Her Firefighter SEAL (19 page)

Yeah. Good luck with that.

Five minutes later, he put Abbie in the truck, loaded up her gear, and drove her out. She spent the first five hundred yards twisted around in her seat, staring at the smoky hillside like she was channeling Lot’s wife.

“It’s not going to jump the river. If it does, we’re going to be miles away. It’ll be just like watching fireworks on the Fourth of July.” He hoped. Fire wasn’t entirely predictable.

“It’s a fire, not a barbecue.” She paused. “I hope.”

“Jesus,” he muttered. This was so not the time for them to suddenly be on the same page.

“And we’re not watching anything. We’re driving like hell toward Strong.”

“Look at the bright side,” he countered. “You didn’t want to live out here anyhow. Now you’ve got the perfect excuse to move back into your own bungalow.”

“The owner’s already rented it,” she pointed out.

He hit the gas a little harder. Just in case he’d misjudged the fire’s proximity, he’d feel better when he had her on the highway. “Instant roommate.”

“Right.” She laughed. “Because everyone wants to live with a single mom and her newborn. I’m going to be awesome company.”

“Don’t sell yourself short.” The peanut would be a handful if she was like her momma, but he wouldn’t mind being there for each and every minute.

She sighed, like she was working up to something big, and he concentrated on the road and making like a race-car driver. They needed to pave the road to her place, because the gravel had made for a bouncing, spleen-shattering ride on his way in. He’d nearly fishtailed into the ditch twice because sticking to the recommended twenty miles an hour wasn’t in the cards. With Abbie and the peanut riding in his front seat, he’d slowed down considerably, but he was still pushing the truck as fast he could comfortably.

“Did you mean it when you asked me to marry you all those years ago?”

He wasn’t sure if he should apologize or repeat the offer. Damn it. Did she really want to start a conversation now, when they had a forest fire on their ass? Not that he thought the fire was likely to jump both the hill and the river, but he wasn’t taking any chances with his Peanut and Abbie.

“You ever know me to lie to you?”

She pulled her knees up against her stomach, her toes curling into the seat. “You can’t answer a question with a question. That’s not fair.”

“When I asked you to marry me, I meant it.” The road and sky in front of them were clear. No smoke, no sparks, no mass wildlife exodus. He could probably ease up on the accelerator now

“The condom broke.”

“Maybe that sped things up some,” he agreed. “But I’m thinking I would have gotten around to asking you sooner rather than later. I’m sorry you have to ask that though.”

The space between them on the front seat yawned wide like it was the Grand Canyon, and he was trying to gun from one side to the other going twenty miles an hour. It was a long way to the ground, but—looking at Abbie, having had a second chance to hold her and love her—the risk was worth it.

“You sure you don’t want to wait until we’re somewhere...”

He paused, and she finished dryly, “Safer?”

There was no safe time to say some things.

“That would be one way to put it,” he muttered.

One more mile, and they’d be on the highway. The low throb of tanker passing overhead was reassuring. Good. His boys would spray down her place with retardant, giving her some extra insurance. When he reached the turnoff for the highway, he pulled over. He and Abbie had some talking to do.

“This doesn’t look like Strong.” She got that pissy, mulish look on her face that promised much arguing in his future, and he resisted the urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her. Kissing made her less mad, but they still had things that needed discussing.

“You’re the one who wanted to talk,” he pointed out.

Before she could launch into her talking points—and Abbie being Abbie, he’d bet she had a half dozen ready to slay him with—he reached over and unbuckled her, pushing the seat back and dragging her into his lap. Granted, he didn’t have a whole lot of room to work with. The seat was small, the steering wheel omnipresent, and the peanut kept right on growing. In another month, he wouldn’t have a hope in hell of fitting her between him and the wheel. When she sucked in an indignant breath, her breasts brushed his chest, so he didn’t have any complaints about her position. Abbie being Abbie, however, she had plenty.

