Free Wrapped in Flame by Caitlyn Willows

stuff too. “I’ve got some boxes in the garage. We can load up some cookware, dishes—”
    “Wouldn’t it be easier to have her live here?” Berto asked.
    “She’d never stand for that.” They needed to fully understand the situation, even if that meant violating her confidence. “Keith pushed her hard. I won’t do the same thing. I don’t want her to feel as if she doesn’t have a choice.”
    “Well”—CJ flipped his seat belt off the second Mike cut the engine—“there’s not pushing, but then there’s letting her know exactly where you stand and then giving her space.”
    He had a point. “When did you get to be so smart about women?”
    CJ snickered. “Never. It’s easier to see stuff when you’re not directly involved.”
    “I’ll remember that when it’s your turn in the box,” Mike said over the laughter in the backseat.
    CJ tossed up his hands. “Hey, stranger things have happened. But I’ll tell you this”—he jabbed his finger at Mike—“I can guarantee I’m not going to scuff my toe in the sand and dick around. I’m going to go for it. Because if you’d done that from the start, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now.”
    Verbal uppercut, right to the jaw, and straight to the core of the matter.
    He’d been beyond miserable this last year, wanting Erica and seeing her with someone else. High road be damned. Now that she was free, now that he’d had a taste of what it was like to have her exclusively, Mike couldn’t stay away from her, no matter how much space she wanted. No matter how much sense it made to lie low until the investigation was over. She belonged in his arms, in his bed, under his body—in his life forever. Everything about Mike demanded he step up and prove to her…so many things he couldn’t begin to count them all. He couldn’t wait any longer. He wouldn’t wait any longer.
    Mike swallowed the emotion that welled up. There was nothing he could do to fight the fear that went with it. He fell back on words he’d lived since the night before. Don’t fuck this up.
    “We gonna load this stuff up, or are you going to sit there looking all moonfaced?” Bub asked.
    “Shut the fuck up.” Mike pushed the truck door open and headed for the house, trying to ignore the snickers behind him.
    What he’d thought would only be one truckload wound up being three. He expected Erica to challenge him at some point, to tell him enough was enough, especially during the second load when her uplifted eyebrow had met their arrival. But she let him have his way. That alone gave him the courage to take a stand. All he needed was time alone with her.
    And if she doesn’t feel the same?
    Mike followed Erica’s every move, watching her set things to rights or telling others where she wanted stuff. Everyone but him. She was flame in his arms, and the burn still simmered under his skin. It always would. Then she caught him staring. Her cheeks flushed, her breath caught. The sweep of those long eyelashes shielded her big brown eyes seconds before she locked her gaze on to his. The cacophony around them faded to background noise. The others could be sitting on the sidelines with popcorn, and he wouldn’t have noticed. Or cared.
    She ducked into her bedroom. Mike followed and filled the gap between them, stopping short of pressing her against the wall. His heart raced. Skin tingled.
    “Keith came between us when he was alive, Erica. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him do so now that he’s dead.”
    “He already has.”
    How could so brief a silence last an eternity? A lifetime in which Erica’s unblinking stare seared into his eyes, grabbed his balls, and yanked them to his throat. At least they had good company. His heart had been lodged there since the moment he’d first met her. With those three words, Mike wondered if she was ready to crush body parts along with his hopes. So much for not fucking things up.
    “And you don’t arbitrarily get to decide that,