Hot Seduction

He had been gone for hours. How long had the Hotshots meeting been? Or had the fire call kept him occupied?

Or a woman?

A pang of jealousy struck her heart. But she drew in a breath and reminded herself his seeing someone else would be for the best. She needed Cody’s money more than his fleeting attention.

“You have to stay strong,” Fiona said. “Don’t let him melt you.”

“Him?” she asked. “I was talking about the broken air conditioner.”

“Better the AC be broken than your heart,” Fiona warned her.

Her heart was breaking, but the lawsuit—not a man—was the cause. However, she hadn’t mentioned the lawsuit to her friends. There was nothing they could do to help her. Neither of the women had the kind of money she needed.

“What are you talking about?” she asked Fiona.

“Cody Mallehan,” Fiona said. “Wyatt told me he’s moved in here.”

“Is that why you two stopped in to visit?” She’d been happy to see her friends for a few reasons. She missed them. She was usually so busy with the house and her boarders that she didn’t get to see them as much as she liked. She’d also welcomed the distraction from her worries about the house and from her preoccupation with her new boarder.

“You don’t get to town much,” Tammy said.

She didn’t get to town, but the town seemed to come to her—with the gossip her boarders and her friends brought back to her. A smile pulled up the corners of her mouth. “You’ve mentioned him to me before,” she reminded them. “And even if you hadn’t, you don’t think I could figure out for myself what a womanizer he is?”

Fiona groaned. “He already hit on you.”

Tammy snorted. “Of course, he hit on her. He’s Cody. He hits on you and Avery all the time—even though you’re with his friends.”

“He does that just to irritate Wyatt and Dawson,” Fiona said.

“He does it because he can’t help but flirt with any female with a pulse,” Tammy said.

Tammy would understand that behavior; she had a reputation of being quite the flirt herself. Serena suspected this was because of Tammy’s awkward teens. Now that she’d lost the weight and cleared up her complexion, their brunette friend enjoyed male attention. But with Tammy it was mostly just flirting. Apparently Cody did more than just flirt.

Serena chuckled. “So you’re saying I shouldn’t take his attention personally? He’s going to hit on Mrs. Gulliver too? She is pretty cute.”

Tammy smiled. “Don’t you love the pink streaks I put in her hair?”

“She loves them, too,” Serena assured the stylist. “She’s been talking about adding some purple ones.”

Tammy clapped her hands together. “That’s great. She’s eighty-six and open to change. When are you going to let me change your hair?”

Serena shrugged. “I don’t have time.”

But she actually kept it long and straight, because it reminded her of how her mother always wore her hair.

“Exactly,” Tammy said. “You’re too busy to deal with all that hair. Let me cut it off for you.”

“Hell no!” a deep voice exclaimed. Cody rushed into the kitchen as if ready to throw himself between Serena and a pair of scissors. “That would be a crime.”

Wyatt sauntered in behind his friend. “You’re a firefighter, not a cop,” he reminded Cody. Then he pulled his fiancée into his arms and planted a big kiss on her—as if he hadn’t seen her in days, instead of hours.

Serena felt that pang of jealousy again; she was envious of her friend. She wanted that kind of love—that kind of connection.

Cody was here. Staying in the same house. And he apparently liked her hair. But he wasn’t looking for love. Even without her friends’ warnings, she would have recognized that.

“Cutting hair is not a crime,” Tammy said.

“Cutting her hair would be,” he insisted. And he reached out as if to finger one of the long strands. But he caught himself and pulled his hand back to his side.

Serena’s face heated with embarrassment that she and her hair had become the topic of conversation. “What I decide to do about my hair is unimportant,” she said. “Have you learned anything more about the arsonist?”

Hopefully they’d caught him. She couldn’t get over how close she had come to losing her home in the last big fire. She gazed around the kitchen at the cabinets she and Mama had stripped and re-stained a rich chocolate color, several shades lighter than the oak floor they’d also refinished. There was no part of the house—structure, contents or residents—that Serena and her mother hadn’t cared for.

“Yes,” Fiona chimed in, “do you have any leads yet?”

Wyatt sighed and shook his head.

And Cody clenched his jaw so tightly a muscle twitched in his cheek. They were clearly troubled that they hadn’t caught the guy yet.

Serena’s nurturing instincts—inherited from Mama—kicked in and she turned toward the refrigerator. “I saved you some dinner,” she said. “There’s enough for everyone.” She pulled out the fried chicken and potato salad she’d made earlier.

Fiona groaned. “If I didn’t have an appointment to try on wedding gowns, I’d take you up on that offer. But I need to watch what I’m eating.”

“No, you don’t,” Wyatt said as his hand slid over the curve of his fiancée’s hip. “You’re perfect just as you are.”

