by Diane Kelly
Her face broke into a big grin. “Let’s do! I’ve heard it’s hilarious.”
“Great. I’ll get us tickets for the Friday show.”
Bzzzzzz. The timer on the oven went off, letting me know the lasagna was done cooking. While it cooled on the table, I refilled our wine glasses, stuck the garlic bread in the already-warm oven, and pulled the salad out of the fridge.
Jessica stepped over to the pasta, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath of its delicious aroma. “Yum! You sure know to treat a lady.”
“You’ve got my mother to thank for that. She insisted me and Mario learn our way around the kitchen.” I lit the candle and turned off the other lights in the house. The bread was ready now, too, so I removed it from the oven, cut it into pieces, and placed it on the table as well.
We took our seats and served our plates. Stinker lay on the floor below us, tuckered out again. She seemed to have only two speeds, hyperdrive and stock-still.
After she finished her salad, Jessica took her first bite of my lasagna. She closed her eyes and moaned in bliss. My body responded, every cell on alert. My Lord, her moan is as powerful as her giggle.
She finished chewing and opened her eyes. “This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted! You have to give me your recipe.”
“Can’t.” I took a drink of my wine and gave her a mischievous smile. “The family recipe is a secret. If I gave it to you my mother would beat me to death with her big wooden spoon.” But there might be ways you could get it out of me, regardless.
As we ate, Jessica asked more about my family. “Did your parents come here alone or did other family come with them?”
“They came alone initially,” I told her, “but my grandparents came later. Mario and I spent a lot of time at my nonno and nonna’s house.”
At least we did until I burned it down.
The tragic event was another family secret. I’d been only nine years old at the time, at the beginning of my long Meatball phase. No matter how much I ate, I always felt hungry, my appetite insatiable. My grandmother had admonished me not to touch the stove until she returned from taking a pot of minestrone to a sick neighbor down the street. But I’d disobeyed her. I thought I could quickly fry up a couple of Italian sausages and eat the evidence before she returned. Never mind that I hadn’t yet been taught how to cook. I figured I’d seen her do it enough times to get it right.
I’d managed to get the gas stove turned on and the sausages in the pan, but I had the heat turned up too high and the grease started to splatter. I first tried to grab the cast-iron pan with my hand, but the handle was hot and I dropped it back on the stove, splattering more grease. I grabbed a dish towel to try to wipe up the grease, but the towel brushed against the flame. The next thing I knew I was holding a burning towel. If I’d tossed it into the sink, the event would have been over. But in my panic my mind wasn’t working. I’d reflexively thrown the towel to the ground, where the fire spread to the braided rug Nonna’s own grandmother had made before she’d passed away a decade before.
I’d hollered to Mario, who’d run to the kitchen. “We have to go get Nonna!” he’d cried when he saw the fire.
We dashed out of the house and ran outside. But we weren’t sure which house our grandmother had gone to. We wasted precious time knocking on the wrong doors. By the time we found Nonna, the entire house was up in flames. That’s when I learned one of the first things about fires. If left untreated, a fire will double in size every minute.
It doesn’t take long for things to burn out of control.
Chapter Nineteen: Hot for You
Jessica
After dinner, we changed into our bathing suits to relax in the hot tub in Louie’s backyard. Of course I wasn’t sure I’d be able to relax. There was too much at stake.
Us.
I’d brought a black T-shirt to wear over my bathing suit. I wanted to be honest with Louie, to show him what had happened to me, but I didn’t feel quite ready. I knew he’d be shocked. Maybe even disgusted. Scott certainly had been. Once he’d seen my scars, he no longer looked at me the same way. Before I dared to show Louie, I had to know he could see past them.
While I might not be ready to bare myself—or my soul—I was more than ready for a hot and heavy make-out session in a hot tub. I’d just have to let Louie know that certain parts of me were still off-limits. I’d already come up with a convenient excuse. I’d claim to be ticklish. That ought to work, right?
