Sizzling Seduction Page 4

  He leaned forward. “I met a woman—”

  “Oh, snap!” Joel stared at him with glee and mirth as he interrupted. “Samantha said that when the love bug bit your surly, grumpy behind it was going to take you down hard and fast. But this is ridiculous. You met her today and she’s already got you cal ing for council from your younger, smarter, better-looking—”

  “Al right, can I finish? And tel my sister-in-law to stop talking about me. Anyway, I met a woman today, a kindergarten teacher who brought her class to visit the firehouse—”

  “I used to love giving tours to the little kiddies. That was a fun part of the job. The kids real y looked up to—” Joel cut him off again.

  “Anyway…can I finish?” He glared at his brother.

  “Oops. My bad. Go ahead, man.” A sheepish expression crossed Joel’s face.

  “So, from the moment I set eyes on her when I welcomed the class to the firehouse, I felt weird. I wanted to keep looking at her. So I hung around for a little while as the rookie gave the tour and I even went out afterward and asked her on a date.”

  “Playa, playa…” Jason offered with a smirk. “So when are you taking her out? Is that what you need advice on, where to take her and how to impress her? It’s been a minute since I’ve been in the game, but in my day, you know

  —”

  “I’m not taking her out. Yet. She said she doesn’t date.”

  “She doesn’t date? What?” Perplexed, Lawrence frowned. “Wait…Was this a Catholic school? Did you hit on a nun? You know they don’t always wear those habits and stuff anymore—” Lawrence started.

  “It was a public school, and she wasn’t a nun! And I’m not asking for advice on how to woo her once I get her to agree to a date.” Disgusted at the thought that his younger brothers would even deign to think that they had more skil s that he, Patrick grimaced. “I’m the reason you scrubs had any game to start with, and the last thing I need is advice about that from y’al . Advice? Please! When I taught y’al everything you know?”

  “So what do you want?” Jason asked.

  “I want to know if this urge to break out into a smile every time I picture her face, if the serious and steady thump in my chest every time I think about her, and this urge I have to find a way, any way, to see her short of stalking…” He shot Lawrence a glance. “I need to know if that’s what it feels like when you meet her… when you’ve met the one. I think that’s why I’m feeling this way and I don’t want to be slow on the uptake like you three clow—I mean, you guys. So—”

  “Yes. He’s got it bad,” Jason said with a chuckle.

  “And it appears the last Hightower brother has been bitten by the love bug.” Lawrence grinned.

  “I don’t know if she’s the one. But it seems like you are recognizing her as the one. That’s for sure. That’s what it feels like. At least that’s what it felt like to me,” Joel offered.

  “Me, too,” Jason said.

  “Yep. Me, too,” Lawrence added.

  “Didn’t you feel like that with Courtney?” Joel asked.

  Patrick thought about it for a ful minute. He couldn’t recal ever feeling like that from the first moment he had met his ex-wife. He remembered his aunt always pushing them together and he remembered slowly coming to enjoy her company and coming to love her. But he never felt anything like he felt now back then with Courtney.

  “No. I didn’t feel like this with Courtney.”

  Then, for the first time since his divorce, he started to think that maybe the failure of his marriage wasn’t al Courtney’s fault after al .

  Chapter 3

  “Did you finish your homework?” Aisha folded her arms across her chest and smiled at her son as he plopped down on the sofa and flipped on the television.

  “I didn’t have that much homework,” Dil on offered after the short pause that had always been his tel sign.

  Her ten-year-old son was a joy on most days. But morning cartoons made it difficult to get him dressed and out the door for school. And afternoon cartoons distracted him from his homework.

  The copper-brown-complexioned child looked like a little male version of her, with the exception of the black curly hair he’d gotten from his dad. Her own hair reached the middle of her back and was chemical y straightened. She seldom did more to it than curl the ends and pul it back with one of her many-colored and many-styled headbands.

  When she was feeling real y adventurous, she pul ed it back in a ponytail with a scrunchie. One day she would work up enough nerve to cut it al off into one of those funky hairstyles her teaching assistant, Toni, wore. But for now, she had a ten-year-old trying to get out of doing homework to deal with.

  “You didn’t answer the question, Dil on.” She added extra inflection in her voice, walked over to the television and stood in front of it.

  Sulking, Dil on turned it off and got up. “My favorite show wil be off by the time I’m finished.”

  “Then maybe you should have started earlier and then you would have been done, huh? You were messing around back there doing everything but your homework. So get to it so that you can be done by dinner.”

  A spark of hope gleamed in his big brown eyes. “I could skip dinner and do my homework during dinner and watch my show now. Today we find out if the super ninja spider wil —”

  She had to cut him off. “Are you trying to say you’d rather watch those sil y ninja spiders than eat one of my wonderful creations?”

  Aisha knew she wasn’t the greatest cook in the world—

  nowhere close. She experimented often with recipes that she saw being prepared on TV. But she also tried to make sure she put together simple healthy meals for her child and the little cartoon addict was going to eat his dinner.

  “Wel , Mom…” Dil on gave her one of his sly, playful grins. “You could stand to watch a little less Food Network.”

