The Men On Fire: A Complete Romance Series (3-Book Box Set) Read online

  “You have a condom, right?” I ask. “I know we went without on our hike, but I’m not making another exception.”

  He puts me down and reaches into the drawer next to the bed and pulls out a strip of condoms. As he tears one off, I eye him suspiciously and ask, “Just how much sex were you expecting on your solo honeymoon?”

  He laughs as he lies down beside me. “I’m a firefighter. I’m always prepared. But just so you know, I got these yesterday. And I’m not planning on using these with anyone but you.”

  I peek inside the drawer as I try to hide my smile. “Just how many are in there?”

  “Enough.”

  “How many?”

  “Two dozen,” he says.

  I raise my brows. “Optimistic, are we?”

  He eagerly removes his shorts as he stares at me. “Yes, I am.”

  The way he says it makes me think he’s not just talking about sex. But I push that thought out of my head, because my body is screaming for release. “Mind if I put it on you?” I ask, reaching over to run my hand up and down his steely length.

  He gives me the condom and then laces his fingers behind his head to watch the show. “Go right ahead, but after what you did on the couch, I promise you I won’t last long.”

  “That’s okay,” I say, nodding to the drawer. “We have a lot of spares.”

  He chuckles. “That we do.”

  I open the package and roll the condom on a man for the first time in my life. It’s oddly erotic. And by the look on his face, I can tell he feels the same way.

  “Damn, woman. You about made me come.”

  I hover over him, teasing him at my entrance, ready to sink myself onto him.

  “You drive me insane, Ivy Greene. Do you know that?”

  I cock my head to the side. “Why do you like to call me by my full name?”

  “In case you were unaware, you do the same thing to me,” he says.

  “So, that’s why?”

  He shakes his head. “Actually, no, that’s not why.”

  “Then why?” I say, lowering myself onto him as we both moan at the sensation.

  When he’s fully seated inside me, I bend over and put my mouth over his, not willing to kiss him until I get his answer.

  “Because it makes you smile,” he says, right before raising his lips up to capture mine.

  Chapter Nine

  Sebastian

  We never made it back to Ivy’s place for dinner last night. We ordered pizza up to my room and ate it in bed. Naked.

  I asked her to sleep over, but she refused. I know she’s trying not to get too close to me. She’s holding back. She’s holding back everywhere except sex. That’s the one place she’s incredibly passionate. It’s like she’s taking all the emotion she’s hiding from me and letting it come bursting out when we make love.

  I look at the time, willing it to go faster. It’s only been eight hours since I’ve seen her, yet I can’t wait to meet her after breakfast for a walk on the beach.

  My phone rings and I pick it up to see Aspen calling.

  “Hey, Penny.”

  “It’s not too early there, is it?”

  “No. I’m still lying in bed. I can’t get myself to sleep past five or six with the time difference.”

  “By chance is anyone lying next to you?” she asks.

  “Nope. I’m here all by myself.”

  “That’s a shame,” she says, disappointment seeping through the line.

  “You were hoping to catch me in bed with her?” I ask, laughing.

  “So you’ve been in bed with her?”

  “Is this something we should be talking about?” I ask.

  “Of course it is!” she shrieks into the phone. “You’re my best friend, Bass. This is what best friends talk about. We can do that, right? Without it being weird? It’s not weird anymore … is it?”

  “If you’re asking me if I’m still hung up on you, the answer is no.”

  “Then, yes, you should definitely spill. I have a half-hour before I need to be in class.”

  Unlike me, Penny went on to graduate from Juilliard and is now getting her master’s in music. She’s super talented and can play the piano better than anyone I’ve ever known.

  “What do you want to know?” I ask.

  “Everything. All I know is that she’s from New York. You’ve given nothing away in your texts the last few days.”

  “She works in a flower shop in Brooklyn. Can you believe that? It’s only a few miles from the firehouse. In fact, we put out a fire in a neighboring business just a few months ago. Her parents own the shop and two others like it. She has two older siblings. She’s agreed to hang out with me here and do everything Brooke and I were supposed to do. So we’re pretty much spending most of our days together. But she doesn’t want to see me after we leave Hawaii. There, now you know everything I know about her.”

  “Wait, why doesn’t she want to see you after you leave Hawaii?”

  I sigh into the phone. “That’s the million-dollar question. I have no idea. She’s hurting, that’s for sure. I think she came here to get away from something. A failed marriage. Death of a boyfriend, maybe. Something big for sure, but whatever it is, she won’t talk about it.”

  “You’ve spent the last four days together and you don’t know anything more about her than what you just told me?”

  “Yup.”

  “What do you talk about?”

  “Me, I guess. And stuff. Hawaii. New York. Seals.”

  “Seals?”

  I laugh. “Long story.”

  “But you’re sleeping together?”

  I can feel myself getting hard just thinking about it. “Yeah.”

  “So, what, you’re just not going to see her or call her when you get back home even though you live in the same city?”

  “I guess. We don’t really talk about it. Every time I try to, she changes the subject. Every time I attempt to get closer to her, she brushes me off. But she’s so passionate, Penny. And I know she’s going through some deep shit. I just wish I could help her.”

