Page 23 of Slow Burn (Forbidden Heat 2)

As I stood there in front of him looking up into Gary’s eyes, something came over me. It was an odd feeling. I suddenly felt like I was being swept away by him. We were just there together enjoying the moment. That was all. There was no one else around. There was no one that could judge us or tell us that we were doing something wrong. We could just be and give into our innermost feelings.

And right then my innermost feelings were driving me to do something a little crazy. I reached up and grabbed Gary behind the neck. I brought his head down toward mine and our lips met. The kiss was soft, sweet, delicate, but also loving. It was two people communicating to each other that they’d finally found a kindred soul and that there was nothing in the world that should have kept them apart.

Gary’s lips were so soft against mine, yet rugged and masculine. He moved his strong jaws to add pressure to the kiss and I moaned softly as the kiss escalated slightly. I opened my mouth a little and he did the same. This allowed our tongues to slide into each other, tip to tip, and then slipping past one another until they were wrapped up in some sweet, epic dance.

I felt the tingles starting from my loins and moving all over my body, rolling down my spine in rapid fire waves of beauty and bliss. It was almost like being weightless as I was lifted up into the air by my feelings and emotions.

It felt so good. But I knew it could never happen again. Ironically, I was playing with fire. I was pouring gasoline on a fire and I knew that soon it was going to blow up in my face. I had to put a stop to this. Dammit, why did I have to feel this way?

“No, I’m sorry,” I said, pulling away.

“What? What’s wrong?” Gary asked.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” I replied. I felt the waves of fear and guilt washing through me.

“It’s ok,” Gary said. “No one is around. Nobody saw.”

“Yeah, but I’m scared. I hate to admit it, but I feel like a coward. But I’m scared. I don’t know if I can start over again so soon. I need some stability. Dammit. I really shouldn’t have done that.”

“Ok,” Gary said. “It’s alright. We can just pretend it didn’t happen.”

I shook my head. “No. No, we can’t. I know that I’m going to be thinking about this now every time I see you. Why did I do that?”

I felt like just screaming into the dark night sky. This was so frustrating. I knew that I was at my breaking point. I was about to give in and say to hell with it. I wanted this man and I wanted him now. But I knew I would be filled with fear and doubt afterwards. And of course it had nothing to do with how I felt about Gary. I was falling for him, hard. But the potential consequences of such a thing right now was enough to terrify me and set me on edge. I’m too neurotic to pull things over on people or to blatantly hide things. I would be found out quickly. The fear would be written all over my face by anyone who wanted to glance at me.

Gary placed his hands on my shoulders. “Honey, it’s ok. Don’t worry about it. Nothing happened. Nobody has seen anything. I know it’s tough. That kiss was amazing. I… wow… I’ll be thinking about it for a long time, too. But we have to just move past it and just continue with the plan.”

“What plan? To ignore everything? To pretend that the entire time I’m doing a training session I’m not thinking about you taking me to bed? Ugh. I feel like someone is playing a game of tug of war with me inside and my stomach is being shifted all around back and forth.”

Gary looked into my eyes. I expected him to show some kind of emotion, but all I saw was a bit of concern. He was not allowing himself to become vulnerable or emotional as I was getting. No, he was solid and strong. I needed that. His strength just made me want him that much more.

I slung my arms around his neck and hung my own head down as I rested against him. Oh, this felt nice. Could he take care of everything for me? Would he be able to just make this decision for me? I was tired of having to wrestle with my own thoughts constantly. I wanted this to be over. What were we going to do?

Gary looked into my face. Using one finger, he tilted my chin up to look at him. Our eyes locked and I felt another kiss about to happen. His face came close to mine. I could feel his warmth, his masculine energy, the solid stubble on his chin, and the determined look in his eyes. He wanted to take care of everything. And he wanted me to let him.

His lips were almost touching mine. Yes… this was what I wanted. This was just what I needed. Surrender to him… please… and it would all be over just like that. The choice would be made. There could be no going back. We would make this work and if it didn’t then we would live with the results.

No.

I stepped away at the last second and Gary’s lips missed me. I couldn’t do this again. I was torturing myself. The more I continued to dance with this idea of being with Gary, the harder it was going to be for me to straighten things out, to get on with my life and focus on why I had really come to Chicago, to start over.

But wasn’t this also a part of starting over? I guess it depended on what was most important to me. I wasn’t sure, but I knew I couldn’t continue this until I figured everything out.

“I’ve got to go,” I said. “I’m sorry, Gary. I can’t do this now.”

I expected Gary to protest, or to try to stop me, but he only stood there with that same concerned expression. The choice was entirely up to me. Did he care one way or the other? I was sure he did. He had told me how he felt, but it was becoming obvious that he was much better at keeping his feelings inside than I was. He was going to handle this better than me, wasn’t he?

Or maybe Gary was just very adept at keeping his feelings below the surface and never really reacting to anything. It was something we trained on as firefighters. We can never let emotions get in our way or clo

ud our judgment. We have to remain almost cold and make the hard decisions. If we became emotional in a fire, we were all going to be gone. And we could never let the victim see us scared. They were already terrified. Any fear from us would only feed upon theirs and amplify it.

I got in my car and started it up. I took one last look back at Gary and I drove home. I tried to relax and get into the sound of a good song on my radio, but I couldn’t do it. My head was too full of everything that was going on.

Shit. I knew that things were heating up between Gary and I. Every single time that we were together it seemed something escalated a bit farther. But I couldn’t stop putting myself in proximity to him. It was a total mistake going there to see him play. I knew it was when I left my place.

But it had been worth it. Even with all the stress and worry I was now under, it had been worth it. I wanted Gary so badly. He was practically all I thought about anymore.

And I knew that it was going to happen with us one way or another. The question was, how much longer were we going to keep playing this game pretending that we could really deny these feelings?

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