The envy kicked in again. But she couldn’t be jealous of her friend. Fiona deserved her happiness.

Tammy emitted a wistful sigh. “You two make me sick.” It was clear she wanted what they had, too.

Cody was the only one who didn’t seem envious. His focus was on the chicken instead. He pulled a leg from the bowl she’d set on the counter. But he looked at her as he bit through the crispy coating. Then he moaned with pleasure.

That moan had her stomach muscles clenching in reaction.

“I can heat it up,” she offered.

He shook his head. “It’s perfect just as it is.”

Somehow she didn’t think they were talking about the chicken anymore. But before he could clarify, other boarders entered the kitchen. Mr. Stehouwer hobbled into the room with his walker. With a big grin, he greeted all the young people. Stanley bounded in with Annie—both bustling with energy.

She was going to have a time keeping that dog out of the house. But she loved the kitchen being as full of people as it had been when her grandmother had been alive, when she’d had so much family living there.

She wanted to fill it with family again. She had to find a way to hang on to the house.

She wasn’t going to find the answer in the wicked glint in Cody’s green eyes. Even though the rent he paid for himself and for Stanley would fix the air-conditioning unit, it wasn’t enough. She had to find a way to pay off that lawsuit and keep her family legacy.

4

FOR THE PAST HOUR Cody had watched Serena charm and entertain everyone in her home. Everyone but him. Besides feeding him leftovers, she had pretty much ignored him. He wasn’t used to women ignoring him unless they had fallen for one of his friends instead. But other women—single women—went out of their way to flirt with him and get his attention. Not that he gave them much.

During his couple of years as a Hotshot, he’d learned that significant others didn’t last in this profession. The divorce rate was high among Hotshots because of all the time they spent away from home. So there was no point in his getting involved with anyone. He had to stay single.

Maybe Serena wasn’t single. Sure, she wasn’t wearing a ring, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t involved with someone. But hadn’t Wyatt said something about her being too busy with the boardinghouse to socialize much? Had he been talking about her friendships or romantic relationships?

Cody was curious about her. More than he should be. Sure, Dawson had offered Cody his place. But the US Forest Service cabin didn’t come with the fried chicken he’d just eaten. Or the creamy potato salad or homemade rolls.

Alone now in one of the second-floor bathrooms, he pulled off his shirt and patted his stomach. He had eaten too much. But he was still hungry. Not for food, but for the woman who’d cooked it.

She was beautiful—even more so when she had been so animated with her other boarders and guests. She’d joked and laughed and she’d even flirted a little bit—with everyone but him. He’d gotten a little irritated then, maybe even jealous.

No. He wasn’t the jealous type. That was probably just indigestion from overeating. Although he worked out as strenuously as the other guys on the team, he wasn’t as careful about what he ate. That might have to change if he lived with Serena for very long. He reached for the button on his jeans and pulled it free. His jeans were tight—not because of what he’d eaten, but because he couldn’t stop thinking about Serena.

About that ice cube sliding down her throat to disappear between her full breasts. About what she would look like wearing nothing at all.

His cock was hard and aching for release. Maybe he should have gone into town to find someone who could relieve some of the tension in his body. But, just like thinking about Serena, that also would have been a mistake.

He pulled aside the lacy curtain and vinyl liner. Then he twisted the faucet to cold. If he wanted to sleep, he’d probably have to take a cold shower, so thoughts of her long curtain of black hair didn’t keep him awake.

With the water still running cold, he stepped inside the tub and pulled the curtain closed. But the porcelain was slippery, ridiculously slippery, almost as if... His foot flew across the slick surface and sent him tumbling. His head struck the tile wall. Black spots obscured his vision and something dripped into his eye. It was too thick and sticky to be water.

He was bleeding. He reached up to touch his head, but his limbs were tangled beneath him in the slick tub. As if...as if it was covered in oil. He struggled to move, but his vision blurred more until he couldn’t see at all. And consciousness slipped away.

* * *

SERENA HAD JUST undressed when she heard the crash. The sound came from the second floor.

But she heard no shout. No movement at all. All she heard was water running.

She pulled on a thin robe and then hurried down the stairwell. Mr. Tremont had left that morning with an overnight bag and Stanley had taken Annie for a walk, so there was no one else on the second floor. Except for Cody.

Her pulse quickened, but her footsteps slowed as she approached the door to the bathroom. She hesitated a long moment before lifting her hand to knock. She couldn’t just walk in on him in the shower.

After that crash she’d heard, she had to make certain that he was all right, though. It was her responsibility as the landlady.

So she knocked again. Louder.

Still no reply.

“Hello?” she called out. “Are you okay?”

No one answered her. Had he fallen and gotten hurt?

