Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Playing with Fire
    Playing with Fire
    Playing with Fire
    Ebook105 pages1 hour

    Playing with Fire

    By Sam Crescent and Stacey Espino

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Are there any good men left in the world?

    After her boyfriend dumps her for a younger, prettier, thinner woman, Eva decides to hit the road without looking back. She has no destination in mind, and she’s determined never to trust a man again.

    Dalton is a firefighter in Hope Springs. At thirty-nine, he’s settled in for a lifetime of bachelorhood—until Eva drives into their small town. She’s skittish, angry, and refuses to give him a chance. But he’s never been a man to give up easily.

    Eva quickly learns that small town boys like to play dirty. She can’t seem to say no to Dalton’s strong body and wicked imagination. Giving him her heart is another story. The more she falls for him, the more she wants to run.

    They both have demons to face. Can Dalton convince Eva to settle down and give them a chance at forever?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEvernight Publishing
    Release dateMay 16, 2018
    ISBN9781773396811
    Playing with Fire

    Read more from Sam Crescent

    Related authors

    Related to Playing with Fire

    Related ebooks

    Contemporary Romance For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Other Side Of THE FENCE

      Mar 1, 2023

      The Other Side Of THE FENCE
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Other Side Of THE FENCE

      Mar 1, 2023

      The Other Side Of THE FENCE
      6 min read

    • Article

      Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit

      Sep 1, 2023

      Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit
      26 min read

    • Article

      My Father, the Giant

      Jan 3, 2024

      My Father, the Giant
      7 min read

    • Article

      Summer Beach Reads

      Jan 10, 2021

      Summer Beach Reads
      7 min read

    • Article

      I Met Fear on the Hill

      Dec 15, 2018

      It’s the summer of 1966, and Sheila and Peter are a young married couple living in Berkeley. They are very much in love, and also very high—tripping on acid for the first time in their lives, in Tilden Park—walking in a shallow stream full of primord

      32 min read

    • Article

      Q + A

      Nov 28, 2022

      Q + A
      10 min read

    • Article

      ‘Sing to It’: Featured Fiction from Amy Hempel

      Mar 25, 2019

      If she was home at night in her husband’s bed, did he care what she did with her days? The post ‘Sing to It’: Featured Fiction from Amy Hempel appeared first on The Millions.

      7 min read

    • Article

      A Double Life

      Dec 7, 2020

      Sadie is in the kitchen, already dressed in school uniform, fastening the clips on the violin she chose for her most recent birthday, when Gabriela heads downstairs the following morning. Seven years old: how the hell did that happen? Briefly, she wo

      6 min read

    • Article

      Emancipation

      Apr 10, 2024

      A plate of meat loaf and mashed potatoes balanced on her knees, Lorene watched a National Geographic documentary about a fifty-something woman living utterly alone on the tundra north of the Arctic circle, her home a compound of metal storage contain

      20 min read

    • Article

      “I Could Feel the Poverty”

      May 14, 2018

      I’m the ninth reader in a line-up of 10. Famous Writer will be last, naturally. This is the final evening of an intimate week of instruction, workshopping, and study. During the past six days, I’ve schlepped salads and sandwiches and coffee for the a

      3 min read

    • Article

      Too Much Seinfeld

      Nov 30, 2017

      Too Much Seinfeld
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Book

      Oct 30, 2019

      The Book
      20 min read

    • Article

      Too BAD

      Aug 30, 2022

      Too BAD
      6 min read

    • Article

      Challenger

      Dec 1, 2019

      BEFORE DEGREE or meter or mile, my first unit of measurement was the cord: a portion of wood cut for fuel, four by four by eight, or one hundred and twenty-eight cubic feet. Eight cords equaled twenty stacks, six months, the winter buried within the

      17 min read

    • Article

      Take a Writer Like Him: My Complicated Love Affair with Kingsley Amis

      Aug 24, 2018

      1. As much as I may rack my brain, there are 15 minutes or so in the dark that I can’t account for and that I’ll never get back—15 minutes during which, I have to think, that creep’s hands were touching my body. It’s a weird thing to think about all

      12 min read

    • Article

      Cycles

      Nov 10, 2022

      His online profile was promising: good hair, straight teeth, college degree. And he was nice-looking too, in his photo anyway, standing on a clifftop with the sun rising over his welldefined, muscular shoulder. He was attractive enough, the kind of u

      18 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Feb 17, 2023

      Books
      4 min read

    • Article

      Averted Vision

      Sep 1, 2022

      Averted Vision
      25 min read

    • Article

      Welcome to Reliance

      Dec 1, 2021

      Welcome to Reliance
      11 min read

    • Article

      Mammy Dearest

      Mar 20, 2022

      Noelle McCarthy, the broadcaster, podcaster and journalist, has two obsessions: her mother and Dracula. She has written a memoir, Grand: Becoming my mother’s daughter, in which both characters flounce across the pages, one with fangs wearing a cape,

      8 min read

    • Article

      Summer Reading Guide

      Jan 2, 2022

      Summer Reading Guide
      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Playing with Fire

    4/5

    9 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Playing with Fire - Sam Crescent

      Published by EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ® at Smashwords

      www.evernightpublishing.com

      Copyright© 2018 Sam Crescent and Stacey Espino

      ISBN: 978-1-77339-681-1

      Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

      Editor: Karyn White

      ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

      WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

      This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

      PLAYING WITH FIRE

      Dirty Filthy Men, 1

      Sam Crescent and Stacey Espino

      Copyright © 2018

      Chapter One

      What the hell were you thinking, Eva?

