Dad's Fireman Friend

by Flora Ferrari

  That’s the only thought running through my head when she turns to me with a bright smile and asks if the tour is over. I nod, wishing I could invent some reason to keep her with me a little longer.

  I don’t know how I’m going to be able to bear this. Having her working so close – but having to leave her be. Stay professional.

  I wonder how long it’s going to take for me to break.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Brittany

  I sit down at my desk – which feels surreal to say. My own desk, in the fire station where my Dad has spent his whole working life. I never thought I would end up here, but at the same time, it feels so right.

  I pick up the massive stack of paperwork that has been left in my tray. I’ve already had my briefing with someone from the administrative team, I have to go through all of this old paperwork and digitize it, file it into the computer system so that it’s fully backed up. I also have to look out for any missing fields or mistakes, things that don’t add up, so we can get them corrected. There’s going to be an audit on the station’s paperwork soon, and they want to help me prepare.

  Working on my own is a little nerve-wracking, but I can handle it. I only wish there was some reason that Dom would have to sit here with me. I cast a longing look over to the break room. I can only see the door, not who is sitting inside. I allow myself a moment to remember Dom’s strong arms and broad chest, and wet my lips.

  No. I need to focus on my work. I’m sure he doesn’t see me that way, anyway. Like his own daughter, right? I pick up the first piece of paper as I wait for the computer to boot up so I can log in and get to work.

  “You’re the new intern, right?”

  I look up and see another staff member, wearing an FDNY lanyard over civilian clothes. He doesn’t look familiar at all. “Yeah,” I tell him. “I’m Brittany Warren.”

  “Jordan,” he says, waving the ID on his lanyard. “I’m in dispatch. Just heading through for my break.”

  “Oh, nice to meet you,” I say, not sure what else he’s expecting to hear.

  “I was told you’re Cyrus Warren’s little girl,” he says, giving me a pointedly suggestive look. I get the impression that he’s trying to look down the front of my dress. “You’re not so little.”

  “I just graduated college,” I say. I don’t know why. It’s not like I have anything to prove to this guy, who is fast coming off as a creep.

  He sits down on the edge of my desk, taking a lingering glance down at my crotch as he does so. I fight the urge to rearrange my dress. “If you need help getting to know the area, let me know. I could show you where the good bars are.”

  “I grew up here,” I tell him, hoping he will get the hint and leave me alone.

  “Still,” he says, leaning over to whisper in my ear. “You should let me take you out. I’ll help you fit in here a lot better. You don’t want to stick with someone cold and aloof like Dom. Let me show you how loving we can be to our co-workers here.”

  I jump back, the wheels of my chair spinning across the concrete floor. “I don’t need your help,” I tell him, the most constrained response I can manage. Actually, I want to scream at him to leave me alone.

  “Your funeral,” Jordan sneers. In an instant, his demeanor has changed. It seems that if I don’t want to go along with his enticements, he’ll give me threats instead. “I should have guessed that any daughter of Cyrus would be just as pig-shit dumb as he is.”

  His words feel like a slap across my face. How could he say that about my Dad? About me?

  “You obviously take after him,” Jordan adds. “From what I hear, your Mom was ready to spread her legs for anyone, even after they got married. But you’re just a prude.”

  That’s the last straw. Talking about my Mom – it’s not fair. They divorced when I was young, too young to even know what went on between them. I feel tears gathering in my eyes. I don’t want to show any weakness in front of him – but I can’t help it. It hurts.

  Is this what it’s going to be like, working here?

  I’m trying to consider my options when out of the corner of my eye I see the most welcome sight of the day. Dom.

  And he doesn’t look happy.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Dom

  “Jordy,” I say, catching his attention.

  Jordan looks up, and I get the pleasure of seeing his expression change instant by instant. First there’s the sneer of contempt that he plastered on his face after Brittany turned him down, right within my earshot. Then there’s a look of concern, as he wonders what I’m doing here. Finally, abject terror as he realizes what I’m about to do.

