Hot Seduction

“But if we have no place to keep her...” Stanley’s voice cracked with emotion. “And we bring her back to the humane society...”

“Maybe she’ll be adopted this time,” Cody said.

Stanley shook his head. “She’s too big. Nobody wants a dog that big, they said.” His brown eyes filled with tears.

“She can stay.”

Cody’s body tensed at the sound of the husky, female voice. He braced himself before turning to where Serena had stepped out onto the porch. She was so damn beautiful. Ever since the first moment he’d met her, he’d been having fantasies about her long, thick hair—about tangling his fingers in it, about...

His mind went blank as his gaze focused on her. It was so hot that he shouldn’t have been surprised she was wearing shorts. But he hadn’t pictured her as the type to wear cutoff Daisy Dukes, and he’d pictured her in a lot of different things—and nothing at all—since he’d met her. Her legs were long and tanned or maybe that was just the natural hue of her honey-toned skin. With the cutoffs, she wore a pale pink tank top, probably in deference to the heat. Her hair was down, reaching nearly to her narrow waist.

“Annie can stay?” Stanley asked hopefully.

Cody was surprised the kid had enough wits about him to pose a question. His tongue was tied. But she had that effect on him. She was the first woman he’d met that he hadn’t been able to flirt with.

“She can stay outside and in the enclosed porches,” Serena allowed. “I don’t want her peeing in my house. Or chewing up any of my great-grandmother’s antiques.”

Stanley nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

Ma’am? Cody winced. He was twenty-seven and didn’t like to be called “sir” yet. Serena had to be a few years younger than he was—way too young to be called “ma’am.”

“You should get her some water now,” Serena told Stanley. “With all that hair, she must be overheated.” As she said it, she lifted her own hair from the back of her neck. Her face was flushed; she was hot, too.

So hot...

And sexy...

Nearly tripping over his feet in his anxiousness to obey her—or maybe to please her—Stanley hurried into the house.

Cody could understand wanting to please her. He’d like to try himself. As all the naked images popped into his head, his throat thickened with desire. He cleared it to say, “Thank you.”

Serena nodded.

“What about me?” he asked, even though he knew it was a bad idea. “Can I stay, too?”

Her dark eyes widened in surprise.

He should have asked her for a room weeks ago instead of crashing at the firehouse. But with the arsonist on the loose, he’d thought it was smart to stay close—and there wasn’t any place closer than the house itself. When those hot spots had flared up again with the arsonist’s help, he’d been the first one ready to go.

But the guys wanted him to have a softer bed so he could get more rest. When they were on the job—sometimes for weeks at a time—they got very little sleep.

Another reason he’d decided to crash at the firehouse instead of getting a room here was because of Serena, though. He wasn’t sure how much sleep he would actually get with her so temptingly close.

Her lips parted, but she said nothing—her hesitation obvious. She didn’t seem to want him in her house any more than she wanted the dog.

So he promised her, “I won’t pee in your house or chew up your great-grandmother’s antiques.”

She hesitated another long moment before replying, “Then I guess you can stay.”

* * *

WHAT THE HELL had she been thinking?

Sure, she needed more tenants to be able to show the bank that the boardinghouse could be a profitable business. She’d even hoped that Cody was bringing her another boarder. She hadn’t thought he would be that boarder, though.

Grandma would’ve said it was like letting a fox into the hen house. Of course, she and Mrs. Gulliver were the only hens. And Mrs. Gulliver was eighty-six.

And despite all the things Serena had heard about Cody Mallehan being a shameless womanizer, he hadn’t really even flirted with her. Of course she wasn’t his type. Guys like him loved fun-loving, lighthearted women. She was too serious for him, too stressed thanks to that damn lawsuit. She also didn’t care about makeup and clothes, about dressing to attract men.

Not that she didn’t want a man. But she didn’t want just any man; she wanted one who was as serious as she was—who would stay and help her raise a family someday in this house. That was why she couldn’t lose it.

She had too many hopes and dreams for it—for someday filling it with family, like Grandma had.

