Burning with Desire (Forbidden Heat Book 2)

by Bella Winters

  “That’s doable,” Tessa said. “That would have been interesting at least. You come back here and give me nothing. What a shame.”

  I’d just come back from a coffee date with Jeremy. I wasn’t sure exactly why I had even agreed to it, but for some reason after giving the matter some serious thought and gaining control of some of my leftover anger, I decided it couldn’t hurt to meet with the guy and see where he was really at and if there was any hint of the old chemistry between us. It turned out to be almost nonexistent. We had a decent time and some good conversation, but there was nothing of the romantic spark that had once been there. I wasn’t sure if it was because deep down I still held a lot of anger towards him about the way things had ended, or if it was just not there for us anymore.

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” I said. “We just aren’t those people anymore.”

  “I see how you are. You’ve already moved on to someone else in your mind.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Well, your employer, Ricky. I haven’t heard you mention much about him lately. How hot is he making you?” Tessa giggled.

  I tried to ignore it, but the blush came giving away the tell. “There isn’t much to tell. I’ve worked for him for almost a week now, and we don’t really see each other that often.”

  “Aren’t you still eating with them and putting Zoe to bed?” Tessa asked.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “Well, it sounds almost like you have a relationship already. It sounds like co-parenting, really.”

  “It is not like that. Besides, my feelings for Ricky are being kept under wraps.”

  “Has he given you any inclination that he wants you?”

  “No. He has said nothing inappropriate, which that would totally be. He’s a good guy. He is a gentleman and I don’t think he would ever step over that line.”

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t just come out and say anything, but have you noticed anything subliminally?”

  “What? If it’s subliminal then how am I supposed to consciously notice it?”

  “I don’t mean it that way,” Tessa said. I was annoying her. It was fun. “I mean, has he given you any nonverbal signals at all? Any signs? I know your eyes are wide open to this. Don’t pretend for a second that they are not.”

  “No,” I said. “I haven’t really noticed anything.”

  Tessa was staring me down, looking right into my eyes. She could tell when I was not being fully honest with myself or with her. I tried to keep my face straight for as long as I could, but eventually she won out and I started laughing.

  Tessa clapped her hands together. “I knew it! Details, details!”

  I sighed.

  She was not going to let this go. “Fine. I noticed that he occasionally holds eye contact a bit too long, he stands a little close to me sometimes, and I ever so often catch him watching me. When I catch him, he quickly diverts his gaze—like, a bit too quickly, you know?”

  “I do know. That man is interested in you. He has a huge thing for you and he probably also has a huge thing in his pants for you.”

  “You are being vulgar,” I said.

  “You are being a prude. I know you aren’t that old of a soul,” Tessa said. Her eyes suddenly lit up. “We should do a big google search on him.”

  “No, I don’t want to. Besides, didn’t you already do that?”

  “Please, we barely scratched the surface. That was mostly just to discover that he is fine as hell. But if you are going to seduce him, then you are going to need to arm yourself with the knowledge. You have to learn as much about who he is and what makes him tick as you can.”

  “This is crazy. Besides, if he is already interested, then isn’t that enough?” I was hoping she would just drop the whole thing. I did not want to do any of this.

  “No,”

  Tessa replied. “We are doing this.”

  Tessa grabbed the laptop and began searching. It was only a few minutes before she discovered a few social media sites for Ricky. After a few minutes of perusing the sites, Tessa seemed disappointed. “Wow, this guy hardly uses these accounts. It makes me wonder if someone else actually set them up for him.”

  “Yeah, probably,” I said. “He doesn’t strike me as that kind of a man. He has a bit of the old school in him.”

  “Well, he is old, isn’t he?”

  “Shut up. He is only thirty-four,” I replied. “That’s not bad at all.”

  “He is nine years older than you. I think that is significant.”

  “I don’t see it that way. Besides, I like that he is older. He is more mature, more distinguished.”

  Tessa’s eyes lit up. “I’m glad to see that you’ve seen the light. Too many women are chasing these young guys nowadays. Those guys are immature and reckless. Nah, a man with a little bit of age on him is sexy.”

  “I have to say I agree with you,” I said. I hadn’t noticed it before, but I had been more attracted lately to older men. There was something different about the way they carried themselves. They had a distinguished confidence that younger men just didn’t have. There was a feeling of strength and self-assuredness there that was really difficult to shy away from and not be attracted to.

  “So, we aren’t going to find anything here on social media,” Tessa admitted. “Let’s pull up the search engine and look for his name. If nothing comes up then we can just try to reverse lookup some of his photos.”

  I glanced at her. “Have you done this before? Are you some kind of online stalker?”

  “I may have done it a time or two, but that is none of your business. I learned a lot about this from that college class I took that one semester. It was about cybercrime. It has proven to be very valuable and I urge everyone to take a class like that.”

  I laughed at her endorsement. Tessa was someone who would always surprise me. I doubted that I would ever know everything about her. She was just too good at keeping things to herself, meanwhile she would pull information out of those around her easily enough.

