Fahrenheit (10 page)

Chapter Eight

“I
’m not sure what to make of it, man. I mean when we’re doing it she starts laughing. At first,” Dwayne shook his head, “I thought it was my fault. I thought she was laughing at me.” He slammed his locker door. “That’s a real ego crusher and I was pissed. But then she kept saying it felt good—between giggles and laughing.”

“Dwayne, this is too much information.” Adam gave a brief glance to the stick thin man disclosing far too much personal information to him. Dwayne might look harmless, but he could bench press more than most men with twice the muscle bulk. He just didn’t seem to gain weight no matter what he ate or how many weights he lifted. He aced every physical without breaking a sweat. And here he was, telling all about the newest lady in his bed with far too much detail about his insecurities in the bedroom with her.

“I’m building to why I’m telling you this; just hang in there.” He sat down on the bench. “Well, it’s just that she says it tickles…you know what I mean? It’s like every time it tickles. How do I make that stop?”

“Why are you asking me?” Adam wasn’t sure why they were having this conversation, other than the fact that they were both one of the guys, but Dwayne was thirty-six, ten years his senior, and he wasn’t at all virginal—he would think the man would have learned how to please a woman by now.

“You’re young, she’s young like you and I just thought you’d know what to do about that. Besides, you’re with that hot little number that I’ve seen hanging around the fires. Do you tickle her?”

“Jeeze, dude! I am not having this conversation with you.” He shoved his hand through his hair. “And she’s not just hanging around the fires; she’s working. She’s a photojournalist. It’s her job to be there.”

“You’re not doing her yet,” Dwayne stood up. At six foot one the man was far enough over Adam to make him have to look up a little. “What are you waiting for? Christmas?”

“She wants to wait. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Until when?”

“Until she’s married,” he stressed. What else would he be talking about?

“Man, I’m sorry for you. I mean, that’s a nice piece of tail—and you’re not getting any.”

Adam felt his hands tighten into closed fists. Eve was sweet and gentle, smart and funny and nobody should refer to her as just some “piece of tail,” any day.

“I can hook you up with a friend of Kim’s. You know, one night and all. Or more if you want.”

“Eve is special to me. I care about her. I would go so far as to say I might be falling in love with her.” Although he wasn’t sure. He had never been in love before, but then he had never felt for any other woman what he felt for Eve. Maybe it was love, maybe it was something else, but he wasn’t willing to shoot himself in the foot by hurting her. “I’m not going to risk what I could have with her for a few minutes of pleasure.”

“Well unless you’re planning on marrying her you’re going to be in pain for a long time. Women like that don’t change their mind.”

“I’m not expecting her too,” his voice was tight with annoyance and anger. Why were they even having this conversation?

Dwayne shrugged. “Your loss,” he mumbled as he walked toward the door. He wasn’t even two steps out into the main room when Adam heard his boisterous voice say, “hey guys, Adam’s dating a wedding night virgin!”

“Bastard,” Adam shook his head as he closed his own locker. He was a man. He was a firefighter, and because of both certain things were expected of him. Well, he was sick of it. He was sick of women coming on to him because they had some “men in uniform” fetish. He was sick of women looking at him as if he had to be this stark, romance novel version, of an alpha male. More than that, he was sick of the guys thinking he had to be in the sack with some woman whenever he wasn’t working. That wasn’t his style. It had never been his style. He was just a man; one who happened to fight fires. He knew he had relatively good looks. All of the Carrigan boys had been blessed with their mother’s good looks and their father’s courage for fighting fires. Adam and his brothers were fifth generation firefighters and smokejumpers, and now Trent was a fire investigator, adding new dimension to the history of their family. They were fifth generation men of action, but that didn’t mean they were all the same in personality or temperament.

He exhaled sharply. “No point in procrastinating. Might as well get out there and take whatever’s coming.”

He knew before he even walked through the door that all eyes would be on him. The guys were the guys; nobody escaped a little taunting…nobody except the chief.

“We were wondering how much longer you were going to hide out in there.” Rick Sanders grinned, flashing crooked teeth in his devious expression.

“I wasn’t hiding. I was taking care of business.”

“Right,” he chuckled. “Business that you can’t take care of elsewhere.”

“Sex isn’t everything,” Adam snapped. “Now drop it.”

Tully, the voice of reason in the group, most days anyway, looked up from his paper. “You love her?”

“Maybe,” he wasn’t ready to admit anything to them just yet. He wasn’t sure himself, but when he was sure he was going to be sure to tell Eve and not the guys.

“Either you do or you don’t.”

“I just met her,” he stressed.

“I knew I loved my wife from our first date. Of course it took me six months to convince her she loved me too.” He laughed. “You either know, or you don’t. Is she worth waiting around for? Because if your answer is no then you need to cut her loose before you break her heart.”

“Listen up men,” Chief Pedington broke the uncomfortable direction of the present conversation with his boisterous voice. “The mayor wants a conference call with our house this evening. Knowing the mayor this could go on forever. So, those of you who thought you were getting off work…well, you’re not now.”

“Why us?” A few of the men grumbled. There was no secret that the mayor was not a well-liked man around the firehouse.

“Probably has something to do with the picture of Adam in the paper last month.” He cut Adam a look that told Adam he was not happy about having to stay late for a meeting with the mayor.

“I didn’t ask her to put my picture on the front page.”

“Of course he didn’t,” the guys laughed. “Yeah, we believe that one, Superstar. But it’s okay. We’re not mad at ya…”

Adam rolled his eyes. “I didn’t.” He reaffirmed his position.

“Whatever,” Pedington grumbled. “Seeing as though you’re dating a wedding night virgin I’m sure you don’t have any plans for tonight so I expect you to stay here for the meeting.”

