Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 59647 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59647 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
The headline made my stomach do a flip.
“Hero Firefighter Leads Effort to Stop Massive Fire”
Shit.
He wasn’t lying. He was not only at a fire last night, but also, he was in charge of the response. And he was getting lauded for it. All while I sat on my couch, drank wine, and casually cursed his name. I owed Kieran a huge apology if I’d brought half the karma down on him that I had attempted to.
Kieran was a hero, and he was standing on my front porch, banging on my door and apologizing for missing a date. With me.
Swallowing my pride and with an incredible sense of admiration and guilt for thinking anything less, I reached for the doorknob.
18
KIERAN
I stood there in the silence and stared at the door, hoping that she would open it and at least give me a chance to explain, or maybe even speak to me through it. I’d take that. I knew that I hadn’t really done anything wrong, but she was hurt, and I understood it. I was sure if she just let me explain it, she would find that I didn’t mean to hurt her.
“Mornin’,” a voice behind me said, making me turn toward it. It was a newspaper delivery man, dropping off papers. Sometimes I forgot how small a town Ashford was. In Nashville, papers were delivered by a strong-armed guy tossing them out of the window of some ancient four-door as they blasted talk radio and cruised down the street.
“Morning,” I croaked.
There was a pause as the man scanned my face.
“Don’t I know you?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” I replied.
“Wait a second,” he said. Riffling in the bag on his hip, he pulled out today’s paper and showed it to me. “Ain’t this you?”
I sighed, looking back at the still-closed door.
“Yep,” I said.
“I’ll be damned,” the man said, tossing the paper on the porch. “Good work out there, man.”
“Thanks.” There was still no movement at the door. It was time to give up. As the man walked away, heading across the lot to the next apartment, I stepped off the porch. At least I could go home and sleep, even though I didn’t even really feel all that sleepy anymore. Just tired and disappointed.
My foot hit the pavement when a sound behind me stopped me in my tracks. I turned to see the door flinging open. Sofia was there, wearing a bathrobe and fuzzy slippers. Her eyes were filled with tears, and she stood there, staring at me for a long moment. I took the two steps back up the porch to the door, trying desperately to find something to say. All the words just whooshed out of me the second I saw her.
“I’m sorry I didn’t respond to your calls or texts,” I said. “I didn’t check my phone the entire time because I was so busy, and I just didn’t know…”
She shook her head, tears streaming down her face, and reached for me. Her hands gripped my dirty T-shirt and pulled me to her. Our lips met, and a hunger that I had never known revealed itself inside me. She seemed to feel it too and threw her arms around my neck and jumped into my arms.
I carried her inside, slamming the door shut behind us, our lips searching for all the available skin on each other’s body. I held her under her ass with both hands, relishing the way her cheeks fit in my palms, and walked her over to the couch. We tumbled down onto the oversized cushions with her on top of me, and she let out a giggle that filled my soul.
“You smell like smoke,” she muttered between breathless kisses to my neck and chest, hands reaching down to tear my shirt off from the waist.
“Sorry,” I said.
“No,” she groaned. “It’s hot.”
A rumble in my chest met her voice, and my cock felt like it was going to burst out of my jeans.
My shirt was flung to the ground as I yanked her robe off. She was wearing a hoodie underneath, and I pulled that off too, revealing her bare chest and smothering my face in it immediately. She smelled like citrus and soap. I licked her skin between her breasts and grasped them as she fumbled with my jeans.
Once the button was undone, she slid off me, pulling them down as I arched up to help her. My cock sprung out, hard and straight as my jeans went past my knees and I kicked them away. She moaned as she took it in both hands and began to stroke me toward her. She took me in her mouth with a sound that rolled up my spine, and I slid one hand behind her head to guide her.
Bobbing up and down on me, she kept eye contact, only breaking it to close her eyes briefly. Diving down deep on my cock, she choked as it reached the back of her throat, and I groaned. Her tongue slid underneath and flicked at the sensitive place under the head, and she smiled. Still stroking me, she kissed my thighs and squeezed my balls gently.