A Beautiful Fire (Love at Lincolnfield Book 4)

by Colette Dixon

  Oh, God. What had she been thinking inviting him inside and offering him coffee? He was completely the opposite of her type.

  She was only being nice. Just like he’d been nice to bring the soup. And now, she’d lie down and nicely let him help her change her bandage. She wriggled into position.

  He knelt next to her and flipped the lid of the kit, business like. With a competent tug, he ripped the Velcro off the brace. She winced.

  “Sorry,” he said, meeting her eyes only briefly.

  “It’s okay.” Her knee hurt as he unwound the bandage but at the same time, by some miracle of nature, despite the pain, her nipples tightened in response to the brush of his fingers on the naked skin below her shorts.

  The multiple unwindings necessary for the job meant he kept touching the same spot over and over on her inner thigh. She clenched her teeth against her arousal. But the next time she couldn’t bite back a jagged inhale.

  His hands stilled, gently resting on her leg. “Sorry. Did that hurt?”

  She propped herself up on her elbows, breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling and she was desperately close to saying something she shouldn’t say. “No,” she whispered. “Not at all.”

  His eyes locked on hers, black pupils dilated so much they nearly swallowed the blue. Then he snapped his gaze back to her knee. Like the pro he was, he slathered antibacterial cream on the scrape, wrapped her knee in new gauze and cinched down her brace.

  The moment he finished, he sprung up and moved toward the door. She did not want him to leave. She wanted to pull his body down on top of hers.

  She shot out a hand. “Could you just give me a hand up?”

  He was staring at her entryway as if he’d seen something disturbing there. He swiveled, but not all the way. Like the decision whether to take her hand was a grave one and he didn’t want to make a mistake.

  Finally, he kneeled before her and reached out a hand.

  Instead of letting him take hers, she threaded her fingers through his. His lips parted open. Heat and anticipation zinged through her nervous system. He hovered there, letting her hold his hand this way, holding hers back.

  “Harper,” he said.

  And thank all that was holy in the world he crawled on his knees on top of her as she replied, “Jakub.”

  “You’re so beautiful.” He swept a thumb over her cheek.

  Her back arched in an attempt to connect with his body. His thumb lingered below her earlobe then he swept it back across her lips.

  She sucked in a breath.

  “I want to kiss you so badly. Can I kiss you?”

  “Yes,” she panted. God, yes.

  He brought his lips to hers. Pleasure overtook her as she pressed into him. Pleasure like she never felt from any other kiss in her life. He licked her tongue, her lips, her teeth. He explored her mouth in a desperate hurry, as though someone might walk in any moment and tell them to stop. She kissed him back with equal urgency.

  He smelled divine, like laundry detergent and male, and he tasted like coffee and hot, hot desire. His lips trailed across her cheek and behind her ear as his hand swept the hip of her good leg.

  One knee braced between her legs, he lowered himself carefully. The hardness of his male anatomy pressed into her good thigh. She moaned, and he let out a gravelly “Mmmmm” that made her writhe beneath him.

  His hand left her hip. Shifting his weight, he balanced on that palm. His other hand dropped to her abdomen above her pubic bone. Slowly, he dragged his hand lower and lower over her shorts.

  “Jakub.”

  “Oh, God, Harper. I want to touch you. Please, can I touch you?”

  “Yes. Please, God, yes.”

  His fingers slipped down the fabric of her shorts, down along the seam of her sex. Deftly, he swept aside her shorts. Over the few millimeters of her microfiber panties—the material already soaked with her arousal—his fingertips grazed her sex.

  Need shot through her. She bobbed her head to capture his lips just as his finger found its way beneath her panties. So gently, he touched the slick skin there.

  Lips on lips, his fingers on her sex, they were connected in a circuit of pleasure. The voltage of it she could hardly contain within her body.

  “You feel incredible,” he whispered.

  “You’re making me feel incredible.”

  “Can I feel inside you?”

  She whimpered. “Yes.” The way he kept slowing to ask permission catapulted her need for him.

  He sank a finger deep within, then with another one, or maybe his thumb, found her clit. Her head dropped back, and she let out a cry.

