Never Too Hot (Hot Shots: Men of Fire #3)(33)
Author: Bella Andre

“I told myself I was going to stay the hell away from you, but it was a lie, Ginger. Every last thing about you blows my mind. I don’t think I could keep my hands off you if I tried.”

She shivered, reached for him. “I don’t want you to.”

God, he hated the need to lay it all out like this. But there was no other way. Because if they were going to go forward, he had to make absolutely sure they were on the same page.

“You know I’m going back to Lake Tahoe after the summer to rejoin my crew, right?”

“Of course you will. They’re going to be lucky to have you back.”

She was so damn sweet, it seemed that she almost wanted his career as a hotshot back for him as much as he did.

The warning light behind his breastbone shifted as it was shoved to the side by something else entirely.

Something he couldn’t possibly acknowledge.

He knew he shouldn’t reach for her until they were done talking, but he couldn’t help himself and slid her onto his lap anyway.

“Could we enjoy each other for the summer and agree to stay friends when we both go our separate ways?”

She didn’t say anything for several moments, confirming that he was asking for too much. Ginger should be saving herself for a good man, for someone who could give her a future.

Not wasting time on a dead end.

But then, when she smiled at him and said, “It sounds perfect,” he was so glad that he lifted her up and carried her into the bathroom to seal the deal, barely remembering at the last minute to reach into his dresser to grab a condom.

Turning on the shower with his free hand, he ran his hands over her hips, her waist, her br**sts.

She reached over his shoulder. “How about I soap you up?”

She moved around behind him and started running the soap between his shoulder blades, down his back, along his arms. Sure, they’d made love repeatedly. She’d held his hands, stroked them, but to take the time to run a bar of soap over the parts of him that were so damaged, well, he wouldn’t ask that of anyone. Especially not when he knew damn well how sickened other women had been doing far less.

“You don’t have to do that.”

Her hands stilled. “Why wouldn’t I want to, Connor?”

His throat tightened, making it hard to say, “I know what my skin looks like. How bad it is.”

She moved back around the front of him. “How bad do you think it is?”

“It’s a mess,” he rasped out. “You don’t have to prove anything to me. What we’ve done is already enough.”

It had to be.

But she didn’t seem to be listening, because she had already dropped the soap to the floor and was lifting both of his hands to her lips. She kissed his knuckles and then the silvery gray skin where they’d stitched it together, the raised and bumpy patches where it had simply pulled away with his melted gloves.

And then she was putting his scarred hands against her chest, pressing his palms flat so that he could feel her heart beat beneath her breastbone.

“Don’t you dare try to tell me what I shouldn’t do, Connor. I’m a big girl. And I’m not scared of you. Not one single thing about you. Even if you think I should be.”

He kissed her then, and as he took her one more time, he couldn’t help but wonder where a woman this incredible could have come from.

And just what the hell he was going to do about her when it came time to head back to California. Without her.

Ginger couldn’t remember ever feeling this exhausted. Or this exhilarated.

Connor was her fantasy lover come to life. Big and strong, almost ruthless in his passion. She’d come violently every single time, and even when she hadn’t thought it could get better, it had.

He was wrapping a towel around her, his mouth on her neck, sending thrill bumps running across the surface of her body, when she realized the phone was ringing. Whoever it was, she’d just ignore it. Whatever they wanted, she’d deal with it later.

But instead of stopping, the phone kept ringing and ringing. Over and over until Connor finally lifted his head from that spot right between her br**sts where he could run his tongue over both at once.

“Sounds like you’d better get that.”

More than a little irritated by the interruption, she tucked the towel under her arms and headed into her bedroom to pick up the cordless.

“Hello.”

An unfamiliar male voice greeted her on the other end. “Hi. Sorry to bother you, but this is Sam MacKenzie. Any chance my brother is there?”

Connor was just walking past her door to his bedroom, a towel slung low around his narrow hips. “Yes, he is.

I’ll put him right on.” To Connor she said, “It’s Sam.”

Connor lifted an eyebrow in surprise as he took the phone. “What’s up?”

She couldn’t hear what Sam was saying, but as she watched Connor’s expression change back into that ice-cold rock she’d seen more than once, her concern morphed into full-on fear.

“Got it,” he finally said. “Nope. It’s fine. Talk to you later.”

“Connor?” She moved closer. “Did something happen?”

He didn’t say anything for quite a while, just stood there. His face was turned away from her so she couldn’t get a read on him as he said, “The Forest Service has been trying to get hold of me. They called Thursday, left a couple of messages at my house and on my cell. When they didn’t hear back, a friend of ours called Sam to make sure I was handling the news okay.”

Oh God, she knew what he was going to say. “What was the news?”

“I’m out. For good.”

His fingertips were numb as he dialed his voice mail to listen to the Forest Service director’s message.

“After reviewing your case again the Forest Service has decided not to put you back out in the field. And, asI’m sure you’re aware, you are at the end of the appeal process. A member of our reorganization program will becontacting you in a few days to discuss your new options within the Forest Service family. Again, we hope you’lldecide to stay on with the Forest Service in some capacity. You have been a great asset to our organization duringthe past decade and we are confident that you will be just as great of an asset in the future in whatever new roleyou take.”

New options?

Future?

From the day he’d graduated high school, Connor had been up in the mountains chasing wildfires. What the hell was he supposed to do with himself now? Teach from a book for the rest of his life? Wear a suit and get a paunch and tell the same stories over and over again about the “good old days” to the rookies?

He felt the bomb that had been building inside of him during the past two years start to detonate, slowly but surely. Blackness was swirling up from deep in his gut — a blackness that he hadn’t wanted to face, not even in the darkest days of his burns and skin grafts — like thick ink soaking straight into his cells.