Melting Point (10 page)

Brady put his hand on Gage's chest, taking the measure of his galloping heart. No one was shy about touching Gage—he was a very touchable person—but when Brady did it, the guy for whom physical contact was like a punishment, it crushed all the organs inside his chest. Brady's mouth met his, warm, soft, kissing the opposite of how he looked. It sounded weird, but that was the only way Gage could describe it.

“You're okay, Golden.”

Gage laughed against the mouth of this man he loved so much. “Isn't that what I've been saying, you asshole?”

Brady enveloped him in a huge hug, all hard muscles against Gage's hard muscles, and damn it was hella good to have him wrapped around his body like that. He hadn't realized how much he needed this man until he'd lost him. They stayed like that for a while, and Gage never felt he had to speak because Brady could have waited him out forever.

He was that strong.

“I don't know what I expected. I thought that now that I'm all grown up and she can't hurt me anymore that she'd be at my mercy, but she couldn't even give me that. She couldn't even stay lucid enough to be her old self, the woman I hated and loved and hated again. All I needed was sixty seconds of her being old crazy Mom, so I could say my piece. But she couldn't even . . . fuck, she couldn't . . .”

Brady hugged him tighter.

“It's not just that I want to prove how I made it without her. I want . . . I want to forgive her. I want to try to understand her.”

Brady sighed at that. Admittedly, it
was
kind of crazy. “It's okay to be pissed off and angry and sad. It's okay to hate her and love her at the same time. Don't know if it's okay for you to continue these visits, though.”

Gage swallowed, drew back. “Because it turns me into moody Gage.”

“I love moody Gage. Happy Gage. Princess Gage. Every shade of Gage does it for me.” Brady stroked his face. “Every one but hurtin' Gage. If you want to torture yourself by spending time with her, then okay. But that window when she can hear you might never open and you'll get frustrated. Eventually you'll just smash through and get it all out. She won't understand and you'll still be pissed.”

He knew Brady was right, but Gage Simpson was not a quitter. Rather than work all this out now, he chose to focus on something much more pleasurable and a little bit mind-blowing. “I know I'm supposed to be absorbing all this wisdom you're dishing out, oh old and sage one—”

Brady growled. So fucking sexy.

“But I'm sort of snagged on something else you said.”

“Yeah?”

“You said you love moody Gage.”

“I did say that. Also said I love happy Gage and Princess Gage.”

Gage smiled. “Under any other circumstances, I'd be taking exception to the princess thing, but my emotions are all over the place. How about you tell me more about this love business?”

Brady held his gaze. “Six years ago I got pretty banged up, I didn't pull a trigger, and I lost a member of my team. I've been blamin' that for not being fixed. Maybe I'll never be fixed. Maybe a fixed me wouldn't have met you because this guy with all the broken pieces needed to be coaxed back to the land of the living with hot kisses and amazing blow jobs and slow, sexy fucks. He needed to try.”

That had to be the most romantic thing Gage had ever heard. “Well, trying is sexy.”

“It is. And I want to try with you.” He lay his forehead against Gage's, the intimacy of it a balm to his beat-down soul. “This thing with your mom, Gage . . . if you need to shout your head off, then do it at me. Rant and rave, because I can take it.”

“You'd do that for me?”

“I'd do anything for you, Gage.”

Gage stared at him, his mouth working to form a response. “Would you . . . maybe like to meet her?” He glanced over his shoulder at Hillview where his mom existed in her strange, gray world. Eventually, Gage would tell Brady about the hurts she had inflicted on him, but for now he just wanted this strong, unflappable man at his side. Through everything.

Brady nodded. “Whatever you need. I'm here.”

Gage's heart exploded, and in that same burning instant re-formed, stronger. Unbreakable. “I love you, Brady. I really love you.”

On hearing such a declaration, old Brady would have looked shy, annoyed, embarrassed, or a combination of all three.
This
Brady didn't even have the decency to look surprised.

“I know,” he said matter-of-factly.

“You know?
You know?
Did you just Han-Fucking-Solo-in-
Empire
me?”

Maybe Brady had a point about the princess thing.