Louie was already in the tub by the time I ventured out back. Disappointment flickered in his eyes as he took in the T-shirt covering my bathing suit. But how disappointed would he be if he could see what lay underneath?
His arms were stretched along the rim of the tub on either side of him, the water bubbling up to the center of his burly chest. Though I’d gotten a general sense of his muscles through his clothing, his shoulders and biceps and pecs looked even larger when they were bare like this. A warm tingle spread through my lower half, desire manifesting itself.
“Need a hand?” Louie asked, standing in the tub and reaching out a strong arm to help me in.
“Thanks.” I climbed up the steps and took a seat across from him, slowly lowering myself onto the bench. The water was warm, but not hot, and the sound and feel of the bubbles was soothing.
The tub wasn’t large, but spacious enough that four people could have sat comfortably. I was glad it was only the two of us. Well, the two of us plus Stinker, who climbed up the steps, sniffed at the bubbling water, then yelped and scampered off in surprise when a bubble popped on her nose. She sat on the porch, eyeing the hot tub with suspicion.
My outstretched legs tangled with Louie’s under the water, the occasional, unexpected contact sending jolts of primal want through me. I wondered if Louie was experiencing the same thing. I looked over at him. But instead of seeing a look of smoldering desire on his face, or even a relaxed calm, he looked pensive.
“You okay?” I asked him.
He exhaled a long, loud breath and looked away for a moment before turning back to me. “Remember the other day when you asked me why I became a firefighter?”
I nodded. “You said it was because you liked physical work.”
“That’s part of it,” he said, “but it’s not all of it.” He shifted in his seat, as if he’d become uncomfortable. “The main reason is because, when I was a kid, I . . .” He closed his gorgeous brown eyes for a few seconds before opening them again and locking his gaze on mine. “I burned down my grandparents’ house.”
My mouth gaped, but not for the reason he probably thought. He proceeded to tell me the entire story, how he’d had a raging appetite and been too impatient to wait for his nonna to return home.
The strained look on his face told me he was worried how I’d react to the story. It also told me he wasn’t used to sharing something this personal very often. I knew I had to respond in a way that would let him know this childhood mistake didn’t at all change the way I felt about him. “Nobody was hurt, right? So it all turned out okay.”
“Hardly,” he said. “The house was a total loss. All of the family heirlooms my grandparents had brought over from Italy? Gone.”
I nudged his foot with mine under the water. “Don’t beat yourself up about it, Louie. You were a kid. I know kids. They do things they shouldn’t all the time. It’s how they’re wired. It’s how they learn.”
“Well, I learned a big lesson that day for sure.”
I reached out, put my hand over his on the rim of the hot tub, and gave it a reassuring squeeze. I hoped my words and touch would convince him that I thought no less of him for what had happened. I desperately wanted to tell him then that I’d done something similar, that I’d wanted to light my mother’s lavender candle, the one that smelled so good, the one she’d told me time and time again to never try to light by myself. I, too, had ignored the warnings and struck a match to light the candle. When it burned my fingers, I’d dropped it. It had fallen onto the front of my p
ajamas and caught the top on fire. On instinct I’d run, my manic mind not comprehending that I couldn’t run from this fire because I was wearing it.
My running further fanned the flames. By the time my father tackled me to the ground, I had third-degree burns over most of my upper abdomen and the center of my chest, between my yet-to-be breasts. Despite extensive medical treatments, the skin remained discolored an odd pinkish-white, thick and leathery, looking as if it had melted. Not exactly sexy. I’d hated the smell of lavender ever since. Now, I stuck to vanilla.
Not knowing what was going on in my mind, Louie continued his story. “Everyone called me Meatball back then. I was big and round until the summer after my junior year of high school. I didn’t lose any weight, but I shot up five inches in just a few months and the pounds rearranged themselves.”
