Page 1 of Hot Touch
PROLOGUE
NATHAN BENSON
“I better get Vi home,”Logan said. I nodded, feeling him walk away.
My eyes moved back to the happy couple on the dance floor, and I tried to ignore the ache inside my chest. I was happy for my buddy. Ronnie was a paramedic for the local private EMS company that worked alongside our small mountain city fire department. I’d known him for a long time and knew just how big tonight was. He’d been through a lot, and it was good to see the big guy happy for once.
My gaze moved to find Logan, who was at the table with Vi, helping her put on his suit jacket. She looked around, and when our eyes connected, she sent me a sweet smile and small wave before her police officer husband, and my friend, walked them out and towards their car.
Two great guys.
The best friends a guy could have.
Now they were both married, coupled up with women who I knew without a doubt in my mind were their soulmates.What about me?My thoughts got the best of me, and no matter how much I tried to shake it off, I couldn’t.
What about me?I wondered again and all throughout the night when I got home.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t had relationships. I’d had some. Some serious. Some not so much.
I’d even been engaged once.
I rolled out of bed and walked around my house. Down the empty hallways I’d thought would be filled with family pictures framed throughout the walls of places and vacations we’d gone on. Instead, the only thing that hung there was some painting I’d created with my sister when she’d talked me into going to one of those paint and sip things.
I stood in front of it and frowned.
It was of two light sabers crossed with one another. Did I mention the paint and sip she’d talked me into had been for Star Wars Day?I love you. I know.Written beneath. The famous epically romantic line spoken by Han Solo and Princess Leia.
I laughed at myself.
Hopelessly unromantic, my sister had called it. She couldn’t understand why I thought it was as romantic as what she thought about Mr. Darcy’s hand gesture inPride and Prejudice. What would it be like to have someone in my life?
I was forty-three now. Never married, engaged once, and having lived with two girlfriends in the past. None had ended horribly; it just hadn’t worked out. I didn’t have kids. I owned my home.
You’d think that alone would make me a catch.
I walked into the living room and plopped my ass onto my recliner before turning on ESPN. There was a baseball game replaying, the announcers’ voice a little boring as I caught my reflection in the mirror on the far end of the wall. I wasn’t a bad-looking guy, and I was a fucking fireman, for fuck’s sake. My body was in shape. I knew how to smile to make a girl’s heart pitter-patter.
But that was the problem.
Women were all up for checking out your mouth-to-mouth skills and seeing how well you worked your hose for fun. But being hooked up to someone who worked the hours I did? To a man who ran into danger when everyone else ran out?
That shit wasn’t for the faint of heart.
Maybe I wasn’t meant to find anyone.
But Logan and Ron did. They worked similar hours. Encountered the same kind of dangers.
Maybe it’s me? Maybe I am the problem?Maybe I wasn’t meant to share quiet nights watching prerecorded games while some woman sat next to me and read or crafted, or fuck, watched the game with me?
Maybe all that lovey-dovey shit wasn’t meant for me?
The game droned on, and my eyes finally grew heavy. My head was still filled with my lonesome thoughts as I drifted off into a fitful sleep. That night felt like a fever dream. I dreamt of bright, light brown eyes that smiled at me with a look. Eyes I’d never looked into yet felt like they knew me. A gaze so strong, the connection and pull so fierce it found me lifetime after lifetime.I love you. I know.The words danced in the dream. The deep sentiment. To tell someone you loved them and they knew in their core just how much. How fucking dedicated you were to them. How much of a priority they were to you. How important they were.
My dream was frustrating, though. No matter how hard I tried to get closer to her, her dark hair dancing in the wind, I couldn’t get to her. She felt like she was just within reach, like I could almost touch her. Smell her. Yet she wasn’t.What the hell kind of dream is this?I woke up reaching for her. The sound of her laughter in my ears made my chest ache to hear it again.
I hadn’t even been awake for two minutes when my alarm annoyingly went off, and I groaned.
“Shit,” I muttered. My body felt sore from sleeping on the recliner, a knot on my neck when I rolled my head.I’m too old for this shit.Not that I could dwell on that or my dreams all that long. I had to get to work.
