Текст книги "Playing with Fire "

Автор книги: Kate Meader

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

Keep reading for a sneak peek of

The third sizzling installment in the Hot in Chicago series

Available in 2016 from Pocket Books!

 CHAPTER ONE

“You can go right in, Firefighter Fox. He’s waiting for you.”

Wyatt Fox nodded at Kathy, the firehouse’s perky admin as he stood outside the cap’s office, contemplating his next move. The going in part was a foregone conclusion—he had been summoned after all—but how he would handle what lay behind that door was still up in the air. Normally, Wyatt would have knocked. Raised his right hand, curled his fingers into a fist, and rapped the door. But he had a pass to just waltz in, so mercifully he didn’t have to complete even that simplest of motions. He didn’t have to be reminded that the tendons in his shoulder were shredded like Mini-Wheats after he’d wrenched it during a tricky rescue two weeks back. Either that or let that shithead—sorry, citizen—take a header off the LaSalle Street Bridge.

Suicide attempt averted. Three months off squad his reward.

Unless he could somehow persuade the cap that it wasn’t as bad as all that.

He gripped the doorknob with purpose, ignored the wince even that small action produced, and strode in like a man without a care in the world.

Captain Matt “Venti” Ventimiglia lifted his gaze from a file on his desk.

“Fox.”

Venti was a pretty cool cat, not one for small talk, which Wyatt appreciated, especially as his own family could talk the hind legs off a herd of mules. Sitting at the dinner table with the Dempseys—his cobbled together foster family—was like an episode of the Brady Bunch on steroids. And now that they all had hearts-and-flowers happy-ever-afters to call their own, it approached Disney to the nth degree at every gathering.

Wyatt took the seat Venti gestured at.

“At least three months, according to the doc,” the cap said.

Good, straight to it. “Docs can be wrong.”

“If you push it and make it worse”—he knifed a look with that—“then you could be looking at six months or more.”

“I’m not good at sitting around,” Wyatt said, as if that was a valid enough reason to put him back on active duty. It was a family trait, both Dempsey and the original. His biological dad was never one for letting the grass grow under his feet, always keeping Wyatt and his brother, Logan, on the move. Needs must, when you’re trying to stay one step ahead of the law.

The cap sniffed. “You hear about Dave Kowalski?”

The change-up gave Wyatt pause, but as he wasn’t having any luck going against the tide, he figured he’d swim with it for a while.

“Hollywood Dave? Word’s out that he’s looking at six weeks in traction.” Kowalski was the CFD’s designated consult for that TV show about Chicago firefighters, the one where fires broke out every ten seconds (nope) and everyone was screwing their coworkers (if only). Years with his nose permanently wedged in the asses of his actor pals had apparently dulled Dave’s reflexes to mush. The idiot had neglected to step out of the way when a roof caved in on him. If Venti was trying to compare their situations . . .

The cap smiled that crooked grin of his to put him at ease, knowing that Wyatt’s mind had crashed the gate and was hurtling down that track.

“They need someone to take his place.”

Wyatt shifted in his seat, thinking on that.

“Before you shut it down,” Venti continued when Wyatt remained silent, “let me tell you it’s not for the TV show. It’s a ten-week movie shoot from now through August. You know how the city is always looking for revenue, and to up its appeal for production companies. Cade Productions asked for someone from Engine 6 to be the consult.”

Something pinged in his chest. As a firefighter—a rescue squad firefighter—Wyatt had learned long ago that his instincts were, if not exactly a friend, that guardian angel on his shoulder keeping his ass in one piece. But the reason for this hitch in his lungs was escaping him right this second.

“Why Engine 6?”

Venti grinned and waited a beat until Wyatt got it.

“Because of Alex. They think they’ll get more play if they have an in with America’s Favorite Firefighter.”

Last year, his baby sister, Alexandra Dempsey, had made a name for herself slicing up the Lamborghini of some rich douchebag who insulted the family during a road traffic accident run. And if that wasn’t enough, she got herself involved with Eli Cooper, Chicago’s mayor, who proceeded to tank his campaign, and subsequently lost his reelection bid to prove he loved her. The whole mess had Hollywood written all over it. But he knew his sister had turned down offers to have her romantic shenanigans immortalized on-screen. Looked like the vultures were looking for another way to skin that kitty cat.

“Might be better to keep these movie people on a short leash, don’t you think?” Venti asked with a cocked eyebrow, reading Wyatt’s mind. Or at the very least recognizing that “don’t mess with the Dempseys” was as ingrained in Wyatt as it was in the rest of his crazy motherfuckin’ family.