  Soft lake blue eyes caught hers as his hand stilled. “You okay?” His face was so serious. As though he was performing some life or death rescue.

  It did, in fact feel as though if he didn’t finish, she might perish from unfulfilled desire. “Please don’t stop.”

  A hint of a smile tugged at his cheek as he kissed her sweetly again. She only wanted his whole smile. To know he was truly happy to be here.

  She arched the thigh of her good leg to rub against his erection. Oh, yes. His body was happy to be here, all right.

  At her touch, his head dropped toward her shoulder. Then he met her gaze for a moment before his mouth moved down to her chest. Through the fabric of her shirt, he took her nipple between his teeth.

  Her pelvis bucked up against his hand. Pleasure peaked, and she began to break apart. He slowed his caressing but continued to rub, prolonging her pleasure. She jolted again—too hard, her knee flexed, and pain sliced along her leg.

  A cry escaped her, pain rippling out along with pleasure.

  The sound snapped him out of a trance. He shot up, breaking the contact of their bodies and looked at her as though he’d forgotten where he was, who she was. “Fuck. I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

  The lack of his body left hers cold, and her heart dropped to her stomach. “I’m okay. It’s okay.” Her voice, her only recourse as she lay there paralyzed by a dysfunctional limb, reached for him forcefully. Besides the fact she had a broken patella and couldn’t get up to go after him, his attentions had rendered her utterly useless.

  He was pacing in circles, raking his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry, Harper. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “Jakub. Wait.” His reaction to having caused her a bit of pain seemed overblown. As though it had stirred up something else in him.

  “Thank you for the coffee.” He skipped backwards toward her entry then turned and left.

  Chapter Eight

  Thank you for the coffee? Parked in his condo garage, Jakub banged his head on the steering wheel of his truck. What kind of prick makes a woman come with his fingers—an injured woman he should have been helping, not finger fucking—then thanks her for coffee and takes off?

  Nothing had been wrong. In fact, everything felt pretty damn right. Until she cried out in pain. The sound of a woman in pain had catapulted him back to reality. Dredged up too much.

  It had all gone wrong so fast. Simple endoscopic surgery to remove a gallstone. Six hours after getting home from the first surgery they were in the ER and blood was coming out of Samara from both ends. After the doctors “watching” her in the hospital for what was the longest night of Jakub’s life, a doctor finally figured out the first surgeon had nicked a vessel.

  But after the second surgery to repair the damage of the first, she didn’t improve. Some genius decided to do the ultrasound they should have done in the first place and discovered the bleeding wasn’t only from a nicked vessel. Her gall bladder was infected and the infection had spread to her blood. But by the time the infectious disease team was called, they’d “watched” her too long to turn it around. She was severely anemic and the infection was everywhere and she hadn’t the resources left to fight it.

  If he’d known that was the way it was going to go down, he would never have gone to work that last night. But he’d thou
ght the second surgery was going to fix the problem. She was in a morphine induced sleep and he figured he’d let her rest. He never saw her lucid again.

  Jakub went inside his condo, took a shower, downed a few fingers of whiskey and fell asleep. When he woke, it was time to go to work.

  First thing, his team was called to the site of a car accident as back-up for the ambulance that was already on the way to the scene. That was never good—that meant multiple victims.

  A teenage girl had slammed into the bumper of an old man who’d slowed to turn into a gas station. The girl was conscious, but moaning in pain. Her forehead was banged up and her shoulder swollen to unnatural proportions. While the ambulance worked on the man, his team transferred the girl to a gurney. The paramedic barked for morphine.

  The morphine, the likely broken shoulder, the cries of yet another female in pain all made his stomach roil. Normally, he could keep that shit contained.

  After the girl stabilized, he leaned on the back of the truck and concentrated on stilling his breath.

  Caldwell appeared before him. “You all right, man?”

  Jakub nodded, not meeting the paramedic’s eyes. “Yeah, I’m good.”

  He rubbed the sweat off his palms onto his thighs and stuffed that shit down in the deep dark well. Like a professional, he finished his shift.