  “Maybe you are helping her.”

  “How could I be helping her?”

  “You said you’re spending a lot of time together. Maybe when she’s with you, she’s not thinking about whatever happened to her. Maybe you’re her escape or something.”

  I think about what she’s saying. And I remember Ivy telling me she barely even left her hotel room before she met me. Maybe Aspen is right.

  “I’m no stranger to being in a relationship with someone who thinks they are damaged, Bass.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re not. The difference is, you had months to work on Sawyer. I only have ten more days.”

  “Sometimes it only takes one day, one moment even, for everything to change. Do you really like this girl?”

  “I do.”

  “Then give it some time. Maybe she feels the same way about you but can’t admit it to herself yet.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I hope you can change her mind,” she says. “I’d love to meet her.”

  “Are you coming to the city soon?” I ask.

  “In about a month. Sawyer will be there for four days during a series with the Nighthawks. I’ll be on a break from school, so I’m staying longer, a week or two probably, so I can meet with a wedding planner and get a few other things going.”

  “Are you finally going to put the townhouse on the market?” I ask.

  “I’m not sure. Sawyer really likes having a place to stay when we come back. Remember how long we stayed there over the holidays?”

  How can I forget? It was their first Christmas together. The first Christmas in years that Aspen and I weren’t roommates. They were always kissing, touching, or laughing. And they kept inviting me to do stuff with them. It was torture seeing them together like that when I still had so many feelings for her. But I’m glad it happened. It was something I had to go through in order to get over her.

 
And I am. I’m over her. Because all I can see when I think of myself with a woman, is the one with the sad eyes.

  “I’m really happy for you, Penny.”

  “I know you are. And that means a lot to me.”

  I look at the clock and see it’s almost time for me to go. “I have to meet Ivy in twenty minutes. I’d better hit the shower.”

  “Good luck with her,” she says. “Don’t push her too hard. But don’t go easy on her, either. Sometimes people just need to talk about what happened in order to get through it. Hopefully you can find the right balance.”

  “I’m a firefighter, Aspen, not a social worker.”

  “You don’t have to be. All you need to be is the person she feels safe enough with to open up to.”

  “Thanks, Dr. Freud.”

  “Anytime, Sebastian.”

  ~ ~ ~

  An hour later, Ivy and I are strolling along the beach.

  “What’s your favorite food?” I ask.

  “Seafood, why?”

  “Do you want to go into town tonight for dinner? I’m sure there are a lot of seafood places.”

  “What happened to me cooking for you?”

  I squeeze her hand. “I guess we got a little sidetracked last night, didn’t we?”

  Her lips twitch with the hint of a smile. “I still have all the food I bought. It’ll go bad if we don’t eat it. So let’s just eat at my place.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “What’s your favorite movie?” I ask.

  “Do you want to rent one tonight?”

  “Not necessarily. I was just wondering.”

  She looks out at the ocean. Then she sighs. “You’d probably laugh if I told you,” she says.

  “My favorite movie is Shrek,” I say. “It can’t be any worse than that.”

  “Shrek? Really?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “My favorite is Frozen.”

  I laugh. “So we’re both fans of animated movies. Maybe we could have a movie night and watch them.”

  She shakes her head fervently. “No, I don’t want to watch them.”

  “Who doesn’t want to watch their favorite movie?” I ask.

  “I don’t,” she says curtly, pulling her hand away from mine and walking out to put her feet in the water.

  I’m beginning to think conversations with Ivy are like walking through a field of land mines. I just never know what’s going to set her off. Flowers. Movies. Two seemingly benign subjects, yet she won’t talk about them.

  “Okay, then,” I say, walking up next to her. “No movies. How about games? Do you like games? We could play one. What’s your favorite?”

  She looks over at me, pursing her lips. “I know what you’re doing, Bass.”

  “What am I doing?”

  “You’re asking me all of my favorites so you can get to know me better.”

  “So what? Isn’t that what people do who spend time together?”

  “People who have a future, maybe.”

  “Come on, Ivy. You have to admit we’re pretty great together.”

  “Yeah, we are. In bed,” she says.

  “It’s more than that and you know it. We both like the guitar. We work in Brooklyn. We’ve had fun together, haven’t we?”

  “Yes, but you must admit, I’m sure you’d have had fun hiking, surfing, and tubing with anyone here. It’s not me who’s making this a good vacation—it’s all your adventures.”

  I want to tell her that it is her. That she is the adventure. That without her, all those things would have been far less meaningful. But I don’t. Because it might push her away.

  A dark cloud quickly overtakes the sun above us and I feel droplets of rain on my arms. I grab Ivy’s hand. “Come on, let’s head up.”

  “No. You go ahead. I’m going to stay here.”

  I watch as her head leans back and her mouth opens. Just the way it did when it rained when we were tubing. Her tongue comes out to catch a few raindrops.

  I stand back, studying her as she tastes the rain. Then she twirls around in it.

