Perfecting For Love - A Standalone Novel (A Doctors Romance Love Story) (Burbank Brothers, Book #3)

by Naomi Niles

  “Is that so? Then why do you need me to throw him off the trail?” Bob was grinning at me from across the table.

  I frowned and said, “Okay, you’ve got a little point there, maybe.”

  “So, go on with your story.”

  “Okay, so Sean got injured on the job. The city doesn’t take very good care of its injured firefighters. They’ve put him on a small disability payment that a squirrel couldn’t live on. I bought a firehouse that had been abandoned by the city about a year ago. I’m living in the upstairs apartment and I want to develop two apartments in the downstairs level. I’m letting Sean live down there if he does the work to build the apartments.”

  Bob’s eyebrows rose as if he were questioning what I was saying. “Is that so?”

  “Yes, he sleeps downstairs and I sleep upstairs. I won’t lie to you, I am attracted to him. A lot, as a matter of fact. But, if my dad finds out that I’m letting him live in my building, his career as a firefighter in New York City will be done. He has special reasons for wanting that not to happen. I have special reasons for not wanting him to move. So, that brings me to you.”

  “Yes, that brings us to me. What is it you need me to do?” Bob sounded cooperative, but still somewhat puzzled.

  “Really, not a lot. If I can, I’d like to use your name and tell Dad that I ran into you at the library and that we had a quick drink and you asked me out. Then I’ll tell him that I accepted and we’ve seen one another for dinner a couple of times, and I’ll leave it go at that. If worst comes to worst, I’ll invite you to dinner and have Dad join us, but I don’t think he’ll need that kind of proof. Of course, he hasn’t seen you with your makeover. I don’t think he thought of you as a threat before, but you’re pretty hot now, if I say so myself.”

  “You may say so, and quite regularly, please,” he grinned. “When does all this start? Immediately?”

  “Immediately. I’ll pick up the check now and if we ever have to have a meal together later, and I don’t think that you’ll have to do anything more than that. Would you do it for me, Bob?”

  “Sure, kid, but with one condition.”

  “What’s that?” I was cringing, waiting to hear what he was going to ask.

  “If, by any chance, you and your firemen boyfriend part ways, you give me a chance and let me invite you to dinner.”

  I grinned broadly. Sticking out my hand, I said, “You got a deal. Thanks so much for this. Waiter?” I called to the one standing nearby. “Check please?”

  Bob and I parted ways, exchanging full contact information before we left. He waved goodbye in the falling snow and I shivered as I waited for a taxi. Things were working out nicely.

  Chapter 17

  Sean was in my apartment, stirring a pot of something that smelled very good.

  “So, did he go for it?”

  “Of course,” I said in a cocky, self-assured voice.

  “And you won’t be interfering with his reading?” he teased me.

  “No, I won’t be interfering with hardly anything. If worst comes to worst, he’ll have to meet me and have dinner somewhere where Dad will see us or maybe even join us. Apart from that, I’m just going to use his name and if Dad should contact him, he’s going to cover for me. See there? Pretty cut and dry.”

  “Hmmm. It sounds like the makings of a disaster to me, but I guess I have to trust you. There aren’t a lot of other options.”

  “What are you making?” I asked him, leaning forward to sniff the pot.

  He lifted his hand and gently pushed me backward. “That’s my surprise.”

  “I didn’t know you knew anything about cooking.”

  “I daresay there’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, dear Gwynn.” I had to admit, he had a point there. We had been so consumed with the business of renovation and firefighting, we barely had time to get to know one another.

  “Let’s put a stop to that, shall we? Let me go change clothes and when I come back, perhaps you let me have a small bowl of whatever concoction you’re making and we can begin to get to know one another. After all, I’ve never been to Iowa.”

  He nodded, adding salt to the pot, and I took that opportunity to change my clothes. I put on a pair of silky pajamas and topped these with a bright-blue fleece robe. I had always liked blue; it set off my coloring well and was a peaceful color: the color of the sky.

