The Single Dad - A Standalone Romance (A Single Dad Firefighter Romance)

by Claire Adams

  For a long moment I was just standing there, the music pounding around me, the sound of a couple hundred people partying below. The one drink hadn’t been enough to get me drunk, but it had left my brain fuzzy, and I didn’t quite know if I was ready. What if Zack didn’t want to talk to me? I pressed my lips together. My hands felt like they were weighted down with lead. I swallowed against the tightness I felt in my throat. I just had to get through it, I told myself. If he didn’t want to hear me out, I’d at least know that it was done with us permanently. I lifted my hand to knock on the door; it fell to my side once more as I continued to stand there. If he sent me away without hearing me out—if he didn’t answer or if he did and then just told me not to bother, I’d have to be ready to walk through the frat house without looking like I was going to cry. I took a deep breath and lifted my hand again. I knocked on the door quick and hard, my knuckles stinging from it—I wanted to make sure that Zack could hear me over the music.

  “Yo! I’m not feeling it!” he called out from inside. My heart fluttered in my chest and I knocked again. “I said I’m not feeling it, bro!” I knocked a third time.

  Instead of calling out again, after a moment, the door opened abruptly, showing Zack standing there, changed out of his toga—if he’d ever been in a toga in the first place. He was standing there with an irritated look on his face, in a pair of worn jeans and a tee shirt. The irritable look dissolved in a moment, as soon as he saw that it was me. I blushed as Zack’s gaze traveled up and down along my whole body, taking me in slowly, a mixture of surprise and consternation on his face. The red Solo cup was still in my hand and I fidgeted with it, smiling nervously.

  “Evie,” He said; I could barely hear him over the music.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” I said, my throat tight. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  Zack’s eyes widened and he opened the door wider. “Yeah—yeah, absolutely.”

  I stepped into Zack’s room and my knees went weak. It was cleaner than I would have expected; there was a pile of dirty laundry next to the closet, but there was no trash hanging around, only a few empty reusable water bottles. It smelled like him, and I closed my eyes for a moment, breathing it in. I turned in time to see Zack closing the door and I wondered if he had put a necktie on the knob—to signal that we needed privacy. I wasn’t sure whether or not I wanted everyone to think that Zack was having sex.

  “I…” I licked my lips, leaning against his bed, unsure of how to actually start saying what I was there to tell him.

  “It’s so good to see you. What did I do, Evie?”

  I shook my head. “You didn’t do anything, it’s not your fault, it’s my fault.” Words were tumbling out of my lips in an unsteady rush. “There’s…I’ve been an idiot. Just…okay. I’m sorry; I just don’t really know how to explain it.”

  “Evie, calm down,” Zack said, smiling faintly. He moved closer to me and kissed me lightly on the cheek. “Just say what you came to say. I swear I’ll listen to you—I won’t interrupt.”

  I swallowed again, wishing I hadn’t had the drink that the brother at the door had handed to me.

  “Okay.” I took a deep breath and tried to collect my thoughts. “So the other day, after…I guess after practice…there was a guy hanging out at my dorm room door.” Zack raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t say anything to interrupt me. “I recognized him; he was someone from your team. Anyway, he told me he would consider it a personal favor if I would stop hanging out with you, if I would just leave you alone. He didn’t really give me any reasons. At first, I just sort of brushed it off. I told him if he didn’t get the hell away from my room I’d call the RAs.” I smiled slightly.

  “That sounds about right,” Zack said, reaching out and taking my hands in his. I hadn’t realized how much they were shaking until I had Zack’s firm, warm grip.

  “But then I got to thinking that he must have thought I was a distraction, and that things could really easily get to be really serious between us, and I don’t want to be a distraction to you—I just panicked.” Zack nodded. “I didn’t know how to tell you why—or what was going on. So I just sort of…” I shrugged.

  “You could have told me, you know,” Zack said gently.

  I nodded. “Well yeah, I figured that out, but I sort of wasn’t thinking rationally, you know?”

  Zack grinned. “So that explains you totally freezing me out at the game the other day.”

  “I suppose, yeah. I just…I’m really sorry, Zack. Jess has already explained to me how much of an idiot I am.”