  When he got home, he tossed his phone onto the nightstand and tumbled into bed.

  The phone had lit up a couple of times throughout the course of his shift with texts from Harper. He couldn’t bring himself to read them until after he slept. When he woke ten hours later, he didn’t feel rested at all.

  His phone propped against his lamp on the nightstand. He read her texts. Hey, just wanted to say thanks again for the soup. And that I wasn’t upset about what happened.

  The second one, eight hours later, read: If you regret it, of course we can forget it ever happened.

  He blinked at the screen. Was that what she wanted?

  He didn’t know how to respond. He’d wanted her in that moment more than he’d wanted a woman in a long time. But now he was bone-tired from dealing with suffering. From memories of suffering.

  He needed some time to sort out what he was going to do about Harper Peters.

  Chapter Nine

  Bev blustered in, a cloud of crinkling paper grocery bags and jangling bracelets, calling, “knock, knock,” as she strode into Harper’s entry, not knocking at all. “How’s the invalid?”

  Harper closed her laptop, which had grown hot on her lap. In order to wrap up this grant application, she only needed the final tally of the laboratory expenses for the phage center from Dr. Yamato. But he was not answering his emails. “I’ve been better, but I’ve also seen much worse.”

  Bev set the grocery bags on the floor. “Still sucks to get injured though. If you won’t feel sorry for you, I will.” She nudged one of the bags with a foot. “Brought you a few things.”

  Harper warmed to her friend and set the laptop on the couch behind her. “Oh, you didn’t have to do that.”

  “Well, don’t get too excited. It’s all fresh produce which is,” Bev bit her lips as though disappointed in herself, “not going to be so convenient for you now that I think of it. I should have brought you some frozen dinners or something.” She grabbed the bags and headed to the kitchen, calling back, “I’ll put these away for you.”

  Harper lifted onto her crutches. “Fresh produce is fine. I can stand well enough to chop and cook.”

  In the kitchen, she met Bev who had splayed the fridge doors wide. “Yes, but do you want to? Oh, I see you do already have a year’s supply of frozen soup.”

  Harper’s face warmed. “A…friend brought me those yesterday.”

  “That’s so sweet.”

  “Yes, well, except I’m not sure we’re still friends.”

  Bev closed then leaned on the stainless steel door. “Why? What happened?”

  Why had Harper brought up Jakub? He’d been a passing anomaly in her life. A strange coincidence to fall at the feet of a man for whom she’d harbored a secret crush, a man who actually had the knowledge and training—and concern, yes, she couldn’t discredit that—to help her with her injury. But after Jakub had left her hanging, run out on her and not answered her texts, not only had he broken her cardinal rule about communication, he’d only confirmed what she’d already known.

  He was not serious dating material. No matter how nice his hands had felt on her.

  But for some reason, she was compelled to explain the situation to Bev. “This is a really embarrassing story.”

  Bev’s mouth dropped open pre-emptively. “Oh, I have to hear it now. Wait, let me make us something to eat first, because I don’t want to miss a word.”

  After Bev had chopped them a salad with avocado, red pepper, cherry tomatoes and some pumpkin seeds Harper had lying around in her pantry, they sat at the dining room table. Harper began to tell Bev about Jakub, about the secret crush, the way he’d carried her, the mattress help, the teddy bear and soup, the delicious mingling after the bandage changing.

  “Oh, my God. Your hot fireman fantasy became real. I love it.” Quickly, her winning smile fell. “But wait, why are you not friends anymore?” Pulling her eyebrows together, she made air quotes with her fingers around the word friends.

  “After we…got together, he jumped up and apologized like he’d done something awful. Or like he’d suddenly regretted it for some reason. Even though I tried to tell him it was fine. And I had very clearly consented.” Harper heated at the memory of how deferential he’d been to ask for permission before he touched her. From the take-charge way he’d slung her over his shoulder when they first met, the depth of his tenderness had taken her by surprise. “I texted him too, explaining I was fine. And I never heard back.”

  Bev wiped her mouth with Harper’s botanical print linen napkin. “Never in this case means since yesterday?”

