Quadruplets for Four Firemen (Forbidden Hearts #14)

Prologue

ANGELIE

I reach for a stick and push it forward into the fire, watching as sparks explode in every direction. Around me, the faces of four men are lit up in the half darkness, the ring of red-orange light cast by the embers of the bonfire illuminating the details of each and every one of them.

Dylan and Callum Cunningham are to my left. The Cunningham twins each have a matching set of piercing blue eyes and blond hair, though Dylan wears his overgrown while Callum keeps his cropped short.

To my right sits Joe Moura, the better part of a decade and a half older than me, not that you’d be able to tell at a glance with his strong jaw, close-shaven stubble, and short dark hair.

Beside him is Carlisle Devin, a tall, handsome, all-American boy who has every girl in town crushing on him whether he intends to or not, that tan skin and those gold-flecked eyes never failing to draw attention.

And here I am, sitting in the midst of all of them. The only girl left after the summer bonfire has nearly burned to the ground. But I have no intention of going home, not yet.

Not until I get what I came here for.

I lift the bottle of beer to my lips, letting my mouth tease over the top, noticing the way Dylan eyes me from across the firepit. I let a smile curl up my lips so he can tell that I’ve noticed him, and he shifts slightly where he sits.

“So, last night in town, huh?” he remarks to me, his usual lazy tone crackling with as much heat as the fire before us.

“For now,” I reply, digging my beer into the small hole I made in the ground before me. “Teaching training doesn’t last all that long, at least, not where I’m going.”

“Not for a nerd like you, anyway,” Dylan teases. “You took extra classes, right? To get ahead of college?”

“Not a nerd if it actually counts for something,” Callum chimes in, cocking an eyebrow at his twin. “Not everyone wants to spend their school days sitting on their ass and wasting time—”

“Hey, I didn’t waste my time,” Dylan shoots back, a grin spreading across his face. “I made the most of it.”

“At least if you ask any of the women in this town,” Carlisle adds.

Dylan chuckles, shrugging. “Well, it’s one kind of productivity, right?”

“Not the kind that gets you into college,” Joe replies.

“It can if you play your cards right.”

A laugh passes around the fire, and I lean back on the soft grass, inhaling the scent of the burning wood, half-aware of voices in the distance as the other attendees of the party retreat for the night.

It’s late—late enough that the summer sky has darkened overhead, studded with twinkling stars, a perfectly clear night that looks like it could have been plucked straight out of a fantasy.

Or at least, one of my fantasies.

“Well, good luck,” Joe remarks, lifting his beer in my direction. “Not easy leaving town. Especially at your age.”

“Joe, I’m twenty,” I retort, rolling my eyes at him. “I’m a grown-ass woman.”

“Oh, we noticed,” Dylan flirts back, brazen as ever.

Carlisle nudges him with his foot. “Back off, Dylan,” he warns, and our eyes lock for a moment across the fire.

How exactly do I tell Carlisle that I don’t want these guys to back off, at least, not tonight?

That I’m determined to divest myself of my virginity before I leave this place, once and for all?

I don’t know if he would think I’m crazy, or stupid, or…

Or something else entirely.

“I can handle myself,” I assure Carlisle quickly, not wanting him to get in the way of what I want to happen tonight. I haven’t decided exactly which of these guys I want to do the damn thing with, but in the town of Devin Ridge, these are the hottest men around, there’s no doubt about that.

I’ve been crushing on all of them from afar since I was in high school, but back then none of them looked at me twice as anything other than a pseudo little sister.

I kept my distance until I graduated, and then I took a job at the local café to save up a little cash for my upcoming college adventure.

They’ve come into the café together plenty of times, and I made it my mission to flirt with them at every opportunity I got.

Even though Dylan is the only one who would ever be brazen enough to flirt back, I have noticed all of them checking me out at one point or another.

Which is why, with a little help from my friends and sister, I’ve brought them all here to the bonfire tonight.

My last night in Devin Ridge, at least for the foreseeable future, happens to coincide with the annual party thrown to celebrate the end of summer, when those long, hot days turn into something cooler and more contained, the trees of the forest that surround the town turning to fiery reds and ambers and golds.

Just before summer gives out, we get one more night—one night to celebrate, one night to get anything out of your system.

It’s renowned for being a night when long-held crushes boil over into something more, and that’s exactly what I’m hoping for tonight.

