Scorch

by Dani Collins

  “Yeah,” he answered. “I thought it was strange that you were doing laundry in the middle of the night. Are you okay? Do you need help with anything?”

  “No, I was going to wait for the sheets then sleep in here, but it just occurred to me that you should move in here. You could do that this weekend,” she said decisively. “And I’ll take the guest room.”

  “Jac—”

  He watched her use the corner of the hand towel to erase a fingerprint smudge from the closet door.

  “This is a lot,” he said gently. “You don’t have to do it all this weekend.”

  “You don’t have to help empty his closet if you don’t want to. I can do it.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Don’t judge me, Vin.” She opened the closet and threw the towel into a hamper, then slid the door closed again, turning on him with a set chin, arms folded.

  “I’m not.” He stood taller. Frowned. “Where did that come from?”

  She gave him a pithy look that told him she might not hold a grudge at him for running out to save a snowboarder, but she had not forgotten their words in his truck.

  “You think I’m letting go too quickly and easily,” she accused. “You think that if I start seeing someone, it will call into question my feelings for Russ. How? How could anyone possibly doubt that I loved him?”

  He sighed and rubbed his hair again.

  “You’re right, okay? You’re right that it’s no one’s business who you sleep with. But it still impacts me if people think you’re sleeping with me.” He couldn’t say the words without a guilty heat stinging under his skin.

  She dismissed that with a toss of her nonexistent hair.

  “Are you thinking of…?” he asked tentatively. He was way too interested in the answer.

  “Getting back on the bike?”

  “Who is this joker? I’m going to knock some manners into him.”

  “He doesn’t matter.” She looked at her slippers. “The only thing that makes him significant is that when he said it, I was appalled. The idea of sleeping with anyone except Russ sounded like cheating. Then I came home and you told me I couldn’t and—” Her eyes glittered with resentment. “Now I want to sleep with the lower half of town just to piss you off.”

  “That would do it.”

  He hooked his hands on his hips, trying not to see her as available. He had always thought she was cute. Everyone did. She kept herself in shape, smiled often, had a great sense of humor and a soft heart. She was bright and capable and worked hard. She offered a lot to like.

  But as long as he’d known her, Jacqui had belonged to Russ. He’d never let his attraction grow beyond distant admiration. If he started thinking differently now—he pushed his hands into his pockets and thought, friends. He needed her friendship more than he needed to get laid.

  “I didn’t say you couldn’t date, just that you shouldn’t rush into anything.”

  “Same thing.” She rolled her eyes. Then she sighed and looked quite tragic. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I talk a big game, but don’t worry. I’ve only been with Russ. I didn’t even really date other guys in high school except a couple of nights at the movies with a group of friends. I kissed a boy in a closet in grade seven once.”

  Her head tilted as she recollected it, nose wrinkling.

  “Disappointing. On both sides, I’d guess. Don’t say anything to Cliff. They work together now.”

  He crossed his arms, thinking of his own less than wise—or competent—experimenting through early adolescence. Hers sounded so innocent. His had been a cry for connection with girls as deserted and disillusioned as he was, usually ending in a much more profound disappointment. No one, he had concluded, would ever love him enough to fill up the empty tank inside him. He just had to learn to live with that particular gap in his soul.

  “So I wouldn’t know where to start with someone new,” Jacqui continued in a mumble. “Dating again is a daunting prospect.”

  “Hey. When the time comes, you’ll be fine,” he said, hating the idea, but hating more that she could possibly doubt herself.

  “Easy for you to say. Women stalk you in the bar.”

  “Men will stalk you. I’m sure they did for years and you just didn’t notice.” The idea of anyone doing it now annoyed him. It was precisely why he had appointed himself as her personal doberman.

  “You’re saying I didn’t notice because I had such”—she cupped her hands like she was holding binoculars—“Tunnel vision about Russ? That’s my point! Don’t you think I should date?” she asked earnestly. “Play the field? See what I missed?”

  He bit back a resounding no.

  Jacqui was such an anomaly. On the one hand she had been married and was now widowed. She worked very capably at a demanding job among a team of very assertive, bullheaded alpha males. That suggested a wealth of experience and confidence in herself and with men. When it came to being a single, modern woman, however, she was naïve and vulnerable. The next thing to a virgin.

  One who looked anxious and earnest and lost.

  “Playing the field is not as glamorous as it sounds.” He bit back an offer to be there for her, that she could practice on him. Because he liked getting women off. He could take care of himself in the shower if all he wanted was release, but watching a woman lose it really turned him on.

  His curiosity about her was twitching and threatening to become obvious. What turned her on?

  Her mouth tightened. “You know it’s not glamorous because you’ve had one-night stands?”

  He scratched under his chin, considered pleading the fifth, then decided honesty was in her best interest.

  “Not on purpose. There’s been the odd time that I was stuck in a strange town, leaving the next day and literally got lucky. Usually a few texts are exchanged after, but what’s the point? No one moves their whole life over one night. And those women have usually been the kind who, like you called it, view us as big game. Frankly, it’s a pretty empty experience. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  “You sound like parents when they’re telling their kids how awful alcohol tastes. I won’t like it, so don’t try it? That’s what you’re saying?”

