Page 96 of Set Me On Fire

And the other half was just pissed it’d taken him this long.

Where was he? I wanted to snap. Why did it take him so long to find me? And what would’ve happened if there was no fire at The Stafford? Would I have kept skipping from one deadshit guy to the next, while he was out there pining after me?

“You shouldn’t have done this.” I shook my head definitely. “Bringing me back here, it hurts. If you’d just taken me home, I’d have dragged you inside, thrown you in my shower and scrubbed you clean before seeing if we could make the magic of Christmas happen again. It would’ve been so much easier.”

“But not better.” He didn’t let me knock his hands away this time, cradling my face with his, then gazing down at me. “You deserve the best, and this is everything I’ve got. I’ve never touched another woman and I won’t before I die. There will only ever be you for me, Millie. Accept me, reject me, whatever you decide, I’ll respect, and if I’m the father, I’ll make sure I’ll stepup, but… part of being a good dad is treating the mother of your child right, and this is me starting to do that now.”

I let out a hopeless little huff of breath. My mind was racing as fast as my heart, trying to provide me with models of how it would go. His future, my future, my baby’s… My hand slid to my stomach, as if I could protect the child within from all of this. But I couldn’t. My situation was messy as fuck. I hadn’t done things the ‘right’ way, and so I was just stumbling around blindly, trying to work out what the hell to do next.

Just like Noah was.

I met his eyes then, searching his dark form for answers.

“What did you think would happen the night of the party?”

I saw him waiting out the front of the fire station in a whole other light now.

“I didn’t think anything.”

“What did you hope would happen?” I pressed.

He swallowed hard, his hands rising and falling before he spoke.

“That you’d see me. Bigger, stronger, competent, I hoped all the bullshit that draws a woman to a firefighter would have you looking my way. I intended to make sure you had a good time and then…” His hands formed fists. “Then I’d make my move. I’d tell you the truth, and if you were still standing there, I’d ask you out.”

“And then what?”

He seemed surprised by my comment, but he forged on.

“Then I’d take you on all the dates I had planned when we were kids. No, better ones. I’d show you in as many ways as I possibly could that I was the guy for you.”

“You know I’m gonna need you to still do that.”

That grin, that fucking grin, appeared in the darkness, as bright as the moon.

“Already had that planned, babe.”

Babe. The little pet name hit so differently coming from him.

“The first thing to go when a woman has a baby is the romance,” I told him. “At least, that’s what the mothers I know say. I don’t want that to happen. I deserve to be wooed.”

“You do.”

The smile faded and something far more intent rose to replace it.

“I should make you do that first. That’s the way it works, right? You fall all over yourself trying to impress me, and then I decide to sleep with you if you’re successful.”

“Looks like we did things out of order.”

His voice was low and raspy, his hands gentle as he tugged me closer. I could resist, pull back if I wanted to, but I didn’t. Nothing about us was by the book, and yet it made a strange kind of sense. That same feeling of connection I’d always felt around him snapped into place the moment our bodies touched. My mind might be madly picking apart the quandary that was us, but this? I knew then what I wanted as I reached up and tugged his head down.

Mine, I thought, weirded out by that possessive thought, but there was something to it. No other woman had touched the sensitive skin at the nape of his neck. No other woman felt the ash crusted in his hair coat her fingertips.Mine, I thought much more deliberately as I went up on tiptoes. He let me brush my lips against his, then took over, his arms locking tightly around me, holding me hard so I’d never get away as he claimed my mouth. I was forced then to surrender to the moment.

To him.

This wasn’t the next logical step, but nothing about us made sense. Without a road map to follow, we’d be forced to work it out together, and suddenly I couldn’t want anything more.

“Show me,” I whispered in his ear. “Show me how it’d be if you were mine and I was yours. Show me that and I’ll decide whether or not to give us a chance.”

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