  Zack shook his head, smiling still. “Man. I—I shouldn’t admit this to you, but I was a total mess that night because I just couldn’t get you out of my head. I kept wondering if you were watching, and I didn’t know if I wanted you to be watching or not.”

  I laughed slightly. “You’re mental, you know.” I leaned in and kissed him lightly on the lips.

  Zack wrapped his arms around my waist and deepened the kiss, pressing my body close to his. In spite of the alcohol I’d consumed that night, I didn’t start to really feel drunk until Zack and I began to kiss. I could smell the scent of his cologne and soap, the softer smell of his skin, the undercurrent of his sweat. The music swirled around me, penetrating even into the room—muted, but still present. Through the floor I heard a loud cheer, but I didn’t care what the cause was.

  Zack broke away from my lips after a long moment; my heart was pounding in my chest. I had only come to apologize and explain, but in a matter of only a few heartbeats, just being around Zack and feeling his body pressed to mine had awakened the bone-deep hunger I’d been trying to ignore for days.

  “Why were you up here, and not at the party?” I asked him breathlessly, that one aspect of the evening sticking in my head. “I’ve been looking for you for like an hour.”

  Zack shook his head. “You could’ve just texted and asked what I was up to, you know.”

  I rolled my eyes. “And that would have ruined the whole point of coming here. That’s not an answer to my question, you know.”

  Zack kissed my temple, and then my cheek, and finally my lips, probing my mouth with his tongue hungrily until I was breathless again.

  “What can I say?” he said, pulling away from my lips just slightly. “I didn’t really feel like partying. I just haven’t had the energy for much of anything since you dropped off the radar.”

  I kissed him once more, letting my hands trail over his broad shoulders, down along the lines and planes of his back.

  “How can I make it up to you?” I asked him, smiling playfully up into his eyes.

  Zack raised his eyebrows and kissed my forehead. “Hold on a second.”

  He let me go and turned to the door; I watched as he grabbed a neck tie off of his headboard and opened the door. He hung the tie on the knob and closed it once more, not quite sealing out the noise from the rest of the frat house, but giving us once more some degree of privacy. He locked the door for good measure and turned to look at me.

  “I think you know pretty well how you can make it up to me.”

  He closed the distance between us once more, wrapping his arms around me and lifting me up onto the bed, pressing me against it as he climbed up to join me.

  Zack’s weight against my body felt so good—even with clothes on—that for a long moment all I could do was lie there, holding him close, batting my tongue against his and writhing underneath him, loving the contact, loving the simple act of kissing him, of making out once more. I hadn’t let myself realize how much I had come to treasure just the feeling of physical closeness to Zack—how good it felt just to be in his arms, just to taste his lips and feel the slight rasping of his stubble against my skin, the way he touched me just so. I was trembling from head to toe, shaking almost uncontrollably unless I held him very tightly. I felt as if I was alternately burning and freezing as the kiss went deeper and deeper, as every nerve ending in my body came awake.

  Zack’s hands moved along the cur
ves of my body slowly, mapping out every inch of my topography, tracing me everywhere while I moaned softly against his lips. I felt my pussy getting wet, felt my heart racing and my body tingling under the onslaught of sensation. It was too much—it wasn’t enough. I pulled back, needing just a moment to catch my breath and to find something to hold onto in the face of so much incredible sensation.

  “God I’ve missed you,” Zack said, his voice only a little above a murmur.

  He tilted my head to the side and brought his lips against my neck, kissing and nipping, lapping at my sensitive skin, lavishing attention down along the column of my throat and then back up. His hands were slipping up underneath my blouse, touching my bare skin, tickling my ribs and caressing my waist.

  I ducked my head to the side and nibbled sharply at Zack’s neck, smiling to myself when I heard him groan, tensing against me. His hips rocked against mine; the skirt was too tight for him to shift down between my legs, but I could feel the hard ridge of his cock pressing against me nonetheless, digging into my hip. I took advantage of his temporary distraction and launched myself upward, twisting and throwing Zack off of me. I tumbled him onto the bed next to me and climbed onto him, smiling down at him with self-satisfied victory. Zack laughed out loud breathlessly, shaking his head, his dark eyes almost black with lust and glinting with amusement. “I thought you were supposed to be making it up to me,” he said, looking at me with challenge in his gaze.