  And that’s the last thing I manage to see, before my fist connects with his jaw.

  I see red. I shouldn’t react like this. But who does Jordan think he is, talking to Brittany like that? Nobody gets to harass my girl and put tears in her eyes. The creep needs knocking down a peg or two. And as he lays on the floor groaning, and clutching his jaw in pain, it looks like I might have achieved just that.

  “What’s going on over here?”

  I look up and immediately know I’ve messed up. I had no idea the Chief was nearby, but it looks like he saw everything. He’s striding over with an angry look on his face, every inch of him bristling.

  “Nothing, sir.” I assume a more formal posture. I don’t look down at Jordan to see if he will back me up. The little weasel will do what he wants. I don’t want to complicate matters by having the Chief thinking I’m intimidating him into lying.

  “Jordan?” the Chief demands.

  I hear a groaning noise, and glance over to see Jordan hauling himself to his feet. He rubs his jaw one more time before speaking. “Nothing, sir. I just tripped and hit my face on the floor. Guess I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

  I relax, tension ebbing away. Jordan knows that covering for me was the right thing to do. First of all, it’s part of our unspoken code, we don’t get each other into trouble. If you do, you risk bringing down the wrath of the whole station.

  Secondly, if he did report me for hitting him, he’d have to admit to what he said. That would probably be enough to land him in a disciplinary hearing for sexual harassment, depending on what it was that he whispered into Brittany’s ear. Not to mention the fact that he was trash-talking one of the firefighters, as well as a new member of staff. Even if he didn’t get disciplined for it by the Chief, he’d be getting the cold shoulder from his colleagues for a good while.

  “Are you sure about that?” the Chief looks from me to Jordan, and then to Brittany. One by one, we all nod mutely.

  “Yes, sir,” Jordan mutters.

  The Chief hesitates. I know he saw something, at least the aftermath with me standing over Jordan on the floor, but he can’t do anything about it if we won’t admit it happened. “Don’t let me catch you tripping again,” he says. Even though it sounds like he’s talking to Jordan, he’s looking right at me. “This is a place of work. I expect professional behavior and pay attention to where you’re going.”

  He pauses a moment longer to assess us, but no one is going to crack. Brittany is looking resolutely at the floor, as if she doesn’t dare look up. Then he turns on his heel and walks away, back to whatever it was he was doing before he spotted us.

  “Chief’s right,” I say, turning back towards Jordan and keeping my voice deliberately low. “You need to be more careful.”

  Jordan clears his throat, stubbornly looking off to the side while he makes small movements with his jaw, trying to settle it into place. “Don’t threaten me.”

  “You think this is a threat?” I let the question linger for a moment before answering it myself. “I just showed you exactly how serious I am. Don’t come anywhere near Brittany again. If you do, it won’t just be me you have to deal with. Cyrus will want your ass too”

  Jordan looks like he wants to make some kind of clever retort to show us that he doesn’t care, but he twinges his jaw as he opens his mouth, and winces. “What
ever,” he says, brushing past me. “I got the message.”

  I wait until he’s gone to allow the rage to rush out of my body. I couldn’t let him see any kind of weakness, but now that he’s out of earshot, I turn to Brittany.

  “Are you alright?” I ask. I want to cup her face in my hands and look into her eyes, but I hold myself back. She doesn’t need spooking any more than she already has been.

  “Yeah,” she manages. She looks up to meet my eyes and flashes me a bright smile. “Thanks, Dom. My hero.”

  I grin at that and cast one more dark look at Jordan’s back before straightening up. “Anytime, Brit. You just let me know. I’m watching out for you.”

  I mean it, too. But there’s just one question that I need to answer.

  How do I show her that I’m watching over her for her sake – and not just because Cyrus asked me to?

