by Emilia Finn
“Worth the—Worth… what shot? What shot am I taking?”
“Well, when I ask you out to dinner, I want you to answer me based on me, and how you feel about Nixon the Person. Not Nixon the Firefighter.”
“But Nixon the Person is a firefighter,” I challenge. “No matter how sweet or charming or smart or seductive you are, at some point, you’re still going to be called away. You’ll run toward a fire, and I’ll be left all alone, sitting at the dining table by my phone. Waiting. Wondering. Worrying.”
“So what if I break regulations and get you a radio?”
“A ra… Huh?”
“A radio.” He smiles. “That way, instead of waiting for my phone call, you can listen to the radios. You’ll hear me speak all the time, because I’ll be commanding my crew. You’ll hear lots of boring stuff, I’ll be sending people left and right, but you’ll be sitting there and hearing for yourself that, in that moment, I’m okay. Instant gratification, zero worry. Problem solved.”
“So when you go down in the line of duty, hurt inside a building, crying out for help… I can sit and listen to that too?”
Surprised, Nixon swings his eyes down to me. “Well, that’s morbid. Remember, the plan is always to be safe. Which is why I want to show you some stuff.”
Stepping off the sidewalk and onto lush grass that is clearly lovingly tended, he leads me onto a sturdy porch, and then pauses at the wire door. He glances down at me while he works a key into the lock, then to Max.
When the lock snicks open, he pushes the wooden door wide and makes room for me to pass. “Welcome to my home… for the second time,” he adds.
“Is it coincidence that both times, you’ve been bleeding?”
Guiltily, Nixon reaches up and presses a fingertip to his nostril. The blood dried long ago, but the red is still there, crusting and—damn me to hell and back—sexy.
“My ribs are all better.” He flashes a playful grin and makes his way past me and Max to head toward the kitchen. “Thanks for asking.”
“I doubt that,” I grumble. “A Band-Aid doesn’t fix the issue, and fighting doesn’t help.”
“Wanna see?” He stops at the sink in the kitchen and watches me over his shoulder. “I could show you. Here. Now.”
And lift his shirt. “No thanks.”
Max has become heavy in my arms, slack and slumping, and when I pull back to see his face, I note that he’s not quite asleep, but he’s supremely relaxed.
Nixon’s claims that Max is watching him, ready and willing to punish, are ludicrous.
Walking away before Nixon can lift his shirt and tempt me closer on the pretense that I’m only inspecting his injury, I leave him alone in the kitchen and make my way back to the living room.
Nixon’s couch is massive, leather, and L-shaped. And though his television is legions bigger than any home TV should be, it’s nestled against the wall in a way that makes it non-imposing. He has a slimline cabinet beneath, and on it, sweet smelling candles and picture frames.
I suspect Abby has added her touches to her brother’s home.
“Are you guys vegetarian?” Nixon calls from the kitchen. “Allergies?”
“No,” I answer. “And no.”
“Problem with garlic or spices?”
I scoff. “We’re Italian.”
“Schweet,” he murmurs. “Give me five to get this started, then I’ll be with you. You can help yourself to anything you want.”
Surprising me, he stops in the doorway, closer than I expected, and grins when I’m caught studying his display of family photos. “Sit on my couch if you wanna. Turn on the TV. Walk around and snoop in my drawers. I don’t care.”
“That’s very accommodating of you.”
He bounces his brows. “Full transparency. That way, later, when you invite me to your place, I have free rein to check your drawers too.”
“You seem to operate on a tit-for-tat system, Mr. Rosa. But I did not agree to that.”
He shrugs and swings back into the kitchen. “It’ll level out in the end. Want a drink?”
“Um… sure. Water is fine, thank you. Or soda. Whatever you’ve got.”
“I’ll start you with water, but I have a bottle of red breathing to go with lunch. That okay?”
I lift a brow, though of course, he can’t see it now that he’s gone back to the kitchen. “Day drinking? That sounds like a red flag to me.”
“Lunch with red meat, and an Italian companion. To me, that’s just responsible pairing.”