  “I am,” I said, straddling his hips. The skirt rolled up along my legs, barely covering anything anymore, and Zack glided his hands along my thighs, tickling and caressing me teasingly. I reached out and grabbed at the hem of his tee shirt, tugging it upward. “I mean, do you have a better idea than me going down on you? Because I’m all ears.”

  Zack laughed again, pulling my blouse up and over my head. He tossed it across the room, sitting up slightly and throwing his arms up over his head to help me get his own shirt off of him.

  “Okay—I’ll give you that. But I have a lot of ideas. This is just a start—you really owe me, after all.”

  I rolled my eyes, smiling to myself. I shifted on top of Zack, moving my hips down to his thighs, and leaned down to kiss him on the lips hungrily. Zack crushed me against him, his hands moving over my back, touching me seemingly everywhere at once until I was almost distracted from the task I had in mind. I broke away from his lips, panting slightly with desire, and began to kiss a trail down along the line of his neck, over his collar bones. I took my time kissing his chest, nuzzling against the soft velvet skin with nearly no hair on it, listening to his pounding heart as I made my way slowly but inevitably downward. Zack let out a low groan when I nipped playfully against his abs, looking up to smirk at him. As I came nearer and nearer to my objective, I shifted down along his body, settling my weight just above his knees. I reached down and unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans, revealing his boxer-briefs to my hungry, eager gaze.

  I hooked my fingers in his jeans and tugged them down, over his hips; Zack arched up off of the bed, helping me. I got the thick fabric down to his knees and Zack kicked his pants the rest of the way off, lying there on the bed looking up at me with nothing but desire in his eyes. I pulled his underwear off next, grinning with unabashed delight at the sight of his hard, thick cock rising up proudly erect, freed from the confines of his clothes. I wasn’t even fully aware of what happened to Zack’s underwear; they seemed to disappear without a trace in an instant. The next moment I was straddling him, wrapping my hand around the base of his cock. I leaned in and brought my lips to just barely kiss the tip of him, looking up into his half-lidded eyes as I pumped him slowly but steadily. I finally wrapped my lips around the head of his erection, sucking and licking almost immediately, tasting the sharp bitter-salt of his precum beginning to flow.

  Gradually, I took more and more of him into my mouth, bringing my lips to meet my fingers, moving my head slowly up and down as I worshipped him with my tongue, swirling it around the tip, pressing the tip in a long line along the underside, wrapping the slick muscle around him as I sucked harder and softer. I rubbed the base of his cock with my fingers, stroking him steadily in time with the bobbing of my head, bringing my fingers up to meet my lips and my lips down to meet my fingers. Zack reached out and somehow found the elastic holding my hair in the messy bun; he pulled carefully and my hair came tumbling down about my face and shoulders.

  Zack’s fingertips brushed against my scalp, his hand tightening its grip as he became more and more turned on by what I was doing to him. I settled my weight on my legs, closing my eyes so I wouldn’t get dizzy as I gradually picked up my pace. I was able to take him into my mouth almost all the way—keeping my fingers wrapped around the base of his cock and plunging my mouth down onto him until my throat began to tickle with the beginnings of my gag reflex and then pulling back. I breathed through my nose, trying to dispel the reaction, trying to take him as much as I possibly could, wanting Zack to know how sorry I was, how much I wanted him, how deep my desire for him was. If I could make him come—as I had the last time we’d had sex—I could feel as though I was absolved of my shitty handling of the situation. Logically it made no sense, but in the buzzing hum of my deep arousal I couldn’t think of anything else I wanted.