He twisted his mouth into a wry grin. “Don't worry, Golden. I might not tell you every second of every day, but you will never doubt how I feel about you. You'll be reminded when you read my menu or take a shower with me or notice a twinge in your hot ass because I was inside you for hours the night before. A million little things will make it clear.” He pulled Gage in for another kiss. “But because you're the shy, retirin' type who seems to be plagued with self-doubt about your appeal to other guys, I'll put you out of your misery. I love you, Gage Simpson. Good enough?”

Gage laughed, loving that he dragged such an awesome profession of feeling from his usually surly, closemouthed chef. “Better than good. The absolute best.”

epilogue

“S
URE YOU CAN
handle this?”

Gage shot Brady a condemning look. “All that power vibrating between my legs, making my balls sizzle and my di—”

“Just put on the helmet, Golden.”

With a pirate grin and a mutter of “about fuckin' time,” Gage secured the helmet and those long, strong legs around Brady's hips. Man, it felt like heaven to have him there at his back—and not just on the bike. Remembering the feel of Gage's chest to Brady's back in the shower, while he slept, and yeah, over a table in Smith & Jones (at last), sustained Brady when they were apart.

Life was too raw and messy to assume that love fixed everything, but it was a start. Brady was seeing a therapist, talking it out at two bills an hour, and hoping he'd see progress before he saw bankruptcy. Though Brady didn't agree that it was for the best, Gage was still seeing his mom, and then taking out his frustration on Brady. Keeping that pledge to be Gage's rock wasn't always easy, but it was part of being in this thing called a relationship.

“So is this . . . a date?” Gage's voice was filled with mock derision.

“Shut it, smartass, and hold on tight.”

Brady had promised Gage a ride on the bike, and now that his shoulder was fully healed, he was making good on it. Early October, and the weather had turned cooler, but the heat around his waist more than compensated. Gage picked up quickly the quirks of being a hog-hugger and leaned in just right on the curves. The two of them, in perfect sync.

The Drive was their ultimate goal, but Brady had one stop first. Late-afternoon traffic was thick along Western Avenue so it was awhile before he reached their destination.

“What gives?” he heard behind him when they parked. Brady so wanted to turn around to witness that moment when Gage realized where they were and why. Instead he let it stretch for an exquisite beat.

One.

Two.

“Hey, where the hell did I go?”

Peeling off his helmet, Brady looked over his shoulder. Gage had whipped off his helmet, too, the better to express his annoyance. Apparently not satisfied with that level of freedom, he clambered off the bike and pointed upward.

“That billboard should have been on the city register of historic whatsits!”

“Historic whatsits?”

Gage waved in the direction of the billboard at Western and Diversey. “Tell your best pal, Mr. Mayor, to bring it back. That kitten and my hot bod made a lot of people happy. Porridge”—he gestured in disgust at the replacement, an ad for Irish oatmeal—“is not going to make anyone happy.”

Brady set his helmet on the seat between his legs. “Aw, baby, don't get your boxers in a bunch. I'm sure that oatmeal makes a lot of people happy. Lovely on a cold Chicago winter morning.” He pulled Gage toward him and circled his waist. “You know it's safer for everybody now that the distraction has been retired.”

His golden god kissed him with a low, sexy rumble in his throat. “My first time on the bike and you burst my bubble. Some boyfriend you are.”

“You don't need the adulation of strangers when you have what I can give you. I'll adore that hot billboard body of yours and keep you toasty.”

“Like oatmeal on a cold Chicago morning?”

“Exactly.” He claimed Gage's lips in a kiss and breathed his commitment into his lungs.

“Show me.”

“What?”

Gage pulled at the hem of Brady's tee and hooked his finger in the waistband of his jeans.

“Gage, not here.” Kissing his guy on a busy street in Chicago was one thing—and even that was a level of demonstrativeness he was getting used to—flashing a wealth of skin was quite another. But Gage would not be swayed.

“Yes, here. I want to see it again.”

The new tat had completely healed now, and even though Brady had a cornucopia of ink on his body, this one stood out above all the others. Right on his hip, a multirayed sun with a half-moon inset. The union of light and dark, yin and yang, opposing energies that together created harmony, balance, and strength. Darcy had outdone herself.

Gage's gaze turned molten. “Should have gotten my name.”

“Figured you'd think that was passé.”

Gage smiled, causing Brady's IQ to plummet and his dick to rise.

“So what's the story behind this one?” he asked, the epitome of coy.

“Just a sun and moon. Pretty common tat imagery.”