  CHAPTER SIX

  Brittany

  Dom walks away, leaving me staring at his broad back as I try to take in what just happened. I can’t believe he did that for me, just sucker-punched him right in the face. I have to admit that I’m impressed. Just one hit, and Jordan was sprawled out on the floor at his feet.

  Maybe it’s a little scary, too, to see that much strength and power. To know that he could probably snap me in half with his bare hands if he wanted to. But more than anything else, it’s a turn-on.

  He hit a co-worker in the face just to protect my honor. No questions, no checking to find out whether I’d done something wrong or led Jordan on somehow. He just went for it. I was right when I thought of him as being a real man. He’s pure masculinity, through and through.

  My eyes drop to the paperwork and I get started on typing in the data onto my computer. It’s not difficult work, and doesn’t require much thought. All I have to do is copy down what I see. Which means that, even though I’m hard at work, my mind is free to wander.

  Free to imagine what it likes.

  And it imagines a lot. It imagines undressing Dom, getting a real look at what he has going on under that tight shirt. Tugging down those fireman’s trousers and finding out if his thighs match his arms. It imagines him pushing me up against the wall and tugging my dress up over my body, stripping my underwear away from me like it was made of cotton candy, and setting his tongue to work on the exposed parts of me.

  It imagines hot and heavy kisses, his large hands cupping my breasts – dipping down between my legs to stroke away…

  But that’s just about all it imagines. Even while I’m feeling hot under the collar and knowing that I shouldn’t be thinking about this kind of thing at work, I am still disappointed that I can’t imagine anything more. Nothing but a vague sense of his body over mine, moving in rhythm, gained from movies and TV shows.

  Because I can’t imagine what happens next from my own experience. I’ve never had sex – not even come close, not close enough to know what it would feel like. How amazing it would be.

  I try to put all naughty thoughts of Dom out of my head and concentrate on getting the paperwork typed up into the system. It’s not easy when I see him again on my lunch break, and he gently asks me how I’m doing and if the work is going good. It’s not easy when he gets called out on a job with his crew, and I watch him pile into the fire engine with the others, all professional speed and practiced action. Then I think about him maybe being in danger, and my heart leaps.

  I’ve never got used to it. Even when I was a kid, thinking of my Dad being out at a fire made me afraid and nervous. I knew he was doing his job, and that it was important – that he had to save lives. But I never got over the fear that he would lose his.

  And so, I sigh with relief when Dom comes back in with his crew, stripping off soot-stained visors and jackets, to show that he is still in one piece.

  By the time the day ends, I know I’ve made the right choice to come here for my internship. I’m looking forward to coming in tomorrow – and I’m looking forward to the rest of the summer, coming in day after day to work in service of other people's lives. Seeing Dom daily? Well, that might just be the cherry on top.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Dom

  It’s hard to believe a week has passed already. I swear, I’m still not used to seeing Brit sitting at a desk in the station, her lips pursed and brow slightly furrowed with concentration as she works her way through the huge stack of paperwork she’s been given.

  I barely need to check on her, really. Cyrus was worried over nothing. His daughter is smart, and she’s settling in well. Everyone seems to like her – because of course, they do. Not just in a creepy way like Jordan, either. She’s bright and cheerful, and pretty. Who wouldn’t want to have her around all of the time?

  Still, I made a promise. That’s the excuse that I’m using to go over and check up on her yet again, even though I can see from here that she’s doing fine.

  “Hey, Brit,” I call out, heading over to her desk. “How’s it going?”

  She looks up and flashes me one of her bright smiles, her white teeth almost sparkling between cherry-red lips. I doubt that her intention with that makeup was to make me imagine her lips around my cock, but that’s what happens anyway. I almost falter in my steps, the reaction is so strong. “It’s going great, Dom. You get any call-outs today?”

  I’m still picturing her head bobbing up and down on my cock, those wide blue eyes open as she breaks off to breathe my name.

