Fake flame, p.6
Fake Flame, page 6
Who knew the palm of her hand was an erogenous zone?
“Sorry, baby,” he said as he lifted his gaze to meet hers.
Nobody had ever called Eva baby. If anyone had asked her if she approved of that as a pet name before tonight, she would have scoffed and called it infantilizing. But now? It was like the entire world had been dumped upside down and shaken like a snow globe, all disorientation and whirling confusion.
And somehow, she liked it.
“Thanks,” he said to the bartender as she set a pint glass on the coaster. “Let me settle up and we can move to a booth.” When the bartender mentioned that she’d already paid for her wine, Sean shot her a sidelong look. “Paying for yourself because I’m running late? That hurts.” He threw down a bill on the bar and knocked it twice with his big fist. “All set here. Come on, gorgeous.”
With that, Eva was towed off her stool to a booth in a dim corner of the pub, feeling more than a little flushed, her heart pounding. She slid onto a banquette and blinked with surprise when he came in after her, one big thigh resting alongside hers, the heat from him penetrating through his jeans and hers. Firefighter? This man was fire itself.
“This okay?” he asked. “Easier not to be overheard this way.”
Eva’s heart seemed to give a little kick, as if it was resuming normal rhythm. Right. Yeah. This was about practicality. And about practice. Looking like a real couple in front of other people. That was the entire reason they’d planned to meet up this evening. There was no reason whatsoever to feel a spiraling sense of disappointment.
No reason at all. She swallowed her sauvignon blanc and her feelings and gave Sean what was probably the wobbliest smile in the universe.
“So sorry I’m late,” he said, seeming to misunderstand her disappointment.
“No! Don’t be. I mean, if I was late the most valid job-related reason would be a crying student in my office. But that isn’t exactly saving lives or anything.”
“Well, saving lives wasn’t the source of the delay today,” Sean grumbled. “We had a minor porch fire—already pretty well contained by the homeowner—and some asshole had parked his Tesla in front of the hydrant.”
* * *
Eva’s eyes went a little round at that. It was cute. He was so used to having people around him know enough about protocol that they would think this was old hat. “What do you do in a situation like that? Call a tow truck?”
“Ha. No time. No, we smash the windows and thread the hose through.”
“You don’t go around?”
He took a long sip of beer, then relaxed, his arm resting on the seat back behind her shoulders. “Nah. Screws with the water pressure and that can cost lives. Besides, anyone who parks on a hydrant should know they literally might get hosed. So we put the fire out and were getting the area cleaned up, gearing up to go, when the car’s owner shows up and has a screaming meltdown at us.”
Her eyes, if possible, got even bigger. “Was he also eight feet tall and green? Because I’ve seen you guys in your firefighter suits and I’m not sure I’d scream at you under any circumstances. You’re intimidating.”
God, he loved this woman’s sense of humor. “Turnouts, not firefighter suits. And no, he was tall but nowhere near eight feet. And his face was pretty bright red, not green at all.”
“So he was mad.”
“Yeah, screaming and hollering about suing the department, the homeowner, anyone who witnessed the windows being broken, the whole nine yards. We didn’t want to leave until he’d calmed down. The house in question was owned by a little old lady who was understandably shaken up. The guy had her in tears.” He’d wanted to frog-march the guy away from the old lady’s house and shove him into traffic. The entitled jerk had reminded him of Darren, now that he thought about it.
Her eyebrows drew together and her expression went impossibly sympathetic. “Oh, poor thing.”
“Yeah. The guy was a piece of work. But he got his attorney on the phone in a hot minute—which tells me he’s the kind of guy who sues everyone at the drop of a hat—and even the ambulance chaser told him he didn’t have a leg to stand on. So he called an Uber, we finished up and here I am. Late.”
