I've read the card so many times the paper is starting to soften at the edges. My living room floor probably has worn down from where I've paced back and forth until my feet hurt. I've started to get dressed and stopped myself…then talked myself into going, then talked myself right back out of it.
I’m verging on insanity.
I don't chase anonymous valentines to roadhouse bars like some lovesick fool.
But these letters...
I close my eyes, and the words from the previous cards scroll through my mind like a fever dream.
I think about your hands, Captain. I want to call you Daddy and watch your control finally snap.
Christ.
I've jerked off more times this week than I have in months…in the shower with the water running hot, my hand wrapped around my cock. In bed at night, biting back groans as I stroked myself to the thought ofheron her knees, looking up at me.
I've even done it once in my office at the station…door locked, hand shoved down my pants, coming into a fistful of tissues like some goddamn teenage boy while my crew was two rooms away.
I'm not proud of that one.
But I couldn't help it.
Yep, the man known forcontrolhas completely lost it.
My brain has been running through possibilities of who it could be all week. Could it be someone from town who's admired me from afar? A woman I met at some community event and don't remember? A firefighter groupie—yes, they exist, if Aiden and Jasper's extensivepersonalresearch has anything to do with it.
Not Sloane. It can't be.
She's sunshine and sharp wit and legs that go on forever, and she has absolutely no reason to be interested in a graying, emotionally constipated fire captain who's twice her age.
It's not her. I've convinced myself of that. The timing is just coincidental.
But god,if onlyit was her.
My phone chimes.
At MacKenzie's! We made heart-shaped pizzas.
A photo comes through of a surprisingly decent heart-shaped pizza pie.
Happy Valentine's Day Uncle Ike!!
Nice job! Happy Valentine's Day, kid. Don't stay up too late.
Ok boomer
I chuckle and set the phone aside.
There’s no pickup duty tonight…or any other obligations. It’s just me and this invitation and the empty house pressing in around me.
I think about the loneliness and the silence. All the years I’ve spent denying myself because I was afraid of judgment, afraid of rejection, and afraid of wanting things a man like me isn’t supposed to want.
But I’m tired of being afraid.
Even if this turns out to be awkward, even if it’s someone I’m not interested in, I owe it to myself to show up. To try. To do something formefor once.
I look at the card again.
Come find out who wants to be yours.