  Whew. I shake my head briefly to clear the image away. This is my place of work – I can’t be walking around with a hard-on. “Not yet. Still a few hours to go though. What are you up to?”

  “Inputting this data, still,” Brittany says, turning back to face her monitor with a small sigh. “It’s kind of boring. I wish I could work out a way to make it go quicker.”

  “Let me see.” I take the excuse of looking at the monitor to lean down and place a hand on her shoulder. Her skin is warm under my hand, even through the light button-up blouse she’s wearing. I can feel the rhythm of her breath moving her chest up and down.

  I have no idea what I’m looking at on the screen. I linger a little longer all the same, wanting to keep that connection.

  “Do you know anything about this program?” she asks.

  Aha. Busted. “Nope,” I say, letting a grin fall onto my face.

  Brittany looks up at me, her face just inches away from mine. She breaks out into a smile too, and her eyes dip down to rest on my lips for a long moment before meeting my gaze again.

  Is it just me, or is she flirting?

  “Then why did you offer to help?” she asks.

  I consider reminding her that I made a promise to Cyrus, but I don’t want to bring thoughts of her Dad into this. Besides, it’s not about that anymore. It hasn’t been since the moment I saw how beautiful she is. “Because I want to make sure that you’re happy, any way I can.”

  Her flirtatious expression falters for a moment into something more serious, and a light blush appears on her cheeks. I could watch her all day, especially this close. Bringing out those changing emotions, which she can’t help but show on her face, is a treat.

  She bites her lip momentarily, like she doesn’t dare say something. Then she opens her oh-so-kissable mouth and says it anyway. “Absolutely any way that you can?”

  I raise my eyebrows. I’m impressed. I didn’t think she would be that bold. “That sounds like a challenge,” I tell her.

  She leans forward minutely, bringing her lips that much closer to mine. Her eyes keep darting down like she can’t keep her thoughts away from my mouth. The feeling is mutual. “Maybe it is,” she says.

  I don’t care that we’re in the middle of the station, the place where we both work. For a moment, I am too tempted. I’m going to lean in and kiss her.

  Until her cell phone, sitting on the desk, starts blasting out a merry tune that makes the both of us jump and pull away.

  Damnit.

  Distractions be damned – I’m about to grab her by the arm and haul
her off to a supply closet, somewhere where we won’t be interrupted or caught by our co-workers.

  “Oh,” she says, and there’s such a note of panic in that single word that all thoughts of getting up to no good instantly drop from my mind.

  “What is it?” I ask, hurriedly, worried that something might be wrong.

  “It’s my Dad,” Brit says. She hesitates, then grabs the phone up off the desk and answers the call, in a falsely bright tone. “Hi, Dad! Yeah, I’m still at work.”

  She darts one guilty glance my way and then refuses to look again, a blush almost as dark as her lipstick spreading across her cheeks. I take the hint and retreat, back to the break room where I should have been headed. I guess the association of me with Cyrus is a little too much for her, like she feels like she’s going behind his back to flirt with me.

  Which means one very good thing. I didn’t imagine the idea that the attraction was mutual.

  She wants me.

  And I’m only too happy to oblige.

  She’s going to be mine – just as soon as we figure out a way around the roadblock that is Cyrus Warren. As much as I love my best friend, nothing’s going to stand in the way of me getting my girl.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Brittany

  I want Dom… and I think he wants me too.

  The thought sends a thrill down my spine, just at the same time as it makes me want to cringe. This is so wrong, isn’t it? Going after my own father’s best friend? I mean, he is literally old enough to be my Dad himself! Even if he’s a couple of years younger than Dad…

  But when I look at Dom, and he looks at me, I don’t see an old man. Not the way I do when I look at my Dad. I see someone in the prime of his life, hot as hell, and – best of all – single and unattached. If he was my age, I wouldn’t hesitate.

  After yesterday and the almost-kiss that I’m sure we were about to have, I’ve decided I’m not going to hesitate any longer in this case, either.