The Firefighter and the Virgin Princess

by Jemma Harte

  Lieutenant Joe Rossini knows everything about his city. He's not a hero. He's just a regular guy who happens to like helping people. And when he meets the beautiful, mysterious Lily Keene— with her long, long legs— the one thing he knows for sure about her is that she needs him. If he can only persuade her to let him into her life and into her secrets, maybe he can help her. And maybe she's just the woman he's been looking for.

  Lily has only known one way of life — as a dancer. It's all she's ever wanted and all she's ever been able to do. But at twenty two she's fallen into a rut and gotten stuck there. Dancing just isn't fulfilling her needs the way it once did. Can a white hot, reckless affair with one sexy, down-to-earth firefighter get her parts oiled again? Or will it get her tangled up in that messy, dangerous, unpredictable real life that she's avoided for so long?

  Regular Joe is all about honesty and "whatcha see is whatcha get", but Lily hides from reality in a world of painted scenery, where cutthroat envy is masked by a smile and nothing is ever what it seems on the surface. At first glance they're just two strangers on the city street, but Lily and Joe are about to collide on one chilly winter's day, after which nothing will ever be the same for them again.

  New York City in winter has never been hotter.

  The Firefighter and the Virgin Princess

  by

  Jemma Harte

  M/F, ANAL SEX

  Twisted E Publishing, LLC

  www.twistedepublishing.com

  A TWISTED E- PUBLISHING BOOK

  The Firefighter and the Virgin Princess

  Copyright © 2014 by Jemma Harte

  Edited by Marie Medina

  First E-book Publication: November 2014, SMASHWORDS EDITION

  Cover design by K Designs

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2014, Twisted Erotica Publishing.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  "Every princess loves a good ball, but a pair of them is even better."

  The Firefighter and the Virgin Princess

  Prologue

  Joe Rossini had sometimes heard New York called a romantic city. He couldn't see it. As a firefighter, he witnessed the hard, rough, ugly side of people's lives. He picked them up when they were down in their own vomit. Sometimes he found the pieces when they were dead. He carried charred bodies from burning buildings, he stepped around bloody flesh on the road after a car accident, he saw brains blown out onto a wall after someone gave up, got desperate and put a loaded gun to their head.

  Yeah, he didn't see much romance in the city.

  He didn't believe in fucking fairy tales either.

  Despite the dark view he got from where he stood, Joe was a surprisingly cheerful type of guy, pragmatic, honest, never down for too long. He had ways to keep his spirits up. He loved the smell of warm bread straight out of the oven, wafting through the doors of a bakery as he passed, and there was nothing that could help him unwind faster than a few cold beers with friends he'd known since childhood. And he loved sitting on the Staten Island ferry, watching other people— particularly female people, with long legs, wearing shorts. Yeah, he was a leg man.

  He didn't like being called a hero, he couldn't stand hypocrisy, and if there was one thing he really hated, it was a bully.

  That was Joe Rossini for you.

  "I'm just a regular guy," he would say with a shrug. "Whatcha see is whatcha get."

  And, oddly enough, he loved his city.

  But, as he would point out, "There ain't no romance here. This is New York, not fucking Paris."

  * * * *

  Chapter One

  Lily Keene knew of no better rush— standing in the wings, waiting for her entrance. Tonight she was a white swan, one of ten, hovering breathless for this last moment on dreary earth.

  Escape from reality. Better than any drug or alcohol.

  The music built steadily and the lights shifted to make a beautiful, ethereal world out of a few painted sets. This was the world in which Lily lived six nights a week— if she was lucky and wasn't sidelined with an injury. Not only did she live in it, but she lived for it, and she couldn't understand those who didn't.

  There was a rumor going around that one of the girls in the corps was pregnant. This news had swept the ranks as if it was a death among them. People's gazes shifted downward in awkward sympathy, hands went to cheeks. Heads shook.

  Not only was the poor girl knocked up, but she'd decided to keep the baby.

  One dancer, exit stage right.

  Of course, said some of the kinder folk, she could always come back again. These days a baby wasn't necessarily the end of a dancer's career. They recited the names of a few special dancers who had given birth and returned to the stage. The very few, famous cases.

  Deep inside they all knew it wouldn't happen in this particular incidence.

  Lily couldn't figure out how the girl even had time to date and have sex, let alone why she would quit to have a baby.

  She heard one of the younger girls say, "Well, there is more to life than ballet and this doesn't last forever, does it? She says she's in love, and she seems really happy."

  Someone else agreed, "We can't all be prima ballerinas. There isn't room at the top for everyone."

  It was pretty obvious what the gossips were thinking: They deserved one of those coveted places at the top. Pregnant Carrie— a mediocre dancer— had bowed out gracefully. One less to compete against.

  As she listened to the other girls gossip and speculate, it hit home to Lily more than ever how little she knew of the other world. How unprepared for it she was. How afraid of one day being forced out into it.

