Hero Next Door (Next Door Romance Book 2) Read online

  “You just keeping me here is thanks enough,” he replies genuinely. “I appreciate it so much.”

  “After everything that you have done for me… pfft, I’m not kicking you out any time soon. Maybe never.”

  The air shifts. Something about my words has changed the atmosphere a hundred percent. That thick intense chemistry that me and Theo share rockets between us both and it’s like there is a magnet between us, pulling us both in. Neither of us can resist, even if we wanted to. Thankfully, I definitely don’t. I allow myself to slide towards him and shudder with excitement as his hands catch my cheeks. He gives me a look of sheer adoration as he pulls me in.

  “You are beautiful, Esme,” he whispers just seconds before his lips graze against mine. “Truly beautiful.”

  The kiss deepens right away. His tongue invades my mouth and I can’t resist leaning in to him, allowing him to wrap his arms around me to bring me in nearer to him. Honestly, I can’t get enough of his body, I want to feel every inch of him. I might have been tired before, drained and exhausted, but now he has me sparked and alive, more so than ever. I don’t think that I will ever be able to sleep again. Perhaps this isn’t my wisest choice, I shouldn’t be jumping in to anything with this guy when I’m still recovering from the trauma of Mr. Jones, but Theo is lovely, he’s better, he’s my hero for crying out loud. There is no reason why I shouldn’t be with him.

  “Oh, Theo,” I gasp as I roll over him until I’m straddling him. “I want you so badly, Theo.”

  Without me needing to ask again, Theo lifts me up as if I weigh nothing, just like he did when he was pulling me from the burning building, and he carries me up the stairs to my bedroom while we continue kissing like there’s no tomorrow. It’s sexy as hell actually, it gets me fired up even more, so by the time he lies me down on the sheets I’m ready to jump his freaking bones. I can hardly control myself, I’m like an absolute animal.

  “Oh, wow,” Theo gasps as I flip him around until he’s the one with his back on the bed. “Esme…”

  I don’t give him a chance to finish whatever thought that was. I strip the air from his lungs by shocking him to the core. I push myself up in to a sitting position and I dip my hand in to his trousers with no warning. I trickle my fingers in to his underwear and take his thick throbbing erection in my hand. God, he’s massive. He feels even bigger than I remember, and seeing his face crumble in to a pile of pleasure, I don’t know how much longer I can wait…

  Although stroking his, having his shaft in my hand makes me crave something else, something I didn’t think of before. Saliva floods my mouth as the need grips me, which brings a cheeky smile to my lips. While Theo’s face crumbles, I inch myself slowly down his body, excited by this new craving to taste him, to have him in my mouth.

  “Oh, Esme…” Theo can tell where I’m going, what I’m doing, and he wants it. He wants it so bad it hurts. If that isn’t encouragement for me to run kisses down the bottom of his stomach until I can just about taste his salty tip, well I don’t know what is. I love the way that he calls out my name over and over again while his cock grazes my lips.

  He tastes fucking incredible. His manly cock leaves me wanting more, so I can’t resist parting my lips and taking him inside. The way that he fills my mouth, that he trembles against my lips as my wet heat surrounds him, well it’s too much for me. There is a pulsing between my thighs that it craving action, that needs to feel him buried deep inside of me, but I don’t give in to that feeling. Not immediately. At first, I bob my head up and down his length, swirling my tongue all around him to make sure I lick every part of him as I go. I love it, I can’t get enough. There is even a moment when I let my tongue travel down a little bit further and I lick his balls. There isn’t another person I ever would have done that for, but Theo is different. I want all of him in my mouth. I crave every inch of him.

  “Fuck, Esme. This is… is…” I haven’t ever heard Theo stammer before and it’s thrilling. “It’s too much…” Without any warning, he pulls my head away and he stares in to my eyes, panting with desperate need. “Sorry, but I just… I want you. I have missed you so much and I didn’t think that you would ever want to again… I like you…”

  I kiss him hard before he trips over any more of his words, simply delighted that he feels the same way as me. We might not have had any sort of conversation about us, half because in reality just because it feels like it has been a life time, we’ve only been hanging out for a short while, and half because there has been so much else to discuss, but I do feel a lot going between us with this kiss. I can feel that he desires me just as much as I do him.

  As he cups his hands around my butt and he pulls me up to him, I go willingly. Fuck, he wants to be inside of me just as much as I need him, so that isn’t something I will argue with. I strip him down fully at the same speed he does me, and it isn’t long before we are a pair of tumbling naked bodies intertwined with one another.

  “Do you have protection?” I moan out as he sucks and licks my throat, sending me in to a frenzy. I don’t much like the idea of asking this in the heat of the moment, especially because there’s an awful chance that he won’t which will halt all that feels so good. But we’re already moving along at the speed of light. It’s best to be careful.

  “I do.” Theo doesn’t stop kissing me all over as he sheaths himself up. His lips even find my nipples which he sucks and teases until I am a mess, utterly desperate to have him deep within me. “Thank God.”

