Stoking Her Fire

  Stoking Her Fire

  A Blue Collar Romance

  Mila Crawford

  Stoking Her Fire: A Blue Collar Romance

  By Mila Crawford

  Web: www.MilaCrawford.com

  Email: Milacrawfordauthor@gmail.com

  Copyright © June 2018 by Mila Crawford

  First E-book Publication: June 2018

  Cover Artist: Popkitty

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: The unauthorized reproduction, transmission, or distribution of any part of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  This literary work is fiction. Any name, places, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or establishments is solely coincidental. Please respect the author and do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials that would violate the author’s rights.

  Contents

  Newsletter

  Stoking Her Fire

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Epilogue One

  Epilogue Two

  Epilogue Three

  I. Excerpt: Her CEOs

  Snow’s Huntsman

  Chapter 1

  Newsletter

  About the Author

  Newsletter

  Keep up to date with Mila’s dirty and safe reads by signing up for her newsletter HERE!

  I’d always loved her, even if she never knew.

  Growing up as Avery’s friend was the hardest part, especially when all I wanted to do was claim her as mine. But I was that awkward, geeky kid with the black-rimmed glasses, a social outcast.

  Time and distance had separated us, but I never forgot about her. My love for Avery never lessened. It only grew.

  Now back in town, working as a firefighter, I doubt she’ll recognize me. I’m big, strong, and confident, so different from who I was all those years ago. Seeing her again after so long has me realizing too much time has passed. I know what has to be done.

  I need to let Avery know she’s mine and that nothing and no one will stop me from claiming her.

  Warning: This is a friends-to-lovers, double virgin safe romance that also has that spark of filth thrown in. Yes, you read that right … double virgins. No need to wear protection for this one because these two know exactly what they want, and that’s each other.

  Prologue

  I pushed my glasses up my nose and stared across the classroom at Avery. She probably didn’t even know how beautiful she was, how much I loved her. At sixteen, I was a geek, so awkward even I noticed it. I was a social outcast amongst the majority. But Avery had seen something in me, befriended me when no one else would.

  She laughed at something her friend said, and I was transfixed. I loved her more than life itself, had this feeling since before I even knew what love meant. But I was too afraid, too much a coward to ever admit to her that she was the love of my life.

  It made me happy just by looking at her, just hearing the sound of her voice. But today was the last day I’d get to experience those things. Being forced to move across the country with my family was heartbreaking. But I had no choice. And as much as I hated leaving, the truth was, I wouldn't ever have the balls to tell her what she meant to me.

  The bell rang for the class to end and I grabbed my stuff. I was shoulder checked by one of the jocks, but I didn’t care. I was too focused on Avery. I met her at the door, smiling, reaching out and taking her bag from her before she could object.

  “Hey, thanks, Jackson,” she said and grinned. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “I wanted to,” I said quickly, maybe a little too obvious. But hell, just being next to her made every part of my body come alive.

  She smiled wide at me, perfect teeth flashing. God, that dimple on the right side of her cheek had my heart racing. We stepped out into the hall and went to our next class.

  “Avery, hey baby,” Frankie, one of the jocks, said, sidling up next to her and wrapping his arm around her shoulder. “You got plans tonight?” She moved out from under his hold. She didn’t respond to Frankie’s question, which only seemed to make him press harder. “Come on, sweetheart. Let me take you home, maybe we can hit up a party tonight.”

  “No thanks,” she said without looking at him. “Come on, Jackson.” She looped her arm through mine.

  “Come on, baby,” he said again.

  “Leave her alone,” I ended up saying and stopped to look over at him. “She’s not interested.” I don’t know why I’d suddenly gotten balls of steel, but seeing the frustration on Avery’s face over Frankie bothering her pissed me off. I’d get my ass kicked over this but it would be worth it.

  “You want this fucking nerd over me?” Frankie asked and rammed his shoulder into mine again. I was slammed into the locker, my glasses getting knocked off my face. Frankie grinned and brought his boot down, crunching them beneath his foot.

  “You asshole,” Avery said and pushed at Frankie’s shoulder. He grinned at me once more and pushed away, giving Avery a once-over before stalking off. Avery got on her knees and picked up my glasses and her bag. “I’m sorry about them, Jackson,” she said and handed me the busted-up frames.

  I smiled, her scent making me feel drunk—even if I had never actually been intoxicated before. I had a feeling this lightheadedness and euphoric feeling was a pretty good comparison. “Worth it.” She grinned.

  I felt my heart speed up but then drop to my belly. Today I’d have to leave, have to let her know that I would never see her again. And that would be the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life.

