Page 34 of Single Mom for the Firemen

“We can go outside, if you want,” she suggests. “It’s a beautiful day. And I get the feeling you’re happiest when you’re in nature, right?”

She’s incisive—clearly a decent trait to lay claim to, given her line of work.

I shrug. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt,” I reply, and she grins, grabbing a blanket off the back of one of the chairs.

“Come on. Let’s get outside. Way better than being stuffed up in here all afternoon…”

I follow her out into the small yard behind the house, and she’s right—as soon as I get out of the confines of the building, it’s like something shifts inside of me. This place is so special to me for so many reasons, but one of the biggest is how much of it I shared with Theo, my foster dad. He was a passionate environmentalist, and he would always go out of his way to make sure we respected the earth and the ground we walked on. Even now, when I see the slight breeze rustling through the trees, I can almost hear his voice identifying the species just by the shape of the leaves.

She drapes the blanket on the ground and grabs her notebook and pen, flipping onto her front to face me as I lie down beside her. Her hair is pulled back from her face in a loose ponytail, and a few strands have broken free to trail along her neck—it takes everything I have in me not to reach out and brush them aside, but I figure that would be overstepping. We’re here for a reason, not just flirtation, and I don’t want to make things awkward.

“So,” she begins, trailing her pen down her list of questions. “You guys came out here about ten years ago. What was your main focus when you decided to move here with your brothers…?”

I expect the conversation to feel a little stilted, given that it’s coming from a professional place for her, but I’m surprised at how easy the talk flows between us. She scribbles down a note every now and then, but she never seems distracted by the work she’s doing, keeping up with everything I’m saying and exploring certain aspects with more interest. She’s clearly good at what she does. The way she’s coaxing this out of me, it’s obvious she’s done this a million times before. I can’t help but wonder if the other subjects of her stories were as attracted to her as I am, but that’s not the point…

“And how has that been going for you, trying to raise awareness about the local wildlife and nature?” she asks, tapping her pen on her page with interest. “How have you been going about it?”

“I’ve set up a website that covers how best to interact with animals you can encounter on the trails,” I reply. “Some people think they can go in all hands on deck and start petting and feeding and trying to make friends with these things, not realizing the harm they can do in disturbing the natural setup of their ecosystem…”

“Have you thought about going into schools?” she suggests, letting the pen drop for a moment. “Talking to kids about this stuff?”

“Not really. I figured it was smarter to try to target adults first…”

“Oh, for sure, I get that,” she agrees. “But when I talk to Callie about animals, she’s always so passionate about it. I bet if you could find a way to connect with kids about it, they’d be leading the charge on doing the right thing when their families come out here to camp or whatever.”

I ponder on it for a moment—she’s not wrong. I can still remember the passion I held for all of this as a kid, the same passion that’s driving me to keep at it even now. I might not think of myself as the kind of guy to get up in front of a room full of people and demand their attention, but if it’s kids, I could try it, right?

“Yeah, you’ve got a point,” I agree. “I’m going to look into that. Thanks.”

“See, you need a mom on all of your teams,” she teases, tapping her pen against her temple playfully. “Someone who’s going to see the other side of these issues.”

“Oh, really?” I shoot back, cocking an eyebrow. “You think we could use you on our team?”

“Maybe,” she replies, her cheeks flushing slightly. It strikes me, all at once, that we have shifted from interview mode into something entirely different—something I can’t help but notice, not far removed from the atmosphere that was between us when we hooked up the other day.

“And what kind of role would you fill, hmm?” I ask her, not wanting to drop this flirtation quite yet. “If we were to put you on the payroll…”

“Oh, I think I could come up with a few ways to make myself useful,” she counters, her eyes flickering with excitement.

“Like what?”

“Like…stress relief,” she replies, shifting a little closer to me. We’re both lying down, on our sides, facing each other, and the sudden movement draws a warm cloud of her perfume toward me. She tips her head to the side, extending her neck slightly, and the way it exposes the soft, delicate skin along her throat…fuck, I can’t help but let my eyes flick down there for a moment.

“Stress relief?” I press. I know exactly what she’s getting at, but I’m not going to make a move until she gives me the go-ahead.

“Mhm,” she murmurs, and she reaches down to rest her hand on the front of my jeans—the sudden touch draws a sharp hiss of pleasure from between my lips, and I groan.

“Fuck, Vanessa,” I shoot back, managing to open my eyes long enough to lock them on to her again. “You’re so…”

But before I can finish what I’m saying, I kiss her—not the kind of kiss we shared before. No, this one is demanding, wanting, all-consuming. I roll on top of her, sliding my arms around her, and she lets her hands rest on my shoulders. I can feel her grinning into the kiss, and I wonder if this is what she had planned from the moment she invited me to her place—if she intended to get me wrapped around her little finger like this, utterly helpless to resist.

She parts her legs and wraps them around me, pulling me onto her with even more fervency as she feels the pressure of my hardening cock against her. I slide my tongue into her mouth, reaching down to grab the hem of the sweet summer dress she’s wearing and pushing it up over her hips.

I know that we’re playing things a little fast and loose here—that anyone passing by on the trail behind the house could look over and see the two of us locked in this intense embrace—but as she moves her hand to the nape of my neck and grazes her nails along my skin, I find it hard to care. All that matters to me now is being inside of her, and I will not settle for anything less.

I slip my hands down to her panties, pushing them down over her hips and tossing them aside. She gasps at the sudden feel of the cool air against her, and I unzip my pants and pull my cock into my hand.

Pressing my face into her neck, I drink in the scent of her greedily. Fuck, it’s more than just what perfume she’s wearing, there’s something about the way her skin smells that’s utterly intoxicating to me. Guiding my erection to her pussy, I plant myself against her, and then push inside.

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