The Fireman's Feisty BBW

by Ella Roane

  Todd’s smile fades. “There’s something different about you.” His brows narrow. “You’ve met someone.” There’s hurt in his voice. “Do I know him?”

  As far as I know, there’s been no one in Todd’s life since me even though we broke up over a year ago. But while Todd has played the monk, I can’t say the same about myself. Most of his adrenaline junkie buddies have made a point of reconnecting with me. I hate to admit that boredom and foolishness have had me going out with more than one of them. Some of them were a lot of fun, but they were temporary. They knew it. I knew it. We were all on the same page. Even Todd was on the same page. I’ve never hidden anything from him. And any fun I was having without Todd, he never seemed to care. Until now.

  I don’t know why anything would be different, but the pained look in his eyes tells me it is.

  “It’s no one you know,” I say. For that matter, it’s no one I know.

  Todd strides down the stairs with an ease and grace usually attributed to Fred Astaire. He plants himself in front of me. I can feel his breath on my temple. He’s tall and lean and even now has a magnetism over me. I want to cuddle up to him, but I resist.

  “You were supposed to come back to me,” he whispers.

  “You were supposed to give up trying to kill yourself,” I say.

  Henry mews pitifully from his perch up in the tree, reminding us that he’s still there.

  “Why are you here, Todd?” I ask.

  He hesitates, then comes clean. “Skip dislocated his shoulder. I brought him here for you to put it back in.”

  I lean to the side to see past Todd. Sure enough, there’s Skip, sleeping like a heap of dirty laundry in the deepest, darkest corner of my stoop. “How’d it happen?”

  “Board surfing behind a pickup truck.”

  It’s dumb enough to make me grin. “Did the driver know at least?”

  “Nope,” Todd answers, silent laughter in his voice.

  “I can’t believe you let him hang with you.” Todd’s usually choosy about the maniacs he risks his life with.

  Todd shrugs. “I figure he’s with us or he’s on his own. At least this way there’s someone around to get him put back together.” He says this with his gaze fixed on me.

  There’s a question in his eyes: Will I help?

  “He on something?” I ask. I’m surprised that Skip can fall asleep with a dislocated shoulder. He should be in a lot of pain.

  “Not from me,” he says.

  I believe him. Drugs were never Todd’s scene. He always said they dulled the ride.

  “Okay, I’ll help him.” I know that if I don’t, the poor kid will probably have some of his buddies manhandle his shoulder to try to get it back into place. They’re more likely to do additional damage, possibly permanent.

  “I knew you would,” Todd replies in a low voice that sends shivers up my spine. It’s his bedroom voice, the one he used when he was kissing me head to toe. His body tips forward for half a second, and I think I’m going to have to block a kiss, but he instead launches himself upward. What’s left in front of me is his trim, tight waist. Washboard abs for miles. And that sight doesn’t change. It just hangs there.

  I glance up and see that he’s hooked his hands over the tree’s lowest limb. The waist of his shirt is pulled up because of his arms being stretched straight above his head.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “You help Skip. I’ll help Henry,” he says.

  I step aside, then Todd gives the air a kick and swings his legs, boosting himself higher. In moves too easy for my brain to comprehend, he gets on top of the limb and sits astride it. Then he’s on his feet, leaping for the large, thicker branch above him but below Henry.

  “Go on,” he says, dangling twenty feet in the air by his hands. “What’re you waiting for? Skip needs you.”

  I can see his Cheshire cat grin even through the darkness.

  I head up the stairs of my stoop and wake Skip. I get him lucid as Todd is coaxing a very vocal Henry onto his shoulder. I take Skip’s light jacket off him, and Todd walks the limb tightrope style to Mrs. Bistroth’s balcony.

  Skip cries out with the pain of having his shoulder set a half-second before Todd slides Mrs. Bistroth’s balcony door open to let Henry slip back inside. Between the two of us, we’d gotten our charges back where they were supposed to be.

  Skip is sulky more than grateful. Still, he says, “Thanks, Stella,” after I hear Todd’s feet hit terra firma behind us.

