Hot Stuff

Every fucking nerve in my body sends a signal straight to my dick, and it jumps to full attention like a well-trained soldier.

I groan, forcing myself to sit up on my knees and rip my shirt open so I can take it off.

Lauren’s eyes are half-lidded as she watches, and I think to myself for not even close to the first time tonight that she is, without a doubt, the sexiest woman I’ve ever had the pleasure to encounter.

I mean, this is the kind of woman you marry and grow old with. The kind of woman you bleed, sweat, and break yourself to make happy. The one you put down your phone to pay attention to, take away for the weekend just because, bring home flowers to for no reason at all.

She’s the woman you go to the ends of the earth to keep to yourself, but you make sure you do it without robbing her of the world.

I don’t know what I thought the connection between a man and a woman was supposed to be like, but I know with absolute certainty I never knew it could be like this.

It’s like food, water, air—it’s necessary to sustaining life—and I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t have it anymore.

I bend down and swirl my tongue around her belly button first, and then both of her nipples before sucking one into my mouth. She tastes like sugar all over her skin, and I can’t get enough of it.

Her nails scrape deliciously at the skin just below my hairline, and I groan at the contact. I want to be closer.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her against the skin of her throat, laving the skin with my tongue like punctuation. “I have to be inside you right now. I’ll take my time later, I swear.”

She shakes her head and grabs mine tight, pulling it up to push my lips against hers. Right there, flesh-to-flesh, she says, “I don’t want to wait either.”

So, I don’t. I climb off her long enough to shuck my pants and don a condom, and then I climb back on top of her welcoming body and slide inside.

She wraps her legs around my hips tightly and scratches at the skin of my back.

It feels so good, I swear I could come without even moving.

I don’t—thankfully—but it’s only because of a very large mental effort to stunt my body’s reaction.

“Lauren,” I breathe, moving slowly now, building the pressure between us.

She moans back, arching off the bed to get closer, and I increase my pace as sweat forms on my forehead. It’s not from exertion, really.

I think, actually, it might be from the effort to hold my heart in my chest instead of letting it pour out all over the bed around us.

I’m not sure how I got so attached to Lauren so quickly, but I did. And now, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go back to thinking I don’t need a woman in my life.

To thinking I don’t need her.

Because I need her in a way that feels like it won’t ever die.

I need her in a way that makes me think…I might just be in love.

February 16th

Lauren

The firehouse parking lot is absolutely packed when I walk up to the gates, carrying the buffalo chicken dip my dad asked me to bring. I had to go a block away to find a parking spot, and now it’s becoming obvious why.

I don’t know why I didn’t realize there would be so many people here, but it’s clear that I way underestimated the serving size of the dip.

“Geez,” I mutter to myself as I spot the line to get inside wrapped halfway around the building.

Did they advertise for this or something? Put out a billboard or buy out a website domain?

I mean, how did people even know this was happening today?

I walk to the front of the line cautiously, not wanting to anger the mob of waiting women, but when Ben Mills spots me from his place at the check-in table, he jumps to his feet and waves me over.

Obviously recognized by one of the guys, I feel like the ladies’ attitudes rachet up a couple notches.

Eek.

Quickly, I scoot over to Ben, the casserole dish of dip tucked as tightly as I can manage to my chest without getting a boob in it accidentally.

“Hey, Ben.”

“Hey, Ms. Lauren,” he says so respectfully my chest squeezes. God, he really is just a little man-faced baby. “You can go on in. Not sure where the Cap’s gone to right now, but if you need anything, just look for one of the guys. Any one of us will be happy to help you out.”

“Thanks,” I say with a smile, tempted to squish his cute little preppy cheeks until a secondary set of dimples forms. He’s gotta be hell on the young ladies.