Charm School After Dark: Lesson 1 (2 page)

“Looks like he has a tee shirt under the uniform. Damn, but… Oh yeah, baby! Here come the boots. One step closer to the money shot,” Dacey crowed.

Brynn grabbed Dacey’s hand. “The pants! He’s taking off the pants!”

Oh hell. Now she’d
have
to get up. No self-respecting woman could resist a sexy fireman stripping down to his skivvies. Caelen grasped both her temples, rose, and took a tentative step in her sky-high heels. She took one tiny step, then another, as she tiptoed toward her sisters.

“Button popped, zipper down…”

All three ladies gave a collective,
“Ooooh.”

Rather than fight for a spot by her sisters, Caelen eventually made it to the smaller window to the right side of the room, and grasped the sill. White, crocheted curtains swayed in front of her, tickling her nose. She mustered the strength to push the starched drapes out of her face.

The sight that greeted her was worth the pain, and for a few seconds her pounding headache faded into nothingness. A six-foot wall of muscle greeted her bloodshot eyes. The firefighter had just toed off the last of his oversized pants, so all she saw were hard, tanned legs framed by thigh-length, black, boxer briefs.

He had his back to the group. A white tee stretched across broad shoulders. His arms were strong: muscular, long,
big—
like stacked bricks. A chill raced down her spine, because somehow she knew what they’d feel like. Warm, so warm. Inevitably, her eyes traveled toward her favorite part of a man’s anatomy. Well, to be honest, her
second
favorite part, but still. She loved a man with nice glutes.

Her heart almost stopped beating. Dear God, the man probably had the most mouth-watering ass in existence! It was muscular, round, and rock-hard, not massive but substantial and strong.

“Imagine the thrust a man can do with a
tuchus
like that?” Dacey piped up.

Amen, sister,
Caelen thought as Athena lambasted Dacey for going too far.

Not daring to glance up, Caelen watched as the fireman with the ass that’d been touched by the gods, started to unzip the backpack he’d shrugged off his shoulder. He quickly shook out a pair of faded jeans and hopped into them in a quick one-two motion.

“Aw, man. This isn’t fun, anymore. I want to see skin,” Dacey complained.

“But aren’t you dying to know what he looks like?”

Hell to the yes.
Brynn took the words right out of her mouth. She had to see the face placed atop such perfection. As if answering her prayers, the “hunka hunka burnin’ love” tossed off his oversized hat and ruffled his hair with a large hand.

Bow chicka wow wow!

His hair was a brownish blend of light and dark strands that spiked in the front after a haphazard finger comb, thick and long at the top, but short on the sides. A rumpled man. She
loved
a rumpled man. He brought to mind naughty things like warm skin and late nights.

An image of Victor popped in her mind, his silver temples styled to perfection, his expensive suits accentuating his slender build, so different from the man below. This guy moved with a leashed power rather than Victor’s reserved stride. At the idea of her ex, guilt hijacked her good feelings and revved into a corrosive joyride, careening through her chest, rivaling only the pain in her head.

Nope. She refused to let Victor’s memory ruin this moment. “Come on, baby. Turn around so Momma can get a good look,” Caelen whispered.

On cue, he turned and glanced toward the second floor. Most of her sisters screamed and crouched below the window.

Not her. No shame. She
had
to see his face.

It was everything she’d hoped for. His face was striking.
Well
, as close to striking as her blurry vision would allow. Glasses were not her
thing,
so she refused to wear them. They only saw the light of day when she was tucked up tight in bed with her favorite book in hand.

Yet something felt off. A small question niggled inside her brain as her eyes trailed leisurely over his masculine features. She could make out a strong jaw, defined cheekbones. So familiar… It wasn’t until the side of his mouth kicked up in a decidedly wicked grin that Caelen froze.

She knew that smile—and the stupid face surrounding it.

All of the hot feelings that had been swirling through her chest and giving her the warm-fuzzies froze, coalesced, and dropped straight into her stomach. She felt sick all over again.

