OPERATION: DATE ESCAPE (13 page)

“We’d better get going.” 
Before I give in to the urge to press you against my truck and taste those lips again.

He
turned away and rounded the truck, the gentleman in him finding it incredibly hard to walk away without helping her up.  He settled behind the wheel and started the engine while Kelsie climbed up into the cab on her own.

The subtle scent of wildflowers and something more exotic filled the
enclosed space, teasing his senses.  Everything about this China doll teased his senses.

“Cole, would you mind
stopping by my office on our way to dinner?  I need to pick something up.”

“No, I don’t mind.”  He put the truck in gear and pulled away from the curb.  “What’s the address?”

She recited it off to him as she buckled her seatbelt.  “It’ll be on our left.  The office is a restored Victorian house with white siding and light blue shutters.  

“I know the place.”  He’d passed by the old Victorian many times on calls, but had never paid it much mind.  Now every time he would pass by it he
’d be thinking about her.  

She
turned to him.  “So how long have you been a firefighter?”

His
grip tightened on the wheel.  “Close to fifteen years,” he replied, waiting for her to respond like the other women he’d dated had. 

“Wow.  That’s a long time.”

He nodded.  “I suppose so.”

“I think that’s great.”

Her comment took him by surprise.  His gaze left the road ahead to settle on her face.  “You do?”

She laughed softly.  “I wouldn’t have said so if I didn’t mean it. 
I told you before.  I admire someone who dedicates their life to rescuing others from accidents and burning buildings, and...” she added with a blush, “trees.”

Laughter rumbled in his chest.  “Yeah, well
, we firefighters go through hours of training to teach us the proper technique for rescuing sexy women from trees.”

“Is that so?” she replied, her tone just as teasing.

“Okay,” he confessed, “so I might be exaggerating a little bit about the how-to-rescue-a-sexy-woman training, but not about what I said about your being sexy.” 

She averted her gaze, looking out the passenger window.  “I’m not
the least bit sexy.”

“I beg to differ as would all the guys at the firehouse.” 

Kelsie turned to face him, one bent, jean-clad knee resting atop the bench seat.  “Tell me more.”

“About how hot the guys at the firehouse think you are?” he asked with a grin as
he turned onto the main street.

“No,” she said, laughing softly.  “About you.  What made you decide to pursue a career in firefighting?  I can only imagine the kind of dedication and strength, both mentally and physically, it takes to do that.”

She didn’t seem the least bit uneasy about his chosen career, just curious.  The tension he’d felt moments before when she’d begun asking about his job melted away. 

“After graduation I went through several unfulfilling jobs before I finally decided to follow in my father’s footsteps and become a firefighter.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize you and your father worked together.”

“We don’t.  He retired about two years ago, but even then we didn’t work together.  He worked out of Station 72 in Upper Arlington, but retired a few years ago and took Mom to Florida.  She hates the cold winters.”

“Your mother must be very proud of you.”

“She’d be happier if I would settle down and give her grandchildren.”

“Oh, believe me, I can sympathize with you there.  Only my mother thinks it’s going to take my getting a boob job to get her some grandkids.”

He
chuckled.  “Unless I missed something in my medic training, breasts have nothing to do with the reproductive system.”

“Not according to my mother.  Big boobs are like honeysuckle blooms to bees.  Men swarm to them.  Catch a man’s attention and the rest will follow.  Sort of a prelude to reproduction.”  She glanced down at her shirt.  “Needless to say I didn’t follow her advice.”

“I’m glad.”

“What?”

“I think you look good just the way you are.”

Color flooded her cheeks, turning them a deep shade of pink that only made her more attractive to Cole.  “Thanks,” she said with a warm smile.  “
I don’t suppose you could convince my mother of that, do you?”

“I’d be happy to give it a try.”

“On second thought,” she said, “never mind.  If I took a guy like you home with me─”

“You mean a guy who’s too perfect,” he said, cutting her off with a frown.  Tryi
ng to shake this good guy image she had of him was damn hard.

