Table of Contents

Title Page

COPYRIGHT

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ALSO BY TEAGAN KADE:

DEDICATION

LIFE SUPPORT

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

EPILOGUE

HOT PANTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

EPILOGUE

EPILOGUE II

HUSTLE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

EPILOGUE

EPILOGUE II

BLAZE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

EPILOGUE

THE LIFEGUARD

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

EPILOGUE

AMERICAN HEROES: THE COMPLETE AMERICAN HEROES COLLECTION

(A CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE BOX SET)

Teagan Kade

* * * * *

Published by Teagan Kade

Edited by Sennah Tate

Copyright © 2019 by Teagan Kade

COPYRIGHT

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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ALSO BY TEAGAN KADE:

TROUSER SNAKE

THE ROYAL TREATMENT

BALLSY

SAVAGE

VICE

RECKLESS

PUCK BUDDIES

FERAL

WINTER MIRACLE

ADAGIO

BRUTE

LAWLESS

LONG GAME

DIRTY DEBT

LOADED

AMPED

DRILLED

DIRTY BRAWLER

WRECKED

SLAMMED

STROKER

STRIKER

THROTTLE

ROYALLY WRONG

HITCHED

CHASING STORM

DEDICATION

To my ‘meanie team’. Thanks for keeping me in check ;-)

LIFE SUPPORT

Teagan Kade

* * * * *

Published by Teagan Kade

Edited by Sennah Tate

Copyright © 2019 by Teagan Kade

CHAPTER ONE

ETHAN

Vanessa throws her hand up as a sedan cuts us off. “Jesus, Mary, and the good saint Joseph, do these people not hear the fucking sirens?”

I point to my ears as Vanessa drives the ambulance onto the wrong side of the road, crossing a traffic island to do it. “Probably wearing headphones.”

Vanessa looks over to me. “You mean those tampon things everyone’s got stuck in their ears twenty-four seven these days? Looks goddamn ridiculous, if you ask me.”

I smile to myself. Vanessa’s a great driver, an even better paramedic, but Steve Jobs she is not. The poor woman still thinks VHS is the video format of choice.

“What have we got again?” she asks, fingers tightening on the steering wheel as we come up to an intersection.

I think back to the call we received two minutes, thirty-six seconds ago. “Ah, young woman, possible gunshot to the head.”

“Under the Gateway Bridge, South?”

“That’s it.”

The tires screech, the ambulance lurching sideways as we take the red. “Can’t say I’m in the mood for a DOA tonight.”

“Me neither,” I add, the familiar flush of adrenaline following. That’s what has always drawn me to this job—you just never know what you’re walking into. Good or bad, it’s never dull. Hell, put me in a cubicle and the first thing I’d be doing is looking for an open window to jump through.

We arrive forty seconds later, Vanessa mounting the curb when we spot the woman in question by one of the main pylons. She’s lying face down in short grass, the pool of shadows she’s in making it hard to identify anything other than the fact she’s in serious fucking trouble.

I wait a beat before getting out of the bus, scanning the scene for danger—the gunman, for one, anyone sketchy out there in the darkness apart from the usual junkies that frequent this shithole.

I get to her first with the kit, crouching down with my flashlight and checking her pulse. As I expected given the bloody mess that is the back of her head, there’s nothing.

Vanessa arrives. “Nine-eighty?” she asks, the code for dead on arrival.

I remember the statistics. Every year something like twenty-thousand people die of gunshot wounds to the head in America. The survival rate is less than five percent, three percent with any kind of life even if they do pull through.

It would be all too easy to call this, but something tugs at me, some unseen force telling me this woman’s deserves a fighting chance no matter the odds.

I gently roll her over and find the middle of her chest. “Starting CPR.”

Vanessa’s flashlight beam runs over the side of her head. “Really?”

As it does, I get my first look at the woman’s face. She must be in her mid to late twenties, beautiful, actually, with full lips and soft, delicate features. It’s in that moment I decide I’m going to do everything possible to pull her back from the brink, short of calling on the supernatural.

“Bag her,” I tell Vanessa.

She takes a bag valve mask from the kit and places it in position, squeezing it with one hand in time with my compressions while she applies gauze to the wound with the other.

I steady myself and concentrate on the task at hand, laser-fucking-focused. Percentages and statistics fly around my head. I’d like to say this kind of thing is rare, and it is here at home. But I’ve been to war, been to the Sandbox where shots to the head were a dime a dozen. I can’t recall anyone coming back from that. You get a bullet bouncing around inside the skull and it’s going to do all kinds of damage before it finds a way out.

“Come on,” I tell her, this lifeless Jane Doe. “Don’t you dare fucking die on me.”

*

By some miracle we manage to keep her alive until we reach the hospital. The whole time I can’t stop staring at her. Why would anyone do this to her, someone so beautiful and fragile? An angry ex? Wrong place, wrong time? No, a girl like this doesn’t just show up at a place like that for sight-seeing. Someone wanted her dead alright.

Someone thought they’d succeeded.

We’re already on our way to the next call. I press my thumb into the palm of my hand. People don’t really understand the kind of force you need to exert during CPR. If you’re not breaking ribs, you’re not doing it properly.

Vanessa is smiling across at me. “I know that look.”

I play dumb. “What look is that?”

She laughs. “The whole I-brought-that-girl-back-to-life alpha bullshit you guys get off on. And don’t tell me you didn’t find her attractive, even with that hole in her head.”

Vanessa and I have been working together for almost three years now. She knows me all too well. “Honestly? I can’t stop thinking about her,” I confess.

“You or that bald-headed pecker in your pants?”

I reach down and cup my junk. “Oh, you mean my penis?”

“Call it what you want,” she says, tapping the side of her head. “We both know what’s really steering the ship.”

“And you never think with your vagina?” I offer. “Remember that bodybuilder downtown last week, impaled on his fence? I saw you checking him out. The trauma shears didn’t have to cut that far, did they?”

She’s really smiling now, eyes on the road. “Pity he was on the juice. Balls looked like a pair of peas.”

I crack up. “Easier to fit in your mouth, right?”

“I’ll put my freaking fist in your mouth if you don’t shut up.”

I raise my hands in surrender. “Truce, truce. Let’s get this done.”

“So you can head back to the hospital and check on your mystery woman?”

I simply smile back in return.

*

The ICU is unusually quiet for this time of night. I’m sitting beside Jane Doe slowly examining every inch of her face. It’s still pale and porcelain, but with her wound dressed and surgery complete, at least she’s looking a lot less like a horror-movie prop.

My eyes shift from those full, plump lips, heading south to her breasts—just as welcome even in that excuse for clothing they call a hospital gown. It’s strange. I treat and see hundreds of people a week, so why am I so consumed with this particular girl?

My thought’s broken as a doctor arrives to the foot of her bed, picking up the clipboard there and moving to check her vitals. Almost a full minute passes before he notices me there. “Ethan? You providing after-hours support to all your patients now?”

“Just the pretty ones.”

Doctor Grant smiles back. “Guess I won’t be finding you beside my bed anytime soon then.”

“How’s she doing?” I ask, rising from my chair, conscious of the toll today’s taken on my body. I should be home counting sheep, not here daydreaming over a patient who in all likelihood isn’t going to wake.

The doc’s sharp intake of breath confirms it. “Well,” he starts, “you know the odds. We’ve done what we can, provided the best possible treat—”

I cut him off. “Enough with the script. I’m not her fucking brother.”

Doc Grant nods. “Alright.” He holds the clipboard against his thigh. “She’s in a world of trouble. I mean, yeah, the bullet didn’t make it past her skull. Still, she probably won’t make it through the night, but if she does, and we’re talking Blue-Jays-take-home-the-World-Series odds here, it would be a good sign.” He claps me on the shoulder. “Don’t get your hopes up for looking for a rerun of The Vow, though. Rachel McAdams here has a long way to go to get back to the land of the living.”

He leaves and I slump back into the chair mulling it over.

From time to time one of the nurses arrives to check on her, but they don’t ask me to leave. They know me too well around here—some more intimately than others.

Eventually the silence starts to get to me. I want this poor girl to think she’s in hospital, not a fucking tomb, so I talk to her. I’m not exactly used to one-sided conversation, but I surprise myself with how easily it comes.

I’m not even conscious of how much time has passed until warm morning light begins to mix with the harsh glower from the overheads. Sleep’s not really in the cards in the ICU.

One of the nurses arrives with a tray of cardboard toast and what could be scrambled eggs… or old paint—it’s hard to tell. I thank her but push it aside, telling Jane about my time in the Army.

“They sent me home on medical discharge,” I tell her, a steady beep-beep-beep from the monitor beside her. I slap the side of my leg. “Uncle Sam did pay for my hip, though, so there’s that. I lift my arms up, looking around my torso. “Got some shrapnel here, nice scar there from some shithead sniper who thankfully learned how to shoot playing Duck Hunt. It’s all a bit of a mess, really, but that’s the price you pay for freedom, right?” I shake my head. “Can’t say I even know what that means any more, you know?”

Her lips remain still.

“My thoughts exactly,” I concur.

The morning light falls on her hand and I can’t resist reaching across and taking it in my own. It’s so light it’s basically a feather. Her fingers are long and delicate, so at odds with my own war-torn mitts, cut and fucked up from so many fist fights and general wear and tear.

I squeeze her hand lightly, lowering my voice. “Come on now. Come back and dinner’s on me. Heck, I might even throw in drinks.”

I exhale, looking down between the bed and the floor. I bring my eyes back to that angelic face, the one that seems to be seared into my brain. “I’ve been where you are. Recovery is a fucking bitch. I know it first-hand, but you are strong and you can get through this. Pull that strength from wherever you have to, but you find it, you hear? You come back.”

I lean back in the chair unable to let go of her hand, letting it extend like a lifeline between us. Slowly, the sun creeps across the bed, lighting up the side of her cheek and then her face in full. I notice there’s the slightest tint of red running through her hair.

My own eyes are starting to shutter closed. I’ve been up for almost twenty-four hours straight now. Vanessa would have a fucking fit if she knew, but I have to see this through. I still don’t know why exactly. Maybe I just need the closure.

I’m fast drifting to sleep when a voice cuts through the silence. “Still here, I see. Aren’t you on-call tonight?”

I open to my eyes to Doc Grant looking a hell of a lot fresher than I feel. “Yeah, right.”

“You need to go home,” he says. “You need to get some rest.”

“I’m fine,” I yawn.

“Go home, Ethan,” he repeats. “Don’t make me call Vanessa.”

“You wouldn’t,” I tease.

“Try me,” he smiles back. “I’m a doctor. I’ve got a God complex, remember?”

“And her?” I nod to Jane.

“I’ll keep you updated.” He places his hand over his heart. “Scout’s honor.”

“You were a Scout?”

“Fuck no,” he laughs. “I didn’t have time for that Davy Crockett bullshit. Too busy yachting with the old man. Now, get out of here.”

Reluctantly, I stand. This is technically his turf, after all. But the moment I let go of Jane’s hand, placing it carefully back on the bed, her heart rate begins to drop.

Doc Grant squints at the screen. “The hell?”

It keeps falling, a secondary warning alarm starting to sound.

No, I think to myself. Don’t you fucking dare…

“She’s coding!” the Doc shouts, hitting the crash button.

I turn to see three nurses rushing towards the bed.

Still, her heart rate continues to plummet.

I don’t know why, but I reach back for her hand, squeezing.

Almost immediately her heart rate begins to stabilize, slowly rising until it levels out.

Doctor Grant reaches over the monitor to switch off the alarm. He looks to me and a couple of rather bemused nurses. “On second thought, Meyers, stay right where you are.”

CHAPTER TWO

SOFIA

Fog blankets everything. Within it I can see shapes and colors, but they do not take on any defined form. They remain ghostly and distant.

I’m trying to find my way through it, but there’s no end.

Finally, after what seems like an eternity, I begin to pull through the mist, slowly stepping towards those shapes and colors that now seem like something real and tangible.

A voice enters this world. Is it calling for me? Warning me? I don’t know, only that I want to make my ways towards it.

The further I go, the clearer the voice becomes, but whatever I do I can’t seem to ‘catch’ it.

I pull with my hands outstretched, dragging the fog behind me until it clears for good and I lift myself free.

Confusion—that’s the first thing that hits me when I open my eyes. They’re so heavy. My entire body is heavy, as if I’m being slowly pressed downwards.

I’m lying down. I figure that much.

It’s bright, hurts my eyes, this new world.

“While Kim prepares for their next child, Kayne said there was no beef between him and infamous rapper wha—”

The voice stopped.

The voice.

It takes all my energy to shift my head sideways to locate the source of the sound. There’s a man sitting there in a red jacket, his dark hair tussled and a copy of something called the National Enquirer in his hand.

I don’t recognize him. I don’t recognize where I am.

I don’t recognize anything except the sound of his voice.

“You’re awake,” he says, placing the magazine down and standing.

I notice he’s holding my hand. I wonder why.

He smiles. I don’t think there’s any malice in it. “You really had me going there for a while.”

My mouth is so dry when I go to speak my lips can barely part. “W— W-where am I?”

The smile fades, concern sketching itself over his features. “You’re at Grand Mass Hospital. You were in an accident.”

“An accident?” I ask, but it’s little more than a whisper.

He points to the side of my head. “You took a bullet to the head, but you’ve pulled through. That’s a hell of a fucking feat, Jane, let me tell you.”

The confusion’s muddying everything, scattering every thought that comes to mind. “Jane?”

“I don’t know your name,” he says.

My name? Jane? Nothing is making sense. This whole thing is insane. I want to go back to the fog. At least it was simple there.

“I— I—” I start to the stutter, looking around, something coming free from my head. An alarm starts to sound—ding, ding, ding. It’s too loud. It’s too white. I can’t get free.

“Help!” I screech out, my throat sandpaper, a hot tear cutting a path down my cheek.

I start to thrash, the alarm getting louder and louder, faster.

I can’t do this. I need to get away, get back… I don’t know.

Two strong arms hold me down. “Hey,” the man says, “hey now, it’s okay. You’re safe. You’re fine. Listen to my voice. Breathe.”

I do as The Voice says, drawing in a rattling breath and settling back into the bed.

“You’re safe,” he repeats. “No one’s going to hurt you while I’m here.” He squeezes my hand. “I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

I nod shallowly.

Another man in a white coat has appeared at the end of the bed. He looks to the man with the voice, who tells him, “She’s okay, Doc. She’s stable.”

‘Doc’ comes forward leaning over the bed and shining light into my eyes. “My name is Doctor Grant, Miss…?” He looks to the other man.

The man in the red jacket shakes his head.

The light returns, swinging from one eye to the next. I want it to go away. “Do you know where you are?”

The Voice told me. I try to recall. “A hospital?”

The man in red holds a straw to my lips. “Sip, slowly.”

I do as he says, the cold liquid a welcome relief.

The man who introduced himself as Doctor Grant continues to rattle off questions, but I don’t have any answers for him. I don’t even know my name, even though I’m sure it’s not Jane.

It’s intensely frustrating, the fog refusing to lift fully.

The doctor leaves, but the man in the red jacket remains. He introduces himself as Ethan, tells me he’s one of the paramedics who found me.

“Do we… know each other?” I ask.

He shakes his head. I notice his eyes are a pearlescent blue, the color of the Coral Sea.

“Coral Sea,” I say aloud.

Ethan looks just as confused as I am. “Your name’s, ah, Coral? Coral Sea? Coral Seers?”

I smile at a little. “No, it’s… never mind.”

“Take your time,” he says. “You’ve had pretty major surgery. It’s going to take a while for things to come back to you.”

“How long?” I ask, twitching my toes under the sheets, pleased to find they’re there.

“Hours, days, weeks? I’m no expert, but from what I understand every case of amnesia is different. Perhaps it’s a good thing you don’t remember everything about what happened, you know what I’m saying?”

It’s so strange. Why do I feel like I know this man, that I can trust him? Perhaps it’s his eyes, the gentle tone of his voice, but something is drawing me to him, telling me he’s okay.

Safe, says my head.

Ethan looks at his watch. “Ah, shit. I’ve got to go.”

I squeeze his hand, terrified of him leaving. “Don’t, please.”

He squeezes back. “I’ve got a shift. I’ll come right back, I promise.”

I don’t know what that means, ‘promise,’ but I nod accordingly and slowly release his hand.

He reaches up and sweeps a strand of hair from my eyes. “I’m glad you’re back,” he smiles, turning and walking away.

Alone, I try not to panic. It presses in from all sides, threatens to suffocate me, but the moment I close my eyes and picture Ethan, it dissipates and ebbs away.

Breathe, I tell myself. Think. Who are you?

I don’t know how long I lie there waiting for him. People come and go, flashing by the end of my bed. Sometimes they stop to check the machine beside me or ask me questions, but it’s all very mechanical and detached.

A young, blonde woman who introduced herself as ‘Sally’ wraps something tight around my arm. I wince when it gets tighter.

“Sorry,” she smiles.

“Where’s Ethan?” I ask.

She stops. “Ethan Meyers, the paramedic?”

“I think so.”

Her eyebrows jerk upwards and she returns her attention to the thing wrapped around my arm. She seems to be having something of a moment with herself.

She looks at me smiling before glancing to the chair beside my bed. “You know he’s been sitting in this chair there for three days straight? He took a couple of sick days to do it, told us he ‘had’ to.” She laughs a little, trill-like. “I don’t think he ever let go of your hand, even asked us to bring over a urinal so he could… you know,” she makes a strange motion with her hand, “without having to get up. Hopefully you weren’t awake for that.”

I’m not exactly sure what she’s saying. I try to say, “Excuse me,” but she replies, “Sleep? Oh yeah, he slept right in the chair, his head back, bit of drool running from the corner of his mouth. Pretty damn adorable in a way. We told him we could bring a cot in, set him up, but he wouldn’t have it, stubborn bastard. You know why he was holding your hand?” she asks.

I shake my head.

She looks to the machine beside me, the one that hasn’t stopped beeping in the background since I came to. “Every time he did your vitals would drop. Weird, I know. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I’ve seen plenty, believe you me. And then he started reading you those god-awful tabloids from the waiting room, had Belinda bring them up. That is, after he’d been yacking your ear off with his life story for forty-eight hours.”

So many words. It’s so hard to untangle the vague outlines of what she’s saying, but from what I gather Ethan’s been here longer than I thought. I have been here longer than I thought. And where was I before that? It’s all a mystery.

The pressure on my arm releases with a soft wheeze. Sally lowers her head to my ear, whispering conspiratorially. “I’ve never seen him do that for any patient. Note you’re probably going to have a few jealous nurses on your hand, present company included.”

She rights herself and winks, smirking, packing up her device. “Good luck, Sofia.”

“Sofia?” I query. “Is that my name?”

She reaches behind my head to a side table there and returns with a silver necklace and locket, handing it to me. “Orderlies found it in one of your pockets when they brought you in.” Sally reaches down and pops the locket open. “It’s you,” she says, “on the left.”

I look down at the small picture inside the locket. The briefest pull of familiarity surfaces as I look at the woman on the left. She looks so happy. There’s another woman beside her I don’t recognize, but again that thread of familiarity is being tugged somewhere deep inside my head.

The nurse flips the locket over, showing me the inscription there. I read it aloud, “Sofia, you’re my sister forever, I love you’. Who wrote that?”

Sally shrugs her shoulders. “I’d say it’s the other girl in the picture, but we don’t know for sure, of course. Does she look familiar to you?”

I open the locket again. “No,” I reply.

Sally smiles, placing a reassuring hand on my arm. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure it will all come back eventually, but in a way I’m kind of envious of your situation.”

It seems like a strange thing to say. “Why’s that?” I ask.

She draws close. “Between you and me, there are a couple of years between eighteen and twenty-two I wouldn’t mind being wiped away, maybe an ex or three.”

I smile because it seems like the right thing to do, to mirror her own.

She goes to leave, but before she does I reach up and grab her arm. “Will he come back?”

“Who? Ethan?”

I nod.

The smile returns. “Oh, I’m fairly sure he’ll be back alright. She looks down at my chest. For you, definitely.”

She leaves and I can’t seem to unpack what she was saying.

I scour my head for any kind of information, any random piece of the puzzle I’m so frantically trying to put together, any part of myself, but there’s nothing.

It’s a big, fat blank up there.

I laugh at myself because that seems amusing for some reason. Should it? I have no idea.

I don’t even know who I am, for crying out loud, who I really am, or was.

I have a feeling Ethan could help me unravel it, to provide some shred of information, a key to unlock the mystery for good. I want to see him again, even if it’s just his face, feel his hand in mine again—one more time, at least.

He has to return first, I remind myself, noting how dark it’s starting to get outside.

I take a deep breath and do my best to ignore the pounding pain in my head.

That fog, thick as it once was, still hangs around.

I’m fairly sure it’s going to take more than a locket to lift it.

CHAPTER THREE

ETHAN

I look through the windshield of the ambulance. It’s raining hard, a full moon above looking like a runny egg lashed to the sky.

I sigh and lean back. “It’s going to be a long night, isn’t it?”

Vanessa comes to a stop at the intersection, tapping the steering wheel with her right hand. “Sounds to me like you wish it was shorter—a lot shorter.”

I can’t help but smile. She knows me all too well. “What do you make of her?”

“Jane Doe?”

“Actually,” I say, recalling the text I got earlier from one of my many hospital ‘contacts,’ “she’s got a name—Sofia.”

“You find that in your crystal ball, or was it your little black book? The one chockfull of your screw-a-thons?”

“You’re telling you don’t have an LBB of your own?”

Pushing forty, Vanessa’s been through four or five fiancés, but never anything permanent. Given her dating action of late, it’s possible she’s more promiscuous than I am.

She purses her lips and runs her finger across them like a zipper.

“Well, it is going to be a long shift if you’re giving me the silent treatment.”

There’s a crack of thunder overhead, a split second of illumination making Vanessa look close to maniacal. “You’re dying to get back to her, aren’t you, Prince Charming?”

We’ve always had a pretty open dialogue, Vanessa and me. You tend to develop a certain rapport with your partner when you’re elbow deep in blood and guts most of the day. You sure as hell don’t take things for granted, that’s for certain.

I place my arm on the door, doing my best to look relaxed. “And if I am?”

Vanessa’s smiles as she watches the road, the wipers whisking across the windshield. “You don’t know anything about her. She could be a cold-blooded killer, a lunatic… a pornstar.”

“And that would be so bad how exactly?”

“Being a cold-blooded lunatic serial-killing pornstar? Sounds like the perfect start to a wholesome relationship.”

“She’s none of that.”

“You sound certain.”

“The way she was dressed, all labels, all Italian… fingers perfectly manicured, makeup light yet classy. No, she’s from money, most likely. She was definitely out of place under that bridge.”

Vanessa takes it in. “Well, I can’t blame you for wanting her money given the peanuts they pay us to risk our lives each day.”

“It’s not like that.”

“You’re after her golden vagina then? Add to your trophy case of poon?”

“What makes you think I don’t have a whole room?” I joke.

Vanessa gives a ‘pfft.’ “Knowing you like I do, and that’s pretty fucking well, you’ve run that little slugger of yours through half the city phonebook.”

I push myself back in mock offense. “What makes you think it’s little?”

She simply eyes me. “Just fucking with you, big boy. Don’t worry. I’ve heard the nurses yapping, hobbling around the ward the next day saying they tripped down the stairs. Yeah, tripped down the stairs and fell right onto that fleshy cockship of yours.”

“All that and you still don’t want a piece, huh?”

I can see her rolling her eyes in the windshield reflection. “I’ll stick to my mid-life crises sugar daddies, thank you very much. I’m not looking to be split in half anytime soon, get my cervix punched into my mouth. I’ll leave that to little miss amnesia.”

“Sofia,” I correct.

“The First,” finishes Vanessa.

“Say what?”

She rolls her eyes again, hitting the brakes. “You don’t hang around kids much, do you? Sofia the First? Disney princess?”

I don’t have any siblings, no relatives left and, subsequently, no cousins or nieces or nephews. Kids are as much of a mystery to me as the Colonel’s eleven secret herbs and spices. “I’m not well versed in princess, sorry.”

Vanessa nods. “Given the expensive tastes of Amnesia Girl, you better start sharpening up, my friend.”

A call comes over the radio. As expected, it’s an MVA, multiple causalities.

I confirm while Vanessa hits the lights and sirens, cutting a path through the traffic and taking a hard right towards the highway.

I push aside thoughts of Sofia and ready myself for the task at hand. A full moon always means fucking chaos. Add a thunderstorm to the mix and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

*

The MVA wasn’t pretty. Five cars, ten patients. It’s 2am when I finally make it back to the hospital, half-soaked and in desperate need of a hot shower, but strangely I find there’s a more pressing need at the front of my mind.

I towel myself off in the lockers as best I can, wash the blood from my face. I see fragments of the accident, bits and pieces but nothing concrete. Like always, within those fragments I see scenes from my time in the service, but they’re always fleeting.

We’re required to attend a counselling session every month, mandatory, and while I’ve deep-dived into that area of my life before, it’s not something I like to dwell on. I’ve seen way too many of my brothers go down that path and never surface again, the PTSD eating them alive.

I worked, my hands moved, but the whole shift Sofia was in the back of my mind. It’s strange how she’s overcome me so completely. I tell myself it’s a temporary state, that as soon as I’ve been with her the feeling will diminish and drop away, the thrill of the chase gone, but something also feels different about her, about this whole thing.

I’m surprised when I enter the ICU to find her bed empty. I go cold, standing there while the blood drains from my body. Shit, I think, she’s dead. I left and she’s gone, just like that. She took a round to the head, I tell myself. What did you think would happen? You know the odds, even after recovery.

I sit in the chair beside her bed with my head in my hands. I should have taken the shift off, should never have left her.

“She’s got a room downstairs, green wing,” says someone beside me.

I look up to find a blonde nurse standing there. Her name escapes me. Her face and body do not. I recall her legs in particular and the way they were wrapped around my head when she came, a unique ‘ah, ah, ah’ coming from her mouth.

“Grace,” she says, crossing her arms.

“Right.” I smile, ignoring the ice bath she’s giving me with her eyes. “You said she’s out of ICU?”

I can see her resisting rolling her eyes, something I’m rather used to. “Clear and easy.” She extends her arm. “Go see for yourself.”

I stand feeling a hell of a lot happier than I did a moment ago. “Thank you… Grace.”

She nods with her lips drawn tight. I recall them drawn tight around something else, but manage to shelve that particular memory as I make my way to the staircase and descend to the next floor down and the regular rooms.

I fly past the nurses’ station and almost take out someone in a wheelchair as they round the corner, their IV bag swaying. “Sorry!” I yell behind myself, checking the roster on the wall and finding Sofia’s name.

She’s awake when I enter her room. I softly close the door behind myself.

I can’t help smiling as I approach the bed. “Nice digs.”

There’s more color in her cheeks now. Even her eyes seem more vibrant, though the dark rings remain below from her surgery. She’s the cutest panda I’ve ever seen.

“You came back.”

I take her hand and sit on the edge of her bed. I nod to an untouched plate of something vaguely resembling food. “And miss out on the Michelin-starred dining? Are you kidding me?”

She gives a short laugh looking at the tray. “I can’t really remember if that’s good food or not.”

“Take it from me,” I tell her. “It’s not. You won’t find Jamie Oliver in the kitchen.”

“Who?”

“You know, the naked...” but I let it go. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re out of ICU. Doctor Grant’s been by?”

I can see her working to recall. “Yes, he was. He said I was lucky, something about being discharged in a few days, home care… I’m not sure. I’m scared. I don’t want to leave. I don’t know anyone out there, or anything. I can’t remember.” She starts tapping her head. “Why can’t I remember anything?”

I reach up and pull her hand away, placing my own on top of it beside her. “Hey, hey, you’ll be fine. You’ve got me, don’t you?”

“I don’t know you.”

“Well, I’ll introduce myself properly then. I’m Ethan Meyers, thirty three, paramedic. I secretly enjoy kid’s cereal and movies with less than a seven on IMDB. That good for you?”

She’s smiling wide now. “I don’t know what any of that means, sorry.”

I squeeze her hand, happy it’s warmer than before. “Don’t be, but that’s great news. The less time you spend around here, the better, and that’s from someone who spends a shitload of time here.”

She looks confused. “That’s a profanity, isn’t it?”

“Shit?” I say. “Sure is. So is ‘fuck’ and ‘bastard.’ Try one out, come on.”

“S-shit?” she says, whispering like we’re at Sunday mass.

“Louder,” I laugh.

“Shit,” she says, sharp and quick.

“Better,” I smile, “but we’re going to have to work on your delivery now you’re a certified badass. Usually the only guys who survive gunshot wounds to the head are gangsters and homeboys, not…” I trail off, unsure how to describe her, “supermodels.”

“You think I’m a supermodel? I don’t really know what that is, but I don’t think I am one.”

Given the way it twitched in my trousers, my cock certainly took objection to that. I clear the thought. “You’re definitely the prettiest patient I’ve ever seen.”

Her cheeks flush red. “Why do I feel so weird when you say that?” She waves at her face, fanning it. “I’m so… hot all of a sudden.”

As fun as it would be versing her in the subtle art of attraction, I steer the conversation back to more simple matters. “How about I talk and you just relax?”

“Like before,” she says, “when I was unconscious?”

I have to laugh at that. “I hate to say it, but that’s not the first time I’ve heard that.”

Her eyebrows knit together in confusion. “You prefer talking to people who can’t talk back?”

And there’s a damn truth-bomb if ever I’ve heard one. “Sometimes,” I say, smiling, “but I am glad to see you awake and well, truly. You’re going to be just fine, Sofia the First.”

“The First?”

“The first Sofia I’ve fallen for,” I say, but I can see my words are lost on her. I clear my throat again, looking around the room for inspiration but finding only blank walls. “What about baseball? You want to hear about that?”

The way she smiles back at me, so innocently, so free of all the bullshit that usually goes into courting… God, it’s intoxicating. Bottle that warmth, that smile, and you’d be a billionaire. “I just want to hear the sound of your voice. Is that okay?”

“That,” I have to laugh, “I don’t hear so often, but sure. Hell, I’ll talk about the finer points of pulmonary resuscitation if it makes you happy.”

So I talk. I talk until her eyes start to get heavy and finally close, a look of such peace and contentment on her face there’s a distant pain in my chest I’ve never felt before, a sudden vulnerability that certainly wasn’t there last week.

I know I should leave, get back home and rest up properly, but I can’t pull myself away.

I bring the chair—old faithful— over instead, slide it as close as I can to her bed. “That’ll do,” I tell myself, watching her sleep. “That’ll do.”

CHAPTER FOUR

SOFIA

“Good morning.”

My eyes feel like they’re glued together when I go to open them. Through this half-sight I do not recognize the two people who are standing at the foot of my bed.

I look around, my panic subsiding when I find Ethan fast asleep in the chair beside my bed, his arms crossed and his head hung against his chest.

In truth, I didn’t expect to find him here this morning. I thought he’d be long gone by now.

I return my attention to the two women. “Who are you?” I ask, my croaky throat lined with sandpaper.

The woman on the left is dressed in a dark blouse and matching slacks. I don’t know how, but I know those clothes are expensive. “I’m Nora,” the woman announces. “I’m the billing clerk here at the hospital.”

The woman beside her steps forward, her hair drawn into a tight ponytail and her clothes far less extravagant. ‘Utilitarian’ would be the word to describe her, I realize, giving myself an internal pat on the back at remembering that much.

Or practical, my head interjects.

“My name is Tara Phillips. I’m a social worker. I’ve been assigned to your case.”

“My case?” I ask, confused and trying to sit up. Neither woman moves to help me.

“Yes,” says Tara, her voice far too loud for my liking, “I’m afraid we have quite a bit to get through.”

Ethan stirs, but he doesn’t wake.

Nora smiles at Tara, but it’s artificial. It’s nothing like the way Ethan smiles at me. “Before we get to that, we really must clear up your billing. There’s the matter of your insurance information. Tara here is going to help.”

They’re speaking so loudly, with no concern at all for Ethan. Can’t they see he’s trying to sleep?

“Can you please speak a little quieter?” I ask, looking towards the door for a passing nurse but seeing it empty.

They flank me, one coming around to the left of my bed and one to the right, blocking my view of Ethan.

Nora places her hand on the bed rail. “We’re going to need your full name, to start.”

Why do I feel like I’m being interrogated here? “I don’t remember it. I don’t remember anything. I’ve told everyone that, even the police.”

Nora exchanges a skeptical look with Tara, who says, “Really now, we will need that information. The sooner you provide to us, the sooner you help us out, the sooner we can help you.”

They don’t seem like they’re here to help at all. They’re still speaking too loudly.

I restrain myself from matching their volume, not that I’m sure I could. “Please, I can’t help you. I don’t remember.”

Something approaching a sneer pulls Nora’s lips tight. She leans over the bed, her grip on the railing tightening. “Sofia, and we do know that much, you need to start being truthful with us.”

“I am!” I protest, trying to look around her to see if Ethan is awake.

“You need to listen to her, Sofia,” says the social worker. “It’s in your best interest.”

Nora straightens up, letting go of the rail. “Let me tell you a story. Last year, we had a patient here who pretended he had amnesia, a kind of deadbeat. But we have doctors here, Sofia, experts in their field who know when something isn’t right, and do you know what happened to this man?”

They’re speaking to me like I’m a child. I don’t answer.

Another exchanged look, Nora smiling now. “We sued him, at considerable cost. Is that really where you want this to go?”

My heart is thumping, my body tight. I don’t want to deal with any of this right now. I can’t. What do I have to tell them? I am telling the truth.

“Sofia?” Tara presses, louder now.

I whip my head between them. “I, I don’t…”

Nora reaches over and pins me in place. “Calm down now. Tell us. Let this charade go.”

“Please!” I scream, hot tears building in my eyes, overflowing. “I don’t know. I don’t know!”

Nora’s suddenly pulled back, Ethan standing between her and the bed. “What the fuck is going on here?” he shouts.

Nora takes a step back, bumping into the chair he was sleeping on. “Excuse me, sir, but we’re here on official hospital business. My name’s—”

I know who the hell you are,” he says, pointing behind himself to the other side of the bed without looking, “and I really don’t give a shit who she is, you can’t barge in here at the crack of fucking dawn and start demanding things from someone who’s recovering from a bullet wound to their. Fucking. Head.”

He jabs his finger at her as he says it. He’s angry. That’s pretty clear.

Not a morning person, I tell myself, wiping away tears with the back of my hand.

“Look,” starts Nora, her voice firmer, “we’ve got to be sure she has a legitimate case of amnesia. It’s simply policy.”

Ethan laughs, looking between them. “Are you two for fucking real? Like, seriously, is this some kind of joke? Because I’m not fucking laughing. And her,” he points to me, “does she look like she’s in any condition for your early morning inquisition?”

Tara bites her lip, looking down, but Nora won’t give in. “Now, wait a se—”

“You two need to get the hell out right now and come back when she’s ready to be discharged.”

Nora squints at the name patch on Ethan’s jacket. “Look here, Mr. Meyers, we’re both employees of this hospital, are we not? We’re both trying to do our jobs, though I’m not sure this level of after-care is required of an EMT, is it?”

That seems to make him especially angry. He laughs. “You better be real careful.”

He’s so fierce, so protective—a completely different person to the kind, caring individual who’s been by my side for the last few days.

Nora ignores the threat. “We have to receive payment, Mr. Meyers. Your paycheck depends on it. There are no free rides here, as you well know.”

“She can’t remember who she is,” protests Ethan, animated. “Doesn’t the hospital have programs in place for this kind of thing, measures in place to aid a patient in her position?”

“It does,” chimes in Tara, looking smug now, “but we would still have to know who she is to fill out the forms.”

“Out!” Ethan bellows, shuffling Nora towards the door.

She continues to speak, but Ethan ignores her, driving her all the way to the door before turning to face Tara. “You too.”

Tara gives a short, questioning look and casually walks past him to join Nora in the doorway.

Ethan goes to slam the door, but it’s on a pneumatic hinge. It simply wheezes closed slowly.

I expect a knock to come, Nora to continue her assault, but there’s nothing.

Ethan breathes out and runs his hands through his hair, pacing around the room. “Sorry about that. There are some real assholes around here, especially when it comes to money. It’s a hospital, not fucking Wells Fargo.”

I don’t know what Wells Fargo is, but I smile all the same. “You didn’t have to do that.”

He stops, facing me. “They had no right. Someone’s got to look out for the patient.”

“I’m glad it’s you,” I tell him, and I mean it, sincerely.

He runs another hand through his hair. “So am I.”

“You’re not afraid of me, are you? Because I’m a bit more Hyde than Jekyll.”

I still don’t know what he’s talking about, but I reply, “I’m not afraid of you, no. I don’t think I could ever be afraid of you. You’re kind and caring. You’ve been so nice to me.” I’m sniffling again, close to crying and I don’t know why, only that the emotion is welling up somewhere inside me, some dark corner that’s as unfamiliar as everything else.

Ethan sits on the end of my bed, hands on one knee. I notice how broad his shoulders are underneath that jacket, the impressive physique lurking below. Do you need to be Mr. Olympia to be a paramedic?

“Mr. Olympia… Arnold Schwarzenegger,” I blurt.

Ethan smiles. “O-kay then. I hate to let you down, but the Governator I am not.”

“The Terminator,” I continue, on a roll now, images and memories flooding back and snippets but still too loose to pull together into any kind of cohesion. “I think I’m starting to remember things.”

“Not Hercules in New York, I hope. That wasn’t his finest hour.”

“I like coffee,” I announce. “I like, really, really like coffee.”

Ethan’s beaming as he stands. “Well, alrighty. That’s a start. How about I go and get you something from downstairs. Calling it coffee’s a disservice to good coffee everywhere, but it’s something, yeah, might trigger another memory?”

“Right,” I reply, for the first time in days feeling energized and excited that maybe, just maybe, I’m going to get my memory back.

Before he leaves, I call, “Ethan?”

He turns. “Yes.”

“Maybe I should leave, leave the hospital before my bill gets any higher. I’m pretty sure head surgery isn’t cheap.”

He approaches the bed solemnly. “No, but, like I said, you don’t need to be worrying about that. Worry about getting better, resting up. We can deal with the vultures after that.”

“I don’t even know if I’m rich or poor. Maybe I’m homeless.”

“I don’t think so,” he says. “The clothes you wearing when we found you… They’re designer, and your friend, the locket… No, someone’s missing you out there. Someone knows who you are.”

“Do you think I’m in danger here?”

“You probably didn’t see the metal detectors downstairs, the security. We had a shooter here a few years back. Guy was disarmed before he got a chance to do any damage, but the entire place has been Fort Knox ever since. No, if anyone wanted to hurt you they’d have to get to you first… and then get through me,” he smiles. “Good fucking luck with that.”

“So you think I should stay?”

“I don’t think you have a choice, but yes, I do. This is the safest place for you, with the best care in the city on hand. Forget about billing and social services, but the doctors, the nursing staff? You won’t find finer. You’re in good hands, and you’ve got me. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, understand?”

I nod, a tear falling from my cheek, but this time it’s one of appreciation… I think. Ethan comes up beside me and brushes it away with the back of his thumb. In the morning light his eyes are cerulean, deep and vibrant. “There’s no need for that. You’ll remember. Just give it time. They’re not going to boot you out with a hole in your head.”

He smiles before starting to walk towards hallway.

I reach up to the gauze. “Do I really have a hole in my head?”

“Better than a hole in your heart.”

He doesn’t turn around when he says it.

CHAPTER FIVE

ETHAN

I place my hand against the shower tiles and look down towards the drain, soapy water spiraling around my feet.

I’m home, but all I’m thinking about is getting back to Sofia.

The water’s cool, not hot. I like a shower, not a skin peel.

I run my hand through my hair and resist the temptation to grab my cock with the other. It’s rock hard down there, stiff and straight—all dressed up for prom with nowhere to go.

Every time I close my eyes all I see is Sofia. It’s gone way beyond a patient-paramedic relationship. Ethics and professionalism are out the window, but does it really matter? There’s no rule that says we can’t follow up with patients, even date them if that takes our fancy. No, there has to be a separation from the job versus one’s personal life eventually.

You’re forgetting she’s still hooked up to an IV, lying there in a hospital bed, my better self reminds me. Dinner and a movie are probably off the table.

It’s not the first time I’ve been attracted to a patient. I’ve been with a few who’ve followed me up, something like ‘savior syndrome,’ they call it. Those panties fell fast. But the moment I had what I wanted, it all disappeared—the thrill, the attraction.

I’ve considered if Sofia might be the same, another case of ‘bed, eject, rinse, repeat,’ but it’s not just a sexual attraction I feel. There’s more to this I don’t know if I’m ready to unpack yet. I want to care for her, protect her from whoever tried to put that slug in her head. I’ve killed men before. I realize I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again if she was in danger.

That is the difference here.

I push off from the shower wall and let the water stream over my face, cool my aching cock even though I’m pretty sure it’s not about to rest easy anytime soon.

I shut the water off silently shaking my head.

You’re in trouble, friend. You’re in real fucking trouble.

*

It takes me a while to hunt down Dr. Grant at the hospital. I eventually find him coming out of the nurses’ mess.

Surprise, surprise.

I cut in front of him, looking over his shoulder at the doorway to the mess. “Who needs Tinder when you’ve got a room of nurses, right?”

He slides his hands into the pocket of his coat, smiling. “They say you shouldn’t mix business and pleasure, you know.”

I smile back. “‘They’ say a lot of things, don’t they?”

He relaxes. “What can I do for you, Ethan?”

“Sofia.”

“Ah,” he nods, “Sofia.”

“She had two visitors yesterday from the hospital, a woman named Tara from social services, a Nora from billing. You know them?”

Doctor Grant looks upwards, reaching to sit his glasses back on the bridge of his nose. “Vaguely, but there’s a lot of staff here, as you know.”

“We’ve both been here a while, seen a few things, and I know you’ve got some pull with the powers that be.”

He crosses his arms defensively. “Why do I feel like an ask is coming?”

I raise my hands up. “No ask, but you should know, given she’s your patient, that these women were going full-on NYPD Blue on her, brought her to tears with their fucking inquisition, actually.”

“You were there?” he asks.

“I was. Told them to get the hell out and let her rest, come back and hassle her about billing when she was ready to be discharged, which won’t be for a few days, right?”

“Actually,” begins the good doctor, looking to the floor and them smiling back to me in that well-practiced ‘everything is A-Okay’ doctor grin that means it’s totally not, “she might be discharged sooner than you think.”

“How soon?” I ask, careful to shape the tone of my voice so it doesn’t sound so defensive. “She’s recovering from major surgery.”

“Not as major as you’d think, and tomorrow, most likely.”

I have to protest. “She was shot in the fucking head, and she’s getting out tomorrow? These women didn’t even think she had amnesia, thought she was putting it on.”

“Oh, she’s definitely amnesic,” Doctor Grant says. “There is no question of that, but I’m confident once the swelling subsides her memories will return. Until then, her tests are clear, an after-care plan in place… You know as well as I do how fucked things are around here, the politics of it all. We need the beds. It’s as simple as that.”

“Where will she go?” I ask. “You know, given she can’t supply any personal details.”

A gaggle of nurses passes, a young, strawberry blonde winking at me. I ignore her and focus on Grant.

He takes a moment to consider it. “Well, typically she’d be sent to a shelter. There’s a Catholic church that runs a shelter two, three blocks down. I imagine that would be the most likely option.”

I’ve been to the shelter in question a few times—an overdose, a stabbing… I know the nuns do a great job there, but it’s a seedy place full of seedy characters either looking to score or so fried out of their minds they don’t know which day of the week it is. Sofia can’t go there. No fucking way. She doesn’t belong.

Doctor Grant sees me shaking my head. “No, that absolutely cannot happen.”

He seems to find that amusing. “You’ve got a better suggestion, I suppose?”

I can’t help but smile as the plan forms. “You’re damn right I do.”

*

Sofia’s smiling when I enter. She’s sitting upright, her hair drawn back into a side ponytail and her face full of color and life.

I notice her IV is gone.

She sees me looking. “Yes, they took it away this morning,” holding up her wrist to show me the bruise, “makes me look a drug addict, though.”

I swallow at the thought of her at the homeless shelter. She’d be eaten alive. “Did you know you’re being discharged tomorrow?”

She nods, the carefree smile gone and replaced with a look of apprehension. “Doctor Grant told me earlier. I understand, but I don’t know what’s going to happen to me, where I’m going to go…”

Clearly, Doctor Grant did not her tell everything, or maybe he was leaving that to Tara and her cohort to deliver.

I come up beside her bed and reach for her hand, as always. “You don’t have to worry.”

“Why’s that?” she asks, completely innocent, wholesome in a way I thought was impossible in a full-grown adult until now.

“You’re coming home with me,” I smile.

She goes to protest, but I cut her off. “No, it’s done. It’s settled. I’ve already spoken to the registrar.”

Her smile starts to return, her eyes growing glassy. “Are you sure?”

I have to laugh. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so sure of anything, strange as it sounds.”

“I won’t be a burden?”

She’s being genuine, I know, but the idea is so completely abstract I have to take a moment before I answer. “Of course not. They’ve already given me your after-care plan, your medication will be sorted by morning… You’re good to go, and you’ll be in safe hands, I promise.”

She squeezes my hand. “Okay,” she half-laughs, half-cries, wiping at her face with the back of her hand. “I’m such a mess. I wonder if I’m always this emotional.”

I reach across to hold the side of her face. It’s so incredibly soft. My thumb shifts to the bottom of her ear. I feel her pulse in that small shadow below. It’s strong, a hundred times stronger than when we found her under the bridge.

“What if people come for me, looking for me?” she asks.

I won’t let fear get the better of her. I look her dead in those gorgeous hazel eyes, the color of autumn and chocolate, of everything good and warm in the world. “I’m a trained soldier, remember?” Just before I remind myself she was unconscious when I told her about my former life. “Someone wants to get to you, they’re going to have to get through me.”

She looks at my chest. “You do seem awfully… hard.”

My eyes bulge. “Hard?”

“Is that the right thing to say? Is that what people say?”

“I’ve heard it once or twice,” I smile, usually when my clothes are off, mind.

She returns to questions about my apartment. She wants to know every detail. I don’t blame her. I’d want certainty in her situation, a path forward. There’s safety in certainty, security. It’s one of the most essential needs in life—a roof over your head and a place to call home, however transient it may be.

I’m determined to make her feel like she’s someone, that she has a place in this world. If that means painting the entire apartment pink, I’ll damn well do it.

*

I find Doctor Grant in the park across the road diving into a footlong overflowing with cheese and salami. I’ve crossed the appropriate t’s and dotted the appropriate i’s, but I’d still like his approval on this. After all, he was the treating physician. He knows her case better than anyone. He has, literally, been inside her head.

He swallows down a mouthful of sandwich when he sees me approaching, staying seated. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re stalking me, but to get things straight up front, I don’t swing that way, sorry.”

I take a seat beside him, admire the skeletal trees above stripped by winter. “Say, I’ve always wanted to know something about you doctors?”

He gives a tug of his head, returning to his sandwich. “By all means, enlighten me.”

“Why do you call everything you do ‘practice’?”

He doesn’t even smile. “I don’t imagine you hiked out here in the cold for friendly banter.”

I get straight to it. “Sofia’s going to stay at my place.”

Now he stops eating, looking at me. “She’s in no condition for sexual activity.”

I act offended. “Is that all you think of me?”

He looks down between his legs. “Hey, I’ve got a dick too, you know. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“Would I like to? Sure, but she’s different. I’m going to take care of her.”

“It’s not going to be easy,” he says. “I know she looks better, but these things can turn. You do realize that?”

I’ve prepared myself for the possibility. “You’d rather she was at the shelter, or in the care of a fellow medical professional?”

That turns the tide. “Fine,” he says, finishing off his sandwich and scrunching up the wrapper. He stands. “But it’s not like you need my permission.” He takes a pen and card from his top pocket, scrawling something onto the back. “My personal number.”

I take the card. “Thank you.”

*

“Go,” Sofia tells me.

I’m pleased to see she’s eating, half her meal gone beside her bed. I’m impressed she could stomach that much of today’s ‘ragu a la mystery.’

I’m reluctant to leave. “I can stay. It’s fine.” I look to my chair. “I’m kind of getting used to sleeping in that thing.”

“You need to go home and get some sleep,” she says. “You’re starting to look like a raccoon, and yes, I do know what a raccoon is.”

I bring my hand up to the area under my ears. “That bad, huh?”

“Go,” she repeats. “I’ll be here and waiting in the morning, bag packed and ready to go. Well, I don’t actually have anything, so there won’t be a bag, but I’ll be ready. I’m making no sense, am I?”

“You’re making perfect sense.”

I push myself off her bed. I am actually tired. My back would kill for a normal bed. She’s right. She’ll be here in the morning. Until then, this is the best place for her.

The urge to rest wins out. “Okay,” I capitulate, justifying it to myself. “I should really clean up the place anyhow, make it look less like the set of The Hangover.”

“The movie with the tiger in the bathroom?”

“I’m impressed. You really are starting to get your memories back.”

“Just not the important ones,” she says, a look of sudden solemnness down-casting her features.

I sit beside her, taking both her hands. “Hey, hey, hey. You’re good. You’re great. Give it time. I’ll see you in the morning, yes?”

She nods, looks close to tears again, but I manage to peel myself away. I give her one last smile from the doorway before turning.

“Ethan?” she calls.

I turn back. “Yes?”

“Can you get some blueberry ice cream?”

“Blueberry ice cream?” I laugh.

She nods over to the empty ice cream bowl at the back of her dinner tray. “I think I’ve got a sweet tooth.”

CHAPTER SIX

SOFIA

I do a little spin on the spot. I’m far from a ballerina, but at least I’m on my feet. “It’s strange being able to stand up again,” I tell Ethan. He’s leaning up against the wall in a dark denim jacket and slacks—a rebel without a cause.

“You’ll be so much better away from this place, trust me. There’s a whole word waiting for you out there.”

I stop and sit on the edge of the bed, my hands neatly folded in my lap. I notice I do that a lot, play and fidget with my hands. “That’s what I’m worried about. That and the bill.”

I spot myself in the mirror and still don’t recognize the face. My hair looks odd where they shaved a patch for the surgery, but I don’t think Ethan notices.

There’s a soft tap on the door. “I hope I’m not disturbing.”

It’s Nora.

I see Ethan push himself off the wall, ready to place himself between me and her, but she lifts her hands up. “I’m not here with more questions, don’t worry.” She hands Ethan a series of papers. “I simply came by to hand over these forms.”

And she’s actually smiling as she says it, smiling at me. “It’s great to see you up and about, Sofia.”

“Thank… you,” I stutter, not sure why she’s being so nice this time around. Perhaps Ethan followed up with her superiors?

She nods and leaves—no mention of billing or another barrage of questions. I assume everything I need to know is in the forms she handed Ethan. I shudder to think what kind of astronomical number is on the bill. I recall those horror stories.

Ethan places the forms down on the table beside the bag of clothes I was brought in with. He was kind enough to supply me with causal clothes for discharge today, even if this blouse is a size too small and the pants loose around the hips. I can hardly complain in my situation. He’s gone above and beyond.

“What now?” I ask.

Ethan takes a set of keys out of his pocket. “Now we go home.”

*

Ethan’s apartment is located in a leafy street on the outskirts of town, the kind of red-brick cocoon where kids play jump rope in the courtyard and birds congregate in the elms outside. The apartment itself is a simple one-bedroom layout, smaller than I expected. I can see he’s made an effort to clean it up before my arrival, though there’s the odd tell this place hasn’t seen a feminine touch in quite a while.

I notice a framed photograph on the mantle, the only photograph, in fact. There are five men there in battle fatigues. The wording at the bottom reads ‘Fort Sam Houston – AIT 2012’. “Are these friends of yours?” I ask, unsure if I should probe.

He places my things down on the table and walks over. “Advanced Individual Training, yeah, for sixty-eight whiskeys.”

“Sorry?”

“Uh, 68W, the Military Occupational Specialty for a United States Army Combat Medic. After this I was assigned to the 75th Ranger Regiment, light infantry airborne spec ops.”

“Sounds impressive,” I tell him.

He gives a start, breathing through his nose. “Not really. You just do the job you’re assigned. To be honest, most of it’s sitting around bored out of your mind.”

“But you have been in battles before, seen action?”

He takes a moment before answering, something crossing his face I can’t pinpoint. “A bit.” He claps his hands together, turning from the photo. “Let’s go through this bag quickly, yeah? Maybe there’s a clue or two we missed in here, something to help piece you back together.”

“Okay,” I smile, “but I’m not humpty dumpy.”

“Good to know.”

I open the bag and slowly spread everything out on the table, pausing when I take a lacy pair of panties from the bag, the lacework itself incredibly intricate, the back cut high. “Oh,” I say simply, slipping them back into the bag. “I don’t think there’s a clue in those.”

There’s fresh heat in my cheeks as I spread my things out on the table, swallowing when I see the dried blood on the shirt. Against the silky white it looks like a Jackson Pollock piece. “Jackson Pollock,” I say.

“The artist?” asks Ethan. “Were you two friends?”

“I think he’s dead,” I reply, pointing to the pattern of blood, “but this reminds me of his artwork.”

“So you know about art,” nods Ethan. “That’s good.” He shows me the label of the shirt. “This is designer, as are the pants there. I looked them up. The pants alone are close to eight-hundred dollars. I couldn’t even find a price for the shirt.” He points to the shoes. “And these are Louboutins. I didn’t have to look those up. The red soles gave it away.”

“Why do you know about ladies shoes? Am I going to find a secret stash of high heels in your closet, a boa or two?”

“That was a joke,” he smiles, “but as good as I think I would look in a set of Louies or Choos, it’s not for me.” He looks behind himself. “My ass doesn’t need to be any perkier.”

“Pity,” I smile. “I think it’s sexy when a guy gets in touch with his feminine side.” I bring my hands to my mouth, trying to stuff the words back inside. “I’m sorry. I don’t know where that came from.”

The heat in my cheeks has become an all-out inferno.

He’s laughing, reaching to the table for support. “Not at all. I think you’re starting to sound more like yourself, whoever that may be.”

“Whoever I was sounds like they were rich, yes?”

Ethan dips his head, looking at the spread of clothes. “Well, yes, it seems like you come from money, sure.”

“Nora will be happy to hear that,” I offer. “I’ll be able to pay my bill if—when I remember who I am.”

I close my eyes and try to concentrate, to force my memory back into my head, but all it does it make it ache.

I bring a hand to my right temple, Ethan stepping closer and reaching to pull it aside. “Remember what Doctor Grant said. You have to relax and let it come. You can’t force it.”

“It sounds like you’re giving birthing tips.”

He eyes me cautiously, looking me up and down. “Have you given birth before?”

I look down myself, but I don’t have any stretch marks, scars, nothing obvious that would suggest so, not that I can be one-hundred-percent certain. “I don’t think so.”

It’s a while before Ethan reacts, lost in some sort of daydream. He reaches down and scoops the clothes back into the bag, removing it from the table and turning to face me. “There’s no need to worry about the bill, okay? We’ve got some time up our sleeve for that. Let’s concentrate on getting you settled in and comfortable.”

I look around. “Where am I going to sleep?”

Ethan nods to the couch in the corner. “It’s a foldout. I’ll be fine out here. You take my room.”

“No, no,” I protest. “This is your place. I won’t have it.”

I can see he’s taken back by this sudden show of assertiveness. I’m a bit surprised myself. “I insist,” he says.

“No, I insist,” I tell him firmly. “I will be fine on the foldout.”

“Anyhow,” he laughs, “I was thinking about going down to the mall, getting you some new clothes and toiletries, maybe? I don’t think Old Spice is going to be your thing. Is that something you’d like to do?”

I look to the bag of designer clothes, smiling. “Are you sure you can afford me?”

*

I’m not ready for the explosion of sound and activity that is The Mall. Being the weekend, it’s extremely busy, people dashing to and fro, teenagers bent to their phones and mothers pulling screaming children from one place to the next.

“People come here for fun?” I ask Ethan.

“Not me,” he replies, weaving us through the crowds. “This is sort of like my idea of hell, actually.”

I smile to myself at the knowledge he was prepared to come down here to ‘hell’, simply to help me out.

“Here we are,” he says, opening out his arms in front of a large store called ‘Target’, though he pronounces it ‘Tar-jay.’

“Is this a fancy store?” I ask. “Because I was joking earlier, you know.”

He really laughs at that. “Well, it’s about as fancy as you’re going to get around here, I’m afraid. Though in terms of designer cred, it’s more like Burger King than Burberry.”

I look up at the sign. It doesn’t seem like it’s a designer store. More than that, it doesn’t seem a place I would frequent, or have in the past, though I’m not sure exactly why I feel that way.

Ethan offers his hand. “Shall we?”

“By all means.”

If I felt uncomfortable inside what Ethan tells me is a ‘big box store,’ Ethan looks like he’s in another world entirely, crossing and unfolding his arms, jumping from one foot to the other and scanning around. “You don’t like shopping?” I ask, looking over the racks.

“I’d happily take basic training over shopping any day of the week.”

“What about your clothes?” He looks like he dresses well.

“I order online.”

I take a floral full-sleeve dress from the rack, holding it against myself because it seems like the natural thing to do, even though this whole thing seems completely unnatural to me.

Ethan senses my confusion. “What is it?”

I look up to him. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever shopped for myself before.”

“You remember something?”

“It’s more of a feeling, a hunch.”

“No, it’s good,” Ethan enthuses. “Maybe you had a personal shopper, a stylist even? It would make sense.”

I place the shirt back. “Yes, perhaps you’re right.”

“Do you want to go somewhere else?” he offers. “There are plenty of other stores here. I just thought… I don’t know. There’d be more options here?”

I select a plain pocket half-sleeve shirt that seems my size and smile. “No, this is fine. Come on. Help me choose.”

“Just remember, you asked for it.”

After a while it actually becomes something of an enjoyable experience. It seems, contrary to his disdain for shopping, Ethan is actually pretty good at it. The sizing is always off, but the colors and patterns he mixes together, his eye, seems on point—at least I think so. For all I know I could be walking out of this store the laughing stock of the entire mall, not that I’d care, or realize.

I find a fedora in the men’s section and place it on Ethan’s head when he’s not looking. He spins around with his lip bent doing his best hard-boiled detective impression. “What’ll it be, ma’am? The street or the slammer?”

“The street?” I laugh, trying to stop myself crying he looks so damn ridiculous. He takes it off and places it on the nearest rack. “I’m more of a baseball cap kind of guy.”

“Where did you get your fashion sense?” I ask. “I’ve seen the way other women look at you around here… even back at the hospital.”

He turns as if one of those so-called shopping stalkers is right behind him. “Oh, really? You think it’s my dress sense they find attractive, not my dashing good looks?”

And darn it I’m heating up again, skin blazing away. I look down to the armful of clothes I’m holding, trying to change the subject. “I’ll pay you back for everything, I promise.”

“Even all that is hardly going to make me broke,” he muses. “It’s fine. I’m happy to help.”

“Why are you being so nice to me?” I ask, the question just kind of popping into my head.

“Why not?” he answers.

Satisfied, I look to the other end of the store. “You said something about toiletries?”

He straightens himself up and takes a step back from me. I hadn’t realized how close we’d been standing. “Right. Home’s where your toothbrush is, after all.”

“Funny,” I reply, “I thought it was where the heart is.”

He smiles. In it I see something I haven’t noticed before, at the way he looks at me. I don’t know what it is, but I think I like it.

No, I know I like it.

“That too,” he says. “That too.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

ETHAN

I snap awake.

At first I think I’m in a dream, that someone is screaming in the distance.

The alarm clock reads 3am, the screaming growing in intensity and volume.

Sofia.

I push the covers off and stumble towards the bedroom looking for the light switch, but I’m so sleep drunk I can’t seem to find it.

I manage to find the switch for the bedside lamp at least.

With light, I see Sofia thrashing in the bed, her face glossy with sweat, eyes closed. Her chest is an accordion, her mouth wide and open between screams.

Check your surroundings for any sign of danger—It’s first aid 101.

I scan the room but find no boogey man or open window. No, whatever she’s going through is internal.

Her fingers pull at the sheets, her legs splaying open and snapping shut.

I come to the side of the bed and place my hands on her shoulders, trying my best to fix her in position, but she’s strong.

“Sofia,” I tell her using my EMT voice—loud, clear. “Sofia. You’re having a bad dream. You’re okay.”

She’s practically hyperventilating with terror. “No,” she starts to say, eyes squinting harder closed. “No, please! Please, please!” she begs, reaching up to tug at my arm.

I hold her head. “It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re safe,” I repeat. “It’s me, Ethan. Listen to my voice.”

She starts to relax.

“Just follow the sound of my voice. That’s it.”

Slowly, her body softens and sinks back to the bed, the fight gone. Her eyes open slowly, blinking once, twice. I see the last strands of the nightmare pulling away in them. “Ethan?” she asks.

Her hair is stuck to her forehead. I drag it back behind her ear. “There you are. You were having a nightmare, that’s all.”

I see her trying to recall it. “There was a man, I think. I could see the barrel of a gun, so, so close.”

Her eyes grow glassy and I don’t want to push it. I want to consider this is a coincidence, but she was shot in the head and dumped under a bridge after all. No, this is her starting to remember.

She sits up, the Mickey Mouse nightshirt she chose at Target hanging loosely over her breasts. Being this close to her, so near… It’s too much to handle this time of night.

A siren goes off in the distance. She jumps forward into my arms.

It’s unexpected, but my first instinct is to hold her there tight, to never let her go no matter what kind of professionalism protocol demands.

You’re taking advantage of her, a distant voice whispers. She’s got a fucking head injury. She’s not thinking straight.

Her body’s warm against mine, the soft pillows of her breasts flattened out against my chest and her nipples, firmer, pressing deeper.

She’s breathing hard against my shoulder, a steady pull and push of air. Her hair’s in my face. I’m caught in the silky web of it, the heady scent of her.

Suddenly, she pulls herself back, staring at me in that short limbo between us, her eyes wet and wide and a whole world within them.

I’m surprised when she makes the first move, pressing her lips to mine.

I respond. It’s instinct.

I’d thought about this moment, of course. I’d thought about it constantly ever since I looked down on her in the back of the bus, but now it’s happening it’s more than I ever could have imagined.

I bring my hand up her side. She deepens the kiss, her mouth going wider and mine moving to match, the heat and intensity turning my cock to steel.

But it’s there at that precipice, hovering at the edge, the self-talk amplifies to unbearable levels.

I’m more surprised at myself when I’m the one who pulls back, breathing downwards. I cannot believe I’m saying these fucking words, but they come out broken and rushed all the same: “We shouldn’t.”

I thought I’d seen pain in my line of work before, but the pain that folds over her features now threatens to tear my heart in two.

Frantically, I try to work out what the hell I was thinking.

“You didn’t like it?” she asks, voice unsteady, cracking like a crystal glass. “You don’t like me?”

I exhale and can’t bring myself to maintain eye contact. I force my eyes upwards. “I don’t think you’re ready,” I don’t know how to phrase it, “for something like that. I don’t think we are ready,” I correct, trying not to make this about her. “I don’t want you to mistake gratitude for attraction. It happens.”

She nods and swallows, taking it in, but I can see she’s disappointed. She wipes away a tear and tries to smile. It’s so beautiful I immediately reconsider my actions.

Still, she doesn’t argue. She backs up a little and brings her knees to her chest, rocking there. “How are we going to find out who am I?” she asks, no doubt doing her best to change the subject even though I can still taste her on my lips, still feel my cock straining for attention.

I shift to hide my erection and try to snap my brain back to logical thinking. “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought,” I start.

She seems surprised by this. “You have?”

I nod once. “I think we should go to the media, have them do a story on you. After you’ve been on the news, word will circulate, social media might kick in…. Someone has to recognize you, right?”

“Shouldn’t the police do that?”

The police had to spoken to Sofia, but naturally she couldn’t provide them with any information. I overheard the officer in charge talking to Doctor Grant in the hallway. They had nothing—no witnesses, no fingerprints, tread marks, footage… Worse, they didn’t have the resources to look into it much further unless Sofia started to remember. No, I don’t think the police would be much help here. We have to do this ourselves.

I had considered the possibility going to the media might attract attention of a different kind, the wrong attention from the wrong people—those individuals who harmed Sofia to begin with. I don’t think it was a random shooting at all. The pieces didn’t fit, not that I’d studied criminal psychology, but the Army does tend to provide you with a sixth sense about such things—a ‘shitdar’ as one of my old medic buddies used to say.

In the end, I knew Sofia would be here with me and that anyone trying to hurt her was a) going to have a hard time getting in here and b) a hell of a lot harder time again trying to get through me. You can leave the military, but the military never leaves you. Every backfiring car, every plane overhead… You’re wired for the rest of your life whether you like it or not.

In some ways that’s why I think I was drawn to being a paramedic after I came home. I still needed that adrenaline hit, that step outside the normal. Nothing else comes close.

I bring my attention back to Sofia and my boxers stir again. Almost nothing.

“I think it’s a good idea,” she says, yawning.

“We’ll go in the morning,” I tell her, “but for now you need to rest.”

She lies down without protest.

I pull the quilt back over her, the briefest glimpse between her legs before they’re covered completely. “Get some sleep, okay? I’m just in the lounge if you need me.”

But her eyes are already closed.

I shut the bedroom door, leaving it partially open just in case.

She may have found sleep easily again, but I spend the next hour tossing and turning on the sofa bed, pulling the sheets this way and that and doing my best to keep my erection from trying to dig its way to China.

What the fuck were you thinking? comes the voice from downstairs. You were fucking in and you pull out?

My old man thought of himself as something of a Casanova. I don’t know if his four wives were a good measure of his prowess, but he loved to hand me advice about the fairer sex.

‘Don’t be a pussy,’ he told me once. ‘Make the first move and never back down. Girls don’t want weakness, son. They want a good, hard dicking from a man who knows he’s the boss. It’s primal,’ he told me, tapping his head, ‘evolution. It’s built into their brains, the need to be taken. Use it.’

Yeah, Pop had plenty of that material on hand. Perhaps I bought into it a bit, but I never wanted to be a chip off the old block. I’d see the way he burnt my mother, the pain it caused and the subsequent fallout. The wives that followed were clones of her, at least on the outside, but it was never the same. Dad would always be looking for something better. When he found it, they’d be gone.

Maybe that’s why I’ve always stayed clear of long-term relationships. I’ve seen first-hand the damage they can cause. Better to fuck and forget than settle down.

I kick the blanket off and lie spread-eagled staring up at the light fixture. Even its phallic shape seems to be taunting me tonight.

Fuck this.

I get up and make my way to the bathroom, closing the door and turning the shower on. I strip and step inside with one hand on the wall and the other on my dick, lightly stroking it.

I let it go and pound my fist against the tiles, unable to shake these sexual thoughts and know full well a quick jerk in the shower is only going to be a temporary measure.

Instead, I shut the hot tap off and turn to the cold tap to full, the water moving from warm to cold and then shrivel-your-balls-into-your-body freezing.

But it does the job.

If only for a minute.

CHAPTER EIGHT

SOFIA

The leather in Ethan’s truck is warm thanks to sitting out in the sun. It stirs a memory I can’t seem to catch hold of.

I hold the locket in my hand, rolling it around in my fingers. I don’t know how many times I’ve looked at it now. I feel like I know every surface and blemish, every contour of the mystery woman’s face. I look outside the window expecting to see her walking down the street, but it’s only someone jogging or walking their dog—normal people doing normal things.

We pull up outside the studio building, Ethan switching off the engine. “Are you sure you’re up to this?”

He managed to call in a favor with an old friend from college who knew a reporter. But now we are here, I can’t help the nerves that are telling me to run away and go back to the safe sanctuary of Ethan’s apartment. “Yes,” I reply, far from resolute.

“I’ve called ahead, so she’ll be waiting. I’ve been assured it won’t take long. The girl I spoke to almost sounded excited about it.”

“Excited?”

He shrugs. “Apparently, amnesia stories are big news. Who would have thought?”

I don’t know if I want to be ‘big news,’ but Ethan hasn’t let me down so far. I need to trust him again.

“Come on,” he says, all enthusiasm, “let’s get you inside.”

The studio building is a towering structure of metal and glass, the atrium with its projected screens and sounds is like something from the future.

“Wait here,” says Ethan, looking over to the front desk. “I’ll be right back.”

I see him wander over to the desk and talk to the young brunette behind it. She smiles back accordingly and brings a phone receiver to her ear, smiling at Ethan again.

I hold myself. Even having him this far away is hard.

I’m relieved when he returns. “It shouldn’t be long.”

I watch the screens.

A news story about a derailed train runs, followed by a missing child, a drug bust…

“Is the news always this glum?” I ask, unsure where I found that particular word in my head.

“Well, I wouldn’t recommend it for a date night.”

“I’m curious. What would you recommend?”

He has his hands in his pockets, a simple navy Harrington jacket unzipped down the middle. For some reason I think it’s the kind of jacket an old man would wear, but Ethan’s pulling it off somehow. Again, I don’t know where this information comes from. Maybe I was in the fashion industry? A designer? That would be impressive. I look down at my ‘Target’ clothes. What would designer me think of them?

“Sofia and… Ethan, I presume?”

We both turn to face a young woman wearing a bold blue blouse, her platinum hair pulled into a ponytail so tight I’m pretty sure it’s keeping her eyebrows in a constant state of surprise.

Ethan extends his hand. “Yes, and you must be Abbey Coffman, the reporter.”

Abbey’s beaming, but unlike other women, it’s directed at me. She’s looking at me like I’m a meal. “Sofia,” she says, like we’ve known each other forever, “so pleased you could make it. I’m going to take you right up to the studio. Follow me.”

Ethan nods, smiling. I follow the two of them.

Abbey snaps around while we’re waiting for the elevator. “I can’t wait to share your story, Sofia. It’s got a bit of everything, don’t you think? Mystery, intrigue,” smiling at Ethan, “a knight in shining armor.”

Ethan looks uncomfortable. “I wouldn’t say—” but he’s interrupted by the ping of the elevator doors opening, Abbey jetting inside and waving me forward. “Aren’t you excited?”

I’m not sure if I’m headed up to an interview or a pep rally. Once we step out, following Abbey down a maze of corridors to arrive at the news studio, I know it ain’t no pep rally.

There are people everywhere, panels of lights beaming down from above. I thought the lighting in the hospital was bright, but this is like the Second Coming.

Abbey helps me down into a chair, people coming from nowhere to pull my hair back, apply makeup. They don’t introduce themselves or particularly acknowledge me. To say it’s overwhelming would be an understatement.

Instinctively, I reach out, relieved when Ethan takes up my hand, holding it tight.

It doesn’t go unnoticed by Abbey, eyes darting to the gesture before aligning themselves with me in the mirror ahead. “I just want you to relax, Sofia. There’s nothing to worry about here. We’re going to get your story out. We’re going to do it right.”

“Thank you,” I reply, unable to match her infinite level of intensity. “Could I perhaps have a glass of water?”

“Of course!” exclaims Abbey, shouting, “Can I get a glass of water over here?” She snaps her fingers in the air. “Now, please.”

Ten seconds later someone wearing a headset slides a glass of water into my hand.

I’ve got two women doing my hair, working around the shaved area, another glancing between my face and the mirror as she applies what seems like a truckload of foundation.

“You’re going to look beautiful,” says Abbey, holding her clipboard to her chest.

I can tell by the way Ethan’s fidgeting he doesn’t exactly feel comfortable either, which is pretty funny for someone who’s used to dealing with emergencies all day.

I let his hand drop when the chair’s taken away and I’m whisked towards the desk in the middle of the floor that every single light in the room seems to be directed at.

Seated, I almost have to squint it’s so bright. I can barely make out Ethan standing there. He’s more shadow than man.

Abbey settles into a chair opposite me, a fake ficus tree between us.

“Live in sixty!” someone shouts.

Abbey checks her clipboard one more time before someone else runs up and takes it away, the same woman who did my makeup returning to dab her brush at the area under my eyes.

“Thirty!” comes another shout.

Abbey smiles over to me. “Are you ready, Sofia?”

“I… think.”

“Great. I just want you to be yourself. That’s all you have to do.”

A tall order when you don’t know who you are.

“And five, four…”

The countdown goes silent, Abbey winks across at me and, suddenly, it’s on.

*

It’s over before I know it, a rapid-fire cascade of questions I did my best to answer, though Abbey seemed to be carrying me the whole way. As I step off the stage I’m not even entirely sure what happened.

Abbey herself is gone, vanished off into the network ether.

An intern arrives to see us out.

Ethan takes my hand. “You did great up there.”

“Did I?” I laugh, eager to get this makeup off. I feel like my face has been caked in whipped cream.

We step into the elevator, the intern reaching in to tap the appropriate floor.

The doors close and we’re alone.

“You did,” says Ethan, “which means the hard part is done. Now we wait.”

“Do you think anyone will call in?” I ask. “Really?”

Ethan considers it. “Between the locket and the details about the clothing you were wearing, I’m pretty sure someone out there is going to recognize you.”

I swallow hard. Do I even want to remember who I am? Maybe I was a nasty person, an evil person? Why would someone go out of their way to shoot me otherwise?

It’s something I’ve considered more than once. I don’t feel like I’m a criminal, could even do anything criminal, but it could be true. Anything’s possible. I could be a closet assassin.

Not a very good one if you ended up under a bridge with a bullet in your head, I consider.

The doors open and we step outside into the foyer, Ethan facing me. “Hungry? I know this great tapas bar across the park. Do you like tapas?”

I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t know, but I’d sure like to try it.”

“Come on.”

The park across the road is busy with runners and mother’s groups, schoolkids out on excursion. Umber leaves have been pushed to the sides of the pathway, the trees bare and barren above and the sky even starker.

“Here.”

Ethan takes off his jacket and wraps it around my shoulders, his hands lingering longer than they should. “I can’t have my best patient catching a cold now, can I?”

“Oh, I’m your best patient now, am I?”

“You’re the best kind of patient.”

“What?” I laugh. “A patient with a hole in their head who doesn’t remember who they are?”

His nose does an adorable little twitch. “I don’t know what I’m saying, but I am happy to have you around. I want you to know that.”

“I do. I don’t know how I can ever repay you for all this, for everything you’ve done.”

He stops mid-step, looking at me. His white crew is blinding, but it’s his eyes I’m drawn to. “There’s no need, honestly.” He starts to walk again. “It’s refreshing, actually.”

“What’s that?”

“Being the one kicked out of my bed for once.”

I shove him in the shoulder. I don’t know why I do this exactly only that it feels natural in the moment. In fact, the more time I spend with Ethan the more comfortable I become. “Are you trying to suggest to me I’m not the first woman who’s been in your bed?”

He kind of chokes on that, stopping with a hand on his chest. “Jesus, Sofia. I’m starting to think you’re some kind of comedian? A designer comedian, if there’s such a thing.”

“I’m funny?”

He continues to walk, taking up my hand again. “Not intentionally, but yeah.” He nods to my head. “That gunshot wound’s going to give you plenty of material, trust me. Gives a new meaning to the term ‘airhead’.”

“Are you poking fun at me? Should I be enraged right about now?”

“Oh, you should definitely kick my ass, yes, but first,” he says, pointing to a restaurant across the road called La Taberna de los Sinverguenzas, “we eat.”

“What does it mean?” I ask. “The name?”

I believe it’s ‘The Scoundrels’ Tavern.’

I tilt my nose into the air. “Guess you’ll fit right in then.”

And yeah, maybe I really am a comedian.

The restaurant is like a cave inside, with arched ceilings and stony walls, nooks and booths separated by wood and red leather. It’s cozy, a sort of Spanish sports bar.

I place another piece of sausage into my mouth. “Mmmm.” I try to speak around it while I’m eating. “What did you say this was again?”

Ethan laughs. “Easy there, Chewbacca. It’s chorizo.”

I stab another piece. “It’s fantastico is what it is.”

“I don’t think that’s a real word.”

“And I don’t really give a damn,” I smile back.

Ethan pushes himself back from the table. “Wow, you’re really starting to find yourself, huh? Did you stumble across a bottle of sass this morning or something, watch a rerun of Mean Girls?”

I’m feeling oddly pleased with myself as I eat. “One thing’s for sure,” I tell Ethan, hunting around the table for the next plate, “is that this is a billion times better than hospital food.”

“Wait until I make you my secret apple pie. First bite and you’ll come right in your chair.”

“Come?” I ask, confused. “Come where? Where are we going and what does apple pie have to do with it?”

Ethan’s chuckling quietly to himself. “Sofia, Sofia, Sofia.”

I shovel up something I’m pretty sure the waiter called huevos rotos. “That’s my name. Don’t wear it out.”

Ethan takes up his beer, sipping and wiping his lips with the back of his hand. For a brute, he’s surprisingly well mannered. “It’s good to see you like this.”

“Like what?” I mumble, my mouth full of food. Something is telling me I shouldn’t do that, but I’m so hungry I don’t give a darn.

“Lively, sitting over there kicking my ass. You know.”

I don’t, but I’m happy he’s happy.

Ethan looks past me. “Turn around, quick.”

I turn, surprised to see myself on the large TV screen mounted behind the bar. It’s hard to hear, but I don’t really need to given the fact I was the one there.

A few people look up to follow the story, others continuing on with their meal.

It’s so strange seeing myself there, in two dimensions, Abbey smiling.

The interview finishes and the next story follows on, something about a brawl at last night’s ice hockey game with the visiting Seattle Kraken.

“You looked great on there,” Ethan’s saying.

I snap back to him. “That was quick.”

“They don’t mess around,” he says. “I’ve dealt with plenty of reporters and news crews. If they’ve got the scoop on a story, you can be damn sure they’re airing it before the next guy, regardless of the facts.”

“Do you think they got the facts right?” I question.

He nods slowly, placing his beer down. “I do, but like I said, now we just have to be patient and wait.”

We finish our meal and head back across the park. As we do I notice the odd person staring in my direction, others pointing me out.

Ethan seems to have noticed it too. “You’re a celebrity,” he says.

A boy on his bike stops when he sees me, pointing and shouting. “Mom! Mom! It’s the lady from TV!”

She runs back to push him along, smiling quickly in my direction. “Yes, dear. Come on now.”

Ethan’s got his phone out.

Nervous excitement builds. “Anything?”

He scrolls before shaking his head. “Not yet. I’m sorry, but it’s only been an hour.”

I stare down at my feet, disheartened.

“Hey, hey,” Ethan says, jumping in front of me and holding my shoulders, “like I said, give it time.”

I do my best to smile back. “Okay.”

I don’t know why, but for some reason time feels like the one thing I don’t have.

CHAPTER NINE

ETHAN

“Everyone grab some rubbers!” says Coach Carr from the screen.

We’re watching the aforementioned Mean Girls, the first thing I could find on cable that didn’t involve guns or violence or someone’s head being torn off.

Sofia’s beside me watching, though I’m pretty sure her thoughts are far from Lindsay Lohan and her little posse. I think the lack of calls or activity on her story has really hit her hard, the idea that no one in this city, even after the news piece, knows who she is. Even the police, it seems, are at a loss.

I decided a movie would be a good idea to lift the melancholia. Perhaps it is helping, but she’s not giving much away sitting beside me on the sofa, her knees drawn to her chest, the bowl of corn chips going uneaten on the coffee table.

“Do you think I was a mean girl at school, one of the bullies?” she asks.

“No,” I reply, extremely conscious of how close we’re sitting, though the couch isn’t exactly a three-seater. I can feel the heat of her body, the change in fabric where her shirt meets mine, her arm brushing up against me. I half-expect Lindsay to point at me from the screen and announce, ‘Damn, look at the Woody Woodpecker this guy’s packing, girls!’

“I think you might have been popular,” I go on, “but a mean girl? No. I don’t think it’s in you.”

She mulls this over. “I don’t even know what nationality I am.”

I thought she had a European look about her at first, given her dark hair and brows, the high cheekbones, but I can’t be sure, so I reply, “American, I imagine.”

She shoves me with the side of her hip, smiling for the first time in hours.

She turns and kisses the crook of my neck.

If I wanted to put a stop to this, now would be the time, but even as I think it my head is turning sideways, my lips angling to meet hers.

Our mouths fuse. I abandon any idea of letting this go, reaching around to the back of her neck and drawing her into me, into the cloud of desire we’ve suddenly created.

I groan deep as she deepens the kiss, my superheated cock springing to attention. I slip my tongue between her lips and she jerks forward in response.

We’ve reached the point of no return. There will be no going back after this.

Her entire body succumbs to me. She breaks contact to breathe but still without pulling away. I take the opportunity to run my lips across her jawline and over to her ear, lightly tugging at her earlobe with my teeth. It sends a tremor of pleasure through her body.

I continue to explore her neck, licking and nipping, always moving.

She moans as I shift upwards, kissing her again, her mouth molten.

I turn sideways and grab her under the ass, lifting her off the sofa and walking us slowly towards the bedroom, her ankles locked at the small of my back.

The whole time my head’s inundated with information, protests and rebuttals. But it’s all just noise.

I lay her down carefully and can see the passion caught in the amber web of her eyes. Her cheeks are flushed, her back arching off the bed. A lot of women have been in her position, but none have had my heart beating as hard as it is now, none have had me so consumed with sexual hunger.

She reaches for me and I come over her, meeting her mouth, my hand taking the hem of her shirt and sliding it up her stomach.

She stills, but I press on. “You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

“No,” she whispers back, her voice broken with need, “I want to. I’m just nervous.”

“I’ll go slow,” I respond, my words hoarse.

She’s hot below me, a physical heat radiating from her body. I press my lips to hers to quell any doubt, flattening my hand on her stomach. It spans almost her entire abdomen. She moans against my mouth and I hold her there, light pressure against her skin.

But if she was warm before, the moment my fingers find the underside of her bra, she damn near catches fire.

There is a small, alien sound in the back of my throat, my cock straining against my underwear to be released. Desire is coursing through my veins, but I have to keep myself under control, from simply tearing her clothes off and fucking her senseless. I want all of her, everything, now, but I have to be patient—for her sake more than mine.

I let myself fall on her, not enough to crush her, but enough so she can feel my weight. I press soft kisses against her eyelids and am met with a gentle expulsion of air from her lips.

“Are you alright?” I ask. “Do you want me to keep going?”

She nods and reaches up to thread her fingers through my hair.

I push her bra up, her breasts free. My hand slides up until it’s cupping one of the swollen domes completely. God, she’s incredible.

Her nipple is an arrowhead against the center of my palm, a gentle squeeze forcing her head to shift from side to side, her eyes tightly closed.

I love the way her fingers feel against my scalp, the way she seems to be reveling in me.

My cock gives a sharp jerk and the sheer sensations running through me begin to overwhelm my better senses.

Gentle, I remind myself, keeping the beast at bay.

I massage her breasts, cool air fanning the back of my neck. I kiss her again and she wriggles beneath me, wanting more, her hands leaving my hair placed on my jaw. I draw back and stare down at her, needing to see her face.

There’s just enough light coming through the window to make out her features, to see how deeply she wants this.

I rock against her. I want her to know how hard she’s making me, to feel every ridge and bump on my cock before it slides inside her.

She can’t look away either, completely captivated.

I hold her breast tighter. Her eyes close again, her head falling to the side as I roll a nipple between my fingers. Her hands had drifted away, clenching at the sheets, but now they reach up to grip my hips.

I drop to kiss her and in that small moment the universe stands still. The taste of her, the feel of her lips… My body stiffens and I know I won’t be able to keep this up much longer.

When she reaches for the button on my jeans, I know she’s ready, but I’m not going to let her go first.

I slide down her body, my lips fastening on a nipple. She arches upwards and cries aloud, her fingers digging into my sides.

I release it and continue south, tugging her jeans and panties off as one, yanking them off her ankles and almost losing my load when I can finally see the rounded lips of her sex compressed together between her thighs.

I have my shirt off in seconds, a button pinging away in my haste, my jeans suddenly feeling like they are made of molasses as I struggle out of them to drag Sofia to the edge of the bed and settle between her legs.

I run my hands across the top of her legs, fanning them out over her center before I find the welcome mounds of her breasts once more swollen and heavy.

“Ethan,” she whimpers, and I think for a moment I’ve gone too far.

“Yes.”

Her legs spread wider. “Kiss me.”

I smile, trailing a series of kisses up the soft skin of her inner thighs, conscious of the growing heat coming from her core, the wet arousal gathering there.

I smooth my hands over her pubis, surprised to find a light stubble there. I draw in a breath when I reach her sex, joining two fingers together and dipping them into her silky center.

She’s beyond wet. My fingers squelch inside her. I draw them out and run them into my mouth, desperate to taste her and not disappointed when I do.

“You taste so fucking good,” I groan, sliding them back inside her opening, her moaning and mewing filling the faded light.

I pump my fingers in and out, stretching and preparing her for me, but it’s when I remove my fingers and replace them with my mouth that she snaps forward to meet it fully.

I spread her apart with my fingers, using the tip of my tongue to run from the slack valley of her opening to her engorged clit, flicking over it lightly until she’s grinding against me, thighs flapping against the side of my head.

She bucks and lifts from the bed, forcing me to hold her down while I work and soak in the exquisite tastes and textures of her pussy.

My cock’s about to put a dent in the side of the bed, so I draw away and stand.

She sits up, panting. “What is it?”

I raise a finger, moving to the side table as quickly as I can and opening the drawer there. “Give me one second.”

I find a foil wrapper and tear it with my teeth, sheathing myself.

I climb onto the bed and position myself between her open legs, resting my arms on either side of her head and cupping her face. “You’re so perfect, so completely, utterly perfect I don’t even know if this is real.”

She smiles, her eyes glassy and glazed. “Neither do I.”

I slide inside her as we kiss, plunging deep into her body. She cries out, but the kiss swallows the sound. She’s tight, wonderfully tight, but her arousal helps, drawing me deeper with every thrust.

Every time my cock runs into her it’s pure bliss. I feel as though I’m about to shatter from the inside-out the feel of her body is so exquisite, so silky and wet, caressing the entire length of my cock with every stroke.

Her head falls back and she opens her eyes to take me in, her lips lightly parted. The sight alone is enough to kick me into second gear. I thrust harder and faster, deepening my strokes until she’s bucking up against me, the two of us working in tandem to heighten the pleasure, the tension growing between us.

“Oh, oh, oh,” she’s panting, a quiet mantra as her eyes go wide and she thrusts against me with everything she has.

My balls tighten and I know I won’t be able to hold out much longer. She’s undone me.

Her panting grows in intensity, her eyes saucer-wide and mouth fully open, her entire body tightening, her sex closing around my cock.

It’s too much.

Our eyes lock and she gives a little jerk, her body starting to convulse, her pussy clamping and releasing around my length in orgasm.

With a final, haggard thrust, I bury myself all the way inside her, my mouth open but no sound escaping as the initial throes of my own climax take me.

It’s the most intense feeling I’ve ever known, light exploding in front of my eyes as I come, my cock firing endlessly inside the welcome grip of her body, pumping and releasing until it feels like my very soul is going with it.

I think she groans, I shout, but it’s unclear in the foggy limbo of climax, that cage of pleasure I find myself in that stops me thinking past anything but my own pleasure.

Spent, I collapse onto the bed and pull her into my chest. She’s still wearing her shirt, her bra somewhere around the top of her chest.

Her body jerks with the aftershocks, my cock joining in, kicking from my chest.

I’d never felt such satisfaction before. Normally I’d be thinking of how to kick them out by now, the numbing effects of lovemaking kicking my brain back into gear, but not this time.

This was different. I can only pray Sofia feels the same.

We don’t speak, instead lying there together in that semi-light, the world outside a million miles away.

CHAPTER TEN

SOFIA

Waking up next to Ethan is the best kind of dream. Even if it all fades away today, I know I’ll have last night to remember.

But I don’t want anything to change. I want it to go on like this forever.

Ethan kisses the top of my forehead. “Morning, beautiful.”

I can see past him it’s already 10am. We’ve slept in, it would seem.

I smile back. “You look awfully pleased with yourself.”

He falls back into the bed, fingers playing with my hair. “Refreshed, revitalized… and ready for more?”

I could certainly go another round myself, but I can’t seem to pull my thoughts away from the story. “Has anyone called?”

He reaches across for his phone and checks. “Nothing. Sorry.”

“Can I call Abbey, the reporter?”

He seems a little unsure, but when I pout he rolls his eyes and gives in. “Fine, fine, let me find the number.”

He passes the cell over. “Don’t be disappointed if you can’t get through.”

“I won’t.”

I sit up waiting on hold while Ethan swings out of bed and heads towards the kitchen.

A voice comes onto the line. “Hello?”

“Hi, Abbey. It’s Sofia… the amnesia girl?” I add, feeling incredibly foolish for somehow gifting myself with this title.

It does the trick, though. “Yes, Sofia! Hi,” starts Abbey, the TV world a-bustle in the background. “How have you been?”

In-freakin’-credible, I want to yell, thinking back to last night, but I maintain my composure. “Very well, thank you.”

“What can I do for you?”

I shift my weight to my other foot, pressing the phone a little firmer against the side of my head. “I was just wondering if you’d had anyone call in, to identify me?”

“About your story?” She shouts to someone in the distance. I can’t hear what they say back. “I’m sorry, Sofia, but no one’s called—at least no one who’s not completely crazy, and we got plenty of those.”

I’m shocked. “No one?”

“Give it a time for word to spread.” More shouting in the background, a buzzer going on. “I have to go, sorry.”

“Yes, sure, thank you,” but she’s already hung up.

So much for my hopes of instant identification. Did I really think it would be that simple?

What if your husband had called in? I look at my hand and don’t see a wedding band mark.

A boyfriend? It’s possible, though I don’t feel like I have one. It’s kind of the last thing I’d want given the sheet-heating nocturnal escapades of one Ethan Meyers.

I almost drop the phone when it starts to ring in my hand, ‘Private Number’ showing on screen. “Ah, Ethan?” I call.

He arrives in his boxers, a carton of milk in one hand.

I hold the phone out. “It’s for you, I think?”

He takes the phone and answers, placing the milk down and using his free hand to sweep up my side under my nightshirt until it’s cupping a breast, his thumb sweeping over my nipple.

I close my eyes and relax into it, note the way my legs are starting to buckle at even this simple touch.

He takes his hand away. “Again?” he says.

There’s muffled conversation on the other end of the line.

He runs his hand through his hair, looking at his feet. “Fine, okay. We’ll see you then.”

He throws the phone onto the bed.

“Who was it?” I ask.

“The police,” he answers. “They’ll be around in half an hour to talk to you.”

“Do they have new information?”

He shrugs. “They wouldn’t say.”

He approaches me until we’re chest to chest. His hardness grows against my hip, his heart beating above mine. “The real question is, how many times can I make you come in thirty minutes?”

*

I’m still buttoning my blouse and raking my hair when Ethan goes to answer the door.

I settle myself into the sofa, a delightful and welcome ache between my thighs where Ethan was inside me only minutes ago, a second orgasm folding into the first and threatening to leave me comatose against the shower tiles.

I straighten my back and place my hands in my lap as our guests enter.

Ethan remains standing.

These two men show me police badges, but they’re in casual clothes, not uniformed like the police who interviewed me at the hospital.

The first man, who looks to be in his mid-forties with little hair and oddly dark eyebrows, introduces himself as Detective Diaz and, gesturing to his younger partner, Detective Hayes.

“Does someone know who I am?” I ask, eager for news.

Detective Diaz tempers my question with a raised hand. “Not yet, I’m afraid, but we do have some follow-up questions.”

The detectives seat themselves on the two table chairs Ethan placed opposite the lounge when we emerged from our shower sex-a-thon.

“I already gave a statement to the police at the hospital,” I tell them, unsure why they’re here. Ethan looks equally puzzled. I look up at him and can x-ray right through those clothes, can picture full well the hard lines of his body, can feel them against my own.

“Have you recalled anything else since you last spoke to the police?” asks Hayes.

I look to Diaz. “No, officers.”

They exchange a look I can’t read.

Diaz presses the side of his cheek out with his tongue, nodding. “Look, you should know we found a weapon in a nearby dumpster to where you were found, a revolver. It wasn’t registered, of course.”

I look to Ethan for help, but he’s just standing there. I return my attention to the detectives, confused. “I’m not sure what you want me to say.”

“Do you know anything about the weapon, Sofia?” starts Hayes, his tone firming. “It really is in your best interests, legally, to tell us if you do, to tell us everything.”

“Easy,” warns Ethan, “she doesn’t remember.”

“You’re the paramedic?” asks Diaz.

Ethan nods. “I am.”

Diaz smiles at me. “I see.”

Again, I don’t know what’s going on, but I get the feeling I’m under interrogation here, that these men believe I know more than I’m telling them. “I don’t know anything about a gun, or a dumpster. I don’t even know my last name,” I blubber, the words running on together.

Another exchanged look before Hayes speaks. “Sofia, we need to know what happened. Tell us and we can help you.”

My head’s starting to ache, and not the pleasant thanks-to-Ethan kind. “I don’t know. What do you want me to say?”

“The truth, for a start,” says Diaz, losing his patience. “Tell us what you’re involved in here, right now.”

This is getting out of hand.

Ethan comes around and steps in front of me, his hands wide. “Hey, hey, hey now. She’s telling you she doesn’t remember anything. Bullying her like this isn’t going to get you a response. It’s not going to suddenly jog her memory back.”

Diaz stands to shirt-front him, even though he’s a good foot shorter. “You seem to be taking an awfully special interest here, Mr. Paramedic.” He looks past Ethan at me. “I can sort of see why.”

Ethan goes to move towards him, but Hayes lightly pushes Diaz back. “We need to know what happened,” he tells Ethan.

“Don’t we all?” he replies. “Does she need an attorney? Is that where this needs to go next?”

That seems to quieten them down.

“There’s no implication of wrongdoing here… yet,” says Hayes, “but we’re investigating all angles.”

“I think you better leave,” barks Ethan, hands on his hips.

I expect the detectives to pull rank, but they nod and turn, leaving quietly through the front door before Diaz reappears, placing his business card on the carpet. “If, you know, you get your memory back.”

Ethan slams the door shut. “Fuckers.” He bends to pick up the business card, flicking it into the corner of the room. “You good?”

It’s taking a while to calm down, but I nod. “Have I done something wrong?”

Ethan kneels before me, taking up my hands, kissing them. “No, no. Don’t even think like that.”

“But how do you know? It sure seemed like there was something they weren’t telling me, and they are the police, after all.”

“This isn’t going to do you any good.”

But I can’t stop thinking about it. “Until now I thought I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, but you heard them. I want to believe I am—was a good person, but I can’t be sure, can I? I could be anyone.”

Ethan’s hands shift to hold my face. “I know who are you and you are not a criminal. It’s simply not possible.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Call it professional instinct.”

“Are your instincts always right?”

He smiles. “Most of the time.”

He stands and kisses me on the forehead, his lips light. “What you need is a distraction.”

“If I come again,” I laugh, “I’m pretty sure you’ll be driving me back to the hospital.”

Now Ethan seems pleased with himself. “That good, huh? But no, I was thinking something more like, I don’t know, dancing? Do you think you remember how to dance?”

I pull his hands away, dipping my head to the side. “Do you remember how to butter toast?”

*

We spend most of the day like semi-dressed sloths watching TV and ordering in takeaway. In a way I don’t want to remember who I am because this life seems so great already. I don’t care there’s a world outside. Ethan’s all I need.

After dinner I slide on the one dress I picked up at Target, a classic navy sheath, and stand in front of the bathroom mirror trying to work out what to do with my hair. I pull it up behind my head, looking left and right.

Ethan comes up behind me, his hands sliding around my waist. In a white shirt and distressed denim he’s irresistible. I spin around and stand on my tip-toes to kiss him, reaching around to squeeze his butt. “Maybe we should stay here instead.”

His hands drop to my ass and the squeezing is returned. “You need to get out.”

“I need to get off, maybe,” I tease.

He thrusts his pelvis forward. “Clearly, you’ve never danced with me before.”

“You’re saying you can make me come on the dancefloor?”

“Stranger things have happened. Here,” he draws back and opens his hand to reveal a pair of pendant earrings.

“Who do they belong to?”

He shrugs. “Who knows?”

I shove him in the chest. “Are you really that much of a man-whore? Should I leave before I become another notch on your belt?”

He looks down at his belt. “No notches, no more man-whore. I’ve only got eyes for one girl.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re stealing lines from rom-coms now?”

He laughs at that. “I’ve been stealing them for years.”

I take the earrings and spin back around to the mirror. “Alright then, Elvis. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

*

Apparently it’s ‘retro night’ at the Astoria. I don’t think I’ve been here before, but the songs are familiar. I’m feeling buzzed even though I’m pretty sure there was no alcohol in my Shirley Temple. This doesn’t seem like a buzz you’d find in the bottom of a glass or bottle.

Ethan’s no Elvis, but he’s definitely enthusiastic on the dancefloor. He may only have eyes for me, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more than a few sets directed his way.

I try to ignore the other girls who seem significantly younger and significantly better (read: far more scantily) dressed than I am.

“I think I like this,” I tell Ethan, swinging my arms and shifting my body around in time to the music.

“Dancing?” he laughs, raising his voice to be heard over the din. “They say it’s the hidden language of the soul.”

I laugh back as he spins on the spot, throwing his arm up and whooping aloud. “I don’t think that’s any language I’ve heard before, at least not on this planet.”

He holds his heart. “You’re killing me.”

The song changes, the beat booming along. It’s really catchy but, yet again, I can’t place it. I cup my ear. “What’s this song?” I shout. “I love it.”

“Aqua, Barbie Girl.”

“Does everyone like it?”

Ethan cracks up. “Not exactly.”

I keep on dancing, sliding my arms around Ethan’s neck. “I bet Ally does.”

He holds me away. “What did you say?”

The music’s so loud I can barely hear him. “What?”

He rolls his finger in the air. “Just now, you said someone would like it.”

I think back. “Ally?”

He takes my hand and leads me from the dancefloor, leading us right into a hallway down the back of the club where the music, though loud, is more muffled. “Who’s Ally?”

“Ally Grose,” I reply, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, picturing us spinning around on the dancefloor just like Ethan and I were right now. Ally, the girl in the locket with me.

Ethan’s smiling. “You remember. Do you know what this means?”

It suddenly occurs to me what has happened. “I remember!” I shout, yelling it at a girl dancing beside me. “I remember!”

She jumps back like I’m insane.

“I remember,” I tell Ethan, my mood falling when I realize that’s all I remember—her name.

“Hey,” he says, holding me, “it’s a start.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ETHAN

Sofia’s leaning over my shoulder, the light from the laptop screen the only illumination in the room. She was so eager to search for her friend we didn’t even have time to switch on the lights.

I think we can both feel it now, the thrill of the chase. This is the first tangible, concrete piece of information Sofia’s remembered yet. It could be the key to everything, and with that comes a certain sense of excitement… and anxiety.

I load up Facebook and punch ‘Ally Grose’ into the search bar. If it was Ally Smith or Jones we might have been in trouble, but as it stands only five results pop up. “See anyone you recognize?” I ask.

Sofia leans closer to the screen, her hair brushing the side of my neck, her breast against my shoulder blade. I want to slap the laptop closed and take her in my arms, but I know this is too important. One-on-one time can come later.

Sofia scrutinizes the tiny profile pics. “Mmm, I’m not sure.”

I start to read off the locations. “We’ve got an Ally Grose in Melbourne, Australia; Louisville, West Virginia, Philadelphia…”

“Wait, wait, wait,” she says, pointing at the screen. “Philadelphia. Cheesesteaks. Ah, Tony’s.”

I spin around. “Whoa there,” I laugh, “this isn’t Family Feud.”

“I remember going with her to a restaurant, in Philadelphia. It was called Tony’s. We had cheesesteaks, these crazy cocktails they lit on fire… The place had like a moose’s head or something on the wall.”

I click on the profile pic of a young woman, her page popping up and the resemblance between her and the woman in the locket picture falling into place. Her hair’s shorter, she’s a little older maybe, but it’s her alright.

“Yes,” confirms Sofia, pointing, “that’s her. I’m sure of it. That’s Ally.”

I scroll down her profile page, but she’s got it locked down good. Apart from some scant education information and a quote from Monty Python, it’s otherwise bare.

“I think I lived there too,” recalls Sofia.

I turn around. “In Philly?”

She’s nodding, the cogs turning. “Yes.”

It doesn’t exactly explain how she ended up in a city almost three hours away, but it’s certainly possible. “Anything else?”

I can see her straining, the pressure she’s putting on herself to remember. She paces around the living room with her hands to her head. “Come on. Come on.”

“Do you remember anything about your life there, where you lived, maybe?”

She’s shaking her head. “No, damn it. Why can’t I remember?”

I stand and walk over, pulling her into my chest. “It’s alright.” I hold her at arm’s distance. “I can send a message through her Facebook page, see what she knows.”

“You think she’ll answer?”

Most hot-blooded women do.

I swallow, clearing my throat. “It’s worth a shot, isn’t it?”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“We’ll drive to Philadelphia. What is it? Three, three-and-a-half hours from here? Maybe being there will help jog your memory.”

I just say this aloud, spit-balling, but once it’s out there a certain sense of unease enters my head. I can’t exactly explain why, only that it’s an itch, a small tick in the back of my brain telling me to be careful here.

“Okay,” replies Sofia, smiling, “if you think it’s a good idea.”

I don’t know what I’m thinking. That’s the trouble. “I think a good idea would be getting you into bed for some rest. I think that dancefloor’s going to be smoldering for quite a while after tonight.”

“Was that the floss I saw you pulling out earlier?”

I have to laugh at that. “So you can’t remember your name but you remember the floss? How old are you again?”

She wags her finger in front of me. “Nice try.” Her hand drops to my chest, fingers sliding downwards until the butt of her palm’s rubbing my groin. “What if I don’t want to rest?”

The chase has got us both worked up. I take hold of her hips, pulling her closer. “I could think of a nocturnal activity or two to soothe a restless mind.”

“If you’re about to pull Jenga out of the cupboard, that’s not what I had in mind.” Her fingers close around my balls, lightly stroking them downwards.

“I don’t know about Jenga, but I might know a game or two where dexterity counts.” I ease the hem of her dress up as I say it, amazed at the creamy softness of her skin there, the warmth of it against my fingertips.

Her hand slides past my belt buckle and into my pants, fishing for my cock. Her fingers close around my shaft. “It isn’t called Candy Land, is it? Because I think I just found it.”

I smile, taking hold of her ass and lifting her off her feet. “Come with me and find out.”

*

“Ethan?”

I snap awake. “Sofia?”

My name comes again, but it’s more distant now.

“Sofia!” I shout, reaching through the darkness, unable to find the switch for the bedside lamp.

I stumble out of bed, my foot collecting something hard. “Sofia!”

“Ethan!” but it’s quieter again.

Where the fuck is she?

“Where’s who?” comes a male voice, close enough I can feel their foul breath against the side of my face.

My eyes open and I instinctively reach to my right… where Sofia’s sleeping soundly, her bare back partially covered by the quilt, her hair pooling over the pillow like a toppled bottle of ink.

I breathe a sigh of relief and stare up at the ceiling with one hand behind my head.

Sweat’s cold on my skin. It’s been forever since I had a dream that vivid, forever since something genuinely scared the fucking daylights out of me.

What does it mean? I ask myself, but no answers are forthcoming.

It could be anything, a manifestation of my fears for Sofia, anxiety over our little road trip tomorrow.

The doubt is there again, something playing at the edges I still can’t see clearly.

Or it’s nothing.

Perhaps, but I can’t seem to shake out the impending sense of dread that’s clouding everything of late, the unease.

I manage to convince myself it’s simply fear of the unknown, of uncertainty. I’ve always liked to know where I’m going and what I’m getting into. The Army was great for that, provided that sense of structure and stability I’ve craved ever since I was a child. My father was a developer. He’d bounce us from city to city while he worked on the next project, always in and out of the house at odd hours, my scatter-brained nurse mother equally time poor. I was raised largely by my grandparents, though their idea of parenting was to set me up in front of the television—out of sight, out of mind.

Becoming a paramedic stripped some of that certainty away, because you never know what you’re walking into, but the shifts, the work itself, provided a greater framework of stability—contained chaos, as it were, the best of both words. I could live on the edge, in that moment, within the confines of my shift and area. Sofia was a curveball, sure, but one I was, am, happy to take on.

I get up and head out into the kitchen for a glass of water knowing I’m not going to get back to sleep. I’ve never been a heavy sleeper. A damn twig snaps outside and I’m wide awake.

Through the doorway I see the laptop on the living room table, a single LED flickering on the side. It’s beckoning me.

I head over and open it up, moving my finger across the touch pad to wake up the screen. I hold my face in my hands, thinking.

What now, Colombo?

