Ignite On Contact (Brotherhood by Fire #2) -Jaci Burton Page 0,40
grandfather was pushing her toward Rafe. “We’ll see. I’ll be back at ten. Love you, Grandpa.”
“Love you, too, bebita.”
At least she had an exit plan if she got so tired she couldn’t keep her eyes open.
She walked across the lawn and knocked on the door to Rafe’s house. It took a minute, but Rafe opened the door.
He wore jeans and a short-sleeved Henley that fit tight against his amazing chest and shoulders.
“You look incredible,” he said, smiling at her but keeping his eyes fixed on her face, which she appreciated.
“Thanks. So do you. Are we going out?”
“No. I just figured since I invited you over to eat, I should maybe not dress like I’m going to the beach. Come on in.”
It was a million degrees outside and even more humid than that. The fact he put on a pair of jeans was quite the sacrifice.
She followed him into the kitchen. He had two wineglasses out.
“White or red?”
“White.”
“Sweet or not?”
“Hmm. Not.”
He went to the fridge and selected a bottle of sauvignon blanc. He pulled the cork and let it sit.
“How was your day?” he asked.
“Intense. Exhausting. I ran from the second I got there until the end of shift.”
He swept his hand down her arm. “Those days are brutal. You must be wiped.”
“Kind of.”
He poured the wine into their glasses and grabbed both of them. “Come on. Let’s go sit in the living room.”
They took seats next to each other on the comfortable sofa. He handed her one of the glasses.
“Thanks.”
“A lot of emergencies today?” he asked.
She liked that he seemed interested in her work. “Yes.”
“Come on. Kick off your sandals, put your feet in my lap and I’ll give you a foot massage. You can tell me about your day.”
“Seriously?” Her feet ached by the end of her shift, and the one thing she always longed for was someone to rub them.
“Totally serious.”
She slid out of her sandals, shifted on the sofa and laid her arm against the pillow of the sofa. She rested her feet in his lap, balancing her glass of wine as she did so. He started off rubbing the arch of one foot, gently at first.
She resisted the urge to moan. It felt so good.
“That’s nice.”
“Good. So did you have ambulances stacked up?”
Oh, that’s right. She was supposed to be telling him about her day, but all she could think about was how he was using his amazingly strong hands to rub the soreness out of her aching feet.
“Right. It’s like they were lying in wait for me as soon as I got there. One critical emergency after another.”
He nodded, using his fist to roll the tension out of the ball of her foot. This time, she did moan, sighed and took a hard swallow of her wine.
She was in heaven, and if he never stopped rubbing her feet, she’d be okay with that.
“I know how that is,” he said. “Same thing happens at the station sometimes. It’s like you don’t even get a second to breathe the entire shift.”
“Exactly. You could go weeks with business as usual, and then all hell breaks loose in one day. That’s how today was. By the time I got home, I was beat.”
He shifted to her other foot, using his same tender massage, then looked up at her. “You could have canceled if you were too tired to come over. You know I would have understood, Carmen.”
“I figured you would have. But I made Grandpa dinner and took a shower, and the shower helped revive me a little.”
He smiled. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me, too. And thank you for the foot rub. It’s helping in ways I can’t even tell you.”
She hadn’t realized how much she needed the emotional support, the fact he listened to her talk about her day. She told her grandpa, of course, but never too much information, because then he’d complain she was working too hard and he’d feel guilty that she had to take care of him and the house, too. So she tried to downplay the grueling hours and the hard days.
She placed her wineglass on the table. “What did you do today?”
“My brothers and I finished up some yard work at my parents’ house. It’s ready to put on the market now.”
“That’s great. So when are they moving to the new house?”
“Pretty soon. Kal’s there tonight helping our dad pack up the garage. The son of friends of theirs is interested in buying the place, so they might not even have to put