  “I’m saying don’t sleep around for the sake of it. You won’t get much out of it.”

  “Except an orgasm. What if I want one? What if I want sex, Vin?” Her cheeks went from subtle pink to bright red. Her eyes glowed and her body language tensed with passion for her point. “Don’t you ever want to just get laid?”

  “Sure.” Right now, if she kept up dirty talk like that. The restless hunger was always bad this time of year—

  Understanding dawned. He tipped back his head to hoot at the ceiling.

  “Don’t laugh at me—”

  He held up a hand, shaking his head, really turned on because facing a woman whose libido was aroused only fed the fire of his own. He had to will himself not to think too deeply about it, about how they might burn this house down if they started rubbing up against one another.

  “I am laughing at you,” he admitted. “But not for the reason you think. You are a junkie.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  He let his gaze stray down to where her jeans hugged her slender thighs, then back up to where her top clung to her small breasts. Now he was looking properly, he read her like a billboard. He could see what had driven her to work so tirelessly at the base since her return. He saw what made her attack this room with the same verve.

  She was damned near crawling the walls, same as him.

  “You want the season to start. Your blood is itching and you’re ramping up for the demands, but you have to contain that energy until it’s time. That’s hot, Jac. I don’t know why it is, but I have to admit, it’s really hot that you get horny waiting for the season, same as me.”

  “Excuse me?” Her jaw dropped, then her mouth snapped closed. Her eyes tried to glare at him, but there were shadows of mortification in their depths.

 
“Happens every year, doesn’t it?”

  “None of your business!”

  He tried to recall if he’d ever caught her coming out of Russ’s office with a particular glow, then decided he didn’t need that image cluttering up his head.

  “Don’t be embarrassed.” He was still quietly laughing inside, and way too stimulated by the idea. “And take it from me that it’s a lousy way to start a relationship.”

  She had her arms crossed over her breasts. They were rising and falling with her agitated breaths. Her eyes looked a little too glassy. Hurt?

  His amusement slid away.

  “Jac, I’m teasing. We’re both suffering. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “I know. It’s just really confusing.”

  “Because it feels like it would be cheating?”

  “Because it feels like it wouldn’t.”

  That was confusing.

  He swallowed.

  He talked a pretty big game himself, saying that one-nighters were bad. The truth was, once he had put away youthful cravings for emotional salvation, he found sex gave him all the affection and pleasure and carnal satisfaction he could want. He liked sex. A lot.

  He would love to have sex with Jacqui.

  His scalp tightened as he admitted it to himself. He would love to release the tension winding up both of them. The fantasy went through him with both a fresh spike of desire while burning the base of his throat like the rub of a hangman’s noose.

  This was why one-night stands were better between strangers. You did not bang your best friend’s widow to let off steam. Bad, bad, bad.

  “It would feel like cheating to me,” he said, and wished that felt more like the truth.

  The lines of her face altered, taking on a stunned and injured cast.

  “I thought this was a rhetorical discussion,” she said. “Sorry if confiding my deepest personal feelings came across as a pass. Poor you. Does a minute go by when you don’t feel like a piece of meat on a block?”

  “Jac.”

  “Don’t let me keep you up. The last thing I need is to feel like a pity fuck agai—” She cut herself off and turned away.

  Again? Was that what she almost said? Because of that “back on the bike” dickhead?

  “Jacqui.”

  She went into the bathroom and shut the door.

  He stood there willing her to come back, but he didn’t call out. He’d played this game of talking through doors before and had never won, not even once.

  He went to his own room where it took him a long time to fall asleep. He’d never felt like a bigger asshole.

  Until he walked out of his room the next morning and found his plaid hanging off his doorknob.

  *

  For the next couple of weeks they were ships passing in the night.

  Jacqui knew a huge part of it was that rookie training had started. The first week was always especially brutal. It wasn’t uncommon to lose half the group on the first day. The trainers openly told the rookies they weren’t trying to make any of them physically stronger as they pushed and yelled and demanded and pushed some more. It was about testing their mental endurance, to see if they gave up under pressure.

  Vin was tied up with that, taking rookies on runs and mock pack outs, disappearing for hours, then coming back for jump training. The loft became a constant hum as gear came back every day to be inspected and mended. The drone of a plane taking off sounded daily, as they began the practice jumps.

  Vin started eating with the crew at The Drop Zone in the evenings, too, but Jacqui didn’t take that personal either. It was all part of the bonding ritual. Besides, he texted her to join them so she knew he wasn’t doing it to avoid her.

  Actually, first he texted the day after their argument, I didn’t mean it like that.

  She took a while to answer, not knowing how. She was horrified that he had seen right through to the lust burning a hole inside her. Would she never master the art of disguising her feelings?

  And was it better or worse that he thought she was generically horny? She wasn’t. She was attracted to him. It was so confusing to not only want sex, but to want Vin. He was her friend. She trusted him with her whole self—mind, body, and heart.