Snickering, I have to concede his point. I circle away from the picture frames. “Red wine with lunch sounds lovely. Thank you.”
“Great. And Max?”
“He doesn’t drink. Ya know, seeing as how he’s a child.”
Nixon pokes his head through the doorway and huffs. “I meant water or soda, crazy. Is he thirsty?”
“Oh.” Giggling, I pull back once more and catch a glimpse of my son’s slack face. “He’s about to drop off, actually. I’ll let him rest for now, and wake him when lunch is ready.”
“Works for me. You can lay him on the couch if you wanna. There are blankets and pillows around that Abby always like to cuddle into when she’s here. Alternatively, I have a couple of spare rooms. Comfy beds, not a lot of noise in the way of outside traffic. Your call.”
And just like that, he ducks away, removing any and all pressure for me to choose.
It really is my call.
“Hmm.” I glance around the living room in search of my answer.
Do I really want to lay my child down in a strange room? In a man’s house, on a bed we’ve never before seen?
“No.”
I make my way to the couch, and holding Max up with one hand, I use the other to toss a cushion into the corner. When it’s in place, I slowly, gently lay my son down.
The moment our bodies part, and cold creeps between us, he begins flailing.
“Shhh.” I follow him down and press a kiss to his temple. “I’m still here, bello.” I stroke his hair and smile as he calms.
His face relaxes, slackens, and because I have nothing else to do right this moment, I plop down on the couch beside him and pat his hip until he’s asleep once more.
His lashes flutter, and a light REM cycle begins as he dozes on a couch he doesn’t know, but I’m here, my hand on his leg, so he relaxes and drops off.
“Hey.”
I glance up to find Nixon at the entryway between the dining room and living room. “All good in here?”
“Si. He’s asleep.”
Nixon rests against the doorframe and folds his arms over his broad chest. His nose has been cleaned up, as well as his bleeding knuckles. Now he wears a hand towel over his shoulder, and a playful grin on lips, made plump from a police officer’s fists. “How long do you think he’ll stay down?”
“Hm?”
“Max,” he clarifies.
“Oh, um…” I look to my son. Then the clock on the wall. “I’m actually not sure. He doesn’t usually nap anymore, so this isn’t typical for him.”
“Big day at the ballpark,” he surmises. “An even bigger day running around the fire station. Come here?” He offers a hand but remains all the way over on his side of the room. He doesn’t impose, he doesn’t pressure. He merely offers, and leaves the ball in my court. “I want to continue my tour de safe, but only if you want to continue.”
“Tour de safe?”
He grins. “I have more stuff I’d like to show you, to prove to you that I have my life and career on lock. Regulated emotions and all,” he smirks.
When I hesitate to move, he chuckles, then taking out his phone, he makes exaggerated movements, unlocks the screen, navigates to the text app, then he starts typing. “While you stay over there and decide if you’re gonna meet me on this side of the room, I’m creating a text chat. Troy. Corey. Beckett…” He types as he speaks. “Mitchell. And Abby. There.” He hits enter and turns the phone to face me, like I can read something so small f
rom so far away.
When I slowly take my hand off Max’s leg, my eyes on his to make sure they remain closed, I gently push up off the couch and make my way to my feet.
“Now I’m typing,” he mumbles. “Who is the fastest runner you know?” He looks up and grins. “I’m not even asking the fastest runner of the Rosa siblings, since that’s too shallow a pool. I’m leaving it wide open.”
He makes a big to-do about hitting send, then when I’m close enough, he snags my hand and leads me through the dining room and into a long hall.
“Don’t worry,” he adds when I glance back toward Max. “He’s safe, the front door is locked, and we’re stopping… here.”
I scan our surroundings; we’re in the middle of his hall, beside a glass shelf built into his wall. When I look closer, I find the shelf holds trophies, ribbons, medallions… and most read ‘first place’ for various running sports. Sprint, cross country, relay, and there are even a couple high-jump ribbons.
