Chapter 8

Gracie

I hadn"t slept well at all and was not in the greatest of moods when got to the station early the next morning. My dreams had been plagued by stories starring Ryan Davenport. It had left me hot and bothered and feeling like I hadn"t slept at all.

But the firehouse was empty when I arrived with two trucks and an ambulance missing.

Something had happened and I hadn"t been called in for it. I knew I was benched, but this pissed me off. Someone couldn"t even let me know?

A car pulled up and I ran out to see what had happened only to find it was just Ryan.

I couldn"t hide the scowl from my face.

"I"m not exactly thrilled to see you either," he grumbled. "Where is everyone?"

I nearly growled. "I don"t know. There had to be a call, but no one notified me about it."

"Do you think our arsonist struck again?"

"It"s possible, I guess. How the hell am I supposed to know when they leave me in the dark?"

"Hold on."

He picked up his phone and called someone.

"Hey Vance. What's the call that came in this morning?"

"The fire?" I heard Vance ask as Ryan put the call on speaker.

"Yeah man. Can you give me the address?"

"Sure." He rattled off the address. It was a place I knew.

"I"m driving," I told Ryan.

"Who was that?"

"Gracie."

"Oh shit. I heard she was benched and told not to alert her of this. Clarence"s orders."

I practically roared with frustration.

Ryan reached out and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. The shock of his touch sent unwanted waves of pleasure through my body as dreams from my sleepless night resurfaced.

"I"m overriding him on that. Clarence assigned her to me to help look into a rash of fires this week. I"ll take responsibility for her."

"Excuse me?"

Vance chuckled. "Good luck with that. I"m heading over there now in case I need to intervene."

"I heard that, Vance."

"Just fair warning, Gracie Lou."

I groaned. "Not you too."

"See you in a bit," Ryan said before hanging up on him.

"You are going to behave right?"

Would I? Could I? No. If one of my guys was in danger and it meant me running into a burning fire, then I wouldn"t hesitate to do it. I knew it couldn't hurt me, but it could hurt one of them.

"I"ll try," I told him honestly. As long as no one was truly in danger, I was pretty sure I could sit back and watch them in action.

In the end it didn"t matter. By the time we arrived on site they already had the fire out.

Clarence sighed and held up his hand. "Don"t start with me, Gracie. I told you that I was benching you. You shouldn"t even be here."

"That"s my fault, sir. I stopped by the firehouse this morning and saw that the place was empty. I thought maybe it was related."

He clearly was trying not to go into details, but everyone here knew what was up.

"Undecided. This was a much bigger fire."

"I can see that," Ryan told him.

Meanwhile, my mind was going a million miles a minute, taking it all in. It was an abandoned barn. I"d gone to a few keggers there back in the day. It had been a popular hangout when I was in high school.

"Was it just some kids having a party?" I asked.

"We don"t know yet," Andrew admitted.

He was covered in soot and sweat.

"You okay?" I asked him.

"Yeah. We"re all good. Missed you out here."

I shrugged. "Probably just would have caused trouble, right?"

"Nah."

"How bad was it?"

"Went up fast. Old wood and all."

Something in the field caught my attention. Before I could question it, Ryan stood up holding a black feather.

"You"ve got to be shitting me."

Andrew had already moved on.

I walked over to Ryan.

"Seriously?"

He shrugged triumphantly.

"It"s a pattern."

"It"s Ravenden."

"Maybe. Now where"s that match of yours."

We both got to work searching the grounds convinced it had to be around here somewhere.

I looked up and caught Vance watching us strangely. He bent over and picked something up and then shoved it into this pocket.

"Ryan, did you see that?"

"See what?"

"Vance just picked something up and put it in his pocket."

"I"m sure it was nothing."

"How can you be sure? Maybe he knows what we"re looking for."

"Vance? You really think Vance is our arsonist."

"How the hell do I know? It could be anyone. Hell, could be you."

"You honestly believe that?"

I shook my head. "No. But it's someone here in Ravenden if your feather theory is correct, so we need to start looking at everyone as a suspect."

He sighed. "You"re right. Where were you last night?"

I couldn"t help it. I blushed. "At home."

"Alone?"

"Yes." Not really though because I was dreaming of you, and it felt very much like you were right there with me. I couldn't exactly tell him that though.

"And what were you doing home all alone last night?" he asked, but instead of sounding like an interrogation, it sounded hot, like he was anxious to hear all about the naughty things we"d done in my dreams.

