Kristin Hardy - Where There's Smoke

“Wait.”

“I’ve said everything I had to say.” She was too close to the edge, Sloane thought desperately, way too close.

“Will you just hold on a minute?” Nick pushed his hand against the door. “Stop, dammit.”

“What?” Her voice was tight with tension.

“You’re right, okay? I’m sorry. I was wrong. It’s a fair decision.” He caught Sloane’s shoulder and turned her to face him.

Because she hadn’t had time to compose herself, she was still pale. Her eyes were huge. Nick looked at her slowly, carefully, feeling the pull begin again. “This really matters to you, doesn’t it?”

She looked as if she was holding herself together with sheer nerve. “Of course. I want my design to work.”

Nick shook his head. “There’s more going on than that. You care about this project too much.”

“I care about doing my job,” Sloane answered stiffly.

“There’s something going on here that doesn’t have anything to do with the job.”

He was right, this wasn’t about the job. It was about what had started in the tower and was moving out of her control with frightening speed. “Perhaps you just have an overactive imagination,” Sloane responded, fighting to keep her voice even.

“I don’t know. Let’s test it. Empirical method,” he told her as he leaned in, sliding his fingers along her cheek. “Experiment and observe.”

“You’re out of your mind, Trask.”

“Nick,” he corrected softly, so close she could feel his mouth form the word.

“What?”

“Call me Nick.” Then his lips brushed hers.

Sloane stilled at the contact. Warm, soft and unexpectedly gentle. The sensation didn’t bowl her over but simply engulfed her like an ever-rising tide, deceptively calm, relentless in its power. For years, she’d kept herself separate from everyone, for years she’d shied away from a simple human touch. Now, her nerve endings hummed with forgotten sensations. A quick brush with the tip of his tongue, a nibble to tempt her, his exploration was unhurried and exquisite. She barely noticed as he slipped past her defenses and made her yearn.

The subtle sounds of intimacy filled the small space of the tower: the whisper of skin against skin, the soft, involuntary noises of breath, of arousal. And the scent of desire rose around them.

He knew she intrigued him. He hadn’t expected the taste of her to trigger an immediate hunger for more. When she gave a soft sigh, he fought the sudden drive to go deeper, to find out if she carried the passionate urgency she brought to the project to all aspects of her life.

He forced himself to go slowly instead, his touch gentle. She was like a fire smoldering in a closed room. He could sense the heat and power but couldn’t find its source. The taste of her skin was maddening, her scent powerful enough to make him reel. He journeyed from the soft side of her throat back to her lips and suddenly the fire blazed as her mouth came to life under his.

Sloane didn’t know where the hunger came from, knew only that she was driven to taste, to savor, to revel in sensation. For too long, she’d denied herself any contact. Now she searched for more, driven by the feel of his mouth and light brush of his hands over her skin. Desire flashed through her, hot as flame, threatening to overwhelm her entirely.

A blast from the ladder truck’s air horn made them jerk apart. Sloane returned to a rapid, flashing clarity. She stared at the scene outside, unable to tell whether any of the men were looking at the observation tower. “Very funny, Trask. Was this some kind of a show for your men?” She attempted to brush past where he stood, unmoving.

“Hardly. This tower is designed so people can’t tell if they’re being watched. The windows are smoked so dark you can’t see in with the lights on, much less off.”

“You’d be the first to point out that designs don’t always work as intended,” Sloane said curtly. “Now listen to me very carefully, Trask.”

“Nick,” he corrected.

“Just listen,” Sloane snapped. It was terrifying, how easily he’d slashed his way through the barriers she’d surrounded herself with. She had to push him out. She had to escape before he knew how much she was at risk. “I am here to do a job that is entirely dependent on the cooperation of your truck company. I will not have my credibility damaged in front of your men.”

“It wasn’t damaged.”

Her eyes flashed. “It could have been. You’re interfering with my work.”

“The testing was done for the day,” Nick countered.

“I’m on the job as long as I’m on fire department property.”

