by Reina Torres
“Because I knew you’d like it.”
Shrugging, Kate had to admit. “I do.”
“Then don’t complain.” His phone beeped from the counter and he picked it up and opened the message. “Looks like Kay’s taking my shift today. So, if you want to go pick up the...” he looked from Kate and then over to Pilar, “the housewarming gift, we can do that and have lunch there at the lake.”
“The lake?” Kate’s expression was a little sour. “Now I am jealous.”
Kate rolled her eyes when he looked over Pilar’s head and stared at the door in a none-too-subtle gesture. “I came by to ask Pilar if she wouldn’t mind if we had a little get together in the backyard tonight.”
Roan knew exactly what Pilar’s answer would be and he placed a kiss on the crown of her head when she gave it.
“Sure, go ahead. It won’t bother me.”
Leaning in, Roan whispered to her. “You’re included.”
“Oh?” She smiled at both of them. “Great! Who’s coming?”
Kate gave her a wink. “A whole bunch of friends. We’re all going to have a great time.”
Pilar leaned against him again and he wrapped his arms around her. “Oh good. I need that more than you know. What can I bring?”
Kate shook her head and gave him a knowing look. “I’ll leave you to explain. I still have to go into the office.”
As Kate walked out, Roan took Pilar’s hand and brought her over to the dining table. He sat down and pulled her onto his lap. “She doesn’t want you to bring anything but yourself. This is a party for you if I know my sister at all. She wants you to know that you’re part of our community. The family of first responders here in Center City.”
He saw the tears gathering on her lashes and brushed them away with his thumb.
“And you know what else?”
She tried to smile at him, but he could see it was taking more effort than it should. “What?”
He took the cup from her hand and set it down on the table. Taking her face in his hands, he placed a gentle kiss on her lips. “You’re part of my family too, Pilar. I want you to know that.”
A set of raps on the bay window glass turned Pilar around in a hurry. Standing outside, dancing like the world was her stage, was Vitalia Campanelli. Her hair down and in its full glory as a mane of inky black curls, it matched her rainbow crocheted handkerchief top, and jeans that looked poured on. In a word, Vitalia looked amazing and when Pilar managed to get the door open, she told her so.
“Please,” Vitalia waved her off, “I only look fantastic.” With a wink, Vitalia reached out and took the top container off of the pile in Pilar’s arms. “You know you didn’t have to make anything, right?”
Pilar rolled her eyes. “My mother, even though she’s over a thousand miles away, would sense a disturbance in the force and I'd get a call from her. No matter what, no Bravo shows up empty-handed to a backyard gathering.”
Vitalia’s laugh was more of a snort. “My mom and your mom would totally get along. Gloria Clementine Campanelli is nothing if not a stickler for the rules of social gatherings.”
They walked around toward the backyard and headed for a table that looked like it was almost covered with containers. Pilar set down the first container and reached for the one in Vitalia’s hands, but the taller firefighter danced a step away and peeled up the plastic lid to get a look at what was inside. “Ohh... What are these?”
“I’ll take that.”
The container was pulled from her hands by a man and Vitalia would have taken it right back if she hadn’t been picked up off her feet by Isaac Mackenzie. Pilar watched with the heart of a friend, but also the kind of morbid fascination of someone rubbernecking at a crash on the side of the road.
As he finished his second spin with Vitalia in his arms, Isaac set her down on the ground and steadied her with his hands on her waist. With the top she was wearing, his thumbs were under the fabric and yet, he didn’t seem to notice the effect that was having on Vitalia. Her friend was both pale and flushed at the same time, with her eyes fixed on the taller firefighter as if he hung the moon.
And Isaac? Well, apparently Isaac was like most men, completely and utterly clueless. He gave her one full look over from head to toe and then he looked her straight in the eyes and blurted out something stupid.
“Wow, does your dad know you’re wearing that?”
Desperate to save her friend from anymore embarrassment, she jumped in. “Hey, Isaac... you’re Isaac right? Yeah, can you tell your friend I need my container back.”
