Page 125 of Dark, Forbidden, & Taboo

Sometimes, I think she wanted more from me than I wanted to give her, but I had already lost my heart a long time ago to a little girl that knew all of my secrets.

I thought about Dottie Winslow from time to time and wondered whatever became of her. In the years since we grew apart, I never did meet another person that was as fiercely loyal as she had been.

“Hail the conquering hero,” Sicily snapped at me from her place on the couch and I rolled my eyes.

Shrugging my jacket off, I walked over to the closet door in the living room and placed it on a hanger before I glanced at her disapprovingly.

“You’re going to feel bad one of these days,” I told her softly. “There’s always that slim chance that my next call can be my last one, and who’d take care of you then?”

“A real man, I would imagine,” she replied with a pointed look, and I chuckled.

After I closed the closet door, I walked over to the edge of the couch and gently slapped the bottom of her foot to get her attention.

“No one is forcing you to stay with me,” I reminded her, “You knew what you would be getting and what you would not be getting so I don’t understand why you treat me like you do.”

Sicily pursed her lips as she pulled her feet away from my reach. I always knew what she wanted from me, but I never gave in.

It took a lot of willpower and a constant reminder of the little girl I lost to keep me from giving her everything she wanted.

It was never an easy task because Sicily was as beautiful as her name suggested.

Long, wavy brown hair, cinnamon-colored eyes, and the most amazing olive-colored skin I’d ever laid eyes on.

But my heart belonged to someone else and even though I hadn’t laid eyes on her in years, I knew that I’d never love another woman the way I loved that little girl.

Chapter

Five

When I woke up the next morning, my body was covered in sweat and ached from having slept wrong on the couch.

Normally I shared a bed with my domestic partner, but I would always refuse to do so when I could see the lust behind the anger in her eyes.

I wouldn’t fuck her no matter how much she begged me, and she knew that she was more than welcomed to bed any man that she wanted as long as it wasn’t under my roof.

Sicily took it as a dare that she never acted on, choosing to attempt to wear me down instead.

It has yet to work, and I doubt that it ever would.

Ever since the day I had been sent to reform school for a minor mishap from childhood, I had learned patience, how to hold my ground, and most of all, self-control.

I assumed it to be the reason I had decided to take up firefighting.

If anyone would know how to start the flames started by others, it would most definitely be me.

“Breakfast is on the table,” Sicily called out to me on her way out the front door. I thanked her silently since she didn’t stop for me to say as much verbally, and I shook my head.

Maybe today would finally be the day she found someone to take care of the needs that I never would, and perhaps I’d try my best to domesticate myself so that I wouldn’t have to rely on her much longer.

But for the time being, I knew that it would be breakfast, reading the morning newspaper and perhaps finding something on television to preoccupy the rest of the time before I went back into work.

Chapter

Six

Ihad been sitting in the firehouse, bored out of my mind when the call came in.

Apparently, someone had decided to set the Folsom Vineyard on fire, and they needed as many of us that could be spared to try and salvage what was left.

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