  I’ve got no doubt that Todd gave him a directive stare, making it clear to the younger guy that he should pay his respects for the aid he’d received.

  Skip stands and heads for a car parked at the curb a couple trees down.

  “I’ll catch up,” Todd tells him, then lingers behind. He puts himself right back in the spot he’d stood in before he’d jumped into the tree. That is to say, standing right in front of me. Even in this dim light, the flawlessness of his complexion isn’t lost on me. He’s got the skin of a fifteen-year-old, even though he’s a year older than me.

  Back when we were still a couple, I’d started getting dirty looks. People thought I was dating young... way young. That’s the vibe he exudes. Young. Carefree. Indestructible. But I know better. He’s got some torn cartilage in his right knee, and he’ll probably be ready for a hip replacement before he turns forty. But I can’t fault him on his fervor to live life. He’s damn good at that.

  “What’s his name, Stell?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I tell him, and I mean it. Even if I hadn’t tasted the kiss of another man tonight, there’d still be no me and him.

  He twists a finger around a loose curl of my hair before letting it slip free. “Someone steals my girl’s heart, and you think it doesn’t matter?”

  “I’m not your girl, Todd.”

  The small smile that pulls at his lips is sad, and I realize he’s changed, too. Sometime when I wasn’t looking, he grew up. He became a man.

  “You’re my girl,” he says. “Maybe I’m not your guy, but you’ll always be my girl.” He pats his chest over his heart once for emphasis. They’re pretty words. They could easily be mistaken to mean that I’m the most important thing in his life, but that wouldn’t be true. It’s never been true. Not when we were together and not now.

  “You’d better go, Todd.”

  “I’ve changed,” he says. “I can put you first now.” He always did have a knack for knowing exactly what I was thinking, but it’s no good. He’s too late.

  “I’ll see you some time,” I say, my voice gentle. It’s a dismissal with me giving nothing in return. He gets it. I know he does.

  Todd’s feet don’t move from where he’s planted himself in front of me. “Whoever’s sniffing around you, he doesn’t deserve you.”

  “You don’t deserve me,” I snap, losing my patience. I instantly regret it. Todd is a kind, gentle soul. It’s never been my desire to hurt him. I just need him to let me have my life back. I don’t need him as my shadow. I don’t need him always bringing his injured buds around.

  Guilt settles in over me like a misty haze. I know I don’t need them, but his gang of lost boys definitely need me.

  Todd lifts a hand to my face. His thumb brushes across my cheek, warm and strong. His skin a little calloused.

  I almost let my head tilt to rest in his large palm... almost. I remember him. His body. The way he made me feel. But those days are gone, and they’ve been gone for a long time.

  “I’ll never mess up as badly as when I lost you,” he says.

  What’s left for me to say to that except, “Good night, Todd.”

  “Good night, Stell.”

  Chapter 9

  Stella

  Telling Todd to head on his way was harder than I’d thought it would be. A lot harder. Now all that’s left for me to do is to toss and turn in my bed, squeezing my thighs together for want of a man between them.

  I sigh, then turn over on my belly and reach for
my phone. I pull up my contacts list.

  Sure enough, there’s Todd’s number... and Brad’s. I’d told Brad where he could pick me up before we’d parted ways as he put his digits in my phone.

  I bite my lip, pondering the two. Then I pick one and let the tip of my finger start tapping. After I hit send, I roll onto my back and squeeze my eyes closed and moan in frustration with myself. “I can’t be doing this,” I say, but the ding of an incoming text tells me it’s already done.

  My heart is pounding hard enough to fill my ears when I snatch my phone up from where I’d let it fall on the comforter. I hold my breath as I look at the phone’s face. I’d written Brad that I’d had an alternative offer from someone to fill the other side of my bed since he’d declined to do it himself. What he wrote back had me giggling into my covers.

  Brad: I’ll be right over.

  My fingers fly into texting mode. “I haven’t invited you.”

  Brad: Are you alone?