I punch Ally’s name into Google. There are a couple of Instagram profiles, but they don’t match. There’s something about ‘handling a teenager’s outburst,’ but it’s nothing. Twitter’s a dead end.

“Come on,” I tell the screen, “you’re the World Wide Web and you’re giving me squat? I could find a local bukkake convention easier than this.”

I half-expect a voice to speak back, a Siri-like string of syllables telling me to get the hell back to bed.

Instead, a notification pings up in the bottom of the screen.

I remember the message I sent Ally when Sofia was in the shower following her first orgasm of the night.

I’d kept it brief and professional, told her I was the local paramedic who found Sofia, what Sofia had remembered, the locket…

I open it, Facebook filling the screen and a single message showing.

I go to click on it knowing full well who it’s going to be from.

But then I hesitate.

The unease settles once more. It’s physical now, a weight sitting there on my shoulders.

Maybe I’ve gone about this wrong. Was it the right move getting the press involved? Someone shot her for a reason, I remind myself. It can’t have been random, not if she’s from Philadelphia, and that’s looking a lot more likely.

What if this person, or persons, what if they realize she is alive? What if they come back to finish the job?

Didn’t think of that, did you, Einstein?

I was caught up in the rush, the need for information, but at what risk?

Fuck it.

I click on the message.

Information is power, and Sofia and I are in short fucking supply.

The message isn’t long, but it’s certainly clear.

It reads: Get out of the city, as soon as you can. Call me when you do.

There’s a phone number.

I’m tempted to call it, but it’s the first part of the message that has me thinking twice. There’s no ‘Hi, nice to hear from you!’, no ‘Wow, where have you been?’ It’s a simple ‘get the fuck out of the Dodge.’

For a split second I consider whether to take it seriously at all, but that unease, that weight on my shoulders, is telling me I should. We were planning on leaving anyway, weren’t we? This is just ramping up the schedule a bit.

I close the browser tab and shut down the laptop, drawing in a breath.

I stand.

Here we go.

CHAPTER TWELVE

SOFIA

Either I’m stuck in a dryer or someone’s trying to wake me up.

I claw sleep from my eyes, trying to find my way out of this state of grogginess. “Ethan?”

My eyes focus loosely as I roll over, surprised to find Ethan standing there beside the bed fully clothed, jacket and all.

He crouches beside the bed. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” I yawn, reaching for his jacket. “What’s with the threads? Is it morning already?”

But I can tell by the light it’s definitely not morning.

“No,” he says, “but you’re going to have to get up, sorry.”

“Why?”

He picks up his laptop from the floor, opening the screen.

God, it’s bright. I squint to read it.

It’s a reply from Ally, from that Facebook thing. I have to read it twice to make sense of it. “Why would she want us to get out of the city?”

Ethan shakes his head, closing the laptop. “I don’t know, but something tells me we should listen to her.”

I nod. I have to trust Ethan. “Okay. What should I do?”

“I put some clothes out on the chair there. “Dress quickly and I’ll pack a couple of things.”

I’m awake now, sliding my legs out of bed and forcing myself to stand, my head slightly woozy before it finds equilibrium. I don’t think the multiple orgasms last night helped.

“Where are we going?” I ask, finding my way to the chair and taking a pair of underwear off the top, doing my best to get them on in this uncoordinated state. A memory of a car-wash inflatable man pushes into my head.

“I’m not sure, but I don’t think it’s safe here if your friend’s message is anything to go by.”

I sling my top on and reach for my pants. “You think we can trust her?”

“The girl in the locket you kept next to your actual heart? Yeah, I think we can.”

I sit down to put on my sneakers, Ethan tossing me a jacket before busying himself packing clothes into a brown duffel. He zips it up. “That’ll do. Let’s go.”

I’ve barely gotten my jacket on before he’s leading us out of the bedroom. We’re about to come through the bedroom doorway when there’s a distinct thunk from the front door to the apartment. I realize it’s the door handle falling to the floor.

Weird, I think.

We’re both frozen in place. The front door suddenly bursts open, smashing against the interior wall. Two dark figures are standing in the space in leather jackets, guns raised.

“Down!” shouts Ethan, holding me by the neck and forcing me flat to the ground.

I always expected the sound of gunfire to be loud, but in the small confines of the apartment it’s deafening.

I scream, breathing across the carpet as dry wall flies around us, splinters of wood and brick falling to the floor beside my face, the gunshots endless.

Ethan yanks me up and forces me back through the bedroom doorway, throwing me beside the dresser on the immediate left and slamming the bedroom door closed, bullet holes opening up right where his hand was only seconds ago.

Panic has consumed me. I don’t know what’s going on.

I watch as, crouching, Ethan takes a chair from the corner of the room and jams it under the door handle at an angle.

The shots stop, but it’s not long before there’s a thud on the door I can only assume is someone’s shoulder or foot.

Ethan goes to the bedside table and reaches his hand past the second drawer, returning with a gun of his own. He draws the slide back and checks the magazine, moving quickly to draw up the bedroom window and look down into the fire escape.

He waves me over, gun trained on the bedroom door.

Another thud against the door, harder now.

I don’t know how I do it, but I manage to stand and take the four or five steps to the window, Ethan jumping to the side to let me past, his attention bouncing between the bedroom doorway and down into the alley below the fire escape.

Once I’m in the fire escape, he motions for me to start heading down, two hands on the gun, his steely eyes constantly sweeping the scene.

A final thud and I know whoever is after us, me, has broken through into the bedroom.

The time for stealth is lost.

“Go!” shouts Ethan.

I move as fast as I can, my legs shaky and my fingers reaching for anything they can. He’s right behind me.

I look back and see the first guy poke his head out the window.

Ethan fires a single shot. It ricochets off the window frame, a gun and hand returning to fire two shots back, which go pinging metallically somewhere to my left.

I move faster, terrified beyond comprehension, adrenaline doing all the work.

We reach the ladder and Ethan kicks it out, the two leather-clad figures emerging from the bedroom window and hunkering down at the top of the fire escape. They fire in tandem, but there’s too much metal between us.

They start to move, making quick progress.

“Jump!” yells Ethan, and I do as he says, letting go of the ladder and falling to the alley below, one of my ankles giving way and crumpling me flat to the ground.

Ethan lands beside me and hooks me under the arm, guiding us both up against the wall. He points up the alley, fishing for his keys with one hand while the one with the gun remains tight to his chest, trained on the bottom of the fire escape.

The two guys following us yell something at each other. They’re not speaking English, but for some reason I know what they’re saying: “Don’t let her fucking leave!”

Ethan fires twice and tells me to run.

I don’t need to be told twice, running with my hands around my head towards his truck, cowering beside it when I reach the door.

The two goons have started to descend the ladder, one firing from above and the other starting to sprint towards us close to the wall.

Ethan fires twice.

Like he’s run into a clothesline, the first goon’s body snaps back and he falters.

More shouting in that strange language. “Fredek! Get up.”

Ethan arrives and opens the passenger door, helping me up before slamming the door and moving around the back of the truck, firing again and again, the rear window shattering and forcing me into the footwell.

Ethan slides in with his head down, starting the truck and hitting the gas before he’s even managed to close his door, taking off at full speed down the alleyway and swinging out onto the open road, the driver’s side door slamming closed.

He straightens up and checks the rear-view, the engine revving high. He shifts up and keeps the gas on.

“Stay down,” he says.

“I wasn’t planning on coming up,” I get out.

My whole body is shaking. I notice Ethan’s gun is missing. “Where’s your gun?”

He holds up his right hand, a deep cut where his thumb meets his palm. “Gone.”

It looks terrible. “Are you okay?”

“Flesh wound,” he replies, “nothing serious. An inch or two more, though…” He trails off.

He hits the brakes hard and takes a corner, the momentum forcing me against the transmission tunnel. “Who were they?” I ask.

He breathes out, shaking his head. “I don’t know.”

“We’re going to get out of the city, right? Just like Ally said.”

He looks down to me. “Soon, but first we need help. First, we need to find out what the fuck we’re dealing with here.”

*

It’s not long before we’ve pulled up in another suburban street, Ethan parking the car down a side street and making us walk two blocks to a sprawling Queen Anne complete with turret and Hogwarts-like fixings.

He helps me up the stairs, ringing the doorbell and looking back to the street, constantly looking and searching for anything out of the ordinary.

The door opens and a woman stands there in a dressing gown. She sees Ethan and then me, crossing her arms and leaning on one leg, addressing Ethan, “I told you, I don’t do threesomes, and I sure as fuck don’t do marriage counselling, so what’s with the four AM wake-up call?”” She spots his hand. “What the h—”

“We need to get inside, Vanessa, and I need somewhere to put the truck,” he tells her.

She nods. “Alright,” looking me up and down, “but you sure you want to bring Miss Europa here? Seems like a magnet for trouble.”

I can’t say I’m liking this first impression of Ethan’s paramedic friend. She’s certainly making her dislike of me very clear.

She ushers us inside and closes the door, refusing to acknowledge me and taking Ethan’s hand. “Do I even want to know why someone’s shooting at you?”

She might not have time for amnesia patients, but this Vanessa definitely cares for Ethan, her face crinkled with concern as she looks over the wound.

Ethan takes her hand away. “Your cousin, the one in the gang, club, whatever… You said he owes you, right, for the Xmas thing?”

She rolls her eyes. “Jesus, Senya? Yeah, he does. What are you getting at here?”

“We need to see him, if we can. It’s important. I’ll need a piece, too.”

Vanessa shakes her head. “Serious fucking shit you two are in, huh?”

“What happened to your piece?” she asks, the one you keep behind your drawer?”

I don’t want to know why she knows her way around Ethan’s bedroom.

Ethan holds up his hand. “Pros, though they should probably get back to the firing range.”

“Are they still standing?”

“One of them took a round in the shoulder, I think, but who knows.”

Vanessa glances at me briefly. “Alright, I’ll call Senya, but first I’m patching this shitshow up, and you,” she points to me, “are going to help.”

*

We pull up in front of a bar downtown. Ethan cuts the ignition, his right hand freshly bandaged.

Vanessa let us take her car, an old Lincoln complete with Royal Pine air freshener and a sea of spent coffee cups.

“Is this the place?” I ask.

Ethan chewing on his lip. “Let’s go, but we’re going to keep a low profile, yes?”

I nod in agreement. “I definitely don’t want to be standing out.”

It’s warm inside the bar, the kind of dark and dim establishment with lively music and an older crowd who appear more part of the furniture than patrons.

Ethan snakes us toward a booth at the back where a man is sitting with a short glass of pale liquid.

I flinch because he’s wearing a leather jacket, looks exactly like one of the men we just escaped from.

Ethan doesn’t seem to share my concern, seating us and extending his hand. “Ethan.”

“Senya,” comes the reply. He takes a toothpick from his mouth, carefully placing it down beside the glass and taking Ethan’s hand. His eyes track towards me. “I see you’ve brought Ms. Montello.”

Ethan looks at me like I’m a complete stranger. “Ms. Montello? You know her?”

Senya presses out his top lip. I don’t think I like him. “I do. She’s a long way from home, probably not so well known this way, but yeah, I do.”

I can’t believe he recognizes me.

“Sofia,” he says, tapping the side of his head, “You’re looking well.”

“I thought you were in a gang?” says Ethan, lowering his voice.

Senya pulls down the top of shirt to reveal a tattoo of a snake around his neck, two large eyes below it. “Not a gang, the Brotherhood.”

Ethan lowers his voice even further. “The Russian Mafia?”

Senya sits back upright, nodding.

Ethan looks between me and him, shaking his head. “Jesus.”

“Won’t be much help,” adds Senya, “not given what you two are up against.” He takes a black box with white ribbon beside him and places it on the table, sliding it across to Ethan. “Happy birthday, by the way. I hope you like it.”

Ethan slides over an envelope in return, which is quickly whisked from sight.

Ethan undoes the ribbon and opens the box enough for me to see another gun inside. He closes it and places it beside him on the seat.

Senya stands, reaching for the short glass and downing it quickly. He zips up his jacket. “Figured being a grunt you’d know how to use that, but I’ve got to warn you, you’re going to get yourself killed regardless.”

“That’s it?” laughs Ethan. “You’re not going to tell us who she is, what the hell’s going on here?”

Senya shakes his head slowly. “No, but what I am going to tell you,” he points at Ethan, “is to get as far away as you fucking can from her.”

I’ve had enough of this cloak-and-dagger nonsense. “Why?” I ask, but Senya’s already walking away.

I go to get up, but Ethan pulls me back down. “No, let him go. He’s said his piece. He won’t tell us anything more.”

“You believe him? That I’m dangerous? Maybe you should. Maybe you should listen and get as far away from me as you can.”

Ethan takes me by the shoulders, glancing towards the bar briefly. “No fucking way, you hear me. I promised you I’d protect you no matter what. I’m not leaving now.”

“I’m risking your life, clearly,” I add, “but I don’t know how to do this alone.”

He kisses me on the forehead before the first tear falls. “You’re not, and you never were.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ETHAN

A light drizzle starts to fall, the windshield growing blurrier and with it the larger world until it’s little more than an abstraction. It reminds me of the night we received the call—the call that would change my life.

Maybe end it.

We’re in the Lincoln around the corner from the bar. Lit by a neon sign to our left, I can see Sofia’s trying to make sense of what just happened. It definitely needs investigation, yes, but for now we have to get out of the city.

I load up Ally’s phone number and pass my cell across to Sofia. “Call your friend. See what she has to say.”

She looks down at the phone. “Where are we going to go?”

I turn over the ignition and shift into gear. “I’ll head for Philly, but let’s see what your friend has to say.”

I pull out while Sofia brings the phone to her ear. I can hear it ringing on the other end of the line. A timid voice answers. “Hello?”

Sofia looks across to me unsure. “Ally?”

An audible sigh. “Sofia, God. Are you getting out of the city?”

“Yes,” Sofia replies.

A pause. “Okay, and your memory, has it come back?”

“No, but apparently my last name is Montello? Is that right?”

Another pause. “I, I can’t really talk, sorry.”

Sofia takes the phone away from her ear, staring at the screen.

“What happened?” I ask, navigating towards the freeway.

Sofia looks shocked. “She… She hung up.”

That familiar doubt resurfaces. Who are we to trust this Ally? She could be fucking anyone. She could be the one behind this whole thing. Stranger things have happened.

“What’s wrong?” Sofia asks.

I decide to verbalize my concerns, tightening my grip on the steering wheel just like Vanessa. “I don’t know if we should trust her. I don’t know if we can trust anyone right about now.”

Sofia almost drops the phone in surprise when it starts to ring again. She looks across at me, showing me the screen. I don’t recognize the number. “Put it on speaker.”

Sofia does so, holding the phone between us while I merge onto the freeway, the lights of oncoming traffic lighting the interior of the truck intermittently. She hits ‘Answer.’

It’s Ally again. “Sofia, hi. Sorry about before. That was a burner phone. I can’t be too careful, you understand.”

Burner phones, Russian mafia—this is getting wilder by the second. What next? A weapons shipment, a visit from Tony Soprano? Still, regardless of how deep Sofia is in whatever shit-pile this is, I’m going to stand by her. She’s right. She can’t do this alone. I won’t fucking allow it.

“I’ll make this brief,” Ally continues, listing off an address in Philadelphia. “Did you get that?”

Sofia’s pressing her forefinger to her temple. She repeats the address, though I’ve memorized it myself just in case. “Yes.”

“Good. Stay safe,” says Ally, the line going dead once more.

Sofia places the phone down in the console, shaking her head. “What is going on? What am I mixed up in here?”

Nothing good, I feel like replying. “I’m not sure, but something tells me we’re not headed to a Bar mitzvah here.”

“What’s the Russian version of a Bar mitzvah?” She’s shaking her head again. “I don’t even know the first thing about Russia except vodka-something something, furry hats…”

“You don’t remember Senya, Vanessa’s cousin?”

“No.” She pulls at her hair. “I just want to remember. That’s all I want so I can start to untangle this mess. I mean, there were guys with guns, real guns, Ethan, shooting at us. That’s not normal, is it?”

In some parts of the world, some parts I’ve frequented, it is, but here, no. It’s sure fucking not. “It’s all going to be okay,” I tell her, taking the exit towards Philly.

But not even I am so sure now.

*

We stop and grab a quick bite at a diner, though Sofia barely eats and my burger may as well be a hockey puck.

Back on the road, I consider asking Sofia to use my phone to check her last name, see what she can find, but I decide against it. Someone might be looking for searches. Who knows?

What I do know is that Sofia is strong, probably a hell of a lot stronger than she realizes, but I think we have to both be clear-headed going into this. In a way, the less she knows, the better.

A few hours later, I reach across and tap Sofia on the shoulder. She’s got my jacket over her, her head resting against the window looking so unbelievably gorgeous I consider turning right back around and trying to get out of the country, find a little spot somewhere by the beach we can be together and forget about this whole thing.

She smiles when she sees me, looking out the window. “Are we here?”

I survey where we are: A seedy industrial area on the outskirts of Philly that spells suspicious in every conceivable combination, from the dim, barely there lighting to a modicum of horrors no doubt hiding in the shadows. It feels like we’re being led into a trap here. I’m not the only one who shares this concern.

Sofia sits upright. “Are you sure this is the right place?”

I nod. “There’s no doubt.” I point over to Unit 110, a single lamp lighting a red, sun-streaked door. “That one right there, but to be honest, I don’t know if this is wise.”

“I don’t think Ally’s bad.”

“How do you know?”

She looks out the window. “Intuition, maybe? I just know.”

I breathe in and tap my fingers on the top of the steering wheel. I did a few loops around the area, could only find the one car parked beside 110. That’s a good sign, but it doesn’t mean this Ally is alone. I reach to the passenger footwell and pick up the box Senya gave me, taking out the weapon, checking it’s loaded before placing it down the back of my jeans. It’s been a while since I carried like this, felt the cool bite of steel against my buttocks. It brings back a flood of memories I’d been trying hard to repress.

“Stay behind me,” I tell Sofia, popping open my door. Any trouble, you make a run for the car, okay? I’ll cover you. Don’t worry about me. Just drive the hell on out of here. I’ll leave my phone in the console.”

She nods. “Okay.”

We get out and Sofia comes around behind me.

There’s no buzzer at the door, so I knock twice instead.

It’s a long while before I hear a bolt un-sliding.

Ally stands there before us looking more or less as she did in the locket photo bar copper streaks and dark rings under her eyes. She smiles when she sees Sofia behind me. “Quickly, come inside.”

Ally closes and locks the door behind us. The unit is empty, strong fluorescents overhead casting the entire area sterile and blue. She rushes around me to embrace Sofia, holding the back of her head. “God, it’s so good to see you.”

Sofia smiles, but I can tell the feeling’s not reciprocated, at least not the way Ally wants it.

Ally lets her go, wiping her nose with the back of her sleeve. She looks up to the ceiling, her eyelids fluttering, hands flapping in the air. “I’m such a mess.”

She focuses on me, holding out her hand. “You must be Ethan?”

I take it. “That’s right. What can you tell us about Sofia?”

That puts her into work mode. She places her hands on her hips. “Okay, okay, where to start?”

“Why are people trying to shoot me?” asks Sofia. “Was I a bad person?”

I go to cut in, but it’s already out there.

Ally tilts her head sideways, no doubt thinking how best to answer, but this pause isn’t a good indicator in and of itself. “Well, you’re full name is Sofia Montello, as you know. We’ve been BFFs ever since we went to same ballet school when we were toddlers.”

Sofia seems surprised at this snippet of information. “I’m a ballerina?”

“Was,” Sofia corrects, kind of, nodding to her leg. “But you hurt your leg bad, couldn’t keep it up.”

“What else?” asks Sofia, eager for more.

“Ah, not too long ago you learnt your father is a don in the Russian mafia. I mean, I think we both expected him to be into something shady given all those late-night meetings, the extravagance, blah-blah, but I don’t think you knew the full extent of the operation.”

I know Sofia’s reeling, as am I, but she’s holding it together. “I told you about this?”

“It was me actually who told you about it when I learned my father was working for your dad in the organization. I did some digging, discovered a few things which I shared with you. Together we pieced it together pretty well.”

Sofia’s blinking. “But if I’m the daughter of this big, powerful mafia guy, why are people shooting at me? Is it a rival? An enemy of one of our fathers? Why did they shoot me in the first place?”

Ally taps her foot in the ground. “This, I don’t know. I think maybe you decided to get involved in the family business, maybe did something to displease your father?”

Sofia’s putting it together. “You think my own father what? Ordered a hit on me?”

Ally’s looking around the unit. It’s a while before her eyes rest on Sofia again. “In short, yes. I think that’s exactly what happened.”

Sofia’s shaking her head, fiddling with my jacket. “Wow.”

“It’s a lot to take in, I know.”

You can fucking say that again.

“But here.” Ally reaches into her back pocket and hands Sofia a slip of paper. “It’s an address for a safehouse an ex of mine used to use when he wanted to lie low. You remember Bobby? Like, weird kind of mohawk, really tiny penis?”

Even I raise an eyebrow at that.

Ally looks to me. “Ah, no, it’s not like that, but, well…”

“I don’t remember,” says Sofia.

“In any case,” continues Ally, fishing in her front pocket and finding a key. She hands it to Ally. “Here’s the key. Go there and I’ll try to find out more, if I can.” She comes forward again and embraces Sofia, crying openly now against her shoulder. “I thought you were dead,” she wails. “I didn’t think I was ever, ever going to see you again.”

Sofia, looking at me, lifts a hand to the back of Ally’s head, soothing her. “I’m fine, honestly.”

Ally breaks away. “Sorry,” she says, wiping at her face with both sleeves. “I promised myself I wouldn’t get emotional, but bam, there you are.”

Sofia throws her hands up. “Surprise?”

Ally laughs, smiling. She looks like an emotional wreck.

“I’m sorry I don’t remember much about you,” says Sofia.

“It’s okay,” Ally shrugs. “Maybe it’s better in a way. We can start fresh, have spa day when you’re clear of all this like we used to. You love a good champagne breakfast. Did you know that?”

“I do?”

“Sure. You’re got expensive tastes, Sof.”

It’s the first time I’ve heard her name abbreviated like this. I decide then and there perhaps we can trust this Ally individual. I’ve been around long enough to know real emotion when I see it. I deal with it every day, people at their best and worst. Something tells me what Ally and Sofia have is real, even if Sofia can’t see it right now.

I can see Sofia straining to recall. “I’m getting bits and pieces, flashes of things, but nothing concrete, sorry.”

Ally places a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, hon. It’ll come back, but can you not remember the time we went to that tequila bar on the south side, because I for one would sure as hell like to forget that night.”

Sofia smiles back. “Done.”

Ally starts to wave us away. “Go on now, before I really start to break down here.”

“Thank you,” I tell her, guiding Sofia towards the door.

Ally comes forward and turns me around, whispering. “Look after her. Promise me.”

“I will,” I reply, “to my last breath if I have to.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SOFIA

The safehouse is a small apartment, and by small I mean a bathroom, a kitchen and a single sofa. Compared to Ethan’s apartment it’s basically a shoebox.

I have to lie down on the sofa as soon as we arrive, my head beating. There, I drift into a loose sleep, fragments of memories coming back to me now the floodgates seem to have started to stagger open.

I wake, pleased to find Ethan seated there beside me, the ceiling light creating a halo around his head.

“Are you my guardian angel?” I ask.

He laughs, looking back. “No wings, sorry.”

I smile back and lift myself up, the rocks that were filling my head seeming to shift with the movement.

“You good?”

“I remembered a few more things,” I tell him, trying to recall them as soon as possible lest they slip away once more. “Stuff from my childhood, playing with Ally… a lot about my father.”

“What about him?”

I shake my head, eyes still struggling to adjust. “What I do remember makes me think he vacillated between an occasionally doting papa and a mostly absent, aloof father figure. It’s hard to say which side of the scale he fell on more, but I remember the duality, the anger I felt when he wasn’t there.” I reach up and claw at my hair, dragging it out over my shoulders. “It’s so damn frustrating.” I tap my head. “Why. Can’t. I. Remember?”

I stand and pace out into the middle of the room, leaving Ethan sitting on the sofa. “I wish I could pull this stupid plug out of my head and just have it all flow back, you know? I need… I don’t know,” I spitball. “I need an escape.”

He smiles.

“Take off your clothes,” he says, his tone darker than I’ve heard it before.

It takes me by surprise. “You mean… what? Strip?”

“Yes,” he says, his eyes perusing my body openly. “I want you to strip for me.”

My breath hitches in my throat because it’s so unexpected.

I look around, but the curtains are drawn. There are no security cameras as far as I can see, though the idea of being captured on video does have its own delicious edge to it.

I stare at Ethan and his steely gaze knowing full well I’m about to give him what he wants.

I summon up the only song I can seem to remember, American Woman, and kick off my shoes. One of them shoots right past his head. That dark determination in his eyes is lost for a moment. He chuckles before his eyes focus on my body once more.

My socks take a bit of wrangling to get off—hard to make look sexy no matter the environment, I imagine.

“Jeans, too,” he demands.

I take a step closer and slowly unbutton my jeans, Ethan’s eyes following my movements as I tug the denim downwards.

I kick the jeans aside and pull myself straight, taking another step closer.

My underwear is far from fancy, simple pink panties, but the way Ethan is looking at them, the hunger I see in his eyes, sends a flame of desire licking between my legs.

I take a breath and pull my shirt over my head. Standing there in a matching pink bra and little else, I realize I’m at the mercy of his gaze. The material’s thin and cheap. I know he can see straight through it, see the way my nipples harden beneath. It’s enough to raise the corners of his mouth.

There he is, I say to myself, looking at the way his arms bulge from his chest, the way his toned legs fill out the jeans he’s wearing so perfectly, so balanced. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a perfect specimen of the male species.

But I look at him and I see a certain sense of control, too, a man who’s used to swooping in and saving the day. I want to strip that away. I want to make him moan my name. I want to be the one in control.

I unclasp my bra and let if fall, cool air caressing my breasts and turning my nipples to tawny twigs. The straps fall down my arms and, quite suddenly, I’m one garment away from being completely naked.

“I don’t think this is fair,” I say, my lips dry. “You’re still clothed.”

His voice is husky when he replies. “Don’t I get a chance to admire how fucking sexy you are first?”

I bite my lip at the compliment, my fingers drifting to the hem of my panties.

He beckons me forward with a bent finger. I follow.

Sensation falls over heat like I’ve never felt before, my core a furnace.

When I’m close enough, he reaches out and pulls me forward between his legs. I can see the way his erection is tenting out his jeans.

His hands run up my body, cupping my breasts.

I suck the air from the room when his fingers find my nipples. He toys with them, my head falling backwards when he outlines the pink pads of my areolas, leaning forward to mark that tender spot with his tongue.

His mouth clamps over each nipple and I’m suddenly extremely conscious of the damp desire pooling in the crotch of my panties.

The heat… God, it’s like someone’s applied a blowtorch there.

With two hands he guides me into a sitting position on the couch, standing tall over me, once again assuming his position of power.

I reach forward and feel for his length, the welcome warmth of his cock through the denim of his jeans. I lick my lips, something between a groan and a hiss forcing its way from his lips at my touch.

He unbuttons his shirt and flings it aside. Revealed, his body is a masterpiece, a map of rugged, untamed contours and valleys, places to be explored…

…or conquered, my head fills.

I trace his tattoos with a lone finger, running it over the tessellated board of his abs.

Even the sound of his belt buckle being undone, leather sliding through the loops of his jeans, forces sensation to that tender spot between my thighs, that aching void waiting so desperately to be filled.

I watch, rapt, as he unzips his jeans, forcing them down his legs and freeing his beautiful cock in the process.

Naked, he kneels before me, the height advantage lost, pulling my ankles together and lifting my legs, slowly peeling my panties away until they dangle before him. He drags them away and I draw my hips up, spreading my legs so he can see all of me, how much I’m in need of him.

His eyes fall to that hot space and I see him licking his lips in anticipation. He bends down, his eyes lost to me, and tastes. I’m in no way prepared for his mouth, the way the bundle of nerves lights up at the touch of his tongue. I twist my hips, groaning aloud and reaching for a handful of his hair, pulling it from the scalp.

I go to close my thighs, the sensation overwhelming, but he won’t have it, using his strong arms to press them apart in full.

I stare down gasping, can see the way his tongue lashes at my pussy, the way he’s working me into a heated ball of nerves and energy.

“God, Ethan,” I moan, knowing all the water in the world wouldn’t quench the thirst I feel.

I grab his head with both hands and rock against his face, wanting more of him, all of him.

I tell him this and he lifts, his mouth caught in a devilish grin. “Why didn’t you say so?”

I squeal as he drags me to the edge of the sofa, every inch of his toned body on show, his cock standing tall and proud.

He separates my legs and settles himself between them, his powerful hands wrapped around my thighs.

“Is this what you want, baby?” he asks, knowing he’s teasing me, knowing how much I need this.

I nod. “You know I do. Please,” I beg.

“Please, what?”

I don’t know how to phrase it. “Put it inside me.”

“Put what inside you?” His grip tightens on my thighs, his cock so close.

“Your… cock,” I huff.

His positions himself at my entrance, those bulging arms at the ready.

He pauses, waits until I’m about to scream in protest, before sinking into me.

I moan his name aloud, his shaft continuing to slide forwards until it’s in to the hilt, that void finally filled and with it the sweet satisfaction that follows.

He groans deep and low, growling, pulling the word from some deep, dark hollow. The syllables tumble down my spine, my toes kinking closed.

I take hold of his arms, my fingers digging into them as he draws back and fills me once more, though now he’s inside me I know all that restraint will be out the window.

He starts to move in and out of my slickness quicker, his muscles flexing with each thrust. He stands, drawing my ass off the sofa and driving even deeper, the head of his cock awakening areas inside my body that have laid dormant until now. He is literally fucking me back to life.

He leverages himself inside me, trying to take more of me, go deeper and deeper with every weighted thrust.

I try to temper my own voice, the sounds of pleasure escaping my lips, but it is useless. Every time he pulls out and sinks back inside me, they are squeezed out, spilling from me with ease.

I’m surprised when he draws free and flips me over, lifting my knees up onto the edge of the sofa. He doesn’t ask. He simply does, with a practiced and professional ease that’s oddly disconcerting.

He takes no time sinking back inside my body, those few transient seconds too much. He grips the sides of my hips and fucks me for all I’m worth, pounding into me over and over until I don’t think I’m even capable of adult speech anymore.

With every thrust I lose a part of my sanity. With every thrust it’s lost until all I can do is grunt and take it, feel the pull of something primal and powerful inside me.

I clench involuntarily around him and he almost lets go, squeezing my hips tight and groaning once more. “You feel so fucking good, baby,” he grunts, his breath hot on my back.

My orgasm is building, growing with each thrust.

“I can’t hold…” he murmurs. “You’re too tight, too g—”

But I’m not ready. Not yet.

With some effort I manage to separate myself and, taking him by the shoulders, direct him onto his back.

He’s as surprised as I am. “What are you doing?”

But he’s silenced as I straddle him quickly, taking hold of his cock and guiding it into the warm sheath of my pussy.

“Taking over,” I pant.

His eyes shutter closed, his hands finding my ass.

It is so good to ride him, to assume that position of power. Now it’s my turn, my turn to steer his pleasure.

“Yes,” he pants, “ride me, baby.”

I don’t need the encouragement, drawing myself up until he almost comes free and then letting my weight push me back down onto his length.

I slow and speed up, carefully watching his face, edging him until I know he won’t be able to take any more.

His fingers move inwards, one of them finding my asshole.

The unexpected sensation throws me forward. His other hand grips my ass so hard I’m pretty sure I’m going to have a handprint there for all eternity.

But I don’t care. All I want in this moment is to come, to be free and feel that mutual release.

His hands leave my ass to grip my hips, his need to control taking over all at once. He starts to hammer into me from below, one hand moving to my scalp and pulling my hair, my entire back arching, my gaze forced to the roof.

He’s hitting my g-spot perfectly. One more and…

“Yes,” I pant, barely audible, wild and hot and so, so close to completion. “Ethan,” I moan.

One more thrust and I’m undone, his fingers pulling harder on my hair, my neck and body straining, my nipples forced into the cold air and my entire body alight.

The climax is harder, far more powerful than before. Still, he pounds into me from below, hunting for his own orgasm within my own and finding it there, a strangled cry of pleasure as he comes. I feel his release, hot and welcome inside me, just that small sensation forcing me into a whole new set of convulsions.

Spent, I fall forward onto his chest, it rises and falls against my cheek.

We lay like that for some time, our breathing slowly regulating together and no words left to describe the indescribable.

It’s Ethan who breaks the silence. “Shower?” he asks.

I nod against his chest, squealing when he lifts us up together, wrapping my legs around him as we make our way to the bathroom.

My thighs are jelly, my body ravaged, but still I welcome those arms, the effortless way in which he carries me.

He pauses outside the bathroom to kiss me, drawing back with an expression still somewhere between dazed and outright besotted. “That was incredible,” he says.

“Wait until we hit the shower,” I wink back.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

ETHAN

It’s getting late. Even with the curtains drawn you can tell the sun’s gone home outside.

Sofia’s been pacing around the room for almost an hour now. I think watching her is wearing me out.

“What is it?” I ask, knowing all too well what the issue is. She feels restrained in here, caged up. I get it.

She stops pacing and faces me. Her cheeks are still flushed from our sexcapade, her hair damp from the shower drawn into a tight bun. “I need to get out of here. Just for a little bit,” she adds.

Is it the wisest idea? Probably not, but I do think some fresh air would do her good.

I pick up my jacket and toss hers over. She catches it easily with one hand. In fact, her reflexes as a whole seem to be a lot better lately, and she was certainly lithe an hour or two ago with her legs wrapped around me, my cock buried deep in her exquisite pussy.

“Where are we going to go?” she asks.

I head for the door. “I have no fucking idea.”

It’s cold outside but not bitterly so, the kind of cold that has you ‘um’ing and ‘ah’ing standing at the sock drawer.

The city’s reasonably quiet, the sidewalk leading away from the apartment complex wide and bare.

We stroll hand in hand going nowhere in particular, which is nice.

There’s a large park at the end of the street. We walk through it, the old lamps turning the foliage a fiery orange where the light pools.

If the city was quiet, the park’s Death Valley, completely devoid of life apart from the odd rustle of leaves.

We seat ourselves on a park bench, Sofia wrapping her arm around mine and pressing into my side, her head resting on my shoulder. “This is perfect.”

“The scenery or the company?”

“What is it that girl used to say on the taco commercial? ‘Porque no los dos’? Why not both?”

I laugh at that, cloudy white coming from my lips. “So the one thing you can remember is a taco commercial?”

She shakes her head. “Crazy, I know.”

“You’re not crazy,” I tell her. “Well, perhaps sexually… You’ve really come alive, so to speak.”

She laughs. “You think I’m a wild nymphomaniac, do you? I’m pretty sure what I’ve been up to with you these last few days has been the limit of my sexual adventures until now.”

Strangely, the thought of her with another man gets my ire up, but I push it to the back of my head. “Have you ever, I don’t know, had a threesome?”

She eyes me with suspicion. “I doubt it, but I’m guessing you have, Dr. McStuffin.”

I smirk. “I’m no doctor.”

“Not even a doctor of love?”

“Seriously,” I continue, “do you think you’ve ever done it in public, for instance?”

She shakes her head. “Absolutely not, and I’m pretty damn sure of that. What if you got caught?”

I can’t suppress the smile.

“You have been caught before. When, where?” she asks.

I bring my finger to my lips. “Gentlemen don’t kiss and tell.”

She looks behind us at a grove of trees. “What about now, bigshot?”

I follow her eyes. “Now? In there? You’re serious.”

But I see she is. A few seconds is all it takes for my cock to start hardening in affirmation.

“I am,” she says, rolling her lips together and her hand dropping to the crotch of my jeans.

I look around, but we’re alone as far as I can tell. Behind us it’s basically shadow, a large fence beyond that. The risk is low, but I can see Sofia’s hot for it.

And god knows I’m fucking hot for her.

Maybe it’s the fact we’re living on the edge here, being chased for our lives, but whatever it is, our sexual chemistry has amped up to eleven.

There’s no more discussion.

She gives a yelp as I help her up and push her towards the trees. She stumbles on a branch laughing, picking herself up and going deeper into the ‘forest.’

She skips away from me and puts her back against a tree, hands behind her and one foot raised against the trunk. She dips her head. “How about here?”

It’s dark, semi-private, but the risk is certainly there. If someone looked hard enough from the pathway…

I come forward and take her around the waist, turning her around and thrusting her against the trunk of the tree, my hands gripping the waistband of her jeans. “You ready?”

She’s already breathless, gripping the tree tight, her ass out to me, mouth wide. “Yes,” she pants.

I roughly yank her jeans down to her knees. There’s no point undoing buttons or fucking around with belts and buckles. No, this has to be quick and dirty.

I drag her panties down next, taking my zipper down with my free hand and fishing out my cock. I can feel the gun Senya gave me pressing between my buttocks.

I look down and see the pale globes of her ass, that mysterious shadow below beckoning me. I can feel the heat of her there, the wet desire already building.

“Quiet now,” I tell her, lightly taking hold of her throat with one hand and lining up my cock with the other, placing it between her ass cheeks and the wet pocket waiting.

She gasps again.

I tighten my grip on her throat and thrust forward—hard.

“Uh,” she grunts, her entire body pressed against the tree, caught between the hard slab of my body and the trunk.

She throws her head back and I slam forward again, driving to the end of her and surprised at how fucking wet she is, the incredible way her body grips the entire length of my cock with each thrust.

There’s a wet pull as I draw back, a finger running into her mouth as I rock forward again, bent over her backside, the denim of my jeans rubbing against the back of her thighs, her body bent at my beck and call.

I’m so seduced by her body, the tight grip of her pussy, I don’t care if someone finds us. The whole fucking Mob could show up and I’d still be fucking her senseless.

“Ethan” she moans around my finger, biting down on it with just enough force I have to grit my teeth and rest my head against her shoulder, using short and shallow thrusts to tease out her pleasure.

She rocks back against me, but her movement is restricted. She’s caught between a tree and a hard place, held there by flesh and wood until she comes.

She releases my finger from my mouth and I bring up two more, using them to cover her mouth, enjoying the way the damp heat of her breath shifts through the gate of my fingers.

The smell of her freshly washed hair, the way it mingles with the sharp scent of her arousal below, our mutual desire… All of that and the loud slap, slap, slap of our bodies tightens my balls.

I wrap an arm around her waist and lever against her with greater force, hammering her as hard as I can with every stroke. My cock runs deep, sluicing into that slick grip, that welcome pressure of her pussy.

“Ethan, I…” she tries to get out, but I know by the way her body coils, the tense pull of it against me, she’s close.

I fuck her without mercy, senselessly slamming forward, my heart galloping in my chest.

Suddenly she stiffens, her breath caught between my fingers. Her back gives a short snap and the convulsions that follow tip me over the edge.

With a stifled grunt I find the end of her and let go, filling her.

She shakes and flaps against me, one arm wildly slapping the trunk of the tree, her pussy milking and squeezing and draining me dry.

Breathless, I step back, my slick cock cooling in the night air, her ass cheeks patchy.

She slumps against the tree and turns around to smile knowingly at me. “Well,” she exhales. “That was something.”

A light beam cuts through the foliage. We both see it, Sofia struggling to pull her pants up, my cock so stiff and wet it refuses to be bundled back inside my pants.

I manage to get it in and zip up just as footfalls crash through to find us, a single figure standing there with a flashlight in his hand.

He shifts it to Sofia, who’s once more leaning against the tree, her face flushed and her hair tousled. Look up ‘post-coitus’ in the dictionary and I’m pretty sure you’d find that very picture.

I realize it’s a cop, a lone cop, but dangerous all the same.

I think he’s smiling, his accent thick. “Well, looks like someone’s strayed off the path. Making the beast with two backs, were we? Little action for you two?”

I look to Sofia, but she’s been stunned into silence.

The torchlight swings to me briefly and then back to Sofia. I actually hear the officer in question draw a sharp intake of breath this time. “Ms. Montello?” he says, the wise-ass gone.

Sofia’s lost again, unsure what to say.

She doesn’t need to.

The cop lowers the light. “Jesus, I’m sorry. I didn’t recognize you in those, ah… clothes,” he says.

Talk about a fucking flip-around. This guy was probably gearing up to drag us down the station. Now he wants to kiss her feet?

Yet, I get a bad feeling about it all—a real bad feeling.

The cop doesn’t seem to know what to say. “Anyhow,” he says, his foot shuffling in the leaves, “probably best you head on. This isn’t the best area for someone of your, ah, stature.”

Sofia straightens up. Even without the flashlight I can see her face is beet red with embarrassment. “Thank you, officer,” she squeaks.

He gives a short nod. “You two have a good night, and sorry once again for the intrusion, Ms. Montello.”

He backs away and disappears from sight.

Sofia comes up beside me still tucking in her shirt. “What was that? Do you think he knows my father?”

I think that’s exactly the case, but I play coy. “He’s right. We should get going.”

It’s a far quicker walk back to the safehouse. I think we’ve both had our fill of excitement for one night.

We round the corner, the apartment block ahead looking like an old Lego set.

My cell starts to buzz. I stop on the sidewalk and take it out.

“Who is it?” asks Sofia, a definite edge to her voice that certainly wasn’t there when he headed out.

“It’s a text from Ally. She says they know where we are, to get out of the safehouse.”

“The safehouse?” says Ally.

We both look up at the apartment at the same time.

A single second later the entire third floor explodes.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SOFIA

My ears are ringing. We’re both on the ground, flames licking upwards from the windows of the area of the apartment block where the safehouse was located. Someone’s screaming. There’s debris on the sidewalk, bits of brick and glass.

I try to stand up and stumble, reaching to help Ethan to his feet, but he seems just as dazed as I am.

My head’s muddy, but I do know one thing. We need to get the hell out of here.

I see a car screech to a halt in my peripheral vision. I brace to defend myself, but it’s just a skinny guy yelling something at us. I think he’s trying to ask if we’re okay. Ethan’s already tucking me under his arm and heading in the opposite direction.

There’s a tiny cut on his cheek, but he looks otherwise okay, if a little stunned.

And for good reason. A minute or two later and we’d be roasting up there right now.

The ringing in my ears starts to abate, but my head’s still pounding. Ethan shifts us into an alleyway and holds my face in his hands.

“You okay?”

I nod. “I think so.”

He checks me over, turning my head left and right, and that’s when I realize I remember.

I remember it all.

“What is it?” asks Ethan in panic. He looks unhinged, like a junkie who’s been strung out too long.

“I remember,” I tell him. “Everything.”

That seems to get through.

“Good,” he says, “great, but first we’ve got to get out of here, yes?”

“Yes,” I reply, wishing this headache would go away

The memories are flooding in now, like the explosion has somehow jarred them loose. As I see them, as I feel them, I realize it wasn’t any physical reason that was holding them back. No, in the horror there, the horror of the things my father has done, I realize it was all emotional—a block to keep me from remembering, from wanting to remember.

Another car pulls to a stop at the end of the alleyway, but this is an SUV, one that’s all too familiar.

The doors open and I drop onto one knee, lifting the back of Ethan’s jacket and pulling the gun Senya gave him free. I brace my arms and fire methodically, five rounds right into the body of the SUV.

“Let’s go,” I shout, standing and ushering Ethan behind me, continuing to fire at the car, the recoil reverberating through my body.

I know my head’s answering rapid-fire questions, like ‘Where the hell did you learn to do that?’ for one, but I don’t have time to dwell on it, cutting down the nearest side street and breaking into a run alongside Ethan.

He’s looking at me like I’m ET the alien.

“I’ll explain later,” I bark, pointing the gun towards another alley. We make for it and crouch behind a pile of pallets, watching, but the SUV’s a no-show.

I peer from the alley and spot a parking garage across the road. “Come on.”

We make it across the road, running together down the ramp and heading to the furthest corner of the garage we can find, a dark alcove near the fire exit complete with dripping pipe and the sharp smell of urine.

Ethan’s keeping watch, but I think we’re safe for now.

He spins around, looking down at the gun in my hand. “Oh, you’re going to tell me where you learned to shoot like that. You’re going to tell me everything.”

*

Ethan is slumped against a wall at the back of the parking garage. There’s been no sign of anyone coming in, but waiting until nightfall before leaving seems like the best option.

I’m concerned that Ethan keeps reaching up to his head, but he seems to have regained most of his sense. Then again, it could be the massive info-dump I’ve just laid on him which is doing his head in.

I can see him trying to process it all. “So the FBI taught you how to shoot?”

I nod, leaning against the wall beside him. “I told them if they wanted my help putting my father away it was the one thing they had to do, show me how to protect myself.”

“And you’ve got handlers, at the FBI, people you can get in touch with?”

It’s so nice being able to recall things instantly, though I can see now why my body wasn’t fighting against certain memories. “Mark Walsh and Lynna Phelps. There’s a number I can call.” It lights up in my head.

Ethan hands me over his cell. “Go on. Maybe they can get us out of here.”

I dial and wait, but a robotic voice announces the line is out of order.

“The line’s down,” I tell Ethan, handing his phone back.

“That’s not a good sign.”

I look to the entry of the parking lot, but it’s still clear. “No, it’s not, especially considering it’s the only number I can reach them on, but we can do this. We’ve just got to be smart about it.”

Ethan nods in approval, his hands hanging over his knees. “I’ve been in plenty of firefights before, but all that was different. I was in a desert for one, the enemy clear. Out here…” He trails off.

I crouch down. “One step at a time,” I tell him. “Together.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

ETHAN

Given the safehouse has been BBQed, we head to a less frequented part of town I know won’t ask questions when we fail to show ID.

Sure enough, the proprietor of the Honeybell Motel, a rotund woman whose hair doesn’t look like it’s seen a brush in twenty years, is happy to take our cash in place of identification. I examine the small lobby, pretty damn sure that’s a bullet hole in the wall to the left, or a peephole.

Key in hand, I open the door to room twelve and usher Sofia inside. I’m sure it’s not the five-star accommodation she is used to. Hell, I don’t even know if this is single star, but Sofia gingerly settles on the bed and smiles. “Don’t let the bed bugs bite, right?”

I take a seat beside her, the mattress giving way with an audible creak. “The Hilton was all out of rooms, sorry.”

She takes my arm, her head falling onto my shoulder. “What now?”

I can see our reflection in the boxy television on the dresser. We look tired more than anything. I swear I’ve aged five years in the last five days, and I’d happily age fifty more if it means being with Sofia.

“I don’t know if I should hang here and set you loose given that shooting. You didn’t mention you were the Black Widow.”

Sofia laughs. “You want to know something really crazy? I think I’ve actually met Scarlett Johannsson. Pretty sure I’ve met a lot of celebrities, actually.”

“But you’ve got to admit that was some serious John Wick shit going on there. I mean, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t turning me on.”

She pushes off, staring at me. “I remember liking the shooting range. It was sort of, I don’t know, peaceful in a way, meditative—just you and the target, all your focus on one thing, no outside distractions.”

“Most girls are content with Zumba and Bachelor marathons, you know.”

“I think you’re learning pretty fast I’m not your average girl.”

“No, ma’am.”

She’s right about that, a million miles away from the shy, comatose girl from the hospital.

A moment of silence descends.

I stand. “I’m going to head out,” I announce, “get us a bite to eat—provided I can find something that’s actually edible around here.”

Sofia smiles up at me. For someone who was such a guns blazing badass before, I do see hints of the old Sofia—meek and quiet. It’s strange, almost like I’m seeing two women at once.

Dream come true, hey?

I internally scold my head. I’ve been with two girls before. It was, in short, complicated, and not just trying to work out who went where or did what—sexual Twister.

“Stay here,” I tell Sofia, not really sure whether I should be the one ordering her around or vice-versa.

“I will,” she replies. “You won’t be long?”

“You won’t even know I’m gone.”

I step out and close the door, Sofia locking it behind me.

I rub my hands together against the cold and look around. Where to, where to?

I decide to head north on the main road, locating a Chinese restaurant a couple of blocks up that, much like our hotel room, hasn’t seen a cleaning cloth or vacuum since the middle ages. But it’s cold out and I can’t be bothered walking further.

An elderly woman greets me at the counter. I order and take a plastic chair by the wall.

My head’s still pounding from the explosion, the wound on my hand’s pulsing a bit, but I’m otherwise intact. It could have been a hell of a lot worse. If we were up there… Another minute…

God, I hate to even consider it.

The smart thing, I think, is to keep Sofia hidden. Then again, how did the mafia know about the safehouse in the first place? Something’s not adding up.

And that cop in the park—that was suspicious enough. He clearly recognized Sofia, went out of his way to make sure he was being respectful. Just how much influence does her family have around here? How wide does their reach extend? To a two-bit motel? Not likely, though it can’t be ruled out.

I smile to myself, more of the fact in the space of just over a week I’ve gone from a paramedic to basically a fugitive.

Who’s doing nothing wrong, my head interjects.

Except fall for the wrong woman, perhaps.

Sure, things may have become more complex where Sofia is concerned, but my feelings for her haven’t changed. I don’t think they ever will.

“Order for E-than!”

I stand and collect the Chinese.

*

I knock twice on the door. “It’s me.”

There’s a moment before it opens. I hold the Chinese up. “Special delivery,” I announce, soon dropping it back down when I see who else is in the room. “Ally?”

“Come in,” says Sofia.

I walk in and dump the Chinese on the table. “What’s going on here?”

The last person I expected to be here was Ally. I’m annoyed, definitely, but I think my irritation is directed at Sofia for revealing our location, BFF or not.

Sofia stands in front of me, lowering her voice. “It’s okay. I called her.” She stands aside so I can see the bed. “She’s brought money, weapons.”

Ally’s got one arm across her stomach, slouching. “I hope it helps. It’s all I could get on such short notice.”

But my spidey senses are fucking tingling up a storm. “You didn’t come here for anything else?” I ask, trying to keep my tone as neutral as possible and not give away my suspicion.

Ally starts to walk over, the three of us forming a triangle in the center of the room. I’m not imagining it. Ally looks nervous.

She goes to open her mouth, but presses her lips closed. She seems on the verge of telling us something.

“Ally?” I press.

“Ally?” adds Sofia, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”

“I,” Ally starts, before lifting her head and smiling. “It’s nothing. I’m just glad to see you again. That’s all.”

I’m not convinced.

Ally twirls her hand. “I should really be going, anyhow, leave you two to it.”

Sofia embraces her. “Thanks for bringing the stuff over. I owe you one.”

Ally smiles back, but it’s not fully formed. “You owe me about ten, but sure. I’m here for you. Remember that.”

“I will.”

Ally nods at me as she passes towards the room door. “Ethan.”

“Ally,” I reply.

I press the door closed behind her and lock it, standing there with one hand against it while I try to collect my thoughts.

“What is it?” asks Sofia, sensing something’s off. “Did I do something wrong?”

“You called her?”

“Yes.”

“And what did she say?”

“She said she had some things to bring over, asked where we were staying.”

I push off the door. “You don’t think that’s a little bit suspicious? Think about it.”

“Are you saying you think Ally is involved in this in some way?”

Sofia shakes her head, folding her arms and pacing. “No, I don’t think so. She wouldn’t do that. We’ve been best friends forever. We went on holidays together as teenagers, talked about our dreams and crushes. I helped pull one of her teeth out when I was five. She wouldn’t betray me.”

“Can you really be sure? Really?”

Sofia considers it. “Yes. I can.”

I start looking around for our things. “We should get out of here.”

“We just arrived,” protests Sofia.

“It’s not safe, Sofia.”

“You think Ally was the one who told them where the safehouse was, don’t you?”

I stop what I’m doing. “The truth? Yes, I damn well do.”

“She was the one who told us to get out of the safehouse, remember? Why would she do that if she was working against us?”

That I can’t answer, and it’s a valid point, but I’ve learned over the years to trust my gut. When I was serving, good instincts were the difference between staying alive and being sent home in a pine box.

“I don’t trust her,” I tell Sofia. “Simple as that.”

She approaches me, wrapping her arms around me and pressing the side of her face into my chest. I bring my hands down on her head, holding her in place.

“Let’s stay,” she says, her words vibrating against me. “We have weapons, food… a bed. How is anywhere else going to be safer?”

“Alright,” I relent, “but we leave tomorrow, deal?”

“Deal,” she replies, cooing against me before breaking away and rubbing her hands together. “Now, where’s this food? I’m starving, and something tells me I’m going to need energy for later,” she winks.

“What’s happening later?” I query, knowing full well what she’s implying.

She opens one of the takeaway bags, breathing in the greasy mix of food within. “I’m going to give you a concussion of a different kind.”

CHAPTER EIGHTTEEN

SOFIA

I remember my old life now, all of it, but I’ve never felt so secure and safe before, not like when I’m in Ethan’s arms.

I’m dreaming, lost in a sleep world of teal and orange when a sound jerks me back into the motel room.

Ethan’s still holding me, my leg crossed over his, his body warm.

I hear the same sound again, sure now it’s nothing natural. In fact, it seems to coming from directly outside the door.

I take hold of Ethan’s shoulder and shift it back and forward. “Ethan, wake up.”

His eyes flicker open. He grabs me, rolling me over until I’m on top of him, his very obvious erection sitting at the crotch of my panties. “Midnight snack, huh? I won’t say no.”

I roll off him and get out of bed, looking for my clothes. “Get up,” I whisper. “I think someone’s outside.”

That puts him into gear. He’s out of bed in seconds, pulling on a shirt and scooping his jeans off the floor.

He tosses a hoodie over, halfway with his own on.

There’s a clicking sound and I know full well now someone’s trying to get inside.

Ethan brings a finger to his lips and points to the wall next to the front door, signaling for me to crouch down.

I’m only just getting my pants on and doing my best crouch and walk to the front of the room.

I see Ethan pick up a gun and check it, holding it with two hands.

We gather there against the wall crouching right beside the front door, the only exit.

Ethan brings his mouth to my ear, pressing a second gun into my hand. “When they come in, you g—”

But that’s all he gets out before the door flies open and two men rush inside, the same guys from Ethan’s apartment—Fredek and Dimitri. Dimitri flies into the middle of the room, gun raised.

Fredek pauses there just past the threshold.

He looks left and spots us, bringing up his gun at the same time Ethan reaches for the table lamp and swings, bringing it hard into the side of his head.

I scream, glass shattering around us, wondering why Ethan simply just didn’t shoot him before I realize I was in the way.

Dimitri, in the center of the room, turns toward the commotion and fires twice, one of the bullets shattering the front window, the other punching into the brickwork somewhere behind Ethan.

I fire back, the second shot pinning him in the shoulder, a pained “ugh” as he’s driven back. Still, he continues to fire.

Ethan kicks Fredek in the chest, sending him sprawling into the coffee table.

He pushes me behind him and out the door, slamming it closed. Two bullet holes appear in the top of it, a third low.

Ethan looks around, the gun still in his hand. He spots a car with the doors open, a dark Cadillac of some kind. “Their car. Go.”

We run towards the car as the door to the motel room opens and the muzzle flash of gunfire lights up the doorway.

I fire back, steadying my hand and again sort of surprised it comes so naturally.

Dimitri, an enforcer for my father, retreats back inside in the motel room, his gun reappearing every so often to fire at us.

I get into the passenger side and Ethan into the driver’s. “Thank fuck,” he says, finding the keys in the ignition, turning them and starting to back out.

A round hits the A-pillar to the right, a metallic ringing filling the interior of the car.

“Hold on,” says Ethan, gunning the car into a full one-eighty before planting his foot and taking us out of the motel parking lot with a screech of tires.

More shots come, but they’re in the distance now, little more than muffled pops.

“I think I knocked that guy out,” says Ethan, the engine bouncing off the rev-limiter before he remembers to shift.

“Fredek?”

Ethan looks over to me. “You know those guys?”

I check over my weapon, dropping the magazine out and punching it back in as though it were completely natural, like tying one’s laces. “Fredek and Dimitri have worked for my father since I was a little girl. Even took me to senior prom.”

“And now they’re trying to kill you?”

“They’re good lapdogs,” I reply. “My father’s given them good lives, power in the organization. They’ll do whatever he says, and trust me, they’ve done worse.”

I don’t even think Ethan knows where he’s going, driving blindly hard on the gas. “So we’ve got a couple of trained killers on our tails, a BFF who’s clearly not all she says she is.”

“Ally?” I protest, feeling my heart drop but fighting against it. “It still doesn’t prove anything. They could have found out where we are some other way.”

“You’re being naïve.”

“I know her. She deserves the benefit of the doubt.”

“And when were dead? What then?”

It feels like the first fight we’ve had, this whole stupid thing coming between us. It’s the Montello curse. Find something beautiful and we’ll find a way to ruin it, and in pursuit of what? Power? Profit?

“Look,” I begin, brushing my hair out of my face, “arguing isn’t going to do us any good. What we should be doing is getting rid of this car.”

“Why?”

“It will have a tracker in it. All the organization cars do.”

Ethan nods, getting back into work mode, that let’s-solve-a-problem manner the males of the species seem to thrive with. “The parking lot we hid in earlier is just a few miles up the road here. Will that do?”

I nod back. “Yeah. After that, I’ve got no idea. They’re going to be everywhere soon, sweeping this entire area.”

We park the car in the back of the parking garage in the darkest possible corner. No point making it easy for them.

Done, we stand there the middle of the parking garage.

I don’t think either of us knows what to do now, and we’re short on time as it is. I’m still fluttery inside from the adrenaline, the sheer heart-beater that is running for your life.

I point to the entrance of the parking lot. “There are two cameras at the entrance there, another over by the exit stairwell and lifts.

“What are you saying, Ms. Observational?”

“I’m saying we don’t want to be on those cameras and seen leaving.” I nod to a landscaping truck on the far side of the garage, the back of the trailer covered by a tarp. “How do you feel about hiding out?”

*

We hide under the tarp, the material of it glowing neon blue under the single fluorescent light above.

There are a couple of bags of mulch to rest on, but we still have to lie flat, Ethan beside me with his hands on his chest. “What makes you think someone’s even going to come for this thing?”

“Fresh mud on the tires. It hasn’t been sitting here long, not since we were here last.”

Ethan’s smiling. “It’s true. I’m dating a god-damn super spy.”

“You’re dating a woman,” I counter. “We notice the little things.”

He doesn’t miss that. “So we’re dating, officially?”

“You don’t count three counts of intercourse as dating?”

“You make it sound awfully impersonal.”

I reach over to him. “Impersonal, no. Legal, those things you did to me? Surely not in some states.”

He laughs at that. I’ve come to love it, the way his face lights up when he does so. “And I haven’t even pulled out my little binder of secret sex moves yet.”

“You’re reserving that for a special night?”

“One where we’re not hiding in the back of a truck, yeah.”

I have to agree with him on that point. The tart smell of mulch and manure isn’t making for a very sexually charged atmosphere, even if my adrenaline-riddled body is saying otherwise. No, sexy times will have to wait.

Three hours later, around dawn, there’s movement in the front of the truck, a door swinging open and slamming closed.

I look across to Ethan. He nods back.

I hadn’t considered the possibility the owner might check the back, be pretty surprised to find the two of us bunking here, but the truck rumbles into life and starts to reverse, the blue tarp turning green as we start to move.

It’s a bumpy ride out, the world’s worst massage table, but soon the tarp turns almost translucent and I know we’re outside the lot.

We both shift onto our stomachs, lifting ourselves to look out the gap between the back of the trailer and the tarp, look where the hell we’re going.

There’s a bit of traffic around—tradesmen mostly off to get an early start on the day.

We discussed this earlier, how we’d wait until we were at least five or six blocks away from the lot before getting out. The city itself should provide enough cover.

The truck bumps to a stop, the intersection lights having turned red.

“Now,” says Ethan.

Together, we drag back the tarp. I climb out first, Ethan helping me down and checking the cab, but the driver is either oblivious or half-asleep.

We hit the ground together looking directly into the windshield of a late-model Ford where a woman is looking back at us particularly perplexed.

Ethan waves and smiles. He tucks me under his arm, escorting us off the road and down a nearby laneway. We go in as far as we can, Ethan pulling us into a tight alcove. “Mission complete, mademoiselle.”

I put out my hand. “Let me talk to Ally.”

Ethan looks skeptical. “You sure that’s a wise idea? I’d have to destroy it when you’re done. We can’t take any chances.”

“I know,” I reply, “but I need to know where we stand here, where I stand with her.”

Ethan fishes in his pocket, handing over his cell. “Make it short, less than thirty seconds, and no details about where we are.”

“Got it.”

I find Ally’s number and hold the phone to my ear. It rings a lot longer this time before Ally answers. She seems surprised. “Sofia?”

“Were you expecting someone else?”

“I thought—” She doesn’t finish. “You’re okay?”

“I wouldn’t exactly say that.”

It suddenly strikes me maybe Ethan is right. It doesn’t add up. I decide to press. “We’ve known each other the longest time, right?”

“Or course,” comes Ally’s quick reply.

“So why would you betray me like this, betray us?”

I want to bring her into this, to make it personal. If she cracks, she cracks. If she doesn’t, I’ll know at least I tried, at least I made sure.

Ethan raises an eyebrow, curious at my line of questioning.

“What are you saying, Sof?”

I draw in a deep breath. “Why did you give them the location of the safehouse?”

I expect her to deny it, naturally, but her response is quite the opposite. “You were going to hurt the family, Sof. Your father told me. You were going to get us all, everyone you ever cared about, sent to prison, me included.”

Now what was only cursory suspicion turns to anger. “You’re kidding me, right? Tell me this is a joke.”

“But, but,” she stammers, “I had second thoughts. I couldn’t let them kill you.” She starts to break down, but I can’t be sure it’s an act.

“That’s why you warned us to get out.”

“Yes.”

She’s conflicted. I’m sure that much is certain, but there’s still no way we can trust her now. I should have listened to Ethan, to his instincts.

I’m conflicted too, my mind racing as I try to piece together my next words. “I get it, I do, Ally, but I won’t be in touch again, goodbye.”

Her tone changes swiftly. “You think you’re queen shit, don’t you? You always have.” That broken voice is gone.

“Sorry?”

“Why couldn’t you have just turned a blind eye like all the other wives and adult children do? Why did you have to go and mess it all the fuck up?”

That’s it. I’m not going to give her the satisfaction of a response. She may have saved us once, but it’s clear where her allegiance lies here.

I hand the phone to Ethan. He takes out the SIM and snaps it in two. He drops the phone itself on the ground and smashes his boot into it, crunching it into the asphalt until it’s a shattered mess.

“You heard that?” I ask.

“Every word.”

He extends his hand and I take it. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

We walk away fast, my conversation with Ally playing on repeat in my head.

*

We stop at a tiny, hole-in-the-wall coffee shop, the kind of uppity hipster establishment that didn’t exist around here until a few years ago.

We’re sitting outside. In our hoodies we look more like early morning runners than, well, people trying to run away.

I sip at the coffee. Uppity and hipster this place might be, but the coffee’s basically a beany orgasm in a cup… at least compared to the sewer water the hospital called coffee.

“Good?” laughs Ethan, sipping one of those ‘get-up-and-go!’ protein shakes all these places have.

I smile, but he sees deeper than that.

“It’s the thing with Ally, isn’t it?” he says.

I place the coffee down, where it steams in the morning air. “You got me.”

“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, you know. It just proves you’re human, is all. People change.”

“Maybe she’s right.”

“In what sense?”

“Maybe I should have turned a blind eye, feigned ignorance. It would have been easier, right?”

He reaches across the table and takes both my hands. Framed by the hoodie he looks like some kind of fitness-slash-life coach, which is, of course, fine by me. I could do with some coaching right about now. “Don’t tear yourself up about it, Sofia. I’d much rather know you’re being chased because you were trying to stop this than because you were a part of it. It proves everything I suspected.”

I’m about to cry again, something I don’t remember doing much of in my former life. “And what’s that?”

He points to the middle of my chest. “You care, you’re good, and you’re going to get through this.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

He lets go to hand me my coffee, standing. “Let’s walk, get the blood moving.”

We head out onto the main road. I notice Ethan constantly taking in his surroundings, his eyes always on the move. I wonder if it’s a side effect from his time in the Army, a paranoia of sorts—though we’ve both got plenty to be paranoid about right now.

I stop, looking at the scene in front of me.

“What is it?” asks Ethan.

I frame it with my hands, trying to recall. “That restaurant up there, the one with the dragon thing on the sign. I met Mark and Lynna, my handlers, there, definitely more than once.

Ethan tugs my hand. “You think they’ll be there?”

I shrug. “It’s a long shot, but it can’t hurt to check. Maybe they left a message or something?”

“Did you ever meet them anywhere else?”

“No,” I reply.

Ethan exhales, standing. “Let’s give it a shot then.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

SOFIA

The restaurant is an opulent mix of brass and leather, the sort of uber-trendy establishment that serves ten types of starter bread and bespoke butter flown in from Denmark. I remember eating here, laughing here… And then I remember meeting here for an entirely different reason.

I always met Mark and Lynna for brunch. They placed us up in the back in a private booth, but I worried my father’s reach extended everywhere, that there would be bugs or listening devices set up in every restaurant in Philly. Even after constant reassurances from Mark and Lynna I was safe, I recall living in an almost perpetual state of fear and anxiety. That’s when I’d demanded they teach me how to use a weapon.

“Ms. Montello.” The hostess is walking across from the other side of the restaurant. She stops before us smiling. “I’m afraid your party’s been delayed, traffic, but I’d be happy to set you up by a bar while you wait, order your usual?”

My usual, I think. Candy apple cosmo.

It’s so strange to think I know that now, but I’m more interested in what else she said. Mark and Lynna will be here. They’re coming. It seems too good to be true, but maybe it’s a lucky break. Maybe a lucky break is exactly what we need.

“Okay.” I smile back. “And a dark and stormy for my friend here.”

The hostess’s eyes turn to Ethan. “Of course.”

She leads us to the bar and brings the bartender out to mix the cocktails.

“What makes you think I like it ‘dark and stormy’?” says Ethan. “Especially at 10am in the morning.”

I pick up a toothpick, testing the point against the pad of my finger. “A dark and stormy for a dark and mysterious stranger, no?”

His hand falls against my thigh, edging inwards. “Dark, sure, but a stranger? I don’t think so.”

“Hmm,” I muse, tapping the toothpick against his bicep. “You might have a point there, but don’t worry. All the cocktails here are delicious, and it’s never too early—not when you’re a Montello.”

“That’s the question, though: do you want to be a Montello?”

I look down at the bar. “I’m not sure. I sort feel like two different people caught inside the same body, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

“A hell of a lot more attractive, though.”

I laugh. “Maybe,” I reply, looking to the door.

“You think the FBI agents are going to show? You don’t think it’s weird they chose today to show up?”

“This is where we met, it will be the same time… Who else would it be?”

The second I say it I realize what the issue is.

Ethan gets up. “Tell the hostess we’re going to stretch our legs, that we’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

It’s smart. I wave the hostess over and tell her we’re going for a walk, to have the cocktails delivered to our usual table. “But the others?” she protests.

“We’ll be back in fifteen minutes.” Ethan smiles, laying the charm on thick. “You’ll tell the others when they arrive?”

“Of course.”

Ethan leads me out, checking left and right, always on the lookout. I feel guilty I’ve placed him in this war-like heightened state of awareness, a state he’s no doubt done his best to repress and forget, though I can’t deny it hasn’t been useful. I’d be dead by now if it wasn’t for him—in more ways than one.

We stop at another alleyway down the road with a good view of the front of the restaurant.

“What if Mark and Lynna really do show?” I ask, standing beside Ethan around the corner.

He keeps his eyes on the front of the restaurant. “We still need to wait. If it looks clear, sure, we’ll go and chat, but we have to wait all the same.”

We follow a group of dark SUVs tailing each other at high speed down the road. They pull up out the front of the restaurant in convoy. They’re similar to the SUVs the FBI uses, but I know immediately they’re not.

“Here we go,” says Ethan, straining to see.

The doors open and people start to pile out. They’re in suits alright, but they’re not agents or officers.

They’re part of the Brotherhood.

Ethan spins and starts us down the alleyway running. “That’s not the FBI.”

“I know,” I reply, taking his hand as we start to run.

*

My legs are burning and my lungs likewise. A seemingly good idea at first, hiding yourself in a city would appear harder than it seems.

I can’t believe we were stupid enough to think Mark and Lynna would somehow show, somehow mystically know we’d be there, but we’re desperate.

That can’t stand. We have to be smarter.

At one point we almost run out right into the same SUVs as they hurtle down Penrose. We spot them again ten minutes later. There can be no doubt about it. They’re looking for us and no one, not even the police, can keep us safe here.

We’ve been at this all day, slowly making our way from one side of the city to the other. The light’s starting to thin out above, the shadows in the park growing longer, strollers and scooters replaced by runners and workers eager to make their way home.

Home—it seems like such a foreign concept now, and I’ve dragged Ethan into it. How is he ever going to get out of this?

We stop to catch our breath near a large culvert.

“Do you know where we are?” asks Ethan.

I look around. “FDR Park.”

Ethan spots something through the trees, taking my hand. “This way.”

We head through a cluster of trees and come down near a boathouse. Ethan leads us around the back and looks through the windows. “I don’t think they’re using this one. We can hide out here, catch our breath.”

I’m cold and hungry—again, insane considering what we’re surrounded by, but we don’t have the luxury of a sit-down dinner right about now.

Ethan finds a rock in the garden bed and uses it to break the padlock on the back door, slipping me inside before he closes the door behind us.

It’s damp and colder inside, old row boats stacked up against the walls.

Ethan checks the front windows of the shed, but they’re so grimy you can barely see out. He finds us an area behind the boats out of sight, returning with a blanket for me. “Again, not the Hilton, sorry.”

“As long as I’ve got you, I don’t care,” I reply.

“Says the girl who’s drinking Cosmopolitans at 10am. Somehow I don’t think this is the life of luxury you’re used to.”

He sits down beside me. The sun’s almost faded outside, a strong ochre beam of light turning Ethan’s hair to fire. “I can go out and get us something to eat later, when it’s completely dark. It’s not perfect here, but I’m pretty sure it’s the last place they’ll be looking.”

We both shield our eyes, suddenly blinded by strong light. At first I think the sun’s hit the windows in full, but when I look between gated fingers I see a hooded figure standing there holding what could be a flashlight but probably’s a gun.

Together, we reach for our weapons, but the figure says, “Wait.”

I reach across to hold Ethan’s arm down. I recognize the voice. “Lynna?”

The light drops, and the figure pulls back their hood. “I’m sorry for showing up out of the blue, but I think we should get you out of here.”

Ethan’s looking to me for confirmation. I place my hand on his. “It’s Lynna. It’s okay.”

“Come,” Lynna says, reaching down to help me up. “Mark’s waiting in the car.”

We follow Lynna through the park. Ethan slows us so we’re walking behind her. He whispers. “You’re completely sure we can trust them? Because, news flash, we’ve kind of been burned lately when it comes to trustworthy individuals.”

“Yes,” I reply, “they can help us.”

“I hope you’re right,” he says, “because I’m getting really tired of running.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

ETHAN

I’m nervous and it’s not just due to the fact we’re being hunted down by the Russian Mafia. Parked in the shadows of a nearby street, Sofia and I are in the back of a late-model sedan, the two FBI agents up front both turned towards us. Mark, in particular, is eyeing me with equal suspicion, but I guess we’ve got no reason to trust each other.

“So you’re FBI?” I ask.

Lynna holds up her badge, which yes, looks legitimate. “We’re Sofia’s handlers, which means our first priority is to keep her safe.”

But you’re happily expendable, I can almost hear her adding.

“I found her with a bullet in her head under a bridge three hours from here,” I tell them. “I don’t think you’re really doing your job too well.”

Mark goes to say something, but Lynna cuts him off. “That was an unexpected turn of events we aren’t going to get into now, but know we were targeted the very same night.”

“By my father?” queries Sofia.

Mark nods. “We’ve been betrayed too, Sofia. Someone in our operation warned Montello what was happening. We were sitting ducks.”

“They came for us hard,” says Lynna, scratching the side of her neck, “but I was first in the academy for sharpshooting and Mark here can get moving when he wants to, so we escaped… just. We couldn’t find you. We thought you were dead.”

Close enough, I want to announce, but I keep my mouth closed.

“Basically, all we’ve been doing is trying to come up with a way to both save the operation and ourselves, to survive, just like you.”

Mark looks at me. He’s as tired as I feel. “I think the best course of action is for all of us to get out of the city. That should be our first priority.”

I nod in agreement because he’s right. “Yes, definitely.”

I’m surprised when Lynna puts her hand up, shutting her partner down. “No, no, that’s not the right play.”

“The right ‘play’?” I laugh, dispensing with the pleasantries. “This isn’t a fucking game.”

She looks at me. “I know, and I thank you for all you’ve done, for keeping Sofia safe, but we have to see this through. Otherwise, they’re just going to keep on coming. We need to make this worthwhile.”

“You can’t be serious,” I fire back. “Four of us against how many of these guys?”

Silence falls. It’s Sofia who breaks it. “Lynna’s right, Ethan.”

“She is?”

Sofia nods solemnly. “We have to bring them down, whatever it takes.”

I’m surprised by her conviction, alarmed by it. “Not if ‘whatever it takes’ is your life. I can’t let that happen. You know that.”

She takes my hands, turning to face me and I see a steely resolve in those once doe-like eyes that’s new and frightening in equal measure. “You don’t know the things my father has done, the sheer pain he has caused so much people. I was blind to it for so long, but now my eyes have been opened I have to act. We have to act—” she points between us all “—or how many more people will suffer at his hands? Mothers, children, families… I won’t allow it.”

I know it’s pointless trying to argue otherwise. Sofia’s gotten her grit back. I appreciate it, in a way, but I also know what we’re up against. It’s not some back-street band of two-bit criminals. They’re well organized and well-armed, with tentacles that no doubt stretch across this entire city, maybe the entire country. What’s a civilian, a paramedic, and two burnt FBI agents against all of that?

Dead, my head finishes.

*

Mark and Lynna drive us to a new safehouse they say is completely off the books on the south side of town. It’s another warehouse with an open plan, a couple of cots set up in the office up top. It’s better than the boat shed, but not by much.

I look down from the upper platform at a row of commercial sewing machines. “Well, at least we can knit our own sweaters if we get cold.”

Sofia wraps her arms around me. “Why do I need a sweater when I have you?”

I turn around, my back against the railing, and bring Sofia’s arms up around my neck. “Are we really safe here? You know that hostess sold us out. She saw us come in and got straight on the blower to the bad guys.”

Her eyes have softened, but there’s still a glint of fire there, of the battle-hardened individual I’m discovering hidden within. “Lynna and Mark were betrayed too, Ethan. We’re in this together, working towards the same thing.”

“I’m not taking any chances. I’m not…”

“Not what?”

I reach to hold her face, skin gossamer soft. “Losing you.”

“You won’t. You’ve seen me shoot, right?”

“You shot your ol’ pal in the shoulder, not the head.”

“Maybe I meant to.”

I smile at that, because I can see the sense in it. She’s no killer. She doesn’t need that on her conscience, preying on her vulnerabilities every time she gets down to tend a patient like I do. I can only be thankful in my current line of my work it’s not me who put them in that position, that I’m checking they’re alive, not dead.

“You’re pretty stubborn. You know that?” I tell her.

One hand slides down my chest, toying with the top of my jeans. “Can the Voice of Reason take a break, or does he need to exercise his right to protest a little more?”

I smile again knowing where this is leading.

“What?” she asks. “Lynna and Mark said they wouldn’t be back until morning. There’s a cot or two we need to test.”

I look behind her into the main office space where the cots are situated looking like they were shipped direct from the local penitentiary. “I don’t think those cots could stand the fucking I’m about to give you.”

She pulls back, hands on her hips. “Is that a fact?” she taunts, walking back to the railing and surveying the warehouse. “Well, I’m sure we can find a perfectly suitable table, or wall, or is the floor more your thing? Take me like an animal?” She growls when she says it. I reach to grab her, but she jerks away, tutting and wagging her finger. “You’re going to have to work for it tonight, mister.”

I stalk her down the stairs, undoing my belt. “You better hope your FBI friends don’t decide to show up.”

“Why’s that?” she laughs, pulling her hoodie over her head and stretching out as she steps backwards. “You don’t think they’re getting it on, do you?”

“That Mark guy?” I laugh. “Poor bastard. I don’t think he’s been laid since Blockbuster was the place to be.”

She joins along. “Fair point.”

She reaches the bottom of the stairs, her t-shirt pulled away and flung to the floor, her bright red bra a beacon. “And if trouble shows up instead? You’re fully loaded?”

I stop and unzip my jeans, stepping out of them with my boxers balled up inside, my cock firm and ready. I take my hoodie and shirt off before reaching down to stroke myself. “Oh, I’m loaded, baby.”

She laughs, easing her pants down but leaving her panties in place. “What are you going to do? Come in their eye? Club them with your almighty schlong?”

I stop stroking. “Hey now. You’ll hurt his feelings?”

She smacks her lips, lifting an eyebrow. “Will a kiss make it better?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

SOFIA

I step towards him, snaking an arm around his neck, pulling myself closer to that I’ve come to love, unable to resist him. “So, is this where you want to take me?”

He answers with a kiss, our mouths pressing together with urgency.

There’s a moment where we just stare at each other, breathing deeply in the darkness.

The longing between my legs is so strong, so defined I cannot wait another second. I make the first move, pulling my t-shirt free and undoing my jeans, sliding them down until they puddle around my feet. I step out of them feeling powerful, sex incarnate as I pad towards him in my underwear. I reach around to undo my bra, letting it drop and be trod underfoot.

That shy girl from the hospital has left the building.

We embrace. I’m caged in by his scent, the hot vapor of his breath against my cheek as I draw in deep breaths. My stomach knots and flutters, pangs of sensation running up and down my spine as his hand molds itself to my breast.

I hold his head in my hands and guide it downwards. I let him taste the beaded sweat that has broken out in the valley that runs between my cleavage. He finds a nipple and draws it out until it’s a tight pillar in his mouth, letting it snap back into place. His head rises and our tongues meet again. I can taste my perspiration on his lips, the salty bite of it somewhere between the overtly masculine notes there. As I do, an intensity builds inside me that’s bright and fiery, a volcano ready to blow.

Sensation has overtaken reason. I feel like I could float away in his arms.

His hands dip to my buttocks, working under the thin cloth of my panties. He takes them in two hands and pulls them from my body, tearing them at the sides and letting what’s left float to the floor in tatters.

I laugh internally thinking we’re going to need another trip to Target if he keeps this up.

I hold my breath, shocked at this overt display of power but determined not to let him get the upper hand.

No, Sofia Montello always has the upper hand.

But he doesn’t let me.

He lifts me under my ass. I lock my legs around him as he staggers forward, letting me down on the corner of a sewing bench. A spindle of thread falls to the floor with a muted thud.

My ass settles against the metal tabletop, the cold a stark juxtaposition to my superheated skin. He lays me flat with one hand spread wide on my breastbone, his tongue trailing around my chest, testing the resistance of my flesh… and patience.

I grip onto the sides of the table, my nipples stiffening against the cold air.

It’s bright thanks to the commercial lighting. I can clearly make out the swollen hardness of Ethan’s cock pressing against the front of his jeans. And suddenly the fact we’re being chased, hunted, is lost and there is only sensation. There is only Ethan and me.

There’s the faintest tickle from the fresh stubble on his chin as he moves down over the flat of my abdomen. He leaves wet ovals with his lips until finally his tongue cleaves into my wet core and all I can do is convulse and thrash below him.

He runs his tongue up and down my slit, pulling my swollen clit into his mouth, licking and sucking at my heated arousal. His tongue flickers, probes, seeks out pleasure I haven’t known before.

The emotion wells up and I make no attempt to stop it. A tear slides down my face as I bury my hands in his hair and pull, pressing my hips forward to meet his ravenous mouth.

He drifts away from my pussy and then returns, teasing me until I’m not sure I can take this torture anymore. I sob and spasm, eventually forced to press his head away from me, his chin wet with my desire. It’s a beautiful sight.

Here’s a man who has proven he will do anything for me, will go to any lengths to protect me.

I push him back and slide off the table, kneeling before him on the cold concrete floor to undo his belt buckle. I pull his pants and underwear down in a bundle to his knees. His cock flips out, always so much larger than I remember.

I hold the back of his legs, bring my head up and drop my mouth down upon the head of his length. I’m surprised when his shaft twitches and tightens in my mouth. I didn’t think they could get so ‘animated.’ Pleased, I pull my lips tight around it, sucking and then bobbing down deeper, taking him right into the tight confines of my throat until I’m forced to come up for air.

I’ve only done this a few times before, and then only for show, but this is different. I want to share the pleasure, to provide everything he’s giving me back ten-fold. Oh, what Mother Maria from St. Lucius’s Boarding Academy would think of me now.

Ethan moans with approval, hands on top of my head as my lips break from the flushed helmet of his cock with an audible pop. I make sure he knows I’m watching, eyes fixed to his as I run the tip of my tongue around his glans, licking away the sweet, milky substance that has gathered in his slit like a lost pearl.

I hold him by the root, mewing and pressing him against the soft surface of my cheek before I open my mouth and drop down until I can take no more, the flat of his pelvis pressed to my nose, his cock filling my throat completely.

“Fucking… fuck… hell.”

He lets out a string of profanity, bucking against me before he moves himself away.

I’m breathing hard, panting… and soaking wet. “What is it?”

He strips his shirt off until all that’s left are two stony squares and that wonderfully symmetrical series of abs below. He kicks his pants off, takes me by the hips and spins me around, bending me violently over the table. I stretch my arms out and exhale heavily, staring at a row of colored cotton spindles, every color of the rainbow gathered there.

He presses my face down into the table. I’m forced to stand on tippy toes, my feet barely touching the floor. My heart thuds like a heavy hammer, pounding against my ribs and the hard surface of the tabletop.

God, I want him. I need him.

There’s a long groan as Ethan thrusts forward to fill me. I cry out, threaded halfway between pain and pleasure as he pulls back and slams forward again, the thought of his cock inside me so hot I squeeze tight as a clothes peg around him. I’m wetter and wetter with every stroke, the table legs below crying out in protest, the giant weight shifting across the floor.

His cock pulls out wet and slick before he plunges it back inside me, crashing into my body, the globes of my ass oscillating with every grunt. He smashes into my behind, trying desperately to push as deep as he can into the hot glove of my pussy.

“You’re so fucking tight,” he’s huffing over my back, bent and redoubling his efforts. My breath comes out in short gasps. I’m running out of things to grip, my fingers slipping for purchase. He holds onto my shoulders to pummel away at my body. I grind my hips back against him, squeezing and churning myself around his cock until his thrusting becomes frantic and wild.

I know he’s close, my own orgasm starting to build. He’s talking nonsense, nothing but loose syllables. He reaches down and fingers my clit right at the edge of the table, a hot heat sawing through my center.

That sensation, that small ball of heat, becomes a furnace.

“I can’t,” he bellows, “…fuck.”

His orgasm arrives. He slams into my backside, yelling obscenities as he pumps his release. My head snaps up and my climax follows, his body flat against me as I step from the precipice and allow myself to fall into the abyss. I convulse there, my body squeezing, milking him of everything he has with each punctuated contraction.

I try to close my mouth, but my jaw’s locked open.

He thrusts forward one final time and I give a short gasp in return, a final flutter humming through me.

I let myself collapse onto the table, quivering through the final dregs of my orgasm. My heart won’t stop pounding, my hair matted around my face, my mouth so dry I’m not sure it’s ever seen moisture.

I finally get up and turn to face him, this man who makes me feel like no other. I expect to see him soft, flaccid, secretly relishing the opportunity to coax him back to life.

But there’s no need.

He’s already hard.

*

Lynna arrives by herself a little past nine in the morning. Thankfully that was more than enough time to scoop up random clothes and underwear around the place and generally detox the prevalent sense of ‘someone’s been at it.’ If this warehouse was Google Maps last night, we were Dora the Explorer. No room was safe from our sexual escapades.

We’re seated at a round table in the small kitchen downstairs, Lynna on one side, Ethan and me on the other, three Starbucks cups holding semi-cold coffee between us.

“It’s very simple,” Lynna is saying. “I want to find Joseph, and I want to arrest him.”

“My father’s not going to just hold his hands out,” I warn.

Lynna taps the melamine table. She doesn’t look like she’s slept in a while. “We have more than enough evidence to hold him, thanks to you. As long as we can get that evidence to the right people, we’re good to go.”

She’s making it sound so easy, but I know this is going to be a hard fight.

I shift in the chair, sensations awakening from last night at the tender space between my legs.

Ethan’s remained quiet, leaving it to us females to hash it out.

“You said you think your former mentor’s safe to trust?” I query.

Lynna rocks forward. “He’s a solid guy, absolutely incorruptible given his God-fearing ways. I know he’ll come through.”

“You want to contact him?”

“I can’t do that until we know where Joseph is, because we have to be ready to move as soon as the out-of-state agents arrive. It’s the one piece of the puzzle we need and do not have.”

“His location.”

“Right,” she confirms, easing back.

Ethan speaks. I think all the sex last night has calmed him down, quelled the fire, in a way. “How do you think one would go about finding him, Agent?”

I answer instead. “I’m aware of all his known hangouts, everywhere he frequents better than anyone. If anyone can find him, it’s me.”

Ethan pushes himself back in his chair, that fire flaring right back up. “You can’t be serious. We can’t go out there looking for him.” He points in the direction of the front door. “You do know what’s out there, right?”

“People trying to kill us, bad guys, the boogeyman, baba yaga… Yes, I know, but this has to be done. I can’t let him get away with what he’s done.”

But Ethan’s not finished. He stands, hands planted down on the table. “So let them go,” he says, jerking his head towards Lynna. “They’re trained to deal with this kind of thing.”

He’s right, but we’re stretched thin as it is and I know Mark and Lynna would stand out too much. I know how to get around these places, all the ins and outs. Explaining it to the others would take too long.

“Maybe you should listen to him,” says Lynna. “You’ve done enough. We can’t ask for more.”

I firm my tone of voice. “You don’t need to ask,” I say, directing my gaze at Ethan, “because I’m doing it, and I’m doing it alone.”

“No way,” the both of them say in tandem.

“This isn’t time for that hero, fall-on-your-sword bullshit,” says Ethan. “Not after we’ve come this far. If you’re doing this, and I’m pretty sure not hell nor high water is going to stop you, I’m coming.” He looks at Lynna. “You going to join this love-in, or you got better places to be?”

Lynna smiles. “Oh, I think you two have proved you can handle yourselves. I’m going to make sure the rest of the pieces are in place, make sure everything’s ready to go when the time calls for it. It has to be done right. We can’t slip up, not even a little.”

She’s certainly right about that. This isn’t the sort of thing you get a second chance at. My father will be extra-vigilant now he knows I’m alive, though maybe we can use that to our advantage.

“Alright.” Lynna stands and hands me a burner. “Stay safe, okay? I don’t want our next visit to be at the city morgue.”

I take the phone. “Likewise.”

“You find Joseph, you call it in. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“And you,” Lynna eyeballs Ethan, “keep her safe, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replies.

Lynna shares a final look between us before leaving.

Ethan comes around to my side when the front door closes. “You are absolutely, one-hundred-percent sure about this? We’d be headed straight into the viper’s nest.”

I smile. “But that’s the best place to find a viper.”

*

The car Lynna provided smells like cancer. I can practically feel the nicotine seeping into my skin through the leather. The backseat’s completely taken up with old clothes that add to the stench. I really hate to think where, and who, she procured it from.

Ethan’s got the window down as he drives. “I really hope we find your father soon. I’m starting to lose my sense of smell here.”

It’s been a long day already. We started with the houses, being sure to keep a safe distance with baseball caps in place.

Nothing.

We tried Dad’s favorite restaurants next, but again, there was no sign of his entourage.

“Think,” says Ethan. “Where would he go to ground if he knew the heat was on him?”

I rack my brain, my poor, still-recovering brain that continues to pulse with phantom pains. “You know, there was this old bar downtown, Dirty Peter’s? Dirty Paul’s? It looks like a real hole-in-the-wall dive bar inside, but there’s this secret area out back, from prohibition and all, that’s like another world. My father used to take me there sometimes when I was little, had the bartender make me a Shirley Temple while he talked business.”

“Fond memories?”

“He was a good father—during the precious little time we spent together.”

“And you’re really prepared to send him to prison?”

It’s something I’ve been wrangling with internally over the last forty-eight hours. The short answer is ‘no,’ because no child wants to do that to their own parent, their own flesh and blood. But the deeper I delved into my father’s dealings, the more that veil was drawn back, the more I realized I’d been living with a monster. “Yes,” I reply. “He has to be stopped.”

“Alright. You know where this Dirty Pablo’s is?”

“Dirty Paul’s,” I correct, “and yes. Take a left.”

*

It’s mid-afternoon and the streets are fairly deserted. Ethan finds a spot on the opposite side of the road from the entrance to the bar and parks. He looks across through the passenger window. “Anything?”

“We always parked around back, but it’s a private lot. We can’t get in, even see in.”

“So we wait. See if anyone comes out.”

“Yes.”

We keep a close watch on the entrance to the bar, but so far only two men have entered, none of which I know. One man walked out, though ‘stumbled out’ might be a better way to phrase it. He almost got flattened by a passing bus before hobbling his way across the road shouting about the Second Coming.

Two hours in and I’m not sure this was a great idea. There are countless places my father could be. He might not even be in the city anymore, even if my gut tells me he is.

“Do you regret this?” I ask Ethan, rubbing the center console. The plastic’s worn out there, which means whoever owned this car probably spent quite a while staking places out in it too.

“Regret what?” His eyes are full of interest.

“Meeting me, getting caught up in all of… this.”

He reaches across to my thigh. “Not for a moment. Not if an entire army was coming down on top of us. Not if I died today.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true. I’m glad I met you, even if it was a little unfair given the whole head-injury thing.”

I laugh. “Because I couldn’t go anywhere, or because I couldn’t talk back?”

“On both accounts I’d say I was pretty lucky, though being turned down isn’t really my deal, you know.”

I roll my eyes. “Wow. Listen to you, Mr. Dating God. And here I was thinking you were so humble.”

His fingers dance in the air. “Mere illusion.”

“To what?”

He grabs his dick. “The main course.” He looks past me, letting go. “Hey, you know that guy?”

I look out the window and jump back in my seat.

It’s Dimitri, standing outside the entrance of the bar in his prized leather jacket trying to light a smoke. Given his other arm’s in a sling, however, it’s proving to be quite an ordeal for him.

“Motherfucker!” I hear him yell when the lighter doesn’t catch.

He tries again and finally gets it to work, sucking on the cigarette like it’s the last one earth.

“It’s the guy from the motel, isn’t it?”

“Dimitri,” I reply. “One of them. Fredek must be inside.”

“And your father?”

It’s hard to tell, though usually they followed my father everywhere he went, were his right-hand men when they weren’t tasked to looking after me.

I watch Dimitri not sure whether I should be sorry or relived he survived the shot.

Dimitri puffs out smoke, flicking the cigarette ash to the pavement and looking up at the sky. Even as a kid I remembered him going through three, four packs a day. Along with my father’s habit, I’m surprised my own lungs don’t look like honeycomb by now.

I watch him, reminded of better times, of the secret birthday party Dimitri and Fredek organized for me and my friends when I was eleven and Dad was out of town. Dimitri had tried to make me a Barbie cake but it had ended up looking like a pink Swamp Thing instead. But I had fun. It felt like I was a real kid with real friends. I remembered thinking, ‘This is what it feels like to be normal, to have a normal family.’

Another figure emerges from the front of Dirty Paul’s—Fredek.

Speak of the devil.

He pulls up beside Dimitri and asks him for a smoke. There’s a bit of back and forth before Dimitri reluctantly hands one over, passing the lighter along with it.

Fredek says something about his arm and Dimitri tells him to fuck off, or at least I imagine that’s the gist of it. I can almost smell the nicotine, or maybe it’s just the interior of the car again.

“Is that—”

“Yes,” I reply, “that’s Fredek.”

A large truck passes by, obscuring our view for a moment.

When it clears, Fredek is looking directly at us.

He squints, lowering his head, before flicking the cigarette away.

I know immediately we’ve been seen.

Ethan’s already starting the car when Fredek reaches for his piece, lining it up and starting to cross the road.

“Go,” I say calmly.

Ethan drops the handbrake as the first round is fired, but it hits a passing car.

“Go!” I say with a bit more urgency, but the car stalls, the engine grumbling to a sudden stop.

Ethan tries to turn it over again, but it’s taking it’s sweet time to start.

Two more shots, pinging into the trunk.

My body’s tight. I see Dimitri trying to get his gun out.

Fredek’s halfway across the road now, closing the gap between us fast and firing at will.

The engine kicks over. “Got it!” shouts Ethan, shifting to drive us out.

The moment we pull out Fredek brings two hands up and fires non-stop, bullets dinging into the bodywork, one sent skimming across the roof.

Another horn blast as we cut a car off, the driver yelling something beside us.

I’m sure Fredek is yelling something, his face lit up by the muzzle flash.

He’s so close.

“Go!” I yell, and Ethan plants his foot, the car snaking around a sedan in front of us and gunning through a red light.

Ethan runs a hand through his hair, still hard on the accelerator. “Jesus, that was close.”

But I’ve gone cold, my hands moving down to my side.

He looks across to me. “What? What is it?”

I see the bullet hole next to the door handle beside me, follow its path.

Oh no.

I bring my fingers up wet with blood.

“Shit,” says Ethan, swerving, another horn blast.

And then everything simply washes away.

I’m sent back to the fog.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

ETHAN

I’m doing my best to drive with one hand and apply pressure to Sofia’s wound with the other, but it’s clear she needs medical attention as soon as possible. “We’ve got to get you to a hospital.”

She’s shaking her head, her forehead sweaty. “No. We can’t. We have to go back to the safehouse.”

The safehouse is five minutes away. I remember finding a fairly extensive first-aid kit in the cupboard downstairs, but it’s nothing compared to the facilities of a hospital, though she does have a point. Hospitals are the first place they’ll look.

“Alright,” I say, the car picking up speed., “I’ll do what I can, but if it’s anything serious we’re going to a hospital regardless, deal?”

She nods, her eyes fluttering closed and open. She’s paler than normal but otherwise okay. “Okay.”

“Hold on,” I tell her. “We’re almost there.”

I manage to keep her conscious until we arrive, carrying her inside.

I sweep the kitchen table clean and help her up onto it, lying her down and running across to the cupboard for the kit.

“I’m really sick of getting shot,” she says, head rolling to the side.

I find the scissors in the kit and use them to cut open her top, examining the site of the wound. “Well?” she asks, gritting her teeth.

I switch my cell to flashlight mode and hold it up to better examine the area. “You’re lucky. Very fucking lucky,” I tell her. “It hasn’t hit anything vital, buried itself nicely into the soft tissue, but it’s still going to hurt like hell getting it out.”

Her hands splay out, gripping the sides of the table, her chest lifting up and down.

I find a pair of tweezers in the kit, sterilizing alcohol. She winces hard when I apply it.

I can’t help shaking my head as I work out how best to approach this. I’m looking down at the wound and my mood swings to anger. “How could you be so reckless?” I tell her. “I told you this wasn’t a good fucking idea!” I don’t know why I’m shouting. I know how to keep my cool in front of a patient.

But this is no regular patient, is it?

No, nothing about this is regular.

A tear runs out from the corner of her eye. “Why are you shouting at me?” she pleads, that single tear becoming a torrent. “Ethan?”

“Because… because…” My heart rate is elevated, my body still trying to dump the adrenaline that has been keeping us going these last few days. “Because I fucking love you, okay? I love you and I can’t lose you, not now, not after everything.”

She looks up to the ceiling breathing hard, her eyes turning towards me.

“I know,” I babble, lost in it now. “I know it’s too soon to be feeling that way, but, hell…”

She lifts herself from the table and kisses me, hard, the salty taste of her tears on her lips, her skin clammy. She breaks away still holding my face, but she’s smiling. “It’s not too soon, you idiot.”

Her head drops back and she winces in pain, her features pulling purse-string tight. “I felt it with you when I first woke up, when your voice brought me back from the dark.”

I nod. “I know.”

She looks down at her side. “Now, rom-com aside, can you please get this bullet out of me?”

I’m about to ask her if she can handle it, the pain, but I know she can. I know she’s much stronger than I ever gave her credit for. She’s not the damsel in distress I thought she was. “Hold tight,” I tell her. “I’m going to be as quick as I can, but I need to be sure, okay. Curse, scream, do whatever you have to.”

She grips my arm tight. “Go.”

*

The bullet itself couldn’t have been in a better spot, but there was some tissue damage and swelling around the entry point. The cheap stitching kit in the first-aid box wasn’t exactly A-grade material, but it did the job—albeit a rough one.

I was sure Sofia would pass out at some stage, but she held on, clenching her teeth and bearing it like a trooper. In the Army I’d had grown man calling for Mommy with lesser wounds.

I set her up on the old couch in the corner of the kitchenette, wrapping the wound and giving her a big-ass dose of pain meds from what I have to admit is a pretty darn extensive first-aid kit. I wouldn’t have been half surprised to find an EKG machine in there somewhere.

But I know I’ll need to keep a close eye on her. She was extremely lucky, but that doesn’t mean she’s out of the woods yet.

I add another blanket and crouch down beside the couch. She’s still sweaty, looks like a drugged-up dance festival drop-out, but there’s color coming back. I hate seeing her in pain like this. It’s breaking me.

And after everything you’ve seen, a simple bullet wound would do it?

I know how crazy that seems, but it’s funny how you think when it’s someone you know.

Someone you love.

She reaches for my hand and squeezes it, pulling it tight to the blanket. “These are some gooooood drugs you’ve got here.”

I give a short laugh. “You can thank Mark and Lynna for that,” I reply. “They really kitted this place out.”

She closes her eyes, her words slurred. “I could totally have sex with you right now.”

“I don’t know if that would be the best idea, but I’m going to stay right here regardless.”

“Thank you,” she says with a little smile, her face slackening with sleep.

*

I spend the next couple of hours monitoring her closely. She wakes once or twice before drifting back to sleep. She looks good, I think, better than expected given what she’s been through.

I’m surprised when I come back into the room to find her awake, sitting up on the couch, her hand loosely holding her side.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Getting up.”

She stands before I can stop her, wincing and bent, but managing to hobble towards me. “Huh, not so bad.”

“You really shouldn’t—”

But she stretches out, yawning before pulling in tight with pain again. “Damn that stings.”

I try to guide her back to the couch, but she won’t have it, slapping my hand away. “I’m fine, Ethan. We need to get back to work.”

Work?

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “You can’t seriously be thinking about looking for your father, still.”

But I know that resolve in her eyes now when I see it.

“It came to me,” she says, “while I was sleeping. There’s this beach house he liked to go to, completely off the books. He proposed to my mother there, kept it as a sort of secret getaway. I only went there once or twice, but I think I know where it is. I think I can direct us there.”

Arguing with her is pointless, but I’m not doing this alone again. “We’re calling Mark and Lynna first.”

Sofia nods. “Okay.”

I call the FBI agents, keeping the phone on speaker so we can both hear. Lynna sounds relieved more than anything. They tell us they heard there was a shoot-out, figured we were involved. That relief turns to concern when I tell them Sofia’s been injured. I don’t say ‘shot,’ instead keeping the details scant.

After assuring them she’s okay, they agree to pick us up and follow up on this beach house lead of Sofia’s. “We’ve got nothing else, sorry,” confesses Mark. “Wherever Joseph is, he’s not in the city.”

I dose Sofia up again, warning her we have to regulate her meds, especially considering her head. “Are you sure you want to come? We can stay here.”

“I’m the only one who knows the way,” she says. “I can’t point it out on a map, but if we’re driving…”

I breathe in. “Alright, but no more superhero antics, okay? We stay put and let the agents do the work.”

She raises her hands. “Fine by me. Any more bullet holes and I’ll start to look like Swiss cheese.”

I know she’s joking, but the thought of her being shot again is enough to cause a cold chill to sweep through me. I dropped my guard, let her get shot a second time. I’m not going to let it happen a third.

*

It’s just like old times—Mark and Lynna up front, Sofia and me in the back—as we drive through the night.

I can tell Sofia’s struggling but doing her best not to let it show. I don’t think she’s fooled Lynna either; she keeps eyeing us in the rear-view.

An hour later we pull up in a dark suburban street, the sound of the ocean audible even though our windows are up. It’s not the kind of place I’d imagine a Russian gangster to be hiding out at all, but then Sofia said this house was off the books, a special hideaway.

Sofia points out the window. “That’s the one. Seventy-six.”

The house itself is an old bungalow, far from the extravagance I expected. In many ways, it’s the perfect place to hide out. There are lights on, a dark SUV parked in the garage down the side.

Mark takes out a set of binoculars from the glovebox.

“You got a fix on those plates?” Lynna asks.

Mark places the binoculars down and checks something on his phone. “It’s him.”

“How can you be sure he’s inside?” I add.

As if to answer my question, the front door opens and Sofia draws in a tight breath. I know immediately it’s Joseph. He stands there in slacks and a simple cotton shirt, the glow of a lit cigarette turning on and off like a miniature beacon.

He’s out there less than thirty seconds before heading back inside.

Mark drops the binoculars. “Confirmed. It’s him.”

Lynna’s already tapping away on her phone. “I’m contacting my mentor right now we have Joseph’s location.”

Sofia shares a hopeful look with me.

The dialogue is brief between Lynna and this mentor of hers.

She hangs up, swiveling around in her seat to address us. “He’s going to send agents to handle the arrest within the hour.”

“A bird?” asks Mark, referring to a helicopter.

Lynna nods with confirmation. “Until then, all we have to do is keep him here or follow him if he tries to leave, but if you ask me, he’s looking pretty damn cozy.”

I look out the window at the house, a shadow passing by one of the front windows. It’s all looking a little—

There’s a tap on Lynna’s window.

Even in the poor light I can tell it’s Fredek. He’s got a gun pointed to the window.

Mark goes to get out his weapon but there’s a tap against his window, Dimitri standing there smiling with his own gun raised.

And that’s not all. There are five, six more men surrounding the car now, all with weapons.

No one says it, but I know what we’re all thinking.

Fuck.

Fredek taps the glass again, motioning for Lynna to wind down the window.

“Stay calm,” Lynna whispers, before complying.

Fredek leans in, winking at Sofia in the back. “I’m going to need you all to come inside.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

SOFIA

There’s no choice in the matter. Mark and Lynna hand over their weapons.

We’re herded towards the house. I try to keep Ethan behind me, to shield him, but he jumps in front regardless.

My wound is aching, a deep pulsing pain, and that’s to say nothing for my head, which seems to be throbbing in sympathy.

You’re a sad state of affairs, aren’t you, Sof? I tell myself.

The odd thing is, I’m reasonably composed. I don’t know if this is something I’ve taught myself, or maybe I’m simply immune to fear at this point, but I’m not worried even though I’m pretty sure we’re marching to our deaths here.

My suspicion is confirmed when we reach the basement of the beach house.

My father waits there in what is a chilling tableau. There’s drop-cloth spread underfoot to protect the hardwood floors, and I’m pretty sure it’s not because they’re looking to redecorate.

Lynna and Mark share a look, but if they’re planning something they’ve got to know we’re sorely outnumbered here.

Numbers aside, I’m not intending to go down without a fight, and I’m pretty sure Ethan’s in the same boat. It feels nice in a way, selfish that someone would be prepared to give their life for yours, but I don’t want him to.

I don’t want anyone to die.

Even my father.

He stands there with his hands in front of him and looks more sad than excited. Perhaps he hoped I wouldn’t be found. Still, his expression does nothing to stop my rising anger.

I step forward, two goons closing in each side of my father. “Why?” I ask him. “I’m your daughter. Your flesh and blood.”

He takes a step towards me, shaking his head. His eyes find mine but they’re as cold as the ocean outside. The hint of old tattoos can be seen under his collar, a scar from a knife fight cutting across his left cheek. “Do you think I want this, Sofia?”

“Yes!” I shout. “I’ve been shot, shot at, and for what?” I spin around pointing at Fredek and Dimitri. “How could you?”

They’re expressionless.

I’m hoping this outrage might buy some time, anything, but an hour’s a long time to wait for the cavalry.

“Sofia,” starts my father, his voice calm and measured, as always. That was one thing I always admired about my father. He didn’t shout or gesticulate like the Italians. He kept cool at all times. “You betrayed us. You betrayed me. You would have happily burned this family to the ground, your own flesh and blood, as you said it. You know the old laws don’t allow for that, for any sign of mercy. Betrayal is the biggest sin. It has to be punished accordingly.”

I’m doing my best to hold back tears, emotion coming out of nowhere to grip me tight. “You can stop this.”

