April Embers_A Second Chance Single Daddy Firefighter Romance Read online

  Des and I walked hand-in-hand down the sidewalk, and nothing had ever felt more right in all my life…

  Well, almost.

  There was still a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I couldn’t ignore. It had nothing to do with Des… but it had everything to do with me, and what I was about to do.

  After walking several blocks, we had gotten away from the hustle and bustle of downtown. The restaurants and bars were behind us, and we had reached a dead zone; a cluster of offices and government buildings that had closed their doors at 5 p.m., and would remain shuttered until Monday morning.

  I knew that Des had to be curious about where I was taking her, but she didn’t ask any questions. She just held my hand and walked by my side, holding me steady as waves of emotions tried to drag me deeper and deeper away...

  I hadn’t seen this place in over eleven years, but the building was burned into my memory like a cattle brand. I recognized it immediately. The walls were sterile concrete, and the windows were long and narrow rectangular slits. It looked like a prison… but in reality, it was something so much worse than that.

  We were still half a block away when I stopped us on the sidewalk and turned to face Des.

  “I was thinking about what you said the other night,” I said. “About how I always kept things hidden from you.”

  “Rory, I--”

  “You were right. You always shared everything with me -- like that night at Marcy’s Diner. But I couldn’t do the same. I always tried to keep my pain hidden from you.”

  I glanced up at the building.

  “That’s the courthouse,” I explained. “That’s the last place I ever saw my mother.”

  Des was silent, but she squeezed my hand supportively and swayed closer towards me so her body pressed into mine.

  “There was an emergency hearing the morning after her arrest, to decide what was going to happen to me,” I said, closing my eyes as I remembered the scene from that day. “For whatever fucked up reason, the social worker assigned to my case thought it’d be a good idea for me to be in the courtroom when my mother sat in front of the judge.”

  I clenched my jaw, fighting through the chaos of nerves and pain that was exploding inside of me. I had buried this memory a long time ago, and digging it back up was like drilling a hole into a volcano and letting the molten lava spill out…

  “I was sitting in the back of the courtroom when they brought her out. She didn’t even see me,” I continued. “She was wearing an orange jumpsuit, and she had handcuffs around her ankles and wrists. She looked so pale and sick. Her skin was grey and purple from all the bruises…”

  My voice was growing strained from the unearthed emotions, and Des tightened her grip on my hand.

  “We don’t have to do this,” she whispered.

  “You deserve to know the truth about me,” I told her. Silently, I added, You deserve to know what you’re getting yourself into…

  “She was facing charges… definite prison time,” I said, drifting back to that morning in the courtroom. “The judge asked her what she wanted to do about her son. My mother had her back to me, but I saw her shoulder rise. At first I thought she was crying… but then I realized that she had laughed.”

  A scowl dug its way into my forehead and I felt my muscles stiffen with anger.

  “The judge asked her why she was laughing. I’ll never forget what she told him. She said, ‘Why the hell should I care? Why don’t you just send him to live with his father? That’s what I should have done years ago.’”

  “Oh my God, Rory…” Des sounded horrified. She threw her arms around me and, even though she was only half my size, she somehow managed to pull me into her chest and hold me tight.

  “That morning, she signed over any legal right she had to me,” my voice went flat; numb. “She wasn’t my mother anymore. Not in the eyes of the law… and not in her own eyes, either.”

  Des didn’t let go of me. For several minutes we stood there just like that, just a tiny woman holding onto a giant hulk of a broken man, on the street outside of the Hartford Courthouse.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO | DESIREE

  According to the digital clock display on the dash in Rory’s car, it was nearly midnight.

  Rory and I had spent the entire night wandering around Hartford, revisiting old places and memories. Some were good, others bad… but with every stop on the impromptu tour of our hometown, I found myself feeling closer and closer to Rory. Not just the Rory McAlister from my memories… but the Rory McAlister I was getting to know now, too.

