Free Fire at Dusk: The Firefighters of Darling Bay by Lila Ashe

him, out here in the parking lot for all to see—she wanted that tongue to go other places. All her places.
    “Come inside.”
    “Honey,” he drawled, pulling her hips against his again, “I like to use protection.”
    She laughed. “Inside the apartment. Please.”
    He sobered suddenly, pushing his forehead against hers. “I can’t.”
    “Why?” She ran her fingers up the line of his jaw, under his ear, reveling in the strength of the muscle she felt there. She put her thumb to his bottom lip and he groaned.
    “You just fired me,” he managed, lifting his hand to hers. “For the second time.”
    She slipped his finger into her own mouth and sucked for a second. She felt him get even harder. “You’re unfired.”
    “That’s emotional whiplash. I should sue or something.”
    “Then we’ll call it even,” she said. “You got mad at me, way too mad, but now I know why. Let’s split the difference and go inside where you can take off all my clothes.”
    He laughed, but it sounded choked. “You are the hottest thing on two legs.”
    It wasn’t the most romantic line she’d ever been handed, but she’d take it. He was a firefighter, not a poet. “Thanks. I like your legs, too. And I like this.” She tugged on his belt, drawing his hips to hers again. She leaned over and kissed him. When she came up for air, she said, “I like that, too. I know, we’ll do this a different way. Come upstairs, and I’ll take off all your clothes.”
    This time it was a real laugh. But he twisted, putting her away from him with a smooth lift and turn. “I’m not going to take advantage of you like that.”
    She flopped back into her seat with a groan. “ I want you to. ” That was the whole point.
    “Samantha.” He scooted his seat forward again and looked her straight in the eye. “I want you. Honestly, I’d love to try to get you out of my system.”
    Samantha smiled. She felt the same way and liked his honesty.
    Hank went on, “I reckon you felt just how much I want you. But I can’t.”
    “Why?” No, she didn’t get this. “Yeah, you got angry, but—”
    “That.” He gripped the steering wheel. “That’s the problem. I’ve been trying to make it up to Jimmy since the day it happened by being the guy he wanted to be—we both, we were so into being firemen. Protecting. Saving. Instead, I scared a woman. I scared you. You were right to fire me.” He reached forward and touched her cheek. His hand was warm.
    It made her feel safe while doing absolutely nothing to relieve the feeling of need deep inside her.
    “I have to go.”
    She growled in the back of her throat. Then she jammed open the car door again, kicking at it with her foot like she would an assailant. “Fine. But I need you at the community center at nine a.m., day after tomorrow. You said you were off, right?”
    Hank nodded, his eyes narrowing. “But…”
    “Look. I need your help, Hank.”
    As she slammed the Mustang’s heavy door behind her, she felt a grim satisfaction. At least, putting it that way, he might show up.
    But it was going to do nothing for the fire she still felt inside her body, low and deep. The firefighter had started that flame—that was the problem. No one but him could help her put it out.
     

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
     
    OF COURSE HANK’S grandmother would come by at eight in the morning. Hank hadn’t been able to sleep, not even after he got up and went for a run in the middle of the night, battling his way through the freezing night-time air, his lungs heaving with something he hoped would turn to tiredness. He’d come back and gotten into bed, and instead of dropping into sleep, his head had spun with thoughts of her.
    The taste of her.
    The feel of the nape of her neck in his hand. The way her body molded to his, the way when he kissed her she responded with the perfect heat before she took it even higher.
    No fire he’d ever fought, not even the one at the magnesium plant seven years before, had ever