      She looked up at her apartment building one last time. Well, it wasn’t hers anymore. Her apartment had been rented out to someone new, and her furniture and belongings had been sold to a liquidator. Giving it all up felt like the right decision at the time, but now she wondered if it had been PMS doing the thinking. She’d let her apartment go, sold everything she’d owned, and was ready to get in her little Honda Civic and just drive. What could go wrong? She had no fucking clue. This was supposed to be her grand adventure, a complete one-eighty from her mundane heartbreak of a life. But with the late afternoon clouds rolling in and a bitter chill in the air, part of her wanted to settle into her safe haven for the night—only no such place existed.

      She got into her car and took a look at the map unfolded over the passenger seat, tracing her finger along the main roadways. Where should she go first? Maybe somewhere warmer? In the end, she chose to wing it and just hit the highway south. Her haphazard plan involved driving, working temporary jobs to pay for food and gas, and seeing where the world took her. It would either be a journey of self-discovery or an epic disaster.

      A month ago, she’d never have contemplated such a haphazard plan, but a month ago her long-time boyfriend hadn’t drained their joint bank account and run off with a girl ten years younger than Eva. Her forever fantasies were quickly squashed. It was all surreal. At first, she didn’t think she’d make it on her own. With no close family, and a shitty job at the grocery store, she had relied on her asshole ex for his half of the rent. After hitting rock bottom, feeling like shit that Mark had left her for a younger, thinner, more beautiful woman, she’d made the conscious choice to pick herself up. She could either think of herself as a thirty-one-year-old reject or a woman in her prime who’d been given a second chance. Eva quickly realized it was no simple task to stay positive.

      She’d been driving for hours, feeling a sense of renewal the farther she got away from everything she knew. When it was past midnight, she parked in an abandoned lot off the highway and climbed into the backseat with the small patchwork quilt she’d packed. She curled up on her side, feeling the chill creep in, but she was too tired to care. Eva had done everything she’d set out to do, left her shitty life to start fresh—so why did she feel so empty?

      Tears came out of nowhere. She sniffled and wiped her eyes, refusing to break down completely. Why was she so unlovable? What was the point of dreams when they were always out of reach? Mark was supposed to be the love of her life, but now that he was gone, she realized they had just been going through the motions. There’d never been passion, not the kind she imagined.

      Eva decided it was better to be single than live with a man like Mark. There were no good men left in the world. They were all cheaters or assholes. Eva fell asleep, knowing the only person she could count on was herself.

      She woke up in a panic, a loud rapping pulling her from her dreams. When she finally got her bearings, she noticed a gruff-looking man knocking on the rear car window, and she was still lying in the backseat.

      Lady! You can’t be here!

      She was in the middle of a construction site. Workers in orange reflective gear were walking around everywhere, and the beeps of dump trucks reversing competed with guys cursing.

      Eva climbed into the driver’s seat and started the car engine, rolling down the window a couple inches. Sorry, I thought this was a parking lot. Can you point me in the direction of the highway entrance south?

      Where you heading, sugar?

      The construction worker had to be old enough to be her father, so her stomach soured when she noticed him staring at her chest. She adjusted her t-shirt and pulled on her seatbelt. Heading home.

      She ignored his other comments and the curious workers moving in, reversed into the clearing, and started driving. Eva turned on the radio and settled in for another long drive. It had only been one day and she was already tiring of the nomad lifestyle. The whole idea had felt right at the time, but now she wasn’t so sure.

      "Yee-haw! Looking for seasonal work?"

      Eva turned up the volume on the radio. Apparently, there was a big rodeo about fifteen hours away and they needed short-term staff. It was exactly what she needed, and she hoped there were still spots available when she arrived. She had to earn some cold, hard cash. A night in a cheap motel would be heaven compared to the cramped back seat of her Honda again. Eva wasn’t a little girl, and she needed her space.

      She stopped for a takeout coffee at the next stop, freshened up a bit, and then hit the road again.

      ****

      You think there’ll be a lot of women there? asked James.

      Dalton’s younger brother only had one thing on his mind, day and night. I doubt it. The rodeo will be mostly cowboys, and the type of women that do hang around the ring aren’t the kind you want to take to bed, said Dalton.

      That’s what you think.

      That’s what I know. He pushed his chair back and set his napkin on the plate. He liked to come home for breakfast at least twice a week. It made his mother happy, and it was better than burnt toast.

      He rolled his shoulders and took a deep breath. It would be a long day for him and the rest of the fire department. They needed to ensure Hope Springs was secure from troublemakers and potential disasters during the annual rodeo in the neighboring city. Their motels and bed-and-breakfasts were already fully booked. There wasn’t an available place to stay for fifty miles, not to mention their grocery stores were already cleaned out.

      James got up and grabbed his reflective jacket off the wall hook. I guess I better get to work before the foreman rides my ass. He picked up his hard hat and let the screen door flap shut behind him. James had turned thirty-five a few months ago, and since Dalton was pushing forty, their mother had been nagging one of them to settle down. It was easier said than done. James was

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1