How to Seduce a Fireman: HarperImpulse Contemporary Romance (8 page)

“Feel how I touch you. Remember this, baby.” He pushed her thighs farther apart, holding them as he dipped his head and swiped his tongue along her slit.

Her eyes crossed beneath her forearm.

“Damn, you taste so sweet.” His tongue played a slow pattern over her as if she were a violin and he a virtuoso, plucking music from sensitive areas she’d only heard other women mention during their sex talks in her beauty shop. Now she understood the fascination. The yearning for more. The sexual addiction.

Quinn Gallagher could so quickly become her drug of choice.

The muscles low in her stomach tensed as if preparing for some magical leap. A quivering began deep within, and her thighs trembled under his hands. His tongue danced around her button of need, closer yet never touching it. She squirmed, raising her hips to entice him to pay attention to the aching spot.

“Patience, angel.” Finally, Quinn covered that button with his lips and sucked.

Her eyes popped open as waves of desire undulated from every nerve ending in her body. The world spun and flipped before she pinched her eyes shut to concentrate on each nuance of pleasure surging through her system. The moan that started low in her chest quickly developed into a screaming chant of his name. Tears flowed, and she gasped for air.

He pressed kisses to her abdomen. “God, you’re breathtaking when you come. I will never forget how you cried my name over and over.”

Cassie kept her arm over her eyes, hoping to hide the tears that flowed freely. Dear God, how would she ever get over the beauty of his lovemaking and her body’s reaction to it?

She sensed movement when he reached toward the nightstand, followed by the tearing of a foil packet. “Hold on.” Latex snapped, and Quinn’s body covered hers again. His hand positioned the head of his cock at her entrance. “We’ll do missionary first. Mainly because I can’t wait to get inside of you.”

Desire blended with apprehension urged her forward in her quest to give him as much pleasure as he’d given her, to bring him satisfaction too. Her arms floated over his shoulders and she wrapped her legs around his hips. He pushed in and she took a deep breath, preparing for the pain.

He stilled, his wide eyes searching her face. “Cassie, what the hell?”

“Don’t stop!” She used the strength of her thighs to force him in. The tearing sensation burned, but only for an instant. Getting accustomed to the fullness of him inside her would take a little longer. Instinct had her needing to push him back out, but love made her want to keep him there forever.

His hands cradled her head and his lips brushed hers. “Angel, why didn’t you tell me this was your first time? I’d have made it better for you.”

“And I’d have died.”

He kissed her again, his hips moving in a slow rhythm. “You made me believe there’d been others.”

“Did I?” Her palms swept up his muscular back as she recalled how he’d looked earlier when she’d alluded to other guys. The anger and passion that darkened his features were priceless.

He slowly pulled out until just the head of his cock remained. “Hell, yes. I nearly went insane with jealousy.” His hips angled and he slid in to the hilt.

This stroke didn’t hurt as much as the first one. Pleasure sparked along her nerve endings now that her body recognized and accepted the fullness of his size, the totality of his possession. “Why, Quinn? Why do you care when you’re leaving?” She had to get him to come to grips with how his fear of what might grow between them was in direct opposition to his actions.

“Don’t.” He settled into a slow, sensual rhythm that caused her pelvic muscles to undulate and coil again. “Don’t question. Just feel. Enjoy.” He trembled in her arms. “You are so damn tight, baby. I’ve never felt anything like this. Like you.” His strokes grew stronger, faster. “Only you.”

“I love you.” He needed to hear this, whether he wanted to or not. There’d been times in the past when she’d felt unworthy of love and yet her siblings had told her repeatedly, if she stood a chance at helping him, she had to bare her heart to him, regardless of whether or not he handed it back to her in tattered pieces.

“Don’t say that. I don’t want to hear it.” Pain etched his features. His dark eyebrows dipped and his blue-grey eyes turned steely. Those sensual lips thinned in determination.

“And you care for me.” She fingered her necklace. “This proves it.”

His forehead touched hers and their eyes locked. “Yes, I care, but I still have to leave. There’s too much in my past. Things I can’t tell you. I’m not worthy of your love.”

“No one’s ever worthy, Quinn. Love is freely given because it hurts too much to hold it inside. Love me. Love me and let out some of the pain.”

They melded, folded into each other as if they were magnetic halves of each other’s souls. Their breaths mingled as their muscles moved in unison toward the release they both sought.

“I have to go,” he whispered as if it pained him to hear his own words.

“No, Quinn. I won’t allow it. I can’t live without you.” She held him tighter.

“I can’t live without you either, love. I’ll only exist. My heart will beat, but it won’t feel.” His movement intensified and his grasp on her grew stronger.