I almost told him about it too, but then Andrew caught my attention. He was sneaking around the backside of the barn.

"What is he doing?" I asked, straining to see and knocking myself off balance.

I squealed as I started to fall, but Ryan was right there to catch me. Unfortunately, he stumbled and gracefully fell backwards with a thud as his back hit the ground and I landed right on top of him.

Our limbs were entangled as I tried to jump back up and instead found myself pinned against his hard body.

I gulped hard. Why did he have to feel even better than my dreams?

"Hi," he whispered with a sexy smile.

This time there was no mistaking it. Ryan Davenport was flirting with me.

"Hi," I said back, but the husky tone didn"t even sound like my voice.

I tried to stand once more but his arms held me firm. All that I"d accomplished was managing to push my most intimate parts right up against his steel hard rod.

I almost giggled at the thought. It sounded like something from a cheesy romance novel. I"d never been into that kind of shit. I was much more a fantasy girl. Whisk me away to some magical world.

Trying again, I inadvertently rubbed myself intimately against him once more.

A low guttural sound erupted from him, and his hand fisted in my hair and pulled me down to him.

I was kissing Ryan freaking Davenport.

Shock wasn"t a strong enough word for what I was feeling.

With a gasp I pulled away.

My entire unit was only a few feet away. I averted my eyes, unable to even look at him. Why had he kissed me? I wanted to ask him. I needed to see it. But that's when I saw it.

"No way!" Quickly, I crawled right over him and this time he didn"t move to stop me.

I reached out and picked up one wooden match.

But when I felt warm lips against the exposed flesh of my stomach where my shirt had ridden up, I froze.

Just a little lower and his mouth would be exactly where I wanted him.

Oh God! I wanted it so much. I"d happily strip and ride his face right here in the field if it meant getting this man out of my system once and for all.

"Ryan. Not here," I whispered. "And look what I found."

He wasn"t hearing me. His mouth continued trailing kisses lower until I scooted down closer to him, thankful we were fully concealed in the tall grass that desperately needed mowing.

His mouth continued to trail kisses up my body over my clothes until we were face-to-face once more.

"Hey, focus."

He was still staring at my lips.

"Dammit," I muttered, and then I threw caution to the wind and kissed him hard.

He greedily kissed me back.

"Has anyone seen Gracie?" Andrew yelled.

I froze and stared down into Ryan"s eyes.

"Shit. This is not good."

"It"s very good," he said.

"She and Ryan came together. They"re around here somewhere," Clarence said.

"Shit," Ryan swore.

"Ya think? Stay down. I"ll show them the match and cause a distraction, then you can quietly join us. Okay?"

He nodded, then looked confused. "Wait. You found the match?"

"Yeah."

"When?"

"When you were a little busy down there."

He gave me the sexiest, most unapologetic look I"d ever seen.

"Stay down," I told him before crawling a few yards away and jumping up with the match in hand. "Found it!" I announced as I quickly made an exit for the front of the barn by the parked cars.

Just as I"d hoped, the others followed me wanting to see what I"d found. I showed them the match.

"It doesn"t absolutely confirm anything," Clarence assured me.

"I know, but every single fire has had one."

"And we don"t believe in coincidences," Andrew added.

I was fully aware of the exact moment Ryan joined us.

"Good find," he praised, causing my body to warm all over.

"We"re about done here, and most of the guys are heading home to take a nap. Those on call will be alerted if anything else happens. The rest of you get out of here. It"s been a long night," Clarence said.

"Do you need to look around some more?" I asked Ryan.

"No, I"ve seen all I need."

I couldn"t believe that every single person present wasn"t reading something sexual into his words. Maybe it was just me.

Neither of us spoke as we got into my Jeep and drove away.

"Where are we going? The station"s back that way."

"I know."

Instead, I drove to my cabin in the woods.

"Wow. Nice place. Where are we?"

"My house." I sucked in a sharp breath knowing I needed to get this out and hopefully get him out of my system for good. "We could have been caught back there and while I get that wouldn"t necessarily be the end of the world, it would have been embarrassing. For me at least. And not because it"s you, it would be the same for anyone. But it"s not anyone. It"s you. And I"m pretty sure you feel it too."

"So, what are you saying?"

"I think we should get whatever this is out of our system. No strings attached. No one needs to know. What do you say?"