Always been you
Always been You
by Mia Scott
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental!
Copyright belongs to the author.
Alisha Larrington and Jake Biggerman - Two like fire and ice.
What will come of them when fate throws them together, not only in the very literal heat of the moment, but time and again, all over the City of New York?
Sparks! That’s what’ll happen.
But is Alisha willing to give the notorious ladies’ man in the Fireman’s uniform a real chance or will they continue to bicker and fight until one of them gives up?
Continue reading to find out!
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 1
As days went, twenty-six-year-old Alisha Larrington didn't count this one among the top hundred—maybe even the top thousand. Thick gray smoke billowed up the stairs as the other residents of her building ran hysterically down towards street level seeking fresh air and safety. The smoke alarms buzzed so loudly in her ears she could barely hear herself think. She raised a fist to her neighbor's door and knocked frantically, knowing the elderly woman was hard of hearing—especially since she was wont to turn down her hearing aid at night, so she wasn't disturbed by noise. "Mrs. Weigel! Mrs. Weigel, it's Alisha. Please—open the door! Fire! Mrs. Weigel, the building is on FIRE!" she screeched, pounding furiously on the door. Alisha continued her incessant knocking and yelling until she heard the locks being undone. Thank God.
"Hello, dear," Mrs. Weigel slowly greeted, turning up the volume on her hearing aid. "Is everything alright?"
"No, Mrs. Weigel. There's a fire—our building is on fire," she spoke loudly, her words laced with panic. "Let me help you downstairs." Alisha barged into her apartment and grabbed a jacket hanging on a nearby coat rack and threw it around the woman's shoulders. "Come on." She gently grabbed her arm and led her down the stairs.
The smoke seemed to thin the closer they got to ground level and Alisha did her level best to hurry the elderly woman to safety. They rounded the corner on the final staircase when Mrs. Weigel stopped in her tracks. "Swabby! I need to get Swabby, dear."
Alisha's brows furrowed together, remembering that Swabby was her cat. "We need to get out of the building. It isn't safe," Alisha implored. She really had no clue where the fire had originated or how bad it was, but she wasn't going to take her chances. Alisha was all for doing good deeds, but even she had her limits. She wasn't willing to risk her life—her career—for an ugly one-eyed cat with a limp.
"Please, Alisha," she pleaded, eyes welling. "He was a gift from my Morty—the only thing I have left."
She was this close to telling her where to shove the damn cat when her old neighbor gave her the saddest expression she'd ever seen, and she felt the tug at her heartstrings. "I'll get him," Alisha suddenly blurted, surprising herself. "Go downstairs now!"
"Oh, thank you, thank you, Alisha," she called to Alisha's retreating form.
"Goddammit," she bit out, racing up the stairs two at a time towards her floor. She couldn't believe her idiocy—running through a burning building for a fucking cat. Alisha decided that this good deed was surely worth a lot of good karma. And really, how long would it take to grab a cat and run back downstairs? The smoke wasn't really all that bad she thought as she rounded the last corner.
Jake Biggerman was having a bad fucking day and his mood could only be classified as shitty. It seemed as though everything that could possibly have gone wrong had, ranging from no hot water in his apartment that morning to the captain jumping all over his ass for something stupid. And thrown somewhere in the middle, a long nagging lecture from his mother about settling down and giving her grandchildren. "You're twenty-eight, Jake…" she'd said. Like that made him fucking old or something. He loved his mother, but fuck that mess. He wanted to find a girl and marry her about as much as he wanted to contract the clap, which was not at all.
Even now, as the sirens wailed into the night, the fire engine speeding through the city, he failed to get the rush he normally got heading to put out a fire and that only served to piss him off even more. Adrenaline usually coursed through his veins the moment the signal sounded and tended to intensify the closer they got to their destination. The only thing coursing through his veins at the moment was the urge to punch something. When his best buddy, James, looked across the rig and flashed a goofy grin, he thought he'd make a good target.
"Come on, dude," James said, fastening his helmet as the rig pulled up to the burning building. "This is usually your favorite part of any day."
"Fucking bite me, Keller," Big snapped, shoving his own helmet onto his head and jumping out of the truck.
The fire didn't look too extreme at first glance, but six years of on-the-job experience had taught him never to underestimate the unpredictable nature of a fire. They could turn on a dime and engulf you in the depths of a raging inferno. Fire and women were a lot alike in that regard, which is why he chose sex and fighting fires over relationships any day of the week.
He hitched his rescue gear up on his shoulder and headed for the entrance when an old lady with gray hair stood in his path. "Move along, ma'am," he said shortly.
"My neighbor—she ran in after my cat and hasn't come back out. You need to get her. Please," she pleaded. "I won't be able to forgive myself if
