“We don’t have to make big decisions right this second. Just give yourself permission to enjoy whatever this is...at whatever pace we deem appropriate but just know that I’m ready for the real deal with you.”
“But what about Erik?” she asked, a little fearful of her brother’s reaction. And what would her parents say? Ugh. She could already see her mother rolling her eyes at another one of her impetuous decisions.
“Erik isn’t your warden,” he said firmly. “Whatever is happening between us...it’s private. No need for anyone else to weigh in with their opinions.”
She liked Layton’s no-wavering stance. He didn’t back down at the hint of pressure. A man like that was handy to have around. A man like that was husband material— Whoa, don’t get ahead of yourself. There’s no picking out the linens just yet.
Layton tapped her behind and she lifted off him so he could discard the condom. She giggled at the most inappropriate thought. “We can never let Erik know that we’ve had sex all over his house. He will freak out. He’s a bit of a germophobe.”
“And he lets his messy sister live with him?”
Alexis shrugged a shoulder. “He loves me.”
“Yes, he does. He’s a good man, which is why I’m not worried. He might be pissed at first but he’ll come around.”
Alexis nodded, realizing that Layton was right. Erik wasn’t an ogre and, generally speaking, he was pretty levelheaded. Not to mention, Erik had never truly been able to control anything Alexis did. Whatever Alexis put in her head she usually went after, no matter the consequences.
“I’m going to be unavailable a lot of times because of my school schedule,” she warned, but she was already smiling because, oddly, it felt right. “I might be too tired for all this hanky-panky we’ve been doing all weekend. It won’t always be like this.”
“Thank God for that,” he said. “I’m not sure I could live up to the hype,” he teased and she laughed.
“You’re a freaking stallion, who are you trying to fool?”
She snuggled up to him, loving how perfectly they fit together, whether they were banging the pictures off the walls or just watching movies. That felt like a sign—that the universe was trying to tell her something and she was trying like hell to listen this time around.
“I live at the station four days out of the week and I’m often on call, which means I could leave at a moment’s notice, right in the middle of anything.”
“I know. I’m used to it with Erik. Actually, I think that works out just right because I can’t stand spending too much time with one person for an extended period. So, right about the time I’m starting to get sick of you will be the time you have to leave for your shift.”
He laughed. “Sounds about right.”
Wow. Were they really thinking of being together? She thought of Riker and how he’d burned her so badly, and now, everything she’d gone through with him seemed like a faint memory. There was one thing she had to say, though, before they embarked on anything resembling sharing a toothbrush holder.
Alexis rose up to meet Layton’s gaze with all seriousness. “Do not abuse my trust. Whatever you do...just stay true. Can you do that?”
“I can do that,” he agreed solemnly, sealing the promise with a kiss. “Now I just have one thing to ask, too.”
She nodded. It was only fair. “Go ahead.”
“I want to see you in a naughty-nurse costume at least once.”
Alexis squealed and slapped him playfully. “Damn you, Layton, I was being serious.”
“So was I,” he quipped with a devilish grin, and she fell just a little harder for the man she never saw coming.
“Are you going to be a bad patient?” she asked coyly and he nodded vigorously. “Will I have to punish you?”
“Yes and yes.”
She liked the idea of a power exchange. She’d never tried it, but damn if it didn’t make her skin tingle at the fantasy.
“Are you game?” he asked, and she realized he was asking about more than just a kinky sex game—he was asking about it all.
Sobering, Alexis slowly nodded, her heartbeat fluttering at the implications of what felt like a momentous change in her life with that single affirmative nod.
Layton’s arms tightened around her and she felt as if she’d come home after a long journey.
“Me, too,” he said, sealing the deal.
And then just as he was about to kiss her, the lights dimmed and went out. She laughed. “Well, there goes the power. Now what?”
“Can’t watch movies, can’t bake...that leaves one thing,” Layton said with mock resignation as he helped her from the sofa.
“Which is?” she asked playfully.
“This.”
And then he shocked her by throwing her over his shoulder as if he was saving her from a burning building, and she squealed with laughter as he carried her straight to the bedroom.
He kicked the door shut with his foot and then gently tossed her to the bed and started to strip.
“Nothing to do but each other?” she supplied, enjoying the show as Layton got gloriously naked. Man, that body! She could swoon every time.
“You read my mind, babe.” He grinned as he came toward her.
And then she was in Layton’s arms, which, as it turned out, was the best place she’d ever been—or ever wanted to be.
The last thought zinging through her mind before she lost all sense of reasonable thought was...Riker who?
And that was the best feeling of all.
Layton was the best unexpected holiday gift of all time.
Merry Christmas to me! Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!
Now, where to find a naughty-nurse costume...someone was going to get a spanking!
* * * * *
WHERE THERE’S SMOKE
Liz Talley
Dear Reader,
I’m going to confess that tossing a hot firefighter, a woman who’s been crushing on him for years and a bottle of tequila into a cabin during a snowstorm is my personal catnip in a romance. Needless to say, writing Emma and Erik’s adventure was a treat for me. In fact, the story flew out of my fingertips. And working with Kimberly Van Meter was the cherry on top of a pretty sweet book.
