Burning Both Ends

by Sinclaire Jayne

  “It’s okay to touch,” Dare invited him.

  Lock looked out into the main room.

  “They don’t have any say over what I do.” Dare was irked at the thought.

  Dare leaned over to peer around Lock’s body to see the main part of the tattoo parlour. The scene was surreal. A visual spectacle of a handful of her cousins, their firemen dress uniforms in various stages of undress—jackets off, sleeves rolled up, shirts off or unbuttoned. Knights were mostly big and handsome men. Loud. Masculine. Intense. The room throbbed with testosterone and shredded guitars and thumbing bass beats. Someone soon switched the tunes, such as they were, to rap.

  Ren, bent over Dare’s body, prepping her, and still commenting on the spread wings of a phoenix inked on Dare’s right hip and the flames that licked an undulating path up her right side, with tendrils of flames reaching out towards one rib, and one to her breast, another toward her back. Dare could feel the heat and the desire of Lock’s perusal like a touch. Heat uncurled deep in her core, awoke. Not just physical. Something she didn’t want to define.

  She stared at his hands. They were working man’s hands. Large. Rough. Goose bumps of arousal shivered down her neck.

  “Beautiful art.” Ren peered over the craftsmanship.

  “My sister designed it and inked me.”

  “She’s got skills. This took time.”

  “Will it hurt?” Lock asked as Ren completed her prep work, shaving Dare’s already smooth body around the area where she would ink the crest and motto and date.

  “A little.”

  A lot. She wondered what he’d say if she said she liked the pain. That it centered and reminded her she was alive.

  Lock met her eyes, and she sucked in her breath at the heat she saw there. And the admiration. She didn’t always get that. She often inspired confusion, intimidation, anger, and worry. But Lock was looking at her like she was... special.

  “Hey, lover boy.” Stephen came up behind him, buttoning up his shirt.

  Lock turned around and noted the narrowed eyes as if Lock had done him wrong all those years ago. Losing Melissa had stopped hurting a long time back. But the deception, the betrayal, that still burned.

  “You’d better rethink your strategy.” His eyes slid to Dare as if he had some say in Dare’s life. “She’s my cousin.”

  Lock kept his face expressionless. After years of raising his siblings, soothing Melissa’s rants, facing down fires and terrorized humanity, and directing a lot of jacked up, testosterone fueled rookies with a lot to prove and no fear, Lock was steeped in calm confidence.

  Stephen Knight could go to hell.

  “This is a private room,” he said softly.

  Stephen rocked back on his feet. “My. Cousin.”

  “Yes. But not your possession.”

  “You playing guard dog now?” Stephen taunted.

  Lock wondered what Stephen would do if he acted like an asshole and said something ridiculous like “bow-wow.” Or picked him up and tossed his ass out of the room. He smiled. Stephen made an irritated sound and stomped over to his brother who had finally decided after a lot of hassle from Logan and Caleb to get inked.

  Lock’s gaze slid to Dare’s and their eyes locked as Ren began working. He felt like he could swim in the liquid blue-green warmth of her gaze. Rethink his strategy. That would involve him having one. But, standing here, watching Dare get a family crest with a Latin motto inked on her smooth golden skin while he held her dress and was surrounded by her family was the most erotic thing he could remember ever doing.

  “You’d look good with some ink,” Dare said, sitting up and meeting his eyes in the mirror while she looked at her finished addition.

  “Bit late now. I’m thirty-two,” he said, testing the waters as he was sure she was much younger.

  “Age’s not that relevant. You just need something to say. Besides, men just start to get interesting in their thirties.”

  She turned around and, as Ren spread the clear plastic bandage over the tattoo to prevent infection, Dare smoothed her thumb across Lock’s bottom lip.

  He didn’t think he was particularly interesting, but she was fascinating as hell. And even though he was counseling himself not to move, his tongue touched the pad of her thumb and then, when her eyes dilated, he nipped her flesh with his teeth, hard enough to get her attention. Heat flared in her eyes and, for him, always so aware of his surroundings, always calculating his next move, everything just faded. Only Dare remained.

