Broken Pieces (Cape Isle, #3): A Cape Isle Novel (5 page)

He opens his eyes and stares down at me again. “Please tell me you won't regret this,” he whispers.

“I won't regret this,” I respond immediately.

“I need you to mean that. I need to know that you won't wake up tomorrow and realize you made a huge mistake. I need you to be able to look me in the eye in the morning and there won’t be any awkwardness.”

His eyes look so vulnerable. I know he is over thinking this. I decide to give him an out. I don't want him to regret this either. What if he just feels sorry for me? Shit, I didn't even think of that.

“We don't have to do this, Zack. I don't want you to feel like you have to do this. I'm sorry,” I say quietly.

He bends his head and kisses me again. He explores the inside of my mouth like we have all of the time in the world. My hands come to the back of his head and I hold him against me. He drops down onto his elbows so that some of his weight is resting on top of me, and it feels so good. He feels so good. With one more light kiss to the corner of my mouth, he pulls back and looks down into my eyes.

“Do not apologize, Lexie. No one has ever wanted anything more than I want you. I just had to make sure we were on the same page. Okay?”

I nod my head in response as I run my hands down his back. I love the way his skin feels and I can't get enough of him. I lift my hips off of the bed and push myself against his hardness. He sucks in a sharp breath, before giving me a devilish smile. He rests all of his weight on one elbow, while the other hand moves down my body. I still have my t-shirt on, but my nipples poke through the thin material. His eyes can't decide where to land as he looks back and forth between my face and his hand. He runs his thumb over my hard nipple, before pinching it in between his fingers. I moan in response and his eyes come back to my face.

“Does that feel good?” he asks.

“Yes,” I whisper in response. “So good.”

He rolls to his side, as his hand continues the path down my body. He slips the tips of his fingers under my panties and rests his hand on my lower belly for second before slowly moving lower. I look up at him and my breath catches when I see that he is staring down at me with an intense expression on his face. He looks pained. He moves his fingers through my folds and the tip of his middle finger gently slides across my oversensitive clit. I moan loud and close my eyes.

“Look at me, Angel,” he demands in a low voice.

I open my eyes and look up at him and he lowers his mouth, kissing my lips gently, as his hand slips lower. Slowly, he sinks one long finger inside of me. His breath comes out in harsh pants against my face and he groans deep in his throat as he kisses along my jaw before whispering in my ear.

“You are so unbelievably tight. I can imagine putting my cock right here.”

He starts moving his finger in and out of me, as his thumb circles my clit. Moving his head back to look down at me again, he adds another finger and my hand moves to his wrist, my nails digging into his skin.

It feels so good. He feels so good.

His smell surrounds me and his warm skin presses against mine. I can feel his hardness on my hip. I want to touch him too, but I feel my body starting to tighten and I know I'm about to come. My inner walls close in on Zack's fingers and he curses under his breath.

“Are you going to come, Angel? I can feel it. Come all over my hand, Lexie.”

I lift my hips and start shamelessly grinding myself against his hand. It feels so fucking good. When he curves his fingers up and hits that spot inside of me, I go off like a rocket moaning his name.

When I come back down from my high, his fingers are still deep inside me and I can feel my inner walls still contracting against them. His pupils are so dilated with lust that his eyes look almost black.

He slowly slides his fingers out of me and I immediately mourn the loss. I watch as he looks down at his hand, before raising it up to his mouth. He licks his fingers clean of me, as he watches my face. I'm still trying to catch my breath from that amazing orgasm, but he is making it impossible to focus when he looks at me like that.

“I want to see you,” I whisper.

He lowers his mouth to mine and I can taste myself on his tongue.

“No,” he whispers when he pulls back.

“No?” I raise my eyebrows in shock.

He shakes his head as he stares at me with an unreadable expression.

“There are things we need to talk about before take that step, Angel.”

“Well, talk,” I snap.

He chuckles and shakes his head again. “Not yet,” he whispers, as he kisses my forehead.

