A party.

She wasn’t great at those. Turning to head into the kitchen, she ran smack into a warm, solid chest.

Zach’s T-shirt didn’t say Bite Me today. It didn’t say anything. No, this one was plain black, half-tucked into loosely fitted Levi’s that looked like beloved old friends, faded in all the stress points. He had his firefighter duffel bag over his shoulder and was clearly just getting here for his shift, same as her.

“Hey.” It was the low, rough voice that had thrilled her in waaaay too many of her dreams lately. “You showed.”

At the old refrain said after all these weeks only to make her smile, she found herself doing just that even as her body came to quick, searing life. She had it bad for him, and it was as hot and uncontrollable as a flash fire. “I told you, I finish everything I start.”

He smiled a bad-boy smile, and touched her, a hand to hers, that was all-and the whole of her melted. “Everything?” he murmured.

Oh, boy. She recognized the heat in his gaze, and felt a matching heat in her belly.

And her nipples.

And between her legs.

A kiss. She wanted just one kiss. Was that so bad?

“Because I think we’ve started something very interesting here. Something we should finish. What do you think?”

“I…uh…”

“I’m all ears,” he murmured and shifted just a little closer. So close that she had to tip her head up to see into his eyes, giving her an up-front and personal view of the scar that slashed his right eyebrow in half.

Her gaze dropped from that scarred brow to his mouth. Way too dangerous. Also too sexy-looking for his own good, for hers-his smile too easy on the eyes, his everything too easy on the eyes.

“Brooke?”

“Don’t I hear a fire bell?” she managed.

He chuckled softly. “No, but nice try.” He shifted to let her move past him, but somehow they ended up bumping against each other, softness to hardness. For a brief breath she closed her eyes and allowed herself to absorb it-his scent, his proximity, the feel of him brushing up against her.

She’d had no idea how much she’d craved this nearness, a physical touch; that it was him, the object of her secret nighttime fantasies, only intensified the sensation.

He put his hands on her arms, sensuously slid them up and down, and she forgot they were in the firehouse, forgot that they should really make at least an attempt to be discreet. Hell, she forgot to breathe. “Zach.” She tore her gaze from his and looked at his mouth.

A mouth that let out a low, rough sound of hunger, and then, blessedly, finally, was on hers, and then she was kissing him with her mouth, with her entire body, and most likely her heart and soul, because, good Lord, the man could kiss. He gave her everything-his hands, his body, his tongue-and when they broke apart for air, he stared down at her in astonishment. “Damn.”

“What?”

“Just damn.” Eyes a little dazed, he took a step back, looking off his axis enough to send a surge of lust and power skittering through her, but she managed to control herself. Controlled and composed. Yeah, that was her, one hundred percent put together.

With hard nipples.

And a telling dampness between her thighs.

“You ever feel anything like that before?” he asked.

“Truthfully? It’s been so long, I can’t remember.”

His soft but not necessarily amused laugh ruffled the hair at her temple and ran down her spine. “Love your honesty.”

She didn’t. And she didn’t love the idea that anyone could have seen that wild kiss they’d just shared. What was the matter with her? She turned away, but he caught her, a hand curving around her shoulder. “Don’t go.”

She needed to. So needed to. “Listen, maybe we could forget about this, at least until I figure out what it is.”

His hand slid down her arm, settling on her waist, where his thumb lazily stroked one of her ribs. The motion liquefied her bones and altered her breath. “Forget it? I don’t think that’s possible. Did you feel that?”

“I felt…something.” Which she was fighting. She wasn’t sure why, when she’d wanted that kiss more than her next breath-but that hadn’t been just any kiss. No. And being with him wouldn’t be just sex, either, and she knew herself enough to know that she wasn’t quite equipped to walk away. Not from that.

And she was walking away. In a matter of weeks. Her job would be over, her grandmother’s home on the market…“It’s natural that we’d feel…” She watched him arch a curious brow. “This. Natural. I’m a woman, you’re a man.” A really, really hot man, but still. “Natural,” she repeated again, and tried to mean it. “We’ve been working hard, and not relaxing, and…”

His head dipped to hers, his eyes a lethal combo of heat and good humor. “So you’d feel this with everyone, then? Say, Dustin? Or Blake?”

“Okay, no. But-”

Triumph surged in his eyes to go with that heart-stopping heat. “Maybe we should do something about it.”

Yes, cried her body. Oh please, yes.

A bell sounded, thank God, and before she could form a response, the call went out for all the firefighters, no EMTs required.

Aidan popped his head in for Zach, who nodded, then looked down into her face. “We can finish this when I get back.”

“No need,” she said quickly.

“Oh, there’s a need.”

And then he was gone.


* * *

Brooke spent most of the day out on transport calls with Dustin, and though she gave her all to what she was doing, her mind wandered. Not to the house she needed to sell, or how it was going to make her feel to leave a place she was slowly, reluctantly, started to think of as hers, but to a man and his kiss, and to the fact that he was making her yearn and burn when she never yearned and burned.

“Where are you today, New Hire? Disneyland?” Dustin shot her an exasperated look after having to ask her the same question three times in a row.

“I’m sorry. I’m preoccupied.”

He pushed up his glasses. “It’s because you guys haven’t knocked it out yet. That’s very preoccupying.”

She stared at him. “What?”

“Come on. Are you going to tell me that you don’t want to be with Zach?”

“Yes,” she said quickly. “I’m going to tell you that. I don’t want to be with…”

He waited patiently, but the lie wouldn’t come off her damn tongue. Frustrated, she turned to look out the window, watching the town go by. Farmers’ market. An art gallery. An outdoor café. “It’s personal.”