  Chapter Three

  Lachlan put his rental car back in gear and looked at Dare, sitting cross-legged in the passenger seat, her head back, looking out of the sun roof that was open to the still warm evening air.

  “No stars,” she said sadly.

  “Too much light in the city.”

  She laughed. “I haven’t lived in a city since I was a teenager when my dad took a job as LA County fire chief,” she said. “I grew up in a small town at the edge of the Smoky Mountain National Park in Tennessee.”

  “I’ve never lived away from a city,” Lock said softly. His fingers smoothed down her bare arm. “You tired? You want to go for a—” He broke off. He didn’t want to get her drunk. She seemed fine, but she’d had at least a couple of lagers at the bar, but that had been hours ago. “Hungry or something.”

  “Or something,” she said softly.

  His heart kicked up. She was so beautiful, the long line of her throat, her determined chin, the pale pink pillows of her lips, and the long sweep of her lashes as she blinked slowly and then looked at him.

  “I’m not a relationship girl,” she said. Her voice was soft, low with a faint drawl that made his insides heat. “So you don’t need to try to think of a date.”

  Just the voice alone made him hard, and he tried to fight shifting uncomfortably in the seat of the Jeep Cherokee. Stupid car for the rental company to have given him, and he’d protested that he hadn’t needed such a gas guzzler, but it had helped as he’d already dropped off four of Dare’s cousins and now only she remained.

  “Ahhhhh...” He still felt the need to think of something clever. What did people do in their spare time? What did people do on a date?

  “That hard to think of what to do with me?” She grinned, but her eyes were tired.

  Shit. He was being a selfish idiot trying to spin this out when she must be exhausted. The flight from LA to Sydney and then to Brisbane must have taken its toll.

  “Sorry,” he said quickly. “You must be beyond jet-lagged.”

  And her grandfather was dead.

  He needed a slap. He was trying to take her out on a late night date after her grandfather’s memorial service. And a visit to a tattoo artist. Perfect. He was officially creepy. It hadn’t been that long since he’d had sex, had it? With Dare in the car, and her faint ocean and citrus scent teasing his senses, he couldn’t think straight.

  “Do you live in Brisbane?”

  And just like that his libido cranked up another notch. He needed a bucket of ice water. And another slap.

  “Melbourne. I’m senior station officer of South Yarra Melbourne Metropolitan number ten.”

  Why the hell had he said it like that? Was he desperate for approval? Trying to impress her?

  He looked down at the glowing lights of the dash. They were so bright they hurt his eyes. Reality check. She couldn’t be for him, and he was an idiot wanting to keep her close as if another five or ten minutes or one night would sate him. Nice fantasy and, yeah, he’d had far more one-night stands than he was proud of, but she was not a one-night stand girl even though she was intimating that she was.

  But what the hell? Life was short. Firefighters knew that more than most. Dare wasn’t a young girl in uni just learning about life. She was a woman. A gorgeous, sexy, complicated, mysterious woman who was intriguing as hell and made him feel wide awake and part of the world again.

  Damn.

  “I am hungry for food, for starters, Lachlan.”


  “Me too.”

  He was hungry for far more but food, but he’d take what he could get.

  “Pad Thai, huh?” Lock asked after he’d Googled Thai food, and both of them had been pleased to find an open restaurant in Southbank. Now they sat on a bench looking out over the river, digging into to their respective take out boxes. He hadn’t been able to decide on cashew pineapple fried rice or drunken noodles so he’d chosen both.

  With her chopsticks, Dare snagged a piece of pineapple. “Somebody’s got a sweet tooth,” she teased popping the pineapple into her mouth.

  She sighed as the sweetness exploded in her mouth.

  “Make that two somebodies.”

  She smiled, easily caught up some of her pad Thai noodles and held it out to him.

  “You’re better with the sticks than I am,” he said, and then leaned forward and ate the noodles from her chopsticks.