  Now, we were driving down an empty stretch of road on our way to the next stop on our tour.

  “This is it,” Rory announced.

  I didn’t even notice the side street until Rory turned the steering wheel to the left and made a sharp turn into nothingness.

  At first I thought we were driving straight into total darkness; there was no street lamp or sign to mark the turn, and I didn’t see the road until the high beams flooded the road ahead of us with light.

  An old, weathered sign was posted beside the road, reading ‘ROAD CLOSED, NO TRESPASSING’

  “Are we supposed to be here?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer to that.

  “I have to show you something,” Rory said, gripping tightly on the steering wheel and keeping his gaze pointed through the windshield. “I have to show you the ugliest part of me.”

  The road looked like it hadn’t seen life in years. An untamed forest of trees grew freely on either side of us, and the pavement was cracked and eroded away over the years. Weeds had sprouted through the faults in the asphalt; nature slowly re-staking its claim.

  As we neared the edge of the road, we reached a clearing where the trees had been plowed away and the earth had been leveled flat. I could see the wooden skeleton of a house erected on the flat land. It had been left unfinished, and over time it had started to rot and wither away.

  “This whole area used to be woods,” Rory explained as he brought the car to a stop. “I used to come out here sometimes, just to hide out in the trees and get away. It was one of the few places in Hartford where I felt safe.”

  “But... it’s so far away from your house?”

  “I know,” Rory nodded. “That’s what I liked about it. Nobody would find me out here. It was like a sanctuary; my own private kingdom.”

  Rory squeezed harder on the steering wheel, and he couldn’t look me in the eye. Instead, he stared straight out at the wooden skeleton.

  Then, without saying another word, he popped open the latch on the driver side door and stepped out onto the street. Then he walked around to my side of the car and opened the door to help me out.

  Crickets and cicadas purred in the distance, and the warm air was soft and still. Rory led the way towards the house, trudging through the overgrown weeds that had grown up from the dirt.

  “One night, about a year before I left Hartford, my stepfather and I got into a huge fight,” he said. “He pulled a knife on me and I got on my bike and pedaled away as fast I could. I came here. I just wanted somewhere to hide and feel safe… but when I got here, the forest was gone.”

  “Some developer had started hacking down all of the trees and leveling out the land to build a subdivision. They had already poured the asphalt for this road and started construction on the first house.”

  He paused in front of a set of wooden steps leading up to a giant gap in the front of the house, presumably where a grand entryway would have been built. We both blinked up at the rotten, weathered framework of the house that never came to be.

  “It was like one big fat reminder that nothing in this world was meant for me,” he said, darkness filling his eyes. “I had lost my hiding place. My private kingdom in the woods was going to become a subdivision of million dollar houses.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and glanced down at the ground.

  “I walked around the house, imagining where
the kitchen and living room would someday go. All I could think about was the happy family that would live here someday,” he said. “I was never going to be a part of a family like that. I was never going to have a place where I belonged…”

  He stared back up at the house and forced his eyes open.

  “I wasn’t thinking straight,” he said. “I was so hurt, angry, confused… lost. I had a lighter and a flask of booze in my backpack. I didn’t even think about what I was doing until I saw the flames ignite.”

  My heart was thumping in my chest and my eyes were stuck wide open as I listened, trying to make sense of what he was saying.

  “As soon as I saw the fire eat through the wood, I realized what I had done,” he said. “I tried to stomping out the fire, but it was spreading so fast. I was panicking, and I threw myself on top of the flames to smother them.”

  He slowly pulled up the hem of his t-shirt. It was dark, and at first I jaw the ridges of his sculpted six-pack abs. But when I squinted, I noticed something else, silvery splotches of scar tissue.

  “My weight was enough to put out the fire before it spread any further,” he said. “But the burns were pretty bad.”

  “Oh my God…” I murmured under my breath. “Rory… did you go to the hospital?”

