All Fired Up (Green Valley Heroes #7)

Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

MADELINE

I stare at Hunter, not sure I heard him right.

Actually, I’m almost positive I heard him right, but I’m having trouble interpreting the words.

“Be serious,” I mumble, heat stealing over my cheeks.

“I am,” he says, challenge in his gaze.

He wants me to tell him it’s unfair, just like he said his dare was. He wants me to demand a different dare. He wants me to be a hypocrite.

That bastard.

“And no quick peck on the lips,” he says, looking now like he’s having fun with the idea. “It has to be an actual kiss.”

“And if I forfeit?”

Something flashes over his face, so quick I almost miss it. Disappointment? No, wouldn’t he be happy if I forfeited?

His signature smirk is back. “Then I’ll lord my win over you for the rest of the training program.”

“Well, we can’t have that.” There’s something about him that makes a competitive streak within me rise to the surface. I swear, no one else affects me like that. “But not in the bar.”

Wait, am I actually considering this?

He pulls his car keys out of his pocket and jingles them. “Let’s get you home, then.”

Wait, right now? I need more time to prepare. More time to wrap my head around this.

I gape with my mouth open like a fish and he grins wider, then gets up and walks to the bar.

I sit there, not sure what he’s doing, until I realize he’s paying for our drinks and food. Snatching my purse, I join him, but it’s too late. He’s already signing the credit card slip.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I tell him. “I meant to pay for my own.”

“No, I invited you out,” he says, like it’s no big deal. Like friends pay for each other’s meals all the time. Do they? I never go out with anyone.

He slides the receipt and pen back over to the bartender, then guides us out of the bar and into the parking lot. He holds the passenger door of his Mustang open for me and I slide in, the cool leather soft under my fingertips. I buckle myself in and stare out the windshield at the clear, cloudless night, my stomach in knots.

What am I doing? Why did I agree to this?

The heavy rumble of the engine underneath me startles me for a second, and I glance over at Hunter as he reverses out of the space, his palm resting on the back of my headrest. This close, I can smell his cologne or aftershave or soap or whatever it is. Something fresh and masculine that I’ve already come to associate with him. Will it smell even better when I’m closer? When I’m kissing him?

His movements are sure and steady as he switches gears and navigates us back to my house. How is he so calm? Is it because he’s kissed half the girls in town already?

Okay, not half. That’d be impossible. But...a lot. I’d even noticed a few girls checking him out while we were at Genie’s.

And why wouldn’t they? Like I told him, every girl thought he was hot stuff back in high school. And time has only been kind to him, as he’s grown more handsome in that way men do.

But he didn’t go home with any of them. He’s going home with me. To kiss me .

My cheeks flare with heat and I look out the passenger window, hoping he doesn’t see. What the hell is wrong with me? He’s not coming home with me . That’s not what this is. Jesus, Madeline. Get your head on straight.

All too soon, we’re pulling into my driveway, my belly doing somersaults.

I tell my stomach to stop it. This doesn’t have to be a big deal. It’s a teasing dare. He’s trying to get a rise out of me, the same way he did all those weeks ago when we first started the training program. But I’m onto his tricks now.

“Hunter,” I say into the silence as the engine dies. “I don’t want this to change things. We’ve finally got a good rapport going.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “No, it won’t.”

He opens his car door and I follow suit, wishing the porch light wasn’t on. That we had some kind of ten-foot-tall privacy fence around the yard. That my mom wasn’t inside the house, potentially peeking at us from the front window.

Damn Hunter and his stupid dare.

I could forfeit, but I couldn’t bear for him to be insufferable about it for the next month.

I tug at his sleeve before he can reach the front door, directing him toward the closed garage door instead. It’s in the semi-shadows and slightly more private, at least.

“So, was Genie’s okay or do you think you would have liked the Pink Pony better?”

It takes me a second to get out of my head and process his question.

“It’s not too late to still go, you know,” he says, smiling.

His smile eases the rising tension within me enough to reply, “Genie’s was perfectly fine.”