Wyatt sighed. There was logic there, but hanging with Hollywood types and artistes was not how he wanted to spend his rehab. It was the kind of thing his brother Gage would be better at, he of the billboards and firefighter calendars and all-around exhibitionist tendencies. Kid had never met a camera he didn’t want to bang.

He was just about to offer Gage’s services when something Venti had said poked his brain matter like a Halligan through termite-ridden drywall.

“Back up a sec. What’s that about production companies?”

“The city wants to encourage more production companies to come here—”

“No, the other thing. The name of the production company that asked for the consult from 6.”

Venti squinted. “Cade Productions. Headed up by that actress who had all that trouble last year. The big-ass divorce from Ryan Michaels, the ‘I’m so exhausted’ rehab, the hacked photos.” The cap was well known for spending more time reading People than Fire Engineering magazine. Anyone who dared touch the latest issue before Venti laid his eyeballs on it better find latrine duty enjoyable. “This is supposed to be her big comeback—”

“And is she in the movie? Molly Cade?”

That garnered more than a squint from Venti; it earned Wyatt a skin-penetrating stare because Wyatt had sounded . . . animated. He didn’t do animated for anything or anyone.

Except for Sean and Logan, his foster father and biological brother, both long gone. For Roni, as well, very much alive and vexing.

And once, for Molly Cade.

A smile spread slowly across Venti’s face. Fucker. “Fan of Ms. Cade’s work, are you?”

Big fan. Of how hard her tongue worked when wrapped around his cock. How good her tight, lithe body worked his until every one of his atoms had exploded in the kind of pleasure he’d never experienced before or since. They had crossed paths at a strange time in Wyatt’s life. In the intervening five years, whenever her saw her on the screen, a cavalcade of what-might-have-beens marched through his brain. Ridiculous, for true. Oscar-nominated actresses who commanded multimillion dollar paydays weren’t exactly his usual diet.

Not that his sex life had improved much. Definitely more watch-your-weight than three square meals.

Molly Cade was currently in his zip code. Or soon would be. Dubbed America’s sweetheart in all those dumb romantic comedies when she wasn’t playing some macho loser’s helpless love interest in the latest summer popcorn movie, her one step outside her wheelhouse had yielded that Oscar nod for some indie film. And then it all turned to shit for her in the last year.

But before she was all that, before she was the Molly Cade, she was the one woman who had snuck under his skin. It would be mighty interesting to see if she had the means to make him itch like before. Come alive like before. Keeping her and her production company out of his sister’s orbit would be a bonus.

He met Venti’s gaze squarely, not caring what the cap might think about his sudden about-face.

“When do I start?”

“You have to admit he has a great ass.”

Molly Cade turned to the speaker of that bald statement and gave her the slitty eyes. Calysta Johnson—bestie, Gal Friday, and fellow ass connoisseur—remained oblivious to Molly’s glare, too busy ogling the ass-ets of Gideon Carter, costar on Molly’s latest movie venture, Into the Blaze. Molly followed Cal’s gaze to where Gideon the Idiot stood just as . . . yep, he rang the old-timey firehouse bell affixed to the wall of the Robert J. Quinn Fire Academy on Chicago’s West Side. At the clanking din, he whooped like a frat pledge and nudged the ribs of his right-hand dickhead, Jeremy.

Molly couldn’t help her sigh. “Sure, great ass. Pity it’s on his shoulders.”

Cal chortled. “If I was ten years younger—”

“Or had a brain injury.”

“I’d be all over those perfect globes.” Quirking a grin, Cal aimed a glance past the hulking steam-powered engine in the lobby and checked her phone again. “Our contact is late.”

“You make it sound like a special military op. We’re just meeting the Pabst Blue Ribbon—drinking, potbellied hose hauler who’s going to make sure that this movie is more authentic than a Ken Burns documentary.”

Cal squeezed Molly’s arm. She could always tell when Molly was nervous. “Hon, this is going to be a huge success. Your way back onto the A-list, into the fickle public’s hearts, and their big fat wallets.”

“I don’t care about being A-list or making bank on the first weekend. I just want”—she balled her fists and placed them on her hips, growling her determination—“I just want people to hear my name and not think ‘Ryan Michaels’s pathetic ex’ or ‘her tits look bigger on the silver screen than they do in those hacked photos.’ ”

“Well, they do look bigger. That’s the magic of Hollywood.”

Molly barked a reluctant laugh. Thank God for Cal, who always managed to tell it like it was and shut down those invites to the pity party.

“Speaking of photos, did you see them?” Cal jerked her chin to the west wall, where a battery of frames hung in a grid. They both moved toward them.

The Wall of the Fallen.

