Playing with Fire

Playing with Fire

Chapters: 21
Updated: 19 Dec 2024
Author: Nessa Page
4.6

Synopsis

Amber Wallace is not having a good month. First, she finds out that her husband is having an affair. Then while celebrating her impending divorce with wine and a nap, she accidentally sets her kitchen on fire. As if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, the hot fireman who comes to her rescue is none other than her childhood best friend’s annoying little brother. Except now, he’s all grown up—with muscles in all the right places and a smile that makes her melt. Brett Montgomery has had a crush on Amber ever since he can remember, but three years her junior, he never had the guts to do anything about it, until now. When she destroys her kitchen by way of lasagna flambe and needs a place to stay, he doesn’t hesitate to offer his place. And with the close proximity raising the temperature between them, can he convince Amber he wants more than a fling before one of them gets burned?

Romance Contemporary Unexpected Romance BxG Betrayal Second Chance

Playing with Fire Free Chapters

CHAPTER 1 | Playing with Fire

Amber:

“Are you nervous?” I asked Donovan as I set my hand on his shaking knee. The contact seemed to soothe him a little, and he placed one hand over mine, keeping the other on the steering wheel.

“Nah, just got a lot of energy. What would I have to be nervous about?” He closed his question with a chuckle, but it sounded forced. Everything about Donovan’s demeanor right then seemed unsettled, from the tapping leg to the way his left hand was tight on the steering wheel.

But he did have a point. What would he have to be nervous about? It was just a small birthday dinner for my best friend, Crystal, that we were going to. There would probably be less than twenty people there. Plus, cake. Donovan loved cake. All sweets really. I was constantly having to find new hiding spaces for my favorite sweet snacks.

“Crystal said Roger is going to break out the poker set tonight if anyone wants to play. You like poker.”

“Mm-hmm.” He didn’t take his eyes off the road but kept stroking the backs of my fingers tenderly. I, on the other hand, kept my gaze glued to his face and inched my hand upward on his leg.

“And other than Darla, the whole thing is going to be kid free. So, I can drive home if you want to have a few drinks tonight.” Darla, Crystal’s new baby, was barely two weeks old and still nursing, so she got a free pass to the grownup party, while any other kids were relegated to babysitters. Not that I needed to worry about stuff like that.

“I’m probably only going to have one beer. You should drink. I’ll drive home.” He squeezed my hand. He knew I wasn’t much of a drinker under the best of circumstances, but still never missed an opportunity to encourage me to knock a few back. I thought it was because he just liked how lusty I got when I’d been drinking. Alcohol was a surefire way to make my panties slip right off my body.

“Maybe.” I shot him a smirk, and he winked back at me, then shifted in his seat as my hand reached his crotch.

He groaned, then nudged my hand away from his fly before letting go of my fingers to adjust his pants. “Okay, let’s change the subject—for now. I don’t want to be walking in there pointing obscenely at everyone.

“Aw, are you sure?” I asked and brushed my hand over the growing erection he was trying to will away. “I wouldn’t mind seeing that.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t, you damn sadist.” His tone was teasing, but I knew how he felt about being aroused in public. That is… he hated it. I took pity on him and drew my hand back. We were only a few blocks from Crystal and Roger’s house, and as much as I enjoyed getting Donovan all worked up, I didn’t want to embarrass the poor man by making him parade around in front of a houseful of people with a raging hard-on.

When we got there, we had to park half a block away because so many cars were parked out front, but the weather was nice, just the perfect mix of late afternoon warmth and early fall crispness. The walk to the front door was like a stroll in the park. Donovan took my hand in his as we sauntered down the sidewalk, bordered by idyllic lawns and well-kept foliage. Crystal’s neighborhood was the epitome of the suburban dream, and if I hadn’t loved my craftsman bungalow in the historic district downtown so much, I would have been a little jealous.

“I wouldn’t mind living in a neighborhood like this.” Donovan announced, and I searched his expression to see if he was serious. He’d always said he loved living downtown, close to museums and cafes and artisan shops, galleries, theaters and all the other amenities city life had to offer.