  And then he’s inside of me. At first, he’s on top, and then I am. We keep switching, fighting for power, reveling in lust, consumed by the intense bliss circling and swimming between us. I am stone cold sober this time, as is he, which intensifies everything. Each feeling is much more phenomenal than before which has me tumbling deeper. I’m falling in to the orgasm, tumbling in to the abyss of pleasure, but I know for sure that I’m losing control of my feelings as well. I’m head over heels, falling over and over again for Theo, and I can’t stop it.

  It’s a dangerous place to be, it’s scary because I don’t have any guarantee that he feels the same as me, but I don’t have any power to stop it. I fall deeper and deeper as the overwhelming pleasure grips me and sends me flying in to space. With every second that I find myself seeing stars, I like him more and more. I cling to him, my nails probably piercing his skin, because I’m completely unable to let go of him. Every moment that I spend shuddering, screaming through the pleasure, collapsing in to a puddle in Theo’s arms, he holds me, adores me, kisses me, and makes me feel safe. I don’t ever want to run from this man again. I want to keep him in my arms forever, or at least until he doesn’t want me anymore. Then when he lets me go, at least I will know that I savored every moment with him…

  Once we are both finished shattering though the orgasm, we collapse together on the bed, panting and gasping desperately. The air is still electrical as we swim through the wondrous post orgasmic bliss together. I find my lips curling up in to a smile and my body yearning to hold him some more. The last time that we slept together ended up in me panicking and running away. There is no chance of that this time. I am here to stay… and not just because this time we are in my house instead of his. Because I want to keep him, I want to experience as much as I can with him.

  “Will you sleep over again?” I ask him quietly as I curl in to him. “Only not on the floor this time.”

  “But it only takes me a second to make up my make shift bed,” he teases me. “I don’t mind at all…”

  I grab him and pull him back to me for a kiss. “But I can’t randomly do this whenever I want to if you’re all the way down there. It’ll be such an effort for me to climb down and get you that I might not bother at all…”

  His arms circle my waist and as he kisses me back I know that he isn’t going anywhere. “Now that is perfect reasoning.” His fingers stroke my hair. “No way I can argue with that one.”

  So, we snuggle in the bed together, my bed which has ne
ver been shared with anyone else before. I suppose Theo slept in it for a while last night, but he was protecting me then, now we are equals. This is why nothing else has ever worked out for me before, this is why my life has happened exactly as it has, all to bring me to him.

  Mr. Jones might have damaged me, it will take some time for me to rebuild the confidence that he knocked over the years and for me to recover from the trauma of that horrible night with him, but with Theo in bed with me I can focus on the good that has come out of it all. If that doesn’t drive me forwards in to a better future, nothing will.

  I will get another job, one that suits me better and treats me like a human rather than a whipping post, and I will make new friends there. I will still keep in touch with Delia of course, she is a friend for life, but everyone else can go in the past. Along with Mr. Jones. Now, I will only look to the future and what that may hold. And hopefully I can do that with Theo by my side, but I know that if things don’t work out with him, as much as I want them to, I will be able to face life alone. He has taught me that much and that’s a much needed life lesson which will live with me forever.

  Chapter 18 – Theo

  Walking in to work feels different. I can’t quite put my finger on it, it could even be me. I might be different now because I have an awesome woman in my life. I declared that I wouldn’t ever fall for anyone again, that I was put off anything long term, but now I have been proven very wrong. Now, I have Esme in my life.

  Waking up with her was incredible, knowing that she isn’t going anywhere, well it’s just wonderful.

  “Hey there, you.” Tamara is the first one to greet me and she has a very knowing look on her face. It’s almost as if she can see what’s going on behind my eyes without me needing to say anything. “How are things, lover boy?”

  “Er… things are good.” I narrow my eyes curiously at her. “What are you talking about, lover boy?”

  “Oh, come off it. As if we don’t all know about you being in love. The girl from the fire, right? The one that you rescued. Man, that is such a fucking movie style romance, isn’t it? You being her hero.”

  Much as I want to protest, I can’t stop myself from laughing at her. I suppose she’s right in a weird way, but really this is just my life. I didn’t know that I was going in to save Esme, I didn’t know what would follow, it’s all just been a bunch of happy coincidences that have resulted in her being mine at long last.

  “I don’t know about love, but yeah me and Esme are together. I wasn’t in yesterday because I was at the police station with her. She had finally remembered that the asshole in the building with her set the fire.”

  “He did?” Tamara’s eyes nearly burst with shock. “Wow, any reason why? Some insurance thing?”

  “An insurance thing combined with rejection.” I roll my eyes to try and play down how much this really angers me. “Esme didn’t want him but he said that he would get rid of the company for her.”

  “Wow, this girl must be something else. She must be special if some guy was willing to get rid of everything for her. I guess there must have been money problems as well. No one would do something that wild.”

  “I think so.” I nod at Tamara. “It was some seriously fucked up thing anyway. At least it’s over now.”

  “And you are back to falling in love with the girl that you rescued from the fire. Perfect.”

  We head up the stairs to join everyone else where I am of course teased some more being in love after insisting that it wouldn’t happen. There’s no point in me arguing, I know that much, it will only make everything a million times worse, so I sit back and accept it. In fact, I accept it so much that I find myself drifting off in to feelings of genuine love for this woman. I mean, does all love have to go at the same pace? Does every story have to follow the same pace? No love story makes sense, it doesn’t have to, it’s all about feelings and they could come from anywhere.

