Sweet Sizzle: A Red Hot Valentine Story (2 page)

She could hear Michael, Nev, and Dallas closing in on her from behind. Before they could pounce, she blindly rushed around the backend of the farthest fire engine—and smacked headfirst into a solid wall of muscle. Her breath expelling in an
oof
, she tottered on her heeled boots, a hot wash of panic sluicing through her as she grappled to steady the cookie bouquet gripped in her arms, and not thud onto her ass in the process.

Two big, work-roughed hands closed around hers, thwarting imminent disaster from striking. Even through the thin leather of her gloves she could feel the warmth of his skin, and it offered a peculiar comfort. Relief and gratitude swelling inside her like an uncontainable balloon, she jerked her gaze upward to her savior. “
Thank you
. I owe you my—” The remainder of her profuse declaration withered to dust in her throat as she locked stares with a familiar pair of cocoa brown eyes.

Her stomach pitched, the world tilting at a crazy angle. One whispered word slipped from her on a weak breath. “Bennet.”

CHAPTER TWO

Bennet Jackson gaped at the beautiful vision standing shell-shocked in his arms. He shook his head, half certain she’d disappear like a mirage. Because wasn’t that all this was? Yet another case of him conjuring the one woman whom time stubbornly refused to let him forget? There was no way in hell she was anything but a hallucination brought on by wishful thinking and lack of proper shuteye for the third straight day in a row.

Only she
felt
all too substantial. Soft. Enticing. A luscious wonderland waiting to be explored. Or
re
-explored, as the case may be. He slipped his hands underneath the cuffs of her down jacket and circled his fingertips over the delicate curvature of her wrists. She definitely smelled real too. Plucking the olive green plaid cap from her, he ducked and buried his nose in the shiny blonde cascade of her hair, inhaling a greedy lungful of that fancy floral scent he’d always screwed up the name for. Forsythia?
No, that’s a bush, ya dumb ass
. Freesia. Yup, that was the one.

A stinging slap came out of nowhere, knocking him back a step. He wagged his head again, this time a bit more forcefully as he attempted to clear the stars spinning in his eyes. Okay,
that’d
sure as shit felt real.

“You have a lot of goddamned nerve, you son of a bitch.”

He blinked at Rory’s furious countenance as she snatched her cap from him and angrily tugged it back in place over her lush, golden waves. Realization crashed into him with a heavier wallop than the time he got T-boned by a passing ladder. “
Ro
?”

“Oh, gee, so you do remember me. Guess that’s
something
.” Fire flashed in her eyes, and the unspoken “
mother fucking dickbag
” that he suspected she longed to tag onto the end of her reply sat like an elephant between them.

Not that he blamed her if she did despise his guts. He was more than deserving of any knee-to-the-groin scheme she might have in the planning stage. On the off chance that was about to become a reality, he cautiously angled his hip away from her, lessening the odds of a direct nail in the family jewels. Yeah, he rightfully had it coming, but he was no damn idiot. At least not when it came to shielding his privates from a justifiably pissed off woman. “Of course I remember you. For shit’s sake, I damn well asked you to marry me.”

Judging from the scariness of her expression, that might not have been the most intelligent comeback in the history of ever. Stupid ass lack of sleep. One way or another, it was bound to get him fit for a body bag.

“Thank you
so much
for reminding me of that. Oh hey, while we’re skipping down nostalgia lane, how about that time I had to get my appendix removed? Or no, wait; we can’t forget Mr. Fluff’s early retirement to the cat convalescent home in the sky after the neighbor’s Jeep squished him. Good memories!”

He winced. Before he had a chance to stick his foot farther down his throat, Michael, Dallas, and Nev rounded the corner. All three men grinned when they spotted him and Rory. Michael was the first to speak. “Don’t be getting any sneaky ideas, bro. Those cookies are already spoken for.”

The appreciative glint in Michael’s eyes while he smiled at Rory made it crystal clear that it wasn’t the cookies he was salivating over. Out of all of the guys at the station, Michael was the one Ben most considered his best mate. The other men loved to routinely razz the probie—not that Ben didn’t indulge in the pastime now and then. He was a card-carrying member of the Y Chromosome Club, after all. The difference with Ben though was he and Michael had been friends long before they started working together, so Ben had six plus years of accumulated credit in the heckling department. But right now he possessed zero interest in good naturedly ribbing Michael. Nope. Cold cocking  Michael and busting a few of his teeth?
That
held some potential.