“Fastest runner in my high school,” Nixon gloats. “Which doesn’t sound like much,” he adds with a snicker. “But it was enough to get me all of these, and enough for the fancy schools to come down and offer me scholarships.”
His phone dings in his pocket; return texts from his siblings.
“I know it looks kinda egotistical of me, having all these out on display, but just like I’m showing you to prove to you that I can move fast, I have them there for me too. I walk by these every single day,” he murmurs. “Tap them on the way out the door when I go to work, and know that I’m fast. I’m a good firefighter, Idalia… but if it’s all going to shit, I’m damn fast, and I can outrun the blaze.”
He’s trying to convince me. Trying so very hard to prove I can care, and not have to worry.
When I say nothing, he pushes his hand into his pocket to retrieve his dinging phone. While he does that, I reach out and snag a ribbon; it’s old, dusty, and somewhat moth-eaten. And when I look closer, I find it’s from when he was in third grade.
“You were, what… nine when you got this?” Snickering, I stroke the velvety, green material. “It’s endearing to me that you keep it on display. More endearing yet that it’s a third-place ribbon.”
“It was my first.” He speaks on a mumble, disgruntled enough to catch my attention and draw my eyes away from the ribbon. He texts, furiously replies with fast tapping. “Bunch of assholes.”
“Your siblings?” I ask. “What did they say?”
When my question goes ignored, when a severe frown crosses this smiling guy’s face, I set the ribbon back on the shelf and step closer to the man who smells of sweat, cologne, and whatever he’s cooking in the kitchen.
Mix all of those together, and he smells delicious. Much too alluring for us to be alone in a tight hallway.
“Nixon?” I step closer. Closer. Too damn close. “Why are you mad?”
“Because the return policy on my siblings long ago expired.”
“The… what?” I try to get a closer look at his phone, but Nixon is tall, and he’s determined to be grumpy. “What did they say?”
“Nothing.” He yanks his hand away and tries to spin out of the hall.
“Nixon! What did they— Give it to me.” I swipe a hand out and try to snag his phone.
He’s fast, just like he promised, and spins around so I get his back, but I’m determined too. And hell, I’m all alone in a tight hallway with a man who smells good, and my son is safe… and unaware. So I grab Nixon’s muscular arm and try to spin him back.
“Show me!”
“I don’t wanna.”
I dive under his arm and swoop into the space between him and the wall, so now I have to look up, and still, all I see is the underside of his jaw. “Show me!”
What was, for a moment, an innocent scuffle turns into something more. And it’s all my fault. All my doing, when I dive forward and our chests clash.
My heart races—from the fight, and from the knowledge we’re so close. My nerves skitter, because this is flirting. Oh god, this is flirting. And yet…
“Show me the phone, Nixon.”
“No.” He holds the device out of my reach, much too high for me to grab, but his frown long ago fled, replaced with a playful smirk and come get me eyes.
Our chests touch, and when they do, our breath races between us. I swallow what was his, and he swallows down the air that seconds ago, occupied my lungs. Pealing laughter echoes off the walls of the hallway, possibly too loud, possibly loud enough to wake Maximo, but the electricity in the air makes me impulsive.
Nixon is playing, just as I am. Which means when I jump for his phone, and my arms end up wrapped over his shoulders, his arm goes around my waist.
A support. A caress that goes far beyond anything that could be called friendly.
Nixon’s eyes are large, and green like mossy trees somewhere deep in the forest that surrounds this town. But above those beautiful eyes is a heavy brow, dark and dangerous, so you never know quite how much trouble you’re in.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he rumbles from somewhere deep in his throat. His phone-holding hand comes down, slowly, silently, and when he deposes of his phone—in his pocket maybe, or perhaps on the shelf—he brings his broad hand down to stroke my ribs. My hip. My fucking soul. “I want to kiss you, Idalia. And I swear to god, I’ve never wanted to do that to another woman like I’ve wanted you.”
“Nixon,” I sigh. “I…”
“It’s like a hunger,” he murmurs. “Like a real, true, deep in my soul craving that no one else could satiate. I’ve never had that happen to me before.”