But neighborhoods like this were for families. And we didn’t have a family. We had each other, husband and wife, sure, but Donovan had been insistent from day one that he didn’t want kids until he was in his forties.

Part of me had always suspected he never wanted kids at all and was only telling me what he thought would make me happy, keeping the dream of children alive for me. But he’d never admitted it.

“Yeah, it’s nice. Probably a good place to raise kids,” I answered, gauging his reaction to my words. I thought I saw him wince, but it could have been a trick of the light. He didn’t say anything else as we made our way up the brick-pavered driveway leading to Crystal and Roger’s front door. When we got there, he let go of my hand to ring the bell, then shoved both hands in the pockets of his slacks.

Barely a moment later, Roger threw the front door open and greeted us with a wide smile. “Hey, you made it!” He motioned us inside and offered to take our coats.

“Thanks,” Donovan said as he handed over his blazer.

“I’m okay,” I said with a little wave. The inside of the house was warmer than outside, but I was still a little chilled. I held on to my oversized, fluffy cardigan for the moment, wrapped it a little tighter around myself. I handed Roger the present I’d brought for Crystal instead, and he thanked me before setting the shiny-papered box on the entry table with a stack of others.

“Crystal is in the kitchen. Follow me; she’ll be so excited to see you. Can I get you guys a drink?” Roger’s excitement was almost palpable. He really enjoyed doing things like this for Crystal’s birthday. The man genuinely loved celebrating his wife, and it was one of the many reasons I was so glad my longtime best friend had married this wonderful man.

And to think, they hadn’t even liked each other at first, had been forced to work together on an assignment for the newspaper they both worked for. It hadn’t been until they’d been stranded together in a snowstorm that they’d finally made nice. Real nice, I thought as I followed Roger into the kitchen and got a glimpse of my best friend holding her tiny baby girl.

“Oh my goodness!” I practically cooed as I rushed to Crystal’s side and held out my hands for the sleeping baby. “I need to cuddle this baby right this second!” In the back of my brain, I was vaguely aware of Donovan heading through the kitchen and out the open sliders leading to the back patio and pool area.

Crystal laughed and handed over the bundled newborn. I snuggled her to my chest and rocked her gently, though she didn’t so much as stir from her sleep.

“You know,” I told my friend, “I’m starting to realize I don’t spend nearly enough time cuddling babies. Maybe I should quit my job and become a professional baby snuggler.”

“You know that’s a real thing, right?” she said lightly, reaching for a plastic cup and one of the many bottles of alcohol grouped on the kitchen island. She poured an unhealthy amount of rum into the cup, then filled it the rest of the way with soda. She set it on the counter in front of me.

“Girl, no. Don’t tell me that. I will absolutely quit my job tomorrow,” I joked. We both knew I loved my job as a tech consultant. I got to tell companies what to do and play with fun new tech at the same time. Though playing with babies all day would certainly have run a close second on my list.

“Well, any time you want to borrow mine, you are more than welcome. She’s sleeping sweetly right now, but I haven’t gotten more than a few hours of uninterrupted sleep since she was born.”

“Roger doesn’t get up with her?” My tone made it clear I was ready to go give her husband a stern talking to if I needed to.

Crystal chuckled, “Down girl. He gets up with her every single time. We both do.”

“Every time?” I asked in confusion. “Why don’t you guys take turns?”

“We tried,” Crystal told me, “But neither one of us wants to miss a moment of this time with our little miracle.”

And just like that, I got it. Darla really was a miracle. Crystal wasn’t supposed to have been able to carry to term. Not after a car accident had left her fighting for her life. And it hadn’t been an easy pregnancy. Crystal had almost lost the baby. And yet, here Darla was. Healthy and strong and beautiful.

I handed baby Darla back to Crystal and gave my friend a little hug before picking up the drink she’d made for me and taking huge sip. The liquid burned a solid path down my throat before setting my stomach on fire.