Another arch smile was soon hidden by Gage putting on his helmet. As he retook his spot at Brady's back and hugged him close, Brady thought about how every tattoo, even the tired and worn symbols, had a story.

Once upon a time he was in this dark, dank hole, trying to climb out. For a while, it was one step forward, two steps back, dirt under his fingernails, barbed wire around his heart. Then one day, when he was least expecting it, a hand shot out into the pitch black and yanked him into the sun.

Golden, warm, giver of life. Gage Fucking Simpson.

Unable to keep a smile from cracking his face in half, Brady punched the gas and rejoined the city's traffic.

acknowledgments

T
HANKS TO EVERYONE
who advised me on how best to tell Gage and Brady's story: Lauren Layne, Monique Headley, Jessica Lemmon, and Nicole Resciniti. To my editors, Lauren and Elana at Pocket Books, for recognizing that there was nothing secondary about Gage and Brady's romance and insisting that the boys deserved their own book. And finally, to all my readers who loved Gage so much. This one's for you.

Keep reading for a sneak peek excerpt from

PLAYING

WITH

FIRE

Book Two in Kate Meader's sizzling
Hot in Chicago series

Available September 2015 from Pocket Books!

chapter one

“S
O, AMERICA'S
FAVORITE
Firefighter?”

Across the table in the farmer-chic restaurant Smith & Jones, Alex Dempsey blinked at her thirty-fourth date in ten months and pondered a suitable response. Perhaps the smartass retort, which she could manage in her sleep. Or the bitch-slap, which would be eminently more satisfying.

“I have good people on my PR payroll,” she finally said with a deferential smile.

Ah, ye olde classic, the minimizer.

So it didn't feel like her, Alex Dempsey, kick-ass firefighter.
That
Alex could blitz a fifty-foot ladder propped against a burning building and haul a metric asston hose bundle up multiple flights of stairs. But that Alex's love life was less breathtaking fireworks and more damp squib. She had officially earned the title of Chicago's most successful serial first dater.

Something had to give.

Tonight she was unveiling Alex Dempsey 2.0 with a test-drive of a few new tools. A slinky dress that left little to the imagination. Smoky eyes that were more emo panda than sex kitten, along with a pair of inadvisable heels—inadvisable because she was already too tall at five ten. On the plus side, courtesy of an uncharacteristically successful bout with a hair iron, her usual rumpus of chocolate curls now knew who was boss.

She didn't crave excitement—she got that in her line of work. She just wanted someone who wasn't a complete dick and could stand up to her occasionally abrasive personality. All the men she had dated in the last year enjoyed the novelty of breaking bread with a female firefighter, but once the honeymoon was over—usually by dessert—doubts scudded like petulant storm clouds across their faces, the forecast always the same.

How can
I
be the man if
you're
being the man?

Tonight's
victim
opportunity was a Chicago police detective who she hoped had enough self-confidence to handle hers. In his off-time, he bashed a hockey puck around a rink with her brother Gage, which was what had led to this setup in the first place.

Detective Michael Martinez, are you the one?

“Remind me not to get on your bad side,” date number thirty-four was saying, still stuck on the America's Favorite Firefighter thing. “Plenty of nights on the sofa in my future, right?”

No nights, if he didn't quit being such a jackass. But then, wasn't she a magnet for jackasses?

Five months ago, she had made headlines all over the country when she took the firefighter's equivalent of a chainsaw to the Lamborghini of one of Chicago's wealthiest and most influential men. Mega mogul and Trump wannabe Sam Cochrane had drunkenly crashed his car and miraculously not injured himself or others. When he wasn't extracted quickly enough, he leveled a chauvinistic, racist, and homophobic rant against Alex and her family.

Oh, she had extracted Cochrane from that car all right—through the large opening left by the sawed-off door. There was also the two-foot gash she'd carved (unnecessarily) into the roof.

Pretty.

Also pretty stupid. So not her finest moment, but anyone who messed with her family risked her wrath. Growing up Dempsey meant all other considerations fell by the wayside.

“Good thing someone filmed it,” Michael continued. “Got the women and the gays on your side. Put the mayor in a difficult spot.”

Yeah, yeah. Alex had escaped with her job, a rap on the wrist, and damp toes from her dip in the fifteen-minutes-of-fame pool. Now she saw no reason why that unfortunate incident should have any effect on her professional or love life.