  “How are you going to declare your love?” Frankie nudges me in the side. “Unless you’ve done so already. You going to do some big grand gesture for her? I bet she would love that after all she has been through!”

  “Keep out of it, will you?” I chuckle. “No one is telling anyone anything. You guys are just getting carried away with yourselves. I haven’t said anything about being in love, have I? I’m just sitting here quietly.”

  “You don’t need to, mate. We can all see it in your eyes. You don’t hide it very well.”

  I’m actually pleased when Joe walks in for a meeting with us all, halting the conversation where it is because to be honest I need to get my own head in order before I can even decide on my next move. I really do want to be in love, I adore the idea of starting afresh with Esme, and I would honestly relish the idea of being in love with her, but will it scare her away? If I blunder in with my feelings too soon will I freak her out or will she like it? Oh God, the last thing that I want to do is make her run now when we have finally made it to this incredible point at last.

  I guess I don’t need to do anything too drastic. I don’t need to tell her how I feel, even if I’m feeling it. I can just wait until the moment is right, then let everything free. Whatever works for us will be right…

  As I watch Esme across the room on her computer, half searching for jobs and half laughing at something her best friend, Delia, is saying to her on the phone, my heart melts. She must feel the same way about me too because she leapt out of her door the moment I got in from work and told me to come and sleep on her couch. She’s missed me and wants me back with her immediately, even if it’s me sleeping. Of course I agreed, and here I am, half drifting in and out of the best dream ever, and half living in it with her when I’m awake as well. It’s perfect.

  Now feels right. Doesn’t it? I mean, not right now because she’s busy, but I really don’t want to hold back any longer. I want her to know that I’m falling in love with her. I don’t even mind if she isn’t quite there herself yet, that doesn’t matter. She will get there, I just know it. I buzz with the knowledge that soon I will be able to share my love with her because this is right, this is definitely the best thing to do even if it is absolutely crazy.

  I don’t mind being crazy for Esme, because she is also the person to make me sane.

  Her face, her sweet laugh, the way that she is even seeing the positive in this situation now that the nightmare side of it is all over… it draws me to her and makes me want to cling on to her forever more. I will never understand why her nut case boss did what he did, and I don’t think I’ll ever figure it out even if we see him explain himself in court, but I do get why he wanted Esme so much. I just don’t intend to go crazy over her like that.

  “Oh, are you awake?” All of a sudden, Esme spots me watching her. “Sorry, I will just finish up here.”

  “No, don’t worry, you carry on.” I push myself up in to a sitting position. “I’m just having a moment to wake myself up. Don’t you worry about me, I’m happy to sit here and watch you work.”

  She blushes, making my heart melt just like it always does when she turns as red as her hair. It’s something that I could watch her do forever. God, if I’m not careful, I won’t end up telling her that I love her, I will propose instead. Now that would send her running for the hills for sure. Not me though. How crazy for someone who didn’t ever plan on getting hitched a second time. Now I can see it happening with this beautiful woman whenever.

  It takes a couple of moments but Esme eventually hangs up the phone and comes to sit with me. It isn’t the big romantic gesture that Frankie suggested I might do, but it feels right for us. It feels warm and lovely.

  “I love you, Esme.” God, it feels so freeing to say those words aloud. “And I know that it’s soon and that I might sound like a crazy person right now, but I do. It felt different the moment I first laid eyes on you and now I know why. It’s because you are the person that I want to spend the rest of my life with.”

  She leans back and stares at me as if she’s trying t
o work out exactly what’s going on here. I hope that she doesn’t think this is some kind of goof or something because I have never been so serious in my life. I hope that reflects in my expression, I don’t want anything to worry this woman at all. I would love nothing more than if she would let me be her hero all over again. For the rest of our lives, preferably. I will save other people when it comes to my work, but the one person that I would love to focus all of my attention on is her. My Esme, my beautiful next door neighbor.

  “Really? You love me?” she squeals in shock. “Little ol’ Esme Smith? Are you serious right now? That’s crazy.”

  “Why is that crazy? You are utterly loveable. Everything about you makes me fall for you more and more.”

  She flings her arms around me and kisses me hard. I don’t know what this kiss means but I’m more than happy to go along with it. As long as she isn’t shoving me out of her house, I am all good thank you very much.

  “I… love…” she gasps in between kisses. “You… too… so very much. I… hope you know that…”

  I rest my forehead against hers and stare deeply in to her eyes, my fingers lightly stroking down the back of her hair as I do. “I don’t expect you to say it back if you don’t feel it. I just want you to know how I feel.”

  “I do. I do a lot, Theo, and the only reason that I haven’t said it is because it seems crazy…” She’s speaking so fast now it’s like her words are tripping over one another. Now that her mouth has finally been freed from the shackles of oppression that Mr. Callum Jones locked her in, she can’t stop the flood gates from parting and everything spilling out. “It’s crazy but in a really good way and I have been through a lot of bad crazy time recently…”