“Cody?” she called his name. But she didn’t expect a reply now. She gripped the knob and easily turned it. The door was unlocked. She drew in a deep breath and pushed open the door.

Water sprayed out of the showerhead, flying around the room and across the floor. The rod had been knocked down, the curtain and liner tangled beneath the naked body lying in the tub.

She gasped and hurried forward, but her bare feet slipped on the wet floor. She caught herself on the edge of the tub, so that she didn’t fall on top of him. Hand shaking, she turned off the water, which was running cold.

“Cody!”

He didn’t move. And blood streaked down his handsome face from a cut on his forehead. Calling upon the nursing training she hadn’t quite completed, Serena reached for his wrist and closed her fingers lightly around it. His skin was cold, but his pulse beat steadily beneath her fingers. His chest—so muscular with only a light dusting of golden hair—rose and fell as he breathed. That was good.

He didn’t need CPR. Then his pulse increased—pounding faster and harder. She glanced at his face to find his green-eyed gaze focused on her.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “What happened?” This was definitely no trick to get her inside the bathroom while he was naked. He was hurt. He was bleeding and his eyes looked dazed.

He just stared at her as if he couldn’t hear. Or couldn’t understand.

“I’m going to call 911,” she said. He needed a doctor. He obviously had a head injury—a concussion or worse. But when she started to move away, he caught her, his hand wrapping tightly around her wrist.

He hadn’t lost his strength, despite being hurt. And the cut and swelling bump on his head didn’t detract from his good looks.

He was so handsome it really wasn’t fair. His blond hair was slick against his head and nearly as dark as the shadow forming on his strong jaw. And his body...

Her mouth dried, and she struggled to swallow the lump of desire filling her throat. He was masculine perfection—every muscle defined in his arms and in his chest and down the rippling washboard of his abdomen. Her gaze dropped lower to his long cock. As she watched, it began to grow even longer as it swelled and hardened.

But he was the one who murmured, “You’re so damn beautiful.”

She was surprised that he could see her at all. He’d obviously been knocked out cold when he’d fallen.

“You need medical attention,” she said as she tried to tug her wrist free.

But he held on tightly, pulling her down so that she dropped to her knees beside the tub. Then he murmured, “I need your attention.”

“Cody,” she said in protest.

But he moved his other hand into her hair, pulling her head down. And his mouth covered hers. He kissed her with a passion she’d never experienced before.

His lips glided across hers. Then his tongue slipped out, swiping across her bottom lip, tasting her.

She gasped at the delicious sensation. His teeth replaced his tongue as he nipped gently on her bottom lip.

A moan rumbled in her throat. She wanted this—this physical contact. She needed it. It had been so long...

With the house and the lawsuit, she hadn’t had any time for dating. But maybe she didn’t need to date. Maybe she only needed a physical release. Cody could give her that. But then what would happen when he got bored? She would probably lose him and maybe even Stanley as boarders.

Men like Cody Mallehan always got bored.

Unfortunately they were never boring. His kiss ignited a new excitement in her. Her heart raced. Her skin tingled. She wanted him.

His fingers tangled in her hair as he held her head still for his kiss. And he kept kissing her—moving his lips across hers while teasing her with the tip of his tongue.

Just his kiss had her trembling as desire overwhelmed her. Passion heated her blood, had her breasts swelling, her nipples tightening. She felt the pull from their sensitive tips to her core.

One of his hands moved from her hair. His fingers trailed down the side of her neck and then lower—inside the opening of her robe.

“I’ve been so jealous,” he murmured.

“What?” There was no one in her life for him to envy.

His fingers slid down between her breasts. “I’ve been so jealous...of that damn ice cube.”

She shivered as sensations raced through her.

“The ice cube was colder than my touch,” he said, misinterpreting the cause of her shiver.

She was beyond hot for him. But his fingers were cold. And she remembered that he’d been lying under the almost icy spray of water. She reached out and touched the bump on his head. The blood was no longer flowing, but it continued to trickle from the cut.

“You might need stitches,” she said, “and a CT scan.” She’d taken enough nursing courses to know the consequences of a serious concussion. He could develop a bleed and swelling on the brain.

“I need you.” He moved in the tub, as if trying to get out, but he slipped again. “What the hell...”

“Don’t,” she said. “You shouldn’t try to move. You might have broken a bone.”

“It’s not broken,” he said.

She glanced down at his erection. And a wistful gasp escaped from her lips. He was so big. So hard...

She wanted to touch him. “You’re hurt,” she reminded them both.

He groaned. “I’m hurting...”

“Let me call for help—”

But he had her wrist again. When he tugged on it, though, he slipped and inadvertently jerked Serena into the bathtub with him. She tumbled down on top of his naked body. Her silky robe and her skin slid over his.