Instead of giving into the primal urge, Ben settled for another. Though he no longer owned any claim on Rory, it didn’t stop him from scooping her against his side and resting his hand on her hip. Michael and the other men’s expressions clued Ben in that they’d gotten his
Back the Fuck Off
message in glaring surround sound. The way Rory nearly dislocated his shoulder socket when she wrenched out of his hold hinted that she’d intercepted the memo too.

“Oh
hell
no. You did
not
just go there.” Steam practically billowed from her nostrils. Her grip tightened on the vase of cookies. For one tense moment, he swore she was about to throw it at him. Well, it could be worse.

“I’ll, uh, just leave you two alone,” Nev offered. No sooner did he scurry off, and his partner in crime, Dallas, pussied out by extending a similar farewell and hustling to safety.

Good ole Michael was the last man standing between Ben and Ben’s slow, sure to be painful death. Which kinda made Ben feel like a major prick for considering putting the hurt on Michael earlier.

His wary gaze panning between Ben and Rory, Michael fidgeted with his goatee before shoving his hands in his pockets. “Everything okay here?”

“It will be.” A tic visibly twitched near the corner of Rory’s eye. “Once I kill him.”

“Call me crazy, but that sounds like the opposite of okay,” Michael pointed out.

Ben grunted. “Easy to see why you’d be confused. But when it comes to me, death and dismemberment are preferred outcomes in Rory’s estimation of things.”

Michael’s eyes widened. “
Rory
?” He jerked his gaze to the woman in question. “
You’re
Rory?”

The angry hiss streaming between her teeth was a precursor of eminent doom and destruction. She whipped her focus to Ben. “You asshole. So help me, if you’ve talked smack about me behind my back after everything that happened—”

“Whoa, totally not the case,” Michael interjected quickly. “In fact, if you had any idea how crazy this guy is about you—”

The laugh that burst from Rory had to be the most forced in existence. She held onto her side with her free hand, really getting into her performance. Straightening, she wiped her eyes. “Good one.” A second later she clamped her mouth shut, fixing it into a hard line.

“No, he is.” Michael’s hands abandoned his pockets as he shrugged. “You’re pretty much all he talks about. Especially if he’s had too much to drink.”

Ben groaned.
Thanks for painting me in such a flattering light, bud.

Apparently intuiting that he wasn’t helping Ben’s plight, Michael held up his hand. “What I meant to say is I can never get him to shut up about you when he’s half in the bag.”

Ben sent a quick mental plea to the universe.
Just let her fucking kill me now.
Less painful and infinitely faster.

Rory leveled him with her pissy gaze. “Did you put him up to this?”

He tossed up his hands. “Yeah. ‘Cause obviously I’m psychic and knew you’d be coming in here today,
and
I thought I’d really win you over by looking like a sentimental drunk.”

Michael assumed a hangdog expression. “Sorry, bro.”

A weary exhalation fizzled from Ben. “Don’t worry about it. Nothing you say can compete with the shithole I’ve already dug myself into.”

“You can both cut the crap. I don’t have time or the patience for it.” Rory jabbed her index finger in Michael’s direction. “You said something about helping me find George. So let’s do this.”

Ben settled his hand on Rory’s shoulder. “I can take you to George.”

Her glare threatened to sear straight through him. “I know there’s no way you’re touching me right now.”

He heaved an exasperated sigh. “Damn it, Ro. Would you stop being so stubborn? I just want to help you.” Truthfully, he wanted to do a hell of a lot more than that. She’d been his every waking thought for the last ten years. And also the majority of his sleeping ones too, if the countless occasions he’d woken during the middle of the night dripping with sweat and sporting the mother of all hardons was any indication. Then there were the not so pleasant dreams, where he constantly relived the agonizing moment he’d blown everything to hell.

She’d wanted a forever with him, and he’d ruined their future, their happiness, because the thought of failing as a husband had terrified the living shit out of him. So he’d ducked out on that possibility before he could potentially prove what a fuck up he’d be. Brilliant stuff right there. Miracle he didn’t win Moron of the Century for that one. Of course he hadn’t been completely honest with her about the true motivation for his breaking their engagement either. That would have been too decent. Too much the logical, smart thing to do. Hell, come clean about his fears? No, better to deny they existed and blame something else. His budding football career had offered the perfect excuse. If he was going to make it pro like his brother, Gage, he couldn’t afford the distraction of a wife. Or a relationship at all.

