Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

C olson

I scoffed. “I was going to yell at you not to use all the hot water.”

Shit, I couldn’t step away. Couldn’t pull my hips back and hide the evidence that Tully still got to me. Couldn’t take my hands off her waist and keep them to myself when all I wanted to do was slide them around and grab a handful of that ass that had been one of many sources of frustration since Tully had come back to town.

“Rude.”

Her chest was rising and falling rapidly. I hoped she’d breathe her way right out of that stupid towel.

“You told me to be mean to you,” I muttered, gaze tracing the dot of water lazily sliding down the side of her neck.

Her pink tongue darted out and licked her lips. Her voice came out all breathy and sexy as hell. “And if I wanted you to be nice?”

I lost the fight when she tipped her head back, throat bared to me like she still trusted me. Fuck, I didn’t even remember why I was trying to stay away from Tully. We had always been like two magnets, slamming against each other like we were meant to be together. My eyelids slid half closed, my vision tunneling until she was the only thing I knew existed outside of myself.

“I’d do this.” My voice was barely a grumble of consonants and vowels. It didn’t matter if she heard me when action was more my style. My head dipped and suddenly my lips were against all that overheated soft skin of her neck, sucking away the drop of moisture. Tully inhaled so sharply it forced her body forward, every single curve and dip of her all too familiar physique plastered against me. Her heartbeat fluttered under my tongue when it dared a taste of her skin. Her hands gripped my shoulders, nails biting into my skin.

Heat and wind rushed past my ears, not unlike the moment when a firefighter was inside a building, fighting a fire that’s gotten out of control, and he knows he’s up shit creek. If this was how I was going to go down, I was fine with it. I’d burn right alongside Tully until we were just a pile of intertwined ash. I hadn’t truly been living since she left me anyway.

My lips shifted up the column of her neck and she let out a soft moan that had my dick standing at attention. My right hand slid around back and pulled her tighter into me, all that beautiful flesh just a few cotton threads away from my bare palm.

Tully gasped and shivered as I hit the spot below her ear, pulling back and breaking the moment. My hands froze. We stared at each other in the dark, wide-eyed and breathing hard for what felt like an eternity. Then Tully’s hands left my shoulders and grabbed for the top of her towel again. I forced my fingers to loosen their grip, which allowed her to take a tiny step backward.

“That rug on your face is ticklish,” she sputtered, face beet red.

I flexed my fingers, having to remind them that we were no longer touching Tully. No matter how badly I wanted to pick her up and toss her over my shoulder and carry her to my bedroom, that wasn’t in the cards for us. I had divorce papers that said so.

I rubbed a hand over my face, trying to remove the memory of her soft skin from my lips. “You should feel it between your legs, princess.”

Tully gasped, but didn’t look offended at my crass suggestion. If anything, she looked like she was regretting taking a step back. Then her nose went in the air and I knew I’d lost.

“Listen, Colson. We have to work together this week. I don’t think…this”—she motioned between us with her index finger, even while she clutched her towel like a lifeline—“ is going to help things. Let’s just cool things off, okay?”

I nodded, even when I firmly disagreed. “We never did have an issue with chemistry.” It was everything else about living a life together we had issues with. But I left that part out. I was too tired at the moment to rehash old arguments.

Tully nodded like everything had been decided. She took a sidestep down the hallway toward her room. “Agreed. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

I lifted a hand in some kind of agreement, and I waited until I heard her door click closed before I dared move a muscle. My forehead thumped against the bathroom doorframe. My shower would have to be a cold one tonight if I was going to get any sleep.

“Why did I insist she move in here?” I asked the wall.

I was tired and cranky and in no shape for having fun at this stupid fundraiser I’d suggested. All week I’d gotten up at the crack of dawn to head to the fire station and staying until I couldn’t keep my eyes open. No, not to work my shift. I’d been escaping to avoid running into Tully. She’d meet me around nine every morning and we’d spend the day building all the stations for the fundraiser, which was pure torture. The woman was hot on any given day, but put a tool belt on her and a power tool in her hands? Fucking irresistible. And every firefighter in this station had a crush on my ex-wife now. Even Captain.

The entire town had shown up for the fundraiser today. Kids ran around with balloons in their hands and faces a kaleidoscope of colors from the snow cone vendor. The weather was perfect and Captain had a full-blown smile on his grumpy face while he clapped me on the shoulder repeatedly for a job well done. The petting zoo was a hit with the kiddos and Mom was in her element talking about all the different species of pets. Women had lined up down the block to get photos with all of us greased up, bare-chested firefighters. Surely we’d made more money than we anticipated.

All in all, I should be in a good mood. But I wasn’t. Why? Because of Tully-fucking-Cassio. Starling. Wolfe. Whatever the fuck her last name was these days. She flitted around here like the local celebrity she was, all smiles and gosh-shucks and signing her autograph and taking selfies with people. It was nauseating.

Not because she was successful. I was secretly proud as hell of her.

It just highlighted that I hadn’t done shit with my life since she left me. She’d been right to leave. I would have kept her in this small town and she wouldn’t have flourished. And that fucking stung because I’d always been so sure that we were right together. I would have literally staked my life on the fact that we were better together than apart. Clearly, I’d have lost my pathetic life on that bet.

“Okay, let’s get our final firefighter up here for bidding!” Gannon Hart, the owner of Glamper’s Paradise, was doing the emceeing here today. He was also in the band we’d hired to play after all the events were over. “Colson Wolfe, where are you, brother?”

Chief shoved me forward when I didn’t move one fucking inch closer to that makeshift stage Tully and I slaved over this week. I grumbled something under my breath, but finally made my way up as heads swiveled in my direction. I had no way out of this stupid bidding thing Tully had suggested. As my boots got closer to the stage, I kept reminding myself that this money we raised might help me keep my job.

