Free Out of Control by Stephanie Feagan Page A

intend it as a joke. He surprised
     me when he didn’t even smile, much less laugh.
    Instead, he said in a far more pronounced than usual southern drawl, with an undertone
     that made me think of warm whiskey and slick, hot skin, “If you take your clothes
     off, sugar, I guaran-damn-tee I’ll do a helluva lot more than look.”
    Never in my whole life had a man made me feel exactly like I did at that moment. In
     all honesty, if we hadn’t had an audience, if we could have gotten away with it, I’d
     have stripped off the damn fire suit and made love to him right there in the west
     Texas dust next to enough nitro to blow us to the moon.
    I sucked in a deep breath and let it out very slowly. “Then I guess maybe we better
     not play doctor.” We needed to get on with it, finish the nitro load, kill the fire
     and cap the well, pack up and get going. But I couldn’t stop staring at him.
    “Did I mention that I spoke to Trick this afternoon?” he said.
    “No.”
    His gaze moved all over my face and landed on my lips. “Said he’s sending us to Venezuela
     as soon as we’re done here.”
    “Us?”
    His mouth slid into a slight smile. “You and me. Said he thinks we make a good team,
     considering how fast we worked this fire.”
    If Trick had any inkling what Robichaud and I were discussing, he’d send one of us
     to Venezuela and the other to the opposite side of the world. Very glad Trick had
     no clue, I licked my lips. “Hotter than hell in Venezuela right now.”
    I saw something flare in his dark eyes that had nothing to do with the monster fire
     to the east of us. “Maybe you can spend a few weeks down there and come back home
     relatively sane, but I can’t. I’m standing here trying to figure a way to get you
     out of that suit before we have to load the f’ing plane. I’m not even thinking about
     tomorrow. It’s all about two hours from now.”
    He wasn’t the impetuous type. Neither was he someone who ploddingly plans. Robichaud
     was a man who sized something up, figured the best way to go about it, then did it.
     Decisive. A man of action. If he was thinking about having sex with me in two hours,
     he’d been thinking about it for some time. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. On
     the one hand, it was extremely erotic knowing he’d been thinking about me that way.
     On the other hand, it had a certain expectation that slammed against the control freak
     in me.
    Ironically he gave voice to my thoughts. “It’s inevitable, especially if we spend
     a few weeks isolated in South America.”
    “What’s inevitable is the end of it. Did you forget that part about how I’m lousy
     at relationships?”
    “Did you forget that you’ve never had a relationship with a guy who does what you
     do? I’m not just anybody, Blair. I know who you are, and why.”
    “You’re getting way past sex, Robichaud.”
    “Why not be optimistic?”
    “It’s got nothing to do with optimism. If we didn’t work together, we wouldn’t be
     having this conversation. We’d be heading for that skeezy motel in Iraan as soon as
     we kill this fire. But we do work together, which means this train will wind up in
     a town called Awkward. That is, if no one else finds out.” I nodded toward the trailer
     house, where Cash and Harley were taking a breather before we blew the fire. “If anyone
     catches on, I’ll be the company bimbo and you’ll be Mister Studly. If Sweet or Trick
     find out, we could both be fired.”
    He tapped his finger against one of the nitro bottles and said softly, “Didn’t figure
     you for a coward, Blair.”
    “There’s a difference between being a coward and being careful.”
    He frowned. “Careful means we don’t get caught. It means we agree to walk away friends
     if things don’t work out. Just admit it. You’re chicken.”
    It was my turn to look down, away from the intensity of his stare. I focused on the
     nitro bottles. There was enough there to blow both of us