Controlled Burn- To Publish

by Lani Lynn Vale

  She narrowed her eyes. “No.”

  It sounded like that one simple word was ripped from her, and I had to use all my willpower to contain the smile that wanted to slip out.

  “It’s supposed to rain tomorrow from about mid-morning all the way until the end of next week. There’s no way in hell those roofers are going to be able to get the roof done before the rain comes in,” I said. “And that’s pushing it for the rain. You know the weather’s unpredictable.”

  Her glare said it all, and she reluctantly replied with, “Fine. I’ll call and cancel.”

  I nodded once, then walked to the side of the house and easily leapt to the ground, causing a gasp to sound from behind me.

  I didn’t look back.

  If I did, I’d end up demanding she get her ass down and stay on the ground where she belonged.

  But that wouldn’t be good. That would, in fact, be very bad.

  Why, you ask?

  Because the damn woman was obstinate. She’d stay up there all night and day if it proved her point.

  “So,” Able said once I got close enough. “That worked out well for you.”

  I flipped him off, then went back to tearing my wall down.

  I didn’t think about July one damn bit.

  Nope. Not at all.

  Chapter 5

  Dear Women,

  He does not want a new watch for Valentine’s day. He wants you to dress like a slut, handcuff him to the chair, give him a blowjob AND swallow. His wishes are really that simple.

  -Words of Wisdom

  July

  I glared at the sun shining, not a fucking cloud in the sky.

  “What happened?” Angie asked. “I thought you were going to get the shingles cleared off for today?”

  I drew in a deep, calming breath and turned to walk back inside.

  “Apparently,” I said slowly. “It’s supposed to rain today.”

  “Oh, that’s not today anymore. It’s tonight, or even early tomorrow morning.”

  I wondered if she could hear the sound of my teeth gritting from her perch on the fireplace where she was currently downing a chicken biscuit.

  “Thank you, Angie. Were you able to get the appointment rescheduled?” I asked hopefully.

  “Not for another two weeks, possibly three, depending on rain. Another couple took your spot, and you now have theirs,” she informed me.

  I sighed.

  Blowing the hair away from my eyes, I pulled out my tape measure and measured up to the ceiling.

  “Do you think I can put a chandelier here?” I asked her, trying to change the subject.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Hey, did you know that they’re putting tin on their roof, too?”

  My brows furrowed.

  “What?” I asked, letting the tape measure suck back up before turning to her.

  She nodded her head. “Red. Just like you.”

  My teeth ground together. “How do you know that?”

  “When I called the roofers they said that we would be next on the job, and that it would be convenient since they’re putting the same color roof on the house right next to yours,” she continued.

  My mouth dropped open.

  “You’re shitting me,” I licked my lips.

  She shook her head, no amusement in her face whatsoever.

  Then again, it wasn’t often that I ever saw anything in her face other than annoyance, unless she was eating.

  She had what I liked to call ‘resting bitch face.’ She always looked like she was pissed at the world.

  She was beautiful, yes, but she was also unapproachable.

  I’d been intimidated when I’d first met her for that very reason. Five feet eight inches of beauty with the perfect body. She could easily be a model if she wanted to be.

  Her long auburn hair reached to mid-back, and her eyes were the color of melted chocolate.

  Her teeth were gleaming white and perfectly straight, and her skin was a rich, warm mocha brown.

  But her eyes were always narrowed, and her lips were usually thinned almost angrily.

  I wasn’t sure if she was aware that she came off as ‘bitchy’ or not, and I’d never had the courage to ask her.

  I didn’t want to offend her. She was doing the job I was asking her to for two dollars over minimum wage, and I needed her.

  “Isn’t that just wonderful,” I finally said, blowing out a breath of frustration.

  She snorted.

  “You sound like you swallowed a rock,” she observed. “You look pretty pissed, too.”

  I was pissed.

  In fact, he’d told me that the weather wasn’t permitting, and I’d seen the error of my ways. So I’d stopped and then nothing.

  No rain. Not even a chance of it until tomorrow.

  They could’ve easily gotten the roof put on today, and I wouldn’t be two weeks behind schedule right now if he’d just let me fucking be.

  But no, not Dean.

  He just couldn’t help himself.

  Now he fucked my spot over for the roofers and was getting his before me!

  I growled in frustration, stomping to the window to glare at the house that the man of my nightmares worked on in his every spare moment.

  The last week had been torture watching him work.

  Just like now.

  He was in jeans and boots, his shirt tucked into the back waistband, swinging back and forth as he measured and cut a board for what looked to be molding.

  “That boy is fine,” Angie said.

  “Uh-huh,” I agreed.

  He was. Very fine.

  And he had a fine penis, too.

  A penis that I missed greatly.

  “Oh man, would you look at that?” she gasped, pressing her nose against the window.

  That was when Bowe came out wearing much the same as Dean.

  Dean looked better, in my opinion, but not by much.

  Both men were sexy, but mine was what I liked to call good ol’ country boy. His jeans were old and worn, whereas Bowe’s were pressed and perfect. Both men had exceptional bodies, but Dean’s seemed to call to mine like a siren.