Right on cue the little man with the giant hammer came back into focus.
Bang, bang, BANG!

Meanwhile, the fireman continued to stare with that idiotic grin on his face. It was all too much. Caelen opened her mouth and screamed.

Her sisters popped back up and finally focused on the man’s face instead of his gorgeous ass.

All hell broke loose.

Chapter 2

‡

S
HIT
.
I
T’D BEEN
a hell of a day.

Who was he kidding? It’d been a hell of a year. In twelve short months, his life had gone from perfection to hell on earth. No, not perfection. He’d been lectured by his ex-wife that no one was perfect and that he had to stop putting people on pedestals.

No problem. Done and done. Janie was no longer his responsibility. She had a new Boy Toy to handle her now. The affair had started a good two years ago, and he’d kissed her goodbye the day he’d found out.

The only problem? Old beefs from his marriage were resurfacing and now affecting his job. He couldn’t,
could not,
believe his Lieutenant had suspended him for seven whole days. That gave him a week to figure out if he could live with the changes taking place at the firehouse. Or not.

The whole thing made him want to punch something. Hard.

Dare pulled at his collar, agitated, the familiar feelings of anger and dull rage ran so deep it coated his bones. It was too close. He’d spent most of his adult life avoiding those feelings, making the necessary choices to bring calm into his life, stability, peace. Because when he wasn’t calm, bad things happened. Really bad things.

Like rearranging the cartilage in someone’s face with just his fists.

His need to avoid drama and stay mellow was one of the reasons he’d been so drawn to Janie. She’d seemed so calming, so gentle. Her voice never rose higher than a well-modulated reproach. Dainty, regal, and soft spoken, she’d been his idea of the perfect woman.

Damn.
There was that word again: perfect.

To get his mind off of things, he’d fallen back on ritual. Visiting Ms. Belle’s Charm School had been a weekly event since, well, junior high. She’d been one of the few willing to take a chance on a street rat and show him something better. Hell, she’d even tried to teach him some manners along the way. And even though she’d died six months ago, he saw no reason to stop with the visits. Somebody still needed to mow the lawn, clean out the gutter, take out the trash. One by one, he ticked off the mental list of chores he needed to accomplish today.

His backpack slumped to the ground as he stripped down, tired muscles protesting as he sloughed off his heavy gear. It’d been a grueling ten-day shift. Summers were hell on Southern California firefighters. Semi-desert conditions, mixed with yahoos who thought setting off illegal fireworks would be “fun,” made for a busy season.

Just cut the grass and take your ass home.

He pulled up his pack and rammed the rest of his uniform into the small space. One thing firefighting taught you was how to change in a flash. Soft laughter—was that a squeal?—caught his attention. Glancing up, he saw three women staring at him from Ms. Belle’s upstairs bay window. In a blink, all three faces disappeared below the sill. A rustle of white danced in his peripheral vision. He turned, noticing one woman remained. He caught a glimpse of dark hair, ruby red lips and
green eyes.

Caelen Calvo. He could never forget those eyes. How long had it been since he’d last seen her? Ten years? He’d been eighteen and just about to finish high school. Damn if his sluggish heart wasn’t lodged in his throat.

If that was Caelen in the corner window that could only mean the other three must be—?

The Calvo Quads.

A loud shriek filled the air and Dare just stood and watched, a stunned witness to the pandemonium. One was screaming and a few were laughing.

Wait … are they wrestling?

They must be having a good laugh, probably at his expense. He remembered the motley crew from summers at Ms. Belle’s. They couldn’t have looked different. Two were short and the other two—how had they described themselves? The shorts and the basketball courts? Caelen had the darkest hair, almost jet-black, while the other three sisters’ hair ranged from soft brown to blond. They may look different, but one thing was certain:
all
four were guaranteed drama.

Nothing’s changed
.

His felt a small smile tug at his lips.
Ask and you shall receive
. He’d been feeling bored, let down, heavy. Well, if the Quads were back in town, it meant barely controlled chaos would soon follow.

