Stoking the Embers (New Adult Romantic Suspense): The Complete Series (4 page)

She begged me not to tell anyone and refused to call the police or go to the hospital. She was terrified her father would find out, drag her through a trial. Or, be disappointed when he realized his little girl had gotten so drunk and gotten herself into such a mess.

“Besides,” she said at the time, “how can they convict someone with no witnesses, no DNA, and if I can’t recognize them? I can’t do it. All rape cases end up making it look like the victim’s fault. It turns her into a whore.” She’d started crying again before she finally muttered, “Which I am.”

I kept my promise to her and never told a soul. As unfair as it was, I was afraid that what she said was true. I later learned that a huge majority of campus rapes aren’t reported for that reason. A large majority of rapes of any kind.

Beth changed dramatically after that night. She stopped going out and went from peppy to morose. I finally convinced her to see a counselor, someone not connected to school. She started to get better as her therapy sessions progressed. It was during that time, we became very close.

Now, she too is in her final year of nursing school, with the goal of being a nurse practitioner. While she sometimes still gets quiet, sometimes still talks about that time in her life, she has been very committed to moving on and not letting those boys, any boys for that matter, interfere with her future.

“Hello.” Beth’s waving her hand in front of my face, bringing me back to the present. “Is my company that boring?”

“Sorry,” I laugh and begin gathering our plates. “Zoned out on you. Thinking about the accident yesterday,” I fib, crossing my fingers against the little white lie. “Wondering if the little couple made it.”

“I still can’t believe you jumped in that van like that,” she says, taking our conversation back to yesterday. “You’re a hero, you know.”

I shake my head. “I felt so incompetent.
And
afraid. I don’t know that I’ve ever been that scared.”

“Steph, you’re so hard on yourself. I don’t know how many experienced nurses would have thought to use their jacket as a neck brace. That was very intuitive of you. It shows you can think under pressure.”

“Thank you Nurse Elizabeth,” I laugh but also warm at the compliment. “If only I could have kept my head together when I was spilling milk all over a customer today.”

“Milk? How in the world did you spill milk on a customer?”

I cover my face with a pillow and she snatches it away. “Spill it. Pun intended.”

God, I love this girl. Always makes me laugh when I need to. Holding my side, I begin telling her the story, of my surprise at seeing the firefighter from the wreck again, the milk explosion from hell.

Then, I get to the part when I’m swiping at his pants…

“My nose was practically inches from his… his penis.”

“Cock. You can say cock you know.”

“Cock. Cock. Cock. See, I can say it. And his cock was right there,” I place my palm an inch from my face, “and growing harder by the second.”

“Wait, what? He had a hard-on?”

I nod crazily.

“Whoa now, you’ve got some more explaining to do. Is he like a dirty ole fireman? A milk mutant? A paper towel aficionado?”

I hold up my hand. “Stop. Please. I’m too sore to laugh this hard. Mercy.”

“Okay, mercy. But why do you look so hot and bothered?”

“Well, I might have failed to mention that this particular firefighter is absolutely amazing to look at.” Beth squeals and gives me the ‘tell me more’ sign.

“He’s tall, has dark hair and the most beautiful brown eyes you’ve ever seen. And his body is…”

I nearly groan from the memory of touching his leg, the hard muscles beneath his pants. Jerome is thin, not from working out but more from just not eating a lot. While he looks good, he isn’t defined like this man.

Shit. Jerome. Just the thought of him pops my happy bubble.

“What? What’s wrong?”

Crap. Beth can read me like a book. Even though I live in Sin City, I don’t have much of a poker face.

“Well, I was thinking about touching the fire fighter’s muscles, which made me think of Jerome.”

“Ha!” Beth interrupts. “What muscles? J-hole has more muscle in his thick brain than he does on his scrawny body.”

I can’t help but laugh, although I also feel a sharp twinge of guilt. I love… loved Jerome. It’s not fair for me to talk behind his back this way.

“That’s not fair,” I defend him. “He sits at a computer all day. Oh… I didn’t tell you. He signed a three million dollar contract for some software he’s been working on. Plus, they’re hiring him for a ton of money in salary each year. He’s about to be set for life.”

That shut her up, but not in the way I’d hoped. Beth was looking at me with such sympathy, her face transporting from snarky to sad in an instant. “Steph… if he is this big of an asshole poor, can you imagine him once he’s rich?”