He breathes in, firming up and standing straighter. “For this betrayal, doch, my child, I will feel no remorse, nor for any of your friends here. Their involvement has sealed their fate.”

I’m gritting my teeth so hard my jaw hurts, but I can’t find a suitable reply, a way to tell him I don’t believe a word from his mouth.

I don’t need to.

“Now!” shouts Lynna behind me.

I turn and see her elbow Dimitri in the head, hard enough to send him into the wall. At the same time Mark lunges for Fredek, pinning him into the floor as they both wrestle for his gun.

The goon closest to my father draws his weapon, but Lynna’s managed to free Dimitri’s gun. She shoots the goon to the left of my father twice in the chest.

The goon on the right fires at Mark, but he pulls Fredek in front of him to take the brunt of the bullets.

Adrenaline floods my system.

My father, slow to react until now, sees me coming.

I lunge for him thankful the pain meds are still working. He goes to deflect me, but with a scream I take hold of his neck and swing around behind him, taking the gun I know he always keeps down his pants and planting it hard into the square of his back.

He jerks forward with his hands above his head. “Easy!” he shouts.

I take in the scene.

Ethan is moving to Mark for cover, blood running from Fredek’s mouth. Lynna has Dimitri, but two more goons have come down the stairs, entering the room with guns raised.

The goon that was to the right of my father has turned his gun on me, but I swivel back into the corner, holding my father in front of me. “Don’t!” I shout, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. “Another step and I’ll put one right through him.”

It’s tense, but everyone stops, guns shifting, no one quite knowing where to aim or what to do.

I can see Ethan crouching behind Mark, ready to move, but this is my mess. I have to be the one to clean it up.

“Sofia?” asks Lynna, knowing how volatile the situation is.

I jerk my head towards the bottom of the stairs. “You two,” I say, nodding to the goon to the right of my father. “And you. Drop your weapons… now.”

When they don’t move accordingly, I bring the gun to the side of Dad’s head, holding it there as hard as I can. “Drop. Your. Weapons!” I bellow.

My father laughs. “You won’t kill me, child.”

No one’s doing a damn thing.

I’ve had enough.

I bring the gun down to the space behind my father’s knee and fire once, a terrible scream of pain following, fragments of bone exploding outwards as he collapses to the side.

I place the tip of the gun back against his head. “Drop them!”

That does the trick, my father nodding and the three goons slowly lowering their weapons to the floor. Mark and Lynna go about scooping them up, handing one to Ethan, who comes around to help cover.

My father’s still screaming in pain. “You bitch!” he cries in Russian. “You fucking bitch!”

I ignore it and march him to the center of the room, fishing in his pocket for his cell and tossing it to Lynna. “Here. Call it in.”

She nods and dials.

I might have been calm before, but my heart’s thumping now.

Conveniently, there are heavy-duty cable ties in the corner of the room along with a camcorder and an assortment of tools and instruments that look like they’re seen their share of action. I’m just thankful no one got a chance to use them on us.

Mark, Ethan, and Lynna see to tying up the others. I zip my father’s wrists tight and fold him down into the corner.

His eyes are wide and manic, drool dripping from the corner of his mouth. His composure is lost.

He continues to curse and blubber in broken Russian. I find an old cloth and stuff it into his mouth. “No more,” I tell him. “I’m done with you.”

Mark stands, checking the weapon in his hands. “I’m going to head upstairs, make sure we don’t have any more company.”

“I’ll cover you,” says Ethan, drawing in behind him and looking back at me. And what is it I see there as he looks at me—surprise, pride? He’s gone before I can work it out.

It’s another twenty minutes before the FBI agents Lynna called arrive. I keep a tight grip on my father’s gun in case they’re dirty, but it soon becomes clear they’re on our side. In no time they’ve bundled off the goons, Dimitri spitting at my feet as he’s lead away, Fredek unable to do anything at all considering, well, he’s dead. In many ways, my father got off easy.

Soon the place is swarming with paramedics and agents, police…

“You must feel right at home,” I tell Ethan as he comes out onto the street. A large crowd has gathered around the house, cordoned off by the local cops.

Ethan’s face alternates between red and blue as he stands there. “Honestly? I just want to get as far away from here as possible.”

I tuck myself into his chest. “You and me both.”

I see them leading my father away, literally dragging him to the back of an ambulance. He’s fed inside and the doors closed, the sirens coming on and a police car swinging in behind it.

I watch the ambulance moving through the crowd and I can’t stop the flood of tears that follows.

I cry against Ethan’s chest until I can’t summon a single tear more. He holds me there, tells me to let it all out.

It’s strange, but I don’t think I ever prepared myself for the fact I’d be the one to send my father to prison. It hurts to have that role, to have played that part, even if it was the right thing to do.

I bring my hand down to my side, wincing at the warmth there.

Ethan holds me back. “What is it?” His hand runs under my shirt. “Shit. The stitches have come open. He looks around, spotting a paramedic coming out of the house. “Hey, you!”

I’m led to the back of an ambulance and helped up onto a stretcher, Ethan helping close the rear doors and thumping the window leading to the cab.

He rides with me to the hospital, a ride that seems excruciatingly slow now the meds are staring to wear off, though a quick injection puts me back in La La Land. It’s enough to put me completely out of reality until I wake in a new bed, with bright lights and the familiar smell of bleach ever-present.

“There she is.”

My eyes focus on that voice, the one that brought me back so long ago now, the voice I love.

Ethan’s standing beside my hospital bed smiling, his hand in mine. “Don’t worry. You tore your wound open, but they’ve stitched it back up good as new. You’re going to be a bit groggy, but the discharge papers are ready if you want to go home.

“More than anything,” I smile back.

*

It takes another hour for me to be discharged completely. Ethan leads me into the elevator and punches in the roof.

I laugh. “I don’t know if I’m in the mood for sightseeing right about now. Can’t we just go home?”

The doors ping open and he smiles. “We are.”

An FBI helicopter is waiting there on the rooftop helipad, Mark and Lynna standing beside it, the side door wide.

Ethan holds my head down, the two of us crouching against the rotor wash, my hair flapping wildly around my head as he helps me up into the chopper.

Mark and Lynna get in, Lynna sliding the door closed behind her and handing me a headset. I put it on and hear her voice.

“How are you feeling?”

I give her the thumbs up.

“Alright then,” she smiles. “Let’s get this bird in the sky and the hell out of here.”

EPILOGUE

FIVE YEARS LATER

SOFIA

I place the wad of mail on the outdoor table, huffing as I seat myself back in my chair.

Vanessa laughs, handing me a non-alcoholic cider. “You sure you should be doing that in your… condition?”

I give her an epic eye-roll. “I’m pregnant, not an invalid.”

“Not yet,” she laughs, taking a swig and leaning back in her chair.

Ahead, Ethan’s playing with Vanessa—well, Vanessa Junior, now two and the absolute light of our lives, though she’s about to get a rude shock when her baby brother arrives.

When we told Vanessa we planned to name our daughter after her, she played it off at first, joking, but I think we both knew what it meant to her, especially after she found out she couldn’t have children of her own.

Technically, we aren’t supposed to have visitors out here at all, but Ethan pressed Mark and Lynna to make one exception… not that Vanessa didn’t complain about trekking halfway across the country to get here.

“So this is Tamanass,” she’d said, surveying the backyard when she arrived, though it’s more open forest than backyard, the kind of beautiful Oregon green you simply don’t get anywhere else.

I have to admit, I was skeptical when Mark and Lynna first suggested this place. I’d never even been to this part of America before, never put on a pair of hiking boots, but slowly the quiet, subdued pace of the place has won us over. It’s a small, tight-knit community, a family of a different kind… and a long way from the reach of my father’s friends.

In front of us, Vanessa Junior stumbles over a toy block and goes face first into the ground. She stops and picks herself up, looking to Ethan for how to react. I’m waiting for the waterworks, but when none of us react she simply shrugs and smiles, running off.

“I don’t know where she gets her energy,” Vanessa Senior remarks.

I eye Ethan, the incredible father he’s become given what was a largely unplanned pregnancy—well, the first was. I look at him and can’t imagine life with anyone else. It’s inconceivable. “I think I do,” I reply, smiling at the man who never seems to be short of energy, even when I look like an Indian elephant.

Sex by the fire, sex outside in the woods with the animals calling… You don’t get that in a big city.

Ethan was a bit more open to the idea of moving out here. I think he was already looking for a change of pace, a move away from the constant noise and hustle of the city. He’s still a paramedic, though his shifts are shorter and tend to focus around dehydrated hikers and idiot hunters shooting each other these days—yes, really. I didn’t think it was possible for him to be any fitter, but he’s so sculpted and cut now I’m not sure if he’s actually more rock than man.

Better still, we go for walks as a family, go down to the lake… Little Vanessa loves animals, including Dodger the husky who came with the house. It’s no Montello mansion, but there’s more love and caring here in a single square inch than anything I’ve known.

Ethan scoops Vanessa Junior up, bringing her over in a squirming bundle of laughter and giggles. Her bright blonde ringlets were a surprise to us both, but those big blue eyes are all Ethan.

“What are you ladies conspiring at over here?” Ethan asks, handing Vanessa over to Vanessa, who pulls her tight to her chest, kissing the side of her head.

“Nothing.” I smile, my hands on my belly and the new life growing there.

Ethan spots the large yellow envelope on top of the pile, picking it up. “What’s this?”

I shrug, but we both know it’s been forwarded from the FBI, sent under a pseudonym. “No idea. Open it up if you like.”

He opens the larger envelope and takes out a smaller one, opening it and reading, his expression darkening.

I sit upright, which is kind of difficult when you’re carrying another human being. No one mentioned that at pre-natal or the, you know, must-pee-every-minute-because-my-bladder-is-now-a-trampoline thing.

Even Vanessa stops.

“Ethan?” I ask.

“It’s a letter from the parole office. Your father’s appeal has been denied. He won’t be eligible for another five years.”

I relax, exhaling, another weight lifted from my shoulders. I don’t think my father’s ever getting out of prison, and that’s what I want… in some ways.

Ethan places the letter down, sitting beside me, his giant hand spanning out over my belly. I never feel as reassured as when he touches me, when I know I’m safe in his arms. “Has he responded to the letter you sent him a couple of months ago, when Lynna told you he was first up for parole?”

I shake my head. “No.”

That was disappointing, but not surprising. Making peace doesn’t seem like it’s high on my father’s agenda. If I’m brutally honest with myself, I still love him. I remember the good times, the times he was that doting dad, but having him in prison is safest for everyone. I know how he holds grudges. It’s built into him, deep in his programming. He won’t change and I doubt he’ll ever be part of our lives again. I’ve made peace with that, just like I’ve made peace with no longer having any contact with Ally.

Ethan scoops Vanessa Junior up, holding her upside down and heading inside. “Well, Pumpkin, how about we get these burgers on the grill, yeah?”

She squeals. “Burgers! Burgers!” pronouncing it ‘bu-gas, bu-gas!’

I watch them go.

“Everything okay?” asks Vanessa.

I smile back at her. “Couldn’t be better.”

And it couldn’t. The whole amnesia thing seems like a million years ago. The helicopter took us that day to Washington, what Lynna assured us was a safe place to hide out while the dust from my father’s arrest settled. We were bounced from safehouse to safehouse for weeks, forced to stay indoors and, well, make our own entertainment, which wasn’t hard. Not a single square of those safehouses was safe from our sexual adventures.

We’re far from Montello territory here, but there’s always that lingering fear, small as it is, we’re not beyond their reach.

That woman I once was? So concerned with designer fashion and looking good, so superficial in many ways, I left her behind too. That was no mean feat, but I didn’t want any of that life. I wanted to scrub it clean and start fresh.

Ethan’s been here the whole time easing me through it, even when I’d wake up screaming, reaching for my head, trying to escape my past. He was there, always, watching me—my own personal guardian angel.

*

We say goodbye to Vanessa, promising we’ll meet up again soon.

I read Vanessa Junior her favorite book—Where’s the Green Sheep?—before tucking in Belle, one of those squeaky dog toys she’s become oddly attached to. It goes everywhere with her.

I let Ethan tuck her into bed, have his special one-on-one time with her. He doesn’t have a shift tomorrow, which means tonight is all ours once the kid’s asleep.

Another thing they don’t tell you about pregnancy? It makes you insanely horny.

I hear Ethan cut the water off in the shower and emerge out into the bedroom. I’m already waiting, naked, wet, beneath the covers.

He stands there with his hands on his hips, his cock growing, levitating before my eyes. “I take it I’m going to get lucky tonight?”

I nod slowly, smirking. “Oh, you’re going to get more than lucky, mister. You’re going to get the full package.”

He lifts the covers and slides in beside me, pulling me close, the hard length of his cock hot against the side of my leg. “The full wax and shine, huh?”

“Uh-huh,” I reply, leaning in to kiss him, relishing his soapy, clean body, the minty scent of his aftershave.

His hand runs down between my legs. “Are you we—” He stops. “Jesus.”

I grind up against his cock. “What can I say? You turn me on, even in this… condition.”

His free hand falls on my belly. “You’ve never looked more beautiful, baby.”

It takes some effort, but I manage to roll over on top of him, sinking over his length.

He groans with satisfaction and laughs, hands behind his head. “Perfect end to a perfect day.”

I draw all the way up, letting just the tip of him sit inside me. “It’s not over yet.”

I let my weight fall, taking him to the hilt and relishing the way his cock always seems to fit me just right. He shifts his hips up, doing his best to fuck from below, but I push him back down. “Ah-ah, mister, I’m driving here.”

He reaches up to grab my ass instead, levering himself from the bed to draw a nipple into his mouth. In this ‘condition,’ my nipples have become almost as sensitive as my clit.

I moan and throw my hair back, bearing down on him as best I can.

It doesn’t take us long to come, the lazy kind of sex that’s sometimes the best of all.

I roll off, onto my back. “That’s a start. How long before you’re good to go again?”

He looks down at his cock, still hard. “Just say the word.”

“Let me clean up first.”

I head to the bathroom and clean up, getting about five steps back into the bedroom before freezing on the spot.

Ethan gets up onto his elbows. “Sof?”

I look down between my legs, the wet spot on the carpet below I know isn’t from our little lovemaking sesh.

He sits up and looks down to the carpet. “It’s happening, isn’t it? Number two.”

I smile. “I think so.”

He gets out of bed and walks over, taking my face in both hands and planting a kiss on my lips. “Are you ready?”

I don’t think I’ve got much choice in the matter, but I nod and take his hand squeezing and there, in that moment, I remember his voice bringing me back from the deep, his silent vigil by my beside and I know, with all my heart, I’ve made the right choice. Ethan’s more than my husband, more than a father. He’s filled a part of my life I never knew was empty. My life may not have gone where I intended it to go, but I’m pretty sure it’s ended up exactly where it needs to be.

“With you by my side?” I reply. “I’m ready for anything.”

He smiles back. “Challenge accepted.”

HOT PANTS

Teagan Kade

* * * * *

Published by Teagan Kade

Edited by Sennah Tate

Copyright © 2019 by Teagan Kade

CHAPTER ONE

DEREK

A nudge, a giggle, and the smell of Love’s Baby Soft is in the air.

It’s morning, I think to myself.

Rubbing my eyes, I clear the last bit of sleep from them and try to focus on the two blurry figures before me.

Certainly, I can feel them, considering one is jerking on my cock, and the other is sucking on my nipples.

I focus my eyes in time to see the blonde—long, poker-straight hair; tiny, wasp-like waist; fake tits for days—unlock her jaw and wrap her bloated DSLs around the entirety of my cock and balls.

Impressive, I think, while scrambling through my mind to remember her name. Jenny? Janey?

Whatever. It doesn’t matter.

I look to my right and see the brunette—short, thick, curly hair, full hips, aquiline features—position her pussy on my fingers, and using them as a dildo, rub them on her clit until her warm release coats them completely.

Most impressive, I think again, remembering—for some reason—that the brunette’s name is Claudia, and that I picked the two of them up at Brady’s Bar last night when they were having a 2-for-1 special.

Apparently, the liquor wasn’t the only thing that was 2-for-1.

Such is my life—a fucking Buzzfeed article come to life.

But when you’re a firefighter, and have been for many years, it’s hard to get used to any other life, not that I’d want to.

I come from a long line of them. My grandfather, father, two uncles, and most of my cousins are all on the job—I’m expected to follow in some pretty remarkable footsteps accordingly.

Being on the job, helping people, playing the hero… That’s all well and good, but what I really love are all the added perks. Namely, the prime-cut tenderloin pussy I’m enjoying right now.

Prepped and ready for round two with Sugar and Spice—spitting on my long, thick cock; flipping Claudia over and spreading her wide; tying back Janey’s hair so she can take my load on her face—the fire alarm blares, loudly, in my ears.

Total clamoring and chaos are all around me as the boys run out of the station and onto the truck. Complementing the chaos is the booming sound of Chief McAllister’s voice as he hollers for the crew to get on the truck.

“Let’s fucking go!” McAllister roars. “Up ’n’ at ’em! Get your panties on! We’ve got a real emergency here, girls!”

I leap to my feet and start sliding my uniform on to the coos of disappointment from my two devils in disguise.

“Are you coming back, Derek?” Claudia asks in that simpering, babyish tone only those bar broads seem to know.

I hesitate, keep my back to the bed so neither she nor Jane can see my eyes rolling all the way to the back of my fucking head.

Few things annoy me more than that voice, especially on these hose chasers.

She repeats the question, this time with a more insistent tone, and I gruffly answer, “Yeah, eventually… if these people don’t burn to fucking death.”

Jane sighs. “When can we expect you?”

Jesus.

I glare at her intently. “I don’t know. Just don’t be here when I get back,” I grumble as I grab my jacket and fly down the stairs, convinced I’m going to be the last one on the truck, and, thus, the butt of countless jokes from my brothers-in-arms.

Sure enough, I am the last to get on the truck, the snorts of derision, and the Chief muttering, “How swell of you to show up today, Derek,” under his breath greet me as I take my seat.

Mike decides he’s going to kick off the shit-talk. “Ya did it again, Ricky,” he says in his thick Brooklyn accent that’s one of a kind in the Los Angeles Fire Department. “How da fuck did ya get two broads in the house, man? And how did you convince them to smell ya ass and everyone else’s?”

Tim, a Sacramento native, snorts in agreement. “You need to share your conquests, brother,” he says, “since you have so fuckin’ many.”

I brush it off and focus on the task at hand. “Where’s the heat?” I ask.

“I dunno. Somewhere in this town called Whittier,” says Mike.

“We should really come up with a game plan,” adds Tim.

I shrug, knowing no matter what the circumstance, I’ll be able to handle whatever comes my way. I always do.

“Aye? Aye! Wassamatta, Ricky? You gone mute or something?” asks Mike, ready to goad me on. “Whaddaya think, you know everything? Mr. Legacy Kid got a promotion here that he still didn’t accept, and now he knows it all?”

Tim looks at me incredulously. “You got a promotion, dude?”

I shrug again. “It’s just an offer, man,” I say, correcting him. “I don’t know if I’m going to take it or not.”

We pull up to the house—a small ranch amid other similarly styled ranches, so it doesn’t particularly stand out save for the fact a corner of it’s on fire.

One by one we jump out of the truck. I take a look at the fire, and I realize that while there’s a car in front—an equally-modest minivan–there’s no one standing outside or near the house.

People are trapped inside, I think to myself, the familiar pull of panic tugging at my chest.

A second later my head kicks into action. “Tim, get the hose off the truck and start tackling it from the front. Mikey, concentrate your efforts on that spot next to the windows. All right?”

I barely have a chance to finish my sentence before I sprint to the back of the house to find a back door. I hear Mike caterwauling about how “fuckin’ nuts” I am, but hey, he’s from New York. He thinks everybody’s nuts.

I get the back door open with a single flying kick, and dart full speed into the house, hoping to find someone, anyone, alive, because the alternative is far too shitty to consider.

Smoke is billowing through the air, making it impossible to see more than a few inches in front of me. I stumble from room to room, squinting through the thick, graying air.

“Fire Department, call out!” I shout, coughing and wheezing—and cursing myself for making the rookie mistake of leaving my breathing apparatus behind—soldiering on, peering into every nook and cranny.

But each bed and chair turns up empty.

I hear the loud whooshing sound of water hitting the side of the house and realize my men are hard at work outside, fighting to contain the flames. Mikey is whooping and hollering in his thick Brooklyn accent, Tim is calling out names like a quarterback, and McAllister is putting the men in position to fight the fire effectively and quickly, with as little damage as possible.

I’m patting myself on the back for what a slick unit we’ve become.

Then I see her.

She’s curled up in the fetal position under a coffee table, her face ashen and fast turning blue. Her hair is mussed and sweaty, and sticking to her face, her eyes are closed, her pallid eyelids nearly translucent.

“Fuck!” I scream and run to her, hurling her up in my arms, racing through the rest of the house, desperate to make sure nothing and no one is left behind in this smoky death trap.

Satisfied she’s the first, and only, form of life in the house, I focus on getting us the fuck out of Dodge.

She doesn’t stir until I get all the way out of the house, and even then, she’s delirious, nearly delusional.

“What happened?” she murmurs, her eyes shifting below their lids.

“Fire,” I shout to be heard over the commotion. “But it’s alright. You’re gonna be okay. I got you. What’s your name?”

“Beth,” she murmurs drowsily.

“Alright, Beth. I’m Derek. I’m a firefighter and I’m getting you out of here. We’re gonna get you some help,” I say, my voice raising by several octaves.

Beth struggles, slightly, before speaking again. “No,” she says, “I don’t need a hospital. I’m fine. Please don’t send me to the hospital.”

I look at her curiously, deducing this is just a side effect of the oxygen deprivation. “Okay, I won’t send you to the hospital,” I say, playing along, “but I’m going to hand you over to some of my friends, okay? They’re going to take a look at you, make sure you’re okay, alright? Simple.”

I sprint to the front of the house, where the fire has largely been contained.

Beth looks at her house and, without another word, begins to sob softly.

“It’s okay,” I say gruffly. “You’re gonna be all right. You’re out, yeah? You can always get another house.”

McAllister, finally coming to the realization I need of a bit of assistance, radios for help. “I need a bus. West Wilson Lane in Whittier. Put some grease on it.”

Beth, sniffling and snorting from crying so hard, suddenly looks up at me. “Did you get the letter?” She reaches to a pocket on her blouse, but there’s nothing there.

Sure, she’s still delirious, I decide to entertain her, if briefly. “What letter’s that?”

I can hear sirens already.

Beth, realizing what’s coming, begins wailing furiously. “What the fuck? I said I don’t need to go to the hospital. Where’s the letter? Get the letter!” She’s hysterical now, slapping away at her pants, her top

I take her by the shoulders. “Calm down now, Beth. It’s going to be fine. You’re good.”

“I am not fucking good!” she yells, eyes wide and panicked.

I actually have to physically restrain her until the ambulance arrives, a menagerie of EMTs jumping out of the back and making their way over.

She struggles even more. I’m impressed by how strong she is, given her meager frame.

One of the EMTs slides up and takes her from me.

She socks him square in the nose.

As blood shoots out like a spigot from my colleague’s nose, I realize she’s serious about this letter—whatever it is, and whatever it means to her.

“Okay, look,” I say gruffly, and realize—too late—I need to be a little more understanding given the circumstances. “Beth, I’m not going to get anything out of that house for you unless you agree to go with my friends here and get looked at in the hospital. You need to be safe and alive. That’s not going to happen if you continue to make a scene out here. So, you go to the hospital and I go get what you want. Deal?”

Beth, tears in her eyes, nods furiously.

“Terrific. See? I knew you were reasonable. Now, tell me, Beth, what letter are you talking about, and where is it?” I ask.

“It’s a handwritten letter,” she says, allowing herself to be helped onto the gurney. “It must have fallen out of my pocket.”

She’s fading, a result of the inevitable adrenaline dump that comes from being rushed out of a raging fire, and the knowledge she’s now safe.

“All right,” I say. “I’ll go look for it. In the meantime, get yourself down to Cedars-Sinai and get completely checked out. I need to make sure you survive on me, alright, Beth?”

It’s important to keep addressing them by name, to reinforce it.

She nods and passes out before the ambulance doors close.

“Nice job, Derek,” McAllister says, slapping me on the shoulder. “Anyone else in there?”

Shit.

Remembering my promise, I race back into the house without another word, desperate to find the handwritten letter Beth was so desperate to save.

When I think about all the bullshit I put up with on a thankless job like this, only to get just a little pussy at the end of it, sometimes I amaze—and disgust—even myself.

CHAPTER TWO

ELISABETH

The corners of the oxygen mask dig into my face as I turn my head towards the door. Any minute now the doctor’s going to poke his head in and say I’m cleared to leave.

Any minute.

I should never have agreed to come to the hospital in the first place. I’m fine. I don’t need to be in this stupid bed, wearing this stupid damn mask.

A cough chooses this precise moment to scrape its way through my raw throat, contradicting me.

Okay, maybe I’m not entirely fine, but even the doctor said it was only minor smoke inhalation, nothing to get up in arms about.

I have better things to do than sit in this room doing literally nothing but suck air. I need to get home. I need to find my letter. The thought of that particular piece of correspondence going up in smoke has my mind reeling.

I sit up quickly, feeling renewed determination sweep through me. I shouldn’t be here. I need to go find my letter.

The moment my head leaves the pillow, though, the world tilts around me, and nausea pulls me back towards the firm comfort of the bed.

I groan, kicking my feet in my best imitation of a tantrum—what I can muster anyway. My only hope now is that the fireman who pulled me out actually managed to find it. If not…

I shudder at the thought.

If not, then my only communication with my mother has just been burned to ash along with my living room.

Seven years. Seven years without a word and now, what little information I have might be gone.

I close my eyes tightly, trying my best to bring images of the letter to mind, to remember the exact words she wrote. My head swims from the effort, the world swaying even as I lie still.

It’s no use. The words, like the letter itself, are lost to me. All I can recall is the gist, the horrible and overwhelming message.

My mother is sick.

My mother is dying.

She needs me.

Tears sting my eyes at the thought. I put what little willpower I can muster into holding them back. I will not lie in this hospital bed crying helplessly.

Several deep breaths later, I feel myself regaining control. I just need a little more rest and then I’ll get out of here. I’ll find that letter myself.

A soft rapping pulls me from my thoughts, the person’s fingers drumming softly on the door.

I turn towards the noise with a grimace, hoping beyond hope the doctor has come to release me from this white-walled hell.

No such luck.

“Ms. Montgomery?” A police officer stands in the doorway, hand still poised to knock.

I manage a small nod, willing my face not to betray my disappointment.

“Yes?” The word comes out slowly, my exhaustion only accented by the muffling effect of the oxygen mask.

As if invited, the man enters the room, stopping a few feet from my bedside.

“Officer Brady,” he says by way of introduction. “George.” This, he accentuates with a slight tap of his name tag.

“Yes?” I repeat, voice still muffled by the thin layer of plastic.

With a slight groan, I reach for the straps securing the mask to my face. It’s bad enough I have to lie in here alone with this thing on. There’s no way I’m going to have a conversation through it.

The moment I remove it I feel a sense of relief, tension I wasn’t even aware of, draining slightly.

“Sorry to bother you, miss, but I need to ask some questions about the fire.”

I had expected as much, but truth be told, I was hoping I’d have more time before the inevitable inquisition.

“I don’t remember much.”

He smiles. “Anything could be of help.”

I bite my lip, a nervous tick I’ve never been able to shed. In my mind, I’m seeing it all again—the fire, the smoke.

“I was asleep,” I start, “and everything was fine when I went to bed.”

At my pause, Officer Brady—George—nods slightly, encouraging me to continue.

Part of me wishes I hadn’t even begun. Certainly it isn’t too late to say I’m not up for conversation.

“Like I said, I don’t remember much. I woke up to the smoke alarm going off. It’s all kind of a blur from there.”

He nods in understanding and, for a brief moment, I think our exchange might already be over. Given the way this day has gone so far though, I really should know better.

“Okay, I understand. Just a few more questions.”

It’s at this moment the doctor finally reappears, looking like a literal godsend in his shining white coat.

“Ms. Montgomery,” he starts, his eyes firmly glued to the chart in his hand.

He’s halfway across the room before he notices we’re not alone.

“Doctor,” George says, his greeting coupled with a curt nod.

“Officer, I didn’t see you there.”

“Yes, just asking Miss Montgomery a few questions about the incident.”

I’m delighted to see my doctor’s brows furrow, his lips pressing into the thin line of working professionals the world over.

“Really, Officer, she’s had no time to rest yet. Don’t you think your questions can wait until a more appropriate time?”

“Well, I just—”

“Yes, yes, just doing your job, I quite understand. Unfortunately, my job is to see my patient gets rest now, so sorry, but I must ask you to leave.”

My. Hero.

To Officer Brady’s credit, he almost manages to keep his frustration from showing. Almost.

“Of course,” he starts after a beat. “We can pick this up another time.”My relief at his words is damn near palpable.

With a last farewell, George heads back through the doorway.

I don’t even bother to conceal my sigh of relief.

“Thank you,” I mutter, letting my head rest back on my pillow.

“Just doing my job. Can’t have you being interrogated when you need rest.”

“How much longer do I need to stay?”

“Not very, I should think. Even less if you actually keep your oxygen mask on.”

I blush slightly at the admonishment. I slip the loops back around my ears without argument.

“Sorry.”

I’m rewarded with a small grin as he inspects the various machines around me.

“My house?” I query.

“You got lucky. Looked bad, but the fire was contained to a small section of the house. It should be fine. Feeling all right?”

I almost lie, but what’s the point?

“A little. Still pretty woozy, though.”

“Well, that’s to be expected. You did inhale quite a bit of smoke. Should clear up quickly, though.”

“Will I be able to leave today?”

Another small smile. “Let’s just play it by ear, shall we?”

I’d like to argue, truly I would, but the longer I engage, the heavier my eyelids seem to get.

“Okay.”

“In the meantime, is there anyone we can call for you? A relative or partner perhaps?”

Nope.

“No, there’s no one.”

Something of a smile. “Well, all right then, I’ll leave you to get some sleep. Keep that mask on, yes?”

I nod in answer, but his back is already to me as he walks to the door.

I let myself relax fully into the mattress. If I’m going to be stuck here for a while, I might as well be unconscious for the duration.

But the moment I close my eyes my thoughts turn back to the letter.

Maybe they never left.

All I know is I need to get my hands on it. I can only hope the cute fireman who agreed to look for it actually followed through.

The thought brings his face swimming to mind—attractive, charming, and… oddly familiar.

Since he first pulled me from the flames it’s been slowly gnawing at me, the certainty I’ve seen him somewhere before.

Beneath you, maybe?

No, that’s not it.

Only now, moments from drifting off, do I remember where.

I met him, just briefly, on a night out with Ana. The rest of the story clicks into place: Derek, that’s his name.

He and Ana dated, if you can call it that. From what I remember, he strung her along for about a week before ghosting her entirely. I think Ana’s still pissed about that one.

I chuckle slightly at the thought. Let’s just hope he’s more committed to his job than he is to women. I really need him to find the letter.

My thoughts begin to blur at the edges, sleep finally trickling into my overwrought mind. It’s welcome now, sorely needed. I can worry about the rest tomorrow.

For now, I’ll just be grateful someone was there to pull me from the fire and the doctor happened to walk in when he did earlier.

I don’t think I would have liked to answer too many of the officer’s questions.

CHAPTER THREE

DEREK

Fuck, what a night. Between the two chicks I had some fun with before I got called out, trying to dodge the guys’ probing about the promotion, the fire, talking to the police… I’m hella ready to head home and get some shut-eye.

I take the letter I got from the fire out of my back pocket. The one for that chick. I tuck the paper into the folder I have in my locker, shaking my head.

Why would anyone care so much about a damn letter when their house is on fire? I’ll never understand how people can be so concerned with physical items when their literal life is in danger. But I’m glad I went and got it anyway. Maybe I’ll be able to use it in my favor.

I initially planned to just say screw it and not give her the letter. After all, it’s my job to get her out of the house safely, which I already did. Not to save some useless belongings… Or a piece of paper.

But now I’ve got another thought, and I’m thankful I got the letter after all.

Beth’s cute. Really fucking cute. A romp with her? That wouldn’t be a bad way to wrap up a working day.

Sure, she was covered in soot, barely breathing, and unconscious when I met her, but hey, still hot. This letter might be the key I need to get her in the sack. I mean, not that I really need the help, but a little extra ammunition can’t hurt, right?

I smirk as I close my locker, grab my bag, and head out of the locker room towards freedom, a cute blonde on my mind.

I decide that I’ll head to the hospital since it’s still early, catch Beth before she checks out, and get her number. I’ll have to charm my way into getting one of the nurses to give me her room information, but that shouldn’t be an issue considering my standing with them.

I’ve been out with a few, and I always leave them wanting more. That’s the key, really. That way, they’re excited instead of angry when you finally call them after not letting them hear from you for weeks. It’s a fucking talent, I tell you.

I’m greeted by a tall brunette in scrubs when I arrive, a flirty smile plastered across her face when she sees me. I don’t remember her name, but I do remember she was fun. A lot of fun, the didn’t-know-legs-bent-that-way kind.

One of those girls who don’t whine when you don’t call her back the morning after and who isn’t looking for any strings. She’ll be perfect for getting the information I need. All I have to do is promise to call her this time around and she’ll be putty in my hands.

“Well, hey there, handsome,” she purrs, waltzing over with a wink. “I was just thinking about you.”

I flash her a toothy grin and laugh, leaning up against the counter of the nurses’ station as I look her over.

What was her name again? Ashley? Amber? Did it even start with an A? I don’t know.

“Oh, were you now?” I smirk. “Did I have clothes on?”

She laughs and playfully swats my shoulder, shaking her head.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Before I can say anything else, another nurse walks over and smirks at me, nudging her hip into mine.

This one is small and blonde and, if my memory serves me correctly, a real firecracker between the sheets. We’d been on a few ‘dates,’ and every one of them ended with us either in her bed or mine. Anytime we landed at my place, she was always gone in the morning, which is definitely a plus. I’m not one for the awkward morning-after conversations.

“Hey, Derek, how’s it hanging?” she greets me.

“Oh, a bit heavy and to the left.”

Cliché, I know, but it works.

The two of them burst into a fit of giggles, and I wink, crossing my arms over my chest with a sigh.

“You two are too much. All trouble.”

“You know it, and you love it,” the brunette says as she not-so-subtly checks me out. “You’ve never given me any complaints.”

“No, I certainly haven’t.”

I tilt my head to look around the nurses’ station and down the hall, making it obvious I’m looking for something. Or someone.

The small blonde picks up right away and looks down the hallway, then back to me.

“Looking for someone, sugar?” she asks, all flirty smiles and fluttering lashes.

“As a matter of fact, I am. Girl I brought in here last night, name’s Beth. I carried her out of her burning house, saved her life.”

The two of them look at me and sigh, eyes glazing over. They’re star-struck and swooning over the hot firefighter—me, by the way—and how he saved the damsel in distress. It’s a surefire way to get into their hearts—and pants—and the method hasn’t failed me yet. And it usually proves useful in getting them to bend the rules for me if I need them to.

“Derek, that’s incredible! She’s lucky you were there. Amber and I were just talking about how great it must feel to be so scared and then have a big, handsome man come to our rescue.”

Amber. That’s it. If only I could remember the blonde’s…

“Well,” I sigh, placing a hand on her shoulder, “I was just doing my job. But… you could help me with something, actually.”

I see her cheeks flush. I smile. The plan’s clicking along like a Swiss watch.

“Anything. What do you need, darlin’?”

I give her my best thankful smile and sigh, leaning in and looking around as if I’m worried someone will hear. I keep my voice low and just above a whisper.

“You see, she was just so heartbroken about something that was left in the house. Poor thing. Sentimental valuables, you know.”

The two of them sigh and nod, empathetic frowns on their faces as they listen to my tale of bravery.

Fucking. Excellent.

“Well, I went back into the house and got a few things for her. As a surprise, you know. I figure that, with all that she’s gone through, it’s the least I could do. I had to crawl through a few rooms, and a piece of my suit caught on fire, but, hey, part of the job, right?”

I shrug and smile, watching them fawn and swoon over my tale. I’m pretty sure if I listen really carefully, I might be able to hear their panties sliding off.

Amber puts her hands to her chest, her fingers laced together as she looks over at the blonde nurse, the two of them practically in tears.

“Oh, Derek,” she says, “you’re so brave.”

The blonde nods and touches my arm, squeezing gently.

Perfect.

“Like I said, ladies, all part of the job. But that’s why I’m here.” I throw my hands up dramatically. “I’ve got no sweet clue what room she’s in.”

And the Oscar goes to…

“Hmm, we’re not really supposed to give out that information,” the blonde murmurs.

“Oh, come on, Lisa. It’s not like he’s just some creep. He saved her life!”

Lisa. Almost had it.

Amber, having come to save the day and convince Lisa to divulge patient info, patters around to the other side of the nurses’ station and starts typing into the computer.

“It’ll just take me a minute, Derek.”

“Sure thing, doll. Thanks so much for this.”

She winks at me and I smile, turning back to chat with Lisa, who promptly asks me to re-tell my tale of chivalry and rescue. Just as I’m about to respond, Amber asks me for Beth’s info again.

“I don’t really have all her information, but I’ve got a name and address,” I tell her. “She came in last night.”

Just then, a voice rings out from just down the hall, and when I turn to see who it is, I recognize the man as a police officer who was at the scene of the fire.

“Hey, you’re that firefighter, right? From last night?”

I smile back. “That’s me, in the flesh.”

I stand up from leaning against the nurses’ station and walk over to shake his hand and introduce myself.

“Derek Hughes. I was one of the firefighters there, yeah. Was just coming by to see how she was doing and drop something off. I went back into the house to get something for her.”

He shakes my hand and nods, his grip firm as he narrows his eyes and introduces himself.

“Officer Brady. That’s nice of you, Derek, but I’m afraid Elisabeth’s already been discharged. You just missed her, actually. I interviewed her last night but didn’t get all the information I needed. Came back today, hoping to talk to her again, but no luck.”

Fuck! I shout internally. How am I supposed to get her the damned letter now? Get one of the nurses to give me her phone number? That’s going to be a tall order.

I sigh. “Oh, that’s too bad. If she’s left, she must be doing all right, though, so that’s a good thing.”

He nods and hums, looking down at his notepad with a frown.

“Suppose so, though I still need to get some more information from her. I guess it’ll have to wait.”

I nod back and turn to Amber, who shrugs and smiles apologetically, standing from the computer chair.

“Sorry, Derek.”

“It’s all good,” I say with a smile. “Maybe I’ll give you a call later?”

She smiles at me and rubs her hand up my arm, squeezing my shoulder with a wink.

“Please do. Lisa and I are having drinks after our shift, but I’m sure we could make room for one more?”

She turns to Lisa, who smirks back and nods, walking off with a flip of her ponytail.

“How can I say no to that?”

I flash her a flirty grin and turn back to Officer Brady, who’s pulling something out of his pocket. He hands me his card, pulls out a pen, and starts writing on the back of it.

“Here,” he says sternly. “Here’s my card. My office number is on there, but I put my cell number on the back. Give me a call if you find anything else out or get any more information about the fire.”

I take his card and stuff it into my back pocket, confusion washing over my face as I look back at him.

“Oh, okay, sure, bud. Why, though? Seems pretty straight forward to me.”

He laughs and shakes his head, cocking his brow as he turns to leave.

“You’d think so,” he taps his head, “but that’s why I’m the cop and you’re the firefighter. We’ve got reason to believe that the fire wasn’t accidental. So, like I said, any info would be appreciated.”

“Oh, shit, I had no idea.” I raise my brows and nod, giving him a quick salute goodbye. “Will do, Officer.”

He waves me off and leaves, leaving me standing there at the nurses’ station.

I decide there’s no use standing around here in this virus pit. I may as well get home and catch a few hours of shut-eye before I give the girls a call. If my previous dates with them are any indication, I’m going to need a hell of a lot of energy come go time.

CHAPTER FOUR

ELISABETH

I sigh, sitting on the patio and drinking my latte, letting my head fall into my hands as I drag my fingers over my face.

I saw this place nearby after I left the hospital. Having had a rough night and morning, it seemed like the perfect place to stop in and decompress. I’m glad I did, because right now, I’m not in the best frame of mind.

Why did it have to happen this way? I really wasn’t planning on a police officer coming to snoop around and ask me a bunch of questions, especially not while I was in the actual hospital.

To say I was nervous when I saw him walk into my room and tell me he needed to ask me a few things was an understatement. How was I supposed to know the fire would get so out of control so quickly?

So, not only am I stressing about the cops, but I can’t stop thinking about my mother, either. She’s sick, can’t afford treatment, and without said treatment, she’ll die.

Sure, we haven’t had the best relationship throughout our lives, but that doesn’t mean I want her dead. She is my mother, after all. I want to help in any way that I can. I’m no doctor. Obviously, I can’t give her the treatment that she needs, so I figured the least I can do as her daughter is to help her pay for it.

Insurance fraud—It’d be easy, I thought. I’d set a small enough fire I could quickly put out, but big enough I could collect a hefty amount from the insurance company. That way, I could help pay for her treatment and then maybe my mother and I could reconnect, have the sort of relationship we never had before. This could be our second chance! I’d dreamed.

What I hadn’t planned on was how quickly the fire spread and got out of control. One minute I’m on the couch, the next I’m waking up coughing, smoke and flames everywhere, being carried out by Sir Big Arms.

Maybe starting a fire in my house in an attempt to get insurance money for her treatment wasn’t the smartest idea, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. That’s the distinction. Now though, I’m just trying to figure out what my next steps are going to be and how I’m going to stop that cop from nosing around. I’ve still got to be able to help my mother, too.

My head’s about to explode from it all.

I think ol’ George is onto me, or at least has a suspicion. The last thing I need is for him to do any more investigating and discover I set the fire myself. That would ruin everything, including any chance I have at reconnecting with Mom.

I feel my chest tighten. I sigh, closing my eyes for a brief moment in an attempt to calm myself as I think about what my mother said in her letter and how much trouble she’s been having. There’s something to be said about finding out your mother is terminally ill and needs help she can’t possibly afford. It guts you in a way few things can—rearranges your entire mindset.

I should have grabbed the letter when I got out of the house. I did ask that firefighter who carried me out to get the letter for me. Actually, I begged him, but that’s beside the point. Something tells me he didn’t get it. I can’t really blame him, to be honest. Who wants to run into a burning house to get a piece of paper? Still, it would be nice if he had. Not that I’ve got any way to find him. Maybe I should ask around, ’cause if that letter made it through the fire and was found by anyone else, it could provide evidence or motive for me setting the fire to collect the money. That would be bad with a capital B.

My heart starts to thud in my chest, dread washing over me as I realize I could actually be facing serious issues with the police here, even jail. I let my head fall into my hands on the table.

No, I can’t think like this. I have to stay positive. Otherwise I’m going to spiral out of control and this whole thing will turn into a huge mess. If only I had some way of getting in touch with that firefighter without alerting the police.

I raise my head up off of the table and, as fate would have it, I see just the person I need to talk to.

There he is, right in front of me, strutting out of the hospital like he’s on a mission.

He happens to glance over my way and I flag him down, waving over to him and smiling.

He sees me and flashes me a grin, turns my way and walks over to the table.

I look up to the sky and smile. Praise Be.

My heart skips a beat when he arrives. My nerves are shot thinking about how I’m going to get through this. At least the guy I need to talk to is easy on the eyes, right?

“Hey you,” he says with a smirk as he sits down at the table across from me. “You’re certainly looking better than the last time I saw you.”

I smile back at him and nod with a sigh, tucking a stray piece of hair behind my ear. “Well, given that I was unconscious and being carried out of a burning house, it wouldn’t take a whole lot.”

He laughs and tilts his head, eyes squinting playfully as he quips back crossing his arms over his chest.

“Fair enough, you’ve got me there. Still,” he says, eyes not-so-subtly looking me up and down, “you’re looking good, especially given the circumstances.”

Wow, this guy wastes no time, huh?

“Thanks. Look, I never got a chance to say thank you before. I was so out of it, and well, you know, it was crazy. So, thanks.”

Very articulate, Beth.

I take a breath and smile nervously, leaning forward on the table to try and restart my apology, but he cuts me off with a wave of his hand.

“I’m glad you waved me down, actually,” he says with a grin as he reaches into his pocket. “I have something of yours.”

No.

My eyes go wide and I can’t help the giant smile spreading across my face as he pulls out a charred piece of paper from his pocket, the corners frayed and blackened.

The letter. He got the damn letter.

“Oh my God, you actually got it?”

He laughs and slides it across the table, crossing his arms over his chest as he cocks his brow at me.

“I did. It wasn’t easy, but I got it. I nearly burnt through my gloves, but yeah, I got it. For you,” he adds.

He stares at me from across the table and I smile back, tucking the letter into my pocket.

I put it on thicker than I intend to. “Thank you, so much. I don’t know what I can ever to do repay you for this. I can’t thank you enough.”

He smirks again, his eyes dancing with something I can’t quite place as he leans forward and slides his hand over to mine, fingertips grazing mine ever so slightly.

“Actually,” he purrs, “there is something you can do for me.”

I look back at him nervously, unsure of what he’s going to say or ask. I cautiously smile, my voice low.

“Okay, what’s that?”

“Let me take you out. Let’s have a drink.”

I laugh, disbelief and shock washing over me as I process what he’s just asked me.

Is this guy serious? Just yesterday he carried me out of a burning building—not to mention he was sort of a dick to me the entire time—and now he’s asking me out on a date? What sort of game is he playing here? Not to mention the way this guy strung Ana along before. I be a really shitty friend if I went out with him.

Not a good idea. Just tell him and be done with it.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I say, pulling my hand back and fidgeting with my fingernails, “I don’t think that would be wise.”

He laughs and shrugs as he leans forward again, persistent in his quest.

“Oh, come on Beth, why not? One good reason.”

“Well, it’s just not a good time right now. With everything with the fire, and—“

He cuts me off again and places his hand over mine, squeezing it gently. I look back at him incredulously. I can’t believe the words that come out of his mouth.

“Exactly, the fire. Don’t you think you owe me? I literally ran into a burning building for you. Twice. I saved your life, and I went back for that,” he says, nodding at my pocket holding the letter. I half expect him to snatch it away like a small child until he gets what he wants.

His overly cocky demeanor is really setting something off in me. Who does this guy think he is? Is he seriously going to use the fire and him doing his job to guilt me into having drinks with him? What sort of asshole is he? Sounds like Ana really dodged a bullet with this one.

My first reaction is to pull my hand away from him and tell him to never talk to me again, but then something occurs to me. I stop myself.

I’ve been sitting here half-panicked, wondering if my plan is going to work out or if I’m going to have to deal with the police. This guy, entitled ego-fest or not, could be the key to finding out exactly what I’m dealing with. The police and the firefighters work pretty closely together in cases like this. Maybe going out with him will give me some insight into what I’m actually up against here.

I play out the hypothetical in my head. Let’s say I meet up with him, we have a drink or two and discuss what happened. I pretend to swoon and fawn over him, causing him to let his guard down and give me some info on what the police are doing. I act all concerned and ‘damsel in distress’ like, he reassures me with what information he has.

It might just work.

So I sigh and smile back at him reluctantly, tilting my head.

“Okay, one drink, but that’s it.”

He chuckles and grins, cockiness and pride practically oozing out of his every pore, like he knew all along he’d be able to charm me into a date.

“Sure. One drink… to start with. Though I won’t be upset if you want to stay for another one. Or two. I tend to have that effect on people. I’m very likeable.”

Jesus. H. Who is this guy?

I smile and roll my eyes, shaking my head at him as I take my hand back and sip from my cup.

Alright, so I’ve got a ‘date’ with the cute guy who carried me out of my burning house. Best case scenario: I get some information I can use. Worst case scenario? I enjoy a free drink or two with attractive frat boy-cum-firefighter here and call it a day.

What could go wrong?

…Right?

CHAPTER FIVE

DEREK

“What will you have?” I turn to Beth as she slides onto the wooden bar stool. It wobbles and she sways a little, grabbing the bar in front of her. I instinctively reach for her elbow, steadying her.

Oh yes, this woman needs me.

For a brief second, I rethink this whole drink thing, considering she just got out of the hospital and maybe shouldn’t be drinking. She might be too weak. But then again, she’s a big girl, she could’ve said no… Well, definitively.

Her eyes meet mine as my hand lingers, and for a moment I feel like she’s going to melt into me.

Or vice versa.

The intensity of her deep blue eyes takes my breath away. They’d drown me if I was a weaker man, all cobalt and color.

“Rum. Rum and coke, please,” she turns to the bartender, patiently waiting for us to order. “Make it top shelf. He’s buying.” She smirks confidently and straightens her shoulders.

There’s the feisty woman I carried in my arms.

“And for you?” The bartender nods his head towards me.

“Beer. Whatever’s on tap.”

He leaves us to go make our drinks. I turn my attention back to Beth.

“Just a beer? I thought you wanted to go for a drink?” she teases.

“Rum and coke, huh? That’s a strong drink for a damsel who was just rescued by her knight in shining armor.” I wink and turn my body to face hers.

“A knight in shining armor?” she laughs. “Ha! Someone thinks highly of himself.” She squares her shoulders and lifts her chin, keeping her attention towards the bar, never once turning to me.

But I can tell she’s aching for my gaze, my touch, or maybe just my attention.

She can have all three if she plays nice.

“No one has complained or told me otherwise. To most, I’m what they call a ‘hero.’” The bartender places our drinks in front of us and I hand him my card, cutting him off before he tells us the tab. “Keep it open.”

She shakes her head and brings the drink to her mouth. “Wow, you really are a cocky son-of-a-bitch.” I watch as her tongue curls around the tiny red straw, pulling it into her mouth.

My dick springs up wanting nothing more than to be that damn straw.

Fuck me.

It’s taking every ounce of restraint I have not to grab her, bend her over the pool table, and make her repeat her new nickname for me, louder. I like the sound of it better than the usual ‘daddy’ or ‘God.’ Son-of-a-bitch is far more fitting.

If it was any other chick, the thought of me saving them in my firefighter gear would have them on their knees, thanking me over and over.

But not Beth here.

“So, you’re saying you don’t like your men in uniform? Perhaps, out of uniform is your preference?” I take a swig of my beer and watch as her body reacts to the image I’m drawing for her.

Her ass squirms against the chair, and if I’m not mistaken—seeing as I do know a thing or two about women and their erogenous zones—rubbing off some friction.

Let her.

I press my lips together, fighting a smile from splitting my face in two.

“I like a man with manners. One who knows how to treat a woman, not just handle her,” she jabs. Her voice strained. I’m not certain if she’s annoyed with me or if she’s trying to stifle her desire.

I’ll pretend it’s the latter.

This hard-to-get act is something I’ve never had to deal with before. I’ve never had to work so damn hard. I mean, I saved her, went back into the fire and got her precious letter, persuaded her to go out with me, and yet she still swats me away.

Most of the time women see me in a uniform and automatically drool. I’m the type of man they put on their calendars and stare at while masturbating to the month of July, coincidently, the hottest month of the year.

But this frustratingly, hot-ass girl won’t even purchase the calendar, let alone give it a second glace.

Strangely, I like it. I like fighting for her while also watching her squirm and deny her attraction to me. Plus, I’ve heard that when you finally earn the prize after all that work, it feels and tastes so much sweeter.

“What if a man can do both? Treat while handle?” I test her.

“That doesn’t exist. Men like yourself only have one thing on their minds. And it has nothing to do with ‘treating’ a woman.” Her eyebrow arches as if challenging me. “They only want their egos stroked.” She smiles condescendingly and finishes the rest of her drink.

She swivels around to face me, narrowing her eyes, but her more fluid speech tells me the rum is loosening her inhibitions.

“I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that despite your wonderfully crafted persona, you’re more than this firefighter hero with a massive ego. Is there something else under all this rock-hard muscle?” She pokes her finger into my chest, marking a trail down my abdomen.

Is she flirting with me? Touching me and complimenting me. Though it’s a backhanded compliment, I’ll take it from her.

The bartender hands her a drink, distracting her from the Derek-themed adventures.

Her hair brushes over her shoulders and I see a small patch of black ash on her cheek. I can still smell the stench of smoke lingering from her clothes, but I don’t mention it. If anyone is used to the smell of smoke, it’s me. Hell, I probably still smell like fire, too.

I lick my thumb and lean over, wanting to erase the ash from her chin. She grabs my hand when I touch her skin and pulls it away, looking down at my hand as if it’s a foreign object.

“See, I know there’s something else under that hard exterior. The letter is proof.”

She looks up at me, her eyes hooded with desire. They travel up my body slowly.

Her gaze is both tender and rough. It sends a cold shiver through me. The sensations that swirl inside cause my vision to go blurry, leaving only her in focus.

I gulp down the rest of my beer and call over the bartender, needing another one to dull her effect on me.

She’s hot. That’s it. The only reason I’m feeling anything other than my erection right now is because I’m not feeling her wetness sucking me into her.

“To be honest, I became a firefighter to make up for my past,” I confess.

Her eyebrows shoot up, and the corner of her mouth curls into an innocent smirk.

“Your past?” she asks.

I grab my beer from the bartender and take a large gulp. I’ve never told anyone this before.

“I’m an asshole. I think you know that by now.” I smile and give her my best puppy dog eyes.

She rolls her own and sips her drink, ignoring another one of my usually successful moves.

“If you can believe it, I was a bigger asshole when I was a teenager,” I continue. “I would get into fights, ruin people’s yards and mailboxes, break hearts. You name it, I did it.”

“Ruin people’s yards? What?” She leans in. I can tell she’s intrigued. Maybe my charm isn’t completely lost on her.

“Yeah, if I didn’t like you I would go to your house and vandalize it. I only got caught doing it once, and then it just became my thing. It was stupid.” I shake my head and run my hands through my hair, hoping to calm my nerves.

Recalling the past is always a sore subject for me. I’m not proud of who I was back then, so reliving the memories makes me cringe.

“Sounds very stupid,” Beth chimes in.

“You don’t beat around the bush, do you?” I smile, enjoying the fact she’s so straightforward.

“Nope. What’s the point? You already know it’s stupid, so all I can do is agree, right?”

“Good point. But after a while that shit got old. People looked down on me and always assumed the worse. Even my father. Becoming a firefighter was my way of earning his respect, I suppose.”

For the first time in a long time I’m spilling my guts and it’s shocking me more than anyone.

She turns to face me head on and I’m taken aback by her expression. There’s a smile on her face, making her eyes sparkle. I can sense the shift in her mood, from guarded to open, dark to light. It’s so fucking alluring.

“So, did you?” she asks.

“What? Did I what?” I cock my head to the side, not sure what she means.

She laughs and turns to order another drink before she looks back at me in all seriousness.

“Did becoming a firefighter earn the respect of your father like you had hoped? Did it help rectify all your wrongs?”

Shit. How in the hell am I supposed to answer that?

I take a second to mull over the possible answers. I could tell her the truth, that I really don’t fucking know. Or, I could lie and be the firefighter hero I’ve pegged myself to be.

But, from what I’ve gathered so far, she responds better to honesty.

“Penny for your thoughts?” she asks, tilting her head to the side, mirroring me.

“Yes and no. I come from a long line of firefighters—my father, grandfather, his father, and so on, so I have a lot to prove. Respect is hard to earn when you’ve convinced others—and yourself—you don’t deserve it.”

Fucking profound, brother.

She nods her head in agreement, almost like she understands what I’m saying. Her expression gives off a mix of empathy and surprise.

“There he is.” She lifts her drink up, motioning me to do the same. “Cheers to ignoring your massive ego for a few minutes.” She grins, bringing the glass to her lips. I watch, mesmerized as their fullness slides over the crystal rim.

And, just like that, my massive ego is back and eager for her attention.

“Shit!” she blurts out, making all the other customers turn to look her way.

“What? You okay?” My anxiety peaks, I worry she might be feeling some after-effects from the fire or something.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” She waves me off. “Sorry, I just realized my house burned down and I have nowhere to go.”

She pulls out her phone and starts searching for hotels.

I snatch it from her and slide it in my pocket. “No, you don’t need to stay at a hotel. You can stay with me,” I say.

“Excuse me?” she reaches for her phone, but I grab her wrist, keeping her away from my pockets.

Wait, why am I doing this?

Oh, right. I need to remember the long term goals, not just the short term.

“You heard me. It’s probably easier for you anyway. It’s not a hassle, really.” I try to comfort and convince her.

“That’s not what I’m worried about. I’m worried about going back to your place, with you, alone. I don’t trust guys like you who have a reputation.” She emphasizes the word ‘reputation’ like it’s a bad, sinister word, something she’s not supposed to mention in the presence of others.

“But you can trust me to save your life?” I chuckle.

“I didn’t get a choice, did I?”

“Touché.” I finish my drink, giving myself some time to think about my next move. “You can trust me. You can have my room and I’ll sleep on the couch, plus I can help get you whatever you need. No nightly fee required.” I plaster on my best puppy dog eyes and top it off with one of my best-selling grins. It’s a sure-fire way to melt panties off, but I’ll settle for a sleepover with Beth this time.

“Ugh,” she mumbles, leaning her elbows on the counter, and running her hands through her hair. “Can I have my phone now?”

I slide it over to her, hesitantly, and she picks it up, opening her browser once more. I can’t help but smile. I knew a hotel, last minute, would cost too much.

“I guess I have no other options,” she says. “Take me home, my hero.”

CHAPTER SIX

ELISABETH

“Oof!”

My foot catches on the entryway step, sending me tottering into Derek’s house. For a second I think I might just make a complete ass of myself and fall, but once again, Derek’s there right in the nick of time.

His fingers wrap around my bicep, righting me the moment before I succumb to gravity. My heels come down with a loud crack, the sound met immediately by what sounds suspiciously like a giggle.

“Rum and coke catching up to you?”

I’ve gotta say, I prefer his usual grin to this new, slightly shit-eating version.

“Not at all,” I respond, trying to keep my voice as level as possible while I run my hands over imaginary wrinkles in my dress. “Just a stupid place for a step, is all.”

“Right. Damn architect should’ve left a dead drop there.”

My face pinches in frustration for what feels like the hundredth time today. Apparently, Derek has that effect on me.

“I’m fine.” I say simply, looking pointedly at his hand still clenched around my arm.

He releases his fingers slowly, grin spreading wider as he clings to the slight contact.

I stifle the groan that tries to slip up my throat in response, forcing my eyes into a roll I can only hope is convincing. Truth be told, my burning irritation with this man has been reduced to a kind of tired smolder.

I want to hate him, truly I do, but that doesn’t seem to stop my heart from jack-hammering in my chest as he rests those eyes on me again.

With a force of will, I take a step back, grinning lazily to deny the very real effect he’s having on me. I’m delighted to see him stumble slightly from my sudden movement, a small groan of surprise leaving his lips.

“I see the beer’s treating you well.”

I don’t even wait for a response. Still feeling the need to put distance between us, I simply direct myself deeper into the house, ignoring the way my heart skips when I hear him move to come after me. It’s entirely possible coming here was a mistake.

While logically I know better than to entertain thoughts of Derek, I’m feeling less than rational this evening. It has been somewhat of a trying day, after all.

Still, I remind myself that I know how this works. Yes he’s gorgeous and he seems fascinated now. But I know his type all too well. The moment he gets his way, as he’s usually certain to do, all the charm and intrigue will disappear in a haze of self-involvement.

Fun as that might seem to some, I’ll just have to pass.

“I’m not drunk, if that’s what you’re implying.” I hear him call, his voice heavy with feigned offense.

“Of course not. Perish the thought.”

I’ve managed to make it to the living room, a space clearly untouched by feminine hands. From the leather couch to the heavy wood, it’s like stepping directly into the mind of the modern bachelor.

I pause in the doorway, eyes raking over the room in search of an inviting space to rest.

“What do you think?” Derek asks, startling me with his proximity. Clearly the rum and coke have caught up to me, given I totally missed his approach.

He gestures around the room, wagging his eyebrows as if waiting to hear my praise.

I can’t help but laugh, and his answering smile has now-familiar chills washing over me.

Yes, coming here was definitely a mistake.

“I think I should have booked that hotel.” I say, my thoughts spilling from my lips before I can catch them.

The smile dies on his face, his eyes taking on a stronger intensity that makes me feel dizzy.

“Oh?”

“Well… sure, it’s just… such a bachelor pad,” I stammer, feeling more foolish by the moment. “But I guess it’ll have to do.”

Hoping I’ve regained at least a little ground, I make a beeline for the couch, trying my utmost to hide the blood currently rushing to my face.

It’s the rum. Definitely the rum.

I let myself sink into the overstuffed cushions, laying my head back in exhaustion. It really has been a hell of a day.

I don’t move as Derek sinks in beside me, no longer trusting myself to meet his eyes without swooning.

“Well, I for one, am glad you decided to come. Even if you didn’t really have any other options. It’s safer here, you know.”

Despite myself, I raise my head, meeting his eyes again.

“And you’re under the impression you need to protect me? I don’t know if you noticed, but they already put the fire out.”

“We already put the fire out. And yes, I do know, but I think with Officer Brady suspecting arson, it’s best to be cautious.”

His words hit me like a punch to the gut, instantly sending my mind reeling. I know he keeps talking, I can see his mouth move, but all sound seems to be smothered beneath the alarm bells springing to life in my mind.

Arson?

It takes me a long moment to realize I haven’t actually spoken aloud.

“Arson?” I actually ask this time, my voice heavy with shock.

He falls silent instantly, regret flashing across his face.

“Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”

Panic floods my mind—overwhelming, heart-stopping panic—and on its heels, surprising even to me, cold, hard anger.

“You knew this and you weren’t going to say anything?”

“I—well, it seemed better to wait until we knew for sure.”

I spring from the couch, immediately falling into a frantic pacing. My hands come up to my head, fingers tangling through my hair as my heels slap angrily at the ground.

Over and over the word repeats in my thoughts: arson. I can’t seem to quiet it. It’s on a loop. Like, if I hear it enough times, I’ll find a nicer meaning to it.

“Look, Beth, it could be nothing.” He’s at my side, his voice calm and measured. Soothing. If anything, it only makes my blood boil hotter.

“Yeah, sure, or it could be arson.” I reply, not so much as slowing my crazed pace.

I feel his hand on me, strong fingers pulling me to a stop. Against my better judgment, I let him. At this point, I don’t quite feel capable of smacking him away, nor storming out for that matter. At this point, I’m terrified enough to enjoy the sensation of his hands on me, his touch.

He pulls me near him, his eyes actually looking sympathetic for once.

“I’m sorry I let it slip like that. I understand it’s scary. We don’t actually know anything, though, at this point. It’s all speculation. Just… try and relax a little. Deep breaths.”

I feel myself nodding, my eyes locking on the soothing green of his own. With a concentrated effort, I slow my breathing, my thoughts, calming slightly.

“Better?” he asks, his hand still anchoring me to the spot.

I nod again. “A little. You should have told me, Derek.”

“I know. You’re right. I should have mentioned it. Honestly, though, I was just trying to avoid what’s happening right now.”

Considering I did just pretty much lose my shit, it’s hard to argue his point.

“Fine.”

It’s as close to agreement as I’m going to get to. Now my blinding panic is subsiding, my anger seems to have disappeared as well.

Its absence brings me back to reality, to my situation, and to Derek. For the first time I notice how close he really is. I take stock of his hand, fingers still pressing into me, his eyes reverently glued to my face.

I look down at myself as I finish, noting the lingering soot with disapproval.

Derek tracks my line of sight. “If you want a shower, all you have to do is ask.” His grip loosens, his hand falling limply to his side now I’m no longer in need of restraint.

And it occurs to me I’m not—in need of restraint, that is. I’m a responsible, levelheaded woman who’s just had the day from hell. Restraint is not what I need right now, not in any way.

What I need is some good old-fashioned fun.

Without letting myself think any further, I reach for the hand Derek so recently removed, twining my fingers through his as I gently tug him towards me. Suddenly, the space between us feels cavernous, a rift in need of closing.

I mold against him easily, my lips finding his in a rush. There’s no hesitation on his part, no bare second of confusion. The moment I touch him, he’s right there with me, his tongue pressing, his hands pulling me even nearer.

The rush is even stronger than I expected. Sparks race down the length of me, electricity working its way into my core. In an instant, I’m wet, my body humming around me. I feel his answering need, his cock already straining against the fabric of his jeans, his enormous length pressing against me.

Pulling back, even for the slightest instant, is sheer agony. Somehow I manage it, breaking away long enough to meet his smoldering eyes.

“A shower sounds perfect.”

His smile is completely breathtaking. Not missing a beat, he springs into action. With deceptive ease he lifts me from my feet, pulling me roughly against him. Before I can fully process his movements, we’re going… his long legs eating up the distance between us and wherever the nearest shower is.

In stark contrast to the overtly masculine living room, his bathroom looks like a place a girl could really get comfortable in: huge walk-in shower, dark tiles, and jets for days.

I’m so surprised by the sudden shift I actually need a moment to take it all in. Not that I’ll be receiving one anytime soon.

I’m back on my feet in a flash. Derek’s hands undress me with practiced ease, his mouth claiming mine all over again.

My interest in his tile work disappears instantly, my thoughts once again overcome by him alone. I reach frantically for his belt, pulling wildly at the smooth leather.

I hear more than feel my thong give way beneath his rough hands, see it falling into the steadily growing pile of shed clothing. We pull and tear, hands searching, need growing, until there’s nothing more between us—not so much as a shred to interfere.

He stands before me, chest heaving, eyes burning, and it’s all I can do not to moan at the sheer sight of him. I mean, obviously I knew the man was big, there are some levels of fitness all the fabric in the world can’t hide. But damn if I didn’t underestimate him.

Everything about him is perfection. His skin is practically glowing, pulled taut by the mountains of muscle that ripple across him. His cock stands throbbing between us, huge beyond even my wildest imagination.

I haven’t completely lost my mind. I still know this is undoubtedly a bad idea. Given the day I’ve had, though, and the promise of what’s about to happen, I’m fully willing to allow myself this one night of fun.

That, at least, is something you can count on men like Derek for—one single, amazing night.

I’m swept back into his arms, conscious of the heat of him as he carries me into the shower. Water instantly soaks us with a simple flick, liquid spraying from countless jets as he settles me back on my feet.

He spins me in place, my hands finding purchase on the smooth tile as he presses himself against me. My hair is tossed to the side, his lips caressing my neck.

One large hand snakes around to my breast, strong fingers finding my nipple immediately while his other hand slips between my legs. I let out a moan as he finds my clit, fingertips pressing into me with all the skill I knew a man of his type would possess.

I press back against him, desperate now to feel him inside me, to take all of him. Every. Throbbing. Inch.

Not one to leave a girl hanging, he responds immediately. He positions himself behind me, and I feel the amazing pressure as he begins to slide into my dripping pussy.

Now, I’m not a prude by any means. I’ve had my fair share of sex, my fair share of great sex, in fact. This, though, is on another level entirely.

The moment he’s inside me, the moment he’s filled me completely, I already want to come.

My fingers slide uselessly against the slick tiles, my body frantically pressing back against him, trying desperately to take him deeper into me.

“Fuck,” I cry, my head flying back of its own accord.

Hot water pours down my face, dripping slowly down my body. I can hardly feel it, I’m so overcome by Derek.

The hand on my clit moves perfectly in time with his thrusting, accelerating as I drive myself more forcefully against him. Fire spreads through me, pumping its way through my veins as Derek pushes me ever closer to complete and utter implosion.

“That’s right, Beth. Come for me,” he moans, his mouth at my ear.

I don’t have to be told twice.

CHAPTER SEVEN

DEREK

There’s a smile on my face even before I’m fully awake. I feel the tug at my lips the moment I float back to consciousness—or some semblance of it, anyway.

Normally after a night like last night it takes me a while to clear my head, to remember who’s in bed beside me.

But who am I kidding? I don’t actually have nights like last night.

Beth stirs beside me, a contented sigh escaping her lips like an agreement.

No, I don’t have nights like these.

Or mornings, for that matter.

For one thing I’m actually pleased to find Beth is still in my bed. That alone makes this a pretty solitary occasion.

I turn slowly onto my side, careful not to wake her, but somehow desperate to get a glimpse of her just the same. Her hair is wild, spilling freely across the pillow. Her lips are slightly parted, her chest rising slowly.

There’s no sign now of last night’s panic. On the contrary, she looks completely peaceful this morning. Peaceful and completely gorgeous. My cock, already hard at this early morning hour, stiffens further as I run my eyes over her prone form.

Last night was amazing, and that’s not a word I use lightly. Something about Beth has me at a loss to describe our time together any differently. It really was amazing.

I knew we’d be good together. Her with all her fire and life… How could we not be? But the reality was more intense than even I could have suspected. It’s been a long time since anyone has surprised me like that. And Beth, for all her bluster and skill at playing hard to get, seemed equally blown away.

As cheesy as it sounds, it’s like we had this chemistry between us, something chemical. Something powerful.

I roll onto my back, stifling the urge to press my mouth onto hers. Last night was fantastic, and I’m certain we’ll have another go of it, but right now I need to think.

Slowly, carefully, I stand up, making my way to the oversized dresser occupying one wall. As quietly as I can manage, I open the top drawer, freeing a pair of boxers and slipping them on.

I can’t possibly think through this situation this early, not without coffee. With that thought in mind I slip through the door, taking care to shut it quietly behind me.

I’m not ready for Beth to wake up yet, despite the argument of my now-throbbing cock. So instead of acting out the morning sex scenario currently playing at the back of my mind, I head for the kitchen.

Officer Brady’s words flit through my head, troubling me more than they ought to. Who would intentionally set fire to Beth’s house, and why? Was this a personal vendetta of some sort or just a random fire bug who happened to be in her neighborhood when the urge struck?

I weigh the possibilities as I grab for the mugs, thoughts circling while the machine before me works through its own morning ritual, humming its way back to life.

As much as I might prefer the random fire bug idea, it seems unlikely. No, if this was arson, it was probably personal. Someone with an axe to grind? Maybe an ex?

Knowing even what little I now do about Beth, the idea seems possible. If any woman was capable of inciting that much anger and passion in someone, it’d be her.

The thought makes me grind my teeth.

Images of Beth’s panic last night seep into my thoughts, her fear at the idea of possible arson. It’s understandable, of course, her reaction. Any sane person would have felt the same.

What I’m struggling to understand, however, is my own response.

Thinking of it now makes my blood boil, makes my heart beat harder in my chest. For some reason, I feel protective of Beth—and not just in a professional sense.

Sure, I like to play the hero, to be the guy who runs wildly into burning buildings, to be the one who saves that damsel in distress. And then, of course, I like to be the guy to reap the rewards from said damsel after.

Like I said, I play the hero. Doesn’t mean I actually am one. Not normally, anyway.

This thing with Beth, though, it just feels different. I actually want to keep her safe. No, I need to keep her safe. It’s a new and strange feeling, but now, in the cold light of day, at least I can identify it.

Yes, I want to protect her. The thought of her coming to any kind of harm is completely unbearable.

I hear a strained chuckle leave my mouth, the sound perfectly summing up my feelings about this issue. Somehow I’ve gone and gotten invested in this woman’s safety. This is completely out of character for me.

Nevertheless, here I am—up bright and early with a still-raging boner and a mind full of variables.

Shit.

I watch the final drops of coffee splash into the second mug, only now realizing I have no idea how Beth takes it. The coffee, that is. With a debating glance towards the fridge, I decide to wing it: hot and black ought to be good enough.

She still hasn’t moved by the time I get back to the room, not so much as an inch. For a second I debate letting her sleep. She did have one hell of a day yesterday.

But the thought vanishes the moment I let my gaze trail down her. I can actually feel conscious thought fleeing from my mind, silenced by the blood rushing to my cock.

I take a seat on the edge of the bed, setting the mugs down on the worn wood of the nightstand.

“Beth?”

I’m trying for gentle and soothing, but my need comes through in the rasp of my voice.

Regardless, she doesn’t move. I settle a hand onto her arm, letting my fingers lightly stroke her silken skin.

“Beth?”

She jerks softly, her eyelids finally starting to flutter open. For a second her gaze is blank, bordering on confusion, but the second her eyes find me, they clear.

“Derek,” she says, sounding almost startled before jolting upright.

Not exactly the response I was going for.

The blanket falls from her, pooling at her waist and exposing her still-naked chest. Her skin is fucking flawless, her nipples hard and inviting in the chill morning air.

It takes a force of will to draw my gaze back to her eyes.

“Woah, sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Oh, no,” she says, shaking her head for emphasis, “I just forgot where I was for a minute.”

She glances downward, seeming to remember she’s naked. One hand reaches for the blanket, looking determined to protect her modesty, before apparently deciding better of it.

She gives me a half-asleep smirk, fire already returning to her eyes, before inclining her head towards the nightstand.

“Please say one of those is for me.”

I chuckle as I reach for a mug and pass it to her, the smell of freshly brewed coffee driving me to then reach for my own.

“I didn’t know how you took it,” I comment.

She takes an experimental sip, a nearly indiscernible crease appearing on her forehead as she tastes it. I bite my tongue, holding back a chuckle, making an inner note to include sugar next time. If there is a next time.

To her credit, she doesn’t complain. After a second’s pause, she drains half the mug, actually looking more awake in the next moment.

“Thank you,” she murmurs.

“No problem. How are you feeling?”

She nods noncommittally. “Physically, fine. Still trying to wrap my head around yesterday, though.”

“Well, that’s understandable. No headache, though? Sore throat?”

She giggles, leaning forward at the waist in a way that makes eye contact nearly impossible.

“Why, Derek, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say it sounds like you care.”

It’s like she sees right through me.

I shrug it off, plastering my most charming smile onto my face.

“Just doing my job ma’am,” I drawl lazily.

Her laugh sounds around us. “Oh, right. My hero. How could I forget?” The teasing look from last night is back on her face, eyebrows quirked, smirk firmly in place.

Most women treat me like a god, like something to be revered. Beth looks at me like I’m a kid who got caught playing dress up in daddy’s uniform.

It makes me fucking wild.

I lean in slowly, coming to a stop a hairsbreadth from her upturned face.

“Say it again.”

The smirk transforms into a full-blown smile as she holds my eyes, a challenging glare shining out at me.

“Not a chance.”

That’s about all I can stand. The dam breaks, my need to touch her becoming instantly overwhelming.

My lips crash against hers, rough and hungry. I note her answering desire as she kisses me back, as her hands find purchase in my hair.

I flip her onto her back, her tits bouncing between us with the impact. The blankets are gone, tossed madly aside as I lower myself onto her. I run my mouth down the length of her neck, kissing and biting with wild abandon while she squirms beneath me.

The taste of her makes all thought blur, the small moans already pouring from her mouth driving me to madness. I want more of her.

I need more of her.

I find her hardened nipple, taking it between my lips, pulling her into my mouth as my hand trails down her stomach. Her hips twitch beneath me, urging me onward, driving me to touch her.

It’s this exact moment my phone decides to go off.

The sound is jarring in this enclosed space, not to mention completely unwelcome.

I groan around her nipple still clenched between my lips.

It’s work. I fucking know it is.

Son of a bitch.

For a long moment, I consider ignoring it. I’m sure they can handle whatever it is without me.

“Do you need to get that?” she asks finally.

Begrudgingly, I disentangle myself from her, mouthing an apology as I take the call.

It’s just as I thought: work. No time to waste.

With a sigh, I disconnect, turning towards a Beth who’s much calmer than she was a moment ago.

“I’m sorry. I have to go.”

“That’s alright. Work is work, right?”

I run a hand through my hair, already standing to dress.

“Just… stay here, okay? And call me if you need anything, even if you just feel unsafe.”

She looks hesitant but nods. “Okay, sure.”

I’d love to question that look, but I’m already taking longer than usual to get going.

I cross back to her, pressing a quick kiss to her lips and taking a moment to let my eyes run over her again. It’s like torture.

Then I’m out the door.

CHAPTER EIGHT

ELISABETH

I lay there, tucked in Derek’s king-sized bed, and staring at the ceiling absent-mindedly. There’s nothing interesting up there, but the serenity of this moment—me alone in the apartment of the man who saved me—is everything. I don’t want it to end.

I stroke the side of his bed, finding the warm imprint of his body still beside me. I trace the outline of it with my hand and hum a melody my mother used to sing to me.

It’s fitting she’d be with me at this moment. She’s the whole reason why I’m here, really.

Rolling over, the smell of his body wash escapes from the covers and wafts into the air. I sigh, loving the smell of him surrounding me and the way it tingles over my skin.

I replay the shower, our date, his touch and that body.

Wow. Just wow. I needed that.

He might be the most attractive and charming man I’ve ever met, but I know reality will sink in soon. He’s still a firefighter. And one who uses his job to get laid—often. That alone is one large reason not to trust him.

But, it’s an even bigger problem for my particular situation as he’s the firefighter who saved me from the fire I started.

The fire that was supposed to save me and my mom.

A fire that was illegal.

A fire that might see me behind bars.

If he gets involved, more than he already is, things could—no, will—get messy. How will I be able to lie to him, to continue to make him think I’m in danger? When the real danger I’m in is because of me.

No, I can’t trust him.

And seeing as he throws women aside like they’re trash, Ana included, what’s to say he wouldn’t do that to me? Why wouldn’t he turn me in if—or when—he does find out? Especially now Officer Brady is suspicious about the fire. How long will it be before Derek becomes suspicious, too? Enough to go snooping around the house?

A sudden spike of anxiety jolts through me, springing me up into a seated position. I hold the comforter to my chest and wrap it around me like a cocoon, hoping to ease my worry.

“Shit,” I whisper.

The last twenty-four hours have been a whirlwind and I slowly replay all of it in my mind, needing to wrap my head around what had happened, what’s happening, and how I got here.

I silently thank Derek for leaving. Without him here I can think more clearly. He has a way of distracting me I can’t seem to say no to. I need to get my bearings straight.

Sweat starts to form at my hairline. I rip the comforter off me to cool my nerves. Everything will go according to plan, right?

I hope.

I get up and look for my clothes, wanting to get some food and caffeine to help me process… everything.

But I find myself in his closet, looking for a t-shirt and pants to wear around his place. I know I can’t trust him—no, I don’t trust him—but he seems to truly care about me and my safety. At least, he did this morning. It’s heartwarming, and having his T-shirt on reminds me of that feeling. It’s like a warm hug, which I can really use right now.

He could’ve kicked me to the curb, expecting me to leave the next morning like I’m sure he’s done with his other one-night stands, but he didn’t. He wants me to be here. He wants to take care of me and keep me safe.

Pulling on one of his LAFD t-shirts that doubles as a dress, I make my way to his kitchen. Rummaging through his fridge and counter, I settle on eggs and toast for breakfast and put on a pot of coffee. I set some dishes on the dining room table and find myself feeling oddly content. It’s a complete one-eighty from the impending anxiety attack in the bedroom.

But as I set my plate down and sit in silence, the hunger I felt disappears and the panic settles in again.

“Calm down, Beth,” I chastise myself and take a few deep breaths.

I shuffle the food around my plate, taking an occasional bite or two. I’m trying to stomach something or use the food as a distraction at least, but it doesn’t work. My worries over Derek, the fire, my mom, and Officer Brady begin to overwhelm me.

I get up from the table, thinking a walk around his apartment might help quiet my thoughts.

Oh, I need my coffee. I swivel around and pick up the mug, cradling it in my hands. It’s yet another piece of LAFD regalia—does he own anything else? —though this one has the name ‘Don’ on it. I wonder who that is?

I sip the hot black liquid walking towards his living room and let it burn my tongue. It’s bitter and strong, but that’s how I like it. I take in all the pictures and artwork hanging up. Most are pictures of his buddies jumping all over each other. They all look like they’re a bunch of troublemakers. I can see where he gets it.

There are a few pictures lining his TV console. I bend down to examine them. All of them are him in his varying uniforms and with his coworkers. In each, he looks so sincere and I can feel his pride beaming from him. There’s something reassuring and comforting in that—a person who loves his job so much he lives and breathes it. And, from what he says, this is in his blood. Helping and rescuing people is inherent in him, and in the decades of men before him.

How could a man whose job requires him to take care and save others be a bad person?

I land on a picture of him and a Dalmatian puppy that he’s cradling in his arms. It’s goddamn adorable. He has that same grin he had last night, when he was trying to convince me to come home with him. But this one looks genuine.

He looks truly happy.

I take a few steps back, finding the couch with the back of my knees and plopping down on the leather cushions. I cross my legs yoga-style and take another sip of my coffee, sighing and thinking about the man I see before me.

Why did Ana make him seem like such an arrogant asshole?

I know he has a reputation of taking advantage of women and using his firefighter hero persona as a pick-up line, as I can attest, but that’s not everything. He seems to be so much more than that.

There appears to be more than his beautiful exterior lets on. Even the little bit of information he told me about his childhood and his reasoning for wanting to become a firefighter pokes holes in his mask. And the letter—his willingness to go back into a burning house with no questions asked is another blow to his perfectly crafted image.

Ana must’ve been bitter. She gets that way after a break-up, especially when it’s the man who dumps her. It’s understandable. Who doesn’t get angry after a break-up? But I shouldn’t have trusted a scorned woman’s opinion on the man who did the rejecting.

I doubt she’d be happy to hear I spent the night with him, though. Guilt starts to nag at me, but I ignore it. There’s nothing I should feel guilty about when it comes to Derek and Ana. They’ve been nothing for a while, and she doesn’t even like him because, according to her, he is a ‘philandering pig who could never get a woman if it wasn’t for his uniform and badge.’

From what I’m gathering, the uniform and badge are not decorative to him. They’re rooted in tradition and bring with them a sense of pride and respect. I can see it in the pictures of him at the station, with his coworkers, and in his gear. He can’t be that bad if this is the life he chooses. A man who volunteers to put his life on the line for others every day can’t be a bad person. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

I unravel my legs and stand up, finishing my cup of coffee. As I walk back to the kitchen to rinse my mug out, the tension eases from my neck and shoulders. The anxiety melts from me and I feel lighter having rationalized Derek to myself. It sounds ridiculous, but knowing he isn’t a bad guy makes everything seem okay. Like everything will work out. Somehow.

I know I could be wrong. He might be a good guy who cares about my safety and well-being, but he’s also a good guy who loves his job. A seed has been planted by Officer Brady and, if my calculations are correct, the other firefighters know of these suspicions as well.

The smart thing for me to do is to walk away and let all this work itself out. I should distance myself from the fire and, specifically, from Derek.

But given the chance that Derek is the good guy I think he is, I’ll be safe regardless. Whatever happens, Derek will keep me safe. He did tell me that earlier, despite him not knowing everything.

That’s what I’ll do. I’ll put some distance between us. Well, only in terms of sleeping and housing accommodations. I’ll get myself a hotel and continue to spend time with him. Not in a romantic way, per se, but to gain access to any information regarding the fire. With him on my side and in my ear I’ll know what I’ll have to do and when I need to do it.

I smile, confident with my decision, and finish cleaning the kitchen before I head back to the bedroom to collect my belongings.

I can’t shut my head up. So what if the firefighter who saved me from the disaster is a good guy who’s amazing in bed? I think it’s a consolation prize for having to deal with the stress of my mother and the fire. If anything, it’ll keep me sane and safe during the whole process.

I find a sticky note in one of the kitchen drawers after gathering my clothes and fish out a pen from my purse. I don’t want to worry him when he gets home and I’m not here. I scribble down my contact information and let him know I’ll be staying at a hotel for a while and then I add a P.S.

I left with your shirt on, I write. Think of it as keeping me safe when you can’t in person. XO, Beth.

CHAPTER NINE

DEREK

“Chief’s here!” Mike says, running through the firehouse like a madman.

I sigh and roll my eyes. “McAllister?” I ask Mike absently. “He already knows what kind of lazy fuckin’ bums we all are.”

Mike, shocked, stops and stares at me. “Not McAllister, asshole,” he says. “McAllister’s boss, LAFD Chief Hardy.”

I jump up out of my chair and, on impulse, straighten out my shirt. “Shit. The Chief, not just Chief, Mikey. Fuck. We gotta look busy.” I look around the mess hall and begin picking up all the rubble from our standard firehouse savagery—dirty dishes, empty pizza boxes, spilled soda, and broken plastic ware–and marvel at the fact we didn’t have any cockroaches or other vermin.

I manage to clean up enough of the disaster to make the house look somewhat decent when Chief Mick Hardy walks through the doorway, wheezing heavily.

He looks at me, grunts, and sizes me up. I take the opportunity to do the same.

A tall, portly man, Chief Hardy has been on the job since my grandfather’s time. He, in fact, started in the LAFD with my father, when my grandfather was in the position he occupies today. When my grandfather was ready to retire, Hardy was the automatic shoo-in for the role.

Hardy’s advantageous position means he could close his eyes, figuratively speaking, as far as my more, uh, adventurous misdeeds are concerned. Provided I never jeopardize the job nor the house, and I never did, Hardy is able to let my more prurient hobbies slide.

Naturally, this earns me a lot of flak from the boys in the house, but, frankly, I didn’t care, and I still don’t, because my commitment is to my job and to saving lives, not to firehouse gossip.

That said, I’d be lying if I said I don’t worry, every day, about Hardy and his quickly failing health. He has COPD thanks to years of sucking in smoke, both from the job and from his three-pack-a-day Marlboro habit. He’s severely overweight and often makes the joke that ‘vegetables are what his food eats’. Because of his aversion to vegetables not drowned in butter, and his refusal to stop stuffing cigarettes in his mouth, he’s suffered two heart attacks, with the last one requiring a stent in his heart to keep it beating for a few more years. If he lives another five years he’ll be lucky, and it would be a long and brutal five years filled with a variety of ailments at that.

All these thoughts come rushing to my mind as he stands before me, wheezing like Darth Vader with an Irish brogue, a thick stack of papers in his meaty hand.

“Derek, my boy,” he begins, his deep voice full of phlegm. “Got some news on that fire in Whittier.”

Beth, I think to myself.

“Oh?” I ask, feigning indifference. “Anything in particular I should know about?”

He tosses the stack of papers on the table, coughing as he does so. “Yep. Wouldn’t you know it, that Whittier fire is no accident.”

I scoff. “Of course it isn’t. I’m not surprised. But what happened? Who did it, why, and, most importantly, how?”

Hardy rifles through the pile of papers and emerges with a few photos from the scene. He tosses them my way. “Check that out,” he says. “You can see from the pictures the place was staged. Whoever did it wanted you to think it was because of a scented candle, yeah?”

“Because bitches love candles,” I snark, looking intently at the photos Hardy has proffered.

“Yep, bitches love candles,” Hardy repeats. “But, look closely. Look how small that wick on the candle is. Look how far away the curtain is from the candle. Unless someone poured gasoline on it, there’s no way the fire sparked like that and took down damn near the whole house.”

I sigh, put the pictures down, and rub my eyes. “So, Beth didn’t do anything wrong. And this isn’t an accident,” I say, tiredly.

“Yep,” he replies. “The lass didn’t do anything wrong. But someone wants the lass dead, that’s for sure.”

“So you’re saying you have no idea how this fire got started, Chief?” I ask, my voice a little more on edge this time.

“We have our theories,” he says, not recognizing, or not caring to recognize, the agitation in my voice. “But, no, we don’t have concrete proof yet. We definitely need to do a lot more research.”

I clear my throat. “I’m going to head over there myself and see what’s going on,” I say. “Maybe I’ll find something you guys missed.”

It’s Hardy’s turn to be agitated. “Don’t even think about it, Derek,” he says, nearly growling. “Don’t be like that puppy who stuck its nose where it didn’t belong and found itself in a mess afterwards. Because that’s you. That’s always been you. And that might put you in a pickle I might not be able to get you out of.”

I scoff and push away the file, rubbing my temples.

Mick, sensing my deteriorating mood, changes the subject almost immediately. “Aye. But on to other things, Derek, my boy,” he says, slapping my shoulder. “Let’s talk about the promotion.”

I barely give him a chance to finish the sentence. “No, Mick,” I say intently.

Mick laughs, coughing and wheezing. “Aye, Derek. Why’s that now? You’re the only one fit to serve in the position.”

“Did I slip into Gaelic, Mick? I said ‘no,’” I repeat, a little more forcefully this time.

Mick scoffs. “Well, ya can’t go on being the rogue forever, Derek,” he says. “Is that what you think you can do? That you can go on and be the bigshot firefighter for all the days of your life—just plowing your way through fires, drinking and fucking your way through bars, using your firefighter status to fuck every firehouse groupie in a five-mile radius in Los Angeles?”

“Doesn’t sound like the worst idea in the world, Hardy,” I say nonchalantly.

Hardy scoffs and throws up his hands. “Come now, Derek. Be reasonable. What would Don say?”

I look up and feel the room spinning despite myself.

I take a deep breath and try to focus on the walls, because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to throw up, scream, or fucking cry.

The ‘Don’ in question was my father, Donald, who served on the LAFD with Hardy—and to whom I was a constant disappointment.

“Hardy,” I say, “you know what Don would say? He would say, ‘I wouldn’t expect the kid to do anything else.’”

Hardy shakes his head, coughs, and wheezes slightly. “That’s not what Don would say at all. You know better than that.”

“It’s true, Hardy,” I say, fighting back tears. “I was nothing but a disappointment to the old man. He was the best firefighter on the force, and I don’t think he ever thought I’d be anything more than I am today. And he’s right.”

Hardy stands over me, puts both his hands on my shoulders. “No, Derek, my boy. No. That’s not true. He was never disappointed in you. He was always, always proud of you. He would tell me constantly.”

“Then how come he never told me, Mick?” I ask, using his first name for the first time in a long time.

“Aye, you know, there’re Irishmen of a certain generation that didn’t think to tell their boys that sort of thing. ’Fraid it would make them soft or something. But he would tell me all the time, every time, even on that night of the wildfire,” he says, his voice drifting off.

“The wildfire?” I ask. “You were there with him?”

“Aye, I was,” he says. “A terrible thing, that fire. Started by accident, you know. Homeless man took a shit in a paper bag and lit the bastard on fire, just so the bears and the wildcats wouldn’t find him in the woods, and boom, there it was. Would have been funny, too, if it hadn’t been so deadly.”

I sigh and hang my head. That’s always the case with those wildfires, I think. Always start by accident, and always, always kill people… including my old man.

Hardy continues regaling me about that night. “And so, your old man, Don, he was a lot like you, he was. Always rushing into the fire. Never giving a shit about himself, just worried about saving the people he needed to save. And that night, he saw a family, a homeless family, with young children in the woods. That fire was ready to all but tear them up, and he went running in there and got them right out. But then, there was a tree, you know, a bastard tree that caught fire and just tumbled to the ground and then…”

He drifts off, shaking his head and fighting in vain to contain the large, oily tears rolling down his face.

I take a deep breath, trying, and succeeding, to hold back tears of my own. “What’s this got to do with my father being proud of me?” I ask.

“Well,” he says, slapping his thighs, “on the truck, Don told me, just like he told me every other time, he was so proud of you. That one day you would be honoring the family name and sitting in the seat that Big Don—that’s your grandfather, you know—was sitting in at the time. Told me you were popular with the girls, even back then, but then you were dating that nice Irish girl, remember? Mary McCormack? The one with the family from Donegal, yeah?”

I nod, remembering Mary and her fire-engine red hair, her pixie nose, her perfectly freckled skin… and the carpet that matched the drapes, something that delighted me endlessly when I nestled my lips firmly between her legs.

There was nothing ‘nice’ about her in the bedroom, Mick, I think.

“I guess he thought she was the lass you were going to marry,” he continues. “And he said he was proud of you for finding a nice girl, for following in the family footsteps, and for being a strong, independent man like him—a man who handled his business and stood on his own two feet.”

He stops, sighs, and shakes his head. “Whatever happened to Mary, anyway? Why didn’t you marry her?”

I match his sigh with one of my own. “Two days after the old man’s burial, I was lost, you know? I dragged myself to Mulcahy’s, downed a whole bottle of Scotch. The next thing I know I woke up next to two different women—a black girl and another Irish girl who looked just like Mary. She found out and that was the end of that. Ever since then I prefer ’em two at a time.”

Hardy shakes his head. “They all look the same upside down,” he snarks.

“Right,” I say airily as he begins to leave. “You know, I never knew Don was proud of me.”

“That’s right, my boy,” Hardy says. “He was. From the day you were born until the day he died, he loved you with everything in him, and he was proud of you beyond words. If he knew you were up for the Lieutenant’s position, he’d be the first one buying rounds at the bar for everyone. ‘That’s my boy,’ he’d be saying.”

Hardy walks towards the door before looking over his shoulder one last time. “Think about it, Derek,” he says. “Don’t be afraid to give it a try. You’re worth all that and more.”

CHAPTER TEN

ELISABETH

The hotel options are slim pickings. My room at the Sunset View Lodge is disappointing, even though I picked the best from a small selection of three-star highway stops and I wasn’t expecting much to begin with. I asked for a non-smoking room and yet the entire place reeks of stale cigarette smoke. My recent brush with death is not the only reason I want to avoid the unpleasant odor.

My mother smoked constantly when I still lived at home. That’s probably how she got cancer in the first place. Living with a mother who burned through two packs a day, both inside and outside the trailer, has left me with a deep aversion to cigarettes and smoke. Even standing too close to a lit barbeque is enough to set off the panicky feeling I get when I think of home too much.

My mother always smoked these weird pink cigarettes they didn’t sell at the drugstore in town. The box said they were rose-scented. They made the whole trailer smell like someone bought a bouquet of roses and immediately set it on fire. I still have no idea where she got them. She always told me an ex-lover sent them to her from Paris, but I never really believed that. Unless she meant Paris, Arkansas, but even that’s hard to believe. We considered Sacramento exotic and it was only an hour away from our little trailer community.

The cloying smoky smell is at the top of a long list of things I do not care for in this room.

Some sort of color blind, floral-obsessed interior decorator must have been set loose inside. How can something be so flowery, yet so bland? Brown roses on the carpet. I again think of Mom’s cigarettes.

Part of me thinks I should have stayed at Derek’s. It’s distinctly a man’s apartment, yes, the lingering smell of a bachelor life clinging to everything, but it’s clean. And the water pressure in his shower is incredible. I know that first hand.

I go into a bathroom barely big enough for me to turn around in. The door nearly smacks into the toilet when I open it. It has one of those seats with a furry decal on the top. It looks more like a furry dead animal. There is no shower curtain.

“What the hell?” I moan. This is not what I need right now. After everything that’s happened to me lately, what I really need is a large, clean bed in a room that smells like lilacs and some room service. I didn’t think that was too much to ask for, even if I am technically a criminal now. I debate going downstairs to cancel my reservation.

I hear my mother’s voice in my head as soon as I formulate the thought.

What, you think you’re too good for this? You think you’re better than everyone?

That was one of her favorite insults to fling at me. It took me years to realize it wasn’t a bad thing I wanted to go to a good college or that I wanted a job other than waitressing. That’s what my mother does. Or did. I don’t even know if she’s able to work anymore. I guess if she is, she wouldn’t have reached out asking for help.

With a jolt I realize that with everything going on I never told my mother anything about the fire or the insurance claim. I haven’t even called her. God, maybe I really am a horrible daughter. I know leaving home was the right move, but now I’m thinking I could have done it differently.

I grew up living in the same double-wide my whole life. If I had a daddy, I don’t remember him. In fact, one of my earliest memories is of my mother chasing a man out of the trailer, waving a shotgun like a crazy woman, but I don’t think that man was my father.

My mother worked double shifts at a dingy diner down the road from the trailer park. She used to bring me along, leaving me in the dry storage room to play make-believe with the empty boxes and gigantic cans of vegetables and soup. Sometimes one of the cooks would sneak me a slice of pie or a cherry soda. My mother didn’t like that. She always said we were nobody’s charity case.

The diner barely paid enough to make rent, so my mother relied on the tips she earned to pay for most of my clothes and school stuff. Getting good tips wasn’t hard for my mother. She was pretty and charming. Men saw her as a wild thing they could tame and then eventually own. The best times were when my mother convinced some poor shmuck to loan her ‘just a little bit of money to get by this month.’ She would spend most of it on liquor, but at least she was in a better mood.

She let the men see the pretty, sparkly version of herself. I always got the tired, bitter one—the mother who thought I was spoiled and ungrateful. The mother who thought I looked down on everyone in the trailer park. The mother who tried to make me feel bad for wanting a better life.

I have to stop thinking about the past. If I keep going like this my anger will get the better of me and I’ll never make the phone call. This crazy thing is already in motion. My mother needs to know. Hell, my mother has probably pulled crazy schemes like this before in her life. She can probably give me some advice. It’s not the sort of thing I would have picked to bond over, but it’s better than nothing, right?

I pick up the phone with a shaking hand and punch in the phone number.

“Hello?” Her voice is scratchier than I remember. I guess she hasn’t given up her smoking habit after all.

“Lucinda,” is all I can make myself say. My mouth is dry like it’s still filled with smoke from the fire. I still think of her as my mother, or mom, in my head, but for some reason I can’t make my mouth say the word. I probably sound like a telemarketer, calling her by her first name like that. Or a stalker.

“Who’s this?” she asks, her voice is hard, as if she assumes anyone calling is someone she doesn’t want to talk to saying something she doesn’t want to hear.

“It’s Elisabeth,” I say. I have no idea why I use my full name. My brain feels like it’s filled with static interference. My nickname, Beth, is the only thing I took with me from the trailer park, and that was purely out of habit. I would have changed my name completely if the paperwork wasn’t such a pain in the ass.

“Beth?” Recognition blooms in her voice along with something like… joy? “Did you get my letter?”

“Yes,” I say. What am I supposed to say next? How does one talk to a dying person? How does one talk to an estranged mother? I need a drink. “How are you?” I ask in a halting voice. There is a hollow laugh on the other end of the line.

“Fine and fucking dandy, thanks for asking,” my mother says. I feel a sense of ease come over my body. That’s exactly something my mother would say, only now her words aren’t dripping with spite. There’s a humor in it I can’t remember ever hearing. I guess dying really changes a person. “Got a new trailer and I still have my hair, so I guess there’s a plus.”

“You always did have fantastic hair,” I say. My throat is suddenly tight. Tears prick the backs of my eyes. “No matter how hard I try I can never get mine to look as shiny as yours.”

“Raw eggs, baby,” my mother says. “Bring some eggs into the shower with you and coat your hair with them.”

“No way!” I exclaim. As a child, I thought my mother’s hair was magical or something. We both used the same cheap off-brand shampoo from the dollar store, but her hair always looked like one of the pretty ladies on the posters in the salon we couldn’t afford to go to while mine was always dull and limp.

“Hand to God, that’s all there is to it,” my mother chuckles. “I read it in one of those fancy fashion magazines when I was about twelve. Been doing it ever since.”

“I guess that explains why we went through eggs so quickly,” I say, laughing. This is strange. I haven’t spoken to my mother in seven years and the first thing we do is swap beauty secrets?

“Yeah,” my mother says softly. “I probably should have left more for you to eat. Your scrawny body could have used the protein.” Wait, what? That almost sounds like an apology. My mother never, ever, apologizes for anything.

“So,” I say, desperate to break the silence. “Treatment is expensive, huh?” Wow, Beth. You’re such a smooth operator. I wince inwardly.

“An arm and a leg would be an understatement,” my mother snorts.

“I thought you got insurance working at Billy’s,” I say.

“I did. But Billy fucking fired me when I told him I’m sick,” my mother says. I can taste the bitterness of her words. “Had to get out of town, find myself somewhere a little more affordable-like. That’s why I wrote. You never would have found me out here in this backwater hole.”

“Are you serious?” I gasp. “After everything you’ve done for that lowlife, he goes and fires you like that?” The rage I feel is unexpected after seven years of convincing myself I didn’t care.

“He’s had it out for me ever since I refused to give him a blowjob the first week I was hired,” my mother says in a matter-of-fact way. “Didn’t think he wanted me dead, though.”

“He’s going to be in for a real surprise when half of his regulars stop showing up,” I say. “They only come to see you.”

“Yeah, maybe that will get him to reconsider,” my mother says, but there isn’t any fight in her voice. Now would be a good time to tell her about my plan. My stupid, poorly thought out plan.

“I might be able to help you,” I say, hating how small my voice sounds. My mother hates the word ‘help.’

“What are you talking about?” she asks. I can hear the suspicion in her voice.

“I don’t have a lot saved up now,” I start, the words tumbling one after the other. “I’ve got a good job. I could save a considerable amount if I have the time. But it sounds like I don’t.”

“No, there’s not a lot of time at all,” she says. She sounds defeated—another emotion I have never heard coming from her.

“But, I have a plan,” I say quickly. “I have a damn good insurance policy on my home. If something happens to my house, I could use the payout to help pay for your treatment.”

“You’d do that for me?” my mother asks. The surprise in her voice is genuine.

“You’re my mama. I don’t want you to die,” I say. A tear rolls down my face. I let it drip off my chin onto that silly rose-covered carpet.

“I can’t ask you to do that, baby,” my mother sniffles on the other end of the line. “I don’t deserve it after the way I treated you growing up.”

“You don’t have to ask. I already did it,” I say.

“You did?” My mother gasps. “What exactly did you do?”

Here goes nothing.

“I sort of set my house on fire,” I say sheepishly.

“What the fuck, Beth?” she shrieks. “Oh my God, you really are my daughter. Only a child of mine would do something that bat-shit insane.” She’s laughing. I take that as a good sign. I find myself laughing as well.

“It was only supposed to be a little fire, but it got out of control. I ended up in the hospital.” I sound hysterical. But my mother is right; this is completely insane.

“Well, at least that will make it look more convincing,” my mother cackles, falling into a fit of coughing.

“I sure hope so. I’ll keep you updated on everything, okay?” I say. I’m nervous talking about this over the phone. Logically, I know it’s impossible, but I wouldn’t put it past that cop to bug my room or something.

“Sure, baby. I’ve got to go lie down. All this excitement has worn me out,” my mother says. She sounds drained.

“You get your rest,” I say, hoping I, in turn, sound reassuring. “And don’t worry. Everything is going to work out.”

“Thank you, Beth. I love you.” The words take a minute to settle over me. I can’t remember the last time I heard her say that. I never expected to hear her say those words again after I left.

And suddenly that single tear turns into a river. “I love you, too.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

DEREK

My footsteps thud against the broken concrete of the sidewalk as I make my way up the path to Beth’s house, uncertainty flooding my mind. This is the first time I’ve come back to a house fire of my own accord, and without being paid for it at that.

After talking to Beth again and spending a little time with her at the café, and agreeing to have a drink, I was overtaken with this urge to do a little investigating of my own. Speaking to Officer Brady at the hospital beforehand certainly piqued my interest. I’m hoping this little field trip will satisfy my curiosity.

Why am I doing this for her again? Don’t get me wrong, she’s a great lay and I definitely had loads of fun with her last night, but I barely know the girl. Not to mention the fact that the house is still sectioned and taped off for investigation. I could get into serious shit for this.

Despite all that, there’s just something about Beth that makes me want to do, well, something. What that something is, I’m not sure yet, but I’ll sure as fuck figure it out.

Being with her makes me feel alive, as pathetic as that sounds. I find myself craving more of it. Not just the sex either, but her general company. I feel like I could sit there and talk to her for hours and she wouldn’t judge me or treat me like an ass like most do.

She talks to me like I’m just a normal guy, and I find myself wanting to know more about her. When she speaks, I’m not listening for a chance to talk about myself. I’m listening because I actually care about what she has to say. That’s far from the case when it comes to most of my bed-mates.

There’s a lot I don’t know about her, but I’d like to spend some time to find out more.

What I do know for sure is I want to help, and coming back to the scene of the fire may be able to point me in the right direction to do just that.

Last night with her was… different. Sure, we had sex and it was great—I don’t have bad sex, after all—but there was a whole other kind of connection I’ve never felt with someone before. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m craving more. Usually doing something as extensive as this for a girl is something I avoid, but for some reason not only does this not feel like a chore, but I actively want to do it.

I snap back to reality by a voice calling out to me, some cop telling me I need to stay away.

There’s caution tape all around the perimeter of the house and I have to stop and duck under it, flashing my fire station ID to the cop at the door who had hollered out to me. He nods me through with a frown. I keep going, thankful he didn’t ask any questions. Not that I’m technically doing anything illegal, but still, the fewer explanations I need to give, the better.

The crunching sound of debris, ash, and dirt echo from beneath my boots as I walk through the threshold.

There are scorch marks on most of the walls in the main living area, the one with the large picture window featuring more than the others.

Hmm, probably a good place to start looking then.

I walk over to it and crouch, examining the blackened floor and curtains just below the windowsill. As I lean forward to swipe my glove against the wall in order to check the smoke pattern, I stop, a strong chemical smell filling my nostrils. I look down and see the culprit, a scrap of burnt fabric that looks as though it’s come from the curtains. I take another whiff, and realize that the smell I was getting was acetone, and a shit-load of it.