Molly studied the pictures, her hands behind her back, feeling a touch ghoulish. Like she was invading this sacred space. Faces shone back at her, some smiling, most not, all dressed in their CFD uniforms. Each of them someone’s father, brother, son, friend. Their courage and sacrifice blanketed Molly to the point that the problems she had endured this past year paled in comparison.

Slowly, she walked past the memorial until she came to the two she recognized: Sean Dempsey and his foster son, Logan Keyes.

Sean was that stereotypical hale and ruddy-faced Irishman with the twinkle that not even his grim official photo could dull. Beside him, Logan stared out from beyond his fiery grave, a hint of a smile teasing the corner of his mouth. Nine years ago, they had given their lives, spawned a legion of bar tales, and inspired a family of foster kids to follow in their footsteps. One of them, Alexandra Dempsey, was as well-known for her on-camera and romantic exploits as she was for her bravery. Her story of fierce familial loyalty, headline-grabbing heroics, and a love for the ages—the movie poster was already designed in Molly’s mind—would add the human interest element to Into the Blaze’s pulse-pounding action sequences. Unfortunately Alex and the CFD had stonewalled Molly’s efforts to tell it. Months of no calls returned and then a sternly worded letter from former Chicago mayor, now hotshot lawyer Eli Cooper informing Cade Productions that Firefighter Dempsey’s story was not for sale.

Six months of fighting tooth and nail with Ryan’s lawyers for her rights and dignity had soured Molly on smooth-talking lawyers. Where there was a will . . .

The Dempseys, as the foster siblings were collectively known, worked at Engine 6—which is why she had requested one of the company to be the consult when the usual CFD-designated tech was injured. It was a long shot, but if she could learn more about the Dempseys, find a way to connect with them, maybe they’d open up and let her tell their story. Time was nipping at her heels, though. Shooting started in two weeks, the adapted script was ready to go; it just needed the imprimatur of America’s Favorite Firefighter to varnish it with the sheen of success.

This was to be Molly’s comeback and it would be spectacular.

“God, they are positively smokin’.” Cal held up her phone to showcase the cut body of Gage Simpson, one of the Dempseys, posing in the charity firefighter calendar that had taken the city—and country—by storm last year. “Two of them in those beefcake calendars, one of them a ripped boxer, the hot tamale sister. Wonder what the mystery brother looks like.”

So did Molly. Four of the Dempseys were unafraid of the public eye, but the fifth—Wyatt Fox—remained a shadowy figure who shunned the limelight. She hadn’t looked all that hard, but not a single, clear photo of Mr. Fox had come to light. Not even on Facebook.

“Probably got thrashed by the ugly stick. But the rest of ’em”—Cal gave a low whistle—“must be something in the Chicago water.”

Have a care, Cal; they were standing before a monument to the city’s finest and bravest. Molly turned her head, ready to admonish her friend for her crassness, only to find that Cal’s mouth had fallen open and her gaze had redirected to some point over Molly’s shoulder. “Or maybe it’s what they’re feeding them down at the firehouse,” she murmured.

A curious shiver thrummed through Molly’s body before she heard, “Miss Cade?”

The shiver magnified in intensity, though that wasn’t right. It rocket-fuel-boosted every cell in her body to the level of a quake. She turned.

The Marine.

Her brain tried to compute the image before her. The same rugged features, but more weathered. The same fit body, but more space filling. The same uncompromising blue-gray eyes, but more distant.

It was also in the wrong place at the wrong time wearing the wrong . . . nah-ah, Chicago Fire Department T-shirt that stretched taut against chiseled pectorals, the sleeve hems pushed north by biceps she remembered gripping as he pistoned those trim hips into her over and over.

Five years ago.

Five years of climbing a pinnacle of fame to that coveted spot on the A-list. Well, four years. The last year wiped out all that had gone before. Every high, every joyful moment.

But before it all began, back in a simpler time, there had been a week—six glorious, sex-filled nights, actually—with the Marine. Who was not a Marine at all, it seemed, or no longer was.

Cal, seeing that Molly had been struck stupid, donned her personal assistant hat and stepped forward.

“Hi, I’m Calysta Johnson. I’ve been emailing CFD Media Affairs about today’s meeting, and this is . . .”

“Miss Cade,” he grated. Or perhaps Molly only imagined that husky tone, wanted to think he was affected by this reunion as much as she.

Molly felt like her legs would give out. A thundering sound started in her head. Her blood. The Marine-firefighter said something to Cal, maybe his name, but she missed it.