No, she definitely wasn’t Cody’s type any more than he was hers. But as she climbed the staircase ahead of him, his gaze was on her ass. She doubted she was just imagining it because it was so palpable she could almost feel it. The elaborate polished oak staircase was extra wide; he could have walked beside her, like a gentleman, but he was taking the opportunity to ogle her instead.

Settling in a boarder was her job, not another tenant’s, or she would have had Stanley show Cody to his room. They would both be on the second floor. Fortunately, her room was not; she lived in the attic, which had been converted to a studio apartment long ago.

As she reached the second-floor landing, she expelled a shaky breath of relief. She was almost there. But a strong hand closed around her wrist, stopping her. Her skin tingled beneath his touch.

“What’s up there?” Cody gestured toward the narrower flight of stairs that led to the third floor.

“My private quarters,” she said. She had no intention of ever letting him up to the small space dominated by her great-grandmother’s old brass bed.

She tugged free of his grasp and headed down the hall toward the room at the end. As Cody followed, she hurried past all the six panel mahogany doors. As she passed an open one, she pointed. “There’s the bathroom. There are two on this floor. One on this side of the stairwell and one on the other side.”

He nodded but he didn’t even glance inside the room—which was good since she still needed to clean it. His gaze remained on her; it was so intense that her hand shook as she reached for the doorknob for his room.

“And this is where you’ll be staying.”

She had put him in the biggest second-floor room, which was also the most masculine with its mahogany trim, dark stained wood floor, and navy blue walls. She stepped back to let him pass her. But he brushed against her anyway, his chest and hip bumping into hers.

Something flared in his green eyes. Or maybe it had already been there—an intensity that unnerved her. As she held out the room key to him, her hand shook so much that she dropped it. He leaned down to pick it up, and his soft hair whispered across her bare legs.

Despite the heat, she shivered. “I should have opened the window,” she murmured and hurried over to it. She needed the air. More than that, she needed the distance from him. But even though it was the biggest bedroom, it wasn’t big enough for her to escape his presence.

She threw up the sash, but no breeze blew in through the window. Not a tree limb or leaf moved in the woods that surrounded the house. She drew in a deep breath and turned back toward Cody.

Now he was leaning over the duffel bag he’d dropped onto the red-and-blue plaid bedspread. His jeans were faded and so worn at the seams that she caught glimpses of blue underwear through the thin material.

Sweat trickled down between her shoulder blades. He was so damn sexy. It wasn’t fair.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured.

He glanced up in surprise. “What are you sorry about? The room is great.”

She was sorry about the air. But since he hadn’t mentioned it, she didn’t either. She gestured toward his duffel bag. “I’m sorry your cabin burned down.”

“You didn’t do it,” he said. His eyes narrowed, but a grin curved up the corners of his mouth. “Unless you’re confessing to being the arsonist...”

She uttered a kind of you-caught-me sigh. “If I was, I’d be pretty stupid letting a fireman move in.” Her decision had been stupid, though, because she was already under enough stress. Now she had to fight her attraction to him, too.

“I’m sorry that you lost everything in that fire,” she clarified.

He chuckled. “I didn’t have much to lose,” he said. “I travel light—because I travel often.”

Was he warning her? He needn’t have bothered. Her friends had already done that. They’d thought he might ask to stay at her boardinghouse when his cabin had burned down.

“Well, I’ll leave you to unpack,” she said.

“I usually don’t bother,” he told her.

Of course he wouldn’t be staying long. So she would have to apply for that loan quickly—before he left. “I’ll be in the office if you need me,” she murmured as she hurried for the door.

She doubted he would need her. So she settled back into her office with a glass of iced tea. She fished an ice cube from the glass and pressed it to her throat. She could almost feel it sizzle against her hot skin. She would like to blame the lack of air-conditioning for why she was so overheated. But she suspected that wasn’t the only reason now—not with Cody Mallehan moving in.

Knuckles rapped against wood, startling her. She dropped the ice cube, which slid down her neck to disappear between her breasts.

She glanced up to find Cody leaning against the frame of the pocket door to her office. Hopefully he was on his way out.

“Want me to get that for you?” he asked, his mouth curving into a wicked grin. Now he was flirting with her?

