by Lindsey Hart
“Fine. Have it your way. I’ll throw the bandages on so you don’t bleed all over the rental and we’ll find you someplace to shower. I’ll wait in the car.”
“No. You can’t do that. It’s hot as hell out.”
“Last time I checked, it had AC. Or drop me off at the mall and come back for me later. I might as well salvage something out of the day.”
“The mall?” Blaze stared at her like she was a fourteen-year-old girl demanding that her dad drive her and all her friends so she could blow her allowance.
“Okay, what I really meant was some cool vintage or antique store, but I’d settle for anything, just as long as it’s away from you.”
Blaze let out a pained grunt as she grabbed the roll of bandages and began to wrap them tightly around his arm. He was right. The iodine wasn’t going to do anything other than sting. He needed to wash the grime out of there. She didn’t envy him the job at all. He might be a douchebag who thought about sex constantly, was probably an egomaniac too, but she wasn’t the kind of person who wished pain on other people.
Even those she couldn’t stand at the best of times.
Honestly, she must have been out of her mind to have blurted out that she wanted him to take her v-card. Just because he had a reputation for being good in bed didn’t mean she’d just be able to jump in there with him, no matter how good looking he was. Or how much she might want to. Because yeah, he might be some kind of god when it came to sex, but she wanted it to at least mean something. Or at least, less than nothing. It was a terrible idea as an abstract notion, but now that she’d spent a little bit of time with Blaze, it was even worse.
“You know, that hurts” he muttered as she wrapped the gauze around his other arm. “You’re a little rough, nurse. Are you frustrated with something? Anything I can do to ease that for you?”
“No. Not ever. Especially not now. You’re in no shape to even think about anything like that, though it seems like you have a one-track mind.”
“Don’t doubt my prowess. I’ve been through a hell of a lot worse than this.”
“When?” She tied off the bandage and stalked around so she could face Blaze.
He blinked at her then dropped his eyes to his hands. Her jaw nearly hit the floor. It was the first time she’d seen him fazed. He clearly hadn’t wanted to share that bit of information with her. She could have let it go, but now that she’d seen a crack in Blaze’s perfect armor, she couldn’t help herself.
“Blaze?”
“Nothing.” His head whipped up and he was grinning at her, but it seemed forced. She didn’t know him well enough to say for sure, though. “I was snowboarding when I was fifteen. Biffed right into a tree at full speed. I broke my arm. That hurt much worse. And it was a pain in the ass. This- this is nothing.”
“Right. Nothing. It looks like it hurts.”
“Nah.” He jumped to his feet as if to prove her wrong. “I’ll tell John we’re good to go.”
“Thank him for the five minutes of riding.”
He winked at her. “Don’t worry. I’ll apologize for the heart attack I just about gave him.”
“You should give him a good tip. Like a couple of grand should do it. Maybe that will entice him not to tell others about your little mishap. The great Blaze Hanson fell off his quad. I’d suggest that we get something to eat after all of this, but I assume you’re already full. I never thought sand was appealing but did it taste good? Maybe I could be persuaded to give it a try.”
Blaze swung his long leg over the picnic table and when he stood, his ass was just about right in line with her face. She immediately slammed her eyes shut so that she couldn’t see the way his jeans rode up and defined his rock-hard ass cheeks. God. He had an ass that could inspire even the saintliest of saints to sin. Or maybe just lead them into temptation. Because she was definitely tempted to put her hand out and squeeze just to see if it was even real.
“Could you be persuaded to give other things a try? I have a long list for you…”
“You’re disgusting.”
“I’ve been told that I’m dirty, but never disgusting.”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything.”
“Apparently not for you. That’s why you’re still a virgin. Because you have a stick up your ass.”
“I don’t have a-”
Blaze sauntered off, whistling, his head high after he dropped the last word on her. She wanted to chase after him and stick him with that cotton ball again. God. She wanted to stick that cotton ball right in his eye. Or maybe jam a bunch into his dirty, smirking, pouty, sinful mouth.
