Burning Both Ends

by Sinclaire Jayne

  “That shirt hugs you tighter than most of my panties” She kept her voice factual. “Standard issue or custom fitted?”

  If she’d expected him to choke on his beer, he didn’t, and Dare was pleased. He did pause a millisecond, take a drink and then look at her. The glint in his eyes made her mentioned panties damp for real. Well, damper than they already were. She’d always been really visual. And imaginative. And he was giving her a lot to work with.

  “Careful, I might ask for proof at some point tonight.” He leaned toward her; his warm breath tickled her ear, set a pulse going deep in her core.

  “I would if I could,” she teased back jerking his chain and loving the way his eyes got darker, his big body stilled. She could feel his body heat jack up at the implication.

  Oh yeah. Now this was the distraction she needed. Not banishment and definitely not family involvement.

  “Commando at a funeral?” he said taking another swig of beer.

  “Something wrong with that?” She cocked her hip wishing she had thought about that, but it would have been more than awkward in the cab.

  “I would have to say...” He leaned forward so his mouth was near her ear again and, when she inhaled this time, she could almost taste him, warmth and salt and something woodsy like cedar or pine. “There’s something all kinds of right with that.” He stepped back, giving back her space, and she wanted him in close again. “Love the boots.”

  Dare laughed. She had Docs on. Shiny, electric blue ones that matched her blue wrap dress. She looked shitty in black and only owned a few dresses so she hadn’t wanted to splurge on something she hated. Not like her grandfather would have cared. Black at a funeral. A dress. He was the original Knight rule breaker. She was just trying to keep up.

  “Thanks. Me in heels would be something scary.”

  “I could deal.” He smiled and she noticed faint lines feathering out from his eyes and creasing down his cheeks. She’d always been a sucker for laugh lines. Probably because she didn’t get much to laugh about.

  “Lachlan Ryker,” he said.

  “Dare Knight.”

  He laughed and clinked her glass. “To all Knights. Thought you might be guilty,” he said. “But pretty fair guess in this place. One of the Americans.”

  “Definitely guilty.”

  “That’s a southern accent?” he asked. “Louisiana? Mississippi?”

  “Sweet Tea, Tennessee.” She made her voice all southern cliché. “Tiny town in the Smoky Mountains and I have four sisters. My dad, like all Knight men apparently had a lot of game and a disdain for birth control.”

  “Five daughters.” He shook his head, deep blue eyes reeling her in. For the first time she felt like she understood what ‘twinkling eyes’ meant. “If genetics had any say that was beyond a Herculean task.” He laughed. “I had a sister, just one, and that near greyed me. My brothers were easier.”

  Dare couldn’t help the quick glance at his thick chestnut hair that begged to be fingered, and then her gaze slid helplessly down to his ringless hand. Not taken. Free.

  “I wager five teenaged daughters crashing into puberty caused a whole lot of fires that had nothing to do with arson, stupidity, or carelessness.”

  “But a lot to do with nature.”

  “To hormones,” he said. “And to your dad for surviving without chaining you or your troublemaker sisters in the basement.”

  “Now that I can drink to.”

  What god had he pleased to earn this reprieve from hell? He’d been dreading today. The official goodbye to Leonard Knight. His mentor. Father figure. Man who’d pulled him out of despair and a crushing sense of guilt and failure more than once, but never made him feel less of a man because of it.

  He still couldn’t believe he was gone.

  He felt as sucker-punched bereft as when his parents had died twelve years ago. And now this. Light in the dark.

  Dare Knight was so beautiful she made his eyes hurt. Never would have pegged her for his type but the impossibly long, supremely toned legs capped off by the short blue dress jolted him out of his sexual lethargy like a cattle prod to his balls. He could practically imagine how her legs would feel wrapped around his hips. She vibrated with confidence, sexuality, and a sense of adventure that was intoxicating as a deep swig of Scotch. And then the blue combat boots were sexy, tough and unconventional, especially at a funeral, which just capped off her perfection.