  “Oh, wow,” Tessa said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Did you know about his wife? How she died?”

  “Yeah, he mentioned it briefly. But he doesn’t like to talk about it. I can tell it causes him pain.”

  “Yeah, she had cancer,” Tessa said. “That’s very said. It was only a few years ago. No wonder he is still hurting.”

  “Yeah, that’s another reason I’m so reluctant to even hint at starting anything with him. What if he starts getting pain from these old wounds and then that complicates things and he decides it’s best if we don’t see each other at all anymore?”

  “That’s a risk you might have to take. Look, I’m not saying that this is going to be easy or without its problems, but you have to decide what is more important to you. Is it more important to let something slide by you that might be amazing? Or is it more important for you to go for it and see what happens? It might not work out. You know this. But it might work out wonderfully. You just have to trust your heart and your instincts.”

  I sighed.

  “I know. There is just so much pain beneath the surface with him. And Zoe is involved. I just don’t think it’s meant to be. There is too much there that is trying to heal. I don’t want to interrupt that.”

  “What if you are the thing he needs to heal?” Tessa asked me.

  “I don’t see it,” I said. “This all sounds great on the surface, but that is a huge burden to place on myself. I don’t know if I’m able to shoulder that level of responsibility.”

  “But what do you feel about Ricky? I know you. I can tell that you’ve been having some serious thoughts about him. I can even see it in your art that you’ve been working on. I observe everything around me. That’s kind of my superpower and you know that I’m always right.”

  I laughed. She was always right. Somehow Tessa knew what everyone was thinking and feeling before they even did half the time. It was a pretty miraculou
s superpower to have. It was one I really envied.

  “I don’t know how I feel. I mean, I’m more attracted to him than I’ve been to anyone for a long time, possibly ever. I don’t know what to do with that. I hardly know the real him and he is so guarded, I’m not sure I’ll ever really know him. Even if we end up together, he is the type of guy that has so many layers around himself that it could take years to get through all that, if ever.”

  “The most complicated men are often the best ones,” Tessa said. “I’ve dated my share of them. Those relationships are always the most beautiful. I long for those.”

  “Really? Don’t they cause you pain?”

  “Yes. But the pain is a small part of it and it is tied up with loads of other strong emotions. Those things are hardly ever solitary. Emotions tend to run in packs.”

  I took a big gulp of my beer. “I don’t know. I just don’t think I can risk it. That’s the thing that is holding me back the most. I don’t know what to expect.”

  “Of course you don’t,” she replied. “That is called fear. It’s in everything that you do in life that turns out to be important. If you let it keep you timid then you will go your whole life not living one day. I can’t tell you what to do, but if you follow your heart, it will take you where you need to go.”

  “Do you have any idea how cliché that is?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but do you have any idea how most cliché’s are completely true?”

  I laughed. “You got a point there.”

  “Of course I have a point. I always do.”

  Tessa pulled up some more photos and linked them back to other places online. Nothing much was turning up except what we already knew. The biggest storytellers were the articles about several of the close calls that Ricky had endured over the past few years. He had barely made it out of several fires.

  I felt a tear touch my eye and I furiously wiped at it. “Wow,” I said. “Ricky has almost died in several fires within the past two years. Since his wife died.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “That man has a death wish, doesn’t he?”

  “Do you think he might be subconsciously risking his life unnecessarily? I know he would never do that purposely. He loves Zoe too much to ever risk leaving her. But what if he actually is risking his own life because inside he just feels so tortured?”

  I had tears streaming down my face now. I grabbed a tissue and dabbed at them. “That’s too much. Ugh… that’s awful. That’s so sad.”

  “Yeah, it is,” Tessa said. She closed the laptop. “Are you ok?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “I just feel so much more confused now.”

  “How?”

  “Well, I’ve been having these feelings that have drawn me to Ricky ever since I met him. These are feelings I just can’t explain and I can’t understand. But now, I get it a bit. Ever since I was younger, I’ve always been drawn to men that I felt I needed to nurture and fix. These have usually turned out to be the wrong types of men. The relationships have caused me nothing but pain. But now… I get it. I see why I’ve been so drawn to Ricky. I can sense his pain so much and I want to be the one that is there to fix him. And that feels like dangerous territory for me. It really seems like I am just chasing down the same pattern that I’ve been chasing since I was sixteen.”

  “But what if it is different this time? I’m not saying it is. Hell, I have no way of knowing that. But what if just you being there for him, and caring about him is enough to help Ricky?”

  “Yeah, that is the debate going on in my head right now,” I said before finishing the beer. “I just don’t know if I can handle all of this stuff. I haven’t even told him how I feel about him yet and I’m already going nuts thinking about all of this emotion. It’s insane.”

  “Ok, no one said you have to make a decision today,” Tessa pointed out.

  “No. I’ve made one. I’m not going to pursue this thing with Ricky. I just think it will end up in heartache for the both of us. He is my employer and that is the extent of our relationship.”

  Tessa nodded.