Nick reached out to finger a stray curl of her hair. “Next time I’ll make sure we’re off department property, then.” There was a hint of danger in his smile. It frightened her, because it made her want.

“There won’t be a next time,” Sloane flared, pushing past him. She paused, her hand on the doorknob. “After all, I’m just a tool for Ayre, right? Try to remind yourself of that every so often.”

The hands of the clock on the wall moved noiselessly, counting off minutes of quiet broken only by the faint tick of pencils, the rustle of paper. Ranks of men sat at the tables, bent over sheaves of paper. Some scribbled madly, some thoughtfully, some stared blankly into space as though answers might suddenly, magically appear in the air in front of them. The second hand made its inexorable sweep about the clock face. The precious minutes marched relentlessly by.

The proctor at the front of the room cleared his throat. “Time, gentlemen. Please stop writing and bring your papers up to the front.”

Nick glanced up, feeling as though he had just broken to the surface after a long dive into a deep pool. Over the past months he had packed his brain with an enormous amount of detail about firefighting, fire management, personnel management, equipment, building codes, construction, hazardous materials and department regulations. He could recite the pump pressure of the fire engine and the weight of each size of hose, both empty and filled. Without thinking he could list the flashpoints of gasoline, methanol, dry cleaning fluid and a host of other chemicals. He knew as much about Boston building codes as any building inspector.

For nearly a year it had taken over his life. The hours of study had been worth it, though. The answers had been there when he’d needed them. Now that it was over, he felt light-headed, as though the facts that had poured out onto the paper had had weight. He set his paper down on the stack at the front of the room and walked gratefully out into the quiet of the hallway at fire department headquarters, rubbing his neck to loosen the tense muscles.

All done, he thought, and tried to take it in. For the first time in months he could relax without the voice of guilt reminding him he should be studying. Punching the elevator call button, he bounced a little on the balls of his feet, light with a growing sense of freedom. Maybe he could actually go out for a change, listen to some music, drink a few beers. A bell pinged and the elevator doors opened to allow him into the car.

“Hold the elevator.” A voice from the hallway interrupted his thoughts, a voice he recognized with the impact of a fist in his solar plexus.

Sloane Hillyard.

He’d thought of her in the four days since the testing, oh, he’d thought of her. Waving the ladder truck back into quarters after an alarm, sitting down to dinner with the crew, over and over he’d found her on his mind. He’d remembered her scent as he’d pored over statistics about building codes and fire standards. The memory of holding her against him had derailed his review of chemical reactions. He’d studied and he knew a thousand and one facts about firefighting strategies. He thought of Sloane Hillyard and he knew only one thing.

That he wanted her.

Sloane hurried down the hall toward the elevator, her mind on the clock and the relentless calendar. She’d just been through a morning that could have won awards for lack of productivity. She could only hope the afternoon would be better. Ahead of her, the elevator doors opened back up. A sign, she thought. Something, at least, was going right.

And then she stepped into the elevator.

“Hey.” Nick smiled at her lazily, leaning against one wall of an otherwise empty car that suddenly seemed very small. He wore a leather bomber jacket over a rough-weave blue shirt and khakis. She’d gotten familiar with the look of him in his departmental T-shirt and trousers. This was the first time she’d seen him in civvies.

She wasn’t at all prepared for the impact. They made him look leaner, rangier and subversively sexy.

“Going to the lobby?” Nick’s hand hovered over the lighted buttons of the control panel as the car started to move. “Better decide quick.”

“The lobby, please.” She stood next to him, immensely conscious of his eyes on her. After their last interlude, she’d resolved to put him out of her mind, which had worked about as well as the childhood game of not thinking of elephants. Still, just because she couldn’t stop thinking of the kiss didn’t mean she had anything to worry about. After all, how long had it been since she’d locked lips with a guy? Of course she’d overreacted. She probably would have with anyone. It was simply a physical response to an extremely attractive man, she’d told herself. Physical hunger was something she could recognize. Physical craving was something she could ignore.

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