I hope you enjoy reading these fun stories of two best friends finding the perfect guys for them. And that they’re both sexy firefighters? Well, that’s your cherry on top.
Happy reading!
Liz
For Ike, Georgia and Deacon—my constant muses. Thank you for the cold nose nudges, the occasional doggy kisses and reminding me life is fun.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
1
ERIK MATHESON HAD fought a lot of fires, but he’d never been so damn tired before. Of course, a three-alarm blaze in an apartment complex was a rarity in the small town an hour north of Denver. And he was usually better rested before hitting his shift. Multiple late nights moving his sister back to Pine Ridge paired with accidental smoke inhalation had taken a toll. After knocking out the blaze, he could hardly stand on his own two feet.
“You okay, man?” Layton Davis asked, glancing over at him as they turned into the subdivision where Erik had bought a house a few months before. Layton shared a shift with him at the fire department.
“Yeah, I’m still kicking. But damn if I’m not beat.”
“That’s ’cause you’re getting old,” Layton said, ever the smart-ass.
“I’ve got five years on you. Not twenty.” Erik rubbed his eyes.
They still stung from the intense heat.
“Dude, I’ve never been to your place. Which way?” Layton asked, slowing the truck, his voice weary. They’d been about to end their shift when the call came in. Being on their feet actively engaged in fighting the fully involved fire for over six hours had been brutal. Erik figured he’d sweated away the extra calories he’d packed on from all the Christmas cookies Alexis had been baking. His sister was a traditionalist when it came to the holidays, even forcing him to buy a Christmas tree and silly stockings to hang on his mantel. Since it was the first house he’d actually owned and his parents were currently in Scotland, he hadn’t made too much of a fuss about his sister’s attempt at an old-fashioned family Christmas.
“Take a left, then a right on Timber Ridge Drive.”
Layton followed his directives. His younger friend was a solid guy, a little too pretty—a request from the Colorado firefighters’ calendar project manager for Layton to model in the 2016 charity calendar had arrived last week. Poor dude had endured plenty of ribbing from the guys at the station. Good thing Alexis and her friend Emma were on their way to Colorado Springs and not still at his place. Alexis could never resist a pretty face, and she didn’t need heartbreak on her menu.
“Right here,” Erik said, pointing to the house with stacked stone columns and a wide front porch. His new place had plenty of room, which was a good thing, because the roads had already started icing up. No doubt his friend would have to stay the night.
“Nice place,” Layton said, nosing the truck up the slippery driveway. The tires spun a bit, before catching and shooting them forward. “Damn, it’s slick out.”
“Which is why you’re staying,” Erik said, his words sounding oddly slurred. Hell, he was more tired than he thought.
“Naw. I can make it back to my place. I’ll swing by and get you tomorrow once the roads are clear and take you back to the station to get your truck.”
“Dude, it’s past one o’clock in the morning and the roads are shit. I have an extra bedroom.”
“Thought your sister was staying with you for a while.”
“She’s in Colorado Springs spending the weekend with her best friend from high school.” Her very grown and very hot best friend. Emma had stopped by yesterday as he was leaving for his shift. He hadn’t seen her since she’d been in high school and he’d damn near choked on his hello. She was stunning, no longer leggy and awkward with braces. Emma Brent had grown into a full-fledged woman.
“I’ll take you up on it. I could audition for the Walking Dead.” Layton turned off the engine, glancing at Erik. “You need help?”
“It was a little smoke exhaustion. I’m fine.” Erik opened the door and slid out, wincing at the sharp cold and the ache in his lungs. Toward the end of the fire, he’d slipped in the gook covering the ground floor when he entered a cleared room to set up the pressure fan. He’d knocked off his mask and couldn’t get it back in place before inhaling too much smoke. He’d been cleared by the medics but had begrudgingly accepted Layton’s offer to drive him home. Being light-headed and exhausted wasn’t an appropriate mix for making it up the steep grade to his subdivision perched off Jackson Ridge.
By the time the men got to the porch, dodging the stinging sleet, Erik remembered he’d left his keys locked in the glove box of his truck. “Shit.”
“What?” Layton asked.
“My keys.”
Layton blinked in the glow of the porch light shaped like a lantern. “You’re kiddin’.”
“I have an extra. Wait here.” Erik jogged around to the garage and lifted the speckled planter bearing the Christmas tree–looking bush his sister had brought him for a housewarming gift. The bottom bore a special compartment for a spare key.
Turning, he ducked his head down and ran back to the porch. “Got it.”
A second later they pushed into the warmth of the house. Alexis had thoughtfully left on the light over the oven, casting a soft glow over the new furniture he’d picked out only weeks ago. The place still had new-car smell. Or rather, new-house smell.
“Let me grab you some stuff to change into. You’ll probably want to take a shower.” He glanced over at Layton, hoping his friend took the hint. Just about everything in the house was new, including the coverlet and sheets in the spare room his sister had been using.
