Firefighter Christmas Complete Series Box Set (A Firefighter Holiday Romance Love Story)

by Nella Tyler

  I looked around and made sure that no one was watching me too intently. Anyone who wasn’t working with a patient or talking to a parent was working on paperwork, just like I was pretending to do. I reached into my desk drawer and took out my phone; almost as soon as Patrick had called the office to cancel Landon’s appointment, he’d texted me to ask if I wanted to plan our next date.

  Somehow—I wasn’t sure how—word about my dates with Patrick had gotten out. I thought maybe one of the other therapists had seen me with him, or something like that. Amie had made a brief visit to the office and had crowed that she just knew that I would end up falling for Patrick. So far no one was giving me a huge amount of grief about it, but when Patrick’s cancelation had come in, Alice at the front desk had given me a little grin and commented that she rather thought I’d have already known that the man had to cancel.

  How does a trip to the ballet sound? I hear there’s a great production of The Nutcracker going on. I grinned to myself at the text message from Patrick. We had never quite made up the date to go see a play; a ballet was a good substitute for that. But I’d loved the ice-skating so much—I wouldn’t have minded another casual date like that.

  Maybe we could do that, I wrote back. I love that ballet. But I loved ice-skating too. And didn’t you tell me you wanted to bring Landon on a date with me sometime? I thought to myself that saying something like that was stupid; if Landon came with us I doubted there’d be sex at the end of the night. But I wanted to keep my options as open as possible until Patrick made a definitive offer of a date.

  Maybe a little closer to Christmas. Or after? We could go on a picnic, if you can get free this weekend. I giggled to myself, covering my mouth with my hand to keep from being loud enough for someone to hear me. I thought about the idea of a picnic in the middle of winter; it would be pretty, but it could easily get really cold, and very wet.

  I’d hope you could keep me warm, I wrote back. It’s supposed to stay pretty cold the next few days. I put my phone in my lap and turned my attention onto my computer as the office manager came through, looking to make sure that everyone was working. Even if we were slow, I knew she would point out that there was always the backlog of patient files to attend to. Harriet walked past and I breathed a sigh of relief. I almost yelped when I felt the phone vibrate in my lap, startling me in spite of the fact that I’d been expecting some kind of answer.

  Oh, I could do a great job of keeping you warm, Patrick had texted back. My phone vibrated again and I saw he’d sent me a winking emoji.

  Really? How would you do that? I licked my lips, feeling my face warming up a little bit at the hint of something sexual. I typed out a few comments on one of the files up on my screen while I waited for the response.

  Well they do say that the best way to stay warm is to share body heat…I think you’re pretty good at generating heat yourself. I bit back a giggle.

  Sharing body heat? Doesn’t that normally work better with skin contact? My heart beat faster in my chest, and I felt warm and tingly all over. I had never—ever—done anything like this while I was at work. Even when I’d been dating in college, I’d kept my phone turned off during my work hours, and I never would have even considered drifting into sexy territory while I was on the clock.

  Skin contact! Mm. Well, if I remember right, you are really warm on the inside…almost too hot. I could definitely share that body heat. I felt my cheeks getting hotter, my whole body starting to warm up with a mixture of how turned on I was at the sensual words and how worried I suddenly was that someone would catch on to what I was doing. I knew that some of my coworkers texted with their boyfriends and girlfriends—and that some of them even sexted their partners on a regular basis. But I’d always stuck with being professional; I didn’t want to screw up that reputation.

  You’re pretty hot too, I wrote back. Maybe with the right place and the right situation, we’d be able to melt some snow. I licked my lips, picturing it in my mind. It would be horrifically impractical…no amount of shared body heat would keep us from getting frostbite if we got naked in the snow together. But in my mind I pictured us having sex out in a field somewhere, far away from everyone, touching each other everywhere. The snow would be cold against us—even with a blanket it would be freezing—but maybe if we had a few blankets, some of them wrapped around us and a couple underneath us, it would be fun. I shook my head; that was a crazy idea.