“Shouldn’t we be on the highway? There’s a forest fire.”

Ten miles and a river behind them. He wrapped his arms around her waist, running his hands up and down her back. She sighed, wriggled, and launched into a new round of arguments. It was probably just as well they hadn’t tried sheltering in place in the house. He’d have gone deaf or demented long before the fire passed by.

“Abbie?” He interrupted her barrage of comments on fire safety, his driving (apparently some of the worst she’d encountered, which meant she definitely hadn’t been driving with Laura Jo lately), and the possibility of turning around and just making sure the house (the one she hadn’t wanted) was okay.

She huffed. “What?”

“Shut up,” he said tenderly and kissed her.

~*~

H
ello.
Kade didn’t tell her to shut up. Not only was it rude, but it violated the unspoken rules in the male-female relationship handbook. Of course, they might not still have a relationship—thanks to her less-than-superior relationship skills—but she was doing her best to remain positively optimistic, along with unscorched and in one piece.

It kind of sucked that her heart hadn’t gotten that message.

“You—” she started, intending to explain the relationship rules to him, but then he covered her mouth with his, and she went up in flames, body and heart.

Long minutes later, he lifted his head and looked at her, the sleepy, heated look in his eyes finishing what his kiss had started.

“You still want to complain?” he asked.

Honestly? No. She wanted seconds and a repeat of his kiss. Maybe a three-peat, four-peat, or five-peat. Kade didn’t play fair. She knew that, so poking at him while he’d been driving might possibly have been deliberate on her part.

“I’m squashed,” she pointed out, just on principle.

He shrugged. “You started it, baby.”

And she’d finish it, too. She wiggled on his lap. The erection she felt beneath her said he might be up—hah—for finishing things too, although their parked-by-the-highway situation wasn’t really the best place for them to be getting it on. Plus even though she didn’t really believe the forest fire was bearing down on them—Kade would have been driving like a madman down the highway to get her somewhere safe if that had been the case—it still seemed kind of stupid to stop and have sex
right now
. So instead she asked the question that had been on her mind since the last time she’d seen Kade.

“You really would have asked me to marry you if the condom hadn’t broken?”

“Yeah.” He rested his forehead against hers, his big hands still rubbing and pressing against her spine in a way that made her want to purr. “I was young and stupid, but even then I knew you were the best thing to happen to me.”

“I’ve wondered about it. What we would have been like if we got married. How it would have turned out.”

“Good parts and bad parts, baby. We would have had them both.”

She thought about that for a moment, breathing in Kade’s scent. God. He was so solid and so very, very
here.
There were no guarantees that life wouldn’t snatch him away like it had Will, but she knew in her heart of hearts that Kade would do everything he could to stay with her.

He pulled her a little tighter. “There’s no way to go back, and that’s okay.”

It was?

“We both moved on and got busy living. I loved who you were that night in my truck, but I love the woman I’m holding right now even more.”

Oh. God. She looked up at his face, not sure she’d heard right. When he’d proposed the other night, he hadn’t said anything about love. He looked kind of pained—and totally sincere.

“Life’s short,” he continued gruffly, “and sometimes there’s less time than you think. If you’re ready, I’m ready. I’m not looking to replace him or be him, but I’m wondering if you have room for three.” 

Somehow love had snuck up on her. Not the poetic sunset stuff but something quieter, friendlier, and with smoking hot sex. She wanted to say something wise or poetic—even spouting Baudelaire would have been smoother—but instead she squeaked out a small sound of assent.

He grinned. “You’re speechless. I like that.”

She narrowed her eyes. “My loving you isn’t going to change some things.”

His smile got wider. “That’s good news, but I don’t want to do this in the truck.”

“Do what?” Her heart was bouncing up and down in her chest, like her stomach was a trampoline.

“Ask you to marry me. You want romantic, you get romantic.”

“Maybe it’s my turn,” she said, twining her arms around her neck.