  Damn, she was tall. He bloody loved that. And thin, but the athletic kind of thin. Fit, not languid model thin. And the bones on her face looked like something only a famous sculptor could have created. Wide cheekbones, arched brows, straight nose that perched above lips that looked as if they’d been special ordered to create way too many X-rated fantasies. And her eyes. Who the hell had eyes that color? They were like something out of a Lord of the Rings movie, otherworldly. Mystical. A blue green he thought would be described as aquamarine, but what the hell did he know? He was an engineer turned firefighter and now a station officer. He could describe fires fluently and direct a dozen crew members how to safely kill the fire, but describing women and figuring out what made them tick was not his skill set. His ex still didn’t stop listing his deficiencies years after they were done.

  Seeing Dare walk into Rosie’s with that edge of defiance and undercurrent of vulnerability and those legs was not something he was going to pass up easily. Her skin was lightly tanned and seemed lit from within. He wanted to touch her as much as he wanted to breathe so he kept one hand wrapped around his beer glass, and the other jammed in his pocket.

  Dumb dress uniform pants. Give him work pants and a T-shirt any day. He felt edgy and itchy in the material.

  “Damn, Lock.” Stephen Knight headed over flanked by a couple of his friends, and Lock had to stifle the urge to smash in his face.

  Same as it ever was. Stephen cutting in on Lock’s action. Only Dare wasn’t his. Water under the bridge. And he was better off without Melissa.

  “Thanks for flying in from Melbourne mate,” Stephen continued as if they were friends. “But if you’re going to hit on the hottest woman here, you are going to need to accept some competition.” Stephen laughed and body slammed Lock, which barely rocked him.

  “Stephen Knight,” he said, sticking out his hand to Dare, who appraised him coolly.

  “Perv much, Stephen.” Dare raised her eyebrows at Lock, letting him in on the joke. He grinned back.

  Stephen’s easy smile faltered.

  “For fuck’s sake, Dare.” Stephen stared her. “When did you get to be as tall as a bloody stobie pole and what the hell happened to your hair?”

  “Good to see you too, Stephen.”

  Her face suspiciously innocent, but Lock noticed that her eyes were watchful. Tense. And it pissed him off that she wasn’t totally sure of her reception. Stephen was her cousin. He should be hugging her.

  “It’s called a haircut,” Dare said. “Hard to fight fires for weeks on end in a forest with hair down to my ass.”

  “You look like a cancer patient,” he accused.

  Lock’s fingers flexed into a fist, totally unlike him. The silence was thick as sludge between the cousins. He’d found himself weirdly attracted to the tight cut, with a chunk of silky platinum longer on one side so that it slid over her face every now and then. The extreme cut coupled with her tall, athletic body, plush lips, and large distinctive eyes was hot as hell. She was fucking perfect and, even though he’d known Stephen since they’d both been rookies and had been if not friends, friendly until Lock caught Stephen sleeping with his now ex-wife, they were going to bounce if Stephen didn’t make Dare feel welcome.

  She reminded him of the Charlize Theron character in the Mad Max movie. Fierce, but hiding something. And who didn’t think that character had been scorching? Lock had already wondered what the shorn hair would feel like against his skin.

  “Actually,” Dare drawled out the word slowly and Lock saw the long, delicate line of her throat convulse as s
he swallowed hard. “I did shave my head when one of my best friends, Lydia, had treatment for cancer this year. You know, in solidarity. She died.”

  Stephen lips tightened as did his expression. He opened his mouth but nothing came out.

  “You always were the dick Knight,” Dare said. “I feel like a whiskey,” she told Lock.

  “Not going to say no.” Lock said, sliding his arm briefly around her waist to steer her towards the bar. “Although I don’t crave that taste,” he said low in her ear.

  She laughed. “Scared of a little burn?”

  “No.” He laughed. “I like it scorching hot.”

  Chapter Two

  Several rounds later Dare raised a full glass.

  “Tattoos,” Dare called out, her voice loud and clear and cutting through the deep masculine rumbles. “For all Knights!”

  “Ink?” Kier shook his head. “Tell me you are not sporting any ink, baby girl.”

  “Hell, yes,” Dare said indignantly as if not having a tattoo would be an embarrassment.

