Ben scraped the last of the shit up and twisted the spray nozzle to finish cleaning out the cage. Two red foxes ran playfully around their outdoor enclosure while Emma sat on a boulder watching them, jotting down a few notes and casually glancing his way. This wasn’t exactly what he’d envisioned when he’d volunteered.
“As soon as you finish and I get them back inside, we can break for lunch.”
“We?”
A guilty smile lifted her perfect lips. “I think lunch is the least I could do.” She gave a sharp whistle and red fur seemed to immediately move to her feet like copper-colored tornadoes swirling around her legs. Emma laughed at their antics. “Okay, you two, I know you’re having fun but it’s time to head back inside.”
Ben finished spraying down the cage as Emma clipped a leash to the harness on each of the animals and walked them back to their enclosure amidst their squeaking. Ben slipped out of the cage as Emma brought the pair inside, careful to keep his distance of the chattering devils.
“Okay, Trixie, you and Todd go play in there.” She slipped the harness off the smaller female as the male twisted around her feet, tangling himself in the leash.
As she released the male, Ben watched, amazed at how relaxed her demeanor was around them. “Don’t you ever worry?”
She looked back at him curiously. “About what?”
“I don’t know. That you might get bitten? That they might turn on you?” She locked the door before they walked past several other cages, each containing a different type of animal. A black bear tried to reach through the chain link of his enclosure, almost giving the appearance of waving at Emma. “That’s a bear. He could kill you pretty easily.”
She gave him a patronizing shrug. “He could. But so could a lot of other things.”
“Like?”
“Like running headfirst into a fire.”
“Touché,” Ben acknowledged as he hurried ahead of her to open the door when they reached the side of her house.
He followed her into a spacious kitchen. He’d been in here a few times with her father and the room had been remarkably sparse, simple but masculine. He looked around, surprised at how much had changed. She’d redecorated, adding bright yellow curtains, scattering daisy decor throughout the room. The counters were still the same dark granite with mahogany cabinets, but the entire room had gone from dark and dominant to cheery and welcoming. She went in, not noticing the falter in his step as he closed the door behind her.
“Why do you run into burning buildings? You’re just as likely to get injured as I am with the animals.”
“It’s not like I run into every building. When we do it’s usually because someone needs help.”
Emma turned and faced him, growing serious. “Well, then, we have something in common. These animals need mine, more than any human ever has.”
Ben leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms, studying her as she moved around the kitchen. The woman was hard to figure out. One minute she was playful, completely relaxed and at ease with a fox or a mountain lion, and the next, she was a warrior, fiery and passionate, only to do a one-eighty and make a joke. She was like a butterfly, unable to settle on any one emotion too long, but he found himself wanting to try to keep up.
Not this time, Ben. You want predictable, remember?
He steeled his resolve. He’d had more than his fair share of bad relationships. There was Angie. He’d walked in on her, straddling the guy who lived two doors down from their apartment as she screamed his name. But even that couldn’t top his latest romantic fiasco, Laura. That time, he’d found out with a call from Andrew, from the police station, where he was holding Ben’s fiancée for selling stolen goods. Those “goods” being all of the memorabilia his brother Grant had given him spanning his NFL career, most of their furniture and the car that she’d stolen from his house while he was on call at the firehouse.
Nope, he wasn’t dating unless he found a woman who was straightforward. No games, no pretenses, and nothing he’d need to figure out—or find out about later.
However, he couldn’t deny that Emma Jordan had gotten under his skin, making him want to know more.
From the first moment he’d met her, dropping off the kitten, she’d intrigued him. Sure, she was pretty, but that hadn’t been why he’d come back the second time or why he’d agreed to volunteer. She was difficult to figure out but there was a genuineness about her that she didn’t bother to hide. Whether she was unabashedly staring at his butt or defending her misfit tribe of animals, this woman was an intense force to be reckoned with and she kept him guessing what might happen next.
“I mean, you’d have done the same, right?”
Ben was jolted back to the present where, if her question was any indication, she’d been holding a one-sided conversation he hadn’t been paying attention to. Emma stood in front of him, her arms crossed, expecting an answer but he could only watch those perfect, luscious lips of hers and wonder if they tasted as sweet as they looked.
If she hadn’t been staring at him, he’d have laughed at the idea. He was pretty sure that if he tried to kiss her, she wouldn’t hesitate to claw his eyes out. Just like one of her bobcats. In spite of the common sense that typically reminded him of how ridiculous fantasies were, his fingers itched to see if her hair was as warm to the touch as it looked. He wanted to see if her skin tasted like the sweet vanilla scent he’d caught as she walked past, reaching for a loaf of bread. In the end, he was too big a chicken, settling for self-preservation over desire.
“Um, I need to get in that cupboard.”
She pointed to the cabinet door behind his head and Ben stepped aside as she stretched on her toes to reach for the glassware inside.
“Here.” He moved behind her, easily grabbing two glasses from the shelf.
“I’ve got it,” she protested, pressing her shoulder into him and turning.
The movement brought her body flush against his, igniting a desire he could no longer pretend didn’t exist inside him. Lust slammed into him, his entire body responding almost violently. Blood pounded hotly in his veins while every nerve ending seemed to come alive, oversensitive and heightened to the nth degree. Setting the glasses down on the counter before he dropped them, he found he couldn’t quite let them go. His fingers gripped their slick sides tighter in an effort to keep from reaching for her.