“I probably should have eaten something before coming,” I mused, but Crystal had assured me there would be tons of food, catered by Marzetti’s, which was only my absolute favorite restaurant in the world. I’d even worn a dress—not to look fancy for the party, but so my food game wouldn’t be ruined by a tight waistband on an expanding stomach. This girl liked to eat.

“Come on. Let’s get something in your stomach, then, before it’s too late.” One of the benefits of a twenty-five-year friendship meant Crystal knew exactly how much of a lightweight I was and that once I was drunk, I was basically dead weight. Once, in college, she’d had to call her then-boyfriend away from studying for his LSATs to come get us from a bar so he could carry me to the car and then into our dorm. I wasn’t passed out. I just couldn’t make my muscles work after five vodka tonics. After that night, she’d cut me off at three whenever we were drinking anywhere that didn’t have a bed where I could sleep the stupor off.

The dining room, and thus the food table, was remarkably unoccupied, though the spread was amazing. Renaissance kings and queens hadn’t eaten this well. “Will Roger plan my next birthday?” I begged Crystal and was met with a chuckle.

The doorbell rang as I grabbed a plate and began to load up.

“Excuse me,” Crystal said and headed for the front entryway to get the door.

I kept grabbing food. I overloaded my first plate with a variety of pastas, antipastos, salads, and appetizers, then grabbed a second plate for desserts only. “Oh, the cheesecake for sure,” I muttered happily to myself as I grabbed three of the raspberry cheesecake petit fours, then moved over to the chocolate fondue fountain and fruit spread. As soon as I ladled liquid chocolate onto my plate, I wasted no time grabbing a marshmallow and dipping it into the dark puddle of sweetness. Then I shoved the whole gooey mess into my mouth and moaned in satisfaction.

“I’ve never met anyone who can make eating look so enjoyable.” A deep male voice said from behind me.

CHAPTER 2 | Playing with Fire

Amber:

I whirled around with a sheepish grin, feeling my cheeks heat. I wasn’t ashamed of my appetite by any means, but I wasn’t unaware of the fact that I’d just made my best sex noises because of a marshmallow. In my defense, it was delicious, and I’d thought I was alone.

And Brett Montgomery had heard me. I looked him over. He wasn’t Crystal’s dorky little brother anymore, the one who had followed us all around the neighborhood when we were kids, wanting to do everything we did. Now he was all grown up. Tall, lean, and muscled. Handsome in a chiseled, just-stepped-off-a-magazine-cover way. And married if I remembered correctly.

He was leaning against the kitchen doorframe casually, one ankle crossed over the other and a bottle of beer in hand. He brought the bottle to his lips and took a long pull from it before he pushed off the doorframe.

“I didn’t eat dinner,” I told him as I set my dessert plate on the table next to my entree plate. I wasn’t abandoning either, but there was chocolate on my fingertips still, and I was pretty sure I could feel a tiny drip of it at the corner of my lips too. I grabbed a napkin and wiped my hands, then my mouth. The whole time, Brett watched me, an inscrutable expression on his handsome face.

“Don’t let me stop you.” He motioned to the table with his bottle. “Hell, I’ll join you.” He grabbed a strawberry from the display and held it directly under the flow of chocolate from the fountain, then brought it to his full, pink lips and bit. I felt a twinge of warmth low in my belly that I did my best to ignore.

I was not turned on by Brett Montgomery eating a stupid strawberry. I was probably just still amped up from teasing Donovan in the car on the way here and the promise of the fun we’d have later. Not to mention the alcohol already buzzing through my veins.

“Actually, I think I’m going to find a place to sit and eat this.” I stacked my plates on my arm, courtesy of my time spent waitressing in college, and grabbed my cup with my free hand. Then I made for the kitchen and the back patio.

Brett followed me, and when we got outside, he pulled a patio chair from under the poolside table and held it out for me to sit in. A handful of people were gathered in various places around the pool patio, but I saw no sign of Donovan. He must have gone inside for some poker. The man loved a good game of Texas Hold ‘Em.

I set down my feast and then claimed the offered chair. Before I was even fully situated, Brett was seated in the chair next to mine, which he’d angled slightly in my direction.

