Station 12 ran first, and they were dialed in. Their nozzle guy handled the kickback well, but he overshot the target.
Station 12's crew clapped and bumped fists when their final time was announced. But I was studying Larkin’s neutral expression. I’d decided or maybe learned at the restaurant that was his thinking face.
But I was allowing my mind to wander, picturing his different expressions. I needed to get it together because it was our turn.
I pulled on my gloves and took my position at the end of the course while Briggs, Hallie, and Tom lined up at the hydrant. Everyone was tense, and I was trying to focus, I was, but Icouldn’t help wondering if Larkin would notice my ass during the event. Damn, that man was in my head.
The starter raised his hand, and I silenced the random thoughts and images. The world narrowed to the hose and the target two hundred feet away.
The whistle blew. Briggs had the hydrant open, and water filled the line. The hose stiffened and jumped, and Hallie and Tom were hauling it toward me. I grabbed the nozzle and braced. The force of the water would have knocked me sideways a year ago. But I'd spent months drilling this, and I knew what to do.
The target was a metal plate mounted on a pole, and I had to knock it over with the stream. The stream hit the target in the center, and it clattered to the ground. The crowd cheered, and my crew erupted. Briggs whooped, and Hallie screamed that Station 9 was the greatest.
I dropped the nozzle and pumped my fist as my crew charged toward me. When the times were announced, we'd beaten Station 12 by three seconds.
Three seconds didn't sound like much, but in a hose drag relay, it was huge. Briggs lifted me off the ground in a hug, and Hallie slapped my helmet.
“That's how it's done!” Captain Reynolds clapped from the sidelines.
The handshake line was next where both teams filed past each other, saying “Nice work.” When Larkin reached me, he gripped my hand, but his gaze held mine perhaps a tad longer than the others. The heat from his body sizzled up my arm, and I didn’t want to let go.
He grazed my knuckle. Was that just for me? Did he do that to all of my team members? And when he released it, I missed the contact and wanted to double back in line and shake his hand again.
“Good run.” I barely heard the words but concentrated on his mouth and was tempted to plant my lips on his.
“Thanks.” I couldn’t say anything else, especially not, “Meet me later so we can get naked.”
After the formalities, both crews milled around, rehydrating and replaying every second of the event. The adrenaline was fading, replaced by a pleasant muscle ache and knowingour hard work had preceded a win.
But I needed air. Not the fresh breeze that was billowing over me because we were outside. Nope, I needed space from the teams, onlookers, and the noise, as well as the effort of pretending I wasn’t following Larkin’s every move.
“I’m getting more water.” Nobody was paying me any attention as I strode behind the row of equipment trucks parked at the edge of the field.
There was a cooler in Station 9's truck, and I grabbed a bottle and pressed the cold plastic against my forehead. The sun was brutal, and I was sweltering because my turnout gear was trapping heat.
I was tossing water over my head as I picked up footsteps on the gravel behind me. There was no need to turn around because his scent reached me first, and my dragon was vibrating again.
“You're following me.” I was almost crushing the water bottle.
“No, I needed water.” Larkin reached into the cooler. “Your truck happened to be closer.”
“Your station’s truck is right there.” I pointed to the red engine parked twenty feet away.
“Yours has better water.” He unscrewed the cap and drank, and him swallowing and droplets dribbling over his chin had my body heating up another ten degrees. My mouth gaped at how hot and sexy swallowing had become.
“You did well out there.” Why was I talking about the competition when he was maybe an inch behind me with his warm breath on my neck?
“We lost.”
Well, yeah, obviously.“By three seconds.” I didn't know why I was consoling the competition, except that the man beside me wasn't just that. The agreement we’d made about waiting until the cup final was blurring and almost invisible.
Larkin set the bottle on the truck bed. “I should have had him practice in the wind.”
“You can't control the wind.” For heaven’s sake, I didn’t give a damn about wind, or a damn tornado. Instead, I was picturing his hands hovering over my hips, ready to twist me around.
“I can prepare for it.”
He hadn’t touched me, and I longed for him to press against my butt and nuzzle me, maybe whisper in my ear.
