Shock Advised (Kilgore Fire #1)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  “I don’t talk about my ex-wife,” I growled, turning away from her.

  “Why not?” She asked. “The torture of knowing you had a wife at all is killing me. It’s like some big dark secret that you refuse to tell me, and all I can imagine is the worst!”

  I whipped around.

  “Nothing you can imagine is anything close to the truth. There’s ‘the worst’ in your mind. Then there’s ‘the worst’ in mine. And in mine, ‘the worst’ doesn’t even register on your scale,” I growled furiously.

  I did not want to talk about this. Not even a little bit.

  “So what happened?” She asked. “How’d she trap you?”

  I walked swiftly to the table, pulling out the chair and taking a seat before allowing my head to drop into my hands.

  I looked at my feet, resting both of my elbows on my knees.

  “She was going to accuse me of rape if I didn’t give her baby a name. Claim it as mine. All so her father wouldn’t skin her alive for getting pregnant by some nameless, one-night stand. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t the baby’s father,” I murmured.

  Silence surrounded us, but I didn’t chance a look up to see what she thought about that little announcement.

  It wasn’t pretty.

  Not at all.

  “Then what happened?” She persisted.

  I closed my eyes.

  “I denied it. Refused to do it. And she accused me of rape to her father,” I said. “He didn’t believe her at first. But I was a good guy at that point…got my shit straightened out even though my brother refused to see that. Had a good head on my shoulders, so he offered me a deal. To make it all go away, he offered to let me marry her instead.”

  I let that digest for a moment before I turned my face to look at her.

  She was crying.

  “And what happened then?” She cleared her throat.

  I wanted to wipe those tears away with my lips.

  I stayed where I was.

  “At first I balked. I knew I could get out of the rape charges. The night she claimed I did it was a night I was on shift and at a scene of a residential fire. However, he was the financial advisor for the city,” he said. “He started to cut pay scales. Reduce funding for the fire department. Soon, all our equipment didn’t get updated like it was needed, and it was causing injuries where there never should have been.”

  “You gave in?” She asked.

  I nodded. “I gave in.”

  “Then what happened?” She asked.

  “I married her. Lived my life away from her. Didn’t date. Lived like I was married, just didn’t live with my wife,” he said. “I fell in love with someone, a dispatcher at the fire department where I used to live, and Marissa, my ex-wife, showed me really quick that I couldn’t pursue that dream. So I just kind of lived, without really living.”

  “You were in love?” She said in a small voice.

  I nodded. “I was.”

  “What happened to her?” She continued.

  I closed my eyes and thought back to Erin.

  The memories were bitter sweet.

  She was married now with four kids, and her husband had been on the San Antonio Fire Department with me.

  It’d been pure torture to be there during my last six months at that station.

  Then Adam had died, and I finally got my excuse to leave.

  Jack had arranged for my ex-wife problem to be taken care of. However, by the time it was, there was nothing to salvage with Erin.

  I explained what had happened, leaving nothing out.

  “That’s terrible,” she whispered.

  I grunted.

  “Yeah, it was.”

  “Does she still contact you?” She asked.

  “Erin?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No, your ex-wife.”

  I shook my head.

  “No. Not anymore. Not since Jack fucked with her life. With her father’s life. Now they both leave me alone,” I said.

  “Hmm,” she whispered.

  Hmm, indeed.

  “And why does your brother think you’re a fuck up?” She wondered. “You’re not…and I can see that. Why can’t he?”

  I just shook my head.

  “My brother just sees what I used to be. The kid who’d do absolutely anything to get out of my responsibilities. And I feel like he partially blames me for Adam’s death,” I explained.

  “Who’s Adam?” She sounded tired.

  I sighed.

  She was really getting into the deep stuff, but I knew I had to give it to her. All of it. She had to make her own decisions whether or not to stay with me, and to do that, she needed to get every single detail.

  “Adam.” I said, choking on the word slightly. “Adam is…was…my brother’s best friend.”

  She didn’t say anything, and I looked up to see her eyes on me, rimmed in red from her tears, staring at me intently.

  “I knew Adam for as long as I can remember,” I said. “He and Jack had been best friends for what seemed like forever,” I said. “Adam was there when Jack thought he’d lost Winter, his wife. He watched over me…and I was supposed to watch over him, but I couldn’t. I didn’t.” I licked my lips. “We were on a call at an abandoned building when the building exploded around us…Adam was very close to it the actual explosion. He died instantly.”

  “He died while you were together?” She probed.

  I nodded. “Yeah. I was on the other side of the room, but I was close enough,” I swallowed.

  She looked down at her hands. “I can’t even imagine.”

  I shrugged.

  “But that doesn’t explain how you think his death is your fault,” she said.

  I picked at my fingernails.

  “Adam got promoted to a different position, but he stayed back because he’d promised my brother that he’d take care of me,” I said. “He’s dead today because of how I acted.”