Odd.

I graze my hand over the now charcoal-colored fabric of the curtain that’s fallen to the ground and bring it closer to my face, scrunching up my nose and coughing as I do. The smell is strong enough to make my eyes water. It’s very obviously been drenched with the stuff, and my heart drops as I put it back down, seeing another scrap just a few feet away. I pick it up and toss it back, my suspicions confirmed as the stench overwhelms my senses.

I stand and run my hand up the rest of the fabric that’s left hanging, shaking my head and sighing in frustration when I grab the other one and the same stench wafts over me.

All the curtains have clearly been soaked with acetone. I’m willing to bet this is where the fire started and that it was deliberate. How else would both of the curtains in the room become completely soaked with something like acetone? It’s incredibly flammable, plus it’s not a household liquid one walks around with enough of to ‘accidentally’ soak an entire set of curtains. Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing.

I let my arms fall to my sides. My hands ball into fists, anger and frustration rolling over me in waves. Shit like this is how people get hurt, or worse, killed. I’ve seen firsthand what happens when a fire gets so out of control people can’t make it out, even firefighters. Beth was lucky we got here when we did, because this fire could have been a hell of a lot worse.

I dig around my pocket and pull out Officer Brady’s card, using my cell phone to give him a call. He’d be able to check the system for previous arson cases involving acetone as the accelerant and cross-reference them. For all we know, this isn’t necessarily this guy’s first fire.

I start dialing Officer Brady’s number and stop suddenly, huffing and shoving his card back in my pocket along with my phone. I stand there in the middle of the room, deliberating and looking over the burnt fabric of the curtains.

Shouldn’t I tell Beth first? I mean, I’d want to know if someone set my house on fire, or—even worse—is trying to kill me. Sure, it’s not a call that anyone wants to get, but it’s better to be prepared, isn’t it?

I decide I’ll call Officer Brady and tell him what I found after I talk to Beth and make sure she’s safe. Besides, if I can talk to her about this, she may be able to tell me if she has anyone she suspects. She’d know better than anyone if she has any enemies. That way, when I call Office Brady, I’ll have more information.

I decide to take a look around some more and see if I can find anything else that may point to any evidence, or suspects. I’m overcomes with anger. It pulses through me hot and thick. I start pacing in an attempt to calm myself, focused on finding more evidence I can rather than stewing around in anger.

I wander about the rooms, checking and inspecting all the areas affected by the fire and discovering that none of them come close to being as scorched as where I found the curtains. After a few minutes, I head back into the main living area.

I cross my arms over my chest and lean against a beam, my lips pursed together in a scowl as I give the room one last look over before I leave.

My gaze falls on the acetone-soaked pieces of scorched curtain fabric on the floor. I curse under my breath.

Who the fuck would want to do this? Especially to someone like Beth? The thought someone would not only want to hurt her, but burn down her entire fucking house sets my blood on fire. I don’t want her to have to deal with this shit on her own. I decide to call her as soon as I’m done here, go and make sure she’s okay.

Someone may have tried to hurt her once, but I’ll be damned if they’re going to get the opportunity again.

CHAPTER TWELVE

ELISABETH

I’m sitting on the bed in my hotel room reading a magazine when my phone rings, startling me out of my celebrity gossip-fueled haze. Thinking Derek may be calling me to make plans, I lean over to where my phone is sitting on the end table, picking it up with a smile.

It soon disappears to make way for disappointment, my face falling when the caller ID tells me it’s not Derek, but Officer Brady.

I knew he was going to call me again, but I was hoping it wouldn’t be so soon, that I would have a chance to come up with something to tell him. Reluctantly, I press the answer button, putting on a fake smile in hopes it will make me sound more pleasant and less like I’m dreading his call.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Ms. Montgomery? It’s Officer Brady calling.”

“Oh, hello, Officer Brady,” I say politely, “what can I do for you?”

There’s a pause on the line. For a split second I think that by some miracle he’s hung up or disconnected, but his voice rings through and I sigh, accepting the fact I’m going to have to talk to him. Who knows, maybe he’s calling to tell me they’ve concluded their investigation and that I’ll be dealing with my insurance company from here on out?

“I’ve got a few questions for you regarding the house fire. I came by the hospital but you had already been discharged, so I figured I’d give you a call.”

Well, so much for that theory.

I swallow before speaking. “Of course. What would you like to know?”

I try to psych myself into it. All I’ve got to do is keep my answers short, concise, and to the point. Derek got the letter out, so I know they don’t have that as evidence or motive. This is probably just a routine set of questions. You’ve got this.

“Well, for starters, what can you tell me about the fire itself?” he asks.

“Uh, well, Officer Brady, I’m not sure what I can tell you. Like I said, I don’t know a whole lot about it. I woke up to my house on fire, and being carried out of it.”

“Right…”

There’s an edge to his voice, and I can hear him typing away at a computer in the background as I talk, presumably for a statement. I decide this is probably a good time to throw him a bone, give him an idea to chase to lead him away from me, or to at least buy me some time.

“Although,” I say contemplatively, “I’m pretty sure I remember seeing one of my outlets throwing sparks. That could start a fire, couldn’t it?”

Obviously my outlets weren’t throwing sparks, but he doesn’t know that. Plus, something like that would at least have to involve an electrician and extend the investigation.

“It could, yes.”

His voice is cold and firm. I don’t like it. I don’t think he’s buying my story. Still, I have to hold my ground and keep myself calm.

“Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?” he snaps. “Perhaps anything involving ill intentions?”

Shit, that doesn’t sound good. My heart rate starts to pick up and I take a breath, steadying and calming myself. I have to keep my tone level and play dumb, otherwise I’m going to blow this whole thing and end up in jail. Not to mention it’ll have all been for nothing. I won’t get the insurance money and my mother will be back to square one trying to afford her treatment. So, I take a deep breath and answer, playing along.

“Ill intentions? I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“You don’t?”

His sharp response and the coldness in his voice make my blood boil. I take a gulp, pursing my lips together in frustration. I need to stay calm, but it’s pretty clear to me this call isn’t a friendly one. I need to keep up the act and string him along, at least for now. After all, he could have no evidence at all. This could be some sort of weird bad-cop routine to try and get information out of me.

“No, I don’t, Officer Brady. What is this all about?”

“Oh, I think you know.”

Shit! Shit. Shit. Shit.

Well, there it is, all the confirmation I need to know he thinks I set the fire. Which I did, of course, but that doesn’t mean he has to know.

“No, actually,” I snap back at him. “I don’t. And I’d appreciate it if you stopped with the games. What’s going on?”

I hear a creak like he’s leaning back in a chair. He chuckles softly on the other end, a sigh escaping him before he speaks.

“Come on, Elisabeth, the fire department already declared there was no electrical mishap. You and I both know the fire was set intentionally.”

“What?” I say, my voice full of shock. To be honest, the shock is real. Sure, I knew the fire was set deliberately, but I didn’t know they already knew that.

“That’s right, you heard me. We already know the fire was set deliberately and not the result of faulty wiring, so why don’t you just tell me what you know?”

Okay, so they apparently know the fire was set on purpose, but they don’t know it was me. If they did, they would have already arrested me and I would be talking to Officer Brady through a holding cell right now, not over the phone.

The dumb and innocent act clearly isn’t going to fly anymore, so now I’m going for Plan B: the angry victim.

“Let me get this straight, Officer Brady,” I hiss. “You discover the fire, which nearly burned down my house with me in it, was purposely set, and your first instinct is to call and accuse me? Where do you get off?”

“Now hold on, let’s n—”

“No! You hold on, and listen to me,” I shout

I hear him huff on the other end of the line, and he stops talking for now, so I continue.

“I am the victim here. Do you understand that? What possible reason could I have to burn down my own house? And with me inside it? Jesus. Do you think I was trying to kill myself? Even if I wanted to, I sure as hell wouldn’t do it by burning my house down.”

He tries to interject, but I cut him off again and don’t give him a chance to speak, instead talking over him until he lets up. I decide to draw inspiration from my old drama class and pull out some fake tears, my voice starting to waver.

“You should be ashamed of yourself, do you hear me? I have been through hell the last couple of days, and you’ve been no help at all. First, you show up at the hospital when I’ve had barely any chance to rest or even process what happened. Then, the next time I hear from you it’s a phone call accusing me of setting fire to my own damn house! You didn’t even ask how I was doing! You just dove right into accusing me.”

“Elisabeth,” he pleads, “now just calm down and let me explain.”

He’s back-pedaling now. I smile. The plan’s working.

“Oh, no,” I interrupt. “it’s ‘Miss Montgomery.’ You don’t get to be on a first name basis with me after this shit, treating me like a damn criminal.”

He huffs. “Of course, Miss Montgomery. If I could just explain…”

“Explain what? That instead of taking the time to do a proper investigation, you’re using your resources to accuse the victim of the fire who almost died inside it of setting it herself? Can you even hear yourself? I’ve got half a mind to make a formal complaint, or go public with this.”

Of course, I’m not going to do either of those things—that would just increase the risk of me getting caught—but he doesn’t know that.

“I’m sorry, Miss Montgomery,” he says, on the retreat. “You’re right. I was out of line. We’re doing our best to try and figure this out and we always investigate everyone, homeowners included. It’s routine. I didn’t mean to come off the way I did. There’s no need to involve the media, all right?”

I can tell I’ve won this time by his tone, which has shifted from confident and cold to submissive and warm. He’s apologizing, back-pedaling on his initial statement. He’s practically begging me to let him off the hook. I’m in the clear, at least for now. I breathe a silent sigh of relief.

“Look,” I tell him, “I just want to know what happened to my house. If the fire was set on purpose, I need to know who by. I might be in danger. That’s not going to happen if you’re too busy wasting time insulting me.”

“You’re right, and again, I’m sorry. We’re doing our best to figure out what happened. We’re looking at all angles.”

I keep on him. “Excellent. Do you have any other accusations for me today, Officer Brady, or can I hang up now?”

I hear him clear his throat and smirk to myself, happy to have won this particular round—hopefully the final round.

“No, that’s all, Miss Montgomery. Thank you.”

I hang up the phone and groan without waiting for him to respond, placing it back down on the bed and leaning against the headboard. I close my eyes and take a deep breath to calm myself down, my heart rate finally slowing to something approaching normal.

That was way too close. I need to find out exactly what they have and what they know. I look at my phone and contemplate calling Derek, a pang of guilt hitting me hard in the chest.

Do I feel guilty about leading him on and using him for information? Of course I do, but what other choice do I have? The way I look at it, I’ve got two choices: I can string him along for a bit and use him to get the information I need to put myself in the clear and help my mother, or I come clean, get arrested, and go to jail.

I’m not about to choose option number two.

As if on cue, my phone rings again. I nearly jump clean out of my skin, the jitters from my previous phone call still very much alive and well.

This time, much to my relief, it’s Derek. I answer the call, smiling when I hear his voice.

“Hey you, sorry I had to leave like that this morning. I got your note.”

“It’s okay, I get it. Fires don’t wait. Got to save all those damsels in distress.”

He chuckles on the other line. I ask him to come over tonight before I lose my nerve.

“I’d love that, actually. I’ll see you around seven?”

“That’s perfect,” I reply.

We chat for a few minutes longer, then say our goodbyes. I hang up the phone, rising from the bed and walking over to the bathroom to turn on the shower.

I’ll get ready, Derek will come over, and I’ll get some more information out of him. My mind travels to the night before and I can’t help but smile, memories—albeit foggy ones—of his bed and what we did in it fast filling my thoughts.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

DEREK

“Thanks for inviting me,” I say, settling onto the bed and taking off my shoes as I do so.

“Don’t mention it,” Beth says, sliding slowly but intently beside me. “When I heard you wanted to come over, I couldn’t help but agree. I wanted to see you again, you know.”

I peer down her shirt with a questioning look on my face, notice her cherry red lace bra peeking ever so slightly through her plunging V-neck shirt.

My cock immediately stands to attention. A dull, throbbing pull settles somewhere between my legs.

I need to fuck her, I think to myself. It’s a medical emergency.

I clear my throat, shift my legs so my rock-hard cock isn’t as obvious through my pants, and continue with my train of thought. “So, I thought you might like to know what I found out about the fire,” I begin.

Immediately, Beth gets defensive. “Why does everyone want to tell me something about the fire?” she says, nearly screaming. “Do you really think I want to know who tried to burn my house down?”

I look at her quizzically. “Ah, yes. I would think so,” I say gently, trying to talk her back down from the ledge, before realizing there is more to the story than she’s letting on. “Is someone trying to hurt you, Beth? Tell me.”

She shakes her head violently before leaping off the bed, stripping her shirt away.

Her little striptease reveals she’s wearing a Cadillac-style bra that pushes her soft, ample tits up to her chest, a matching red garter belt with black fishnet stockings, and a pair of black crotch-less lace underwear.

Dear God in Heaven, I think to myself, my cock growing longer and harder by the second… and a lot more obvious. Forget the medical emergency. This just turned into life and death.

“I’m just so tense,” she says in a simpering, almost child-esque voice. “And when I get tense, I get hot. I’m sorry.” She covers up her chest in an almost-mocking gesture of modesty.

I stand up and take her in my arms, trying to reassure her. “If someone’s trying to hurt you Beth, you need to tell me right now,” I say, sliding my hands under the crease of her butt. “I need you to know that no matter how bad you think it is, I’m going to be here to help you. You can trust me.”

She sighs and, steadying her breathing, shifts her lower body towards mine. I can feel her pussy pulsating lightly through my acid-washed jeans. There’s no way she isn’t feeling my rock-hard member through the thin lace of that crotchless underwear.

“I appreciate that, Derek,” she says, her voice deepening an octave.

She’s definitely turned on, only needs the tiniest of pushes in the right direction to fuck me right here, right now, on the floor of the Mondrian, with nothing but the Hollywood Hills beneath us.

She smiles slightly, kissing me chastely on the cheek before turning away from me and towards the mini bar.

She bends down and shows off her flowering sex, and I can’t help but wonder if she’s doing this on purpose.

Come to think of it, I say to myself, I know she’s doing this on purpose.

“I just need something to help me through the stress,” she says, rifling through bottles of Jack Daniels, Johnnie Walker, and Jim Beam—The ‘Three Wise Men,’ as we used to call them in college.

She turns around to face me, a bottle of Johnnie in each hand. “Would you like a drink, Derek? You look like you could use a bit of stress relief yourself.” She starts to point the bottle of Johnnie in my direction.

I smirk knowingly and take both bottles of Johnnie away from her.

Nice try, Beth, I think to myself.

“You know, Beth,” I say, a slow smile spreading across my face. “I have a better way to relieve some stress, if you’re down for it. It’ll definitely take your mind off your problems.”

As if on cue, she jumps on me and shoves her tongue down my throat, kissing me with a passion that’s almost violent in its intensity. I return her sloppy wet kiss with one of my own and take it as an affirmative that she does, indeed, want to fuck me.

Scooting to the floor, I position my head between her legs so that, when I look up, I’m able to see her soft, shaved pussy, now glistening with arousal.

“Come here,” I say, summoning her to sit on my face.

She obliges, and I hear her breath quickening as I use my tongue to spread her pussy lips and lick her clit longingly. The tip of my tongue darts from her clit to the middle of her lips, the entire area getting slicker with each flick of my tongue.

All of a sudden Beth starts grinding her hips in a counterclockwise fashion so my tongue gets the rest of her soaking wet and she gets the full experience of my mouth on her warm, expectant pussy. Her moans ratchet up in volume. I start moving my hand to her mouth to cover it before we awaken our more conservative neighbors visiting from Idaho or Alabama or some other flyover state.

“Yes,” she moans, using her hands to glide my fingers in her mouth. She begins sucking on them with a fervent intensity, as though she needs to suck on me to simply survive.

Not that I mind being her savior of sorts.

I’m just ready for her to suck on something besides my fingers.

I shift my body so she’s now on the floor, pinning her down with my hands so she can’t move her hips. It only takes a few sweeps of my tongue over her slick heat to tip her over the edge. She comes, bucking hard against my face, moaning in ecstasy as I lick her clean. I take care to be extra gentle around her clit, knowing it’s particularly sensitive after a woman comes—especially when you come as hard as Beth just did.

Satisfied, I use my advantageous position to shift my pants off my body, and finally free my throbbing cock. I briefly glance down at it, noticing it’s not only pearly with pre-cum, but longer and harder than I’ve ever seen it before.

Well, what do you know…

I shift a little so that my cock dances lightly on her slightly parted lips.

“Suck,” I command.

Almost immediately she opens her mouth, unlocks her jaw, and—much like Jane did the night before Beth first came into my life—takes the entirety of my cock into her mouth.

Fuck me.

Unlike Jane, however, Beth doesn’t gag when the tip of my cock brushes the back of her throat. She’s a fucking pro.

She just keeps sucking, licking, and taking me down, and I am nothing if not impressed we’re making our own porn movie right here in the penthouse of the Mondrian. The view outside the window is certainly impressive, and I push back the curtains to further look down on the Hollywood Hills, positioning Beth’s body so her spread lips are facing the window, giving the passing planes and wild animals the view of a lifetime.

“Beth, I’m going to—”

I go to shift away, but her hand comes around the root of my cock, fixing me in position.

I let out a groan like a dying bull and release in her mouth, pumping hard.

She finishes, pulls back, and wipes her mouth, smiling as she does so. “Is that all?” she asks mischievously.

I return her naughty, cat-like glance with one of my own. “Question is, can you handle more?” I ask.

She looks down at my cock and smiles. “Where do you want to put that?” she asks, faking a coquettish accent.

“I don’t know,” I say, pulling her hips toward mine. I don’t beat around the bush. “I was thinking that beautiful ass of yours.”

She shifts her hips upward, pointing her ass out towards the tip of my cock.

Ass it is, then, I think to myself as I spit on my fingers, spread her ass cheeks, and slowly rub inside the delicate area around her anus.

Next, I add a finger, enjoying the tightness of her hole, the way it grips and sucks the digit inwards.

I add a second, noting the way she mews and moans in response, her hips rocking back to take more.

When I’m sure she’s ready, I take hold of my cock and slowly feed it in.

It’s so fucking hot it takes everything I have not to release my second load.

I feel her hand take mine and guide my fingers into her pussy, moaning.

I match each of my cock’s thrusts with one from my fingers, marveling at both the beautiful view outside the window and the beautiful view of her spreading, glistening pussy, and wide, perfect ass in front my eyes.

“Harder, Derek,” she demands, moaning, barely able to form complete sentences. “I want it all. Put it all inside me.”

She shifts her body again, allowing me to shove yet another finger inside her pussy. I groan as the last inch of my cock is swallowed up by her ass. She’s taken me whole.

Breathlessly she lifts her ass off my cock and stands up slightly, the tender lips of her sex swollen and cherry red. “Go clean up,” she commands.

“Why?”

“Because I want your cock in my pussy.”

I don’t have to be told twice. I head to the bathroom and grab the first thing I can find to clean down my cock. When I jump back onto the bed she climbs over me, turning her hips around in a reverse-cowgirl position. “The other way now,” she says, trying desperately to catch her breath.

“How do you mean?” I ask, trying to make sure I understand her. “Just to clarify. You want my cock in your pussy?”

She nods, violently, in approval. “And I want your fingers in my ass,” she says, before obligingly placing my fingers against her asshole.

I can’t even protest before she’s sunk down on my cock, the silky heat of her sex a thing of beauty.

I press two fingers together and slide them forward deep into her ass.

She begins bouncing up and down my cock, grunting and moaning in delight.

I look down at my fingers in her ass, my cock in her pussy… It’s fucking sensory overload, the sights, the sounds…

I’m so turned on by this sight that in the middle of it all, I pull her off my cock drag her up to my face. I lick her from front to back, returning to concentrate on the tight bundle of nerves at the top of her sex while she grinds down on me.

I bury my face deep inside her pussy, unable to get enough of her taste, the sweet arousal running from her core.

She reaches down and grips my hair tight, screaming aloud as she comes again, arousal running fresh and free from her sex, my cock desperate to be back inside her.

She convulses, pulling at my hair until she’s spent.

But she’s not done.

She walks down my body and takes hold of my cock, sliding it back into herself, grinding and rocking until I can’t take a second more. She senses it, lifting herself from me and jerking me off.

“Come,” she says, eying me, “come all over my face.”

The words are enough.

I give a pained cry and release with unnatural force, shooting ribbon after ribbon of silky cum over her open mouth and tongue, her cheeks, coating her with my desire.

It seems endless, but she smiles through it, her tongue whipping up to lick her upper lip. “Mmmm,” she moans.

Holy. Shit.

Post-orgasm, I usually deflate, eager to get whoever’s in my bed out as soon as possible, but there’s none of that here with Beth. It occurs to me this is more than sex, as great as it is.

Shades of Mary come to my mind—the first girl I thought I loved, the “nice Irish girl” Chief Hardy mentioned when we met to discuss Beth’s house fire. I realize that whether I like it or not, I have never experienced love until now. I am falling hopelessly in love with Beth.

Or, at least I think I am.

“That was amazing,” I say as she wipes her face with a damp washcloth.

“It was,” she says. “But I just have one question now, Derek.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

“Can we do it again?” she asks lasciviously, motioning her mouth towards my cock.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard a better question in my entire life.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ELISABETH

Oh, no.

I’m starting to think I like Derek.

Sure, he was an ass at first. Still kind of is. But he didn’t need to go to my house looking for clues and he definitely didn’t need to tell me what he found. I don’t even think he’s told Officer Brady about the curtains soaked in nail polish remover. Surely that insensitive jerk of a cop would have brought it up the last time we spoke.

It’s true. For all his faults Derek really does care about my safety. And who knew his skills in bed could also cure a panic attack? Part of me is glad he’s already left for work. Thinking about everything that happened last night makes my body flush with delicious heat. I glance at my phone. It would be so easy to send a quick text to Derek asking him to come back for another tumble in the sheets.

But you can’t, the tiny voice of reason in my mind squeaks. And the voice is right. The truth is I don’t deserve to take comfort in Derek. I’m using him. However noble my reasons are, it’s wrong. He might be a womanizer with an ego the size of Texas, but he isn’t a bad person. If anyone is bad in this situation, it’s me.

The realization hits me like lightning. Yes, I am the bad person in this situation… but I don’t have to be.

I can come clean about everything. I can call Officer Brady and tell him I lit the fire. I can also tell him why I did it. Derek might hate me for it, but I can’t stand the thought of repaying his kindness with deceit. He’s a good person, or at least, he’s trying to be. Hell, he might even be trying for me. I can’t do this to him. It’s simply not right.

It’s decided. I doubt Derek will ever want to see me again after he finds out, but he deserves honesty. The thought of never seeing him, talking to him, or sleeping with him again puts a dull ache in the center of my chest. I’m falling for him too hard to build our relationship on a bed of lies.

Maybe I should tell him before I tell Officer Brady. I don’t know. I’ve never committed a crime before. I don’t know how this is supposed to work. Why did I never watch any of those cheesy crime shows on TV? Maybe if I did I would have known how to cover my tracks, or at least keep a fire under control.

Regardless of whether I tell Derek or Officer Brady first, there is one person who deserves to know before either of them—Mom. After all, it’s her life on the line. She will need all the extra time I can give her to come up with an alternate plan.

It takes me a few minutes to work up my courage, but I eventually punch in my mother’s phone number.

On the first ring, I want to hang up.

On the second, nerves bundle into a tight knot in my stomach.

On the third ring, I fear I’m going to throw up.

“Beth, honey! I wasn’t expecting to hear from you!” she greets me like I always wished she would. Like she’s genuinely happy to hear from me. She sounds like a proper mother. Guilt twists hard in my gut.

“Hi, Mom,” I say quietly. The word doesn’t taste right on my tongue yet. I’m afraid it never will, especially not after the conversation that’s about to happen.

“Is something the matter, sugar?” Amazing. It’s as if she’s suddenly developed a mother’s intuition. What is going on in the world?

“Actually,” I say, working past the lump in my throat. “Yes, there is something wrong. I don’t think I can go through with this.”

“What the hell do you mean?” Her voice is like flint, all that motherly warmth gone in an instant.

“I wanted to help you, Mom. I need you to know that,” I say. “But I don’t think this is the right way. I almost died. Now I’m just digging myself into a deeper grave with every lie. I’m not a professional arsonist. There are clues all over the house indicating I’m the one who set the fire. I think it’s better if I confess to what I’ve done, keep it simple.” It all comes out in a rush. By the time I finish, my lungs are burning and my heart is pounding. I take a deep breath to steady my nerves as I wait to hear how my mother will react.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” My mother’s voice is a cold hiss. Suddenly, I’m a child again being scolded for something I did wrong.

“I—”

“Do you know what happens when you confess?” She demands.

I’m almost grateful when she cuts me off. I hate how weak and pleading I sound. I’m being flung backwards, away from the woman I’ve worked so hard to become and returning to the trembling child I used to be.

I shake my head, realizing after the fact my mother can’t see the gesture. But that doesn’t seem to matter to her. “I’ll tell you what will happen. They’ll put your picture in the paper,” she says. “And on the news so the whole wide world can see you’re nothing more than a dirty, lying, two-bit criminal. Then they lock you up. You’re pretty enough, so you might just get probation and community service.” She spits the word ‘pretty’ like it’s a slur.

“Confessing is better than lying and getting caught,” I argue weakly. Whatever punishment I would face in light of my confession would be considerably lighter than if Officer Brady figures everything out. No, not if, when.

“What do you think is going to happen to that quaint little life you set up for yourself out there?” My mother asks, speaking to me as if I were a simpleton. “I’ve got news for you, sweetheart. You confess and that all goes away. No more fancy job. No more nice house in a nice neighborhood. No more going out with your high-falutin’ friends. No respected employer would ever hire you after something like that.”

“Billy hired you at the diner even though you had a record.” My voice is barely above a whisper. I didn’t want this to escalate any further. I retreat to the old pattern of thinking I developed from dealing with my angry mother as a child. Speak softly, make yourself small, leave as soon as possible. The sooner I’m out of this conversation, the better. I understand why my mother is upset. I told her before she didn’t have to worry. She is, after all, staring into the face of death itself.

“I’m still going to do everything I can to help you. But you’ve got to understand it’s not fair to the people who’ve helped me to go through with this. It’s not right.”

My mother snorts. “You think that police officer is helping you?”

“No,” I reply. Ol’ George is foaming at the mouth to accuse me of something, and rightly so. “But the fireman, the one who literally carried me out of the burning house, has been doing more for me than I ever could have asked for. He thinks the fire happened because someone is after me. He’s trying to keep me safe.”

“Oh,” she sighs, as if I just procured a missing puzzle piece. “I see. He fucked you, didn’t he?”

“Excuse me?” I gasp. A blush colors my cheeks.

“He gave you a mind-blowing orgasm, got between your legs, and now you feel like you owe him the world,” she continues. “Just you wait. If you confess, he’ll leave you high and dry. Then you’ll have no choice but to come crawling right back to Shady Hill.” I hate the smugness in my mother’s voice, but she’s right. Deep down I always knew I would end up back at the trailer park. It’s inevitable.

“I hope you kept my bunk open for me,” I say dryly. I give up. I’ve ruined my life by agreeing with this stupid plan. It doesn’t matter I did it for the right reasons. I ruined everything and now it’s time to pay the price.

There is a shuffling on the other end of the line. I think I hear my mother talking to someone. Or maybe she’s just muttering to herself. I remember her doing that a lot when she got frustrated, especially when the bills were due and she had no way to pay them.

“Look, baby,” she says. Her voice carries the same note of defeat as mine does. “I really want you to reconsider this. After all, my health started to decline right after you abandoned me. I stopped taking care of myself. How could I after my baby left home without so much as a goodbye? This cancer bloomed right from the pieces of my broken heart.” Her voice is thick like she’s holding back tears. I wait to feel the stab of guilt like I always do when I think of how I left home. It doesn’t come. Instead, all I get is cold anger.

“Are you serious?” I say slowly, processing the accusation in her words. Before I can control myself, words are tumbling out one after the other. “You’re blaming me for your cancer? That’s a new low, even for you. I can’t believe I let myself get caught up in this.”

“Don’t you dare speak to me like that!” she yells into the phone, but I can’t stop. Everything I’ve held in, everything I’ve never said is burning in my throat. I have to let it all out before it consumes me even more than it already has.

“You’ve really convinced yourself you’re the one true victim here, haven’t you?” I continue, my voice choked with emotion. “You blame this on a broken heart, but did you ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe, if you were a halfway decent mother, I never would have left?”

“I am a good mother,” she says. I can hear her voice wobbling.

“Oh, really?” I’m shouting now and I can’t stop. Tears are streaming down my cheeks and my breath hitches with sobs. “Would a good mother spend her child’s lunch money on cigarettes and beer? Would a good mother lock her child out of the trailer so her boyfriend wouldn’t get annoyed? Would a good mother make her child feel guilty for wanting more out of life than a deadbeat husband and a double wide that smells like burning flowers?” My mother is silent on the other end. I’m crying openly, loudly even, but I don’t hear anything coming from her.

The call cuts off. She’s hung up on me.

I sit on the hotel bed and pull my knees up to my chest. I cry harder than I’ve cried in years. I cry for my ruined future. I cry for my childhood. I even cry for my mother and the burned bridges between us. I cry until I have no tears left.

I want to call Derek. I don’t understand why, but I believe he’s the only person on earth who can make me feel less wretched right now. At the very least he can provide a distraction so I don’t have to think about this anymore. But I really just want to talk to him. I want to hear him tell me everything will be okay.

But it won’t be. And I can’t call him. It wouldn’t be fair of me to do that, not when I’m still keeping such a massive secret from him. Until I’m ready to confess, there’s only one clear path.

I have to cut ties with Derek.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

DEREK

Hi! You’ve reached Beth. I can’t take your call right now—

I hang up. I don’t want to hear the rest.

After all, I’ve heard the same voicemail every hour, on the hour, for the past two days.

It’s not that I can’t reach Beth by phone—although that certainly doesn’t help.

But I haven’t been able to reach her by any other method of communication either.

Not by phone. Not by text. Not even by freakin’ email.

I check my phone again, looking at the text messages, hoping for an answer.

No such luck. The last message I sent—a one-line text reading, in its entirety, Beth, are you okay? —was simply left as ‘read.’

I sigh, click my phone off, and slump my head between my legs.

I don’t understand why this is affecting me this way.

It wasn’t too long ago I was chasing pussy like it was going to rot on the vine. The last time I had a two-for-one special—Jane and whatever her name was—was only a week ago.

Maybe.

If that.

I used to use women like toilet paper—one-time use, then throw them away for the next sheet.

I never abused them, of course, never felt the need for that, but as long as they knew what they were getting into when it came to me, and as long as everyone was over the age of consent, it was fair game.

How’s that saying go? If there’s grass on the field, it’s time to play ball?

Yeah.

That.

If there’s grass on your field, it’s time to play with my balls.

But Beth is different.

I knew after that first night she wasn’t a one-and-done like the rest.

Now I want something more—something special, something different, something real.

It’s not just the sex that draws me in either, though certainly the sex with Beth has been next-level amazing. No. It’s her.

Her essence. Her being. Her personality. Her desire to have me be her protector.

There’s something so fragile yet resilient about her. She’s someone who suffered an unbelievable tragedy, yet survived and, dare I say, thrived. She’s a woman of great vibrancy: sexy on the outside, most definitely, but equally sexy on the inside, which only makes her all the more attractive.

I’m drawn back to her body.

The sex. Oh God, the sex.

It’s not just the crazy positions or the multiple times she comes each time I fuck her. It’s her eagerness in the sack—her willingness to please me, her ability to make me come just as many times as I make her come—that makes her my perfect match in both life and the bedroom.

I play these thoughts in my head again and again before checking my phone on impulse.

No messages from Beth. No missed calls. And the last text message still left on ‘read.’

Sigh.

The alarm in the house blares loudly. As usual, I board the truck with the boys in tow.

This time though, I’m the first one on the truck—a fact that doesn’t go unnoticed by McAllister, who looks at me curiously at first. He nods slightly and shrugs his shoulders.

“How nice of you to show up, Derek,” he says, but instead of muttering it under his breath in a sarcastic tone, his voice is clear, serious, and almost apologetic.

Mike and Tim aren’t far behind. They both look shocked when they see me on the truck already.

Neither of them says a word for a few minutes. They simply stare at me intently, waiting for me to volunteer some information about my altered frame of mind.

With no explanation forthcoming, Tim starts in on me. “What’s the special occasion?” he asks, trying, and failing, to stifle his laughter.

I look at him glumly. “Nothing, brother. We got a job to do, and I’m here to do it.”

Mike breaks out, guffawing, almost hysterical with laughter. “Yeah, right, Ricky. Yeah fuckin’ right. You? Where she at, bro? Whassamatta, you bury her body in the backyard or something?”

I glare at him. “Anyone ever tell you you’re an asshole of the highest order, Mikey?” I ask. “Because, if not, let me be the first to break it to you: you’re an asshole of the highest order, and I fuckin’ hate your guts.”

That last remark causes Tim to break out in equally braying laughter. “Oh shit, Derek! Don’t even tell me you didn’t get some because you’re in love,” he says between fits of laughter.

I don’t return his joviality. “So what if I am?” I ask semi-rhetorically, but also quite seriously. “I’m not immune to Cupid’s arrow.”

“Or his cock,” someone shouts.

Suddenly, Mike and Tim stop laughing, and Mike stares at me intently.

“Oh shit, Ricky,” he says. “You’re in love! In love!” he repeats, as though it’s a rare disease, the kind that only exists in science-fiction novels.

“Don’t tell me it’s with that crazy Beth bitch,” Tim remarks offhandedly.

“She’s not ‘crazy,’ Tim, and I’ll thank you for not calling her a bitch,” I retort with more anger in my voice than I expect, or the situation warrants.

I don’t get a chance to defend her honor, because we pull up in front of a large yet simple house made of ecru-colored stucco and the requisite manicured lawn.

I squint, then turn to McAllister, who’s sitting in the front seat of the truck. “Where’s the fuckin’ fire, Chief?” I ask, almost incredulously.

“It’s in the back,” replies McAllister. “You know how these Silver Lake hipsters are. It’s a barbecue gone wrong, nothing serious, but if we don’t contain the fire, it’s gonna get a very serious and very quickly.”

As I’ve done so many times before, I rush to the back, where I see two girls—your standard hipster fare, nothing remarkable about either one of them in their oversized blue baby doll dresses, knee-high wool socks, and well-worn saddle shoes—standing about five feet away from a barbecue that’s completely engulfed in flames.

I glare at the two hipsters intently as Tim and Mike rush behind me to put the fire out.

“How the hell did this happen?” I ask coarsely, not really sure I want to hear the ridiculous answer.

Sure enough, the blonde hipster, who hasn’t seen the inside of a shower since Obama’s last presidential term, clears her throat and gives me one of the dumbest answers I’ve ever heard in my entire career as a firefighter.

“We were just barbecuing avocados,” she says, in a nasal, whiny tone. “The fire wouldn’t go high enough. We poured some kerosene on the wood. That’s it.”

That’s it?

I shake my head and scoff. “First of all, you were barbecuing what? Second, what the hell made you think pouring kerosene on wood was a great fuckin’ idea?”

The brunette hipster, who clearly washes herself, unlike her more, uh, fragrant counterpart (but whose chipmunk cheeks and matching buck-teeth make her look less attractive than her pungent roommate) steps forward and repeats herself, speaking slowly, as though I’m a particularly obstinate child.

“Don’t knock it,” she says. “You totally need to come by and try some when you’re off-duty, see how tasty they are for yourself.” She smiles flirtatiously, taking care to shift her upper body towards me to show me her faded blue bra strap.

I recoil in disgust, curling my upper lip as I do so, not particularly caring if Little Miss Hipster gets offended by my revulsion.

“Thanks for the offer, but I’m good,” I say curtly.

She doesn’t take the hint and continues to move closer to me until her hands brush slightly against my cock.

“I’ll make it worth your while,” she says, smiling from ear-to-ear and exposing her buck teeth. “I’ll bet you’ll love what I can do in the kitchen… and bedroom.”

Ugh, I think to myself. If the BBQ is anything to go by, the bedroom’s bound to be a fucking disaster zone.

I look over and see that Mike and Tim are extinguishing the fire completely, giving me the perfect chance to escape.

I pull away from Hipster A, rushing to join Mike and Tim as they head back towards the truck.

“Nice meeting you, ladies,” I say politely but dismissively. “Glad you’re all okay.”

Neither Mike nor Tim say a word as we board the truck, but once we pull away and start peeling down Sunset Boulevard they begin guffawing with laughter.

“Ay, Ricky,” says Mike, between gasps of laughter. “Ay? Ay Did I really just see you turn down some pussy, Ricky?”

“Shut up, Mike,” I mumble, looking out the window.

Tim picks up where Mike left off. “I mean, yeah, that was certainly some ugly pussy, but shit, the Derek I know would have scooped that up without a problem. What did you used to say? ‘They all look the same upside down,’ right, Derek?” he says, laughing and slapping my shoulder.

I sigh. “Yeah, Tim, they do,” I say solemnly, “but they don’t all act the same right side up now, do they?”

For a moment there’s silence yet again on the truck. I take the opportunity to process my thoughts peacefully.

But soon the buffoonery begins again, Tim and Mike trading barbs and insults, making lascivious remarks about my cock and reminding me not to fall in love with “that crazy bitch.”

I manage to tune most of it out, mostly because I don’t care what they’re talking about, but also because I prefer to be lost in my own thoughts these days, especially since all my thoughts increasingly involve Beth.

McAllister notices my change in temperament. He turns around and stares at me, searching for the right words to begin a reasonable conversation.

“Deep thoughts by Derek H?” he asks, in a lame attempt to make a joke.

“You could say that,” I reply dryly.

McAllister, undeterred, continues. “And I guess you’d call this love, wouldn’t you?” he asks gently.

“You could say that,” I reply, again dryly.

“Listen, kid, if there’s one thing I know, it’s when a man is in love,” McAllister says. “And, I tell you, I haven’t seen someone so deeply in love since… well… me and Kathleen.”

I look at him and smirk. “Your wife?”

“Sure,” he says, this time turning to face the road. “Did I ever tell you about that? I met her when she was in the bar with her friends. All her friends wanted to get with me—hose chasers, every one of them—except her. She couldn’t give a shit if I lived or died.”

I furrow my eyebrows. “Kathleen? Really? The same woman who comes to the firehouse with peach pies and demands to know if any of my former side pieces are yours?”

McAllister laughs heartily. “Yep, one and the same. Kathleen was the one who didn’t even want me to buy her a drink. The boys in the house all warned me about her back then. ‘She’s crazy,’ they would say, and I would say that one fine day, I was gonna make an honest woman out of her.”

“So, what happened?” I ask, still lost in my own thoughts.

“Whattaya mean, ‘what happened?’ You think any woman can resist all this?” he says, pointing to his thickening waist. “In six months, I married her, we had four beautiful kids, and to this day I go home, she cooks for me, then fucks my brains out.”

He begins laughing hysterically, as though he imparted some profound sentiment about his dear, sainted wife and how I should apply that sentiment to my current situation with Beth.

Not satisfied with any reasonable solution, other than taking the veil, I turn back to the road, sigh heavily, and check my phone one last time.

No missed calls. No messages.

And the last text message still left on ‘read.’

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

ELISABETH

I stand outside my house staring at it like it’s a stranger. I almost can’t believe I’ve been allowed back. It covers over my biggest mistake and seals my most painful regret.

From the exterior it looks remarkably unscathed save for some scorching around the living room windows. There’s still police tape on the ground.

This space has caused me so much anxiety, worry, and guilt. Now I’m willingly walking back to the front door, opening myself to feel it all again.

I know I should be relieved or even excited to get back into my home, knowing I didn’t burn completely to a crisp. But what I did, am still doing, claws at my insides. It makes me sick.

Before I decide to head inside with my suitcase, I divert and go to the mailbox. It’s been a while since I collected mail.

I pull out what seems like a pound of mail consisting of magazines, fliers, and bills. I shuffle through them and dispose of the stuff I’ll never use.

But then I see an envelope with my name scribbled in the middle and Lucinda’s name written at the corner. My heart stops. All the air from my lungs escapes me. I’m paralyzed.

It’s another handwritten letter from my mother. What the hell does she want now? The last time I received a letter like this, my whole world went up in flames. Literally.

Which is how I know this can’t be good. I haven’t heard from her since our last phone call, when I threatened to confess everything, to give up on her, and to release myself from the prison of guilt and shame I’ve been residing in.

I rip the letter open before I make it to the front door, my patience getting the better of me. I scan over it first, trying to get a feel of it, seeing if it’s worth my time and concern.

Travis. Warning. Sorry. These are the key words I see repeatedly, written in her handwriting.

What’s going on?

I look around me to ensure no one’s watching, suddenly feeling vulnerable with these words staring back at me. I run back into theroom, closing the door and locking it securely.

I lean against the floor and slide down to the floor clutching onto the letter. I re-read the first few lines of the letter out loud, hoping my mind is playing tricks on me and that the letter doesn’t really say what I think it does.

Beth,

Please forgive me. I don’t know what else to say, but I’m sorry. Travis made me do it. He would’ve left me if I didn’t make you do it.

I’m not sick. I’m not dying. It was all a part of his plan—to fake a terminal illness, convince you I’m dying and that I needed money for my treatments. It all seemed so easy at the time. But, I promise, baby, it was all his idea.

Panic rises in my throat. I start to hyperventilate, choking on the air that’s supposed to be keeping me alive. I might throw up or pass out, or both. How is this happening?

I re-read the words again and again, wanting the letters to rearrange themselves into a message less cruel or at least less infuriating.

I drop the letter next to me and put my head between my knees, needing the sudden spell of dizziness to go away. The world I thought I knew has been ripped out from below me, violently.

It might not have been on steady ground, but at least I had an idea of the cracks and holes I was standing on. Now, as it whips around me, I try to grasp onto something for balance, to make some sense of what’s happening.

I sigh loudly and prepare myself for another onslaught of words.

I have to read on. I can’t go on without knowing everything, without trying to understand why my mother would do this to me, her fucking daughter.

After our phone call, I knew I really screwed up. I never wanted to put you in this position, Beth. It hurts me more than you know. You’re going through all this guilt and anxiety, putting yourself on the line, both personally and legally, and I made you do it. I did this to you, I know.

But I was afraid. Travis threatened to leave me if I didn’t go through with it.

Are you fucking kidding me?

All I see is red, the buried anger I’ve stored away towards my mother electrifying me. Furious doesn’t even begin to describe it.

But really, why am I surprised? It’s not like she’s ever put me first when it came to her boyfriends. They always reigned over me, pushing me to the back-burner. Hell, not even that close.

I was the scum in the toilet she never cleaned. She never cared for my well-being unless it got in the way of whatever boyfriend was in her bed. Like now.

But this… this is a new low. Even for her.

I continue to read on, despite the hate I feel for her.

We needed money. We still do, and this was Travis’ plan to get some easy cash. He threatened me, Beth. I had no other choice. Please, believe me.

Like always, she pleads innocent, blaming it on someone else, as if she didn’t have a say in the matter.

“Yes! Yes, you fucking did!” I scream at the letter. Anger consumes me, thrashing through my body, boiling my blood. I picture steam rising from my skin. It takes every ounce of my restraint not to rip the letter into shreds.

There’s some semblance of common sense poking at me, though. I realize I could use this as evidence on my behalf.

I can now prove I’ve been forced, somewhat, into doing this.

Maybe my sentencing wouldn’t be so harsh then?

So I smooth out the letter and release my iron-clad grip.

He made me believe you deserved this. Travis told me because you left the house, leaving me the way you did, you deserved to be taken advantage of. And I believed it. I was so angry at you for so long, and this was my revenge, my way of getting back at you.

“Angry at me?” I yell.

But after we last talked, reality struck me. I have been a terrible mother to you. And this is no exception. I should’ve never blamed you for leaving home. It makes sense to me why you did.

You had to leave to make a better life for yourself, one that wasn’t dictated by a man who can’t keep a roof over his, or our, heads.

The red I’ve been seeing slowly fades.

I re-read her admission, wanting to feel the relief of her taking responsibility and admitting she’s a terrible mother. I almost feel vindicated, justified, like all the pieces of my fragmented and screwed up life are being taped together.

Although it’s not a pretty picture, I begin to feel whole again.

She continues to spill her guts. You left and got away, and I’m so happy you did. A part of me is jealous, not going to lie, but a bigger part of me is proud of you.

However, this letter is more than an apology. I’m writing you now to warn you. Travis overheard our last conversation, unbeknownst to me, I promise. He took my phone, and this is only way I can contact you and warn you. I hope you get it.

My stomach drops. Fear singes my nerves.

I jump up from the floor and take a step forward, the wooden floor creaking under my shoes. The sound startles me, but I shake it off. I don’t think I have anything to fear just yet, but her warning puts me on edge.

I continue to read the letter as I walk around. It seems endless.

Travis knows you’re not going to go through with the insurance claim. He’s pissed and he’s threatened to come to LA to make you go through with it. I don’t know what that entails, but I know it won’t be a friendly visit. I’ve been trying my hardest to convince him to leave you alone. So far, my stalling tactics have worked, but I know he’ll get bored of them soon.

I sink to my knees, anxiety overtaking my senses, piercing though my body. It’s hard to stomach all this information.

Travis is after me, and he knows everything. I don’t know what he’s capable of, but the fact he came up with this shady idea, convincing my mom to lie about a sickness and forcing me to set my house on fire, tells me he’s capable of so much worse.

My mouth goes dry as the reality of my situation sinks in. I’m in danger. I might not have been before, when Derek thought I was, but now I am.

This is my warning. As I said, I hope you get this before it’s too late. It was the only way I could warn you without him knowing. Again, I can’t stress this enough: please be safe and careful.

I’m sorry. So sorry. I never wanted this to happen, I never planned for this, but I was between a rock and a hard place. I hope you can understand that someday.

I know it’s too much to ask for right now, but one day in the future I hope you find it in your heart to love me again. I have been a terrible mother, I realize that, and it pains me to no end I’ve done so wrong by you. But, hopefully, there’ll be a day when you can trust me.

And with that gravely hopeful ending, she ends the letter signing it with a simple Love, your mother, Lucinda.

I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding. This letter is both my redemption and my demise. I hold it in my hands as if it were the most precious thing I’ve ever touched. Who knew my mother could be so damn eloquent?

I don’t move, immobilized by the apology, the confession, the admission, and most of all, the warning.

How did I let this happen? Where is Travis? And, most of all, what in the hell do I do now?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

DEREK

The boys and I unload the truck, mostly in silence.

Finally.

I relish this rare moment of peace and quiet.

We strip off our gear and I rid myself of the hipster’s avocado grime. Ugh.

Then, like clockwork, my peaceful moment is interrupted.

“Ay! His dick got so bored of normal pussy he had to go for some crazy snatch to keep him hard,” Mike wails in laughter, hitting Tim in chest. I ignore him, walking past the assholes. “Ay, did we hurt your feelings, wee Derek?”

“Shut up, Mike,” I shout back at him, walking up the stairs to the clubhouse.

I ignore them as they continue their colorful commentary. They never cease to amaze me with how creative they can be about Beth and, now, my so-called crazy dick.

I pull my phone out, checking it for the umpteenth time, and am met with the same message: Read.

I twirl the phone around in my hands, feeling more restless than before. I don’t know why I keep checking it other than pure impulse and instinct.

I’d know if she contacted me. I’d hear it or feel it, at least.

Pathetic.

There’s still a strange, unfamiliar part of me that’s holding on to a sliver of hope, ridiculous as that might sound.

God, I’m so out of my element with her.

My irritation quickly evolves into dread as I lock eyes with Officer Brady.

What in the hell is he doing here?

I slide my phone back into my pocket and clear my throat, preparing for another joyful interaction with the Officer Brady. He really is relentless.

A part of me admires his tenacity to get the job done and figure out the cause of Beth’s fire—if it has to do with Beth and her safety, I support it, but I also have a feeling he’s looking for something that’s not there. Like, he’s trying to find something that doesn’t exist.

“Officer Brady. What a pleasant surprise,” I say, forcing my greeting through gritted teeth and a strained jaw.

“Derek.” He nods and drops a folder and pen on our makeshift kitchen table.

“Have you been here long?” I look around the clubhouse to see if anything’s out of place or missing. Everything seems to be in order, but the ominous way in which he showed up, out of the blue, rubs me the wrong way.

This whole encounter seems… off.

“Not too long. Are you busy?” He jumps right to it, avoiding any conversational decorum.

“The boys will be right up, so whatever it is it’ll have to be quick,” I say.

“Do you have a more private place to speak, then? It’s urgent, and I think you’ll be interested in what I have to say. It’s regarding Beth and her fire,” he presses, each word coming out more curtly than the next.

I sigh, rolling my eyes slightly. Of course it has to do with Beth and her fire. Why else would he be here?

“Sure.” I glance behind Brady to see if McAllister’s office is open. “Follow me. We’ll take the Chief’s office for now. But again, he’ll be needing it soon,” I warn him.

He trails behind me. I close the door once he’s in the office. He looks around him and then, he does what everyone does their first time in the Chief’s office—examine the wall of fame. At least, that’s what we like to call it anyway.

It’s a wall dedicated to the Chief’s numerous certificates and associations, plus pictures of his family and random community members who eye him as a local celebrity.

“Impressive, huh?” I nod in its direction.

“So, you went back to Beth’s house?” Brady cuts me off.

Well, that’s direct—and not at all what I was expecting him to ask. It takes me aback a moment and, before I open my mouth to respond, I stop myself, knowing if I go off pure instinct I’ll say something I’ll regret.

“Why?” he asks me again.

“Are you interrogating me or something? Don’t you have to arrest me first?” I ask cautiously, and take a sit in the Chief’s chair behind his desk. I already need some distance.

“I’d like to know why you were snooping around an active crime scene.” His expression is stone-cold, impenetrable even, but if I tell him the truth, I’ll be screwed.

“Have you found any leads?” I ask. Not only do I not want to the answer, I want to create a diversion and get him off my fucking back.

“First, answer my question. Why were you at Beth’s house?”

Jesus H. He stops looking around the office and takes a seat in the chair across from me, dropping that damn folder on the desk between us like the cop cliché he is.

“The Chief sent me.” I sit up straighter while I concoct the perfect alibi. “I’m up for lieutenant and he wanted to see how I would do if I accepted the position.”

Brady’s eyes narrow. He grabs the folder, shuffling the papers around aimlessly. It appears to be a common tactic of his, acting like he’s thinking over what the suspect said, even if he doesn’t care at all.

He cups his chin with his pointer finger and thumb, tracing his lips while he scrolls over the documents.

“Interesting,” he finally mutters. “So, being lieutenant requires snooping around a taped-off investigation site, does it?”

“One that’s not accidental, yes. And one I was on-duty for, yes,” I push back.

I can tell he doesn’t believe me, but what does this guy take me for? Even if it is a lie, it’s not like this is my first day on the job.

He’s not buying it. “I’m not familiar with that protocol, sorry. You might have to enlighten me.”

I lean back, folding my hands together in front of my chest. I open my mouth, about to make up some imaginary protocol that’s believable, but he interrupts me.

Thank God.

“But that’s not why I’m here.” He drops the folder on the table again, but this time, he opens it up so the documents face me.

I lean forward and squint, trying to make out the grainy pictures and read the few documents I can see. I reach for one of the photos that looks vaguely familiar, but I get distracted when somebody knocks.

The Chief opens the door a moment later without any permission to do so. It is his office, after all. His eyes dart between Brady and me.

“Am I interrupting something?” he asks as we make eye contact, tilting his head to the side with suspicion.

“Yes. I have more information on Elisabeth Montgomery’s fire. I think Derek might be privy to it,” Brady says, pulling the Chief’s attention away from me before shooting me a menacing look himself.

I shrug my shoulders, giving them my best ‘I have no fucking clue’ expression.

“Make it fast. I have paperwork to complete.” McAllister’s expression grows wary, but only for a second before it’s back in its Chief demeanor—stoic and rugged.

He shuts the door and I return my attention back to the picture. I pick it up, bringing it closer.

It’s Beth’s house. Those are her curtains. The same acetone-soaked curtains I found.

“I’m building a case against Beth. I have reason, and evidence, to believe she attempted to commit insurance fraud.”

Shit.

“What?”

The weight of my body sinks. It’s like an A-bomb’s just been dropped on my head.

Insurance fraud? Beth? No, no. She couldn’t have done that.

I’m frozen. I sit staring at the picture, unable to form words in response.

But when I finally regain my mobility, all I can do is look up at him. His expression, all smug and confident, ignites a type of anger in me I’ve only felt once in my life—when I was at Beth’s house.

My need to protect her grows tenfold. I sit up straighter, claiming my position as her protector.

“Due to the strange circumstance of the fire and the fragments of evidence we’ve uncovered in our investigation, all signs lead to insurance fraud,” he explains, albeit vaguely.

“Insurance fraud? Really? What about arson? She could be in danger, and all you can think of is fucking insurance fraud? She is the victim in all of this,” I shoot back almost immediately, anger igniting my words.

The fact he isn’t even considering she’s in danger blows my mind. Isn’t it supposed to be innocent until proven guilty?

I fight my need to punch him, to release some tension, but mainly to knock some common sense into him. But I know that’d only cause more damage and drama in this situation.

“You were there. You saw the evidence. It didn’t seem odd to you?” he asks. “The curtains were soaked in acetone, and the initial flame looked to be a considerable distance away from them. It was an amateur job that someone would only do if they were desperate… desperate for money.”

The accusation floats in the air like a grenade on the verge of eruption. It’s heavy and it elicits a vile taste in my mouth.

“Why would she be desperate for money?” I argue, pounding my fist on the desk. It makes a louder sound than I intend, but I don’t care.

This whole fucking thing is so frustrating. It doesn’t make an ounce of sense. I don’t know if she is or isn’t in need of money, but regardless, Beth is not capable of doing such a thing. That I’m sure of.

“You never know, Derek. People do crazy things for crazy reasons,” Brady says too nonchalantly. His cavalier attitude towards these accusations makes me want to hurl my chair at him.

But I don’t.

I lean back in my chair, crossing my arms. “Fuck,” I whisper.

“Fuck, indeed,” he motions for me to return the photo and closes the folder. “And, if she’s found guilty, she will be facing a minimum of ten years in prison.”

“Worst-case scenario,” I spit out. “I know the law.”

“Okay, sure, but I have enough evidence here to put her away for years,” he warns me. He stands up, tucking his folder between his arm and chest.

He continues, “And if anyone is helping Beth, they’re an accessory to the crime. The repercussions of which are also punishable by law. Be careful, Derek.”

I glare at him, sending daggers straight into his fucking face.

“Good day.” He nods and walks out of the office.

He leaves me, stewing in an intoxicating mixture of anger and frustration. My breathing becomes rapid, each inhalation burning my lungs. I feel faint, sick, and overwhelmingly weak.

The realization I’m powerless to stop him hits me like a fucking freight train. There’s nothing I can do to stop Brady from going forward with this case. Even if I tried to warn Beth, I might be caught in the crossfire.

“Beth couldn’t have done this… There’s no way,” I mumble under my breath.

I look at my phone and again, nothing.

I call her, not giving a fuck anymore. Like every other time, I’m greeted by the same damn message.

“Beth… Fuck,” I hang up and slam my phone on the desk. It’d be really fucking great right now if she called me back, or hell, said anything to me.

Panic overwhelms me. I’m defeated, unable to stop the world from crumbling around me.

I lean against the desk, my head falling into my hands, and sigh in exasperation. I hear the door to the office creak open, but I refrain from looking up, afraid my emotions will get the better of me.

“You all right?” McAllister’s gruff voice appears in my apocalyptic fantasy—no, reality.

“No, everything’s a fucking mess, and I’ve not a single hope in hell how to fix it.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

ELISABETH

I’m pacing around what’s left of my living room, panicking and frantically dialing my mom’s phone number after reading her letter.

It was nice to hear she finally realized maybe I wasn’t the one to blame for our issues, but it came just a little too late. The fact Travis may be on his way here sort of makes her apology null and void, though the heads-up was certainly appreciated.

Heat and frustration well up in my chest. I pinch the bridge of my nose, a quiet sigh escaping my lips as I take a breath to steady myself. Overreacting isn’t going to help me, so I need to focus and try to come up with a plan.

Try as I may, my mind still keeps circling back to the fact that now, because of her lies, her scumbag boyfriend could very well be on his way to me.

I’ve never met the guy, but he’s obviously not an upstanding citizen. Good people don’t force their partners to trick their kids into breaking the law for money.

How could she do this to me? And, after all that’s happened, how could she not have the gall to stand up to that deadbeat Travis?

That’s beside the point. Even after three calls, my mom still isn’t picking up her phone. On the one hand that could be a good thing. It could mean that she doesn’t want to answer because Travis is there, meaning he isn’t on his way here.

On the other hand, however, something could have happened, or she’s not answering because Travis left and told her not to answer the phone until he gets back. She could think he’s testing her.

I sigh and shake my head, looking at my phone. That sounds crazy. I need to calm down. Coming up with what-ifs and worst-case scenarios in my head isn’t going to help me calm down or plan anything.

I should get out of there.

You know he’ll still find you, right?

I reach up to pull at my hair.

Get a grip, Beth.

I remember I grabbed one of the wine bottles from the mini fridge in my hotel room and stuck it in my handbag

That’s it. I’ll grab a drink, calm my nerves, and come up with a plan. Simple.

I hunt through my bag and pull out the tiniest bottle of wine I’ve ever seen in my life, opening it. The thing’s so small it’s probably only got a glass in it, maybe two, but it’ll do the trick.

Deciding to forgo a glass since the bottle is so tiny anyway, I take a sip, closing my eyes and allowing myself a moment of peace to enjoy the rich merlot as it dances across my tongue. It’s times like this when you can really learn to appreciate the finer things in life. I make a mental note to buy myself a nice bottle of wine after this all blows over.

If I don’t end up in prison, that is.

I start to pace again after a moment, my mind somewhat calmed. I still need to come up with a plan, though.

So far, I know Travis is aware I’m not going through with this and that he’s angry. He may or may not be on his way up here, and as I make my way over to the window, I glance outside, my heart starting to thud heavy in my chest.

There, just across the street, is a car parked I don’t recognize, someone sitting in the driver’s seat. With the engine off. Now, normally this wouldn’t be such a big deal, but considering the ordeal I’ve been through the last few days? I think it’s cause for concern.

I take a moment to actually look at the driver, gasping when our eyes meet.

He’s very clearly watching my house. I have no way of knowing for sure, but I’m sure it’s Travis. I can feel it.

I can’t get a good look at the guy, obviously It’s no longer bright out, plus he’s across the street, and he’s got a hoodie on covering his face.

Maybe I’m overreacting, maybe I’m not, but I’m not going to take any chances on this one.

Quickly, I back away from the window and dig my phone out of my pocket and start to dial the number Officer Brady gave me. Then I stop, realizing how bad of an idea this is.

What good is calling the police going to do for me right now? I can see exactly how this conversation would go down:

Hello, officer? I need help. Someone is watching my house and following me.

Why would they do that?

Well, I set my own house on fire in an attempt to get insurance money for my mother’s medical costs, but then found out she’s not really sick. Now I’m afraid he’s going to try and blackmail me into continuing with the fraud I planned. I promise I’m not going to, though, pinkie swear.

Yeah, I’m sure that would go over really well with the police. They’d be more than happy to help me.

Not.

Obviously, I need to find another solution to this, and fast. I don’t really want to be alone right now, and I don’t feel comfortable calling the police.

I take another glance out of my window. The car is still there, the creep still sitting in the driver’s seat looking this way.

Shit.

Derek.

I’ll call Derek.

As soon as the thought enters my mind, a sense of calm begins to sweep over me. Just the thought of Derek being here with me makes the situation almost seem bearable. Almost. At least if he were here, he could distract me and keep my mind off of things, even if it’s only for a little while.

Plus, I doubt Travis would even think about coming to my door if he knew I wasn’t alone. Not to mention the fact Derek simply being here would make me feel ten times better than sitting here by myself.

I don’t know why Derek is the only person I trust enough to call, or why he makes me feel so safe. All I do know is that I really hope he gets here soon… before Travis decides he’s had enough waiting in the car.

He’s obviously desperate for the money. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have guilted my mom into doing this in the first place. I don’t want to see how far he’s willing to go to get it.

So, once again I pull my phone out of my pocket, but this time, I dial Derek’s number, my heart racing in my chest as it rings. Finally, after a few rings, he picks up. I breathe a sigh of relief when I hear his voice.

“Hey, Derek? Can you come over? I’m back at my house and… I just really want you to come over. I don’t feel safe right now.”

“They let you back there?”

“Yes.”

He’s straight into Action Man mode. “You don’t feel safe? What’s going on?”

I can hear him shuffling and moving around on the other line, the jangling of keys and thudding of boots sending a wave of comfort over me. He’s coming. I just need to wait a few minutes.

“I’ll explain everything when you get here. Just, please, come over as soon as you can.”

“Alright, Beth, I’m on my way. Sit tight.”

“Thank you.”

We hang up, and I sigh, my head in my hands as I try to come up with a plan. I’m going to have to tell Derek what happened. None of this is going to make sense otherwise. How else do I explain my paranoia of some strange guy outside in his car watching me and why I can’t just call the police?

No, I’m going to have to tell him everything, including the fact I set the fire myself.

After that… I have no idea. It could go any which way.

How did I let myself get into this mess? Why did I think this was a good idea in the first place?

I sit, trying to wrap my head around how the situation has gotten almost as out of control as the fire did—and nearly just as quickly.

But sitting here worrying and wishing I’d done something different isn’t going to help me. It’s too late for that. For now, I’m going to have to settle for the fact Derek is on his way and hope he understands. If not, then… well, I don’t know, but I don’t see any other option right now. At least none that have a happy ending.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

DEREK

I fly through the door and into a mess.

I can tell Beth has been crying when I find her in the bedroom at the back corner of the house. Her face is bright red, shiny. She looks a lot like a Gala apple, her cheeks a ruddy, almost bruised pink.

Her hair, already mussed, is gathering around her neck in a matted pile. Her nose is running. I can barely make out the words she’s trying to say to me as she alternately coughs and hiccups.

“Can I know what’s going on, baby?” I ask gently. “What could possibly have you this upset?”

She continues to cough and splutters before she finally squeaks out, “I can’t tell you. You’ll hate me.”

I hug her tightly, taking care to inhale her soft, floral scent as I do so.

“Baby, nothing you could say or do could make me hate you,” I say, even more gently than before. “Come on, what is it? You can tell me.”

She sighs and steadies her breathing. She rubs the tears, violently, from her cheeks before she looks up at me with a lost-little-girl look on her face and in her eyes.

“The fire,” she says, slowly but steadily. “I did it.”

I take a minute to absorb everything she’s said. I’m not sure if I heard her correctly.

After all, how many fires have I extinguished over the years where the victim blamed themselves? It isn’t an uncommon sentiment. Survivor’s guilt, they call it.

Or maybe it’s just that people are crazy.

When I finally process everything, I look at her gently and say, “Don’t be ridiculous. It was an accident.”

She shakes her head violently. “No,” she says. “No, Derek, no.” She repeats “no” a few more times before looking into my eyes and repeating it a final time.

My heart starts racing in my chest, pumping harder.

What the fuck is she trying to tell me? I think to myself.

But I don’t want to upset her—God forbid I read the situation wrong, I could have a total disaster on my hands, so I search, internally, for a few minutes before I formulate the most carefully worded sentence I’ve ever formulated in my life.

“Beth,” I begin. “I’m not sure I understand you correctly. Can you elaborate?”

There we go, I think. Short, sweet, and to the point, with no room for misinterpretation…

And with that sentence, the proverbial floodgates open, and Beth is back to her hysterical crying. In between gasps, she explains everything.

“I did it,” she says. “I set the fire myself.”

That gets my attention. I immediately recoil from her, nearly propelling myself across the room as I do so.

“What?” I ask, my voice getting louder. “Why the fuck would you do that?”

Beth takes a deep, raggedy breath and begins the story.

“You need to understand,” she says, her voice calming. “If my mother wasn’t involved, I wouldn’t have even entertained this stupid idea. It was for the money, Derek. That’s all!”

“Well, that makes it so much better,” I spit, my protective instincts fast turning to anger.

“Please, Derek,” she pleads. “Just listen. She’s not really sick.”

“Not physically, at least,” I retort sarcastically. “But definitely in the fuckin’ head, if you’re saying this was all her idea.”

She starts crying again. This time I am unmoved.

“Derek, please,” she begs, and she looks even more pathetic than before. “It wasn’t even her. It was her sleazy boyfriend.”

I roll my eyes. The whole story sounds like something from a soap opera, the subject of a bad Lifetime movie.

Finally, I turn to her, sigh, and say, “Go on.” I’m almost certain I want nothing to do with Beth ever again, especially given this new information. Nothing boils my blood as much as someone who would deliberately start a fire. I just want to hear her ridiculous story for my own peace of mind.

She takes a deep breath and, wiping away her fresh tears, continues again.

“It was Travis,” she explains. “He was the one who came up with the idea of setting the fire. He said it would be easy money—just light that bitch up, file a claim, collect the check.”

I glare at her but don’t say anything. I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

Oh, I believe it on a visceral level—how the fuck else could this whole shit be explained? —but I can’t believe that Beth, of all people, would even entertain this shit, let alone actually try to go through with it.

“So, I did exactly what he told me to do,” she continues, her voice growing increasingly more high-pitched with each word. “I didn’t think it would get this bad.”

I glare at her again, but this time I answer her. “How the fuck did you not think it was ‘that bad’ Beth? When he came up with this harebrained scheme, you should have gone to the fucking police. What he proposed is called insurance fraud, not to mention arson. Both of those crimes are fuckin’ felonies. If you had a paper trail to prove all this—emails, text messages, something—you could have sent his shady ass to jail for a long time. And then he could have threatened you with whatever the fuck he wanted, and it wouldn’t have mattered because his happy ass would have been in jail where it belongs.”

She sighs and lowers her eyes. “I didn’t think of that at the time. I was scared,” she says in a whiny voice. “Please, believe me.”

But I’ve had enough. “Oh, bullshit,” I shout. “You would light up your own fucking house for anyone, least of all him? Come on, Beth. I was born at night, but not last night.”

She wails openly. I’m shocked by how little I care about her fragile state. Just a few minutes ago I would have moved heaven and earth to make her happy, to keep her safe, and to make her feel loved.

Now? I couldn’t care in the least.

Is this what it feels like to fall out of love? I think to myself. Damn. This sucks.

“It’s true!” she says, loud enough to match my own screams of anger. “My mother didn’t want to put me in this situation. At all. At all. But she was afraid if I didn’t go along she’d lose Travis over it.”

“Mother of the year,” I say sarcastically. “Now you’re saying she’s more concerned about her shitty boyfriend leaving her than her daughter’s well-being? According to you, she’d rather see you go to jail than to lose a piece-of-shit boyfriend. Right?”

“That’s right,” she says, looking forlorn. For a quick second, I actually feel sorry for her. Given everything she’s told me about her upbringing and what she’s telling me now, I know in my heart of hearts that she was manipulated. And not just manipulated, but badly, to the point she was capable of burning down her own beloved house.

I have no doubt this Travis scumbag was the one who came up with this garbage idea. No question about it. Beth doesn’t even seem to be the type.

The fact he manipulated her, according to her own testimony, and her mother seemed to be okay with all of this, makes me blind with rage. I mean, who are these people?

In the same breath, Beth was and is a grown woman, fully capable of making her own decisions. No matter how bad her upbringing was, or how shitty an adult’s situation is, she has the means and the ways to get out of it. Lighting a fire to burn down your house is not what one would call a ‘healthy option.’

Beth must be reading my mind, because she continues with the story and answers the questions I had for myself.

“My mother initially said I deserved to be treated this way,” she says. “Because of how I left home when I was younger. Just boom—up and gone. But even she had to admit she’d been an awful mother to me. Then she told me that Travis had overheard our entire conversation, and if I didn’t go along…”

Her voice trails off. We’re both silent.

Finally, I look at her intently, the anger and disappointment no doubt clear in my eyes.

“And the letter?” I ask.

She sighs and rolls her eyes, which only makes me madder, because I feel she doesn’t care enough about my feelings, or about lying to me, or about actually owning up to all the bullshit she’s done.

“The letter… That was the only way Mom could warn me without letting Travis know she’d done so,” she explains.

“How noble of her,” I say, matching her eye roll with one of my own. I turn my back on her and begin walking towards the door.

“Derek, wait,” she says, pulling on my arm, begging me to stay.

I actually consider relenting. After all, I know better than anyone she probably went through a lot in her youth. I know she has a crappy mother, a non-existent father, and an upbringing you wouldn’t wish on anyone. I know that despite her flaws, she loves me, and I, in turn, love her.

Big words, but they’re true. What I feel for Beth is unlike anything I’ve felt before?

But I can’t get past what she’s done. What if she’d hurt someone? What if she’d killed someone?

What if, God forbid, she’d killed a puppy or a kitten—a child? All this for some crazy loser not even her mother is sure about?

No. No fucking way.

“I love you, Derek,” she says, apropos of nothing.

I look at her with a questioning look on my face.

“Excuse me?” I ask, making sure I understood what she said the first time.

“I said ‘I love you,’” she repeats. “I didn’t mean to fall in love with you. But I have. From the day you rescued me, I just knew it. And then when you showed me you loved me, too…”

She steps closer to me and puts her hand on my forearm, looking at me with a pleading, desperate look, her eyes glassy and wet.

“Don’t leave, Derek. Please.”

Her eyes pool, and this time, I have no question in my mind these tears are real.

But I can’t look at her the same way again.

Despite my best efforts, I‘m disgusted—with her, for pulling all this shit, and with myself, for falling for her.

Wait a minute, I say to myself, but shrug off my self-doubt before railing into her.

“Oh, now you say you love me?” I say, whipping my arm back violently. The way she flinches tells me she thought I was going to hit her, but I don’t care—I’m too fucking angry to care.

“You know, the guys in the house warned me about you. They said you were a crazy bitch. But did I listen? No. I actually fell for you too, Beth. I loved you, probably the first time I’ve ever loved another woman outside of my dear sainted mother, and you… You turn out to be some crazy fucking firestarter. For what? To get some firefighter cock? To please your mother’s loser boyfriend? You’ve got issues, you know that, Beth?”

I stomp down the hall towards the door, Beth not far behind me.

“I thought you were different,” I say, a tinge of sadness in my voice. “Now I see you’re like all the rest. No, worse.”

“You just said you loved me too!” she wails. “Derek, please! We can work this out! Derek! I need you to help me!”

I look over my shoulder and take one last look at her. God, she’s beautiful, even in this fucked-up state.

“What you need,” I say with finality, “is a fuckin’ psychiatrist and commitment to a mental ward.”

I walk out the door, slamming it behind me, determined to never see her again.

CHAPTER TWENTY

ELISABETH

I deserve this.

I wipe my tears and pad across the living room.

Actually, no, I do not deserve this. I do not deserve any of this complete and utter bull crap. I do not deserve to have a mother who may or may not be using me to pay for an illness she may or may not have.

I do not deserve to be stalked by her skeevy boyfriend, and I sure as hell don’t deserve to have my future completely ruined because of someone else’s bad choices.

Derek cared. He really cared. He was the first guy to care in a long time, and I completely ruined it by dragging him into this mess.

The sad part is I really like him. Derek is someone I could easily love—do love—not the fucked-up toxic shit my mother tried to pass off as love but real love… But I guess it’s too late for that now.

No doubt he’s going to his boss right now to relay my confession. Or worse, he’s dropping in on Officer Brady. Either way, there’s a shitstorm blowing in and it’s headed right towards me.

“It’s not fucking fair,” I sob like a child, impulsively launching a paperweight off the coffee table.

It lands with a hard thunk but doesn’t break.

God. I can’t even throw a tantrum right.

I should just pack my things and head back to the old trailer park. I don’t think I was ever meant to escape my upbringing for good. This is all some sick cosmic curse.

Lucinda can get me a job at the diner if Billy didn’t actually fire her. Maybe we can start over if I ever forgive her for this nightmare,

Who am I kidding? I’m never forgiving her for this.

The doorbell rings, startling me. My heart finds its way into my throat, choking me.

Could Derek have called Officer Brady that quickly?

I’m not in the mood. All I want right now is a gigantic glass of wine and an old Harrison Ford movie. I ignore the doorbell.

Until it rings again.

And again.

I almost feel sorry for whoever is on the other side of my door. After all, there isn’t anything more dangerous than a pissed-off woman with nothing to lose.

I open the door violently ready to unleash hell.

“What the hell do you want?” I snap at the unfamiliar man standing on my doorstep.

The pieces in my mind slowly click together as I take him in.

He’s lanky and bald, clearly in his fifties. He’s wearing a baggy pair of dirty jeans and a hoodie that’s at least three sizes too big. There are deep circles under his gleaming eyes.

He’s grinning at me. The teeth that aren’t silver are yellowed and chipped. I have never seen a more repulsive being in my life.

I know it’s Travis. Who else could it be? But I can’t imagine my mother going to bed with this… this person.

“Hello, darlin’,” he says.

I can tell he’s trying to be charming. Even if he wasn’t completely disgusting, no one can charm me now I’ve been with Derek. Just thinking about him makes my heart ache.

“Aren’t you goin’ to invite me in?” he says, voice raspy, like his vocal chords have been sanded down with 100-grit.

“Why would I? I don’t know you,” I say.

I’m positive this is Travis, but if I play dumb long enough, he might think he’s got the wrong house.

“Sure, you do! Your mama’s told me all about you. You’ve inherited her stunnin’ looks, I see.”

His eyes unabashedly rove over my body.

I shudder in disgust.

“You’re mistaken,” I say firmly. “I don’t know who you are. Leave, please.”

I go to shut the door, but he blocks it with his hand, the façade dropping.

“Stop playin’ fuckin’ games, Beth!” he snaps. The false charm is gone, replaced by a mad gleam in his eyes. “I came all this way to help you and you’re being a piss poor host.”

“I don’t need your help,” I say, trying to stay calm. He’s strong. I can’t close the door. “I need you to leave.”

“See, there you go again being rude. I know your mama taught you manners. Show me some of that SoCal hospitality,” he says with a grin.

How did my mother end up with such a dirt-bag? She’s always been terrible at picking guys, but they always seem great at first. I can’t imagine this guy coming off as anything other than a creep.

“That’s not a thing,” I say.

I stop trying to close the door and decide to play along. I just need to keep him on the porch. There’s nothing he can do to me out here. If someone walks by, I’ll scream for help.

“Don’t get smart,” Travis says. “I heard you on the phone with Lucinda. You’re completely fucking up the plan. I’m here to help you get it right. After that, I’ll be on my way.”

He lifts his hands in surrender.

I decide to push him a bit. “She told me all about you and the scam you coerced her into. She’s not even sick! You’re just a greedy jackass trying to take advantage of us,” I snap. “As a matter of fact, I’ve already called the police. They’re coming here to take my statement, any minute now.”

Now I’m actually hoping Derek has called Officer Brady. If not, hopefully my bluff is enough to fool this sleazebag. He grins at me. My skin crawls under his gaze.

“I bet you feel real smart right now, don’t you?” he coos. “But I know Lucinda didn’t tell you shit. I monitor all her phone calls.”

“She sent me a letter, dumbass,” I say. “Now I know why. A letter is the best way to hide something from an illiterate asshole like you.”

I grip the door, ready to slam it in his stupid face now he’s let go.

“Someone really needs to teach you some manners,” he growls.

“I’ll hire a tutor. The point is, jackass, your little plan is finished,” I say, smirking. “I know you’re full of shit, Mom knows you’re full of shit, and my friends at the fire department know you’re full of shit. If I were you, I’d hop back into that dingy shitbox you call a car and fuck right off into the sunset.”

I throw the door forward, but he stops its momentum with his hand again.

“Lucky for me I always have a plan B,” he smirks.

He lashes out before I can move away, grabbing my arm and twisting it hard behind my back. My elbow and shoulder scream in protest as they’re jammed into an unnatural, painful position.

“What the fuck?” I shriek.

I thrash against him, but he’s stronger than he looks. He shoves me farther into the living room and slams the door, locking it. I lose my footing and fall onto the carpet.

I keep down, waiting for him to get near before springing up and trying to knee him in the balls, but he’s ready, easily throwing me back to the ground.

My arm refuses to support my weight when I try to right myself. I’m trying to scramble away when I feel a shoe come down hard on my back.

“Fuck!” I scream as loudly as I can.

A neighbor will hear me. Someone will hear me.

“You should have been more hospitable,” Travis snarls.

He yanks both my arms behind my back and binds them with some kind of rope.

Where the hell did he get rope? I wonder.

“You’re insane!” I screech.

I thrash against him, but without my hands it’s not very effective. I have to get on my back.

“You pushed me to this, bitch!” Travis yells, spit flying from his rotting mouth. “All you and your worthless mother had to do was play along. All three of us could have been sittin’ pretty on a big ol’ pile of cash. But no, you had to pull this morality bullshit, and now I’m the one getting’ screwed over.”

“Right. Because you’re the victim here,” I retort, laughing through gritted teeth.

“Oh, no, sweetheart. I’m the villain.”

With that, he grins, his gnarled hand grabbing a chunk of my hair and yanking it hard. His mouth is right up against my ear.

“Your mama’s the villain, too. And guess what? So are you. You’re the one who started all this, so don’t think for one damn second you’re any different from me. We’re the same, you and me.”

I realize he’s right. My whole life I’ve been acting like I’m better than everyone around me. I looked down on everyone in the trailer park, even my own mother.

But I was one of them. My mother and her boyfriend are scammers and liars. But so am I.

“What are you going to do?” I ask, all fight draining from my voice.

“It’s real simple, actually,” Travis says, dragging me by my wrists and propping me up against the loveseat. “I’m goin’ to do what you were supposed to do the first time.”

“You’re going to set my house on fire?” I ask.

Instead of answering me, Travis disappears back through the front door. I try to maneuver myself to get my bound arms in front of me.

My plan is to chew the ropes off like they do in the action movies, but Travis comes back before I can manage it.

He has a gasoline canister.

I tense up, knowing immediately where this is headed.

“I’m going to set your house on fire, with you in it.” He smiles as he says it.

Bile rises in my throat as he begins to douse the carpet and furniture with the foul-smelling fluid.

“Why?” is all I can scream through my panic.

He’s crazy. Completely crazy.

I’m going to be murdered by a crazy man, I think.

I start to sob as I choke on the fumes from the gasoline. It’s nothing if not ironic.

“And you call me the dumbass,” Travis says with a smirk.

He’s actually enjoying this.

I think I’m going to be sick, to literally vomit.

“Double payout, baby girl!” he whoops, as if he was out mudding rather than committing a murder. “Your mama’s going to enjoy cashing in your life insurance.”

“She’s not my beneficiary,” I murmur.

The gasoline stings my eyes, but the thought of not being able to see what Travis is doing, too, is terrifying.

“Don’t matter, princess,” he taunts. “She’s your next of kin. I’m getting your money and there’s not a God damn thing you can do about it.”

He’s wrong. There’s always something I can do about it. I’ve proven that time and time again. I’m nothing if not resourceful.

That’s what separates me from lowlifes like him. How dare he make me feel like we’re the same?

I just have to think.

The fumes are becoming too much. They’re scrambling my brain, making it impossible to think clearly. My arms and wrists scream with pain.

I’m too disoriented to move them the way they need to go.

My thoughts drift to my mother. I know she’ll go to the police when she hears what happened. Travis will not get away with this.

Yet it’s a cold comfort.

Derek will help her collect evidence from the smoldering remains here. Officer Brady will put everything through rushed processing.

I’ll have justice.

God, this is so fucking morbid, I realize.

As if to say a final ‘fuck you,’ Travis splashes a little gasoline on my face. I gag from the taste.

“I heard it only hurts for a moment,” he simpers. “Once all your nerve endings burn up, you’ll feel nothing.”

“Go to hell,” I spit out.

I’m so dizzy. Inhaling all these fumes will probably kill me before the fire does. Another cold comfort.

I can’t see Travis anymore. My vision is too blurry. I hear the quick scratch of a match, the small whoosh of a flame igniting.

But then I hear another sound. It sounds like splintering wood, but I can’t think of anything that would make that noise. I must be hallucinating.

“Make one single fucking move and I will fucking end you.”

That voice.

I know that voice.

“Derek,” I croak.

And it’s right then Travis drops the match.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

DEREK

My fingers tighten involuntarily around the windowsill. Painfully. It’s all I can do not to rip the board clean off as I watch the bastard splash gasoline directly into Beth’s face.

I knew something looked off about the guy. I knew I was right to stick around. I had barely settled into my car when I saw him casually strolling up to Beth’s door.

Something about him immediately set alarm bells ringing.

For a moment, brief but persistent, I considered leaving anyway, just driving off and leaving Beth to deal with her own mess.

Thank God I’m learning to shut down my inner bastard. Thank God for the years of fighting fires that have honed my instincts.

It’s gotta be the boyfriend, I thought as I slipped from my car. It’s gotta be that fucking Travis idiot.

Any gratitude towards my instincts is forgotten now, though, swallowed whole by my building rage. I’ve never felt anything quite like it—pure, unadulterated anger seems to course through my veins in an instant, hot and burning.

As I walk towards the front door it only seems to grow, wave after wave of fury pouring into me.

It’s not like I’ve never been mad before. I’ve been in my fair share of scuffles—come out ahead more often than not, too.

Despite that, it’s not exactly a secret I’m more of a lover than a fighter. I typically prefer to get my bruises from more intimate pursuits.

All of that fades the moment I set eyes on this guy. The idea of this piece of shit harming Beth has given me a whole new understanding of the term ‘blood boiling.’ My blood is fucking molten, my heart jack hammering wildly in my chest like a twenty-ton press.

I don’t even think as I raise my foot to the solid oak of Beth’s door. No, this part’s pure instinct. Breaking through the barriers, saving the people on the other side, this is well-worn territory. I just don’t usually want to rip someone’s head off when I get to the other side.

The door gives way easily to my rage. It flies inward with a sound like an explosion, shards of wood fanning out wildly like shrapnel. I’m right on their heels, stepping through the entryway in one long stride.

“Make one single fucking move, and I will fucking end you.” The words erupt from me in a growl, my teeth grating against each other in anger.

I’ve never meant anything more in my life. In fact, a part of me hopes he will move, that he’ll force my hand, give me the excuse I need to tear him apart.

“Derek,” Beth says, shock heavy in her voice.

Like Travis, she turns toward me, her reddened eyes clearly trying to hone in on my location. The sight of her struggle only fuels my rage.

The bastard holding the match beside her has the nerve to smile, a shit-eating grin that perfectly displays the level of apathy he feels towards dental health. His yellow-and-silver teeth flash at me. God, I want nothing more than to wipe the foolish smirk from his face.

In the same moment he drops the lit match.

“Derek!” Beth screams, her feet pulling back instinctively.

I’m already moving as the match hits the ground, flying towards the already sparking flame.

Frenzied, I grab for the nearest cloth, a blanket draped across the couch, and throw myself between her and the steadily growing fire. With a practiced motion, I fling my arms wide, dropping the fabric neatly atop the threat. The majority of it smothers instantly, all but the barest trail that continues to crawl toward the loveseat, towards a nearly panicked Beth.

My boot makes quick work of it, extinguishing the threat before it can so much as scorch her shoe. It the fumes I’m more worried about, but I don’t plan on hanging around here long.

I hear Beth’s sigh of relief, but I don’t stay still to hear what comes next. My attention is already flashing back toward Travis, the asshole whose smug grin seems to have disappeared with the fire.

He stares dumbly at me for a moment, mouth agape in an expression of shock that would be funny under any other circumstance.

“Motherfucker,” he finally spits, eyes flaring back to life, “I’ll kill you for that.”

Challenge accepted.

He moves surprisingly fast for someone so age-challenged. By the time I’ve opened my mouth to try for a comeback, he’s already on me, fists flying.

Lucky for me, I’m not as slow as you might expect either.

It’s an easy mistake to make, looking at me. A fair assumption to assume that anyone burdened with so much mass must be slow. Years of fighting fires have trained that out of me, though.

I step under his first swing, taking the opportunity to close the gap between us. His second catches me in the ribs, but I hardly feel it with the adrenaline crashing through me.

To his credit, he manages to backpedal in time to save him from a truly devastating left hook.

But he’s not fast enough to miss the right.

My fist crashes into his temple at full speed, my knuckles meeting his skull with an audible crack. He sways under the pressure but rights himself enough to try for another blow of his own.

I block it easily, sending another right hook towards his exposed head. Someone should really teach this guy about the merits of a good defense.

He can’t keep his feet this time. He falls with a crash, his back meeting Beth’s floor before he can so much as try to stabilize. I don’t give him a second to recover. I’m on him before he even knows he’s fallen.

Still with some fight left, he wriggles like a hooked fish, his legs kicking spasmodically, arms flying up in a too-late attempt to block.

It does nothing to slow me, to calm me. My fury has reached a violent peak, and only the sensation of my fists repeatedly crashing into him seems to sate it.

Fucking piece of shit.

He’s unconscious in a matter of moments, limbs falling limply to his side. Some part of me, some primal, animal core, urges me to continue, to beat him until he can no longer breathe, yet alone touch Beth.

It’s only the thought of her name that stays my hand.

Beth.

I whirl around, finding her where I left her, her swollen eyes looking at me with a mix of shock and gratitude. I’m beside her in a flash, kneeling on the scorched carpet where her feet now rest.

“Fuck, are you okay?”

She nods, tears rolling down her reddened face. I can’t tell if they’re from fear or the sting of gasoline, but the sight of them gets me furious all over again.

“Are you sure? Did he hurt you?”

She struggles for a moment before answering, her lips trembling around the words.

“No,” she finally answers. “I’m okay, really. Everything’s just a bit blurry.”

I reach up to her. She closes her eyes as I run my thumbs gently across them.

“It’ll be okay. We’ll get you loose and then rinse them, okay?”

She nods again, turning slightly to show me her binds. My fingers make quick work of the rudimentary knots, freeing her in a moment.

She groans as she pulls her arms back around, looking confusedly at the rope burns at her wrists.

“My arm’s a little sore, but I don’t think it’s dislocated.”

“Good. We’ll call Officer Brady and have him bring an ambulance to get you checked out, just in case.”

“Officer Brady?” I can hear the tinge of fear in her voice.

“It’s going be okay, Beth.” I try to sound confident even though doubt stirs in my head.

I stand and walk back to Travis’ unconscious form, rope still clenched in my hand. “Can you get to the bathroom?”

“Yeah, it’s already getting better.”

“Okay, why don’t you go rinse your eyes? I’m going tie this fucker up in case he comes to.”

“Okay.”

She stands shakily. I move to go to her, but she raises a hand to still me.

“Really, I’m okay.”

Her steps become surer as she crosses to me, not stopping until she hovers before Travis.

Then, as she tends to do, she surprises me entirely.

“Motherfucker!” she spits, pulling back her foot to place a solid kick into his ribs. “Fucking asshole!” Another, harder kick.

I can’t help but smile as she turns towards the hall, muttering as she goes on about “rotten-toothed pricks.”

Beth has emerged from the bathroom by the time Officer Brady arrives, still looking a puffy around the eyes but claiming her vision is fine.

I take her word for it, though my now-familiar worry for her won’t quite seem to recede.

Brady crosses the threshold with a look of shock, his eyes quickly roving from the scorched carpet to the unconscious man currently hogtied across from it.

“Someone want to tell me what the hell is going on here? ’Cause this is one hell of a weird swingers’ party.”

I see the look of utter defeat that crosses Beth’s face, the resigned slump of her shoulders. She opens her mouth to speak, but I beat her to the punch.

“Yes. Thank you for coming, Officer. I can tell you exactly what happened.”

He gestures for me to continue as Beth turns a stunned expression my way.

“I was just leaving Beth’s earlier when I noticed this guy approaching. Given what she’s been through lately, I was immediately suspicious. After debating in my car a minute, I decided to look through the window, if nothing else to assure myself everything was alright.”

“And?”

“And it wasn’t. This asshole had her bound and was dumping gas in the living room, obviously crazed.” I point to the burnt carpet for emphasis. “I broke through the door and managed to stop the fire before it spread. We got into an altercation, and I knocked him out. After freeing Beth, I figured it’d be safest to hog-tie him up until you got here. The guy’s clearly out of his mind.”

Brady runs a hand through his hair, sighing, before crossing to the damaged rug. He kneels a long moment beside it, hand reaching out to dab at the gas before raising it to his nose.

Given his silence, I choose to continue. “Now, I’m not a police officer, but judging from what just happened, I’d say it’s pretty clear we’ve found the asshole who started the first fire.”

The silence is deafening, broken only by a nearly inaudible gasp from Beth’s direction.

I don’t turn, instead keeping my eyes solely focused on the cop I’m currently lying to.

I know I’ve shocked her. Hell, I’ve just shocked myself. But what can I say? When you know, you know. It might have taken me a minute and a poorly timed storm-out, but I now know Beth is worth it. I won’t let be ripped away from me, not now.

Beth is worth it. The risk, the lie—she’s worth everything.

I need her. Only her.

A sigh. “This is un-God-damn-believable,” Officer Brady finally says, standing to face me. My heart jumps into my throat, strangling me from within. “Thank God you decided to check. This could have ended badly, very badly.”

It’s all I can do not to collapse in relief. “Yes, absolutely, thank God.”

“I’m glad you’re all right, miss,” he says, turning to Beth. “And so far as the first fire is concerned, I’ll need to look over a few things, but I’m inclined to agree with the word of your friend here. This seems pretty straightforward.”

“Yes,” she chokes out, “absolutely.”

He gives her a small smile. “I’m sorry we’ve had to put you through so much; just following protocol. But rest assured we’ll get this animal off the streets and far away from anyone, especially yourself.”

“Thank you,” she answers him, but her eyes pull towards me in a way that speaks volumes.

A groan sounds from the floor. We all turn to see Travis begin to squirm.

“Ugh,” he mutters, his words muffled by the carpet, “whutdafuck happened?”

“I should get him out of here,” Officer Brady says, exhaling. “I’ll need the two of you to come down to the station tomorrow for official statements. For tonight, try and get some rest, yeah?”

“We will, Officer,” Beth says. “Thank you again.”

We stand side by side, silently watching as a still bound Travis is led from the house, his slurred speech hinting strongly at a concussion. The thought gives me great pleasure.

“Rot in hell,” Beth says, the door closing behind him before we’re blissfully, wonderfully alone.

“My place?” I offer, sniffing at the air.

“After you,” she smiles.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

ELISABETH

Travis—This may have been my first time meeting the guy, but something tells me it’s also going to be my last. He’ll be going away for a long time. I can’t imagine the police take too kindly to attempted murder these days.

I can’t believe this ordeal is finally over. I mean, I’ll still have to make a statement, sure, but as for the insurance fraud charge? I’m pretty sure I’m in the clear given Derek was there to save the day and corroborate my story. The word of a distinguished firefighter will be enough.

Not only am I pretty much guaranteed to be off the hook for the original fire, but I think this will be a good opportunity for my mother and I to finally get closer.

Maybe.

Her tricking me into committing insurance fraud isn’t exactly the best precursor to a healthy mother-daughter relationship, but hey, everyone’s got to start somewhere, right?

Right now, though, all I can focus on is the fact that I’m safe and that Derek is the sole reason things are working out. It pains me to think of him putting himself in that position because of my actions, but I likely wouldn’t be standing here if it weren’t for him.

I turn to face him. As soon as my gaze meets his, I nearly collapse from all the stress, the events of these past few days finally catching up to me.

“Woah, woah!”

Before I know it I’m in Derek’s arms as he catches me from falling. I allow myself to relax into his touch.

“I’m so sorry, Derek,” I murmur against him, my hands gripping his shirt, “and thank you. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t—”

He cuts me off with a kiss, tilting my chin up with his finger as his lips capture mine. I sigh into his kiss. My hands find their way into his hair, deepening our embrace as I tug and rake my hands through it.

He breaks our kiss and presses his forehead to mine with a grin on his face. His hand is on my cheek, his thumb playfully tugging at my bottom lip.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper again. “This is all my fault. You could get into so much trouble. I don’t want that.”

“I don’t either, Beth,” he croons with a smile, “but you don’t have to worry about that. It’s over. Travis is going to go down for this shit, and my girl’s safe and sound.”

Oh, God. Who knew that two simple words could send someone into a reeling, breathless mess? But there it is.

My girl.

“Your girl, huh?” I tease, prodding him in the chest.

He rolls his eyes and kisses me again. I feel the sting of tears in my eyes, my emotions and adrenaline still running high from what happened with Travis earlier.

“Look, Derek, I know what kind of position it put you in to be there for me tonight. I just want you to know I really appreciate it. I really, really appreciate you.”

I bring my hands to his chest and lay my head against him, the piney scent of his cologne filling my senses as I sigh and relax.

“I know we haven’t known each other very long, but I feel connected to you, you know? Maybe it’s the fire, maybe it’s all this bullshit with Travis, maybe it’s all of it, but I do know I couldn’t have gotten through it without you. Wouldn’t want to, either.”

I take a breath and will the tears away when I feel their familiar sting, an apology spilling from my lips as quickly as I can without letting the flood gates open in full.

“And I’m sorry I lied to you. It wasn’t fair to put you out like that. I should have just been honest. It’s not right.”

“Hey, hey,” he soothes, tucking a stray piece of hair behind my ear, “I’m glad I was here, and don’t worry about it. You were doing what you thought you had to do to help your family. You did what you thought was right. I’m sorry I stormed out of here in a huff. I needed a minute to process things.”

He looks down at me, gazing into my eyes, as if he’s trying to hold back from saying something he shouldn’t. When he finally speaks again, his voice is low and barely above a whisper, almost like he thinks the words will have more connotations the louder they are.

“I needed to process what happened with the fire… and what happened with you. You make me feel different, Beth.”

Different? What does that even mean? Is that a good thing?

Though, if it’s anything like the way he makes me feel, different should be listed under ‘fan-fucking-tastic’ in the dictionary.

He must sense my apprehension and my nerves, because he smiles and kisses me again, this time softer. It’s as if he’s trying to find the words and our kiss is what’s going to reveal them.

“Yeah, different. Good different. I dunno. I haven’t felt like this about a woman before. Usually I get bored after a few dates. I lose interest and find some reason to blow them off. But with you, it’s… it’s, like I said, different. I want to know everything about you and be there for you when you need it, regardless of what the situation is. Thick or thin.”

I smile up at him gratefully.

He smirks, his voice low and teasing as it tickles my ear. “Though, maybe next time, insurance fraud and setting your house on fire shouldn’t be your first solution to a problem, yeah?”

I laugh and nod along with him, smiling with a playful roll of my eyes.

Even in the worst of situations, he makes me feel like nothing can go wrong, like everything is just as it should be. I’ve been through hell these past few days, and through all of that I’ve had one person be a constant: Derek.

Sure, we may not know each other that well, and sure, maybe the circumstances in which we met weren’t ideal, but I don’t care. I want him, he wants me, and that’s all that matters.

Maybe it’s the leftover adrenaline. Maybe it’s because I’m looking up at him just like I did the first time I met him as he carried me out of here, or maybe it’s a bit of both, but all I can think of right now is how much I want him.

No, how much I need him.

I kiss him then, harder this time and more insistent. At first, I’m unsure when his lips touch mine, as he seems apprehensive, but all of that disappears with a groan. His hands run down my arms onto my back.

I lean into his touch and sigh into his kiss, my hands fumbling and unfastening the buttons on the front of his shirt.

He chuckles and I note the rumble of his voice against my lips. His hands are over mine, ripping the shirt open and tossing what’s left onto the floor.

I look up at him. He shrugs with a smirk.

“I didn’t really like that shirt anyway.”

I giggle, and he smiles, practically lighting up the whole room. His lips are back on mine, and his hand is up my shirt, the other grabbing my ass and pulling me into him.

Suddenly, he stops and pulls away, lips parted and pupils blown wide as he looks down at me with hungry, urgent eyes.

For a split second I’m afraid I’ve said or done something to make him change his mind, the sudden lack of touch between us feeling so unfamiliar. Maybe he has second thoughts and he only said what he said in the heat of the moment. Maybe now he realizes how silly it all sounds.

I open my mouth to ask him what’s wrong, but my words come out as a soft squeak when he picks me up. Instinctively, I wrap my legs around his waist.

With my arms around his neck for support, I lean in and kiss him again, smirking against his lips as I feel him press me up against the wall, rolling his hips into mine.

His cock presses out through his jeans, hard and ready. I moan softly, reaching down between us to stroke him through the coarse fabric.

Before I know it, he’s pulled me from the wall and carrying me to the bed.

He sets me down on the bed and sighs, pressing his weight onto me with another roll of his hips, this time more demanding, harder. His hands are in my hair, his lips are exploring my neck, sucking and biting at my pulse point, soothing it with soft kisses as he explores further down.

I raise my arms over my head. He catches my cue, pulling my shirt off and unlatching my bra with feverish want. I giggle and laugh when he smirks at me, but giggles soon turn to sighs and moans, his lips taking my nipple into his mouth and sucking, swirling his tongue around pebbled flesh.

“Please,” I whisper, my hands raking along his back. “Please, Derek. I want you.”

He responds with a growl against my skin, sitting up long enough to slide my pants down over my hips and toss them aside, doing the same with his own.

Then his lips are on mine again, and although there’s passion, it’s slower. He takes his time, hands caressing my face and neck, trailing his fingertips along my side until they reach my hips, wrapping one of my legs around him.

I lit up inside, dim, dormant parts of my body showing life for the first time in years.

He slips a hand between us. A moan escapes my lips as he circles my clit. I push myself against him, desperate for his touch.

“Fuck,” I hiss. “Please, Derek.”

He stills for a moment and looks me in the eye, the head of his cock teasing my wetness, rubbing circles around the sensitive bundle of nerves that’s sending fireworks of pleasure through me.

I whimper and whine, rolling my hips and raking my hands down the skin of his bare back in a desperate plea for him to stop teasing. He takes the hint.

In one deep thrust, he’s inside of me. A loose moan escapes my lips, the euphoric feeling of being absolutely and completely filled almost sending me over the edge.

He curses, his teeth finding my shoulder, softly gnawing and grating against my skin as he slowly pulls out and thrusts back in again with a groan. He picks up the pace and his lips find my neck again, surely leaving marks I’ll look at fondly in the mirror tomorrow.

I don’t care. I want him to mark me, to make me his own.

Fuck, he feels good. I open my mouth to tell him, but all that comes out is a broken whimper, the overwhelming sensation of his thick cock thrusting in and out rendering me utterly and completely speechless.

The familiar feeling of heat and pleasure builds in my core, coiling and threatening to snap at any moment and push me over.

As if he’s reading my mind, his hand is in my hair. He tugs, thrusting up into me harder, hips slamming into mine with sinful friction until sweet release washes over me.

My orgasm ebbs through me in waves of unrelenting pleasure. I cry out against his skin, nails at his back and back arching into the hard angles of his body.

He keeps fucking me right through it, sending another burst of pleasure free as release takes me again. This time, it breaks his resolve. His movements become erratic. With one final, desperate thrust, he comes with a caught moan, his cock spilling hot and wet into my molten core.

We lay there for a moment and catch our breath. Our bodies may be still but our hands and lips are still dancing along our skin, soft sighs and hushed laughter escaping them.

He flops onto his side and pulls me into him, my back against his chest as he murmurs praise into my skin and kisses the back of my neck.

“I love you, Beth,” he whispers, peppering kisses along the back of my neck and shoulder.

It sends shivers down my spine. A contented sigh escapes my lips, his arm reaching around me to take my hand into his, hugging me tight.

“I love you, too,” I reply, the words sounding right.

I don’t know how long we lie there like that, but soon the familiar pull of sleep tugs at my mind. I close my eyes, succumbing to sleep. I lie there, wrapped in Derek’s arms, and feel completely safe knowing this man will never let anything happen to me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

DEREK

I clear my throat and turn the knob to Mick’s office, pulling open his door. The creak of the wood calls for his attention. His eyes shoot up to meet mine.

“Chief, do you have a second?” I put my head in, afraid to go in all the way without his permission.

Even though I’ve known this man all my life, he still intimidates me. The guy’s been around since the dawn of time—well, since my grandpa was around—so he’s due the appropriate respect.

I always find myself trying a little more with him, whether it’s in appearance or behavior. Though, sometimes I’m sure it doesn’t seem like I do. We reckless, arrogant bastards can only act dignified for so long. Plus I’m the worst of them.

“Sure, my boy. C’mon in.” He waves me in. I follow his gesture, walking over to the chair across from him.

Less than a day ago, Officer Brady was in this very building threatening to destroy Beth’s life—my life. My world, my vision of her and me, blew up in my face. The words fraud and crime paired with her name spilled out of him like a fucking tsunami, and I was powerless to stop it.

Or, at least, I thought I was.

What’s worse is that it’s all true. Well, depending upon what truth I choose to believe.

The last time I left this place, I was shattered.

Devastated.

Afraid that everything I worked for and wanted was slipping through my fingers.

But the world is back on its axis, spinning the way it always has, thrusting us forward to a new day filled with new promises and possibilities.

With Beth.

I’m still having trouble trying to rationalize what she’s done. It’s criminal, after all, but knowing my days will be spent with her, makes my view of the future so much brighter. Hell, I can actually see the future now.

Before, I was only looking forward to the next hour, the next woman, the next fire—only to restart again in the morning. No plans, no attachments, no worries.

Then Beth came along, and everything I thought I knew changed. The moment I saw her I knew there was something about her that would wreck me. It was a force stronger than me—and that’s hard to come by.

Having her and nothing but her has created a whole new vision and meaning in my life, one I plan to fight for every day, to attach myself to, and gladly think about. Everything seems right again, even though I’m not sure I knew what right was until now.

“What can I do for you, son?” Mick asks as he swivels his chair to face me. He clasps his hands together and leans on the desk, the usual sign he’s ready to listen. He would have done all right as a priest in another life.

I clear my throat and sit up straighter, wanting nothing about this moment to go wrong. This needs to be done right.

“I’d like to accept your offer,” I say, and a mix of emotions hits me in the chest. I’m excited, nervous, scared, proud—I feel everything. “I’d like to become lieutenant.”

Damn.

It feels good to say that out loud. And to say it to Mick.

“Today’s been a long time coming, my boy,” Mick says, his mouth growing into a satisfied grin.

“Has it?” I chuckle, stopping myself when I see Mick’s expression grow serious.

He nods his head. I squirm in my seat, the sincerity in his demeanor thickening the air.

“Ah, my boy! I’ve always known you’ve had this in you—the potential to be lieutenant. That’s why I offered you the promotion. I’m just happy to see ya finally got your head out of your ass and want to actually prove your worth,” he scoffs.

“I never thought I wanted the responsibility,” I admit. “The picture you painted before, with the LAFD groupies and raging fires seemed so picturesque. A life of endless debauchery…” I look off into the distance, pretending to be dreaming of a long-lost love or some shit, but I cut it quick, looking back at him in all seriousness. “But now, I’m ready to give it go.”

That nagging wave of emotion starts to cloud my eyesight. I blink rapidly to dry it out.

What the hell, Derek? Pull yourself together, man.

“But I do have one condition,” I add before Mick can respond.

“Aye, what’s that?” Mick’s brows furrow. He leans back, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I still want to be on the emergency fire rescue team,” I say. “I might want to become lieutenant, but I still need that.”

I don’t admit it’s the adrenaline I still crave, the rush I get whenever the bells ring and we descend on an engulfing flame. That’s something I never want to give up, lieutenant or not. That’s what I need: to continue to save people, to help them.

Hell, that’s why I became a firefighter in the first place. I can’t let that part of me go.

“Still need that adrenaline rush, ay, boy?” His husky voice hitches. He begins to laugh. “I understand that need. I still get it from time to time. It’s what we’ve been put on this earth to do.”

Well, shit, so much for not admitting it. But what do I expect? He’s been with my family since I was in diapers. He knows me. He’s seen the best and worst parts of me.

He shakes his head and continues, “But, boy, that Hardy blood sure does run thick through your veins. You’re just like Don.”

I still for a moment as my dad’s name cuts into me. It lingers in the air for a moment, almost as if his presence is here, filling the space between Mick and me.

“Guess you already knew that about me then, Chief,” I shrug my shoulders, letting out a sigh.

I think Mick feels my dad’s presence too, because his mood changes abruptly, his face falling into a kind yet solemn expression. He leans forward on his desk and clasps his hands together again, using it as a way to mark this moment. It’s an effective way to grab my attention.