  It starts to come down harder, and my instinct is to take cover. But something is happening to her and I feel like I need to let it. Her body starts to shake. I don’t think she’s cold. I think she’s crying. But I can’t see the tears through the sheets of rain soaking her body.

  My hair is matted to my head. My clothes are drenched. But I have no choice other than to watch this woman experience some kind of catharsis right here on the beach in the rain.

  When a loud crash of thunder startles her, she finally looks over at me, gauging my reaction to her silent breakdown.

  I reach for her hand and pull her up to the sidewalk so we can find cover.

  “Wait!” she says, pulling me to a stop.

  She wriggles out of my grasp and walks over to a puddle on the sidewalk. Then she jumps up and splashes down in it, just like a child might do. Then she closes her eyes again, lifting her arms into the air as if to summon something.

  When a second crash of thunder assaults our ears, I run over and scoop her into my arms.

  “Are you crazy, Ivy? You can’t stand in water during a storm.”

  I carry her up to a covered lanai just outside of a neighboring resort. I set her down on her feet and she looks longingly out at the storm.

  “Don’t you like the rain?” she asks.

  “Only when I know it won’t kill me,” I say. “What’s so special about the rain?”

  She looks at me, her hair dripping wet and her clothes stuck to her body. She cocks her head to the side, opening her mouth like she wants to say something. But she doesn’t.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “It’s nothing. Just something someone used to say to me.”

  I smile softly at her, not prodding or pressing her, but letting her know it’s okay to say what she wants to say. Letting her know it’s safe.

  She looks back out at the rain, then at me. “Rain is like a magic potion that makes the flowers grow.”

  Then she walks to the edge of the lanai and sticks her hand out to catch some more drops.

  And that’s when I know. I know that although it’s only been four days and it’s not really possible, I know I’m falling in love with her.

  Chapter Ten

  Ivy

  The past few days have been a whirlwind of activity. I’ve barely had two minutes to have a thought in my head. And that’s exactly the way I like it. We’ve gone surfing a few more times. Hiked a different trail. Saw Kauai’s largest blow hole. And went zip lining.

  And the sex—it’s only gotten better. We’re learning about each other’s bodies. What we like. What gets us there quickly. What drives us crazy with desire.

  Eli and I never took the time to do that. We never got creative. We pretty much had sex on a bed—with him on top. It never would have occurred to us to have sex on the kitchen counter, or on a hike behind a large rock, or on the beach at midnight. I think one time in high school Eli and I did it in a car, but that was our only anomaly. He made me come sometimes, but not every time, and I was okay with that. I was okay with it because I had no idea something like this even existed.

  For years, Holly has been regaling me with tales of her sex life. But I thought maybe she was different than me. That her carefree spirit made it easier for her to be with men.

  I guess I never knew what I was missing. And it does kind of make me sad knowing I’ll be missing it again when I go back to reality. Because the truth is, the only reason I’m able to be like this now is because this, here on Kauai, this is not reality. Some days it even feels like I’m not me. Like I’m having an out-of-body experience. Like I’m living someone else’s life. Someone who isn’t consumed by sorrow. Depression. Guilt.

  I’m not a fool. I know as soon as I get back on that plane, everything will change. Once I get home and walk into Dahlia’s room with her flower-painted walls decorated by her drawings, I’ll be right back where I was a few weeks a
go.

  But right now, I’m in a fantasy world. And I know it has everything to do with the guy driving up in the white Jeep. As I watch his car come down the long resort driveway, I think of how he looks at me differently now. I’m not sure what changed, but in the past few days, he no longer pushes me. He doesn’t ask me as many questions. He doesn’t look at me with as much pity.

  Maybe Bass has accepted the fact that this will all end in seven more days. Perhaps he’s finally realized he doesn’t want to get stuck with someone so broken. Whatever it is, I’m grateful.

  I put the small cooler in the back seat of his car. I packed some sandwiches so we can have a picnic lunch while out exploring the island.

  “Miss me?” he says when I hop in the passenger seat.

  “Hardly,” I joke, not wanting to admit, even to myself, that I did. “My lady parts needed some recovery time.”

  He reaches a hand over and runs it down my bare thigh. “I happen to be quite fond of your lady parts.”

  “Which is exactly why they are exhausted,” I say.

  “Where do you want to go today?” he asks when we approach the exit of my resort.

  “Let’s go right and take the tree tunnel over to the fifty.”

  There is a road, Route 50, that is the main artery on Kauai. The locals call it the fifty. Anywhere you want to go on the island, you pretty much have to use the fifty to get there.

  “Right it is.”

  “Good. I love going through the tree tunnel.”

  In order to get to Poipu Beach, where we’re staying, you have to go through an iconic tunnel of greenery. The road gets completely covered by a canopy of eucalyptus trees, leaving just enough room for cars and trucks to pass through. Last week, when we were on the helicopter, our pilot flew over it and we could see cars disappearing into one side and emerging from the other. And now we’re one of those cars.

  I sit back and wait for Bass to deliver another speech to me about how great it is to look at things from more than one perspective. But he doesn’t.