Four Weddings and a Fireman

by Jennifer Bernard

  Spending time at Cherie’s house was like mainlining pure womanhood. If they lived together, he’d have to have a man cave somewhere, a garage packed with tools and a refrigerator, maybe a pool table . . .

  He gave that line of thought a ruthless karate chop. If Cherie wanted something permanent, she would have accepted at least one of his proposals. He was here in the capacity of Firefighter for a Day, that was all. Whether she wanted him or not.

  Some kind of pulsing, exotic dance music was playing inside. Mixed up with it, he heard the irritated voice of Cherie and the sullen tones of her housemate Nick.

  He knocked. When no one answered, he rummaged under a pansy-filled watering pot for the key, and let himself in. The entryway was home to a coatrack, a telephone stand, and a fish tank. He greeted his favorite, the angelfish who liked to nibble the newcomers, and strolled into the living room.

  The rug had been rolled up and pushed to the side, and the dark wood coffee table lay upside-down on the couch like an upended beetle. Nick and Cherie faced each other in the middle of the cleared space.

  To Vader’s eyes, Nick was a blur. His eyes flew immediately to Cherie. She was barefoot, and wore a leotard the color of emeralds and a flowy sort of wrap skirt with parrots printed on it. Her hair was tucked into a little bun at her neck. With his habit of assessing her entire appearance instantly, he knew that she was wearing hardly any makeup, maybe just a touch of gloss on her soft, violin-curved lips. She was glaring at Nick, who was in the midst of answering a text.

  “You can’t text while doing the tango.”

  “The tango can suck it.” Nick made a rude gesture with his phone.

  “It’s not that hard! If you’d just pay attention.”

  Just then, Nick spotted Vader, and pointed the phone his direction. “Get him to be your dance slave. I’m out.”

  Cherie whirled in Vader’s direction. He folded his arms over his chest, ready for battle. “What are you doing here, Vader?”

  “I’m your Firefighter for a Day.”

  “No, you aren’t. Fred is.”

  “Unless you want the bubonic plague, it’s me. Take it or leave it. Me, I mean.” Maybe that wasn’t the best phrasing, considering all she did was take him and then leave him.

  Nick grabbed the opportunity to slide past Vader and head for the front door. They both heard it slam shut. They were alone.

  The last time they’d been alone, they’d had mind-blowing sex and then he’d mentioned marriage. The hell if he’d make that mistake again.

  “I mean, come on, Cherie. Do you think we can’t handle a day together? I’m a big boy. You’re a . . . well, we’re both adults.”

  A smile of pure mischief curved her lips and made her eyes crinkle at the corners. “I could use some help with my tango lesson. But do you really want to do this? Ballroom dancing isn’t exactly your cup of tea. Not that you like tea either. So maybe it is your cup of tea.”

  He gave her a hard look. “You aren’t going to scare me off with ballroom dancing. Sure, I’d rather fix a leaky faucet or double-check your fire extinguishers. But if want me to tango, I’ll tango.”

  She tilted her head, considering. He could imagine the thoughts running through her mind. Tango wasn’t the best way to maintain distance, but here he was. And here Nick wasn’t. “I need someone for Saturday’s class. I’m trying to demonstrate leading versus following. Today was just supposed to be a practice session because Nick . . . well, it didn’t work out last Saturday. So I’d need your help for two days. I only won a firefighter for one day.”

  “I’ll check with the department, but I’m pretty sure we can split it into two half-days.”

  Slowly she nodded. “You might even be good at tango. I know how well you move.” A million images flashed through his mind, all of them including her naked and moaning beneath him. As usual, she was innocently oblivious to the effect of her words. “Maybe you’ll have fun with it.”

  He knew exactly how to make it more fun, but he heroically suppressed that thought.

  She read his mind anyway. “And we’re not going there, Vader. Tango is the dance of passion, it’s supposed to suggest the sex act, not actually demonstrate it.”

  “You just had to go there, didn’t you?”

  “I said we’re not going there.”