“Derek, my boy, your father would be so proud of you. Aye, wherever he is, I know he’s looking at you with pride in his eyes. This is the day he always dreamt of seeing. Next to a wedding, sure, but that’ll be in due time, I hear.” He winks at me, his expression softening a bit.

The weight of his words chokes me. The emotion I felt earlier intensifies. To hear that I’m making my father proud, finally, releases the years of tension and pain I’ve kept bottled up.

I bite my tongue to keep from crying and casually run my fist over my eyes, acting as if they’re irritated or itchy.

I clear my throat, straighten my posture, and meet his eyes. For a moment, I think he’s going to cry too. But he shakes his head, and the vulnerability I saw a moment before disappears.

But wait, what?

What did he say?

What did he hear?

Does he know about Beth? I’m sure he knows about the fire and the investigation—he’s the chief, for fuck’s sake—but does he know about us?

“Do you…” I trail off, not able to finish my sentence. “Do you know something I’m not aware of?” I finally spit out.

Fuck. What does he know?

Does he know the truth?

He can’t. No one does. Other than that fucker Travis. But his word is as good as a rabid dog’s—it’s useless. Especially after what he did to Beth.

“Boy, I’m the chief. I know everything.” He winks and puffs his chest up, putting his best ‘I’m the boss’ face on. “But, to remind you, as lieutenant, your main priority is to organize and execute the training programs for the new recruits. They’re in your hands now.” His sternness cuts through the emotional gravity of the moment.

Thank God.

“Yes, Chief,” I respond dutifully. My formality usually comes back into play when we’re talking business. And, given my new ranking, I have to lead by example.

Sounds ridiculous, I know. Less than a week ago I was balls deep in two women in the back of the clubhouse, leaving them sulking as I went to fight another fire—where I met her.

Now, I’m lieutenant. The new recruits will look up to and learn from me… God help them.

Damn.

“You can be on the rescue team, but the training is your priority,” he reinforces my job duties, and I nod my head, indicating I understand.

“Best of both worlds, Chief.” I plaster on my million-dollar smile, and he laughs, which ends with him in a coughing fit.

“It’s good to see the resident playboy finally hanging up his hat,” he scoffs while catching his breath. “But in all seriousness, my boy, your father would be proud, and I am too. I’m proud of you for making this decision. I know that it’s the right decision. One that’s in your blood.”

My smile fades as the legacy I’m carrying on becomes my reality. The weight is heavy, but it’s nothing I can’t bear. I’ve been carrying it with me my whole life. If anything, this decision has made it lighter and more manageable.

It’s about fucking time.

“I’ll go and grab all the paperwork so we can finalize your promotion and get you started as lieutenant.” He turns towards the computer screen and turns it off. Then he shuffles around some papers on the desk, grabbing a few stacks and opening his briefcase, shoving them in.

“Is there anything I need to do?” I ask, growing impatient to start my new position.

“You’ll have to fill out the paperwork,” he teases, “but I’ll let you know when it’s all ready. Most likely later this week.”

I stand up to meet his height, wanting to shake his hand in appreciation for his support and trust in me.

He grabs my outreached hand with his, but he doesn’t shake it. He holds onto it, folding his other hand around mine, cradling it firmly.

He murmurs something under his breath. Broduil, it sounds like. I recognize the word from my childhood. My dad used to say it, albeit rarely.

It’s Gaelic for proud.

He tightens his grip on my hands and my chest tenses, responding instinctively to that word.

“My boy, I’ve never been prouder of you. To watch you grow and learn to be as selfless as you’ve become is an honor. Only a good, honest man would put his career on the line for someone, to help them when they’re in a tough position. You’ll make a terrific lieutenant. I can’t wait to see what you have in store for us.”

He lets go of my hand, letting it fall with his sentiment.

“Long live the Hughes!” he chants, grabbing his briefcase. He leaves the office before I have a chance to digest everything he just said.

I fall back into the chair, going over his words, and the realization he knew what was going on. I’m reeling.

Shit.

He knows about Beth. He knows about her situation—everything. He knows about fucking everything.

Why didn’t he say something?

I jerk my head around, looking to see if he’s still in the building.

I need to ask him. I need to know if my suspicions are correct.

I jump up and sprint after him, hoping to make it to him in time.

But when I reach the front of the firehouse, he’s already driving away, waving at me while he passes. I wave back, and, with this simple gesture, the weight of the past leaves me.

I stop reeling and ground myself, letting a heavy breath out.

It’s time to turn over that new leaf.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

ELISABETH

I’m forgetting something, I know I am. I always forget things when I pack, and it’s always something vital like a toothbrush or underwear. I glance at my two suitcases, packed to bursting, and grimace. I really don’t want to have to unpack everything to figure out the mystery item. But I don’t want to have to come back for it either. Travis has been arrested, and I’m not under investigation for insurance fraud anymore, but this place still gives me the creeps, especially when I’m alone.

I’m standing in the hallway between my bedroom and the living room. I try not to set foot in the living room more than I have to. It still stinks of the gasoline Travis doused me in. My chest feels tight whenever I smell it. Even going to a gas station is a test of willpower.

I am not okay right now, but I will be soon. After all, I’m not doing this alone.

Derek has insisted I stay with him until I decide what to do with my insurance check. The people down at the claims office gave rush processing a whole new meaning so I could get this check. I’m pretty sure Officer Brady had a hand in speeding that along.

When Derek first suggested I stay at his place, I turned him down. I didn’t want to seem needy after putting him through so much crap. I mean, objectively, our situation is pretty insane. Most guys I know would turn tail and sprint away after just a taste of the craziness that followed me from the trailer park. But Derek is different. He’s been different from the beginning.

The first night back in my house after the fire department approved it (again) was a literal nightmare. I didn’t think the living room would still smell. I didn’t think I would be so paranoid. Every tiny noise made me jump. Every shadow I thought I saw in the corner of my eye made my heart jump into overdrive. When I finally did go to bed, I was alone in the dark for all of five minutes before I called Derek and begged him to come get me.

I’ve spent every night since sleeping in his bed, cradled in his arms.

It’s funny, I was so determined to make it on my own once I left home, but I modeled my entire life after what I thought it should look like, not what I actually wanted out of it. Whenever I wake up in Derek’s arms, I feel like I’m finally living the life I want.

Plus the mind-blowing sex every night (and most mornings) is a huge perk. His ability to stay hard pretty much twenty-four seven is nothing short of a superpower.

I’ve taken it upon myself to make his apartment a little homier. I’m not going crazy, just organizing the clutter and stocking the fridge with something other than cheap beer and microwave meals.

I actually like the way Derek’s apartment looks. The masculine feel, clean simple lines and color scheme suit my taste. I would even go so far as to it call it ‘minimalist chic’ now I’ve fixed it up a bit.

“Son of a bitch!” I realize what I nearly forgot. I hurry back into my old bedroom and snatch the open envelope sitting on the cherry wood nightstand. My mother’s second letter, the one she wrote to warn me about Travis and to finally come clean about everything. The first letter, the one I made Derek go back in and rescue, is already tucked away somewhere safe.

Alone in the house, holding that letter, I know I have to do the one thing I’ve been putting off. I haven’t talked to my mother since our last, incredibly unpleasant, phone call. Part of me understands why she had to speak and act a certain way on the phone. The other is hurt by it, except for the fact I was not surprised to hear her say those nasty, terrible things.

I pull up her number on my cell. After the fifth ring, I’m afraid she won’t answer. What if Travis did something horrible to her before driving down here? I should have checked on her sooner. Why am I so bad at this? I’m working myself into a panic when the line picks up.

“Beth?” My mother’s voice snaps me out of it.

“Hi, Mom.” It’s all I can think to say. Suddenly, she’s a flurry of anxious questions.

“What the hell happened? Why haven’t I heard from you? I saw on the news an arsonist was arrested in your area. They didn’t show a picture. Was it Travis?” Mom’s voice gets louder and louder with each syllable. I hold the phone away from my ear to prevent hearing loss.

“Beth, answer me!” she shrieks.

“I will if you stop screaming.” I talk into the phone I’m holding at arm’s length. I’m surprised to hear laughter in my own voice.

“Fine,” she huffs. “Tell me what happened.”

“Travis showed up the same day I got your letter. He… kind of tried to kill me,” I wince on the last words and hold the phone away from my ear again in preparation for the round of screaming that’s guaranteed to follow.

“What the shit? What in the ever-loving fuck? Where is that lanky son of a bitch? I’m going to kill him with my bare hands!” I cover my mouth to muffle my laughter.

“Mom! Mom, listen to me,” I say, trying to get a word in between her never-ending stream of swearing and death threats against Travis. I almost wish Derek was here to hear this. He’d get a kick out of it.

“Someone tried to murder my baby! Let me be mad!” my mother yells back. I completely dissolve into cackles.

“He’s already in jail. Derek took care of it,” I explain, still giggling. It feels good to laugh about this.

“Derek? That fireman?” Mom suddenly seems quite keen to drop the whole murder topic. “I hope you know I didn’t mean all the crazy things I said about you and him.”

“I know, Mom,” I say softly. “He’s a really great guy. He told the officer looking into my case Travis was responsible for everything. He’s the reason why the police aren’t on my case anymore. I got that insurance check because of him.”

“Sounds like you found yourself one of the good ones,” Mom says. Her tone is wistful and melancholy, as if she’s imagining the life she could have had if she’d made a different choice. “Don’t let him go.”

“We haven’t known each other that long.” My kneejerk response is dismissive. Guilt envelops me. Sure, Derek and I haven’t known each other very long, but we have already been through trials far more difficult than the average couple will face.

“I won’t let him go.” Silence stretches across the line, though this time, it is not one of sadness, but contentment.

“So,” Mom says, sucking in a breath. “Are you going to use that insurance money to remodel? If I know Travis, he probably left a gigantic mess for you to deal with. Other than the attempted murder thing,” she adds hastily.

I understand she doesn’t know how to talk about what happened. I don’t know how to either. There is no manual for how to talk about being almost murdered. But Mom and I are talking, so I’m willing to roll with the awkward punches on this one.

“Um, no. Actually, I don’t think I will,” I say with sudden certainty. I’ve entertained the idea of a remodel to change this place so much, I would never recognize it as the place where I almost died. It’s a silly idea, really. I will always know that, beneath whatever new floors I install, the carpet below reeks of gasoline.

“Oh?” Lucinda sounds as surprised as I feel.

“I think I’m going to fix it up a little. Fix the damage done by the fire and Travis. After that, I think I’ll put it on the market,” I say, growing surer of myself by the second. I can fix this place up for cheap. I bet Derek and all the muscular guys at the fire department will be willing to lend a hand. It’s a decent neighborhood, so it would probably turn a fair profit.

“And then what?” my mother asks.

Good question.

“Well, I was actually thinking that you should take half of the insurance money,” I say in a rush, in case I lose my nerve.

“What?” Mom stutters. “You’d offer me that after everything I put you through?”

“I’ve been thinking about when I left home,” I say. “You needed help, Mom. You never wanted to ask, but you needed it. I had a good education and good job prospects, and I never helped you once. I knew you needed it and I didn’t help you.”

“I don’t blame you for leaving,” Lucinda says. It’s like a weight is lifted off my chest. “If I was half as smart as you, I would have left too. And, yeah, I did need help, but I sure as hell didn’t deserve it. I made bad choices and I got stuck with the consequences. That’s how life works, hon.”

“But there’s some extra money now, Mom. You wouldn’t have to break your back at the diner full time. I want you to have it,” I plead.

“After everything that’s happened, I don’t think I can take it from you,” Mom sighs. I know this must be a tough call for her. “But I’ll tell you what you can do for me instead,” she continues.

“Name it,” I say.

“Now that I know Travis is gone for good,” she says, “I think I have a really good shot at turning my life around. I haven’t had a cigarette in three days, you know.”

I’m speechless. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mom without one of her signature pink lights. She’s like the female Marlboro Man. “If I can keep this up, I want to be part of your life again, the way I should have been these past seven years.”

“I would like that,” I say. Tears prick the back of my eyes, but I blink them away. I don’t want to cry anymore.

We talk for a while longer, Mom and me, before agreeing to make time for another chat later in the week. I tuck her letter into the front flap of one of my suitcases. That’s everything I need. I can now leave this place behind—for good maybe, if things keep going the way they have been with Derek.

I don’t look back once I lock the door. I am overcome with a strange sense of certainty. Maybe I will come back to this house and take another shot at making it a home. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll drive around the country with no map and no plan, getting food when I want to eat, sleeping at whatever motel I can find. Maybe I won’t travel at all. But now, I know for certain that, whatever I end up doing, Derek will be by my side for all of it.

I’m giddy when I get into the car. I’m going to Derek’s apartment, a place that has felt more like home than my house ever did. Inside that apartment, chic as it is, is the man who made it all happen.

EPILOGUE

DEREK

So much has changed in my life—and all the changes are, undoubtedly, for the better.

I’m standing in my apartment, which is clean for the first time in what seems like forever, chopping actual, from-the-ground vegetables and reflecting on all the positive changes in my life that have occurred thanks to the force of nature named Elisabeth.

I peel the carrots and chop the kale before adding them to the pan with hot oil, garlic, salt, and pepper.

The wild rice is boiling on the stove, and the London broil is grilling on the barbecue outside.

All this, combined with the freshly made baking bread in the oven and the lavender incense wafting throughout the house, is conspiring to make a beautiful scent in my previously dank, barren—definitely smelly—apartment.

Beth has been responsible for these changes, of course.

Before she came along, I was more than content with leaving my apartment to become a slovenly disaster. A half-stale burrito, hastily tossed in the oven and an ice-cold Pabst Blue Ribbon were more than enough for me come dinner time.

And as for the girls?

In and out of my life, in and out of my apartment.

Hell, I should have installed a turnstile at the front door with the way they were coming in and out.

But then she came along—and, yes, we’ve had our problems. Yes, we’ve had our fights. Yes, we’ve had more than our fair share of drama.

But she came along, and the fact of the matter is, not only does she make me a better man, she makes me want to be a better man.

That sounds fucking corny, I know.

But it’s the truth.

All these groceries I’m using to cook dinner for us tonight are groceries she bought for us.

Us.

I never thought I would feel comfortable saying that word.

But it’s true. I love the fact that there’s an us now, not just a me.

When it was just a me, I was careless. I would run into fires not caring if I lived or died, and be the rogue daredevil firefighter. And then I would go back to the house—or back to my apartment—and take two girls at a time with me.

Did I care if I got any diseases? Fuck no. It was a stroke of sheer luck I never caught anything. God looks after children and idiots, as the old saying goes, and I was a little bit (well, okay, a lot) of both.

Did I care if I got a girl pregnant? No.

Fortunately, that hasn’t happened.

Not yet, anyway.

Because let me tell you, I would love to have a child with Beth.

She’s my everything. She changed my life. Fuck it. She is my life.

We went through a lot more than any other couple would have gone through in such a short period of time.

We not only survived, we thrived.

And we’re here now, together. I speak for her when I say I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else or with anyone else.

After I broke up with Mary, but before I got together with Beth, my longest relationship was a month long, at best. That’s only if you counted weekdays—because weekends and national holidays were a totally different story, and I acted like a single man.

In my mind’s eye, that didn’t count as cheating. Why would it? Did any of them have a ring on their finger? No, they did not.

Now, however, with Beth, I’m talking in the long-term. Not days, not weeks, not months, not even years, but the promise of a lifetime of love and, if the afterlife exists, an afterlife of love, too.

It certainly helps that, little by little, she’s moving in with me.

It’s not a deliberate move, of course, but she’s leaving a bra and panties set here, a toothbrush there, a hairclip on the nightstand, and her favorite smoothie in the refrigerator.

I believe the term for what she’s doing is called ‘nesting.’ It’s what women do when they feel they’ve found their ‘home’ with a man.

And while this prospect used to scare me in the past, it fills me with hope for the future today.

Home is a notion that comes with a house, a car, white-picket fences, a well-manicured lawn, two kids playing in the backyard, and a dog scampering along beside them.

I want a dog, I think to myself. We need to adopt a dog so we can have a practice run as parents.

Granted, houses in Los Angeles are far from cheap, and the ones that are truly worth it—the ones that are fit for me and my queen—will surely run me more than my fireman’s salary will allow.

Of course, when I take the promotion, that worry will be non-existent.

Yes, I said when, not if.

The thought of taking the promotion used to scare me. Who would want to give up the care-free, reckless life I had? Now, it thrills me. Not only am I getting a sense of stability, but I’m getting a bump in pay, respect from my colleagues, and peace of mind for my future wife.

Beth needs to know I’ll be coming home at night, that I can provide for us, and that I can be a good father to our children. I can’t do that unless I have a steady, good-paying job, and she deserves more than to have me tramping around Los Angeles with my cock in my hand.

I don’t have to throw myself into the fire to feel like I’m doing something worthwhile. What I do for our soon-to-be family is plenty worthwhile. Why stoke the fires outside when I can stoke the home fires, to a much greater effect?

I don’t need to live up to my father’s expectations anymore. He was proud of me all along. I see that now.

And though I loved my father, I hope I am one hundred times the father to our children my father was to me.

These are all thoughts that run through my head as I set the table and light a candle, putting the final touches on our romantic dinner at home.

Almost on cue, Beth walks through the door and kicks off her shoes. She can barely get the door of my apartment closed before she’s flinging herself in my arms, kissing me all over.

“Baby,” she says breathlessly, “I missed you so much.”

I return the kisses with equal intensity. “I missed you more,” I say, desperately trying to keep my hands to myself and my dick in my pants.

After all, I have to get dinner on the table, not us.

But there’s something else, something more I have to tell her.

I want her to know the truth.

I kneel before her, and for a minute the look of shock on her face suggests she’s scared—terrified, even—of what I’m about to ask her.

That fear is suddenly dissipated when I reach in my pocket and pull out a five-carat, pear-shaped sparkler.

I’m putting it on the appropriate finger as her eyes fill with tears.

I must tell her what I feel, how I feel, and why I need her to be my wife.

“Beth,” I begin, speaking the words I’ve been practicing in my head for what seems like forever, “you’re not only my lover, you’re my best friend. You make me want to be a better man, and you inspire me to chase my dreams and reach for the stars. Before you, I only knew pain and loneliness, but now, with you in my life, I feel nothing but true, pure love and a sense of family and marriage.”

Tears of joy are running down her face. “Marriage?” she asks.

“Yes, Beth,” I say, pointing to the ring on her finger. “I want to marry you. I want to commit to you. I want to dedicate the rest of my life to making you the happiest woman on Earth, much like you have made me the happiest man. I only hope I can be the perfect husband for you, that I make you happy.”

“Yes,” she says, crying. “You make me happy beyond words, Derek. You know that.”

I smile, kiss her hand, and continue. “Then, I need to ask you: Elisabeth, in front of all of our family and friends, and sending a big ‘fuck you’ to the people who doubted us and wanted us dead, will you marry me?”

She smiles and takes my head in her hands.

“Yes, Derek,” she replies. “Yes, I will marry you.”

The look in her eyes instantly makes me horny. I decide now is as good a time as any to celebrate our impending nuptials.

Screw dinner. It can get cold while we get hot.

I lift her dress over her head, exposing her bare nipples and her tiny thong underwear. I proffer an ice cube from the wine bucket and run it lightly over her perky nipples, watching them tighten as I do so and licking the dripping water off them.

Her eyes are closed, her breaths are quickening.

“I’m kind of hungry,” I say to her, slowly sliding her panties to the side to expose her bare pussy. “I would like this as an appetizer, ma’am.”

She laughs then shifts her hips towards me, opening her legs slightly. I can see her arousal glistening on her clit. Before she can even catch her breath, I’m devouring her with a burning intensity.

Her lips are pulsating and working magic on my tongue. I look up, my mouth still fully on her pussy, and watch her close her eyes and throw her head back in ecstasy.

I know if I keep working these lips with my tongue, I can make her come in my mouth. I fucking love going down on her, feeling her pulse and shift against my tongue.

I can’t think of anything sexier. So, with a sudden thrust of my tongue into her soaking hole, I unleash the proverbial floodgates. She moans, then screams, begging me to continue.

“Oh my God, Derek!” she screams. I’m convinced that the whole neighborhood can hear us.

Let them.

My suspicions are confirmed when I look over and see my window wide open, my curtains pulled back.

I smirk, stand up, and decide to give whoever’s watching a show of a lifetime.

Unzipping my pants with one hand and fingering her slick pussy with the other, I bend her over the table and jam my cock as far into her tight wetness as it will go.

She lets out a yelp of passion. I grab her by the hair and jerk her face up to mine, licking and kissing her neck in time with my thrusts.

“Whose pussy is this?” I demand to know in between thrusts. “Tell me. Who’s fucking you right now?”

“You, Derek, you,” she moans, barely able to form the words as I thrust deeper inside of her.

Satisfied with her answer, I use one hand to massage her clit and to thumb the pink rosette of her ass. I feel my cock sliding below, thrusting harder now, determined to make her come harder than she’s ever come before.

I flip her over, pull my cock and fingers away, spread her legs wide.

Time for the showstopper.

Carefully, I select an ice cube from the wine bucket and slide it into the hot void between her legs, my thumb working deeper into her ass.

She comes immediately—over me, over the floor, gasping for air that suddenly seems in such short supply.

When her screams and moans subside, she looks at me and says, “Well, I guess there’s no wearing white to the wedding.”

She reaches down to my cock, giving it a light squeeze. “I’ll deal with you later.”

And with that, we laugh, wipe each other off, and sit down to our naked dinner—the first, but not the last, as an engaged couple.

EPILOGUE II

ELISABETH

The sun is setting around us, casting a golden hue across the hills and the ocean beyond them. Every few seconds we drive out of its reach, only to reemerge back in the ethereal glow.

I hold my hand up in front of my face, wriggling my fingers and grinning like a fool as I watch the way the light plays on my new diamond ring. A thousand colors seem to reflect around it, like magic.

Which is fitting, because today, everything seems like magic.

I could never have imagined anything like this sweltering in that trailer, hope and possibility so thin and unreachable.

Derek catches me in the act, a slow grin spreading across his face as he watches me appreciate the ring for what must be the thousandth time.

“I’d think you’d be used to it by now,” he says, inclining his head towards my still upheld hand.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it. It all still seems too good to be true.”

He clasps my free hand with his own, squeezing tightly.

“I know what you mean.”

We lock eyes across the center console, his sage green gaze washing over me as if it were the first time.

“Hey, eyes on the road, mister.”

“I got it, I got it. You just keep staring at that ring of yours.”

“You know I will.”

I really don’t know how I’ll ever believe this is my life. It’s not just that it was all so fast—though admittedly it was—but also that it’s just all so perfect. I mean, before Derek I might not have considered a spontaneous elopement and honeymoon in Mexico exactly ideal, but fuck if it wasn’t.

Days were spent coiled up in bed exploring every inch of each other. Nights were—well—honestly, pretty much the same. And now, we’re coming home newlyweds, the happy couple. It’s all so surreal.

The sudden sound of radio rock startles me from my thoughts. I turn to find Derek fiddling with the knobs.

“Babe, you’re gonna wake him!” I chastise, gesturing to the small bundle on my lap.

Sure enough, it stirs, a tiny nose poking its way out from beneath the blanket, shimmering eyes and floppy ears following close behind.

Derek has the good grace to look sorry before reaching over to give the little guy a scratch behind the ears.

“Sorry, buddy, I forgot you were sleeping.”

“Now, he’ll want to eat again,” I scold, but I can’t keep the smile from my face.

Derek was like a giant child when he first set eyes on this little guy, the last remaining puppy in a cardboard box by the side of the road. ‘How could we leave him?’ he’d said. Apparently, we couldn’t.

For someone who used to wear solitude like a badge of honor, he sure is a big old softy inside—a marshmallow man. Cock excepted, of course…

“Don’t worry,” he says. “We’re almost there.”

I look around, suddenly surprised by the progress we’ve made. The drive seemed a lot longer on the way there.

“Wow, you’re right. What have we got, twenty minutes?”

“Less.”

I look around again, mentally judging our location.

“No way, we’ve got twenty minutes minimum.”

He looks at me from the corner of his eye, a mischievous smile now occupying half of his face.

“What?” I ask.

He just chuckles, completely ignoring my question.

“Derek, what? What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. Who said anything was funny?”

I sigh in frustration, throwing my hands up dramatically.

“Fine, you just keep your little inside jokes.”

“You know I will.”

I roll my eyes.

“Oh, he just thinks he’s terribly funny,” I say, this time speaking to the puppy, “but we know better, don’t we? No, I agree, we should probably just humor him.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “Oh, real nice, ganging up on me already.”

I shoot him a coy smirk and turn my attention to scratching the puppy’s ears.

“We really do need to give you a name already, don’t we?”

“I already came up with a name!” Derek growls.

“We are so not naming him Derek Junior!”

“Why not? It’s a good name. You seem to like it well enough.”

“Derek…”

“What?”

“Not happening.”

“Fine.” He fake pouts, but he’s already starting to laugh, his mirth spilling through the façade.

“We’ll think of something,” I assure the puppy. “It’s going to be great.”

He gives a little yip of agreement. I smile victoriously across at my husband.

My husband.

Yeah, I’m never getting used to that.

We’re on the outskirts of the city now, beautiful homes beginning to pop up in place of open hills. I watch them as we pass, taking note of the large trees, tire swings, and sprawling lawns.

I’m so distracted by them it takes me a moment to notice we’ve turned.

“Where are we going?” I ask, coming back to the moment. “Home’s that way,” I point.

“Is it?” Derek asks, something strange in the tone of his voice.

“Um, yeah, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten where you live already. We haven’t been gone that long.”

“I didn’t forget. I know exactly where I’m going.”

Men and directions.

“If you say so, dear.”

We drive a few more minutes in silence, more houses springing up around us as we drive into the residential area.

Now I’m certain Derek’s lost. There’s no way he’s getting home from here.

“What are you—”

My words die off as he makes a hard right into a driveway. A beautiful Victorian home stands before us—white paint, tire swing, the whole enchilada.

“Where the hell are we?” I ask, looking around for clues.

“Home.”

“We’re not—”

I take another look around, excitement already thrumming through my veins. My eyes catch on a For Sale sign in the yard. I notice the sticker scrawled across it.

SOLD.

“Oh my God, Derek.”

“I told you I knew the way home. I don’t know why you always doubt me.”

Whatever self-congratulating spiel he has lined up is effectively ruined by the squeal that jettisons from my mouth, making both man and dog widen their eyes in shock.

“You’re serious? This is our home?”

He chuckles. “Every square inch.”

I propel myself towards him, barely remembering the puppy in time to make sure he doesn’t get squished in the intensity of my hug.

“I can’t believe this!”

“Believe it,” he says, pulling back to plant a kiss on my mouth. “Come on, let’s take a look inside.”

I’m so excited I’m actually shaking as I get out of the car, puppy clenched to my chest.

“We live here now!” I tell him as I nearly sprint for the door.

Derek’s hot on my heels as I fly through the door to our new home, giggles of pure delight spilling from my mouth.

I stop in the entryway, eyes raking over the polished floors, crown molding, and winding staircase. It’s almost too much, almost too perfect.

Almost.

“What are you waiting for?” Derek asks, coming to a stop at my side. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen him look happier. Though I suspect I could.

“I want to tell you something.”

“I know, I know. I love you too, Beth. Now come on, I want you to see the master bedroom!”

I laugh. “No, that’s not it. I mean, yes, I love you, but there’s something else, too.”

He looks at me curiously, eyebrow arching in question.

“What is it?”

“Well, I kind of have a surprise of my own.”

He grins mischievously. “You do, huh?”

“Yeah,” I say, setting the puppy at our feet. “I do.”

“Well?”

I reach for his hand, squeezing it gently as I guide it towards me, placing his palm against my stomach.

He looks confused for an instant, eyebrows knitting together as he opens his mouth in question.

I see the moment it clicks. His eyes widen in shock, and his mouth drops as he looks at me in pure astonishment.

“Are you serious?”

All I can do is nod.

“Holy shit, Beth!”

I’m lifted from the floor, crushed in his thrilled embrace. More giggles pour from me as he spins me wildly around, mutters of ‘Holy shit,’ still sounding at regular intervals.

I’m actually dizzy by the time he returns me to my feet.

“I’m gonna be a dad?”

“Yes, you’re gonna be a dad. And… I was thinking. If it’s a boy, we should name him after your father.”

Now I’ve never seen him happier.

“Fuck, I can’t believe this. We’re going to be a family! You, me, the kid, and the dog. It’s like a movie.”

“That’s what I keep thinking! How did we even get so lucky?”

He turns his gaze upward, seeming deep in thought for a moment before answering.

Then: “I have no fucking idea.”

Our laughter echoes from the ceiling. Great bursts of joy so pure I can’t believe myself capable of making the sound.

When we’re quiet, he pulls me back to him, gazing down at me, his eyes sparkling like I’ve never seen.

“Thank you,” he says simply.

“Well,” I glance pointedly toward my stomach, “I couldn’t have done it alone.”

He laughs. “No, not just for that. Thank you for making me a better man, for making me the kind of man who can have this.” He gestures around us. “You, the house, a family. I wouldn’t be worthy of any of it without you.”

There are no words.

Tears of joy spring to my eyes as I pull him into a kiss, my touch saying what I seem currently incapable of voicing: how much I love him, how happy I am, how amazing our family is going to be.

We stay that way for a long time, clinging to each other like our lives depend on it. Which of course, in some ways, they do.

After a long beat, Derek reaches again for my hand, raising it to his lips to plant a small kiss before turning his attention towards the staircase.

“Now,” he says, “which way was it to the bedroom?”

HUSTLE

Teagan Kade

* * * * *

Published by Teagan Kade

Edited by Sennah Tate

Copyright © 2017 by Teagan Kade

CHAPTER ONE

SHANNON

“You’re an odd one, Shannon.” That’s what Grandma used to tell me when I’d arrive home as a kid with my latest animal acquisition, whether it was a common grasshopper, a red-winged blackbird, or a tarantula. Grandma owned five cats herself. She smelled like lavender. On my last disaster of a date almost a year ago, I was served up lavender ice cream at a fancy-pants restaurant in town. I almost puked up the first spoonful. It was like I was literally eating Grandma.

So yeah, I am an odd one. Surrounded by my friends here at The Swinging Dick — how do you even get away with a bar name like that? — it becomes even clearer.

My friend Jenny, a twenty-two-year-old corporate go-getter, places down a tray of cocktails, sliding one towards me. “I had the bartender make this one special for you, Shan. It’s called the ‘Popped Cherry,’ and Mr. Cutie Barman said he’d happily follow it up with Sex on the Beach… if you’re so inclined.”

The others laugh.

I take the glass and stare into its crimson depths. “Ha. Ha. Can we just get the whole ‘I can’t believe you’re twenty-three and still a virgin’ thing over and done with now?”

Jenny cups her hands around her mouth and announces, “Shannon Bailey is a virgin. I repeat, Shannon Bailey is a virgin. Bidding starts now.”

A few males nod in my direction, smiling, while I turn as red as the cursed cocktail in front of me.

One of my other friends, Belle, shakes her head, holding her own tropical headache-in-a-glass. “Jen’s right, hon. You’ve got to get out there and do something about that V-card of yours. We just need to find the right,” she clears her throat, “tool to stamp it with.”

I’m not looking for a tool, a stamp, or anything else tonight. This is not my natural habitat. I’d rather be curled up at home with my animal kingdom menagerie than out here in the wild. I don’t do social situations like this. The girls practically had to drag me here as it was.

I take a timid sip of my Popped Cherry.

Yep. Tastes like alcohol alright.

While the girls move onto the subject of handbags, I cautiously scan the room. I imagined a bar called The Swinging Dick would be full of unsavory types. I’m not wrong. There’s a guy in the corner who looks like a stunt double from a John Wayne film, a group of frat boys chugging down beer by the jug in the other, and a dude in a cheap suit by the bar trying to look expensive. He actually blows me a kiss when I look his way.

Ew. It’s lavender ice cream all over again. If anything’s going to be ‘popped’ tonight, it’s going to the lid on my pepper spray.

“Shannon!”

I snap back to the conversation. “Sorry?”

Jen’s shaking her head again. “Get out of the clouds and with the game. Do you see anything you like?”

“No.” I feel like I should elaborate. It’s the social thing to do—add in a clever quip about the cowboy in the corner, but the witticism never arrives, leaving an awkward, eerie silence instead.

“Right,” says one of the others, getting things back on track, “who’s in for chatting up the bartender?”

Hands are raised. I keep mine locked right around the Cherry Popper, Popping Cherry—whatever this alcoholic abomination is called.

“Shannon, you coming?”

I give a small smile, my eyebrows knitting together. “You know, I think I’m going to sit this one out.”

A slow nod. “Suit yourself.” And off my friends go to the bar, marooning me here at the table, and boy do the sharks start to circle. Cowboy is already getting up, pretending to stretch. I stare down into my cocktail, suddenly finding it completely fascinating.

Do not come over. Do not come over.

I look up and see the bartender smile at the approaching throng of push-up bras and primary-colored minis. His night is made. Jenny lost her virginity when she was fourteen. If there was a pro league of sex, she’d be in it.

It’s not that I don’t want to. I just haven’t found the right guy by which to consummate said event.

Calling it an event doesn’t make it sound very sexy.

I’m not exactly waiting for marriage either. Sex just isn’t something I’ve gotten around to yet. Besides, I’m in no rush. I want it to be special.

You wouldn’t know special if you were sitting on it.

True, but I do know I’m destined to wind up with someone as awkward and clunky as I am, probably a dorky veterinarian or an oddball white-collar guy—someone far, far from an Instagram feed.

“Howdy.”

Oh, Jesus.

I drag my eyes up to the cowboy, who’s standing beside me with his hands in his pockets, and he winks. He damn well winks at me. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“Don’t worry. She’s cheap!” shouts Jen from the bar, my beloved group of friends bursting into laughter.

Cowboy is not perturbed. “How about it?”

I’m expecting ‘partner’ to follow, but he doesn’t go that far.

I hold up my Popped Cherry. “I’ve already got a drink, thanks.”

At least he has enough sense to get the hint. He tips an invisible hat, starting to slink off back to his corner. “I’ll be right over here if you change your mind.”

I attempt a smile. “Sure.”

And back I go to burning a hole through the glass with my eyes Superman style.

Jenny’s reaching over the bar, taking hold of Mr. Barman’s bicep. He’s flexing it, absolutely lapping this up. This is how my friends never have to pay for a drink.

Something cuts out my view, a great big blob of pinstriped cotton seating itself in front of me. “Hey.”

God. It’s the guy with the cheap suit who thinks he’s the Wolf of Wall Street. I wait for the line. Boy, does he deliver.

He puckers his lips together, eyes dropping to my cleavage. “If I told you that you had a great body, would you hold it against me?”

I fix my eyes on him. “No,” I reply, deadpan.

“Hey, I’m just stating the obvious here. You’re the one whose boobs can’t stop staring at my eyes.”

You.

Did.

Not.

I look to my gaggle of buddies for salvation, but they’re completely invested in Mr. Barman. I’m on my own.

Suit slides himself to the seat beside me. I move my left hand down into my handbag, grip the pepper spray tight. God help me, I’ll do it. I’ll spray this stuff right down his peehole if I have to.

Suit suddenly looks down between his legs. “Ah, shit.”

“What is it?” I ask, genuinely concerned.

His smile comes back dirty as an oil slick. “My fucking dick just died. Mind if I bury it in your ass?”

I go to stand up. “Okay, that’s en—”

He grabs my wrist, pulling me back down. “The conversation is over when I say it’s over, sweetheart.”

“Um, no.”

I go to stand up again, but he pulls me back down. He’s stronger than he looks. His hand shifts between my legs. “You know you want it.”

The pepper spray is halfway out of my handbag. I’m preparing to go full Rambo on this guy when he’s suddenly reefed backwards, staggering to his feet.

He brushes himself down. “What the fuck?”

I turn and spot some of kind of superhuman facing Suit down. The new contender’s wearing a plain white tee and jeans, but his biceps are testing the tensile strength of said fabric, his chest cut like a gosh-darn diamond underneath. His hair’s inky, short. He looks practical, all man—the kind of testosterone perfection you’d sell your soul for. He looms over Suit like a skyscraper.

Suit should leave, cut his losses, but he comes forward and pokes this guy in the middle of his marble chest. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I don’t think the lady wants your company.”

“What it’s to you, pal?”

The other guy places his hand on Suit’s shoulder and squeezes. Suddenly Suit’s face is a muddle of pain. He buckles forward, unable to move.

It’s some kind of crazy Jedi jujitsu pressure point thing.

“Alright,” stammers Suit, “I get it.”

The other guy lets go of his shoulder, dusting it off. “Good.”

Suit heads to the door, doesn’t even look back, as the skyscraper takes up the seat opposite me. “Do you mind if I sit? I’m not going to hit on you, but I figure it’ll keep the vultures away. What do you say?”

I close my mouth, which has been hanging somewhere around my breastbone. “Um…”

Talk, you idiot. You move your mouth and it makes words, remember?

“…sure,” I finish, sounding none so sure.

I take the stranger in, trying to pinpoint where I’ve seen a guy like this.

The Expendables? Apocalypse Now? Your wildest fantasy?

He certainly appears like a walking, talking action film. I mean who does that?

He extends his hand. “I’m Gabe.”

I meet him with my own. “Shannon.” It’s like a feather sitting in a baseball mitt. One squeeze and he’d probably break every bone I have.

He leans on the table. It groans with dissatisfaction. “I’m just here for a drink, Shannon. Nothing more, I promise. I used to come to this place all the time when I was on leave.”

Over his shoulder I see my so-called friends have turned their attention to me, Jenny busy deep-throating an invisible penis, nodding with enthusiasm. I run a finger across my throat at her.

Gabe looks confused. “You want me to stop?”

“I, ah—” I stumble.

“Just now. You ran your finger across…”

“I know,” I bumble. “I was just… my friends.”

He looks over his shoulder and waves. Suddenly they’re waving back like perfect, innocent angels.

Traitors.

“You said something about leave?” I stutter.

He nods. “Yeah, sorry. I am, was in the Navy.”

That explains a lot. I’m surprised I didn’t peg him as some kind of military dude sooner. “Very cool.”

I sound like I’m sixteen.

I point to his arm. “I like your tattoo.”

He lifts his sleeve up where an eagle design follows up into that of another animal over the back of his bicep.

Something long dormant sparks to life between my legs. “It’s a gecko,” he says, looking it over. “It’s seen as a symbol of good luck in some cultures.”

“I know,” I reply, sounding defensive. I attempt to dig myself out. “Is good luck something you need a lot of?”

He laughs, the timbre of it rich and mellow. A shiver pulses down my spine. “When you’re in my line of work, you need all the luck you can get. Don’t even start me on life insurance.” He strokes the gecko. “Admittedly, I may have gotten this guy when I was drunk deep in the jungles of Indonesia, but who knows? I’m still here, I guess.”

I look to his other arm. “And what’s that one? Like a quilt or something?”

“It’s an American eagle, actually, another one,” moving his finger across his chest. “Goes all the way across here.”

…to the Promised Land.

“It’s very… patriotic.”

Way to go, Shan.

“I got it when I first joined the Navy. I was young, dumb and full of…” he pauses, “enthusiasm.”

I nod at the tattoo. “I’ve got one of my own.”

His gorgeous face tightens in confusion. “A tattoo?”

Hell no. I swallow again. Why am I swallowing so much? It’s not like we’re sitting in the Sahara here. “A gecko.”

He straightens up. “Oh?”

“And a sugar glider, a pair of lovebirds, a tarantula, and a three-legged squirrel.”

“What, you live in a zoo?” he laughs.

Close. “It’s silly,” I know. “I just really like animals. My dad… We used to watch Discovery Channel when I was a kid. I guess they make me feel closer to him or something.”

“Your dad’s passed?”

Normally, a question like this would have my back up, but the way Gabe phrases it, with such ease, makes me more comfortable. I hardly feel like I’m speaking to a stranger at all. “A few years back, yeah.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. What did he do, your dad?”

“He was a marine, so a bit like you, I suppose, not that I’m saying they’re alike, I just…” I trail off, not willing to screw this up any further with my bow-tied tongue.

“Everyone does their part,” replies Gabe, his bright blue eyes glinting. “He served his country. That means something. I’m sure he was a fine soldier. What was his name?”

“Josh,” I reply. “Joshua Bailey.”

The more we chat, the more comfortable I become. Soon I don’t even notice my friends as they drift past me on their way to the next bar. Somehow, my Popped Cherry is well and truly popped, the glass empty, and the tingle in my head is mingling with the tingle between my legs.

Time to come back to earth, Shan.

My head’s right. Gabe is mysterious, and sexy, and built. A guy like this simply wouldn’t be interested in a girl like me, especially if he got to know me. I’m playing it as cool as I can, miraculously haven’t spilled my drink on him or vomited yet, but it’s not going to happen. I’m destined for an animal-loving hippie or programmer, not an Adonis like this who probably eats bricks for breakfast and squats small cars.

I know something else he could eat for breakfast…

One cocktail and I’m turning into a full-blown pervert here.

I point behind myself. “I should really get going.”

Gabe nods, his strong jaw and full lips tempting me to stay. “Can I get you a cab?”

I stand, my legs oddly shaky. “Okay.”

He walks me out the front of the bar to the main road.

He waves to a cab coming towards us. When it looks like it’s not going to stop, he just walks out onto the road and raises his hand. Suffice to say, the cab pulls up.

Gabe opens the back door. “Here you go.”

I stop by the door.

Say it. Say it.

“I think this is where I get your number?”

He half-smiles as I pull out my cell, giving me his number while I punch it in with numb fingers.

I slip my cell back into my handbag and stand there in the space between the door and car.

I feel the tension, knowing this is ‘the kiss’ moment, but even as I lean forward Gabe gives no indication he’s going to return. He simply taps the roof the car and says, “It was nice to meet you, Shannon. Good night.”

I lick my lips and nod. “Good night.”

I get into the back of the cab, directing the driver as Gabe closes the door.

He gives a short wave as the cab pulls away.

I sit there completely still… and completely confused. I mean, that was sure-fire, right? I wanted to kiss him. He gave me his number for crying out loud? Isn’t this what happens?

Apparently not.

Not when you’re Shannon ‘The Twenty-Three-Year-Old Virgin’ Bailey.

CHAPTER TWO

GABE

I can’t stop thinking about Shannon on the way to the hospital, that slightly awkward smile, her even more awkward social manner. But it’s her body that’s really playing on my mind, those sweet curves begging to be touched, her mocha hair drawn up tight at the back of her head, her beautiful, plump lips on show.

You forget these small details when you’re on deployment, the subtleties, the smell. That’s what the game does to you. It makes you forget what a woman is like out of fatigues and camo, neither of which were designed to do any justice to the female form. But the way Shannon wore that dress, even though it didn’t really suit the girl speaking about her pet gecko or fondness for Peter Anderson films, was perfection. She doesn’t know how hot she is, but it wasn’t lost on me. Every poor fuck in that room was gunning for her, even if her friends thought they were stealing the show. Those social butterflies are not for me. I’m not looking for the next Kim Kardashian.

You shouldn’t be looking at all.

Maybe, but that’s the key word, isn’t it? Looking.

I wasn’t going to do anything, wasn’t going to act on my impulses even if my dick was doing a rain dance in my pants.

Yes, I gave her the impression I wasn’t interested.

Yes, I lied.

So what?

I’m not a liar by nature, but even if I wanted to go there, and the tent pole in my pants suggests I do, I couldn’t allow it, not after her.

Too much has happened. I’m broken in ways poor, innocent Shannon couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Frankly, she deserves better. She deserves the kind of adorable idiot who’s not going to bring baggage to the party.

I park at the hospital and head up to Oncology, a fancy name that more or less translates to ‘you’re fucked.a’

I clear my throat in the doorway to Mom’s room. My brother Matt, sitting beside her, turns and stands, walking over. He closes the door behind himself and embraces me. “If it isn’t my shithead SEAL of a brother.”

I hold him away from me. “If it isn’t my ball-sack of a sibling. How the fuck are you?”

He looks wearier than I remember. “Good.”

I nod past the doorway. “And Mom?”

He hangs his head before lifting it to meet my eyes. “Not so good. She’s been asking about you, specifically your personal life, though we both know that is basically non-existent.”

I smile. “You’re not wrong. So, what did you tell her?”

He leans against the wall beside the door, shoves his hands deep into his pockets and shrugs. “She’s worried about you, bro. Truth be told, so am I.”

I roll my eyes. “I can handle myself. I’m doing fine.”

He taps against my chest with a fist. “You’re sure that’s not metal under there, that you’re not some fucking terminator, a cybernetic organism…?”

“…Living tissue over a metal skeleton,” I finish. “I’m not a robot. I concede I haven’t been around much, but—”

“You’re busy saving the world, ‘fuck yeah, America’ and all that, right?”

“Right. Country comes first.”

He glances down. “And what does your dick have to say about that? I bet it hasn’t been wet since senior year.”

I nod slowly, ignoring him. “Is she awake?”

“She is. I’m going to go grab whatever roadkill they shoveled off the floor for lunch in the cafeteria today. You want something?”

I tap my chest. “I’m a fucking robot, remember. Chow is for pussies.”

He salutes, backing away. “Yes, sir, Senior Chief.”

I’m shaking my head as I enter Mom’s room.

She smiles when she sees me. Her voice is almost as paper thin as her skin. “Gabriel.”

I don’t like people using my full name, but Mom gets a pass. She sure as hell needs one with terminal bone cancer.

I sit, waiting for the tiny plastic chair beside her bed to split in two under me. “How you doing, Mom?”

She attempts another smile, but I can see even this is a major effort. She’s lost more weight since I saw her last, little more than a skeleton sunken into the bed. I saw victims of chem attacks that looked just like this a few years back. I guess that’s basically what’s happened here—my poor mother pumped so full of poison it’s pushed the life clean out of her.

She doesn’t get to reply. Her eyes close, lips parted, as she drifts off.

I scratch the back of my neck, suddenly uncomfortable in this fortress for the sick. I’ll take an open battlefield over this shit any day of the week.

I sit and thoughts of Shannon start up again—the way she commented on my stupid gecko tattoo, the puzzled expression on her face when I told her what I do, leaving out the most important acronym. Matt was right about one thing. My cock’s been starved for attention for too long. Something tells me that sinking into Shannon would be heaven on earth, the tight, wet glove of her pussy drawing me in, my tongue toying with her nipples.

What about Triss? Have your forgotten about her already?

I haven’t. It’s hard to forget an ex when they had such an impact on your life, when you spent so much time together. You live under someone else’s skin for long enough and you can easily lose yourself. Maybe that’s happened. Maybe that was how the shitstorm started.

A mental block rises up. I won’t do it. I won’t allow myself to think about what happened to her. Point is, I’m not ready for another relationship, especially given everything going on with Mom. Besides, I don’t deserve another.

I shift in the chair but accidentally knock the table beside the bed.

Mom’s eyes flicker open. “Oh, did I go to sleep again?”

I wave it off. “It’s fine, Mom.”

Her eyebrows twine together. “No, no. You’re home, back from deployment. The least I can do is catch up with my eldest son.”

I take a glass of water and direct the straw in it between Mom’s lips. “Here, drink.”

Her cheeks hollow as she sucks, barely a mouthful of water passing through the straw. I place it back on the table and lean back in the chair. “Matt said you’ve been talking about me.”

Her hand shifts across the blanket. I take it, note how all I can feel is bone.

“Gabe,” she begins, “we’re just concerned about you. You’ve been away for so long, so caught up… I know it must be hard to adjust back to civilian life.”

I squeeze her hand. “Like I told Matt, I’m perfectly fine, Mom. You don’t need to worry about PTSD or anything like that. I’m good. I was down range for a long while, but now I’m home. I’m here for you.”

Her eyes become glassy. “Are you? I wish I could be around to see you settle down, Gabe.”

“Mom,” I protest, “you know I don’t like it when you speak like that. You’ve got to fight.”

She smiles again. “I’m not you, Gabe, or your father, rest his soul. My fight’s over, and so is yours. You’ve been away almost a decade. You’ve retired with an honorable discharge. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

But she doesn’t know the full story, and I’m not about to tell her. I place my other hand on top of hers. “I know, Mom, and I’m going to make it up to you, make sure you are taken care of no matter what.”

“I only want you to be happy, Gabe. It’s my only wish.”

“Actually, I’m seeing someone, Mom.”

I don’t know why I say this. It just comes out.

Her whole face lights up. Her body straightens in the bed. “You are?”

Way to go, dickhead. How are you going to get out of this?

She tilts her head a little, her smile beaming. “Oh my. Are you… engaged?”

I know it’s wrong, that I should correct her, but I nod in response, can’t help smiling myself.

What the fuck are you doing?

I swallow hard wishing I could suck the words back, but it’s too late now, not after seeing Mom like this. So what do I do? I deepen the fucking lie. “In fact, it’s going really well.”

“Oh, Gabe,” she beams, “I’m so happy for you. I want to hear all about her.”

You and me both.

“She’s…” Better start thinking. “…a local, a civilian, kind of quirky.”

“That’s wonderful. They do say opposites attract, you know.”

She’s in full-on mother mode now. “What does she do, your fiancé?”

That word really nails it. I have no fucking idea. My fake fiancée and I never discussed it. “She’s studying, for now.”

“Well, that’s okay. She sounds smart.”

I could tell Mom this mystery fiancée is a three-eyed dominatrix who gets her kicks ball-stomping and she wouldn’t give a damn. That’s the thing about Mom. You can get her on board almost anything if you press long enough. “She is,” I concede, trying to dream up a way to change the subject, but my stupid, sand-logged brain is unable to dredge anything up.

“What’s her name?”

Jesus. “Shannon,” I blurt back. She’s the first girl I think of.

“That’s nice. Is she pretty?”

Does the sun rise in the east? “Yeah, Mom. She’s real pretty—brown hair, blue eyes…”

Mom’s eyes widen further and I know a grand thought is incoming. “You have to bring her in, Gabe. I have to meet her.”

Fuck times two.

There’s no getting out of this now. I’ve dug myself deep and I’ve forgotten the damn shovel. My loose mouth has gotten me into trouble before, but never like this.

You sure about that PTSD, sunshine?

I silently groan at my impulsiveness. “I’ll bring her in soon, Mom, I promise. I just didn’t want to rush things.”

There’s the understatement of the year.

Matt’s standing in the door with a tray of what could well be dirt or some kind of mystery meat. It’s hard to tell. “Bring in who?” he asks.

CHAPTER THREE

SHANNON

I’ve learned to quietly loathe the bing sound that my computer makes whenever a message pops up onto my screen.

It’s from my boss, film producer extraordinaire Daryl Somerset-slash-douchebag of the year, but hey, the money here makes it worthwhile.

‘Those Paramount files good to go?’ the message reads, followed by a winking emoticon. God, he loves emoticons. I think I hate them almost as much as his leery, you-know-you-want-this grin.

I make final changes to the file and print it off, standing to knock on his door.

“Enter,” comes the reply.

Yes, sir, Your Highness.

He waves me in and motions for me to close the door. Behind his desk is a grand arch that overlooks the city. He’s got the best view on the entire floor.

My nose wiggles. There’s a strange smell I’m having trouble pinpointing.

Eau de entitled asshole?

Ah, yes. That’s the one. Manufactured by Harvard and too many hours spent at the rowing shed.

I place the files on his desk, standing back with my hands in front of myself like some kind of vagina shield.

He watches me with that slick smile on his face as he picks up the files and skims over them.

His eyes pop up back to me—to my breasts, at least. “You know, Shannon, you should really wear your hair down, and smile more. You’ve got a great smile.”

Two invisible strings pull the corners of my mouth upwards, but they’re struggling. I want to tell him he’s a sexist pig, but I go with, “I’ll keep that in mind,” speaking through gritted teeth.

I stand there quietly smoldering while he continues to review the files.

He looks up again, sliding the files away and leaning back into his chair, legs spread and hands behind his head. I think they call this a ‘power pose.’ It’s definitely not the kind of power I’m looking for. “The section on the royalty transfer is incomplete.”

Crap.

“Oh?” I question.

He swings back forward, nodding. “I guess it’s a good thing you’re pretty, right?”

I wish I had a pride of lions here now. ‘Attack!’ I’d bellow.

But no. All I’ve got are my wits, my patience, and a pencil-pleated skirt that my sleazy boss is X-raying through with his eyes right now.

He winks. “I’ll let you off this time, okay.”

Think of the money. Think of the money.

“Yes, sir,” I reply.

He rolls his eyes. “For fuck’s sake, lighten up, Shannon. Show me that sexy smile.”

The invisible strings go to work again.

Why do you put up with this?

I know the answer. Because it keeps my bank account healthy and I need the money.

He smiles back, his entire expression dripping with seediness. I always feel like I need a shower after being in his office.

“There it is.” He gestures to the door. “Now get your cute little butt back to work and fix up my files.”

I go to head out as quickly as possible.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” comes the call at my back.

I turn expecting to find him with his tiny penis out, but he’s holding the files.

“Sorry,” I mutter, reaching forward to take them. He holds onto them tight, the two of us caught in some weird office tug-o’-war.

He pouts, bottom lip extended. “You didn’t say please.”

Seriously?

“Please.”

He lets go of the files and I get out of there, closing the door quietly but wishing I could slam it through the wall.

I sit back at my desk and open the files back up, making the required changes. I can barely concentrate I’m so worked up. The big black clock on the wall doesn’t help. It’s running in another dimension, a really slow one, ticking and tocking and driving me insane.

I wait until just before closing to send the files through lest Daryl call me back in again. I let him know the hard copies are on my desk.

I’m standing when I hit ‘Send,’ my coat already slung over my arm as I half-pace, half-run to the elevators, making my escape.

I arrive home half an hour later to a seemingly quiet house apart from the lovebirds merrily singing down the back.

I drop my handbag and coat by the door, and head down to the sunroom at the back that has since become the home of my little menagerie.

My tarantula, Aragog, shuffles to the front of his enclosure, no doubt looking for today’s handout. I take a handful of crickets from the jar beside him and dump them in. “There you go, my little buddy. Enjoy.”

I move onto the lovebirds, Pikachu and Ash, opening their aviary and letting them take a shoulder each. I had their cage custom-made. It’s bigger than my bathroom, but they need the space. People don’t realize how intelligent they are, the human contact and interaction they crave. Dad understood. He had a huge aviary out in the backyard growing up, but the lovebirds don’t appreciate competition.

I hit stop on the radio beside the cage. The lovebirds like the classical channel, especially Beethoven.

I replace the cuttlebones in their cage and move onto Tripod, my three-legged squirrel. I can hear him scratching against the back door.

He wasn’t looking so good when I found him beside the road almost a year ago, set no doubt to become an evening meal for one of the larger animals in the area. I took him home and cared for him, even tried to set him loose, but he’s never left the backyard.

I open the door and take a wrapped chunk of Baby Ruth out of my pocket I’ve been saving for him. He swipes it away in seconds, moving down a step to nibble away at it. That’s the thing about squirrels. They are junk food addicts. They’ll beg, borrow, and steal if they have to. They’re like children. What they like to eat is not what they need, but I like to spoil him once a week.

I let Tripod in. Percy, my crested gecko, lumbers in behind him, both of them headed to the kitchen. He was mates with my Dad’s gecko Penelope, but Penelope passed a week after Dad did. I don’t know if he’s ever gotten over it.

“Nice to see you too,” I tell her. “How was your day? Did you get called into the office by your chauvinistic boss?”

The lovebirds flitter away when the sugar gliders arrive, swooping down to take up their places, one burrowing down the front of my top to settle in my cleavage, peeping over my bra as I move through the house, my friends in tow.

People think I’m crazy for owning this many animals, but Dad had three times what I do now. It started after Mom died, the collecting. I guess he passed it down to me.

I reach down and stroke Percy, my thoughts turning to the gecko tattoo on Gabe’s arm. “You share a striking resemblance, you know. I think he’d like to meet you.” His eyes roll around, glinting in the light. “Maybe you’re good luck and maybe you aren’t, but rest assured I love you either way.”

Maybe you could love Gabe? You know, an actual human being instead of holding one-way conservations with animals all day.

I don’t know what I want. If I was to look at it from a purely superficial level, then yes, Gabe was attractive. The thought of those bulging arms closing around me, keeping me safe, his chin resting against my shoulder, his soft lips on the side of my neck…

Daydreaming will get you nowhere.

And then the Navy thing. That’s hot. I’ve never really had a thing for military guys, but the thought of Gabe sweating it out, running through water, has me heating up in naughty places. I could almost touch myself thinking about the kind of artillery he’s no doubt packing in those cargo pants, the long, thick butt of his cock.

Shannon!

I’m blushing as I stand at the kitchen counter. I’m blushing and—Lord, help me—getting wet thinking about it all, especially his eyes. If those eyes are the window to his soul, sign me up for the home tour.

The gecko tattoo was a sign. It has to be.

And yet you’re not going to call him, are you? You’re terrified.

I hand the sugar gliders, Buffy and Angel, a grape each. “What do you guys think? Did I dream it?”

No response. They’re too busy stuffing their faces. They’re teenagers—sleeping the day away to go crazy at night.

Percy rubs himself against my leg. “Don’t worry, Perce. You’re still my man.”

After I’ve fed the family, I can finally relax in full. I watch a bit of Community, but I can’t stop thinking about Gabe. All sorts of lewd and wonderful thoughts stream into my head, so much so I head to bed early fully intent on wearing the batteries in my vibrator out.

I deal with the others first, putting them to bed. The gliders love to be near me. I normally wear two shirts to bed so they can hang out between them and not tickle-slash-scratch me to death, but not tonight. They are incredibly social creatures, but tonight they’ll just have to hang with each other.

I place them carefully into their cage, right of the sunroom. “Sorry, guys, but Momma needs some alone time tonight.”

I take a quick shower and get into bed, lying there stiff as a board under the covers.

You’re really going to do this?

The vibrator, fresh from its packaging, sits on the bedside table.

I look at it nervously. Better go au naturale first, come in with the heavy artillery later.

I haven’t touched myself since I was sixteen, but this feels right. I’ve never had the appropriate, uh, image to fixate on, but I do now.

I shift and wiggle. “You can do this,” I tell myself.

My hand is shaking as I slip it under the waistband of my panties and let it settle over my sex.

It’s hot down there. That’s the first thing I notice—hot and wet.

I conjure up Gabe, naked now, his back turned.

Cute bum. How about you turn around?

He does and I give a little jerk as I see it—all of him.

HQ, copy. We have found a weapon of mass destruction. I repeat, we have found a weapon of mass destruction.

I smile broadly at this while I let an exploratory finger run downwards into the slick heat gathering between my legs. My knuckles press the crotch of my panties out as I bring the finger back up, letting the pad of it sit against my clit.

Could I be with a guy like Gabe?

I think the question is, could a guy like Gabe be with a girl like you?

It’s a fair call. I’m not exactly normal, whatever that means. I’m not like my friends or the hip characters in the TV show I watch. I don’t like to fuss over my makeup or pore over online stores for hours.

I hear my grandmother: “You’re an odd one, Shannon.”

My finger stops.

No, no. Think of Gabe. Think about his chest, those rippling, corrugated abs.

You can touch them, he laughs, this imaginary man in my head. They’re not going to bite.

I start to move my finger in concentric circles, concentrating now. My back arches off the bed, my muscles pulling and releasing.

I add a second finger to the first, the need and arousal building in my core, knotting there.

It’s been so long since I’ve felt horny like this.

At this moment I do want to have sex. I do want to come, screaming and clutching at the sheets like they do in the movies, my throat burning with his name. “Oh, Gabe! Yes, do it! Fuck me! Harder. Harder.”

I want to buckle and explode from the inside out, see constellations before my eyes. I want it more than I’ve wanted anything in my life.

I want to experience an orgasm, just once.

My fingers are really working now, my legs spread wide and my sopping core exposed.

I think about Gabe and I touch myself.

I don’t come. I don’t experience the mysterious ‘big O.’ The fancy vibrator Jenny gave three years ago is no help.

But it does feel pleasant, nice.

One thing is clear, though. I need the real thing… and fast.

CHAPTER FOUR

GABE

I arrive back at Mom’s hospital room with my own plate of slop.

I place it down on the side table and pick up a spoonful, watch it drop back onto the plate. “I see what you mean,” I tell Matt, who’s watching what appears to be Survivor on the small TV above the bed. “The food was better at BUD/S.”

Matt turns to me. “Say what?”

I notice there’s some sort of zig zag line in his hair. He’s an attractive guy, but he’s always fucking with his hair. I’ve never understood it. “Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training. Sorry, I forget I’m surrounded by civilians now.”

“You make me sound like some sort of pussy.”

“And you’re not?” I smirk.

Matt nods to Mom. “It’s a good thing she’s asleep.”

I shovel a spoonful of what I believe was labeled ‘bean medley’ into my mouth, chew, and swallow. For the last decade eating’s been routine, a task. That’s going to take adjustment in itself, to remember to actually enjoy it.

But not this. I’d rather a plate of de-hy cardboard.

Matt switches off the TV. “Now, Rambo, you ready to spill about your mystery girlfriend?”

“Right? Where’s that shovel when you need it?” I place the spoon down and bring my hands together. “I may have stepped in it a little there.”

Matt’s always had a pretty good read on me. “So you don’t have a girlfriend?”

“In a manner of speaking, no, but I do have someone in mind. I’ll bring her in, put on a little show… Mom will be none the wiser. Trust me.”

Matt’s loving this. He leans back with his hands behind his head, his feet up on the bed. “You really think so?”

“You should have seen how happy she was when I told her.”

Matt puts his hands up. “Of that I have no doubt. It’s just…”

“What?” I press.

“This is exactly the kind of shit you would have pulled once upon a time.”

“’Once upon a time’? What’s that supposed to me?”

“Before you became the terminator.”

“Are you referring to me or my dick?” I ask.

He laughs, head down. “We both know being hung like a steel girder runs in the family. Is that how you’re going to do it, get this mystery girl to sign up to your crazy plan here? You doing to drop your pants and drag it out, hypnotize her with your big ol’ pork sword?”

I kick his feet off the bed. “It sure wouldn’t work with that pocket watch you’ve got for a penis.”

Matt ignores the jibe. “How many times have I warned you to think before you speak, huh? I’m sure they teach ‘act on your impulses’ and all that in the frog squad, but you’re back to reality now, big boy. We’re adults here in the real word.”

He’s joking, but still there’s a small sting at his words. He’s right. Acting on impulse is my weakness. My impulsiveness has led to a lot of dark days—serious fucking problems. But Matt doesn’t need to hear about it. No one does. I’ll deal with it my own way. “Honestly,” I tell him, “I don’t know if I can deliver here.”

Matt doesn’t gloat. He knows the only person this is going to hurt in the end if Mom. She’s been through enough. “And there it is, the truth. So, what are you going to do?”

I rub my temples. “I don’t know. I might, might be able to get this one girl on board, but she’s a little out there. I don’t know if she’ll go for it.”

“Define ‘out there.’”

“Quirky, eccentric… I don’t know.”

“Sounds like a perfect match,” Matt smiles.

As Mom said, opposites do attract, and there is attraction there. My cock’s already twitching at the thought of seeing Shannon again. “I’ll keep things vague,” I continue, “for Mom’s sake.” I swallow hard. Give me drown-proofing any day over this. “There’s more.”

Matt sees it coming. “There always is with you.”

“Mom kind of thinks we’re engaged.”

Matt’s on his feet now. “Engaged? Jesus, Gabe. That’s going to be a lot harder to pull off.”

“You don’t think I know that?”

He’s shaking his head, exhaling. “Maybe this is taking it too far.”

“Let me give it a shot.”

Matt throws his hands up again. “Whatever, bro, but just remember that look on Mom’s face and how bad you’re going to feel when it’s replaced by one of disappointment.”

Quiet settles over the room.

When it doesn’t look like Mom’s going to wake up any time soon, I step out.

I stand in front of the hospital, a strong breeze blowing through, an silent ambulance slowly driving past.

I step to the side and take out my cell. I pull up Shannon’s number, staring at it.

This is fucking insane.

Screw it. I hit dial and wait.

“Hello?” comes a tentative, timid voice.

“Shannon, hi,” I begin. “It’s Gabe.”

*

The following day the breeze has given away to a perfect stillness, the skies dotted with cotton clouds.

I see her approaching, backlit by the sun. Somehow, dressed casually like this, she’s even hotter than I remember.

As she comes closer I notice she’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt for some sort of animal shelter that’s tight across her chest. Her caramel hair is out, bouncing on her shoulders as she walks, and she’s smiling. It’s not a typical ‘Let’s get it on’ smirk, but a wide, beaming smile not unlike the one Mom had when I told her the ‘good news.’

I stand from the bench and for a moment, I actually don’t know what to do. I would have slayed this stuff in my younger years, but something about this is different. She, Shannon, is different.

She goes to open up her arms, maybe to embrace me, before pulling back and giving a mousy little laugh that goes straight to my dick, running her hair back behind her ears, glancing at me sideways, her cheeks turning. I want to pick her up and slam her against the wall, feel how tight the walls of her pussy are around my cock.

“Should I… um… sit?” she asks, snapping me out of my daydream.

I sit and pat the space beside me. “Yeah, sure. Take a load off.”

Take a load off? Nice start, player.

I hold my hands between my legs. I look around. “Nice park.”

She leans forward, swinging her legs and following my eyes. “Dad used to bring me here when I was a kid. She points. “There’s a whole family of squirrels in that tree over there.”

Get to it. “Look,” I start, tweaking the phrasing in my head, “I need your help.”

“You need my help? Aren’t you the big bad sailor?”

“I’m a SEAL, actually.”

Again, it just slips on out. I never tell anyone what I do, not really, but for some reason my guard’s down around this girl.

When the confusion doesn’t lift, I add, “A Navy SEAL.”

“Oh,” she says, “like Bruce Willis in, what was that movie? Tears of the Sun, right?”

I let that one slide. “Something like that, but this isn’t a Navy matter. It’s more of a personal request.”

I see her swallow. “I see.” She’s nervous.

I don’t blame her.

Just fucking say it. “I’d like for you to be my fiancée.”

Her mouth drops a little. “Uh…” I’ve completely and utterly bamboozled her. Dropping a flashbang between us would have been less confusing.

“Not for real,” I add.

She’s shaking her head. “I don’t understand.”

I’m fucking this up. My head’s screaming ‘Abort, we’ve been compromised!’ but I’ve got to press on. “Let me clarify, define the parameters.”

Define the fucking parameters? Are you fucking serious right now?

The confusion doubles down on her face, but god damn is it adorable. I want to take her right now. “Parameters?” she queries.

I run my fingers over each other. “I’ve really fucked this up. Can I start over?”

She nods, hands gripping the edge of the bench tight. “Sure.”

A group of kids blasts past on their scooters, breaking my train of thought. When they clear, I’m lost again.

For fuck’s sake get it together. “Look, I know this is weird, but it’s for a good cause.”

That seems to warm her up a bit. She seems like the ‘good cause’ type, the kind of girl who’d happily answer a door-knocker and hand over her life savings if she knew it would benefit someone in need.

“This is weird, isn’t it?”

Now she smiles again, laughing, dragging a strand of hair out of her eyes, no longer hiding behind it. “Yeah, it sort of is.” When she turns her eyes towards me I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything so beautiful. The clarity in them, the depth of the blue… It’s extraordinary. I know it and my cock sure as hell agrees, tightening in my pants.

A park bench ain’t a good place to get an erection, brother.

Ice broken, I soldier on. “My mother has terminal bone cancer.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” And there’s the good Samaritan I was hoping for.

“It’s fine, really, but I’ve been on deployment for a long time, almost a decade, in fact. I joined the Navy right out of high school and only just retired. I’m twenty nine, single. I suppose my mother just wants to see me happy before she… you know.”

Shannon’s not stupid. She’s piecing it together. “So you told her you were seeing someone?”

“Worse.”

I can smell the sweet jasmine scent of her. If my cock gets any harder it’s going to pop these rivets right off my jeans.

She nods with understanding. “You told her you were engaged?”

“Something like that.”

The conversation is flowing more easily now, but I’m still a long way from mission complete.

She nods quietly again. Her legs have stopped swinging. “So you want me to be like your fake fiancée?”

“Yes.” I almost add ‘I’ll pay you’ before thinking better of it.

She gives a small laugh, the soft trill of her voice music to my fucking ears. “It’s not the way I thought I’d receive my first proposal, but I can understand why you’re doing it. I mean, this isn’t some sort of prank, is it? Am I being pumped?

I almost choke at that. “Do you mean ‘punked’?” T hough I’d love to pump her, fill her up with my fat cock until she can barely breathe.

“Yeah, sorry.” Her finger flits around her ear. “I’m a real airhead sometimes.”

“I think you’re selling yourself short,” I tell her, starting to remember my charm.

“You do?”

“For sure. You’re beautiful, attractive, clearly passionate about things that matter to you. Any guy would be lucky to have you.”

Her cheeks start to light up again. She looks down. “That’s sweet, but are you sure you don’t want to ask one of my friends? My friend Jenny, for example, would definitely go for this.”

I shake my head. “I don’t want Jenny. I want you. You’re the one.”

There’s a line I never thought I’d be using.

She’s thinking it over, actually considering it. Those bright, lapis eyes meet mine. “What would I have to do exactly?”

I have a few ideas… I shift to hide my burgeoning erection. I feel like a fucking door-to-door salesman here, a scam artist. “Not much. You’d meet her, my mother, talk up my many wonderful qualities.”

“How did you do it?”

“What’s that?”

“Propose to me?”

I hadn’t thought this far ahead. I improvise. “I suppose it was at the city zoo, kind of cheesy. I made sure they called you up to the front during one those bird shows, had a phoenix swoop down onto your shoulder and drop the ring into your hand.”

“With a handwritten note?”

“Of course.”

“You do realize phoenixes aren’t real, right?”

I shrug. “Of course.”

“How about an eagle?”

“An American eagle?” I pull my other sleeve up. “Like this guy?”

“That would work.”

“Agreed.” That smile is doing all kinds of crazy things to my crotch right now.

She sighs and my confidence slips. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“Of course,” I reply. “Take your time. Think it over.”

She stands. “I will.”

I stand to meet her. Silence starts to fill in the space between us.

She points behind herself. “I guess I’ll get going then.”

It’s Swinging Dick déjà vu.

I scratch my head. “Sure. Yeah. Talk later.”

She smiles and turns, head down as she walks back into the sunlight.

I sit and watch her, my heart pumping like I’m back in battle, only this time there are no IEDs or snipers. No one’s actively trying to kill me, though Mom just might if she figures this out.

What are you going to do if she turns you down? I think.

It’s a good question. I could hire an escort, have her call herself Shannon. No, Mom would see right through it.

The funny thing is, I think Mom would actually like Shannon, the slightly off-kilter way she conducts herself so different to my own, stiff lifestyle. The whole animal-lover thing would go down well, too. Mom’s already decided to donate what little she has saved to the ASPCA when she passes.

Shannon’s the right choice. I just hope she can pull this off.

CHAPTER FIVE

SHANNON

The animal cages rattle on the backseat of Herbie, my 1969 Volkswagen Beetle. It was Dad’s car, to be precise, but I can’t seem to let it go—like many things in my life, it would seem. It breaks down constantly, with a strange clanking sound at the back that no mechanic’s been able to diagnose yet, but I love him all the same.

Beyoncé’s singing on the radio: “If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it.”
“Oh, oh, oh.”
“Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.”

Put a ring on it. It’s certainly the right soundtrack for the thoughts ping-ponging around my brain—some naughtier than others. Gabe, AKA G. I. Joe, wants me to be his fiancée.

Fake fiancée, I correct.

Stupid brain. Always ruining everything.

It’s true. I’m a sucker for a good cause, and this thing with his mother is a good cause… or at least I want to believe it is. I do want to be close to Gabe, have a relationship with him even if it isn’t exactly real. Besides, I could do with the excitement.

You can pretend you’re a Bond girl or something.

Yeah, just without the sex. And I know sex with Gabe would probably be toe-curlingly, heart-quickeningly incredible. You don’t get around with a body like that without knowing how to use it.

I imagine his fingers weaving through my hair, his hand sweeping under my back to lift me against him, fill me with his…

Enough, E. L. James.

Sadly, I’m not headed for Gabe’s bed. I’m off to work, and boy would I rather be somewhere else. Tahiti, Hawaii. Hell, any of the ‘I’s. I’ll take Illinois.

I park underground and shut down Herbie. There’s a final splutter from the exhaust.

Daryl’s brand-new Maserati is parked in the spot opposite. The number plates read ‘G 5POT.’ I’m thinking ‘DOUCHE BOI’ would work quite well.

I doubt he could find his own dick let alone the G-spot. I can’t even find it.

I greet the security guy and head up in the elevator, thanking my lucky stars it’s empty.

It’s still five minutes before I’m on the clock. I dump my things on my desk, Daryl on a call, winking at me from his seat.

I take the opportunity to head to the kitchen and fix myself a coffee. I shovel in six sugars. It’s a habit I’ve been unable to break. I could never stand bitterness as I kid. Clearly, I still can’t.

“That’s how I like it too—sweet.”

I give a little jump at the intrusion, almost spilling the coffee.

Slowly, I turn, and force the words out. “Morning, Daryl.”

He leans against the doorframe and lets his eyes fall to the second button of my blouse. “Morning, beautiful.” He nods to the coffee. “Is that how you always take it?”

“How’s that?”

I shouldn’t have asked given the smug smile on his face.

“Hot… wet,” he purrs.

I try to squeeze past him. “I should really get back to my desk.”

He blocks the door. “What’s the rush? It’s not every day you’re one-on-one with the big boss man, is it now?”

Thank the good lord it is not. I try again. “Seriously, I should—”

He stands firm. “I admire the enthusiasm, Shannon, but come on. Take a seat. Boss’s orders.”

I pull out a chair and slump into it. I quietly sip my coffee. I’m not about to make the conversation here, listen to this human chode talk about his latest property acquisition or how he benched two-fifty at the gym this morning.

He leans right over the table, eyes refusing to lift from my chest, actually dropping even lower to gaze over my legs. I’m going to need baby wipes after this.

“So, how goes things, Shannon?” he begins. “What are you doing for fun these days? I feel like we don’t really get to connect, you know?”

It’s no accident, I want to reply.

I clear my throat, squeezing the coffee cup harder than I should. “Things are fine.”

“You run, don’t you? A body that tight doesn’t come without work. I should know.”

Looking over Daryl, I don’t think the Mr. Universe trophy is in danger. “I don’t run, no.”

“Could have fooled me,” he shrugs. “Pole-dancing, perhaps?”

He thinks he’s being clever, smiling.

“No,” I state firmly.

He throws his hands out. “Come on, open up to Uncle Daryl.”

And this just gets creepier and creepier.

“What about guys?” he continues. “You seeing anyone? Or is it a ‘she’ I need to be worried about?”

I’m not even going to touch that one. I’d slap him, but that would be animal abuse.

He’s asked me out before. Thankfully, I’ve always managed to squirm out of it.

He directs his hands to his crotch, legs spread wide. “You know you want a piece of this.”

It comes to me in a blinding flash of brilliance.

The answer.

“I’d have to check with my fiancé first,” I inform the world’s biggest boner-head.

I wish I had a camera the look of shock on his face is so pronounced. It’s glorious.

He straightens up, actually exhales like I’ve just announced something’s died.

Yeah, your chances of getting within a hundred square miles of my pants.

He tries to formulate a reply, but stutters, unsure what to say.

I’m happy to fill him in. “Oh, didn’t I tell you I was engaged?”

He’s still reeling, the A-bomb I’ve just dropped continuing to send out shockwaves. “No.”

It’s probably the shortest sentence he’s ever uttered. He manages to regain some sliver of composure. “Who’s the lucky guy?” His eyes shift to my hand, and for a second I’m not sure why until I realize he’s looking for the ring.

Crapola.

I slide my hand away under the table. Still, my confidence is building. “Actually, he’s a Navy SEAL.

Boom! Payload deployed.

I can almost see poor Daryl’s penis shriveling up like an autumn leaf. “Oh?”

The poor guy’s been reduced to single syllables. “I guess it just happened,” I continue, on a roll now. “But I suppose if you took more interest in anything other than my appearance you’d know that, wouldn’t you?”

It’s bold, perhaps the most alpha thing I’ve ever uttered. I think I’ve gone too far, sure to be kicked out on my ass, but Daryl’s pride wins out. He smiles, shrugging it off. He gives a small laugh that sounds awfully like how Herbie starts in the morning. “I suppose so.”

I stand and drop my coffee, still half full, into the bin, striding past Daryl on the way back to my desk. “Better get to it.”

“Yes,” he says, standing and trying to regain something of his authority again. “I need you to get straight into those Saxon files.”

I’m smiling so hard the corners of my mouth hurt on my way back to my desk. I feel like I’ve just won the lottery.

You have. The ass-kicking lottery, plus you’re engaged to the dictionary definition of a man.

My smile slips as it starts to sink in. It’s done. By enacting my revenge I’ve inadvertently agreed to Gabe’s request. There’s no turning back now, no retreat. I’d never live it down.

I put it aside for the time being and dig into the files. Daryl remains quiet in his office, his door closed, not a single ‘Hey, beautiful’ sent my way. I don’t feel his eyes boring through my back.

It’s a thing of beauty.

Monica, one of the other PAs, bails me up at lunch. “Congratulations, by the way.”

So everyone knows then.

“Thanks,” I reply.

She leans against the kitchen counter while I fork through my salad. “You sure kept that one quiet.”

Ha! If only she knew. “I like to keep my personal life private.”

“Sure,” she nods. “But a Navy SEAL? That’s badass. I don’t know how you kept it such a secret.”

“What’s that?”

“Your engagement, silly! I mean, you don’t even have a photo of him on your desk.”

She’s got a point. “I don’t like to brag.”

“Well, brag you should. Clearly. Is it true then?”

“What’s that?” I ask, the picture of naivety.

“Do SEALs like it extra wet?”

I choke on what I think is a pine nut.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” nods Monica, filling in the blanks. She extends her hands apart. “What about his weapon? This about right?”

I’m hammering my throat with my fist, nodding.

“I bet it’s long, and hard, and always ready for action.”

I finally manage to clear my throat. “I don’t know about that, but it is well loaded.”

Did you even just say that?

Monica’s mouth drops in shock. “Shannon! I had no idea.” She sits, lowering her voice. “Honestly? I thought you might be one of those weird twenty-something virgins.”

“Imagine that.” I reply, trying to feign disbelief.

Monica’s shaking her head. “I’m jealous. My last boyfriend was a,” she uses her fingers to air-quote, “a ‘talent acquisition expert.’ He had ‘thought leader’ written underneath that on his business card. He couldn’t even get it up half the time, and I’ve got strong jaw muscles.”

We have entreated a whole new level of overshare. Until now my conversational repertoire with Monica didn’t extend much further than the weather and what was new in the vending machine, but my sudden announcement has turned her into some sort of sex guru-slash-confidant.

Someone calls for her back in the office.

She stands, still shaking her head. “Your guy? He’s out there saving lives, serving his country. That is a real man.”

“It is,” I agree, smiling on it again while I polish off the rest of my salad.

He is a real man, but he’s not yours, not technically.

Not yet.

Fake or not, maybe this will be good for me, I think, a new experience. It’s about time I got out, even if it is under false pretenses.

You haven’t even told him you’re in.

I head into the copy room and close the door, making sure I’m alone.

I take out my cell and hesitate. Can I really do this? I’m an honest person. This goes against a large part of what I stand for.

Then I see Daryl flirting it up with one of the new interns and my mind is made up.

I dial Gabe’s number and wait.

“Shannon,” he answers, the delight clear in his voice.

“I’ll do it,” I blurt.

He laughs, the tone of his voice smooth and rich. I can almost smell the spicy cologne he wears. “Okay. You sure?”

I nod before realizing he can’t see me. “Yes,” I announce, “I’m sure.”

“Good. Great.”

“I just need one small, itsy-bitsy favor.”

CHAPTER SIX

GABE

‘Fish out of water’ says it all. I’m standing out the front of Douchebag Central here in the heart of town. I’m surrounded by a sea of suits, yet here I am in cargo pants and a tank top. It’s ninety degrees. Aren’t these guys hot?

It’s not my world. Without the rattle of gunfire, an imminent threat, I’m on edge. Even now I’m scanning for exits, looking for possible incursions, something out of place. It’s instinct, habit. It’s not something I’m going to get forget overnight.

A tap on my shoulder.

I turn, adopting a fighting stance, until I see it’s Shannon.

She’s a rose amongst thorns—literally. Her red blouse and pleated skirt highlight her curves perfectly. She looks so different to when I met her in the bar, yet she’s still beautiful, still has my cock doing backflips to break free.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hi,” she smiles, eyes flashing that striking, iridescent blue that reminds me of the Aegean. “Thanks for coming.”

I don’t know what to do with my hands. I shove them into my pockets, fingers fidgeting with the walnut box I’ve been carrying around since last night. “No. It’s you I should be thanking.”

I take out the box and open it. I feel as though I should get down on one knee, but I remain standing, oddly nervous. “What do you think?”

She peers in. “Wow. That is some ring.”

I’m not about to tell her it’s my mother’s, that she gave it to me with her blessing only last night. “I think it will suit you.” They’re my mother’s words, but I feel the same. “A beautiful ring for a beautiful girl.”

Shannon’s blushing. She goes to draw her hair back over her ear even though it’s in a tight ponytail, her fingers falling away.

She goes to reach for the ring, but I stop her. “No, wait.”

I don’t know why, but I take the ring out, pocketing the box. With my other hand I take hers, about to slip the ring onto her finger.

And I stop. I’m not sure why, but a strange awkwardness builds, like this is a taboo act.

Just do it.

I slide the ring on, noting how soft and delicate Shannon’s fingers are, the milky white of her skin that’s still asking for my lips.

The ring’s a perfect fit. Even I didn’t see that coming.

I let go and she holds her hand up. “Wow, look at that.” She seems spellbound by it. “I’m not really one of those girls who cares about the size of…”

“The diamond?” I offer.

She’s so red her face almost matches her blouse. “Yes. I’m not superficial like that.”

“I don’t imagine you are.” I look up at the building in front of us. “Shall we go in?”

I haven’t even noticed the paper bag she’s been carrying by her side. She hands it over.

I take it. “What’s this?”

“My lunch.”

“You want me to carry your lunch?”

“It’s what fiancés do.”

“Do they?” I laugh.

She looks embarrassed, shrugging. “I think I saw it on TV or something. I don’t know.”

I hold the bag up. “It’s fine.”

I follow her inside, her ass packaged beautifully in that skirt, the perfect size for my hands to squeeze, to grip as I finally slip inside her, my cock crushed by the wet walls of her pussy.

Head out of the clouds, son.

My drill instructor of a dick’s ruling my head these days.

We’re quiet in the elevator, the cables outside whirring as we rise almost to the top floor.

I follow Shannon out into a bustling office.

Well, it was bustling.

Everyone stops and stares when I walk in. I start to feel self-conscious before I remind myself why I’m here, quid pro quo and all that.

We pause at a desk. “Is this yours?” I ask.

I can see Shannon’s trying to stand in front of a photo of herself gathered up with all her pets. She shouldn’t be embarrassed by it.

Her desk is quite Spartan compared to those around her, but I like that too—order, simplicity.

I place the lunch bag down, can see a girl in the corner standing and nodding furiously at Shannon mouthing ‘He’s hot!’

The door to an office behind us opens. A suited man walks out.

Shannon turns and freezes.

So this is her boss.

Shannon literally can’t move.

Fuck this.

I take action.

I shift forward and take Shannon around the waist, bringing my hand up to the side of her face and placing my lips on hers.

Her body tenses with the shock of it at first, before easing, her lips and skin warm, intoxicating.

She presses back against me, her tongue about to slip through, when I break away.

I don’t want to. I want to smell the sweet, vanilla scent of her body, taste her lips again, but I needed to put on a show here for this boss, not film a porno.

Shannon straightens herself up, her tongue whisking across her lower lip. Her cheeks are rosy, hot with arousal.

She’s speechless, so I intervene, extending my hand towards her boss’s, who’s staring at me wide-eyed. “Gabe,” I announce.

He takes my hand and I squeeze, just enough to let him know I could break every bone in his hand, all twenty seven of them, if I wanted to.

He pulls his hand away and smiles. “Daryl, Daryl Somerset. I’m sorry, but you are?”

Isn’t it fucking obvious? I’m just at six feet, but this guy can’t be more than five-five. I dominate him, in height, width, in fucking everything. It’s David and fucking Goliath. I pull Shannon into my side. She places a shaky hand on my chest. Nice touch. “I’m Shannon’s fiancé. Nice to meet you.”

Now he’s picked his jaw up off the floor, Boss Boy starts to get his wits back. He pockets his hands and presses his chest out, standing with his legs apart like he’s some kind of alpha player who negs on girls and has a copy of The Game on his bedside table. I fucking hate these entitled, red-pill pricks.

I place the lunch bag on Shannon’s desk.

She picks it up. “I’ll just run this to the kitchen while you two, ah, get acquainted.”

We both watch Shannon leave. I’m suddenly overcome with a protective streak so strong it’s a wonder I don’t turn green and start tearing the place up like Eric Bana.

Shannon told me all about ‘Daryl,’ about his little comments and innuendo.

Fuck him.

“So,” he starts, “I was surprised to hear about your engagement. I didn’t know Shannon was seeing anyone.”

I look around and notice the odd employee prairie-dogging over their partitions. Let them watch.

I step forward until we’re chest to chest, looking down into this excuse for a man. I bring my hands together and crack my knuckles. It’s a bullshit cliché, but it’s a classic.

I watch Daryl’s Adam’s apple rise and drop, but he keeps his power pose up. “Look, Daryl,” I begin, “I think all women are entitled to respect, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

He swallows again. The fear’s coming off him in waves. “Do you think Shannon is entitled to it?”

He nods, can’t form words.

“Good, because I’d hate to… reeducate you on such a matter. Are we clear?”

He wants to tell me to fuck off, but the fear’s holding his words at bay. “We are.”

I take another step forward, forcing him back further. I place my hand on his shoulder. It’s like I’ve dropped a fucking sledgehammer on it. “To put it another way, keep your dirty fucking hands off my future wife.”

Shannon comes up beside us. “Everything okay?”

I pat Daryl’s shoulder. “Sure is. Ain’t that right, Daryl?”

He nods awkwardly, pointing back to his office. “I better, you know…” And he disappears, closing the door behind himself.

Shannon stands in front of me. “Whoa. What did you say?”

I shrug. “Nothing he shouldn’t have heard a long time ago.”

She stands on her tippy-toes and kisses me on the cheek. “See you later?”

I can’t help but smile back. “Can’t wait, baby.”

*

Shannon emerges from the front of the building around six. I’m waiting there in a leather jacket and jeans, the most civilian outfit I could muster even if I do feel more at home in a ballistic vest.

She smiles when she sees me, fiddling with the strap of her handbag in front of me. “Hello.”

“Hello,” she replies.

“Dinner?” I suggest, extending my hand.

She takes it. I consider what it would feel like wrapped around my cock.

Fucking incredible, that’s what.

“Where are we going?” she asks, her hair now out, whipping in the breeze that’s barreling between the buildings.

“How do you feel about Lebanese?”

*

Ten minutes later we’re sitting cross-legged at a table at El Phoenician, a small Lebanese restaurant I used to frequent when I was home. I’m surprised it’s still here.

A belly dancer weaves between the tables, a man drumming on a tubla in the corner. The spices, the musk—it all smells amazing, but through it all I can still detect Shannon, the same cock-stiffening scent I remember from our kiss this morning.

She nods towards the belly dancer, placing a dolma of grape and rice into her mouth. “If you think I’m doing that at our wedding, you can forget it.”

I use the bread in my hand to scoop up what’s left of the baba ganoush. “No? I think it would be hot. You’ve got the body for it.”

“Are you implying I have love handles?”

“I’m not implying anything. I’m stating you’re very attractive.”

She looks down, nervous again. Her eyes flick up. “Flattery will get you nowhere with me, but you should know that by now, being my fiancé and all.”

I dip my head to my shoulder. “That’s funny, because I’ve found flattery gets you everywhere, and I’ve been around. Trust me.” It doesn’t come out the way I want it, Shannon seizing on it.

“So, you’re a man whore?”

I lift the corner of my mouth and left eyebrow. “Was.”

Shannon shakes her head, but she’s smiling. “I barely know anything about you, husband-to-be.”

I open my arms up. “I’m an open book. What do you want to know?”

She considers this, playing with the side of the meze plate. “Alright. Why this restaurant?”

I straighten up. “I’ve been stationed in and around the Middle East for years. I suppose I’ve come to a certain appreciation for the local cuisine, not that this is authentic, but it does the trick.”

“What did you do over there, in the SEALs?”

“I could tell you…”

“…But then you’d have to kill me.”

“With pleasure, wife-to-be.”

She rolls her eyes. “You sound like Daryl.”

I laugh. “Now that is an insult. The guy’s hitting the ’roids harder than the gym. There was so much water in those biceps I was worried he was going to burst like a fucking balloon, wet the carpet.”

Shannon’s laughing in-between bites, struggling to keep the food in her mouth. “My god. You have no idea what I put up with.”

“But there’s been no trouble today, right? Because I’m not adverse to popping a cap or two.”

She shakes her head. “No. He was quiet as a mouse. What did you say to him?”

“I told him I know a hundred ways to kill a man, five with a paperclip.”

“You did not.”

“More or less.”

A waiter arrives, placing more dishes down. “Char-grilled garlic chicken and a freekeh salad with pomegranate for you, miss.”

Shannon rubs her hands together. “Looks delicious.”

“You don’t eat out much?” I question.

We’ve got utensils, but she picks up the chicken with her hands.

My kind of girl.

“I don’t get out much, period. Catching me in the wild at that bar was a stroke of luck.”

My eyes drop for a brief moment, sexual possibility turning my cock to steel under the table. “You can say that again.” I nod to the chicken. “I thought given your love for the animal kingdom you might be vegetarian.”

She laughs, wiping her mouth. “I’m not about to eat my pets, if that’s what you’re asking, but I do enjoy my meat.

Down, boy.

I order mafroukeh for dessert, a delicious mix of clotted cream, semolina and orange blossom water. I’m back in the streets of Beirut from the first spoonful.

I may be in Lebanon, but given the look on Shannon’s face, she’s in heaven.

Her eyes are closed. She holds the spoon away, a hand ready to catch the crumbs under her mouth. “My god, where have you been all my life?”

“Are you talking to me or the dessert?” I ask.

Her eyes pop open, so damn fucking beautiful I want to sit here and stare into them all night.

She places the spoon down. “We haven’t discussed the terms of our agreement.”

“Shoot.”

She straightens the tablecloth with her hand, her eyebrows furrowed. “Look,” she says, her voice resigned, “this is all just for show, right?”

“Agreed,” I reply, my throat stiff.

“Good, because…”

“Because?” I fill, when she doesn’t finish.

She looks up, those azure eyes killing me. “I’m a virgin.” She looks down again. “There. I said it.”

Like a surface-to-air Stinger, I didn’t see that one coming. “Okay, but I’m not sure what that has to do with our arrangement.”

I tamper down the excitement of the possibility of being her first, her warm, tight pussy uncharted territory.

She looks up, unsure of herself. “I’m just saying I intend to stay that way until I meet the right guy.”

“Alright,” I nod. “I get it.”

“Great,” she smiles, reaching for the menu, “what’s next?”

But what I want for an aperitif isn’t on the menu, and Shannon’s just made it clear it’s not going to be.

Because one thing’s for sure: I’m nobody’s Mr. Right.

CHAPTER SEVEN

SHANNON

The next few days at work are blissfully peaceful. I’m starting to realize just how useful having your own personal Navy SEAL is.

You should put him to work on your clitoris…

I stifle the sexual thoughts while I hunt through my wardrobe, read: very small collection of clothes, not very many of which seem to spark excitement.

I’m not a girly girl. I never have been. To me, shopping for clothes is no more thrilling than hitting the supermarket. It’s a chore. But as I push dress after dress aside, a stunning realization occurs to me: I’m actually having trouble deciding what to wear.

I don’t know why I’m getting so worked up about it. It’s not like I’m even going on a real date. I’m simply going over to Gabe’s to discuss this meeting with his mother—nothing more.

I show up at Gabe’s in a simple peach shirt-dress thingy one of the girls gave me for Xmas… three years ago.

I feel out of place in it, an alien, but when Gabe opens the door my reservations are gone. His eyes say it all.

“You look,” he’s having trouble finding the appropriate words as he lifts his eyes, “amazing.”

I hold the side of the dress. “Oh, this? Just something I had lying around.” I’ve been dying to use that line forever.

He stands aside. “Come in.”

I step past Gabe into the apartment, brushing his chest on the way through and confirming that, yes, the guy’s made of concrete, abs like an exit ramp leading down to…

Do not even go there right now.

I stop when I find another man standing in the longue. He looks similar to Gabe—same height, same panty-frying features—but he’s dressed in a tailored linen shirt and pleated pants, far from the fresh-from-tour military chic Gabe’s going for.

He smiles and offers his hand. “Hi, I’m Matt, Gabe’s brother. Nice to meet you.”

I take his hand, finding my voice. “And you.”

There’s a touch of disappointment when I realize Gabe and I won’t be alone, but then again this could also be a valuable way to get the inside scoop on my future fake husband.

I take a seat, wrapping the dress around my thighs and placing my hands in my lap.

“Can I get you a drink?” offers Gabe.

“Just water, thanks.”

Matt relaxes on the longue opposite, clearly at home here. “So, Shannon, tell me how my blockhead of a brother managed to reel you into this?”

My eyebrows jump. “Um, I don’t know. There was a guy messing with me at this bar. I suppose Gabe was my knight in shining armor.”

Matt laughs, slapping his knee. “There’s nothing shiny about Gabe, not when you’ve spent that much time in the sandpit. Ain’t that right, big brother?”

“Don’t listen to a thing he says,” comes Gabe’s voice from the kitchen. “Matt wet the bed until he was fifteen.”

I look to Matt. “O-kay.”

Matt lowers his voice. “This from a guy who Mom busted with his dick in the vacuum cleaner. I’m surprised it didn’t suck the thing clean off.”

“I can hear you,” Gabe calls.

Matt winks. “Just wait until I tell you about prom. This girl with braces, Gabe—”

“Shannon doesn’t not want to hear about any of that,” says Gabe, reappearing and placing two glasses of water down.

“Why?” asks Matt. “You’ve seen There’s Something About Mary, right, Shannon?”

“Uh…”

“You know that scene with Cameron Diaz where she’s doing her hair thinking she’s using hair gel but it’s really—”

Gabe places Matt into a headlock. “And I think that will be enough of that.”

He lets Matt go, who takes one breath before continuing. “You’re not even going to tell her about the birthmark shaped like Colombia on your ass cheek, your aversion to shellfish, your love of lattes?”

“Lattes?” I question. “Do all SEALs drink lattes?”

“Only the ones with vaginas,” laughs Matt, and there they go wrestling to the floor again.

Matt signals his surrender, both boys straightening up.

A phone rings from the back.

“I should get that,” says Gabe.

“Yes,” says Matt, “can’t leave Commissioner Gordon waiting now.”

Gabe punches him lightly in the shoulder. “Asshole.”

“Knob jockey.”

I pick up my glass. “Wow, you two have quite the relationship.”

Matt puts his hands up in surrender. “Hey, I’m not the one who’s marrying the guy.”

When I’m sure Gabe’s gone, I lean forward and ask, “Honestly, am I crazy?”

Matt sits back and shakes his head. “No. It’s easy to get swept up in Gabe’s world. He’s a likable guy, even if he can be a little stiff.”

“So he’s not going to murder me or anything?”

“Rest easy. You’re in good hands. Well, not in his literal hands. Ah, hell. You know what I mean.”

“He told me about the thing with your mother and I couldn’t say no.”

Matt looks between his legs at the carpet, nodding. “Yeah, she’s pretty damn excited. She only wants the best for him, to settle down and all that. She says he’s been married to the Navy for long enough, and I’d say lucky even to be alive given the kind of situations he’s been in.”

I can only imagine.

“He’s a good guy,” continues Matt, clearly on his brother’s side.

I’m not sure whether I should ask, but I’m genuinely curious. “Has he had any long-term girlfriends, ex-wives I should know about?”

Matt laughs just like his brother, his thick, dark eyelashes framing his eyes. “Gabe doesn’t know the meaning of ‘long term.’ Even before the Navy, in his glory days, he wasn’t big on sleepovers. And the one long-term relationship he did have? It didn’t end so well. In fact, she died.”

“Oh, I had no idea.”

“He’s a stoic guy, honorable, but if he seems gruff or distant sometimes, that’s why. It really got to him.”

Gabe returns holding his cell. “Sorry about that.” He tosses it onto an armchair, standing between us. “So, what’s the topic of conversation?” He looks to me. “He’s not still on the whole Gabe-used-to-be-a-player thing, is he?”

I feel awful for Gabe after what I’ve just heard, but I put on a smile regardless. “Actually, your brother was complimenting you.”

“On my excellent board game skills?”

“Only if we’re playing Monopoly,” Matt interjects. “Gabe’s always been good with money. I mean, look at this place.”

It is a beautiful apartment, but there’s a certain coldness to it, as though it’s a show home, not something really lived in. There are no photos around, no pictures on the wall. The sole personal touch is a set of dog tags hanging off the coat hook.

Matt gets up. “I should be getting on. Some of us have to work these days.”

“What do you do, Matt?” I ask.

“I work in IT,” he answers, “but don’t ask for details. You’ll be asleep by the time I get to ‘MU-MIMO protocol.’”

“He’s right,” says Gabe. “I swear he speaks purely in acronyms sometimes.”

“This coming from the king of acronyms.”

“You do you enjoy it, the IT job?” I question.

“Yeah,” nods Matt, “though It’s a long way from the movie stunt driver I wanted to be growing up”.

“When you were, like, seven,” laughs Gabe.

“Hey, not all of us can be action heroes, can we?” replies Matt.

Gabe smiles. “You’re damn right about that.”

Behind the playful banter, I see genuine affection between these two. I was an only child. I don’t understand this sibling back-and-forth. I didn’t have brothers or sisters, yes, but I was never spoiled, never made to feel entitled. Dad was very particular about that.

Matt gives a small wave in my direction. “It was nice to meet you, Shannon, and good luck.”

“Thanks.” I smile back, still fiddling with my hands.

Gabe sees Matt out and closes the door, walking back over to me to take up Matt’s spot. “What do you think? Can you see the family resemblance?”

“You’re a little more,” I search for the right word, “bulky?”

Gabe jerks back. “Bulky? I don’t know whether to say thanks or burst into tears.”

I swallow. My mouth is way too dry. I reach for the water. “It’s a good thing. You know, you’re,” I try to flesh out my thoughts with a hand in the air, but it really just looks like I’m trying to jerk off the Invisible Man, “well sculpted.”

Gabe continues to laugh. “Wait until our wedding night.”

I let that one go, staring down into the water. I’m going to need to throw it over my head soon I’m getting so hot and flustered here. The tingling between my legs doesn’t go unnoticed. It’s nice, the beat of a butterfly’s wings.

“Shall we then?” offers Gabe. “I’ll give you a briefing at lunch.”

Pity. I was rather looking forward to a de-briefing. “Lunch?”

“It’s just a short walk.”

I stand and pat down my dress. “Sounds great.”

I follow Gabe to the door, and I can’t quite get over how good he looks from the back, as if those jeans he’s wearing were spray-painted on. But even though I’m looking at him on this superficial level, I’m seeing him in a new light after what Matt told me. Gabe seems like he has it altogether, but maybe there’s a broken man inside.

CHAPTER EIGHT

GABE

One simple lift over her head and that dress would be gone. Hell, I could just tear it right off her body, but they’re just thoughts for now—‘for now’ being the operative part of the equation.

I couldn’t have planned lunch better. We’re at a waterside restaurant, a cloud-spotted sky so blue and crisp it looked like CGI above.

Shannon seemed surprised when I told her the restaurant was Turkish.

“Turkish?” she’d said. “Are we on a world tour of cuisine?”

“If that’s what it takes to win you over. I promise we’ll aim for a different continent next time,” I replied, holding her seat out.

We ate, drank. I discovered Shannon’s never had a beer in her life, and she discovered I’ve got a serious sweet tooth. The Middle East was no good for that. Baklava, umm ali, kanafeh, balah el sham… It’s a wonder I didn’t return Stateside carrying an extra fifty pounds around my waist.

I’m walking Shannon back along the river, the water still. People in this city don’t know how good they’ve got it, not having to watch the street corners or fear incoming missile strikes whenever they look to the sky.

We don’t hold hands, but we are walking close—close enough for our fingers to brush from time to time. When I was younger I probably would have thrown her over my shoulder and jogged home like a true caveman, but something tells me a brute force attack is not the right way to play this. No, I have to bring my A-game to this firefight.

She’s not going to go for anything, says my head, because you’re not going to go there. You can’t. You shouldn’t. You do not fucking deserve that kind of happiness.

I exhale and box the thoughts away.

“Everything alright?” asks Shannon, lifting her hair back over her shoulder so I can better see her face and its soft contours, the plump pull of her lips doing strange things to my nether regions.

“All good.” I smile back. “I was just thinking about Mom.”

“You know,” she says, “you’re going to an awful lot of trouble to make her feel better.”

Oh, I’ve thought about that alright.

Bullshit. You didn’t think about it at all.

“She must be really important to you,” Shannon continues.

“Of course,” I reply. “She raised Matt and I alone. She didn’t ask for any help or handouts, even though she was working two jobs to cover the mortgage, to put clothes on our backs and food on our table. I’ve never taken that for granted. She wanted me to go to university, told me she’d take on a third job to get me there, but I didn’t want to put that kind of strain on her.”

“So you joined the Navy.”

I nod. “That’s right. As soon as I turned eighteen, I was down at the local recruitment office. I didn’t want to be a burden on her any longer. The pay was good, the tax breaks appealing… I thought I could see the world, maybe do a little good while I was at it. I never expected it to be so full-on.”

“But you’re a Navy SEAL. You’re the best of the best, right?”

I smile at that. “When I joined up I just wanted the cushiest job they had going. I guess my competitive spirit got the better of me.”

“So you’re competitive?”

“You won’t find a SEAL who’s not. It requires a certain degree of ruthlessness, of,” it takes me a second to think how best to phrase it, “dedication to will.”

“How did she handle it, your mother?”

“Well enough. I’m making her out to be some kind of superhuman robot, but the truth is she struggled with depression when we were growing up. We didn’t know until we were teenagers, of course, but I could always sense when something wasn’t quite right. She worried about us.”

“I don’t imagine being flung to a conflict country helped?”

My head bobs to the side. “No. It did not, but if she was worried, she never let on. I don’t think she wanted me worrying about it either, which is kind of funny when you think about it. I never thought I’d spend the last years I had with her overseas. Now I’m just trying to make her as comfortable and happy as possible before she passes, and, hard as it is, passing is the best thing. She’s weathered this disease long enough, fought hard, but she deserves peace. And this thing? With us? It’s the least I can do.”

I can see Shannon considering it, taking in my words and sorting them out.

“I’m getting sentimental,” I apologize. “I don’t mean to lay this all on you.”

“No, it’s fine, really. I like it, that you’re so open. Most guys don’t talk about these kinds of things. I thought, given you’re a big bad Navy SEAL and all that you’d be even more closed off, but you’re full of surprises.”

You have no idea.

I stop walking and turn to face her. “I’m not trying to put any kind of pressure on you. Just be yourself.”

Two cyclists go whipping around us, the sound of live music beating away back in the restaurant district.

Shannon takes a step forward and touches my cheek, so light her fingers could be feathers. “I get it, Gabe. I do.” She lets her hand fall away. “You can go back to being that big bad SEAL if you want. I won’t hold it against you.”

But it’s her I want to hold, as much as my head’s trying to warn me off it.

I want to kiss her. The moment is perfect.

But I can’t.

Triss.

I’m trying. I’m fucking trying, but I can’t get her out of my head—the last words she spoke to me, the helplessness of it all. Where was I when she needed me? I abandoned her. It’s not right, none of it is. I am not right. I don’t think I ever will be, not for a girl like Shannon, a gentle, pure soul who’s never experienced war, who’s never taken a life or seen his friends torn to pieces.

Compartmentalize, they say, the head doctors with their fucking mind voodoo, but I don’t have enough compartments for the kind of shit I’ve seen. There aren’t enough boxes in the world for that.

But god I want to. Every fiber of my body wants to lean forward and feel her lips again, crush my mouth against hers, the softness I’ve been craving for so long.

I turn and start to walk instead, cursing myself but at the same time satisfied.