  “You just told me that you got your head on straight. What makes you think that Adam and Jack couldn’t see that?” She asked fiercely. “If you want my opinion, I bet that Adam stayed because he liked being there with you. Nobody does something that they really don’t want to do for long, even if they’re doing it for someone they love.”

  I looked sharply at her.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I’m just saying that, in general, people are all about self-gratification. You would’ve seen that Adam was unhappy if he truly was. And you would’ve confronted him, correct?”

  I thought about that.

  Yeah, I guess I would have.

  Adam never once showed discontent.

  In fact, I saw him smiling more often than not….in fact, he’d been smiling at me when he’d died.

  And that image of his smiling face would be forever ingrained in my brain.

  She got up and tried to walk to the counter, but I caught her hand and pulled her back to me.

  She pressed up against me, facing me with an expectant look.

  “You’re good for me, you know that?” I asked.

  She smiled. “Glad to be of service.”

  I moved forward until my lips pressed lightly against hers.

  “Seems we’re both doing a bunch of learning about each other today,” I said.

  She laughed and wrapped her hands around my neck.

  My cock started to stir, and I was glad I’d demanded we make a stop at the drug store before we’d come to her place.

  Especially when she started to slowly grind into my cock that she felt against her.

  Her mouth came down hard on mine, and her hands found purchase, once again, in my hair.

  My heart started to race as our kiss went from something sweet, to something dark and naughty.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t,” I started to say.

  “Maybe we should,” she challenged.

  “We’re both fucked up right now…,” I continued.

  But her hands…I
couldn’t think straight when she placed them on me.

  They were now traveling down my chest, and my nipples hardened.

  “We’ll both probably always be fucked up,” she said. “All we’ve gotta do is stay fucked up together, and stop trying to make it a bad thing that we like being together, even though we’ve got bad shit going on in our lives.”

  I couldn’t argue with logic like that.

  Not one single bit.

  I left my worries about her and me behind, instead fisting my hand in her hair and pulling it down to expose her throat to my hungry mouth.

  “Yes,” she growled.

  I hummed in amusement as I licked a line up from the base of her throat to the very tip of her ear.

  She shivered, and then reached for her shirt, roughly yanking it up and over her head.

  She was still in the same clothes she’d been in last night, but I wasn’t complaining.

  It was fun to take them off of her.

  Clothes went flying, mine and hers.

  We ended up naked on the couch, our clothes in a trail from the kitchen to it.

  Fingers were everywhere, touching, plucking and tickling.

  She wrapped her fingers around my cock stroking it awkwardly in the tight space between our bodies. There wasn’t much room, which meant that my cock was sandwiched in between the softness of her belly and the hard ridges of mine.

  She felt better.

  Although, it wasn’t surprising, that she did.

  “Condoms,” I said.

  Her head lifted from mine, and she looked around desperately.

  She found them on the end table behind her, and she arched backwards to grab them.

  I held onto her hips, then dipped my head down to capture her nipple as she thrust her breasts into my face.

  She cried out, nearly dropping the bag in her surprise.

  “God, your lips and tongue are devastating,” she whispered, spilling the bag’s contents on the surface of the table behind her.

  I moved to the other breast, and she yanked the box of condoms trying desperately to get it open.

  She finally succeeded, pulled out a condom and was ripping into the packet with her teeth.

  “Boring old clear,” she said as she got her first good look at the condom.

  I started to laugh, but it died on my lips as she raised up and deftly slid the condom down over my hard cock.

  She got it all the way on, then immediately positioned herself over my cock, sinking down on my hardness slowly.

  I might, or might not have shouted.

  I couldn’t tell you.

  My mind was too busy focusing on the hot, tight heaven that was Mia’s pussy to care about what sounds were coming out of my mouth.

  Which was why I was in danger of becoming a three-pump-chump since I was on the verge of coming before she’d even finished the third stroke

  By the fourth, I was gripping her hips and lifting up.

  She, however, wasn’t having any of that.

  She continued to ride me, and I had a death grip on the back of the couch. I was praying that she came fast, because my own release was sitting at the base of my cock, and it was getting harder and harder to hold back.

  “Stop,” I croaked.

  She ignored me.

  Her head was tossed backwards, exposing the column of her throat to me.

  She was unintentionally giving me an unhindered view of the entire front of her body, and I desperately took advantage of it.

  My hand descended her body, zeroing in on her clit.

  I flicked the distended bud with the pad of my thumb, and she clenched down even harder.

  I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes, but it was no use.

  I was coming.

  I did, however, find the ability to keep my thumb moving throughout, which helped because it was only seconds after the last dregs of my release had filled up the tip of the condom that she came, too.

  Her pussy rippled, and my eyes crossed.

  God, she felt like heaven.

  We stopped moving all at once.

  Her body collapsed on top of mine, and my hands at her hips held her steady as we both caught our breath and gathered up our scattered wits.

  “I’ve never had anything like this before,” she whispered.

  I grunted.

  That was all I was capable of, at the moment.

  She’d blown my mind.

