by Mia Madison
BURNING FOR YOU
A Steamy Older Man Younger Woman Romance
Mia Madison
Copyright © 2016 Mia Madison
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons (living or dead), places or events is purely coincidental. All characters involved in sexual activity are 18 years of age or older.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the author or publisher.
Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to the author.
NOTE: This story contains scenes of a sexual nature and language only suitable for mature readers.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
EPILOGUE
ALSO BY MIA
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
Gemma
When the accident happens, everything seems to whiz past in extreme slow motion through the darkness though it can only be a second or two. Oof! I have an airbag in my face and the tree that was coming at us is inside Vince's 4X4, inches from my shoulder. It should be bitterly cold with the car smashed open but I don't feel it. It's deathly silent after the ear-splitting noise of the impact. The snow continues to fall in big thick flakes, blanketing everything in white, the covering giving off a glow despite the lateness of the hour. There must be a full moon or something. Moon? Why the fuck am I thinking about the moon at a time like this?
I look over at Vince. My boyfriend of three years is rigid in the driving seat. But he's breathing, big, solid breaths into his now deflating air bag. I want to ask him if he's okay but no sound comes out of my mouth when I try to say the words. I touch his sleeve, pain shooting through my arm as I reach out but he seems fine, shocked but alive. He looks over and just stares at me as if he can't believe what just happened.
I attempt to wiggle my toes because I can't move my legs and I sure as hell can't see them. I want to check out every part of me but it already feels like some kind of miracle took place here and I dare not ask for more, not yet. We're both alive at least.
And then I hear sirens. Thank god. Someone called the rescue service because there's no way we can move, let alone get out of this crumpled wreck of a car unaided.
Tires crunch to a halt and vehicle doors open—a welcome sound through the quiet of our breathing. A big burly fireman comes over and peeks through the window. “We'll soon have you out of there,” he says so calmly, I believe him and then I look at him again. It's my best friend Katie's dad, a look of concern on his face.
“Mr. Clark,” I say stupidly and then I pass out. As if knowing the firefighter in charge of our rescue allows me to let go of this whole sorry mess.
And it's only when I wake up in a hospital bed, later, that I remember what happened in the seconds before the crash.
Vince dumped me!
CHAPTER 1
Gemma
I thought Vince was going to propose that evening. It seemed to me we'd been a couple long enough. Vince had just been offered the job he'd been angling for for ages at the head office of his company in London. He was to start in a week but there was nothing stopping me joining him there later. I was looking forward to living in London. I mean our Cotswold village is picture postcard pretty, but there's not a lot going on. If someone gets a new job, car or boyfriend or tries a new carrot cake recipe, it's the talk of the place.
But no, I wasn't going to London, and I was one hundred percent wrong about a proposal.
Vince didn't say anything about breaking up at the restaurant. No, he sat through a whole meal with me knowing he had something to say and didn't say it, allowing me to prattle on about work, my family, even about London, unaware anything was wrong. Had his courage failed him? I don't know. But then he didn't wait to get home to say the words either. He must have wanted to make a quick escape as soon as he dropped me off because we were only a few miles from the village when he spoke.
“You know, I've been thinking,” he said. “I don't think we're right for each other.”
“What?” At first I wasn't sure I heard him right through the noise of the windscreen wipers.
“I think we need a break.”
“A break?” I said. “A temporary break or a clean break, a breaking up type break?” I wasn't making much sense but I had to know what he meant.
“I'm sorry, Gemma. I think we should end it now.” I gasped then but not at his words, because the car seemed to take on a mind of its own on the ice and we were hurtling off into the wooded area on the side of the road. At that moment, ending it might have taken on a completely different meaning. Sheer good fortune meant I was only out of a boyfriend and not life or limb.
So, I ended up in Blackbridge General Hospital in the nearest town. Vince was able to walk away with nothing more than a few bruises but the car was totalled.
“He loved that car,” I said to Katie when she came as soon as she could to visit me in the hospital, bringing a pile of grapes and gossip magazines. “I'm so sorry but not sorry about that.”
“Not sorry because...?”
I had to fill her in with the details then.
“He's leaving you? I thought you guys were together for good.”
“Me too. It must have annoyed him that the accident cut short his breakup speech. But he sent me a text just to make sure I got the message. Good of him! He didn't even ask me if I was okay.”
“What an asshole! I don't believe that. He didn't even visit you?”
“He's such a coward. Maybe someone already told him how I was. In any case, he wanted to make sure I was in no doubt about the future. He's going to London without me and I won't be joining him later.” I shrug and then wince. Shrugging is painful.
“That hurts when you do that, huh?” Katie is all concerned.
“A bit but I'll mend. They say I'll be able to go home in a couple of days. But it will take me a lot longer to get over breaking up with Vince. How come I didn't notice he wasn't happy?”
“I guess you were just jogging along same as most people. I don't know. Maybe somewhere the magic was lost?”