  Me: I’m a single woman. I’m not supposed to answer such questions asked by strange men.

  Brad: You’re right. On my way.

  “What?” I gasp. “No!” Things were moving far beyond a simple flirtation.

  My fingers dart over the screen as I text back.

  Me: I didn’t invite you.

  Brad: Doesn’t matter. I’m not going to let my future wife sleep alone with some predator wanting to get in there with her.

  Me: I think calling yourself a predator is going a bit far, but you would know yourself best…

  Brad: Oh, no, miss. You misunderstand. There’ll be no hanky panky. My body is a chaste vessel. I won’t let you have your way with me until I can call you my bride.

  My mouth gapes open. He can’t be serious. I type him back to say as much.

  Brad: You will not have my virtue if you’re not wearing my ring.

  I chuckle. “We’ll see about that!”

  The gauntlet has been thrown. Now it’s time to strip the rest of his firefighting armor off him as well!

  Chapter 10

  Brad

  Being called into action earlier than tomorrow evening threw me off my game... for about ten seconds. That’s how long it took me to lose myself over to the image of Stella lying in bed—waiting for me.

  I am dressed and out the door in less than two minutes. I hook my leg over my Tuono motorcycle, strap on my helmet, and rev the bike’s engine to life.

  I don’t peel my tires pulling out, but I come damn close. I don’t have to punch her address into the GPS. I could see it in my head the moment she’d rattled it off to me before we parted ways earlier this evening. I knew what the closest firehouse was, the response time, and the tendency of buildings in that area to stay up to code. She was in a good place, a place I felt okay about her being without me—until she mentioned someone wanting to slip into my side of her bed.

  No fucking way.

  I’d like to say I picked up a dozen long stem roses on the way, but the thought of Stella’s other suitor coming back had me zooming past the all-night grocer. Actually, it had me zooming past three stop signs and a red light, too. Thankfully the roads were quiet, caught in that short time of true sleep between the winding down of the late-night revelers and the waking of the early morning risers.

  When I reach Stella’s picturesque apartment quadplex, every window is dark except those of one lower corner. It’s her place.

  I park my bike in the streetlamp shadows of a sycamore tree. It’s as tall as the building with limbs stretching even wider. I dismount my bike, pull my helmet off as I walk, and leap up the final obstacle of steps. That puts me standing before her front door.

  I raise my hand to knock but freeze when I hear the mechanics of the door’s handle click without the added sound of a lock being tumbled open. That bothers me—a lot. But as soon as the door opens, the world falls away. There’s only air between me and my beautiful girl.

  She’s wearing a long flannel shirt that reaches a third of the way down her bare thighs. They’re round and perfect, just like the plump swell of her breasts. I know this because her shirt’s front is unbuttoned practically to her navel, and the cloth that should be covering her is instead gaping open. Not by a lot, but enough to tease my blood into a rolling boil of need that might kill me if I can’t touch her soon.

  There’s a distant echo in my ears, an important one. One that my brain refuses to ignore. Little by little, it captures my senses until I realize that the echo is Stella’s melodic voice.

  “Hello? Can you hear me? You okay?” she asks, but she’s grinning. She knows damn well the affect she’s having on me by answering the door dressed as she is.

  “You always leave your door unlocked?” I reply with a question of my own. My voice is barely better than a growl, and the pure anger that wells within me takes me by surprise. She put herself at risk by leaving the door unlocked. Someone could have hurt her. Someone could have stolen my entire world from me. All because her door’s deadbolt hadn’t been slid home. Well, I had a deadbolt I wanted to slide home, too, one that was heavy and thick between my legs, but I’d kill any man who took it upon himself to try to do the same.

  Stella’s eyes open wide and her chin dips as she pulls her head back. “Excuse me?” she says, her voice full of indignation and annoyance.

  “Lock your door when I’m not here,” I tell her.

  “I’ll sleep naked with my door wide open if I want to,” she shoots back, her brows furrowed and her sweet lips tight.