  “How could I? They would have asked me how I got burned,” Rory said. “Besides, we didn’t have health insurance. I had no way of paying for it.”

  “B-but you were badly burned,” I stammered. “You must have been in horrible pain! Not to mention the risk of infection!”

  “I deserved it,” he said. “I did something horrible.”

  “But you made it right! You could have just walked away and let it burn… but you didn’t. You stayed. You stopped the fire--”

  “I started the fire,” he cut me off. “I’ve never forgiven myself for that. How could anyone forgive something like that?”

  I stared up at Rory. His dark eyes gleamed in the moonlight, waiting for me to react; to be horrified or shocked or appalled. But I was none of those things.

  “Do you still think you can handle this?” he asked me finally. “Do you still want anything to do with me?”

  “Is that what tonight was about?” I exhaled softly, blinking up at him. “Trying to scare me off?”

  “I’m not trying to scare you off. I’m trying to show you who I really am, Des--”

  “Well I already told you, I can handle it,” I said firmly. “I want all of you, Rory. Even the parts you’re not proud of. There’s nothing you can show me or tell me that’s going to make me run away. Not bad memories or burning houses or--”

  “I love you,” he blurted out suddenly.

  “Y-you what?”

  “I love you, Des,” he said. “I’ve loved you since we were little kids. Ever since that day my mother dropped me off on your doorstep.”

  “Rory…” my lips fell apart and all of my breath slipped out. I felt dizzy and my arms were weightless and numb as I wrapped them around his neck, pulling him closer to me. “I’ve always loved you, too.”

  His lips found mine, and we kissed.

  Then we turned away from the giant wooden skeleton of a house that never was, and Rory held my hand as he walked me back towards the car.

  After spending the night revisiting our past, it was time to make some new memories...

  ***

  “Can I get you a glass of wine?” Rory offered when we got back to his apartment.

  “That’d be nice, thanks,” I nodded. I slipped off my denim jacket, then I followed him towards the kitchen.

  The apartment felt strangely quiet without Charlotte. I was drifting around the empty kitchen when something on the countertop caught my eye, a colorful magic marker drawing.

  “Oh… I was supposed to give that to you earlier,” Rory smiled when he saw me staring at the picture. “That’s from Charlotte, to you.”

  “She drew me a picture?” I gasped.

  “I think technically it’s supposed to be a thank you card,” Rory smiled, uncorking a bottle of wine and emptying it into two glasses.

  I lifted up the sheet of thick, pink construction paper. Along the top, in impressively neat block letters, Charlotte had written, “THANK YOU FOR BEING MY FRIEND!” Underneath that, there were three stick figures drawn in magic marker. Rory was drawn in all black, and he had a giant smile across his round face. My stick figure was also smiling, and had a crazy mane of kinky black curls. Between the two of us, Charlie had drawn herself. We were all holding hands, and Charlie and I were wearing matching pink dresses.

  “This is amazing!” I said. “I’ll have to write her a thank you card back!”

  “You made quite the impression on her,” Rory grinned, slipping up behind me with the pair of wine glasses. “She hasn’t stopped talking about you. I think she might be obsessed…”

  “Oh, really?” I smiled, taking one of the wine glasses and cradling it under my chin.

  “Mhmm,” Rory murmured. Then, in a low whisper, he added, “And so am I.”

  I felt his rock-hard body press into me from behind, and I instantly melted backwards into him as he gently brushed aside my black curls and planted his lips on my bare neck.

  “I’ve been a little obsessed lately, myself,” I confessed, rolling my head to the side as his mouth kissed a trail towards my jaw.

  “Have you?”

  I nodded, and I felt his hands wrap around my hips from behind, squeezing into me through my thin cotton sundress.

  “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that night at the pool,” I whispered, feeling my cheeks color as I spoke.

  “What do you remember about that night?”

  “Everything,” I murmured. “What you did to me…”

  “Could you be more specific?”

