Controlled Burn- To Publish Read online

  I’d backed off since then, and I could tell it was bothering her.

  Alexa and I nearly had nearly gone all the way once, and it was one of the biggest mistakes of my life.

  I should’ve never, ever let it get that far, but I’d been so caught up in my pity party, drunk and trying to forget July ever existed, that I had not realized what I was doing until it was too late.

  I’d gotten as far as kissing her on the bed in a sleazy hotel room when I came to my senses.

  I’d apologized, and then left, never speaking of it again. Although, not for the lack of trying on Alexa’s part.

  Which was why I was an asshole.

  I should’ve let her go. Should’ve told her that she’d never be anything more to me than a friend, but I liked the companionship.

  I liked that she would talk to me, watch movies with me when I had time. She was like Able, only with a vagina. She helped me take my mind off of the one woman that it wanted to be on.

  “I…I can’t do breakfast in the morning,” she said softly. Hesitantly. “I’m busy. I have a date tonight, and if it works out, I doubt breakfast will be on the menu.”

  My mouth widened into a grin.

  “That’s wonderful, Alexa!” I said. “Who is it with?”

  Something that sounded like a growl came over the line between us, and I pulled the phone away to stare at it in confusion.

  “What was that?” I asked her.

  “Nothing,” she muttered softly. “And you don’t know him.”

  “Well that’s the best news I’ve heard all week,” I told her. “I hope you get you some.”

  I did, too. I really hoped she moved on and stopped thinking that there would ever be a possibility for a her and me.

  It just wasn’t going to happen.

  Firstly, because I was still hung up on July, despite my desire not to be.

  Secondly, because I would railroad over Alexa. I needed someone that would challenge me, not roll over for my every whim.

  She was a good girl, but the perfectly good woman didn’t appeal to me. The brats did. I wanted a challenge. Someone that would let me fuck her like an animal, fighting the entire time.

  “Yeah,” she said sadly. “Me, too.”

  A boom of thunder had me looking up at the sky just in time to catch a streak of lightning lighting it up, splitting off into about twenty different smaller streaks.

  A fat raindrop fell onto the windshield, followed by another, and another.

  Then the sky opened up, and I was glad I was already in my truck instead of walking to it like my neighbor was in the process of doing.

  I waved at Lola as she waved her three kids into the car like a baggage crew did when they were directing a plane on the runway.

  I laughed slightly to myself when the youngest, a cute little two-year-old with ringlets and dimples, stopped to jump into a puddle.

  Lola caught her before she could get her feet down, and then practically jumped into the open van before closing the door behind her.

  I looked at the clock in the dash of my truck, then decided to go ahead and run over to the house Able, Bowe and I were working on.

  “Well, you have a good day, Alexa. Thank you for trying to take care of July. I know she can be a pain in the ass,” I hoped that pain in the ass was at her project house so I could tear her a new one for leaving and not taking care of herself.

  When I arrived twenty minutes later, I watched in horror as July got back up on the roof, not to tear shingles off this time, but to repair them.

  It’d literally been half a day since I’d seen her get hurt yesterday. Why the hell was she working? On the mother fucking roof at that?

  She was dragging a tarp behind her, and she was crawling on her hands and knees up the steep incline of the roof.

  Stopping my truck in the middle of the road, I sprinted across the waterlogged yard of July’s project house and practically knocked over the ladder in my haste to get up there to her.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled at the crazy woman. “You’re going to fucking kill yourself up here in this!”

  She looked over at me, then continued what she was doing.

  Knowing she wouldn’t get down until it was finished, I grabbed the opposite end of the tarp and tugged it into place, holding my hand out for the tacks she had in her hands.

  She gave them to me and then followed it up with the hammer.

  Doing it as quickly as I could with the fucking bottom opening up on the sky, I finished my side and then went to hers.

  She moved over and then lost her balance, sliding on her ass on the slick roof down the incline.

  I caught her by the shirt and tugged her back up with a quick yank, bringing her right up to my side.

  “Hold on to me,” I ordered her.

  She grabbed a hold of my waistband, holding on while I finished up her side, and then tossed the hammer over the side of the house.

  “Let’s go,” I ordered her, moving to the edge of the roof on my hands and knees.

  The wind gusted, and I stopped, waiting for it to lose its edge before I turned and placed one foot on the ladder.

  Once the second foot was in place, I shook my hair out of my face, the wet ends slapping onto the back of my neck as I did.

  Going down two rungs, I stopped and looked up at her, my breath stalling in my lungs as I saw the way she was looking at me.

  Her eyes were intently on me, and her mascara was running down her cheeks in dark torrents.

  It was the same look she’d given me a year ago that’d made me fall in love with her.

  “Let’s go,” I ordered her, holding out my hands to her.

  She came, turning around and presenting me with her delicious ass.

  I hooked my hands around her hips and guided her feet to the ladder, breathing a sigh of relief when her feet caught on the rungs, and she started to climb down with me.

