“Lunch delivery?” I ask Madison as she hands me a bag of food.

“Well, I want to see where you work.” She steps into the garage. “You do eat lunch, right?”

“I do.” I smile down at her.

“So, are you going to show me all your cool tools?”

She’s covered up today, thank God. Jeans, ankle boots, and a jacket. Perfect to keep what’s mine from being seen around here.

I wrap my arms around her waist. “I think you’ve become well acquainted with my biggest and best tool.”

She giggles, her forehead falling to my chest. “True.” I love the blush my comments pull out of her.

“Do you want me to put on the sirens?” I ask, holding my arm out for her to enter the truck.

She takes no time at all to hoist herself up and pretend she’s driving the truck.

“Press the button right there.” She follows the direction my finger is pointing and the sirens blare. She quickly retracts her finger and covers her mouth with her hand, eyes wide.

A few guys head into the garage, seeing her in the truck.

“Bianco, you hiding gorgeous women from us today?” Lloyd calls out.

I roll my eyes. “I’m hiding my girlfriend.”

Madison climbs out and I catch her in my arms as she slides down my body before her feet land on the cement floor.

“You make it impossible not to hold onto my hero complex. Just an FYI.” She kisses me briefly and then walks over to my buddies. “Hi, I’m Madison.”

The guys each shake her hand in turn.

“Jack.”

“Lloyd.”

“Trevor.”

The three youngest members of our squad blatantly appraise her and I’d like to gouge their eyes out of their sockets.

“You dating this guy?” Lloyd asks, running his hand through his short blonde hair.

Madison looks at me, smiling widely. “I am.”

“How did he manage to get you?” Jack asks.

Madison scrunches her eyebrows. “I think you mean, how did I get him?”

Trevor bends over laughing. “You’re a ten and he’s like a six.”

I wrap my arms around her, my hands resting on her stomach. “Even so, she’s mine and don’t you forget it. We’re going to eat. The three of you, make sure everything’s ready to go in case we get a call.”

The three probies walk past us and I grab my girl’s hand, leading her into the firehouse.

“I agree with their line of thinking but…”

I cage her against the wall, swallowing her doubt with a kiss. Her hands never miss a chance to thread into my hair and she does just that as she grinds against me, lifting one leg to wrap around my thigh.

“Every night away from you is excruciating,” I mumble along her lips, closing our kiss.

“I know, but the good news is that the countertops are coming in today.”

I draw back. “Here I am laying my feelings out there and you’re thinking countertops?”

We walk up the stairs and I drop the bag of Portillo’s on the table and take a seat. Patel isn’t on shift tonight so I expect dinner will be nothing special.

“Well, you or the countertops.” She pretends to weigh the options with her hands teetering up and down like a scale.

“I don’t think countertops can make you scream like I do.” I wink at her.

She pretends to look at the ceiling, nibbling on her lip. The one move that drives me batshit crazy. “I might scream when they get installed. I’m really excited about them.”

Standing from my chair, it falls down to the linoleum floor and I take her head in my hands, kissing her feverishly until her head spins. By the time I release her, her eyes are dilated and dark with arousal. Exactly what I was going for.

“Okay, one point for Bianco.” She swipes an imaginary line in the air.

I pick up my chair and unwrap the food she brought me.

“Why is there nothing in here for you?” I ask, taking a second glance in the now empty bag.

“I already ate.” She sits down and crosses her legs, placing her phone on the table.

“What? A granola bar?”

She cocks her head to the side. “I’m sorry, are you judging me?”

I unwrap my beef sandwich. “I’m just saying you need to eat more. I hate that you watch everything that goes into your mouth.”

She digs into her purse and wiggles the bag of M&Ms in her hand until some fall out, like that’s proving a fact.

“Case in point. You don’t even eat the entire bag. You eat five in a sitting.”

“Hey now, don’t ruin my M&Ms for me,” she warns.

The conversation is turning to where it might not go the way I want it to.

“One bite of my beef and I’ll leave you alone.” I smile at her.

“You act like I have an eating disorder. I don’t.”

I blow out a breath. There’s no turning back from this conversation.

“I don’t think you do. I just hate that you worry so much about it. I’ll like you no matter what.”

“You didn’t even notice me when I was ‘Fatty Maddy’ with braces and glasses, Mauro, let’s be realistic.”

Anger boils inside of me. She just doesn’t get that I might not have noticed her back then, but that doesn’t mean it was right. That right now, in this moment, it’s not her beauty that has me, it’s her heart, her mind, her personality. I could list twenty things about her that I’ve fallen for but it feels like she’ll always see the most important of them as her beauty.

“That’s so unfair.” I slide out my chair, patting my leg, needing to feel her body because I do not want us to spend a night apart in a fucking fight over how much she eats.

“No.” She crosses her arms over her chest.

“Come here, you know you want to.” I hold out my arms, inviting her.

“No.”

Stubborn, one quality that I haven’t fallen for. Yet.

“I’m sorry, I just want you to see why I’m with you and how it has nothing to do with your perky tits and great ass.”

A slight smile forms at the corner of her lips.

“I need to feel you.”

She looks around, stands and then sits on my lap.

Moving her hair off her shoulder, my lips find the spot right under her earlobe that gives her goose bumps. She wiggles in my lap, stirring my dick in my pants.

“I’m sorry, baby, but I need you to know that I don’t care about your body. You’re so much more than just a beautiful woman and I want you to see that when you look in the mirror.”

She nods, but I know she doesn’t believe me.

I turn her face toward me and capture her lips with my own.

My tongue slides through the part of her lips and the anxiety in my chest brought on by our fight diminishes. I know it won’t always be this easy to end our fights, but I’ll take what I can get tonight.

My fingers push through her hair, the silky strands wrapping around my hand. I swallow her moan and my hand slides up the side of her ribcage.

The bell goes off and I blink my eyes open to see Madison’s eyes shifting in every direction as men from all different areas in the house head in one general direction.

She jumps up from my lap.

“I gotta go, babe. Grab your things.”

She frantically gets her cell phone, puts it in her purse and positions it crossways over her body.

Some guys are heading down the pole and others the stairs. Madison runs down the stairs trying to stay out of everyone’s way before I even see that she’s left. I slide down the pole, then get my gear on. All the guys pile into the truck.

I spot her off to the side so I race over to her.

“Like I said…hero complex.” She smiles as I kiss her one last time.

“This is just my job.”

The horn honks on the truck, the sirens blaring.

“Go.” She shoves me but I slide my tongue into her mouth one last time, my body not wanting to leave her.

“BIANCO!” someone shouts.

“Gotta go. Remember, no hero.” I shake my head.

“Call me after?” she hollers out as the truck starts to leave and I grab on to the handle and climb into my seat.

“I will.” I wink and she watches the truck race out of the station.

I’m always concerned about returning whenever we leave on a call. But watching the look on her face as I race toward danger makes coming back feel that much more important.