  I became utterly focused on Zack and giving him pleasure, barely even hearing the noise of the ongoing party, barely aware of the music pounding into the room through the walls. I could hear Zack moaning, feel his fingers tangling and tightening in my hair, feel his body tensing underneath me as his cock began to jerk and twitch between my lips. His hips moved in an instinctive rhythm, thrusting up to meet my mouth, but he was—even in the midst of his arousal—careful not to choke me. I heard my name on Zack’s lips over and over again even as my mouth filled with the taste of his salty-sharp precum, flowing more and more freely, coating my tongue. I reached down between Zack’s legs and cupped his balls carefully in my hand, jiggling them slightly, playing with them while I worked him with my mouth. Zack groaned out and I felt a hot spurt of his precum shoot alarmingly—and almost laughed. I suppressed the reflex and continued my worship, giving his balls a gentle squeeze, rubbing them carefully even as I bobbed my head faster and faster, swirling my tongue everywhere it could reach.

  I felt the tension come over Zack’s body all at once; every muscle clenched and he let out a long, low moan, shuddering for just an instant. I backed off slightly, letting the first hot, sticky-slick spurt of his come shoot into my mouth before I continued sucking and licking, swallowing each burst of bitter-salt fluid that jolted out of him. After a few moments, Zack collapsed against the mattress, his grip on my hair easing, his body shuddering slightly as his cock began to soften. I swallowed the last of him and pulled back, letting him fall from my lips slick with saliva.

  Zack’s eyes were open already as I sat up, smiling like the cat who’d finally gotten the canary, satisfied with myself beyond belief and incredibly turned on. “I cannot believe how good you are at that,” Zack said, shaking his head with a hazy grin.

  “Well I was pretty motivated this time,” I said, slithering up along his body and kissing him on the lips. Zack plunged his tongue past my lips, tasting himself, crushing me against him with more strength than I thought he’d possess after such a climax.

  “My turn,” he murmured lowly.

  He sat up, pulling me around and up along the length of his body. Instead of stripping me down, he pulled my skirt all the way up over my hips, hooking his fingers in the waistband of my panties and tugging them down. I was already soaking wet—incredibly turned on by what I had just done to him, beyond belief. Zack nibbled at the sensitive skin just below my navel and nuzzled against my hip as he worked my panties down my legs. I shifted on top of him, somehow managing to contort myself enough to get my underwear off and cast it aside.

  Zack spread my legs wide, lifting me up slightly with his strong arms. I cried out as he buried his face against my pussy, nuzzling my labia as his tongue sl
id up and down, working its way deeper and deeper between my folds. He held me in the position he wanted me in, my legs barely in contact with the bed, my balance entirely dependent on his strength as he teased my inner labia with the tip of his tongue, flicking it along the sensitive flesh until I was moaning and twisting, struggling to find leverage. He slid his tongue deep inside of me, past the meager resistance of my inner walls, plunging it as firmly into me as he possibly could while he held me in position. In a matter of moments I was moaning, reaching out blindly for something to hold onto, shaking with the need for more.

  Zack teased me until I was certain I couldn’t take anymore, and then I was suddenly tumbling backwards, jolted at the last moment by an impact with a soft surface—his mattress. Before I could recover Zack had renewed his attacks, bringing the tip of his tongue up to my clit; he flicked the rough, slippery muscle against the tiny bead of nerves and sending tingling crackles of electric sensation throughout my body. I twisted and writhed, throwing my head back against the mattress, reaching out blindly to grab at Zack’s shoulders and head, threading my fingers in his hair as I pushed my hips down to meet his mouth. He sucked all of my pussy between his lips that he could, his tongue lashing up and down along my folds, finding my clit and then dancing away from it. I was whimpering, moaning, words of praise tumbling out of my lips without any thought, as pleasure jolted through me, obliterating my ability to think.

  I couldn’t tell if we had been going at it for minutes or hours, but I felt the tension mounting inside of me, growing more and more like a steadily tightening knot somewhere below my navel, making me arch and twist and squirm for better contact. Finally, when I couldn’t possibly take it any longer, the tension broke all at once, the knot inside of my body unraveling in an instant. I cried out as wave after wave of pleasure shocked through me, crackling through every nerve and every vein. Zack didn’t let up—he kept sucking and licking, sending more and more sensation rocketing through my body. By the time the spasms of pleasure finally began to abate, I almost begged him to stop—my whole body oversensitive, shaking, my clit tingling almost uncomfortably from the overload. But Zack pulled back, giving my labia a lingering lick before he broke away from my body.