“So, how’ve you been?” He asked, his tone friendly and casual. “It’s been what, a year since we’ve seen each other?”

“Yeah, about that, I think,” I answered around a mouthful of spinach ravioli—my favorite. Not since Crystal and Brett’s grandmother had passed and we’d attended the funeral.

“What have you been up to?” He stretched his impossibly long legs out underneath the glass table and crossed them at the ankle, then took another swig of his beer.

“Not a whole lot. Just working, you?”

“Same. Going for Lieutenant.” He held up one hand, displaying crossed fingers.

It took a minute for my brain to fill in the blanks. I’d all but forgotten that Brett was a firefighter paramedic. “Congratulations! You’re gonna get it for sure.” I told him cheerfully. For as long as I could remember, Brett had wanted to be a firefighter, and there was something really heartwarming about seeing him fulfill his dreams.

“Thanks.”

We fell into a silence that existed somewhere between comfortable and awkward, and I occupied myself with my food.

“So, hey, we should—” Brett started to speak, drawing my attention away from the fork I was in the process of bringing to my mouth, and a mouthful of tomato-sauce-covered meatball fell squarely into my lap, squelching as it landed on the lacy fabric of my cream-colored dress.

“Shit!” I grabbed the meatball with my fingers and threw it back onto my plate. Then I scrambled to find a napkin. “Shit. Shit. Shit.” This was a brand-new dress, the first time I’d even worn it. “I really liked this dress,” I grumbled. There was no napkin in site, nothing I could use to clean myself up.

“I know where Crystal keeps the stain remover. If we spray it on there before it dries, maybe it won’t set.” Brett rose from his chair and motioned for me to follow him back into the house.

I jumped out of my chair and followed him inside, through the kitchen, the garage hallway, and into the laundry room. He knelt down, opened the cabinet under the utility sink, and came out with a spray bottle, which he held in the air triumphantly as he stood.

He crossed the small space between us and knelt in front of me. “May I?” He asked, indicating the knee-length hem of my dress. I nodded, doing my best to convince myself that the butterflies currently taking flight in my belly were a result of the rum and the stress of spilling tomato sauce on my favorite new dress.

Brett gingerly pinched the hem of my dress between his fingers and lifted it away from my legs, not high enough that he exposed anything personal, but enough that I felt a draft of cool air slip between my thighs. Seemingly oblivious to the goose bumps spreading across my arms and legs, Brett set about the task of spraying the deep red stain on the cream-colored lace with stain remover.

When he finished, he grabbed a paper towel from the roll hanging above the sink and handed it to me. “Blot it—don’t rub—until it starts to feel drier. Then we’ll see how it looks and spray again if we need to.”

I leaned against the washing machine and bent forward, holding the fabric taut so I could blot it as instructed. The first time around didn’t do the trick, so he sprayed again and handed me a fresh paper towel. I set about blotting at the stain again.

On the third round, the stain was finally fading enough that I began to hope that it might not set in and ruin the dress. I was just about to sop up the spray with yet another paper towel when muffled voices met my ears.

From the way Brett perked up and backed away from me, he heard them too. A twinge of guilt rolled over me even though we weren’t doing anything wrong. Apparently, my conscience was bothered just by being alone with a man I found attractive, even though I hadn’t let myself think about him in a carnal way.

The voices, one male and one female, came nearer, though they were both still too quiet to make out actual words. Then, the woman said, “I’ve missed you.”

Brett stiffened, and his fists clenched at his sides. The way his jaw was working, I was almost certain he was biting his tongue behind his closed lips, and his brows were drawn in anger. Did he know the woman? What was it about the voice that had elicited such a strong reaction from him so quickly? I expected him to move out into the garage hallway to confront her, but he stayed still, fists white-knuckled at his sides.

“I keep trying to get away to call you, but he’s always home.” The woman said, and I wasn’t even sure how it was possible, but Brett tensed even more.

