The Firefighter (The Working Men Series Book 7)

by Ramona Gray

  “I’m so sorry, Elijah. So damn sorry.”

  “I am too,” he said. “I shouldn’t have gotten angry with you. It was stupid.”

  “No, I was being stupid.” I sighed and lifted my head before taking his hand.

  He squeezed it gently and, staring at the kitchen table, I said, “I used to date this guy named Phillip. Met him at the bar one night. He wasn’t from here, had just moved to town like two months before that. He was a chef over at Josie’s Bar and Grill.”

  I poked at the half-eaten cookie in front of me. “We got along really well, and we started dating. He-he was always talking about how I was the perfect woman and how everything I did was amazing and wonderful. After a few months, we moved in together.”

  I fell silent and Elijah squeezed my hand again. “It’s okay, Mia. You don’t have to tell me.”

  “I want to tell you,” I said. “After we moved in together, it – it wasn’t that Phillip changed exactly. He just, well, I guess he just had a side to him that I hadn’t noticed or didn’t want to notice. He’d put me up on this pedestal of perfection and when I couldn’t keep up his standard of perfection, it was almost…crushing to him, you know? Like I fell off that pedestal and I fell hard, and that was it. Then I couldn’t do anything right.”

  My stomach churned but I forced myself to go on. “He constantly criticized me about everything. Before, he used to love my body, told me I was sexy and beautiful, but it switched to I was too fat and I needed to lose weight. If I had a bad day at work, I couldn’t tell him about it because he would twist it around on me, make it sound like it was bad because I wasn’t working hard enough to be good at my job.”

  “You’re good at your job,” Elijah said.

  “Yeah, I am,” I replied. I smiled up at him. “I know that I am, but at the time… I let him say those horrible things to me because I was lonely. Even worse, I let him put me on that damn pedestal of perfection, even knowing that I wouldn’t be able to stay there. It just, it made me feel good, you know?”

  Elijah pressed a kiss against my forehead. “Sounds like he had unreasonable expectations, Mia.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Isabelle and Nana said, and I know they’re right. I do. But then every time you said I was perfect, it freaked me out because I was already falling in love with you and thinking that you might be like Phillip really scared me. Even though, deep down I knew you weren’t like him, Elijah. I knew it. But it’s like a damn trigger for me or something.”

  I sighed and rubbed at my forehead. “I probably need some serious therapy.”

  Elijah didn’t say anything, and I glanced up at him, expecting to see pity and disgust on his face. Instead, there was a look of shock and - my pulse zinged, zagged, zigged - was that happiness?

  “Elijah? You okay?”

  “You love me?” He whispered.

  Shit. I hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but it was too late to take it back. I nodded. “Yeah, I do. I know it’s quick and weird, and I swear I’m not trying to really freak you out, but I’m like a hundred percent positive that I love you, Elijah. But you don’t have to – oh my God!”

  Elijah, the muscles in his arms bulging, had turned and scooped me up out of the chair with ease. He sat me in his lap, cupped my face and kissed me hard on the mouth. I made another muffled sound of shock before sinking into him and returning his kiss eagerly.

  I wasn’t exactly sure what was happening, but God had I missed his kisses. I pressed myself up against him, sweeping my tongue across his lips. When he parted them, I practically shoved my tongue into his mouth, tasting him with greedy desire.

  He pulled back after a few moments and studied my swollen mouth before smiling at me. “I love you, Mia.”

  “You love me,” I said.

  He nodded. “You can’t be all that surprised.”

  “I am,” I said. “I mean, I knew you liked me and that you wanted to maybe date, but I -”

  “I’ve had a crush on you for over a year,” he said. “When you offered to teach me how to have sex, I couldn’t believe it. It was like every one of my fantasies had come true.”

  “Over a year?” I whispered. “Why didn’t you say something before.”

  “Because you were in love with Matt, and because I was a virgin and embarrassed,” he said.

  “I don’t love Matt now,” I said quickly. “I swear, Elijah. Honestly, what I thought was love was more a combination of loneliness and convincing myself he was the one for me because he knew me so well and knew I was far from perfect. But I don’t love him as anything more than a friend. I love you and only you.”

  “I believe you,” he said. “I’m sorry again for what I said.”

  “No,” I said. “You don’t have to apologize.”

  He kissed my mouth, pulling away before I could deepen it. “I know you have flaws and make mistakes just like everyone else, but, Mia, I will not stop telling you that you’re the perfect woman. Because you’re the perfect woman for me and I love you.”

  He wiped away the tear that was sliding down my cheek and I gave him a soft smile. “Elijah Thomson, you just might be the perfect man.”

  Please enjoy an excerpt of “The Cop”, Book Eight in the Working Men Series.