  Lock tried to look without looking. Her wrap dress did not exactly cover much. It was sleeveless and her toned arms were lightly golden and bare. Her neck was long and graceful and while the “V” in the dress, didn’t exactly plunge, it did tease as she moved, which was a lot when she’d played darts with him and her cousins, and then when she’d shot a round of pool, he’d gotten good looks. She’d made sure of it. But he’d seen no evidence of tats, although he hadn’t exactly been thinking along those lines. Maybe she was jerking her cousins’ chains, but she seemed quite committed to the idea of a family tattoo.

  “For Grandpa. For the Knights. It will bond us,” she said, swallowing a mouthful of the lager and wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. Great, now he was envying beer foam.

  “Seriously, Dare, you’re joking.” Kier objected.

  “The lady wants a family tatt, you’re getting inked.” Steven ribbed his brother.

  Kier rolled his eyes and looked at Dare’s parents. “Uncle Seth, what do you have to say about this?”

  “I say hell, yeah.” Dare’s father shouted above the side conversations.

  A general cheer went up and Logan called out, “I’m in.”

  A few more “I’m ins” and “hell yeahs,” mixed with some “hell nos.”

  Lock had often envied the Knights, who were a big extended family and tight, even though they often banged heads, but tonight, watching Dare enthuse about getting a family tattoo that would commemorate the life of Leonard Knight, he was very happily not a Knight because he’d never been so intrigued by a woman. She might only be in Brisbane for a few days, but he already wanted to know her better.

  He’d stopped drinking several rounds ago, wanting to make sure Dare got to wherever she was going safely and, if he were honest with himself, he was hoping he could be part of her evening plan.

  “Look. Our family crest.” Dare scrolled through her iPhone and held up a picture. “We could blend it with the firefighting crest.”

  “Christ, tell me you don’t have a bloody tramp stamp.” Kier groaned. “At least tell me that.”

  “Get over it, Kier. Not likely you’ll catch a peek, freak. So what would Grandpa like?” She looked around at all of them, her unusual eyes sparkling like jewels.

  “If we’re really going to honor the old man...” Logan grimaced. “Then we should get his favorite saying inked.”

  “I could murder a beer! I’ll drink to that.” Caleb toasted as more cousins and sons lifted their glasses.

  “Brothers,” Dare said. “Grandpa was all about brothers. His fellow firefighters. His brothers. His sons. Family. Let’s get a tattoo that celebrates that. Here...” She held up her phone, and Lock saw a string of what looked like Latin.

  “Ignis in falsis fratribus.”

  “Brother’s forged in fire,” Dare intoned.

  Several Knights leaned forward to better see the screen.

  “Nobody speaks Latin anymore,” Kier said. “That’s a risk. What if we get a tat that really says fuck off and die in fire?”

  Lock laughed.

  “No.” Dare grinned, typing. “That would be i fututus et mori in igni.”

  “Definitely.” Logan pushed himself away from the bar and sucked in a deep breath. “But let’s tell my brother Duncan it’s the mori one. It can be our little joke.”

  Dare sat back on a chair with a white medical style paper sheet over it. She was in a private room, and Lock leaned against the door jam, effectively blocking her from view. She’d hiked her dress up over her hip, revealing her tattoo of fire crackling out of a phoenix’s wings started high on her right thigh—a conflagration of artistically imagined reds, yellows, oranges, and greys with dates inked in the flames—seethed up past her hip and disappeared, the rest covered by her dress.

  Ren, the tattoo artist, was a small curvy girl with jet black curly hair, a pixie face and a mouth that was constantly moving, asked a lot of questions about Dare’s fire tattoo. Dare answered, but her attention was fixed on Lock who’d given up not staring, his hooded gaze raked from her tattoo to her face and back again. And when she caught him staring, he mouthed, “I love it.”

  Ren then started asking a million questions about California and Montana and Tennessee, all the while telling funny stories about Kier, whom she’d gone to school with. Kier was not getting the tattoo, but he had called Ren to see if she’d would do it for the Knights who’d decided to get the motto inked somewhere on their body.

