AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He averted his face to give her as much privacy as he could in the moment while she righted her bra and sweater with a few tugs. As much as he would never push, something had clearly rattled her. Sam owed it to her to make that right, whatever it was.
“Lucy, hey. I’m sorry if I overstepped. But I wouldn’t—I mean, I won’t tell anyone we kissed, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Her stricken expression deepened, her brown eyes wide and frantic. “Oh, my God. How could I have been so impulsive, withyou, of all people?”
He knew his reputation was for shit, because he’d taken pains to make it that way, but the words were another direct hit to his armor.
Sam manufactured a shrug to cover up the sting. “It’s a good thing my ego’s bigger than most, otherwise that might’ve made a dent.”
“What? No,” Lucy said, shaking her head. “Not you personally. You’re”—she broke off to move a glance over his body—“well, yeah. But we work together. At the same fire house. And Iknowbetter.”
“I told you, I’m not going to say anything. We can just forget it. No big deal.”
Eh, that last part might not be super true. He wasn’t going to lose the memory of their kiss anytime soon, or probably ever. But he could keep it to himself if that was what she wanted. Even if whathewanted was to walk her up the stairs to his loft so he could lay her out on his bed, strip off all her clothes, and discover all the ways he could make her come with his mouth.
Lucy’s laugh tugged him out of the thought. “Sam, I’mnevergoing to forget that kiss.”
The meaning of her words trickled past his defenses, and wait… “Okay, so what’s the problem, exactly?”
“Me. I’m the problem,” she said, her eyes darting to the door. “You know what, I should go. Thank you for the company and the pizza and the, ah, kissing. It’s been great.” She clamped her teeth over her bottom lip. “I’m going to stop talking now so I can leave. If we could keep this between us—”
“Lucy.” Sam realized he’d interrupted her only after he’d done it, but shit, there was no holding back now. He took a step toward her, not enough to block her path if she wanted to keep moving toward the door, but close enough to capture her attention with eye contact.
“Look, if you really want to go, I’m not going to stand in your way. But I feel like I’m missing something important, here. You want to help me out?”
Silence stretched between them for a beat, then another, then one more, and oh, hell. “Or you can call me a self-righteous douchebag with really bad breath and hideous kissing skills and hate me for the rest of your days, I guess, if that works better for you.”
Her laughter was soft, but it moved through Sam’s chest anyway, warming every part of him with relief. “I don’t hate you.”
“Whew.” He made an exaggerated show of wiping his brow, and bingo, her smile stuck around.
“I’m sorry,” Lucy said, shaking her head. “This is entirely on me. I kissed you, and I know better than to act so impulsively. I shouldn’t have done it.”
“Why not?” he asked. “I mean, if you have regrets—”
“I don’t.” Her answer was too immediate to be anything other than honest. “I wanted to, and it was a, um, very good kiss.”
Sam kept his tone purposely light as he groaned out a laugh. “Come on, Lucy. Finding a ten-dollar bill in your laundry is good.Thatkiss? Was like angels singing.”
Her fingers flew up to her mouth, but not before he saw the smile there. “Okay. Okay! God, I should’ve known you’d be cocky about it.”
“First of all, you deserve equal credit. Secondly, of course I’m being cocky about it,” he said, pointing to himself as if to remind her who she was dealing with.
Lucy rolled her eyes, but didn’t stop smiling. “Fine. You’re not wrong. It was an exceptional kiss. But I don’t…” She paused for a deep breath. “I don’t date firefighters, especially not ones I work with directly.”
“I take it that includes casual hookups and impulsive kisses,” he said, and she nodded.
“Even exceptional ones.”
Well, that explained herespecially with youcomment. “Too much of an occupational hazard?” Sam asked. He got it—even no-strings-attached encounters between firefighters had the potential to mess with a dynamic that needed to work in the field. Just because he wouldn’t have intended for things to get weird if they’d taken their hookup further didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen.
Lucy paused, then said, “Yeah. Something like that.”
Sam nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay?” she repeated, her black brows moving halfway up her forehead.
But he kept his expression at its most no-big-deal setting. “Lucy, I know I’ve got a reputation for being a bit of a dick, and I’m not even going to argue it, because a lot of the time, it’s pretty spot-on. But this isn’t one of those times. We’re friends. We kissed. It wasexceptional”—he arched a brow at her—“but you didn’t want to take it any further, so we won’t. End of story.”