  The Cop is available for preorder HERE

  The Cop

  Working Men Series Book Eight

  Copyright © 2019 Ramona Gray

  Maggie

  “Shit.” I looked in the rearview mirror as the flashing lights lit up the growing gloom, and the siren broke the silence.

  I glanced at my speed before slowing down, pulling over to the side of the road and stopping. I put the car in park and rubbed at my temples. I hadn’t been speeding and I had zero idea why the cop was pulling me over.

  I was about five miles from some small town I’d never heard of, a blip on the map, just another place to get through on my way to…. well, I had no idea where, but what I did know was that the last thing I needed was a damn ticket.

  “All right, Maggie. You know what you need to do,” I said to my reflection in the rearview mirror.

  I cringed but unbuttoned the first couple buttons on my shirt, giving my small breasts a quick adjustment. I didn’t have much in the chest department, but maybe the cop was into chicks with tiny tits. I took a deep breath and blew it out.

  “You can do this, Maggie. Flirt your way out of this ticket, girl. Flirt hard. You can’t afford a ticket, so smile pretty, let him have a look at your cleavage, and -”

  The sharp rap on my window made me startle and I jerked, my seat belt cutting into my chest. I rolled the window down, the flirtatious smile dying before it really started as I stared at the magnificent god standing next to my car.

  Holy shit, Mags, if this is how they grow ‘em in small towns, maybe you should reconsider your idea to find a big city.

  The cop stared silently at me as my gaze roamed his face. Tanned skin, sharp cheekbones, a narrow nose and… oh God, total cliché – but piercing, and I mean, piercing, blue eyes that were staring straight into my damn soul. I wanted desperately to take a look at the tall, lean body attached to the most beautiful face in the universe, but I couldn’t seem to look away from his gaze.

  Snap out of it, Mags. Start flirting, for God’s sake.

  Right. Flirting. No problem.

  “Good evening, Officer.” I pasted that flirtatious smile on my face and thrust my chest out. Shit, I should have undone my seat belt first.

  The cop’s gaze never wavered from my face. “Ma’am. License and registration, please.”

  Holy hell… what a voice. My pussy actually quivered in response to the deep, gravel-filled rasp.

  “Of course.” My smile widened and I unclicked my seat belt before leaning over and digging the registration out of the glovebox, then snagged my license from my wallet.

  I cocked my head and bit my bottom lip, arching my back and working my tiny tits with everything I had as I handed over my information.

 
C’mon, tiny tits, don’t fail me now.

  The cop took my license and registration, his gaze still firmly on my face.

  Houston, we have a problem. It’s a tiny tits failure. We’re asking for permission to abort.

  Abort? Not with my limited funds, dammit. I let my fingers trace the soft skin of my upper chest as I bit my bottom lip again. “What seems to be the problem… Officer?”

  For the size of my body, I had a weirdly deep voice, but I had been pitching it higher, making it breathy and squeaky. It didn’t have the desired effect on the cop, but I kept trying. “I wasn’t speeding.”

  He studied my license before lifting those stormy ocean eyes back to my face. “Ma’am, are you aware that it’s a crime to provide false ID to a police officer?”

  I sighed, admitted failure, and aborted the mission. “It’s not a false ID, Officer.”

  If he was surprised by the sound of my normal speaking voice, it didn’t show on his face. “Is that right?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Your name is,” his gaze dipped to my license again, “Magnolia Blossom?”

  I sighed and rattled off my regular spiel whenever someone discovered my full name. “Yes. First name Magnolia. Last name Blossom. Like the flower. My parents were hippies.”

  He didn’t reply, and I made a show of checking my watch before giving him a clearly irritated smile. “Can you tell me why I’ve been stopped, Officer? The speed limit is fifty and I was doing fifty.”

  “Your tail light is out.”

  “Oh. Okay, well, I’ll get that fixed. Thanks for letting me know.” I held my hand out for my license and registration.

  “Where are you headed, Ms. Blossom?”

  After a week on the road, rapidly dwindling funds, and no solid idea of where I was going or what I was doing, my already-frayed nerves took another hit. I was suddenly and irrationally angry at the stupidly handsome cop.

  Or, maybe I was just pissed that my flirting hadn’t worked one single bit.

  “How is that any of your business, Officer…” I squinted at his nametag in the rapidly growing dark, “Reynolds?”

  Annoyance flickered across his face and he stepped back. “Wait here, please, Ms. Blossom.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” I muttered as he took my license and registration back to his car.

  My temper steadily rose as I waited nearly five minutes for Officer “How Could Such a Beautiful Man be Such a Dickhead” to return.

