A Firefighter In Her Stocking

He was standing so close to her now that he was looking straight down into her eyes, was tempted to remove her glasses so he could more fully see into their depths.

“I suppose a really pessimistic, prudish person might see mutual pleasure that way.” He egged her on, liking the spark his words elicited.

“And who are you? Mr. Optimism? Going around spreading happiness and cheer?” she scoffed with an exaggerated eye roll. “More like spreading something else with how many different women I’ve seen come out of your apartment.”

His lips twitched. “You keeping tabs?”

“Hardly, but I’m not blind.”

Arguable with those ugly glasses she wore.

“For the record, I’m not spreading anything.” He wanted the record straight. He wouldn’t let himself delve into why it mattered, but he needed her to know the truth. “I’m a safety kind of guy. Always.”

“Who runs into burning buildings when everyone else is running out? Yeah, try selling me another one.”

“Someone has to do it.”

Her chin tilted upward and her gaze didn’t waver behind the thick glasses. “Good thing there’s you.”

“Yeah, good thing.”

* * *

A bone-weary Sarah ninja-ed down the hallway and stealthily let herself into her apartment, pausing in her open doorway to glance at Jude’s closed door.

So much had happened since that morning when he’d been standing in that doorway.

He’d been flirting with her at the hospital.

She should have checked him for hypoxemia-induced psychosis related to smoke inhalation.

Because no way was he in his right mind.

Or maybe it was her who wasn’t in her right mind.

Maybe she’d accidentally inhaled some anesthesia or hallucinogenic medication that was messing with her head.

Something was messing with her head.

More like someone.

Because Jude’s teasing and hot looks refused to leave her mind even long after he’d left the hospital.

For the rest of her shift and an hour into the next when she’d stayed to help catch up the overload of patients, she’d battled with the facts that Jude was a womanizer, an incurable flirt, heroic when he’d rushed into a burning building to save Keeley, and sweet when he’d waited at the hospital.

Heroic. Sweet. Not adjectives she’d have ever thought she’d attach to the incorrigible towel-wearing man from that morning.

Unable to stop herself, she glanced toward his closed apartment door again. Was he home?

Should she check on him, make sure he was all right, that the smoke truly hadn’t gotten to him, that he’d rehydrated well?

Then again, he might not be alone and the absolute last thing she wanted was to see Jude Davenport with another woman twice in the same day.

Especially after he’d so blatantly flirted with her.

Especially after, despite her best attempts not to, she’d so blatantly liked his flirting.

So, her neighbor had a few redeeming qualities.

That didn’t mean they should become friends or have anything to do with one another.

They shouldn’t.

Best thing she could do was forget today had even happened and stay far, far away from the man at all costs.

Determined that she was going to do exactly that, Sarah quietly closed her apartment door.

She was going to shower, eat whatever she could find and quickly prepare, sleep, and not think about her neighbor.

* * *

After he’d left the hospital, Jude had returned to the fire hall, showered, filled out appropriate paperwork, then come home to make himself something to eat.

He’d had plans with friends, but had opted to cancel, deciding he’d rather have a simple meal at home, a glass of wine, relax, and enjoy his apartment’s amazing view of the city he loved so much.

Jude enjoyed cooking, enjoyed throwing ingredients together that pleased his senses and filled his stomach. He’d never been formally trained, but was pretty good. Even Nina had thought so.

Nina. She’d snuck into his thoughts too often today. Why?

Then again, thinking he could go to the hospital where Charles worked and not think of his cousin’s late wife was foolish. After all, hadn’t Jude introduced the woman he had been in love with to his cousin and she’d fallen head over heels for the emergency room doctor instead?

That Nina had fallen for Charles, rather than Jude, had never sat well, had ruined his friendship with Nina and left him on edge around his cousin. That feeling hadn’t gone away after Nina and Charles had married. If anything, it had gotten worse.

Nina trying to repair the damage to their friendship hadn’t helped. Feeling betrayed, angry, Jude had refused to have anything to do with her. They’d fought and never spoken again.

Nina’s heartbreaking death due to complications from giving birth to twins had left an inconsolable hole in Jude’s heart that bled anew every time he saw Charles so he avoided him. Grief, guilt, anger, so many emotions ran rampant when his past collided with the present. Thankfully, he’d not bumped into his cousin during the hours he’d been at the hospital waiting on news of Keeley.

