I loved to read. That made me sound like an intellectual, but I wasn’t exactly. Because I liked to read only one thing: smut. Dirty, dirty smut. I’d discovered ebook smut five years ago, and I’d never looked back. It was everything I needed, everything I’d ever wanted, and people’s opinions could be damned, because I liked it and I wasn’t going to read anything else.
The book I was currently reading was about a woman who goes to a job interview and ends up getting bent over the desk by her hot, dirty new boss. It was perfect except I kept picturing the offices at Morgan Financial Holdings and Graham Morgan himself, who was hot and possibly dirty but also very, very terrifying. I couldn’t imagine a mortal woman going near him and surviving. He wasn’t going to bend me, or any other woman, over a desk that I could tell.
Still, I finished the book, because of course the hot dirty boss had a lonely, softer side and only his new employee could bring it out. They had sex in an elevator—another weird echo of my real life right now—and in front of the window of his penthouse, with the lights on so people could look in. Not something I would ever do, but it was fun to read about. They broke up for a while because they lived in different worlds, and then they decided they belonged together and had more sex. The end.
Perfect.
I finished the last chapter and checked my phone. Fifty minutes had sped by while those two had banged their heads off, thank God. I went back to my Kindle, flipping through all of the hot covers of the books I’d downloaded, my eyes glazing in pleasure like I was picking candy. The one with the gorgeous man on the front with hot abs? Or the one with the gorgeous man in the expensive suit? How about the one with the gorgeous man about to kiss a beautiful woman, his hand wound in her hair? I went ebook shopping every payday, spending my allotted budget on books for the week so I could have moments exactly like this one. Picking the next book to read was almost as fun as the actual reading. Almost.
I paged through more covers, looking for something that jumped out at me, and—oh. A hot fireman, his bare chest wet and his abs on display. A gritty fireman’s helmet and a hose over his shoulder. Just a small smear of ash on his gorgeous cheekbone. The title was More Than One Fireman, and I was freaking sold. I’d like more than one fireman, please, I thought as I settled back and tapped the screen to open the book.
People assume single girls are lonely. People especially assume that single girls with curves are lonely, like we spend our time pining away. But I didn’t do any pining. I could get dates if I wanted them, but sometimes a girl likes to stay home on Saturday night, wearing her pajamas and running her lines for an audition.
Okay, sure, I didn’t get laid a lot. And sure, I’d like it if the fireman on the cover of the book was real. Like I’d be somewhere that was on fire—Morgan Financial Holdings, for example, because I really liked my apartment and didn’t want it to burn down—and just as things got hot he’d burst through the door, shirtless, that hose over his shoulder. Then he’d stare at me, speechless at how gorgeous and sexy I was, and once he’d rescued me—shirtless, let me emphasize that—he’d be so nice to me, and then he’d pull me out of the way to the back of the fire truck and he’d—
My point is that I had a full fantasy life. I also had hundreds of hot books contained on a device that fit in the pocket of my purse. People thought I was lonely, but the fact was, I hardly ever felt lonely at all.
Back in Wisconsin, I’d been lonely. But I didn’t like to think about those days. I didn’t like to think about Wisconsin at all.
Besides, except for the odd visit to my parents, I never had to go back there. Because I was in New York, I had a job, and at the moment I had more than one fireman.
I started reading, and things were getting good. The heroine was hired as a housesitter, and while making toast one day she started a fire with a spark from the broken toaster. Luckily, an off-duty fireman lived next door—he came rushing into the house when he saw the smoke. He saved the housesitter from burning the house down, but now she had nowhere to sleep, and he was thinking about bringing her back to the firehouse with his coworkers, just for a few days…
There was a loud bang overhead, and a thump. Then a voice. “Miss Maple? Are you in there? Are you okay?”
I sighed and flipped my Kindle closed. “Yes, I’m here.”
“I’m an EMT. There are a few of us here. The elevator’s stuck, so we’re going to come down through the ceiling and get you, all right?”
“Okay.” I’d been enjoying my reading time, but now my stomach was rumbling again and I had to pee. They couldn’t get me out of here soon enough. I wondered if the EMT’s were hot and single, but that was too much to hope for. That kind of thing only happened in fiction.
There was more banging, and then a panel on the ceiling of the elevator opened. A ladder was lowered down. I sat up, adjusting my blouse, assuming I’d have to climb up on my own. But before I could get up off the floor, a man started climbing down the ladder toward me.
Correction. A man’s ass started climbing down the ladder toward me. And oh my God, it was spectacular.
He—the man, as well as his ass—was in a navy blue EMT’s uniform, complete with sexy uniform pants. His back was to me as he descended the ladder, but I could see dark, close-cropped hair, nice biceps in the short-sleeved uniform shirt, and great shoulders. And his ass… I kept staring at it. His quick, graceful descent of the ladder made it move in the most fascinating way. It was muscled, and round, shown off to perfection, and right there. Even though I was trapped in this dingy elevator, it was like a Magic Mike show had descended in front of me for those few precious seconds. I savored the sight like only a girl who gets laid twice a year, if she’s lucky, can do.
The EMT got to the bottom of the ladder, and I realized I’d been so frozen in surprised lust that I was still sitting on the floor. Maybe he was concerned because he thought I was passed out down here. He hadn’t turned around yet, so I briefly toyed with the crazy idea of closing my eyes and faking so he’d give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Then he turned around, and his eyes met mine, and I stared at him in shock.
Not happy shock. Just shock. And then, on the heels of that, humiliation and a wave of pure, red anger.
“Holden Whittaker,” I said, my voice choked. “Get the hell away from me.”
Three
Mina
He stared at me. I hadn’t seen him in years, not since Wisconsin, but no one who had ever seen Holden Whittaker could mistake him. Dark hair, high cheekbones, slashes of dark brows, and those eyes—blue eyes. Vivid. Cerulean, even, if you like poetic words. The dark blue uniform made them even bluer, unfairly gorgeous on a man. I knew that the rims of the irises were dark, because once upon a time I’d seen those eyes up close. He was older than when I’d last seen him, more muscled, and he’d grown a trim dark beard on his jawline, but it was him. The man of my nightmares for the past ten years.
He looked incredible. And in that split second I realized I was sitting on the floor, my pencil skirt askew, my hair mussed, toner ink smeared on my blouse. My belly was pooched out in this position and I had a Snickers wrapper on the floor next to me, like evidence of my shame. There goes the fat girl, eating candy again. Pathetic.