A Firefighter in Her Stocking

He shrugged. “Why not Christmas? Thanksgiving is only a few weeks from now. We’ve already admitted that we’re dreading the holidays. Why not spend them together so maybe they won’t be so bad?”

Sarah mentally shook her head. Jude was asking her to date him through Christmas?

Had she passed out in her kitchen from smoke fumes and only dreamed he’d come to rescue her?

That made more sense.

Reality was that she was unconscious, suffering from smoke intoxication, and having one heck of a hallucination.

Either that, or Jude must have enjoyed their kiss.

She had enjoyed their kiss.

Had truly never been kissed that way, had never felt so much passion bubbling within her.

Yep, she must be hallucinating.

She bit the inside of her lip. Ouch. The pain was real. Which meant this was real. That Jude was searching her eyes, looking for an answer.

The truth was that she wanted to know him better, too.

If she said no, she’d only be denying herself. But there was that thing she didn’t really want to think about. Before she could consider agreeing to any of this, she had to address it or else it would be a constant thorn.

“What about the other women?”

“What other women?” He glanced around his living room. “I only see you.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I’m not that shallow, Sarah.”

When she didn’t relent, he sighed. “You want me to sign my name in blood that I won’t see other women?”

“You can do whatever you want. Whoever you want,” she clarified. “Just not on my time. If I agree to this, then I don’t want other women in your apartment.”

Surprisingly, he didn’t tell her she was crazy, that she had no right to make demands. Instead, he regarded her a moment, then asked, “You’ll do the same?”

His question was laughable.

“I don’t have men come and go out of my apartment.”

“You go to their apartments?” he pushed.

“No.”

His brow arched. “You do date?”

Not often. Dating wasn’t high on her list of things to do. Never had been. She’d watched too many women squander their lives away chasing after that elusive “the one”. Most of the time, she was smarter than that.

At the moment she didn’t feel smart. She’d thought Jude wanted to take her to bed and instead he was trying to talk her into agreeing to spend the next several weeks dating him.

A smart woman would have already agreed.

Or was it that a smart woman would have already left his apartment? Or never been there to begin with?

“That guy, the one who stood you up, you have been on a date since that night?”

She winced at the reminder of just how miserable dating gone wrong could make her feel. Instead, she’d cling to how good his kiss had made her feel, to the knowledge that he wanted to kiss her again.