“Stay, Quinn. Stay with me and learn how to love again.” Tears spilled down her cheeks. Her climax approached, a sharp knife that would surely cleave her soul in two. “Please, love me.”

He entwined his fingers with hers and pushed their hands into the pillow, his movements growing faster. Sweat beaded on his forehead and moisture grew in his eyes. “Baby, don’t you know? Can’t you tell?”

Her climax hit and, for an instant, she couldn’t breathe. The bittersweet beauty of it turned her tears to sobs. She had to convince him to give up this insane idea of leaving, because she needed him more than her next breath.

Quinn tensed and his head reared back, the muscles in his neck corded and bulging. He cried her name as he convulsed in climax. Tucking his head against her neck, he struggled for air and his finger twirled around a curl. “Angel, I would rather have had one breath of your hair, one taste of your lips, one touch of your silky skin than a lifetime of never knowing it.” Then, forehead to forehead, lips to lips, they shed their tears of farewell.

Quinn’s palms were planted against the white tiles in the shower, his chin touching his chest and hot water sluicing over his fatigued muscles. His mind trudged and stumbled on the damn-me-to-hell treadmill. He was a bastard. A cold-hearted motha. The ass-wipe of Florida. Hell, the entire world. He’d taken Cassie’s virginity and then sent her on her way, her heart obviously shattered. The edge of his fist hit the tile. He was one self-centered son of a bitch. How could he do that to her?

Why couldn’t he get beyond the pain of his past and open his heart to love? Lord knew he wanted to. He wanted Cassie, needed her. Yet with all his baggage, he’d never be good enough, free enough for her. She deserved better than he’d ever be. Hell, his angel deserved the moon and seven stars, not a man with scars so cavernous he couldn’t climb out of their depths no matter how hard he tried.

Added to this was the very real possibility he’d put her life in danger. He had to get as far away from her as he could and had to prove to everyone he’d contacted in DC that he’d changed his mind about returning to government work. God, his life was such a hellacious mess.

The nightmare he’d suffered for over three years surfaced to pay him a daytime visit. He angled his cheek against the tile, fighting the rising horror of the night his life had tumbled headlong into hell.

His descent hadn’t been a split-second event, but a gradual one born of ego and ambition. Fresh out of college, he’d gone to work for the State Department in the huge Harry S. Truman Building on C Street in Foggy Bottom, not far from the White House, determined to prove he deserved the position despite his father’s influence.

He’d been such an eager beaver shit, a pain in everyone’s ass. So much so, when the department needed a patsy, a dispensable bastard to send over to the DEA for a temporary long-term assignment, they gladly chose him. Not overtly, of course, but covertly—and he’d been too drunk on self-importance to realize it.

Department heads included him in a meeting about drug trafficking from Bolivia into Chile. The DEA, in tandem with the State Department, wanted to plant someone in Arica, a city in northern Chile, to watch the Indian runners carrying drugs across the borders on their backs. From there, whatever agent they assigned, along with his team, was to follow the cars taking the cocaine to southern Chile for refining. The biggest part of the job, though, was to find which parts of the country’s thousand miles of coastline was used to ship the product abroad.

Superiors played on his ambitious ego like a cheap saxophone. After the brass laid out the bare bones of the mission, they tossed around names of guys to send, no doubt knowing he’d see it as a golden career opportunity and volunteer. And he’d eagerly swallowed their bait. With supervisory experience overseeing a team of four Americans and two Chileans, he was sure a promotion would be waiting at the end of the assignment.

What he hadn’t counted on was Renata—one of the Chileans. Against his better judgment, he’d gotten involved with the dark-eyed beauty. Blinded by her sexuality, he’d been careless with his computer passwords and phone calls.

One night, on a recon run to Puerto Montt, to where one of his men had discovered a boat bound for the States tied to a small pier, everything went south in a hurry.

Someone had tipped off the drug cartel—not just Renata, the woman he’d loved, but someone deep inside the agency, the organization he’d respected. Betrayal was a bloodsucking motherfucker. Nine chances out of ten, its victims were the innocents who paid the ultimate price. Those victims were his men: Andy, DeShawn, Skip and the Chilean, Vicente. He’d nearly lost Chris too.

Their mission that evening had been a total cluster-fuck from the time they exited their vehicles. Pandemonium reigned as gunfire pierced the night. His heart pounded as memories of explosions lighting up the sky brought forth sensations of the earth trembling beneath his feet. Dark smoke filled his nostrils and stung his eyes. There were screams and the stench of torn flesh. He lost four of his men and another was captured.