“Thanks. Yeah, I do have to shower before I sleep.”
“Me, too,” Erik said, nodding toward the open door at the end of the hall. “Guest bath is through there. My sister’s not exactly neat, but it should be clean.”
“Don’t care if it’s not. I need a shower and ten hours of shut-eye. Just set the clothes outside the door. Night.”
“Night,” Erik echoed, trudging toward his bedroom with the en suite bathroom holding a steam shower. His room was dark and he didn’t bother switching on the light. His eyes ached and his head throbbed. Smoke inhalation could make a person feel crappy.
Five minutes later he padded into his room, towel over his head. One more scrub at his damp hair and he tossed it in the direction of the chair that sat by his chest of drawers. He pulled back his covers and climbed into bed bare-assed naked, hungry for sleep and the warmth of his down comforter.
The first thing he noticed was how warm the bed was.
The second thing he noticed was the body curled up in the center of the bed.
The third thing he noticed was the scent of freshly laundered sheets.
And though his brain felt sluggish, he concluded pretty quickly that the person softly snoring in the center of his pillow-top mattress was his sister’s oldest friend.
Emma Rose Brent.
His eyes adjusted to the moonlight streaming in between the curtains and he saw the outline of her body, the one he failed to see when he first entered his room. The light fell across her neck, highlighting her jawline and the loveliest pair of plump lips. For an upper-crust literature professor, Miss Emma Rose had lips that belonged in a porno.
And though his head pounded, his throat ached and his thoughts felt as jumbled as the storage room full of Alexis’s junk, he couldn’t help himself from drinking her in.
Emma had always been thin and awkward, stingy with her shy grin. She rarely spoke, seemingly content to observe those around her, a shadow outside the spotlight. When he’d been around, she’d been especially quiet, so he’d been surprised at the confident woman who’d greeted him yesterday.
“Mmm,” she murmured, turning over, pulling the covers with her.
This was so incredibly wrong, but he couldn’t stop watching her. The wrinkle impression on her cheek, the tangle of her sandy hair, the small sigh of contentment escaping as she sank back into slumber.
And then his sister’s scream shattered the silence.
* * *
EMMA HAD BEEN dreaming she was back in high school. Mrs. Vonnegut—not related to Kurt—had been fussing at her for screwing up the spring recital. She’d given Emma a piece she’d never seen before and instructed the orchestra to play along. Emma had struggled to keep up and Ertha Vonnegut had screamed at her to stop at once.
Then she woke up to someone actually screaming.
And noticed the man sitting next to her.
A naked man.
“Emma, Emma,” the man whispered softly. “It’s okay. It’s me.”
It took her a moment to register that the “me” was Alexis’s older brother, Erik. “Wh-what are you doing?” she whispered as she scrambled away from him, clutching the covers in her fists, trying to figure out what was happening.
Erik was in bed with her. And he was naked. And Alexis was screaming.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were here,” he said, grabbing the quilt at the foot of the bed and pulling it around himself.
“Alexis?” she whispered, still confused.
/> “Look, I’m sorry about all this, but I got to go save Layton. She’s probably thrown something at him.” Erik switched on the lamp, causing her to blink. The alarm clock on the nightstand showed her a steadfast 1:42 a.m.
Alexis had stopped screaming, but then a masculine yelp and curse followed.
“Too late,” Erik said, rising, the patched quilt clutched around his waist. His broad back narrowed to a trim waist above the intriguing curve of his butt. She rubbed her eyes and zeroed in on his ass. Which she knew from past viewings was really nice.
There was a crash and then a wail.
“What the hell is going on?” she murmured as Erik opened his bedroom door. He’d taken only one step when another man, this one clad in jeans, came bounding by.
“Your sister’s crazy, man,” the guy said, raising his arms as if to fend off attack.
Alexis appeared, clad in a camisole and a pair of postage-stamp panties. “What the hell, Erik? Who is this?”
“Hey, hey.” Erik caught his sister. Alexis looked ready to fight someone.
“Jesus, woman,” the man beside Erik said. “I didn’t know you were in there. Give me a freakin’ break.”
Emma remained rooted to the bed, covers tucked beneath her arms. She’d worn a T-shirt to bed, but her bra hung from the bedroom door and she’d shucked her pajama pants before climbing into Erik’s bed. She tugged the covers up.
“What are you still doing here?” Erik said, gently pushing his sister back.
“Ow.” Alexis winced as she stepped backward. She immediately lifted her foot and frowned down at the dangling appendage. “I think I hurt my ankle. And we’re here because my memory sucks. I drove to pick up Em, but we decided to take her SUV from her place. Then just as we headed down I-25, I realized I left my laptop charger and we swung back because there wasn’t going to be time to get a new one once we got to Emma’s parents’ place. By the time we could leave again, they had closed parts of the interstate. We figured we’d wait until midmorning to leave. Roads should be clear then.”
A Wrong Bed Christmas: IgnitedWhere There's Smoke Page 9