Colette slumped down at the picnic table while she waited for Blaze to get back. She reassembled the items back into the first aid kit and shut it, trying to tell her uncooperative body that it needed to calm the hell down.
Unfortunately, her heart wasn’t getting the memo. It was working double-time, making her pulse jump and her palms sweat. An electric tickle zapped her thighs and she was uncomfortably damp a little higher up.
Which was of course due to the heat of the quad and the sweltering metal building with a severe lack of air conditioning. Of course. Because Blaze Hanson wasn’t getting to her at all. Not in this lifetime. Not in the next. Not in any damn lifetime.
Even if his ass really was made of pure gold granite.
CHAPTER 13
Colette
Somehow, Blaze managed to drag her to a five-star looking, fancy-ass hotel. She wasn’t sure how much he paid to get a room at one in the afternoon, but it couldn’t have been cheap. It wasn’t cheap regular. The fact that they looked like a scruffy pair of vagrants, him with his messed up arms and blood-stained shirt and jeans, and her- well- she never did look like she had any money, made it half a miracle that the girl working the front desk took them seriously.
The room was huge. It wasn’t anything fancy, just something regular with a queen bed, huge TV mounted on the wall, two end tables, a mini-fridge, counter, table and sofas on the far side. Still. It was large enough to fit her entire apartment inside and was so new that the air smelled dry.
“You know,” she snapped after she did a perusal of the room. “If you just wanted a shower, we could have gone down to some gym or like a pool or something. Any rec center would probably have had public showers for a hell of a lot cheaper.”
“Do I look like someone who would enjoy showering with a group of sweaty dudes in a public place?” Blaze stripped his wallet and the keys to the rental out of the back of his sinful jeans and set them down on the nightstand.
Colette shrugged. “You never know.”
Blaze ignored her and tried to tug his t-shirt over his head. He didn’t get far. Which was a damn good thing, because even the one-inch flash of his muscled, bronzed abs nearly gave her a coronary. Colette whirled, heart pounding wickedly, the air suddenly thick and charged like there was about to be a storm in the room between them.
“Come on, Office Baby. It’s just a chest. You see male chests all the time. It’s not going to strike you dead right where you stand.”
Says you. She counted to ten before she turned back around, praying like hell that her face wasn’t as flushed on the outside as her entire body was on the inside. She was sweltering, drowning in internal sweat. Was that even a thing? She swore it was a thing.
“Does the big, bad wolf need help shedding his t-shirt?” she taunted, just to make up for the fact that her hands were damp, and her panties were damper.
Fucking Blaze Hanson. How could he slay her just by existing? And why the heck had she ever agreed to this disaster date in the first place? Right. So he’d leave her alone after she was the one who propositioned him.
“If you wouldn’t mind. My arms are currently going through ten shades of hell.”
“So, it does hurt then? I thought you said it wasn’t bad.”
“It wasn’t bad before I bled all over these bandages and everything is crispy and stuck together now. I’m going to have to soak them off just so they don
’t take an extra layer of skin off with them.”
Gross. Colette’s stomach sloshed like she’d been cast back into the middle of a violently churning ocean.
“Alright,” she breathed. She had to admit defeat because she wasn’t going to stand there and let him suffer. Or worse, rip skin off like he said and bleed all over the floor right in front of her.
Even if it meant getting close to Blaze. Feeling his body heat seep into her. Inhaling the scent of his body up close. Touching his skin.
Her stomach rocked and lurched again, but this time, it felt like the ocean had come to her and was lashing away at her. The sensation wasn’t entirely unpleasant, and she hated herself for it. For being affected. For falling under Blaze’s spell just like every other person with a uterus out there.
“Alright?” His mouth nearly dropped open.
“Yes, alright, but make it quick. And don’t try anything funny. This is for medical purposes only.”