Fast forward a decade, and here he was. No wife. No relationship. No football career.

No Rory.

She was the only one that mattered. The only one he regretted losing. With every ounce of his soul.

He stepped toward her again, his hands held in front of him in supplication. “I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness. But please, I’m begging you for it. Whatever you want me to do, whatever you want from me
period
, it’s yours.”

She cocked her head to the side. “Really? Anything?”

He nodded.

She stroked her chin. “Hm, this time of year, might be kinda tough finding that patch of poison ivy for you to roll around in naked.”

Grimacing, he tried his damnedest to ignore the itchy ball syndrome her words instigated. “Got to admit I’m surprised you didn’t mention a pit of alligators.”

She smiled sweetly. “Where do you think the poison ivy patch is located?”

Michael chuckled, only to immediately snuff it when Ben shot him the stink eye. “I’ll, uh, go find some heavy lifting to do.”

“Oh no you don’t. You’re supposed to help me locate George.” Rory marched over to Michael and seized him by the elbow.

Ben made a tsking sound. “Not nice to manhandle the probie that way.”

Rory sent him a slit-eyed look before glancing at Michael. “Are you going to let him talk to you like that? He just called you an alien sex probe.”

Michael looked suitably confused. “No, it’s a term they call us new guys.”

“What? They
all
call you an alien sex probe? What a bunch of jerks.”

Michael bounced his deer-trapped-in-headlights stare to Ben. “I…don’t know what we’re talking about right now.”

“Usually the case when it comes to Rory.” Taking pity on his best mate, Ben strode to Michael’s side and efficiently loosened Rory’s grip with a strategic tug on her coat sleeve. He nodded to Michael. “Go. Now, young Skywalker, before the Wampa beast discovers our trickery.”

Michael gulped before hotfooting it toward the locker room.

Securing the cookie vase in the crook of her arm, Rory speared him with a droll look. “Really?
Still
with the Star Wars references?”

“What can I say? Once a geek, always a geek.”

Despite Rory’s excessive eye rolling, a giggle escaped her. Ben swore to Christ it was the most beautiful sound to grace his ears in who knows how long. Actually, he had a good estimation in regards to that tally. It at least had to be ten plus years—which amounted to the last time he’d brought a laugh tumbling from Rory.  He stared at her lips, his own tingling as he recalled the decadent, sweet softness of her mouth.

She sucked in a shuddery breath. “Please don’t look at me like that, Ben.”

His memories of their last kisses a tormenting siren song, he traced the succulent bow of her bottom lip. “Like what?”

She shivered. “Like you want to eat me alive.”

He slowly lifted his gaze to hers. “I can’t stop, Ro. And I’m never gonna stop. Because that’s exactly what I wanna do. With every fiber of my being.” He lowered his head and nuzzled her temple before following the curve of her cheekbone with his lips. “Wanna lick every inch of you, until you’re branded into my taste buds. I’ll spread you out, hold you down while I suck on your nipples.” His hand moved to the gentle swell of her breast and cupped it underneath her opened jacket. She stared at him helplessly, but didn’t move. Taking that as a good sign, he flexed his fingers slightly. Her breath quickened. He dipped his mouth to the corner of hers, the proximity of their lips combined with the fantasy swirling in his head springing a groan from deep in his chest. “But what I most wanna do is bury my face between your legs. Suck on your sweet little clit until it’s throbbing and ready to burst. Jesus, Ro, do you remember how fucking good that used to be? My hands full of your ass, holding you tight while you rode my tongue, coming all over the place?”

“Ben.”

The shaky sound of his name on her lips was the only invitation he needed. Plowing his hands through her hair, he pulled her snug into his arms. The cookie vase dug into his belly, the discomfort a minor inconvenience when it came to finally getting to kiss the woman who’d occupied his every  thought for damn near his entire life. She didn’t fight the persuasive pressure of his lips, and instead surrendered with a soft moan before she melted into him. He quickly grabbed the slipping vase and blindly stashed it on the adjacent boot rack. That task out of the way, he tucked his arm under her ass, hiking her tighter to him. She automatically wrapped her legs around his hips. Pivoting, he pressed her back against the side of Smokey, Fire Engine Number 10. The move was purely based on ease of location and convenience. Because Smokey sure as hell would not be putting out the fire he intended to stoke in Rory.