I found myself smiling. “They rearranged themselves quite well.”
Louie’s lip curled up in a relieved and sexy grin. “Oh, you think so, do you?”
I used my hand to send a splash his way. “Don’t go getting cocky on me.”
“Too late.” He chuckled and slid forward off the bench, easing through the water toward me, his brown eyes flashing with need. He angled his body over mine and put his lips to that sensitive, sensual area right below my jawline. When he trailed kisses along my neck, all thoughts of the lavender candle and the burning pajamas escaped my mind. This must be what paradise is like.
“As long as I’m being honest,” he said softly, pulling back to look me in the eye, “I might as well admit that I remembered you from the coffee house. I’m the one who asked another firefighter to switch shifts with me so I could go to your assembly, not the other way around.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “You’re a liar,” I teased. “You know what happens to liars.”
“Yeah. Their pants catch fire. But you know what else sets my pants on fire?” He slid me a sexy grin. “You.”
Oh, Lord!
He kissed along my neck and shoulder, the warmth of his mouth blending with the warmth of the water, my entire body feeling the sensual sensations. I melted back against the wall of the tub.
Louie hooked his arms under mine and gently eased me forward to his side of the tub. He put his mouth to mine now, his kisses starting soft, but growing more urgent and insistent. I was right there along with him, my nether regions throbbing with need.
His hands slid down my back until they were cupping my ass under the water. He pulled me toward him again, using his leg to nudge my knees apart until I was straddling him on the seat. Louie had started another fire, but this was one he had the skills and equipment to put out. I only hoped he’d let it rage a while.
Our kiss grew deeper and he put his hands on my thighs, pushing me down against him, increasing the delicious pressure at our centers. His mouth left mine and returned to my neck, nibbling and licking and sucking as he made his way down to the neck of my T-shirt and back up to the special spot below my ear.
His hands left my thighs and ventured upward. He attempted to slide them under my drenched T-shirt, but it was glued to my body. He tugged on the hem and worked his fingers underneath. When the tips of his fingers touched my abdomen, my protective instincts kicked in. My pleasure turned to panic. Louie was a perfect physical specimen. He’d want the same in his partner, wouldn’t he? If he saw my scars, he could change his mind. I’d be crushed.
I couldn’t take this risk. I couldn’t risk losing Louie.
Not yet. Not until I was sure we were solid.
I’m not ready!
“Don’t!” I shoved against Louie’s chest and shot back across the tub as if launched from a cannon, cowering against the opposite wall.
Across the tub, Louie looked as if he’d been slapped. “What’s the matter, Jessica?”
Damn! I could’ve handled this so much better. But my mind had been so muddled with lust and terror I hadn’t been able to think. “Sorry!” I forced a smile to my face. “It’s just that I’m really ticklish on my stomach.”
“That’s okay.” He came at me across the tub again. “I like to hear you giggle.”
He returned his attention to my neck. When he reached for the hem of my T-shirt again, I pushed his hand away.
“Please?” he whispered against my neck. “I want to know every inch of you.”
I wanted to know every inch of him, too.
But I couldn’t do it.
I turned and climbed out of the tub. I never should have agreed to get this naked this fast. This had been a mistake. I slid my feet into my sandals, grabbed my towel from the back of the patio chair, and wrapped it around me. I headed toward his back door.
“Come back, Jessica!” he called after me. “We can just sit and talk if that’s what you want.”
It was too late for that, and we both knew it. Neither of us would be satisfied with mere conversation with this strong sexual tension between us. I was furious with myself for reacting the way I did. Louie wouldn’t understand.
Warm tears welled up in my eyes, matching the warm water drops on the rest of my body. I looked down to hide them. I’d really screwed things up and I didn’t know how to fix them. I needed to get out of there, to go home, where I could think clearly. “Could you take me home, please?”
Louie climbed out of the tub and rushed over, putting his hand under my chin and lifting my face, forcing me to look at him. “What the hell is going on, Jessica?”