Had he refrained earlier so that she would let him move in? Serena could still ask him to leave, if it got too uncomfortable—more uncomfortable than the ice cube melting in her cleavage.

Her brain muddled, she could only murmur, “It’s hot...”

Hotter now that he was here. His green eyes twinkled with amusement—and something else—as he studied the wet trail the cube left on the front of her shirt.

“It’s damn hot,” he agreed.

Maybe it was because of the way he was staring—or maybe it was because of the ice cube—but her nipples tightened inside her lacy bra and pushed against the thin material of her tank top.

“I have a repairman coming out to fix the air-conditioning,” she said.

Or she would have the technician come out, as soon as she came up with enough money for the service call and whatever else he might charge to get the old unit functioning again. But she didn’t want Cody to know that; she couldn’t afford to lose a renter, especially now.

And that was why she had to ignore the attraction she felt for him. A man like Cody wouldn’t stay in the home of a woman he’d slept with. He was definitely the love ’em and leave ’em type. That part of the rumors she’d heard was true, she knew—or he wouldn’t be renting a room from her. He’d be living with one of his lovers.

“I didn’t realize the air was out,” he said. And that wicked grin widened.

He was definitely flirting with her. Her pulse quickened. He shouldn’t be flirting.

But then he probably didn’t care if he stayed in her house or not. Eventually the US Forest Service would rebuild his cabin. Or he’d go back to staying in the firehouse where she’d heard he’d been sleeping since the last fire.

Remembering how the flames and smoke had painted the sky red and black over Northern Lakes, she shuddered. The fire had come too close to the house—licking at the trees at the edge of her property.

“I thought you were hot,” he said. “But now you’re shivering.”

She sighed. “I was just thinking about the arsonist—how he could strike again at any time...” Which was another good reason to have a firefighter living in her house.

The flirty sparkle of amusement left his green eyes, leaving them dark and hard. His voice gruff with emotion and determination, he said, “We are going to catch him.”

She nodded. “I know.”

He released a ragged breath. “That’s where I’m heading now. The whole Hotshot team is having a meeting at the firehouse. I just popped in to your office to give you this,” he said. His long strides closed the distance between them in two steps. He dropped a wad of cash on the desk. “This is my rent,” he said. “And the other amount we agreed on...”

For months he had secretly been paying half of Stanley’s room and board. A lot of people talked about Cody—about his skirt-chasing, about his bar-brawling, about his risk-taking—but nobody talked about his generosity. Because they didn’t know.

Only she knew that there was more to Cody than the rumors swirling around Northern Lakes, and that made him even more attractive to her. She glanced down at the cash; there was enough to get the air fixed now, even if the condenser was beyond repair like the serviceman had already warned her.

“Thank you,” she murmured. She should have been relieved, but there was an emptiness inside her. While it was enough money to fix the air-conditioning, it wasn’t enough to satisfy the lawsuit. She needed more if she was going to have any hope of keeping her family heritage.

He leaned over her desk, so close that his face nearly touched hers as he murmured in her ear, “And remember—”

Remember? What was she supposed to remember? With him so close she could barely think.

“—this is between you and me.” His breath caressed the side of her face, making her skin tingle. “Stanley can’t ever know.”

Cody had brought Stanley to her boardinghouse when the kid had turned eighteen and lost his eligibility to stay in foster care. She wasn’t sure how he even knew the kid or why he cared. But he did—obviously a lot.

She shook her head, but he hadn’t moved his. Their mouths nearly touched. She drew in a shaky breath and assured him, “I haven’t told anyone.”

“It’s our little secret then,” he said. The amusement was back, glinting in his green eyes. He didn’t straighten up and move away. Instead he leaned closer.

She could feel the heat of his breath on her lips now. Her lashes fluttered in anticipation of his mouth moving over hers. He was going to kiss her.

But then an alarm rang out. He jerked away from her as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket. He cursed.

“There’s a fire?”

He spared her only a quick nod before turning to rush out the door. She hoped the arsonist hadn’t struck again; the last fire he’d started had been too close.

Hopefully something else had caused a fire. Lightning. Bad wiring. An overheated car.

Or Cody Mallehan.