  The moment our feet were on solid ground—well, as solid as one could get in a monsoon—I grabbed her around the waist, tossed her over my shoulder and took off toward the front door of her house.

  The moment we stepped foot inside, I didn’t set her down.

  Hell, no.

  Not this time.

  Instead of waiting for her to say a word, I walked over to the fireplace that was directly across the room from the front entrance and the only thing high enough to sit on, planted my ass on it, and then brought her down off my shoulder onto my knees.

  Roughly, I pulled back on her hair as her body folded gracefully over my lap.

  “You know what I’m about to do, right?” I asked her, letting my palm glide over her wet ass.

  She squirmed in my grip, refusing to let me hold on to her.

  “Words,” I ordered.

  She closed her eyes, and her body relaxed into my legs, no longer stiff at all; but soft and yielding.

  “Yes, Sir,” she whispered, resigned to what I was about to do.

  Reaching around to one hip, I started working the wet fabric of her yoga pants down until they were bunched up around her knees.

  Then I spanked her ass.

  Or would have had she not rolled off of my lap and landed on her feet like a goddamned cat.

  “You have no fucking right!” she hissed. “Get out of my house.”

  I stood up, going toe-to-toe with her.

  “I most certainly do,” I snapped back.

  She was furious. Even if I couldn’t read her body language, I would’ve been able to read her eyes. And those eyes were shooting fire.

  Hot, relentless anger filled them, and it was all directed at me.

  “I hate you.”

  “No you don’t,” I countered. “You fuckin’ love me.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Why in the hell would you be up there, anyway?” I asked. “You’re so stupid sometimes!”

  Her body locked, and she poked me in the ch
est with one finger.

  She glared at me.

  She was so beautiful when she was angry.

  “You scared the shit out of me,” I told her in the heavy silence. “You have no idea what could’ve happened to you up there.”

  She looked to the floor, and her shoulders sagged.

  She knew as well as I did what could’ve happened to her up there. She was only lucky that I had come when I did.

  I lifted her head with two fingers and she looked at me with remorse.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “But it was coming in. I had to fix it.”

  “No,” I said. “What you should’ve done was call one of us, and we would’ve taken care of it. You don’t go up there anymore.”

  I could see the fight come back into her eyes, and she glared at me with anger taking over her features once again.

  “I wouldn’t have had to be up there at all if you’d have just let me take care of it the first day. I would’ve had a new roof, and no water would’ve gotten in,” she hissed, pushing off my chest to get away from me.

  I held her tightly in place, my left hand sliding around to the small of her back, and the other grabbing a handful of her hair to tilt her head so I could have her eyes.

  “Stay,” I ordered her.

  She struggled against my hold, and I felt a surge of adrenaline in answer to her struggles.

  I liked it when she struggled and didn’t listen.

  Something she realized moments later when my cock started to lengthen against her belly.

  “No,” she jerked her hips.

  Her words said one thing, but her actions another as she relaxed in my arms, her eyes on my face, taking me in warily.

  My body hummed as my thumb stroked lightly against her cool, wet skin of her back, and I watched her watching me.

  Then a phone rang somewhere in the room, and my sanity came back to me.

  Moving quickly, I set her away from me, and without saying a single word, I walked out the door and straight to my truck that was still idling in the middle of the road.

  I even managed not to look back.

  Once I’d parked the truck, I walked into my own project house, ignoring Able, who looked at me, no doubt wondering why I was soaked to the bone, and walked straight to the bathroom where we kept the extra clothes.

  Once I stripped out of my clothes, I fisted my hard cock and stared out the window to the house next door. My mind on the defiance in July’s eyes when I told her not to go on her roof again and how she felt in my arms.

  My fist moved up and down the length of my cock, slowly at first, then faster and faster until I felt my balls draw up and my spine start to tingle.

  Bending over the sink, I grunted as my release hit me.

  Cum splashed into the sink basin, and I grunted as it felt like my release was pulled from my toes.

  “Jesus,” I breathed. “Fucking fucked in the head.”

  Switching the faucet on, I rinsed the evidence down the sink and sent a glare in the direction of the house where the object of my desire was.

  “Fuckin’ A,” I said, my eyes zeroing in on some sort of movement from the window that was likely a bedroom. I couldn’t see that well through the rain, but the more I stared, the more I became convinced that it was July standing naked in front of the window, her hand between her legs.

  I watched for long minutes, waiting to see what she would do.

  And when that figure finally moved away, I was hard all over again.

  Fuckin’ A…that was an understatement.

  Chapter 7

  Call a girl beautiful a thousand times and she’ll forget. Call a girl fat once, and she’ll never forget. That’s because elephants never forget.

  -Things not to repeat to women

  July

  I moaned and rolled over onto my side, nausea rolling in my gut.

  My back was on fire, and I would clearly label the pain as a seven on a scale of one to ten.

  In fact, I’d label it as more, but I’d had my appendix nearly rupture when I was fifteen, and I knew pain.

  This wasn’t there yet, but it was close.