  “A man who just had his fingers all,” Harper cleared her throat, “over me could tap out a three second reply with those same fingers within twenty-four hours, don’t you think?”

  Bev dropped her elbows on either side of her plate. “Oh, that’s right, you have some kind of rule about that, don’t you?”

  Yes, Harper had rules. But she braced with defensiveness at the way Bev said it. “I have certain expectations of men I’m involved with. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

  Bev crossed her arms over her grey hemp jumper and leaned back in the chair. “Well, he’s obviously into you. He came by twice to check on you. Maybe he got busy putting out fires.”

  Harper stabbed a cherry tomato with her fork, nodding, not wanting to meet Bev’s eye. She and her husband, Arthur, had met at freshman orientation the first week of college and had never been with another person since. Harper’s trust-in-the-universe friend believed love was like a lightning bolt that visited one from above and the deal was done, not something that could be carefully curated and nurtured—that should be carefully curated and nurtured. “Maybe he was just being kind, helping me. We’re both in helping professions, you know.”

  “I know.” Leaning in, Bev dropped her forearms on the table. “That’s why there’s so much potential here.”

  “My life is not, nor ever will be, one of your romance novels by any stretch of the imagination.” The memory of the Blazing Hearts book and the relief it gave her leapt into her consciousness, bringing a blush, no doubt. That was the one detail she hadn’t shared with Bev.

  Bev stared at her with a googly-eyed look of wonder. “Oh, my God. You’re blushing. Did you read one?” She was practically bouncing in the seat now, like a child awaiting a treat.

  Harper’s face burned hotter as she hitched a shoulder toward her ear. “I may have wanted something to do other than watch TV.”

  “Which one?” Bev clapped a hand over her mouth. “Don’t tell me you read Blazing Hearts? Oh, that would be too perfect.”

  “I may have.” Harper fou
ght to keep the smile down but to no avail.

  Bev’s eyes twinkled with pride and expectation. “And?”

  “Well, it got me in the mood all right, didn’t it?”

  Bev whooped. “Oh, man, Arthur is going to love this.”

  Harper grew annoyed at Bev’s misplaced enthusiasm. “There’s nothing to love. Nothing’s happening here. It’s actually good the way it…ended. He’s completely not my type.”

  “Not your type? You both care for the sick, help people in need. You have this huge essential thing in common.”

  “There are a lot of first responders and health care professionals out there. Doesn’t make them all soul mates.”

  “I know but I’m talking about you two. You connected. There’s a reason.”

  “And there’s a reason he didn’t reply. Anyway, that’s not the point. Even if he had replied, he’s not dating material.”

  Bev’s joy deflated as she flicked at a red pepper with her fork. “He’s not some scholarly doctor, you mean.”

  “A man doesn’t have to be a doctor for me to consider dating him.” Harper fought to keep a defensive edge out of her voice.

  Bev waved a hand. “He just has to be incredibly high performing in whatever field.”

  “You make it sound like I’m some kind of achievement digger. I happen to be establishing a cutting-edge treatment center, the second of its kind in the country. I’d like a man with whom I can have intelligent conversations. And is it so bad that I’d like a high earner who can go on vacations with me? Take me out to nice places?” A man who can help restore a beautiful old house with me?

  Harper startled at how easily the fantasy she hoarded like a guilty pleasure leapt to the surface.

  “So you would consider a man who didn’t have a doctorate or a PhD?”

  At the lesser vague credentials of this hypothetical man, heat circled Harper’s neck. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’d need to see some seriousness of pursuit.”

  Harper’s father had not finished his MBA. Through sheer force of personality, during an internship he managed to get a job with a financial management firm then landed a few wealthy clients. But in the end, he’d failed to build a sustainable clientele. Hard to win customers when at business dinners he’d get obliterated. It was a miracle the firm kept him on as long as they did. Then when he’d finally gotten laid off, their lives had spiraled to the bottom of a whiskey bottle, Harper’s mother taking extra shifts at the hospital to pay the bills while her dad disappeared for days at a time.