by T. J. Kline
“You do realize, it’s okay to have some fun. It won’t hurt. I promise.”
Little did he know that having fun was what had ruined her one serious relationship when her antics had gotten her boyfriend kicked in the face by a kangaroo. He’d ended up with a broken nose and she’d ended up with a broken heart when he demanded she quit her internship or lose him. It had taught her a good lesson early—never get too deeply involved with anyone who can’t understand the risk.
Emma eyed Ben, pursing her lips, trying to keep from liking this guy, even as a shiver of heat slid down her belly and centered between her thighs.
Good looking and charming. Mr. Muscles is getting more appealing by the minute.
“Okay,” he said, pulling his hand back when she didn’t take it. “Do you think we could finish the tour?”
“Only if we head to the aviary. At least there I don’t have to worry about you getting killed.”
He chuckled quietly, his laughter falling around her like the first rains of spring, renewing her parched spirit. For the first time since arriving in town, she felt welcomed, like she might actually have someone who would go out on a limb for her. She might not be willing to ask for help, but a friend she could trust would be nice.
“I promise to stay away from cages if it means keeping you from having another near heart attack.”
He slid a gentlemanly hand to her low back and Emma felt the sizzle of heat shoot up her spine, down her legs and warm every crevice between. Her pulse immediately throbbed, her breath catching. If she didn’t get this under control, he was going to make her heart stop completely.
He seemed to read her thoughts, his gaze resting on her mouth as she fought the urge to lick her lips. “I’d have to resuscitate you the old fashioned way since I left the defibrillator in the truck.”
Holy hell! Suddenly having a heart attack sounded like heaven.
Ben was one hundred percent out of his comfort zone.
He held his arm out, the way Emma had shown him, and eyed the massive talons of the red-tailed hawk digging into the leather glove—gauntlet, he corrected—as he held the tether between his fingers. The bird was far heavier than he imagined it would be, but he wasn’t about to complain about the way the muscles in his arm had begun to burn with fatigue. He was sure Emma would have loved teasing him about it after he’d said a three-pound bird was nothing compared to the seventy-five pounds of turnout equipment he wore on the job. Of course, he hadn’t planned on holding the bird for more than a second. After five minutes, his bicep had begun to quiver and ache.
The bird gave a shrill shriek and Ben cringed. “What’d I do?”
Emma grinned, holding back a quiet laugh. “Nothing.”
She slid her gloved hand in front of the hawk and whistled. The bird immediately jumped onto her wrist and ducked her head into Emma’s fist, retrieving a piece of raw meat.
“She was just letting you know she didn’t trust you not to drop her.” He watched as Emma turned the bird loose into her cage and locked the door behind her. “Poor Winger was up here one minute and, the next, your arm was down here.” She dropped her arm dramatically, her eyes twinkling with laughter. “What’s the matter? Was the tiny bird heavier than you thought?”
“I wasn’t about to drop her,” he insisted, fighting the need to reach up and massage his fatigued muscle.
She slid the gauntlet off her hand and slapped it against his arm. “Go ahead, admit it. You were starting to burn.”
It was the first time he’d seen her playful, flirtatious even, and he liked it. Her eyes seemed to ignite from within, reminding him of the endless blue skies over Lake Tahoe. Her smile changed her entire demeanor. She was suddenly open, inviting, and it make her look almost carefree. With her auburn hair pulled back over her shoulder in a quickly plaited braid, she was only missing wings and he’d have been convinced she was some woodland fairy nymph sent over from Scotland to torment him. Watching her bend over a large trunk of equipment to drop the gauntlets inside, he felt his body throb in response as he checked out the rounded curves. Suddenly he had no doubt she was here to torment him.
She stood up, turning quickly and catching him gawking at her. “What did you want to see next?”
You, with your hair loose around your shoulders like fire and my hands moving over that sun-kissed skin of yours.
A pretty pink colored her cheeks and he couldn’t help but recognize the irony. He should be the one blushing, and probably would be if she had any inclination of the thoughts he’d just been having about her. He wasn’t entirely sure where the fantasies had even come from, but that didn’t stop them from coming, hard and fast.
Emma in his arms. Emma with her creamy skin bared to him. Emma beneath him as he rose over her.
Stop!
Ben halted his thoughts before they could go any further. He’d learned the hard way to avoid free-spirited women. As much fun as they could be, they also usually ended up being far more trouble than was advisable for any man, especially him. He’d been down that road, several times, and it always ended the same way—with him out on his ass and a long night bailing his fiancée out of jail before retrieving his belongings from the pawn shop.
He’d finally come to a place where he was content with his life, including his bachelorhood, even if his mother, sister and his brother’s new fiancée, Bethany, were trying to convince him of something different. Okay, so maybe content wasn’t the right word but Ben had convinced himself he was satisfied for the time being. And, when he decided it was time, he’d look for a woman more like Ellie—stable, easygoing and, maybe even a little boring by Emma’s standards.
Perspective, that’s what he needed. Maybe putting some distance between him and Emma would get his overactive libido in check. His palm still burned with the memory of her breast filling it.
Great, now it was going to take an ice bath to cool him down.
