This feels dangerous. A couch is far more intimate than at the dining table, where the table itself would separate us. We’ve already established that I can’t keep my hands off this man when he’s around.
Sitting next to him on a couch?
Dangerous. So, so dangerous.
Leading me over to it, I take the baby monitor out of my back pocket and set it on the coffee table that runs in front of thecouch that looks like it’s straight out of the nineties. Actually, most of the furniture and what little décor is around looks outdated, like he never bothered to update anything after taking over the house after his father died.
He angles his body into the opposite corner, spreading his knees and then balances his left arm along the back of the couch. I lower my body into the other corner, folding one leg beneath me and cradling my coffee between my hands in my lap.
“How are you?” he asks, breaking the silence, and I swallow around another gulp of coffee. I shrug one shoulder awkwardly.
“I’m fine,” I manage to whisper, darting my eyes up to his for just a brief moment before slicing them away again. Last night messed with my head. Like, a lot. Shit, the last week has messed with my head more than I’d like to admit. The hot and cold, back and forth of everything is exhausting and so confusing. But the way he’d held onto me last night, like he never wanted to let go…like he needed it as much as I did… it did something to me. To my heart. Cracked it open and dammit, but that little fissure is widening and letting him back in. “You?”
He shrugs one shoulder, lifting his coffee to his lips. He watches me so closely. It makes me nervous, the way he stares at me so intensely. “Teddy.”
Dammit, but the way he says my name… It’s like a balm to my nerves and an electric shock to my system all at once.
“You really don’t have to say anything,” I whisper, dropping my eyes to the coffee swirling in the cup balanced between my palms. “I understand, Xander.”
Setting his coffee cup aside, he reaches over to where I’m sitting and plucks my cup out of my hands, too. I watch with wide eyes as he sets it down on the coffee table in front of us, and then he’s sliding his arms around me and hauling me to him.
One heavy, muscular arm is banded around my ass, the other around my back, moving me into position until I’m once again straddling him with one knee on either side of his hips. My shinsare flush against the couch cushion beneath us, my thighs spreading over his, and I flush hot all over when my shorts ride up high on the inside part of my thighs.
My hands land on his chest, spreading wide as I balance myself and keep him somewhat at arm’s length, but he’s having none of it.
What is it with this man and wanting me on top of him?
“I’m going to crush you?—”
“Teddy, if you say one more word, I’ll turn this ass pink,” he rasps, spreading his hand wide on one of my ass cheeks, the heat of his palm hot even through the jean shorts. “I want you right here, okay?This—” he groans, urging me closer, “—is right where I want you.”
He smells so good, fresh out of the shower, skin and hair still damp, and I so badly want to sink into him, to get lost in him for just a little while. I want to believe every word he says, want to believe what I can feel pressing up between my thighs. I push against his chest with my hands, angling my chest away from him so I can stare into his sky-blue eyes.
“Xander… what are you doing?” I search his eyes, terrified of what I see and what he’s going to say.
“I’m trying to apologize, but you won’t sit still,” he grumbles, tightening his hands on my waist.
I go still. God, this is so confusing. “You said you don’t get involved with single moms. I haven’t magically gone from a single mom of three to not having kids in a week?—”
“Stop,” he whispers earnestly, and I do. His hands come to rest on the wide slope of my hips, fingers digging into the meaty part of my ass. Those eyes that I know I could get lost in if I let myself are so deep and infinitely sad, as he murmurs quietly, “I know what I said. My biggest rule for myself since joining a hotshot crew has always been that I don’t date single moms. I mean, I don’t date, period, Teddy. It’s not fair to ask someone, anyone, especially someone with kids, to be with me. Knowinghow dangerous my job is. My parents’ marriage dissolved in front of me and my brothers because of this profession. My dad was a career hotshot; it was the love of his life. And it broke my mother’s heart to watch him walk away from us every spring to come out here, never knowing if he was going to come home. So, she finally gave him an ultimatum; it was her and us or the job. He chose the job. She never forgave him and she never got over him. And then she lost him all over again when we lost him six years ago.”
“Xander…”
“Let me finish, please,” he whispers, swallowing hard.
I nod for him to continue, though I have to concentrate really hard on not letting my eyes fill with tears. My nose is stinging with them.
“You know my dad died in a fire. He was set to retire at the end of that season, and he never made it to retirement.” The sadness in his voice, that quiet hurt that drops his deep voice into a rasp has my heart clenching in my chest. “He saved our entire crew from that fire. We came too close to not making it out…”
I can’t help it then as the tears I’d been fighting fill my eyes. I remember the fear, the panic, that had raced through me when I’d learned how close Cal had come to being taken, too. Cal had only ever told me the basics, but I know he had been close enough to see Xander’s dad’s final moments, that he hadn’t been able to help him, and it’s haunted him for years. Probably still does, though he doesn’t talk to me about it much.
Xander smiles tenderly, sadness still clouding his eyes, as he reaches up and swipes a thumb across my cheek as one of those tears slips past my lids. My throat closes around the tears and the fear that shivers down my spine.
“He fought like hell to get his team out, and it cost him his life. I made a promise then that I would honor that sacrifice. And I’ve done my best to do so. That’s why this is so fucking hard for me, beautiful. Because I’ve never been committed to anything inmy life other than fighting fires. This is all I know. I know that all I could promise you is a life full of worry and fear and that’s not fair to you. Not fair to your kids, who have already lost so much and have been through so much hurt. You already have your brother to worry about. I hate the thought of you being worried for me, too. I’m so sorry that I hurt you, sweetheart. I thought I was doing the right thing. I can’t tell you enough how sorry I am for causing you pain because I’m an emotionally stunted idiot.”
I can’t help the little laugh that escapes me. He presses his forehead to mine and rolls it, and I squeeze my eyes shut. My heart is cracked wide open, painfully so. And it’s leaving me so achingly vulnerable. It’s truly terrifying.
“I swear I didn’t mean it the way you took it, beautiful. And fuck, I know it’s not fair to ask this of you. To ask you to forgive me for being a jackass, and for asking you to open up to me. I know that,” he whispers brokenly, bracketing my jaw with both hands to tilt my face away from his. To pull back far enough to force me to look him in the eyes.
