The Firefighter and the Virgin Princess Read Free Page B

shift—was a few beers down at his local and a game of
poker. She didn't look the sort to fit in down at Lucky Lou's where
the hot wings were half price on a Friday before six and "ladies"
got their first drink free.
    Blue Eyes would call it "complimentary", he
thought with a sniff.
    No doubt she spent her Friday nights at art
gallery openings, eating stuff that tasted like cat food, wiped on
thin toast triangles.
    Everything about her was neat, composed.
Except for the mud stain. She wouldn't want a guy like him around,
making things untidy and grubby.
    Joe used to be a lot bolder when it came to
women, much more devil-may-care, but nothing mattered so much back
then. These days he was cautious. At thirty-one he was finally
getting around to straightening out his life and thought he'd
outgrown the tendency to make impulsive mistakes with his cock.
According to Donna, he should get a life like his brother's— a
good, steady life with a wife to keep him in line, two or three
kids. Simple, sweet. Just a regular guy's life. That's what he
should want.
    Yeah, Princess Blue Eyes
was way out of his league. They both knew it, that's why she'd
looked at him the way she did. But it was also the reason why he'd
watched her go with more than a hint of wistfulness in his heart,
because sometimes what Joe should want — the things that were expected for a man
like him—didn't quite match up to what he really wanted. That
something special that was just out of his reach.
     
    * * * *
     
    She stretched slowly, legs out at 180
degrees, arms on the floor, torso lowered flat to the boards. Every
day it felt as if it took longer to get her muscles warm enough,
but ironically her hip didn't feel too bad today. Or she was in
denial?
    Raising her head, she watched Tiffany and
Peter going through their combination under the watchful eye of the
choreographer. This was a modern peace, all angles and terrifying,
gravity-defying lifts. They'd been working on it for a week, and
Lily was understudying the female lead. It was good part for her,
but far from the first time she'd understudied for Tiffany and that
job involved more cheerleading and tear-wiping than it did actual
dancing.
    Just as she was appointed mother hen for the
girls in the corps, Lily appeared to have become Tiffany Weltzer's
unofficial caretaker. To make matters worse for doe-eyed Tiffany,
this choreographer was young, full of ideas, and kept changing his
mind about what he wanted. This did nothing for the nervous
dancer's self-confidence or anyone else's patience with it.
    But stretching at the side of the studio,
Lily was enjoying the choreographer's bursts of inspiration. She
loved the creative process, seeing it come together, being a part
of a new ballet from the ground up. She may be reserved and
withdrawn outside dancing, but in the studio she wasn't afraid to
experiment.
    This was to be a modern piece with very
basic sets and plain costumes, everything pared down to concentrate
on the lines and shapes made by the dancers' bodies. It was a
welcome breather from filly tutus and tiaras.
    As Tiffany struggled to pull herself out of
an upside down spiral, Lily suddenly found her mind wandering back
to the fireman who'd run after her on the street that afternoon.
Odd that he should creep back into her thoughts when she ought to
be completely absorbed in marking Tiffany.
    There was something interesting about him
though. He was very...real.
    It was the best word she could come up with
to describe it.
    He had planted himself
before her in those big, heavy fireman boots and stuck out his
hand, which was so hot she could feel the heat coming off it. The
heat coming off him . He was all churning, moving life. And noise. His voice was
loud— the sort used to bellowing just to be heard above the
never-ending sounds of the city. But it wasn't harsh. It was deep
and warm. No doubt everyone would always know when he entered a
room.
    Lily was a people watcher and loved to
analyze the way