“In a hot minute, huh? Is that your departmental motto? Also, don’t worry about being late. Better late than never.” She squeezed his forearm and practically stopped his heart. He’d known after sliding in next to her that he was probably taking their little act too far. She had to be getting uncomfortable with his flirting and physicality, which was why he’d backed off. But he liked her so much, it felt natural to want to be close to her. Her reaching out to touch him? Oh, his sister was not wrong about that squishmallow part of him.
“Um...” He cleared his throat, trying to get his brain back online. “No. We don’t have a motto.”
“Too bad,” she said. God, her fingers were warm on his skin. He wanted them to move. To stroke and explore. Maybe Felix was right to be worried. He did have it bad for her. He forced himself not to move, if only to prolong the contact. “I think in a hot minute is a pretty good motto for a firefighter squad.”
“Might give our dates the wrong impression, though.” The words flew out of his mouth before he knew what he was saying. Heat crawled up the back of his neck and sweat beaded his hairline. “Wow. I’m sorry, that was not cool. I didn’t mean—”
He was interrupted by her crack of laughter, her hand leaving his arm to cover her mouth as she laughed, her eyes sheening over with moisture. “No, that’s fine. You’re awfully funny.”
“Funny-looking, my sisters all say.”
“I’m guessing that’s because they’re your sisters. It seems like teasing is a thing siblings are contractually required to do to each other.”
“Well, I never signed a contract, but there’s definitely some serious history, at least in my family.” Like the way even Cait, his closest sister, annoyingly still saw him as some overgrown child no matter what he did.
“So they picked on you? Because you were the youngest?”
“Yeah, some. But it was mostly just in fun. But when other kids bullied me? Oh, that was when the harpies would fly.”
* * *
Eva was confused. Other kids bullied Sean? Six-foot-and-more-than-a-few-inches Sean?
He must have registered her befuddlement because one corner of his mouth kicked up. “I was a pretty small, stringy little kid. I didn’t really get a growth spurt until I was fifteen. Then I shot up like a weed and was a tall, stringy kid. I finally started lifting weights when I was a junior in high school to try to fill out a little.”
Eva choked on her wine. “A little?”
He leaned in as if to share a secret with her. God, he smelled good. That just-showered man scent. “Yeah. Almost twenty years of lifting and working a very physical job took it a ways past a little.”
“If you say so.” Eva had never really been someone who was attracted to muscles. In her experience, they’d all too frequently come attached to cocky jerks. But Sean was funny and didn’t seem to take himself seriously at all. On top of being kind and a good listener, he carried himself like he had nothing to prove, and that was powerfully attractive.
“Oh, by the way, Felix had an idea I wanted to run past you. How about in addition to teaching you self-defense classes, we open up the opportunity to a group of your students, too?”
She inhaled sharply, her mind racing. “That’s a wonderful idea.” All too often she’d gotten a window on the lives of some of her students—not that they always told stories about their experiences, but the way they reacted to various books or media told her that too many of them had experience with some form of abuse. She couldn’t and wouldn’t invade their privacy, but this? This was something she could offer that could be of real help.
His answering smile lit up his face. “Really? I’m glad you like it. Felix thought you might have some vulnerable people in your classes.”
“He’s one hundred percent correct. Thank him for me, please. And thank you.”
They discussed logistics for a few minutes until a waiter came by with menus. “What are you in the mood for, baby?” he asked, sliding easily into the boyfriend persona. Or had he ever slid out of it? His attention on her since he came in had been unwavering, though somehow not unnerving. Sean had an ease about him that she envied. And there was that pet name again. Baby. It sent a little shiver up the back of her neck, almost as if he had touched her there.
To take her mind off him, she scanned the menu. “Shepherd’s pie, please.”
“Sounds good. We’ll have two of those. And a side of fries.” He handed their menus back to the waiter with a grin.
Eva decided to experiment with being the girlfriend. She poked him in the shoulder. It was rock hard. “Fries and shepherd’s pie? How many potatoes can you eat?”
