Fanning the Flames. Victoria Dahl

took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment, hating the stereotype she was becoming. “Do you really think I want to be the uptight middle-aged librarian asking the young guys next door to turn down that terrible rap music?”

      When she opened her eyes, she thought she saw his gaze rise, as if he’d been looking at her body, but maybe that was just her own wishful thinking.

      “What?” he asked.

      Lauren sighed and stood. “Take pity on me and don’t make me ask again, OK? I don’t enjoy being the nagging house mother.”

      He was frowning again, but he at least offered an unenthusiastic “Sure,” as she turned to open the library door.

      “Thank you, Jake.”

      His hand appeared above hers to pull the door open, and there was no mistaking the scent of his clean sweat as the air moved around both of them. It hit her hard, drawing something tight deep in her belly, and Lauren considered it a triumph that she didn’t turn and lick him before moving inside. He smelled the way a man should smell when he was in your bed and working hard for it.

      The door finally whooshed shut behind her, and she breathed a sigh of relief that all she could smell now was paper and Windex.

      Her thirties had been a fairly dry decade, what with her failing marriage and then her divorce. But her forties? God. Her body clearly wanted her to get busy humping any man who caught her eye before all her eggs dried up. What her body didn’t seem to understand was that there were plenty of healthy-egged young twenty-somethings who were attracted to men like Jake Davis, too. She couldn’t compete with them. But honestly, she wouldn’t mind a few hopeless tries.

      Why had it taken her four decades to realize how beautiful the male body was? And how very much she wanted more of it? She’d never once thought about tasting a sweaty male chest in her twenties. Now she wanted to lick Jake Davis clean.

      Sneering at her own absurd thoughts, she headed for the privacy of the tiny office to the side of the circulation desk. “I talked to Jake,” she said, collapsing into the chair next to her best friend Sophie.

      Sophie looked up from her computer. “Oh, you talked to Jake, huh?”

      “He said he’d have a word with the guys.”

      “Yeah? Did he also say, ‘Oh, Lauren, it’s so hot I can’t wear a shirt when I run. I hope that’s okay with you?’”

      Lauren’s face felt like it burst into flames. “What?”

      “I saw him when I was driving back from lunch. That is one hot fire captain.”

      “I didn’t notice!” Lauren hissed, ducking her head and opening her own laptop.

      “Liar! Oh, my God, you’re beet-red.”

      “Shut up. I mean it. Having those stupid firefighters right next door is a damn work hazard.”

      Sophie shrugged. “They have their uses.”

      Lauren tried to shove her curiosity down and keep her mouth shut. She and Sophie had been friends for two years, but despite their frequent joking, Sophie rarely divulged concrete details about her own love life.

      This time Lauren was going to nail her down. “Exactly how many firefighters have you used?” Sophie was the picture of modesty, always wearing knee-length skirts and button-up shirts with her sensible heels. But she wasn’t as innocent as she looked. Once you got a drink in her, she could dish about blow-job techniques with the best of them.

      Sophie shot her a wicked grin, but she didn’t answer.

      Lauren crossed her arms and refused to let the girl off the hook this time. “Spill it, chick. How many firefighters?”

      “Only one.”

      “Jake?” Lauren asked, a stone dropping into her stomach from thin air. She didn’t want to picture him with her cute friend. She couldn’t deal with that.

      But Sophie laughed. “No, not Jake! A guy who doesn’t work there anymore, thank God. The fire station is a little too close to home for me. In a town this size...”

      Lauren nodded in understanding and tried not to let out the sigh of relief pushing at her throat. It hadn’t been Jake.

      Sophie poked her arm. “But you need to ask him out.”

      “Who?” Lauren asked, her heart already speeding up to belie the question.

      “Jake.”

      “You just said it was too close to home. And it is! If he said no, I’d have to see him every day. And if he said yes, even worse.”

      “Lauren, ask him out. Good God, you two have been pretending not to eye each other for at least a year.”

      On her part, it’d been more like two or three, but his wife had died only four years before, so he’d probably still been grieving then. Which made her a terrible person. Even more terrible than the fact that Jake and her ex-husband were good friends. “You know why I can’t.”

      “Oh, my God, your divorce was eight years ago! As long as you don’t have sex with Jake on your ex’s dining room table during Christmas dinner, I think you’re ethically okay.”

      Lauren just shrugged, but she knew it wasn’t okay. That was probably why Jake had never asked her out. That or the fact that even forty-six-year-old men didn’t typically date forty-three-year-old women. Stupid youth culture.

      “Fine,” Sophie said. She glanced over her shoulder and spoke in a lower voice. “Then just take one of the younger guys home for a discreet evening of fun. Firefighters love adventure, you know. They’re risk-takers. And they stay in such good shape. Close to home is a bad idea, but there’s a reason I couldn’t resist. Have a little fun, Lauren.”

      “I’m too old for that.”

      “Please,” Sophie snorted, then ran a careful hand along the chignon she so often pulled her pretty red hair into. “Thanks to all the talk about cougars, those guys are totally into older women. They’ve heard you forty-somethings are insatiable.”

      “We are,” Lauren grumbled, but she couldn’t help but smile as Sophie broke into peals of laughter. “Shut up.”

      “All right. But let’s do a girls’ night out tomorrow. Mountain bike season is almost over. Maybe you need a quick and dirty hookup with a tourist you’ll never see again. If you don’t do it now, you’ll have to wait for ski season.”

      “Maybe you need a quick and dirty hookup, if you think it’s such a good idea!”

      “It’s more complicated for me. You know.”

      Lauren did know. Sophie’s family had a history in this town, so she was extra careful about her reputation.

      “Anyway,” Sophie went on, “maybe I will, too. Maybe we’ll pick up a whole group of guys and split the difference.”

      Lauren grinned at her. Sophie was awfully fun to work with, and Lauren was thankful they’d gotten so close. It had been a long time since she’d had a friend as close as Sophie, and now Isabelle, too, the one who’d come up with girls’ night out six months before. “We already cancelled girls’ night because Isabelle isn’t done with her commission.”

      “Isabelle won’t care if we go without her. She doesn’t care about anything when she’s finishing up a painting. Let’s go. Just us.”

      Lauren hesitated for one more moment before giving in. “Okay. Fine. Tomorrow.”

      Sophie jumped up with a squeal. “Yes! After work. Dinner, and then fun. Wear a cougar dress.”

      “I don’t even know what that means!”

      Sophie shrugged. “Something that says you’re putting out.”

      “But I’m not