Free The Firefighter and the Virgin Princess by Jemma Harte Page B

her go. "You're being ridiculous," she
exclaimed. "There are no friends for you to meet. How many times do
I have to tell you?"
    "So you've never had a friend?" he snapped.
Joe couldn't comprehend that. His life was full of people.
    Lily seemed to ponder the question for a
while. "I had a few childhood friends, I suppose. I barely
remember. Just birthday parties with kids I was supposed to
invite." She paused awkwardly and then added, "There was one girl I
liked. We were very close at school, in our teens."
    It seemed as if it caused her pain to get
that much out, and Joe was sorry he'd pushed. He should know how
that felt for him when girls pushed and nagged.
    With the two of them the tables were turned
and he was in danger of chasing her away.
    "Ah!" He smiled, carefully relaxing his grip
on her arm and shifting closer. "This sounds interesting. Go
on."
    She rolled her eyes. "No, we didn't
experiment sexually together or anything like that, but we shared
secrets. Did everything together."
    "So what happened?"
    "She turned sixteen, got too tall, got
boobs, got a boyfriend. She lost interest in ballet, left school,
went home to Virginia. I never saw her again. We wrote a few times,
but...once she left ballet...we had nothing in common anymore,
nothing to talk about."
    He caught her straightening the sorrowful
bend of her pouty lips. Although her features were nobly brave
again now, he had seen the glimmer of loneliness. What she'd just
told him, without meaning to do so, was that when her friend left
the world of ballet she left their friendship behind too. Lily must
have felt betrayed by it.
    It troubled him that she had no one. When
she'd said that she really meant it, apparently. Now he felt like
an ass.
    Taking a deep breath, he
said, "Well, then you can meet my friends." It was a chancy move— his friends would
probably go out of their way to embarrass him in front of her, and
she would seem like an alien to them—but he had to have more of her
in his life, somehow. A few hours of sex here and there was not
enough and he'd realized it as he lay there watching her dress to
leave him. He needed her and she needed him, not that she'd admit
it.
    "I don't want to meet your friends," she
said softly. "I like this the way it is. Just sex."
    He fell back against the headboard and
stared at her. "That's not enough for me, Lily."
    Slowly she nodded. "Okay."
    For a moment he thought that meant she'd
agreed to come out with him and meet his friends, but when she
stood and wrapped the scarf around her neck, she added, "I'm sorry
I can't give you more, Joe. But I can't and I told you that from
the beginning."
    "So you have a tight schedule and you work
hard. Me too. We can still manage a relationship. Many people do.
We're two smart adults, right?"
    She stood there biting her lip, looking
worried. Finally she replied, "I'm sorry. I can't. It wouldn't be
fair to string you along and pretend otherwise. I have to
dance."
    "Damn it, Lily! Would it be so hard to let
me into your life, just a little bit?"
    "It wouldn't just be hard. It's
impossible."
    That was when he lost his temper. Seeing her
standing there, so beautiful, brave and alone, refusing to need
him, hurt like getting knifed in the groin. "Great," he shouted.
"So next time you fancy a quick fuck on a Wednesday afternoon just
call me up and I'll come running, Princess. That's all I'm good
for, right? Joe the blow-up doll, here for all your sexual needs,
guaranteed to get you off with no messy strings attached."
    She looked at him for a moment. "You're
nothing like a blow-up doll. You talk too much." And she walked out
of the room.
     
    * * * *
     
    So it was over. She might have known he
would get pushy and start grabbing at her. The imprint of his
fingers still ached around her arm where he'd held on to her. Did
the man not know his own strength?
    It was rather arousing actually, made her
sorry she already put her boots on at that point.
    But however much she liked having sex