  And his beautiful dark brown hair that was in need of a cut brushed the top of his shoulders each time he moved.

  Bowe’s hair was a brown so dark it looked black in certain light, and cut short close to his scalp.

  I’d never seen his hair any longer than it was right then. Then again, it was a rare day that I ever saw him without a baseball cap of some sort on his head.

  Dean wore baseball caps, too, and oh man, was he sexy in them.

  The one he had on today was one of my favorites.

  It was black with KFD stitched on it in neon yellow thread.

  He was wearing it backward on his head, and he had a pencil behind his ear as he measured and cut.

  Then, almost as if he was aware of my eyes on him, his eyes glanced up and he immediately zeroed in on me in the window.

  I tried to back away, but with Angie directly behind me, I only managed to knock us both sideways, bringing the window dressing down with us as we fell.

  Both of us went down in a pile of limbs, and I moaned in embarrassment.

  “Do you think he saw us fall?” I whispered to Angie.

  “Yes,” she replied instantly. “The real question is whether or not he’s going to come over here and make sure you’re okay.”

  I laughed at her and sat up, then moved even further to my feet.

  “Nope,” I guessed. “He doesn’t like me.”

  “How do you know he doesn’t like you?” she demanded as she too got up. “It looks to me that he likes you. He can’t take his eyes off you.”

  I had my back the window, and something going on behind my back had me starting to turn, but she stopped me with her words.

  “Don’t move,” she said.

  I froze.

  “Why?” I whispered.


  “There’s a wasp on your shoulder,” she said.

  I immediately jerked, jumping and slamming my hand down on my shoulder in an automatic reaction to someone telling me there was a wasp anywhere near me.

  Normal people didn’t have the same problems as I did.

  When I was growing up, our trailer house hadn’t been very ‘bug proof.’

  Every spring, wasps and yellow jackets would find their way into the faulty paneling in our walls, coming through cracks on the outside of the trailer to make their nests behind the walls.

  Then I’d find them randomly flying around our home.

  Before the summer of my senior year, I hadn’t really thought much of it. If I saw one, I’d swat it with the fly swatter. However, something weird happened that summer, and they’d made their home in my closet, of all places.

  I’d unsuspectingly reached in for a shirt of mine and had just gotten it settled into place when what felt like hundreds of wasps started stinging my arms, chest and back.

  I’d been stung so many times that I’d had to be taken to the hospital in order to have my airway monitored.

  I’d survived, of course, but it had left me traumatized.

  Every time I saw a wasp, a fear like none other would come over me, and I’d freak out.

  I had zero control of my actions, and that was exactly what happened the moment she told me there was a wasp on me.

  Acting on instinct, I slapped at my shoulder at the same time I threw myself backwards.

  Screaming, I pulled my hand back to see a red welt already popping up on the tip of my middle finger.

  I was so focused on that and finding out where the little devil went that I wasn’t paying attention to the window at my back.

  Had I been paying attention, I would not have leaned on the flimsy panel of glass.

  But I wasn’t paying attention.

  In fact, I was so focused on the pain on my finger that I didn’t hear the cracking of the glass until the entire pane gave way with my weight.

  I fell, and my shoulder exploded in red hot pain as my back hit the grass.

  My eyes squeezed shut, and I gasped in a painful breath as I tried to roll.

  Tried being the operative word.

  The moment I shifted my hips, the pain in my back multiplied tenfold.

  “Oh, my God!” Angie cried. “July, are you okay?”

  I was so far from okay that it wasn’t even funny.

  Then, to put the cherry on top of my fucked up pie, Dean leaned over me and stared at me with worry-filled eyes.

  “Are you okay?” he rumbled gruffly.

  I shook my head.

  “I think I broke something in my back,” I whispered shakily to him. “Can you see it?”

  His brows lowered and he started to check me over.

  The moment he tried to roll me and I screamed, he growled, “Call an ambulance. We’re not moving her.”

  Gathering my courage, I rolled myself, and screamed as I did.

  The moment I was up and off my back, relief poured through me.

  “Shit,” Able hissed. “She’s got glass imbedded under her armpit, look.”

  I went from my ass to my legs in short seconds as Dean stood me all the way up.

  “Ambulance is two out,” Able broke into my agony.

  That was when I became aware of arguing.

  “What is that?” I asked, turning my head carefully to see what the big commotion was.

  “I didn’t push her!” Angie yelled at Bowe. “I wouldn’t push her, even if she wanted me to!”

  I blinked when Bowe’s frown became ferocious.

  “Then what happened?” Bowe asked her, pointing at me. “Someone doesn’t fall through glass like that for no reason.”

  I waved my fingers at Bowe, gaining his attention.

  “Wasp,” I pointed to my swelling finger.

  “You’re gonna wanna take that ring off now while you can,” Dean said softly. “And stop moving, you have blood running down your back, into your waistband. Every time you move, more comes out.”