  “I heard what you said. You said ‘sex act.’ How am I supposed to hear the words ‘sex act’ and not think of the sex act?”

  Her eyes flared. “What difference does it make? You’re always thinking of the sex act anyway.”

  “I might think about it, but you said it. That means you were thinking about it.”

  Two spots of pink appeared on her cheeks. She took a deep breath, visibly trying to control herself. “I was making the point that this is a professional session. So just tell me right now, so I can be prepared. Are you planning to do this the entire time?”

  A slow grin spread across his face. “You got me for half a day, babycakes. That’s four hours of nonstop Vader Brown. Can you handle it? Can you dig it?”

  She set her jaw. Raised her chin. And one eyebrow. “The better question is whether you can handle it.”

  He flexed his chest. “There’s only one way to find out.”

  “Okay, then.” Her eyes glittered. “We start like this, facing each other, except”—she took a step forward, so the tips of her breasts came within millimeters of his chest—“a little closer.”

  He swallowed hard. Lord in heaven. What had he gotten himself into?

  Chapter Five

  Cherie put her left hand on Vader’s muscled right shoulder. It tensed, going from steel to living titanium.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, Vader,” she murmured. “It’s just a dance.”

  He said nothing, just looked down at her, waiting. Letting her make the moves. Secret knowledge shivered through her. Having a man of Vader’s size and strength at her temporary command was an incredibly empowering feeling. There’d been a few times, in bed, when . . .

  She shook off the memory. Maintain your distance. Keep it professional. She lifted his right hand, its weight heavy in her grasp, and placed it on her lower back. It settled around her in a warm curl. “You’re going to be the leader and I’m going to follow. Right now I’m dictating, but as you get used to it, you’ll take the lead. I want to show my class how the man leads, and how the woman should follow.”

  Vader coughed. “No comment.”

  She gave him a warning glance. “There better not be.”

  “I’m keeping it zipped.”

  She looked at him suspiciously—exactly what did that “zipped” refer to?—but he maintained an innocent expression. “Now take my right hand in yours, but keep your arm bent to the side. Keep it nice and rigid.”

  Oh sweet mama. She closed her eyes as she heard him smother a snort. What was wrong with her? She managed to get through entire tango classes without a single double-entendre. But as soon as Vader showed up, out they came. She gritted her teeth. “Maybe I’ll just show you instead of talking about it.”

  “Sure thing, Teach.”

  He was enjoying this way too much. She shifted into a brisk, businesslike tone as she pulled him across the floor, demonstrating as she spoke. “I’ll just explain the count first. The basic sequence is slow, slow, quick, quick, slow. A slow step is two beats, quick is one. Don’t drag your feet, keep the steps what they call staccato. Firm and quick.”

  She hurried past that unfortunate phrasing. Luckily, Vader didn’t react. He was now focusing on the steps, moving his body after hers. She hummed a tango tune under her breath, emphasizing the beats.

  “Why don’t you go ahead and sing it?” Vader asked.

  “I don’t sing.”

  “Never? Of course you do.”

  She didn’t answer. For a fact, she knew Vader had never heard her sing, because she didn’t allow herself to sing. When they glided past the entertainment center—Optimal Doom’s principal contribution to the household�
�she leaned over and activated her iPod. She’d danced to the song a hundred times in class, but in the company of Vader, it acquired a new sensuality, a sort of suggestiveness amplified by his personality.

  As the music played, the spell of the dance began to weave itself around her. As she’d known he would, Vader caught on to the steps very easily. He was such a natural when it came to anything physical, not just strong, but quick on his feet. And he really seemed to feel the unfamiliar rhythm of the music.

  Or maybe it was that their bodies were so attuned to each other that he was easily able to follow her lead. As he assumed command of the dance, steering her across the floor, something within her relaxed. While teaching her regular tango classes, she never actually enjoyed herself. She was too preoccupied with her instructions, and monitoring the progress of the students. But here, now, with no one present but her and Vader, and the sense of physical harmony that always seemed to sing between them, she could devote all her senses to the dance.