Ben knew he should just take a step backward and stop this exquisite torture but, with her body pinned between his and the counter at her back, he couldn’t quite force his feet to move. When her hands landed on his biceps, electric jolts of longing rippled through his veins, making him quake with yearning.
Emma opened her mouth, ready to speak, but her eyes darkened and he could see he wasn’t the only one affected. He was just about to step backward when her hands slid up around his neck. Standing on her toes, Emma connected her mouth with his and Ben’s world immediately rocked on its axis.
What the hell are you doing?
The logical side of Emma’s brain was practically screaming at her, but she didn’t care. When she’d turned and felt Ben McQuaid pressed against her from shoulder to knee, her bones had turned to gelatin, leaving her a quivering, hungry, mess of yearning. The man was solid muscle, and it had been pure torture watching him clean pens all morning, every movement causing the flesh to ripple and flex deliciously. She might have given him a filthy job, but it hadn’t compared to how dirty her thoughts had been as she eyed every chiseled inch of him, like living stone-carved perfection.
To be completely honest, she’d been fantasizing about him from the first time she’d seen him getting out of the truck with the box in his hands, but the more time she spent with him, the more she realized it wasn’t just a physical attraction. The man was as inept with the animals as he was charming, but he had a way of making her feel heard, of getting her to open up and feel safe, even in her vulnerabilities. She’d already confessed more to him than she had to anyone, even her father, especially about her doubts in her own capabilities.
Her fingers brushed over the nape of his neck, his short hair bristling across her palms deliciously as his lips moved over hers and she opened beneath his seeking touch, sending spirals of heat to curl low in her belly, making her entire body tremble. She rose on her toes to better access his mouth and nearly moaned as her breasts brushed against the wall of his chest. He caught her sigh in his kiss and Emma swept her tongue into his mouth. Ben leaned into her, his presence surrounding her completely.
Without thinking, just knowing she wanted—needed—to be closer, Emma barely separated from him long enough to hop up on the kitchen counter, putting her face at the same level as his, even if her butt was only halfway on the counter.
“There,” she whispered on a sigh, fusing their mouths again, wrapping her calves around his hips, her heels locking around that tempting ass of his.
Emma dragged him as close as she could, her thighs clasping his body, and felt the heat explode in her core where they were only separated by the thin barrier of their clothing. Her heart beat faster than she’d ever imagined possible. Faster than the first time she’d worked with a timber wolf, harder than the time a bull elephant had charged her at the park. Ben McQuaid affected her in a way that no burst of adrenaline ever had.
His hands slid from the counter to grip the side of her hips. It wasn’t enough. She wanted to feel them move over her, under her shirt, against her bare skin. She wanted him to touch her, to be able to touch him, and to let this unexplainable maelstrom of desire engulf them both. Emma arched her back, pressing against the wall of his chest. Her body ached for more, demanding release, and she could feel the heat of his body where she burned the hottest.
His fingers clenched slightly, digging into the denim at her hips but, other than that small movement, he seemed relaxed, almost as if he was merely tolerating her kiss. Realization struck her hard, like a kick she’d received once from a donkey but twice as painful, because this time the sting was coupled with embarrassment. It flooded through her making the back of her neck prickle, burning her cheeks, nearly as hot as the lust still circling through her lower body. Emma drew back but avoided looking at him, not wanting to see passive indifference in his gaze while she was still reeling with the intensity of her reaction to him.
“Is that how you thank all of your volunteers for cleaning cages?” Ben slid his finger under her chin and lifted her face, forcing her to look at him and see that cocky smirk. “Or am I just one of the lucky ones?”
His gaze was dark with a lazy amusement. There was nothing to indicate he shared the same urgent hunger she felt.
Ben’s gaze slid over her face, lingering for a moment on her mouth before he inhaled deeply, cocking his head to one side, as if she was a puzzle he was trying to solve. “You’re almost as wild as those animals of yours.”
Emma’s stomach did a flip before it sank to her toes. In fact, the way he said it sounded more like an insult than an innocent observation.
Wild, impulsive, brash, daring . . . she’d had them all linked to her in one way or another during her lifetime. She didn’t usually mind since, in her line of work, she needed to be all of them at times. But she wasn’t stupid, and she usually didn’t rush headlong into a situation without considering the consequences, not like this. Not anymore. It was that balance that kept her and her staff safe.
But somehow, Ben made her undeniably aware, and for the first time she understood the meaning of “animal attraction.” Even now, with her pride stinging, she still had the urge to rip his shirt off and lick the well-defined abs still pressed against her. But, obviously, the feeling wasn’t mutual and she wasn’t about to make a complete idiot out of herself. Once a day was the limit for her own stupidity.
Emma had two choices: either continue to blush furiously and let him know the depths of her embarrassment, or brush it off as no big deal, pretending he didn’t affect her in the slightest. It was a no-brainer, although she could still feel her cheeks burning.
Sliding off the counter, letting her body brush slowly against the front of him, Emma deliberately tried to get some reaction from him while ignoring the electric shock waves the contact set off in her own body, turning too many parts liquid.
She lifted his arm from the counter and reached for the glasses, brushing past him and giving him a quick shrug. “Eh, it’s out of my system.”