I pull back and look at him through squinted eyes. “You just had your hand down my pants. Well, panties if we are being technical about it. I want to see you and you tell me no? Well, fuck that noise, Zack.”

He chuckles again and shakes his head. “I love it when you get an attitude with me.”

I huff in annoyance and look down at his boxers. “So, what are you going to do about that then?”

He smirks and shrugs his shoulders. “Go back into the bathroom?”

“Seriously?” I ask in outrage. He won't let me touch him, but he will go into my bathroom and get off by himself for the second time tonight? That doesn't make any sense. I'm not one for self doubt, but right now I'm questioning myself and what we just did. Does he not want me? Did he just do that out of pity? Surely not. I can see how turned on he is. So, what in the hell is the problem?

“I was just kidding about the bathroom, Angel. You're thinking too much,” he says quietly.

I turn on my side to face him and really take the time to study his handsome face. “What is it?” I ask.

He pushes a piece of hair behind my ear and his finger lingers on my cheek. “I just think we need to have a talk before we have sex.”

I know we aren’t going to get anywhere with this conversation tonight. As badly as I want to push him on this, I decide it can wait. I cover my mouth and yawn, as I nod my head. “Okay.”

He pulls me closer to him and I tuck my head into his neck. He kisses the top of my head before settling in for sleep. “Get some sleep. Goodnight, Angel,” he whispers.

“Goodnight, Zack,” I say quietly as I kiss his neck.

I won't let what just happened affect our friendship, but the damn thing about it is, I want it to happen again. Now that I know what he feels and tastes like, I want it to happen a lot.

Oh God, I have the hots for my best friend.

Lexie Sinclaire, you are so screwed.

Chapter Six

Zack

I
WAKE UP THE NEXT
morning with Lexie's body still firmly tucked against mine. I've woken up to her like this so many times over the years, but this morning feels different. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that she let me touch her last night. Not only did she let me touch her, but she was the one that initiated it. I could see the questions brimming in her beautiful blue eyes last night. I knew she was wondering why I wouldn't take it any farther, but I feel like that conversation needs to be had when we are both clear headed and I don't have a massive hard-on.
Tonight
. I promise myself. Tonight I will talk to her.

I look towards her bedroom window and see that the sun is just starting to rise. I have to be at the fire station by 7:00 am. I need to get up and get home so I can shower and change, but this bed feels too good. She feels too good. I give myself five more minutes before I get a move on.

Lowering my head into her soft hair, I breathe in her sweet smell. If sunshine had a smell, it would be this. I don't think it's a perfume or shampoo. Lexie has smelled like this from the moment I met her.

I feel her beginning to stir and I kiss her check, pulling my head back so that I can watch the moment her big blue eyes open. She looks up at me and blinks a couple of times before a smile spreads across her face.

“Good morning, Angel,” I whisper.

“Good morning.” Her eyes drop to my mouth and as she tilts her head to the side, her expression becomes serious.

My first thought is that she regrets what happened and I prepare myself for her to pull away from me and for this situation to become awkward, but I should have known that's not how Lexie operates. I know how curious she is, so I should have predicted that she would be just as curious about us.

But this is new territory. Everything that has happened since last night has shocked me, so why should this morning be any different?

“This is new,” she whispers.

I chuckle and pull her closer. “What's new?” I ask.

She looks up into my eyes. “Well, I've woken up to you a lot over the years, but I've never felt like it was okay to kiss you. I don't know the rules for this new thing happening between us, but is it okay for me to kiss you good morning?”

Instead of answering her, I lower my mouth to hers. I gently kiss each corner, before running my tongue along her bottom lip. Her hands come up to hold on to the side of my face and I tilt my head, taking the kiss deeper. Her mouth opens allowing me inside and her tongue rolls with mine in a slow, sweet rhythm. I decide that I could kiss Lexie for hours and never get tired of it.

Running my fingers through her silky hair, I cup the back of her head, holding her against me. I don't know how long we stay like that, but when I pull back, we are both breathing heavy and my cock feels like it's going to explode.