“Exactly.  If I took you to my mother’s, she would have her tape measure out in a flash.”

His brows shot up.  “Excuse me?” 

She laughed.  “Not for what you’re thinking.”  Then she quickly added, “It’s worse.”

“Worse?”

She
nodded.  “Yes.  She’d be sizing you up for a wedding tux.”

“Oh.”  That wasn’t nearly as disturbing as having her mother want to measure his...  Cole pushed that thought aside with another chuckle.  Despite Kelsie’s concerns
about her mother’s reaction to him, he really had to find some way to meet the woman.  Maybe work on scoring some Brownie points and hopefully find himself an ally, because he knew even before this date was finished that he wanted to see Kelsie again.

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
she asked.

He shook his head.  “Nope.  I’m like you.  The one and only.”  He turned into the parking lot behind Kelsie’s office and cut the engine.  “Here we are.”

“Thanks.”  Opening the door, she slid from the cab.  “I’ll just be a second.”

He
watched her go, enjoying the view, and then stepped out of the truck to stretch.  They couldn’t have asked for a nicer evening for their date.  Though it was summer and the humidity had been close to unbearable the past few days, it wasn’t that night.

He looked up as a light breeze stirred the leaves on the trees around him, cooling the air even more.  No doubt a prelude to the rain that was predicted to move into the area the next morning. 

The back door to the Victorian-house-turned-office opened and Kelsie stepped back outside.  Juggling a brown paper bag in one hand, she dug through her purse in search of something.

“Everything okay?” he called out.

“I can’t find the key,” she replied.  “I stuck it in my purse when I went inside.”

He walked up to her and reached for the bag so she’d be free to search for the key.  “I’ll
hold this.” 

“Thanks.  This purse is a bottomless pit
when it comes to finding things.”  She dug deeper, finally locating her key ring.  “Got it.”

Shoving the key into the lock, she gave it a quick turn and then tested the door to make certain it had latched.  Then she turned to him with a smile.  “All set.  I’ll take that now.” 
She reached for the bag.

He
let go as her hand curled over the rolled up top of the brown paper bag.  Unfortunately, she didn’t have a good enough grip on it and it dropped to the ground with a loud thud.  The thin paper sack split open, spilling its contents everywhere. 

“What the...”  His eyes rounded and his jaw went slack as he stared down at the assortment of vibrators strewn out across the shadow-dappled walkway.

Whoa! 

“Oh, shit,” Kelsie exclaimed, her cheeks instantly turning a vibrant shade of red. 
She fell to her knees and scrambled to gather up the assortment of sex toys scattered around her.  “They’re not mine,” she insisted as she reached for a package that read THE GLOW WORM.

He couldn’t help but grin.  “Let me guess,” he said as he knelt to help her.  “They belong to a friend?”  

“Exactly,” she blurted out, looking up at him.  “They do.”

He
arched a brow. 

“It’s true.  I swear.  And I’m going to kill Nanci the second I see her again.”

Nanci.
  Now that made more sense.  She was more the ‘Glow Worm’ kind of girl.  An odd sense of relief surged through him.  Not that he was uptight when it came to people finding sexual pleasure.  It was just hard to imagine Kelsie having that kind of sexual weapons arsenal. 

He continued picking up
the boxes.  “I had no idea there were so many kinds of these things.”

She laughed. 
“This is nothing.”

He
returned the last of the battery-operated joy-toys to what was left of the bag and then stood, carefully handing it over to Kelsie.  “Looks like Joe’s got himself a lot of competition.”

She
laughed.  “Nanci doesn’t use them.  Well, I suppose she might, but that’s really not any of my business.  My guess is that these are for her collection.”

“Collection?”

She nodded.  “Yes.  You know how some men collect baseball cards?”

He nodded.

“Instead of cards, she collects vibrators.”             

Kelsie was the only person he knew that could make that kind of comparison and have it sound like her friend’s obsession with fake phalluses wasn’t somewhat out of the norm.