I fiddle with the strap of my purse, knowing I need to get this over with. If I don’t do this tonight, I’ll obsess over it all weekend. “Guess I should do my dare now.”

He nods, stepping closer.

If he was a gentleman, he’d notice how nervous I am and call the whole thing off. Actually, he wouldn’t have dared me to begin with.

But he’s not one. I knew that from the beginning.

Reaching for his shoulders, I angle my face up, taking in the dark stubble on his jaw, the way his body seems to sway toward mine, how he really does smell better even closer.

Just do it already.

Our lips touch, his warmer and softer than I was expecting, and there’s a jump in my lower belly, this time not from nerves, but excitement. His lips move over mine, establishing a slow rhythm, that excitement in the pit of my stomach turning into an ache as it continues on, neither of us backing away. It’s soft and drugging, lulling me under his spell, and while I may have initiated the kiss, it’s soon apparent he’s in charge. He changes the angle, deepening it, and a lick of heat washes over me, surprising me with its intensity.

My hands curl upward, from his shoulders to behind his neck, and I step into his hard body, pressing against him. That ache strengthens, wanting him to touch me, too. To feel those rough hands on my overheated skin. I’ve only felt them once before, when he gave me a massage after our first run weeks ago, but I was too out of it to appreciate them then. I didn’t know I’d want him to touch me for real.

I arch into him, signaling my interest, but he doesn’t touch me back. He doesn’t wrap his hands around my waist and tug me even closer, until all I feel is him. He doesn’t cup the back of my head and slide his hands through my hair, leaving tingles over my body.

He doesn’t slip his hands under my shirt to squeeze my breasts, the way he did with Lydia that first day I saw him, over a decade ago.

Because this isn’t a real kiss. This is a dare.

I break away, breathing heavily, my body betraying me by showing him exactly how much that kiss affected me.

But it looks like maybe I’m not the only one affected.

He’s staring at my lips, his gaze unwavering. And he looks...hungry.

“Hunter,” I whisper, unsure what I’m saying. What I want to happen.

His gaze flicks up to meet mine, then back at my lips before he shuts his eyes and steps further back, that earlier pull in me toward him now fading.

“See,” he says. “Nothing’s changed. We’re good.”

“We’re good,” I repeat, knowing nothing about this is good. How am I supposed to act normal around him tomorrow during training? Knowing what he tastes like? What it feels like to press against him?

I may not be as experienced as him, but I know he kissed me back. He didn’t have to do all that. To let it go on as long as it did.

And I didn’t, either.

“Do you have your question for me yet?”

I blink, taking a second to register his question. “The truth?”

He nods.

Right. The game. That’s how this all started.

I look up at him, his eyes appearing darker than usual in the shadows. His lips are the slightest bit fuller, and it makes me want to touch my own lips, to see if they’re swollen from his kiss.

“Why did you dare me to kiss you?” I ask, nothing else on my mind but that question.

He’s silent for the longest time, his gaze roaming over me, almost as if he can see through me, see how he made me go temporarily weak with lust.

“Because you wouldn’t have done it otherwise.”

My brow wrinkles. “What does that mean?”

The seriousness surrounding him breaks as he wags a finger at me and tsks. “Only one question. Besides, I like seeing you squirm.”

So it was to unsettle me. Well, mission accomplished.

And also my cue to leave.

“Good night,” I say, turning away and fumbling for my keys in my purse. I need to get out of here before I’m tempted to reach for him again, to make an absolute fool of myself.

That wasn’t an actual kiss. It wasn’t anything.

Even if, for a second, it seemed like maybe it was.

“You sure you’re okay?”

Hunter hands me the part I dropped for the second time, and I let out a slow breath, willing my nerves to calm. “I’m fine. Thanks.”

I’m over last night. Really. I am.

And maybe if I keep repeating that, it will come true.

Hunter’s been acting like his usual snarky, smirky self all morning, nothing out of the ordinary. He’s right that the dare didn’t mean anything.

So why am I so off-kilter?

“How about I read the directions and you do the cleaning?” I ask, handing him the regulator I keep dropping. Our fingers brush as he takes it from me, and I nearly drop it again.