“Thinking about it, I'm not sure we ever had any magic. We sort of fell into dating and never fell out again.”
“So, he wasn't the love of your life then? You don't feel like your right arm was cut off? Maybe he did you a favor.”
I lift my arm. “No, my arm is good. I'm bruised and bandaged everywhere, but all my bits are intact. It hurts he broke up with me now but ask me about him in six months. I'll have wiped him clean from my brain. That or drowned myself in wine.”
I joke about it with Katie easily enough, making light of the whole thing but I can see she's worried. She knows this hurts. Three years! Three years of my life gone like that! She's all hunky dory with Rob, getting married in the summer. Maybe she's thinking how this would feel if this had happened to her. Not that Rob would do this to Katie. He's totally besotted with her.
“Okay, it's a deal. I'll ask you in six months and probably a few times before that.” Katie smiles at me. �
��You'll find someone else. I know you will. But your London plans! Ugh. What are you going to do now?”
“Keep working with you, if you'll have me.”
“Course I'll have you, but you're wasting your talents in my bakery. You need something to set your life on fire.”
Katie knows cupcakes and scones are her thing, not mine. I just need to work out exactly what my thing is.
*
Two weeks later, out of hospital, and with only a slight limp that's not supposed to be permanent and a little scar on my chin to show for my brush with near-death, I still don't know where my future lies. Katie has done her best to cheer me up. She tried to get me to go out, but I was having none of it. I know she's worried but I can't help it.
It's only since breaking up with Vince that I realize how much of my life was wrapped up in him and the idea of going to London. When Melanie Frobisher comes in to make an appointment to discuss her wedding cake with Katie, I have to get out of there. Katie finds me crying at the back door of the bakery.
“You're coming out tonight,” she says. “I'm not taking no for an answer.”
I do go out, but it's a disaster. Three cocktails and I'm more miserable than ever. Katie takes me home.
All she can do then is try to keep me busy to take my mind off the whole thing and I do my best not to cry, at least not at work. I serve at the counter. I mix cakes. I clean trays and mop floors. And it helps a bit. A few days later, Katie asks me to do the deliveries that day because she has the appointment with Melanie and her mother and she hopes she can drum up a big order from them. Maybe she's worried I'll burst into tears again. Anyway, first up, I have to deliver forty-eight cupcakes to Blackbridge fire station.
Katie says a dose of the hot guys at the station will do me good, just so I know there are plenty more fish in the sea even if I'm not ready to cast my net into the ocean yet. But it's the last place I want to go. It's not that I don't appreciate a hot firefighter as much as the next girl when I'm on form, but my confidence seems to have gone awol since the accident—or, more accurately, since getting dumped.
And I'm plain out of practice when it comes to flirting after three years with Vince, even if I had a notion to do anything like that. I know I'll blush like a beacon if they start joshing with me. Still, onwards and upwards. I've got to get my sass back and put on my big girl panties. (And stop turning into cliché central while I’m at it.)
There's no point in Katie paying me if she has to do everything herself. And I need to pick up some Christmas presents while I'm in town. There'll be one less to buy this year thanks to shit-face Vince.
“One of the crew is having a birthday so the cupcakes are on him,” Katie says. “Don't worry, Dad will be there. He won't let the guys get out of hand.”
Ah, Katie's dad. I wrote to him when I got out of hospital and thanked him for getting me out of the wreck. It was the least I could do. I asked him to thank anyone else involved too. Now, I feel suddenly shy about seeing him again. When we were kids, Ben Clark was a shadowy, larger-than-life figure who used to take Katie off to stay with him for weekends when he wasn't working. I hated those times because I knew she wouldn't be around for two whole days.
As we got older, I was more intrigued than irritated by him, though I never breathed a word of how I felt to Katie. Her dad always seemed like he was head and shoulders above other guys, an imposing figure, not to be messed with. Brooding, tall, dark, handsome, full of sexual promise and way out of my teenage league.
When he approached that car Vince and I were stuck in, I hadn't seen him for years, not since Katie could drive herself over to see him and she moved into her apartment above the bakery. He seemed like the warmest, calmest, most caring guy on the planet that night. It's hard to equate those two pictures of Ben Clark in my mind.
*
Anyway, I venture into the fire station with the tray of cupcakes and manage to get through the big heavy doors backwards with the help of my behind. “Cupcake order,” I proclaim for anyone who cares to listen. The place looks like they just had a Christmas party, streamers everywhere. Isn't that a fire hazard? Apparently not.
“Just put the order up in the kitchen, love,” one of the firefighters says.
I look around. “Not up there?” I say, stupidly glancing at the pole.
One of the younger guys cleaning fire gear with a rag laughs. “No. You slide down a fireman's pole, honey. You don't climb up it.”