“Tell me something,” he said with a grin.

“
Yes?”

“
You don’t happen to have any odd hobbies I should know about before we go out tonight, do you?”

“Too late,” she said.  “We’re already out.  But you don’t have to worry.  All I have is a really small leather whip collection.  And I almost never bring them out until at least the second date.”  That said, she flashed him a smile and stepped past him, making her way back to the truck.

He watched her go, the alluring sway of her behind drawing his gaze like a magnet.  He couldn’t help but chuckle.  Whip collection.  Now that was funny.  Kelsie wasn’t the wild, leather whip toting kind of girl.  Of course, she didn’t seem like the type to crawl out of a strip club window either.

She
turned and winked at him from the open passenger side window, kicking his heart rate up several notches.  Was it possible she wasn’t kidding about having a whip collection?  He had to admit that his curiosity was definitely peaked.  There seemed to be only one way to find out for sure.  He had to get to that second date. 

“Mexican is my favorite,”
Kelsie said with a smile as they pulled into the parking lot of a quaint little Mexican restaurant just on the outskirts of downtown Columbus. 

“I know
,” he said.  “You mentioned that you enjoy spicy, southwestern food when I called to confirm our date.  That’s why I decided on this place.”

“I didn’t expect...”

“Would you rather eat somewhere else?”

“No.  This place looks really nice.”

He shut off the engine and turned to her.  “Then what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.  I just can’t believe you did this for me.”

“I wouldn’t have asked you what kinds of foods you like if I didn’t intend to use the information when making our dinner plans.”

She studied him for a long moment.  “You’re different than any of the men I’ve dated.”

“Considering the last guy had you climbing out of a two story window, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

She
couldn’t help but laugh.  “It was meant that way.”

“Damn,” he said as he stepped out of the truck.

She watched him walk around to her side.  “Damn?” she asked as she opened the door to join him in the parking lot.

“You’re killing my bad boy image.  You know that, don’t you?”

The harder he tried to pretend he wasn’t perfect, the more perfect he became in her eyes.  She’d never been so attracted to a man before, not even Kyle.  But she wasn’t about to tell Cole that.  No sense leading him on.  This date was a one-time thing.

“Sorry,” she told him with a grin.  “By all means don’t let m
e interfere with your attempt to be a ‘bad boy’.” 

They walked up to the entrance where Mexican music played out
from an overhead speaker.  Cole opened the door and then paused, as if intending to hold it for her.  Then something closely resembling mischief flickered in those dark eyes and he stepped inside, leaving her to manage the door on her own.

She followed him inside, not the least bit phased by this bad boy game he was playing with her. 
“Nice try.” Truth be told, this was the most fun she’d had on a date in...  Well, in her entire life.

“There’s no trying to it,” he said with a wink.  Then he reached for her hand and led her over to the hostess stand.  “Before th
is night’s over, you’re going to see that I’m really not the perfect guy you make me out to be.”

“You’re going to have to try a little harder to make that happen.”

“The date’s just beginning.  There’s still time.”

Just then, a young woman dressed in a long, brightly colored skirt and a white peasant-style blouse hurried over to greet them. 

“We have a reservation for dinner,” he told her.

“The name on the reservation, please?” she asked with a welcoming smile.

“It’s under Maxwell,” he told her.  “Party of two.”

She glanced down at the reservation book lying open on the wooden counter and then back up at Cole with a practiced smile.  “Your table is ready, Mr. Maxwell.  Please follow me.”  Grabbing two menus and a basket of tortilla chips from behind the counter, she led them into the dimly lit dining room.

Candlelight from the surrounding tables flickered off the terracotta walls while bold, Aztec-looking designs in shades of red, yellow, blue and orange fell in random patterns across the taupe carpet.

Kelsie whispered
as he helped her into her seat, “Are bad boys normally this polite?”

“Only when they’re distracted
by a beautiful woman,” he whispered back and then made his way around to the chair across from her.  