Because she was pretty sure he’d started a fire inside her. Her fingers trembling, she fished out another ice cube. She could dump the whole glass down her tank top, but she doubted it would cool the desire she felt for her new boarder.

3

CODY HAD PUT OUT one fire with the extinguisher he carried in his truck. But there was another fire he couldn’t put out. The one burning between him and his hot landlady...

If the fire alarm on his phone hadn’t rung, he might have done something really stupid. He might have kissed her. Their mouths had been so close that he’d almost tasted the sugar on her lips from her glass of sweet tea. Remembering the trail the ice cube had taken from her throat, over the swell of her breast to disappear in her cleavage, he groaned.

“What’s the matter with you?” Dawson Hess asked. The dark-haired guy sat next to Cody in the big conference room on the third floor of the firehouse.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“That groan is the first sound I’ve heard you make since you rolled in here late,” Dawson said.

During the meeting Cody had managed to hold in his disappointment that they still had no leads on the arsonist. But that was just about all he remembered of the meeting.

“You’re never quiet,” Wyatt chimed in from the other side of Dawson. His blue gaze held some concern. “What’s wrong?”

Owen James leaned forward from the chairs behind them and asked, “Something’s wrong?”

In addition to being a Hotshot, the former army medic was an emergency medical tech for Northern Lakes during the off-season. Like the rest of them, he’d no doubt been stationed at home again because of the arsonist. So far nobody had been seriously hurt in any of the fires.

But the arsonist was getting more and more dangerous. It would only be a matter of time—unless they stopped him.

Cody shook his head and reassured them all. He forced his usual cocky grin. “Just getting sick of doing all the work around here.”

Concern gone, Wyatt snorted—which Owen echoed.

“Hey, I had to put out a car fire on my way in,” Cody said. “That’s why I was late.”

“That fire was on M87,” Owen said. “What were you doing out there?”

“I’m staying out that way,” Cody replied.

“At the Beaumont boardinghouse?” Wyatt asked.

He nodded.

Wyatt snorted again. “That’s not going to last.”

“Why not?”

“Serena Beaumont isn’t going to put up with you hitting on her,” Wyatt said. “She’s like Fiona used to be.”

“She thinks getting involved with a firefighter is too great a risk because of our dangerous jobs?” As an insurance agent, Fiona O’Brien had statistics to back up her belief. Unfortunately, the wildfires burning out west had added to those statistics when a few more firefighters had lost their lives battling those blazes. The Huron Hotshots had spent a few weeks helping out there, but their greatest threat was at home.

Wyatt shrugged. “Serena is Fiona’s friend. But I don’t know her really well. Since her mom died last year, she’s been busy trying to run that boardinghouse all by herself.”

With the size of the place, Cody could understand how just cleaning it would keep her busy. But cooking and caring for people, too?

That was why he preferred to live alone now that he had a choice. He’d loved his cabin out in the middle of nowhere. Then, he hadn’t had to put up with, or take care of, anyone else. Sure, it had been too quiet sometimes. But that was just because he was used to noise, used to people being around.

It didn’t mean that he hated being alone. Or that he got lonely...

A person could be lonely even living in a house full of people. Was Serena lonely?

Something seemed to have been bothering her earlier. She’d looked upset or sad. But maybe she still missed her mom. Cody wouldn’t know what that might be like. You couldn’t miss what you’d never had.

“So you’re saying she doesn’t have any time to put up with Cody’s flirty bullshit,” Dawson summed up for Wyatt.

But she’d given Cody her time. She hadn’t thrown him out of her office when he’d flirted with her earlier. She hadn’t pulled away when he’d leaned in close.

Her thick lashes had fluttered, and she had closed her big, dark eyes as if anticipating his kiss. His stomach muscles tightened; he’d wanted to kiss her, to taste her...

But it was better that he hadn’t. “I didn’t know that she lost her mom last year.” All he’d known was that she owned a huge house and was damn hot.

Dawson nodded. “Owen and I went out on the call.” If he wasn’t too busy with his assistant superintendent duties, Dawson occasionally helped out at as paramedic.

“She died right in that house,” Owen added with a soft sigh. “We got there as quickly as we could, but we were too late to save her. Serena had tried—unsuccessfully—to resuscitate her until we got there.”