  That’s a great picture! I grinned to myself at Patrick’s message. As long as we could keep moving, I think we’d be okay. Sweaty, even. My throat was dry, my mouth was watering—for a second I wanted nothing more than a thermos of soup, a bunch of blankets, and some fun in the snow with Patrick without having to worry about him needing to pick up Landon. I pressed my lips together and squirmed in my seat; just thinking about having sex with Patrick again—in my apartment, his place, or even out in the snow somewhere—was enough to turn me on so much I couldn’t quite get comfortable.

  I don’t know if it would work out in real life, I pointed out. But I do want to see you again. I’ve been missing you and Landon this afternoon. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

  Well maybe if we can’t make it out to a nice, secluded field somewhere, we could just spend the whole day inside, Patrick sent back to me. I swallowed against the tight feeling in my throat, looking up in time to see Harriet coming back through the office to check on something at the front desk. I put my phone aside, suppressing the urge to grab it when I felt it vibrate in my lap again, pretending to be oh-so focused on the file up on my computer. As soon as Harriet was through, I checked my phone again.

  It’d be much easier to keep you warm if I could keep you in bed. Get a fire going in the fireplace, maybe make some hot chocolate for you…and keep our skin pressed together as much as possible. That picture was even better than the first one; I could imagine just how nice it would be to spend a whole day in bed with Patrick. But a nagging voice in my head pointed out that we hadn’t really been dating long enough for that yet—exciting as it sounded to me.

  “Ooh, look at this girl blushing,” Blair said, coming to a stop at my desk. Her patient and the little girl’s parent went on into the waiting room to leave the office. I rolled my eyes at Blair, putting the phone aside face down. “You chatting up your boyfriend?”

  I shrugged, moving my phone away from where Blair could grab for it. “Yes, I’m texting Patrick,” I said, glancing to make sure that Harriet wasn’t about to come down on us for hanging out and socializing instead of working. “He’s not my boyfriend though. Not really.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Blair threw herself into the chair next to my desk with her long legs out in front of her. “I mean, how many dates have you gone on?”

  “Just three,” I said, shrugging again. “We got coffee, went to dinner and a movie, and went ice-skating. It’s nothing serious.”

  “Well, if you went on three dates with the guy, it’s not like it’s not serious,” Blair countered. “At three dates you at least know that you get along together a little bit. You’re maybe two dates at most from actually being boyfriend and girlfriend.” I rolled my eyes, shaking my head.

  “He’s a single father,” I pointed out. “Things go a lot slower with someone who’s got a kid. He’s got to make sure that he feels comfortable with me as an influence on Landon before we can really be serious.”

  “He seems like a decent dad,” Blair agreed. “I’ve seen him in the office a few times. He’s pretty hot.”

  “He’s even hotter outside of the office,” I said quietly, giving her a little grin.

  “I’ll just bet he is!” Blair looked around to make sure we weren’t being eavesdropped on. “Isn’t it weird to see him in the office after you’ve had a date with him, though?” I shook my head slowly.

  “Not really,” I said, thinking. “I mean, he’s always professional when he comes in here. He did ask me out on the second date after a session, but he wasn’t like, leering at
me or anything.”

  “How long is the kid in treatment for?” I shrugged.

  “He’s making good progress—another good sign: Patrick works with Landon in between sessions to make sure he’s getting up to speed.” Blair nodded her approval. I missed Amie—and no one in the office could replace her—but if I were going to confide in anyone else while Amie was away on medical leave, it would be Blair. At least with her I could count on a little privacy.

  “A good parent is a decent date,” Blair agreed. “Do you think it’s going anywhere?” I shrugged.

  “I don’t really know,” I admitted. “I like spending time with him, he likes spending time with me…but everything is still pretty up in the air.” I thought about it for a moment or two longer and smiled to myself slowly. “I don’t know if he’s serious about me, but I think—if things keep going the way that they have been—that it could get more serious. I think I’d like it if it did.”