“That would be fair.” His eyes drifted down her face, stopping on her mouth, and she figured she had maybe thirty seconds before she got that repeat kiss she wanted. She’d need to move fast, but nothing about this relationship had been slow, had it?

Do it.
“Kade Jordan, will you marry me?”

His mouth brushed hers. ”We’re going to have one of those modern relationships, aren’t we?”

She nipped his bottom lip. “Would you prefer to relocate to the Dark Ages?”

“Can I go all caveman on you and drag you off to have my wicked way with you?” He sounded hopeful—and amused.

“As long as you love me and I love you, we can work the details out.”

“I love you,” he promised, and she had just enough time to whisper, “Perfect,” before he was kissing her.

K
eep reading for a special sneak peek from TEASING HER SEAL, my October 2015 Harlequin Blaze.

Subject: Navy SEAL Gray Jackson 

Objective: Stay on mission. And out of her bed. 

Surgeon Laney Parker is on her honeymoon. Alone. Without her cheating fiancé, she's enjoying her nonrefundable "vacation" at Fantasy Island, an exotic resort filled with lush greenery, white beaches and staff who apparently grant every sexual request. Including an unbearably hot massage therapist whose touch turns Laney to molten lava... 

Laney has no idea that Gray Jackson is actually an undercover Navy SEAL who's supposed to keep his hands off. Or that Gray wants to take total control. To give Laney just what she—hell, what they both need. Gray can grant her every erotic wish, just as long as he keeps his cover. And just as long as their sexy little tease doesn't go beyond the week...

O
n a good day, Laney saved at least five lives by noon. Her numbers dipped during the slower weeks, because not all days were a constant rush-rush of heart attacks, gunshot wounds and four-car freeway pileups. San Francisco traffic made the Autobahn look tame, and the off-ramps at Balboa Park alone had ambulances pulling into the bay on a semimonthly basis. Instead of scrubbing in, arms up as she hip-checked her way through the surgery door, however, now she was...naked.

Absolutely butt-naked and stretched out, waiting for a man to come and run his hands over her body.

Usually, naked was cause for celebration, except for the inescapable fact that she was all alone in a cabana with the same grade-A ocean views that had greeted her plane yesterday. Her surroundings included miles of powdery white sand, dotted with palm trees, and nothing but the calm blue Caribbean Sea begging for a close encounter with a snorkel. Fantasy Island—which was a ridiculously
fantastic
name—was undeniably much prettier and calmer than her usual Monday morning gig.

Harlan didn’t know what he was missing, the bastard. Oh, he was still a good-looking bastard, tall, broad shouldered and dark haired. He’d been tapped to play football for his college, but by then he’d already decided medical school lay in his future, and he’d passed on the team because he couldn’t risk the damage to his hands. If she hadn’t taken the Hippocratic Oath herself, she’d have been tempted to step on those talented fingers. Hard.

Imagining Harlan here on Fantasy Island was surprisingly difficult, although he’d been the one to pick out the place for their honeymoon. She was fairly certain she remembered what good sex was like. Or, at the very least, she remembered
having
sex. Decent sex with matching his-and-her orgasms at the end. Since both she and Harlan were trauma surgeons, they didn’t share too many off-the-clock hours, and she’d had to schedule time to make love with him, which was a sad commentary right there. This trip had been her chance to
not
be in control of every step of their sex life, and she’d been looking forward to it. While he, on the other hand, had been checking out nurses.

She wriggled on the massage bed and snuck another peek at her phone. Her ponytail slid over her shoulder and she forced herself not to grab it and play with the ends. But holy awkwardness. Lying here like a slab of meat hadn’t been in the spa brochure. Her cabana boy—aka
masseuse
—was late. The spa attendant had turned on some kind of New Age crap music, heavy on chimes but missing any noticeable beginning or end. The chiming went on ad nauseum. For added bonus points, the attendant had spritzed the air, and Laney’s towel cocoon smelled like some kind of floral scent that made her nose itch.