I was impulsive once. I thought I was untouchable.

I’m never going to make that mistake again.

Shannon is quiet. Disappointed perhaps? I can’t tell. You think a Navy SEAL would be a master of reading people, but Shannon’s as much of a mystery to me as daytime TV.

For the first time in a long time, I’m fucking lost.

CHAPTER NINE

SHANNON

I wake up with a sugar glider glued to my arm. It’s like something out of Alien. I gently peel Angel off. “Wakey, wakey, little buddy.” Buffy is scampering up by my side. I don’t know why I’m telling them to wake up. They’re nocturnal, probably destroying the house again while I slobbered all over pillow.

I sit up and stretch, can already hear the others hollering for breakfast down the back. “I’m coming,” I shout.

I claw sleep dust from my eyes and check the clock.

One hour to go.

I’m nervous, and it’s not just because I’m meeting Gabe’s mother today. He coached me pretty good on what to say at lunch yesterday. No, I’m nervous because I’m going to be seeing Gabe again. It’s been less than fifteen hours since saw him.

And you’re counting every minute, admit it.

So what if I am? I can crush on him if I want to. Nothing’s going to happen, but a girl can dream, can’t she?

Yeah, dream about the A-grade American weaponry in is pants…

God, I have become a pervert. What next? Selling used underwear on eBay?

“Shannon Bailey,” I tell myself, staring at my medusa-like hair in the wardrobe mirror opposite, Buffy perched on my shoulder like a cuter version of Barbosa’s parrot. “You. Are. A. Pervert.”

Angel gives a squeak of affirmation from below.

I drag myself out of bed and begin the whole ‘What am I going to wear?’ process again. Forget the clothes. Deciding what to wear all the time is wearing me out. A week ago I would have slung on a sweater and the nearest pair of jeans, but here I am um-ing and ah-ing in front of my clothes like some sort of high-brow fashionista.

He’s changing you.

More like I am changing for him. That’s no crime, is it?

I settle on casual, going with my best jeans — read: the ones that aren’t walking out the door by themselves — and a lightweight, billowy chiffon blouse that says ‘flirty but fun’ without falling into hired help territory. I don’t want Gabe’s Mom thinking he’s dating a hussy.

Who even uses that word?

I take a deep breath and push my chest out, droop—try to find a pose that’s right.

You’re meeting his mother, not auditioning for Next Top Model.

A knock on the front door makes me jump.

I rush to it, taking a second to “breatheeeeeee, Shannon,” before opening it wide and putting on my best look of composure.

Gabe takes in my outfit. “Perfect,” he says. “Teal’s Mom’s favorite color. Did I tell you that?” he asks quizzically.

“No,” I reply. “Maybe I’m a mind reader?”

He leans against the doorframe, looks every inch the ideal man. The leather jacket he’s wearing is straight out of Top Gun. “Is that so?” He licks his lips. “So I suppose you know what I’m thinking about right now then?”

My heart quickens, a wet, flickering heat gathering at my crotch.

I can imagine, but I reply, “Well, it’s not the weather. I can you tell you that much.”

His smile widens. “My, my. That’s very impressive, but it’s going to take more than that to fool my mother. You sure you’re up for this?”

‘Fool’ chips away at my confidence, but I build it back up, telling myself I’m doing this purely for altruistic reasons. I reach for his arm. “Lead the way, fiancé.”

*

I haven’t been in a hospital since Dad passed away. I’ve suppressed that day as much as possible, but the ugly alabaster walls and pervading smell of bleach bring it right back.

Gabe stops outside a door. “One more time, are you sure you’re good with this?”

I nod, breathing out. “Let’s do it.”

He smiles. “I thought you’d never ask.”

But the moment I follow him into that room my confidence slips away faster than a babysitter’s boyfriend when her parents’ car pulls up.

What are you doing, Shannon?

Shut up. Shut up.

Gabe’s mother is lying down, a sheet drawn up to her neck, her spindly arms on top of it.

Gabe prepared me for her condition, but it’s still a shock seeing what somebody, a once perfectly healthy human being, can be reduced to.

She’s wearing a bright, floral headscarf, her entire face lighting up when she sees me enter. She lifts head up. “Oh, my. You must be Shannon.”

I stand beside Gabe in front of her. “Yes, Mrs. Reed. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Julie. Call me Julie.”

I smile back. “Julie then.”

She’s shaking her head, her wet eyes in contrast to her dry lips. “Gabe told me you were beautiful, but…”

I blush slightly.

Gabe takes hold of my hand. “Don’t embarrass her, Mom.”

“Oh, Gabriel,” Julie quips, “let me be. Can’t I compliment my future daughter-in-law?”

Gabriel? It sounds strange hearing his full name, but future daughter-in-law? It really starts to sink in at those words.

Julie’s not done, continuing to look me over. “You should have seen the girls Gabe used to bring home, Shannon. My, they were like something out of Miss America, and I do mean that in the worst possible way, what with their plastic faces and fake boobs…” Her eyes drop to my chest. “I can tell those are all natural—nothing but God-given beauty.”

Gabe’s face-palming, mortally embarrassed. “Mom!”

I’m starting to enjoy this until Julie comes out with the one question I was dreading. “Tell me how it happened, Shannon. How did you two fall in love?”

You’ve rehearsed this. “Well,” I begin, looking to Gabe, but he said I had to go this one alone, that he’d only intervene if completely necessary, “it was online, actually.”

Julie’s curiosity is piqued. “A dating site?”

I blush deeper.

“Like Tinder?” she asks, eyes probing.

Oh, god. “No, no. I work for a film production company. I was doing research on—”

But Julie’s confused. “Like porno films? It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Everyone’s got to make a living. As long as you’re not one of the actual—”

“Mom!” Gabe cries again, shaking his head and face-palming harder still.

“What?” she asks, genuinely curious. “I have a right to know what kind of girl my Gabe-Gabe’s going to marry, don’t I?”

Gabe-Gabe—that almost does me in.

This isn’t going at all how I imagined.

Get it together, girl.

“No, it’s not a porno company, Mrs. Reed.”

“Julie.”

“Julie,” I correct, by now lobster red. “We do regular, mainstream motion pictures.”

She’s trying to piece it together. “And how does Gabriel come into it?”

The full name throws me again. I have a sense he was no angel in his formative years.

I’m no good at lying, never have been, but I’ve got no choice here. “The company’s looking to produce a film featuring Navy SEALs. They wanted me to contact an active member, do some research into what their life was like and so on.”

Julie nods. It’s working. “Ah, I see. So, face-to-face, on the computer, like Skype or something?”

I look to Gabe. His smile says ‘Keep going.’ “That’s right. Just like Skype.”

Julie’s smile grows. “And you slowly just fell for each other, chatting away like that.”

She’s doing the hard work for me. I smile back at Gabe. “We did, though he didn’t tell me about his sweet tooth until we met for the first time.”

I’m improvising. Julie’s excitement is growing. “He does have a sweet tooth, doesn’t he? Of course, it must have been hard, not being able to see each other like that, in the flesh.”

“It was,” I reply, nodding down to the linoleum floor. I actually hold our clasped hands up and squeeze. Gabe’s is hot. “But we made do.”

“And where did go, on your first real date?” asks Julie.

This is a question we didn’t prepare for.

Gabe sees the concern on my face and goes to intervene, but I squeeze his hand once more. “This wonderful Lebanese restaurant in town, El Phoenician. Do you know it?”

“No,” says Julie, “but it does sound very exotic.”

“There was a belly dancer, music…”

Julie nods slowly. “How delightful. He really went all out.”

The lie comes easier with an element of truth thrown in. “It was, though I was completely stuffed by the end of it. They almost had to roll us out the door.”

Julie laughs, coughing halfway through and asking for water.

Gabe lets go of my hand, holding a glass of water before us as a nurse enters, seeing us and smiling before turning her attention to Julie. “Hello, Julie. How are you feeling?”

“Wonderful,” she replies, “this is Shannon, my Gabe’s fiancée.”

The nurse smiles at me again as she replaces Julie’s IV. “Julie’s been so looking forward to meeting you.”

The guilt starts to eat away at me, but I hold it together. “I hope I’m not a disappointment.”

“No,” says Julie firmly. “Not at all. You’re not what I expected, but that’s the best part.”

The nurse taps the line. “Okay, Julie. Your new meds are ready.” She turns to me. “Nice to meet you, Shannon.”

“And you,” I reply, my thigh pressed against Gabe’s.

“Gabe,” instructs Julie, “get the poor girl a chair. I’ve got so much to tell her.”

She’s not kidding. An hour goes by where she details everything from Gabe’s birth to his first car (“a run-down jalopy that was out of order more than it was on the road”), first girlfriend (“a local floozy all the boys called ‘Candy’”), even his first words (“’Bang, bang’—which explains a lot, don’t you think?”).

A sly expression curls over of her lips. “Tell me, Shannon. Does Gabe satisfy you—sexually, I mean?”

Gabe’s protest comes twice as loud now. “Mom. Jesus Christ. Have you been reading 50 Shades again?” He turns to me blushing almost as hard as I was an hour ago. “You do not have to answer that, Shannon.”

But Mrs. Reed is on a roll. “Even as a baby he had the biggest pecker in the nursery. The mortification I felt when he used to get a stiffy… Let me tell you.”

Gabe’s back with his head in his hands, quietly muttering. “Stop, Mom. For the love of everything that is good in the world, stop.”

As hilarious as this is, I can’t let it go on. “Actually,” I begin, “we haven’t…”

True surprise follows on Julie’s face. “Oh? Really?”

Her reaction says a lot about her son.

“I’m a virgin,” I state, funnily enough not really embarrassed by it at this particular moment. Maybe because it’s true.

“We’re going to wait until our wedding night,” I finish.

Gabe lifts his head up, equal amounts of surprise written over his face.

Julie turns towards Gabe. “This one’s a keeper, son. Don’t you go hurting her now, you hear?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Mom,” and the way he says it tells me it’s genuine. “She’s the love of my life.”

Ah, not so genuine.

Still, he reaches for my hand again as I sit beside him, our fingers interlocked, and if it I didn’t know otherwise I really would think we’re a couple.

“You’ve met Matthew?” queries Julie.

“I have,” I nod. “He’s great.”

“I know Matthew makes out like he’s some kind of saint, Shannon,” she says, “but the trouble these two used to get up to…”

“I’d love to hear about it.”

Gabe squeezes my hand in warning.

“There was this one time,” Julie begins. “These two redhead girls had moved in next door with their family from Arkansas. Well…” she pauses, looking distant. “I’m sorry. I forgot what I was going to say.”

“Thank god for that,” Gabe whispers under his breath. “You okay, Mom?” he says a little louder.

Her eyes start to shutter closed, her head falling back against the pillow. “I’m just so, so tired.”

“The meds must be kicking in,” Gabe tells me, and just like that Julie’s asleep, her mouth open but barely a whisper passing between her lips.

Gabe smiles at me. “You were great, by the way.”

I begin to blush again. “Thank you.”

Neither of us breaks the handhold.

Gabe checks his watch. “We should probably get going. She’ll be out for hours, and Matt’s due in later.”

“Okay.”

We stand, still holding hands, continuing to hold them as we walk down tomy car. They remain like that until I have to find the keys to Herbie, dangling them off my fingers as we stand face-to-face under the flickering florescent lights of the hospital’s underground parking garage.

Silence.

So much silence.

I have to fill it in, can’t stand the way it wells up between us. “I’m sorry about your mother, Gabe.”

“Thank you,” he says, his face somehow softer.

“I lost mine when I was young, too young to remember. Dad raised me more or less as a single parent. But I think this is worse. I can’t imagine how hard it is. You think it went okay?”

“More than okay.” He smiles. “Have you ever considered taking up acting?”

I look away. “It wasn’t all an act. You know, I’m happy to keep up appearances until this is,” there’s no nice way to put it, “over.”

His eyes crinkle together in thought. He slides his hands into his jacket pockets. “I apologize for bringing you into this. Honestly, if I had any idea…”

“No,” I cut in, taking a step closer. “It’s fine. In fact, it’s nice… in a weird way. I never imagined myself with someone like you.” Good one. “Not that I’m with you with you, but you know… Just…” Where are words when you need them? I graduated cum laude at college and here I am barely able to put a sentence together.

He steps forward and takes my face in his hands, lifting it to look into my eyes. “I know.”

He kisses me, his lips pressing against mine warm and inviting.

I’m not ready for it, snapping rigid at first before sinking into the sensation.

Things happen automatically. My arms lift and wrap around his neck, my head tilting sideways as the kiss deepens. I smell him, the manly, spicy scent of his cologne. I taste him, the sweet pull that draws my tongue out and into his mouth.

You’re kissing him. You are actually, right at this very moment, kissing him.

Before I know it I’m grinding up against him and… something—something hard and hot and way bigger than I imagined it would be.

He pushes me back until we hit a car, the alarm beginning to sound but neither of us giving a damn we’re so lost in our little world.

He breaks the kiss to place his lips against my neck, against the beating pulse there.

The heat of his breath folds against my skin. I start to grow wet, my thighs parting.

My mouth rings out in an ‘O.’ I’m panting, gasping, wetter than I’ve ever been before.

He combs his fingers through my hair, raking them across my scalp as he presses against my heated crotch.

The alarm continues to pulse in warning.

This is it.

Something snaps inside me.

I push him away. I don’t know why I do. It just happens.

I hold him there, his mouth open, his own breathing heavy and labored. “Is everything okay?”

I feel like I’m going to pass out. This short pause is enough to open a floodgate of thoughts in my head. I can’t do this. It’s too soon. Is it even right?

And then I’m speaking the words. My mouth is moving and they are coming out. “I can’t, Gabe. I’m sorry.” I’m shouting to be heard over the alarm.

“No, I’m sorry. I came on too strong. It’s just… you’re so…”

He licks his lips looking me over. I see disappoint written on his face. He points over to the stairwell. “It’s okay. I’ll go.”

He starts to walk away.

I go to call his name but stop because I have absolutely no idea what to say.

Boy have you gone and stuffed it up now, Shan.

He heads up the stairs and I know precisely how he’s feeling right now—frustrated, guilty. There’s no good reason for it.

He’s gone.

I stand there frozen as minutes pass.

A sudden panic springs up.

Don’t let him get away. Don’t you freakin’ dare.

I take out my cell and almost drop it in my haste, the alarm cutting off behind me. I’ve never texted so fast in my life. I’m not about to call him back for a rerun, but I don’t want to give up on what could be either.

‘Goodnight,’ I text. ‘That was nice. C U tomorrow?’

I can still taste him on my lips.

And I want more. My god, do I want more.

I hit send and wait, speaking to the concrete roof of the garage. “And that, folks, is why Shannon Bailey is still a virgin.”

CHAPTER TEN

GABE

I haven’t jerked off in years, but the thought of that kiss, the incredible softness of Shannon’s lips, her warmth and willingness… I take hold of my cock and come in seconds.

A hollow void opens up as soon as I’m done. It takes me a while to work out what it is, but when I do, I recognize it as an old friend.

Guilt.

I shower and sit on the edge of my bed staring at the dog tags hanging off the dresser mirror. They’re just two pieces of tin. I’m not a sentimental guy. I don’t know why I’m even hanging onto them.

I get a flash of Triss beside me, smiling as she checks her weapon.

I block it out. I can’t think about it now.

Maybe I never want to think about it.

*

“As I live and breathe. If it isn’t Gabe ‘The Babe’ Reed.”

I take Jason’s hand. “No one’s called me that since BUD/S.”

I notice he’s gotten a little greyer up top, tried to color it black.

I rub his hair. “You did this so it would match with your eye patch, right?”

He taps the patch over his left eye. “I’m telling you, losing this to that frag was the best god-damn thing that ever happened to me. Chicks love it.”

“Because you look like a fucking pirate?” I take a seat at the bar, Jason sitting to join me. It’s mostly Navy in here today, though The Hole welcomes all servicemen. In any case, it’s a hell of a lot better than The Swinging Dick. I’d only meant to duck in there for a quick drink. I think of Shannon. Just as well you did.

Jason reaches down to cup his crotch and pulls. “Hey, it beats a wooden leg.”

I signal the bartender for two beers. “Buds,” I call. “Two.”

She nods and heads off. I turn back to Jason. “Seriously, how have you been?”

He nods. “Good, Senior Chief. And you? Heard you’re out.”

“I am.”

He shakes his head. “And pigs will fucking fly. I was sorry to hear about… you know.”

“Thanks.”

I change the subject with lightning speed. “How’s the sky-diving school?”

“Good. Again, it’s great for picking up. No pickup line can match dropping someone out a plane. If that’s life-and-death shit, man. It gets them wet every time.”

“Because they’re wetting themselves with fear, most likely.”

He claps his hands together at that. “Oh, we’ve had a few of those, too. A golden shower at twelve-thousand feet is an interesting spectacle to behold.”

“I have no doubt.”

Our beers arrive. I place a twenty down and slide a beer to Jason. He cracks it open with his shirt.

I hold my beer with two hands between my legs. “I remember someone shitting their pants our first HALO jump, and here you are doing it for a living.”

He laughs. “Shitting my pants? But diving? It’s real, man. The only thing someone’s shooting you with up there is a camera. It’s a long way from dropping into yet another south-east shithole full of jihadis and questionable nasi goreng.”

I raise my beer, looking around the bar. “To shitholes.”

“To shitholes,” he grins, clinking his bottle against mine.

I see Shannon enter. She looks around stunned. Like she said, bars are not her natural habitat.

Jason twists and follows my gaze. He turns back. “That her?”

I nod.

He whistles. “Jesus, you sure know how to pick them, Senior.”

“Easy,” I warn, “she’s a civvie.”

I stand and call Shannon over.

She smiles when she sees me, making her way over with her handbag held in front of her.

Jason stands as I make the introductions. “Shannon Bailey, meet my good friend and former colleague Jason Hart.”

Her eyes dart to the eye patch as she takes his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

He pulls out a stool between us for her. “And you. Can I get you something? A stick maybe, to beat off ol’ Blue Eyes here?”

“A ginger beer?” she queries, like it might be illegal to request such a thing in a dive like this.

“Sure.”

Jason calls down the bar for it.

“So,” Shannon starts, clearly nervous, “you were in the SEALs with Gabe?”

Jason nods solemnly, his eyes flicking to me for approval. Discussing the fact you’re a SEAL with a civilian is taboo at the best of times, which is why I gave Jason a heads-up over the phone. “Yes, ma’am,” he says. “SEAL Team Three, based out of Cali. The Chief and I have certainly had some wild times. Ain’t that right?”

I tilt the neck of my Bud towards him. “Watch it, Petty Officer. The lady doesn’t need to hear about our former indiscretions.”

“’Indiscretions?” laughs Jason. “I’ve got a few other names for it, names my mother would wash my mouth out for speaking aloud, but if you insist.”

“You’re retired?” asks Shannon.

Jason nods in the affirmative. “Yes, ma’am. I’ve got myself a skydiving school about ten miles away. It keeps me entertained enough.”

Her eyes light up. “Skydiving. Wow, I’ve always wanted to go, but…”

“But…?” I question.

“I think I’d need someone to push me out the door,” she laughs.

“Happy to oblige.” Jason winks. “But seriously, why don’t you swing by when you get a chance? The first one’s on the house.”

“Because it’s the first and the last,” I whisper to Shannon.

“Pfft,” whistles Jason. “Don’t listen to Big Boy here. I run a tight, safe ship out there. You’re in good hands.”

I want Shannon in my hands is what I want, her body mine and mine alone, but after last night I’m not sure how to approach the situation. She was so into it at first, but then she was pushing me away, telling me she’s sorry… I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

Because you rushed in like it was a frontal fucking assault.

If she wants to take it slow, I will. I’ll do damn near anything to taste those lips again.

“Don’t you get sick of it?” Shannon asks Jason. “I mean, you must have done a lot of sky-diving in the SEALs, right?”

Jason looks past her to me. “You remember training, Gabe?” He shakes his head. “They’d fly you up, drop you… Fifteen minutes later you’d be back up in the air for another, over and over again. I remember this one time, at night, flying low, just looking down at a line of traffic, people sitting in their cars eating candy bars, kids watching movies in the backseat. A minute later I’m jumping out the back of a plane. It can be surreal like that, you know.”

I nod in understanding. “You’re a sucker for punishment, you know that?”

“Says the pot calling the kettle black,” he laughs. “Remember that time you and Triss commandeered that van in Islamabad? The damn thing was firing on one cylinder. We would have been better off in a wheelbarrow.”

Shannon catches the name. “Triss?” She faces me. “Who’s that?”

My throat catches. “An ex.”

“You were together overseas?”

“Fuck yeah,” Jason continues. “Triss and Gabe were like Kim and Kayne out there. One time I caught them fu—”

“Jase,” I cut in, the old authoritarian back, “she gets it.”

I’ve got to change the subject again, derail this before it goes any further. “Say, did you know Shannon works in the film industry?”

Jason straightens up. “I did not.”

I stand. “I’ll be right back.

I leave them talking and head to the bathroom. I stare at myself in the mirror, hands gripping the vanity so hard my knuckles are white. What the fuck are you doing?

I thought inviting Shannon out here might be fun, let her meet Jason and get to know a bit about Navy life, but now I realize this was a mistake. There are parts of my life I simply can’t allow her access to. All of us, SEALs especially, have our little boxes, our minds nicely segmented and compartmentalized so the horrors of the past don’t overwhelm us. You take that pain, that shit, and box it up. That’s how you get through it.

You sure about that?

I splash water on my face and head back out.

Keep. It. Together.

Jason’s deep into the story about how he lost his eye, can’t help but bring it up every time we go out.

“I didn’t even see it coming,” he finishes.

“Wow,” says Shannon, unsure how to respond. “Did it hurt?”

“Oh, it hurt like a motherfucker,” laughs Jason, “but the morphine helped. They had me dosed up so high on the way back to base I swear I met Saint Peter himself.”

I take a seat, nodding towards his eye patch. “If you ask me, it’s an improvement.”

Jason points his beer at me. “See what I have to work with, Shannon? You try bunking with this guy for three years.”

Shannon smiles at me, no doubt conjuring up what sleeping arrangements with me would entail. I’m thinking the same—waking up to her perfect body, my sheets wrapped around her ass. It’s the kind of thing you dream about abroad. Home. Always home. The simple things everyone else takes for granted. I promised myself I wouldn’t, but now I’m here life still seems to be floating by me.

The bar starts to fill up as afternoon turns into night—Air Force mostly, but familiar faces all the same. Four beers down and Jason’s tongue is getting way too loose for my liking.

I decide to cut things short before he starts digging out the truly dirty stuff, but he’s on a roll.

“Tell her about the thumb thing, man. That shit was badass.”

I roll my eyes. “I don’t think she wants to hear about my war stories.”

“No,” says Shannon, smiling, “tell me.”

I exhale, beer bottle hung between my hands. “It was in Afghanistan. We were supposed to meet up with our POC.”

“Point Of Contact,” clarifies Jason. “Don’t bamboozle her with the jargon, bro.”

“Right. Our point of contact,” I continue, “was a no show, but a bunch of insurgents did show up in his place.”

“Oh no,” squeaks Shannon. “What did you do?”

“Nothing we could do. They had us holed in real good.”

“The thumb,” Jason presses, his enthusiasm getting the better of him. “Tell her.”

I can’t believe I’m telling this one again. “They stripped us down, piled us into the back of this pickup, our hands handcuffed behind our backs.”

“But you escaped, right?” says Shannon. “Clearly.”

Jason goes to finish it, can’t contain his excitement, but I ward him off with my hand. “We had to get out of there. It was do or die. So, I dislocated my thumb.” I hold up my left hand and wiggle my thumb. “Right here.”

Jason laughs seeing Shannon’s face screw up. “I know, right? It sounds like some bullshit urban myth, but he did it. There were witnesses. He fucking well did it.”

“How?” asks Shannon. “It doesn’t sound like an easy thing to do.”

I put my hands behind my back to demonstrate. “Easier than you’d think. You get leverage on it like this, and then use your bodyweight to fall into it, make a clean break of it. It’s the swelling you have to watch out for. You’ve got to work through the pain, get out of the cuffs as quickly as possible.”

“You’re not joking, are you?”

“No, ma’am. I don’t recommend it, of course, but when you’re desperate…”

Shannon’s shaking her head in disbelief. “I don’t know if I could do it.”

“Given the right situation, you might not have a choice. It’s incredible what you can force yourself to do when the pressure’s on.”

“And what happened after that?”

“It’s classified.” I wink.

Jason moves the conversation into a detailed description of the drudgery of Navy life, but when he starts to skirt around talk of Triss, I stand.

I slap my hands against my thighs. “I guess we should be getting off then.”

“You two?” Jason sniggers. “Getting off?” He takes a swig of his fifth beer. “Oh, I bet you will.”

He goes on laughing.

“Ignore him,” I tell Shannon. “Another beer and he’ll be on the floor.”

He stands—or tries to, at least—to see us off, taking Shannon’s hand and kissing the top of it. “It was good to meet you, Shannon. Don’t let Senior Chief screw you over, you hear? If he does, you come tell me. I’ll sort him out.”

“You can’t even sort your taxes,” I laugh.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Shannon replies, reaching down to collect her handbag.

Shannon and I head outside, the din of the bar dissipating. The night air’s cool. I take off my jacket and wrap it around Shannon’s shoulders. “Better?”

“Thanks,” she nods.

A plane takes off in the distance, a red streak across the sky.

“Do you need help getting home?” I offer.

She looks down between her feet, suddenly sheepish. “I can get a taxi. It’s fine.”

I take out my keys. “I’ve only had two beers in six hours. I insist.”

“Alright,” she agrees.

I place my hand lightly on her back and direct her towards the parking lot. Even this lightest of touches is serious cock torture. It strains in my pants desperate to be released.

A military bar this might be, but that doesn’t mean it’s free of scum. I’m not going to let anything happen to Shannon on my watch—not now, not fucking ever.

I help Shannon into my four-wheel-drive before heading to the driver’s side and starting it up.

I head out onto the highway. In the small space of the cabin I can smell her, that intoxicating scent she wears so naturally. I want to bury my face between her legs and lap it up. “How’s work? That boss of yours giving you any more grief?”

Shannon looks to me, her eyes glinting as the highway lights rush past. “Actually, he was on my case today about another, supposed incomplete file, but I stood up to him.”

“You did?” I don’t mean for it to sound like surprise.

“I told him the file wasn’t incomplete; the available information I had to work with was. I said if he had a problem with that he should give me better resources.”

“Wow, I’m proud of you,” I say, and I am.

She’s smiling, staring out the windscreen. “Yeah, it felt good… not being helpless, you know? In fact, I felt kind of elated. I still do.”

I don’t know if it’s a hint or not, but I’m happy to take it all the same.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

SHANNON

“Here we are,” I huff. “Home, sweet home.”

Gabe looks across me at the house. “Wow, you’re lucky to get a property of that size so close to the city. What’s the rent like?”

“It was my father’s house, actually,” I reply.

I see Gabe take in the tense. “Right.”

I swallow hard. I shouldn’t be this nervous, but there’s a hot, insatiable need building inside me that’s going to burn me alive if I don’t take action. “Would you like to come in for a moment?”

Gabs nods casually. “I’d love to.”

I fish out my keys at the doorstep, opening the door and stepping inside to various calls from the back.

“Your friends?” asks Gabe.

“More like kids. Once they hear the key in the lock, they go wild.”

I stand there flustered. The top of the house is a disaster.

Says the clean freak.

“Why don’t we go downstairs?” I offer.

Gabe’s right behind me. “Sure.”

He follows me down into the lower level of the house where Dad’s den used to be. Dad set up a bar on the side, even had a neon sign made reading ‘The Zoo’ across the top of it.

I see Gabe take it in.

“I know, all these ‘The’ bars lately. It’s weird. Whatever happened to old-fashioned bar names like Gaston’s or Gallow’s End?” I suggest. My mouths yapping away with whatever comes into my head. I’m a mess.

“I don’t think those are real bars,” laughs Gabe, “but ‘Shannon’s’ has a nice ring to it.”

I don’t even catch that, too busy looking across the labels of the bottles on the wall. “I’m not sure how old this stuff is, but would you like a drink?”

That’s the way, Shan. Booze him up so he won’t be able to get it up.

Somehow I doubt erectile dysfunction is going to be an issue…

Easy now. You’re still on first base, remember?

Gabe remains standing in the middle of the room. “I’m good, thanks.”

Damn. I was hoping it would give my hands something to do other than flit and flap around like an inflatable man.

I see Gabe pause by the small shelf next to the bar. He points to the framed picture of Dad. “Your father?”

I come up beside him, thankful for the conversation starter. “He looked pretty good in a uniform, didn’t he?” I direct Gabe’s attention to the Medal of Honor on the next shelf down. “He was injured in combat, though he passed away years later.”

Gabe takes it in. “Were you close?”

I push that rock in my throat back down. “We were.”

“It sounds like he was a great man.”

“He was.”

Gabe nods to the medal. “They don’t just hand these things out like candy, you know. Any man who has received one of these has my respect.”

I smile. It’s natural. “He would have liked you.”

“Because I’m a SEAL?”

“Because you’re good to me.”

Gabe laughs. “Am I? I’ve pulled you into a crazy lie.”

“And I’m going along with it… willingly.”

Gabe smiles back just as another squawk-fest starts upstairs. He looks up. “You raising some sort of hell-beast up there?”

“It’s just the kids. They’re always hungry.”

“Are we talking teenagers or animals here?”

“Aren’t they the same thing?” I smirk.

“I was a teenager once, you know.”

“With a copy of Playboy under your bed?”

He gives another laugh. “It was a copy of Soldier of Fortune, actually.”

“Wow, so even back then you knew what you wanted to be?”

Gabe looks back to the medal. “They make it seem glamorous, to pull you in.”

“And it’s not?”

“It has its moments, but expectation rarely lives up to reality.” He’s looking back to me as he says it. I’m not sure if there’s an implied message there, but I clear my throat and start to head to the stairs.

“Want to meet the kids?”

“So, we are getting serious.”

I’m walking back up the stairs feeling like a child myself about to show the cool new kid across the road my room.

Whoa there, sister. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

And there it goes again. My brain’s become a dirty old man. Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex—that’s all it thinks about these days.

You know very well why, and here’s your chance. It’s right there behind you—all six foot of muscly, manly goodness. Sprinkle it with sugar and dig in.

I roll my eyes at myself, leading Gabe into the sunroom down the back—more of a ‘night room’ now given the sun set hours ago.

I switch on the light.

Gabe takes a step back in surprise.

“Don’t worry. They don’t bite.”

“Do you?” he jokes.

He stops by Aragog first. “Who’s this guy?”

I’ve seen grown men practically dive out the window meeting Aragog for the first time, but Gabe doesn’t seem to mind.

I move up beside Gabe, can smell him, feel the warmth of his body brushing against my side. “That’s Aragog.”

“You’re a Harry Potter fan?”

“Isn’t everyone?”

He moves onto the lovebirds’ enclosure. “Wow, these two are living large. This thing’s bigger than my apartment.”

“They enjoy the room.”

“What species are they?”

“Lovebirds,” I reply. “Pikachu and Ash.”

He peers in at them. “Nice to meet you, feathered Pokémon people.”

“They’re inseparable.”

He looks at me, his sapphire eyes aglow. “I see.”

There’s scratching at the door. I unlock it to let Tripod in.

Gabe crouches down and scoops him up.

I’m shocked. Did he just do that?

Amazingly, Tripod goes to him easily, curling up in his arms. I’ve never seen Tripod do that before. Normally he’s terrified of people.

“He likes you,” I note.

Gabe examines him. “What happened to his leg?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. The vet thinks a car maybe. We don’t know for sure.”

Gabe smiles at the furry creature he’s cradling. “Let’s just call it a war wound, hey, buddy?” He places him down gently on the floor.

“Percy, my crested gecko, is outside,” I continue, but he gets real lazy come nightfall. He’ll be out there somewhere.”

I turn and undo the latch on the gliders’ cage, scooping them out. “And these two little guys are Buffy and Angel.”

“Vampires?”

“Sugar gliders, but they do become monsters if you don’t feed them. I wasn’t joking when I said ‘kids.’ I almost think actual human children would be less work sometimes.”

“And yet you clearly adore them.”

I don’t know how much longer I can take this love-fest before I explode with joy—the man of my dreams with my family, everyone getting along. It’s nice having a man in the house.

It’ll be nicer when he’s in your bed.

“I do,” I smile, Buffy running up my arm to sit on my shoulder and peer at Gabe.

That’s right. Give him a good looking over.

Gabe comes over with his hand out. “May I?”

I bring up Angel and, what do you know, he goes crawling up Gabe’s arm up to mirror Buffy’s position on his shoulder.

Gabe lightly strokes the top of Angel’s head. “I thought sea otters were the height of animal kingdom cuteness, but these dudes…”

Did he just call the gliders ‘dudes’? I’m cracking up inside, but I’m happy too. I think I was almost more nervous about Gabe meeting my animals than I was about meeting his mom.

Angel swings around behind Gabe’s neck to his other shoulder.

I take out my cell and take a snap. The expression on his face is priceless. “Sorry. Had to.”

“I hope you got my best side.”

“I don’t think there’s a wrong side,” I reply.

You’re flirting, Ms. Bailey. No doubt about it.

I blush hard.

“You’re not so bad yourself, Doctor Dolittle,” Gabe smiles.

I’ll be Doctor Do-A-Lot if you like…

Gabe helps me get the gliders back into their cage and settle everyone in for the night. It’s strange having someone else in here helping. I’m so used to doing it by myself, talking to myself like a crazed idiot. The way Gabe’s acting… It’s almost like this could be a thing—we could be a thing.

Define ‘thing.’

That’s the hard part.

I continue the tour, sounding even more like an idiot as I walk us through the house. “Bathroom,” I note. “Kitchen, and…” I stop outside the doorway to my room.

“Your room,” he finishes.

“I’d hardly call it mine given how often I share my bed.”

I see surprise light up Gabe’s face.

“Oh,” I stammer, “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m talking about my animals.”

His eyebrows lift. He looks even more confused.

“The sugar gliders… sometimes…” and once again the ability to speak is lost to me.

Gabe places his arm up on the wall, leaning into it, his aquamarine eyes looking deep into my own. “You don’t have to be embarrassed. I think it’s all pretty damn adorable.”

“You do?”

He tilts his head sideways. “Well, aren’t you going to show me your room?”

My mouth is so damn dry—the same of which cannot be said of the space between my legs. “Um, sure.”

I step in and switch on the light. “It’s not much.”

He walks past the dresser before taking a seat on the end of my bed. I note the random underwear strewn around the floor and almost melt into a puddle of horror, trying to start conversation as I whisk around and sweep up the offending items. I speak without a filter, babbling away to distract him. “I don’t really know why I invited you in.”

“You don’t?” he smirks.

“I guess I just wanted you to, you know, know me… since we’re,” Oh, God, “doing this thing.”

I reach for a wayward sock and stand up straight, flustered.

He stands and flattens out the quilt, taking a step towards me. “It’s great, and I do want to know you. You’re my fiancée, after all.”

“Your fake fiancée.”

“I’m not so sure any more.”

He’s standing so close I can make out the individual hairs in his stubble, the shadowy sweep of it leading up into a defined jawline, his inky hair perfectly messy.

We start to move towards each other, leaning in.

It’s happening again.

Just before we kiss, I ask, “What about Triss?”

He pulls back like I’ve jammed a cattle prod into his gut. He looks out the window and exhales. “That’s a long story.”

What the hell are you doing, Shan?!

Gabe places his hands on his hips and turns his attention back towards me. He waits, seems to be fighting with himself over something.

He nods in a sort of quasi-affirmation. “Okay. You deserve to hear it.”

He takes a seat on the end of the bed. I sit beside him.

“She was a Ranger,” he begins, “the first female Ranger, actually.”

“I didn’t think women could be Rangers?”

“They opened it up to both sexes a few years back, but Triss was the first through, practically wiped the floor with the other guys in basic training. There are a couple of other women in the program now, but Triss was special, you know. She always gave it two-hundred percent.”

“Was?”

I see his Adam’s apple pushing at his throat. “She died.”

“On a mission?” I’m trying not to sound nosy, but I want to know, to hear him say it. I want to know everything about this man.

He looks down and up again. “My mission.”

I can’t stop the questions. “But you’re a Navy SEAL.”

“We often work with the Rangers on missions, especially in the Middle East.”

I know he’s struggling to tell me whatever comes next, but I remain quiet, wait.

“We were on an op in Iraq, before Mosul—tracking these real scumbags. We were holed up in this alley, knew a high-value target was down the other end. Comms were down, smoke and shit everywhere. I was ready to go, intel or not, but a bad feeling came over me right before I gave the order. Triss, though… She was insistent. She wanted to get down there and finish it, scout it out. She was like that—completely fearless. She wasn’t always smart, but fearless all the same.”

He swallows again, his eyes and thoughts somewhere else, hands together. “I should have held her back, I had rank, but instead I let her go. We were together, thought we were invincible. It’s hard to explain.”

He straightens up. “Anyhow, she was almost at the end of the alley when a kid came walking out, this young girl. She couldn’t have been more than seven. She was strapped up like the Fourth of fucking July. I lined her up, the kid, but I hesitated, and that split second of hesitation cost Triss her life. The explosion damn near brought every building in a half-mile radius down. Every asshole with an AK crawled out. It was a nightmare. I wanted to go in for Triss, but we were taking heavy fire—squirters front and back, a .50 cal—so I gave the order. I left what was left of her there and did my best to get my men out, but it still wasn’t good enough. Two others lost their lives that day.”

He closes his eyes before opening them again.

I place my hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, Gabe.”

“We weren’t good for each other,” he says. “We were too alike, but we had something, you know? If I’m honest, it still hurts. It really fucking hurts.”

Before I know it, I’m reaching for his cheek, my lips moving forward until they’re falling on his own. I let him escape into me, pull him into the present.

CHAPTER TWELVE

GABE

On impulse, I take Shannon’s arm and draw her to me. Her breath is short, coming in quick pants.

My hardness is against her, the heat of it pressing against her crotch.

Her lips part, but she doesn’t say a word as I trail a finger down her cleavage. She inhales sharply, her chest rising and falling against me.

It’s been a while since I was in a moment like this. With the frog hogs, the women who sleep with SEALs, I would have torn her blouse clean off, but now I bring my hands down to the hem and slowly lift it over her head, her eyes never leaving my own.

I haven’t forgotten everything, though. I place my thumb against her lower lip and let it fall off, tracing up the side of her neck with it and following this with the tip of my tongue until it flickers at her ear lobe.

She gasps again, twitching on the spot. “Do you want me?” I ask.

“Yes,” comes her breathy answer, a breeze through treetops.

I kneel and dig my fingers into the waistband of her jeans, pulling them down her thighs and legs, taking off her shoes like she’s some sort of reverse Cinderella. I hook her jeans away, tossing them into corner. I can smell her arousal, the hot, musky pull of her pussy hidden away by nothing more than a thin layer of lace.

I slide my hands around her ass and cup her cheeks from behind, surprised at the low cut of her panties. She moans when my fingers dig into her skin, whispering my name.

I nuzzle myself lightly against the mound of her sex. “I’m going to lick your pussy now and you’re going to come.”

“Is that an order?”

I look up to her. “You’re damn fucking right it is.”

I stand and pick her up under the knees, tossing her into the middle of the bed, climbing on after her, stripping away my shirt in the process.

Her breath catches again when I spread her legs and pull the crotch of her panties to the side, running my thumb into her wet little pocket.

And it is wet—slick and tight and ready for my cock.

Her head’s on the pillow, her eyelids half-shuttered. Beneath them I see her eyes rolling into the back of her head as I work.

My god, I’ve never wanted anything so bad. I run a finger down the crease of her slit, let it dip inside. She’s gasping again, open-mouthed.

Her head lifts, her eyes widening as they take in the cut planes of my chest. I step off the bed and take my time removing my pants, allow her to appreciate what she’s really getting herself into here.

When I take off my jeans and underwear, her eyes fixate on my cock—all ten, throbbing inches of it.

I stroke it.

“My God,” she says. “That… is big.”

I pull on my cock as I speak. “It’s not going to be a problem given how wet you are. Trust me.”

Her legs spread wider. “I do.”

I take hold of her ankles, pulling her across the quilt. Ankles in one hand, I lift her up, stripping away her panties with the other, the lace tearing around her hip. I drop the damp ball of fabric beside her sweet, snow-white ass, the ass I’ve been dreaming about for days and nights now.

I want more than anything to bury my cock inside her, but I remember my duty and drop to my knees, hands slipping under her ass as I pull her pussy against my mouth.

“Gabe,” she gasps, but I don’t know if it’s a protest or an exclamation given the broken way it comes from her mouth.

I don’t fucking care. I use my lips and tongue to sweep over every perfect inch of her pussy—spearing inside her, lashing her clit, working until her thighs are clamping hard against my ears, dulling away the world.

“Gabe,” she repeats, a twisted moan now.

Hearing my name coming from her mouth forces my cock to jerk against the bedframe.

She tastes so fucking good.

I go into overdrive, licking from the bottom to pinched top of her pussy in a single stroke, my fingers moving up to separate her lips, explore her wet interior. I plunge my tongue into the heat and slickness there, savoring the flavor of her, the sweet, sweet arousal coming from her heated walls.

A whisper. “Gabe. Gabe,” she repeats, louder, breathing it out, her chest heaving.

It’s driving me fucking insane.

I draw her clit into my mouth and suck lightly.

“Don’t stop. Please, don’t stop.”

I’ve got no intention to.

Her body folds in on itself, her fingers gripping my head hard, combing through my hair as she presses me against her.

Her legs are clamping against me so hard I can hardly hear, completely consumed by her sex. Her thighs quiver, shake, her ankles slipping and sliding against the quilt.

“I’m going to—” she gasps, the pitch of her voice rising high. “I’m going to—”

A single swipe of her clit is all it takes.

She groans low and deep before crying out in full, coming hard against my face, her desire fresh on my lips.

Her first orgasm and it’s all mine.

But I want more.

And I want it now.

I fish for my jeans on the floor, finding my wallet and taking a condom out, sheathing myself.

I climb onto the bed, crouching between her legs, my cock so hard it may as well be a fucking flagpole.

She’s undone her bra in the meantime, her perfect, pale breasts topped with cherry-pink nipples begging for my mouth.

“Gabe,” she starts, still jerking from the aftershocks of her orgasm. “I can’t even… That was…”

“Better than you imagined?” I offer.

“Yes,” she says, continuing to pant. “That was incredible.”

I grip my cock around the root. “That’s nothing compared to how good it’s going to feel with my cock inside you.

Her eyes are fixed on my hardness. I know she wants it, lusts for this union, but I sense her hesitation, too.

It’s only a moment, a passing second, but it’s enough to undo me.

Sense kicks in and I start to question what I’m doing.

She’s a virgin, pure as driven snow. You sure you want to do this? You really think you’re ‘the one’?

For the first time in a long time I’m doubting myself. I’m rock hard, desperate to be inside her, but looking over her prone body, her lips parted with need, I’m caught. “I don’t know if this is right,” I tell her. “I don’t know if I’m the guy you’re looking for.”

She draws up onto her elbows, looking me dead in the eyes. “It doesn’t matter. I want it to be you.”

It’s enough.

The alpha returns.

I slide my hands across her chest, let them come around the sweep of her breasts, my fingers brushing over her nipples until they’re flint hard. I continue back down, running them up the milky side of her inner thighs, marveling at the slickness of her center, the pink bloom of her pussy lips.

I flatten myself over her, placing my cock against her entrance. She moans, pressing herself against me, her arms locking around my neck.

“Do you want this?” I ask one final time.

“Yes,” she replies, barely audible.

“What do you want? Tell me.”

“I want you,” she says. “I want you inside me.”

“Spread your legs,” I command.

They drop to either side of me, the head of my cock starting to slide forward, the tip of it against the hot ring of her opening, so, so close.

I guide my cock inside her, get her used to the sensation slowly, but I know I can’t be gentle about what comes next.

I take the side of her face with one hand and reach under her thigh with the other, thrusting hard and fast to fill her in one stroke, driving past her innocence and deep into the wet heat of her body.

She cries out, a sharp whimper, her fingers clawing into my neck.

It’s done.

I draw back slowly, surprised she could take me so easily her first time, but her slickness is helping. She’s so wet my cock’s drowning inside her, struggling for purchase against the slippery walls of her sex.

I slide forward again with half of my length, half-moaning, half-grunting. She’s so fucking tight it’s amazing, her wet pussy begging me to fill it in full, but I have to be patient. “It feels so fucking good,” I whisper into her ear. “Are you okay?”

She nods, the discomfort starting to slip from her face as I thrust a little deeper.

I reach between us and rub her clit, her eyes closing and her mouth opening wide, her nipples pin hard against my chest. “Are you ready to come for me again?”

She nods once more as I circle her clit, running the nub of her between the pads of my fingers.

I start to thrust into her wetness a bit harder, swinging my hips against her.

Her hands fall from my neck, splaying out on the quilt, bunching it tight in her fingers.

I crush my mouth against hers, let my tongue slide into her mouth until she’s bucking against me, her hips levitating from the bed to take more of my cock into her greedy little pussy, still tightening around my length.

I draw out and step off the bed, flipping her over onto her belly so her legs hang off the edge and her peachy ass is rounded out before me. I hunch over her and slide back in, her face pressed sideways into the mattress.

I fuck her in full now, her moaning unnaturally loud, echoing to join with the chorus of animal sounds coming from the back of the house.

I fuck her so hard the table lamp falls onto the floor, the light going off. I couldn’t care less. I want her, all of her, want her to scream my name as she comes again, my big, hard cock filling her.

Her moans grow louder, more primal, her body jerking between my chest and the bed, my balls clapping against her clit.

“Gabe,” she cries, beginning to stammer, cohesion falling from her words.

The muscles in her pussy begin to tighten around my cock. I know she’s close.

She reaches back, her fingernails digging hard into my arm, bracing herself against the inevitable onslaught.

Her pussy pulses, milking my cock.

“I’m going to—” I warn, the edge approaching.

My own breathing becomes heavy and labored, my fingers gripping hard onto the soft flesh of her ass, time stretching on and on eternally until I’m barely thinking but simply existing inside her, my cock an extension of myself.

We groan together, our voices rising as we come together. Her pussy pulls and tugs at my cock as I release, my balls tight against her. I jerk and thrash, struggling to keep her from throwing me off, the force of her convulsions is so great.

When I do pull out, it’s with a final, juddering jerk that forces my hips against her once more, a single, punctuated “uh” escaping from her lips.

I collapse onto my back beside her, the condom full. My cock remains hard, still standing to attention between my legs.

Shannon looks at me sideways across the quilt. Her hair is in disarray, she’s sweaty, her skin blotchy and lips parted, but my god if it isn’t the most beautiful sight I have ever seen.

Only her lips move. “Two firsts in one night.”

I would have been happy simply making her come. Taking her was the icing on the cake.

I hold the side of her face, run her hair over her ear so I can see her flushed face in full. “You know what they say?” I offer, leaning down to kiss her, placing her lips against mine.

She breaks away. “What’s that?”

“Good things come in three,” I smile.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SHANNON

Gabe has refused to remove the blindfold. I sense we’re on a highway. We’re not in the city anymore. I’ve worked out that much.

I shift in my seat. “You’re really not going to tell me where we’re going?”

“It wouldn’t be much of a surprise then, would it?” Gabe replies.

“I should warn you I’m not big on blind dates.”

He laughs. “Neither am I. Matt tried to hook me up with this girl from another high school once. Let’s just say her idea of kissing came with an extra side of saliva.”

“Ew.”

“Moral of the story being, don’t let your brother organize your dates.” The four-wheel-drive makes a turn. “Here we are.”

I wait and listen, only sound to guide me. I hear Gabe get out, the driver’s door closing. My door opens, pressure on the blindfold before it slips away completely.

It’s bright outside. I squint past Gabe trying to work out where the hell we are.

It doesn’t take me long.

“An airfield?” I read a sign on the hanger. “Skydiving?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Is this Jason’s place?”

On cue Jason comes running out from the hanger. He’s excited to see us. “My people!”

He embraces Gabe first before stepping up to help me out of the four-wheel-drive.

I know I said I wanted to go skydiving one day, but ‘one day’ was the key component of that phrase. My legs are already turning to Jell-o looking at the tin can of a plane parked in the hanger.

Jason sees me staring. “Yep, that’s my girl. Her name’s Jennifer.”

“Jennifer?” I question.

“You know,” says Jason, “like J. Lo.”

“You named your plane after a pop star?”

He spans his hands apart. “She’s got a nice ass.”

“I see,” I reply, flicking a look of concern Gabe’s way, but he’s clearly enjoying himself.

“Come on,” says Jason, leading us towards the hanger. “The conditions are perfect to kiss the sky today.”

Gabe takes my hand and squeezes as we walk. “You okay with this? You can back out if you want.”

Given that offer a week ago, I might have, but a lot can happen in a week. I’m not about to go Casper the cowardly ghost on Gabe now.

You’re a strong, badass woman.

Even said in my head it sounds ridiculous.

How hard can it be? You fly up, you jump out. Easy.

Yeah, real easy.

Gabe gives my butt a short squeeze. “The adrenaline rush is incredible, at least the first time.”

“It seems I’m checking off a lot of firsts lately.”

“You’ll be strapped to me if it’s any consolation, which should be interesting.”

“Why’s that?” I ask.

He leans in and whispers into my ear. “One, I don’t usually do tandem, and two, because I’ve never jumped with a hard-on before.”

I push him away. “You’re cheeky. You know that?”

He puts his hands up in surrender. “Can you blame a guy for being horny when he’s got eye candy like you around all day?”

I roll my eyes. “And how many times have you used that line?”

He laughs again. “Like you said, I’m checking off a lot of firsts lately.”

Jason spins and shouts back to us. “Hey, less chit-chat, you two. We’ve got work to do.”

Gabe salutes him back. “Yes, sir.”

*

All this time and it seems I’ve developed quite a few misconceptions about skydiving. I thought you rocked up, were bundled into a plane, and bam, all done, but the reality is rather different. Jason carefully runs me through the safety procedures, the position to take in the air, what to do in an emergency…

It’s old news to Gabe, of course, but he’s enjoying see me go through it all the same, especially the part where I’m strapped up in what for all intents and purposes looks like a sex swing.

Jason moves around me as I dangle in the air. “Yes, that’s right, arms up just like that. A little higher… higher… Yes.”

Gabe’s smirking as I try to keep my balance. “You look adorable, by the way.”

I nod to his black and blue jumpsuit. “You look like an overgrown baby wondering where his big boy pants have gone.”

Jason jumps back stunned. “Whoa! I haven’t witnessed a burn like that since we lit up downtown Mosul.” He turns to Gabe, who’s got a smile so big on his face it’s a wonder it doesn’t rip his cheeks apart. “That’s your girl, huh?”

“That’s my girl,” Gabe replies.

Unharnessed off the sex swing-slash-human pendulum, we head out to the plane. “How, uh, old is Jennifer?” I ask, a butterfly farm of nerves stirred to unrest in my belly.

I feel even more ridiculous in these googles. The pink onesie I’m wearing ain’t much better, but I note Gabe’s eyes wandering, taking me in. I feel a bit more comfortable after that.

We stop by the plane door. Jason stands there addressing us. “As I mentioned, Gabe will be your jumpmaster today, Shannon. Once you’re inside we’ll get you two nice and cozy while I head up to the drop zone.”

The only thing about to drop right now is my stomach.

Gabe has the parachute on his back, still grinning like an idiot.

Inside, harnessed up to Gabe, I give a sharp jerk when the engines start.

“You’ll be fine,” says Gabe, raising his voice to be heard over the ruckus.

It only takes us fifteen minutes to reach the right altitude, but it seems like fifteen hours. The higher we get, the more I’m freaking out.

“Enjoying the ride?” Jason yells back from the cockpit. Yes, it’s that close.

I can only nod in affirmation.

What appears to be a traffic light on the side of the plane’s interior shifts from red to green, an alarm sounding.

Lord, help me.

Gabe starts to waddle us towards the door, sliding it open. Cool air rushes in, nothing but the big blue beyond outside.

I tense up. Oh, hell no.

But it’s too late.

Gabe helps me cross my limp arms over my chest, lifting my feet until I’m literally hanging from him, my head back against his shoulder as instructed. I’m a rag doll, completely under his control.

When he leans out of the doorway and I can see farm fields below, I almost pass out right there on the spot.

I summon my voice to speak, but it snaps shut when Gabe flips—yes, flips—us out of the plane.

The world spins, air rushing past my ears, the goggles pressed hard to my face as Gabe corrects and gets us into position.

We’re freefalling, hurtling through the sky, but it doesn’t feel like falling at all. It’s completely different to what I expected.

We spin slightly and I see Jennifer disappearing above us.

We’re not falling, I realize. We’re flying.

Jason told me freefall itself would last less than sixty seconds. Gabe taps me on the shoulder to indicate touch-down position.

The parachute deploys and we’re snapped to a stop, falling and lifting at the same time. I have the world’s biggest wedgie. I’m surprised I haven’t been cut in two as we drift downwards, spiraling towards a golden field below.

Gabe reaches down to loosen the two links at my hips. Instant comfort follows. “Here,” he says, “hold these,” handing me the parachute toggles. “You’re driving.”

The ride down under canopy takes a lot longer than the fall itself. It’s peaceful, but the ground seems to be coming up awfully fast.

“Knees up to your chest,” Gabe commands. “Now.”

The ground rushes up. Gabe’s feet hit the ground first. He staggers forward. “Stand up.”

My feet find the earth.

Gabe disconnects me and the parachute, the latter laid flat on the long grass behind us. “Perfect landing.”

I look around, stunned.

He helps me out of my harness before stepping out of his own and stretching. “Well, how does it feel?”

I nod, still a touch breathless. “Incredible.”

“Better than this?”

Gabe takes me in his arms and kisses me deep. We spin, my ankle caught up in the harness until I stagger back and fall onto the splayed parachute, laughing.

Gabe lies down beside me on the silk, taking off my helmet and lifting my googles away. “That’s better.”

The midday sun is beating down on us, the fabric of the parachute warm below.

He leans forward to kiss me again, his fingers coming up to pull on the zipper at the front of my jumpsuit.

“What are you doing?”

“Ssshhh,” he replies, the zipper dropping.

He shifts himself until he’s between my legs, lifting me up to peel my jumpsuit away from the shoulders down.

I look around nervously. “Won’t Jason be here soon?”

“He still has to land the plane, and I made sure we got lost a little on the way down.”

Gabe slips off my shoes, tugging the jumpsuit from my ankles until I’m left in nothing but my tank top and panties.

“Gabe…”

He’s smiling hard again kneeling there, hands reaching for the waistband of my panties and pulling until they release from my crotch. He drags them slowly up my legs and hooks them off my feet, my legs dropping back against the silk of the parachute.

He discards my panties and places his hands on my knees, spreading my legs apart. “And now for a dive of a different kind.”

“Ga—” but I don’t get the full protest out, my hands falling on his head as his lips make contact with my pussy.

I relax, my head dropping and back arching off the ground as he licks in a long stroke from the slack opening of my pussy right up to my clit, softly flicking it with the very tip of his tongue.

I moan out, looking up into glowing eyelids as he pleasures me.

He mews and growls against my skin, hands shifting to the creamy underside of my thighs as his tongue spears deep into my pussy, into the hot compression of my slickness.

My mouth opens to take in more air, my fingers raking through his hair. My ass lifts off the ground, grinding against him as he gently sucks on my clit, pulling it in between his lips and letting it slip away, teasing and lashing it until I’m soaking wet.

My pussy starts to pulse against his face, the stubble on his chin rasping against the sensitive skin there. He nuzzles deeper and purrs, clearly enjoying himself.

I smell grass and open air, my own arousal.

My nipples have turned to tight arrowheads under my tank top. I can feel them pointing to the sky—the sky we have just fallen from.

“Gabe,” I moan.

He slips a finger inside me, running it deep while his tongue continues to lash my clit rhythmically above, the constant stirring motion of it bringing me close to climax.

Anyone could stumble upon us out here in this field. It could be private land for all I know, but these thoughts muddle as another finger joins the first, a third sliding up between my ass cheeks to settle against my anus.

I stiffen.

I’ve never had anyone touch me there, never touched myself there, and the taboo, naughty spell of it instantly sends me freefalling into orgasm.

I grunt in release, holding his head tight against my crotch, my fingers digging into his scalp, suffocating him in my sex.

The two fingers inside me curl upwards, the finger below slipping past the tight ring of muscle there. Another orgasm stacks on the first, the pleasure doubled until I’m near blindness—unable to speak, to move, caught in this web of pleasure until finally it all comes crashing down and I go as limp as the grass that sways around us.

I’m still jerking, shaking in the afterglow of my orgasm when Gabe pulls himself away, kneeling to admire his handiwork.

Slowly, I bring myself onto my elbows as consciousness returns. My hair is damp, stuck to my head. “Wow. That was…” I don’t have the words.

“Wait until I take you in the ass.”

A flutter of excitement runs through me at the taboo prospect. “I feel like I should return the favor.”

Gabe shakes his head, licking his lips. “No need. Jason will be here soon enough, and I don’t exactly want him to find us in a compromising position.”

“Alright.” I nod, hunting for my panties on the ground. “You win this round, jumpmaster, but I will return the favor, and when you least expect it.”

He picks up my jumpsuit and passes it to me. “Can’t wait.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

GABE

I’ve been at the hospital for a couple of hours now, slowly watching Matt fall asleep beside me. Mom only woke for a few minutes. I’ve spent the rest of the time thinking about Shannon, about what we got up to out in that field. She continues to surprise me.

Matt yawns and stretches his arms.

“Welcome back,” I tell him.

He yawns again into his fist.

“How long have you been here?” I ask.

He checks his watch. “Twelve, maybe thirteen hours?”

He should get home, but he’s in no condition to drive. He’d end up running through a fucking billboard.

Matt’s apartment is a decent drive from here, too far for him in this state.

I take out my keys and stand. “Come on. Let me take you to my place. You can rest up there for a while. I’ll drive right back to sit with her.”

He doesn’t even fight, standing and nodding.

I get a message from Shannon walking down to the four-wheel-drive.

‘Where R U?’ she texts.

‘Heading to my place,’ I send back.

‘OK,’ she replies, followed by a kiss emoji.

Matt stretches himself across the rear seat, fast asleep before we’ve made it out of the parking lot. “Don’t you drool all over my upholstery now,” I tell him, speaking into the rear-view.

I pull into the lot around the back of my complex. It’s late, the lighting dim.

I’m about to turn around and wake Matt up when someone taps against the passenger-side window.

I push the door open, Shannon swinging in and pulling the door closed. She has a wild, reckless look on her face. “Hi,” she says.

“Hi. You scared me half to death there.”

She moves across the center console, straddling my lap. I realize she’s not wearing panties. “What’s this?” I query.

“Payback.”

She sees Matt sleeping on the back seat and gives a little start.

“Yeah,” I laugh, “we’ve got company.”

She shrugs and kisses me, her warm, wet tongue pressing between my lips. “I don’t care,” she says. “I’m doing this, and I’m doing it right here, right now.”

The hell?

I’m confused but definitely curious to see where she’s going with this.

She smells amazing, fruity and floral. Her pussy’s hot against the crotch of my pants.

For a moment she’s just looking at me, hands behind my neck.

I glance up into the rear-view, but Matt’s still soundly asleep in the back. I know from experience it will take nothing short of a force of nature to wake him.

Something has changed. The regular Shannon is gone. This is some new kind of sex kitten I haven’t been introduced to yet. It’s almost as if this is an experiment, something she has decided to do on a whim. Nothing’s going to stop her seeing it through.

She begins to rub the butt of her palm against my crotch. My mouth moves to speak, she silences it with a finger.

She nuzzles into my neck and licks a slippery trail to the back of my ear. There her ragged breath blows hot against it.

“How’s that?” she purrs.

“It’s good.”

I moan and reach for her, but she pins my hands down by my side. She’s stronger than I realized.

“No,” she whispers, “let me do the work.”

She sucks my earlobe into her mouth and moans, the vibrations humming through my skull. She leans closer into me, her nipples hard, pressing into my bicep.

It takes all my power not to move my arms, to wrestle and wrangle her into submission, fill her face with my cock.

She leaves a hot memory on my ear, slipping away to kneel in the tight space of the passenger foot-well.

I turn sideways to face her.

She leans over into my crotch.

Who is this person?

She reaches up to tug down my trousers, pulling and reefing until they’re down past my knees. Her nails bite into the top of my thighs, multiple trails opening up on my skin in her haste.

Holy shit.

I look around. Surely someone is seeing this, but the parking lot is empty.

She works my cock out of my briefs and slides my underwear down to meet my trousers, hand on the root of my cock lightly pumping up and down. She strokes my cock, laughing.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Nothing. It’s just… I feel ridiculous.”

“It’s not. You’re doing fine.”

“It’s just so damn big.”

I don’t want her to stop. I need to give her all the encouragement as she needs. “Keep going.”

She takes another nervous glance back at Matt.

“Don’t worry about him. He’s not waking up unless someone drops an A-bomb on us.”

Whatever words were coming to my mouth are soon lost as she brings her mouth over the head of my cock.

I relax back into the seat, tension slipping away while her tongue swirls around the head of my member, pausing to press against my glans. While she blows me her hand works up and down roughly, drawing me into her. Her free hand presses against my thigh, leveraging off it to help her build rhythm.

I don’t know if she’s given a blowjob before, but if she hasn’t this is even more incredible.

I reach up and place my hand on the back of her head, really drive my cock deep, but she swats it away.

Her eyes flick up to me. They glint against the lighting outside, such a strong blue I can imagine small islands floating within them. Beaches, summer—everything dreams are made of.

I am spellbound by her, the way she watches me as her lips roll over my organ, the powerful sucking action that follows. I tilt my hips and push further into her mouth. She lets her lips rise just enough so her teeth graze across the top of my shaft. Normally this would spell disaster, amateur hour at best, but the way she does it sends a burning shot of arousal right to the tender tip of my cock.

God, I want to touch her so badly. I want to take her hair and bend her over the dash. I want to bury myself so deep inside her she screams. I want to growl and bite her pale skin. I want to leave my mark.

There’s stirring from the back seat, Matt shifting and his chops slobbering together still deep in sleep.

Shannon pumps me harder, pulling me forward by my cock and then using a hand to press me hard back into my seat. She has all the control.

She lets my cock pop out glistening from her mouth and pumps me over her cheek, eyes turned sideways, watching me. She doesn’t smile. She’s doesn’t laugh. She’s dead serious. For all intents and purposes she could be making a milkshake—business as usual.

Still jerking me off over her face, her tongue comes out and licks upwards against my sack. She gently sucks my balls into her mouth, rolling them around inside the warm cavern, letting them sit on the spongey surface of her tongue while I buck and grimace.

Fuck me.

I’m doing everything to remain quiet, but this is too much.

She takes me back inside her mouth. I hump lightly against the rippled inside of her cheek.

I can feel her jaw moving, opening up as she takes my length right down her throat. She keeps going until she’s swallowed almost all of my cock, her lips clenched around the root. She continues to stare at me with those eyes and it’s driving me absolutely insane. I don’t care if Matt wakes up now. All I care about is getting off.

Holding my thighs, she draws back until just the head of my cock remains sitting in her mouth. I hold onto the sides of the seat, worn leather warmed by the afternoon sun.

Her hand moves, her fingers curling around the base of my cock as she takes me back in. I can’t help myself. I buck harder against her, groaning and my head tap-tapping against the back of the headrest in frustration.

My balls are getting heavy. My climax is coming on fast.

I’m jerking up with greater urgency, clawing into the seat as she drools over my cock. She knows I’m close, but she refuses to break eye contact, jerking and sucking me harder and faster, growing wilder and wilder.

“Shannon,” I warn, “I’m going to—”

She doesn’t stop.

I come, teeth pressed tight together and my cock pumping fiercely into her mouth. She swallows fast, the muscles in her throat working overtime to take my load.

When I’m done, she lets my cock fall away, gasping and flushed, a pearl of cum on her parted lips. She licks it away and lets my cock slip away from her hand. “Delicious.”

She reaches up and opens the passenger door, stepping out from the foot-well onto the pavement outside. She pats her dress down. “You better get your brother inside.”

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she winks.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

SHANNON

I observe my spoon. We’ve moved onto Africa—Ethiopia, to be specific. “What did you say this was again?”

“Shiro be kibbe,” replies Gabe, spooning more into his mouth. “It’s a peasant dish, but everyone eats it over there. It’s the most popular dish in the whole damn country.”

I look around at the restaurant. If you weren’t actively looking for it, you’d never find it it’s so well hidden. It’s more like someone’s home kitchen.

“How do you find these places?”

Gabe smiles that smile that won me over from the start. “Like I said before, I’m just trying to find a little bit of the greater world here in our fair city.”

“Moroccan, Turkish, Ethiopian… What next?”

“Ever had Italian?” Gabe jokes.

“Does Olive Garden count?”

He smirks at that. “That’s about as Italian as a hamburger and fries. By the way, that was some act you pulled in the parking lot last night. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

I act surprised. “That the quiet nerd might just be a sex goddess?”

“‘Godly’ sums it up alright. And with Matt in the back? Jesus, and I thought I was wild.”

“There’s lots left to learn about me yet, Gabe-Gabe. You ain’t seen nothing yet.” I drop my spoon. “Hey, tell me more about the SEALs. I want to know.”

He places his spoon down. “What it’s like, you mean?”

“Sure, like how you started. I know why, not wanting to be a burden and all that.”

“So you want to know the how?”

“I do.”

“It was pretty simple. I rocked up in my dress whites and they were stupid enough to send me to BUD/S.”

“Like the beer?”

“Like Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL training.”

“Where you ring the bell if you want to go home?”

Gabe nods solemnly. “You take hold of that braided rope and ding that sucker three times to find your release. It sits right out there on the Grinder, this concrete and asphalt courtyard where you do calisthenics, fucking thousands of push-ups—all sorts of punishment and pain you never even knew existed prior to signing up.”

“You never thought about it?”

“Ringing the bell? No. Once my mind’s made up, nothing’s stopping me, and I wanted to be a SEAL more than anything. I wanted to be the best, and there were guys—the fittest guys you’ve ever seen—pulling on that thing day and night. This one dude we nicknamed Conan. He was built like a mountain, completely unstoppable in PT, but come Hell Week he practically crawled his way to that bell blubbering like a newborn.”

I push food around my plate, don’t know if I can fit in another spoonful. “Sounds like… fun.”

“Like they say, ‘the only easy day was yesterday.’”

“It was really that bad?”

I don’t mean for it to sound offensive. I’m genuinely curious. Dad always spoke about the SEALs with reverence.

Gabe laughs. “‘Abrasive’ is the best word I have for it, but it’s necessary.” He points beyond the doors. “The first time you get into trouble you’re thankful for every second of hell they put you through.”

“And you were on Team Three, right?”

“Correct. I’m not one of those Team Six superstars, sorry, but we had our fair share of entertainment, based in south-east Asia and the Middle East mostly, thus my love of exotic cuisine. The locals sure did better than what Uncle Sam calls chow.”

“Well, I, for one, am enjoying it, learning about this all, about you.”

His eyes light up. “That’s the best thing about being a SEAL. It’s the learning, the training. It never stops—rigger school, languages, marine ops, OTB… You are always filling your head with something new. I’m going to miss that.”

“I’m new…” I purr.

His smile turns sultry. “That you are, Ms. Bailey, but do you have something to teach me?”

“That you don’t already know? I doubt it.”

“It’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for,” he remarks.

“Was I quiet last night?”

“No, ma’am. Truth be told, I’m starting to feel a little sorry for your neighbors.”

“Don’t worry,” I tell him. “They take their hearing aids off when they go to bed.”

Gabe turns the conversation around. “And you. What did you want to be growing up?”

“An astronaut,” I reply bluntly, “but you can see how that worked out.”

“You wanted to explore the galaxy, walk on the moon?”

“I wanted to see the Death Star, actually—Way too much time spent watching Star Wars with Dad.”

“So you are a nerd.”

“I’m a fan of fine films. What’s your favorite—film, that is? Wait, let me guess. Is it Top Gun?”

“As much as the thought of buff guys playing beach volleyball turns me on, no.”

“Under Siege?”

“There’s only one real SEAL movie.”

“Act of Valor?” I suggest, hopeful.

“G. I. Jane,” he smirks back.

I roll my eyes. “You’re joking, right?”

He shakes his head. “Am I not. The plot’s holed up like a block of Swiss cheese, there are technical errors all over the place, but that guy who plays the master chief? He has it down pat. Gave me fucking chills.”

“I know something else that will give you chills…”

“Does it involve us getting naked?”

“It might,” I reply.

“Then signal for the bill, because this Chief is going to G. I. Jane your ass all over that bedroom tonight.”

Less than a minute later we’re walking out the door, running to Gabe’s four-wheel-drive hand in hand like a couple of horny teenagers.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

GABE

I’m on top of the world heading to Mom’s hospital room. Shannon’s at work, no doubt walking around on the same airy cloud I am.

I walk in to find Mom asleep, Matt by her bed with a copy of GQ.

I sit in the chair by the wall. “You still reading that shit?”

Matt smiles up at me. “Hey, someone in this family has to look stylish.”

I look down. “What, tactical pants and tight tees don’t do it for you?”

He holds up the magazine. “It’s GQ, brother, not Gay Times.”

“Same thing last I checked,” I shrug.

Matt places the magazine down. “Speaking of same-same, how’s it going with your ‘fiancée’?”

The sarcastic slur on ‘fiancée’ doesn’t go unnoticed. My brother and I rarely hold anything back from one another. I’m not about to start. “We slept together.”

“As in catching some Zs or breaking the headboard?”

My smile provides the answer.

Matt sits back. “I’m happy for you—jealous, but happy.”

“Thank you.”

“And given that goofy fucking grin on your face I’m thinking you enjoyed it.”

I haven’t smiled this much in years. “More than a hot shower after being holed up in Kandahar for two months.”

“That much, huh? Did you tell her that? I bet she came on the spot.”

I squint, leaning forward to look inquisitively at my brother. “Oh, yeah. I can see the green-eyed monster now. He’s right there under the giant penis sprouting from your head.”

“At least you got the ‘giant’ part right,” Matt retorts.

He jerks his head sideways to the bed. “You’re lucky she’s asleep.”

“What, you can’t fight your own battles?” The teasing’s been in good humor until now, but I sense I’ve taken it too far with these words. “I’m sorry,” I add. “You’ve been here through this whole thing. I haven’t. That makes all the difference.”

But Matt wasn’t offended to begin with. “You’re damn right about that, but this thing with Shannon. Do you really think it’s a good idea? I mean, she’s not exactly the kind of girl you go for.”

“And what kind of girl do I go for, O’ brother? I’m curious.”

“Loose with even looser morals.”

“Those days are over.”

“Clearly, given you’re engaged to Anastasia Steele.”

“I’m not intending to bend her over my knee and spank her… yet.”

Matt leans forward over his knees. “I’m serious, bro. I’m happy for you, like I said, but I don’t think she was the best choice for this scam.”

“It’s not a scam.”

“So she’s your actual fiancée?”

I let it go. A thought occurs to me. “She hasn’t been to visit, has she?”

“Shannon?” replies Matt. “No, not that I know of.”

It’s a good thing. She did well the first meet, so well I thought she might try and go it alone.

“Who’s visiting?”

We both turn to the bed where Mom is slowly raising herself up onto the pillow, a crooked grimace on her face.

“No one, Mom,” I say.

She scowls at me. “Gabriel.”

I know by that tone I’m in trouble here. I look to Matt for a clue, but he simply shrugs back.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Mom says.

“Of course, Mom. You know I’m here for you,” I tell her.

She’s on the attack. “I know, but what I’m concerned about is how you treat others.” I look to Matt again, who shoots me back a similarly puzzled expression.

What the hell’s bringing this on?

“Mom,” I begin, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Her features screw up in frustration. “I think you know full well. It’s about choices—the bad choices you’re making.”

Does she know?

She’s on a lot of painkillers, sometimes get confused, but she’s completely lucid, more lucid than I’ve seen her to date.

“When she came here…” Mom starts.

I’m trying to work out what she’s talking about. “Who, Mom? When who came? Was it Shannon?” I ask the question even though Matt said she hasn’t been around.

“No, Gabriel. It was the other one, calling herself your girlfriend.”

It takes a second for it to sink in, but once it does I’m speechless. I literally cannot speak.

Matt too, seems shocked, looking at me dead-on. His expression also says ‘Who the fuck is she talking about?’ Maybe the painkillers are really doing a number on her.

“Are you cheating?” says Mom. “I don’t think that’s fair, on either of those poor girls.”

She yawns and her eyes close, head sinking deep into the pillow.

I stand. “Mom?”

She’s fallen back asleep.

I look to Matt. “Do you have any fucking idea who she’s talking about?”

Matt lifts his hands. “Hey, I don’t know how many girls you’ve got involved here.”

“Just the one, and even that’s enough. Do you think she’s confused?”

“Go check at the nurses’ station. Maybe they know something.”

I head down the hall, almost bowling over a guy in a wheelchair I’m in such a rush. I arrive to the nurses’ station breathless, hands on the counter.

The nurse on duty looks up slowly and smiles in that practiced away only medical professionals know how. “May I help you?”

“I’m Gabriel Reed,” I begin, “Ah, Mrs. Reed’s son.”

Duh.

Another false smile. “Yes, Mr. Reed. How can I help?”

“I was just curious if anyone beside my brother Matthew has been by to visit our mother.”

She calls over another nurse, an older woman with a square jaw and marbled eyes. “Jan, has Mrs. Reed in forty seven had any visitors lately besides her sons?”

‘Jan’ provides the same, practiced smile to me. “Yes, there was a woman—dark hair, olive skin. I didn’t catch her name, sorry.”

“You don’t have any records?” I ask.

The nurse at the desk shakes her head. “No, sorry.”

“She said she was a family friend,” continues Jan.

It’s possible this is some acquaintance from Mom’s old work, maybe a distant friend or acquaintance.

But they’re saying she was a family friend?

Whatever the case, my suspicions are raised. I see the darker side of people, the scam artists and those ready to prey on the weak and sick, get their wills signed over or worse.

I’m paying for this facility, so I try to make my next point clear without coming across too aggressive. “From now on, only myself, my brother and my fiancée Shannon Bailey are to be admitted. Is that clear?”

The first nurse replies. “Yes, Mr. Reed. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

I’m sure they’re talking behind my back when I leave.

I head out front. I hold my cell ready to call Shannon and double-check she didn’t, in fact, visit at some point.

I’m standing there about to hit call when I hear a familiar voice behind me.

“Long time no see, Gabe-Gabe.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

SHANNON

I wake up born again, the mysteries of the world laid out before me, everything solved with a simple ‘O’.

Nothing simple about it.

Which is completely true. For the longest time I’ve believed the female orgasm to be a myth, like a unicorn or healthy fast food, but what Gabe has been delivering is no myth. There have been times lately I seriously thought I was going to go blind.

It happened, he happened, and I’ve never been so happy.

I slide a tentative hand down the front of my panties and touch myself, my fingers jumping away at the fresh sensitivity.

I frame Gabe in my head—his hard cock and chest, his arms holding me tight as I shook and moaned against him again and again—when the kids start to squawk and squeak down the back. “Yes!” I shout. “You’ll get your breakfast when I’m good and ready.”

*

Whatever glow I’m wearing, it does not go unnoticed at work. People smile at me, compliment my appearance. It’s like I’ve got a big sign slapped to my forehead stating ‘Shannon Bailey, virgin no more!’

Juliana, one of the more esoteric employees, looks at me across the lunch table. “Your aura,” she says, her hands enveloping me a wide circle, “it’s really beautiful today.”

I place my cheese sandwich down. Even it tastes better today. I swallow before speaking. “Thank you.”

“Seriously, Shannon,” she continues, “have you been doing reiki or something?”

I shake my head. Only raking the garden.

“Chakra cleansing?”

Maybe not my chakra, but perhaps something else…

She clicks her fingers like she finally has it. “A healing crystal, am I right?

If by ‘healing crystal’ she means ‘massive penis,’ then yes, I’ve been working on that a lot.

I nod.

She claps her hands together. “That’s so wonderful. You must know what you’re doing. There’s no negative energy there whatsoever.”

She collects up her trash, calling out a final “Expect miracles!” before leaving the kitchenette.

My mind drifts to Gabe again. If you had of told me a week-and-a-half ago I’d lose my V-card to a guy like Gabe, I would have laughed you out of the room, but I’m happy it was him.

Perhaps it will add a touch of credibility to this whole fiancée thing. I’ve got no qualms keeping it up.

And neither does he.

It’s true. His stamina is insane. I’m barely breathing and there he is with his cock hard again ready to rock, over and over again. Maybe it’s some magic voodoo they teach in the SEALs. I have no idea.

After lunch I head into the abandoned office down the back and take out my cell, dialing Gabe’s number. I don’t know why, but I just want to hear his voice—the sexy, gravelly growl of it.

The call rings until his voicemail answers.

I try again, with the same result.

It’s no big deal, right? He’s probably busy. He’s a busy guy.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Maybe he’s with his mom and his cell on silent?

Of course. That settles it for sure, but through it all there is a nagging doubt, a hair in the soup, so to speak.

I settle back to my desk and call again when Daryl is out.

No answer.

I call an hour later, cursing myself for suddenly turning into one of those needy beings I’ve silently rolled my eyes at for so long.

Come another two attempts at the end of the day and I’m worried.

Doubt starts to quilt its way through my thoughts, threading itself through them until I’m questioning everything.

Yes, he did stay the night, but maybe he’s lost interest now we’ve had sex. Maybe he really is a ‘hit it and quit it’ kind of guy.

Maybe you just weren’t a very good lay.

I gulp hard at this, thinking back to the way he gripped me with his own release, the smile on his face as we lay side by side that first time… and the many times following. Surely that wasn’t an act.

But now I’m not so sure. It seems like he’s avoiding my calls, and I’m running out of reasons why.

I concentrate on work instead, but I barely get anything done. The sun is low outside, cutting across the partitions. The lower it gets, the more I begin to fret and obsess. Calm rationality has never been my strong suit, especially in matters of the heart.

Have a little faith, Shan. Seriously.

I dump the files I have managed to get through on Daryl’s desk while he’s away, shutting down my computer and heading out.

I turn the corner to the elevators and come awfully close to taking Daryl out.

I stand aside. “Sorry, Daryl.”

He smiles, pointing to his office. “You got a second, Shannon?”

I swallow hard again. He hasn’t called me into his office since Gabe’s little visit. I’ve heard barely a peep from him and thought he’d moved on the next brunette in the office.

I follow him into his office and take a seat, pressing my thighs together tightly while he closes the door and comes around in front of his desk, leaning on it with his hands in his pockets.

The sun’s a peachy orb outside. It drops between the buildings beyond the window.

Daryl’s head is hung. He’s quiet.

This is not good.

Finally, he looks up, awfully more subdued than normal. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to let you go, Shannon.”

I freeze, actually turn solid in the chair. “Sorry?”

His eyes flicker around my cleavage before lifting to my face. “You’ll get a severance package, of course, but I’m afraid I have to move you along.”

Move me along?

Shock turns into confusion turns into anger. “I don’t understand. Is this cost-cutting?”

I have no idea where that idea even comes from.

Daryl shakes his head, lips pursed together smugly. “No, I’m afraid not.”

“Is it… me?” I ask.

He pushes off the desk, standing tall in front of me. “Your performance just isn’t where I need it to be for a PA. It’s as simple as that.

“But I’ve been working hard, really hard.”

He taps the files I left on his desk. “You delivered me a faulty report. I can’t let that slide.”

“You haven’t even read that report yet,” I protest.

He smiles and ignores the question, eyes dropping back down to my chest. I want a shower his look’s so slimy and dirty. I want all the soap in the world.

I want Gabe.

“Let’s just say,” Daryl continues, “you’re just not living up to expectations.”

Asshole! I know exactly what he’s saying now.

Perhaps it’s Gabe rubbing off on me, perhaps I’ve finally had enough, but I stand and step forward, facing Daryl, my finger jabbing at him in accusation. “You’re firing me because I won’t, what? Flirt with you? Sleep with you?”

He puts his hands up. “Now, now, let’s not get into nasty allegations here. I’d hate to add a lawsuit into the mix here.”

“A lawsuit!” I stammer, loud enough for the entire office to hear. “Are you serious? You are the one who’s always coming onto me. You don’t think I’ve noticed?”

He looks me up and down. “You’re really not my type. I prefer my women…”

“Submissive?” I suggest.

“Attractive,” he retorts.

If I could summon the strength to kick him in his tiny, Tinkerbell balls, I would. Instead, I stand there with mouth agape while he moves past me and opens the door, a hand opening out. “I think I’ve said everything I need to.”

I turn and stop before stepping past him. He’s not going to have the last word on this.

I go to speak, but stop.

I can see others watching, their heads perched on their partitions, beady eyes soaking in the drama.

There’s no point, I tell myself. He’s not worth the breath it would take to cut him down.

I straighten my skirt. “Goodbye, Daryl,” I state, keeping my head held high as I make my way to my desk and start to pack up my things. It doesn’t take long.

Even once I’ve made it outside into the fast-chilling air, a box of belongings between my feet, I do not allow myself to cry. I’m not going to give that prick the satisfaction.

I take out my cell and call Gabe again.

“Come on,” I plead. “I need you.”

He doesn’t answer, even now in my time of need.

Something’s definitely wrong.

I just wish I knew what.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

GABE

I’m at a The Hole staring across a table at a dead woman. It sounds like the start of a bad joke, but there’s no denying this is Triss—flesh and blood, real as the glass of whiskey before me.

Her hair’s still raven black, her wide-set eyes full of mystery.

The table we’re sitting at is one of those high-back numbers with the bench that goes the whole way around. It reminds me of a poker table.

I notice she has new scars, a deep, jagged line under her left eye. She looks leaner, wilder than she did before, and I can guess why after what she’s been through.

But it’s her civilian clothing that’s really throwing me off. We met in the military, toured in the military, fucked in the military. Here, back home, she’s a stranger.

She taps her nails, filed short, on the table. “I suppose you want to know what happened?”

I take a hit of whisky, wondering if the burn of it will snap me out of this dream, but when I open my eyes, Triss is still there. I place the glass down. “That would be a start.”

“We can get to that,” she says, her voice throatier than I remember. “But how are you? How’s civilian life?”

“It’s fine,” I reply. “I’m fine.” I can’t let it go. “I need to know what happened, Triss.”

She looks up to the ceiling and exhales. Clearly, she doesn’t want to talk about it, but I need answers.

“I thought you were dead,” I tell her. “I saw, watched…” I can’t bring myself to speak the words.

She pushes a Coke and Beam between her hands. “Alright. You want to know? I’ll tell you.”

I try to brace myself for what comes next.

Her amber eyes look deep into mine, casting for a reaction. “After that bitch blew up, I was injured. I was bad, unconscious, buried under rubble. I came to with fucking concrete in my mouth, but I wasn’t out in the open. I was in a cell.”

I shake my head. “Shit.”

“Yes, shit. Suffice to say, it wasn’t Disneyland. Mickey Mouse wasn’t home.”

I don’t know if I’m ready for the details, and it’s obvious Triss isn’t ready to provide them.

“In short,” she says, “bad things happened—to me, to the others that were there. Some didn’t make it.”

I ask the obvious. “How did you get out?”

Her eyes flicker with life, specks of gold alight. “A mercenary detail raided the place—Eastern European, mostly. I took one of them down with a pencil I stole from one of the guards, almost killed the poor bastard until I realized what was going on. They dropped me off at a hospital, left me a card.”

I pick up my glass again, a sip becoming a gulp. I place it down and turn it slowly with my fingertips. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“I got in touch,” she says. “They’re going back in.”

“The mercenaries?”

“No, the fucking Brady Bunch. Yes, the mercenaries. No one knows I’m alive and I’d like to keep it that way, work as a ghost. I’m sure you can understand the unique opportunities that provides.”

I can.

“These guys operate independently, no red tape or bureaucratic bullshit to weigh them down. They’re fucking lean, baby. No room for fat on a squad like that.”

‘Baby’ throws me, even as I see the burn in her eyes that drew her to me in the first place.

“I don’t want to sit here yapping all day. I want you to go back with me,” she says.

It’s like a sucker-punch to the gut. “You what?”

“Come back with me,” she repeats. “There’s plenty of action, the pay’s fucking amazing, and the chow… They’re living like fucking kings.”

“I can’t. There’s my mother, Matt… I’m done with that life, Triss.”

She laughs in my face, her back straightening. “No, you’re not. A SEAL is never ‘done’ with that life. You can only live out of the ocean for so long before you need to go under again.”

“Triss…”

“Don’t tell me this is about that Shannon girl?”

I’m confused. “How do you know about Shannon?”

“Your mom filled me in,” she says nonchalantly, examining her fingernails, “gave me the full rundown on your recent, and I must say surprising, engagement.” I can’t tell whether she’s going to reach across and stab me in the neck or congratulate me. “Seriously, baby?”

I go to take another swig of the whiskey, but there’s nothing left. Triss wolf-whistles to the bartender and holds up my glass. She’s never been shy.

I breathe slowly. “Look, it just happened, and she’s a nice girl.”

“‘Nice’?” Triss laughs. “Fuck me. Since when do you even use that word? From what your mom told me, she’s like something out of fucking Enchanted.”

The bartender arrives with the whisky, placing it on the table. I look into the glass, Triss reflected in it a hundred different ways.

I’m having trouble consigning myself to the fact that Triss is alive, right here in front of me. I could reach out and touch her if I wanted to.

But I don’t. That’s the cold, hard truth of it.

Triss starts to slide her way around the table. I watch her until she’s sitting right beside me.

“Sorry,” she says, flashing the smile that won me in the first place, when I found her single-handedly changing a tire on a Humvee. Five minutes later we were fucking in the bunker down back, Blackhawks whipping overhead.

A lot’s changed since those days.

“It felt so impersonal sitting over there like a stranger,” she continues, placing her hand on my thigh.

I let it sit there, not sure exactly where’s she going with this.

“Are you angry at me?” I ask her. “Because you should be. It’s my fault.”

She shakes her head. “No, baby. I didn’t join the Rangers for the five-star cuisine. I joined to fight and serve my country, just like you. I knew what I was getting myself into and I was glad for it. I know what happened out there isn’t you fault. I take full, fucking responsibility, you hear?”

I nod once.

Her hand slides between my legs, the palm of her hand pressing tight against my crotch.

Her lips brush against my ear. “Now,” she whispers, “how about we get out here and you can fuck me through the wall like old times?” She bites my earlobe to solidify the message, bites harder than she should. “I knew no civvie girl slice of apple pie could take care of your needs like I can. Is that what you want? Your big, hard cock in my mouth? I know I do.”

There was a time I would have gone for this routine. It wasn’t even that long ago, but miraculous resurrection or not, I think of Shannon and can’t allow myself to head down this road again.

There’s a certain living-on-the-edge madness civilians simply can’t understand. Triss does. That’s what drew me to her—the fine line between life and death overshadowing everything we did. Shannon can never understand it, couldn’t even begin to comprehend what I, what we, have been through.

But does it matter?

I’m fighting with myself for no good reason.

I peel Triss’s hand away and shift to the side. The space between us may as well be a chasm now. “I understand what you’ve been through, Triss, but I can’t do this.”

A biting tone enters her voice. “Can’t or won’t?”

“Look, I’m happy you’re alive, more than you know, but I just need…” I have to take a moment to consider precisely what it is. “Time,” I finish. “I need time to process this.”

I see Triss’s posture relax. She nods. “Fine,” she states, as much life in the word as the concrete walls around us. “I get it.”

She’s obviously hurt, no doubt expected a grand reunion. It kills me to disappoint her, to disappoint anyone, but it’s not right leading her on.

For now, she’s backed off, and maybe it will be alright, I think. Maybe this will work.

She takes my glass and tilts her head back, downing the whiskey completely. She wipes her mouth, her fire-flecked eyes like a lost djinn. “So, tell me about this Shannon chick.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

SHANNON

I’m curled up on the couch with a fake mink blanket, a tub of Ben & Jerry’s Jimmy Fallon ‘The Late Night Dough’ ice cream, and the sugar gliders. A documentary on Netflix about a guy walking a tightrope looks interesting, but I’m barely paying it any attention, mindlessly shoveling Jimmy into my mouth.

I’m cozy, yes, but no amount of warmth or chocolate cookie swirl is going to make me feel better. I’ve lost my job thanks to my pig of a boss, and I’ve probably lost Gabe, too. That’s not to say I ever had him in the first place, but I thought I saw light there for a second, a glimmer of hope I’m not going to die a lonely old lady surrounded by her sixty pets.

As if on cue, my cell starts to buzz its way across the table. I leap for it, Jimmy tumbling over onto the floor, the sugar gliders scrambling for purchase on my sweater.

I answer, don’t even check the screen.

Please don’t be a call center. Please don’t be a call center.

“Shannon.” It’s Gabe.

My chest deflates with relief. “Gabe,” I reply. I immediately want to launch in and ask him where he’s been, but I don’t want to come across as overly needy either.

Impossible as it is, I try to let him do the talking.

“I’m so sorry,” he starts. “I know you’ve been trying to reach me.”

Play it cool. I’m angry, I can’t deny it, but I have to temper my tone here. I have to remind myself we aren’t actually together. “It’s no problem.”

“You sure? Because I had a ton of texts and missed calls here.”

I slap my hand against my forehead. “Ah, yeah. About that…”

“No, let me go first.”

“Okay.”

A slight pause. “Do you remember when I told you about my ex, Triss?”

I’ll remember that name until the day I die. Casual now, Shan. “Sure.”

“Remember I said she died overseas?”

“Yes.” I know where this is going, my fingernails raking my knees.

“Well, I was wrong.” Another pause. “She’s alive. She’s here, in town. She went to see my mother.”

I’m not a jealous person, but a green-eyed monster rises so big, so fast I’m actually a little scared of myself. She went to see Julie?

I picture this Triss with her cool Army tattoos and buff body, walking away into the sunset with my man.

He’s not your man, Shan!

It sounds like a damn sitcom tagline. “Wow,” I offer, knowing I lack the necessary enthusiasm the word dictates, “that’s great.”

What, you wish she was dead?

Of course not, but why come here? Why come to Gabe if she doesn’t want him back.

“It is,” replies Gabe, relief clear.

“How did she… you know…?”

“It’s a long story,” he says, “operational stuff.”

This only makes it worse, makes that green-eyed monster into a towering hulk. “Right.”

“I was just so blindsided at first. I still don’t entirely understand how this all happened.”

I swallow a hard lump in my throat down. “Is she going back?”

“To the Rangers? That’s the thing, the reason she came and found me. She wants me to join a mercenary group, a small band working outside of the regular channels—well-paid work.”

I can see him slipping away from me already. “That’s… great.”

“She wanted to catch up too, of course.”

“And you want to go?” I don’t add ‘with her.’

“Honestly, I’m not sure I want to be involved with that life again.”

I dying to, but I specifically avoid asking if they slept together lest my fragile tiny heart shatter completely. Buffy gives an empathetic squeak next to my ear, working her way up onto the top of my head. “I’m just happy your… friend, is alive. It must be such a relief. Look, I was just about to go to bed, so…”

Sensing something’s up, Gabe adds, “Nothing happened between us, Shannon.”

“I know.”

I’m close to tears. God, I have sex for the first time and subsequently turn into a Hallmark movie.

“You believe me, don’t you?”

I let the question hang, thinking about how to reply, tossing and turning over the right answer in my head.

‘Honesty is the best policy’—my father used to drum that one into me a lot.

“I do believe you, Gabe, even if I might have doubts.”

“Shannon…”

“It’s been a long day. I really just want to rest.”

“Alright.” He says it so quietly it’s hard to pull meaning from those two syllables, but I sense resignation, disappointment perhaps? All day I’ve been trying to reach him and now he’s here all I’m doing is trying to push him away.

His voice comes back. “Matt’s busy, so I have to go and see Mom tonight. I guess I’ll see you soon?”

“Yes,” I reply, unable to summon more than that. “Good night,” I add.

“Good night.”

I hang up, cutting his words short.

Way to ramp up the drama, Shan.

I slump back onto the couch, notice Jimmy’s sugary concoction leaking into the carpet. I right the tub and pull the gliders close. “At least you guys aren’t going to run out on me.”

But what bothers me the most, what truly has me unhinged, is the fact I’m already preparing myself to let Gabe go.

CHAPTER TWENTY

GABE

I can’t shake the conversation as I sit beside Mom’s bed, still can’t get a read on what Shannon was thinking. It was probably a stupid idea to go into so much detail about Triss with her in the first place, but it’s part of who I am. She needs to understand that if this is going to be anything more than casual.

You know you want more.

I do, desperately, but maybe it’s a simple case of incompatibility.

“Gabriel?”

Mom’s eyes flicker open. She’s so pale now it’s hard to distinguish her from the bedsheet. Machines blip beside her, a drip feeding who knows what into the husk of her body.

I take her hand. “Yes, Mom. I’m here.”

A thin smile breaks on her lips. “Did that woman come by again?”

“Shannon?”

“No,” she says, “the one with the black hair, kind of scary-looking.”

“That was Triss, Mom, an old friend.”

“From the military?”

“Yes.”

“Are you cheating on that Shannon girl?” Her glassy eyes almost break me, but I hold it together.

“No, Mom. It’s nothing like that.”

“The way that other woman spoke about you…”

I hate to think what Triss said, how deep she went into our relationship. “I promise, Mom.”

Mom smiles, bright and wide. “Good, good. I like that Shannon. She’ll make a good wife. You take care of her, won’t you? Promise me now.”

I squeeze her hand. “I will, Mom. Don’t you worry about it.”

Her eyes close and she lets out a wispy exhale, settling back to sleep.

The lie’s gone too far and guilt’s eating me dry. I let my mother rest, trying to get comfortable in the chair.

It’s not until eleven I start to doze off, still thinking about Mom’s words. Have I gone too far?

Tell her in the morning. Make it right.

She’ll be heartbroken. I don’t know if I can do it to her.

You’ve done much worse to strangers.

I fall asleep, my heavy thoughts dragging me down.

*

A high-pitched sound wakes me. I take a moment to compose myself, rubbing my eyes.

I immediately sense something is wrong, my instincts, sharpened from years in the service, kicking in.

My eyes open in full. Mom is still there in the bed. It’s still night.

What’s missing?

I hear it before I see it—the heart monitor.

She’s flat-lining.

Fuck.

I jump out of the chair so fast it goes kicking back to the wall. “Mom!” I shout, moving to the bed. I check her pulse with two fingers.

Nothing.

How long has she been like this while I sitting there fucking dozing?

I hit the emergency button beside her head. I call “Nurse! Help!” as loud as I can, the volume of my voice scary.

I force myself to remain calm. You have to be in a situation like this.

I take down the sheet and fold my hands together, starting CPR.

I’ve done this enough to know that, even with CPR, only a small percentage of people pull through.

No. Not on my fucking watch.

“Come on,” I whisper, her breastbone flexing under the heel of my hand. I use my body weight, pressing straight down onto her chest. I aim for thirty compressions followed by two rescue breaths.

Her lips are cold when I press against them, the life and color gone.

“Nurse!” I call again, the alarm sounding.

A group of nurses and a doctor I don’t recognize walk in. I notice there’s no crash cart. What the fuck are they doing?

They’re all standing there around the bed. I look at them puzzled. “What are you doing? I ask. “Why aren’t you helping?”

One of them moves around to me. I think she’s going to take over, but instead her hands fall on my arms, trying to pull me away.

What the fuck is she doing? I know the chance of bringing Mom back is small, but there is a fucking chance.

The nurse continues to tug my arms. “Mr. Reed, you have to stop.”

Stop? Is she insane? “What?” I stammer, breathing harder than I should be.

“I’m very sorry, Mr. Reed, but your mother signed a do-not-resuscitate order.

I continue to work. “A DNR? No, not Mom.”

The nurse nods to another, who comes around and helps attempt pull me away.

The doctor comes around to join them, trying to speak sense to me. “Your mother was in a great deal of pain, Mr. Reed. This is for the best.”

“No!” I shout, becoming emotional, pressing so hard I feel one of her ribs snap. “No!”

The nurses give up.

“Please, Mr. Reed,” implores the doctor.

It’s only when security arrives I finally let go, placing my hands up and stepping back, stepping until I hit the wall and slump to the floor exhausted.

The doctor examines the monitor, checks my mother’s pulse. “Time of death, 1:45am.”

One of the nurses pulls a sheet over her so she’s nothing more than a cotton outline.

I let my head fall into my hands.

My temples are beating. Everything’s happening so far away, like I’m deep underwater, the oxygen thin.

A hand falls lightly on my shoulder. It’s the doctor. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Reed. Is there anyone we can call?”

I lift my head, breathe in. “No, I’ll do it.”

I watch them wheel her away before heading out to the waiting room, empty this time of night save for the intermittent buzz of the vending machine.

The initial shock has passed, the adrenaline pulling away to leave a vapid numbness in its wake.

I call Matt, staring at my own, abstract reflection in the window.

He answers. “What the fuck, Gabe? It’s 2:30am.”

“Mom’s gone.”

Three seconds of silence pulse by before he answers. “What?”

“About an hour ago, in her sleep. I wasn’t even awake.”

“Jesus. Should I come down?”

“No, it’s fine,” I tell him, my voice detached.

Matt starts to cry, his voice breaking. “I can’t believe it. I mean, I knew… eventually, but it’s just so...”

“Matt, it’s for the best,” I tell him, repeating the doctor’s words. “She’s not in pain anymore.”

A sniff, correction. “I’m coming, right now.”

“Matt…”

“I’ll see you soon,” and he hangs up, my reflection still staring me down.

I look back to the screen of my cell wondering who to call next. Mom didn’t have any close friends or acquaintances. She was in here so much they’re made up largely of doctors and hospital staff. Apart from distant cousins and uncles, Matt and I were her only family.

When I go to dial again my fingers move without thought, like automatons.

It takes four rings for her to answer. “Gabe? Is everything alright?” comes Shannon’s silky voice.

“My mother, she passed tonight.”

“Oh, Gabe.”

“I’m okay. Matt’s coming down.”

I could have called Triss. She gave me her number. Triss and I have a history. We spoke about my mother and her condition in great length abroad. Why didn’t I call her? It’s not a question I think I can answer right now.

“I’m coming too,” says Shannon. “The hospital’s not far. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

I try to stop her, tell her I’ll be fine, but she won’t have it, hanging up much in the same way Matt did.

You should be thankful she cares.

But the truth is I don’t want her to see me like this, as half a man, as weak.

Shannon arrives before Matt, dressed in a Clemson University sloppy sweatshirt and slacks. She rushes up to me and throws her arms around my neck, pulling me close to her.

It’s nice—her warmth, the vanilla scent of her neck I’ve come to know so well. But I’m not used to this kind of affection, this tenderness. It’s not something Triss was big on.

Shannon holds herself away from me. “Why don’t we take a seat?”

I nod and sit beside her against the wall, another group of nurses rushing past as an alarm sounds down the hall.

Another cotton blanket. Another empty room.

I know wetness is welling in my eyes, tears wanting to break free, but I hold them at bay. I’m so deeply ashamed by it, so embarrassed, I can’t bring myself to look Shannon in the eye.

Instead, she takes my head in her hands and turns it until I’m facing her, her eyes as glassy as my own, the empathy clear. And I know in that moment she is genuine, that the care and concern is real. But the question remains, do I deserve it?

I exhale hard. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” she says, her own voice cutting, “you have every right, and you should. It’s a terrible thing, losing a parent.”

“She’s not going to see me get married. She’s not going to see her grandchildren, a sunrise, the fucking ocean again… She’s gone.” With those words the finality of it sinks in.

I’ve had countless friends killed in action. Many of them were family, but death never struck me as hard as it does now, a sharp knife driving deep into a part of my chest I didn’t even know existed.

We stare at each other, Shannon and I, the alarm that was sounding in the background cutting off.

Shannon kisses me, my face still in her hands, her own salty tears passing between us.

I return the kiss, lifting my hands to her face, caught by everything she has come to represent to me. I finally realize what it is, what it would mean to be with Shannon.

Freedom.

When we break apart, our foreheads remain pressed together, her tears now falling straight onto the vinyl of the seat.

Shannon pulls back and wipes her face, smiling. “It’s going to be okay, I promise. It’s all going to be okay.”

I sit back and tuck her into my side with an arm.

“I’ve got you,” she says, and it’s with shocking clarity I realize she does.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

SHANNON

I drive Gabe’s car back to my place. We clean up and head to my bedroom silently, Gabe on the end of the bed staring straight ahead. I sit beside him, just as we did that special night. Funny, it feels so long ago now.

“You have every right to be upset, Gabe. It’s natural. You don’t have to be a superhuman around me.”

“That’s not it. Mom wouldn’t want this at all.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

“Me, upset. She wanted us to be happy when she passed, to celebrate.

I place my hand against his cheek and turn him towards me. “So celebrate.”

He crushes his mouth against mine, the emotion of the last few hours spilling over.

We strip quickly, clothes flying to the floor.

Naked, he breaks from my mouth to lick up the side of my neck.

My hand snakes around his cock, my thumb against his thick glans.

I want him inside me. I want him to lose himself there, in the warm comfort of my pussy.

I let go of his cock and crawl into the center of the bed on my knees, parting my thighs.

His hands fall onto the hard buns of my ass. He lines his cock up with my pussy and prepares to press forward.

I turn my head and watch him, those azure eyes full of need. I can smell my own arousal, the earthy heat of my pussy.

He drives inside me in a single, firm stroke, burying himself deep in my wetness.

I place one hand up against the headboard, bracing myself as he slams into me, his cock angling upwards against the wrinkled roof of my vagina. I can’t believe how wet I am, my inner walls hot and slick.

Whatever emotions he’s going through, he’s letting them free through this act.

I moan and buck as he pounds into me, my mouth caught open in a strange ring of pleasure.

He builds into a quick rhythm, sweating hard, his hands slipping off my back in his frenzy.

He takes me hard and rough, first in short, stabbing strokes and then drawing them out long and slow, filling me over and over until I’m begging helplessly for release.

I find it, knuckles bone-pale as I grip the headboard.

I scream, my pussy clamping around his cock so tight I worry I’m going to cut it off.

I pant with my head down, my hair hanging down to the quilt.

The peak of my climax passes, allowing me to concentrate solely on his pleasure, and that’s when an overwhelming need to please him wells up.

He goes to slide back in, but I reach around to take hold of his cock. I pull it free and shift it between my buttocks, placing him against the tight button of my anus.

“Are you sure?” he asks, breathing hard.

“Yes,” I tell him. “I want you to.” I swallow before speaking again. Say it. “I want you to fuck me in the ass.”

My dirty talk is more than enough incentive.

I let my head fall onto the mattress and reach behind myself to pull my ass cheeks apart with two hands.

He lets his slip cock away, and for a moment I think I’ve overdone it, pushed him too far in this delicate, sensitive time, but he slides his index finger into my pussy, scooping up my own arousal against my anus. He’s preparing me.

He eases his finger back and forth in that taboo space, slowly getting me used to the sensation. Ever since that day sky-diving, his finger brushing my asshole on the parachute silk, I’ve wanted to do this, fulfill the last taboo.

He works my ass as I moan and purr, sighing when his finger leaves and he runs a hand over the soft mound of my backside.

Still breathing hard, he angles his cock upwards against the tight twist of my asshole, pressing the head of his huge member forward past the ring of muscle there.

All the air in my lungs is expelled in a raspy gasp as he slides inside my ass. I grunt, this sudden fantasy turned into reality. It doesn’t hurt at all. In fact, it feels good—tight and warm and so, so dirty.

Gabe pushes forward another inch more and then pulls out before repeating the process, over and over until half of his giant shaft is buried deep in my rump.

I masturbate openly with my hand between my legs, two joined fingers moving in a frenzied circle over my clit.

I buck back against him, impaling myself on his cock as he picks up the pace and begins to fuck my ass harder.

“Yes,” I moan. “Yes.”

He lets out a hiss as my ass narrows, his cock compressed deep inside my body.

He lifts up and uses all of his weight to screw down inside me.

Pleasure ripples out from my core, the sensation completely new but welcome all the same.

Bellowing, he holds my ass open and drives forward with everything he has.

“God,” I rattle out, another orgasm incoming.

I pant hard as he pounds into me, slamming his cock into my behind. My pussy yawns wide below his pumping cock, its center slick and shiny.

I add more pressure to my clit, jamming myself backwards to take more of his length.

I moan and whimper as our bodies thump together, arousal wet against the side of my thighs, running in a thin trail down my wrist as his cock starts to twitch inside me.

