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I wanted the opposite. To
not
hurt you. That’s why I haven’t . . .”
She shrugged and turned away from him, as if she didn’t want him to see her face. He was losing her. Fear struck out of nowhere.
He couldn’t lose her.
What had he been thinking since that kiss at the Easy Out? Why hadn’t he made a move?
“Come here.” He snagged her wrist and spun her into his arms. She settled against his body as if they’d never been apart, as if the past month hadn’t even happened. In the next breath, they plunged into a kiss that had the intensity of a whirlpool. All the lust he’d stored up for the past month boiled over, and suddenly he had to touch her sweet body.
He pulled her farther behind the generator truck and shielded her with his body, so if anyone spotted them, she’d be completely hidden.
He snuck his hand under that tantalizing T-shirt. Felt meltingly soft skin jump at his touch. Heard her gasp in his ear. Moved upward, across the firm ripple of her ribs, to the fabric of her bra. Her breast fit snugly in his hand, pert and perfect, except for the covering of cloth keeping him from her flesh.