Which brought his mind back to who he had bumped into at the hospital.

His uptight neighbor.

Confusing, plain Jane Sarah Grayson who wasn’t really so plain beneath her attempts to appear to be.

An emergency room doctor.

Like Charles.

Pulling the baking dish out of his oven with a potholder, Jude lifted the lid and made a small slice into the chicken. Almost done. Another fifteen minutes or so and it would be perfect.

Restless from thoughts of Nina, of his intriguing neighbor, from life, Jude walked into his living room, meaning to stand at his floor-to-ceiling glass windows to stare out at the New York City skyline.

Instead, he frowned and strained to figure out what the noise was that he could barely make out.

Then it hit him.

A smoke alarm was going off in the unit next to his.

Sarah’s apartment.

CHAPTER FOUR

HOW COULD AN intelligent woman who could save lives not cook a simple piece of toast without burning it?

Okay, Sarah didn’t usually burn her food, but this wasn’t the first time. But she didn’t recall ever doing so to the point that her alarm went crazy.

How did she get the thing to go off?

Pulling the plug on the toaster oven, she closed the door, rushed to where the alarm blared over the doorway. The baggy sleeve of her way oversized sweatshirt flopped as she fanned a dishtowel back and forth, hoping it would clear the smoke and shut the thing up.

“Stop that,” she ordered the shrill bell, dancing around beneath it as she waved the towel with gusto and thought about how much she detested cooking. Almost as much as she detested this horrible alarm. “Stop. Stop. Stop.”

Was she going to have to call Maintenance? Or maybe they just automatically showed up when one of the apartment’s smoke alarms went off?

A loud knock pounded at her apartment door.

Well, that answered that. Maintenance had just shown up.

Which was a good thing since her fanning wasn’t working.

Only when, flustered, she flung her front door open, Maintenance wasn’t who stood there.

The man she’d been thinking about not thinking about stood there, wearing jeans, a plain white V-necked T-shirt, and nothing on his feet.

Good grief. He’d metamorphosed back into a sexy beast.

Not that he hadn’t been sexy at the hospital.

Clearly, he had, because he’d twitterpated her to the point of burning her toast and filling her kitchen with smoke.

His blue gaze raked over her, obviously satisfying any doubts as to whether or not she was okay, and then he grinned. “Miss me?”

Pretending all was fine, that there wasn’t a loud shrill screaming behind her, she wrinkled her nose at him, wishing she had on her glasses to shield herself from his probing gaze. “No.”

Why on earth would he think she had? Before that morning, they’d never even made eye contact, much less spoken to each other.

His eyes danced with humor. “You sure about that?”

Wishing the stupid ear-piercing alarm would go silent so it would quit rattling her brain, she lifted her chin and stared straight into his eyes, thinking it very unfair that a man had his stunning eyes and long lashes. “Positive. Go away.”

He laughed. “That’s not the sound of your smoke alarm beckoning your friendly neighborhood firefighter your way?”

Oh. That’s what he’d meant?

“No.” If she looked sure enough, haughty enough, despite the obvious alarm blasting in the background, he’d take the hint and leave, right?

Nope.

Looking way too comfortable in his perfectly fitting jeans and just right chest-hugging T-shirt, he arched a thick masculine brow.

“Yes,” she corrected, because, really, it wasn’t as if he didn’t recognize that annoying sound. Pretending otherwise just made her look foolish. “It is my smoke alarm, but it’s not supposed to beckon you. Go home.”

He shrugged as if it was no big deal, then asked, “You don’t want me to turn off your alarm?”

“Could you, please?” she heard herself say, moving aside to let him into her apartment as if his words had been some secret magic phrase to grant entrance. “I can’t get the thing to shut up.”

His lips twitched. “If you ask nicely.”

What? Her mouth fell open. Was he kidding her? But before she could come back with some retort, he came into her apartment and was following the smoke signals and noise to her kitchen.

When her gaze dropped to his jeans-clad butt that could sell millions of pairs of pants if someone would stick an ad up on a Times Square billboard, Sarah blamed the noise for interfering with her brain waves. No way would she have otherwise visually ogled the man’s bottom, lit-up-billboard-worthy or not.