  Her eyes half closed, she allowed herself to feel the heat of his body, so close to hers. She could almost sense the steady, reassuring thump of his heart. He wore his usual off-shift casual wear, a white beefy-T and red board shorts. Soren and Nick liked to point out that it made no sense for someone as clothing-conscious as she to be with a guy like Vader, who had no qualms about wearing the same pair of board shorts for a month. But the secret truth was, she liked looking at him in these clothes. She enjoyed the sight of his sculpted legs powering out of his shorts like a freight train from a tunnel. The way his shirts hugged the muscles of his huge shoulders was a constant treat for her eyes. Better than chocolate.

  Was it so strange that a woman would enjoy the physical beauty of a man, the way men did with women? In her family, neither sex was supposed to even notice such things. They called it vanity, and it would earn you a beating with a switch of witch hazel. But she’d always had that forbidden side to her, the side that loved the look of things, the feel of them, the sound and scent . . .

  With a long breath, she filled her lungs with the air hovering between her and Vader. Vader’s smell was entirely male. Sweat, of course, and a hint of gym shoes behind the clean, soapy scent he always carried. Despite his obsession with working out, or maybe because of it, Vader loved showers, and took at least two a day. He always smelled freshly washed. Unable to stop herself, she leaned in closer. Even though she couldn’t name the scents he carried, they brought to mind power tools and gearshifts, leather seats and other manly accoutrements. To her, it was a heady smell—in fact, it made her lose her head much too easily.

  She took another deep breath, letting the scent filter to her mouth, which watered. Her tongue pressed against the back of her teeth. With a sudden fierce desire, she wanted to taste Vader’s skin, investigate all the little permutations of his evocative aroma. Why power tools? If she ran her tongue across the rippling muscle of his biceps, she could figure it out. Why leather? Maybe it had to do with the stubble just appearing on his jaw. If she could bite his chin, lightly, hold it still with her teeth, and dart out her tongue in little exploratory trips, she could find out all sorts of things. If only . . .

  Her long, desirous exhale sent a puff of air across the short space between the two of them. Opening her eyes a slit, she saw Vader notice, saw him understand exactly what her sigh meant. When it came to matters of the flesh, Vader was quick as a fox. At least when it came to matters of her flesh.

  He looked down at her, holding her gaze in a long, searing, questioning glance. Whatever he saw in her eyes made him tighten his grip on her. He pulled her closer, her body offering no resistance whatsoever, even though the tango wasn’t meant to be danced that close. It felt so good to be pressed up against him, the hard ridges and valleys of his torso fitting so snugly against hers. One of her thighs slipped between the shifting columns that were his legs. Heat spangled through her lower belly, stoked by the movement of his thighs, the friction of his growing erection against her stomach.

  She sighed and let her body flow against his. Her leotard gave her nipples no protection against the enticing heat of his massive chest. The opposite, in fact. Each shift of the clinging fabric pressed between their two bodies sent an electric charge from the peaks of her breasts to her sex. Every step the two of them took drove her higher, toward that mindless realm where all that mattered was touch and taste and feel.

  “Vader,” she murmured, with the last remnants of her willpower. “What are we doing?” The question had a desperate tone to it. What are we doing? Why do we keep doing it? Why can’t we stop?

  “Whatever you want to do,” he answered, the devil. He made it sound so simple, but it wasn’t, was it? More than anything, she wanted him, to be close to him, to take him into her body and her life. But she couldn’t, not completely, and that’s why she kept hurting him, and she couldn’t stand that . . .

  But all those mostly logical, semi-coherent thoughts disappeared like vapor in his arms. He moved his hands from the rigid hold of the tango to a more blatantly sexual embrace, in which one hand pulled her hips flush against his lower body and the other cradled her skull. With a sigh of pure pleasure, she rested the back of her head against the solid warmth of his hand. In her humble opinion, Vader’s hands were a miracle of nature. So large that they spanned her head from ear to ear; so sensitive as they molded to each delicate little bony plate. At Vader’s touch, every forgotten part of her felt like Sleeping Beauty, awakening only under his attention. With every movement, his hands spoke to her, telling her how beautiful he found her, how much he wanted and revered her.