She had never known that name, had never wanted to. That was their unspoken agreement. No names, no history, no future. Just six nights of scorching passion and inhibitions annihilated. He had done things to her no other man had ever done. Plumbed the depths of her pleasure and scaled her to orgasmic heights she had forgotten existed during the icy wasteland of her marriage. She used to like sex. She used to like the person she was during sex, but Ryan had drilled it out of her—literally—with his all-consuming focus on himself.

“Mol?”

She turned to find Cal, eyes wide with concern.

“You okay?”

Molly swallowed. “Yes! I’m fine!” Squeaky voiced, about to fall over, but otherwise okeydokey.

She met the cool gaze of the Marine. “Mr. . . . ?”

“Fox. Wyatt Fox.”

Oh. My. “God.”

He stared.

She stared back. It was him. Not just him from all those years ago, but him, the elusive Dempsey. How was it possible that the man who had lit her on fire, body and soul, was also the same man who could get her closer to her heart’s desire—a way in with his sister?

Wyatt Fox. It suited him. Clean, masculine, not a syllable wasted. Like James Bond, if 007 had added cowboy-Marine-firefighter to his stable of personae.

Fox. Wyatt Fox. License to thrill—and send your panties plummeting.

A manic giggle bubbled up from somewhere deep, the same place where illicit laughter in church originated. The wicked, don’t-you-dare-Molly kind of giggle she had never been able to smother whenever Pastor Morrison delivered his sermon with a booger hanging from his nose. Every Sunday, without fail, at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in New Haven, Missouri.

She held out her hand. To distract from her tremble, she parted with that giggle. Wily move, she thought.

Wyatt Fox stared at her as if she had lost her mind. Don’t worry, Marine, that train left the station long ago. Only now was she starting to put the splintered mess back together again.

She cleared her throat, drawing on Serious Molly. Though she was quite enjoying this giddy version. It had been awhile.

“Thanks so much for meeting with us today.”

No reaction. Whatsoever.

God, this was priceless. The one guy on the planet who could probably map all her freckles and he clearly didn’t remember a single one—or her! But that had been their game, hadn’t it? Each night, they would circle each other in that hotel bar as though they were strangers, as though they hadn’t already memorized every inch of each other’s bodies, the pulse points, the weak spots, every breathy sound.

Could he be reverting to their previous dynamic? Is that why he was looking at her as though she was nothing to him? Or had she truly made so little impact?

He dwarfed her hand in his giant one, squeezed once, and let go. As if her touch offended him. No, she was reading far too much into this.

“Miss Cade.”

“Molly. Call me Molly.”

The prickle of heat on the back of her neck could only mean one thing.

Cal was staring at her and compiling a list of questions in her head to be brought out later over a bottle of Pinot.

“Hey, do you guys, uh . . . know each other?”

Or why wait? Just get it out there and clear the air. Thanks, babe.

Not a muscle moved in the Marine’s—Wyatt’s—face, not even an eyelash, but then . . . then . . . yes! A slight rise of his eyebrow, like the ghost of a breeze fluttering practically invisible molecules. He did remember. The enormity of his reaction, and what it meant, smashed her to the ground.

He was feigning ignorance, allowing her the freedom to admit or deny.

For the past five years, her life had not been her own. A Faustian bargain she had made knowingly, of course. Hello fame, good-bye privacy. But those hacked photos infecting the Internet, that violation, had not been her choice.

Her heart clenched at Wyatt’s small gesture of discretion. Gallantry. So perhaps banging Molly fifteen ways from Sunday before she was famous might not be worth bragging about, but any other guy would be salivating at the chance to compose a headline of Hot Nights in the Sack with Molly Cade! Instead Wyatt was giving her the choice whether to reveal their past affair.

Tears pricked her eyelids at the unexpected kindness. Get it together, Mol.

This prior connection could not get out. She was trying to rehabilitate her sorry rep, not create more gossip for the gutter rags. Which is why she really should not have said in answer to Cal’s question about whether they knew each other, “Depends on your definition of ‘know.’ ”

One razor-straight eyebrow shot up, hovered near the cocoa brown hairline, and lowered slowly. How gratifying to be able to throw him like that. He had always been so unshockable.

“We had some mutual interests once,” Wyatt said, a devilish gleam in those blue-gray eyes. “Bars. Shakespeare.” Sexy pause. “Elevators.”

Heat rose to her cheeks.

Point to you, Mr. Fox.

KATE MEADER was raised on romance. An Irish girl, she started with Catherine Cookson and Jilly Cooper novels, and spiced it up with some Mills & Boon. Now based in Chicago, she writes romances of her own, where sexy contemporary alpha heroes and strong heroines match each other quip for quip. When not immersed in tales of brooding mill owners, oversexed equestrians, and men who can rock an apron or a fire hose, Kate lives on the web, at www.katemeader.com.

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