  1

  Avery-Six years later

  The idea of losing the most important person on the planet to you is terrifying. When I got the call that Gigi—my grandmother’s—nursing home had been in a bad fire that demolished the entire building, I felt like the earth opened up and swallowed me whole. As long as I could remember, it had been Gigi and me. She raised me when my deadbeat mom couldn't be bothered to.

  An absentee mother who preferred the comfort of random men to spending time with her daughter.

  By the time I was eighteen, my mother had become a stripper at the local club. She’d all but forgotten me by then, which wasn’t any heartache on my part. When I was nineteen she decided to follow a would-be rock star to Los Angeles, completely abandoning me. But I’d become used to her behavior well before then, so her up and leaving to be a groupie wasn’t a shock.

  But then on my twenty-first birthday I’d gotten the news my mother had overdosed. I wish I could say I was heartbroken, but the void I should have felt by her loss had already been there for years.

  I’d gotten that call a year ago, had moved on, but then again I think I had done the latter a long time ago. Gigi had taken it harder than I thought, but I supposed losing a child was one of the hardest things a parent had to go through, even if that child had destroyed her own life and tried to take down everyone in her path.

  If it wasn’t for Gigi, my life would have been drastically different, and not for the better. Gigi put her life on hold for me. She was my mother in every sense of the word. She cried when I graduated from college, told me how proud she was of me, how I was the first person to have ever graduated in our family.

  I played with the strand of pearls Gigi had given me years ago, ones that her mother had owned and passed down. I cherished them and would forever. The idea of losing her shook
me to the core.

  “I don’t know what all the fuss is about,” Gig said and I chuckled. I handed her the sweet tea she’d wanted and sat down in the chair beside her bed. She was old but feisty. I’d wanted her to live with me, to not have to stay in that damn nursing home, but because of her medical issues and her sheer stubbornness, she’d refused. She had a hard head and did things her way. But that was going to change.

  “I want to talk to you about something, Gigi,” I said and held the coffee cup between my hands. The cup was warm, the steam from the coffee billowing up. I looked at her and saw her watching me. She was sharp as a tack, and I knew she probably already guessed what I was about to say. The only reason she hadn't shut me down yet was probably because she was waiting for me to plead my case so she could go all wise on me.

  “I think it’s time you moved in with me.” I held up my hand before she could argue. “I know you said you don’t want to be a burden, but it makes no sense you being this stubborn. You aren't any trouble and I can take care of you.”

  “Darling, you have your own life. You don’t need some old lady ruining the way you have things going.”

  I shook my head before she finished. “You’re like my mother, Gigi. I can’t stand the thought of you in that nursing home anyway. I never could. It was only because you were adamant on staying there that I didn't press the matter. Well, that and you’re as hard-headed as a damn rock.”

  She started chuckling and leaned back on the bed.

  “But I mean it, Gigi. I want you to move in with me. I didn’t push when you wouldn’t do it earlier, because I know that would just have you set in your ways more.”

  She chuckled harder. “Yes, you’re probably right.” She sobered and stared out the window for long seconds. When she looked back at me she seemed serious. “But I’m too old, will be too much of a burden.”

  “Please, Gigi,” I said, figuring she’d try and talk me out of it. “I really want you in my life, sharing my home.” I reached out and took her hand in mine. “It’s always been you and me against the world.” She smiled and gave my hand a squeeze, and it was then that I knew she’d given in.

  “Okay, darling. Okay.”

  2

  Jackson

  I’d gone to the hospital to check on the little old lady that I’d grabbed out of the fire. She reminded me of my grandmother, and I’d had this desire to make sure she was doing okay.

  I made my way down the hall toward her room, gave the door two knocks, and pushed it open. A woman sat in front of the hospital bed, her long dark hair falling over her shoulders in tumbling waves.

  She must have heard me enter because she stood up and turned, facing me.

  “Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt,” I said, about to turn around, but everything in my body froze.

  Avery Sinclair.

  Everything in me froze, became as still as the calmest waters. Avery, the one woman I’d always loved. The girl I’d grown up around but left so many years ago it now seemed like a distant memory.

  But she was here, standing right in front of me, looking like a woman instead of the teenager I’d known back in the day.

  I saw the realization filter across her face, knew she was probably just as shocked as I was. Looking over her shoulder at the older woman, it was then that I realized who exactly she was. I hadn’t put two and two together the other day, didn’t even recognize the name at first. What with Avery having a different last name and always calling her grandmother Gigi, it hadn’t even occurred to me that the woman I’d saved was Avery’s grandmother.

  I looked back at Avery, every part of me wanting to go to her, to make her mine.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered, lifting her hand and placing it over her mouth. She stood like that for long seconds, then dropped her hand to her side. “Jackson?” She chuckled, but it was one filled with nervousness. “Is that really you?” She shook her head slightly. “I almost didn’t recognize you. You…” She looked me up and down. “You look so different.” She stared into my face again. “But your eyes,” she whispered. “I’d remember them, recognize them anywhere, no matter how many years have passed.”