His balls tighten and lift. He speeds up, hammering in harder.

It’s sweet torture. I mutter disjointed syllables, close to madness.

I can’t hold off any longer. With a pained cry, I come, my ass squeezing around his cock, the walls of it palpitating.

He thrusts in to the balls and releases, flooding my ass.

It goes on and on, the heightened sensation an unending ocean of pleasure.

Finally, spent, I collapse one way and Gabe the other, the exhaustion clear on both of us.

I’m still in a euphoric haze as I watch the ceiling, every muscle in my body limp.

Slowly, I sit up. My cheeks are flushed and a crease of hair is stuck to my forehead. I must look like I’ve run a marathon.

Gabe has his eyes closed. I wonder if, having come so hard, the emotion and sadness will rush back to him, but when they do open, there’s a smile on his face.

“Was that celebration enough for you?” I ask.

“Celebration?” he says. “No. That was something else entirely.”

*

I open my eyes looking sideways across my bedroom at the window. A solid wall of light stares back.

I hesitate to roll over. Is he still here?

Do it quickly, like pulling off a Band-Aid.

I roll over expecting nothing but disheveled blankets, but Gabe is there, sleeping like a baby but looking for all the world like some Greek god who actually fell from heaven to land bang smack in the middle of my bed.

I’m gloriously worn out from last night, and yes, while it did come from unfortunate circumstances, the connection we shared was so deep, so powerful I’m certain now there’s more to this than a simple agreement.

His eyes flicker open. He smiles. “Morning, beautiful.”

I lean on my elbow. “Sorry you didn’t get much sleep.”

“Who needs sleep when you can have that every night?”

Amen.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I ask.

He brings his arms behind his head, staring at the ceiling. “I am. She went peacefully, happy, and I think I can find some comfort in that. I was there. Not overseas, stuck in some remote corner of the world.”

He rolls up onto his elbow, hand under his chin to mirror me. He notices the clock to my right. “Jesus. It’s nine o’clock. Shouldn’t you be at work?”

I collapse back into the pillow. “About that… I was fired.”

“You were what?”

“Well, ‘let go’ was the term he used.”

“Who? Your asshole of a boss, if he fired you because—”

I sit up and place my hand on Gabe’s chest. “It’s okay, really. I’m over it.”

“What are you going to do?”

I let my hand run down between his legs, find his cock hot and hard. “I’m going to make you happy, and then I’m going to make you breakfast. How does that sound?”

He smiles. “In-fucking-credible.”

*

Afterwards, I leave Gabe in the shower while I feed the children and start making breakfast.

The smell of eggs and bacon is strong in the air as Gabe wanders in, his hair still wet, only jeans to clothe him.

He sits at the breakfast table. “It smells amazing.”

I’m wearing a blue ‘World’s Okayest Cook’ apron… and nothing else.

I give my butt a little flex, squeezing my cheeks together. “How about the view?”

His lips pout together. “Fucking amazing. Do I get this kind of treatment every morning?”

I return back to the frying pan, moving things around with a wooden spoon. “If you like. Is this your roundabout way of telling me you’re moving in?”

The children are loud down the back. “It sounds like you’ve got quite enough house guests already.”

I turn off the element and start to plate up. “True, but cute as they are, they can’t hold a candle to you.”

He looks down between his legs. “You just want me for my giant cock.”

I shrug. “Amongst other things.”

I take out utensils from the drawer, taking the plates over and placing it all down on the table.

Gabe looks distant as he watches me.

“It’s okay to grieve,” I tell him, “to take the time.”

He picks up his fork. “No, Mom wouldn’t have wanted me sulking around the place. She wanted to be remembered for what she was, not what she became.”

“That’s sweet.”

“That was Mom.”

The tense hangs there. Memories of Dad’s passing come back, but so much time has passed they no longer upset me. Like Gabe said, I think of him and only remember the good times, the happy memories made under this roof. I have no doubt he would have approved of Gabe—maybe not of his wild scheme, but definitely would have respected his service, his considerate manner.

We finish up and wash the dishes together.

Gabe leans against the sink. “I should really go see Matt. You saw at the hospital last night. He came and left almost right away. He’s taking this hard. I don’t want him to be alone.”

“Do you want me to come?”

Gabe shakes his head. “No. Honestly, it’s going to be a little awkward, and to be fair this is a family thing. You didn’t know my mother well. Hell, you don’t even know me that well.”

I don’t think he means for it to be offensive, but that’s how it comes across. Still, I smile and play it off. “That’s a good thing, isn’t it? It means there’s a lot to learn.”

He smiles back, his forehead creasing. “And I can’t wait to find out every dirty little secret you’ve got, Shannon Bailey, but for now my brother needs me.”

“I understand. I’m going to head out and drop off some resumes anyhow, drop by the bank. I got a severance package. Daryl allowed me that, at least.”

“You owe nothing to that prick.”

“I know, but it’s time for something better anyhow, a new chapter in the Chronicles of Shannon.”

“Sounds like Game of Thrones.”

“Well, I don’t know about dragons, but there’s certainly a lot of sex in it.”

He pushes off the bench to kiss me, his hand moving down to cup my crotch through the apron. “And more to come.”

Gabe leaves for Matt’s place. I take the time to skim over my resume, fussing over the smallest of details. Frankly, I need the distraction. I look for job leads, taking screenshots of addresses and potential workplaces with my cell. It’s going to be a busy afternoon.

By lunch, I’m ready to roll. I text Gabe on my way out the door, consider sending him something flirty, but I’m blushing just thinking about it, blushing thinking about the way I could barely control my body and how I came so hard this morning.

‘How R U managing?’ I text.

A reply comes back a minute later: ‘Matt is OK. There is a lot to do though. C U 4 dinner?’

Or maybe dessert. ‘Sure,’ I text back, ‘just stepping out go get my dream job.’

‘Go get ’em, beautiful,’ he replies, with a kiss emoji.

Swoon. And he’s all yours, kiddo.

My teeth are hurting he’s being so sweet right now. I’m starting to feel like this could be an actual thing.

Is it? My head retorts. Perhaps. The poor guy’s just lost his mother. He’s in the middle of something extremely painful whether it’s showing or not. Perhaps it’s best not to read into it too much.

I smile to myself as I lock the door for being so sensible today. I feel productive, alive. I feel like I can take on the world.

I start to walk down the street. It’s a beautiful day. I half expect a bluebird to land trilling on my shoulder.

I’m not thirty feet from my door when I notice a woman walking towards me. As she gets closer, I go to smile and walk on, but she stops in front of me, blocking the path.

“Shannon, right?” she says.

I pull up. “Yes.” She has shoulder-length black hair, a collection of small scars on her face, a larger one under her left eye, but she’s otherwise beautiful in a don’t-fuck-with-me kind of way. “I’m sorry, have we met?”

She puts her hand out. “I’m Triss.”

Oh, crap.

I take it, her grip firm. I swallow before speaking, sure she can see it. “Nice to meet you,” I splutter. I want to ask her why she’s here, but there’s only one thing we have in common.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m here,” she says.

Bingo.

She smiles, but it’s unnatural, forced. “I just wanted to come here and apologize.”

I didn’t expect that. “Apologize?”

“For keeping Gabe out the other day. Nothing happened, of course, but I do want to get to know you.”

“Oh? I squeak out.

“For sure. I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d swing by. Do you have plans for lunch?”

I’ve got a folder under my arm, my ticket out of this awkwardness, but I am curious about Gabe’s past, even if this does feel unsettling.

Maybe she’s genuinely trying to be friendly, bury the hatchet.

I’m not sure there was a hatchet to begin with given we’ve never met, but somehow I picture it buried in my back.

“I’ve got time, sure,” I reply, against better judgement.

And there’s that crazy smile again. “Great. We have so much to talk about.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

GABE

I’ve never been in a funeral home in my life, but I suppose there’s a first time for everything. The well-suited man in front of me is speaking slowly and quietly, with reverence, as he runs us through the paperwork.

“Yes, sign here. Thank you. And here. Wonderful. Yes, very good. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

I’ve watched a lot of boxes being loaded onto planes abroad, bodies, or what was left of them, sent back to loved ones. But seeing the coffins arranged around us here, a showroom of death, I’m suddenly numb. I try to search for an emotion, but I’m blank inside.

Matt offers to pay, of course, but I won’t have it. You save up a lot of money when you’re holed up in the middle of a desert with nothing to blow it on.

The home is small, quaint, but it somehow seems suitable. Matt told me Mom made it clear she didn’t want a fancy coffin or unnecessary expense, didn’t even want a funeral—frugal to the end, not wanting to be a burden on her sons. She wanted to be cremated, couldn’t even handle being an encumbrance to the earth and soil itself.

But I can’t let her death go unremarked. The funeral will be small, but at least Matt and I will be there to celebrate her, respect the woman and mother she was.

Our next meeting is with a lawyer downtown. His office is the complete antithesis of the funeral home, his desk filled with family photos, a bright, abstract artwork framing the wall behind him.

He smiles at us while he works through the papers.

Matt is looking out the window. He’s been distant all day. I know he’s struggling with this. After all, he spent a lot longer with Mom in her final weeks than I did, saw the full measure of how the disease systematically broke her down.

At least in battle it’s usually over quickly—a bullet to the brain or an RPG turning you to mist. Cancer, with its slow creep towards death, is a fucking monster.

“Are you aware your mother didn’t have life insurance?” says the lawyer.

I nod. “We are, but the funeral’s been arranged and paid for.”

The lawyer smiles back. “Excellent. Now, onto the matter of her estate.”

Matt brings his attention back to the lawyer.

He looks from Matt to I. “To put it bluntly, there’s not a great deal here. She rented. There’s the car, a 1971 Toyota Corolla, a few personal effects and so forth.”

“It’s alright,” I tell the lawyer, trying to make it clear neither of us are here for a cash grab. “She wasn’t that big on fancy things.”

He shuffles the papers together. “Yes.” He’s looking back down at the paperwork. “Actually, Gabriel, there was one, final amendment here…”

*

Matt turns to me in the elevator. “I suppose you don’t have to keep this charade with Shannon going any longer then.”

It hadn’t even occurred to me. “I suppose so.”

Matt faces the elevator doors, hands in his pockets. He’s wearing the same clothes he was in last night. I feel like I have to add something. “Shannon… She’s not what I’d ever look for, consider, but I guess...” I don’t know where I’m going with this.

“What?” snaps Matt. “No more short-term stripper girlfriends and Navy girls? No Major Payne pussy like Triss?”

“Easy,” I warm him, starting to bristle.

He’s not done. He puts his hands up. “Fine. I apologize. How is she, Triss? Is she… all there?”

The door’s open. We step out into the underground garage.

“I’m not sure,” I reply. “She wants me to join this mercenary group with her, a contractor thing.”

Matt stops, tugging on my arm. “Fuck that!” he shouts, his voice echoing around us. “You just got back, just like that.”

I don’t know where this sudden anger is coming from. “Matt—”

He shoves me away, his eyes wet. “No, fuck that. Shit, man. I just lost Mom. I don’t want to lose you too.”

I’m not sure what to say to that, so I simply turn and keep walking to the car. “Come on.”

I drop Matt off and head home, standing in the middle of my apartment. Boxes are still piled by the doorway, unopened, like I’m still in transit.

There’s only one thing I think of doing.

I call Shannon.

She doesn’t answer. I text her instead.

I fix a snack—the world’s saddest spaghetti—and try Shannon again, but she’s still not answering out.

Probably out securing that dream job.

I let it go for another hour before calling again. It’s unlike her not to reply.

Three hours more and I’m getting concerned.

This is probably how she felt the other day trying to get hold of me, and where was I? With Triss.

You’re not needy, I remind myself. You are not that guy.

In truth, I don’t know what I am anymore without mortars flying overhead and bullets zinging past.

I tell myself she’s probably in an interview or something, unable to reply. It makes perfect, logical sense, but even so, a terrible sinking dread begins to swell up inside me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

SHANNON

I hear laughter, but it’s distant—way off.

Someone, or something, is slapping the side of my face.

I come to, my head sloshing from side to side, my sense of direction lost.

My eyes start to focus.

Things fill in real fast after that.

I’m groggy, my head is pounding, but I know danger when I see it.

I’m not at lunch with Triss anymore.

I vaguely recall we were having a good time. She drove us to this trendy burger bar with skateboard decks turned into tables and a young, fashionable crowd. I ordered the mushroom burger, a soda. We talked about Gabe… I think. Triss was kind of cool about it all. It gets mushy after that, my memory disjointed.

The burger bar is gone. I’m bound to a metal chair in what appears to be a small warehouse of some sort, holes in the roof and pallets piled high against the walls. Triss is standing in front of me smiling smugly. The scar under her left eye looks darker.

She crouches down to my level. “Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty.”

“What’s going on?” I ask, but the words slur, my tongue thick and numb in my mouth.

She smiles wider, little, sharp teeth showing through. “I guess lunch didn’t agree with you. So we’re clear, though, I drugged you.”

“You what?”

“I slipped something into your drink. Thank God for the dark web, right?”

She’s not beating around the bush. No, Triss seems like the sort of person who says exactly what she means… and means what she says.

She licks her lips, staring down between her boots.

“Please, what’s happening?” I ask.

“I didn’t want to taser you,” she continues. “It’s nasty stuff, leaves a mark. I didn’t club you over the head either. You’ve got to be thankful about that.”

She’s insane, I think.

I go to move my hands, but they’re handcuffed together, my ankles bound to the chair legs. I’m not going anywhere.

“As abductions go,” says Triss, still crouching, “I’d say this is all pretty humane. If you’ve been where I’ve been…. Holy shit. They don’t fuck around in other parts of the world.” Her face folds with concern. “Do you have a headache?”

I nod.

“It’ll pass. I kept the dosage low.” She laughs to herself. “I didn’t want you fucking dying on me. I’m a bitch, but I’m not that fucking nasty. Well, not yet.” She laughs again, a low-pitched ‘ha, ha, ha’ that doesn’t gel with her outward appearance.

Stay calm, stay calm, I tell myself, but I’m freaking out. Triss has training. She’s probably done this before, in the Rangers. She’s killed people, no doubt, and she’s clearly unhinged. Whatever happened to her overseas has messed with her head.

The temperature is mild, but I’m sweating hard, my breathing uneven. What I do know is that I have to figure out what she wants with me, and fast. I can work from there, try to make her see sense.

I come right out with it, my head pounding. “What do you want with me?”

Triss stands, a finger on her chin. “Hmm, what do I want? What do I want?” She clicks her fingers. “Really, Shannon, I’m doing you a favor here.”

“I’m sorry?” The way my back is being forced against the chair hurts. Panic’s pressing to take over, but I force myself to keep it at bay.

“Gabe and I are meant for each other,” declares Triss, calm as if she were reading from a recipe book. “We’ve seen things together, done things together, done things you can’t even begin to imagine. What could you possibly offer him, a fucking civilian? Besides, we have debts to pay, the two of us. Gabe will see that, see what he’s doing here, the mistake he’s making.” She starts to pace. “There’s a question of trust, too, because Gabe’s ultimately going to hurt you anyways. He always does. I mean, fuck, he hurt me worst of all, but then I can take the pain. It’s almost like a friend now. After the shit I went through I’ve got a whole new tolerance for it.” She crouches. “As for you… I’m guessing you can barely stand to break a nail.”

“Triss, please. Let me go.” I know how it sounds, but I have to try.

She ignores me. “I’m here to open his eyes, and yours—literally, if I have to—make sure everyone is on the same, pretty page.”

I wonder if Gabe knows how unbalanced Triss has become, but somehow I think she’s managed to keep this side of herself well hidden. What she’s been through… It’s clearly broken something deep inside her psyche, which is why I have to be especially careful here. Triss has killed people. She’s probably seeing this as another operation.

I press that fear right down as far as I can and swallow, speaking even though my lips are so dry my tongue’s sandpaper against them. I try a different tact. “Why don’t you let Gabe decide who he wants to be with?”

She stands and rounds on me. “Let him decide?” she laughs. “He doesn’t know what’s good for him.”

“But shouldn’t it be his decision?”

I can almost hear the cogs turning in her head, the logic being squeezed aside to be replaced with something far more sinister.

I keep going. “I just don’t see how this is going to help you. If you let me go, I promise I won’t say anything to him. We can all just…” I struggle to get it out it sounds so ridiculous, “sit down and talk it through.”

The laugh that comes back at me is thick and loud, booming in the hollow space of the warehouse. “Talk? Politicians fucking talk, you know. They jabber away while people like Gabe and me, actual feet on the ground, are torn to pieces thanks to bad intel or clear neglect for human fucking life.” She uses her fingers to air-quote. “Fucking ‘talk’ never got anything done in the real world.”

I’m worried she’s gearing up for a battle to the death, hand-to-hand combat. If it comes down to that, I’m screwed.

Triss appears to settle somewhat, crouching again and shuffling a bit closer to me. “Look, we are going to talk. I intend to have a nice, long chat about all of this.” She places her hand on my knee, her tone reassuring. “I’m not completely unreasonable. Don’t worry. Just sit tight here for, I don’t know, a couple of days, maybe a week at most, and we’ll go from there, okay?”

So that’s how it’s going to be—Triss’s masterplan.

“Once Gabe realizes you skipped out on him,” she continues, “once he figures you’re out of town or whatever, you can go back to your boring old civilian life and hook up with someone more appropriate… A therapist, maybe? Something tells me you’re going to need one.”

Triss turns to leave. She’s going to walk right out of here. The panic I’ve been suppressing geysers up into the loudest scream I can muster, my throat burning with the effort.

Big mistake.

Triss spins and slaps me hard across the face. My head snaps sideways. I swear I felt my brain rattle around in my skull from the force of it.

“Tr—” I start to slur, until a great thumping begins between my eyes.

I pass out, my head slumping to my shoulder.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

GABE

I park the four-wheel-drive out the front of Shannon’s place and step out.

I decide to try her cell one more, but it’s not even ringing now. She must have turned it off.

I stand there for a moment as a trio of mothers with strollers pass, all heads turned in my direction. I smile back, but I’m thinking of Shannon.

I’m listening to my gut and it’s telling me something’s off here.

The strong sunlight at my back casts a shadow onto the door as I knock.

No answer.

I knock again and press the doorbell for good measure.

Nothing.

It’s close to sunset, past business hours. She should be home by now.

I consider breaking in, maybe swinging around the back for a better look, but her neighbor is watering the garden beside me, humming to himself. Given the soaking he’s giving a single rose bush, it looks like he’s going to be out here for a while.

I come down the steps and walk over to him. “Hi,” I start.

“Hey there,” he smiles. “You looking for Shannon?”

“Yes, sir.”

He points down the street. “I saw her heading down that way earlier.”

“Was she with anyone?”

He shrugs. “Sorry, son. I had to head inside—nature calling and all that. You military?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Navy, right?”

“How’d you guess?”

“Something about the way you walk.”

I’ve heard this one before. “Like I’ve got a stick up my ass?”

He chuckles. “No, son. You walk like you’d rather be running.”

*

I stand against the car wondering what to do. I call Triss.

She answers on the first ring. “Is this a booty call, baby, because I am down.”

“I’m afraid not.”

A pouty moan of disappointment follows. “That’s a shame. We can hang. We don’t have to fuck.”

I get on with it. “You haven’t seen Shannon, have you?”

“Shannon?” she replies. “No, can’t say I have. Is everything okay?”

I debate how much to tell her, but I’ve always been able to count on Triss. She’s been rock solid. “I can’t get hold of her. To be honest, I’m a bit worried. It’s not her just to up and disappear like this.” I think of her animal family. “She’s got responsibilities.”

“Why do you need to see her so bad?”

I choose my words carefully. “I need to sort some stuff out with her, figure which way I’m going to go.”

It’s a lie. I already know I want to be with Shannon.

Triss remains sympathetic. “Well, I’m sure she’s fine, and I get it, Gabe. I do. Maybe after your mom died she just wanted to make a clean cut, get out of here. Shit, if I was in that girl’s shoes that’s what I’d do. I mean, it’s not as if you guys were even that serious, right?”

I never told Triss Mom died. The temptation to press her on this is strong, but I hold back.

My chest starts to tighten.

I’m being played.

Fuck.

I need to work out what’s really happening here, and straight out aggression isn’t going to cut it. I have to be smart. “You know, you’re right. We should get together. Where are you?”

She sees right through it, her hesitation hanging heavy on the line. “Well, shit,” she says, finally, calm as a millpond, “I fucked that up, didn’t I?”

“Triss, where’s Shannon?”

She ignores the question. “I always let shit like that slip. You remember? I’ve never been good at holding my tongue… except when it’s wrapped around your cock, of course.”

I’m sick of holding back. “Triss, where the fuck is Shannon?”

She’s being way too casual about this. It doesn’t bode well.

“Calm down, Navy. There are all kinds in the group, you know—MARSOC, Spetsnaz, SAS… It’s a fucking fruit salad of badassery. You’d love it. I know you would.”

“Triss!”

“Shut it,” she snaps. “Look, if I can forgive you for leaving me to fucking die, the least you can do is forgive me for showing you how much better off you’ll be without that civvie bitch slowing you down. You belong with me, back in your element. I know that takes time, but you better start thinking about it, because this is a limited time offer, baby.”

She hangs up.

I heave the cell against the road in anger. “Fuck!”

The neighbor looks over before hurrying back inside.

Think. Think it out.

I try to call Triss back, but her cell’s been switched off. She’s gone dark.

I scroll through my contacts until my finger lands on Jason.

“’SC,” he answers. “I’ve got a six-pack here and only two hands. You keen?”

“Jase,” I start, “I need your help.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

SHANNON

I come to and immediately want to go back under. My cheek throbs where Triss slapped me, my vision wavering.

Three identical Trisses sit on a milk crate in front of me.

I reel back until I realize they’re holding out open bottles of water.

Slowly, three become one, which is even more terrifying.

She’s not looking at me like I’m a human being. She’s looking at me like I’m something far less—an animal in a cage.

Prey.

A wave of nausea threatens to overcome me, but I manage to swallow it back by closing my eyes.

She’s still there when I open them.

She pushes the water bottle forward towards my lips. “Go on. Drink.”

I can’t see the point of drugging me again, so I place my lips over the neck of the bottle and sip. When I pull them away I realize my nose is bleeding, the iron tang of stale blood has settled on my lips.

This is real. This is happening.

I can’t move. All I can do is keep talking to her.

Triss takes a stack of tissues from her pocket and turns the water bottle upside-down into it, using the wet tissues to dab and clean my face.

I wince when she runs over my cheek.

“Yeah,” she nods, “that one’s going to glow real good in the morning”.

She moves to my eye and I wince again.

She shakes her head. “My, my, you are a delicate little flower, aren’t you? But we can’t have you looking like an MMA fighter now, can we? How would you ever pick up a guy?”

I’m on the verge of tears, but I refuse to cry in front of her. “Triss,” I plead, “please, let me go. I won’t say anything. You have my word.”

She laughs. “I’ve come to realize ‘my word’ doesn’t mean much in the real world.”

I attempt to bring Gabe into it, unsure of how she’s going to react. “The way Gabe spoke about you… I can tell he really cares about you.”

Triss tosses the water bottle behind herself, fingers running over the tissues in her hand, a Rorschach test of blood bloomed pink. “Is that so?”

“You’ve been through things—unimaginable things. He told me all about it.”

Triss continues to nod. Maybe I am making progress here.

Buoyed, I continue. “I know you’ve been hurt, but you won’t come back from this, not in Gabe’s eyes.” Here it comes. “But, if you let me go, who knows? Maybe we could be friends.”

Triss continues to stroke the tissues in the absence of a reply. I keep going. “I wish I could be strong like you, I really do, but I’m not. I’m weak.”

“You are,” she acknowledges, still not making eye contact.

“Yes, you’re right.” I’m speaking faster, rushing to get it out. “I’m useless. I’m nothing.”

She looks up to me.

Is she reconsidering?

I’m getting through to her. I’m doing it.

…Until Triss reaches behind her back and returns with a pistol in one hand. She lines it up with my forehead.

I freeze.

No. Not like this.

“Shannon, Shannon, Shannon,” she tuts. “What am I to do with you?”

She takes the pistol away, cradling it in her hands, inspecting and caressing it. “Do you think what you’re going through here, this little ‘ordeal,’ is something special?” She jabs the gun at me. “It’s fucking nothing. Shit like this goes down all the time, every god-damn day of the week over there. You’re not special.”

I can’t speak, but even if I could I’m not sure what I could say, what could possibly make a difference here.

“Do you want to know what I went through, when Gabe left me in that alley?”

I remain stiff and quiet.

“Let me tell you. Let me tell you all about it.” She pulls the milk crate forward until her breath is hot on my face, her legs in-between mine. “They start with something they call the ‘humiliation.’ No prizes for guessing what that entails. After that, they hosed me off and stripped me down, bending me at the waist and forcing my head, neck and legs into a car tire. I couldn’t fucking move at all. They asked questions, the same questions, while they ripped into me. Most had bats, sticks, but one of them had this braided electrical cable bullshit. That fucking hurt. And that went on, and on, and on. I passed out. I woke up. They didn’t let you sleep, shit… nothing. Over and over they went with the questions. Chains, car batteries, cattle prods… You don’t even want to know where they put that fucking shit. But I gave them nothing, not a word.”

I can make out the color in her iris she’s so close, the fiery pattern of it spreading out from the bottomless black of her pupils. I can’t imagine the things she’s describing, what it would do to someone. “I’m sorry, Triss.”

She points to the scar under her eye. “This beauty? They did this with a fucking butter knife. Who the fuck does that? Heating it up in a fire, pressing it into my face. Fucking animals.”

She shakes her head looking up at the roof. A sliver of hope works its way inside me that yes, maybe I am getting through here, that I’m relating to her somehow. “You think I’d be broken after something like that, wouldn’t you?” she says.

“I, I don’t know,” I stutter.

“You know what? That experience cut something out of me, surgically removed this thing I never knew was keeping me down. I should thank those bastards in a way, for making me stronger, stronger than I ever thought possible, more than human.”

Now’s the time. “We can get you help.”

“’We?’” laughs Triss. “Save the appeals, little girl. I don’t give a fuck, and if Gabe won’t see we belong together, that he owes me that much at least, then…” she cuts off. “I suppose it’s best for you if I don’t speculate.”

She stands and kicks the crate away, tapping the pistol against her leg. “By the way, Gabe called while you were snoozing.”

Hope blooms again, but fades fast when I realize he’s not here. I’ve got to keep her talking. “What did he say?”

“He hasn’t even noticed you’ve gone, you know. He couldn’t care less.” She shrugs. “Oh, well. It’s all for the best, I suppose.”

She smiles and walks off, the gun continuing to tap against her thigh.

She reaches the side door and opens it, disappearing from sight.

Sitting there, it all becomes clear.

She’s going to kill me.

I don’t know why she hasn’t already.

I try to shift against the cuffs, but they’re too tight.

Breathe. Just… breathe.

I take stock. Gabe has no idea where I am. I don’t have my job anymore, so no one else knows I’m missing.

Think.

It comes to me. I remember Gabe talking about the time he had to break his thumb to get out of handcuffs. What did he say?

I try to piece that conversation together, but there’s so much noise in my head right now it’s hard to concentrate. My heart’s pumping hard, my pulse racing.

I force myself to breathe deeply, but I can’t afford to waste time here.

It’s a better option than sitting here waiting to die.

I place my thumb outwards against the bottom of the chair and start to rock forward. There’s pressure there, but it’s not so bad.

You’re not seriously going to this, are you?

I’m not sure what the alternative is. The longer I wait here, the greater the chance Triss is going to wise up and shoot me in the head.

I grit my teeth and go to snap forward, placing what weight I have on the thumb, but I chicken out.

Come on, Shan.

I picture Gabe. I don’t want to lose him—not now. I know how good we can be together.

I grit my teeth together and slam forward as hard as I can, way harder than I realize.

That does it alright.

At first, there’s not a great deal of pain. I’m vaguely aware of the way my thumb is hanging, separated from the joint.

That wasn’t so bad, was it?

Then it hits me. Maybe the adrenaline was holding it off, but when the pain arrives it does so in gulping, heaving waves that slow my breathing and make my head spin with every intake.

My ears are full of cotton wool, muffled. Nausea sweeps over me.

Hold it together.

Even with my limited medical knowledge, I know my thumb’s going to swell soon.

I twist in the chair and try to pull my hand free, but the pain’s near-on unbearable. I want to let it out, force it from my mouth, but that would draw Triss’s attention.

I can’t risk it.

Do it!

I press my teeth together hard enough for my jaw to hurt and pull my arm up. With another sharp twist my wrist pulls and comes free.

I stare at my thumb, the cuffs hanging loosely from my other hand. My shoulders ache.

My thumb is wrong. It’s all wrong—the angle of it, the color.

The world starts to fade to a pinprick, but I won’t allow myself to faint. I can’t.

With my good hand I reach down and start to tug at the rope binding my ankles to the chair. It takes some effort, the pain flaring, but finally I manage to strip them away.

I’m free.

I check for Triss, but she must still be outside.

My thumb’s throbbing, already fat and enflamed.

I stand, but immediately have to sit down. I’m woozy, know I’m pale, but I have to do this.

I force myself to my feet again and hold the hand with the dislocated thumb close to my chest.

I can’t exit using the door Triss went out of, so I start to move around the perimeter of the warehouse. The windows are covered, which isn’t helping, and there don’t appear to be any more doors out—until I spot one down the far end.

I head towards it, each step sending a hot stab of up my arm.

I’m going to get out of here. I’m going to live.

I double the pace, running as much as the pain will allow until the door is within reaching distance. It’s not even closed fully, not locked at all.

I reach for the handle when I see a shadow under the bottom of the door.

No.

I stop, glued to the spot.

The sound of footsteps.

I examine the shadow, listen.

It’s not one shadow. There are two, two sets of something.

The door opens slightly.

It’s Gabe.

I’ve never been so relieved to see someone.

I basically throw myself at him, dive into his body, my head against his chest.

I lift my head up to speak, but he clamps his hand over my mouth.

It’s too late.

I hear the gun cocking behind me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

GABE

I’ve been so caught up trying to find her I never considered how it would feel to have Shannon back in my arms again.

In a word, amazing, but there’s no time to dwell on it.

Triss is standing not fifteen feet away, a SIG Pro semi-automatic aimed at Shannon’s back. “Don’t you move a single fucking muscle,” she warns.

My first priority is to keep Shannon safe, but Triss is on edge here. The last thing I want to do is provoke her into doing something stupid.

I keep my voice low and calm, speaking slowly as if to a child. “Triss, just let me take Shannon and go.”

“Go?” she laughs, the pitch of her voice spiking. “No, I don’t think that’s going to work.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this, Triss.”

“You’re damn right about that. It can be you and me again, baby, just like old times. We have unfinished business. We need to teach those fuckers a lesson.”

“We can talk about it all you want, I promise, but you have to let Shannon go first.”

At the mention of Shannon’s name I see something snap inside Triss. I’ve been around her long enough to know her ticks, the small, imperceptible cues that give her away.

Time slows. I see her face harden, the muscles in her arm tense and her finger add weight to the trigger.

I act, pushing Shannon out of the way just in time.

A gunshot rings out. I feel the weight of it shifting the air apart, barely missing Shannon’s head to drive into my upper arm.

I grimace and drop, a hand coming up to cover the wound.

Yep. Still fucking hurts.

I drop low as two more gunshots follow from the doorway, Triss managing to take cover behind a stack of pallets, the bullets sending chips of wood spindling through the air.

Jason pushes Shannon behind him and hunkers down, gun raised.

I signal I’m okay and direct him forward towards Triss.

I look down the side of the pallets and realize Triss is boxed in. She’s got no way out without exposing her position.

Jason gets Shannon to crouch down beside an old generator behind us, tells her to stay put.

I take out my weapon and lift it, Triss’s round burning in my arm.

I see a raised platform running above us. I motion Jason to take up position there. He moves away, headed for the stairs.

Triss steps out from her cover and fires, the bullet ricocheting off the back of the warehouse.

She moves back behind the pallets.

“Let’s end this, Triss,” I shout. “You’re outnumbered, with more on the way.”

I’m bluffing, but she doesn’t need to know that. Then again, I don’t want to feel like the only way out of this for her is with guns blazing either. I have to talk her down.

Good luck with that.

“You want to end this?” she shouts back, not a hint of exhaustion or panic in her voice. “You owe me, baby. You know you do. You left me there. Everything that happened to me in that fucking shithole was because of you. It’s all your fault. You touch something and it turns to shit. You know it, I know it, but at least if we’re together we can deal with it.”

“That’s never going to happen, Triss. We’re done.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

Jason is only just getting into position. I signal for him to engage, but Triss has already spotted him. She fires, three times in quick succession, the shots hitting him square in the chest. He buckles forward and goes over the railing, the sickening thud of his buddy hitting the floor following.

Shit.

I can’t get to him without exposing myself. Even so, I can feel the wet heat of blood running down my arm, the dull tapping in my head telling me I’m going to have to deal with this, and soon.

Not yet.

Shannon’s pressed up hard against the back of the generator. I notice something’s wrong with her hand, her thumb.

Triss screams and rushes out towards our position, firing as she comes.

I return fire, but she’s coming too fast, managing to snake around the other side of the generator and drag Shannon away.

Fuck!

I stagger up and follow with my gun in front of me, rounding the corner carefully.

Triss has Shannon pressed up against her, one arm around her throat, the other holding the gun to the side of her head. I can see Shannon’s chest puffing in and out. She’s terrified.

I narrow the distance to twelve feet, maybe less. “Let her go, Triss. This is between you and me.”

It sounds so cliché, so predictable, but I don’t know what else to say. Give her what she wants. “You win,” I tell her. “I’ll go back with you to Iraq. We’ll find every fucker who hurt you. We’ll kill them all, fuck up everyone they hold dear. You have my word. Is that what you want?”

She’s smiling. “Yes. Let’s be together, just the two of us.”

I know she’s going to do it. She’s going to take out the only obstacle standing in her way.

A moment passes between us, a look. We were good together, unstoppable, but whatever Triss has been through, it’s changed her.

Shannon closes her eyes. She knows what’s coming.

I’m not going to let it happen.

I have to put Triss down.

Before Triss fires, I squeeze the trigger.

The round hits Triss right in the shoulder, pinning her arm back against the wall, the SIG dropping away.

I run for her, separating Shannon and taking hold of Triss’s arm, forcing her to the floor with my knee in her back.

She’s screaming—not from the pain, but the defeat. “Why?!” she screams at me, thrashing on the ground. “Why?!” She’s hysterical.

In kick the pistol away.

I glance down to my vest, looking up to Shannon. “The cable-ties there. Take them out, put them around her wrists.”

Shannon steps over and removes them, placing one around Triss’s wrists while she continues to twist and thrash. She pulls.

“Tighter,” I instruct her.

I tell her to do the same with her ankles, hauling Triss up and placing her against the wall, but any will she had is gone. She knows it over’s, continuing to mumble “Why?” staring straight ahead, lost in her own thoughts.

I take the pistol off the floor place it behind my back, keeping my weapon trained on Triss while I head over to check on Jason.

He moans when I roll him over. His vest took the bullets, but he’s going to have one hell of a bruise-fest come morning.

“My arm?” he says, grunting.

“Broken?”

“I think so. Triss?”

“Immobilized.”

I pat him twice on the chest. “Sit tight.”

I have Shannon call nine-one-one, have her wait outside while I watch Triss, her lips moving but whatever woman I once knew is gone for good.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

SHANNON

As soon as the paramedics have finished tending to Gabe’s arm, I rush over and kiss him, happy to have his lips on mine once more, the steady thump thump of his heart against my own. This could have gone a very different way.

I break away, breathless, holding up my bandaged hand. “I don’t even feel it.”

“You will.”

I sit beside him on the back of the ambulance. “How did you guys find me?”

“I had to call in some serious favors,” says Gabe.

“Did you track her cell or something?”

“Her cell was off… but yours wasn’t. It was in her car the whole time.”

We watch as Triss is loaded into the back of a cruiser. The carpark’s full of flashing lights, a black SUV pulling up to join the throng.

Gabe nods towards it. “Here comes the cavalry.”

“What’s going to happen to her?” I ask.

Gabe shakes his head slowly. “Who knows? I hope she gets the help she needs, but I doubt she’ll be seeing the outside world for a while.”

“Are you okay?” I ask.

He pulls me into his side. “I’m fine.” He holds his arm up, twisting it to show the back of his bicep. “The poor gecko copped it, though.”

I smile and reach down to his crotch. “I’m sure I can nurse him back to health.”

*

I roll over each morning expecting Gabe to be gone, but each morning he’s right there beside me. It’s been nothing but bliss this last week.

He’s watching me. “Morning, beautiful. Is it alright that I’ve kicked the kids out of the bed?”

He’s talking about the gliders—both of whom have developed quite a liking for the new man in the house. He’s even started to feed them. We’re considering a shelter dog as well.

I throw a leg over him. “I think they’ll survive. As for me…”

He kisses me before continuing to stare. The sling is gone, a simple patch covering the spot where the bullet entered his arm. The inflammation in my thumb has gone down considerably. It looks less like a clown horn now. “Have you heard anything about Triss?”

I’m not sure why I ask this. It’s a sure-fire way to dampen the mood, but I also know Gabe will be thinking about her, whether he wants to or not. They spent a lot of time together. You don’t simply stop caring about someone when they run off the rails. In fact, you probably start caring more.

He leans back on the pillow, his good arm behind his head, looking up to the ceiling. “I have. She’s been taken to an Army treatment center, looks likely to get help of some description, though I was warned off visiting, which I think is best. She needs time.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What for?” He starts to tick things off on his hand. “You were drugged, kidnapped, tied up, and you had to dislocate your fucking thumb to get out. I mean, you are badass, Shannon Bailey.”

Pride swells. “You think so?”

“G. I. Jane, watch out. You can have my back any day of the week.”

I laugh, laying a leg over him, the hot hardness of his cock welcome. “I don’t think you’d want that.”

“You’d look so hot in camo—K-bar in one hand, M16 in the other, rising from the water.”

I laugh again and reach under the sheets to find his organ, warm and heavy in my hand. “Is this the K-bar you’re referring to?”

I realize now I’ve been staring at him, caught in the cool vortex of his eyes.

I open my mouth to speak. He meets it.

I know now this is right. His lips fall on my own. They mold together. His hand is on my leg. I bring my hand up to cradle his chin, his neck, trying to press him deeper into me.

My breathing has increased. I’m suddenly hotly aware of my heart beating, my pulse rising swiftly.

I run my fingers up the back of his head, raking them through his hair as our tongues meet and roll between us. They twist in the heated ocean there as his hand continues its exploration, passing below my panties, searching.

He pulls me closer and my legs fall apart automatically. I can feel the distinct pull of excitement gathering at my core. I’m well wet before his fingers fall into the crevice and seek my center.

Our hands run over each other as the kiss remains unbroken above. We’re both breathing deeply, ragged, desperate to be one.

I’m suddenly burning up. It’s all suffocating, my body building a steady sweat below that rises around us, heady and tempestuous. And I want this. I want him so bad it physically hurts. There’s an ache between my legs begging to be filled, pulsing in time with my temples.

I pull away to catch my breath, my lips aflame, my mouth unexpectedly dry.

My hands are on his chest now. There they find hard planes of muscle, the rise and fall of toned abdominals, scars…

I move my fingers to his back and press him forward, twisting my head sideways as his lips move up the side of my neck, a moist trail cooling as the tip of his tongue finds the outer shell of my ear and curls around it, his hand rising up my neck to meet it while the other, between my legs, meets resistance.

“You’re wet,” he whispers in my ear as his fingers probe at the ebony gauze encasing my cleft.

“Aren’t I always?” I reply, my voice husky with need.

He brushes the material aside and a single digit slips inside to the second knuckle.

I gasp aloud at the intrusion, the simple ease by which he’s penetrated me, the shock at the level of my desire and the easy egress it has allowed.

Soon it’s joined by a second, and then a third, folded upwards and pressing against the roof of my sex, rolling and twisting in the slickened boiler room it has become.

He continues to whisper in my ear, relaying each microscopic detail, running me through his every stroke and touch, detailing what will come next in languid clips of syllables.

I spread my legs wider. I’m aware now of his stiff cock stabbing at my leg as his joined fingers continue to slide in and out of my body.

As his fingers curl against me internally, he presses the pad of his thumb against my clit, moving it in soft circles.

A steady thrum starts up inside me. I close my eyes, lost in the sensation, his breath warm on the gooseflesh of my neck, his hand at my back now, cradling me, supporting my body as my climax builds.

I’m sopping below. I offer no resistance at all, wet and completely open, my lips winged outwards and pressing moisture against the sides of my thighs. My clit throbs, rises to meet his thumb. Caught between his fingers and that weighty digit, my wet pussy fills with sensation, a deep and steady need that threatens to overwhelm me at any moment.

Eyes closed, I clamp my teeth together, terrified if I don’t a cry will emerge from me so loud it will wake everyone from here to Texas.

“Come for me,” he whispers. “Come on my fingers.” The hand that was at my back slides around and upwards. His fingers are moving faster below, his thumb’s pressure remaining consistent and the need to release so strong my entire body is shaking against him and the hard backboard of the bed.

His fingers curl up inside me in a come-hither motion, thumb adding additional pressure. I can’t stop shaking, and as he takes the stiff tuft of my nipple between his fingers, I come, bucking against my bed, biting down as hard as I can and gushing against his fingers. My pussy clenches against him as he moans softly into my ear. Clench, release, clench, release, completely out of my control until the fire that has just crested across my vision fades and his fingers exit from my slackened hole.

When I open my eyes, I find that smile once more, not a sense or triumph or domination, but instead a kind, warm smile that imbues me once again with fresh desire.

I take charge, seeking to distance myself from the submissive.

My lips collapse upon him hard. My tongue spears into his mouth.

The smell of spice and soap never leaves his skin.

I want him to come, come just as hard as he made me. I want to feel his cock pulsing in my fingers.

I find his cock stiff and solid to my touch.

I roll my hand over its glossy helmet as we kiss. I lubricate the head of his cock with his own arousal before pumping his shaft with both hands.

He falls back and his mouth opens, eyes closed, an expletive on his lips.

As I’m fisting his member, marveling at how hot and rigid it is between my hands, I whisper in his ear, “Do you want me to suck it? Do you want me to suck your cock?” I repeat, adding an inflection on the last syllable.

He nods and I bob my head over his member, lips wrapping around the head before I take him fully in my mouth. As I do so, his whole body eases, tensing up again as I run my hands up his shaft to meet my lips.

I’m already getting wet again.

His hands run through my hair as I work. I savor it and with some effort drive my lips down almost to the base of him, his entire ten inches filling my throat. Every time I do this he seizes my hair and his hips rise.

And then it’s gone. He’s pulling my head away, holding my face in his hands, his cock wet with my saliva and his own hot sex unnaturally stiff, bobbing the in the air.

He takes my legs under the thigh and lifts them so I’m reclined.

Slowly, he strips my panties away, the crotch coming away stuck fast to my cleft. He drops them in a lacy bundle on the floor and positions himself above me so I’m lying flat across the length of the bed.

I bring my knees up, my slickness open and willing.

Gabe lowers himself upon me carefully. My hands fall onto his buttocks. I squeeze them, press them forward, eager to have him fill me. “I want you inside me,” I whisper, breathy. “I want you inside me now.”

With that, his hips dip, an infinite second passing before his cock drives in to the hilt. My mouth turns into a ring beside his head at the sensation of being filled completely, our pubic bones pressed hard together.

“You’re so fucking wet,” he confirms, as his cock glides easily out, driving forward again to be buried deep inside me. I roll my hips forward to meet his thrust. It’s effortless, natural. This is how it’s meant to be.

My fingernails rake his back and he groans in my ear, sliding back and forth on top of me.

As he thrusts I can hear the sound our bodies make as they come together, the squelching, organic meeting they make. It’s loud, obscene, but I love it.

Already another orgasm builds. I sense that Gabe is not far away himself, driving us deep into the corner of the bed so that with every stroke my head presses against the soft fabric of my headboard, our mouths working over each other, tongues twined together.

I struggle to maintain composure as Gabe thrusts with increasing speed, building to his climax and my own climbing steadily to meet it. My pussy twitches against him in expectation.

I feel the pull now, the coming of it as he pistons forward relentlessly. But just as I’m cresting, falling into that space of no return, he pulls free.

No! What are you doing? my head cries. It’s soon quelled as he flips me over so I’m kneeling on the bed, one foot flat on the carpet. He thrusts forward in one go, driving my face into the mattress. The sudden change in mood almost makes me come right away, but I regain control and focus on the feeling of him inside me, the mass of his body falling against me, seeking out new and uncharted areas of my body.

His finger finds my clit. There he frigs me, his cock sliding in and out above as I come, mouthing into the quilt in a silent scream of rapture, my body shaking and convulsing savagely from the force of the orgasm.

His own follows. He lurches forward hard, twisting me sideways. I’m dimly aware of his cum pumping hot into my body, pulsing and collecting there as the walls of my pussy milk him for every last drop.

He collapses against me and we kiss again.

We kiss until he’s hard once more.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

GABE

“How’s the thumb?” I ask, stepping out of the shower. My cock’s still twitching from our special wakeup call. If that’s what I have to wake up to every morning, I’ve got it made.

Shannon, doing her hair, gives me a thumbs-up. Reset, it looks brand new, most of the swelling having dissipated over the last week.

“No problem,” she replies. How’s the arm?”

I turn my shoulder to look at the wound. It’s healing nicely. “Nothing but a flea bite.”

She rolls her eyes in the mirror. “You can drop the Action Man routine around me, you know.” She nods towards the birthmark on my ass cheek. “It really does look like Colombia.”

“I simply call it the ‘stamp of approval.’”

“More like tramp stamp…

I take her around the waist, grinding myself against her ass. “So I can’t be your tramp-stamped action man? You’d rather a, what do they call it, metrosexual?”

“I’ll settle just for the ‘sexual.’” A short pause follows. “You know, if you need a life of adventure, you can go and do that. I don’t mind.”

“I’ve had all the adventure I need. Now, I just want you.” I place one hand on her shoulder, watching her in the mirror. “How did I get so lucky?”

She shrugs. “Beats me.”

I notice she’s stiffer than normal. “You okay?”

“I’m just nervous about meeting more of your family.”

“Distant cousins and uncles hardly make for family, but even so, there’s no need to worry. They’re going to love you, and if they don’t…”

“How are we going to say we met? People are going to ask.”

“We tell them the truth. We met at a bar called The Swinging Dick, I walked you home like a perfect gentleman, and then we got engaged.”

Shannon places the hairbrush down and laughs. “Really?”

“Really.”

I see her hunt around the vanity, looking down at the small bowl she normally places her ring into before she gets into the shower. “You haven’t seen your mother’s ring, have you?”

My chest tightens.

I turn her around to face me, my hand palm up.

She looks down and freezes.

Her mouth drops.

I open the small, white box there and take out a new ring with a princess cut diamond bigger than is probably sensible. “You deserve a proper engagement ring,” I tell her.

“But your mother’s—”

“…Ring will work perfectly as a wedding ring.

“I, ah…” she stammers. The poor thing can’t get a word out.

“Breathe,” I tell her.

“I… I don’t know what to say.”

I turn the ring between my fingers, let it catch the light. “She wanted me to do this. It was in her will. She left money for it and everything.”

With shaking fingers, Shannon takes hold of the ring. “Does this mean…”

“Yes,” I tell her. “It means I want to spend my life with you, Shannon. ‘Home’ is the sweetest word there is to a SEAL, but until now I never felt I like I had one to come back to. Now I do. Now I have you. I have purpose, and life, and it’s all your doing.”

She starts to cry, wiping away tears and looking so heart-breakingly beautiful I want nothing more than to sweep her up in my arms and never her let go.

“Shannon Bailey, will you marry me?”

She kneels down to the floor in front of me and stammers, “Yes,” throwing her arms around my neck and kissing me in full as her tears pass between us. I drop the box and pick her up, carrying us towards the bed.

I place her down and brush tears from her cheeks.

“We’ve got a funeral to go to, remember,” she smiles.

I run my hand down her side, the delicate sweep of her hip making me hard. “My mother didn’t want a funeral. She only wanted me to be happy.”

“And, are you?”

“More than you can know.”

EPILOGUE

SHANNON

As far as weddings go, we weren’t going to win any competitions. I wore a simple, flared A-line dress, Gabe a dark, navy suit. He had joked at first he was going to show up in camo. “Not. Going. To. Happen,” I replied.

Matt was Best Man. I went without a maid of honor, though I had the kids all involved in various ways—even if Percy refused to play ball when it came to handing over the ring.

Did I mention we had the ceremony at the city zoo? Well, not the zoo proper, but on the premises looking out over the harbor, giraffe heads in the background, curious peacocks parading around us. I needed special permission to get my animal friends access, but they were generally well behaved. You should have seen the Swoonfest 2017 when Gabe took Buffy out of his suit pocket and perched her on his shoulder.

There he was, the man of my dreams. Well, not exactly. I never imagined I’d end up with a guy like Gabe, the very definition of a man’s man, a patriot and hero. I didn’t think I’d be with him let alone married to him—for real, this time.

When I mentioned how proud his mother would be in my vows, I saw that tough exterior start to crack, but he managed to hold it together for his SEAL buddies taking up the front row.

He wanted me to have a dream wedding, no expenses spared, but that’s not me. It never has been. I’m a simple girl at heart. Give me a book, a quiet corner, and I’m happy—doubly so when Gabe is around.

Sometimes he’ll wake restless, tossing and turning in his sleep fighting off foes unseen. I calm him down as best I can. I was surprised when he opened up about Triss, but I’m finding we’re still learning to trust each other, Gabe working out precisely how much to share with me lest he weigh me down with his own demons.

Often I’ll catch him staring into the distance, thoughts adrift. I know he still thinks about Triss. I don’t mind. I think it’s important for him to know that even though she’s institutionalized, she’s okay. He wouldn’t have been able to live with himself if anything happened to her again, or me. That’s Gabe for you, always the perennial protector.

I suggested he look for a job when we get back from our honeymoon. He doesn’t need the money, but I think it would help him adjust back to normal life, or as normal as it can be for an ex-SEAL. My god, the acronyms I’ve learnt off his SEAL buddies… I’m a walking, talking tome of military jargon these days.

Dad would have loved him, loved having a son-in-law in the Special Forces. I remember Dad telling me once that SEALs are another breed, forged from a different material. “The stuff they make a man go through to get in,” he told me, “you wouldn’t wish upon any man. They strip you down, like an onion, layer by layer until there’s barely anything left. Then they build you up, working their way to perfection.”

I don’t know about perfection, but Gabe’s pretty damn close. And the sex… Where have you been all my life? I’ve come so hard at times I was seriously concerned for my life, like the little beast that my heart was just going to give up beating. Two, three, four times in one day—Gabe and his ‘weapon’ never seem short on stamina.

Lately I’ve been thinking about my own future, where to go to from here. The answer? I have absolutely no idea. PETA? A vet? I ticked off potential options one by one, even considered becoming a marine biologist until I realized it would be another four years of study. No, those college days are done. I’ve got no idea what’s around the corner, but with Gabe I really don’t mind. We have each other and for now that is enough.

It’s the last night of our honeymoon on Lord Howe Island. Gabe promised somewhere exotic. He didn’t disappoint. He took my love of wildlife into account, and my distaste for crowds. This is a little-known island to the rest of the world, but thanks to its isolation and varied landscapes, it’s rich in animal habitats. It’s home to over two-hundreds species of birds alone. Thirty-two species breed on the island… and maybe thirty-three now given the use our hotel bed’s been seeing over the last few days.

I run my finger over Gabe’s lips as we lie in bed, an ocean breeze fanning the curtains out by the balcony. “This is paradise.”

“You don’t miss the kids?”

I smile. “Sure, I miss them. You think Matt’s survived?”

Gabe laughs and takes hold of me, pulling me on top of him. His cock’s hot and hard trapped between his chest and my sex.

He moans in delight, taking hold of my ass and squeezing. “I really can’t be thinking about my brother right now.”

“No?” I tease, grinding on him.

He takes charge, flipping me over. “You have to do what I say, I’m afraid. I outrank you, remember?”

I run my nails down his back. “What if I’m the enemy?”

He smiles, pressing my hair behind my ear on the pillow. “Then watch out. I’m coming in hot.”

EPILOGUE II

FIVE YEARS LATER

GABE

I press the receiver. “Blackbeard, what’s your position?”

Squawk. “On your six, taking heavy fire.”

I spin around and cop it right in the chest.

Josh comes bounding out of the bushes near the fence, a radio in one hand, another water balloon in the other.

I hold my chest and go rolling along across the grass. “I’m down. I’m down!”

“Serg,” our four-year-old shelter rescue lab comes bounding over to join in the fun. Josh and him give up on me and go squealing into the sandpit where a motley collection of half-chewed action figures awaits.

“Chow time!” calls Jason from the grill. He’s got Shannon’s ‘World’s Okayest Chef’ apron on (thankfully, not naked) and a paper hat Joshua made him earlier teetering on his head.

I stand. Hands slide around my waist.

I give a mock gasp and spin to take Shannon in my arms. “I thought you were Jason there for a second.”

She checks no one is watching before squeezing my cock through my pants. “I should hope Jason doesn’t do that.”

“All those cold, lonely nights down range…” I start.

She slaps my chest. “Can you go attend to our son before he suffocates Serg over there?”

I look over. Josh is practically sitting on Serg, who, funnily enough, doesn’t seem to mind.

I run across the yard and pick Josh up, spinning him in the air before placing him on my shoulders and walking him over to the grill.

Percy’s hobbling behind us.

Jason closes the grill lid and smiles up at Josh with tongs in his hand. He clicks his boots together and salutes. “Master Chief.”

“Peddy officer,” Josh salutes back, still struggling to pronounce his ‘T’s properly.

He is only four.

Shannon comes up beside me. “Mmm, something smells good.”

Josh rubs his tummy. “Sausages, Momma! Yay!”

She stands on her tippy toes and kisses him on the side of his head. “Not too many this time, hey, kiddo. Too many and you’ll turn into a sausage.”

“A sausage boy!” giggles Josh. “That’s silly.”

There’s nothing sweeter than the sound of his little laugh. I could listen to it over and over and over again, but he’ll be five soon enough and that laugh will be gone. My once tiny man will be off to school.

It’s hard to imagine how fast these last five years have gone by. Of course, Shannon and I weren’t exactly planning a honeymoon baby, and I suppose that was the best part of all.

It’s been a blessing in so many ways. Shannon has taken to motherhood so well, not that I should have expected anything less given the other ‘children’ she’s raised, and the others who have joined our family since. I often joke we could start a zoo. “We could cage Jason,” she joked. “He could be our star attraction.”

I was apprehensive coming into fatherhood, worried I’d pass down my more questionable qualities, but as soon as I saw Josh’s face, as soon as I held him in my arms—so, so small—I was completely and utterly smitten.

Shannon says he has a bit of his grandfather’s cheekiness, and I don’t doubt it.

I may have been a bit precious with him at first. “He’s not a grenade,” Shannon used to laugh. “He’s not going to go off.”

His little bottom had tooted in reply. “You sure about that?” I laughed back.

I’ve even considered taking him to see Triss. She’s still in care. I don’t think she’ll ever leave, and maybe that’s for the best. Her problems ran deeper than anyone could have thought, but the medication has helped and she seems to be getting back to some semblance of normal. The rage I saw the day she kidnapped Shannon is gone, the jealousy. She understands, even apologized.

I thought Shannon may have wanted me to stay away at the start, but she’s been nothing but supportive, encouraging me to visit Triss once a week. She even baked her cookies. But that’s Shannon—generous, impossibly kind.

When her former old boss got the boot for skimming company funds, Shannon was the first person the director called to replace him. She was a bit shocked at first, which is understandable, but five years in she has the place running like clockwork. The employees and studios love her, the clients too. Talk is she might be about to step up into the big league, maybe make a move to Hollywood, but I don’t think she’s fussed either way. She knows what’s important in her life right now.

They say a lot of women lose their libido after child birth, but if anything, it’s supercharged Shannon’s sexual side. Experimentation abounds in the bedroom. We don’t have a red room per se, but there’s a box under our bed I sure as hell wouldn’t want anyone knowing about. I think she’s making up for all those years she went without, and who am I to stop her?

Even now, standing here watching her, I’m getting hard thinking about her beneath me tonight, her fingers clawing at the sheets, my back, the way her toes curl and thighs clamp around me when she comes. I suppose I’m blessed in the bedroom then, too.

Immediately after the incident with Triss, I was lost. Without an enemy to fight, a mission waiting, I felt like I didn’t have a purpose, that everything was so trivial. The sex helped, but not as much as having Shannon’s support.

When I bumped into my one of my old commanders and he suggested Veterans Affairs, I almost laughed him right out of the room, but three years in I couldn’t be happier. It allows me to remain in the service, but not in service, so to speak. The real battle happens back here at home. Triss showed me that. PTSD is real and this country’s not doing enough about it. The small advice I can offer, a friendly face provided, makes a genuine difference in the lives of these heroes.

I think Shannon was worried I was going to be chained to a desk shuffling papers and slowly going insane, but my workload is mostly made up of house calls, especially for the older veterans who don’t have family or someone to lean on. I sometimes take Buffy or Angel, Aragog from time to time if I’m really looking to make an entrance. It helps, having an animal there to break the ice, and our ‘kids’ are the cutest damn kids in the world.

Even poor Matt got roped into a pooch by his fiancée. She’s a sailor, believe it or not. I guess that’s what he gets for spending so much time with us down at The Hole. She’s a fierce one, too, damn near demanded a ring, but she’s good for him. I know it. The wedding’s going to be in the Bahamas. I’m already dreaming about those balmy nights with Shannon… provided Little Man sleeps through.

I open the grill, smoke wafting out. “You cooking sausages or charcoal tablets there, Petty Officer?”

Jason starts to pluck the sausages out one by one. “It adds to the flavor, my friend.”

I look over to the others gathered on the deck, the rest of our squad who’ve decided to come out for this Fourth of July celebration. Three of us are missing, but they’re here in spirit nonetheless.

Josh, always my shadow, helps me take the food over to the table.

I help Josh up and take my own seat. “Dig in, everyone.”

I take the tongs and plate up for Josh, Shannon’s hand hot on my thigh under the table. “Sausage?” I offer.

Her hand slides downwards. “Oh, I think I’ve got more sausage than I can handle, thank you very much.”

*

I’m hunched over Shannon’s back, driving into her hard from behind. She braces herself against the headboard.

“Oh, god. I’m going to—”

I place my hand over her mouth so she doesn’t wake Josh. She has become rather vocal of late.

A finger slips inside her mouth. She lightly bites down, her pussy squeezing my cock in a quick flutter and tipping me over the edge.

I run to the end of her slickness.

We come together, breathless, one.

I pull out and collapse onto the bed. She falls on top of me, her head cradled against my arm and shoulder, her hair matted and sticky.

Outside, a sea breeze is blowing in from the balcony. A bottle of champagne sits empty in a bucket by the corner.

“So,” I ask, still breathing hard, “are you enjoying the Bahamas?”

She takes hold of my still-hard cock and lightly pumps it. “I am, and it would appear I’m not the only one.”

“You know, if you keep doing that I’m just going to have to make you come again.”

She rolls and comes up onto her knees, straddling me. “That sounds like a challenge.”

“I do like a challenge.”

“Hmm,” she pouts. “Now where have I heard that before?”

She slips me back inside her pussy and begins to grind down on me. I hold her face in my hands still spellbound by her beauty, the way she glows in this emerald light.

I always equated home with happiness, but it’s only recently I’ve come to understand what the true definition of home is.

It’s family—crazy, wild, how-am-I-going-to-survive-this family. Our house is full, and it’s due to hear the sound of another set of pitter-patter feet in nine months’ time.

Our house is full, and so is my heart, because the woman of my life, the woman I married, means more to me than anything. She has given me a son, deep and profound happiness, and true purpose. She might be a civilian, but she’s no less of a fighter. That shy girl I first met in The Swinging Dick is all but gone. In her place stands a strong and determined woman completely unfazed by the world.

And sure, I know there are going to be trials, but I say bring them on. After all, a smooth sea never makes for a skillful sailor.

With Shannon by my side, anything is possible.

Our love may have started as a hustle, but what we have now is more than real.

It’s passion—hot and wet and all-consuming.

It’s a partnership—true and tested.

It’s the best god-damn feeling in the world.

BLAZE

Teagan Kade

* * * * *

Published by Teagan Kade

Edited by Sennah Tate

Copyright © 2017 by Teagan Kade

CHAPTER ONE

LACEY

Judging by the décor and general lack of warmth, I don’t know if this is an esteemed fire academy or a state penitentiary.

A guy, quite naked, goes running past us down the hall.

Make that a zoo.

Captain Jennings shakes his head beside me. “First week and the Kool-Aid’s out already. A lot of these guys think this is some sort of frat-house freak show, but come tomorrow morning they’re going to find out it’s anything but.” He stops by a door. “Here we are.”

I note the number on it is sixty-nine.

Figures.

The Captain slides a key into the lock and opens the door, ushering me through. The room is small, utilitarian, but given what I grew up in it may as well be the Taj Mahal.

“So, what do you think?” asks the Captain, framed by the doorway.

“It’s great. Thank you,” I smile back.

The Captain leans against the doorway playing with a loose thread on the brim of his Pemberton Fire Academy Instructor cap. “I have to apologize again about the arrangements. We had a room on the other side of campus all prepped, but this year’s intake was bigger than expected.”

I pull the curtains open and look out the window. “It’s fine, really.”

“I know you’re stuck in Testosterone Land here,” continues the Captain, “but there’s a female bathroom down the hall that’s all yours—ten or more showers you can take your pick of. Besides, any of these assholes give you trouble, you just come knocking on my door, okay?”

“Yes, Captain,” I reply. “I grew up in a town where males outnumbered females three to one. I think I’ll be okay.”

He flicks the brim of his cap. “That’s the spirit. Do you need a hand bringing your things down?”

“No, sir.”

He hands me the key. “Alright then, Miss Nelson. Welcome to the Hot House.”

He nods and leaves.

I close the door and take a seat on the bed, the excitement of others echoing down the hallway.

I breathe in. I breathe out.

You sure about this, Lacey?

Now I’m here, I’m not so sure.

I take out my cell, my finger hovering over the screen. It would only take one call.

No. Not today.

I slide the cell back into my pocket and stand, heading back out into the hallway, and bang smack into…

Penis.

Like, a lot of penis. I’m talking the Empire State of shlongs, the Pecker King. There’s no other way to describe it.

Penis Dude stands there with his hands on his hips, looking down where I’ve just collided with his appendage-slash-trouser snake, and he’s grinning. His smug, chiselled, surprisingly perfect features are actually grinning at me.

I literally leap back in shock.

He continues to stand there in his birthday suit like it’s the most natural thing in the world, like I should get onto my knees and worship his Adonis-like perfection.

I punch him in the chest instead.

I have no idea why I do this. It’s simply a reflex.

There’s only one problem: he’s got a brick wall for a body.

It’s like I’ve tickled him with a feather, his smirk widening.

He looks down at his eight-pack and lifts his head, honey-amber eyes aflame. “If you wanted to touch, all you had to do was ask.”

My mouth actually drops. “Excuse me?”

He takes hold of his dick and shakes it at me. “Don’t be scared. He doesn’t bite… much.”

And he winks. This arrogant, mold-cast caricature of a man actually has the balls to wink as if it’s a kind of kinky punctuation mark.

Oh, no. No, no, no you don’t.

I step up to him, which is to say his pecs given I’m half his height. I poke him right in what appears to be an eyes-with-wings tattoo, though it could be Spongebob Squarepants for all I know, and do my best to avoid the swinging pendulum that is his super-penis. “Look…” I realize I don’t know his name.

“Payton,” he grins, “but you can call me whatever the fuck you want.”

“Look, Payton. I don’t know why you’re naked—”

“I heard you’re the only female in the intake this year.” He glances down at his cock. “I thought you’d appreciate a personal introduction.”

I ignore him. “I don’t know what kind of Sigma Alpha asshole-fest you’re fresh from, but none of this is going to fly with me, comprendo?”

He lets go of his dick to throw his arms wide. “Or what? Hate to tell you this, but you’re no million-dollar baby. That jab was foreplay where I’m from.”

I’ve met my share of entitled jocks before, but this guy is taking it to a whole new level.

I take a step back before his thing takes my eye out. “I’m here to study, train… You know, like an adult.”

He shrugs, his eyes dropping to take me in. “That’s a shame, because a body like that was built for adult activities.”

I look down at his cock and immediately begin to blush, averting my eyes.

Why must you betray me so, body?

‘Payton’ thrusts his hips out. “No, go on. Take a nice, long, hard look.”

I step back into my room and prepare to slam the door. My stuff can wait. “Goodbye.”

He places his hand on the door, holding it open. “Nice to meet you too, neighbor.”

He lets go and I manage to close the door, standing with my back against it breathing hard, my little ham of a heart beating wildly, but why? Because of Mr. Universe out there?

Never. Going. To. Happen, I tell myself. Never. Ever. Ever.

I hear the door to the room next door and suddenly catch the meaning of his last word.

Crap.

It wasn’t a figure of speech.

A double knock on the wall confirms it.

“Feel free to pop over any time,” comes his muffled voice. “The first one’s free.”

I look to the ceiling, but there’s no divine being there to save me.

Lacey, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?

*

The zoo becomes a jungle come night. Given the thump, thump beside my head, I’m pretty sure my delightful neighbor is mating some poor girl, but the question is who given I’m the only female joining the academy this year.

You sure it’s a girl? my head questions.

But there’s no doubt. The alpha-hetero vibes Payton were giving off were practically impregnating me standing still. And the way those golden eyes slid over my body, eye-sexing me like a pro. No, he knows what he’s doing, alright.

Not to mention his… organ. I close my eyes and it’s all I see, like my own personal, glowing penis night light to lull me to sleep.

But penis or not, I am here to learn. I’ve never been defeated by anything or anyone, and Pemberton Fire Academy is not going to be the first thing to beat me. I cannot be broken. It’s simply not in my nature. In sixteen weeks, I’m going to leave this place top of my class. I’m going to be a firefighter if it’s the last damn thing I do.

I wake early and hit the cafeteria before the masses, heading back to my room to run through the course material one final time. As Dad used to say, ‘By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.’

I’m first into the hall, standing patiently at ease while the rest of the class filters in—twenty guys of varying levels of physical fitness. I ignore their glances and whispered conversation. Let them joke. We’ll see who’s laughing in a week.

A blown whistle snaps everyone to silence.

A familiar face enters. Captain Jennings has to be close to seven feet tall and solid. He wears a black shirt and cargo pants, combat boots tied high around his ankles.

He stands before us and scrutinizes a clipboard. “The following names, please step forward. Martinez, Anderson, King, Harris, and Cox.”

Four guys step forward looking between one another.

The far doors swing wide, Payton entering still pulling on his tee.

“And who might you be, son?” queries the Captain.

Payton comes huffing to a stop beside me. “Payton Cox, sir.”

“You will refer to me as Captain, or the Stairmaster 5000. I don’t really give a shit which.”

“Yes, Captain,” corrects Payton, standing right beside me with that perpetual smirk on his face.

The man-giant checks his watch. “You’re eighty-six seconds late, Mr. Cox. Want to tell me why?”

“I was brushing my hair, Captain. I wanted to look my best for you.”

Sporadic laughter follows from the others.

The Captain stands with his legs apart. “Step forward, smartass.”

Clipboard behind his back, the Captain stalks the line of five guys, speaking in tight, punctuated syllables. “Welcome, Class 2B, to the Pemberton Fire Academy, AKA the Hot House. We are the Top Gun of US fire academies, which means you’re going through the wringer five ways to Sunday.” He takes a step forward. “We are a pa-ra-mi-li-ta-ry organization. We are not the Navy SEALS, but come week sixteen you’re going to wish you had signed up for frogman school, because being a firefighter is the greatest calling on earth. Be damn sure we’re not going to let just anyone into that hallowed company.”

Payton turns and winks at me. It takes all the willpower I have not to flip him the bird.

“Now,” continues the Captain, pacing before the guys who have stepped forward, “I hear you bitches,” he spots me in the line, “no offence to our female recruit, had a bit of fun yesterday in what would appear to be a freshman ritual of some sort, partying and horsing around. Well, wake up call, boys. This is not college.” He stops before a spindly-looking redhead. “What’s your name, son?”

“Jackson King, Captain Sir Master Chief Sir,” he barks back, saluting as he says it.

The Captain nods calmly. He looks to the rest of us. “We’re still in the first five minutes and we’ve already established a class clown.” He looks back to Jackson. “You’re going to regret that, son. Get down and give me twenty.”

Jackson looks confused. “Twenty?”

“Push-ups!” yells the captain. “On your fucking hands NOW!”

I’ve never seen anyone hit the ground so fast.

“You other shitheads,” the Captain barks to the four remaining guys, “get down there and join him.” He points to Payton. “An extra ten for you for showing up late, and another ten on top of that for the wise crack.”

Payton gets down and starts doing push-ups one-handed, smiling as he does it.

The Captain doesn’t pay him any attention, speaking to the rest of us. “You want to fool around, you do it on your own time, but while you are here you are mine. Do. You. Understand?”

“Yes, Captain,” we reply.

“Hands behind your backs, feet apart.”

We get into position.

The boys finish their push-ups, Jackson struggling through it.

“Back into line!” The Captain begins to pace again. “Firefighting is not a solo game. You are in this together. Should you make it through these next sixteen weeks, you will go on to join a new family, but you will never forget the family standing around you right here, right now. Take a good, long look at one another.”

Payton looks down my cleavage. “Yes, sir,” he whispers.

I stare straight ahead, my cheeks quietly burning.

“You will all be assigned a partner to train with. You will have their back and they will have yours. One of you fails, you both fail.”

Payton leans over, his hot breath enveloping my ear. “You better stay out of sight.”

“Why’s that?” I whisper back, not about to be intimidated by this sorry excuse for a human being. “Scared I’ll show you up?”

His smirk widens. “Because training’s going to be tricky if you’re giving me a hard-on all day.”

I’m about to give him another knuckle sandwich, but I manage restraint.

“Something you two want to share with the class?” says the Captain, looking at us.

“No, Captain,” Payton replies. “We were just acquainting ourselves.”

“Good,” the Captain replies, “consider yourself partners.”

“No!” I protest, louder than I mean to.

“No?” the Captain laughs. “Recruit, ‘no’ is not a word we use around here. Bra and panties or not, you’re not going to get any special treatment from me.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Enough!” he shouts.

I stand there fuming. If this idiot beside me has just jeopardized my place here, I’m going to tear him limb from limb, starting with that fire hose of his.

“Works for me,” Payton purrs.

The Captain walks over, lowering his voice and checking his clipboard. “Ms. Nelson, is it?”

I clear my throat before speaking. “Yes, Captain.”

“You’re going to have to head down to the admin office.”

“Now?”

“That’s right. Come back to class when you’re done.”

I nod and start to walk away.

“Ooooo,” comes the coo at my back, soon silenced by the Captain.

The woman behind the admin desk looks up at me when I arrive. “Lacey Nelson?”

“Yes.”

She places a slip of paper on the desk between us, stabbing at it with a pen. “There was a problem with your first payment here.”

I look down. I feign surprise. “It was declined?”

“It was,” comes the curt reply.

I shake my head in disbelief. “It must be a problem with the bank,” I lie. “I’ll call them right away.”

No doubt used to excuses, the woman smiles back at me. “We’ll need that payment by the end of the week—cash, check, or card. We accept them all. If we don’t receive payment, I’m afraid your place here will be cancelled.”

“I understand,” I reply, turning and walking away wondering how the hell I’m going to come up with that kind of money. I thought I might have some leeway, a grace period, but a week? I’m going to need a freakin’ miracle.

I pass by a security guard outside. I recall passing him as I came in yesterday.

“Hey,” he says, “everything okay?”

I hold up the slip of paper. “Money troubles.”

“Trouble with your fees?”

I nod. “’Fraid so. I guess it’s a bit more expensive than I realized.”

He pushes off the wall and comes over, looking down the hall and back. He lowers his voice. “I might be able to help.”

CHAPTER TWO

PAYTON

Day one at the academy and my dick’s not the only thing that’s looking up.

I scan the cafeteria, finally spotting her sitting by the window. I make my way over and slide my tray up next to hers.

One of the other guys in our class, I can’t recall his name, slaps me on the shoulder as he passes. “Fucking epic performance in there, man.”

“You too,” I grin back, but given your performance you’ll be gone in a week.

He’s referring to our first physical class, which I fucking aced, but it was easy to spot the chaff. As for our sole female and my esteemed partner, it was a different story. She was really sticking those cocksuckers, showing them up in everything from sprints to crunches. And the way she moved up that ladder, her perfect, peachy ass shifting from side to side… Every eye was on her, but I’m the only one who’s going to claim that prize. She can play the studious routine all she wants. They all succumb to my ten inches of charm in the end.

She snaps her head to look at me, her honeypot ponytail swishing behind her back.

“Oh,” I say, pointing to the table, “were you expecting company?”

“Yeah,” she replies, “anyone but you.”

I halve a meatball with my fork. “Come on now. We’re partners.”

She stabs a meatball of her own, the end of the fork grinding against the plate. “It’s not by choice, believe me.”

God, she smells amazing. I’m betting her pussy’s going to smell even better with my nose nuzzling up against it, my tongue driving deep inside her.

Whoa. Time to wind it back, superstar.

I extend my hand. “I think we got off on the wrong foot. I’m Payton.”

I note the slight break in composure. She wasn’t expecting capitulation. She cautiously takes my hand and gives it a single shake. “Lacey,” she states.

“Well, Lacey, what brings you to the Hot House?”

She stares down at her food. “You know, naked guys running around with their pathetic little penises out thinking they’re in a Porkies reboot. And you? Why do you want to be a firefighter?”

I’m smiling real good now. I love a challenge. “Girls love a guy in uniform, especially a firefighter. A cop? No one’s happy to see a cop, but show up wearing the black and gold, and it’s a sure thing.”

She rolls her eyes. “Saving lives, helping your community—none of that factored into your decision?”

I lean closer. “You’re short, you know.”

Now she looks at me. Her eyes are bottle green, alive. They’re telling me she’s just as competitive as I am. “Neg all you want, but what’s your point?”

I shovel in half a meatball. “I see a lot of confined spaces in your future, that’s all.”

She shrugs. “Fine by me.”

“And if you break a nail?”

She smiles, and already I’m dreaming about those plump lips suffocating my cock. “You mean while I’m clawing your eyes out?”

I shrug back, lifting an eyebrow. “Hey, I like it rough. All you’re doing is turning me on.”

She stands and takes up her tray. “Funny. All you’re doing is turning me off.”

I watch her walk away, that same egg-cracker of an ass begging for my hands, maybe a good spanking to show her who’s boss.

But it appears I’m not the only one looking to score.

Struggle was the name of the game in PE earlier, but apart from Lacey, there was one other source of potential competition—Ryan Fielding. He sits with a group of others, but his eyes are following Lacey, and I sure as fuck don’t like the vibe they’re giving off. I recognize a fellow alpha when I see one, but there’s only room for one top dog here.

He sees me watching him and nods.

I nod back.

Fucker.

Someone fills Lacey’s seat beside me. I swivel to find the captain-appointed class clown, Jackson King, sitting beside me. There’s nothing on his tray but jell-o.

“Payton Cox, right?” he says, and holy shit is his hair red in this light.

“That’s my name,” I reply.

“You’re from upstate, Brown?”

I scan the room, make sure no one’s eavesdropping. “Perhaps.”

Jackson starts to spoon in jell-o. “I thought so. I saw you play the Bulldogs last season. You’ve got a killer fucking arm, bro. What was it? Three, four touchdowns that night?”

My teeth grind together. I was hoping to keep this quiet. “That was then. This is now. I’ve moved on.”

“What happened?” he continues. He waves his spoon around. “I mean, this is hardly Ivy League, is it?”

I place my hand on his shoulder and squeeze lightly. “Why don’t we just keep this between you and me, huh?”

He nods, swallowing. “Whatever you say.”

I let go. “Good.”

I turn around and notice Fielding’s still watching me. There’s a look on his face I recognize from the field, a call to arms of sorts.

I return to my food while Jackson continues to blubber away about fire this and fire that. The kid’s fucking obsessed.

But my mind’s elsewhere. It’s on Lacey and delicate features, on her tight body and no doubt tighter pussy.

Day one and I’m only warming up.

Game on.

*

The small bar across the road looks busy for a Monday night. ‘Dante’s’ the neon sign reads, a flashing arrow pointing downwards to the door.

I pass the sole security guard and walk inside to country music, wooden floors, and the overpowering stench of stale beer. I breathe it in. Hello, friend.

Campus curfew’s at ten—plenty of time to play.

Others from the class spot me and call me to the corner. I’m handed a beer, chug it down, and head to the bar for another round. Forget the fucking academy, this is where the real legends will be made.

The bartender’s sort of cute in an early Britney way, but my focus is on Lacey. Nothing else is going to satisfy. I order another round of beers and a whiskey for myself.

I spot Jackson over near a table of middle-aged local women. A puff of flame rises from his outstretched hand, the women looking suitably shocked.

Fucking magic tricks—a sure-fire way to keep panties in place.

Good luck, buddy.

“Funny, I didn’t take you for a whiskey sort of guy.”

I look down the bar to where Lacey Nelson is sitting by herself, a glass of what could either be a club soda or straight vodka in front of her. I take my whiskey, slapping down cash for the round, and walk down to her. She’s wearing a white tank and jeans so tight they’re basically a second skin. I don’t think she deliberately tried to dress sexy, but given the twitching in my pants, it’s working like a fucking charm.

I perch myself on the stool beside her. “I have to say, you’re the last person I expected to see here tonight.”

“It is the unofficial class mixer,” she replies.

“You want to hang with the cool kids, don’t you? You have ever since high school.”

“I was Homecoming Queen, actually.”

“And yet here you are.”

She plays with the rim of her glass, nodding over to Jackson. “Poor guy. I don’t think he’s getting the hint.”

True to that, Jackson’s trying to follow the women out of the bar, lurching to show them another trick. “Yeah,” I say, “he’s kind of creepy, isn’t he?”.

“Says the guy running around with his,” she takes a sip before continuing, “organ out.”

“Organ?” I laugh. “That’s one way to put it.”

“You’ve got your own pet name for it? Let me guess. ‘The Dominator,’ right?”

“No, but that’s a good one. What do you call your dick?” I tease.

She goes to get up. I place my hand lightly against her side. “I’m joking. Come on. Why so serious?”

“Because some people aren’t here to fuck around.”

I reel back. “Behold, the Homecoming Queen with a chip on her shoulder.”

“No,” she states firmly, “the former Homecoming Queen who’s come to realize there’s more to life than getting laid and getting wasted.”

“Not necessarily in that order.”

She’s shaking her head. I’m losing her. “Come on,” I start, “I’m a good partner. You should be thankful to have me.”

She’s halfway through drinking, almost loses it across the bar in laughter. “You?” she exclaims. “I should be lucky to have you? Who do you think you are?”

The fucking Allies didn’t encounter this much resistance. “I’m Payton Cox, only child of William and Brenda Cox, former college football star, and discerning lover of the finer things in life. I’ve got a trust fund, a ten-inch cock, and more drive to succeed than anyone in here, present company included. I’m the best of the fucking best and, like I said, you’re lucky to have me, so I ask, who the fuck are you?”

It’s full-on, I know, could go either way, but her response comes unexpected.

She slides her glass away and leans close, a shadow shifting over her cleavage, her jade eyes iridescent. “I’m the girl who’s finally going to put you in your place.”

“Is that so?”

Her eyes don’t shift. “It’s a promise, as ironclad as can be.”

If I was hard before, I’m fucking concrete now.

If it’s competition she wants, it’s competition she’ll get.

It arrives sooner than expected when Ryan takes a seat on the other side of her. “Can I buy you a drink?”

I put my hand up. “I’m good, thanks.”

“Funny,” he replies, his hand falling onto Lacey’s thigh. “Well?” he says. “You want a drink or you want to skip straight to orgasm I’m going to give you in the bathroom back there?”

The. Fucking. Balls.

I stand. “I don’t think she’s buying, bud, so why don’t you beat it back to your ass-bandit friends over at the Pink Flamingo, huh?”

Lacey goes to peel his hand away, but he simply slides it higher.

“Get your god damn ha—” she starts.

But I’ve already sprung into action. I get a solid right in, Ryan’s head snapping sideways, the blow sending him spindling off onto the floor.

He stands up holding his jaw. “You’re going to regret that.”

He rushes forward and tackles me around the torso, driving me hard up against the bar, Lacey’s glass falls to shatter on the floorboards.

Someone shouts, another glass dropping.

The fucker’s strong, I’ll give him that. We spin. I pull him into a headlock, but he manages to break free and jab me in the ribs.

I’m about to bring my elbow down on his neck when something pushes us apart.

The security guard holds me back by the chest, shoving Ryan away, a cut on his cheek opening up. I go to rush forward again, but the security guy, a three-hundred-pound immovable object, holds me away.

“Go!” he shouts at Ryan, thumbing to the door.

Ryan points back to me. “You just fucked up.”

He leaves, the security guard turning to me and nodding to my whiskey. “You too. Finish your drink and get the fuck out.”

I take my seat, lifting the tumbler to my lips.

Lacey’s looking at me with her face scrunched up.

“What?” I exclaim. “A ‘thank you’ would be nice.”

She stands, hands on her hips. “I can fight my own battles.”

She walks off.

“Wait!” I call, but it’s too late.

The bartender laughs. “Way to go, Sugar Ray.” She places her hands on the bar. “Now, shall we say a hundred even for damages?”

CHAPTER THREE

LACEY

I sit on my bed with my back pressed against the wall. I didn’t hear my beloved neighbor come in last night, no headboard tapping or cries of pleasure.

That pleasure could be yours, I think.

Sure, it’s hard not to find Payton physically attractive. From those broad shoulders to the Adonis-like vee directing you to the main attraction, he’s a ten out of ten. But man candy or not, I like the full package—personality included.

Package, my brain repeats. He certainly had that.

My cell is warm against my ear, morning sun heating the small space of the room.

“So,” says Mom, “how’s it going, pumpkin?”

I wish she’d stop calling me that. I’m twenty for crying out loud. It’s probably the same reason she keeps all my pageant trophies on the shelf, every soft toy I owned as a child still laid out over my duvet. “They’re not making me jump off burning buildings if that’s what you’re asking.”

A resigned sigh follows. “I’m not allowed to worry about my little girl?”

My teeth grate together. “I can handle myself, Mom.”

I’m getting a touch sick of reiterating this.

“Just remember you can come home any time,” she continues. “Did you know Cassie Temper’s working at the Buy ’n’ Sell down the road? She says she’ll be a manager in a year. Isn’t that wonderful, making an honest, safe living like that?”

“Mom…”

“You were Homecoming Queen, Lace. Imagine the possibilities for you here.”

My mother’s never been big on subtlety, but if she thinks I’m going to be another girl caught in the small-town trap, she’s wrong. I aspire to be a bit more than a manager at the mighty Buy ’n’ Sell, the biggest store in the two-thousand-strong mining town of Willow Falls.

“Good for her,” I respond, “but I’m staying put.”

“You’re stubborn, Lacey Nelson, stubborn like your father was. You’re stubborn, but I still love you.”

“I know, Mom, and you have nothing to worry about, honestly.”

“What about your classmates? Are there any other girls there?”

The first thing I did when I arrived was ditch the rape whistle she gave me. “No, Mom, but I do have a partner.”

I’m not exactly sure why I’ve thrown this tidbit out, but she seizes on it.

“Really?” she says. “What’s her name?”

Did she not hear me when I said there were no girls in my class? “His name is Payton.”

A pause. “Hmm, sounds like a troublemaker.”

You have no idea. “He’s… fit.” It’s the only positive attribute I can come up with on the spot. Oh, and he has a penis like a telegraph pole.

“And are they feeding you at this place? I don’t want my pumpkin coming home all bony and brittle.”

She makes me sound like a Butterfinger. “Yes, there’s plenty of food, Mom.”

I’m starting to regret this call, but I know if I don’t call she’ll be dialing every hospital in the state fearing the worst. She thinks I’m this fragile flower who should be sheltered from the world, settling down with my mine-working husband and our two-point-five children, a two-bedroom in the outskirts of town with a bird bath and scabby lawn. No, thanks.

It’s even worse being Homecoming Queen. It comes with a certain expectation of what will follow next—either complete self-destruction, which is what everyone secretly wishes for, or a quick ascension to greatness, maybe a receptionist in the Big Smoke, a personal assistant… The sky is the limit! You should have seen the expressions on their faces when I told them I’d be heading a thousand miles away to middle of the desert to become a firefighter.

“Are girl firefighters, like, a thing?” Nancy Stewart asked, as if it were the most natural question in the world. This from the girl who thought you could use a plastic bag for a condom.

“What about the scholarship?” Mom continues. “Was that all sorted when you arrived?”

I hate lying, especially to my own mother, but it was a necessary evil. “Yes. Everything’s being looked after.” I can’t handle any more questions. “Class is about to start, Mom. I’ve got to go.”

“You’ll call me at the end of the week, as we agreed?”

I roll my eyes. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Alright then. Stay safe, pumpkin.”

“You’ve got to stop calling me that.”

She either ignores me or is too busy sticking to her agenda. “Call if you need anything. There’s no shame in backing out.”

Such a pillar of support. “I will. Love you, Mom.”

“Love you too.”

I end the call and slowly remove the cell from my ear.

I stand and take a breath.

Back to business, Lace.

*

We’re standing out in the open, partnered and geared up. I expected the breathing apparatus to be heavy, but it’s like carrying a sack of concrete on my back. It’s hot out, too, the bunker suit, thankfully as unflattering as all get out, even hotter.

Payton leans over to whisper, “Don’t worry. You still look fucking incredible.”

I stand there shaking my head. I see Ryan down the far end of the group eyeing me.

The Captain points up to a blackened skeleton of a building behind us. It has to be a good ten or eleven stories high. “That,” he announces, pausing for dramatic effect, “is the Tower.”

Payton whistles, hands on his hips.

“Do we get to set it on fire, Cap?” asks Jackson.

The Captain walks over to him. “Say what, son? Jesus H. Get down and give me twenty.”

“Now?” Jackson protests.

“No, tomorrow,” replies the captain, still shaking his head. “Get on with it.”

The Captain’s smiling while he addresses us. “The Tower is going to break you, recruits. You’re going to know every step and corner of it as intimately as your mother’s womb. You’re going to sweat and bleed getting to know one another.” He points to the roof. “The elevators aren’t working and the ladders can’t reach, so what are you going to do?”

He’s met with silence even though the answer is obvious.

“That’s right,” he smirks. “You’re going to hoof up the stairwell and retrieve a body each from the roof.” He takes out a stopwatch. “You’ll go up in pairs. The last of each pair down gets to do it over. Nelson and Cox, you’re up.” He clicks the stopwatch. “Go.”

For a split-second Payton and I look at each other… and then it’s on.

We sprint hard for the stairwell, Payton managing to get there first, swinging the door wide. It almost collects me on the way through. I whip it open and start up the stairs right on Payton’s — admittedly attractive — tail.

By the third floor we’re both breathing hard, Payton using the railing to pull himself around the corners. “Why don’t you drop back, take a rest?” he shouts, his Halligan bar bouncing by his side.

“Why don’t you shut the fuck up?” I call back.

He laughs and continues upwards.

By the time we come out onto the roof I’m sweating up a storm. I may as well be wearing a raincoat. My heart’s hammering, but I’m feeling good, pumped.

We race to the pile of dummies side by side, Payton elbowing me out of the way to get there first, tossing the first over his shoulder with ease as we were shown yesterday and already heading back to the stairs.

Shouts come from down below.

Not on my watch.

I heave up a dummy, an arm between its legs, taking the weight of it with my hips, and dash for the stairwell, just managing to squeeze through the door before it closes.

“Give it up, goldilocks,” Payton laughs.

I take the stairs two, three at a time to close the gap between us, Payton’s head craning back to see where I am.

“It’s going to suck ass doing this again,” he shouts.

I can’t close the distance, the dummy increasingly heavy, my knees jarring with every step.

“Tell you what,” he says. “I’ll let you win in exchange for a blowjob. You don’t even have to swallow.”

“You can suck my dick for free,” I reply, huffing from the strain.

“Don’t say I didn’t offer,” comes the echo.

There are only three flights of stairs to go. There’s no way I’m going to beat him. Unless…

I lift the dummy off my shoulders and toss him, or her, down the middle of the stairwell. It lands with a thud at the bottom.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Payton calls.

“Winning.”

Freed from the weight, I leap down complete flights, rounding past Payton on the second to last and just managing to sling my dummy back over my shoulder before heading outside ahead of him

“The fuck!” he yells.

My legs are burning as I head back to the Captain, but Payton’s hot on my tail.

“No. You. Don’t!” he shouts, the effort clear.

The rest of the class is jeering and shouting.

It’s close, but I manage to make it to the Captain first, dumping the dummy on the ground and collapsing, breathing up at the sky.

Payton arrives beside me, letting his own dummy down slowly. “That was low,” he says, “really fucking low.”

I cup my ear. “What’s that?”

Jackson wolf-whistles. “Yeah, boy. Schooled by a girl. You need a tissue, Cox?”

The captain’s smiling. “Nelson’s the winner… but…”

I don’t like the sound of that.

“…you don’t dump your dummy on the ground like that—ever. To you, that’s a real flesh-and-blood victim. You treat them with respect, which means you two are both going up and down again.”

Payton looks over at me. “Don’t worry, Captain. I love going down.”

I roll my eyes and lift myself up, pressing onto my heel. “Best of two?”

“No dirty tricks this time?” smirks Payton.

“I can’t make any promises,” I reply, taking off before he makes it to his feet.

*

I’m completely exhausted come day’s end, and I’m pretty in shape. Some of the others looked ready for a grave rather than a bed.

I decide on a quick shower before dinner, grabbing my clothes and toiletries bag.

It is nice having a bathroom to myself. We only had one growing up. Given my mother’s propensity for make-up and her obsession with her physical appearance, I almost had to make an appointment to use it.

I stop by the bathroom counter and dump my bag, stripping down.

Naked, I leave my towel behind and head around the corner to the showers.

But I’m not alone.

I freeze when Payton comes around the corner instead, towel around his shoulders, his hair wet, and, yep, that on show.

Given the way he flinches, he’s clearly as surprised to see me as I am him. He manages to correct and straighten back up in an instant. “Fancy meeting you here.”

I suddenly realize he’s not the only one standing there in his birthday suit.

I cover my breasts with one hand and my crotch with the other, awkwardly pressing my legs together like my bladder’s about to burst… or my face… from embarrassment.

He’s smiling. “A body like that shouldn’t be hidden away.”

“What the hell are doing in the women’s bathroom?”

He looks around. “I figured no one was using it.”

“I am using it.”

He’s loving this. “Seems a waste, though, doesn’t it, when we’re all squashed in like sardines next door?”

I nod downwards. “The only thing around here about to be squashed is your balls if you don’t cover that thing up.”

He pulls his towel off his shoulders and ties it around his waist. “Better?”

I cautiously reverse back to the bench, but I’m going to have to let go of myself to pick up the towel. “Turn around,” I tell him.

He does so and I release my hands, picking up my towel and wrapping it around myself flustered, my cheeks the color of ketchup.

When I look up I notice he’s looking right into the vanity mirrors.

Oh, come on.

I point to the door. “Leave, please.”

He starts to walk towards the door. “You owe me a blowjob, by the way.”

I eye him carefully. I keep a firm grip on my towel lest it float away like some Jedi mind trick given Payton’s apparent animal magnetism. I go to retort, but I’ve got nothing, standing there stuttering and gasping for air, a fish out of water.

He winks as he passes. “That your gag reflex?” he laughs.

I flip the bird at his back, angry and irritated and sweaty and sour and so sick of this guy.

Which is why, when I step into the shower and my hand starts to slide south, I’m as surprised as anyone else.

CHAPTER FOUR

PAYTON

Our little meeting in the girls’ bathroom was no coincidence. I thought for sure the ‘dick in face’ routine would work the second time around, exposure is key, but it seems Lacey Nelson doesn’t adhere by the teachings of the Bro Bible. Hell, she might even have standards, all of which is new and all of which is making my cock hard.

I sit on my bed and breathe out, looking down at my swollen erection. “Sorry, bud. We’re going to have to get creative.” It twitches back in response.

I look over to the desk in the corner of the room where an assortment of notes and course textbooks lie abandoned. I can handle the physical side of things here, but I never counted on the homework being so fucking difficult. Community risk reduction, codes and systems, exit protocols, incident response… My head’s spinning already and we’re only two days in.

Only one hundred and ten more to go.

‘Application’ was the issue at Brown as well. Dominating on the field was easy. I was destined for the NFL, “as sure as the sun rises,” Coach told me, but then my grades started to slip. Being balls deep in cheerleaders twelve hours a day didn’t help, and then there was the Incident That Shall Not Be Named. That fucked up any chance I had for good. The look on Dad’s face… Almost as good as the one that followed when I told him I was off to fire academy.

“You want to be a what?” he asked, his face a muddle, like I’d just driven a knife into his gut. His great son wanting to take up a common occupation, not wanting to become a Brown football star like his grandfather or Wall Street douchebag like himself. I should have doubled down and become a janitor. He would have been exiled from the family for good.

Maybe it’d be better that way without this stupid surname and its many unwanted attachments.

Then again, it does have its perks—private jets and apartments all over the globe, service at a snap of your fingers, not that any of that matters here with Captain Kick-Ass breathing down your throat.

Lacey’s different. I have a feeling she comes from the other side of the spectrum. I could play that to my advantage, but something tells me she wouldn’t go for it. If I want to get with her I’m going to have to rethink my strategy.

Later, the campus is all quiet and I try to sleep, but it’s fucking impossible. Each time I close my eyes I’m picturing Lacey’s sweet, fuckable curves, her pouty pillow lips. I want to wrap my arm around her, her taunt nipples stabbing into the underside of my arm, her pussy hot and wet around my cock. I’ll fist her hair in my hand while I pound into her, and then she’ll scream my name, beg me for more, for all of it. And I’ll give it to her—all ten, rock-hard inches of Cox.

I consider knocking on her door, maybe kicking the fucker down and storming in caveman-style, but brute force is the wrong approach. A special case requires special measures, so I lie awake staring at the ceiling planning, my erection refusing to abate.

Come midnight I can’t take it any longer.

I knock on the wall…

…and receive silence in return.

*

“You’ve met the Tower,” barks the Captain. “Now meet the burn room.”

There’s a murmur of wonder, but my attention’s being pulled away by Lacey. She yawns wide, covering her mouth. “Big night?” I query.

She turns to me, eyes flecked emerald. “I’m just tired.”

“Less drinking, more sleeping—that’s my motto.”

She laughs. “I thought it was ‘bros before hoes,’ or is it ‘sky’s out, thighs out’?”

“You will crawl inside in full PPE gear following the hose line and cuddle up real cozy to the fire inside,” the Captain says. “You will wait crouched there until instructed out. Simple, right? Let’s get going.” The Captain points to us. “Romeo and Juliet, apparatus on. You’re up.”

Even with my BA gear on, I can smell smoke. The burn room’s basically a concrete bunker with a lit fire in the corner, the flames licking over the roof.

I crawl through the doorway behind Lacey, thankful for yet another glorious view of her ass in those bunker trousers. She stops for a moment, hesitates, before continuing on towards the fire.

That’s my girl.

We crouch together close to the flames.

It’s fucking hot, that’s for sure. I’m thankful when the Captain waves us out.

I take off my apparatus and breathe in, my suit more or less a swimming pool, I’m sweating so hard.

Lacey’s golden hair is matted to her forehead and the side of her face when she removes her mask, her cheeks flushed and lips parted. I’m betting that’s exactly how she looks after she’s come.

“Hot enough for you?” I ask.

She’s breathing hard. “Nothing I can’t handle,” but I sense she was struggling in there.

Not as much as my good friend Ryan Fielding, though. He was in there for less than a minute before backing out.

He’s bailed up by the Captain as soon as his mask is off. “You going blind, Fielding. Did I wave you out?”

“No, Captain. Sorry, Captain.”

The Captain lets it slide, but from the clip of his voice I know I’ve found Ryan’s weakness. He was scared in there, shaking in his fucking bunker boots.

Jackson, however, spends a little too long inside, seemingly hypnotized by the flames. Eventually, the captain has to send in Hernandez to pull him out, a big, goofy grin on Jackson’s face when he takes off his mask. “The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire!” he bellows… to mutual eye-rolling all ’round.

I sit with Lacey and a group of others in the cafeteria. She’s earned a certain respect from the guys over these last few days, proved she’s more than a cute face. She’s even been showing me up, which is un-fucking-acceptable, but I’ll let it slide if it means I get to slide into something else.

I shake my head at Hernandez, who’s busy shoveling food into his face at an alarming rate. His hair has been clipped short, inky eyebrows always up. “You all right there, Hernandez?”

His fork stops mid-air. “Hey, I’m from a big family, bro. You learn to eat fast or not at all.”

I look around. I’ve established myself as the alpha without even trying. It’s always been that way. For better or worse, I’m a people magnet. I think it’s a Cox thing, the power of persuasion, not that it’s winning me over with Lacey.

Fielding sits with another group loudly boasting about his Porsche 911 back home.

Fuck him.

“Where you from, Lacey?” asks Manners.

She places her water down and brushes her hair back behind her ear. “This tiny mining town, barely a blip on the map.”

“So what are you doing all the way out here? You click your heels together three times?” laughs Manners.

The group laughs, Lacey smiling along with them. “Something like that, but Dorothy I am not.”

“You’re fucking GI Jane is what you are,” notes one of the others, a burly individual by the name of Dunn.

She looks at me. “It’s just what I do.”

“The fucking Captain, man,” adds Hernandez. “He’s breaking our balls,” noticing Lacey, “or ovaries or something.”

I nod with the sentiment. “The academy’s basically a military institution. You didn’t think there would be a drill instructor?”

Hernandez pushes his plate aside. “I just didn’t expect to feel like tenderized meat when I hit the sack.”

Nature calls. I stand. “Just as long as you’re not tenderizing your meat when you hit the sack.”

The laughter at my back is nice, reassuring.

I round the corner and enter the men’s bathroom, about to pull down my fly when I’m reefed backwards against the wall. “What the fuck?”

It’s Fielding, a hand against my chest. “You and I have to talk, Cox.”

I swipe his hand away and shove him back. “So fucking talk?”

We’re the same height, a similar build.

He smiles. “I did my research on you.”

I hide the moment of fear I feel. “Should I be flattered you want to suck my dick?”

The smile grows, lifting at the corners. “Oh, yeah. I bet that shit was real funny at Brown.”

Fuck. He knows. “You going to let me piss, or you want to hold it for me?”

“Stay the fuck away from her,” he says. “She’s mine.”

“Who?”

“Nelson.”

I laugh in his face. “Are you for fucking real? What are we, in junior high here?

“I’m serious,” he says, stepping closer. “I get what I want, and I want her. She’s spoken for.”

“She’s my partner. Didn’t you hear the Captain? We’re going to be spending a lot of quality time together.”

He steps back. “I played ball too, you know, quarterback.”

“Is that so?”

“Held the state yardage record two years running.”

“Which state? Fucking Delaware? Good for you.”

I go to walk past him, but he pushes me back. I should break his fucking arm.

“Do not fuck with me, Cox.”

“Really, ’cause last I checked you were shitting your pants in that burn room back there. My spidey senses say you’d run if I pulled out a cigarette lighter right now.”

The same, smile comes again. “I’ll see you round, Dream Machine.”

He turns and leaves.

He knows alright. Question is, what’s he going to do about it?

*

Dante’s is quieter tonight. It took a bit of persuasion to get through the front door after my small tussle last night. A greasy Benjamin for the Dwayne Johnson lookalike seemed to do the trick.

Most of the class is here, though I can’t see Fielding—thank fuck.

I notice, with equal surprise, Lacey is back at the bar, but tonight she’s flanked by fellow recruits. She’s laughing, a string of empty shot glasses on the bar.

I walk over and stand behind her. “I see you started without me.”

Hernandez gives me a fist-bump. “Next round’s on you, bro.”

One of the other guy’s shifts down. “Here, take a load off, Cox.”

I settle in beside Lacey. “That I will.”

Lacey looks to me with a wry smile. “Howdy, partner.”

I tilt my head at the shot glasses. “I thought you were a club soda kind of girl.”

She taps one of the glasses. “I’m twenty one, and you seem to think I’m a lot of things I’m not.”

I can’t tell if she’s flirting.

Maybe she’s drunk?

Time for an old-timey showdown. I place my hands on the bar. “Okay, partner, given you’re such a badass, how about a drink-off?”

She looks around. “We’re not in college, Stifler.”

She doesn’t know how appropriate that name is given the state of my dick right now.

The others are quiet.

I lay it out for her. “Tequila, shot for shot. I win, we go on a date.”

Her left eyebrow lifts high. “And if I win?”

I laugh, looking to the others for support. “In that unlikely event, I’ll do any damn thing you want.”

“Anything?”

“Anything,” I reply.

“You’re very confident,” she says. “What’s to say I’m not a hardcore drinker?”

I laugh at that. “You’re a lot of things, Miss Nelson, but a hardcore drinker you are not.”

She shrugs. “And there you go again. Alright, you want to be embarrassed in front of the entire class, be my guest.”

“So that’s a yes?”

She nods, straightening her shoulders. “It is, but we’re doing vodka, not tequila.”

I nod back. “Sold.”

She stands. “Let me use the bathroom. Then it’s on.”

I draw my hand out. “Be my guest.”

While she walks off Hernandez cups his hands around his mouth and announces, “Drinnnnnk-off!”

People start to close in around us.

I take out my wallet and lay a couple of hundreds on the bar, looking for the Britney lookalike bartender.

Jackson pushes his way up to the bar, flicking a Zippo lighter on and off. “Someone’s going to puke tonight.”

“Sure as hell ain’t going to be me,” I reply, cracking my knuckles. “I’ve got this shit.”

“You ever seen those eating competitions?” says Hernandez. “It’s always these small, tiny girls who take them out, fool you straight up, don’t judge a book by its cover and all that.”

But I think I’ve got Lacey pretty well sorted. This isn’t my first rodeo.

She emerges from the bathroom and takes her seat.

Britney the bartender comes out from the back.

I place a finger on the bills. “Vodka shots,” I tell her. “Keep them coming.”

She looks to Lacey. “You sure about this, hon?”

Lacey continues to stare at me. “I’ll be perfectly fine. It’s him I’m worried about.”

I have a great laugh at that. “Let’s play,” I tell her, focusing in on those cock-crushingly beautiful eyes.

“Let’s play,” she agrees.

CHAPTER FIVE

LACEY

Payton thinks he has this, and me, in the bag. I can see it in the neon gleam of his eyes, the way his chest is puffed out, his shoulders proudly peeled back. Drinking games—this is his territory. God knows how many of these aimless drinking bullshit games he’s been through in his life, how many pong balls thrown and kegs emptied.

But not tonight.

Tonight Mr. Alpha is going down.

Well, not down, down.

Would that really be a bad thing? my head cuts in. I bet he gives a-maz-ing head.

Whether he does or not, I’ve somehow got to survive this first.

“Last chance to back out, little girl,” says Payton, rubbing his hands together like it’s Christmas morning and I’m the biggest box under the tree.

“I’d take his advice, hon,” the bartender laughs, “but hey, if you want to line my pockets while you puke your brains out, so be it.”

I smile and tap the bar.

Rolling her eyes, she disappears to the back of the bar and returns with two shot glasses. She places them down “Vodka, round one.”

It has barely hit the bar before Payton’s picked his up and downed it, up-ending it back in its place and whooping. “Yeah! Your turn.”

I pick up the shot glass as daintily as I can and drink it down, my face screwing up. I turn the glass over and place it down gently, clearing my throat. “Next.”

There’s an excited murmur from the throng gathered around us.

The bartender arrives with another two shots, eye-rolling all the while.

This time Payton doesn’t use his hands at all, cupping his mouth around the glass and lifting his head, the alcohol disappearing down his gullet. He flips the glass over. “Two down.”

Again, I draw it out, taking my time picking up my shot and putting it away, eyes squinting.

“Why don’t you tap out at two?” Payton teases. “No one’s going to think any less of you.”

“Two?” I laugh. “You’re insulting me.”

He shakes his head. “Careful. You’re one drink away from telling everyone what you really think.”

“And what’s that?”

His smile is wide. “That I’m the hottest thing you’ve ever seen.”