“Woman,” he said, sending his voice into a lower register and contorting his face with apparent disbelief. “I’m a big Irish boy. I can eat all the potatoes.”
Eva suppressed a giggle.
“What about you? Red hair. Irish girl?”
She shook her head. “Scots. Well, mostly. Clan Campbell.”
“Och aye?” he said in a ridiculous, broad Scots burr.
This time she really did giggle. Good grief, it was like she was possessed. She never giggled. “That’s a terrible accent.”
“Never claimed to be an actor. But that’s cool. If your family was English, that might be another story.”
“Wait, your American family has strong feelings about the United Kingdom? For real?” She’d seen plenty of anti-British sentiment in Irish media, but hadn’t ever seen it in her own country.
“When I tell you my dad is Irish, I mean he’s Irish. County Clare. Came to this country in his twenties with his plumber’s tools and a pocketful of change—he’ll tell you himself. Self-made man, buying real estate, fixing it up, moving on. Married a nice girl from South Boston and followed some investments down here to raise his family. What about you?”
Eva blinked, imagining the four sisters, Sean, their parents, presumably more than a few grandchildren... It was a lot. Her family situation might be quiet and sterile and small, but she was used to it. “Um. Just me. Parents grew up in Bethesda, high school sweethearts, Dad was an interventional cardiologist until he retired a couple of years ago.”
“Wow. Only child, huh?” He got a bit of a faraway look in his eyes as if he couldn’t quite picture what that would look like. “Did you love it or did you hate it?”
She shrugged. “Neither? I never really wanted siblings. When I’d go to friends’ houses it seemed like a lot of conflict and negotiation. In some ways it was easier just being the only. But the weight of expectations was a hundred percent on me, so that was sometimes hard, too. Basically, like anything else, there were trade-offs.”
That crooked smile tilted his mouth as he looked down at her. “Yeah. I know something about that, too.”
Eight
Sean pulled his truck up in the driveway of Eva’s little house and checked the knot of his tie in the rearview mirror, his heart pounding like a teenager taking his first girlfriend out on their very first date. The pub dinner had been fun—more fun than he’d expected, because Eva was surprisingly down to earth when you got to know her. They’d swapped more stories about their childhoods and early adulthoods, learning the kinds of things about each other that couples knew. Eva’s favorite color was blue and she couldn’t abide peanuts. She wasn’t allergic, she made it plain. She just didn’t like them.
“Sounds un-American, but you gotta be you,” Sean had teased. He’d learned other things about her that evening, some of them things she didn’t have to tell him. Her relationship with her parents was strained, that was evident. She’d fiddled with the napkin in her lap when she talked about their forthcoming visit, her nerves on subconscious display in a way that made him want to smooth away that worried groove between her eyebrows. But that would have been going too far.
But first, they had to get through the faculty cocktail party. “Darren will be insufferable,” she had warned. Sean didn’t care. He could take all the shots that twerp fired at him. He just wanted Eva to be comfortable, protected.
He got out just as Eva’s front door opened and his heart nearly stopped. She wore a sleeveless dress in a deep, midnight blue. It crossed in the front, showing the faintest shadow of cleavage, and the skirt swirled just below her knees. Her hair trailed down over her shoulders in waves of purest fire. “Wow. You look beautiful,” he said as she stopped in front of him.
“You look pretty amazing yourself,” she said, touching a fingertip to the knot of his tie. His throat went tight as if she’d touched his skin. “You ready to face the dragons?”
He chuckled, but it came out as a strangled sort of sound. “If they’re dragons, they’re not the kind that breathe fire, so I think we’re good.”
“I thought fighting fire was your wheelhouse?”
“Yeah, but it’s my night off.”
Her gorgeous eyes danced with laughter and he remembered what he was supposed to be doing. Turning, he opened the passenger door of his truck and handed her up to the high seat. “What a gentleman,” she murmured.
“Got the old wreck detailed and everything,” he said, relishing the way her eyes skimmed over the polished exterior and sparkling glass. “Nothing but the best for my girl.”