“Do you think it could help him? He’d be less stressed out? More gentle?”

“Or it could feed his ego. Make it worse.”

I shiver. It was only last year when I finally confided my sexual concerns to Beth. At first, I didn’t want to talk to her about sex because of the rape and then, I was too embarrassed to bring it up. I’d never had sex with anyone but Jerome so I didn’t have anyone to compare him to. But, I knew… knew deep down that the things he wanted to do with me weren’t normal.

In my sexual health class, I’d learned about alternative lifestyles and BDSM clubs. Jerome didn’t necessarily fit into any of those categories. Sadism & Masochism came the closest, but sometime it felt closer to pure violence. He wanted me in positions that would shame me, tied up with my legs spread wide and not letting me go until I cried.

He took me to The Blue Door and other sex clubs, trying to prove that what he liked wasn’t that taboo. But it wasn’t so much what he wanted to do, it was how he persuaded me to do it that was the problem. He called me names, made me feel small and worthless. I’d end up doing whatever he wanted so he would stop.

It hadn’t always been this way. Sure, he’d always like it rough. I like it that way too. But lately, especially the last six months it was… scary.

“What are you thinking about?” Beth’s voice interrupts those thoughts.

“I’m breaking up with Jerome.” I say the words. Out loud. Hearing them echo around in my apartment instead of inside my head feels freeing.

Her breath whooshes out, as if she’d been holding it for hours. She grabs my hand, kisses it and begins to cry. I know they are tears of relief, of happiness. Knowing I’ve worried her for so long makes guilt rise and settle on my shoulders.

Long moments pass and she sniffles, “When?”

“I threw him out last night, but it wasn’t an official break up. Want to volunteer to do it for me?”

She laughs, or was it a scoff? “I’ll go with you, absolutely. We could take him, right?”

I rub my arms, feeling the bruises he left sing their presence as my fingers graze their surface.

“I don’t know. Maybe us and the football team.”

She touches my hand. “Right. Crazy can’t be underestimated.”

I shiver.

Looking at me, she narrows her eyes and sticks out her hand. “Here, give me your phone.”

“Why?”

“Give it.” She bats her eyelashes. “Trust me.”

Warily, I hand it over and watch her thumbs fly over the screen. Her lips are moving as she types and when she’s finishes, she hands it back to me.

“There, I typed it, but you have to be the one to hit ‘send’.”

Looking down, I read the text message she’s written for Jerome:
“In light of our current issues, I feel it’s best we no longer see each other. I wish you well and great happiness. I’ll mail any belongings you’ve left here in the next couple days.”

I blow out a breath. It’s actually much nicer than I’d imagine Beth would type. She laughs, intuiting my thoughts. “I know, I know… ‘fuck you, get lost’ would be better.”

My thumb hovers over the ‘send’ button, fear and uncertainty doing a Tango on my quivering hands. Was this the right thing? Would it only make it worse?

Grow up, Stephanie, I tell myself and hit the button. When I do, I’m not sure which one of us—Beth or me—gasps the loudest. We look at each other, eyes large as saucers, then back at the phone and wait.

And wait.

Half an hour later, we’re still waiting, staring at the phone as if expecting it to come alive. He’d seen the message, I’d gotten the little ‘seen’ verification. What would happen next?

For something to do, Beth grabs my manicure kit and does her best to salvage my nails. We don’t say a word, as if a verbal exchange will wake the ghost.

An hour passes, and still nothing. Then, one hour and seven minutes later, my phone comes alive, assaulting us with a flash and a beep.

Huddling together, like two girls at their first scary movie, we view the message together. I’m not sure what I expect, his response could have gone numerous ways. What I got was:

Roses are red,
Violets are every girl’s wishes.
All I wanted from you,
Was your love and your kisses.
I could give you anything you dream of,
But you choose a fireman instead.
Before I’m done with you,
You’ll wish you were dead.

Chapter 5—Ken

I need to stop eating out when I’m at home. I’ve gotten spoiled with food at the firehouse, and I’m going to get fat eating fast food the rest of the time. What the fuck; I may as well go to the store. Maybe Stephanie will be around. It’s as good an excuse as any.

