Kissing Fire

KISSING FIRE

A.M. HARGROVE

Copyright © 2013 A.M.
Hargrove
Smashwords 1st Edition

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Acknowledgements

I promised myself I would make this short
and sweet, but there are so many people I'd like to thank so here
goes.

Thanks Michelle Leighton! When I tossed
around the idea of adding humor my next book, it was your
encouragement that made me believe I could pull it off. I love you,
girl!

Next, this novel could never get anywhere if
I didn't have such an amazing group of beta readers that gave me
their honest input. So here's a ginormous thanks to Terri Thomas
(www.mybookboyfriend.blogspot.com), Alana Rock
(www.darkobsessionchronicles.blogspot.con) and Amanda Clark
(globugandhootie.blogspot.com). I love you guys!

I'd also like to extend a huge thanks to
Sarah Hansen at Okay Creations for designing such a staggering
cover. She truly exceeded any expectations I ever had.

And finally, thank you Jennifer Nunez,
editor extraordinaire and great friend, for all the effort and time
you spend with me. But for the love of God, please stay off the
caffeine! My body can only handle so many laughs at one time.

Here's to the Hargrove family, who puts up
with me when I'm so focused on a project, and I don't know anything
else exists. I love you all. That includes you too, Jaclyn.

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”

Oscar Wilde,
The Importance of Being Earnest

KISSING FIRE

Chapter 1

Ava

My mom was going to kill me. No doubt about it. When
she found out I had just accepted a job, sight unseen, on the West
coast, she was going to flip out. The ‘you know what’ would hit the
fan in the Middleton house. First my brother, and now me. Holy
Toledo! How the heck would I pull this one off? I just booked a
flight to leave the day after next. I was going to Seattle to meet
my new boss and start my new job. Cheezits, I was really in for it
now.

Mom had no clue what had been going on in my life.
All she noticed was that I had put on a few pounds lately. The
weight was the least of my worries though. Everything had gone to
hell in a hand basket. The only bright star was this new job at
SoftwarePlus and it was going to be awesome.

Thank God my friend and trusty realtor Alana, was
handling the selling of my duplex. Melissa, my neighbor that owned
the other half, and I had worked out a deal. She would keep an eye
on things for me after I left.

Melissa...I was really gonna miss that girl. When I
first met her I wasn’t too sure about her. I mean, she kind of
scared me. She was a sumo wrestler in training and she was sort of
frightening...and big. I mean really big. The first time she fist
bumped me I thought she broke my knuckles. Then she told me she
needed to un-girly me and that I was too much of a wuss.

I never paid her too much mind until the night I had
my run in with this loser I’d been dating, Mike Dixon, a.k.a. Mikey
Schmikey. After a couple of months of trying to convince myself he
was a nice enough guy and that I needed to give him more of a
chance, I came to the conclusion that there just weren’t any more
chances left in me. I had run slap out of them. The guy was a pain
in my butt, besides the fact he thought he was the greatest thing
that God had given to women. And, please God forgive me, but he was
butt ass ugly. I tried...oh how I tried. But I finally decided to
tell him that we weren’t going to make it as a couple.

Well, Mikey Schmikey suddenly decided he forgot what
the word “No” meant. He lunged for me, pushed me around, hit and
then punched me, ripped my shirt off and did his best to maul me.
When he unleashed his prized manhood, I looked down, and to my
utter horror, my eyes nearly popped out of my head. Oh, it wasn’t
because of what you’re thinking. No, it was quite the opposite.
Mikey Schmikey was actually Little Dickie. I mean...itty bitty
teeny weenie. Maybe even pinkie toe dick. A gurgle of laughter
burst forth from the furthest depths of my being and it rose to a
crescendo unlike anything I’d ever heard. I’m pretty sure Little
Dickie had never heard anything like it either.

To make matters worse, and I knew
at the time I shouldn’t have said it, but I just couldn’t stop
myself, I looked at him and said, “And just what do you intend to
do with that? Have a little beanie with that teeny
weenie?”

His face went from tanning booth brown, to a mottled
shade of red to outright purple, right before he growled and lunged
at me, brandishing that pinkie toe dick (that is if one can
actually brandish something that tiny) and yelling how he was going
to teach me proper manners where penis size was concerned.

Then, as he chased me around my
duplex, I was screaming at him and frantically looking for some
type of weapon to defend myself with. Unfortunately, the only thing
I could lay my hands on was my favorite childhood stuffed animal,
which was a rather large, dark brown dachshund. I started batting
him with it and hollering obscenities at him and his pinkie toe
dick. Oh, don’t worry. The irony was not lost on me that I was
beating him with a stuffed wiener dog.

Lucky for me, Melissa was home and upon hearing me
screaming and hollering, she came barreling through the door and
had Little Dickie and his pinkie toe dick in a sumo wrestling hold
beneath her three hundred pounds of girth with him crying out,
“Uncle, uncle!” And then he started to pee and his pinkie toe dick
was squirting in the air just like you see those water fountains of
little naked baby boys doing.