As those long-ago events flashed through his mind like a slideshow from hell, he struggled to keep his breathing from slipping into the frenetic category. Gasping for breath, his hands trembled as the shower droplets stung his face.
Man, get a fuckin’ grip.
He willed his erratic breathing to slow as second by second, heartbeat by heartbeat, he got his shit together.

Damn the mole in the agency.

Damn his weakness.

Damn Renata.

But mostly, damn himself for falling in love. With force, he turned off the faucets and jerked a towel from the rack, rubbing the water from his hair and body before he stepped from the steam. Tossing the towel aside, he trudged into his bedroom and stopped.

Memories of Cassie lying tangled in his sheets was burned into his brain. He’d gone into the bathroom after they’d recovered from making love to dispose of the blood-speckled condom. When he’d returned, her expression wavered from expectation to devastation.

She’d patted the bed. “Come here, big guy. You still have a few positions to teach me.”

He snatched his jeans from the floor and turned his back to her before he stepped into them. “I think I’ve taught you enough already. You were a virgin when you came here.”

“I waited on you, Quinn. I waited on you for three years. I gave my virginity to you freely. I have no regrets.”

“Christ, don’t say that.” He didn’t mind being a first-class heel with every other woman, but not with her.

The bedclothes rustled behind him. “What are you afraid of? Loving me or hurting me? Because I have to tell you, you’re doing a damn fine job of tearing me apart.” Her fingertips brushed his back before he made for the door.

“I’m going outside to check on my bike and grill. I think it’s time you went home.”

Five minutes later, when she’d stormed past him, all but running to get to her car, she was crying. He wanted to call out to her, but he knew it was for the best to let her go, to allow her anger for him to fester. They’d already said their goodbyes. It was over.

She’s right. I am a chicken-shit bastard. The sweetest girl in the word hands me her innocence and I toss her a dose of fuckin’ attitude so I don’t have to deal with her heartache. Hell, I can barely deal with my own.

Reliving that scene was doing him no good. Hell, he’d treated her terribly before she left. Now that he’d re-secured his Harley to the inside of the U-Haul trailer, lugged his grill into the other corner, and rearranged his packed boxes, he’d come back to his apartment to shower. His flashback hadn’t been part of the plan, nor was his ginormous dose of regret over Cassie.

He tugged a pair of navy sleep pants out of his duffel bag and yanked them on before he flopped across the bed, inhaled her peaches and cream fragrance that lingered on the pillows and groaned. She would always be a part of him, the happiest part, the best part.

Why hadn’t she told him she was a virgin? He replayed their earlier conversation in the living room. When she’d talked about loving a man who went commando, he’d assumed… He shook his head and snorted. She’d been playing him and he fell for it. But damn if Miz Innocence hadn’t given exceptional head. Jealousy churned in his gut again. Just where in the hell had she learned
that
fine talent?

He ran a palm over his face before locking his hands behind his head. What did it matter? He was leaving Clearwater. He’d pushed her away and ruined their friendship. One more thing to add to his list of unpardonable sins. Only this fiasco topped them all. But if he kept her safe, then that would be one plus against all the minuses of his life. The most important plus he could ask for.

Furball leaped onto the bed, landing like a whisper on the sheets. He flopped next to Quinn’s side and began kneading his owner with his white front paws, his purring growing louder. In an absent-minded move, Quinn stroked the cat even as his thoughts remained on Cassie. Dammit to hell, the last person he ever wanted to hurt was his angel.

His cell rang and he snatched it from his nightstand. The caller ID showed Caller Unknown. “Gallagher.”

There were a couple of clicks and a faint whir. “Hey, you ignorant ass son of a bitch, how’s it hangin’?”

Quinn smiled for the first time in hours and rose to sit on the edge of his bed. “T-Bone? Hey, long time no hear, man.” Hell, he hadn’t heard from Chris “T-Bone” Mason in nearly a year. Even so, he recognized the deep, rasping voice, a result of barely surviving a hanging in Chile. The hiss of a lighter sounded and a long inhale followed.

“Thought you quit smoking.” Quinn tried not to dwell on memories of finding T-Bone dangling from a chain looped around a rafter in an abandoned warehouse in Puerto Montt after everything went to shit. Two more men of his team, Andy and DeShawn, were discovered beaten and dead in the next room. Skip was out back, his fingers cut off and his throat slashed.

Quinn pressed the speaker button on his cell and laid it next to him so he could sink the heels of his palms against his eyes, hoping to block out the images of finding his tortured team. The large chain digging into T-Bone’s bloody, swollen neck, his back scared with multiple tracks of a whip. He still had no clue how long his friend had hung there. As for Skip, Andy and DeShawn, their deaths had not come swiftly; signs of their suffering were gruesome. The cartel held no qualms against mutilating their enemies.