  I sat there and wrestled with my thoughts for a few minutes. This had become too much too endure for me. Ricky seemed to be a wonderful guy and I could feel my heart yearning for him with each passing day. I longed so badly to be touched by him. I wanted to be with him. I thought I was falling in love with him, but I might have just been going crazy or reacting to the same familiar patterns I always reacted to. What was it about me and wounded men? They were like little birds with broken wings that I wanted to nurse back to health. But in the end they always flew away from me without so much as a glance. It had happened time and time again. I couldn’t do it anymore.

  “Shit,” I said. I went to the kitchen and grabbed a bag of chips and a soda from the fridge. Then I sat down on the couch to start binge watching the new season of Stranger Things. I needed something fantastic to take my mind away from the real world for a while.

  Tessa looked at me and smiled. She always kept everything in a calm perspective. I had never seen her get upset about anything. She was so sure of herself. I admired her strength. She definitely had a wisdom to her that was far beyond her years. There were times when I felt like I was talking to a very frank, and understanding grandmother, and not my roommate who was not much older than I was.

  She’d lived a lot in those extra few years though. I hoped to have earned at least a fraction of her knowledge in the next five years or so of my life, but to do that I would have to take those risks. That was the one thing about Tessa. She always took risks. She’d explained to me one time that she hardly ever felt like doing half of the crazy, random things she did, but she knew that if she didn’t do them then there was a good chance that she would never really experience anything in this world. Our world had become one of convenience. It was far too easy nowadays to live your whole life inside of some kind of bubble.

  But that was no way to live or experience life. You had to go on and make mistakes, learn from them, and keep trying new things out until you figured out what you really wanted from this world.

  I had always been a bit of a free spirit, but I realized living with Tessa that there was so much I subconsciously closed myself off to. Like this thing with Ricky. I was scared of what might happen and I was worried about how much work and stress might be involved if I did decide to pursue this thing.

  And how would that even happen? How would I break through that barrier and let Ricky know that I wanted him?

  I sighed and watched the show trying to get into it. The world of fiction was often so much less complicated than real life, but somehow way more entertaining. I knew that I was going to end up with Ricky in some capacity, if he wanted me to that was. If he expressed any real interest in me at all, I would melt at the knees and become totally engrossed in him. He was the type of man that I had always dreamt of being in my life. And now he was there.

  I just had to be willing to say yes, and accept that I felt the same way. What would it take for me to do this?

  Chapter Eleven

  Ricky

  “Ah! You moron! Who throws home? The play is at first! There are two outs you lamebrain!”

  I watched Ben having a total conniption fit and tried not to laugh too loudly as to rile him up more. My friend was one of the nicest, most polite guys I’d ever met, but when he was watching sports he would turn into a totally different guy.

  He sat down and snarled, crossing his arms over his chest. I took a sip of my beer and waited for him to calm down a second. “You ok, buddy?” I asked very politely just to mess with him.

  “Yeah. I know. It’s stupid to get so worked up, but this is the same team that won the World Series a few years ago. How do they make bonehead plays like that?”

  “I know. It’s one of life’s biggest mysteries.”

  “It’s not actually. The imbeciles keep trading off their best players hoping it will save them a few bucks. Well, I’ll tell you, it won’t save a dime when they star
t losing and this stadium starts to resemble a barren, deserted landscape.”

  I couldn’t hold back the chuckles. Ben had a high stress, mind numbing—but high paying—corporate job, and there was little that kept his head on straight. It was good for him to get away and vent his anger at a sporting event. It was healthy. And it was healthy for me, too.

  I watched the game for a moment until I was getting disgusted with the circus I was seeing, too. I was having fun. I was glad I was out of the house, and it was always a good time to reconnect with my best friend, but I had a few things on my mind. And most of them had to do with Julie.

  She’d been working for me almost two weeks now and my attraction to her had only grown by leaps and bounds. I could hardly stand to be around her without fear of just passing out into a dead faint at her feet. The woman was breathtaking in every way. Every night after we had dinner and put Zoe to bed, she stayed and talked with me for a while. I’d gotten to know more about her and every night our talks seemed to get a bit longer and more in depth. I was really falling hard for her. With each passing day, I knew that I was falling more in love with this woman. What was I going to do?

  “I got a problem,” I said.

  “What?” Ben asked.

  “I’m in love with my nanny.”

  His eyebrows rose. “What?”

  “Yeah, you heard me. You can tell Becky that her little plan worked. Hell, it worked so well I can hardly go a night without dreaming about Julie.”

  Ben was all smiles now. “This is great! I’m very happy for you, my friend.”

  “No. This is terrible.”

  He now looked confused. “Why?”

  “Because she is my nanny. Zoe loves her to death. Julie is perfect with her. And Julie is my employee. I could probably get sued for sexual harassment just by admitting to another living, breathing person that I’m having these thoughts to begin with.”

  He laughed. “You are overreacting. I know there is a fine line between being a boss and becoming a suitor, but if the two of you feel a strong connection and things happen slowly, organically together—I don’t see the problem. You can ask her to dinner or something. You don’t have to ask her into bed.”