“Ladies, we have one of the Wolfe brothers who’d love to spend an hour with you. Yard work, conversation, maybe he can do your dishes? The possibilities are endless, though I have it on good authority he gives good back rubs.”

I gave Gannon a dirty look. He pulled the microphone from his mouth and shrugged, like look, bro, I’m just reading what they told me to say . I stood there, feet wide apart and my hands behind my back. I now knew what women meant when they complained about feeling like property.

“Let’s start the bidding at twenty dollars.”

I rolled my eyes. Surely I could fetch more than a measly twenty dollars. Some little biddy at the back of the crowd crowed, “Thirty!” Bidding continued rapid fire until it got up to a hundred dollars. All old ladies. That made me grin a bit, despite myself. The older ladies just couldn’t help themselves, they loved this mustache.

“We got one hundred with Mildred, going once…” Gannon paused. No one else came forward. “Going twice.”

“A thousand dollars.”

The crowd gasped and that rushing noise filled my ears again. Tully pushed through the crowd and held up a wad of cash in her little hand. Gannon guffawed right into the microphone.

“Dear God, I don’t wanna know what demeaning things your ex-wife will make you do for that hour,” he hooted. The crowd started tittering.

Tully turned around and addressed the crowd like the celebrity she was. “What do you say we make him shave that awful mustache?” The crowd went wild, which hurt my pride a bit. I did hear a few boos, but the cheers outweighed them.

Turning back to Gannon, Tully held out the money again. “Did I win?”

Gannon jumped to attention and hit the gavel against the podium we’d borrowed from the local church. “Sold to Tully Cassio!”

Tully grinned like she and the devil were on speaking terms. Her finger crooked and her voice was loud enough to be heard over the crowd. “Somebody bring me a chair and a razor!”

Much to my mustache’s horror, someone provided a chair quite quickly and Joey ran out of the station with his own razor held high. I rolled my eyes and vowed to pay that fucker back when he least expected it.

Tully patted the chair, putting on a show everyone seemed to want to watch. “Come on down, Wolfe!”

I sauntered down the four steps from the stage like I was a beaten-down man walking to the gallows. When I got to Tully and that stupid chair, she grinned and shoved me down. I sat willingly. There wasn’t much else I could do with an entire crowd of townsfolk chanting “shave it, shave it, shave it!”

Tully lifted a leg, straddled my lap and had a seat right on my legs. My eyes went wide at the intimate contact, but then I had bigger things to worry about. Joey handed her a can of shaving cream and that menace of an ex-wife of mine poured out a huge dollop before slathering it all over my face. The crowd cackled behind her.

In a last-ditch effort to save face, I lifted my head and looked at several of them dead in the eye. “I’ll remember this when you call 9-1-1 and your house is on fire!”

The mean-spirited chants died away. “Oh, come on, Colson. We love you. It’s just that ’stache that has to go.”

Tully smiled triumphantly and lifted the razor in the air. “Stand back, y’all!”

She placed a hand on my bare chest, her skin branding me. And then she leaned in, bottom lip caught on her teeth in concentration. “Don’t move, hotshot. I wouldn’t want to hurt you.”

I had so many things I wanted to say, but none of it could be said in front of the whole town and a razor now touching my lip. I held my breath and let her shave my mustache. She took her time, careful and methodical as she swept that hair right off my top lip. Her scent surrounded me, making it hard to feel bad about losing the mustache. My hands had nowhere to go, so they ended up on her jean-clad thighs to hold her steady.

The sounds of the people around us faded into the background. I mostly just took the opportunity to look my fill at this woman up close. She’d aged, just like me, but unlike me she’d gotten better looking with time. Like she’d settled into her body and found peace there. Like being in the spotlight for so many years had breathed life into her. Like she pursued her dreams and came away victorious while I was still stuck in place.

Her eyes finally lifted to mine, then widened. Like she was surprised to find that our faces were just an inch or so apart. “All done,” she whispered. My dick responded. I couldn’t fucking help it. She was on my lap . Her eyes widened further, letting me know she felt it. “He keeps forgetting I’m your ex -wife.”

I wanted to throttle her. Then kiss the sass out of her. Then throttle her again. “Not when you keep doing shit like this.” I glanced down at where she was intimately sprawled across my lap.

She scrambled off of me and took a bow for the cheering crowd. Joey handed me a towel, which I used to wipe the rest of the shaving cream off my face. Then I held it in front of me and used the distraction of Tully to make my way into the station where I could rearrange things in my pants without being arrested for indecent exposure.

The station door clicked behind me. I swiveled my head, expecting to see Joey with a sheepish apology for helping Tully out there. Instead it was the woman herself. Sheepish didn’t even come close to describing what she looked like. Her hands twisted in front of her waist, that bottom lip being abused by her teeth once more.

“Colson? I, uh, well.” She came closer.

I squeezed my eyes shut and faced my locker. I was hanging by a thread here. A whole week being around her, living with her, sleeping with a flimsy wall between us. I just needed some goddamn space to get my bearings.

“Get out of here, Tully,” I snapped, not so nicely.

I heard the inhale of air. Would have felt badly about it too, but I was currently gripping the wood slats of my locker, trying to keep from doing what I’d been wanting to do ever since I saw her face back in this town.

Her hand landed between my shoulder blades. “I’m sorry. I know I went too far.”

I stiffened. “Tully, if you care about me at all, get out of here.”

Her hand remained. I had about two seconds left of sanity.

“Colson, please.”

She’d barely gotten the words out and I was spinning around, grabbing her by the waist and shoving her up against my locker.

“Shut up,” I growled.

And then I kissed my ex-wife.