Page 1 of Lion's Second Chance King

Chapter One

Makayla

When I open the door, I expect to see Auntie Kaitlyn. She’s the only one who knows I’m home a few days early. I’m at the house I grew up in, Auntie Kaitlyn’s house. Except it’s my house now. She moved about six blocks away. The whole reason I arranged to do my graduate work online was that I thought I would be taking care of her. She spent a few weeks getting the house ready for my return and then a day with me making sure I had everything before she drove to her new home last night. I imagine she’s forgotten something and driven back. She’s not a big fan of mobile phones.

But it’s not her.

I open the door and I see a kind of masculine god.

He’s just as tall as I remember and he still has a body that’s impossible to ignore. His broad shoulders and his muscular chest make it seem like his shirt is some kind of technological marvel just because it’s not in tatters. His arms are just as big as I remember, too. His eyes… they’re as steel blue as ever. With his jet-black, shoulder-length hair and his carefully trimmed jet-black beard, the eyes are even more striking. He’s wearing black jeans and a black tee shirt. The tee shirt had COMPANY 417 printed on the chest on the left side.

Company 417.

He’s a firefighter.

“Daniel,” I whisper. I stare at him like I worship him, and that’s not all that far from the truth. All of those feelings are right back in force. “Um… come in.”

“Hello, Mackie,” he says as he steps in. He’s the only one who calls me that. “Your aunt called me from the road and asked me to check in on you from time to time. Do you have everything you need?”

“I do now,” I breathe out. Then, I lift myself up onto my tiptoes and kiss him passionately.

This is a damned stupid thing for me to do. I mean, in the history of damned stupid things that people do, this one is probably the damnedest and the stupidest. I can’t help myself, though. Daniel is the only man I’ve ever loved.

Okay, that might be a little dramatic. I mean, I think it’s love. I can’t be sure, though. It’s not like I have a lot of experience when it comes to love. I went on a few dates in high school. I guess I’m pretty damned typical because I gave hand jobs until my junior year in high school. That was three boyfriends. In my junior year, I gave my boyfriend (one of the three) blowjobs. Then, I gave him my virginity after the Senior Prom. I didn’t love him and didn’t think I loved him. Both of us knew we weren’t going to try to make a long-distance relationship work after graduation.

But I already loved Daniel.

I’d had a crush on him for as long as I could remember. He’d been around as long as I could remember, too. When I said goodbye to Tony (the high school boyfriend) for the last time, on June 11th, one day after graduation, and he got on the plane for England, I drove directly to Daniel’s house. I had to wait a few hours for him to get home but when he did, he found me waiting for him. He invited me in, thinking I was looking for advice or something. I used his bathroom just to change.

No, not change.

To get naked.

I did that and then walked out naked and kissed Daniel just like I’m kissing him now.

Many men have felt my hands on them. Six have felt my mouth on them. Two have felt my pussy. Daniel is the only one who felt my pussy more than once. Daniel is the only man since he first felt it, in fact. In college, I went on a number of dates and gave a number of hand jobs. I gave two guys blowjobs, one somewhat regularly. Both of those guys got that from me because they were studying for a degree in Fire Science. I pretended I was with Daniel when I was with them.

And now, I’m doing something utterly foolish. When Daniel broke up with me for the first time after a summer of breathtaking perfection, it almost killed me. Why in the world am I setting up myself up for that kind of pain again?

But there’s no pain right now. On the contrary, as I pull at his belt buckle and kiss him hard, I feel the opposite of pain. It feels like I was empty for a very, very long time and I didn’t even know it until now, now that I’m filled up again. Look, I’m absolutely aware of how dramatic I’m being here. I’m fully aware but I just don’t give a damn.

I’m not thinking long-term, either. If I make myself think long term I’ll think about all the pain I felt when things ended between us. That will be my focus, and that will keep me from enjoying myself right now. In fact, when the memory of the end occurs to me, I drive it away. Maybe I’m setting myself up for a whole hell of a lot of unhappiness later. Maybe I am. I don’t care. Right now, I have exactly what I need and there’s no pain.

And then, I feel myself falling. Panic fills me and I cry out but he catches me. The adrenaline rushing through me dissipates with tingling all over my arms and legs and I stare up at him from where I’m cradled in his arms. It’s only then that I realize he’s just lifted me up into the air and then caught me so he could carry me. I’m still breathing heavily and recovering from the fright. I’m also ready to demand that he screw me because I’m afraid he’s done all this to veer things away from the direction they’re headed.

But I’m wrong.

He carries me from the front door and directly to my bedroom.

My old bedroom.

I’m in the master bedroom now. He’s bringing me to the bedroom I had back when we were together, and there’s something almost incomprehensibly sexy about that. Or maybe it’s sweet. Or maybe I just need to stop trying to interpret things with this man. I don’t think there’s any way for me to really figure anything out at all. What I need to do is just exist in this moment.

Because of all the things my love for this man has taught me, the one that remains most definite and most present for me is that I don’t have any guarantee at all that there will ever be anything more than this moment.

But I have this one, and when he gets me into what used to be my bedroom, he sets me down on the bed and kisses me again. Then, he makes very short work of getting my clothes off my body. I guess I’m so eager to get the clothes off that I’m a pretty significant help in that department.

But I’m a fumbling mess when it comes to helping with him. My hands are trembling and I’m entirely uncoordinated. I finally breathe out, “Get undressed for me, Firefighter Burrow.” Once I say that, I realize that I always call him that at least a few times during sex. It stems from teasing jokes about him taking advantage of me because no girl can resist a firefighter. I think I recognize a slight smile on his face when I say the words.

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