“Jesus! What kind of man pees all over himself? Damn
Ava!”

“Look at him Melissa. He was chasing me with that
thing,” I said, biting hard on my lip, trying my best not to
laugh.

“Ava, go get your phone right now.”

I ran and got my phone.

“Now take pictures of this. This needs to be posted
all over Facebook and tweeted all over the place right away.
Instagram it too. We’ll see how much of a man--hey what did you
call him?”

“Little Dickie with the pinkie toe dick.”

“Yeah. Take a picture of that pinkie toe dick too.
Hey, you got a ruler?”

“Yeah, why?”

Well, you need a little perspective here.”

Suddenly, Little Dickie started crying, “No, please,
I’ll do anything. Don’t do that. Please.”

“So, what exactly will you do Little Dickie?”

“Anything.”

Melissa looked at me and I shrugged. I just wanted
the creep out of here so I decided to handle this. “Tell you what
Mike. Get out of here and don’t ever come back. If I ever hear that
you even so much as breathed a word to anyone that you know me,
these pics will be posted everywhere. You got it?”

“Yeah. Yeah,” he promised.

Little Dickie scrambled out of there, wet britches
and all, as fast as his feet could carry him. He didn’t even bother
to stuff his little dickie in his pants, not that anyone would’ve
noticed.

Melissa and I had a good laugh over it but I ended
up with some serious bruises from his man handling. She wasn’t too
pleased with that so she took it upon herself to start my sumo
wrestling training. My program consisted of trips to the gym for
some power lifting sessions and a daily consumption of large
quantities of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, specifically, Chunky
Monkey and Phish Food. Melissa wasn’t very impressed with my
ability to pump iron. I could bench press twenty five pounds to her
two hundred. I’d grit and gnash my teeth but the most I could do
was thirty pounds and maybe eke out four reps.

“We’re gonna have to get those arms in better shape.
If you’d have had a little strength in them, Little Dickie wouldn’t
have had a chance with you.”

I groaned and said, “I know. Don’t remind me. I’m
trying to forget. Everything in my life has gone to hell
Melissa.”

“What are you talking about?”

“My social life. My sex life. Heck, I don’t even
know what sex is any more. If Little Dickie hadn’t been such an
asshole, who knows? Maybe I would’ve done it with him. I just
couldn’t stand him though.”

“Listen, we’re gonna get you through this so you can
get your confidence back. You just need a little weight on you.
You’re nothing but a bag of bones. And maybe you should get
yourself one of those vibrators. Don’t bother with the kind that
need batteries. Go for the electrical ones. They’re much
better.”

Oh good lord, those were the last things I needed.
An electric vibrator and more weight. I jiggled enough as it was. I
probably was my own personal vibrator. I could barely squeeze my
rear end into any of my clothes. Everything was tight. I was
busting out of my “fat” clothes and had gone out and bought new
things and those were already getting tight. Sumo wrestling, though
I didn’t want to hurt Melissa’s feelings, was not going to solve my
problems. It was adding to them. I was starting to resemble a duck
when I walked. Even my brother had mentioned something the other
day and he was such a kind hearted person. He wanted to know if I
was having foot issues. I wasn’t following.

“Ava, you’re walking a bit funny. I was wondering if
your feet are bothering you.”

“Oh good lord Pearce. I’m fat and I’m waddling.
That’s what’s wrong with me. My feet are fine. They’re just not
used to toting around all this excess baggage.”

He had the decency to blush and apologize. He patted
my hand and asked, “Is everything okay? Is there anything you’d
like to talk about?”

“No. I’m fine,” I said glumly. He hugged me and we
parted ways. He didn’t have time for me. He was busy with his life
now. His wife Lexi had just announced she was three months pregnant
and they were redoing their house. They wanted to transform one of
the guest rooms into a nursery and they were also interviewing
nannies. Lexi still wanted to work so they wanted to hire a live in
nanny.

I pulled myself back to my issue at hand...my mom.
There was no getting around it. She would have to be told about my
new job and the sooner the better. Maybe I could take her out to
dinner and tell her in a public place where she couldn’t make a
scene. Nope, that wouldn’t work, I decided. She would still make a
scene. I was so screwed.

Oh, to hell with it. Biting the bullet, I grabbed my
purse and headed over to my parents. They didn’t live but a few
blocks from me so I just walked like I always did. When I got
there, I was glad to see both of their cars at home. Might as well
get it over with, I thought.

Now I’m not trying to brag or anything, but my
parents lived in a grand house on the battery in Charleston, South
Carolina. I was fortunate to have been born into a family of
means.

Betty, my parents’ cook, was in the kitchen when I
walked in and she immediately tried to shove food into my
mouth.