  Dare watched his mouth close over the food. Warmth pooled low and her limbs felt languid like she’d gone for an extra-long swim. She liked him. He seemed nice but he still had an edge. He also had jacked up muscles so he was fit as hell and wouldn’t be intimidated by her in the gym or out of it. Not that they would get to explore that together. She liked working out with men, pushing them. Having them push her.

  “So why haven’t you been back since you were fifteen?” he finally asked into the quiet.

  Her breath caught. That was a loaded question and, even almost ten years later, her heart skipped a beat.

  “Life,” she said her appetite gone.

  When she’d been seventeen, her whole world had caved in, and she’d gone from feeling happy and vibrant and sure of herself and her place in the world, to feeling completely lost and one agonized howl away from complete disconnection. Even her family hadn’t been able to help. Not really.

  She closed up her food container. He noted her actions, and stopped eating, his scoop of drunken noodles just dangling there. She leaned over and caught them in her mouth. One slithered out and he caught it on his finger before it hit the ground. She swallowed and the food went down hard. His eyes saw too much, and the food sat heavy in her tummy.

  “Dare, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”

  It had been a totally easy question and it had been nearly ten years ago. She should have moved on years ago like normal people yet she continued to walk in circles. Stuck.

  “No worries.” She licked the noodle off his finger.

  She’d meant the act to be flip. Instead, it was intimate and, even in the dark with a half moon, she felt like she could see his gaze darken and sizzle with awareness. Or was that just her having one hell of a reaction to him?

  She sucked his finger into her mouth and held it there, circled it with her tongue. She smiled and stood up smoothly.

  “Fancy a walk?”

  “I think I’d fancy pretty much anything with you, Dare.”

  “Careful. I’ve been known to be mighty creative.”

  “And I’ve been known to be stupid brave.”

  She laughed. “The creed of a firefighter.”

  They threw away their trash and then walked further down the path along the river. The golden lights bathed her skin in a luminous glow, highlighting the curve of her cheek, while also casting shadows so she seemed mysterious and ethereal at the same time. She’d probably laugh at the ethereal thought although no one ever said angels were petite. Or sweet.

  “So why fire fighting for you?” she asked into the silence that felt comfortable. He felt relaxed and connected to her like they’d done this many, many times before.

  “I didn’t start that path, but it suits,” he said trying to think of how to explain his life, his decisions in a condensed version that wasn’t maudlin or made him out to be some kind of suffering sainted man. “I was in uni studying structural engineering when there was a fire at my house. I was already on my way home after my crew practice when I got a call from a neighbor. I rushed home and saw the firemen in action, putting out the fire, and one of them, was with my sister, taking care of her. He’d pulled her out. She’d panicked and stayed in the house trying to put out the kitchen fire, and the scene was so terrifying but beautiful—the flames and the choreography of fighting it. And what the firefighters did that day and every day is important. That team saved my sister’s life. And our family home that had been in our family for three generations. I wanted to make a difference like that. Engineering seemed so tame after.”

  “So you just dropped out of school and entered a training program?” Her face was so intent, her voice full of awe and approval.

  Approval he didn’t deserve.

  “No. Too boring. I finished my program, and researched firefighting branches. I needed to stay in Melbourne so I choose Metropolitan and then started training. Been at it over ten years now.”

  “It’s not boring to finish what you start,” Dare said quietly, her fingers stretched out and brushed his.

  It was all he could do to not engulf her hand in his and hold on. He’d never been so drawn to a woman. Yeah, he’d had his share, but it had all been sexual. The electricity arcing between them hissed sexuality, but was also so much more, and he had trouble sorting through the mess of his thoughts, desires, and impulses. That was not him. He was always the man who planned everything out carefully.

  “And you? Firefighting bug bite you too?”

  Dare nodded. “I started off as a combat medic in the army.”

  “Looking for a little adventure,” he said, floored and stopped walking to stare at her. Her eyes seemed to glow in the warmth of the lamps lining the river front walk. He wanted to kiss her.

