Page 25 of Blind Date with a #FIREFIGHTER
I scowl at him. Always so damn direct. “I grew up with a couple con artists who dragged me all over the state with their scams. Ended up in a relationship with a man who told me I was fat, dumpy and terrible at sex, pointed out my family’s criminal background and topped it off by telling me the engagement ring he’d given me was fake but it got him free blow jobs and sex when he was desperate.”
“And?”
The unfiltered love in his eyes warms me from the tiniest flicker of hope in my heart to a raging inferno of realization. “Then I met a man of honor and goodness raising the sweetest child on his own. Who loved me so much that all my walls of doubt and failure melted under the heat of his love.”
“And the man is hot. Like seriously hot, just like firefighter Dan in that romance novel. Right?” he adds.
“You! You took my book. That’s where it went. I want it back!” I slap his chest, “I need to finish it.”
“Better yet, I’ll show you how it ends.” He lifts me easily in his strong arms and carries me inside. Pausing at the door, he has me lock it and set the alarm, before carrying me to his bedroom.
He pauses at the end of the bed, still holding me. “After she left, I got a brand-new rug and all new furniture for this room, including bed frame and mattress and threw out all the old bedding. I know you’d seen the sheets I’d been using and didn’t want you to think she’d ever been in this bed, so I bought new sheets, pillows and comforters for us. I put them on fresh just before I came to get you. If you want to pick out somethingdifferent you can. I just wanted it to be new for us tonight because for me, this is the first night of the rest of my life.”
I don’t know how I got so lucky, but I am not walking away. He and his son are the light of my life and I’m sticking around to claim them both. He’s right, I’m throwing away the old wounds and the two of us will heal each other.
I kiss his cheek. “For me, too.”
He walks me to the bed, sits, and settles me between his open legs. When he clears his throat, I realize he’s blushing.
“Last confession. I-ah- haven’t been with a woman since she left. Trust was a big issue for me for a long time. That and being there for my son as both mother and father. It’s only been me and Rosy Palm in the shower. I’m a little excited and not sure how long I’ll last the first couple times.”
I laugh. When his expression turns hurt, I reach for him, shaking my head. “I’ll bet BOB, my Battery-Operated-Boyfriend, and I have been together longer than you and Rosy. I think we can let them both down gently.”
My thoughts turn sober. “That said, I’m not on anything.”
He takes my hand, kissing the palm then the back. “I don’t just want tonight. I want it all, Thea. I want marriage, a family and a home. Can you see that with me?”
“More children?”
“Yes, I’d like more children with you.”
“I’m thirty-eight, what if… what if I can’t?”
“Do you want to… Do you want to get pregnant?”
“Yes, I had hoped someday. But as the years passed… I talked to my doctor about invitro at my last appointment. She said I was perfectly health to do so.”
“Thea, I want it all with you. Marriage, a home, a family, a lifetime of love.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Do you love me, Thea?”
“Yes, Alex, I love you. I gave up hope of having this kind of love, but I found it with you.”
“And my son?”
“You already know the answer to that.”
He smiles. “That I do. So tomorrow, we go to the courthouse and start the process to make this official. Unless you want something big and fancy.”
“No, that’s not me, not my style. Just Aaron, Brad and Marie.”
He sighs then kisses my forehead. “I don’t know how I got so lucky, but you are perfect.”
Slowly he pulls the elastic neckline of my peasant dress off my shoulders and down my arms to my waist. Nuzzling his face between my breasts he kisses the exposed flesh at the top of each before unhooking the center clasps and cupping my breasts.
“Humm. So beautiful. I’ve been lying awake nights wondering if your nipples were lychee pink or raspberry red.”