  He backed away as he spoke and his lanky body took off running when she picked up a pil ow and tossed it at him.

  “Just for that I’m not going to try the new recipe I found for a cool dessert.”

  “Yay! No test recipe this week!” her darling child yel ed from his back bedroom.

  “Oh, do your homework, you little prankster!” She laughed as she plopped down on the sofa and turned on the Food Network. One of these days she was going to get one of those recipes to turn out the way they did on TV.

  Watching the cooking shows always soothed her mind and gave her something else to think about. She had never been a great cook and barely made the basics. It hadn’t been a problem when she was married to Wil iam “Bil ”

  Mil er. He had always been fond of tel ing her he hadn’t married her for her cooking or her brains.

  The moment her verbal y abusive former husband decided to up the ante and actual y put his hands on her, her life took a detour. She only fol owed her desire to really learn to cook once she had gotten the courage to leave her husband, go back to school, finish her elementary education degree and got a job with the Paterson public school system.

  Life was good now. She just had to make sure she resisted temptation and didn’t let any man try to seduce her into giving up her new path. No matter how sexy and smoking hot he was…

  Now that looks good. I bet I can totally make that.

  She let her mind think of safer things as she watched the Barefoot Contessa whip together the mocha buttercream frosting. How hard could that possibly be? It looked easy enough. She grabbed the notepad she kept by the sofa and started jotting down the ingredients and directions. She might have missed some, but she was sure she could wing it. She would try the dessert soon. At least she could clear her mind of thoughts about the sexy fireman.

  Then, despite her best efforts, she suddenly envisioned herself feeding the fireman delectable morsels of her own mocha buttercream-frosted chocolate cake. The vision looked too good to vanquish from her head right away. So she let it linger. And then she had the nerve to start daydreaming about mocha butterc
ream frosting and that muscular frame of his. That’s when she knew she had to stop. Too bad she couldn’t….

  Chapter 4

  Aisha sat in the Public School Number 21 faculty lunchroom, enjoying her turkey, avocado and tomato sandwich on whole wheat. During her hour-long break between her morning class being picked up and her afternoon class being dropped off, the building fire alarm went off. It wasn’t a scheduled dril , so she hurried out of the building, helping other teachers control their students as she exited.

  Standing outside in the brisk fal air, she only hoped that whatever fire team responded it wasn’t one led by the sexy fire captain Patrick Hightower. The last thing she needed was a reminder of how she had total y blown off the finest man to ever make a move on her, ever.

  She didn’t regret turning him down. Not really…But she certainly didn’t need to see him again. His confident, bordering on cocky, approach let her know that he was probably a man just like her father, just like her ex-husband.

  He was not a man she wanted or needed. She repeated those words like a holy mantra in her head and hoped that they would sink in.

  When the fire truck and fire engine pul ed up and she got a glimpse of him jumping off the truck like a doggone super action hero coming to save the day, looking fine in his ful fire-repel ant uniform, she cursed the mantra. Her mouth went dryer than the Sudan and she could have sworn her breath was starting to make soft little pants. He looked dead at her; at least she thought he zoomed right in on her before he went into the building.

  The other firemen with him hardly seemed to matter. She barely registered their presence. It was something about the way his eyes seemed to take al of her in with one glance that left her blind, deaf and dumb.

  glance that left her blind, deaf and dumb.

  She must have been imagining things. There was no way he had found her out of al the other teachers and the many students standing outside the building. She shook her head trying to clear the daze.

  Not for me. Not for me. Not for me.

  Maybe if she changed her mantra she’d stand a better chance. The image of Patrick’s slow, seductive smile and simmering eyes came into her mind and she realized that al the mantras in the world wouldn’t help her. She’d just have to be sure to stay away from him.

  Since there was no smoke and the only heat she could sense was the sizzling sparks she felt whenever she thought of the fire captain, she figured that fate must have conspired with some little kid who was thinking it was a good idea to pul a prank by pul ing the fire alarm.

  She hoped the little rat was caught and suspended for an entire month—heck, the rest of the school year wouldn’t be enough punishment for him bringing temptation in the form of the sexy fire captain into her world yet again.

  Sure enough, there was no fire in the building. The school administrators were now looking for the child who had wasted the time of the fire department.

  While they did that and the other teachers took their students back to class, Aisha watched the firemen get back in the truck. She told herself it was because she had to stand outside and wait for her afternoon kindergartners anyway. But deep inside she knew it was because she wanted to get just one more peek at Patrick.

  Just because she couldn’t have him didn’t mean she couldn’t look. Did it? What possible harm could be done by looking?

  She regretted the thought as soon as she caught his dead-on stare once again. If she had any doubts about who he had been looking at the first time he zeroed in on her, they were al gone now. The rest of the teachers and students had gone back to their classrooms.

  She watched as his sumptuous lips slowly curved, showing a hint of perfect white teeth and then the ful bright grin hit her and sparked a powerful keening, needful emotion deep down in her gut.

  What the heck was it? Lust? Desire? Wantonness? It had to be one of those. Whatever it was, she certainly wasn’t giving in to it. No matter how much it was starting to ache just looking at him.

  She let out a sigh when the truck started to pul off.