I hate July in Vegas… well other than the pool and the girls all wearing skimpy stuff. Walking outside feels like getting hit with a giant-size blow dryer on high, and it’s only eight in the morning. But it’s hard to focus on the fringe benefits when I’m frying like an egg on a skillet.

I realize I can’t wear my jeans and shirt, so screw it, I change into my blue LVFD t-shirt and throw on some shorts. Not those long baggy shorts that look like gangbangers shorts, my gym shorts.

I start walking to the store since it’s a short mile from my apartment, but before I get to the corner, I turn around. I like the meditation that walking gives me. It’s much better than sitting on a mat in a square room saying ‘om’. It also gets me out of the house on my days off, into nature and all that crap. But this morning, I’m feeling the need for speed, another kind of meditation. Speed wins out.

Most of my buddies at the station are married or with serious girlfriends. I dread going over to their houses since they’re always trying to set me up. I hate blind dates, and I hate the awkwardness of knowing the ’friend’ at the house was really for me—too much pressure to ‘like’ her, especially from the wife.

I straddle the Harley, loving the moment when it first comes alive beneath me; the way the engine roars, the sound of power, but best of all... freedom.

I blow by SaveAll, it can wait, I have some tension to burn off. I resist the urge to look inside its windows. Traffic is light, most of Vegas is sleeping off a hangover or the disappointment of tossing their last coin in a slot.

Even at forty mph, only the wind keeps the sweat off my brow. It’s been a while since I had the beast on the road, so I turn onto the 215 Freeway for a short little cruise to open the bike up a bit.

This is the life right here. No commitments, no headaches, just me and the road. Eighty. Eighty-five. Ninety. Miles burn behind me, the lines on the road a blur. As seductive as speed is, I throttle down, drop to seventy and turn onto Green Valley Parkway.

I need to get back, even though the desert calls to me. I wonder if Stephanie’s even been on the back of a bike, ever roared down an open road. Would she scream like a girl? Or hang on tight and laugh?

What the fuck am I thinking? I don’t do ‘relationships’. Relationships equal death. I do sex. The end. Stephanie doesn’t seem the type, seems like the kind who clings. Give me a showgirl any day, they know the rules. Hell, they wrote the rules.

I need to fill up the tank so I pull into the closest station. Hopping off my bike, who do I see? No way. It’s Stephanie, speak of the devil. I almost turn around, not liking how the universe is reading my mind. Then she bends over to straighten her shoe and my dick starts calling the shots.

“Hi! Stephanie, right?” I ask, trying to act casual when she turns my way. She smiles, that full face grin that makes her look like a little girl.

“Hi. Yes, Stephanie. Good to see you again, Ken.” She holds up her hands. “I promise to not come within ten feet of you.”

God, she’s adorable. And she doesn’t even know it. Bet she doesn’t know how perfect her legs are, or how her tits fill out her t-shirt just right. She’s casual, ponytail and sunglasses. I can’t tell about makeup, but I’m guessing she’s bare faced.

“Sorry I had to run out like that the other day. Duty called and all that.” I walk closer to her. Can’t seem to stop myself. She tightens her right hand on the gas nozzle as the other smoothes back her hair. Good, I’m effecting her.

“I’m sorry for the mess. I can’t believe that gallon of milk exploded that way. It was like a bomb went off inside it.” We both laugh, it’s an accurate assessment. I shrug it off.

“I didn’t get a chance to see you after I ran out of the store. I wanted to tell you though, you really did a great job at the accident. You surely saved a couple of lives.”

She shakes her head. “It feels like a dream now. I can’t believe it really happened.” She bites her lip and pushes her sunglasses to the top of her head. “That was the worst thing I’ve seen in my life, and it didn’t really hit me until after. If I’m honest, it’s still hitting me.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it. I remember the first bad wreck I was on. Do you remember the crash on Charleston Blvd a couple of years ago? The one where a guy ran into the bus stop full of people?”

“Yeah, I remember. Didn’t like four people die?”

“Yes, including a teenager and an infant with her mother. The mother lived. Must have been horrible to live through that.”

She says nothing, but the wetness of her eyes says it all.

“God, I remember that day as if it’s happening right now, on the movie screen of my mind. It was my first fatal, and when my adrenaline stopped, I puked for about twenty minutes. I had nightmares for a few months. You never get used to it, but you have to find a barrier to it. If you don’t, the emotions scar you forever.”