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She hung back and chewed her lip, then shook her head. “No. I’ll follow in my car. After giving me such extensive access and satisfying all my raging…curiosity…you’ll be exhausted. There’s no need to drag you back here to drop me off when I’m perfectly capable of driving.”
A part of him felt duty-bound to debate the exhausted part, but he shrugged instead. She wanted the ability to bring the evening to a quick, clean close? Fine with him. He appreciated an independent woman. “Okay. You know the way.”
“That I do, Chief.” Her cat-with-a-mouse expression made him want to start the tour right then and there, in the back of his truck.
…
Melody followed Josh into the redbrick firehouse while her heart did its best to break out of her rib cage. Bravado and a decade’s worth of desperation had gotten her this far, but some of the ’tude had leaked away during the drive. Roger had been her one and only, and she’d been his. Talk about the blind leading the blind. All evidence suggested she sucked at seduction.
Roger had insisted that wasn’t the case, and nothing she’d done, or failed to do, sexually, had contributed to his change in orientation or their breakup, but deep down she found it hard to ignore one cold, hard fact—he hadn’t been physically attracted to her. What if something about her repelled men? No matter how vehemently Roger denied it, no matter how much her rational side knew better, a small, insecure part of her couldn’t help wondering if she’d turned the one and only man she’d ever slept with gay.
Josh glanced back at her just then, and the hunger in his eyes sent a flare of excitement straight through her. He looked ready to devour her, and certain highly personal and mostly neglected parts tingled in anticipation of being devoured. If this guy switched teams after being with her, she’d have no choice but to join a convent—no matter that she wasn’t Catholic.
He held the red front door open, and their bodies brushed as she walked through. Her pulse spiked at his hard muscles and coiled energy momentarily pressed against her. Before she could tell her hyperactive hormones to settle, he gestured for her to precede him down the hall and up a staircase to the living quarters on the second level. She climbed the steep wooden stairs, trying to put some sway into her hips, and wondered if he noticed the effort. A door separated the stairway from the rest of the floor. She stopped there, because she wasn’t sure about the wisdom of walking through the door unannounced, and he bumped into her. The answer to her first question prodded her right where she’d imagined him looking. Yep, he’d noticed.
“Sorry,” he murmured and wrapped an arm around her waist to steady her. She barely heard him. All her focus zoomed to the contact around back. Long, hard, unapologetic contact, from a man who was practically a stranger, and wanted her with a hunger she’d never experienced before…in her life. She couldn’t help herself. She moaned, arched her spine, and pushed back against him. Good-bye, good girl.
He cursed under his breath, and then lowered his hand from her waist to between her thighs. At the same time, he rocked his hips. The duel sensations of his fingers stroking her from the front while the thick, insistent ridge of his erection nudged her from behind nearly did her in. A needy sound slipped from her throat.
“Oh, sweet mercy, don’t—”
“Don’t what? Torture you until you think you’re going to die where you stand? How do you think I feel every single time I look at you? When you come into Jiffy Java, fiddle with the top button of your blouse while you decide between an iced coffee or a sweet tea, all I want to do is tear your shirt open, shove your bra out of my way, and feast on your breasts. How do you think I feel when you lean on the bar at Rawley’s, talking to your friends while I drive myself insane wondering what you’ve got on under your good-girl dress? Tortured doesn’t even begin to describe it.”
Those diabolical fingers made a circling motion, and her knees threatened to buckle. “How shameless of me. I’m terribly”—oh, there he went again with the fingers—“sorry.” She wasn’t. Not in the least.
“You will be, because I can’t let behavior like yours go unpunished.”
She closed her eyes and a pathetically small scenario of erotic punishments paraded through her head. Waves of hot and cold washed over her. It was all she could do to find her voice, and keep it even while she asked, “What did you have in mind?”
“When I get you alone the first thing I’m going to do is give you a pillow.”
Uh-oh. She didn’t know the pillow game. “A pillow?” she asked, and immediately wondered if she’d just given him a big hint of exactly how tame her sex life had been up until tonight.
“Yeah. Because once I get started, you’ll need something to bury your face in so nobody hears you pleading with me to let you come. Does that answer your question?”
Why yes. Yes it did. So much so, for a moment she could only nod. “A-and then?”
“At that point, I’m going to tongue-whip your clit until you don’t care if the whole fucking town hears you begging. Then, if you ask nicely, will I guide my very eager cock into you”—he rocked his hips again for emphasis, coaxing another moan out of her—“and give us both the relief we’re after. Are you ready, Miss Bluelick?”
Beyond ready. This man wanted to get down and dirty…with her. No hesitation. No reluctance bordering on squeamishness at the idea of getting her naked and sweaty. He intended to exploit every inch of her for his pleasure. And hers. The prospect left her light-headed. “Yes…”
“Good. By the time I’m done, you’re not going to be able to look at a firehouse without—”
“Chief, that you I hear?” Footsteps echoed on the other side of the door. “Need help with the groceries?”
Josh jerked his hand from between her trembling legs a mere half second before the door in front of her swung open and she stood face-to-face with Rusty Deemer, her older sister’s eighth-grade boyfriend and one of the two assistant chiefs in the Bluelick FD. Heat swept into her cheeks as Josh took a small step back, leaving the phantom imprint of his erection stamped on her backside.
Rusty broke the stunned silence first. “Melody! Hey girl.” He pulled her in for a quick hug, and she hoped he couldn’t detect how hard her heart was beating or the shallowness of her breath. “Long time no see. What brings you down here?”
“Oh, just…you know…wanted to say hi and see the place. I’ve never been to the firehouse before.”
The tall, burly redhead backed up, held the door for her. “Past time you paid us a visit, then.” He ushered her into the brightly lit kitchen and dining area. “Are you joining us for dinner?”
“No, no. Josh offered me a tour of the station.”
“The rest of the bags are in the truck,” Josh said, and tossed Rusty his keys. The stocky firefighter caught them without dropping the smile.
“Be right back.” He winked at Melody, and then headed downstairs, calling, “Don’t start the tour without me.”