  My cheeks turned an even darker shade of pink and I bit down on my bottom lip. I felt torn between being bashful and brave, but the pounding heat that was flooding my panties seemed to indicate that brave was going to win the fight.

  “The way you touched me,” I said.

  “Touched you where?”

  “Here,” I planted my hands over his and slid them down towards my throbbing sex.

  He ran his palm across my stomach, then he pointed his hand down and cupped my pussy through my skirt. I could feel my panties fogging with the damp heat that was rolling out of me, and I knew that he could feel it, too. His breathing was getting heavier and heavier…

  “What else?” he grunted into my ear.

  “I can’t stop thinking about the way your cock looked through your briefs,” I confessed, pressing my hand behind me and running my fingers along the stiff outline of his shaft protruding through his torn up denim jeans.

  “Were you checking out my cock?” he exhaled, leaving a hot cloud of breath on my neck.

  “Maybe,” I confessed. My cheeks darkened even more, but I was too full of fire to waste time being shy. “I wish I could have gotten a better look, or maybe even a taste…”

  “Mmm,” Rory exhaled again. His breathing was getting husky and strained, and he gripped my pussy again through my dress as he rolled his hips into my ass from behind.

  “We’ll get to that in a minute,” Rory grunted. “We aren’t done talking about you yet…”

  “Why don’t you tell me what you remember from that night?” I suggested, tracing my tongue over my lips.

  “I could do that,” Rory whispered. “But I’d rather show you…”

  He slipped down so that he was crouching behind me on his knees, then he ran his palms up the backs of my thighs and pressed up the hem of my dress to reveal my bare ass, barely covered with a pink thong.

  His hands continued climbing up my back, pressing down and easing me forward until I bent down and rested my elbows on the countertop and my ass in the air. Then he slid back down, crouching between my legs.

  He gripped my knees and guided them apart, then he filled the space between my
thighs with his tongue.

  “This is what I haven’t been able to get out of my head,” he grunted as he lapped up the slick juices that had spread from my lips. “The way you taste....”

  My mound quivered through my panties, and I blushed as he ran his tongue along the curve of my ass, tasting every soaking wet inch of me.

  I was panting for breath, and the teasing was almost more than I could take. I needed him… now.

  Rory seemed to read my mind, because the next thing I knew he had swept me off of my feet and thrown me over his shoulder like I was a rag doll. I squealed, wrapping my arms around his neck as he carried me towards the bedroom.

  He dropped me down onto the mattress gently, then he kneeled down on the bed and started to roll up the hem of my dress. I lifted my hips and raised my arms so he could pull it over my head, then I sunk back on the bed. He sat back to look at me and his hand gripped his erection, squeezing through his jeans.

  “Show me,” I said. “I want to see all of you.”

  Rory raised an eyebrow, but he grinned and slowly reached for the fly of his jeans. He had them down and around his ankles in two seconds flat, and when he rolled down the waistband of his briefs I was paralyzed by the sight of him.

  He was hung like a baseball bat. I’m not kidding; you could hit a home run with the amount of wood he had between his legs.

  “You sure you can handle it?” he asked, giving his cock a tug.

  “How many times are you going to make me answer that question?” I asked breathlessly. “I’m not changing my answer.”

  He grunted in satisfaction, then he got a condom from the nightstand. I watched as he rolled it on, enveloping his giant cock in tight black latex.

  “Black condoms?” I couldn’t help but tease.

  “They match my wardrobe,” Rory winked. Then he crawled forward, positioning his body over mine and peeling off my panties.

  He tugged at my underwear, pulling them down and then flinging them to the side. He moved his hand between my thighs and slipped his fingers into my slit. My skin was already slick and hot, ready for him, but he still tested my opening with his fingers; first one, then two. I moaned softly as I felt his digits dig all the way into my depths, until they prodded the spongy end of my tunnel.