Chapter 6
SIX
Ciro’s wasn’t all that busy. Then again, when Walker looked at the electronic clock on the back wall, he saw that the date was a Tuesday, so that might explain that. Smiling at the lit numbers that proclaimed anyone born twenty-one years before could legally drink, he stepped up to the bar grumbling internally that he’d hit the mark quite a few years ago.
The man pulling a draft beer behind the bar gave him a smile and a friendly bobbing nod. “Well, hello there, Detective. Fancy you coming to a humble fireman’s bar like Ciro’s.”
Patrick McGillis was the manager of Ciro’s and had been working there since he was a young man and a new recruit to the Center City Fire Department. He was as much of a historical fixture as the bar was.
And he was never short of a drink recommendation or a quippy comeback.
“Well, you know me, I like to live dangerously.”
The knowing look on Patrick’s face matched the humorous tone in his scratchy voice. “If that’s the case, may I make a suggestion for your evening, good sir?”
Oh, this had to be good.
“Sure, my good man, what do you have in mind?”
Holding up his hand, Patrick reached for two empty glasses and set one of them on the rail. He reached for the lever to pour a Guinness but paused to ask a question. “You trust me?”
Walker wanted to give him a shot of his own humor but decided to give the older man his due. “Sure, why not?”
“Ha!” Patrick looked to his left and Walker recognized the dark-haired firefighter on the stool along the bar.
Hank Berg, better known to the first responder community as Pitts, gave them both a curious look.
Patrick lifted his chin at Walker. “The boy’s gonna let me pick his drink.”
“Sounds good.” Pitts lifted his pint glass in a salute. “Then again, you always go for the Guinness, so it’s not like it’s a surprise.”
Patrick’s look soured a little and he shot back at his friend. “Well, if it’s perfection, why fight it?”
Pitts leaned on the bar and skewered Walker with a look. “He acts like it’s his own private label.”
Patrick set the two, now full, pint glasses in front of Walker. “It might not be mine, but it’s a damn good drink.”
“I have to agree,” Walker smiled. “I’m a fan of Guinness myself, but I’m normally not the kind of guy to double fist any kind of drink.”
Pitts nearly choked on his mouthful of beer.
Walker gave him a resounding pat on his back to help the man get the beer down the right pipe.
When he looked back, Patrick was smiling. “You’ll thank me later,” his tone held a hint of a growl in it. “And before either of you chuckle heads decide to disparage me again,” he gestured at a table in the corner that was empty except for a lone, nearly empty pint glass, “that’s your table.”
Walker saw Pitts shrug and shake his head like he was worried for the state of Patrick’s mental health.
Walker looked at the bartender with his own shrewd assessing gaze. “Isn’t that table occupied already?”
The back hallway door opened, and Walker looked over in that direction. Kennedy Heart stepped into the main bar area and headed for that table.
From his place at the bar, Pitts smiled as he tipped his glass to his lips and Patrick folded his arms and rocked back on his heels.
“You were saying, Detective?”
Taking a twenty out of his wallet, Walker set it down on the bar. “Thanks for the heads up, Patrick.”
The older man gave him a nod. “I do what I can.”
Walker shrugged the wallet back into his back pocket and picked up the two pint glasses.
He set one down on Kennedy’s side of the table before he sat down and enjoyed her smile when she realized it was him. “Looks like I made it in time to see you.”
“Looks like.” She gestured to the glass. “And you brought reinforcements.”
He nodded and took a sip from his glass, the thick texture of it slid across his tongue and brought to mind other things that had his chest feel a little too tight.
And his jeans.
It didn’t help that when he set the glass down, Kennedy was looking at him intently.
“How did the rest of the bust go?”
He smiled and narrowed his eyes at her. “Are you asking because you want some information for a story, or-”
“Why can’t it be both?” Her glib statement sounded a little hollow. “Actually, I was just asking to get you talking.”
That caught him by surprise. “Really?”
She pulled her lower lip in between her teeth and then released it. “I’m driven, but even I know when to clock out and be human.”
He reached out and grasped her hand before she pulled it into her lap. “Hey.”
Kennedy’s gaze had lowered to the tabletop, and he wanted it back up on his face. He needed it.
Pushing that thought aside, he tugged on her hand just a tad.
“Kennedy, hey.”
She stopped pulling on her hand, but she didn’t ease it back toward him either. “Sorry.”
