FLAME AND A FIREMAN Read online

  "Have probably chased you all over the surface of God's green earth."

  "Yeah. You've got it. I was thinking you wouldn't see me as a meal ticket, but I really had to be sure."

  She looked him over. "You chose to be a firefighter? With your family's reputation, I'd have thought you'd be in the wine industry."

  He adamantly shook his head. "My family loves wine making and the accolades that come from it. I chose something else. I wanted a life where I thought I could help people. The same as you."

  She began to understand everything. Thinking for a moment, his aversion to meeting her in a normal social setting made a kind of strange sense. His family was known as the premier wine makers on the Eastern seaboard. They had vineyards all over Pennsylvania and upper state New York as well as other eastern states. She'd once sailed past the Garret mansion while yachting in Rhode Island. The place was more like a gothic castle, situated on a high cliff overlooking the ocean. She'd heard rumors of their wealth and power.

  As old as her money was, his was decades older. She'd even heard it said the Garret family had ancestors hailing back to British royalty, and that some of them still resided in the British Isles. The Garret clan was considered the cream of very old New England society.

  He ran a hand across the back of his neck. "I know that playing Pluto was crazy. I've never done anything so outrageous."

  "You knew the room's layout. That's why I thought you worked there," she explained.

  "I had to show up seven hours early for Monique's people to put all that elaborate makeup on me. Then it took me another hour to figure out how to operate some of the mechanisms in the room. Including the lighting. I'm sorry I made you stand outside the elevator so long, but I was having trouble getting the damned switches to work. I only knew where you were because I could hear you moving."

  She smiled, then began to softly laugh.

  He grinned, too. "What's so funny?"

  "You actually let someone paint your, um..." She glanced down, toward his crotch.

  "That wasn't my first inclination. But Monique insisted the new theme room she was trying out was going to have a Pluto who looked every bit the part. And she swore the paint was hypoallergenic. It took a special makeup remover to get the stuff off. Some of me was pretty raw when I got through scrubbing."

  She shook her head in disbelief. "You went through all that just to meet me?"

  He shrugged. "Cathy assured me I'd never regret it."

  "You know, you had me going there when I first walked into that room. I started to think I'd been tricked into visiting an alternate reality right after I left the elevator."

  "You sounded angry."

  She playfully pushed him. "I was. You were beginning to scare the hell out of me."

  He hugged her. "I'm sorry, Lisa. I really am. Can we start over? Like normal people?"

  She hugged him back. "First, I have to apologize. If I said anything at the bordello to hurt you, I'm sorry."

  He pulled slightly out of her embrace and stroked her hair. "How do you mean?"

  "There was something about the way you touched me. You held me like I was something precious right after we had sex. No man has ever touched me like that."

  "That's because I wanted it to be more than just sex. You understand? I saw you and wanted you. I couldn't help it. I still feel that way."

  "You do?" she whispered.

  "Yeah."

  She stared into his dark eyes for a long moment. "What if...what if you stayed the night and we really started over from scratch. Would that work for you?"

  "It would." He kissed her forehead then pulled her toward him. "But no matter what happens, I'll always think of you as the flame in my life. I'll always remember that night and want you. Every time I think of us together, it drives me crazy."

  He kissed her softly at first, but she opened her mouth wider as the kiss became more passionate and demanding. When they finally broke the embrace, she felt as though the room was twenty degrees too hot.

  "It's a good thing you're a fireman."

  "Yeah?" he breathed.

  "Yeah. I think my blood pressure is rising and I might need some special physical attention."

  "I'll render whatever first aid you need," he promised.

  When he suddenly stopped smiling, Lisa tilted her head and placed her hands on either side of his face. "What's wrong?"

  "I'm feeling sort of possessive where I have no right to."

  She brushed her lips against his. "What brought this on?"

  "You. I don't think I'd want to know about you going back to that bordello."

  She traced his full lower lip with the pad of her thumb. "Don't worry. Monique will miss me, but I won't be patronizing that place again. You've spoiled me."

  He grinned. "Then...are we officially trying a relationship?"

  She slowly nodded. "Welcome to my world, Devlin Garret."

  "You think you could be happy with somebody whose tastes are pretty simple?" he asked.

  She thought about long walks in the rain and quiet, close times with this man. "I think you're going to be very good for me."

  "I'll do my best, Flame. I'll do my best." He pulled her to him and began a slow, hot kiss that melted time away.

  C. S. Chatterly

  Candace Sams (writing as C. S. Chatterly) was a police officer for eleven years, a crew chief on an ambulance for eight years, and is now an award-winning author of fantasy and contemporary romance and science fiction. She was recently honored by nation-wide readers with the National Readers' Choice Award for the Best Paranormal Book of the year.

  Candace is also the senior woman on the U.S. Kung Fu Team and has traveled to China at the request of the U.S. and Chinese governments for international competitions and exhibitions. She's the holder of three international martial arts titles, the mother of eight adopted babies in the form of three dogs and five cats, and has been married to her husband, Lee, for more than seventeen years. She also enjoys gardening, rock-collecting and weight-lifting.

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  Don't miss Cop And A Kilt by C. S. Chatterly, available now, from Amber Quill Press, LLC

  Cathy Sullivan and Ian Murphy are two cops. Neither knows what the other does for a living, but they've anonymously been set up for an exclusive date at a luxurious bordello. When they sample the hot bread special, they'll never look at bread or kilts again in the same way--and neither will you...

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