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Chapter Seven

Poppy

A hearty knockat my hotel room door wakes me up the next morning.

I stumble out of bed, bleary-eyed and quite confused about why my delicious dream about kissing a man with a beard ended so abruptly. Turning in a circle, I take in a bunch of facts at the sametime.

It’s barely light out, forone.

And the knocking sounds happy, for another.

Okay, that’s just two facts.

“What is it?” I ask, my brain still fuzzy as I pull the dooropen.

Marcus holds up a thermos of coffee and gives me agrin.

A beardedgrin.

And it all comes rushing back. The kissing, the yelling, the admission of a crush.

His crazy plan that he’ll just find me another story.

“What time isit?”

He slides his gaze down my body, then back up again. “I really like the tiny pyjamas. It’s almostsix.”

“Almost six. Like…the wrong side ofsix?”

“What kind of reporter are you that you don’t wake up atdawn?”

The kind who stays up past midnight re-working her story so it doesn’t sound quite so much like a love letter to a certain khaki uniform. I don’t bother answering him. “Is that coffee forme?”

He hands it over and invites himself inside. I don’t mind, because he’s in his uniform and that’s delicious. So is the coffee.

“I’ve got a name for you,” he says, handing over a piece of paper. “Guy by the name of Kaden. He’s a volunteer firefighter, and an experienced climber. We’ve hired him as a seasonal worker for the last eight years. This year, no go. He’s got a good story.”

“Thankyou.”

“He’s climbing today. I thought I could take you out there. Good photo opportunity.”

“Okay.”

“I want to kiss you again.”

I jerk my head up from examining his neat, square handwriting. “What?”

He said it in the same way he’d told me about his friend. Now he says it again, but there’s a vibration to his tone. An urgency. “I want to kiss you again. I want a hell of a lot more than that, too. I wasn’t sure if I should kiss you good morning, or—”

I set down the thermos, my hands shaking. “Yes.”

He’s across the room in two strides, and he doesn’t just kiss me. He lifts me up, his hands strong and sure on my torso.

“I don’t want to complicate anything,” he murmurs against mylips.

I smile. “Complicateaway.”

His kiss is confident and sure. Firm lips and a light tongue, just a tease at the seam of my mouth, then sweet, exploratory licks when I open for him. He kisses like he works—methodically, with an edge of promised danger.