He rubbed the pad of his thumb gently against the side of her hand. “Nothing to be sorry about. I don’t even know why I said that. I was trying to make conversation.” He sighed and felt the weight of it on his shoulders. “Kate and Roan always tell me I suck at it.”
She looked up at that.
Just the littlest hint of interest in her eyes. “Your sister? Wow.”
“You’re surprised that Kate said that? But not my brother, Roan?”
Her smile broadened. “No, not really. I’d guess that brothers probably tell each other they suck on the regular, but she’s your sister. I’m guessing she loves you two and sees more good than bad.”
Chuckling, he couldn’t decide whether to nod or shrug, so he kind of did both. “Kate didn’t become our sister until we were all adults, so she does see the best in us, but she also likes to hold our feet to the fire.”
Kennedy looked even more surprised at that. “And she puts up with you at work too?”
They both had a little grin at that.
“Yeah, you’d think there might be some tension at work. The brass asked us about that too. Actually,” he took another sip of his Guinness, “they were worried that we might take it easy on each other. That we’d let things slide.”
She scoffed at the idea. “You two? Hardly.”
Walker found himself leaning into the table. “What makes you say that?”
Kennedy cut short her sip and set the glass down with a dull thunk, before wiping at her lips with the pad of her thumb. “It’s just… I see how you two are. I’ve seen you both on the street. At crime scenes. God, you two are like bulldogs. Fierce. Determined. If they were worried about the two of you going easy on each other, I doubt they’ve seen you in the field.”
He didn’t want to admit it, but he was pleased that she’d noticed that.
Pleased that she’d seen that in him.
Walker took a drink and let out a breath as he set the pint glass down. “I didn’t think you’d seen that much of us in the field.”
Her cheeks pinkened, and damn if it didn’t look really good on her. A straight up blush heightening the color of her skin.
“Well,” she tilted her head back and he watched her hair fall back and away from her face, “I don’t always stick my microphone in people’s faces when I’m working. A lot of times I stand back and watch the scene unfold.”
That caught his interest. “Funny. I would have thought you’d always be in where the action is.”
For a moment, he worried that she’d thought it was a criticism, but she didn’t seem to take it that way.
He watched as she thought about his words and damn, he found that crazy sexy. Most women fawned at him in ways that had been interesting… once. They’d lean in and give him a look into the neckline of their tops. They simpered and smiled. They even laughed throatily at his jokes even when they weren’t funny.
Kennedy thought about what he said.
The internal look on her face said that she was actually turning his words over and over in her head.
Walker shifted in his chair to ease some of the constriction in his jeans, only then did he realize that he still had his hand on hers.
And damn it, he didn’t want to let it go.
“I guess,” she started to speak, and he focused his gaze directly on her face, “I guess that’s John’s influence on me.”
“John?”
His back teeth ground at each other.
“My cameraman, John Baxter.” She grinned and he saw the affection she had for the man in her expression. “He’s more like a dad than anything else. When I first interned at WCCN he took mercy on me.”
“What does that mean?”
Her blush climbed higher on her face, almost reaching her temples.
“When I first started at the station, I was like an unruly puppy-”
“By definition,” he interjected, “puppies are unruly because they’re puppies, right?”
“Well, that’s true.”
He heard the slightest edge in her tone, but it wasn’t that she was upset. More like, a little snarky. He liked that.
His dick did too.
Damn it.
“But then again,” she continued to speak, and he latched onto her words like a lifeline, “some just need a little guidance and training.”
He swallowed convulsively at that idea, because he certainly wasn’t thinking about puppies.
“John really made sure I knew what the industry was like. He didn’t sugarcoat a damn thing. He explained the ugly side of things really early on.”
The idea got under Walker’s skin, bothering him more than a little. “Was he trying to discourage you? ‘Cause that’s a crappy way to give someone an introduction to your workplace. Your career.”
Walker felt something graze his palm and he turned his head to look.
He still had his palm against the back of her hand, but somehow, sometime while they were talking, she’d turned things around, rolling their joined hands onto their sides. And now, her finger stroked against the soft skin of his palm.
The motion was meant to calm, but knowing that she was touching him, brushing her finger against his skin, only stoked the fire that burned within him whenever she was around.
When his eyes met hers again, he saw her knowing grin.
The minx was trying to get to him…
Well, hell, he had no idea what Kennedy was up to.
But he wanted to find out.
Kennedy had no idea what she was doing.