  Chapter 13

  The ladies agree. Happiness is sliding up and down a fireman’s pole.

  -Fact of life

  Tai

  “I can’t,” her voice cracked. “I can’t.”

  I pulled her into my arms, wrapping her up so tight that her breath started to come out in pants, and not because of her sobs.

  We’d done this numerous times the night before, and now I knew just what to do to circumvent the worst of her panic attacks, and that’s exactly what they were.

  She didn’t want to let go of Colt, and this place, the home she made for him, was all he’d ever known. This is where they’d been happy. Where Colt had crawled for the first time. Slept through the night. It was full of their memories.

  She buried her face into my neck, and I cringed when I felt her tears sliding down my skin and disappearing into my shirt.

  I made eye contact with Winter over Mia’s shoulder.

  Winter nodded, letting me know silently that she would take care of her.

  “Why don’t you go with Winter…get your toes done or something,” I said. “And I’ll take care of getting all of this done, okay?”

  She nodded, gripping her hands into the shirt at my back and tugging.

  “Okay,” she said shakily. “Okay.”

  The men that’d shown up, only ten minutes before, slowly slipped out of the room, giving us the privacy that we needed.

  Winter was the only one who stayed.

  She walked up to us and placed her hand on Mia’s shoulder.

  “I have to make cookies for Cati’s school. Would you be willing to help me with that?” Winter asked. “Because, if I do it alone, I’ll just eat all the cookie dough and make about half the amount of cookies I would’ve originally made.”

  Mia’s laugh was watery. “I don’t think that I’m the right choice for that job, Winter, because I can’t resist cookie dough, either.”

  Winter’s eyes gleamed. “I think I’ve found my new best friend.”

  Mia lifted her head from my chest, and then looked up at me with tortured eyes.

  “Don’t…please…”

  “I’ll take care of his stuff, baby. I promise,” I said to her.

  She nodded, before lifting up on her tip toes to press her lips against mine.

  Her lips were softer since she’d been crying, something I’d discovered in the past few days. I tasted the salt of her tears against my tongue.

  With one final, slow kiss, she stepped back.

  I looked over at Winter.

  She hadn’t moved, but her cheeks were pink as she looked at me with happiness.

  “What?” I asked her.

  She shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  I rolled my eyes, then walked to the table grabbing Mia’s purse and cell phone, handing them off to Winter.

  “Just don’t get her drunk, I have plans for her tonight,” I ordered.

  Winter held up her hand and said, “Scout’s honor.”

  I snorted. “That’s Spock’s sign…the Vulcan salute, Winter, the live long and prosper one.”

  Winter looked at her hand then shrugged.

  Mia giggled, and I really loved her giggle.

  I loved the sound infinitely more than her crying.

  Fuck…I fucking loved her.

  Oh, fuck.

  “Take Mia’s car, though. We need Jack’s truck to transport boxes,” I ordered as Mia and Winter made their way to the door.

  Mia stopped and picked up the pacifier she’d found last night that’d been sitting on the e
ntranceway table just inside the front door.

  She placed it carefully into the pocket of her jeans and walked out the door without another word.

  Winter and I shared one last, long look before she followed Mia out.

  “That was terrible,” Jack said. “I don’t know how you’re doing it.”

  I turned to my brother.

  “I… I…love her,” I said, hesitating on that word. Not because I didn’t feel it, but because it felt so foreign coming out of my mouth.

  I hadn’t said those words to anyone since my sister had been alive.

  I’d definitely shown Jack…or at least I hoped that I had.

  “I’m happy for you man, but are you sure?” He asked. “She’s got a lot of baggage.”

  I gave him a raised brown. “And your Winter didn’t?”

  He closed his mouth with a snap.

  “Point taken,” he said. “Now show me where you want us all to start.”

  I delegated tasks to the few men who hadn’t been doing anything on such short notice, and then started on the most important part, packing up all of the items that were Colt’s.

  Once I was done with the small stuff, I looked around the living room, at the crib, changing table and dresser.

  Babies needed so much stuff.

  “You can do it?” I asked.

  Beau, who’d come up behind me, studied the wood of the crib, changing table and dresser.

  “Yeah, I can do it, no problem. You just want a bench?” He asked.

  I nodded. “I don’t think she’s ready for this all to go away quite yet. So yeah, just a bench. That way it’s still technically here when she wants it back one day.”

  He nodded and picked up the crib effortlessly, then walked back to his truck and slid it inside.

  We’d moved all of the furniture into the empty living room, being very careful not to damage any of the pieces.

  Which meant I watched Bowe like a hawk to make sure he didn’t ding or dent any of it.

  Once he was back I helped him lift the changing table, followed by the dresser, into his truck as well.

  He closed the tailgate with a soft thud and turned to survey the house.

  “She renting this place?” He asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know, to be honest. I just know she’s moving out of here and in with her mother.”

  He nodded. “Nice place. I’d love to flip it if she’s the owner and wants to sell.”