Get a freaking hold of yourself, Madeline.

We’re supposed to be working in pairs to learn how to maintain and clean the self-contained breathing apparatus that’s part of a firefighter’s standard gear. This is the stuff we’ll be using when there’s an actual fire. This is important and I should be paying attention, not off in la-la land.

Picking up the sheet of instructions, I read aloud, “Rotate the regulator a quarter turn clockwise to remove it from the facepiece, then take off the low-pressure hose and separate it from the Air-Pak.”

I watch as he does what I say, then instruct him to take a sponge and the cleaning solution to remove debris from the outside. Normally, there wouldn’t be any, but there definitely is after I dropped it.

“Didn’t know I’d be cleaning today,” he mutters.

“Firefighters probably have to do a lot of cleaning. All that smoke and soot that gets over everything has to be taken care of by someone.”

“And because we’re volunteers, we get the grunt work?”

I shrug. “We’re learning the basics. Okay, now we’re going to disinfect the inside. Depress the manual shutoff and close the purge knob by turning it fully clockwise, then spray four pumps of the disinfecting solution into the regulator opening.”

When we finish, we clean the Air-Pak and facepiece, then switch places to do another one, this time with me cleaning it. Hunter stares at the paper, his lips moving silently, but I tell him I remember the directions so he doesn’t have to read them aloud.

A look of relief crosses his face, and it reminds me I need to talk to him about that.

“Do the letters ever seem to move on the page?” I ask him casually, concentrating on scrubbing the outside of the regulator.

In my peripheral vision, I catch him frowning. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Do b ’s and d ’s especially seem to switch on you?”

“Why?” His voice is laced with suspicion.

“Just curious.” I say it as breezily as possible, not wanting him to shut down. Maybe if I have this to focus on, I’ll stop thinking about last night.

“Sometimes they do,” he admits.

Well, that strengthens my suspicions. “Did you have an IEP in school?”

“What the hell is that?”

Must be a no, then. Besides, from what I know of his family, they don’t seem like the type to fight for an individualized education plan for their son to accommodate his needs. I don’t think anyone was even aware he had special needs.

“Do you ever have trouble confusing left and right?”

“What the fuck are you getting at?” he whispers so no one else can hear. The firefighter acting as our instructor today, Dan, seems like the no-nonsense type who would call us out if he heard us cursing at one another. “You sound like you’re diagnosing me with something.”

I kind of am. “What, I can’t make casual conversation? It’s just a question. So, are you going to answer it or not?”

I almost laugh at his look of confusion, but restrain myself.

“As a kid, yeah, but who doesn’t?”

“Until what age?”

“I don’t know, through elementary school?”

Oh yeah, that’s way later than normal.

“You going to tell me what’s going on?” he demands, taking the regulator from me after I disinfect it.

I debate my options, then tell him, “I think it should wait until we’re alone. Maybe next time we study.”

His irritation melts away as he looks at me, probably picking up on my seriousness. “Yeah, okay.”

After our self-contained breathing apparatus maintenance instruction, we’re given a ten-minute break, and I head from the open engine bay over to the break room to check my phone. Three text messages and a call, all from Mom.

Mom : Mr. Garrison came over again to remind us about our tree needing to be cut back.

Mom : What should we do?

Mom : Also, the knob to the cabinet under the sink came off.

I sigh. Why am I the one always in charge of getting these things fixed? It would take her just as long to call a handyman or tree service as it would to tell me about it. I get that she relied on Dad to take care of that stuff, but it’s been eleven years. Besides, she only works part-time. She has way more time to do this kind of stuff than me.

I mentally add the two things to my running list of household needs. The water spigot outside is leaking. The grass is overgrown and needs to be mowed. And don’t get me started on the garbage disposal.

Sometimes it sucks being a homeowner. And the worst thing is, it technically isn’t even my home.

“Something wrong?” Hunter asks from his spot at the break room table.

Oh, I didn’t realize he was here. Guess I found something to finally take my mind off of other things.

“Just some house issues.”