Caelen had been his obsession and nothing like his ex. Temperamental, opinionated, loud,
crazy
-annoying, smart, hilarious,
annoying—
it merited mention twice—and exactly the kind of woman he swore he’d never date. She riled him up, awoke the fighter in him.

In junior high, they’d been at each other’s throats, two outsiders vying for the same place in their teenage social circle. Each of them came from a poor background, trying desperately to fit into the Sierra Madre “rich kid” crowd.

Damn
. They’d gone toe to toe in bloody battles that only ended when one of her sisters, or Ms. Belle herself, intervened. Their fights had made his blood boil. He’d teased her, relentlessly, calling her every name in the book, because even at that young age he’d realized he would do anything to keep her attention squarely on him. He burned for those eyes, even as the poisonous words fell from his lips.

He’d been fascinated by her curvy frame, a shape she would describe as chubby, but he’d secretly thought was perfect. Silky, straight black hair she could never get to curl the right way, thick glasses that perched on a button nose, and silver braces protruding from a prominent overbite had somehow mixed together to create a teenage boy’s fantasy.

And those eyes. The Calvo quadruplets couldn’t look less like sisters, with one big exception, their eyes.

All four had large, green eyes, ranging in color from Granny Apple to forest moss. Caelen’s were a light, almost yellow-green and coupled with her fair skin, black hair and pin-up style figure, she’d earned the nickname Betty, as a living, breathing facsimile of Betty Boop.

He’d wanted her then, and he wanted her now. The decision was made in a split second, but that was okay because most of his best ideas came to him that way. His head tilted back, and he let out a soft laugh, the women’s muffled screeches drifting down around him, the exhaustion from a moment ago sloughing off like dead skin.

Caelen was
back!
And it was time for her to see how much he’d changed.

It will be different this time.
He made the silent promise to himself as he imagined showering her with compliments instead of insults. She would feel the full power of his attention, instead of his sloppy, teenage jabs.

Holy hell.
Just like that, life was good again.

Let the insanity begin.

Chapter 3

‡

T
IME TO FACE
the music.

Caelen had almost convinced herself she was talking about the meeting with Mr. Brown,
not
Darren Lagos, aka Dare, as she swept down Ms. Belle’s formal staircase. It was bad enough she was caught gawking at the window, but now she’d have to see her middle school nemesis, hangover and all, before she went into the meeting. Of course he wasn’t gentleman enough to stay outside and leave her alone.

Nope. He was downstairs, greeting all of her sisters, acting like he was actually a human being instead of a toad. The whole thing made her want to throw up.

Or maybe that was the hangover.

Caelen gripped the rail like a vice and only faltered a tiny bit when the deep timbre of Dare’s voice floated up the staircase: gravel on silk.

His voice sent goose bumps racing down her spine. That was new. In middle school, his voice still cracked, à la Peter Brady from
The Brady Bunch.
Time had been good to Dare, at least voice-wise. Who was she kidding? According to her blurry perusal, he was
gorgeous
. An image of the wiry teen flashed through her mind. Back in the day, he’d had acne, a shaggy mullet, and a huge chip on his shoulder.

How times have changed.

But even from this vantage point, there was one part of him that remained the same.
Exactly
the same. His lips. He’d been a scrawny brawler with a busted nose back then, but now even with her blurry vision, his lips—
Oh my Gucci!
—were perfection.

Full, firm,
plump.
And if she was honest with herself, she’d never forgotten the feel of them. Locked in the closet together for Seven Minutes in Heaven had been, well, heaven.

Nope. Not going there.
Nuh-uh. Not now.
If she let herself wallow in that memory, she wouldn’t be able to steal herself against the coming confrontation. There was too much water under the bridge for it to be anything but explosive.

God, he had been such a
jerk
to her.

The other three Quads had made it down before her, and the Ibuprofen had finally kicked in, but she was still taking things easy. She hit the bottom step and her brain cells—the few that weren’t marinating in sweet wine—spluttered and flamed out when she caught sight of him.