  Sean met me at the breakfast bar, handing me a bowl and a spoon. He had prepared a stew and it was incredibly tasty. “Where did you learn to cook like this?” I asked him, amazed.

  “When you’re a fireman who has a lot of time to kill, you have to learn to do something well. There are always hungry men in a fire station, so I figured if I kept the guys happy, they’d have my back.”

  “Did you feel like someone didn’t have your back in that apartment fire?” This was a perspective that had never occurred to me until just now.

  “No, not at all. Everyone was doing their job the way they were supposed to. If anything, I was the one who went rogue. I should’ve never gone into the building with only my own gear and without someone to back me up. I broke the rules and I paid the consequences.”

  I frowned a bit. “But you were a hero, Sean. If you hadn’t gone back into that building, Juan would’ve died. He owes his life to you.”

  “No, Gwyne, he owes me nothing. It was my job to make sure that he got out. That’s what they pay me to do.”

  I looked up at him and the irony of what he was saying hit us both at the same time. We shared a wry smile and went back to our bowls of hot stew. “Well, as far as I’m concerned, this stew is superb. I would ask you for the recipe except that would mean that I would have to cook it from now on. I’d rather that when stew night comes around, you are the chef. Does that work for you?”

  “That works for me,” he affirmed, and I could tell by the look on his face that he was pleased. It occurred to me that he had not been in the position to give for a very long time. It was bad for your pride when you never got to give, and always had to ask for help. I vowed never to make him feel as though he wasn’t doing his share; it just wouldn’t be fair to him.

  “So, for the next few days, I’d like you to continue resting. I don’t want you to hurt yourself. You can’t afford the medical bills, and besides, I happen to like watching you heal.”

  Puzzlement crossed his face. “Watching me heal? Isn’t that a rather slow, boring past time?”

  “Not at all. Men and women heal differently. Men tend to just crash somewhere and moan about the pain. Women, on the other hand, tend to go through the drugstore shelves looking for a solution and then calling a half-dozen girlfriends to ask their opinion. By the time they have the treatment figured out, whatever was wrong with them in the first place has disappeared. There are very few things that the human body cannot cure itself if given proper nutrition, plenty of rest, and a positive attitude.”

  “I never realized you had gotten a medical degree,” he mocked me. I threw a pillow at him and he dodged it. It sailed on and knocked a vase off a side table, crashing it in smithereens upon the floor.

  “Oh, God.”

  “Here, let me. You keep on eating.”

  “But that’s not fair. I broke the vase; I should clean it up.”

  “You are cleaning up enough things already. It’s my turn.”

  * * *

  That night, New York City was hit by a monster blizzard. I had watched the snow falling outside my bedroom window and wondered when it would ever end. Just before midnight, the wind joined the maelstrom and as it howled, the power lines dove to escape it. The result was that we were entirely out of power. I grabbed the flashlight next to my bed. Turning in on, I went to check the other rooms, just to make sure it wasn’t a fuse blown. The entire building, as well as all the buildings within sight, were black.

  “Sean?” I called downstairs.

  “Yeah? Is something wrong?”

  “The power is out. I can’t see any lights for blocks.
This building doesn’t have great insulation; it’s only a matter of time before we begin freezing to death.”

  “On my way up in a minute. Can you aim that flashlight down here?”

  I did as he asked and saw him move slowly, wrapped in his blankets, toward the staircase. Moments later, he was standing in front of me and I backed up to let him in.

  “Heat rises, so I’d say the warmest place in the building will be up here. We don’t want to light the gas stove; there’s not enough ventilation for that. Do you have any candles?”

  “Just a little one I burn in the bathroom sometimes when I’m in the tub.”

  He rolled his eyes at my unpreparedness. “Sometimes I can’t believe you are your father’s daughter,” he muttered.

  “There’s no telling how long the power is going to be out. It could be five minutes; it could be five hours, or even five days.”

  “Let’s not jump to the worst conclusion so quickly. Come on with me,” he said, taking me by the hand and leading me back to my bedroom. He tucked me back into my side of the bed and then crawled beneath the covers on the opposite side, pulling me against him so that we could share body heat. It didn’t take long to recognize that it was having a profound effect on his anatomy.