  Ballet had been her driving force, her whip and her reward, since she was five and her grandmother first bought her lessons. It was all consuming. It was everything she knew— this strange, distorted, dream-like world lit by tungsten halogen lamps

  Sometimes she imagined herself to be an Oompa Loompa. Only existing in a brightly colored fantasy world like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. Take an Oompa Loompa out into harsh daylight to get a real job and he'd look awful. Wouldn't know where to start. Wouldn't know how to survive. He'd probably turn to the bottle and hang out in the subway.

  She shook that wandering thought off. Wouldn't do to get distracted thinking about Oompa Loompas. Not when she was supposed to be a graceful, elegant swan.

  But she needed something to take her mind off the pain in her foot. Aspirin cream wasn't working anymore. She'd had plastic wrap, a bandage and a heating pad on it all night, but it still hurt. Also she had a stomach cramp that felt like someone stapling her guts together. It couldn't be her period. She hadn't had one of those in months, maybe even years. If a dancer had regular periods, the other girls looked at them with suspicion, searching for that additional inch of body fat that made them function like a normal woman.

  It may not be politically correct to say it, but everyone knew it was true— a real woman's curves were not coveted in ballet. Boyish hips and a flat chest were the yearned for standard. But the "powers that be" didn't have to turn down a dancer because she actually had flesh that dimpled over her bones, for there were plenty of other excuses they could use to hide that one. It was a tough business, eternally critical. And dancers were the hardest on themselves.

  Lily's heartbeat thumped hard through her body, so that she felt it in her toes, in her fingertips, even
in her fake eyelashes. She was hungry, but then she was always hungry. It was good to be hungry.

  The "swan" in front of her was wiry, had shoulder blades that could slice cake. The one behind her was flat as a pancake and had wrists like licorice sticks.

  Oh, god! Why did everything have to remind her of food?

  One day she'd eat three meals, get drunk and read a book. One day. Maybe she'd even go on a date with someone who had nothing at all to do with ballet.

  But not today. Not tomorrow. As long as her body held out she had to dance. It was all she knew, and there was no room for anything else.

  Here came their cue.

  Twelve pairs of arms arched high, reaching for the painted clouds, while the same number of long, false lashes swept down. And these magical swans were off, taking flight on their toes, in perfect unison.

  The little girls— and boys— in the audience were transported to that fantasy world with them, having no idea that beneath the white feathers and make-up, these were merely insecure, imperfect women, eaten up by ambition and with the ugliest, most tortured and misshapen feet even a goblin wouldn't want to touch.

  * * * *

  "Alana was eight beats early. What the hell was she thinking? I'm surprised Renaldo caught her."

  "But her thirty-two fouettes are a dream. Breathtaking!"

  "Sure we're all holding our breath, taking bets on how many times she'll wobble."

  "Speaking of wobble—she's put on weight. At least three pounds. Did you see her thighs? O.M.G!"

  "She's getting old to dance Odette. What is she, thirty?"

  "But she's still so beautiful. That woman is all about the face."

  "If you ask me, she's all about the thighs. For fuck's sake, the stage was shaking every time she landed a grand jete."

  "Pas de chat? More like Pas de Chunk."

  Snide giggles and titters swept the cluttered dressing room, but one of the new girls refused to join in, insisting the subject of their discussion was incredibly pretty "for her age" and had been the inspiration for so many young girls— herself included. This adamant defense of her idol caused a few to roll their eyes, but they had to agree that even "old and fat" Alana was still stunning, still selling tickets and putting butts on seats.

  Only half listening to the debate, Lily stared into the mirror and pressed a sanitary pad to her forehead, gently absorbing the sweat. I wonder if they talk about me the same way when I leave the room, she mused.

  In the next moment the discussion was off in a new direction. Men. Who was hot, who was definitely gay, who might not be. Which dancer they would sleep with, given the chance. Who had fucked who. Who wasn't speaking to who. Who was being a total little diva bitch.

  Their voices were loud and excitable because the performance was over and they were still riding that high.

  Lily carefully peeled off her eyelashes and wiped off the make up with baby oil, watching her face gradually turn into ordinary again. Taking a swift, silent inventory in the mirror, she realized that at twenty-two she was the eldest dancer in that dressing room. There were several seventeen and eighteen-year-olds — shiny new girls. A few nineteen year-olds with that bold, devil-may-care attitude that comes from no longer being new, but still being fresh. And finally there was a cluster of twenty and twenty-one year-olds. At their age they were starting to feel the shark bite of competition on their tail, but they weren't yet desperate. They did a lot of snarking on other girls to make themselves feel better.

  Lily was the unofficial team leader, casually appointed by Company Director, Henri Paradisi, to look after the younger girls in the corps.

  "We need you here, Lily darling. See how they all look up to you," he had said to her one day as he passed, his cool hand briefly resting on her shoulder, but his gaze never even touching her. At least he knew her name, she mused. She'd begun to think she was completely invisible to that man.