The other firemen busy on equipment maintenance duty look up. The one who made the pole comment points to a door presumably where the stairs are. Ugh! I go upstairs, my cheeks burning. There are a few guys hanging around in the kitchen. I spot Katie's dad by the coffee machine. He looks over at me.
“Oh, a delicious treat and cupcakes too,” one guy says.
“Less of that,” Katie's dad says, smiling.
Ben Clark is sexy when he smiles. He's not wearing his uniform today, just sweat pants slinking low and a white T-shirt stretched over his muscles. He's not exactly your average dad. Nothing like mine or anyone else's dad I know, anyway.
“Out of hospital, I see,” he says, coming over to me. I put the tray on the counter.
“Yes. I was lucky to escape with hardly a scratch. Thanks to you guys cutting me out of the car.”
“We got your card. We don't often get thanked. Well, no one knows who we are, normally.”
“I guess not.” He's quite intense the way he's looking at me. But oh, now he's looking at my chest. Bit of a creeper? Shame. I thought he was a cut above other guys. I want to look down and see what he's looking at like that. I know I have boobs like every girl but they are not so big that men tend to pay that much attention as a rule, not unless I'm wearing the push up mega bra I save for nights out in Blackbridge with my girl pals.
“Do you know you have chocolate down your front?”
“Oh fuck!” Crap! I shouldn't be swearing in front of a parent. No way. No how. But when I look down I have dark brown-colored frosting all over my right boob. That must have happened when I brought the tray through the heavy doors.
“Er one of the cupcakes might be short of some topping,” I say. “You might want to avoid that one.”
“On the other hand, given where it's been, it might be the first to go.”
I blush scarlet. “Shit!”
“What's the matter? Apart from your obvious mishap with a cake? Don't worry, a million TV ads can't be wrong. It will come out.”
“It's just I have a couple of other deliveries to make in town. It doesn't look good for the bakery if I turn up covered in the stuff I'm supposed to be delivering.” I look down at my sweatshirt. Ugh! What a mess and I'll never have time to go and change.
“I can lend you a hoodie, if you like,” Katie's dad says. “It might be a bit big, but it will be clean at least.”
“Thanks. That would be a big help.”
I can't tell a lie. I totally check out his ass as I follow him to his locker. And a fine sight it is, setting my girly parts all a-tingle.
He pulls out the folded sweatshirt. “Bathroom's that way,” he says. “See if you can make it without any more accidents.” He winks at me.
That wink hits me right where it counts. I feel my nipples pebbling up under the chocolate mess.
When I come out, he's waiting for me, leaning against the wall. He sees me and chuckles.
“I don't think you're quite my size.”
He's right. Ben's hoodie swamps me. The sleeves are over the ends of my hands but at least I won't freeze to death in the little T-shirt I've got on underneath. I roll the sleeves up a bit. His hoodie smells a little like him—whatever detergent he uses and some kind of Mr. Clark essence impregnating his locker.
“It might be too big, but it's better than the chocolate-decorated one you just took off. I don't think that look will ever become a thing,” he says.
“No.” I grin at him, able to see the funny side now.
“Best of luck with your delivery
round,” he says. “If you fall into the custard tarts give me a call and I'll come and haul you out.”
“Thanks. You'll be the first to hear.” I smile at him. I think it's the most I've smiled since Vince broke up with me. Ben Clark really is hot. Pity I hardly ever see him these days.
CHAPTER 2
Ben
Damn! Katie's friend Gemma is all grown up. Before the accident, I only ever saw her hanging around my daughter, her dark blonde hair in contrast to Katie's dark locks. She was usually giving me the stink eye because I was taking Katie away for the weekend, but nothing was going to stop me from staying in touch with Katie.
“You know her?” one of the guys asks. “Can you get her number?”
“Yes, she my daughter's friend, but there's no way I'm getting her number for you. We all know you can't keep your dick in your pants.”
“Because you want her yourself, big guy, is that it?”
“Fuck off, Sean.” I laugh, but he's right. I do want her, despite her being my daughter's friend—the same reason I shouldn't go anywhere near her. In any case, I don't want any of these guys to have her—I know that much. Somehow, I feel all protective about Gemma and it's not just because I pulled her out of a wrecked car.
I wonder what the story is with that kid who can't keep his wheels on the road. No doubt he was driving like a bat out of hell, showing off and lost control. Fucking moron! I'll get Katie to have a word. I'm proud of my girl, her own business flourishing, a fine head on her shoulders.
Maybe it was for the best her mother and I split up when she was five. Not that it felt that way at the time when Stephanie left me to move in with that dickhead big-shot lawyer Frank, taking Katie with her.
I'll have to suffer through Frank's bleating at Katie's birthday party on Thursday night. It's the first family occasion I've been welcome to for years. Jeez! I'll have a twenty-one-year-old daughter in a couple of days. I know we had her far too young. We were just kids ourselves, not even out of school. But even so, I can hardly believe it.