Radclyffe - Firestorm

“The night is definitely looking up,” Ray announced. He and the other men hastily rearranged the bottles and glasses on the water-ringed tabletop and commandeered several more chairs from nearby tables. When Mallory and Emily settled at the table, Ray pushed two sweating bottles of beer across to them. “Here. These are fresh.”

“Thanks,” Mallory said, shifting her seat so she couldn’t see the dance floor. Too bad she couldn’t as easily dispel the image of Jac and Sarah from her mind.

Emily leaned into Mallory and sipped her beer. “So how are you all liking training camp?” She squeezed Mallory’s knee and grinned. “Or maybe I shouldn’t bring that up with Mallory here.”

The guys laughed.

“Please,” Mallory said, spreading her arms to indicate the whole of Tommy’s, “feel free to speak your mind. I hereby declare this a penalty-free zone. In here, I’m not the boss.”

From behind her, Jac said, “If that’s the case, we need to spend more time around here.”

Jac’s voice feathered down Mallory’s spine like warm honey and settled in the pit of her stomach. Heat flowed indolently through her depths, and she had to force her fingers to relax their grip on the bottle she was clutching. “Don’t get too used to it.”

“Actually,” Jac said, sitting opposite Mallory, “I don’t know about these guys, but the only complaint I have about training camp is there aren’t enough hours in the day to train more.”

Ray and Anderson cracked up, and Mallory couldn’t help but smile a little bit. “I’m also not giving out any points for kissing up tonight, Russo. So you can save it.”

Ray hooted and poked Jac’s shoulder. “Busted, buddy. You can forget about impressing the boss tonight.”

Jac stared at Mallory, her mouth curved into a smile, but her eyes more searching than amused. “Apparently so.”

“Emily,” Sarah said with a big grin, crowding next to Jac, their shoulders touching familiarly. “Great to see you. I can’t wait for you to catch me up on all the news.”

Emily laughed. “That might take five minutes or so.” She stretched her hand across the table to Jac. “We didn’t get introduced. I’m Emily Sorensen.”

“Jac Russo,” Jac said, shaking Emily’s hand.

“What do you think of Tommy’s?” Emily asked.

Jac glanced at Sarah, her eyes sparkling. “I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun. Dancing isn’t usually my thing, but Sarah is a great teacher.”

Sarah draped her arm over Jac’s shoulders. “That’s not true. You’re a natural. I told you that.”

A buzz of annoyance swarmed Mallory’s throat, and she swallowed back the unexpected surge of jealousy. Sarah was just being friendly. Sarah was a friendly person. In fact, that was one of the things Mallory liked best about her. Right at the moment, though, she would’ve preferred Sarah being a little less friendly. Sarah touched Jac with a whole lot more than friendliness. They’d obviously been having a great time together all evening. While she’d been out of sorts and unable to connect with Emily the way she wanted, Jac was off painting the town with Sarah. Wonderful.

“Anybody for refills?” Ray asked, rising.

When everyone answered in the affirmative, Sarah got up. “I’ll give you a hand.”

Emily shifted her chair toward Anderson, who was telling her about his wife and kids and job back home, and Mallory found herself with nowhere to look except at Jac. The conversation faded into the background and Jac was all she saw. Garth Brooks started singing about thunder and lightning and lust, and for a millisecond, Mallory thought about asking Jac to dance. The idea came out of nowhere and hit her harder than a falling tree, but fortunately she came to her senses instead of losing them. Tommy’s might be a work-free zone and she might not be the boss tonight, but she couldn’t afford to drop her barriers around Jac whether they were at work or not. If she did, she might not be able to get them back up again when she needed them. A body brushed by her arm trailing a cloud of vanilla and sandalwood and complicated florals. Obsession. She knew the perfume, and she knew who wore it.

A busty blonde in tight blue jeans that accentuated her heart-shaped ass and a tight white stretch top that made it very evident she wasn’t wearing a bra leaned down and murmured something in Jac’s ear. Chantal Burns. Wonderful. Just wonderful.

“I’m not very good,” Jac said, subtly shifting on her chair as if trying to put a little space between herself and the breasts that were very close to her cheek.

Chantal put her red-tipped fingernails on Jac’s shoulder and smiled across the table at Mallory. “Hi, Mallory. I see you’ve brought us some interesting new…faces.”

The jealousy that had plagued her earlier buzz-sawed back. Chantal was a sometimes bartender at Tommy’s, married to a long-distance trucker who was never home. Chantal filled the hours while he was away fooling around with the customers, male and female alike. Mallory squelched the desire to pluck Chantal’s hand off Jac’s shoulder. “How are you doing, Chantal?”

“Much better now.” Chantal cocked her hip, trailed her finger up Jac’s shoulder, and twirled a lock of Jac’s hair around her fingertip.

“I can see that.” Mallory raised her brows at Jac, whose expression vacillated between amusement and disbelief.

Chantal bumped Jac’s shoulder with her hip. “Come on. If you need lessons, I’ll teach you.”

Emily grasped Mallory’s wrist as Lady Antebellum started singing “Need You Now.” “This is a great song. Want to dance, Mallory?”

“Sure,” Mallory said, determined not to ruin Emily’s evening.

Jac’s smile never wavered but her eyes shuttered closed, locking Mallory out. The sudden change sent a cold blast through Mallory’s insides. As Emily pulled Mallory toward the dance floor, Jac’s whispered words to Chantal roiled in her depths.

Let’s dance. I’m sure you can help me out with whatever I need.

*

“So,” Chantal said, sliding into Jac’s arms, “you’re going to be up at Yellowrock all summer?”

“I don’t know yet,” Jac said, trying to inch back and still keep her rhythm. Chantal didn’t seem to care if they were actually following the dance steps. She was so close against Jac’s stomach and hips there was no way Jac could actually carry off the pattern. “I’ve still got a lot of boot camp to go.”

“Oh, you’re a rookie.” Chantal managed to lean her head back while pressing her breasts even more tightly against Jac’s. She had nice breasts, full and firm and probably not all completely original, but nice all the same. Jac straightened to ease some of the contact. She didn’t usually go in for bar pickups, at least not without a little conversation and a bit of connection first, and she was totally not in the mood at the moment. She’d only agreed to dance to get away from the uncomfortable tension at the table.

Mallory obviously wasn’t happy to see her, and that hurt. She kept trying to figure out what she’d done wrong. What she’d said, what invisible line she’d crossed. She appreciated boundaries. She respected them. She never would’ve pushed Mallory… Okay, maybe that wasn’t true. Maybe she had pushed. Mallory fascinated her. Mallory was aloof, remote, controlled—everything Jac understood and most of the time emulated. But there were moments when Mallory smiled at her, and the sky opened and sunlight drenched her. Waiting for those moments seemed endless, and then when they came, when she and Mallory connected, every second of waiting was worth it.

“Hey,” Chantal murmured, skating her fingertips down Jac’s neck. “I hear boot camp is really rough. All the guys complain about what a ballbuster it is. You could probably use a good massage. I’ve got a great hot tub back at my place. We could—”