  “Are you sure about this? I mean, I wouldn’t want to tempt you.”

  “I think I can handle it, if you can.”

  I thought about it and even though I knew I was lying, I nodded. “I can handle it.”

  Wrapping the blankets over us securely and tucking them in on the side, he created a warm cocoon for just the two of us. I leaned into him, careful not to press into the areas that I knew he had been burned. I was in a blissful, warm world at that moment. I had no desire to ever leave it. His arm lay over me and despite his injuries, he made me feel very safe and protected. Snuggled into this secure ambience, I fell asleep.

  I was being roused from my sleep by what felt like a hand stroking my hip. I lay very still, gathering my memories to figure out where I was and what was going on. In the pitch black of the power outage, New York City was as blind as being in the middle of the desert without a moon. I could hear sirens around me and knew that the only lights to be found were beams from the cars, buses, and taxis that were still scurrying around like ants in a colony.

  My attention was drawn once again to the hand stroking my hip. I murmured a soft, purr-like sound, indicating that it felt wonderful. I wasn’t sure whether Sean had been lying awake the entire time or whether he had just awakened.

  “Are you okay?” I asked him. “Do you need something?”

  “Yes, I do. I need you.”

  My heart began to pound as his words penetrated the sleepy fog that held my brain captive. That same, sleepy fog enhanced each stroke of his hand as it electrified the nerves of my skin. I lay there frozen, although I wanted to turn toward him. He seemed to read my thoughts. His hand reached over me and gently turned me to my back. It now trailed down my leg, to the place where my pajama top and bottom met. He seemed to like the feel of the fabric. I knew for a fact that I did. His stroking was exciting me and my nipples had hardened.

  His hand moved upward now, as if it knew that my nipples were responding. His fingertips found the first, the one closest to him. He rubbed tiny circles through the fabric around my erect nubs. I heard him groan softly, deep within his throat. He did the same to my other breast and this seemed to be his undoing. His hand moved to the center now and opened the fabric-covered button that held my pajama top closed. I laid very still, barely breathing. While I was chilled from the lack of heat in the room, the skin that he touched was burning. One by one, his fingers freed me from the confines of the silk, and one more thrust peeled my bottoms off and they disappeared somewhere beneath the heavy covers.

  The hand returned, as did the petting, although this time the fingers trailed through the soft hair at the apex of my thighs. This action sent firestorms of desire through me. I knew it wasn’t so much the touch as it was the man who was touching me. It had to be causing him some pain to move thusly, and yet he was doing it… for me. My legs parted of their own volition. His fingertips lost no time in discovering this and began to penetrate the petals of my womanhood.

  I reached out, my hand on a quest for hardness. It lay against my hip, willing and throbbing for attention. I folded my fingers around its diameter, my touch seeking his most sensitive areas. With only the barest of touches, my finger stroked these spots and the result was that I felt his body stiffen and heard him groan. We lay that way, side by side, for a very long time. There is a special quality about the sense of touch when the world is blind to you. You navigate entirely by instinct, attuned to a breath or the gentle jerk of a muscle that tells you that you have discovered treasure. We explored one another’s bodies and there was considerable contentment in this.

  Sensitive to his injuries, I didn’t want him to strain himself. I felt the tip of his penis and the beginning of his cum. I coated my fingertips with it and then dipped those fingers into my own honeypot. The combination was a sweet liqueur of our own fluids and I tasted it with my lips and tongue and then shared it with him. This seemed to awaken yet another sense, a primal desire that is triggered by taste shared between two lovers. I heard him beginning to pant with need. I kissed his fingertips once more and then began to slide my way beneath the covers, downward toward his feet.

  Despite the chill in the room, I emerged from the bottom of the blankets and turned to face his feet. I took one in each of my hands and massaged his soles, and then with my fingers, the knuckles of his toes. I sucked on those digits and then began running my tongue up the inside of his legs. They parted with invitation and I continued upward. My breasts lay against the tender skin on the inside of his legs. I kissed the backs of his knees, each in turn. I continued my upward movement until my hands were at his hips. My finger feather touched his skin there and then pressed into his flesh and gripped his hip bones. I pulled him downward, down to the foot of the bed and then took his hands so that he sat upright.