Chapter Twenty: WTF?
Louie
I stood on the grass below, watching as Jessica closed her apartment door, and wondered what the hell had just happened.
Apparently Stinker was wondering, too. Standing next to me, she raised her head and barked. Yap? Yap-yap? When that got her nowhere, she emitted a whimper.
I looked down at the pup. “You and me both, girl.”
I had no idea what to do at that point. Jessica had refused to tell me what was going on, saying only that things were moving too fast between us. I’d apologized, offered to slow things down, but none of that seemed to matter. She refused to say anything more, and it was clear any efforts to get her to open up would be futile.
Besides, the more I thought about things, the more my feelings evolved from hurt to anger. I’d opened up to her about my real reason for becoming a firefighter, exposed my insecurities, bared my soul, and she’d shut me out in response. Had telling her my story changed her opinion of me? Had her talk about children making mistakes been bullshit? It sure seemed that way. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was a crazy bitch. Hell, maybe she was a crazy bitch and had been fooling me all this time with that sweet-teacher act.
As if Stinker knew what I was thinking, she let loose a low growl, telling me I was wrong.
“What do you know?” I snapped. “You’re only a puppy.”
She flopped down on the grass and put her paws over her face as if her feelings had been hurt, too.
Guilt tugged at my gut. I reached down and scooped up the dog, cradling her in my arms. “Sorry, girl. I was out of line. How about a treat?”
She perked up and yapped in response. I was pretty sure this yap translated to Now you’re talkin’!
After returning to the house and tossing a handful of treats to Stinker, I spent the next half hour cleaning up the dinner dishes and trying to make sense of the night.
Things had been going fine in the hot tub, hadn’t they? I’d thought Jessica wanted me as much as I wanted her. Her body language had told me so. But then something had changed. She didn’t want me to touch her.
But why?
Damn, this is so frustrating. Jessica had left me with a full bottle of wine and what was sure to become a raging case of blue balls, but not a single word of explanation.
Grabbing the Merlot from the counter, I rounded up the corkscrew and opened the bottle. I didn’t bother with a glass this time. Screw it.
I flopped down on my couch and guzzled straight from the bottle.
Chapter Twenty-One
: Flamed Out
Jessica
It was a wonder I could find my way to my bed, what with my tears nearly blinding me.
I screwed up.
Royally.
I liked Louie—a lot—and I’d wanted everything to go right. But then I’d panicked. Maybe I should take after his mother and beat myself to death with a wooden spoon.
I wondered how he was feeling right now, what he was thinking. He probably thought I was a crazy bitch. He had every right to think that. Or maybe he thought I was frigid, or a tease. Maybe I’d made him feel like an ass, thinking he’d moved too far too fast. Or maybe he thought my reaction was a delayed response to the story he’d told me. Maybe he thought I’d been turned off by the thought of him as a chubby young boy who’d made a monumental mistake and burned down his grandparents’ house. Hell, my heart had gone out to him when he’d told me. Like him, I knew what it felt like to have been disobedient and made a big mistake. At least in my case I’d been the one to bear the brunt of my actions. He’d had to suffer the guilt of knowing he’d caused his grandparents to lose everything. I was glad he’d shared something so personal with me, had opened up. But now I feared I’d broken his trust, caused his feelings for me to flame out.
I wrestled my way out of my clingy wet T-shirt and bathing suit and hung them over the shower curtain rod to dry. I turned to the mirror and looked at the scars marring my skin. They were ugly, sure, but they weren’t the thing that defined me. Maybe I needed to accept that, too. I looked myself in the eye. “You’re an idiot.”
My reflection was right. I needed to try to fix things. I had to give Louie a chance. If he accepted me as I was, things could be wonderful. And if he wanted to toss me aside for someone with a perfect body like Lexi or Nora, then so be it. At this point I had nothing to lose.