  Which was why it had hurt so much to have him reject her the way he had.

  She didn’t really blame him. She understood he felt loyal to her dead husband, his captain. Maybe she wasn’t even Vin’s type. Tori was way more stacked, had long wavy hair and was very comfortable with her sex appeal. When you possessed all the top physical qualities yourself, you were allowed to be choosy about who you mated with.

  It was just that her worst nightmare was to be in that same awful position of yearning and aching for an attraction to be returned, but here she was all over again. Dear God, please don’t let anyone notice, least of all Vin.

  So she pretended it was just pre-season tension and texted back a mollifying, I know.

  An hour went by and he texted, Burger night at DZ. Come with us?

  She read it as the peace offering it was and sent back, Can’t. Cinda’s big night.

  Tell her to break a leg, he texted.

  She started going back to yoga two evenings a week, which not only felt good, it didn’t leave her at home wishing he was there.

  One night she asked Vin if he would be home for dinner because she was cooking for Rhonda, but he chose to leave them to enjoy their girl time by eating at the bar, texting, I can drive her home later if she wants to drink.

  She and Roni split most of a bottle of wine and by the time he’d taken Rhonda home and come back, Jacqui had gone to bed. Like a coward.

  She saw him every day at work, of course, but with people around. She always managed to look busy if he happened to be in the common area or coming in or out of Sam’s office or down from the loft.

  She was busy, mind well occupied, so he completely blindsided her when he snuck up on her in the janitor’s closet under the stairs.

  “I just left a stack of requisitions on your desk.”

  Her heart leapt and her limbs stung like she’d walked into an electric fence.

  She quickly dropped her attention back to her count of… She couldn’t remember if she’d been counting the toilet rolls or the hand sanitizer.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled, self-conscious and hyperaware of his closeness.

  It was a rare moment of being alone without being alone. Above them, the hum of the sewing machines was competing with the clatter of activity in the ready room down the hall, where they were running speed drills. The phone rang behind Sam’s office door. Distant shouts came through the open front doors along with the crunch of tires and the buzz of an early season weed whacker.

  A sweet spring breeze had been wafting through the building all morning, rippling papers and stroking over her bare arms like a caress, lightly stimulating her.

  Yeah. Spring. That was all this was. Her sap was rising.

  And then he spoke. “Jac, are we okay?” He pitched his voice really low.

  She heard a world of emotion in the question and her heart wrenched. They were friends. He didn’t want this distance any more than she did.

  She made herself lift her head and look at him. She tried really hard not to betray that desire pulsed in her for more from him than the asexual caring of friendship.

  Unfortunately, he promptly filled her vision with the fact he hadn’t shaved and had his sunglasses tucked into the neckline of his T-shirt. His shirt hugged his shoulders and muscled chest, accentuating where his arms were tanning up.

  She swallowed, instantly affected. Involuntarily, she searched his expression, longing for him to return this spark of desire. She wanted this chemistry to be mutual.

  She wanted him to want her the way she wanted him.

  He hissed in a breath, mouth tightening, shoulders tensing as he recoiled a half step, muttering a curse under his breath.

  She looked away, crushed, unwilling to watch his expression turn to rejectio
n. Would she never learn?

  “We’re fine.” She swallowed a lump that seemed to lodge in her chest like a sharp rock, jagged point pressing into her heart. “It’s fine if you don’t feel the same.”

  From the corner of her eye, she could see his hand gripping the doorjamb.

  She set a toilet roll on end and tried to sound blasé, but she was incinerating with embarrassment, heart scorched. “Really. I’ve been this route before. I’ll survive.”

  “Jacqui.” His tone was so hard yet helpless she had to look at him. He took up all the space in the doorway, like he was holding himself back from plunging into the closet after her. “Don’t think I’m not tempted. We can’t. That’s all I was saying the other night. We can’t.”

  Tingles of preternatural reaction washed over her. Her breathing changed and she tightened her hand on whatever she was holding, but she’d forgotten what it was. She strained her ears, praying no one would suddenly decide to head for a coffee and overhear them.

  Because she was about to be very stupid and put herself out there. She needed him to know.

  “You’re wrong about this being seasonal. I’m not…” She flicked her hand to indicate the building beyond this dimly lit room. “I don’t feel like this about anyone else.”

  She might as well have stood there naked before his raking, disbelieving gaze.

  She had lied to him. She might not survive this. The first time she had set her feelings on display, she’d been young and romantic enough to invent the return of regard. Now she was an adult with a far better ability to see reality.

  She did not read receptiveness in him.

  Please don’t reject me.

  “Don’t,” he muttered. “Don’t make me think—”

  “Kingston.” Sam’s voice from across the far side of the common room made her startle violently.

  Her pen clattered to the floor and she bent to retrieve it.

  Vin turned his back on her and said, “Right here.”

  “Timber company is asking if we can throw a helipad together today. It’d be a good exercise for some rookies. Wings in, boots out. Two nights, maybe three.”