Except that everyone kept bringing it up.

“You know how the news blows stuff out of proportion,” she said, adding the half shrug Alex Dempsey 2.0 would use. That Alex was more dateable. More lovable. Less likely to use the Jaws of Life on the personal property of anyone who pissed her off.

She leaned in, a tip she had read today on HuffPo's Love & Sex section. Boobs out, smile wide, voice low. Being sexy was exhausting.

His gaze fell to her cleavage. Spectacular stuff, she knew, but rarely did the girls get this much air.

“Do you like the squash blossoms?” Alex asked with a drop to bedroom-husky as she tried to redirect the date.

“The what?”
Eyes still at nipple level. Possibly thinks
squash blossoms
is a euphemism for tits.

She gestured to the dish of tempura-fried goodness between them. Chef Brady Smith, who was currently groping Gage on a regular basis, had sent it over with his compliments.

“Oh yeah, they're good.” He shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. “These flashy places don't really do it for me. Overpriced food, undersized portions. Gimme a burger any day.”

She laughed, feeling at ease for the first time tonight. New and improved Alex would have let her date choose where to eat, but Michael had told her to pick a place, and Brady was an awesome chef. “I know. Gage is a big foodie, so he's always dragging me to restaurants with stuff like veal cheeks and charred orange and—”

“Seaweed and shit.”

“Yes!”

He chuckled and she joined in. Three days before the New Year and the restaurant was cheerfully festive with beautiful wreaths adorning the antique mirrors. It was also packed with Prius-driving, cigarette-pants-wearing, Wilco-ticket-stubs-in-the-pockets-of-their-ironic-bowling-shirts hipsters.

“Gage is all loved up with the chef,” she whispered, to keep her traitor talk out of the hearing range of Brady's server spies, “so I thought it might be a good place, but . . .”

“Next time, we'll get a burger.”

Next time?
Score!
But she needed to rein in her runaway thoughts. It ain't over till the gingerbread pudding has made an appearance.

His phone pinged—again—and his expression morphed to cop-serious. “Got to take this, sweets, back in a sec. You choose whatever you want off the menu.”

Gee, thanks, mister.

He headed off toward the restrooms, and her heart sank a little. Had he designated a buddy to dial in for rescue at a certain point into the date? Like “call a friend,” but in reverse?

Time for her own check-in. She conference texted her posse: Gage, who was on shift at Engine Company 6, where they both worked, and her friends/future sisters-in-law Darcy and Kinsey. Otherwise known as Team Get Alex Laid.

He's left the table 2X in 10 mins. Either his gun's digging into his tiny bladder or he's on a “coke” break in the can.

Five seconds later from her brother:
stop looking for faults.

He keeps staring at my tits.

Darcy chimed in with:
That's what they're fucking for!

Touché.

Next up on deck was Kinsey, who could usually be relied upon for a healthy jolt of common sense.
Bring out your inner sexpot. Suck on a straw.

Real subtle,
Alex texted back.

Subtle does not lead to man-made orgasms!
Gage again.

Alex found it rather priceless how people channeled the love child of Yoda and Oprah the second they bagged a regular sex partner. But after twenty-six years on this planet, she wanted what they had with a heady desperation that sometimes left her breathless.

She wanted to be smugly in love.

The next buzz had a smile tugging her lips at the prospect of more oh-so-sage advice. But the new message wasn't from her best peeps.

Her pulse rate skyrocketed as it always did when she heard his name or saw him on TV or spent a single moment in his presence. Of course he had no idea how much he affected her. She planned to keep it that way.

Try the quail,
the text said.
It's excellent.

He was here. In the restaurant. Either that or he had surveillance trained on her, which, given her past behavior tainting the good name of the CFD, might not be so far-fetched. Another message came in.

Check your six.

If she ignored him, it would look like she cared, and yet the idea of turning her head because he issued an order was equally galling.

Deciding that following his “suggestion” sat with her better than letting him think his presence bothered her, she twisted her shoulders and met the raw blue gaze of Mayor Eli Cooper. He was seated alone in a booth near the back, paperwork and an iPad laid out before him, long fingers curled around a tumbler of scotch.