“But my life is so complicated,” I whimper. “I just—”
“If I could turn it off, I would.” He brings his face closer, just a hair at a time, as I look down at him and argue with myself to walk away. “Your life is complicated,” he uses my words. “You’re busy, you have aspirations, and right now, when your hotel is new, this is when you need to focus the most.”
“Nix—”
“You have a son,” he groans.
Instantly, my spine snaps straight with the knowledge that maybe he’s about to say something unforgivable. Something neither of us can take back.
“And I never considered that for myself,” he adds. “I mean, I guess eventually I would have settled down and probably had kids. But now?” he questions. “I’m twenty-eight years old. I’m still working on my career. I have aspirations too. I have plans. I have a whole world to explore.”
What was a fiery lust controlling my body now turns to fiery rage.
“I sure as hell hope you’re not asking me to apologize for my son’s existence, Nixon Rosa. I don’t want to make assumptions about you, but it sure sounds like you’re heading that way.”
He shakes his head, and with sneaky hands, slides one up and into the back of my hair. “If you’d let me finish, you’d hear the bit about how that world of exploration no longer calls to me.” He tugs me a little closer. A little closer. “I don’t want anything as much as I want you to give me a chance. And with your chance, comes your son. I want you both to count on me.”
Daringly, Nixon presses a kiss to the underside of my jaw. “I’m not asking for anything wild,” he murmurs. “Nothing too scary. Not yet anyway.” He slides his tongue along my throat and renders me completely useless. “I’m not asking for a son. But if he needs a pal,” he says. “I wanna be that guy. If he needs someone to kick a ball with at the park, I’d be fucking stoked if I was the guy you called. If you have a spider in your home, I wanna be who you cry to about it, and when you’re not looking, I’ll cry too, because I fucking hate spiders,” he chuckles.
“You hate spiders?” My brain is melting. Along with my common sense. “Really?”
“All those hairy legs,” he shivers. “They scare the shit out of me.”
“But if I have a spider and need help?”
He flashes a sexy grin and nips at my jaw. “I’d take care of it.”
&n
bsp; “That’s very selfless of you.”
“Selfish,” he corrects. “Because in exchange, I want you.”
Somehow, at some point today, I went from an absolute no to now being in his arms, to my legs being wrapped around his hips. And when he steps forward and pins me to the wall, my ‘absolute no’ disintegrates into lust and a mental ‘yes please.’
“I want you so bad that it feels like I might die if you say no.” Nixon presses his groin against mine, hard enough to elicit a whimper, controlled enough that I’m tempted to toss all logic aside… along with my panties. “One taste?” he groans. “Please, Idalia. Just one? I swear, I’ll be gentle. And tomorrow, when I go to work, I’ll text you so much that you’ll ask me to stop.”
A desperate exhale escapes my throat. “I’m scared of saying yes.”
“Yeah, but—”
“And I’m terrified of saying no.”
With that, Nixon’s eyes whip to mine, wide and hungry. “So… yes?” he rasps. “Is that a yes?”
“It’s a cry for help,” I snigger. “It’s a this’ll probably go to hell, but—”
“But yes anyway?” His hands grow tighter on my hip and in my hair. “I need you to agree to this. Consent is kinda important in my world, so…”
“Please don’t make me cry,” I, well… I cry. “I’m so done with being sad.”
“I promise to only make you smile. Or laugh. Or get mad.”
My eyes narrow.
“But no sad,” he snickers.
Before I get the chance to argue, since I think arguing is somewhat a kind of flirting for us, Nixon slams his lips to mine and swallows my gasp of surprise.
He’s rough, handsy, and fast. His tongue dives forward, taunting, demanding, and duels with mine until I whimper and he groans. He pins me to the wall, just feet from the display shelf of third-grade ribbons, and with callused hands, he changes grip and slides his palms along my thighs and into the waistband of my jeans.
His lips stay fused to mine, unbending and unapologetic. But his hands roam, over my skin, and down to my panties. He’s not shy; I mean, he never really was. But once he has consent, he turns it up and demands more.