  Ren cast covert glances over at Lock and Dare found herself feeling more than a little possessive.

  Not how she usually rolled.

  She frowned. She’d never really had cause to be jealous. Ryan, her only relationship that had lasted longer than a few sex-fueled weeks, had never given her a reason to have one jealous twinge. From the first moment they’d met that awkward first day of high school, when she’d been the new girl and her thick Smoky Mountain Tennessee accent and height had marked her as different in flashing lights, Ryan had been hers. The smartest, kindest, cutest, most popular and definitely most athletic boy in the school. His loyalty and love had never once been in question.

  “Lucky,” Ren said.

  “What?” Dare asked, snapped back to the present and the room. She focused on Lachlan, although everyone called him Lock. She liked his nickname. And she liked his perusal. His blue eyes were warm and curious, a little amused, and when they caressed her face, she felt connected and settled in a way she usually didn’t.

  Ren looked over her shoulder at Lachlan.

  “H-O-T.” She spelled out.

  Dare grinned at Lachlan thinking he’d probably heard. She wondered why he hadn’t been snapped up and kept. If he’d ever been in love. Maybe he was like her, capable of love only once, unable to let anyone get to close after the first, devastating loss.

  She almost told the tattoo artist Lachlan wasn’t hers. She was only here for her grandfather’s funeral and then a week to catch up with family before being assigned to a three-month firefighter’s exchange metropolitan fire station program.

  Holding Lachlan’s attention, Dare leaned back in the chair, stretched out her bare long legs, loving the way Lachlan’s eyes never left hers except a quick flick towards her legs and then back again as if he’d scolded himself.

  Total package. Ripped. Hot. Funny. Cut and trying to be a good boy. She wanted his bad boy.

  Ren had also called in a couple more artists to keep the tattoo line moving. Dare had written out the words and picked a cursive script that somehow looked modern yet maintained an ancient vibe.

  “Have you decided on the family crest as well and where you’re going to put it?” Lock asked.

  She nodded. “You’ll see.”

  The heat in his gaze and his unobtrusive shift to a more comfortable position made her wanted to get inked and out of the chair and somewhere more private. With him.

  “Aren’t you all having the same motto?” Ren asked.


  “Yeah, although I am having an issue with the fratrem aspect of this. Sisterhood can knock you on your ass just as powerfully.”

  “Sorores composuerunt in igne,” Lachlan said.

  “Did you just make that up?”

  “Unfortunately not. Former nerd. Don’t ask.”

  “I’m asking later,” Dare said and twisted onto her left side. She hitched her dress higher, displaying turquoise blue lacy boy short style panties. Lachlan’s eyes went wide.

  Dare shrugged out of her dress and tossed it at Lock. He caught it, his expression briefly stunned, but he recovered quickly.

  Good man.

  “I want the crest here.” She indicated a spot between two flames that were like fingers reaching toward her rib cage. “And the date at the bottom.”

  “Wow,” Lachlan breathed taking an almost compulsive step forward. “Can I see?” He asked.

  Dare was happy she’d worn the Victoria’s Secret lacy blue halter style bra and matching boy shorts. Judging by the twin pink slashes of color on his cheekbones and the burn in his eyes, Lock liked them and her. A lot.

  “Beautiful.” His fingers hesitated over the inked flame that blazed up her side.

  “Is it—” He broke off and the twin slashes of color on his high cheekbones deepened to crimson. “Sorry,” he snatched his hand back.

  Sweet. Dare felt as if she’d been punched hard in the gut. Something warm unfurled in her at his quick embarrassment. Lachlan Ryker might be a honed first responder, but he was a good man. Kind. Respectful. And definitely aroused.

  She found her limbs loosening, her body more sensual despite the very public and loud environment. Heavy metal clashed from speakers and Logan, Caleb, and Dylan all seemed to be talking at once to a couple of her uncles.

  “Do you have more?” Lock asked softly. “Is it all a flame or...”

  She wanted to tease him, indicate that he could see it later in a more private setting, but the tattoo artist was also peering at her body with professional interest and awe.