  I tried to reach for my phone on the nightstand but even the slightest movement exhausted me.

  Dropping my hand back to the bed, I stared at the phone, willing it to jump into my hand.

  It didn’t.

  “Dammit,” I moaned, closing my eyes before attempting one more time to make a grab for the phone.

  I still didn’t make it, and I laid on the bed totally spent and panting.

  My head was throbbing, and my mouth felt like I hadn’t had any water in days instead of just a few short hours.

  My eyes flicked to the glowing green letters on my nightstand across the room, and I winced.

  “Dammit,” I croaked. “Dammit, dammit, dammit.”

  My phone on the nightstand rang, and it was obvious who it was.

  I was supposed to come over for breakfast with my brother about twenty minutes ago, and I was rarely, if ever, late.

  If I was running late, I at least called beforehand.

  With the way my brother and I were with each other, there was no way that I wouldn’t have called unless something was wrong.

  I also didn’t oversleep.

  Ever.

  I was the type of person who got up with the roosters. I never slept in past six in the morning, and it wasn’t unusual that I was up by five.

  Yes, I was one of those dreaded morning people who could make it through the morning without a single cup of coffee.

  The bane of my existence was the afternoon. Nearly every day I took a nap. It didn’t matter what I was doing, or where I was. If it hit two in the afternoon and I hadn’t had a nap yet, I was taking one.

  There were times where I even pulled over in my car at a rest stop and slept.

  Some days I slept thirty minutes. Others I slept for four hours.

  It was just the way my body was wired.

  The ringing from my phone stopped and immediately started up again.

  “Damn,” I whispered, trying again to move.

  I got my hand up and over the side of the bed before a sharp, stabbing pain in my shoulder froze me in my tracks.

  An agonized scream left my lips, and I felt tears start to drip down my cheeks.

  “Oh, darn,” I whispered, knowing something was wrong with the cut on my shoulder.

  An infection, maybe.

  The phone stopped ringing, and I stared at it for a long minute before my eyes closed of their own volition.

  The next thing I knew, I was dead to the world.

  ***

  Dean

  “Hello?” I answered my phone, shifting it so it was wedged between my shoulder and ear as I stirred a pot of beans I was making at the fire station.

  “I can’t get a hold of my sister and I caught a big case. Can you go check on her?” a man asked.

  Dropping the spoon against the side of the pot, I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at it.

  I didn’t know the number.

  “Who is this?” I asked as I licked my fingers free of the juices I’d somehow acquired when I picked up the spoon I’d been stirring the beans with.

  “Wolf,” Wolf growled.

  I blinked in surprise.

  “What do you want me to do about it?” I asked, my good mood disintegrating almost instantly.

  Wolf didn’t like me; the feeling was mutual.

  He didn’t think we were right for each other. He was fucking happy the day we called it quits, too.

  The fucker.

  Me, not so much. Him, he threw a motherfuckin’ party.

  Him and his Uncertain Saints Motorcycle Club were all a bunch of fuckers who thought it’d be funny to stick it to the ol’ fireman who wasn’t in the right profession.

  Something he never missed a chance to tell me when he saw me.

  “I
want you to get on your little fire truck and drive over there to her house and check on her, motherfucker,” Wolf growled succulently. “Don’t be a fucking dick. Just go do it.”

  I laughed under my breath as I picked up my spoon again.

  “What if she just doesn’t want to see you?” I challenged. “Maybe you pissed her off because you’re you.”

  Wolf growled at me.

  “She was supposed to watch Nathan while I work,” he said, making my back straighten at the seriousness of what he’d just said.

  July had canceled not one or two, but six dates because of something that happened with Nathan. Nathan was her world, and she loved that little booger like her own child.

  She wouldn’t miss watching Nathan. Not for anything.

  Not unless something was seriously wrong.

  “I’ll go now,” I grunted roughly, turning the burner down to the ‘warm’ setting.

  “She still at her old place?” I asked him, stepping away from the stove and turning around.

  Skirting the island that separated the kitchen from the living room area, I headed straight for the back hallway that led to the gym.

  The hallway was long and narrow, doors that led to the rooms where we all slept on both sides of the hall.

  On the back left of the hallway was the Chief’s office, and on the back right was the gym.

  “No,” Wolf said. “She sold her place. She’s in the old apartments by the college.”

  I growled at hearing that news.

  I did not like those apartments. Not for anyone, but especially not July.

  At the best of times the fucking place was a disaster.

  Meth heads were caught at least once a week working there, and when one got taken down, two more popped up in their place.

  Then there were the hookers that most obviously lived there, not to mention the drug addicts.

  No, I wasn’t happy to hear that she was living there, and I was surprised as fuck that Wolf would allow it in the first place.

  “Have you been there yet?” I asked him, my hand on the door to the gym.

  That had to be the only possible reason she was still there. He didn’t know what kind of a place it was.

  “No,” he denied. “She moved one weekend while I was working, and when I come visit we always meet in town or at her project house. Why do you ask?”