Turning, he slung an arm over Vitalia’s shoulders and pulled her into his side. “Seth! Come on. The party hasn’t started yet.”
Seth pulled out one of the hush puppies from the container and took his time stuffing it into his mouth. The chili powder and cotija cheese caught at the corner of his mouth, but he just kept chewing as he held out the plastic container. Vitalia yanked it out of his hands and Pilar inwardly grimaced, imagining all of her work flying across the yard to land in clumps amidst the grass.
“Don’t they feed you at the firehouse?” Vitalia narrowed her eyes at Seth. “You have to come here and act like a child?”
Seth reached out to Vitalia, about to touch her hair, and Isaac stepped in.
“Come on, Seth. Stop it. Don’t be a dick.”
“I’m just me, man. I’m just me.”
Vitalia’s cold look spoke volumes as she walked away. Pilar followed her, and they made room to add the hush puppies on the table. When she popped open the corner of the container, Pilar didn’t argue.
Instead, she nudged her friend to the side. “Here. Let me load one up for you.” Pilar picked out a nice fluffy ball and scooped up just the right amount of sauce and cheese. “Take this.”
Vitalia popped it in her mouth and made a little moaning sound. After a few chews, Vitalia managed two words. “So good.”
Pilar couldn’t help her satisfied smirk. “I put fresh cooked corn in with the cornbread so it’s like street corn, but without munching down on the cob.”
Vitalia’s nose wrinkled at the idea. “I don’t care what this sauce is on, I’d eat it, but the little bits of corn? Yummy.”
“Sorry about what happened back there.”
Her friend shrugged. “Let me have another one of those bites of heaven and I’ll forget all about that pair of idiots.”
Pilar let her have the biggest one in the box. And then took another one for herself.
“Uh oh.”
Pilar froze up and covered her mouth with her hand.
Roan turned her around with a knowing look on his face. “You better be careful my sister doesn’t catch you.”
Vitalia laughed with her lips closed, but managed to mutter a response. “It’s Seth’s fault.”
Pilar nodded in agreement. “And Isaac.” Or at least that’s what she tried to say, but it was hard to talk and munch at the same time.
“Whatever. You don’t need to give me an excuse, just don’t let Kate catch you two.”
Smiling up at him, Pilar realized it had only been a few hours since she’d seen him last, and yet it felt like forever. Suddenly she regretted munching on a snack. She wanted a kiss.
And maybe Roan could read that on her face, or just maybe he felt the same way too, because he gave her that kiss and then used his tongue to lick the underside of her bottom lip once and then again. Then he leaned in and whispered into her ear. “I hope you have more of that for later?”
She looked at the two containers on the table. “I used up all the cornbread ingredients for these, but I have more of the... oh.” The dark glint in his eyes told her she’d just seen the light. “Sure. I’ve got more.”
“Hey! Is this where the party is?”
Vitalia coughed dramatically. “You two can suck face and look sexy at each other later. Twenty-Nine is here.”
Roan gave her one more quick kiss before he stepped to the side and Vitalia took over with introductions.
“I bet you’ve heard about Rock from Kate. He’s a thorn in her side.” The big man was every inch a silver fox, but Pilar wasn’t going to say a word about the way Kate grumbled about him. Just like the way Vitalia grumbled about Isaac. Following up behind him was another man with muscles for days, but his hair was raven-dark and combined with his olive complexion, she wasn’t surprised when Vitalia explained that Nikolas Sideris’s name at the firehouse was Greco. A few others had memorable monikers, especially two men from the Truck crew. Hank “Pits” Berg was a big bear of a guy, but more like a teddy than a grizzly, and came in with a whole bunch of ribs for the grill and oddly enough a Green Bay Cheesehead hat, which everyone was growling about. He seemed only too happy to man the grill and shoo away all the haters.