  Patrick kept looking at her, though. She could have sworn he kept looking at her until the truck reached the corner.

  And then he pointed from himself to her and she found herself smiling as she shook her head. He pointed between them again as he nodded and the truck turned the corner.

  “Mmm-hmm. I see that, missy. You can’t fool me. You want that fine Hightower man in a bad way, don’t you?”

  Rats! When had Toni crept up on her?

  Her teaching assistant had had an emergency dental appointment because one of her fil ings fel out, and had missed the morning class. Even though the little ones could be more than a handful, Aisha almost wished Toni had stayed out the entire day.

  “Looks like I missed the fire dril and the fire, too, the way you two were heating things up out here. Dang, if he wasn’t al the way up there in that truck ful y clothed in that sexy fireman’s uniform, I would have had to tel you two to go get a room.”

  “Stop playing. How’s your tooth?”

  “Uh-uh. Don’t try to change the subject. What did I miss?”

  “You missed a false fire alarm. I think it was one of those little roughneck-in-training eighth graders.”

  “Okay. Be like that, Aisha. But you wait until I have a sexy fireman giving me the ooo-baby-I-want-you-bad look. Don’t think I’m going to give you the dish. Because I won’t.”

  “Girl, you wouldn’t be able to help yourself. You’d tel me everything as soon as the dude cracked the first smile at you.”

  Toni burst out laughing. “You know me so wel !”

  “Hel o, Michaela. Stand in line as we wait for the rest of your classmates.” Aisha shot Toni a quick glance to let her know the subject of Patrick Hightower was done as soon as the first parent walked up and dropped off her child.

  “Oh, don’t worry, missy, we’re going to finish this conversation at book club tomorrow.” Toni grinned. “Hey, Michaela! Are you ready for a fun afternoon?”

  Michaela grinned back at Toni, showing a big, wide space in the front of her mouth where her two front teeth used to be. She nodded and giggled. That was a big change from the little girl who only a month ago had cried every time her mother dropped her off.

  The rest of her twenty students came and soon she was in the classroom repeating everything she had taught the morning class earlier. But try as she might, she couldn’t seem to get Patrick Hightower out of her mind.

  He couldn’t get out of his uniform and out of the station fast enough. Once his replacement was in, he headed out and rushed over to the school to try to catch Aisha before she left for the day.

  They had gotten the alarm while they were waiting for their shift replacement and his gear was stil up, so he had to take the ride. Luckily, it was just an alarm and not a fire.

  Patrick showered quickly and put on his street clothes, al the while thinking about that sweet, hesitant smile that had crossed her delectable lips. If she real y didn’t want anything to do with him, then she needed to control her lips and never smile at him again.

  Man! What was happening to him?

  He didn’t know. But he did know that he was ready to start thinking about a more long-term arrangement, certainly longer than his typical brief and hot encounters. He had a feeling it would take him longer to tire of the sexy schoolteacher—a whole lot longer.

  If only he could get her to agree to a date with him…

  He didn’t know why she refused his request, but he had no intention of letting that stop him. So he planned to catch her as she left work today and ask her again. He was going to keep asking her until he got a yes.

  He parked his SUV and hopped out in front of the school just in time to see her walking to her car. Running up beside her, he caught her. She shrieked, jumped and stumbled, dropping her bag on the ground.

  Shock waves covered his skin and his mouth suddenly felt like it was ful of cotton candy. It wasn’t just dry, it was sticky and he seemed to have
forgotten how to move it to get words out.

  “You scared me! You can’t just come running up to people like that. What is wrong with you?” With one hand patting her chest and the other on her hip, she looked the picture of beauty.

  She spoke with perfect inflection and a healthy dose of righteous indignation, even as she struggled to catch her breath.

  He, on the other hand, couldn’t say a word. So he bent down to pick up her bag. When he handed it to her, his fingers grazed hers.

  Tingles. And something else…

  “Sorry I scared you.” His mind final y managed to figure out how the mouth, tongue, lips thing actual y formed words.

  “I just wanted to catch you before you got away. I real y think you ought to let me take you out on a date.”

  The eyebrow over her left eye rose slightly and her chest puffed up. He wished she hadn’t taken that huff of air because now his eyes fixated on her perfect, perky breasts and that probably wasn’t going to make her amenable to his request.

  He forced his glance away just in time to catch her glaring stare and clenched teeth.

  “I just don’t understand why a beautiful woman like you has taken herself off the dating market. I don’t see a ring on your finger. Are you married?”

  “It’s none of your business why I don’t date.”

  “I sense a serious connection between the two of us and I know I’m not the only one.” This was not happening to him.

  It couldn’t be. She was rejecting him again? He had to make her see what he saw. There was no way she didn’t feel what he felt.

  “I know you felt it when I touched you just now. The jolt that felt like your heart was about to jump al the way up into your throat? The rapid beating of your heart that makes you feel like you had one too many cups of espresso fol owed by a Mountain Dew.”

  “I learned to control my hormones in high school, Captain Hightower. You’d do wel to do the same.”

  “It’s not just hormones. If it were just that, I wouldn’t be out here trying to convince you to go out on one date with me.”