Hot In Here

Chapter 1

Backstage, pacing, Scott Jackman heard the raunchy music swell, the crowd whoop and roar in appreciation. He groaned. What the fuck had he got himself into?

Who'd have guessed his lifelong ambition to be a firefighter would land him here? Yeah, he'd known that, as a rookie, he'd be the butt of a bunch of stupid jokes. But if he'd ever figured he'd have to boogie his own butt across a stage in front of hundreds of screaming women — not to mention a bunch of gay guys, the gang from good old Firehall 11, and his little sister — he might have . . .

Hell no. Whatever his parents might wish, he'd never been cut out for the farming life in Chilliwack.

He was a firefighter, through and through. And firefighters were tough. If he could risk his life in smoke and flames, he could bloody well get through three minutes on stage.

Scott had made the first cut in the competition, based on photos submitted by a couple hundred guys. He was one of twenty-four finalists for twelve firefighter calendar spots. If he didn't win a month, the guys at the firehall would never let him forget it.

Beyond the curtains, the last notes of music were swallowed up in a thunder of applause. Crap. The audience was voting with their hands, feet and voices, and it sounded like the guy on stage was sure to make the calendar.

The curtains parted and a panting, laughing man burst through. He'd gone out wearing full firefighter turnout gear and was back minus the helmet and jacket. His muscled upper body gleamed with oil and sweat, and he was hauling his turnout pants up over leopard-print briefs. A fire hose was slung over his shoulder.

God knows what he'd done with the hose on stage.

Whatever it was, the audience sure the hell had got off on it.

Shit, shit, shit. What had he been thinking, trusting his sister Lizzie to put together his act? Tap? Fucking tap dance? In front of an audience that clearly wanted raunch?

Was it too late to change his plan? There were still a few people ahead of him, he had time to work up a new routine.

Nah. Lizzie'd kill him. She'd put a lot of time into coaching him.

But the guys at the station would rib him to death if he made a fool of himself.

'Course, it wasn't like they didn't already.

The next competitor strutted toward the curtain, wearing turnout gear and — oh, great — carrying an axe. Music started up. This piece, too, had a hip-grinding rhythm.

Scott groaned again, then clapped the headphones of his iPod to his ears and cranked up the music Lizzie had chosen. He closed his eyes, settled into the beat, imagined the steps, riffs, the way his hips and arms would move to the music. The sultry notes of the sax began to heat his blood. Man, this kind of music always made him feel like sex.

Speaking of which . . . If he sold his number and made the cut for the calendar, there was a damned good chance he'd be going home tonight with one of those screaming firefighter groupies. Preferably one with a killer bod and long blond hair.

* * * * *

The other women were clapping but Jenny Yuen lifted her digital camera and snapped a final shot of the latest . . . Contender was the only word, the way the guy'd clasped his hands together over his head like a victorious wrestler. His body was a wrestler's too. Gross!

"Any guy with such overblown muscles has to have a tiny dick," she told her girlfriends. "That's why he brought an axe. It's his penis substitute."

The Caprice nightclub, packed with a few hundred very warm bodies, was a noise machine. Everyone was yelling and Jenny, at five foot nothing in her kitten-heeled pink sandals, had to scream even louder.

The club was set up with tiny tables, packed closely together. Jenny'd come early to make her case: a midget reporter doing a cover story needed a down-front vantage point to shoot photos. As a result, she'd scored a primo table for her and her best gal-pals, the Awesome Foursome.

"Isn't it balls that shrink from steroids?" Suzanne Brennan shouted back.

The cheers finally died down and the girls settled back in their seats.

"Yeah, it's testicles," Ann Montgomery said. A lawyer, she was a stickler for accuracy. "And a reduced sperm rate, and erectile dysfunction."

"Oh yeah?" Jenny said. "Could've sworn it was dicks."

"Doesn't exactly matter, does it?" Rina Goldberg was the fourth member of the Foursome. Her naturally soft voice had grown hoarse from all the screaming. She took a sip of her lemon drop martini. "The guy's not going to be much use to a woman, either way."

