Read Online Fanning the Flames (Romance Firemen Series) by Amanda Perry - Free Book Online Page A

written across it.
    She opened it.
     
    CASSIE
    I only saw your sweetness when we met
    your eyes alight with hope and innocence
    your passion and your purity shone halo-like
     
    I thought that you could be the balm
    to heal the acid scars across my soul
    your touch could cleanse my heart if you were mine.
     
    I showered you with everything I had
    with love shaped into countless dollar signs
    and all my secrets and all of my pain
     
    and when at last you came to me I saw
    the light go out, the innocence shattering
    and yet by then I loved and could not leave
     
    all I wanted was to give you all
    I had and even more, and all I asked
    was that you love me, heal me, and be mine
     
    but no, that was a price you wouldn’t pay
    you snared my heart then ran into the night
    I could not escape though you were gone
     
    fresh from my arms you fled to someone else
    without a single care for what you’d done
    and killed what little love was left to me
     
    you gave to me a tiny bud of hope
    then burned it in the inferno of your lust
    as you screwed someone else, my erstwhile love
     
    She stared in disbelief at the paper in her hand. “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she muttered, crumpling the poem into a ball. “Try to be a little less of a sophomore, Nick.”
    “Sophomore?”
    Cassie whirled around. Nick was standing in the doorway. He looked disheveled, his normally perfect hair mussed and stubble shading his jaw.
    With a mounting sense of dread, she observed he was still wearing the same chinos and casual shirt that he had been wearing the previous day. He clicked the door shut.
    “What’s the matter, Cassie?” he hissed. “Is it not exactly Proust? Tennyson? It was written more for its cathartic affect than for its literary merit. I’m sorry if it doesn’t meet your exceptional standards.
    Or perhaps it doesn’t reach down to them, since it seems that your preference is to reject the finer things in favor of something considerably more rough and ready.”
    “What are you doing here, Nick?” Cassie asked, keeping her voice as calm and level as she could. “I thought you weren’t going to be here.”
    “I never said that,” he said. “It’s my house. I can be here if I want to. Besides, you were my guest. I would be a terrible host if I weren't here to say goodbye, wouldn’t I?”
    “I’ve got my purse, I’m leaving. I’ll send someone tomorrow to get the rest.”
    Nick laughed and pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. “Care for a smoke?” he asked, holding it out to Cassie. “No? Well, I guess that’s to be expected.”
    He lit one and took a long drag. “A sweet little girl like you. So cute, so modest, doesn’t smoke, hardly drinks. A guy might be allowed to steal a kiss on the first date, but that’s it! Then it’s back to holding hands until you’ve taken her to enough church socials to win her pure and perfect love.”
    He blew a smoke ring. “Or something like that. Except it’s not really true, is it, Cassie?”
    “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Nick,” Cassie said firmly. “Please get out of the way so I can leave.” She walked forward and reached for the handle, hoping he would back down. Instead, he grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her across the room.
    “You little bitch!” Nick yelled as Cassie stumbled over and landed on the bed. She scrambled to get to her feet, but Nick got in her way.
    She lashed out at him, but he caught hold of her wrists and pinned them down, straddling her to keep her from kicking.
    “Anderson!” Cassie screamed, hoping to get the attention of his chauffeur.
    Nick laughed. “He’s long gone, Cassie. It’s just you and me.” 
    “Nick, please…” she whispered, “Please don’t.”
    “Please don’t, Nick!” he said, mimicking her scornfully. “Don’t what, Cassie? Don’t touch you? Don’t rape you? Do you honestly think that I don’t have women by the dozen who are willing, even desperate, to be with me? I