Her pulse raced. She gripped his arms, trying to steady herself to get up, but instead of pushing away, she held on to him. “Cody...”

He groaned again and touched his fingers to the bump on his head. He was hurting. Really hurting.

And she was thinking only of how amazing his body felt against hers. His cock pushed against her hip, pulsing like her heartbeat. She wanted to touch it, taste it...

But she couldn’t act on her desire—for so many reasons. She reached for the tub instead of him, trying to use the porcelain for leverage. But her hand slipped. The surface wasn’t just slick from the water. There was something on it—something oily.

She understood now why Cody had fallen. He could have been killed.

5

HIS BODY ACHED with desire. Cody had never wanted anyone more than he wanted Serena Beaumont. His head ached, too. Actually it pounded. He grimaced at the pain and tried to pry open his eyes. The light was so bright, though, that he groaned. Then a dark shadow, leaning over him, mercifully blocked the light.

“Serena,” he murmured.

The shadow chuckled—a deep, masculine-sounding chuckle. It definitely wasn’t Serena leaning over his naked body.

Cody shifted against the bathroom floor. His butt slid over the wet porcelain tiles, producing a squeaking noise.

The chuckle turned into a loud, echoing laugh. “Jeez, Cody...”

He recognized that voice, and heat rushed to his face.

“Owen, what the hell are you doing here?” he asked. The last thing he remembered was stepping into the shower. How had he wound up on the floor? The only images that flashed through his mind were of Serena, in a thin robe.

Her nipples had pushed against the silky fabric, and then the robe had parted, revealing honey-toned curves...

Was that just a dream, like all the others he’d had about her since they’d first met months ago? But her skin and lips had felt so real.

It was almost as if he could taste her still, the sweetness of her mouth.

A light flashed in his eyes—just a small beam, but it felt like it was shining through his pupil and piercing his brain. “Damn it! Damn it!” He batted at the flashlight. “Shut it off!”

“I am trying to check you out,” Owen said.

Since Cody was sprawled naked across the bathroom floor, it shouldn’t have been too difficult. At least he wasn’t hard anymore—not now that he’d realized it was Owen leaning over him and not Serena.

Where was Serena? He peered around the white-and-blue bathroom, but he and Owen were alone. Had she ever been in there?

“Who called you?”

Had Stanley found him? That poor kid.

“Your landlady,” Owen said. “You kept murmuring her name.”

“Serena found me?” he asked. So he hadn’t imagined it. She had been there while he was naked. “And she called you?” She knew Wyatt because she was friends with Fiona. But Owen?

“She called 911,” Owen replied. “Remember, I’m a paramedic, too?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know that,” Cody said. Fortunately Dawson wasn’t working with him tonight; the assistant superintendent was too busy helping Zimmer try to catch the arsonist to go out on medical calls.

Hell, maybe Dawson was in the room too, for all Cody knew. His eyesight was fuzzy, making it hard for him to focus visually and mentally. Owen was still leaning over him with that damn light. The guy was so big—broad-shouldered and tall—he could have been blocking Dawson from Cody’s blurry vision.

“What the hell happened?” he asked.

“Don’t you remember?” Owen asked, and there was concern in his deep voice and blue eyes. He was older than Cody—not just in years but experience. Cody couldn’t imagine what Owen had seen overseas, but the guy had come back with scars—one was visible, running down the left side of his face. He suspected there were more.

Cody shook his head and flinched as pain reverberated throughout his skull. His head was pounding so badly that he was surprised he could remember anything—even his own name. Well, the name the young couple had given him after they’d adopted Baby John Doe.

The last thing he remembered was turning on the water to cold because of her.

“You must have slipped and fallen,” Owen surmised.

He fought through the pain to make a cocky reply. “You think?”

“You don’t remember.”

“No.” But then he recalled the porcelain had been so slippery. Why?

“Where are your clothes?” Owen asked.

“Clothes?” he repeated. He was still struggling to focus. Where had he left them?

“Some of the nurses have probably already seen you naked, but you should still get dressed before I take you in,” Owen said.

“In where?”

“To the hospital,” his friend patiently replied.

He was once again glad Serena hadn’t called Wyatt or Dawson. He doubted either of them would have been nearly as patient with Cody’s befuddled mind.

“Why would I go to the hospital?” he asked as he tried to remember how he’d wound up on the bathroom floor. Had he fallen out of the tub?

Serena wouldn’t have been strong enough to move him. It must have been Owen; the guy was huge. How long had Cody been unconscious?

“You need to have a CT,” Owen said. “I think you have a concussion.”

That would explain the headache and memory lapse. But what about his fantasies about Serena? He’d had those long before he’d ever hit his head. What was wrong with him that he couldn’t get the black-haired woman off his mind?

* * *

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