Then the man answered, “I know what you mean,” and I crumbled into a thousand pieces. That was Donovan’s voice I heard out there. I’d never been surer of anything in my entire life. What is he doing talking to this woman, and why did she tell him she misses him? I asked myself, but I already knew the answer. I swayed on my feet, suddenly unsteady holding up my own weight when my entire world was being ripped out from under me. Brett’s strong hands settled on my shoulders, holding me upright.

When I could stand on my own again, I moved to go to the door, unsure what I was going to do when I got there, but every cell in my body was begging me to go out there and confront them. Maybe I was hoping I’d get there and find out I was wrong, that it wasn’t Donovan. But we’d been married for over a decade. I would have known his voice anywhere.

Brett grabbed my shoulders, hard enough to stop me, but gentle enough that it didn’t cause me any pain. I turned back and shot daggers at him with my eyes. “That is Donovan!” I silent whispered at him.

“And my wife,” he answered back just as quietly, and my world cracked all over again. An earthquake of marriage-ending proportions was occurring right there in the middle of Crystal’s laundry room. My mind was racing.

My husband was having an affair with Brett’s wife. How had they even met? And then it hit me. Nana Montgomery’s funeral a year ago. Had my whore of a husband and Brett’s slutty wife been cheating this whole time?

My stomach roiled, and I covered my mouth, sure I was going to be sick all over the floor any minute, and it had nothing to do with the little bit of rum I’d consumed.

“We need to talk,” Brett’s wife—what the fuck was her name? Dena? Nina? Lena!—said softly. There was a long pause. Then, “I’m late.”

Oh fuck. My vision tunneled in on me, or maybe the house was collapsing around me, I couldn’t tell. I had to set a hand on the washing machine to steady myself as my legs threatened to give out. My fingertips felt cold, like all the blood was rushing out of them, but my pulse was racing, and my blood burned in my chest, my neck, my face.

“What?” Donovan asked her stupidly. He never had been good with a hint, no matter how obvious.

I couldn’t hold myself back anymore. I lurched out of Brett’s grip and stumbled to the door. “She thinks she’s pregnant, shit-dick.” I practically yelled, venom suffusing every word as I all but fell out of the laundry room and into the hallway beyond.

Donovan froze, wide-eyed and pale. Meanwhile his maybe-pregnant mistress moved quickly behind him, effectively placing him between us. Good. She might need the protection. I’d never been so angry, so hurt, so … so… there weren’t even words to describe how I was feeling.

“How could you?” I cried.

Donovan opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, like a fish on land, floundering for water. Then something over my shoulder caught his eye, and he paled even more. Brett. I felt his presence behind me, and if he looked half as angry as he had when I’d left the laundry room, I was surprised Donovan wasn’t running for his life.

“Are you pregnant?” Brett’s voice was deathly calm. Even I was a little scared of him right now, and he was on my side.

Lena burst into tears and buried her face in Donovan’s back. Donovan shifted uncomfortably, trying to move away from her, but she had a hold of his shirt. He was stuck.

“I… don’t…” hiccup “… don’t… know,” she whined between sobs.

She was ugly crying now, and it was only making me angrier. Instead of my vision tunneling in black, now I was seeing red. I would never ever hit a pregnant woman, but right then, I was so fucking close. I had to get the hell out of there. I couldn’t be here for one second longer without hitting someone. Or breaking down into tears, and I was not about to give them the satisfaction of seeing me cry. I moved to the far side of the hallway and brushed past Donovan.

“Amber…” Donovan tried to reach for me, grabbing at my arm as I went by, but I pulled my arm free and backhanded blindly in the direction of his face. My wrist made contact with his jaw, and pain shot down into my fingers and up my arm. But it was worth it. Donovan dropped his hands, letting me go.

I rushed out of the hallway, back into the kitchen, then the front hall, passing countless confused party guests on my way to the front door. Finally, what could have been a million years later, I made it out to the safety of the front lawn, but I didn’t stop there. I couldn’t. As my tears began to fall, I had no idea where I was going, but I couldn’t stay there. I didn’t even want to be in the same zip code as my cheating husband. If it were possible, I wouldn’t even have been on the same planet as him right then.