Blaze kept a straight face, though she could tell it cost him. He looked like he was going to burst at the seams, trying not to mock her. His lips were practically thinned out into non-existence with the effort it took not to spew more of his verbal poison.
“I’ll lift my arms and you pull.”
She shook her head quickly. “No. I’m the one who gives the orders here.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“No.” She didn’t look up at his face. His mocking tone told her everything she needed to know. “I guess, put your arms up and I’ll work the shirt off. Can you get them up?”
“I never had a problem getting anything up.”
Just because he was an asshole, she tugged at his shirt before he was ready. He let out a muffled grunt, and lifted his arms, even though his breathing changed cadence and she could tell that it was painful for him, whether he wanted her to know it or not. All the crusted over wounds were probably breaking open. She didn’t envy him the job of having to scrub his arms clean.
Maybe if he wasn’t so cocky, he wouldn’t have crashed his quad. Maybe he wouldn’t have wrecked his arms. Maybe if he’d worn something sensible instead of trying to drive her mad with his veiny forearms, sleek muscle, and bronzed skin, his arms wouldn’t look like ground beef.
“You okay?” She was glad the cover of the shirt shielded her from Blaze’s face.
It did nothing to shield her from his body heat. She knew he’d be warm, but the heat of his skin shocked her. He wasn’t just warm. He was like an inferno. Of course, he smelled good. Spicy and dusty and sweaty and somehow none of those things were gross on him the way they’d be pretty nasty on another guy.
“Yeah,” he grunted.
Colette worked the shirt up another few inches, exposing granite muscle and more bronzed skin, a sprinkling of dark, crisp hairs. She was careful to keep herself a good few inches from Blaze’s chest and his bare skin. If she touched him, accidentally of course, she had no idea what would happen. Something would happen. She’d probably erupt like a volcano, just boom, and there would be magma and lady bits everywhere and the nice new hotel room would be completely ruined. Rich or not, she very much doubted that Blaze had enough room on his credit card to pay for the damages of an entire hotel. Or maybe he would. No, she would not go there. There was not going to be any hotel destruction going on here or anywhere else ever.
She purposely cast her eyes down to the floor, but to look there, she had to skim down those tight abs, down, past the front of his jeans. There was a bulge there, but she couldn’t tell if it was a normal bulge or not and since she was mortified that she was thinking about Blaze’s package at all, she flicked her gaze back up to the shirt, which was nearly off.
Blaze fumbled with his hands and caught the fabric in his grip. He tugged it out of her hands and pulled it the rest of the way off, sparing her.
Which was good. It was a mercy she definitely needed since the room was suddenly too hot and the air was snapping and sizzling again, and it felt like a lot of that snap and sizzle was going on south of the belt she wasn’t wearing. A jolt of straight lust zinged to her stomach until her muscles felt as tight as Blaze’s looked.
He stepped back, letting the t-shirt drop onto the floor. There was no way he was flexing, not with his arms the way they were. Was it possible to flex a chest? She had to wonder, because god, he looked good. No, not just good. Mouth-watering. As in, she literally had to suck the drool that was pooling in the front of her mouth to the back of her throat so she could swallow. Loudly.
“You should- go try out that shower,” she said breathlessly. God, she wished she wasn’t breathless. She was just like all those bimbos that Blaze told to bend over his desk.
“I should.”
He didn’t move.
She couldn’t breathe.
“Should I call you if I need help?”
Oh. My. God. Before her ovaries could combust, she forced out a coherent answer. “Only if you plan to leave your jeans on.”
“Then I’d have to drive us home and pilot us soaking wet.”
“Yeah, well, I can think of worse things.”
“I can think of better.”
“Can you please just shut your trap and get in the shower already? I really want to get home.”
“So many things to do with your evening when you’re single and a virgin.” Blaze yawned like he was bored. He made no move to walk in the direction of the bathroom.