  “Yeah, adventure.” But something in her voice didn’t fit that word. “And it was that, but I switched after my first enlistment. Like you, I saw a firefighting team in action. We were on a training mission and the chopper was in trouble. We crash landed and before I could even untangle myself and my dummy patient, the army firefighters were already on the scene, preventing anything from exploding, pulling everyone out, and”—she shrugged—“I think I had avoided the whole firefighter scene because it was what my dad and his brothers and so many cousins did, but...” She sighed, bit on her full bottom lip, which sent an arrow of heat to his groin. She grinned up at him impishly. “It suits.”

  He laughed. “I can totally picture you running in and out of a helicopter, probably before it lands.”

  “Well, now I jump out of planes into fires, so definitely still not waiting for anything to stop. I’m a smokejumper out of Glacier Creek in Montana.” Her grin was full on cocky now, and he tried to stuff his desire back down.

  “I’m definitely the boring one,” he said.

  “You probably see a lot of action.” Her eyes lit up mischievously. “Like to see some more?”

  His cock, semi-hard since he’d first seen her in Rosie’s, jumped and, if it could have spoken, “abso-fucking-lutely,” would have been the response.

  The hotel room was basic. Not a suite. Not high-end, but not a dump. No view except of other buildings. He hadn’t had seduction in mind. Only a place to sleep after the memorial service. But now, his arm around Dare’s willowy waist as he unlocked the door and pushed it open, he felt... embarrassed? Lock didn’t analyze his emotions much. Not his thing.

  But now, with the bed squatting king-sized and plump and inviting with a plush, silky cream doona he felt like he should have a better handle on thoughts and feelings other than his lust. Lust he understood and, no matter how many times he’d sternly told him body to calm the fuck down, he was still jacked up like he was eighteen again. Fabulous. Dare was grieving. Exhausted. She’d had drinks at the bar hours earlier.

  “Tea?” he asked, feeling more awkward than he had since... well, he couldn’t even remember.

  “Tea sounds like stalling.” Dare dropped her leather and canvas overnight bag on a chair and prowled over. “Shouldn’t you be offering me something from the minibar and then having your way with me, or can you han
dle a little role reversal tonight or more accurately”—she looked at her Apple smart watch—“this morning.”

  Lock hissed in a tortured breath as Dare casually flipped the small bow at her waist and the silky blue wrap sun dress slid off her body. She stood before him in nothing but a matching, blue lacy halter-style bra and boy shorts and blue combat style boots. He’d seen her lacy undergarments in the bright lights of the tattoo parlor with the music pumping and cousins milling about in the other room. It had made him hot then. Now, in the darkened hotel room, illuminated only by ambient light of the city, Dare unclothed was an entirely different experience.

  “You are so beautiful.” He breathed.

  He was shaking, actually trembling, wanting to touch her—the allure of her long, slim body in barely-there lace, her golden skin exposed and decorated with the flowing fire art work that moved almost as if alive was too much to resist.

  “Show me.” She smiled and looped her arms around his neck. Her movements were slow, graceful, almost as if daring him to resist. Or make a move.

  “Dare,” he said, almost shocked at how growly his voice emerged as if he were half animal, barely civilized.

  His blood heated, rushed, his desire pulsed. He loved sex, but couldn’t remember feeling this jacked up so quickly with a woman ever. He’d always had so many other responsibilities, but being single for such a long time, being back in Brisbane where he’d gone for his training course made him feel unmoored. Free. Impulsive. Something he’d never been. Even when his parents had been alive, he’d been the oldest, the responsible son.

  Freedom felt dangerous.

  “I don’t want you to feel...” He groped for a word, what? Obligated? Then his mind when blank when she stepped all the way into his body, her heat and small breasts pressed against his chest, while her fingers caressed the hair at the back of his neck.

  Her touch sent a hot flame of desire down his spine. He grabbed her hips and hauled her hard against his body. She continued to nuzzle him with her lips and tongue that sent a cascade of heat and chills that trembled his limbs.