"True enough," Jenny said, as her mind flagged a possible story idea. Obviously there were a lot of misconceptions about the side-effects of steroids, and this was stuff young women — and men — needed to know. Like, if the people in this audience knew the truth, would any of them be cheering for Mr. Muscle-Bound? How could a guy be sexy, if unwrapping his package was going to lead to a major let-down?

She reached for her own chocolate martini. Man, was that great! Almost as good as sex — with a guy with a functioning package.

Better than sex with Pete, the guy she'd recently dumped. He'd functioned, but the sex had, after the first few times, turned out to be ho-hum.

Pete, from Korea, had been the latest in a string of taboo lovers she kept secret from her majorly old-fashioned family. For them, only Chinese guys rated as date-worthy.

For her — second generation Canadian and a thoroughly modern Jenny-race, culture and religion were irrelevant. She wanted a guy who was smart and sexy. And, while some of the family-approved Chinese guys had turned out to be stimulating conversationalists, not a single one had ever turned her crank.

And her crank was getting rusty from a month's disuse. Being in this room was both heaven and hell, for a sexually frustrated girl.

Because, no two ways about it, sexy was what tonight was all about. The people in this room were on a mission: to choose the men who would grace the next Greater Vancouver firefighters calendar. Civic pride was at stake. Vancouver simply had to have the hottest guys on their calendar. 

Besides, the hotter the guys, the more people who'd buy the calendar, and the more money raised for charities like the Burn Fund and Cancer Lodge.

Music began again, calling Jenny's attention back to the stage as the next competitor sauntered out. He was dressed in full turnout gear, the way most of the others had started out. When this one peeled off his helmet, she saw he had silver in his close-cropped hair. No question he was handsome, though. She snapped a shot.

"This is more like it," Ann said, leaning forward.

"Too old," Jenny shouted.

"Old enough to know how to handle his hose," Suzanne chimed in, and they all laughed.

The man was gyrating to a classic rock number with a sexy, throbbing beat. He peeled off his bulky jacket, revealing a white tank-top stretched over taut muscles.

"Oh yeah," Ann said. "No steroids here, and I bet this guy's package is fully functional." She fanned herself with her hand.

"What's this thing you've got for older men?" Jenny asked, clicking away busily.

"It's not age, it's about appreciating quality," Ann shot back.

Jenny studied the man. Nah. Had to be damn near forty. To a twenty-three-year-old like her, that was definitely old.

Still, she had to admit the silver fox was more attractive than the limp-dick steroid guy. And he did know how to move. Watching him, Jenny felt her whole body throb in time with the sexy beat. She pressed her thighs together, squeezing against the burn of arousal between them.

Okay, so maybe she wouldn't kick this fox out of bed just for having silver hair.

When he finished his number, she leaped to her feet and joined her friends in cheering loudly. "My vibrator's going to get a workout tonight," she shouted to her friends.

"I know exactly what you mean," Ann called back.

Then Jenny climbed up on her chair, tugged down her denim mini, and turned to take some crowd shots. The club was packed. Most of the women and some of the guys wore bright, fun clothing, and the lighting should make for interesting effects. Beyond the superficial, though, she hoped she was a skilled enough photographer to convey the throb of sexual energy in the air, the buzz of excited conversation, the musk of sweat and hundreds of different perfumes, colognes and assorted toiletries.

Young women had turned out in droves, but there were lots of men too. Funny to see the trendily-dressed West End gays shoulder to shoulder with burly dudes who could only be firefighters, come to cheer — or jeer — the competitors.

Music started up and she slipped back into her seat. Ooh, this was different. Same old, same old on the music, but this competitor had on a Zorro mask as well as the standard helmet.

A little shorter than most of the guys — a couple of inches under six feet? — and slender, this man sauntered slowly to center stage then began to move to the bump-and-grind music in a mesmerizing, hip-swaying motion. Hands went up, the helmet came off.

A head shake, and —

"Oh, my, God!" Jenny shrieked. "It's a woman!"