  “That’s all you need to know,” Blair said, nodding. “If it tips the scales at all, I think you two look absolutely adorable together.”

  I laughed.

  “That’s all I’m interested in,” I said jokingly. I might not have been interested in how cute I looked with Patrick, but it definitely helped to have someone in the office tell me she liked the idea of me dating Patrick.

  Chapter Ten

  Patrick

  I had hated to cancel Landon’s PT appointment , but it had given me an even bigger urge to see Mackenzie again. I hadn’t even been able to stay away long enough to wait for another date; I’d stopped by at her apartment after Landon’s school award ceremony ended, with some takeout and a bottle of wine, and we’d spent a few hours together just talking and cuddling on the couch, watching a movie while my sister took Landon Christmas shopping. But even with that little bit of heaven for a few hours, I wanted more. I’d racked my mind for different date options that would be fun and interesting and not cliché. We’d settled on a make-your-own pottery date at a little shop at the outskirts of the city that served beer and wine.

  I’d picked her up from her apartment and we’d talked about Amie’s recovery and Landon’s progress. I could tell that the attack had shaken her up a lot more than Mack wanted to admit. “Something like this should at least be fun,” I’d said when we walked up to the shop entrance from the parking spot I finally managed to find after circling the block a few times. “But I have to warn you, I am terrible at pottery.”

  “I’m not that much better,” Mackenzie had admitted with a laugh. “So let’s focus on enjoying some decent wine and having fun.”

  The pottery had gone better than I would have expected. I made a silly little pot while Mackenzie worked on a vase. “You know what we could do sometime? I mean—if this keeps going as well as it has been?” I had almost bent the rim on my pot when I looked up to meet Mackenzie’s gaze.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “We could go to a concert, maybe,” Mackenzie suggested. “I haven’t gone to one in a while.”

  “Who would you want to see?” She shrugged in answer to my question.

  “Anyone, really. I like a lot of different kinds of music. And anyway, going to a concert—a good concert—is a good time even if you’ve never heard of the band onstage before.”

  We finished off our wine and our pottery and turned it into one of the clerks that ran the shop to fire it in the kiln. I told Mackenzie that I’d come back the next day—the shop was closer to my place than it was to hers—to pick up our pieces, assuming they didn’t crack or break in the kiln.

  Afterward, we grabbed some hot sandwiches and some coffee and wandered towards a park, lit up for the holidays with different symbols of the season. It was cold enough out that there weren’t very many other people using the paths through the park, and even while we ate our sandwiches, Mackenzie stuck close to me. I remembered what we’d joked about having sex in the snow; I knew as well as she did that it wasn’t a very good idea, but it had been a hot mental image to think about, and it had stuck with me ever since.

  “Do you think we could make sex in the snow work?”

  Mackenzie laughed. “You’re really hooked on that idea, aren’t you?”

  I grinned at her in the gloomy light. “Well it seems so awesome,” I explained. “I’m sure someone’s been able to do it successfully, right?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised.” Mackenzie thought for a moment. “You know, if you had enough blankets, maybe one or two of those heating pad things, you could probably make it work.”

  “But we’d be risking getting frostbite in interesting places, probably.”

  Mackenzie nodded. “And we’d also be risking arrest for indecent exposure.”

  I laughed. “There is that, too,” I agreed. “So I guess we’ll be keeping all our sex indoors for now.”

  “If we’re still dating in the summer, I wouldn’t mind finding a place to try it out,” she said, blushing a bright pink-red.

  “Oooh, we haven’t really had the conversation about sex, have we?” I wrapped my arm around Mackenzie’s waist and pulled her closer to me.

  “We haven’t, that’s a good point,” she said. “What do you like?” I chuckled.

  “Well, I mean… I’m probably kind of boring,” I told her. “I like things…kind of straightforward.” It had been years since I’d done any sexual experimenting—and at that, Joanne had always been interested in pretty straightforward things. For a second I worried that maybe Mackenzie wanted something a little more exciting. “I’m not against trying things, though,” I added.