After shutting the door, he jogged around the front of the truck and climbed in, hitting the starter and backing carefully out of her driveway. “Anything else I should know about tonight?” he asked. Their date the week before had been pure fun. They’d both “practiced” their double-act as a besotted couple, but the stakes had been nonexistent. This was their first big gamble, seeing if Darren would buy it enough to slink off. For Eva’s sake, Sean hoped it worked.
For his own, he hoped it didn’t. He wanted an excuse to stick around.
* * *
Eva arranged her wrap and her bag on her lap, just to have something to do. Sean’s old wreck was a shiny, new electric truck, humming nearly silently along her street. “Anything else you should know?” she repeated. “No, I don’t think so. I mean, you know who Darren is, so that will help. I’ll point out the dean and introduce you to some of my colleagues that I’m friendlier with. Then we’ll just spend our two drink tickets on severely mediocre wine or beer and eat a few passed appetizers. It’ll be stingy because...academia, but after the dean makes a speech—blessedly a short one, if my past experience is to be trusted—then we can hang around for another ten minutes and then go home.”
“Sounds pretty simple,” Sean said as he spun the wheel, turning them toward campus. For some reason his calm presence had the opposite effect on her. Her stomach was fluttering and quivering with nerves. She couldn’t even think about those appetizers or she might feel actually sick.
God, what kind of a wreck would she have been if she’d had to come to this thing alone? In all her years of reading romance novels, she’d never have guessed that a trope could bring her so much real-life comfort.
All too soon, Sean was parking and handing her out of the truck. She moved to put on her wrap, but he silently took it from her fingers and settled it over her shoulders with so much attention and care that her fluttering nerves settled a bit. “Ready?” he asked.
She nodded and he followed her lead, walking beside her into the function room, low music playing over the PA system. Eva stopped at the check-in table and got their name tags and drink tickets. He offered his hand to take the tickets with a murmured, “White wine?” She nodded, the fact that he’d remembered her drink order from the week before warming her. He strode off and Eva scanned the room, looking for Celia or another friendly face.
“Still stringing the boy toy along, I see,” a low and all-too-familiar voice murmured, unwelcome breath heating her ear. She stepped away from Darren, almost stumbling on her high heels in her haste to put some space between them.
Dammit. She should have gone with Sean to the bar. She fought to keep her expression neutral, maybe even a little bored. “I told you to leave me alone.”
He shrugged, his eyes glittering with malice. “I’m faculty, you’re faculty. This is a faculty function. I have every right to be here.”
“Yes, but why you have to be tedious at me is another question.” Eva wished she had something to do with her hands other than fiddle with the strap of her tiny bag. She suppressed that urge to fiddle, knowing it would only expose her nerves.
Darren’s eyes narrowed and the malevolent glitter went out of them. Now he was just mad. “Tedious? You were with me for almost three years.”
She forced a smile that she knew didn’t reach her eyes. “Yes. And I regret every last day. Now—”
She didn’t get the chance to finish her sentence. Sean arrived by her side, offering her a glass of wine and pressing a soft kiss to her temple. “Sorry it took so long, baby,” he rumbled.
Was his voice deeper than usual, or was she imagining things?
She smiled up at him, this time her expression genuine. “Thanks.” She took a sip, suddenly enjoying the game where before she’d just been nervous and upset.
Darren snorted. “Baby?”
Sean merely looked at him, his expression utterly blank until Darren flushed and looked away. Wow. She fought the urge to fan herself. Was this a superpower siblings gave you? Eva was terrible at conflict, either fleeing from it or freaking out entirely. And while her latest freak-out seemed to be panning out unexpectedly well, it wasn’t exactly something she wanted to continue doing.
A server came by with appetizers. “Oh, Eva. Chicken satay. You’ll like this,” Darren said, grabbing a napkin and a skewer and holding them out to her.