  All of her dressing room mates came to Lily for advice, but only about dancing, of course. She could hardly advise them on things about which she had no experience. Boyfriends for instance. Lily's life was so ruled by ballet that she remained a virgin, despite the concerted effort of a certain notorious male principal dancer who tried seducing her over Tequila shots one night when she first joined the company. The same man made it a point to sleep with as many girls in the corps de ballet as he could, apparently anxious that no one mistook him for gay.

  But those Tequila shots, a tongue down her throat and a surprisingly clumsy grope down her Capezio sweatshirt were the sum total of Lily's sexual experience.

  She could, however, show a new girl the best way to break-in new pointe shoes, could recommend the best muscle massage, the best way to wrap bloody feet, the least painful or foul smelling hair removal cream...

  Here she was stuck, only occasionally granted the gift of a solo part, watching younger girls move on and up, while she was still playing surrogate mom. Lily was the quiet, shy one who never made a fuss and kept her passions inside, never making a display of it the way other girls did. Sometimes people didn't even know she was in the room, she was sure of it, unless they stumbled against her— as one of the younger girls now did, backing into a leg of Lily's chair.

  "We're going out for supper," she exclaimed, turning to find Lily there and then grabbing her shoulders for a quick squeeze. "You coming with us?" Her eyes had fogged over, probably because she tried to remember Lily's name.

  It was after eleven o'clock at night, but they were going out for supper. Such was a dancer's schedule. They had class at 8:30 AM and whatever they ate and drank now would lay heavy in their stomachs and keep them up all night, but these youngsters didn't care.

  Why shouldn't she go out for a bite? Why not? Who cares what she felt like tomorrow, damn it! Why not be wild and free and young?

  And then the unthinkable happened. Lily yawned.

  The girl standing behind her laughed. "Poor thing! You look haggard."

  So much for wild, free and young.

  Lily needed sleep. She'd make do with a cigarette, a cup of chamomile tea and then she'd wrap her foot again and fall into bed. Hoping for the best. Hoping that tomorrow she'd be in slightly less pain.

  "You guys go. Have fun." She put on her wide stage smile in the mirror. "See you tomorrow."

  Always after a performance she felt exhausted, but usually there was a sense of euphoria too, of having made it through, danced well, lived her dream again for a few hours. But tonight there was something else making itself felt through her body's aches and pains. Discontent. And fear. The sharp prick of panic. Her mind was too busy pacing and questioning, when it used to be her body that fidgeted, couldn't sit still. She used to have too much energy in her limbs, but not anymore. Now she just wanted to sit there. And let her racing thoughts spin.

  Now the last one left in the dressing room, Lily cast a weary eye over the unromantic wreckage: worn palettes of make-up; holey leg-warmers thrown over chair backs; shoe ribbons; hair spray; bloody wads of tissue; band aids; pill bottles and analgesic heat rubs. In a corner of the room sat a puddle of discarded pointe shoes. Worn for a thirty minute performance, they were thrown away because they were already dead— the form and fit danced out of them so quickly.

  How many hours of her life had she spent breaking-in and preparing ballet shoes that would be worn for a mere fraction of the time? She got through at least a dozen pairs of shoes a week. What was it all for?

  What could Lilianne Martha Keene have done with all those hours, if she wasn't a dancer?

  Nothing. She knew nothing else.

  A few seats away from her there was a mirror that had been emptied of all the cards, dead flowers, hairpins and good luck charms that littered the other make-up stations. Pregnant Carrie hadn't danced tonight. Nor would she dance tomorrow. No more class, rehearsal or performance for Carrie. No more tendus and plies. She was off celebrating, probably eating chocolate cake, not worrying about her flat stomach for the first time in about fifteen year
s. Getting watery eyed over a display of baby shoes in a shop window.

  Aware that her thoughts were turning to bleak and self-pitying, which would do no good whatsoever, Lily got up, pulled on her coat and flicked out the lights. There was no time for self-pity in ballet. But there was always time for a ciggie.

  * * * *

  "Frankly, Miss Keene, I don't know how you've danced on it as long as you have." The doctor looked at her over the top edge of his glasses, his face grave.

  Because it's what I do. It's the only thing I know how to do.

  Panic again.

  It had dulled a little from the sharp jab she'd felt a few nights ago, but it was there still, turning her stomach over.

  "And I'm afraid there is more to worry about than a sprained foot," he went on.

  She stared morosely. After so many years of aches and pains, she had no idea what he was going to zero in on next. She'd gone to him about her foot, and the pedantic little man had insisted on a full inspection and x-rays, much to her irritation. It was pointless, a waste of time. Of course there was pain. Of course her feet had calluses, deformed toes and hideous blisters. Of course her knees had hypertension. Yes, her elbow was stiff sometimes, and her shoulder hurt occasionally. Something to do with a rotator cuff, it had been suggested. She iced it as often as she could, what did he expect her to do?

  These were the wounds of a dancer's life.

  She didn't go to him for a cure or a solution, or sympathy, but he could give her something for the pain. Something to hoist her back together.