He cracks open an energy drink—one of those ones that’ll probably give him cancer in thirty years—and takes a big swig. “What’s the problem?”

I wave off his concern. “Our tree needs to be cut back and it’s suddenly a big problem .” I roll my eyes. “Guess I need to find a tree trimmer.”

He sets his drink down. “I could do it for you.”

“Oh no, I wasn’t trying to get you to?—”

“I know. Let me know when I should come over.”

“Um, okay.” I guess that settles that. “How much should I pay you?”

His offended look surprises me. “I’m not taking your money.”

“But you already paid for last night.”

“Madeline, it’s not a big deal.”

Harry walks in, effectively putting an end to the conversation as he asks Hunter what he thought of some recent hockey game I don’t have the first clue about.

Two minutes before our break is over, a red light flashes overhead as a loud tone echoes throughout the building, and the three of us freeze, staring at the ceiling.

Dan’s voice calls out in the distance, “Come on, boys. Let’s get moving.” He appears in the doorway of the break room a moment later. “The rest of today’s instruction is canceled.”

He’s gone before we can ask what’s going on, not that it needs much explanation.

There’s an emergency.

I catch Hunter’s eye and he seems to understand what I want to do without me saying anything. He follows me to the edge of the open bay, away from the action, as the firefighters on duty don their gear and prepare to leave. They work as a team, each person pulling their weight, knowing exactly what to do.

“That could be us one day,” I whisper.

Beside me, Hunter swallows and nods.

“Puts it into perspective a little, huh?”

“Yeah.”

By the time the fire engine leaves the station, siren screaming, both Silas and Harry have joined us. I’m not sure where the Clewis brothers are, or if they already left.

“Well, free day, I guess,” Harry says, and wanders off to the parking lot. Silas follows him, leaving me and Hunter alone.

“Should we stay and keep practicing?”

He shakes my shoulder. “Come on, you heard Harry. It’s a free day.”

Yeah, he’s right. When’s the last time we even had a free weekend day?

“I could do the tree for you.”

I look over at him, confused. He’d spend his one day off doing something for me? “Are you sure?”

He shrugs. “Yeah. I’ve got nothing else going on.”

It’s strange how before getting to know him, I thought his free time would have been spent with endless parties and whatnot. Maybe even an orgy or two.

But he’s been diligent about training with me pretty much every night the past few weeks, either jogging or working on my upper body strength, or both. Not to mention the three nights a week we still go to the library to study. I haven’t seen any evidence he leads any kind of wild lifestyle.

“Okay, that’d be great.” It’ll get my mom and Mr. Garrison off my back and let me check another thing off my never-ending household to-do list. “You can come over whenever.”

He nods. “Will a pole saw work or do I need my chainsaw?”

He actually owns one of those? Then again, he works with lumber all day. I guess it makes sense. Also, I have no idea what a pole saw is.

“Um . . .”

“I’ll bring both,” he says when I can’t answer. “Do you have a ladder at your place? I have one, but I’ll have to figure out another way to get it to your house than my car.”

Right. Mustangs aren’t exactly equipped for hauling around stuff like that. “We have one.” I’m pretty sure.

“All right. See you soon.”

He taps the back of my hand in a friendly goodbye gesture and leaves, his footsteps loud in the now-empty bay.

I can’t believe he offered to help like that, especially when I didn’t even ask. Not that I think he’s unhelpful. Now that I consider it, he’s actually done an incredible amount. All the time and effort he’s put into helping me train is ridiculous. Everything we do is tailor-made specifically for me and my goals, and we’ve trained together enough by now that he knows how to strike that balance between pushing me when I need it and backing off when I’m at my limit. I’d be paying out the nose to get that kind of personalized attention at a gym.

And not only that, but now he’s paying for my meals and drinks when we go out and then kissing me...What does it mean? Does it mean anything? Or is it a separate set of coincidences I’m making into a thing?

Curse my overanalytical mind.

It’s probably nothing. I’m being ridiculous. Overthinking things as usual. I mentioned I had a problem and he offered to fix it. I should accept it at face value and move on. Nothing to it.

Then why don’t I fully believe myself?