Within seconds, he’d pulled over a chair and climbed onto it. Looking like some sexy god up on his perch, he reset her smoke alarm.

Despite how much he annoyed her, the silence had her wanting to wrap her arms around him in gratitude.

“Bless you!” she praised. “That thing was driving me crazy.”

Turning, he stepped down from the chair and carried it back to where he’d grabbed it from. “No problem.”

“How did you know?”

Facing her, hands on his narrow hips, he grinned. “Told you. I succumbed to the sound of your mating call.”

She shook her head. Maybe in denial of his claim. Maybe in denial of memories of those hips wrapped in a towel and nothing more. Maybe in denial of the fact that for the first time in her life she was an ogler. She didn’t like it. Not one bit.

Mating call. As if.

“I didn’t lure you here,” she choked out of her dry mouth. Seriously, her vocal cords felt like they’d been put through a dehydration machine.

His amusement apparent, he cocked a brow. “Really? You expect me to believe your smoke alarm accidentally set itself off on the same day you learned I’m a firefighter?”

It did sound fairly incredible.

“Admit it,” he continued, his eyes dancing with mischief. “You wanted to see me and issued an invitation you knew I wouldn’t refuse.”

“I...” She grimaced. He made a good point. One that made any argument she issued lack credibility, even though she hadn’t intentionally set off her smoke alarm. Neither had she wanted to see him.

Quite the opposite.

She’d seen him too much that day already.

Seen and liked. Even the dirty, worn-out endearing hospital version. Unfortunately.

Wincing, he took in the smoke still escaping from her toaster oven. “You didn’t have to really set fire to anything, Sarah. A simple knock on my door and a verbal invitation would have done.” He shrugged. “Or, if you wanted something more dramatic, a match next to that sensitive baby there would have had it screaming for me.”

“I didn’t...” She paused, flustered by his teasing, by how her heart pounded that he was there, inside her apartment, talking directly to her, that he was using the teasing flirty tone as he had at the hospital.

“Need rescuing?” He finished her sentence for her. He walked over to the toaster oven, opened the door, grimaced at the burned mess inside. “Sure you did. In more ways than one. What was that?”

“Toast.”

His eyes widened. “That was toast?”

At his question, something inside Sarah snapped.

“Yes, it was. Toast. Toast that was going to be my dinner, because I was hungry and tired and... Don’t you judge me...you...you...” She searched for a derogatory name, sure there were thousands just on the tip of her tongue. Unfortunately, none sprang forth.

That’s when the day’s events took their toll and she did something totally out of character.

She watered up and fought tears.

Uh-uh. No way.

She was not going to cry in front of him.

Not now. Not ever.

She was not going to cry period.

She did not cry and most certainly if she ever did it wouldn’t be over burnt toast.

“Sarah?” His tone was no longer teasing, but showed concern. “Are you okay?”

Embarrassed, exhausted, ready to call it a night, she took a deep breath. “I’m tired and hungry and my dinner is chunks of charcoal and you annoy me. No big deal.”

He eyed her way too closely for comfort.

“You were really going to have toast for dinner?” he asked, ignoring the rest of her comment.

“I was going to spread hummus on it,” she defended. She’d showered, thrown on the baggy sweats, and had planned to eat a quick bite and crash. She did the same thing quite frequently on the days she worked the emergency room and got held up beyond her normal twelve-hour shift.

His nose curled again. “Hummus and toast. No, thank you.”

“For your information, I like hummus and toast.”

He didn’t look convinced. “Your hummus and toast must be better than any I’ve ever had.”

“It’s good. Stick around and you can taste for yourself.” Sarah heard herself say the words, but had no clue where they came from. Not in a million years would she invite her neighbor who started his days with a different woman every day of the week to stay for dinner.

Good grief. What would he think?

He had come to turn off her alarm, so she couldn’t really retract her invitation, could she? Not without seeming ungrateful and rude.

“Tempting,” he ventured, not sounding anything of the sort. “But I have a better offer.”

Of course he did. Women probably lined up to cook gourmet meals for him. And she’d heard first-hand that morning what else they offered.

“Why don’t you come to my place and let me cook for you?”

Surprised, she opened her mouth to refuse, but he continued speaking before she could.

“Before you say no, the food is already in the oven, the wine is chilled, and I have a view that’s even more amazing than yours.”