At least on a conscious level.
When she’d realized that Walker still had his hand on hers, she’d almost pulled away.
Not because it was him, but because it was him.
Flirting with the darkly handsome detective was one thing.
Lord, she could flirt.
It was that he was touching her.
His skin felt so damn good.
His touch, even better.
And she wanted it, more than she could say.
More than she should.
Because being touched by Walker Ashley was an addictive thing.
His skin was warm.
It made her hot.
Wet.
And thirsty.
In all forms of the word.
And she took another sip from her pint glass and hoped that it looked casual.
Easy.
She hoped that her knuckles weren’t white from pressure and exertion because inside she was white knuckling the moment.
“What’s going on in your head, Kennedy Heart?”
Shock gave way to humor.
It was her go to rescue mode.
“Why the full name, Walker Ashley?”
He grinned, and damn, he made her light up inside.
“What are you doing to me, woman?”
That made her heart pound against her ribs.
Shit. She had no idea what she was doing.
But she did have an idea of what she wanted to do.
“I don’t know…” She remembered just a hint of what she’d been trained to do… ask leading questions. She looked down and put just a teeny tiny bit more pressure against his palm. “What does it feel like?”
She felt his arm tense.
And she was insanely thankful that he was wearing a t-shirt so she could see the flex of muscles under the skin of his forearm.
“It feels like,” she lifted her gaze to his face and saw a muscle tighten in his jaw, “you’re playing with fire.”
“Fire?” Lord, she just couldn’t help herself. She’d had just a taste of power and damn it, she wanted more. “Well, we are in a firefighter bar, so if you just said something, I’m sure they’d make me stop.”
While he held her eyes in what she felt was a blatant challenge, she smiled and felt a shiver go down her spine.
“Well?” She wondered aloud. “Are you going to ask me to stop?”
Turning her hand, she bent her thumb and scraped her fingernail along his palm.
He hissed in a breath and his shoulders rose.
Walker’s eyes snapped with some kind of a warning, but she was way beyond caring.
And knowing that she’d only had a little more than a pint of Guinness in her stomach, she certainly couldn’t blame it on alcohol.
“Kennedy?”
His normal speaking voice was enough to get her hot. He sure knew how to say just the right words to put her on edge.
But this deeper, harder tone?
Oh hell.
It got her wet and bothered.
And heaven help her. She liked it.
A lot.
“Yes, Walker?”
“Where do you want to take this?”
“Where?”
Goodness. There were so many choices.
But there was really only one answer that she could manage right at that moment.
“Somewhere… private.”
The world around them ground to a halt.
It was like magic.
Dark, heady, sweaty magic.
And he was wielding it like a weapon.
And lordy, she wanted to feel it.
All… of it.
Using his free hand, he picked up his pint glass almost like he wanted to offer a toast.
A flick of his hardened gaze toward her glass had her picking up her own, mirrored with her free hand.
Walker lifted it to his lips, and she followed his movement with her own.
Just a second before the glass touched his lips he grinned and narrowed his eyes on hers. “Your place or mine?”
He tossed back everything in the glass and set it down on the well-worn tabletop with a satisfying thunk.
She lifted her glass closer to her mouth and felt her bottom lip pout out just a bit before she spoke. “Which one is closer?”
The Guinness went down her throat, smooth and thick. An image of something smooth and thick in her mouth made her squirm in her chair and she swore inside her head.
Fuck, every thought turned to sex when she was around Walker.
She set her glass down with hardly a sound, but she snaked her tongue out to lick the hint of foam from her lips.
Walker pulled in a short breath, flaring his nostrils just a hair. “I can get us to my place in less than two minutes.”
She grinned at him. “Sold.”
He got up from his chair and pulled on their joined hands. She would have tripped over her own feet if he hadn’t reached out his free hand to touch her hip and steady her as she walked around the table to him.
Kennedy reached for her purse to pay for the drinks, but Patrick called out to her. “You’re good, Red. Have a nice night.”
She proved his nickname correct when her cheeks heated at the idea that everyone knew exactly what they were about to do, but there wasn’t time to ruminate over it as Walker pushed the front door of Ciro’s open and they stepped out in the cool Center City night.
His hold on her hand had shifted, now his hand shielded hers from the cold and pulled her close against his side.
Kennedy realized she didn’t know what Walker drove, so she’d just follow along until he stopped and somehow, she was okay with that.
For now.