And the last was an athletic man with a broad smile and spiky hair that looked like it took a good hour to style in front of a mirror. Vitalia was good friends with him though, and unlike Isaac, Jon Lee gave their friend a well-deserved wolf-whistle. “You look fine, Lia. So damn hot.”
“Just like you, right, Mats?”
“Mats?” Pilar was struggling to figure out the connection.
Jon Lee was more than happy to share. “Matsumoto is my last name,” he explained. “But it's not always easy for everyone to wrap their tongues around it, let alone their mouths,” he laughed, “so the others started calling me ‘Mats’ because I’m ‘hots.’”
Pilar and Vitalia winced at the rhyme, but Jon Lee didn’t care one bit. He just pulled Pilar in for a big hug that swayed her backward on her feet.
Vitalia had to grab his shoulders and pull him back, laughing. “Careful, Mats. Maybe you didn’t notice her bigger-than-you boyfriend ready to take your head off if you get too handsy with her?”
Jon Lee shrugged. “I can take him.”
That was when Vitalia really put her earlier frustrations behind her and wrapped her arms around Jon Lee’s middle and lifted him a couple of inches off the ground. “Yeah, I don’t think so, bro.”
He swatted at her hands. “Hey, hey.. Put me down!”
Pilar felt Roan wrap his arms around her too and she froze, digging her heels in. “Don’t you dare!”
Placing a quick kiss on her cheek, he reassured her. “You don’t have to worry about me picking you up like that. Laying you down... Well, that’s another story.”
As they watched the others playing around and enjoying themselves, Pilar noticed that a bunch of the firefighters were tossing around a football on part of the wide grassy expanse of the lawn. One of the men lifted a hand to rub at his shoulder after he threw the ball to another player. When he turned around, Pilar recognized him as Seth Carer, Isaac’s best friend.
“Is he okay?”
She had to point Seth out to Roan, across the lawn. “He’s holding his shoulder.”
Roan cuddled her closer. “It was in the news here, probably right before you moved to Center City. Seth is part of Rescue with Isaac. They were responding to a three-car accident on the bridge and one of the cars was wedged between the car that struck it and the front end was hanging off of the edge.”
“Wow,” Pilar shook her head. “Through the railing?”
She felt Roan shudder through their contact.
“Seth was the one who could fit through the car window to get to a child trapped inside. The boy had unbuckled himself from his child seat and hidden down under the dash on the passenger side. The boy was panicked and paralyzed with fear. Seth got to him and barely had a chance to grab him before the car shifted and fell.
“Oh my god!” Pilar turned around in Roan’s arms and looked up at him. “And he got the boy out, right?”
He nodded, but his expression was grim. “They made it, but Seth’s shoulder was dislocated and some of his muscles damaged. I worked on the surgery, but that’s all I can tell you because that’s what they shared in the news.”
“It looks like it’s still bothering him.”
“Yeah,” he sighed, “I think it is, but he’s trying to tough it out. He’s close to being cleared to go back on Rescue. I know everyone’s rooting for him.”
“Me too,” she gave him a big smile, “and you helped him get there.”
He touched his hands to the sides of her face and leaned in to give her a kiss. It was slow and gentle and felt like heaven. She took hold of the front of his shirt and pulled him closer. Her circle of friends in Center City was growing bigger by the minute and so was her heart.
She knew, more than ever, that she had made the right choice moving away from San Antonio. There were always going to be challenges, but she had people who had her back. That should be enough.
Right?
11
Pilar woke up to the sound of the alarm clock beside her bed.
In the other room.
Smoothing her hand along the leather cushion of her chaise, she enjoyed the feel of the supple surface under her hand, so much so that she stretched, let her back arch as she felt the glorious sensation of movement from the tips of her fingers to the tips of her toes.
Not to mention the warm heat of skin at her back.
And then a hand on her hip.
“Morning, beautiful.”
He sounded so damn good in the morning, almost purring into her ear.
“Good morning, Doctor Ashley.”
Roan shifted at her back, spooning up against her body. “Doctor? Is that your invitation to play?” His hand moved from her hip and down to the subtle indent of her bellybutton.