He’d noticed her view? He had food in the oven? Why did he have wine chilling?

Then it hit her.

“I pulled you away from company, didn’t I?”

He frowned. “No. Why would you think that?”

Because his apartment door was like a model runway exit, always with some beautiful woman walking through it.

But his look said he’d been alone.

“You’re cooking for just yourself?”

“I like to eat.”

Wondering at his apartment view, at what he’d cooked and how edible it was, she eyed him suspiciously. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch. Just offering to share my dinner.” He glanced toward the burned remains of her toast. “And looking out for my own interests of having an uninterrupted meal, of course. I don’t want you attempting more toast and setting your alarm off again.”

“Ha-ha. Real funny. The only reason my toast caught fire is because I was so tired.” And had been distracted by thoughts of him, but she wasn’t telling him that part.

“Fine. You can take a cat nap on my sofa while I finish up dinner.”

As if.

“What are you serving?” she ventured out of curiosity, but with no intention of even entertaining the possibility of actually agreeing to have dinner with him. “I might prefer burnt toast.”

He laughed and shook his head. “You won’t. We’re having Chicken Marsala served on a bed of angel-hair pasta, steamed asparagus with a light butter sauce, and a red wine because I prefer red to white.”

Of course he did. Red stood for passion and white was just bland, right? Jude was a red kind of guy.

She blinked. “Are you for real?”

“You could pinch me and find out.”

His eyes twinkled with that sparkle that had her heart doing funny floppy things in her chest.

“You wish.”

* * *

Jude did wish.

As crazy as the thought was, he wanted Sarah to pinch him.

Not to see if he was real, but to wake him up because he was moving in some type of haze.

What was he thinking, inviting her to dinner? Not about how beautiful she was without her thick glasses blocking her face.

She was, but he was being a good neighbor.

That was it.

He wasn’t inviting her to his place for anything more.

Even if she did have gorgeous eyes, amazing cheekbones, and full, pink, kissable lips.

“Is that how you lure women to your apartment? With promises of feeding them?”

“Something like that,” he answered, wondering why she thought the worst of him when it came to women.

Maybe through her eyes, there were too many women, and maybe, if he was honest, he’d admit to it as well.

But he never deceived any of them or made promises he had no intention of keeping. They all knew the score. He was a one-night-stand kind of guy and the women he invited to his apartment came for one reason.

It wasn’t so Jude could cook for them.

Sarah wasn’t like the women he brought to his apartment for sex.

“I’m not interested in being lured to your apartment.”

Suddenly feeling weary, restless, and as if maybe Sarah was right not to want to come to his apartment, he sighed. “I’m inviting you to my apartment to eat dinner.” He put emphasis on the word. “You’re tired. I’m tired. We’ve both had a long day. I want a good meal, to relax, and a good night’s rest, Sarah. Nothing more. My invitation to feed you is with no strings attached and no hidden motives to trick you into my bed.”

He’d never had any need to trick women into his bed. There was always one ready and willing to fill the empty spot in his life.

Tonight he’d just wanted to be alone.

Which didn’t quite jibe with his burning desire for Sarah to say yes.

“Because I’m not your type?” she questioned, confirming his earlier thoughts.

“You’re not my type.” He meant to say more, to elaborate on the reasons why, to elaborate on the fact that she intrigued him and he’d like to let down her hair, see her smile, hear her laughter so he’d know what it sounded like, but her sigh of relief had him holding his tongue.

“Fine.” She didn’t sound or look happy about agreeing so the smile and laughter might not be forthcoming anytime soon. “In that case, I’ll eat with you, but I’m eating, checking out this view you bragged about, and then I’m leaving, capisce?”

* * *

Sarah had bought her beloved apartment for three main reasons. Its walking distance proximity to Manhattan Mercy, it fitting within her budget, barely, and the spectacular view.

Just like the man, Jude’s view really did blow her away.

As did his apartment.

At some point, someone had taken two, maybe three, apartments and converted them into one luxurious one. His living room dwarfed hers, as did the floor-to-ceiling views of the twinkling New York City nightlife. Just wow.

Forget needing food. She’d just sit here, sip on the glass of wine he’d given her to keep her occupied while he finished up their meal, stare out at the skyline, and soak up the energy of the busy city she adored, to revive her exhausted soul.

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