All Fired Up (Hometown Heat 1)

And when I do sleep, I dream only of Jake—Jake telling me to get the hell out of his life, Jake happily married to someone else and so deep in love that he can’t remember my name when we pass on the sidewalk, Jake making love to me until I can’t breathe, can’t see, can’t think of anything but how much I need him.

Him and only him.

Strangely, the last one is the hardest to shake upon waking.

After the year I’ve had, I’ve learned how to cope with waking up with tears in my eyes, tightness in my chest, and a black hole of sadness at my core. I don’t know how to handle waking up with my skin flushed and hot and my body aching with wanting. Since losing the baby, sex has been the last thing on my mind.

But now, my dormant sex drive has awoken with a vengeance, and it’s slowly driving me out of my fucking mind.

I’ve tried ahem…taking care of things myself, but my lady parts are having none of it. They have no interest in my sleek little vibrator or the detachable shower head in the bathroom; they want Jake’s big hands and Jake’s bruising kisses and Jake’s cock, which they insist is the best cock in the entire world and that I’m an idiot for letting that cock out of my sight—or out from between my legs, for that matter.

On that point, I’m inclined to agree with them.

At eighteen, I’d had no frame of reference with regard to cocks—Jake’s was my first and only—but now, as a thirty-three-year-old woman who’s encountered my share of boy parts, I can unequivocally say that Jake has the best. Cock. Ever.

Perfect length, perfect shape, perfect plump head that flushes a lovely plum color when it’s happy to see you….

It is completely adorable, in the sexiest way possible.

And I’ll probably never see it again.

The thought is enough to make me groan and roll over, burying my head under my pillow.

Not only does Jake hate me so much that he fled my presence a mere fifteen minutes into our first date, I strongly suspect he’s been avoiding me ever since. Meanwhile, I’ve been spending every spare second I’m not peeling wallpaper or scraping tile staring out Icing’s window, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. But despite my efforts, I haven’t seen hide nor hair of Jake, save for a brief flash of his profile as the fire truck peeled out of the station’s driveway Sunday afternoon on the way to a call.

As soon as the sirens faded away, I made Aria call her husband, the chief of police, to find out what was going on.

I was suddenly terrified that Jake was going to die fighting a horrible fire before I had the chance to tell him that he’s right about everything—right about me being too stubborn for my own good, right about me needing to write the script and win him over, and right about me wanting more than peace between us.

I don’t want peace, or even friendship. I want lingering glances and passionate kisses. I want Jake’s hands all over me and my mouth all over him and his deliciously perfect cock hot in the palm of my hand.

I’ve got it bad.

So bad it would be funny if I wasn’t so miserable and Jake wasn’t miserable and the entire situation wasn’t…impossible.

Jake hates me. Forever.

No epilogue, no sequel, story not to be continued. The end. Even though I know I’d be good for him and make him happy the way I used to, only better because we’re both grown up and ready for a serious relationship.

But it doesn’t matter.

I am fighting a battle that’s already been lost, dreaming a dream that’s dead and buried and been peed on by an army of dream killing soldiers with full bladders.

Everything is hopeless!

I groan again, the miserable sound loud enough to vibrate the springs in my mattress.

“What’s going on in here?” My brother’s voice is muffled by the pillow over my head, but I can tell he’s in my room. “It sounds like a rhinoceros is dying in here.”

“How many times do I have to tell you to knock?” I growl from beneath my pillow. “What if I’d been happily masturbating in here?”

“Then I would happily be throwing up on your carpet right now,” Mick says cheerfully, plucking the pillow from my head, earning himself another growl. “But you’re not happily doing anything. You’re moping again.”

“I am not moping.” I scrunch up my nose and glare at my baby brother, who’s looking awfully chipper for a man who hasn’t had his morning coffee.

“You are too moping, and that’s no way to spend our one day off.” He tosses the pillow across the room and reaches for my comforter. “Come on. Get up. Get dressed. We’re going out.”