He took a step backward. He couldn’t stay here any longer or he was bound to do something he’d regret. “I should probably head into the station.”
He felt slightly guilty at the disappointment that flashed in her eyes, making him want to retract his words and spend the rest of the day doing whatever it might take to get that smile back on her lips. “My buddy, Will, is already planning to stick me with cooking duty since he covered for me this morning.”
She nodded and tried to stifle the confusion furrowing her brow. “Okay, I’ll give you a ride back to the house.”
Ben wracked his brain for a reason to turn down the offer. There was no way he could sit in the cart, that close to her, and pray she couldn’t see the evidence her nearness was having on his body.
“It’s okay. I’m sure you’ve got plenty to do and I’ve already messed up your morning.”
He could read the suspicion shadowing her eyes and, for a moment, considered explaining himself. Before he could say anything, the look was gone, replaced by the confident self-assurance he’d seen in her yesterday with the kitten.
“Then I guess I’ll see you here Saturday morning.” His confusion must have shown in his face. “Your offer to volunteer still stands, right?”
Her satisfied smirk made him cringe, cursing whatever moment of insanity had urged him to agree. Images of torturous chores filled his mind and her smile promised Saturday was going to be something he wouldn’t forget for a long time.
Chapter Six
Ben scraped the last of the shit up and twisted the spray nozzle to finish cleaning out the cage. Two red foxes ran playfully around their outdoor enclosure while Emma sat on a boulder watching them, jotting down a few notes and casually glancing his way. This wasn’t exactly what he’d envisioned when he’d volunteered.
“As soon as you finish and I get them back inside, we can break for lunch.”
“We?”
A guilty smile lifted her perfect lips. “I think lunch is the least I could do.” She gave a sharp whistle and red fur seemed to immediately move to her feet like c
opper-colored tornadoes swirling around her legs. Emma laughed at their antics. “Okay, you two, I know you’re having fun but it’s time to head back inside.”
Ben finished spraying down the cage as Emma clipped a leash to the harness on each of the animals and walked them back to their enclosure amidst their squeaking. Ben slipped out of the cage as Emma brought the pair inside, careful to keep his distance of the chattering devils.
“Okay, Trixie, you and Todd go play in there.” She slipped the harness off the smaller female as the male twisted around her feet, tangling himself in the leash.
As she released the male, Ben watched, amazed at how relaxed her demeanor was around them. “Don’t you ever worry?”
She looked back at him curiously. “About what?”
“I don’t know. That you might get bitten? That they might turn on you?” She locked the door before they walked past several other cages, each containing a different type of animal. A black bear tried to reach through the chain link of his enclosure, almost giving the appearance of waving at Emma. “That’s a bear. He could kill you pretty easily.”
She gave him a patronizing shrug. “He could. But so could a lot of other things.”
“Like?”
“Like running headfirst into a fire.”
“Touché,” Ben acknowledged as he hurried ahead of her to open the door when they reached the side of her house.
He followed her into a spacious kitchen. He’d been in here a few times with her father and the room had been remarkably sparse, simple but masculine. He looked around, surprised at how much had changed. She’d redecorated, adding bright yellow curtains, scattering daisy decor throughout the room. The counters were still the same dark granite with mahogany cabinets, but the entire room had gone from dark and dominant to cheery and welcoming. She went in, not noticing the falter in his step as he closed the door behind her.
“Why do you run into burning buildings? You’re just as likely to get injured as I am with the animals.”
“It’s not like I run into every building. When we do it’s usually because someone needs help.”
Emma turned and faced him, growing serious. “Well, then, we have something in common. These animals need mine, more than any human ever has.”
Ben leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms, studying her as she moved around the kitchen. The woman was hard to figure out. One minute she was playful, completely relaxed and at ease with a fox or a mountain lion, and the next, she was a warrior, fiery and passionate, only to do a one-eighty and make a joke. She was like a butterfly, unable to settle on any one emotion too long, but he found himself wanting to try to keep up.
Not this time, Ben. You want predictable, remember?
He steeled his resolve. He’d had more than his fair share of bad relationships. There was Angie. He’d walked in on her, straddling the guy who lived two doors down from their apartment as she screamed his name. But even that couldn’t top his latest romantic fiasco, Laura. That time, he’d found out with a call from Andrew, from the police station, where he was holding Ben’s fiancée for selling stolen goods. Those “goods” being all of the memorabilia his brother Grant had given him spanning his NFL career, most of their furniture and the car that she’d stolen from his house while he was on call at the firehouse.
Nope, he wasn’t dating unless he found a woman who was straightforward. No games, no pretenses, and nothing he’d need to figure out—or find out about later.
However, he couldn’t deny that Emma Jordan had gotten under his skin, making him want to know more.
From the first moment he’d met her, dropping off the kitten, she’d intrigued him. Sure, she was pretty, but that hadn’t been why he’d come back the second time or why he’d agreed to volunteer. She was difficult to figure out but there was a genuineness about her that she didn’t bother to hide. Whether she was unabashedly staring at his butt or defending her misfit tribe of animals, this woman was an intense force to be reckoned with and she kept him guessing what might happen next.