“Shut up. I have friends. I go out and do things. I have hobbies. I have a life, you know. Things aren’t just about- about trying to get laid and bang everything that walks.”
“Bang,” Blaze chuckled. God, he was so infuriating. “I can’t believe you just said bang. The girl who knows nothing about banging or getting laid.”
“I know enough to know that too much of it is a bad thing. You should see the way people view you, Blaze Hanson. You’re disgusting. You think you’re a stud or whatever. You think you’re hot shit because you can get any girl you want, screw her and spit her out like a bite of bad, grizzly old steak? You think that people should find that attractive in a person? Your below-the-belt organ might work perfectly fine but the other one in your chest that should be working isn’t. You have no heart and no soul. You’re cold and unfeeling and rude and arrogant.”
Blaze studied his hand like he was checking to see if he’d broken a nail, clearly bored with her tantrum. “Tell me how you really feel.”
He winked at her as he took a step in her direction. He grinned when she faltered backward on instinct. She didn’t like the burning look in his eyes. He moved like sex and looked like depravity, and god help her, she knew he’d be her next favorite sin if she let him.
“And by the way…” he took another step and another and she kept backing up until she was pressed up against the dresser counter thing with the fridge in it. “I never tried a steak I didn’t like.”
All the breath left her lungs at the predatory gleam in Blaze’s eyes, but then he skirted past her and sauntered into the bathroom. He shut the door gently behind him, just because she half expected him to slam it, just for emphasis.
She should have known better. Blaze didn’t do anything she thought he’d do. He wasn’t really anything like the man she thought he was. The man everyone thought he was. He was annoying and rude, cocky as hell, egotistical, an asshole to the core.
So why couldn’t she stop feeling like she was melting in all the wrong spots and mushy in all the others? It didn’t matter that Blaze had a body that literally made her drool. Those granite abs couldn’t make up for the fact that he wasn’t a nice person. None of him could. Not the body that looked like he was a professional athlete. Like he spent most of the day working out. It didn’t matter that most women would sell their soul for five seconds alone with Blaze. It didn’t even matter that during the day, she’d caught fleeting glimpses of something else- a Blaze that no one knew and saw. Melting mush was not what she wanted to be.
She’d just about succeeded in calm
ing the burning riot of protest going on inside of her, just about convinced herself that it was never, ever, ever going to happen with Blaze, ever, when the gentle hum of the shower was interrupted with a hoarse yell and a dull, wicked sounding thud.
Colette was off the bed like someone had lit a firecracker under her ass. She was running to the bathroom, unthinking. All she thought about was Blaze lying in the tub with a cracked skull, bleeding out slowly while she sat there and did nothing to help.
It never even occurred to her that he was naked- duh, of course he was naked- until it was hell of way too late to turn back.
CHAPTER 14
Blaze
After undressing, hopping in a shower that was so hot it scalded him, reaching for the soap dispenser mounted to the stupid wall only to shoot himself directly in the eyes, stumbling blindly cursing, battling the shower curtain to reach for a towel, missing, and taking down the rod, curtain, and towel all while fire ate away at his eyes, Blaze had to admit he’d had finer days.
The door burst opened with a loud smack while he was still fighting with the curtain, which was wrapped around him like a second skin. He needed to get it out of the way so he could get back to the water, which had gone from a normal temperature to so hot it just about burned his skin off approximately ten seconds after stepping into the shower. But he really needed water to splash into his soap filled eyeballs before long lasting damage was done.
“Blaze? Oh my god!” Colette’s shriek of horror just about did him in.
He couldn’t remember a time when he’d been more humiliated. And why the fuck had he suddenly turned into the world’s biggest klutz?
Since he couldn’t see a damn thing, he actually sensed the shadow looming over him. The water switched off abruptly and then the pole with the shower curtain was peeled away.
“Oh my god, turn the water back on,” he begged. “Or fill up the ice bucket or something. My eyes… I can’t see anything.”