  With languor born within desire, he cooperated and sat looking down at me in the darkness. I could feel his breath and tilted my head upward so that I might breathe his own air. With tenderness, I parted his legs gently and whispered to him, “Watch me.” Even though he could barely see the outline of my head, I knew that he could see me with his memory of what I looked like. Slowly as I might, I lowered my head until the tip of my tongue touched the tip of his penis. He groaned again and whispered my name. I pulled back slowly and then lowered my mouth upon him again, this time taking him deeply into my throat. I could feel his back strain as he wanted to lie flat, but I shook my head and whispered, “Stay with me.”

  His hands reached for me, wanting to touch my flesh as I sucked upon his. He reached for my breasts and although they were full and high, he was so consumed with what I was doing to his penis that he couldn’t focus on touching me. I reached up and patted the back of his hand, telling him to just sit still and enjoy, not to worry about me. I believe he needed that because he leaned back using his arms to support himself. I realized he was still hurting greatly. For this reason, if for none other, I would make love to him this night.

  I fed off his hard manhood, letting my tongue and the roof of my mouth become a temple for his throbbing. He was making me hot and wet at the same time. I reached down and fingered some of my own juices to coat his flesh dagger with. His hips were gently moving from side to side and this caused him to rotate within my mouth. In and out at an ever increasing pace, I sucked him until I heard his breathing rapidly increase, and with a cry that came from somewhere deep in his chest, he exploded into my mouth and down my throat.

  It was honey to my senses. When it flowed no longer, I licked him, cleaning him with the sponge of my tongue. His hands were reaching for me, the rest of his body needing the warmth of my skin, and so I crept upward, careful not to touch him unduly. Eventually I lay against him and he reached toward me with the intent of pleas
uring me. I gently shook my head in the negative and whispered, “There will always be time for me. Tonight was for you, my hero.”

  The next morning, the sun awakened us. There was frost on the windows and the wind blew snow into tall drifts against the back of the building. They looked like waves, an Arctic version of Waikiki. We still had no power and were cold, despite one another’s body heat. While Sean wore a cape of heavy blankets, I put on layers of clothing and three pair of socks. I even wrapped a warm scarf around my neck, trying to prevent the loss of heat from my body. Sean dressed downstairs and then called to me to join him. I followed his call and rapidly ran down the steps, trying to generate some heat within my body.

  “I think I’ve got this figured out,” he told me. “There is this old, clawfoot bathtub that we were going to haul away. It’s made of cast-iron and will make an excellent fire pit. We’ve got plenty of lumber here from the walls we were building. I’m going to start a fire after I drag the tub into the center of the bay. If you want to give me a hand, I think it will take the two of us. That thing is pretty heavy.”

  It did, indeed, take the both of us. In fact, at one point we had to put a thin block of wood beneath each of the feet so as to make it slicker to drag over the concrete floor. Our combined efforts worked smoothly, however, and as Sean stacked lumber and lit a fire, I ran back upstairs to grab a couple of cans of soup and a large saucepan. I also took bowls and spoons and the rest of the coffee that had sat overnight in the coffee maker. When I got downstairs, the fire was already warming the room nicely. Sean found a grate that had covered one of the service vents and laid this across the top rim of the bathtub.

  Excited, I ran back upstairs and brought down more pots and coffee cups. We warmed up the soup and the coffee and felt as though we were camping as we sat close together before the fire and sipped our food and drink. I was really glad that I had just stocked the kitchen. I thought about the people at the mission and how there was never a surplus in reserve for them. Would they even open the mission? Would those people find anywhere to get out of the cold? I felt selfish for having all the space, a man who was clearly in love with me, and enough food to last us a month. Other than the darkness at night, there was almost no alteration in our normal routine, except for the fact that my computer was useless without a charge.