Chapter 27
Any idea why I had to help put a VERY inebriated Xander to bed last night after Cal brought him home?
Vi
Ummm. I plead the fifth.
Of course you do.
Vi
Wait, it was after two am when I sent him and Cal out. Why were you even awake?
I heard a strange truck in the driveway. I was getting Bea back to sleep after her middle of the night feeding. Got up to see who it was and saw Cal trying to manhandle Xander out of his truck and up the sidewalk.
Vi
Oof. He did seem a little rough around the edges last night. Like he’s been beating himself up like crazy. I didn’t think I served him that much.
The man could barely walk, Vi. He looked tortured. I’ve never seen him look so…I don’t know. Morose?
Vi
Well, realizing you messed up a great thing with an amazing woman will do that to you. According to Rowan, he was a mess all week. Grumpy as a bear.
You think I’m amazing? Awwww. Will you marry me?
Vi
You’re not really my type, babe.
Damn. Figures. It’s because I don’t have a dick, right? I can get a strap-on, if that’s your thing.
Vi
Woman, I just spit out my coffee all over myself. Now I have to go change before rounds.
…So that wasn’t a no…
Vi
*selfie of Violette dressed in nurse scrubs covered in coffee stains and a scowl on her face*
You’re ridiculous. You’re spending too much time with me and Scottie. We’re corrupting you.
Yes, but you love me anyway. You did say I was amazing, after all.
Vi
I have work to do, you crazy person lol. Go check on your sexy, tortured, hungover neighbor.
*GIF of soldier saluting*
Ok. Going in. Wish me luck.
Vi
You don’t need luck. You’ve got boobs. Works better than luck.
I click out of the text thread, shaking my head. Standing at the kitchen sink, I take another long drink of my coffee. Dalton and Penny are off to school, so it’s just Bea and I this morning. She was up way too early so she’s already zonked out for her morning nap in her crib.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, I pour out a second cup of coffee and then clip the baby monitor onto the back pocket of my cutoff jean shorts. My t-shirt is oversized and the V neckline dips low over my cleavage. I step out the front door and around to Xander’s, sucking in another deep breath, and then I raise my hand and knock lightly.
Thirty seconds later, I’m beginning to second guess my decision while waiting for him to open the door, when it opens.
My jaw drops and I fully realize that I am staring but unable to stop myself.
A towel is slung around his hips, his torso and upper body blessedly, wonderfully naked. Water runs down the broad expanse of his chest and down the valley between his abs. His hair is wet and strands stick to the side of his face and neck, but his scruffy beard has been trimmed.
“Hey,” he says, those eyes wreaking even more havoc on my system than the sight of his wet, naked body already has.
“ Hey ,” I respond lamely, my voice coming out high and squeaky. Ohmygod, am I drooling? I snap my mouth closed, and shove the cup of coffee forward, though I temper the movement so the hot liquid doesn’t slosh out over the rim. “I uhh… I wanted to check on you. And bring you coffee. Here. ”
“Thank you,” he murmurs, that deep rasp making my stomach do somersaults. He takes the cup of coffee from me and our fingers brush, sending jolts of electricity up through my fingers and straight to my heart. I lift my cup to my lips, just for something to do with my hands, which are trembling. “And uh, thanks for last night. I’m sorry. I don’t usually let myself drink like that.”
“Don’t apologize for that,” I whisper, swallowing hard. “It’s no big deal.”
“I do need to apologize for what I said before, though,” he says softly, his brows lowering over his eyes sadly.
“Please don’t,” is all I manage, clutching my cup of coffee between my fingers. “I understand. You don’t have to explain?—”
“Yes, I do,” he insists, his eyes tracking over every inch of my face, like he’s trying to memorize it. Like he missed me. “Teddy… Fuck.” He looks down at himself, a soft, self-deprecating laugh tumbling from him. “Let me get dressed, and then can we talk? Please?”
I must be a glutton for punishment, because I find myself nodding slowly, and then my traitorous mouth opens up and says, “Okay.”
“Great,” he says on a breath, like a weight has just been lifted off of him. His eyes brighten, and that stunningly white smile sends me even more off kilter. “Give me like, three minutes. Do you want to come in? Is Bea sleeping?”
“Umm, sure,” I murmur. “And yes, she’s sleeping. I have the baby monitor in my pocket, just in case.”
He steps aside, letting me step in over the threshold, and then he’s closing the door behind us. He walks ahead of me, and I can’t help but stare at the broad, tanned expanse of his back, the way the muscles shift and contract with each move he makes. Or the round firmness of his butt beneath the towel. His feet are bare and I laugh lightly when I realize he has left a trail of water through the hallway to the door .
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt your shower. I didn’t even know if you’d be awake yet.”
“I woke up hungover as fuck,” he chuckles, talking to me over his shoulder. He stops at the kitchen island and takes a drink of the coffee. He hums appreciatively. “Thank you for this. And for the water and Tylenol last night. It helped a lot.”
I lift my coffee to my lips and take a drink as he skirts around the counter.
“I’ll be right back,” he says quietly, and I nod. He disappears down the hallway and into the bedroom, the door closing. Cup clutched in my hands, I wander around the living room, though there isn’t much to look at. A few pictures of what appears to be his brothers, his mom, and his dad are on the wall, but that’s it. His house is clean and well kept, but it’s just… empty. And it hits me all over again that he’s rarely here.
The door at the end of the hallway opens and he steps out in a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt that clings to his shoulders and biceps like paid actors. His chest fills out the shirt in a way that makes my mouth go dry. He’s using the towel to scrub at his still wet hair with one hand, leaving it tousled and messy and dammit, now I just want to run my fingers through it, too.
He tosses the towel over the back of one of the dining table chairs as he walks over to where I’m standing. Picking up his coffee cup, he takes another drink. “Seriously, thank you for this.” When I nod, he gestures to the couch. “Will you sit with me?”
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 the couch 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 shins are 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. Knowing how 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 in my 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.
And then I’m lost, irretrievably, in his gaze. I never want to find my way back out again, either. Because this man…this man is ruining my heart in ways that I am wholly unprepared for.
Dragging his mouth across mine lightly, he breathes raggedly, “But I’m so tired of fighting this. I’m crazy about you, Teddy . You’re all I think about anymore. Every waking thought and every dream at night…it’s all you. It's only been you.”