I might not have said anything outright, but they know the reputation of this night as well as I do, and I can feel it now in the air between us, the promise of something more, the knowledge that this night is only just beginning.

“So, what are you going to get up to at college, huh? Breaking hearts?” Dylan asks, turning the conversation back to me.

I laugh. “I don’t think I would know how, even if I tried.”

“Come on, look at you,” Carlisle cuts in, gesturing over to me like it should be obvious. “You must know how it feels to leave someone…wanting.”

His words drip with something heavy, and all the other guys seem to notice it just as clearly as I do.

Callum turns to him, eyebrow cocked. “Something you want to say, Carlisle?”

“I just said it,” Carlisle retorts, his mouth suddenly tightening into a hard line.

I can feel it now, that heat rising in my belly, something inside of me insisting that there’s more to this night than just them keeping me company.

“Well, for what it’s worth, I agree with him,” Dylan replies. “You’re going to have guys following you around like puppies at college, trust me.”

“Oh, because that happens here so often, right?” I joke.

“You’re saying you haven’t had luck with guys here in Devin Ridge?” Joe cuts in, frowning, looking genuinely surprised.

I shake my head. “Never dated anyone here,” I reply. “Never even had my first kiss, actually.”

Dylan draws in a sharp breath at the sound of those words coming out of my mouth, and the others look just as surprised.

“Haven’t even had your first kiss yet?” Dylan mutters. “Damn, that doesn’t sit right with me…”

“Why not?” I retort.

“You shouldn’t be going off to college with no experience,” he replies. “You don’t want to be walking into that wolf’s den without knowing what you like, at least.”

“Well, I don’t see anyone volunteering,” I remark, heart thudding in my chest as I look around once more. Silence hangs in the air between us, the quiet broken only by the sound of the fire.

Dylan digs his beer into the ground before him and rises to his feet. “Well, I’ll take one for the team,” he says as he strides around the fire toward me. My lips part, the heat in my lower belly reaching a sudden, shocking boiling point.

“Dylan,” Callum warns him. “Just because she hasn’t had her first kiss doesn’t mean she wants it with you—”

“I say we let the lady decide,” he replies, sinking down beside me. His eyes, so blue they look like I could jump right into them, don’t move from mine as he cocks an eyebrow. “What about it, Angelie?”

I bite my lip as I stare back at him, trying to calculate whether or not I want to go through with this.

If I kiss him, I’ll be admitting that this is what I came here for—I won’t be able to pretend for another second that I’m innocent in all of this.

I could get to my feet now, laugh off Dylan’s offer, and tell them that I have to get to bed so I can be up early to get to college tomorrow. And none of it would be a lie. And yet…

His gaze sinks down to my lips, and I can feel the others watching us.

Being the focus of their attention like this is intoxicating, more so than the couple of beers I’ve put away over the course of the night.

I tilt my head up toward Dylan, and he reaches to cup my face in his hand, smoothing his thumb across my cheek.

“Tell me what you want,” he murmurs to me, his voice sending a hot shiver down my spine.

“I want you to—”

Before I can even finish what I’m saying, he closes the distance between us and plants his lips over mine.

As soon as our mouths come together, it’s like everything I’ve been waiting for suddenly takes shape.

His kiss is soft, tender, careful, like he’s making sure I get to enjoy every second of this first kiss between us.

All I can think about, as his tongue gently coaxes my lips apart and slips further in, is the aching need for closeness, for more, for him…

When I pull back, I find that all three of the other guys are watching. And it might be the heat from the fire, or it might be my imagination, but I’m sure I can sense something close to desire coming off all of them in waves. A desire that I want to know more about.

“That can’t be her first kiss.” Joe breaks the silence at last, moving closer to me, shouldering Dylan out of the way. “Come here…”

He kisses me next, and this kiss is firmer, more commanding—less seductive than Dylan’s was, and more dominant, like he wants to show me just how much he wants me.

His hand moves to my waist, drawing me in close, and my heart flutters as his thumb pushes up the hem of my shirt, grazing against my bare skin for just an instant.

His tongue sinks into my mouth with ease, meeting mine, and I can taste the beer and woodsmoke on his lips, dizzying, before he pulls back.

“Something a little more like that, huh?” he murmurs, brushing his nose against mine.