Smiling, t
he hostess placed the basket of chips on the table and handed them each a menu.  “Your server will be right with you.  Enjoy your meal.” 

He
leaned back in his seat, his gaze fixed on Kelsie as the woman walked away.  “Oh, I fully intend to.”

“Will you stop that?” she chided.

“What?”

“Flirting with me.”

“Can’t help myself,” he said, that lone dimple begging her hand to run over it.  “Have you ever been here before?”

The question had her tearing her captivated gaze from his mouth and looking
around the room, taking in the colorful hand-woven rugs that hung on the wall between shelves lined with clay pots, piñatas, and fancy sombreros.  “No.”  She turned back to Cole.  “Have you?”

He shook his head
.  “No.  Joe suggested it.”

“Nanci said they’re going out tonight.”

“Without her bag of goodies?” he said with a grin that had his dimple deepening even more.

She
blushed at the mention of the sex-toys she and Cole had collected from the sidewalk outside of her office on their way there.  “Joe’s safe for tonight.  Unless she takes him home with her.  She’s got an entire curio filled with her ‘toys’.”

“I don’t think Nanci’s
sexual arsenal collection would bother Joe one bit.  The guy’s got the major hots for her.”

“It goes both ways,” she said reaching for her menu. 
“She really likes him.  At least what she’s learned about him via the phone calls they’ve been sharing.”  Nanci and Joe weren’t the only ones who had the hots for someone.  The more time she spent with Cole, the ‘hotter’ she got.

“Must be some interesting conversation going on between them,” he muttered as he glanced over his own menu.  “I’ve never known Joe to take so many cold showers.”

“Nanci has that effect on men.”

“She’s not the only one.”

Her pulse skittered wildly.  Was he implying that she... 
No
, she thought, giving herself a mental headshake.  She must have misunderstood him.  She wasn’t the sort of woman who drove men to take cold showers.

“You know,” she said, looking everywhere but at him
, “between the music and the authentic decor, I feel like I’m vacationing at some resort in Mexico.”

“You could be.”

“What?” Her attention shifted, focusing solely on Cole.  

“If you’d like to be
sitting at a resort in Mexico, I could make that happen.  How do you feel about Cancun?” he asked as he grabbed a tortilla chip from the basket.  “I’ve got vacation time still available for the taking.”

She couldn’t tell by
his expression if he meant what he’d just suggested, or if he was just playing around with her.  The man did like to tease.  “You’re not serious.”

He plunged his chip into the salsa. 
“Sure I am.”

“You hardly know me.”

“I know enough,” he said, taking a bite of the salsa coated tortilla chip.  “And don’t forget, tonight I’m breaking out of my too-perfect shell and showing you my bad boy side.  So, in answer to your question, the offer still stands.”

Her stomach fluttered with the possibility of spending a week or even a weekend at some beach resort with Cole the bad boy.  Who was she kidding?  Even Cole the good boy made her hot, no matter how hard she tried to fight it. 
They were sitting in the middle of a busy Mexican restaurant, surrounded by papier-mâché animals and clay pots, and all she could think about was doing the naked cha-cha with her date.

“Kelsie?”

Her gaze shifted to the toothy grin that had moved across his handsome face.  “Yes?”

“What are you hungry for?”

You.
  “W..what?”

He nodded to his left where a waitress stood waiting to take their order and asked, “What’ll you have?”

“Oh, sorry.”  She looked down at her menu.  “I think I’ll have a chicken burrito with a side of Cole cake.”

“Cole cake?”  The waitress leaned over to peer at the menu in confusion.

“I believe that would be corn cake,” he clarified with a chuckle.  “And I’ll try the steak fajitas.  Hold the guacamole.  Oh, and we’d like a side of con queso dip, please.”

As soon as the waitress collected the menus and hurried off toward the kitchen, he leaned in across the table.  “Cole cake, huh?”

“Don’t let it go to your head,” she warned in a hushed whisper, and then quickly followed that up with, “Either of them.”

“Too late.”