  I didn’t answer right away, just looked my fill of her. She was all curves, the T-shirt she wore fitting her snugly and showing off the large mounds of her breasts and tapering down to her curvy waist. She had that hourglass shape going on to perfection.

  “I can’t believe it’s really you,” she said again, taking a step closer to me.

  “Yeah, I’m thinking the same thing,” I finally said. I stared into her chocolate brown eyes, ones I’d gotten lost in so many times when we were younger. We’d been friends, but not close enough that I had ever told her how I felt. Hell, I’d been too afraid of myself back then to admit my feelings. I still remembered the day I told her I was leaving, how she’d seemed genuinely sad by it, how I’d felt like my whole world was being ripped from me.

  Our letters had tapered off over the years until there were no more. But I never stopped loving her, never stopped wanting her. She was mine. Avery always had been and always would be.

  “You look different, Jackson,” she repeated and I saw the way her cheeks turned red.

  My heart skipped a beat. Yeah, I knew I looked a hell of a lot different than when she’d last seen me. Gone was the geeky, scrawny kid who got pushed around. In his place was a man towering at six foot three, heavily muscled from working out and building myself up, and contacts replacing the black-rimmed glasses I used to wear.

  Gone was the string bean who let asshole jocks like Frankie shoulder check him into lockers. How would she feel if she knew that I’d waited in every aspect of my life to be with her? How would Avery react if she knew that I’d saved myself for her … only her?

  I was no longer that skinny kid scared of his own shadow. I was big and strong, a firefighter and back in town to let the only girl I had ever loved know that she was mine.

  3

  Avery

  Jackson was right in front of me. Yet it still felt like a dream, like this wasn’t my reality. For six long years I’d wondered what he was up to, where he was, or if he was happy.

  I wondered if he was in love.

  Growing up, he’d been such an integral part of my life, whether I ever admitted that to him or not. We’d been opposites--me a social butterfly, him a social outcast. But we’d gotten along so well together that I’d considered him my best friend. With Jackson, I always felt like it was okay to just be ... me.

  But then he’d moved away, and I’d felt like a little piece of me had left with him. The letters had helped, but they did nothing for my need to see him, to actually speak with him. We used to have the most ridiculously funny conversations before school every morning, and I’d missed connecting with him in that way.

  But distance and time did make the heart grow fonder. It was when he left that I realized how important he was to me. How I should have told him I wanted to be more than friends.

  Gone was the skinny guy I’d called a friend. In his place was all man--and that’s exactly what he was. Big and muscular, with power coming off of him in waves. He made me feel wholly feminine.

  In that moment something came over me, an emotion so powerful I couldn’t stop myself. I walked right up to him and threw my arms around his broad shoulders. Jackson put his arms around me and pulled me close, so close I could hear his heart beating. I closed my eyes and inhaled his scent. I smiled to myself, realizing it was the same cologne he’d used when we were teenagers. The smell made me heady, and I felt a blanket of peace wrap around me. Jackson had always had that effect on me.

  I was just so scared to ever tell him how I felt, and I’d regretted it ever since. My home life wasn’t anything to brag about, so I’d compensated with school and overachieving. I’d clung to the friendship I had with Jackson, those emotions growing to something more. I should have told him how I felt, shouldn't have let all this time and distance separate us.

  Maybe th
ings would have been different.

  I pulled away and tipped my head back to look into his face. “Jackson, when did you get back?” I asked, not able to help the smile that surely covered my face. Was he married? Did he have a girlfriend? What was he doing back in town? Was he here for good? All those questions slammed into me in rapid succession.

  The idea of Jackson being in a relationship stung more than it probably should have.

  “I’ve been back a couple months. I’ve just been keeping low-key and settling in.” His voice was so deep now that chills raced along my body. He tipped his chin toward my grandmother. “I assume you know her or you wouldn’t be here,” he said and smiled, still holding me, still keeping me close.

  I looked over at Gigi, who sat there looking very interested in what was going on. I couldn’t help but smile and shake my head. She was just as nosey as I was. “That’s my grandmother.” Jackson had never ended up meeting her while he lived here.

  “You’re the firefighter who helped me out,” Gigi said. I looked over at Jackson, a little stunned.

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “Small world that I helped your grandmother.” He cleared his throat and finally let go of me. I couldn’t deny the disappointment I felt over that. “What about you?”

  “I graduated with my bachelors and I’m gearing up for the master’s program in social work this fall.”

  Jackson’s smile grew larger. “That sounds like the Avery I know. Always wanting to save kids.”