“Hey, don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me. Hell, I’ve got the same problem.”

“You want to have sex with Zach?”

He pushed up his glasses again, grinned, and pulled into the station. “Not quite.” He hopped out and walked away whistling, getting inside before she could ask him who he had the same problem with.

Zach and Aidan’s rig was in the garage, and her heart skipped a beat. The kiss, the kiss, the kiss…it was all she could think about. That, and getting another. And then she stepped into the kitchen and found Zach just standing there, looking ten kinds of wow.

He was in his gear, a little dusty, a little sooty and a whole lot sexy. He was still practically shimmering with adrenaline from the fire he’d just fought, looking far too edgy to be the laid-back, easygoing surfer guy she knew him to be.

And far too much for her to handle, no matter how much her body sent up a plea to let it do just that. He was too experienced for her, too…everything.

She’d spent too much time in her life trying to get somewhere, trying to find herself, to let a man like this in. Unfortunately, right now, at this very second, she wasn’t thinking about finding herself. She was thinking about seeing him naked. “Hey. You okay?”

“Yeah.”

But that was a lie, and that haze of lust he always created faded a little as she stepped closer. “Did anyone get hurt?” Or God forbid, like in the Hill Street fire that she knew haunted him, die.

“No.”

But the memory of something bad was etched in the drawn, exhausted lines of his face. He took his losses hard, very hard, and that fact only deepened how she felt about him. “I’m just tired,” he said. “And needed a moment alone.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” And she went to leave, because she understood that, but then he added, “I don’t want to be alone from you.”

She turned to look at him, but he’d moved closer and she bumped right into him. Her chest to his, his thighs to hers, and she actually let out a shuddering sigh that might have been a moan.

“What was that?”

Oh, just her brain cells blowing fuses left and right. “Nothing.”

Snagging her hand, he held her close, peering into her face. “You let out a…sound.”

“Yes. It’s called breathing.”

His hand slid to her waist and gently squeezed. “It sounded like more.”

How about a sexually charged, needy whimper? Did it sound like that? “No.”

His gaze searched hers for a moment. “Maybe we should talk about the kiss.”

Kisses. Plural. “Probably we shouldn’t. It might lead to…”

More. He was waiting for her to speak.

“I think I heard the fire alarm.”

“Huh,” he said, sounding curious.

“What?”

“You’re not as honest as I thought.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Really?” His hand slid to the small of her back and stroked lightly. “Then what are you thinking right now?”

That he’d look mighty fine naked. “That I’m hungry.”

Not a lie. She was hungry. For his yummy body.

“Brooke…”

“Yeah. Listen.” She let out a breath. “I’m trying to resist you here, okay? I’m failing miserably, but I’m trying.”

“Why?”

Wasn’t that the question of the year. “Because this is unlike me, this thing we have going on. I don’t flirt, and I certainly don’t do…whatever it is you’re thinking right now.”

“Never?”

“No, not-not in a long time.”

“That’s just not right, Brooke.”

Just the image of what they were talking about gave her an odd shiver and changed her breathing, and she realized he wasn’t breathing all that steadily, either. “Not helping, Zach.”

He laughed-at himself, at her, she had no idea really, but she found herself staring up at him, torn between marveling at the ease with which he showed his emotions and laughing back because the sound of his genuine amusement was contagious. “Happy to amuse you.”

“I’m sorry.” Still smiling, he sighed. “Ah, hell, that felt good. Laughing.”

“Laughing at me felt good.”

“Oh, no.” Gently, he tugged on her ponytail. “Definitely laughing with you, I promise. And I should be resisting, too. But I can’t seem to do that.”

His words caused more of those interesting shivers down her spine, and to other places, as well, secret places that wanted reactivating. Standing there in the hallway, way too close to this sexy man, a smile wanting to split her face, laughter spilling in her gut, she realized something.

Whether she’d meant to or not, she’d made roots here, temporary ones, but roots she would treasure and remember always. And now she wanted to strip naked and let him do things to her, lots of things, things that would create more lasting memories that she could take with her. “So how often, when you give that look to a woman, when you talk to her in that low, sexy voice, when you touch her, do her clothes just fall off?”

When he opened his mouth, she shook her head. “No, you know what? I’m sorry. Don’t answer that. Because I was on board for that. The clothes-falling-off thing. But…”

“But…?”

“But I’m not mixing business and pleasure, no matter how sexy you are. I can’t, much as I want to. I just can’t, not for anything less than a meaningful, lasting relationship, a real connection.”

Her own words shocked her but she found she meant them. To the bone. Being in her grandmother’s house had obviously sent that yearning within her rising to the surface, and she couldn’t help it. “I mean it. I’m sorry if I let you think otherwise, but I really do.”

Looking torn between bafflement and disappointment, he nodded. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry if I led you on. If it helps, I led myself on, too. I hope we’re still friends.” All that was left to do was walk away gracefully, when in her heart of hearts she didn’t want to walk away at all. She started with one step, a baby step, and then another. “I also hope that the rest of your shift goes well,” she managed.

“Thank you. That’s…friendly of you.”

Was he was mocking her? “Well,” she said primly, backing to the door. “Just because we’re not going to…”

“Mix business and pleasure,” he supplied helpfully.

“Yes.” Because obviously he was not looking for a deep or meaningful relationship, or he’d have said so. “It doesn’t mean that we can’t get along.”