Her eyes widened and her pulse quickened.  He was really good at being bad.

“So about Cancun...?”

“I’ll think about it.”  The words were out before she could stop them.

“Good.” 
He reached for his drink and sat back smiling.

What was she thinking?  She couldn’t go to Mexico with him.  Not with those seductive tropical nights, sugary beaches, and crystal clear water.  And definitely not with Cole lying around bare-chested under that hot Mexican Caribbean sun. 

“I can’t go,” she blurted out. 

“That was quick.”

“I...uh, my mother wouldn’t like me flying off with a man I barely know.”

The humor glinting in his dark eyes told her
he wasn’t buying her excuse.  “Then I guess you’ll have to go out with me again, so we can get to know each other better.”

Ooh, she had stepped right into that one.  Fortunately for her, the waitress arrived with the spicy cheese dip
he had ordered for them saving her a response.

They exchanged small talk about their families, jobs and themselves as they ate the appetizer Cole had ordered for them
.  There was no denying the sexual attraction sparking between them.  Thankfully for her, he had let the subject of Cancun drop.  At least, for the time being.  And it was a good thing.  Cole had no idea how close she’d been to accepting his impromptu vacation invitation. 

A few minutes later, their server returned with their dinners.

“Mmm...it looks so good,” Cole said with a hungry groan as the woman placed his plate on the table in front of him.  But it wasn’t his meal he was looking at.  He was looking across the table at
her
.

“It sure does,”
Kelsie heard herself reply, despite the fact she hadn’t so much as glanced at her plate either. 

He
looked away just long enough to thank their server.  Then the woman walked away, leaving them alone once again.  His attention shifted right back to her.  “I wonder if they taste as good as they look.”

With his gaze fixed to intently on her mouth, her
first instinct was to wet her lips with her tongue.  But her mouth had suddenly gone dry.  “Maybe you should taste them and find out.”

That seemed to snap Cole out of his lip-induced trance.  “W...what?”

“Your fajitas,” she said. 
Or my lips.
  God help her she was seriously attracted to this man.  All the effort she put into controlling her desire where men were concerned was quickly going up in smoke. 

He
cleared his throat and straightened in his chair.  “Uh, yeah, my fajitas.”  He reached for a flour tortilla, filling it with steak, grilled onions and peppers, some lettuce, cheese and a dab of sour cream.

It was clear she wasn’t the only one affected by whatever
this thing was between them.  “Well?  How is it?”

“Good,” he muttered between bites, then nodded toward her
still untouched plate.  “You might want to start eating yours before it gets cold.” 

She’d been caught ogling again.  Damn.  Kelsie tore her gaze away from that strong jaw and firm lips and reached for her fork, cutting into her corn cake.

“As good as it looks?” he asked as the fork slid from her mouth.

She
looked up at him from across the candlelit table and grinned.  “Best Cole cake I ever had.”

He gave a husky chuckle,
shaking his head.  “How any man ever let you get away is beyond me.”

The bite she’d just taken caught in her throat,
wedged in there just above the knot of emotion that had suddenly formed.  She reached for her glass. 

“Kelsie?”

She waved his worry off.  “I’m okay,” she said, her words strained.

“I didn’t say that to upset you.”

“I know.”  He wasn’t like Kyle whose standards she never could quite measure up to.  “I was just thinking that it was pretty easy for my ex to let me go.”

“What happened?”  He frowned.  “You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s okay.  Kyle simply moved on to what he considered bigger and better.”

“Well, bigger isn’t always better,” he
told her.  Reaching across the table to cover her hand with his own, he stroked the back of it lightly with his thumb.  “
Kyle
was either an idiot, or blind, deaf and dumb, because it doesn’t get any better than what he let slip away.”

His words touched a part of her that hadn’t been touched in a long time.  Her heart.  Her experience with Kyle had left her unwilling to risk letting anyone close again.  Cole wasn’t the first man to say flattering things to her since her divorce, but his were the only words that ever felt truly genuine.