He didn't smile. She wouldn't have believed it if he did. There was something silkily predatory about him, like a lazy python lying in the sun ready to uncoil and strike at any moment. Before he straightened to his full six two, she just knew he would come to her table.

Hell and damn.

Watching him walk over, Alex mused that Eli Cooper was the sort of man who knew how to use his physicality. Beneath his handmade shirts and tailored suits, a street fighter hummed through every loose-limbed motion. But that impression did not extend to his face, which was structurally perfect. Skyscraper-­high cheekbones. Superhero jaw. A mouth that should have a government warning. There were no signs of past trouble with a jealous husband or an abandoned girlfriend. No one had ever broken his nose. No one had busted his lip.

Strange, because her first instinct on seeing him was to roundhouse kick him into the next millennium.

“Alexandra,” he drawled. It was never Alex with him, which everybody and their aunt called her, but her full name. Just another dig that ensured her XX chromosomes would not be forgotten.

“Mr. Mayor.”

He sat without invitation. “How's your date going?”

“Fabulous. Probably won't appreciate a threesome, though.”

The words were barely spoken, and she longed to bite them back. That well-worn smirk, like a stray comma at the corner of his full-lipped mouth, activated.

“No one would like to share you, I imagine, Alexandra. However, you're so difficult you'd probably need several CPD officers to handle you.”

Passing over the fact he knew her date was Chicago blue, she gusted a bored sigh.

“Slow night on the campaign trail? I would think you'd want to get out there if your latest approval numbers are anything to go by.” She tsked. “Less than two months to the election and you're hovering under forty percent.”

“All that matters are the numbers on the night.”

“Still, I'm sure you have babies to kiss, MILFs to ogle.” Donor dicks to suck. “Don't let me stop you.”

“Given your recent popularity, I should have you stump for me, but there's no telling what might come out of your mouth from one second to the next.”

Alex raised her fruity Cab to her unpredictable mouth and took a ladylike sip instead of her usual gulp. Now would be a fabulous time for her date to reappear.

“You never fail to bring out the worst in me, Mr. Mayor.”

“Oh, it doesn't take much to get you riled, Alexandra. All that passion looking for an outlet.”

There he went again.
Alexandra.
But this time, it didn't feel like a dig. It felt like . . . a caress. She lowered her glass of wine to the distressed mahogany table and stared at it accusingly because that was just, well,
loco
.

Done blaming the alcohol for that ludicrous flight of fancy, she lifted her chin and thought she saw his gaze snap up as if he'd been looking at her chest. Not likely. Except to disapprove. Every fiber of Eli Cooper's exalted being disapproved of her, from his perfectly pedicured feet to his overly produced hair.

So the man was an exceptionally good-looking son of a bitch. The gods had been generous, giving him a strong brow beneath that wavy black hair. Ice-blue eyes that hinted at secrets and numerous ways of uncovering hers. A dimple, too. Not that she'd ever seen it up close because he had never smiled at her, not a real smile, anyway. But she'd seen it on TV, a sunshine pop in the hard plane of his cheek. Practically every woman in Chicago had a lady boner for him, even the ones who hated his politics. Put her in the latter camp—not the lady boner part, just the politics-hating.

“Feel free to call me Firefighter Dempsey or plain Dempsey. That seems more appropriate for a boss-employee relationship.”

His brows rose. “You consider me your boss?”

“I consider you an asshole.”

He laughed, a deep, rich bass that corkscrewed down her spine with a pleasurable thrill she resented. Fascinating how an essentially nice person like herself could turn nasty so suddenly, but then she always felt slightly unhinged around him.

“Ah, but you put it so much more colorfully before when you called me a
patriarchal woman-hating
asshole. In this very restaurant. Over there.” He pointed to the booth where he'd been sitting. His regular table, she supposed.

Twice in the last six months she had crossed swords with Mayor Eli Cooper. The first time, he had made it clear that firefighting and breasts were incompatible. The second time he was pissed to all hell at her and she was woman enough to admit he might have had good reason. That foul-mouthed big shot with the Lamborghini? Only Mayor Cooper's preeminent donor, another guy who thought his dick had its own zip code. After her luxury car slice-and-dice, the mayor had summoned her to his townhouse in Lincoln Park—by text, which is why he now had her number—and proceeded to ream her ass. For a long time. The guy did not like Alex or her family or the CFD.