“Well, good morning,” she says with a smile.

I laugh, as I kiss the tip of her nose. “Good morning, Lexie.”

Shit.

What I wouldn't give to be able to tell her good morning like that every day for the rest of my life.

* * *

I'm almost late when I pull into the fire station parking lot an hour later. While I train, I will only be there from seven in the morning to five in the evening. The training should last about a month, but until then I will mostly be doing paperwork.

I've always known I wanted to be a fireman. It just took me awhile to finally get here. I went to college and got a degree in business. I'm not sure what I will ever do with that, but it's there if I need it.

I moved around a little after college until I finally settled back into my hometown. Taking a job at the local construction company, I just bided my time until the fire academy had an opening.

I'm happy with my life. I don't really have any complaints, other than the fact that the woman I've been in love with since I was just kid has no freaking clue how I feel. No one is to blame for that fucked up situation but me, though. I have come so close to telling her so many times, but up until last night she has never shown me that she feels anything other than friendship towards me. I never wanted to ruin a good thing. I have her in my life and that's all that has ever mattered, but now I want more.

I need more.

I'm twenty-eight years old and I need to man the fuck up. I either try this with Lexie or move on. I just hope I don't freak her out when we finally do have that talk.

I walk through the doors of the fire station and smile. God, I love this place. Before I was officially hired on, I would volunteer to help out with odd jobs around the station a few times a month. I think it actually helped me get hired when the opening became available, because I already knew my way around and I knew all of the guys. When you walk in, there is a main office to the right for any visitors that may come by. Straight ahead is the living room that holds several couches, a large television, and oddly enough, a treadmill. No one is in here this early, so I keep walking, knowing everyone is probably in the kitchen. I walk down the hallway that holds all of the bedrooms and bathrooms: there are about 8 bunkers and we each get our own, but they are about as small as a closet.

I finally make it to the kitchen and I see most of the guys sitting around the table, drinking their coffee.

“Morning,” I call out to everyone. I get a chorus of mumbled good mornings back as I make my way to the coffee pot.

Brian, our resident chef, is standing at the stove flipping bacon. He's not the actual chef. He is a firefighter just like the rest of us, but he cooks the best out of everyone and he seems to enjoy it.

“Hey, man. Need some help?” I ask, as I stir some sugar into my much needed cup of coffee.

He glances up at me and shakes his head. “Nah, I'm good, thanks though.”

I nod my head and make my way towards the huge dining table that's placed in the middle of the room. Have you ever seen a table that seats twelve large men? Me neither, until I started working here.

Everyone is pretty quiet as we sip our coffee and wake up a little more. Most of these guys are either coming off a twenty-four or forty-eight hour shift and most of them have a second job to go to. I'm keeping my job at the construction company. My buddy Grant is allowing me to work around my fire-station schedule and I plan to just fill in whenever he needs me.

“What's on the schedule today?” I ask.

Every day of the week we have different chores to do around the station. We treat this place as it were our home. We keep up with all of the maintenance and cleaning.

“Shit. It's lawn day,” T.J. says from the head of the table. I don't know him as well as I know the other guys. He's new to town and just transferred from another station about three months ago.

“Fuck, it's going to be hot,” Ryan grumbles.

We all nod our heads in agreement. During the summer months, it can get up to 105 degrees in Cape Isle.

Chief comes walking into the kitchen and heads towards the coffee pot. “Quit your bitching. If we get out there soon, it won't be too bad.”

He's lying. It's going to be hot as hell no matter what time we start, but we all nod our heads and keep quiet, as we finish our coffee. I love being a fireman, but I really wish I was still in bed with Lexie.

* * *

After a long day of yard work and cleaning the trucks at the fire station, I'm finally off. Freshly showered, I hop in my truck and crank up the air before putting it in drive. I had a lot of time to think today, and I know I need to talk to Lexie. We need to figure this shit out and I need to tell her how I feel before I go fucking insane.