  And, as always, she responded like a spoiled cat, greedily accepting every caress as if it were her rightful due. She was born to be petted by this man. While in his arms, she could never doubt that. Out of his arms . . .

  She didn’t want to think about the cold world outside the magic circle of his embrace. Reality would intrude soon enough.

  “I have a few ideas,” she murmured, her lips curving in anticipation, her heartbeat doing its own tango of excitement.

  “Fire away, Teach.” He tilted her head back and mumbled the words against the skittering pulse in her throat. Farther down, with no apparent effort, his other hand gripped her buttocks and moved her in a smooth circle against the hard rise of his erection. She let out a deep groan, the kind of noise she made only in Vader’s presence.

  “Soren?” She heard his question vaguely, past the savage pounding of the blood in her ears.

  “Gone,” came her answering squeak.

  “Good.” And he swung her backward, so her feet flew off the ground and the breath whooshed out of her. She clung to his wide shoulders, which had become her only anchor. Her hair came loose from its bun and tumbled down her back.

  “Your hair says it wants me,” said Vader in a growl that seemed to rise from deep in his chest. He bent over her, the way he had at the photo booth, hovering his mouth over hers.

  “My hair talks too much.” She giggled, but her eyes had gone wide from the desire pounding through her. Held securely in his arms, she felt herself being transported across the room, toward the couch. But the couch was full, she’d stashed her coffee table on top of it . . .

  With an awesome demonstration of sheer muscle power, Vader shifted her so he held her in one arm, while with the other he plucked the table off the couch and set it on the floor with a clatter. Then she was swooping through the air onto the crushed sapphire velvet surface of the couch, which was soft as kitten’s fur against her skin.

  “Here’s what I want,” said Vader, hands on hips, standing over her like some kind of conquering Viking. “I want to see your red hair spread across that blue couch, with all your white skin in between. Naked white skin,” he added, with a meaningful lift of his eyebrow. He bent over to put his hands to the waist of her skirt.

  “Very patriotic.”

  “God bless America.” A few deft movements of his hands and her skirt was gone, tossed through the air like so much d
andelion fluff. He paused, and she glanced up at him. The perplexed look on his face as he surveyed her leotard made her burst out laughing.

  “Hit a roadblock, Mr. Universe? Has the mighty Vader been brought down by a ballet outfit?”

  “Down, but not out.” He crouched down before her and slid his big thumb along the leg hole, where fabric met skin. Being on the curvy side, her flesh swelled outward from the leotard. With some people, she might be shy about that fact. But she knew Vader appreciated every excess inch of her. His thumb traveled in a slow traipse across the sensitive skin of her groin, across the taut tendon, and into the valley where arousal already ached.

  His hot gaze met hers as he investigated her wetness. She didn’t have time to be embarrassed, because he found her pulsing clit and circled it with his knowing thumb. Her lips opened on a moan. Slowly, with ruthless teasing intent, he moved aside the damp fabric and the panties she wore underneath, pulling her open, exposing her completely to his voracious scrutiny. Lightning flashes of taunting pleasure streaked through her being. With her hands flung to either side, she clutched at the couch, the soft velvet slipping through her fingers. Her body was so eager for him, she felt the climax already building, that bright sun rising behind her eyelids.

  He slowed his strokes; she whimpered in disappointment. “Baby, I could keep this up all day. I’d sacrifice my left nut to make love to you like this. But I had that picture in my mind, and remember how I said ‘naked’? That means no clothes, not even something as sexy as this.” And he stroked her sensitized cleft until she cried out. “Cute as this little outfit is, you’re even cuter naked.” He withdrew his hand and gave her a little pinch on the thigh.

  She tried to glare at him, but she was too turned on to manage it. Instead she made a striptease out of it, sliding the leotard off one shoulder, then another until both breasts crested the neckline. After all the teasing of the dance, her nipples greeted the open air with embarrassing exuberance.

  His eyes lit up, but she held up a hand to stop him. “No interfering with my process.”