“Sir, I…”

“You’re staying.” He rolled up a piece of paper in one hand and slapped it in the palm of the other hand. “That’s all men. You can go back to talking about whatever you were talking about.” He grinned as he left the room.

“Actually, I was going to ask you, Adam; can you cover my shift tomorrow night? It’s not as if you have somebody you have to do…oh, my bad, something you have to do.” Dwayne laughed.

“That’s enough,” Tully snapped. “This conversation is getting dangerously close to compromising this team. It ends now.”

Adam stormed out of the firehouse. He needed to call Eve, to cancel on her once again. He dialed her number, trying to think of a good way to preface the conversation. “I need to cancel for the umpteenth time,” didn’t seem like the best words to say right now.

“Adam, it’s good to hear your voice. I picked up the tickets for the show already so…”

“I have to cancel on you Eve. I’m sorry. But I have to work.”

“Again?”

“Yeah, it’s just…”

“Forget it,” she sighed. “You know, Adam, let me just do you the favor and save you the trouble of finding excuses. Obviously this isn’t going to work between us and so I think we should just resolve to be friends at this point. Or whatever people say when this happens.”

“Eve?”

“No, I don’t blame you, Adam. I blame myself because I thought this could work…that it would work. I should have known it wouldn’t. What guy really wants to wait? So, you’re off the hook.”

“Eve, that’s not…”

“I’ll see you around, Adam.” She hung up on him. What the hell! She hung up on him. He wanted to go to her, but he couldn’t. He was on duty and even though he should have been off in a few hours he now had to stay for the meeting. The worst part was that she was going to be getting into the new place tomorrow and the only thing he knew was that it was in the Z section. She had told him she had to go shop for furniture down in Daytona, but that she had been able to pick up the key to the place, so she was going to check out of the hotel in the morning.

“Well, hell,” he growled. He dialed her number once more but it went straight to voice mail. This was a joke. She couldn’t break up with him. She just couldn’t walk out of his life, and not because of this. She had to know he really meant what he said when he told her he would be willing to wait. But then again, why would she know that? Since they had dinner that night he had cancelled every date they had arranged. He either got called to work or was unable to leave work. Since he had to work she offered to have lunch with him. Then he got word that lunch was being ordered in because they had to stay for a meeting. He called her and told her he would love to see some new movie at the cinema with her. He couldn’t even remember which movie it was now, just that one of the guys told him it was going to be a good one and he could take his “girl” to go see it with him. She volunteered to pick up the tickets early so they wouldn’t have to rush when he got off work. Now he was canceling that date too. A month of cancellations did not relationship security make. He had talked with her on the phone—though briefly, and each time it was because he was cancelling on her.

This thing with the mayor better not run all night because there was no way he wanted to spend the night listening to the mayor ramble on about something he had no control over when he could be trying to save his relationship with Eve.

He dialed her number one more time, cursing when it went to voice mail once again. If he wanted to talk, clearly he was going to be talking after the beep because she wasn’t picking up the phone.

“Eve, please don’t do this. I really do have to work. I’m not making excuses…baby just please?” He let out an exasperated breath. “Please answer the next time I call?” He tried her cell number three more times that day and still she hadn’t answered the phone. Great, just great! Now she was ignoring him completely. Had she even listened to his message?

Eve awakened the next morning sore, very sore, and tired, but she still pulled herself from the floor. After her conversation with Adam she had been so sad that she needed to do something to get her mind off things. So instead of hanging around the hotel all night, she loaded the rental car with her things, checked out of the hotel, stopped at the local Target for some cleaning supplies and drove over to the new place. When she picked up the keys the landlord told her she could move in whenever she was ready. Well, that night she was ready. She took the cleaning supplies in and did a top to bottom cleaning of the entire place. It was long after midnight before she finished disinfecting with bleach water, cleaning the baseboards and spraying for bugs. She hated bugs and one of the things she realized when she moved to Florida was that it didn’t matter how clean a person was, bugs were inevitable. Spraying every six months was mandatory, but of course since she was so anti bugs in the house, she sprayed more frequently than the container called for. The only bugs she hadn’t managed to completely be able to eradicate were the silverfish. She hated those things. Whenever they decided to slither their little bodies into her apartment it always freaked her out. Pulling back a shower curtain and having a flat, creepy bug fall nearly on one’s body would freak anybody out.

She hadn’t bought an air mattress while at the store because they were expensive for what she needed it for. She had plans to go down to Daytona and get new furniture so she hadn’t planned on needing the mattress for more than a couple days. Had she been thinking straight last night she would have bought one anyway. Clearly, the tile floors were not the zenith of comfort to sleep on. They were cute, but not made for sleeping.

She actually wasn’t sure how long it would take to get her furniture. Just because she was buying it today didn’t mean they would schedule delivery the same day. She needed a bed set, at least the frame and mattress if nothing else. But she planned to get the dresser too. Actually, if she got lucky they would still carry the set she had brought from Boston with her. She loved that bedroom set. It was dark wood, the color tone was chocolate, the wood was sturdy and nice. The headboard was more rail than solid piece and she liked that. Her first thought, when she saw the bed was that one day her husband could tie her to it. She shook her head at her own thoughts. She, the virgin, still had her desires and fantasies and one day she would find a man who would be willing to wait for her; one who would think she was worth waiting for, and once they were married they could explore each other’s fantasies all night long.

She shook the thoughts of marriage and fantasies from her mind because those thoughts led back to Adam. He clearly wasn’t going to be that man. He hadn’t even called her back. Her phone hadn’t rung all night. She considered calling him, but then why should she? She had said all she could say, and calling him back wouldn’t be fair. She had given him his way out and she couldn’t take it back.