  “Tease me that way some more and I’ll move in with you here and now,” I threaten. I hadn’t meant for our time together to start out this way. Combative. I should’ve picked up those roses. Maybe some chocolates, too. Anything to put a smile back on my girl’s face. Yet despite that, I’ve meant every word I’ve said. I won’t have her inviting harm into her life, not while I still breathe.

  She gives me an incredulous grin and a head-to-toe look, then says, “Sorry, hun, you’re not on the lease.” With that, she shifts to the side and gives the heavy oak door an effortless flick of her hand. Its large, flat surface rushes toward my face, but the toe of my boot’s planted an inch over the threshold of her home. It stops the door from slamming into its moorings.

  Stella catches the door as it bounces back open. Rage lights her eyes. “Move your toes or I’ll get a hammer and break them,” she says. She doesn’t raise her voice. Her eyes don’t flinch away. She’s serious.

  I slide my foot so that the whole of it is back on my side—the outside—of her threshold. “Your house, your rules,” I say, my voice quiet… but not repentant. Still, my girl looks mad. Her anger stokes my flames and makes me want her more. I can’t hold back the grin that takes over my lips, and my gaze takes its time drifting over her from head to toe and back up again. Every inch of her is like looking upon an angel. She’s heaven to me.

  I guess my grin is contagious because Stella’s lips quirk sideways as if she’s fighting the smile but losing the battle.

  “I’ll make you smile every day for the rest of your life if you let me,” I say, the words spilling from me before my brain even knew they were there, waiting to be said.

  Stella’s eyes grow round, and her cheeks flush the cutest shade of pink. She licks her lips and leans into the door’s edge as if for the stability it can offer.

  I wish she were leaning against me that way. It’s what I’m here for. It’s what I was born for, to be whatever she needs, whenever she needs it.

  “How about we just start with tonight,” Stella says.

  She lifts her hand, and I think she’s going to reach for me, but her delicate digits go to her shirt instead. Her shirt’s buttons come undone with a seemingly effortless pinch and twist of her fingers until none are left to unfasten.

  The shirt gapes open just a little when she’s done, giving me a peek at the black lace panties she’s wearing beneath. Only panties. No bra in sight.

  My mouth falls open when she lifts both her hands and dr
ags her fingers over the soft swell of her belly and up through the valley of her full, round, luscious breasts. When her fingertips reach her collar bone, everything changes. The curl of her fingers captures the shirt’s edges, and off her shoulders it goes. It falls to the floor behind her bare feet.

  My girl is standing almost completely naked in her open front door where the whole world can see. And it would be able to see if the world was awake and if I weren’t willing my size to grow to shield her from curious eyes. But despite my best efforts to broaden my shoulders and lengthen my stature to fill the entire height and width of her doorframe, there’s only one part of me that’s growing. It’s likely to bust a seam breaking its way through my pants to get to her. At least that’s how it feels.

  “Shut the door now if you don’t want me coming in,” I warn her.

  Stella’s gaze is locked on mine. Without sparing the door so much as a single glance, she gives it a nudge with her shoulder. The heavy door glides a few inches wider. Her invitation is clear.

  I’m on Stella in an instant. My arms go around her, and her legs wrap around my waist. I kick the door closed with the heel of my boot and start to march into the deeper portions of her home, but then I pause, reach behind me and click the lock into place. I make a point of holding her attention as I do it.

  “See how easy that was?” I ask.

  Stella’s eyes narrow. Her powerful thighs squeeze tight on the sides of my waist, and she lifts herself higher until she is towering over me. One of her hands moves from my shoulder to reach up into my hair at the base of my skull. Her grip there tightens, and my head is pulled back.

  I’m staring straight up into her ravishing face. Her eyes are fiery, her expression ruthless. Yet she is still my angel. My vengeful yet hopefully merciful angel.

  Her face lowers to mine until our lips are almost touching. Her warmth becomes my warmth. Her breath becomes my breath.

  “I’m not interested in easy,” she whispers, her lips brushing mine as the words leave her mouth.