“I mean, you’d have done the same, right?”
Ben was jolted back to the present where, if her question was any indication, she’d been holding a one-sided conversation he hadn’t been paying attention to. Emma stood in front of him, her arms crossed, expecting an answer but he could only watch those perfect, luscious lips of hers and wonder if they tasted as sweet as they looked.
If she hadn’t been staring at him, he’d have laughed at the idea. He was pretty sure that if he tried to kiss her, she wouldn’t hesitate to claw his eyes out. Just like one of her bobcats. In spite of the common sense that typically reminded him of how ridiculous fantasies were, his fingers itched to see if her hair was as warm to the touch as it looked. He wanted to see if her skin tasted like the sweet vanilla scent he’d caught as she walked past, reaching for a loaf of bread. In the end, he was too big a chicken, settling for self-preservation over desire.
“Um, I need to get in that cupboard.”
She pointed to the cabinet door behind his head and Ben stepped aside as she stretched on her toes to reach for the glassware inside.
“Here.” He moved behind her, easily grabbing two glasses from the shelf.
“I’ve got it,” she protested, pressing her shoulder into him and turning.
The movement brought her body flush against his, igniting a desire he could no longer pretend didn’t exist inside him. Lust slammed into him, his entire body responding almost violently. Blood pounded hotly in his veins while every nerve ending seemed to come alive, oversensitive and heightened to the nth degree. Setting the glasses down on the counter before he dropped them, he found he couldn’t quite let them go. His fingers gripped their slick sides tighter in an effort to keep from reaching for her.
Ben knew he should just take a step backward and stop this exquisite torture but, with her body pinned between his and the counter at her back, he couldn’t quite force his feet to move. When her hands landed on his biceps, electric jolts of longing rippled through his veins, making him quake with yearning.
Emma opened her mouth, ready to speak, but her eyes darkened and he could see he wasn’t the only one affected. He was just about to step backward when her hands slid up around his neck. Standing on her toes, Emma connected her mouth with his and Ben’s world immediately rocked on its axis.
What the hell are you doing?
The logical side of Emma’s brain was practically screaming at her, but she didn’t care. When she’d turned and felt Ben McQuaid pressed against her from shoulder to knee, her bones had turned to gelatin, leaving her a quivering, hungry, mess of yearning. The man was solid muscle, and it had been pure torture watching him clean pens all morning, every movement causing the flesh to ripple and flex deliciously. She might have given him a filthy job, but it hadn’t compared to how dirty her thoughts had been as she eyed every chiseled inch of him, like living stone-carved perfection.
To be completely honest, she’d been fantasizing about him from the first time she’d seen him getting out of the truck with the box in his hands, but the more time she spent with him, the more she realized it wasn’t just a physical attraction. The man was as inept with the animals as he was charming, but he had a way of making her feel heard, of getting her to open up and feel safe, even in her vulnerabilities. She’d already confessed more to him than she had to anyone, even her father, especially about her doubts in her own capabilities.
Her fingers brushed over the nape of his neck, his short hair bristling across her palms deliciously as his lips moved over hers and she opened beneath his seeking touch, sending spirals of heat to curl low in her belly, making her entire body tremble. She rose on her toes to better access his mouth and nearly moaned as her breasts brushed against the wall of his chest. He caught her sigh in his kiss and Emma swept her tongue into his mouth. Ben leaned into her, his presence surrounding her completely.
Without thinking, just knowing she wanted—needed—to be closer, Emma bar
ely separated from him long enough to hop up on the kitchen counter, putting her face at the same level as his, even if her butt was only halfway on the counter.
“There,” she whispered on a sigh, fusing their mouths again, wrapping her calves around his hips, her heels locking around that tempting ass of his.
Emma dragged him as close as she could, her thighs clasping his body, and felt the heat explode in her core where they were only separated by the thin barrier of their clothing. Her heart beat faster than she’d ever imagined possible. Faster than the first time she’d worked with a timber wolf, harder than the time a bull elephant had charged her at the park. Ben McQuaid affected her in a way that no burst of adrenaline ever had.
His hands slid from the counter to grip the side of her hips. It wasn’t enough. She wanted to feel them move over her, under her shirt, against her bare skin. She wanted him to touch her, to be able to touch him, and to let this unexplainable maelstrom of desire engulf them both. Emma arched her back, pressing against the wall of his chest. Her body ached for more, demanding release, and she could feel the heat of his body where she burned the hottest.
His fingers clenched slightly, digging into the denim at her hips but, other than that small movement, he seemed relaxed, almost as if he was merely tolerating her kiss. Realization struck her hard, like a kick she’d received once from a donkey but twice as painful, because this time the sting was coupled with embarrassment. It flooded through her making the back of her neck prickle, burning her cheeks, nearly as hot as the lust still circling through her lower body. Emma drew back but avoided looking at him, not wanting to see passive indifference in his gaze while she was still reeling with the intensity of her reaction to him.
“Is that how you thank all of your volunteers for cleaning cages?” Ben slid his finger under her chin and lifted her face, forcing her to look at him and see that cocky smirk. “Or am I just one of the lucky ones?”