Cody cursed. He remembered that frustration of being unable to save someone. He’d been just a kid when he’d watched a person die for the first time. The boy had been in the same foster home as Cody, but not for long. Nobody had been warned of the five-year-old’s peanut allergy—until it had been too late to save him. The home had been shut down after his death and Cody moved to another one.

“She’s been through a lot,” Owen said sympathetically, as if that EMT call still bothered him.

All of the Hotshots worked in other capacities in the off-season. Wyatt and Braden manned the Northern Lakes firehouse. Cody worked as a US Forest Service ranger and backup for the firehouse. Dawson also worked as a backup firefighter and backup EMT. Owen worked primarily as an EMT and usually ran out of the hospital some forty-five minutes north of Northern Lakes.

Wyatt leaned closer and warned Cody, “So don’t mess with her.”

Cody hated messes and getting involved with his landlady would definitely lead to one. He nodded his agreement, but then that vision of the ice cube sliding down into her cleavage flashed behind his eyes.

“As soon as Avery’s place is rebuilt, you can take my cabin,” Dawson offered.

“You’re moving in with her?” Cody asked. He had never lived with anyone before—at least, not just one person. There had usually been several other kids in those foster homes, especially the group ones he’d lived in when he’d gotten older.

Dawson grinned. “Not that she’ll be home much with her new job.”

After breaking the story of the arsonist attacking Northern Lakes, the reporter had received more attention than the culprit, which had led to an impressive new career opportunity for her.

“Has the arsonist tried to contact her again?” Cody asked.

Dawson’s brow furrowed. “I already answered that question during the meeting.”

“I must have missed that part...” Because he’d been thinking about that damn ice cube with an envy he’d never felt before. Of course, he’d been preoccupied with Serena since he’d brought Stanley out to live with her. For the past few months he’d been having erotic dreams about her. He’d been obsessed with images of her long, silky hair—of only her hair covering the sweet curves of her naked body.

“You were sitting right next to me,” Dawson pointed out. He stared intently at Cody, as if trying to figure out what was going on with him.

He didn’t know himself. While he enjoyed women, he had never let one distract him from his job before. Unnerved, he forced some more cockiness into his voice to cover it up. “You know I don’t listen unless I’m the one talking.”

Wyatt chuckled. “Ain’t that the truth.”

Dawson didn’t seem to buy the explanation as easily. But he answered Cody’s question. “No, the arsonist hasn’t contacted her.” He sounded relieved.

But they could have used another lead. Any lead...

“This must be killing you,” Ethan Sommerly commented as he dropped onto the chair next to Owen and right behind Cody.

Dawson turned fully around and said, “We all want the arsonist caught.”

“I know that,” Ethan said. “I was talking about Mallehan having to stick around Northern Lakes in case the arsonist decides to strike again.” His huge hand grabbed Cody’s shoulder. “It has to be killing you to stay in one place.”

Ethan was a ranger, too—in a vast national forest in the upper peninsula. He actually enjoyed living in the middle of nowhere and nothing, which Cody had often needled him about. With his bushy beard and long hair, the guy looked like a mountain man.

Cody grinned and faked a shudder. “You know me.”

Everybody thought they did. And Cody would have agreed with them until now. Now—with thoughts of a woman distracting him from the job that meant everything to him—he wasn’t even sure he knew himself.

* * *

“DO YOU HAVE a strong lock for your bedroom door?” Serena’s insurance agent asked.

“I have dead bolts on all the doors,” Serena replied. “You know that. I thought you were already giving me a discount.” Not that she used them... She didn’t want to lock out a boarder who might have forgotten his key.

“I’m not talking about protecting the house,” Fiona O’Brien explained. “I’m worried about you protecting yourself.”

No matter how much she needed money for the house upkeep and property taxes, Serena had never risked her own safety or the other tenants’ safety by renting to someone unsavory.

“I do background checks on all the boarders,” she said. When she’d rented to Stanley, she had also done background checks on Cody, since he was paying most of Stanley’s rent. In addition to no criminal record, he had excellent credit. “I’m safe here.”