  “Me either,” Mackenzie said. “It’s just…it’s been a while since I’ve been with anyone at all, and even before that—when I was dating—I never really had much chance to…explore.” She blushed an even deeper red as we made our way through the park slowly. “But I wouldn’t mind trying like…sex in the outdoors, as long as it wasn’t somewhere people would definitely see us. Or something like that.”

  “Maybe sex in the shower?” I remembered the bathroom in Mackenzie’s apartment; it would be just big enough in the shower stall to hold her up against the wall, to get in a little fun. The bathtub at my place was bigger. Looking at Mackenzie, I thought that we could probably both fit in the tub pretty easily. “I have a really nice, big bath at my place. That could be fun.”

  “Sort of like hot tub sex?” Mackenzie grinned up at me. “You’re right, that does sound nice.” She licked her lips and took a sip of her coffee. “Have—have you ever used like…whipped cream in bed?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “Once or twice,” I said, looking away. With Joanne. “It tends to get pretty messy.”

  “So whipped cream in certain places, and then maybe sex in the shower afterward?”

  I laughed. “That’s as good a plan as I could think of,” I said. I tightened my grip on her. Just thinking about getting her alone—about the different ways we could have sex together—was enough to make me warm in a way that all the jackets and sweaters I was wearing couldn’t do on their own. I leaned in and kissed her on the cheek, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “Start thinking about the different things you want to try,” I suggested. “If we can make it back out of the park, maybe we can start working on them.”

  We started talking about other things—like books and movies and music again—while I tried to cool down a bit. The conversation drifted back onto the subject of Landon, and I remembered that before I’d left the house to take him to his grandparents’ house, he’d asked me if I thought that Mackenzie might want to spend Christmas with us. It was something that had come absolutely out of the blue, and I’d pushed it out of my mind as soon as I’d told him I would think about inviting her. Things are going really well. What’s the worst that could happen? Four and a half good dates, that’s enough to justify asking someone to come over for the holiday, isn’t it?

  “Hey—I just remembered, when I was talking to Landon earlier, getting ready to drop him off and come get you, he sug
gested that maybe you could spend Christmas with us. He’s really into it this year; he’s even been making presents for all his friends in the school.”

  “I think he told me about that the other day,” she said, looking up thoughtfully. “Isn’t it a picture or something that he’s doing?”

  “Yep,” I confirmed. “He’s making each one of his friends a painting that is all about them. Jessica is getting a picture of cookies, Alex is apparently going to get a painting of dinosaurs.” I shook my head, remembering the sight of all the different pictures my son had been working on with a combination of paints, colored pencils, and markers. “His grandparents are helping him pick out actual presents for members of the family, with money I set aside for him to do his shopping.”

  “At least you’ll be surprised with whatever he gets you,” Mackenzie pointed out with a little grin.

  “I will be! That’s right!” I realized she hadn’t exactly answered my question—or given me a response to my invitation. “So do you think maybe you’d like to spend Christmas Eve, or Christmas day, with me and Landon? I know it’s kind of a big day and we’ve only gone on four dates, but it could be a lot of fun.” Mackenzie’s face twisted into a grimace.

  “I wish I could,” she said, frowning. “My family makes a huge deal about the holidays; they party it up from Christmas Eve right up until the morning of New Year’s Day. It’s a really important thing for us to get together.” Mackenzie laughed with a little bit of guilt and bitterness in her voice. “Last year I had to spend a few days away from the festivities; I was on the on-call and voluntary overtime lists.”

  “Ah,” I said, nodding.

  “So they’re putting a lot of pressure on me to be there the whole time.”

  “I totally understand,” I said, leaning in to give her a quick kiss. “Family can be persistent.”

  “My parents? Totally.” I chuckled again.

  “Do they know you’re seeing someone?” Mackenzie looked away and I saw her face light up with a blush.