Page 22 of Burning with Desire (Forbidden Heat 1)

Jeremy wiped his eyes. His lips were quivering. I could see how emotional he was being, but I was right in the way I felt. Once someone betrayed my trust they were just not trustworthy any longer in my eyes. I would always wonder, and it just took the right set of circumstances for them to revert back to their previous ways.

Jeremy covered his mouth for a second and I thought he might burst into a full on cry, but then he stopped and cleared his throat. “I knew I blew it. I just hoped against hope that there might be some way for us to put this stuff behind and to start fresh, but I guess there really isn’t. I’m sorry. But I do think you are making a mistake. The road to love is always messy. It’s full of stops and starts and all sorts of mistakes. I think it’s wrong that you are actually throwing this away because of one mistake and not willing to give us another chance.”

“I threw it away?” I recoiled. “I didn’t throw anything away. You dumped me because I wouldn’t sleep with you. That’s pretty pathetic. And the fact that you won’t own up to that shows that it was for the best. I would have eventually found out that we were not meant to be together. So, that’s it; we are done.”

I stood up and walked back to join my friends without so much as a glance back in Jeremy’s direction. The guy hadn’t really changed at all. I could see it deep down inside of him.

“So, what did he want?” Tessa asked me when I sat back down at our table.

She could see that I was visibly annoyed. “Oh, the jerk wanted to get back together.”

“After the way he treated you? The nerve,” Cheryl said.

“Yeah, so I flat out refused. You don’t get to treat me that way and expect a second chance,” I said. I grabbed my drink and took a healthy sip. I was angry, but I was also hurt. I would have liked to have given Jeremy that chance. I was tired of being alone. But that wouldn’t have solved the issues between us. I always would have felt like we were not compatible and wondering if he was just with me because he wanted to be my first. All sorts of strange thoughts swirled around inside of my head about this man. I thought I was over the pain he caused me, but I wasn’t. I was not used to sharing my heart with someone. I’d always been carefully guarded in that respect, but with Jeremy I really thought I’d found someone that I could open up with.

Tessa raised an eye and leaned in closer. “Are you sure that was the right decision?”

I looked at her as if she was crazy. What was she getting at? Of course it was the right decision. “Yes. You think I should have fallen for his sob story?”

“Well, you haven’t been happy since you stopped dating him and maybe he did change somehow. People can change.”

“No. I’m not sure they can, not really. I’m standing beside my decision firmly.”

Tessa laughed and nodded at me. “That’s my girl.”

I guess she was testing me to make sure I wasn’t that stupid. The rest of the evening was a blur of drinking and dancing, laughing, and carrying on like a bunch of banshees. It was a good time and I knew that I desperately needed it. I was actually happy that Tessa had dragged me out tonight. I was feeling almost like my old self.

And as I danced, I saw Jeremy getting up to leave. I wasn’t sure why, but in that moment, I felt drawn to him. Maybe there was a way we could start again and see what developed. Perhaps, I was being too angry about it all. I was unhappy. I was lonely. I did miss him. It couldn’t hurt to talk some more. At least have some coffee, some conversation and just see. If at any time I felt that it wasn’t going to work, then I would just cut things off. That would be it.

On the Uber ride back home as Tessa drifted in and out of consciousness (the girl had drank a ton) I texted Jeremy. “It was good to see you. I need some time to think about things. But maybe we can get together for coffee sometime.”

He texted back quickly. “I would love that.”

When we got home, I was tired but I stayed up a bit to do some sketching on my pad. It was something I often did that helped me to settle the emotional baggage of the day and to get myself ready for a restful sleep.

As I sketched I found my thoughts drifting a bit, mostly about my dating history. I had a bit of a checkered past with men, or at least that was how I liked to think about things. I’d only had a few serious relationships, but in none of those did I think I

was ever close to being truly in love, or that there was even the potential for falling head over heels in love. I wanted that badly, but I was starting to feel that I might be overreaching. Maybe that sort of love like you saw in the movies or you heard on the radio and heard other people describe wasn’t as real or as authentic as the world liked to believe it was. They made it seem like there was something wrong with you if you didn’t have someone in your life that you felt that way about.

Maybe I was wrong. Perhaps, there was just something wrong with me. I’m an artist and I’ve always felt things too deeply, so why then was true love so elusive for me? I wanted to know what it was like to care about someone ten times more than you care about yourself. I wanted to know what it was that I was really missing.

Or maybe, what I was so afraid of? Was that it? Was I really just afraid to go all in, cash those chips, and let it all be what it would be? That was a scary feeling to let go of yourself like that.

And yes, I was terrified of it.

But somewhere deep inside of me, I knew that one day I would find that man. I would discover that love that really was going to transform my life inside and out. But I had no idea when that would actually happen. What would it take and when would this mystery man waltz into my world?

My eyes were feeling heavy, so I stopped my sketch and started to put it away. If I was going to be functional at work tomorrow at all, then I would have to get some rest.

As I put the sketchpad to the side, it caught my eye what I’d drawn on the blank page. My mind had been lost so deeply in my thoughts that I wasn’t even fixated on what I was actually working on, but there it was plain as day. It was startling and I had to take a moment to look at what I’d drawn.

It was a picture of Ricky. He was leaning up against the wall with his shirt off, his bulging muscles rippling as beads of sweat trickled down his skin. He was standing in front of a firehouse wall it would appear and he was about halfway undressed out of his uniform.

What in the world did this mean? I’d been thinking of him off and on since I’d met him, but now I was thinking about him subconsciously as well. And of course these feelings had escalated since the erotic dream the night before.

I took a large swig from the bottle of water by my bed and lay down after turning off the bedside lamp.

There was something special happening and I wasn’t sure what it was exactly.

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