  I stopped moving and turned to face Dean with narrowed eyes.

  “Why are you here?” I questioned him. “Go away.”

  He had the nerve to laugh at me.

  Then the ambulance pulled up, halting my demand for him to get off my property.

  “I don’t need an ambulance,” I called as I walked to them.

  Two women got out, one a pretty redhead and another a bombshell blonde, making me blink.

  The uniform didn’t do anything for them, but they sure looked beautiful despite the unisex black uniform that I’d seen Dean in countless times over the last year and a half.

  “Hi,” I told the two women. “I am not in need of your services.”

  “Yes, you are,” Dean disagreed, hooking his hand around my arm and carefully pulling me to the back of the ambulance.

  Opening the doors, he picked me up around the waist and deposited me inside.

  “Take a seat on the bench,” he ordered.

  I did and he followed me in, pulling down things from places where I would never expect there to be storage compartments.

  “Drive us to the hospital,” Dean ordered the redhead who’d been driving.

  “Negative,” I said, my eyes on the redhead. “I don’t want to go to the hospital.”

  “I’m not asking you, I’m telling you that you’re going,” he snapped.

  “I am most certainly not riding to the hospital in an ambulance,” I snapped at Dean. “Now back off so I can drive myself.”

  “You’re not driving yourself,” he insisted, pointing to the redhead.

  I shook my head.

  “No.”

  “Fine,” he stopped what he was doing and snapped gloves onto his hands. “I’ll just call your brother.”

  My eyebrows lowered as I glared at him.

  “You’re such a fucker.”

  Needless to say, I rode to the hospital in the ambulance.

  The blonde rode in back with us as she watched with amusement as Dean manhandled me.

  “Why aren’t you doing something?” I asked her from her position with her back to the cab of the ambulance.

  She was sitting next to the side door that was next to the huge bank of monitors, watching the spectacle before her.

  “Would you like me to cut your shirt off?” she offered.

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “It’s not going to make it, is it?” I questioned her.

  She shook her head, reaching into a pocket on the side of her pants and coming back out with a pair of pink scissors. “Nope.”

  She handed them over to Dean, who took them and made a twirling motion to me.

  “Turn around,” he ordered.

  Sighing, I twisted my feet around to the other side of the cot I was sitting on and presented him with my back.

  He pushed me forward, placing me exactly how he wanted me. “Give me your hands.”

  I gave them to him, and he circled my wrists with one of his.

  “This is familiar,” I muttered before I could think better of it.

  The hand on my wrists tightened, and I winced.

  “Sorry,” I grunted softly, apologizing for saying something in front of what must be a work colleague.

  He squeezed me once before letting me go completely.

  Then I felt the cool tease of metal against my neck as he ran the scissors down my spine.

  He didn’t have to run it down my spine. He just chose to.

  He wanted me to know that he was aware what the feeling would do to me.

  My eyes closed, and the pain that was in my back disappeared as I remembered a time when it was just Dean and me.

  Oh, and a spoon.

  ***

  I wanted some ice cream.

  I’d already eaten mine three hours before. When I’d asked him if he was going to eat his, he
’d jumped up from the bed and ran out of the room like I’d prodded him in the ass with a poker.

  I rolled my eyes and went back to the movie, flopping down onto my belly to watch the massive flat screen TV that played across the room from me.

  Dean’s room was pretty simple.

  In fact, his whole house was simple.

  He lived in a two-bedroom house on the outskirts of town that was smack dab in the middle of thirty-five acres.

  The tiny house had two bedrooms, a kitchen, a dining room and a bathroom that he’d converted into a laundry room as well.

  Why, I didn’t know, but he did it, and it seemed to work.

  He’d yet to add any decorations to the walls; the only thing I would call decorative were the towels that hung in the bathroom and kitchen.

  The bedroom I was in was much the same as the rest of the house.

  Neat as a pin.

  His clothes were hung up in the closet, and his shoes were lined up underneath his clothes.

  He had a four-poster bed along the far wall with the TV directly in front of it.

  He didn’t even have a dresser.

  When I’d asked him where he put his socks and underwear, he’d pointed to a clothes hamper in the bathroom where all of the clean socks and underwear went, which happened to be directly next to the dirty one.

  He lived a simple life, and I found that I quite liked that about him.

  In fact, I probably wouldn’t have liked him as much as I did if his house was opulent.

  That just wasn’t me.

  Dean made his way back through the door and stopped, letting me see him take a big bite of the ice cream.

  “That’s just mean,” I told him, turning my eyes to the TV once again.

  I wasn’t even sure what was happening at this point in the movie.

  With Dean beside me, I rarely, if ever, paid attention unless it was an action scene.

  I rearranged my position when Dean resumed his seat next to me, but he didn’t settle beside me where he had been previously. No, he got right onto my back and pinned my hips down with his butt.

  “Sit still,” he ordered, tightening his legs against my hips.

  My head dropped to the bed underneath me, and I sighed in frustration.

  “I want some,” I whined, wiggling my hips.

  “Bite,” he said.