He circled it with the tip of his finger. “I love the way you feel.”
She let her eyes drift closed and reached her hand back and laid it gently on his thigh. “And I love the way you touch me,” she sighed. “You make me feel so... delicate.”
His hand moved, his palm skimming over her flesh, until he laid his hand over her heart. “That’s just who you are.” He nuzzled the nape of her neck. “Petite and feminine.” He moved his hand and cupped her breast, flexing his palm against her nipple, making her shiver with need. “Curvy and so damn sexy.”
Finally, he used his teeth to gently tug at the lobe of her ear, pulling a soft moan from her lips. “Your natural instinct is to protect others and keep them safe. I love that about you.”
“You know what I’d love right about now?” She reached back between them and wrapped her hand around him. “For you to join me in the shower. If we’re going to get our errands done today, we need to get going.”
She felt his forehead fall against her shoulder, but his hand remained right where it was, teasing her nipples with his talented fingers. “I can’t convince you to wait for a little while?”
“We can spend that ‘little while’ in the shower, but last night when we sat down here to test out the chaise, you said the same thing and here we are, still on the chaise.”
He sat up first, grumbling. “I thought you liked my housewarming gift.”
“Oh, I love it.” She sat up and pulled the blanket around her body and moved away before he could think to grab some of it for himself. “I loved it the first time and then the second... not to mention the way we fell asleep with you still inside me, but we do have things to do today.”
Walking toward the door of the bedroom, Pilar leaned against the wall to watch as Roan stood up, stretching his back and then his arms over his head. She knew she had to walk away, but the sight of him bathed in the warm light of dawn, the sunlight casting a gilt glow of gold over all of his edges made it very hard to move.
The man had a stellar physique in and out of clothes. Especially out.
He saw her smile and that brought an answering smug grin from him. “You going to share that blanket?”
She shook her head. “I don’t trust you not to pull me back down onto the chaise.”
He shrugged. “Okay, yeah. That might have been my intent, but you’re just going to let me stand here, butt-naked?”
“I think you mean ‘buck naked,’” She let her gaze run over him
again.
“Yeah, well, the way I feel right now,” he brought both of his hands around to his back and slapped his palms against his butt cheeks, “it’s butt naked.”
Laughing, she had to agree. “I’d say your sister agrees with you.”
With those parting words, she ducked into the bedroom and slammed the door shut behind her.
No. It couldn’t be.
Standing with his back to the big bay window he realized that all the sunlight shining through meant that neither of them had closed the curtains the night before. It hadn’t been an issue then, because the back of the chaise covered both of them from view.
But standing up, given that he was just over six feet tall, meant that a good portion of his ass was completely visible.
With a quick grab of a throw pillow that had been tossed on the floor the night before, he placed it over his dick and turned around.
Kate stood just outside the window, gaping at him. He couldn’t hear her words, but he had a feeling there was something in her lengthy diatribe about indecent exposure at the very least.
Backing up toward the bedroom door, he was just about to make a break for it when someone else walked into view.
Rock.
That’s right.
Martin Ferris, the very same firefighter whom Kate ‘hated with a passion,’ walked up to her and pulled her into his arms.
Before Roan could save himself from the view, Rock grabbed two handfuls of his sister’s ass and gave her a kiss that might have crossed into cable television if he’d stayed to watch. So he didn’t.
Thankful that Pilar hadn’t locked him out of the bedroom, he ducked inside and closed the door securely behind him.
Sure, his sister had caught him bare-assed in his girlfriend’s apartment, but she had apparently let Martin stay overnight. And they didn’t appear to be fighting, unless you counted what they were about to start with their tongues. Life was changing fast, right before his eyes.
And that included the scene in the bathroom. The shower curtain was decorated in Texas Ranger badges and cacti, but the rest of it was clear plastic and he knew that if he didn’t get into the shower soon, Pilar wouldn’t need his help reaching the delicate spots with her washcloth.