  The cold air drifting through the open window was making me shiver and I cranked the heat in my car and rolled up my window. I rubbed again at my temples. It was getting late and dark, and snow was starting to fall. My plan to drive through the one-horse town I was on the outskirts of and hit the bigger town after it, was rapidly changing. I hated driving to begin with, and driving in an unfamiliar area after dark and during a snowstorm? No, thank you. I’d just have to hope the rinky-dink town had at least one motel.

  Officer Muscles rapped on my window again and I rolled it down. Snowflakes were starting to cling to his dark hair, and he was wearing just a t-shirt under his vest, but the cold and the weather didn’t seem to affect him at all. I looked away from the hard line of his biceps as he held my paperwork out.

  Yeah, because he’s already stone-cold, Mags. He might be handsome, but his arrogance is a total turn-off.

  Right, a total turn-off…. no lingering attraction here at all.

  “What’s this?” I stared blankly at the piece of paper he handed to me with my license and registration.

  “It’s a ticket for your broken tail light.”

  My jaw dropped and I stared at him. “You’re kidding me.”

  “I am not, Ms. Blossom. A broken tail light is a fineable offense.”

  I stared at the amount of the ticket, my stomach churning. “Isn’t this a bit excessive? It’s a broken tail light. I’ll get it fixed.”

  “When you do, bring the receipt to your court date, and the judge will dismiss the fine,” he said.

  “The court date is a month from now. I’m just passing through.” I hitched my thumb at my backseat that was covered with three suitcases.

  “Then I guess you’ll need to pay the fine.”

  My temper flared and I glared at Officer Hottie Arrogant Asshole. “Look, can’t you just give me a warning and let me go? I promise I’ll fix the tail light first thing in the morning.”

  “Rules are rules, Ms. Blossom. You can pay the fine or, in a month, you can bring your receipt to the court and have the fine dismissed.”

  “I – seriously? It is a broken tail light.” I spoke slowly, as if that might knock some sense into him.

  “I am aware.” He gave me a steely stare. “Drive safe, Ms. Blossom.”

  He turned to walk away, and I muttered “arrogant asshole”, under my breath as I tossed the ticket and my license and registration onto my passenger seat.

  Apparently, Officer Bulging Biceps also had the hearing of a hawk, because he immediately turned back. “What was that, Ms. Blossom?”

  Jesus, why did his low voice saying my name make my nipples go hard?

  It’s not his voice, it’s the cold air, idiot.

  Right. The cold air.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  He studied me, those blue eyes making my insides feel weirdly hot. I had a sudden desire to confess my insult to him. What the hell was wrong with me?

  I straightened my back and gave him my best ice-cold court stare. “Thank you, Officer Reynolds. It’s been a pleasure.”

  His nostrils flared just the tiniest bit and the exasperation on his face was fleeting, but a wave of perverse pleasure washed over me. I had gotten under his skin, just a little. He turned to leave, and weird disappointment washed over me. I had no idea what my odd compulsion to interact with him just a little longer was about and it was more than a little alarming. Still, it didn’t stop me from saying, “Officer Reynolds?”

  “Yes?”

  “Uh,” I searched desperately for something to say. “Does your tiny little town even have a motel?”

  “We have two. One is,” he paused, “a Best Western, and the other is a smaller locally-owned motel.”

  “What’s the name of the motel?” I asked.

  “Park Motel. It’s over on Park Street. You’ll want to stay at the Best Western,” he said. “It’s more expensive but cleaner and safer for a woman traveling on her own.”

  “Thank you.” I gave him a frosty smile and he nodded before walking back to his car.

  I stared at – goddammit, the most amazing ass I’d ever seen in a pair of jeans – in the side mirror before he climbed into his SUV and shut the door.

  I googled the Park Motel and put the address into my GPS. The Best Western might have been safer, but with my limited cash, I needed the cheapest option. The questionable Park Motel it was.

  I put the car into drive and with another quick glance at the cop car behind me, pulled back onto the road. He stared where he was on the side of the road, and I blew my breath out again as I drove around a curve in the road and Officer Fine Ass disappeared from my rearview mirror.

  The Cop is available for preorder HERE

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  Books by Ramona Gray:

  Individual Books

  The Escort

  Saving Jax

  The Assistant

  One Night

  Sharing Del

  Other World Series

  The Vampire’s Kiss (Book One)

  The Vampire’s Love (Book Two)

  The Shifter’s Mate (Book Three)

  Rescued By The Wolf (Book Four)

  Claiming Quinn (Book Five)

  Choosing Rose (Book Six)

  Undeniable Series

  Undeni
ably His

  Undeniably Hers

  Undeniably Theirs

  Working Men Series

  The Mechanic

  The Carpenter

  The Bartender

  The Welder

  The Electrician

  The Landscaper

  The Firefighter

  The Cop

  The Paramedic