Sex and the Single Fireman: A Bachelor Firemen Novel by Jennifer Bernard Read Free Book Online

bathing her in hot awareness.
    Her breath came fast, and it wasn’t only from the exercise. Squinting her eyes, she willed herself to ignore his mountainous, commanding presence in the doorway of the workout room.
    “Chief Roman, what do you lift?” Vader asked in a squeak. Sabina glanced over and saw his pecs quiver with the effort of holding two hundred and fifty pounds above his chest.
    “Enough,” Roman answered in a tight voice.
    Sabina imagined him stripping down to T-shirt and shorts and lying back on the bench press. Bulging muscles and mighty legs danced in her vision.
    “You all right there?” Roman asked Vader. She glanced over at her friend.
    “Ye-es.” Vader seemed to have no air in his lungs. The veins on his neck bulged. His eyes popped.
    “Vader!” Sabina jumped to her feet. “Someone do something!” She was strong, but she couldn’t lift that amount of weight. She ran to help him, but before she got there, Chief Roman reached down with both hands and plucked the iron bar out of Vader’s loosening grip as if it were a cheerleader’s baton. He set it back on the rack.
    “Don’t hurt yourself, Firefighter Brown.”
    “No, sir,” Vader gasped. “I’m fine, sir.”
    “We need you functional.” He addressed all of them. “Carry on. Drills start this afternoon, barring any calls, of course.” He left the room.
    Sabina pounded Vader on the back while he wheezed and coughed. He clutched at her.
    “Off day,” he managed. “I skipped my energy drink.”
    Sabina rolled her eyes. Vader was her best bud at the station, but his obsession with his muscles had always struck her as ridiculous. “You’ll beat him next time.”
    His eyes glittered. “I’ll beat him, then I’ll transfer. And he’ll beg me to stay on hands on knees. Fucking hands and knees!”
    “Sure, Vader.”
    He hoisted himself off the bench and lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper. “Need to talk to you about something private, Two. Tomorrow after work?”
    She shrugged and nodded, and he went to work out his triceps. Sabina had to give Roman credit. She’d never seen either Vader or Double D this worked up. The man sure knew how to piss people off.
    While Sabina was doing squats, which she hated, her cell phone rang again. She didn’t recognize the number, but anything was better than squats. “Hello,” she answered warily.
    “It’s Max. Don’t hang up, munchkin,” said a nicotine-drenched voice.
    “ Max? ”
    “Max Winkler. Uncle Max. Your childhood mentor. You quit answering your phone? This is the third time I called you.”
    “What are you—” She darted a glance around the workout room. She couldn’t talk to Max here. “Hang on.”
    She darted out of the gym and into the bathroom, making sure to slide the sign so it said “Women.” “Why are you calling me?”
    “It’s about your mother. When can we talk?”
    “We are talking. Is she okay?”
    “Yeah, yeah, she’s fine. How about lunch?”
    “No, Max. I’m not even in LA. I’m not that person anymore. Just tell me or I’m hanging up.” As a child, she’d fallen for Max’s tricks every time. Hopefully she’d learned a thing or two since those days.
    His deep-throated laugh, which inhabited the bottom-dwelling register of a bass line, made her pull the phone away from her ear. “Playing hard to get, huh?”
    “I’m working, Max. I actually have a job that means something to me now, and . . .”
    But she was talking to emptiness. She knew what that meant. A more important call had come in and Max had switched over without bothering to mention it to her. She ended the call and turned off her phone. As long as her mother was fine, she had nothing to say to Max.
    She splashed cold water on her face to calm herself down. Was Max going to make trouble for her? He didn’t know where she lived. No one from her old life did.
    Don’t be paranoid . She’d told him to get lost, and Max never wasted his time. Everything would be