Cold sweat broke out on Quinn’s body. The bile of guilt burned the back of his throat. If only he hadn’t been so beguiled by Renata, so into her body, maybe none of the torture to his comrades would have happened.

T-Bone’s gravelly voice ripped him from his thoughts. “I did quit smoking. Hell, it’s bad for your health. Two weeks later, I got run over by a cigarette truck.” He wheezed at his own joke. Then his voice turned serious. “Sent you an email, man. Did you read it?”

“Yeah. Just haven’t had a chance to respond. I’ve been packing up my apartment.” And deflowering my best friend.

“So?” T-Bone had patience the length of his pecker.

“So, I’m still thinking about it. Give me twelve hours to give you an answer.” He’d have to make arrangements for Furball. Taking him to a shelter was out. The little devil deserved better, a hell of a lot better. Maybe he could convince Cassie to…then again, after the way he’d just treated her, maybe not.

“You got eight hours to decide, buddy. I need to know who’s going to be on my team so I can line up training. Bet you’re soft as a motherfucker. Bring warm clothes and snow boots. Montana can be a bitch in the winter, but I love the solitude. Got any skis?”

“Water skis.”

“Hell man, the only water we got here is the frozen variety. Get yourself some snow skis and snow shoes. They’ll help build up your legs for where we’re going. How many miles a day are you running? Bet you can barely climb a flight of steps, you candy-assed-motherfucker.”

Quinn chuckled. Spending time with T-Bone again would help ease the agony in his soul…or would it? Quinn had come out of the mission with two bullet holes that eventually healed, yet he was mentally crippled. He’d often questioned that fact in the darkness of night. Why him? Why had he survived?

T-Bone would bear the scars forever. Seeing them every day would be a constant reminder, but then maybe that’s what he needed. A strong dose of facing up to what he’d done, what he’d allowed to happen because of his involvement with Renata.

“Hey, any of your team members have pets?”

“Pets? You mean like Dobermans and shit?” T-Bone took another drag on his cigarette.

“Any kind of pets. What do they do with them while everyone’s out on a mission?” Furball could take a couple days of being alone with an automatic feeder and water supply, like he did when Quinn was on duty at the station for forty-eight hour shifts. Even so, Milt made it a practice of coming up twice a day to hold the cat and make over him, but Quinn wasn’t sure how Furball would handle a week or more of being alone, with no human interaction. Nor could the territorial tomcat take being around big dogs. Even little Killer put him in a pissy-cat mood.

“Nah, we ain’t got time for worrying about dumbass animals. Lots of time, we’re gone within the hour heading for a new target.”

Working for T-Bone would take some serious thought. “Eight hours and you’ll have my answer. Later, man.” He ended the call and eased back on the mattress. His gaze snagged on a small ribbon of dried blood on the sheet.
Cassie.

Four steely pointed paws stomped up his chest until two beady copper-colored eyes glared at him and a warm nose barely touched his.

“Hungry?”

Furball responded with a loud meow.

Quinn stood and headed for the kitchen, the cat streaking around him as if he hadn’t been fed earlier that day. He washed the feline’s bowl and snapped open a can of Fancy Feast. Furball pounced onto the counter and headbutted Quinn’s arm. “Oh, yeah, one smell of fish and I’m your BFF, you old food-hound.” He sat the filled bowl on the floor on a plastic placemat emblazoned with the cat’s name. Wouldn’t T-Bone roll with laughter if he knew he’d taken a liking to a stray cat? But then weren’t they alike in that regard? He and Furball, alone and doing their damnedest to survive in a world that concentrated too much on an emotion that eluded them both—love.

Opening the refrigerator, he snagged a bottle of beer and the makings for a chicken salad sandwich. By the time he opened his laptop on the coffee table, he was onto his second beer and halfway through the sandwich. Three unopened emails sat in his inbox. One was from Becca, trying to set up a time for a farewell party with family and co-workers. “Not gonna happen, sweetheart.” Family meant Cassie. As far as he was concerned, they’d said their goodbyes. He wouldn’t put her through any more emotional angst.

The second email was from Lance Blakewell, his old boss at the State Department. It was written in his typical short and succinct style:
Call me.

The third was from his dad and practically emitted the smoke of an angry man when Quinn opened it. It hadn’t taken long for news to circulate through the department grapevine that he’d been making inquiries. Nor had it taken long for his old man to voice his narrow-minded, hold-onto-a-grudge-forever mentality. Hudson “Buck” Gallagher, head of the Bureau of International Intelligence and Research within the State Department, had never forgiven his son for the failed mission, for leaving the agency and for inadvertently smudging his sterling thirty-four-year work record.