“Ooooo,” comes the crowd’s response.

I pick up the next shot first and throw it back. “Better get drinking then, because it’s going to take a lot more shots before I start spitting out that kind of nonsense.”

“Burn!” laughs Hernandez, hands on Payton’s shoulders.

Payton plays with the rim of the next shot glass, the poor bartender struggling to keep up, swinging from the back of the bar to the front with fresh rounds. He picks up his shot. “Hey, you bring the alcohol, I’ll bring the bad decisions.”

By the eighth-round things are starting to get serious. Whether he’s admitting it or not, Payton’s feeling the effects. His head wavers in front of me, his words starting to slur together. “You’re… You are… You ha… sofuckinghot.”

My posture remains perfect, my faculties in full order. I cup my ear. “Come again?”

He reaches for the shot glass and misses. “You… ill… come again, andagain, andagain. Ima gonna wine… and… dine… and grind you.” He points. “You,” like I didn’t know who he was talking about.

I look around at the others. “Me? Are you guys seeing this right now? Eight shots and our dear friend Mr. Cox here is ready for nap time.”

He collects the glass and brings it to his chin, before re-adjusting for his lips. “I am not done.”

And down goes shot number nine.

I fire one back and place my shot glass behind the eight others on my side.

Hernandez is shaking his head at me. “Jesus, Nelson, you’re crushing this shit.” He nods down to my belly. “You got a stomach or a damn steel trap in there?”

I shrug. “I had an uncle who owned a bar.”

Lie.

“Can I marry you?” asks one of the others. “Any girl who can hold her liquor like that needs to be sainted or some shit.”

I look across to Payton. “What do you say, big boy? Ready to throw in the towel?”

He shakes his head, but he’s struggling, and boy is it making me happy seeing him squirm like this. In fact, it’s kind of turning me on.

“One more! One more! One more!” comes the chant.

Payton circles his hand in the air. “Keep them coming.”

Ten rounds, eleven, and the end is nigh. Payton’s starting to see it, his bloodshot eyes begging for relief, but I’m not letting up.

My own words start to conjoin, but I’m sober enough to at least remain seated.

Payton stands and needs to be handled back to his stool, poor Hernandez having to shift Payton’s hand to show him where the next shot is.

Jackson continues to flick his Zippo lighter on and off, shaking his head. “Give it up, bro. Ruski girl’s got you beat.”

“No,” Payton gasps, like he can’t believe it, like I’ve somehow swindled him out of this great, grand honor. “No. We… keep… going.”

Almost a full sentence. I’m impressed.

One more shot does the trick. He squints at me, looking somewhere over my head. “Holyshityouatwin,” he babbles. “Ineverfuckedtwinsbefore.” And he slumps to the floor.

It takes three guys to get him to his feet, his eyes rolling in his head, his cheeks rosy. ‘KO’d’ doesn’t begin to describe it.

Hernandez lifts my hand up. “Gentleman, we have a winner!”

There’s a loud cheer from my classmates, a couple of well-planted back slaps.

The bartender winks at me. “Good for you, girl.” She pockets the cash and starts collecting the shot glasses.

I stand and lean a good few feet to my right, Hernandez putting out a hand to stop me before I straighten up. “Whoa, you all good, Nelson?”

“Never been better,” I hiccup, “but I could really use a bed right about now.”

Payton’s started to sing. “Holdme closer, Tony Danza,” he sings, butchering the Elton John classic. “You are the wind beneath my wings.”

Hernandez exhales. “Someone should film this shit, get it on YouTube.”

As a very vocal Payton is dragged away, Hernandez swings around in front of me. “So?”

“So?” I repeat.

“What are you going to get him to do? He said ‘anything,’ right?”

The possibilities…

I smile, patting Hernandez on the shoulder. “Don’t you worry. I’ve got something real special in mind.”

*

The Payton Cox who enters the gym the following morning is a pale—rather literally—shade of the man he once was. He looks me up and down, clearly mystified as to why I’m standing there a picture of health.

The Captain spots it immediately. “Holy mother in heaven, what the hell happened to you, Cox? You go to bed with Mike Tyson?”

“No, Captain,” Payton wheezes, breathing deep.

I almost feel sorry for him.

Almost.

The Captain claps his hands together. “Let’s get on with it.”

Payton struggles through PE. More than once I see him look towards the bathroom, but to his credit he pushes through his hangover. He goes without food come lunchtime, practically gagging when I push a blueberry muffin under his nose.

I, however, am treated like an Amazonian princess, a wonder to behold. It seems I’ve developed a nickname overnight. They call me ‘The Miracle.’ I kind of like it.

Payton’s got his head in his hands at the table. “How did you do it?” he asks. “I’ve got to know.”

I start to tear pieces from the muffin, popping them into my mouth. I tap the side of my head. “It’s a mental thing, though I guess you wouldn’t know much about that given you’ve got a brain the size of a ball bearing.”

“Too harsh,” he replies.

I slap him on the back. “Come on, partner. We’ve got class to get to.”

By mid-afternoon, Payton’s started to sober up. His skin color is no longer a dead ringer for sheet paper, and he seems to have found some semblance of coordination.

We’re in a new, smaller hall, a low structure in front of us.

The Captain stands beside it, proud as if it were a shiny new Chevy. “Lady and gents, you’ve met the Tower and the burn room, now meet the Maze.”

He taps on the side of it. It does indeed look like a kind of oversized rat maze. It’s made of plywood extending twenty feet or so towards the back of the hall.

The Captain’s next words cause my entire body to tighten. “Enclosed spaces, people—They’re part and parcel of the job, especially for those of you height-and/or girth-inclined.”

I try to remain calm. You knew this would be part of training. You can get through it.

The Captain moves around to the front of the structure and holds up a self-contained breathing apparatus that’s been blackened out. “Sometimes the smoke will be so thick you’ll be going into these small spaces blind, which is precisely what this is for. One of you will enter the Maze and your partner will stand on the side and direct you through it. It’s about teamwork, people, not who gets through the quickest.”

Fielding and Hernandez go first. It takes around fifteen minutes for both of them to make it through, including the enclosed tunnel running through the center of the Maze.

I try to memorize it as best I can, but it’s hard to see the full picture from this angle.

The more teams go, the more anxious I get.

“Cox, Nelson, let’s go,” the Captain calls.

Payton goes to take the blackened-out SCBA, but I get there before him. “Eager,” nods the Captain. “I like your style, Nelson.”

The nerves really start to ratchet up when I put on the apparatus and get to my hands and knees.

“Straight ahead,” calls Payton from the side.

I start to move, my sides bumping into the plywood walls and giving me some idea of the space. It’s pitch black with the mask on. I can hear my breathing through it, feel my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

You can do this.

“A little to your left… Yep… There’s a kind of step you’ll have to hop over… No… Left more… Yes. Straight into the tunnel.”

I know I’m in the tunnel because I can dimly hear the way my shifting echoes. The walls seem to close in on me, my head starting to freak out. Payton’s voice becomes muddled, hard to hear.

I’m breathing fast, pulling air in as quickly as I can, sweating, my hands scanning but only finding the walls narrowing and constricting, threatening to crush me completely.

I can’t hold off the panic any more.

You have to.

I can’t.

It’s all going to unravel.

“Let me out!” I scream, the mask muffling my voice.

“Nelson,” the Captain calls. “What’s going on?”

“I need to get out!” I shout. “Let me out, please.”

I’m bashing the walls, all sense of direction lost. I try to stand and hit my head on the roof of the tunnel, and all the time it feels smaller and smaller.

I take off the apparatus and find the light, crawling for it as fast as I can and emerging too early, standing there in my bunker gear drenched in sweat.

The Captain stands with his hands on his hips. “The fuck, Nelson? You’re not wearing your apparatus, happily inhaling god knows what kind of toxic soup. You’re dead.”

White, prickly fear spindles down my back. I’m lightheaded.

Payton looks a touch more concerned, starting to walk over. “Hey, you okay?”

“I…” I start, my mouth cotton-ball dry. “I couldn’t…” I look over and see the rest of the class watching this spectacle, my big failure.

And I can’t take it.

I place the apparatus down carefully. I turn and sprint for the doors, Payton calling my name.

CHAPTER SIX

PAYTON

Just like that, Lacey’s gone.

“If you can’t handle the heat, get back in the kitchen,” Ryan starts.

I walk over ready to give him a fist makeover, but the Captain beats me to it, pushing me back. For a middle-aged man, the fucker’s surprisingly strong.

“What do you think you’re doing, Cox?” he says.

I point over his shoulder to Ryan. “I’m going to teach this wise-ass some manners.”

The Captain turns. “Mr. Fielding is going to shut up, and as for you, you’re going to get on with it. I’ll direct you through the maze in lieu of Ms. Nelson’s…” he searches for the word, “difficulties.”

“Difficulties?” I laugh. “She was terrified.”

The Captain chews on invisible jerky, his tongue poking his cheek out. “Son, if she can’t handle the Maze, she’s done. Some just aren’t cut out for this job. Better we sort the contenders from the pretenders as soon as possible. Everyone is better off that way.”

“She was trying,” I protest. I know the class is listening, straining to hear our conversation.

“What just happened? It proves Nelson is weak,” states the Captain.

My anger pulls me chest to chest with him, dangerously close. “Come on. She can outrun and outmuscle most of the guys here. She deserves a bit of respect.”

The Captain’s voice grows, the class watching on silently. “You want to go down with her, Cox? Because it’s sure as shit shaping up that way.”

I take a step back and head for the doors.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” the Captain shouts.

I flip him the bird.

Fuck the consequences.

I go to knock on the door to Lacey’s room, but it swings open, unlocked.

She sees me and turns her head away. She’s sitting on her bed, her knees tucked up under herself. I see in the window her eyes are red, but she’s not crying. “Not now,” she whimpers. It’s strange seeing her vulnerable like this.

I take a seat on the edge of the bed, folding my hands over themselves. “If you wanted to get away from me, all you had to do was ask. You didn’t have to make a scene.”

She turns back, eyes wet but cheeks dry, beautifully framed by the morning light. There’s the faintest hint of a smile. “You’re an asshole.”

I put my hands up. “Guilty as charged, Your Honor, but I want you to know I’ve got your back. Fuck the Captain and his maze bullshit. We’ll work it out.”

She looks down between her legs. “I don’t know what happened. Everything just got smaller, tighter… I couldn’t breathe.”

“You’re claustrophobic.”

She doesn’t need to reply.

I swivel to face her. “You sure you chose the right career path here?”

She looks out the window. “My father was a firefighter, and his father before him. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to be.”

“Not a princess or pony wrangler like a normal girl, a vlogger?”

She laughs, her whole face lighting up, sniffing. “A vlogger? Seriously?”

“Hey, I thought that was the girl 2.0 dream.”

“And you?” she retorts. “You can’t honestly tell me you’re here solely because you think it will help you pull girls.”

I throw my hands up. “Actually…”

She shakes her head. “Wow, you’re so shallow I’m surprised there’s not a depth marker stamped to your forehead.”

I rub it. “At least it’s not a co—”

“Okay,” she laughs, “but you can go, honestly. I’ll be fine just as soon as I find a hole to throw myself into.”

“I’m surprised the vodka shots didn’t do it.”

She starts to nod. “Ah, yes. I forgot all about that. You said if I won you’d do anything I want, correct?”

“Correct,” I confirm, still distracted by how utterly fucking entrancing she looks right now, even in that oversized bunker gear. It’s those eyes—ray-gunning good vibes right to my dick. “Name your prize.”

The corner of her mouth lifts, a cheeky smile following I haven’t seen before. Her hair flares white, backlighted by the sun. “Take me out on your precious date then.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously, anywhere but Dante’s, and I want you to put some effort in. I’m talking serious Nicholas Sparks shit.”

“You do know everyone dies in those movies, right?”

She feigns ignorance. “Really?”

I put my hands up. “No, your call. Full effort—I’ve got it. Friday night then?”

“Tomorrow?”

“You got better plans?”

She rocks forward and swings her legs down, swaying back and forth on the edge of the bed in a highly suggestive manner. My cock’s about to fucking explode. “It’s a date,” she says.

“A date,” I nod, unable to wipe the smile from my face.

I put my hand out. “Take my hand and we’ll head back out there.”

She shakes her head. “I can’t. I’ll die from the embarrassment.”

“Trust me, there are worse ways to go. Just ask Mr. Sparks.”

She reaches for my hand. I’m surprised how hot it is, the delicate way her fingers grasp mine. I pull her up and lead her to door. “This way, princess.”

She snaps back, a finger raised. “Call me that again and the only date you’ll have tomorrow is with a hospital bed.”

I have to laugh. “Hey, I’m always up for a bit of ‘doctors and nurses.’ Just say the word.”

*

Given the Miracle’s drink-off performance last night, the rest of the class is sympathetic. The Captain? Not so much, especially after my bird-flipping. He orders us both to show up at the quadrangle at 1700 tomorrow. I can only imagine what kind of wonderful surprise he has in store. I just hope it doesn’t eat into our date.

I could barely believe the words coming out of her mouth. Maybe she’s curious, or maybe she really does want more. I can’t seem to get a good read on her. She’s got secrets, hiding something, of that I’m sure, but doesn’t everyone? Don’t I?

And Fielding, that fucking prick. He’s onto me. Sooner or later that’s going to come to a head.

I’ll be waiting.

Jackson’s busy drumming up ways for Lacey to overcome her fear at dinner. “My parents had this box they put me into when I was a kid.”
“Box?” exclaims Hernandez. “So, you were a gimp? Explains a lot.”

Jackson blows Hernandez a kiss. “Tell your mom I say hi.” He continues speaking to the table. “Like I was saying, you get used to it. Embrace that shit.”

“Exposure,” adds one of the others. “That’s what it comes down to, and we’re rooting for you. Know that.”

Lacey smiles. “Thanks, guys. I appreciate it,” but she’s looking at me from across the table.

“What’s the Captain got you down for out in the quad tomorrow?” Hernandez asks.

I shrug. “Sucking his dick? Who knows?”

Right on cue, I hear the Captain’s voice from the other side of the room. “Cox, you’ve got a call.”

“Who the hell uses a landline anymore?” questions Jackson.

“My father,” I reply.

Jackson’s cheek pops out, his hand jerking off the phantom cock as I head to the Captain.

“Hope you know how to swallow,” laughs Hernandez.

The Captain simply points down the hall when I reach him.

I salute weakly as I pass.

I find the archaic phone on the wall and pick up the bright orange handset. “Father.”

“Payton,” comes my father’s snooty, syrupy voice.

“You had your fun, son, or are you still busy playing with hoses out there in Hicksville?”

My father—master of many things, but subtlety’s not among them. “I’m sticking this one out, Dad. You’re wasting your time.”

The joking’s done. “Get serious, Payton. Look at what your brothers have accomplished, and you want to be a damn firefighter, cleaning up car wrecks your whole life, burnt to a crisp because some idiot forgets to turn off the oven?”

My brothers—all part of the family business. They’re saving lives alright.

I huff, leaning into the wall. “Like working for you would be any better. Give me a break.”

“Your brothers have worked hard here, Payton. Finn’s looking after the entire Midwest, William’s heading up HR, and you? Like the Brown bullshit wasn’t bad enough you had to stoop right down to the lowest common denominator and really drag the Cox name through the mud.”

I laugh. “You make it sound so prestigious.”

“You’re a Cox, Payton. We don’t settle. We dominate.”

How many times have I heard that one? “Don’t you mean ’ejaculate.’ Who is it this week, Dad? Another maid? The pool boy?”

“You watch your tone.”

“I’m staying. Deal with it. Oh, and send my regards to Mom.”

I hang up, tapping my fist against the wall.

Fucking Dad. Unless he suddenly changes his name to Google, he should stop acting like he knows everything, knows what’s best for me. I don’t work for him. I don’t have to fall into line.

Until he pulls the trust fund.

But he wouldn’t. Mom’s always seen the better side of me, actually congratulated me when I told her what I was doing here. Her eyes narrowed in that probing way only psychologists can manage. “You do what makes you happy, Payton,” she told me, “but remember, don’t plan to be anything less than you are capable of being.”

No, if I was shooting up at a crack house, then Dad would cut ties, but not now, not when I’m still in formal education.

As for the rest, my brothers can brown-nose all they want for a share of the Cox fortune. Me? I’m going to make a damn difference in the world.

Dad can’t say that. Sure, he’s rich, but he ain’t Bill Gates or Bezos. His philanthropy extends as far as the front door.

Once again, I neglect study to hit up Dante’s, though even the smell of the place threatens to send me back through the door. Britney the bartender smiles when she sees me. “Well, well, if it isn’t ol’ thimble guts.”

I take a seat. The place is empty—no Lacey, no classmates, no Ryan, just a woman down the far end of the bar who’s throwing some serious eye-sex my way. Given the fact she’s on the bad side of sixty, I’m not game. GILFs are not my jam. I’ve only got eyes for Lacey.

“You made your money,” I tell the bartender. “Say, where do people go for fun around here?”

She stops cleaning down the bar. “Besides the strip club three doors down? Beats me. This isn’t Time Square, I’m afraid.”

“There must be somewhere interesting close by, somewhere the kids go to… you know.”

She looks up, squinting at me. “To philosophize and debate quantum mechanics, you mean?”

“I’m not looking for the library. Come on. Give me something.” I take out my wallet and slap down a ten.

She swipes it away and leans over the bar. “Alright.” She points left. “You head down the road here for seven miles until you hit the old Arby’s sign. Take a right there and drive another six to the natural springs.”

“Natural springs?”

“Warm all year ’round. Barely anyone goes down there. If that doesn’t get you laid, I don’t know what will.”

“What about somewhere to eat, preferably somewhere we won’t catch salmonella?”

She stretches her hands out on the bar. “Now that is a pickle.”

*

I have a drink—singular—and head back to the dorm. I simply couldn’t stomach another drop. Hard to believe it, but I think my showdown with Lacey has put me off liquor for life.

The dorm’s just as quiet. It’s late and I can’t blame most for hitting the hay. The Captain seems intent on breaking us down physically and mentally. We’ve already lost one—a cheery local who probably thought this was going to be a walk in the park… not American Ninja.

Fine by me, though I admit the thing with Lacey and the Maze has me concerned. Assholey as he was about it, the Captain had a point. Either she gets used to it or she’s out. It’s part of the job.

But I’m not going to let her fail. No. Fucking. Way. She’s got all the elements of a great firefighter. Something as simple as fear shouldn’t hold her back.

Fear, yes. So simple, Payton.

Shut up, Head.

I push the books to the side again and stare at the wall wondering what she’s doing next door. I close my eyes and picture her reclined there, her panties tight around her thighs, her hand covering her crotch and a single finger lost inside her wetness. She’s whispering my name, her back arching off the bed.

My eyes snap open and it’s the wall again.

The wall and your hand, big boy.

“Fuck this.”

I stand and head out into the hallway. I look left and right before I raise my hand to knock on her door.

I stop. You really going to do this? There’s no way she’s going to go for a late-night booty call.

I never hesitate. It’s a strange sensation, but the stakes are high here. I don’t want to fuck this up. She’s becoming more than a lay, another notch in the belt.

Only because she’s playing hard to get.

But that’s not it. There’s more there—a spark, the start of a deeper connection.

Enough, Dr. Phil. Knock on the damn door.

I knock, the door unlatching and swinging open.

“Lacey,” I say in a low voice, looking into the shadows. “You there?”

Of course she’s fucking there, and you probably just woke her up.

I peer inside, my eyes adjusting to the darkness, but her bed’s empty.

The fuck?

She’s probably gone to the bathroom, I think.

I stand there in my boxers in the hallway waiting for her to come back—five minutes, ten. Either she’s sleeping in the damn bathroom or she’s somewhere else.

With someone else.

I clamp that voice right down. No. There is no way she’d hook up with someone else.

Not even Fielding?

The thought sickens me, that slimy fucker with his hands on her.

Nope. No way.

I give up, closing her door and heading back into my room. I leave my door slightly open to hear her come back, only my hand around my cock to lull me to sleep.

CHAPTER SEVEN

LACEY

The Captain pauses in front of me while I yawn. “My, my, aren’t you a bright beaver this morning?”

He continues down the line.

He’s not wrong. I’m exhausted. I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up.

“You okay?” asks Payton.

I cover my mouth as another yawn overwhelms me. “Just tired.”

“Why?”

I give him a puzzled look. Like it’s any of his business. I gesture to the gym instead. “Um, hello? Are we in the same world here?”

“Right, right,” he says, looking down at his feet.

We’re back outside the burn room, geared up with charged lines laid along the floor. These things can weigh well over two-hundred pounds.

The Captain shouts over the noise of the pumps. “This is a live exercise, recruits. You will work in teams to extinguish the blaze inside. If you’ve been paying attention, this should be a cakewalk. If you haven’t, expect for that pressure to blow you right back through those doors.”

I notice Ryan checking me out as I gear up. The guy gives me the creeps.

Payton pulls his bunker jacket on, a whoosh in the background as the fire springs to life in the burn room.

“Where was your father stationed?” he asks.

I lift up my BA gear and sling my arms through the straps. It’s feeling lighter every day, which is to say close to back-breaking. “New Jersey.”

Payton seems surprised. “My family’s got property in New York. Well, we’ve got property everywhere, but New York’s a great place—Jersey, too.”

I give a short laugh. “You clearly haven’t lived there.”

“What does he do now, your dad?”

I swallow. I figured this question would arise sooner or later. I don’t know how much I should tell Payton.

What’s he going to do? Go blabbing to the entire class?

I check to make sure no one else is listening in. “He died on 9/11.”

Payton’s freezes. “The 9/11?”

I nod.

Payton straightens up, shaking his head. “Jesus, I’m sorry.”

I force a smile. “It’s okay. It was a long time ago. I hardly knew him.”

“He’s a hero.”

“Something like that,” I reply.

The Captain’s over by the burn room. “Cox, Nelson. You want me to arrange a couple of coffees to go along with your chit-chat?”

“Sorry, Captain,” we call together.

“Your dad would be proud,” Payton says, and it’s completely genuine. There’s no innuendo or motive. It’s a statement, pure and simple.

“He’d probably pull me the hell out of this place if he was around, but thanks.”

I don’t want to cry, so I start to rhyme words in my head, get the logic side of my head pumping to push out the emotion.

Shock.

Sock.

Clock.

Coc—”

I stop.

You’re losing it, girl.

It’s true I can’t seem to get Payton out of my head. Falling for him would be unwise, I know that, but he’s proven over these last few days he’s more than a big penis… not that it’s an undesirable attribute.

A flicker pulses through my stomach of the thought of laying beneath him, his hand guiding his cock into place, the other on my thigh.

Enough, Lace.

I straighten up and take a breath.

The burn room is uncomfortable, the charged line heavy, but Payton and I manage to get the blaze extinguished in record time. Even Fielding makes it through today, his previous aversion to the room gone.

The Captain is impressed with us, but not impressed enough, it seems, to forget our meeting at the quad later.

Payton points out the window of the gym at the end of the day. “But it’s pouring out there, Captain?” he protests.

It is. Rain’s been hammering against the windows in a percussive slurry for almost an hour now.

The Captain simply stands there smiling with his legs apart. “Is it? I hadn’t noticed. “

It’s hard not to, silvery sheets of water lashing the campus outside.

“Well,” says the Captain, “what are you two waiting for? Get out there.”

I look to Payton, who subtlety tilts his head and rubs his middle finger behind his ear, directed at the Captain.

My thoughts exactly.

We follow the Captain out into the quad while the rest of the class heads off to dinner. I’m quietly excited at the prospect of our date later tonight, the opportunity to sample food that hasn’t been deep-fried or served out of a bucket. And there may be other areas of said excitement, more sensual areas if I’m honest with myself.

I take in Payton’s imposing build as he walks behind the captain, his shirt and gym pants already soaked through, my own personal wet T-shirt contest in full swing.

Thank god for bras.

It’s freaking freezing out on the quad, though, the water running into my eyes.

“Attention!” shouts the captain once we’ve reached the middle of the quad.

Payton and I stand there in the din with our hands behind our backs and our legs apart. I notice there are two dummies waiting on the ground.

Safely under an umbrella, the Captain shouts to be heard over the rain. “Pick a dummy and throw it over your shoulders. Get used to the feeling, because you’ve going to have a whole hour out here getting to know them.”

Payton’s the first to speak up. “You want us to stand here in the rain lifting a hundred and sixty-pound dummy?”

“Precisely, Mr. Cox,” the Captain smiles. He turns and nods to the corner of the quad. “When your time’s up, I’ll ring that bell, but if I see your knees buckle or that dummy drop, it’ll be another hour, understood?”

“Yes, Captain,” we reply in unison.

Payton and I each take a dummy, hoisting it onto our shoulders.

We watch the Captain vanish back inside, the rain increasing in intensity. Even though I’m wearing a bra, my nipples have turned into tight arrowheads, clearly visible. I know Payton can see them. His eyes lift to my face. “What are you going to name him, your dummy?”

“Who said it’s a ‘he?” I shout in reply, water running into my mouth. “You?”

He looks over his shoulder to the blank face of the dummy. “I was thinking Monty.”

“Like the Simpsons character?”

“Ah, so you’re not completely inhuman,” he laughs.

I straighten and adjust to the weight. “Let me guess. You only enjoy watching the Lingerie Football League and WWE.”

“I’ll have you know I’m a man of many facets, television viewing inclusive.”

“What’s your favorite show then?” I ask.

“Fargo, actually.”

The dummy’s heavy on my shoulders. I make my voice loud to be heard over the rain. “Really?”

“Really, and it sure as hell feels like the middle of Minnesota out here now. I’m fucking freezing. Looks like you are, too,” he notes, eyes darting to my icicle nips.

I blush up a storm while we continue to stand there running through likes and dislikes.

True to his word, he’s deeper than I initially gave him credit for, right down to reading McCarthy and Steinbeck. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the jock thing is an act.

We’re both standing there shaking, my arms burning from the effort. The hour’s already up, but there’s been no sign of the Captain or the blissful sound of that bell ringing.

“How’s long has it been?” I ask Payton, my teeth chattering hard, noting he’s wearing the same Rolex my father did. “An hour and a half.”

He lets the dummy down.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“I’m going,” he says. “The Captain said an hour. It’s been an hour.”

“But—”

“Cox, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” shouts the Captain, suddenly materializing from the edge of the quad.

“You said an hour,” Payton shouts back, standing with his chest out, his pecs and chiseled abs on full display.

The Captain comes right up to him, still shouting. “Did I say you could drop the fucking dummy, dummy?”

Payton points to me. “She’s going to contract hypothermia out here.”

The Captain looks to me before turning back to Payton, shaking his finger. “Showers. Both of you, and not another damn word.”

We watch the Captain storm off. I’m not exactly happy with Payton’s outburst either.

As soon as we place the dummies away from the quad, I head for the main building.

“Hey!” Payton calls, running to keep up with me. “What’s going on?”

“Figure it out,” I snap back, moving down the hall to my room.

I unlock the door and come in, swiping my towel off the hook. “Can you just leave me alone?”

I’m almost at the girls’ bathroom when he steps in front of me. “Seriously, what the hell did I do?”

I lean against the wall and exhale. “I can fight my own damn battles, you know. I’m not some poor damsel who has to be rescued all the time.”

He presses his hand against the wall next to my head, breathing deeply and doing his best not to stare at my chest and my diamond nipples. “Look, I’m sorry. I was only trying to help.”

I remain firm. “I know, and I’m telling you I can handle it. I don’t need anyone stepping in for me.”

He puts his hands out. “Absolutely. Understood. It won’t happen again.”

“Good.”

“Good.” He pauses there. “Are we still okay for the date?”

I can’t believe this guy. “You’re pushing your luck.”

He gets down on his knees, his hands pressed together and water continuing to drip from his chin. “I’ve never begged for anything in my life, but here I am, on my knees.”

I laugh. “I kind of like you there,” I say, suddenly realizing how sexually charged that sounds.

I know he senses it because he smiles, keeping the puppy-dog pout going. “P-p-please,” he begs. His eyes light up when he stands. “I’ll help you get over this claustrophobia thing. I swear to god. Mom’s a psychologist. I’ve picked up a few things over the years.”

“Did you just?” I reply, deliberately heavy on the sarcasm, but he’s weakening me. I have to give him points for persistence, and I do need help with this thing. If I can’t make it through the Maze and who knows what challenges are coming next, I’m done.

“Fine,” I relent, rolling my eyes. “One date. That is it. One date and you help me get over this thing.”

He stands smiling, his amber eyes hypnotic. “Agreed.”

I step away from the wall, pointing to the bathroom doorway. “Can I take a shower now?”

“Do you want some company?”

I shake my head walking through the doorway. “Now you’re really pushing it, partner.”

He backs away. “I jest.”

Fifteen minutes later and freshly showered, I dress and knock on his door.

He seems surprised to see me. “I thought we weren’t heading out for another half hour.”

“I thought you said you were going to help me get over my fear.”

“Now?”

I raise an eyebrow, shifting my weight onto one leg. “You’ve got something better to do?”

He opens the door wider. “In that case, come on in.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

PAYTON

One minute—that’s all Lacey can stand the closet for at first. It’s a small, tight space, even without clothes. Still, she goes in again and again, extending the time to one-and-half minutes, and then three.

I call an end to the session after fifteen minutes, careful not to overwhelm her or push her too hard. The exposure must be built up over time, otherwise you risk the phobia taking an even greater grip on the patient.

Lacey goes back to her room and I can’t believe I’ve just spent the last fifteen minutes locking her in the closet, but I’m a man of my word if nothing else. I want to see her succeed. I want to see her stick it to the Captain.

Five minutes later, dressed, I’m knocking on her door.

My cock almost explodes when Lacey opens it. She’s wearing a peach drop-waist dress showing off the perfect amount of cleavage, pale legs on show rising into Nirvana. A braid runs across her forehead. I don’t think she’s wearing makeup, but she doesn’t need it. She glows.

She’s perfect.

She takes in my leather jacket, collared shirt and jeans. “Well, well, don’t you scrub up nicely? No backwards cap or popped collar?”

I brush down my jacket. “My frat house days are behind me.”

She laughs, taking hold of a small purse. “Sure didn’t seem that way when you thrust your junk in my face on day one.”

“To be fair, it was the meet-and-greet.”

She slips past me, a waft of vanilla perfume following. “We going or are you too busy regaling me about how great you are?”

I take out my keys. “Let me show you to your chariot.”

She whistles when she sees my Dodge Ram.

She stops by the passenger door looking up. “My god. Does this thing have its own zip code?”

I reach up and pull the door open. “Just about. I could probably buy a small city given what it costs to run.”

She steps up onto the running board, the hem of her dress wavering in the breeze, allowing me the briefest view of her inner thigh.

Amen.

I run around to the driver’s side once she’s in and step up, swinging myself into the seat.

She sees the towels sitting on the console, lifting one up. “What are these for? If you think I’m here to lose my virginity in the backseat of your monster truck, you can think again.”

“You’re a virgin?” I ask, seizing on it.

She tries to play it off, but her face has ‘Oh, shit’ written all over it.

I nod. “You are, aren’t you?”

She waves her hand about. “Fine, so what if I am? Is it a crime?”

“At Brown, sure. Virgins are burnt at the stake.”

“Using kegs for fuel?”

I shove the key into the ignition. “So you have been to college.”

The truck grumbles to life, the idle settling, and we’re off down the highway.

Twenty minutes later we arrive at the Starlight Roadside Diner. I pull in. “So, short of driving another hundred miles, this is the best I can do.”

Lacey smiles, hands in her lap. “It’s fine.”

The first sign of trouble is the fact the diner is empty… on a Friday night.

We enter the diner-slash-tomb and take a seat by the window, the neon sign buzzing outside, casting the glass pink.

A waitress arrives and lays down two plastic menus. “Give me a holler when you’re ready.”

Lacey examines what appears to be a cigarette burn in the tabletop laminate. “Wow, you really do go all out, don’t you?”

I pick up a menu. “I like to take my dates to the best restaurant in town. I’m talking waitlists for months, valets, secret rooms… “

Lacey looks around. “And this was the best restaurant in town?”

“It’s the only restaurant in town,” I correct.

“Dante’s does snacks.”

“Nuts and a stale chips do not count.”

Lacey scans the menu. “Burgers, hot dogs, grilled cheese—it’s like the Menu of America or something. I guess I’ll go the grilled cheese and a Coke. I mean, you can’t screw up a grilled cheese, right?”

How wrong she is. When her grilled cheese arrives, it shows a blatant disregard for culinary presentation, the cheese a strange, luminous yellow more aligned with a tennis ball. It does not look like something you’d want anywhere near your mouth.

Strike two, brother.

Thankfully, Lacey sees the funny side of it, holding the plate up. “Is that cheese or nuclear waste? What do you think?”

I look at my burger. It’s not good. “I think my chances of getting laid are slipping further and further away every second this date goes on.”

She picks up her grilled cheese and takes a bite, struggling to swallow it down, but she even manages to make this simple act look sexy. “You give up that easily? You’re telling me you weren’t King Jock at college?”

King Cock, maybe.

I laugh. “No, I was definitely the alpha. I played beer pong with my brothers, organized wet t-shirt competitions and pool parties. I wore around a shirt that said, ‘Get Off My Jock’—not kidding.”

“And you played football, I heard.”

I tighten. “Who did you hear that from?”

“Google’s a pushover. She’ll give up almost anything if you tickle her in the right places.”

“Do you?” I respond.

The corners of her mouth turn up. “I give nothing up easily, but come on, football. Tell me about it. I heard they called you the Dream Machine.” She tries another bite of the world’s worst grilled cheese before reaching for her Coke.

My burger lies half-eaten. I think it’s going to stay that way.

Make it or break it time, bud.

Although Dad had most of the articles relating to my ejection from Brown removed, I can’t be sure Lacey hasn’t read something. But it doesn’t matter either way. For once in my life I want to be completely up front and open with her.

In turn, maybe she’ll open up for me.

I push aside the image of her spreading her legs and reply, “You’re right. I played college ball. I was damn good at it, one of the best, but it fell apart.”

She wipes her mouth with a napkin. “What happened? Concussion give you a sudden moment of clarity?”

Just fucking say it. “I was kicked off the team for using steroids. I was kicked out of college, to be more specific.”

I gauge her reaction carefully, but she seems to be taking it okay. “Don’t those things make your balls shrivel?”

Good one. “You’ve seen them. Do they look shriveled to you?”

“They look like a matching pair of plums—weird, hairless plums, now I think of it. Do you shave down there?”

“I wax.”

She stands up and makes out like she’s leaving. “Well, that’s it… Thanks for the grilled cheese.”

I take hold of her arm and gently lower her back to her seat. “You’re not even going to tongue-lash me about the steroid thing?”

She shrugs, straightening out her dress. “People make mistakes, Payton. I get it. Clearly, you’ve smartened up.”

“How do you figure that?”

“You’re choosing to be a firefighter instead of a football star. You’re choosing to save lives instead of field goals. It’s honorable.”

She has a point.

She points to her temple. “You sure those steroids didn’t do any permanent damage up here, though?”

I smile. “Not enough to stop me taking ‘Top of Class’ come week sixteen.”

She laughs back, sliding her fork back and forth across the table with her finger. “The only thing you’ll be top of is the Captain’s shit list if you keep that up.”

“Like I’m not already. The guy’s got a hard-on for dishing out pain.”

Lacey looks under the table. “Beats having a hard-on, full stop,” I suppose.

She is. She’s actually flirting with me right now. Game on indeed. “I can’t help it I find you sexually attractive.”

She leans over the table, face held in her hands. “And what, pray tell, do you find so attractive?”

“Where to begin? would be the better question.”

There’s something between us, alright. I’m certain about that now.

She changes the topic. “Tell me about your family.”

I lean back. “There’s not much too tell. They’re filthy rich and I’ve never wanted for a thing. I grew up in a three-story apartment in New York the size of a baseball field. I went to a high school that cost more per semester than most people make in a year. I was a fucking brat and I’m not ashamed to admit it.”

She nods. “At least you’re honest. I grew up in a house the size of a dugout in a tiny town where the highlight is the historic clock in the town square. Dad didn’t have life insurance, so Mom lived day to day to support us. She still works, offered to help pay for any kind of education that didn’t involve firefighting, not that she has the money and not that I’d ever take it from her. She’s worked hard enough.”

I push the burger aside. “It sounds like we come from different worlds.”

“But they say opposites attract.”

We hold our gaze there, the neon sign buzzing, the grill sizzling in the back in preparation for tonight’s next lucky victims.

Lacey is the first to break. “Do you still play football?”

I shake my head. “I haven’t picked up a ball since they booted me from the Bears, and that’s probably for the best. Sometimes you just have to let dreams die.”

She reels back. “Whoa, way to put a downer on the evening.”

I motion at her plate. “Well, the food certainly isn’t doing me any favors, is it?”

Right on cue ‘Delores’ arrives to see if we want dessert.

I’d rather a triple bypass.

“Noooooo,” we reply in unison, struggling to contain our laughter.

Dolores looks genuinely puzzled. “Suit yourselves.”

It’s certainly the cheapest date I’ve been on, but there’s no pressure, no feigning something I’m not. I feel like I can be myself around Lacey, increasingly so.

I place down cash and a tip, going to stand. I put out my hand. “Shall we… unless you want to sample what kind of exotic virus makes for an aperitif around here.”

She laughs. “I think I’ll take my chances at the gas station.”

I stop the truck at the only gas station in town, returning with two ice cream sandwiches, handing one to Lacey as I get in. “It was either this or jerky, and you don’t strike me as a jerky kind of girl.”

She starts to unwarp her ice cream. “Maybe I’ve got a collection of guns at home, a boar’s head on the wall, a camo bedspread…”

“You’d look sexy in camo.”

“Really?” she smiles. “I hear it’s most unflattering.”

I turn to her as we pull out trying not to make a mess unwrapping my own sandwich. “’Unflattering’ is not a word that comes to mind when I look at you.”

She shrugs it off, but I can see her blushing, that bulletproof exterior starting to crack.

The way she’s licking at the end of her ice cream has me close to creaming my pants. I’m so fucking hard it’s outrageous, the top of my cock pressing against the bottom of the steering wheel. There’s no way I can hide it. It’d be like trying to force a bear trap back into position.

Lacey takes a gentle bite of the ice cream, her coral tongue flicking out to lick her lower lip. “I’m going to take a wild stab here and surmise this date isn’t going as well as you’d hoped?” she says.

“Was it the grilled cheese that resembled old chewing gum or the torn vinyl seating that did it?”

She laughs. “I’m not a fancy girl. Do you see my Louis Vuitton handbag or Tiffany earrings on display?”

“Tiffany earrings would look amazing on you.”

She rolls her head. “I mean, come on. I’m the only female at the Hot House. How many little girls do you know who want to be a firefighter when they grow up?”

“I can’t say I’ve seen any firefighter Barbies.”

She twists in the seat, the hem of her dress rising to expose the milky white of her thighs. “Actually, there was a firefighting Barbie—1994 Career Collection. She even came with a hard hat.”

I catch on. “You’re serious? You’ve always wanted to be a firefighter.

“Is it really so hard to believe? I was too young to remember, but Mom says Dad used to bring one of the trucks home, take me down to the station. Apparently they were my second family down there.”

“You’re something else, Lacey Nelson.”

I see the turn-off and take a right. “Here we are.”

Lacey looks out the window at the bone-dry landscape passing by. “I think I saw this in Breaking Bad once.”

“You think I’m dragging you out into the middle of the desert to break your legs?”

She looks straight ahead. “Maybe you’re trying to get rid of the competition, take home that ‘Top of Class’ trophy for yourself.”

“That trophy is coming home with me.”

“Is that a fact?” She looks at me closely. “I see it now.”

“What’s that? My dashing good looks?”

“No, I see the big issue between us.”

“Which is?”

She’s looking at me through slitted eyelids. “We’re both competitive, desperate to prove ourselves.”

“Last I checked, that was a positive attribute to have. Besides, competition is a part of life. It’s just our evolutionary instincts coming out.”

“To be the big, bad alpha male,” she laughs, using her fingers to air-quote. “I guess that’s going to make you feel real silly when you get your ass handed to you by a ‘girl.’”

“Are you insinuating you’re not?” I lower my eyes to her chest. “Because from where I’m sitting it sure as hell looks like you’re of the female persuasion.”

“I guess you’ve never been to Thailand then.”

“Trust me,” I tell her, “I know a real girl when I see one. And let’s not forget I have seen you naked.”

I take the left and pull up, the sign for the thermal springs well-faded, a relic from the fifties.

Lacey whistles. “Wow, I’ve seen some horror film sets in my time, but this takes the cake.”

It’s not quite the desert paradise I was picturing, but there’s still hot water (hopefully) and a chance to get half-naked.

I help Lacey out of the car. She looks over at the rock pools. “Hot springs, out here? It wasn’t exactly well-posted.”

I take out the towels. “What can I say? I had insider information.”

“But I didn’t bring my swimsuit.”

I can’t help but grin. “Funny, neither did I.”

She laughs. “If this was your grand plan to get me naked on the first date, you’re out of luck, buster.”

I haven’t been called ‘buster’ in my life. I put my hands up. “Who said anything about going in naked? Underwear’s fine by me… though if you’re desperate to see my package again…”

She rolls her eyes and pulls her dress over her head, her bra-clad breasts lifting and falling back into position. God damn they are amazing.

She’s wearing matching lace panties—a surprisingly racy shade of red.

I sling off my own shirt, catch the way she side-glances my way. It’s cute.

I strip away my jeans as she twists to take off her heels.

And there it is.

I was not expecting her to be wearing a thong, but it’s sure as fuck welcome.

She holds a finger up. “Take one look at my ass and I’ll drown you in that damn hot spring.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I point. “I guess I’ll go first then?”

The spring water looks a touch murky, but given we’ve come as all this way, I’m not about to back out.

The first pool’s circular, about the size of a small Jacuzzi.

I kick away a beer bottle as I dip a foot in, and fuck me, it’s actually hot.

“How is it?” Lacey asks, standing there nervously.

“What would you know,” I reply, “the hot springs are hot.”

There’s a sort of natural shelf to sit on, keeping most of my chest above water.

I watch Lacey step in slowly, careful to avoid showing me her backside. She sits in and reclines back opposite me, visibly relaxing. “Damn. This is kind of nice.”

She tilts her chin towards the tattoo on my chest. “What’s with the weird gypsy eyes?”

I look down. “They looked a lot better on the tattoo parlor wall, trust me.”

“I know how this went down. You were out with your pledge brothers, probably drunk…”

“You’re half right, but I wasn’t drunk.”

“So, just stupid then.”

I look down again. “Girls dig it.”

“They love the fact your right pec is staring back at them?”

“Something like that.”

She spans her arms across the rock behind her. “What about that poor girl you were trying to put through the wall the first night?”

I laugh aloud at that. “You mean Mrs. Palmer?”

“Who?”

I hold up my hand, curling my fingers. “Mrs. Palmer and Pornhub.”

She starts to get it. “But what about the headboard banging on the wall?”

I shrug. “What can I say? I get enthusiastic. Besides, you’re the only girl on campus, remember?”

“What about the receptionist?”

I gag. “Um, no. Drive Miss Daisy I do not.”

Lacey’s gaze narrows again, her face framed by the braid above. “So, tell me, what were you looking up, on PornTube or whatever it is.”

I jerk my head to the side. “Videos featuring a particular type of girl.”

“Oh?”

“Blonde, petite, a bit feisty.”

She shakes her head at me. “Talking about other girls is not going to get you laid.”

“No?” I smile. “What is?”

Suddenly, her face bunches up. She shifts on the spot, reaching below the water.

For a moment, I think she’s going to take off her thong off, really get this party started.

That was too easy, I’m thinking.

…Until she pulls something out of the water. She looks at it in her hand.

I lean closer. “What the hell is that?”

Her head tilts left and right trying to examine it. “Um, some kind of funny white worm? A Twinkie?”

“Why does the Twinkie have a string?” I ask.

It hits us at the same time, Lacey screaming and flinging it from her hand. “Please tell me that was not a tampon I was holding.”

“That was not a tampon.” I tell her.

At the same moment, I feel something round and rubbery under my toe.

Nope.

Lacey’s out of the water so fast she doesn’t even bother to turn around, her ass on full display as she goes climbing back onto land. I follow her, definitely not keen to find out what other surprises are lurking below.

“My god. My god. My god,” she mutters, turning around and around on the spot searching for more offending female hygiene products. “Is there anything else on me?”

I’m cracking up at the ludicrousness of it all. Any chance I did have of getting laid is long gone by now.

I look her over. “You’re all good.”

She swipes her towel off the hood of the truck and wraps herself in it. “Where to next? A dumping ground for medical waste? A methadone clinic?”

I can’t help but laugh. “Come on. It’s just a little bit funny.” I tweeze my fingers together. “Just a bit?”

“Contracting the plague from this mysterious pool of death?”

I laugh harder, picking up my towel. “I can tell you one thing. You’re never going to forget this date.

She’s looking down, examining her feet. “You can say that again. Now, can we please go back to the campus? I’ve got a date with a shower and about twenty bars of soap.”

CHAPTER NINE

LACEY

I am so, so tempted to head next door when I get back from my shower, but I can’t seem to find the courage to make the first move.

It’s not a good move and you know it.

Do I, though?

I haven’t been on a date that bad since, well, forever, but I had fun. I was smiling, enjoying myself in Payton’s company, and that is something I never thought I’d be saying. I should see right through him. Still, I’ve got needs and feelings like any other girl, even if I haven’t done ‘the deed’ yet.

Way to make it sound sexy, Lace.

I lie on my bed sprawled out on my towel, about to close my eyes and masturbate to the thought of Mr. Cox’s cock when my cell buzzes.

I reach for it, spotting ‘Mom’ on the caller ID.

I want to let it go, but I can’t help myself. She’s got some kind of crazy Klingon hold over me.

“Mom,” I answer, flustered.

“Honey, have I got you at a bad time? It sounds like you’ve been working out.”

I wish. “Only a shower, Mom.”

She jumps straight to the questioning. “You don’t have to shower with the boys, do you? Because surely that violates a state law. Maybe I should have a word to the De—”

“Mom,” I stop her, “is there a point to this late-night call?”

“Well, here’s the thing.” Whatever she wants to get out, she’s fumbling around with it. “The postman showed up today. You know Greg from school. Such a nice, young man.”

Cue eye-rolling. “Yes, Mom.” Greg—suitor number one-hundred-and-one.

“Well, he delivered a letter from your college there, Pemberton Fire Academy, correct?”

“And…”

“It says your first payment is due.”

I sit up straight.

Damn it.

Play dumb. “Oh?”

“I thought,” continues Mom, “given you’re on a scholarship and all, it must be a mistake. I can call them tomorrow of you like?”

“No,” I stammer, “no need to call. It’s definitely a mistake. I’ll sort it out. Don’t you worry.”

“It’s no bother, Pumpkin.”

I can’t have her calling the Academy and being blasted by the woman in Admin. “I’ve got it, Mom.”

“Everything okay there?”

She can read me like an Agatha Christie novel. “You have got to stop with that.”

“Come home, Lacey,” she says, emphasis on the ‘home.’

“Mom, please.”

“Do you really think this is what your father would have wanted?”

It’s too late for this. “I’ve got to go, Mom. Someone’s calling for me.”

“Call me in the morning!” she chirps.

“Love you, Mom.”

I hang up looking down at my reflection in the screen.

I see the time. It is late, campus curfew in effect.

Screw it.

I stand and start to dress.

CHAPTER TEN

PAYTON

I had a good time Friday night regardless of the clusterfuck it became. It didn’t lead to anything, probably a first, but it was enjoyable all the same.

We hung out a bit more over the weekend, mostly with the others, but it’s Monday and time for yet another instalment of Bust Your Balls staring Captain J. Jennings.

Whatever did transpire last night, it’s worn Lacey out. She stands beside me yawning and covering her mouth.

The Captain’s halfway through a spiel on the finer points of fire-hose evolution when the phone on the wall rings.

The Captain puts his finger up. “Uno momento, folks.”

He picks up the receiver, his eyes turning from the wall to me.

Fuck. What now?

He places the receiver down. “Cox, you’re wanted in the Dean’s office.”

The Dean? I didn’t even know this place had one.

I stand and pass Hernandez, his lips parted in a ‘Boy, you gone done it now’ kind of way.

Lacey simply yawn-slash-smiles.

The receptionist ushers me straight in.

I’ve been in deans’ offices before, but nothing like this. Every square inch of the office walls has a framed picture on it—kids, men, women, even animals.

The Dean, in a white business shirt, stands there looking them over.

He turns when he hears me enter. “Mr. Cox, I presume.”

I stand at attention in front of his desk. I’m wracking my brain trying to work out what the hell I’ve done wrong.

He continues to stand, his arms crossed. He gestures to the wall beside him. “Do you know who the people in these pictures are, son?”

“No, sir.”

He points to one featuring a teenage girl with braces. “Emily Munroe, eighteen, rescued from the family home after a space heater caught fire.” He points to another. “Robert Fulton, or ‘Bobby’ to his friends, sixty-seven, dragged to safety from a burning car wreck.” He runs his hand across the wall. “All of these lives were saved by former students of this very academy, and I’m damn proud of that fact.”

I’m not sure of the angle here. “It seems like a fine tradition, sir.”

He sits and shifts in his chair, sliding across a sheet of paper. “I’ve got your preliminary scores here, Mr. Cox.” He looks down the list. “Physical aptitude—exceptional. Situational awareness—exceptional. But when I come to the end here at to written scores, things take a very different direction.”

Damn. “I’ll try harder, sir.”

The Dean leans back. “I understand you were on a football scholarship at Brown.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The Bears,” he smiles. “I heard you were a superstar, fast-tracking to the NFL, yes?”

I nod in the affirmative.

“What happened?”

He’s getting to the pointy end of it now. “I felt it was time to move on, sir.”

He slides another sheet of paper across the desk. “Your initial induction report. It says here you were found guilty of taking performance-enhancing drugs, and given Brown’s no-tolerance policy on…”

“It was a misunderstanding,” I cut in.

The Dean shakes his head. “No, son. I don’t believe it was. You didn’t make mention of it on your induction paperwork, but we knew. We knew and let you in anyway. Do you want to know why?”

It’s a rhetorical question.

“It’s because I understand the need for second chances, Mr. Cox. Believe you me, I was a wild child once upon a time. I banged this gorgeous brunette right on the Dean’s desk,” he continues, knocking his own twice. “Can you believe that? Boy was she a moaner. Of course, the college kicked me right out on my ass after that, but I found redemption in the family that is the US Firefighters Association. It’s a brotherhood, but mark my words when I say we don’t let anyone put on the black-and-gold. You have to earn it. Am I making sense here, son?”

I’m surprised at how informal he is. “Yes, sir.”

He picks up the original paper. “Long story short, pick up your grades. You can be the next American Ninja out there in the gym, but if you don’t have the mental aptitude to back it up, you’re about as useful to us a chocolate teapot.”

“Yes, sir,” I repeat. “I’ll try harder, sir.”

“Good. Dismissed.”

Lacey’s waiting for me outside during the morning break. “Well, what was that all about?”

I take her arm and pull us into a corner away from the main thoroughfare. I could lie here, make up some extravagant excuse, but Lacey deserves the truth. I can’t look into those eyes and be deceitful. “I’m slipping.”

She looks confused. “I don’t understand. You’re killing it out there.”

“Not when it comes to the written work. I just can’t get my head around it.”

“But you went to an Ivy League college.”

“On a sports scholarship,” I finish.

She takes a moment to think it over. “So, I’ll help you.”

I laugh. “You will help me?”

“Sure,” she replies, but I’m naturally wary, letting my head drop towards my shoulder. “What’s in it for you, partner?”

“What? I can’t just help someone out, goodness of my heart, etcetera?”

“In my experience, nothing comes for free.”

“You’re helping me over the claustrophobia thing, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“So, let me even the score by helping you out with the written work. You’re not going to pass if you don’t get it down, and I am not going to pass if I don’t get over you-know-what.” She extends her hand. “Like you just said, we’re partners.”

But I want to be so much more than that, and this would mean more time alone with her, late-night study sessions… The possibilities stream wildly into my head. I shake on it. “You’ve got a deal, Miracle.”

She rolls her eyes. “Not you too. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.”

I know something that would. “Hey, that was a miracle in my books. You’re lucky they don’t call you Jesus.”

She laughs. “If I could turn water into wine, you think I’d be here? Come on. We’ve got some serious book-bashing to do.”

*

Studying with Lacey hardly feels like studying at all. We sit side by side in the campus library. We’re sitting so close, in fact, I can feel the warmth radiating from her body, smell the sweet perfume of it. I can make out the distinct bands of color in her hair, admire the fullness of her lips… I steal these sideways glances like a schoolboy hot on teacher, but I’m not the only one. More than once I catch her eyes peeling away from the coursework to study my arms or chest.

I have no doubt there is something between us now, but I can’t handle this like I regularly would, playing up the alpha. No, Lacey requires thought, a higher understanding.

The words start to blur together as I read down a list of apparatus, the soft-breasted distraction beside me not helping.

Lacey’s finger slides up the page. “These ones are just repeats of the ones below, so it’s simple, really.”

“Simple for you, perhaps,” I reply.

She pokes me in side of my head. “Come on. It’s not all beer and brawn up there, is it?”

“You’d be surprised.”

She leans over to close the textbook, the side of her cleavage inadvertently brushing up against my arm. It’s the slightest of touches, but we both feel it like an electric shot—a shot that fires directly down to my crotch, my cock stiffening against the underside of the table.

She clears her throat, looking away from me nervously. “Why don’t we call it a night?”

“Well, well, my two favorite people.”

We both turn to find Hernandez standing there. “You guys coming to Dante’s?” he asks.

I’m about to turn him down, but it’s Lacey who speaks up first. “As long as vodka shots aren’t part of the equation, we’re in.”

Hernandez knocks on the table. “Whatever you say, Miracle. See you guys over there?”

“You will,” Lacey.

“You’re speaking for the both of us now, are you?” I ask her.

She smiles back, collecting the books. “I suppose I am.”

We grab our jackets and head over after dinner. I want to take Lacey’s hand. It seemed so natural on our date. With any other girl, I would. I’d do it and ask forgiveness later, but I don’t know. I’m cautious for some reason, held back.

Because you don’t want to fuck it up, big boy. That’s why.

And I’m awfully good at fucking things up.

Dante’s is going off. I swear the whole damn campus is in here tonight. It’s standing room only.

Hernandez pushes through the throng to a table at the back, the others already seated and drinking merrily given the collection of glasses.

Everyone’s gathered around Jackson’s cell, a YouTube clip of a large building fire playing. Jackson’s eyes are glowing from the screen. “Look at the speed of the thing. It’s fucking beautiful.”

“Beautiful?” one of the others questions. “You’re messed up, King.”

“Hey,” he replies, “the better you understand the enemy you’re facing, the better equipped you are to take it down.”

I’m starting to think fire ain’t the enemy at all to Jackson. I’m starting to think he’s getting his rocks off in the burn room.

“What the fuck is that racket?” I question. Someone’s singing Mr. Brightside. The ‘I never’ part at the end sounding like the poor bastard just sat on his nuts.

Hernandez takes a seat, offering Lacey and I a beer each. “It’s karaoke night.”

“I love karaoke!” shouts Lacey.

I look at her sideways. “You do?” I hadn’t pegged her for an extrovert.

“We should sing something,” she suggests.

I point between us. “You and I?”

“No, the beer you’re holding,” she teases. “Yes, us.”

Hernandez is laughing his ass off. “Oh, this is going to be good.”

The others are starting to egg me on. I’m many things.

A competent singer is not one of them.

Before I know it, I’m being pulled by Lacey’s hand towards the single pallet that’s doubling as the stage in the middle of the bar. The security guy’s doubling as the DJ.

Mr. Brightside comes to end—thank god.

The Dwayne Johnson lookalike scowls when he sees me coming up to the booth. I haven’t been in his good books since the initial tussle with Ryan. It looks like he’s swapping security duty for disc jockey duty tonight. “What’ll it be?” He looks me over. “Eye of the Tiger?”

“Living on a Prayer,” blabs Lacey, and I sure as shit want to put in a formal protest, but her hand is still in mine and it’s hot and perfect and I’ll agree to damn near anything right now if it means getting closer to her.

Security guy hands us mics and nods to the ‘stage’ (read: a wooden pallet), loading up the music.

Here we fucking go.

The crowd’s rowdy. They cheer when they see us stepping up and the ‘wah wah whoa whoa’ of the vocoded guitar riff kicking in.

Lacey winks at me, already dancing along, swinging her hips in a surprisingly sexual manner.

I watch the words come up onto the screen. “Tommy used to work on the docks,” we sing together, Lacey smiling and, miraculously, her voice actually making mine sound half alright.

By ‘For love, for looooove,’ I’m kind of getting into the swing of it myself, even hip-bumping Lacey along the way.

And then it starts to fall apart.

Lacey’s singing like an angel, but I make ‘We’re half way there’ sound like a throat cancer ad. I swear my testies drop on ‘Living on a,’ practically popping on ‘Prayer.’

It’s a fucking disaster.

But the crowd is lapping it up.

Fucking Hernandez is in hysterics, bent over on his knees with laughter, holding onto a chair for support.

King’s fucking filming it.

Lacey’s smile grows as we come into the second verse.

Embrace it, I realize. Embrace your vocal shittiness.

So I do. I pull out an air guitar for the solo, Lacey barely able to sing along she’s laughing so hard. We rock together, place our heads together through the chorus again, my voice soaring into strangled-sea-lion territory.

The last line and rapturous applause follows, even Dwayne Johnson forced to bring his hands together. We take a bow, hand in hand, and step off the pallet.

Hernandez is struggling to his feet, tears streaming down his face. He claps his hand on my back. “Brother, I’ve heard broken records more in tune than that, but Lacey… What did you do with your wings? Because, baby, that was fucking beautiful.”

She places her hand on my chest. “I don’t know. I thought we sounded pretty good together.”

We sure do, I think, and we sure will as soon as I get between those legs of yours.

The simple suggestion of her naked is almost too much to bear, my cock crying out for attention.

Bon Jovi’s not our last song of the night. Lacey manages to convince everyone at our table to get up for a group rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody, an instant crowd-pleaser. I swear I even catch a glimpse of the Captain himself up the back bobbing along.

We’re so busy having a good time, drinking barely factors into it. Everyone’s having a fucking blast. It’s beautiful, but nothing compares to Lacey. She glows, cock-stiffeningly resplendent.

I can’t take it anymore. While someone sings KISS’s Do You Love Me? I take Lacey’s hand in my own and turn her towards me.

She goes to speak, but I lean forward and silence her lips with my own.

It’s a risky move, but the moment our mouths meet her entire body relaxes.

The others at the table are whooping and cheering. It’s all drowned away, because I’m lost in her, this incredible girl, her tongue the first to reach past no man’s land into my mouth, tangling with my own hot and sticky and fucking sexual in the extreme.

She leans forward, the kiss deepening and I know this is only leading one place.

It’s hard to say how long the kiss lasts—seconds, minutes, hours—but when we break I’m certain we both feel it, the start of something incredible.

I place my mouth against her ear, my breath hot on the shell of it. “Do you want to get out of here?”

She’s breathing hard, her mouth opening in a pant, the sugar sweet taste of her still on my lips.

But I want more. I want to taste her nipples, her pussy… everything. I want to lash her most private areas until she’s screaming, completely out of control.

“Yes,” she whispers back.

“Get a fucking room you two,” says Hernandez, skunk drunk.

We ignore him, standing and moving through the crowd hand in hand. We stop by the entrance to kiss again, the urgency of it growing, the arousal palpable between us. We’re trying to press ourselves together, her crotch hot and willing against my dick.

We run—literally dash—across the road back to campus laughing, my cock fucking iron in my pants by now.

We stop in the hallway. “You’re room or mine?” I question.

“Mine,” she replies, taking a handful of my shirt and tugging me inside. I shut the door behind us with the heel of my shoe, her face in my hands, and our bodies burning up with desire.

And this is it.

This is ‘The Miracle.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

LACEY

He takes me around the waist, pulling me into his hardness.

I could push him away.

I don’t.

“I bet you’re wet right now,” Payton whispers, his lips close to mine. “I bet my cock would run right in.”

Instead of speaking, I release a caught moan deep from the bottom of my throat. “And if I am?”

I watch for his response with wide eyes, my body electric. I breathe in, holding it while I wait.

I go to speak again, unable to take the anticipation, but he silences me with his mouth, bringing his lips hard upon my own until I falter, growing limp at his touch.

Our tongues meet, mine hesitant at first as he seeks me out. He reaches up and threads his fingers through my hair, pulling me deeper into the kiss, devouring me from the outset.

My heart beats hard against his chest, his cock twitching between us.

When he finally pulls away, I gasp for air.

He stills holds onto my hair, gently tugging so my head tilts back and my neck is exposed.

In a second his lips are upon it, a hot trail of heated kisses following up to my earlobe, teased by the arrow-like tip of his tongue.

I lick my lower lip, my chest lifting and falling against this sudden onslaught, the need welling up strong inside me. I want his mouth everywhere—on my breasts, my nipples, my… sex.

My heart’s hammering so hard I’m worried it’s going to beat right out of my chest.

I’ve never wanted anything this bad.

His other hand reaches up, playing with my lips, slipping inside my mouth like a tiny cock. I suck it while he watches.

I inhale when he draws it away.

“Do you know what I want?” he purrs.

I don’t reply. I can’t, I’m breathing so hard.

“I want to lick every last inch of your body with my tongue. I want to drive it inside that sweet little pussy of yours and take away your breath. I want you to think you’re having a fucking heart attack when you come. Do you hear me?”

I’m not used to be spoken to in this way, this dirty talk. I’m surprised it’s turning me on so much.

“Yes,” I pant.

Payton slides his hand over my stomach before it disappears down the front of my panties. A shock runs through me as his fingers find my clit.

My face distorts when he applies pressure, his tawny eyes watching me all the while. I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe his hand is between my legs right now, touching me… there… where no other hand has gone before.

“Would you rather I replace it with my mouth?” he purrs.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, my head screams, but I can’t form the words.

I lift my lips to his. We kiss, light at first and then with greater urgency, his tongue deep in my mouth. I tilt my hips against his hand, my entire body beating with nervous excitement.

Our tongues flutter against one another, his free hand moving into the thick of my hair to pull away the tie. It unspools like silk around his fingers.

And I feel safe. I feel completely protected here against him, cocooned away from the world by his body—hard and warm.

His fingers work against the slick seam of my pussy. My eyes squeeze shut as I clamp my thighs around his wrist and snap my hips upwards, suddenly freezing as my entire body contracts on the brink of orgasm.

It’s right at that pivotal moment he removes his hand.

“What are you—” But my words are silenced as I’m driven onto the bed, my shoes, jeans, and panties stripped away by his hands.

He removes his own, pulling his shirt free, his giant cock bobbing before him majestically while I remove my top and bra, blushing in the semi-darkness.

He kneels, warm, heavy hands parting my thighs, and places his mouth upon me.

The sensation of his tongue exploring the hot space of my pussy is otherworldly. He uses the flat of his tongue against my clit, then the tip, alternating until I’m bucking helplessly, my fingers woven through his inky hair, my legs scissoring open and shut against his head.

I pant like a wild animal, grunting and mewing and completely out of control, a junkie without her fix.

I’m close, way too close, but I want him—all of him.

I don’t care if this is Mr. Right in this moment, that we’re from two worlds.

All I want is his cock.

And I want it now.

I lift his head up, his eyes glassy with arousal.

“I want you inside me,” I tell him.

His brow furrows. “Are you sure?”

I nod.

He reaches to his jeans on the floor and removes a foil packet from his wallet, sheathing his enormous cock before me.

One hand flat on the mattress beside my head, he lowers himself over me, a hand around his cock to guide it against the slippery seam between my legs.

I place one hand on his shoulder, let the other stroke his back from the nape of his neck to the bottom of his spine.

“Are you ready?” he asks.

I am.

“Yes,” I whisper.

He drives forward, a fleeting pinch as he plunges inside me, deep into the heated clutch of my pussy.

I moan, my hands locking around his neck as he draws away, his breath hot against my face as he slides forward into the tight compression once more.

I’m so wet he enters me easily, the flare of pain subsiding and replaced by a new and profound pleasure I had no idea existed until this moment. His thick cock fills me out completely, his hot flesh against mine maddeningly wonderful.

I urge him on.

“You’re so fucking tight,” he moans, his lips against my ear.

All I can do is whisper his name in response, over and over as if a chant, a prayer.

“Yes,” I tell him, “yes,” a breathy, hollow sound that’s not my voice at all.

My core tightens. Payton builds into a rhythm.

I move against him, my hips gyrating, sucking his member in.

I press my eyes tight together to stave off the impending orgasm. I don’t want this to end—not now, not ever.

The mattress flexes below us, the springs registering an audible protest, but it’s lost to the waves of sensation threatening to overwhelm me.

Payton pounds away with everything he has, my mouth caught open, struggling to pull in breath.

I flail, his cock stirring alien sensation inside me.

It’s when I feel his hand enclose my breast, the pad of his thumb glazing over my nipple, that the rope that was tethering me to earth snaps for good.

I half-shout half-scream, clawing my fingers into Payton’s back as I explode from the inside out.

My head floats. I’m starved of oxygen, but still my pussy pulses and contracts around Payton’s driving cock, a strange ringing sound filling my ears as a second climax rolls over the first and sends me to near unconsciousness.

I’m still shuddering when Payton stiffens, groaning as he finds his own release deep in the most private confines of my body.

He slumps sideways still inside me, pulling into his chest as I continue to jerk from the aftershocks.

We kiss again, tender and soft now in the afterglow of it.

A new bout of lightheadedness strikes me. It feels like I’m going to pass out.

I had no idea it would be this… satisfying.

“Well,” Payton asks, still breathing hard, “how was it?”

“It was,” I search for the right word, “miraculous.”

Payton laughs against my cheek. “That’s quite a compliment coming from the Miracle herself.”

“Twelve shots of grade-A tap water is hardly a miracle.”

He sits up. “Say what now?”

I let my finger run down the center of his chest. “You don’t really think I could do all those shots of vodka and actually leave that bar standing, do you? Look at me. I’m lucky if I could handle two or three before keeling over.”

He’s shaking his head in amazement. “Hang on. You’re saying you hustled me in the bar that night? How?”

“My secret,” I shrug.

He reaches down and finds my clit, applying light pressure.

I moan, lost again.

“Tell me or I’m going to make you come all damn night.”

I’m way too sensitive right now. Another orgasm would kill me. I take hold of his wrist. “Fine, fine. When I said I was going to the bathroom that night I slipped into the back and had a girl talk with your buddy the bartender.”

He’s still shaking his head. “The Britney clone? You slippery motherfu—”

I place a finger on his lips.

“How did you pay her?” he mumbles.

I smile. “To fill my shots with water and yours with the strongest vodka she had? Absolutely nothing.”

I release my finger. “But I saw…”

“Her pour them? At the back of the bar?”

I register the surprise on his face. It’s almost as good as an orgasm—almost.

Poor guy. He’s still confused. “But why did she do it?”

I sit up on an elbow. “I said you needed to be taught a lesson, told her about how you tried to hit on me in your birthday suit on day one. Once I told her that, she was all in.”

Payton throws a hand up. “I cannot fucking believe this. I just slept with Cruella de Vil. First cheating at the Tower, then the drink-off… What next? A quarter-mile drag race?”

I raise an eyebrow, looking down at my still-flushed nipples. “Do I look like Dom Toretto to you?”

He takes me around the waist, rolling me under him, his hand planted beside my head and his cock see-sawing between us once again hard. “No, you look like you need to be taught a lesson.”

“And what are you going to do?” I whimper.

His eyes glean with wicked prospect. “I’m going to fuck that naughty streak right out of you.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

PAYTON

It’s a miracle alright—twice in one night and double the orgasms, her perfect pussy squeezing my cock dry, but when I wake around one AM, she’s gone.

Bathroom, I conclude, thinking of it no more as I slip back to sleep.

She’s there again come morning, curled into my chest, her hand against it and her leg over mine.

I brush her hair back over her ears, her eyes fluttering open with such density of color I’m speechless.

“Cat got your tongue?” she laughs, voice croaky. She looks almost as tired as I feel.

“I don’t know about the cat, but a certain pussy was privy to it last night.”

She slaps my chest. “You’re incorrigible, you know.”

I pull her closer. “But you love it.”

“Say it again.”

“You love it?”

“No,” she laughs, “the ‘P’ word.”

“Pussy,” I purr, grinding my cock up against the front of her panties. “Say ‘cock.’”

“Cock,” she stammers, instantly blushing.

“Say ‘I want your cock, Payton.’”

Her eyes glint with newfound mischief. “I want your big, hard cock, Payton.”

I roll her underneath me, reaching down to tug her panties away. “And you’re going to get it.”

*

Given our rather audible meeting last night, we’re harassed in the cafeteria. Lacey’s so embarrassed she can barely make eye contact with the others, but I manage to tone them down a little, move the conversation onto something other than our sudden sexual awakening.

I lift a spoonful of scrambled eggs to my mouth. I need all the damn energy I can get after last night. “Where’d you say you’re from again, Hernandez?”

“Bell Gardens, Cali-fucking-fornia,” he replies.

“You’re a long way from home, aren’t you?”

He dips his head. “Well, it has either serving tacos or serving cards in the casino, neither of which are going to save any lives now, are they?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I reply. “I’ve had some damn fine tacos in my time.”

Hernandez’s eyes roll to Lacey. “I bet you have.”

Lacey shakes her head at him. “Are you seriously calling my vagina a taco right now?”

That shuts Hernandez up. “Call it whatever you want—honey pot, pink canoe, potorro. I don’t mind.”

She shrugs. “I’ve always been fond of ‘cock socket’ myself.”

There’s a moment of shock before everyone bursts into laughter.

“You’re full of surprises, Miracle,” says Hernandez, returning to his food.

“And have I got a surprise for you, Hernandez.”

It’s the Captain, who’s somehow materialized from thin air once again. I’m starting to think he’s the Predator. “Guess what it involves?” he continues.

“Ice cream?” offers Jackson.

A malevolent smile cuts across the Captain’s face. “If by ‘ice cream’ you mean ‘stairs,’ you’re one-hundred-percent correct, King. Now, clear up your trays and get your asses over to the Tower. It’s a fine day for ass-kicking.”

We all stand up reluctantly as the Captain drifts off to rouse up the other class members, Hernandez jerking off to his back.

I see Fielding as I get up to clear our trays. He’s sitting with his usual cohort, but he’s not engaged in the conversation. No, he’s looking right at Lacey, looking at her with such intensity I’m expecting lasers to burst from his eyes. I’ve seen that look before—on the field, in bar fights. I’ve seen it and know that nothing good comes from it.

But that doesn’t matter now. Lacey’s mine and I’m not going to let anything happen to her. He wants to try something? Bring it the fuck on.

*

We’re standing outside, the sun directly overhead. I can feel the heat of the quad through my shoes. And, what do you know, the Captain’s smiling. “By now you understand the meaning of respect, how a chain of command works, a hose from an axe, but we’ve got a long way to go, recruits, and it starts today with a twelve-mile run down the road.”

“I thought you said something about stairs?” says Hernandez.

The Captain nods. “I changed my mind… Unless you’d rather do something else, like, I don’t know, run a charged two-and-a-half up and down the Tower all day.”

Cue a collective groan.

That straightens us out. “No, Captain,” we reply.

He cups his ear. “Sorry, I must have turned my hearing aid off. What was that?”

“No, Captain!” we shout back.

The road leading out from Pemberton is arrow-straight—nothing but mindless desert for miles.

I thank god I’ve got Lacey’s ass for entertainment. She even turns around when we’re at the six-mile marker and blows me a kiss, her eyes flicking down to my crotch. I let my eyebrows jump in response.

Hernandez speeds up behind me to speak in my ear. “You’re one lucky motherfucker, Cox.”

“I know.”

The Captain calls for a rest stop. I collapse beside Lacey looking up into a periwinkle sky. “So. Much. Damn. Running.”

She shoves her water bottle into my chest. “What? Can’t handle the heat?”

I lift myself into a sitting position. “Oh, I can handle it. I’ve been handling you pretty well, haven’t I?”

She looks around, sitting on the ground with her knees up.

Her cheeks are red.

She reaches down and pulls the crotch of her running shorts aside.

She’s not wearing anything underneath.

“I’m wet,” she whispers.

I look around, but everyone’s either collapsed, possibly dead, or not paying attention. Given the way she’s facing me, they wouldn’t be able to see anything anyhow.

But what she does next completely blows my mind.

Grinning, one hand holding her shorts aside, she slips a finger into herself, curling it upwards before drawing it back out.

I almost have a fucking heart attack.

I jump when the Captain calls us. “Nelson. Cox. Take the lead. We’re heading back.”

The crotch of her shorts snaps back into position. “Yes, Captain,” she shouts back, still smirking at me.

“You’re a naughty girl,” I tell her, helping her to her feet. I put my lips close to her ear. “But damn that is one beautiful pussy.”
She goes to push me on. “Get running. It’s time I got a little eye candy for once.”

I start to jog away, emphasizing my strides so my ass cheeks bounce. “How’s this?”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

LACEY

It’s a scorcher outside, the kind of dry heat that burns your nostrils and turns your skin to paper. The Captain doesn’t seem to mind, still donning his black shirt, cap, and Aviators. He looks us over. “So, you’re already in Hell, but I want to welcome you to the Graveyard.”

The area we’re in is full of mangled car wrecks, including what appears to be half an old school bus further down the back. Tools are laid out between us and the Captain.

“It’s no secret that attending MVAs, or Motor Vehicle Accidents, is going to be the bulk of your workload should, God willing, you make it out of here. Thus, entrapment and extrication training.”

What follows is a detailed lesson showing us every possible way to extract someone from a wreck, whether that be cutting off the door, the roof, right down to amputation. The dummies are unnervingly lifelike, but I figure I better get used to it if I want to make this a career.

The Captain’s watching as I work on a wreck. “Nelson,” he barks. “Grab the jaws there. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

The hydraulic-powered jaws of life look like something out of a doomsday movie, a special apparatus used to pry apart metal. I pick the thing up, all twenty-five pounds of it, and slam the nose between the door and car’s B-pillar, adding pressure to the handle to get the ‘jaws’ to separate.

“Easy now,” says the Captain, watching on. “They don’t call it the StrongArm for nothing.”

I’m just thinking about all the times I could have used this thing when I locked my keys in the car.

The door separates like a tin can, two of my classmates moving in to extricate the body.

The Captain claps his hands together, jumping up onto the roof of the wreck. “You’re a damn natural, Nelson. If you can sort the small-spaces thing, you’ll be set.”

Payton takes the jaws of life from me, placing them back down in the row of tools. “I can’t tell you how turned on I am right now. Seeing a hot girl wield a big apparatus like that…”

“I wield yours just fine, don’t I?” I wink, shaking my ass a bit as I make my way over to a series of pipes and plumbing bits stuffed with fake fingers, hands, and arms.

Hernandez is working on what appears to be a thumb stuck in a short length of copper piping.

The instructor there’s shaking his head. “Jesus, Hernandez. The poor bastard wants his thumb back, not a fucking microwave meal.”

Jackson picks up another pipe, looking through it at us. “You guys think a dick would fit in here?”

“Yours, maybe,” laughs Payton. “You’d need a fucking sewer pipe for mine.”

The instructor overhears him. “Pretty apt considering the filth it’s been in, Cox.”

I pick up a rubber foot with a giant nail through it. “Charming.”

I select a pair of pliers and turn the foot in my hand, try to work out the best way to go about this. I should really have been studying this last night—not sexing it up with Payton to all hours.

But it was worth it, wasn’t it?

The warmth between my legs says ‘yes.’

Of course, it’s not the only reason I’m tired. I don’t think Payton even realized I left.

“How do you feel about another road trip tonight?” he asks, waving half an arm at me.

“I won’t be going anywhere with you if you keep waving that thing around in my face.”

He smiles, cheeky as ever. “That’s not what you said last night.”

“One night and you think I’m a pushover.”

Jackson drops the pipe he was holding. “Whoa, overshare much?”

“You’re just jealous, King,” says Payton.

He shrugs, playing with the finger in the pipe. “I’ve got a jar of vaseline and a vintage Playboy collection to keep me going.”

Payton’s eyes bulge. “Now that is too much information.”

I’m laughing, but it’s cut short when I see Ryan approach the table of body parts. He stands opposite me.

I feel Payton tense. “Why don’t you find something else to work on?” he suggests.

Ryan puckers his lips, blowing me a kiss. “Like this pretty piece of pussy here, you mean? I could work on her all night long.”

The instructor hears him. “Fielding, get your ass down to the end of the table.”

Ryan licks his lips, picking up a pipe and bringing it to his crotch, his hips gyrating against it. He’s still looking at me. “Let me know when you’re ready to step up to a real man.”

Payton starts forward, but I place my hands on his chest. “Let it go.”

“Did you hear what that fucker said?”

“He’s not worth it. Think, am I with him or you?”

That seems to calm him down, but for the next hour it’s an awkward game of eye tennis between the two of them. I’m pretty sure the table’s going to combust if they stare at each other any harder.

Like there isn’t enough combustible material in this place already.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

PAYTON

“Keep your breathing even,” I tell the closet door. “Yes, nice and deep now.”

I can’t believe Mom’s psycho-babble bullshit is coming in useful.

I check the stopwatch on my cell. “Five minutes. You’re crushing this.”

Not the best choice of words for someone trying to overcome claustrophobia, dickhead.

“Killing this,” I correct, noting that isn’t much better.

I’m standing there shaking my head at myself when there’s a knock from the inside of the closet. I slide the door across, a flustered, hard-breathing Lacey staring back.

“Five minutes thirty seconds,” I tell her. “That’s a new record.”

“Let’s do it again.”

I slide my cell into my pants pocket and press her against the back of the closet. “I reach down and cup her crotch through her jeans, lightly kneading her pussy. To which ‘it’ are you referring?”

Her hands splay against the back of the closet, her eyes shuttering closed.

The bell sounds for the start of class.

Perfect fucking timing.

“Let’s skip class,” I whisper. “I’ve got some training of my own I’d like to show you.”

She pushes me back smiling. “I’m as horny as you are right now, trust me, but it’s the Tower today.”

I look down. “And what about the tower in my pants?”

She pats it gently. “That tower’s not going anywhere.”

She slips past me and swings her bedroom door open. “You coming?”

“I will be later.” I wink, heading out into the hallway.

Hernandez whistles behind us. “If it isn’t the campus lovebirds.”

I flip him a bird of a different kind. “It’s all good, Hernandez. You’ve got King to keep you warm at night?”

He laughs. “Fuck you, Cox.”

I put my arms out. “Join the queue.”

The Captain seems in a particularly chirpy mood when we arrive outside.

The sky’s been scrubbed clean of clouds, bright and bold blue above. We’re geared up—full PPE and BA equipment for today’s exercise.

As the Captain runs through today’s training, I understand why he’s smiling. “In partners, you’re going to take a charged hose and run it to the very top of the Tower, whereby you’ll extinguish the fire on the roof.

My muscles are aching already thinking about dragging a fully charged hose up those fucking stairs.

To add a measure of realism, smoke machines at the base of the tower are working overtime, filling the structure with smoke.

The Captain’s eyes find me. “Cox, you seem bright-eyed and bushy-tailed today. You and Nelson show these dipshits how it’s done.”

“Yes, sir, Captain,” I reply, pulling on my mask and lining up with Lacey, the hose cradled between us.

The Captain takes out his stopwatch. “Go!”

We run off towards the stairwell—well, as much as you can run with eighty pounds of gear and a fully charged hose.

And I’m not talking about my cock.

Lacey and I work seamlessly now, bringing the hose quickly to the roof where a group of pallets has been set alight, an instructor standing watch.

We kneel. I take up the front, opening up the hose and dousing the flames, both of us struggling against the pressure of it.

Fire extinguished, we take up the hose and begin descending down the stairwell.

Halfway down, I can’t take it anymore.

I drop the hose and take Lacey’s shoulder, spinning her up against the wall, smoke wafting between us.

Even screwed up behind her mask, her face looks fucking adorable. “What are you doing?” she asks.

I reply by slipping my hand down the front of her bunker pants and pulling her panties aside.

Her eyes go wide. “Payton!”

“I want you to come,” I tell her, my breath fogging up the front of my mask.

“Here?” she asks with alarm.

“Right here,” I reply, my fingers finding her wetness, two sliding into her slick channel of her sex. My thumb presses up against her clit.

Her mouth opens, but she doesn’t protest.

The windows along the stairwell are open. We’re barely shielded away here, not forgetting the instructor up on top, but the smoke’s providing enough cover for now.

I add more pressure with my thumb, watching her expression shift, the pleasure sink in.

She starts to moan, muffled against the mask, her breathing low and deep as I fuck her with my fingers. They move easily into the heat and wetness there, the pad of my thumb rubbing her clit rhythmically.

Her eyes close and she begins to buck against my hand, levering off the wall to take more of my fingers inside. Her hands reach up and grip my shoulders, dig hard into the bone there through my jacket.

“Come,” I command. “I want you to come right fucking here.”

She’s panting hard, her mask turning cloudy, her entire body lifting up and down. Her cheeks are flushed, her arousal dripping down my hand.

I press my mask against hers and scoop up her desire with my thumb, spreading it over her clit until she’s twitching and jerking on the spot, close to letting go completely.

“Come,” I repeat. “Come all over my fucking fingers.”

She freezes, eyes wide before she gives over completely, her orgasm forcing her pussy to clamp tight around my fingers. Her clit pulses under the pad of my thumb, her hips bucking forward like someone’s pressing a cattle-prod against her ass.

Her eyes are glassy when they open, her breathing starting to regulate itself once more.

I pick up the hose. “Can you walk?”

She rolls her eyes and reaches down.

We make it out and place the hose down near the Captain, both of us bent over from the effort.

The Captain looks down at his stopwatch. “Well, that was a pitiful fucking effort, you two. What were you doing up there? Stopped off for tea and biscuits? Admiring the view?”

I smile in Lacey’s direction, her cheeks are still flushed, strands of hair matted to her face. “Sorry, Captain,” she says, her words rushed. “We got held up.”

I struggle to contain myself.

I suppose that’s one way to put it.

The Captain simply shakes his head. “Hernandez, Sax… Show these two assclowns how it’s done.”

The Captain notices the gauge on Lacey’s tank as she slings it off. “Jesus H, Nelson. Where’d all your air go?”

I actually have to turn away lest I lose it completely.

She swallows, struggling herself. “I, uh,” she stammers, “was having trouble controlling my breathing, Captain.”

I start to snigger.

The Captain takes off his cap, running his hand through his hair. “You better work it out, Nelson. We’re not scuba diving here. We’re saving lives.”

I lean over to Lacey’s ear as he drifts away. “I know what the Captain said, but I’ll happily go diving later.”

It takes her a second, but when it clicks she shoves me away. “You’re going to get both of us expelled from here if you’re not careful.”

I shrug. “Hey, responsibility is my middle name.”

She turns back, smiling. “That’s funny. I thought it was Theodore.”

How the hell did she work that out?

The others pick up on our conversation.

Someone claps me on the back. “Nice one, Teddy.”

*

Another day, another dinner direct from the Commercial Food Co.

Lacey’s earlier smile is gone when she opens her door.

I walk in. “What’s going on?”

She attempts a smile, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

I kneel before her. “Hey, we’re in this together—partners. Tell me. Maybe I can help?”

She ignores the question, instead taking hold of my head. “What’s going on is that we’re both going to get booted if you keep pulling stunts like that.”

I pretend I’m speaking to her pussy, pressing myself into the crotch of her pants. “You hear that, bud? She doesn’t appreciate us.”

Lacey laughs, clamping her legs around my head and pushing it back with her hands. “My vagina is not a ‘bud’ or a ‘bro.’”

I look up. “I don’t know about that. We seemed pretty friendly earlier.”

“Secondly,” she says, “we do appreciate hands-on time… in a bed, under the covers. You know, like normal people.”

“There’s nothing normal about you,” I reply, my cock throbbing with anticipation, “and I mean that in the best possible way.”

She pushes me away, clamping her legs together completely and standing. “I’ve got studying to do. You too last I checked.”

“You’re telling me I’m been cock-blocked by a book?”

She reaches to the desk and picks a textbook up, squinting at the author. “By Mr. Paul Ennis, to be precise.”

“P. Ennis?” I laugh back. “Poor bastard.”

She points to the door. “Go. Tomorrow I’m all yours.”

I raise an eyebrow, taking her around the waist, my hands grabbing her buttocks. “All, you say?”

She lifts up onto her tippy toes. “Any hole you want,” she whispers, before shoving me in the middle of the chest.

“Whoa,” I stammer, “who are you?”

She shrugs. “Let’s just say I’m feeling awfully frisky.”

“How’s a man supposed to get any sleep after that offer?”

She taps the book. “Why don’t you ask your P. Ennis?”

I kiss her goodnight and retreat back to my room. I attempt to study, but I’m simply too goddamn horny.

I check my alarm clock: eleven PM.

I can’t handle it. I have to see her.

I knock on the wall and wait for a response, but it doesn’t come.

I stand and close my textbook. Fuck it.

In my boxers, I step out into the hall. I go to knock on her door. Once again it unlatches and opens automatically.

You’ve really got to get that fixed, I think.

I step into a dark room and approach the bed, going to pull up the covers when I realize it’s empty. She’s gone.

I close the door and check the women’s bathroom, but she’s not there either.

What the fucking fuck?

I encounter Hernandez, Jackson and two others coming the down the hall.

Hernandez puts his finger to his lips.

I note they’re fully dressed. “What’s going on?” I whisper. “Midnight gangbang?”

“With your mom,” whispers King.

Hernandez steps in front of him. “We’re slipping out the back, going to hit up that strip club down the road.”

“What, so you can contract syphilis?” I reply.

“You in?” asks Hernandez.

I look past them down the hall. “I don’t know…” It’s well past curfew. We’d be fucked if we were caught.

“Come on,” pushes Hernandez, imploring me. “You don’t have to touch the merchandise. Just relax, have a drink, or you got something better to do?”

“Or someone,” adds Jackson.

They’re all looking to me. I don’t want to let them down. “Can I put on some fucking pants first?”

*

Jackson crouches by the back door to the dormitory and takes a small lock-picking kit out of his pocket, setting to work.

I look around at the others. “Seriously? What next? A bank heist?”

Jackson looks up smiling, two pins in the lock. “Dad’s a locksmith. There ain’t a god-damn door in this state that can keep me out.”

“Except one with a woman behind it,” jokes Hernandez, everyone sniggering there in the dark.

Jackson stops. “You want me to pick the damn lock or what?”

Hernandez stoops down, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Just joking, brother. Do your thing.”

Outside, we stay low until we’re out of campus grounds, sticking to the sidewalk. The security guy for Dante’s nods as we walk on.

The strip club, aptly named The Juicy Lucy, is little more than a shabby brick building and a door.

Hernandez loops around in front of us, clearly excited. “Don’t be deceived by appearances, boys. A treasure trove of pussy awaits.”

I nod to the security guard, an older gentleman slumping against the wall. He’s snoring. “Hold up,” I joke. “We’ve got to get past doorman first.”

As predicted, the club is no Aladdin’s cave inside. There are maybe six guys in here, all sitting around the front of a small stage complete with budget lighting. It’s the middle of July, but there’s tinsel hanging from the roof.

“And here, for your viewing pleasure, is Cannnnndy,” announces the DJ, slurring the name.

A woman struts out onto the stage to Honky Tonk Women. She’s wearing tassels—actual tassels, probably towards the poor side of forty.

A waitress stops by in a bra and panties. “Can I get you boys something?” she asks, southern twang strong.

“A lap dance?” replies Hernandez, a touch too eager. “Sure,” the waitress smiles, placing the tray down, “follow me, sugar.”

Jackson takes a seat near the stage. “There goes Hernandez.”

Another waitress arrives as Candy and her vanilla-pudding breasts leave the stage.

I’ve been in my share of classy strip joints.

This is not one of them.

Jackson ordered shots all around. He sits there flicking his Zippo lighter open and closed, eyes glued to the flame.

“You really like that thing, huh?” I suggest.

His eyes are wild as they flick over to me. “You know what I like about fire, Cox?”

“What’s that?”

“It’s human,” he smirks. “It needs air to breathe. It dances. It speaks.”

“Speaks?” I laugh. “Buddy, if the fire’s talking to you, you’ve spent too long looking into it.”

He continues to flick his lighter open and closed. “Perhaps, but you can’t deny it’s a beautiful thing.”

One of the others shakes his head at me behind Jackson’s back. I understand where he’s coming from. The guy’s a fucking nut.

The song wraps up, Hernandez returning from the back with his hair ruffled.

“That was quick,” I tell him.

He takes a seat and throws a shot back. “Live fast. Die pretty. That’s my motto.”

Jackson clinks his shot glass against his. “Amen.”

The next stripper leaves the stage to scattered applause.

Jesus.

If this place was any sadder, it would be Toy Story 3.

“Thank you, Delilah,” slurs the DJ, switching over to Beyonce’s Dance for You. “Please welcome to the stage, live for her very first performance here at The Juicy Lucy,” his voice lowering, “Enigma.”

The stage lights go dim, a figure emerging in a neon thong and bra. She starts to dance, a bit awkward but definitely with the best body of the night.

Hernandez claps his hands together. “Yeah, baby! That is what I’m talking about.”

‘Enigma’ struts to the front of the stage, the lights coming up to match the music.

“The fuck?” says Hernandez beside me.

The stripper stops. I stop, dropping the shot glass that was in my hand.

Because that’s no stripper.

That’s Lacey.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

LACEY

I’ve had my share of embarrassing moments at the academy, but nothing compares to this.

I cannot move. The insane heels I’m wearing are glued to the floor, so I simply stand there, the lights burning, looking down at an equally bemused Payton, and I want to die. I want the roof to cave in and cover me completely.

Payton stands and gets up onto the stage, taking off his jacket and wrapping it around me.

“Payton…” I protest, but my voice is weak, small.

“What the hell are you doing?” he says, and I can’t tell if he’s angry or simply in shock. The others continue watch me open-mouthed.

Payton picks me up and lowers me from the stage, pointing to Hernandez and the others. “Avert your fucking eyes if you want to keep them.”

The boys put up their hands and look away.

Tony, the security guy, has come inside, finding his way across to us. “Is there a problem here, Lace?”

“Yes, there’s a fucking problem,” shouts Payton.

Yep, definitely anger.

He goes to step up to Tony, but I push between them, conscious of my bare ass on show. “It’s okay, Tony. I know him.”

But he ignores me, focused on Payton. “You want time with the girl, son, you pay for it.”

Payton takes out his wallet and removes a wad of cash, slapping it down on the table hard enough for the shot glasses to go skittling off. “How’s that?”

Tony looks to me. “You good, hon?”

I nod.

Payton takes my hand, leading me over to a private room. He closes the door behind us, his head in his hands. He looks up at me as I stand there with my arms crossed in front of myself. “Am I in a dream?” he says. “Tell me I’m in a fucking dream right now.”

“I sure wish I was.”

He sits on the lounge. I take a seat beside him.

“It’s not how it looks,” I start.

“No?” he barks, “because it looks like you’ve been sneaking away from campus at night to come here and, what, strip? For these idiots?”

I resist the temptation to ask why he’s here. “I don’t usually… the stage.” I can’t even get the words out properly. “I just wait on tables, but tonight they were short...”

“Why?” he asks, genuinely confused.

I hang my head and shrug my shoulders. “I need the money.”

“I don’t get it. Money for what?”

“For the tuition, Payton. I’m behind payments. They’re going to kick me out any day now if I don’t get it to them.”

His eyes are sad. They see straight through me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t need you solving my problems.”

He waves his hand around the room. “And this is so much better, getting your tits out for strangers?”

“I haven’t. I mean, I wasn’t going to…”

“So what were you doing up there on the stage? Cleaning?”

There’s no excuse. “The waitressing doesn’t pay enough, but one dance up there and I would have made enough to pay off at least the first two weeks.” I can’t believe how ridiculous it sounds saying it aloud, how far I’ve fallen here. I’m wearing underwear, but I feel naked.

Payton seems to calm down somewhat, taking my hands. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry for losing it.”

“It’s a shock, I get it.”

He laughs quietly. “You can say that again. How do you even get out of campus?”

“The security guard,” I confess. “He lets me pass at curfew… for a cut.”

Payton shakes his head. “That motherfucker. I’m going to break every bone in his body.”

“No,” I warn, “I can’t have this getting out. I’m embarrassed enough as it is. If the Dean found out…”

“You’re not doing this, Lacey. I won’t allow it.”

“You won’t allow it?” I let go of his hands.

“Shit. I didn’t mean it like that.”

Emotion wells up—embarrassment and irritation and plain frustration balled up into one. “Just go, Payton. This is bad enough as it is without you here judging me.”

I think he’s going to apologize again, but instead he stands. “You want me to leave? Is that what you’re asking?”

A tear slides down my cheek. I can’t control myself anymore. There’s something digging into my gut, tearing me open from the inside out, and it’s more than shame. It’s deep and primal and it hurts like hell. “Go, please.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’ll call Tony.”

Payton laughs. “Pops out there? He hasn’t used those fists since World War One.”

I look at Payton, my face wet. “Please.”

He raises his hands, clearly as frustrated as I am. “Fine.”

I watch him open the door and walk out back into the club. The door slams behind him, leaving me alone with nothing but my thoughts and that same sharp dagger cutting up my insides.

Five minutes later, I emerge from the dressing room fully clothed. The boys are nowhere to be seen.

The owner of the club stops me before I make it to the door. “What the fuck was that all about? Was that your boyfriend?”

I try my best to remain composed. I hand him Payton’s money. “I can’t work here anymore. I’m sorry.”

“In the middle of a shift? You fucking kidding me right now? The best piece of ass I get in years and you’re walking after your first dance?”

“That was hardly a dance,” I reply, “and I’m not a ‘piece of ass.’”

He shrugs and feathers out a few bills, handing them to me. “Consider this your severance. You’re done here.”

I look at the bills. It’s far from enough.

I take the money and walk. There’s no point arguing. I can’t do this, money or not. I’ll have to find another way.

“Hey, leaving so soon?”

Tony gets up from his chair when I’m outside. I pull my jacket tight around myself. “I’m afraid so.”

He smiles. “Good.” He points his thumb behind himself. “That’s no place for a girl like you.”

The moon’s full overhead. “A stubborn, useless idiot, you mean?”

He taps the side of his head. “A girl with a brain, I mean.” He reaches into his pocket and takes out a fifty, handing it to me.

“I can’t, Tony.”

“Take it,” he says. “I’m just going to blow it on booze and cigarettes anyhow.”

Reluctantly, I take it and smile. “Thanks, Tony.”

“You go and show those boys what you’re made of.”

“I will, Tony. Thanks.”

Mercifully, I’m able to slip back to campus quietly. I come into my room and lock the door. I climb into bed and pull the covers tight around myself, but I still feel naked. I still feel exposed.

It was just a dream. It was just a dream, I repeat.

But it wasn’t.

It was anything but.

*

I wake blissfully numb.

It’s short-lived.

My cell starts to ring across the desk.

I lunge for it and check the caller.

Why now?

Mom’s voice comes down the line when I pick it up. “Honey.”

“Mom.”

“Everything okay?”

Nope. It’s about far from okay as it’s possible to get, but I reply, “Sure, Mom. Sorry I haven’t been calling. Things have been… hectic.”

You can say that again.

She’s concern incarnate. “They haven’t been working my pumpkin too hard, have they?”

I laugh. Understatement of the year. “No, Mom, but to be honest, I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here.”

The concern is replaced by excitement. “You’re coming home?”

I was tempted to pack up last night and leave under the cover of darkness… until I remembered how much I’ve sacrificed to be here, how hard I’ve worked. The boys can laugh and snigger all they want, but I’m doing this.

And then there’s Payton. Regardless of how we parted last night, I don’t want to leave him. For the first time in a long time, I’m happy. I want to be around him, with him, his arms caging me protectively, and I didn’t think I would ever be like that, so… dependent, but it’s nice. I can’t blame him for reacting the way he did last night. It was natural. I can only hope he comes to understand why.

I dress and make my way to the dining room like it’s death row. I expect silence, stares when I enter, but everyone’s chatting and eating away oblivious to my entrance.

I find Payton, Hernandez and the others, taking a seat trying not to blush like a spanked tomato beside them.

Hernandez is the first to speak. “Hey, Lacey, about last night…”

“Careful,” warns Payton.

Hernandez puts his hands up. “I’m just saying,” he pretends to zip his mouth closed, “your secret is safe with us. Right, boys?”

The others nod in tune.

I look down at the polished chrome of the table. “I quit anyhow. Really, I just want to forget it ever happened.”

I turn to Payton. “Mind if we talk for a second?”

He nods and leads me over into the corner.

“I’m sorr—”

We both go to say it at the same time.

“You go first,” I tell him.

“Look,” he says, going to take my arm before spotting the Captain. “It’s forgotten, and I get why you were doing it, but I’m here to say you don’t have to.”

“I know. I’ll work something out.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” His eyes are sincere. “Seeing you up there like that…”

“The neon thong was a bit much, wasn’t it?”

Payton nods slowly, looking over to our table. “Well, you made their night at least, probably their year.”

I shield my face. “God, it’s so embarrassing.”

He places his hands on my shoulders and lowers his face close to mine. “Fuck everyone else. Fuck what they think. Only you and I matter. Now, you good?”

“I’m good,” I nod back.

He gives me a light slap on the ass before heading back to the table. I watch him go, his own tight behind truly a thing of beauty.

And it’s all yours.

He might just get a private dance after all if he plays his cards right.

The bell rings for the first class of the day.

I head in the opposite direction of the others. “I’m just going to get my jacket. Meet you there?”

Hernandez points his fingers at me like two pistols, “You betcha, Miracle.”

I run back to my room, hunting for my jacket beside the bed when the door closes.

I start to turn. “If you’re looking for a pre-class quickie, you’re all out of—”

But it’s not Payton standing there.

It’s Ryan, a sly, incision of a smile on his face. “I hear you’re looking for some extra cash.”

I point back to the hall. “Leave. Now.”

He takes a step forward. “You don’t want my money?” He reaches down and grabs his crotch. “Come on. My dick’s not going to suck itself now, is it?”

I back up against the window. “I’m warning you.”

He laughs, picking up a textbook before dropping it back on the desk. “That’s okay. I don’t like it rough. Hell, I might even pay a little extra if you keep it kinky.”

“I’ll scream.”

“And who’s going to hear you? Everyone’s at class.”

He comes forward fast, reaching for me, but I dodge left and drive my knee up hard into his crotch. I don’t expect it to connect, but it does. He goes down seething. “Fucking bitch!”

I open my door and move into the hall, pretend I’m knocking on Payton’s door. “Payton! Help!” I call, knowing full well he’s not there.

It works. Ryan hobbles out of my room down the hallway.

I stand there breathing heavily when he’s gone.

That was way, way too close.

You should tell someone.

But he knew about the money, which means also knows about…

No, it’s too risky. I can deal with him for now. I’ll just have to be on guard.

Ryan’s dangerous, but he’s a danger that can be managed.

I arrive to class expecting to see him there again, bracing myself for it.

The Captain bows before me. “Your Highness. Thank you for gracing us with your presence.”

“Sorry, Captain.”

Payton looks down at me as I fall into line. “You all right?”

“Perfect,” I nod back.

Captain looks around. “Anyone seen Fielding?”

“I, uh, passed him in the hall,” I reply. “I think he had a sore stomach.”

Or scrotum.

The Captain notes it on his clipboard. “He was sick of busting his ass more likely.” He lifts his head. “Who’s ready for a field trip?”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

PAYTON

We’ve reached the top of the Mountain, yet another ‘the’ in the Captain’s limitless arsenal of torture.

It has to be one-hundred degrees out. My t-shirt’s soaked through, as is Lacey’s, her pink sports bra showing underneath.

I preferred the neon number, personally.

Now that the shock has worn off, it almost seems laughable, though I’m not about to bring it up. She seems to have forgotten the whole, sorry episode herself, as have the boys—publicly, at least.

As for campus security guard, he’ll get what’s coming to him one way or another. I’ll see to that.

Given the hour-long bus ride out here and the two-hour climb to the summit of this giant rock, everyone’s wasted. There’s no cover or shade at the summit—just a flat space in which to stand and be baked by the sun.

Lacey gazes out over the desert below. “You’ve got to admit, it is a great view.”

I’m standing behind her, my eyes dropping to the perfect orbs of her ass. “You can say that again.”

The Captain’s standing right on the edge of the summit, one foot lifted up onto a boulder, a hand on his knee as though he’s a pioneer observing a newfound territory. He turns. “So, what does everything think of Mount Forbes?”

“More like ‘Mount Pain,’” jokes Jackson.

The Captain ignores him. “Believe it or not, folks, but the descent’s a lot harder than the ascent.”

Hernandez comes up beside me, looks like he’s come fresh from a paddle pool. He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. “I know I’m Mexican, but I’m not cut out for this desert shit, man.”

Lacey smiles at him. Her hair’s pulled into a tight ponytail. “You’d rather Minnesota?”

“It’s still a desert,” he replies, “just with snow instead of sand.”

He drifts off to King and co.

Lacey bumps my shoulder with hers. “Whatcha thinking about, Teddy?”

I smile back at her. “How much I’d like to be inside you right now.”

“Here?” she protests.

I look down. “That’s right. Here in the dirt, maybe taking you from behind, pounding away at that sweet ass of yours until you’re begging for release.”

She puts a finger on her chin. “Hmm, tempting, but maybe not with the entire class watching.”

“Our tryst in the Tower the other day didn’t do it for you?” I query.

She lifts up her water bottle, unscrewing the cap and taking a sip, a bead of moisture sitting on her lower lip. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit turned on.”

“A little bit?” I laugh. “You were wet as the Atlantic Ocean.”

“And you’re making me horny.”

“Is that a crime?” I suggest.

“When there’s nothing we can do about it for another couple of hours, yes.”

The Captain claps his hands together. “Alright, people. That’s enough sight-seeing. Let’s hoof it down. King, you take up front with me.”

“Yes, Captain,” Jackson slurs, eye-rolling at us.

I’m shoulder-checked by Ryan as he passes. I’d forgotten he was even here for a moment.

I shove him back. “Fuck off.”

The Captain catches it. “Cox, Fielding, stop playing the kissing game and let’s get moving.”

The Captain wasn’t kidding. Going down’s a PITA. The constant impact on your knees makes the descent a far more uncomfortable proposition than the ascent. But even more painful is the hypnotic way Lacey’s ass cheeks tilt and shift together as she walks. By the time we reach the flat section I reckon I could knock down the bus’s door with my dick it’s so hard.

We take the back seat, most of the others filling up the front of the bus, half of them asleep before it’s started moving.

The sun’s starting to set outside, early this time of year. It turns the entire desert a luminous, pastel pink.

Half an hour in and most of the bus has settled, only the radio playing and engine noise to be heard.

Lacey and I are right up in the back corner. We’re so close our legs are brushing together, shielded away from the rest of the passengers by the chairs in front, Hernandez sleeping soundly against the window two rows ahead.

We pass through a storm, rain washing across the windows in dark sheets. The sound of water splashing around the wheel wells drowns out almost all else. It’s the second time it’s rained in this supposed desert in two weeks.

The world outside isn’t the only thing that’s wet.

We both feel it—the pull, the arousal. The desperation rises until I can’t take another fucking second.

Lacey opens her mouth to speak.

I meet it.

Our lips press together, my hand shifting to her leg. She brings her own to cradle my chin, to press me deeper into the kiss.

Her breathing increases tenfold. My heart beats hotly in turn, my pulse steadily rising against her hand.

She runs her fingers up the back of my neck, raking them through my hair as our tongues meet and roll between us. They twist in the hot space there as my hand continues to climb between her legs.

I pull her closer, her thighs falling apart. My hand slips below the waistband of her pants and into her panties, falls into the wet crevice there to seek her slippery core.

I glance sideways, but everyone continues to sleep, unaware of what’s taking place at the back of the bus.

Our hands run over each other as the kiss remains unbroken above. We’re both breathing deeply, ragged.

We’re low, barely visible over the chair in front of us, doing everything we can to remain quiet.

I’m burning up from the urgency of it all. It’s suffocating, my body building a steady sweat on top of the one I used to climb the Mountain. My dick’s as hard as the metal bar beside us.

I know Lacey can feel it too, the arousal rising heady and tempestuous.

I’m desperate to fill that ache between her legs, desperate to make her come again.

My mouth is unexpectedly dry when we draw apart, but the want remains.

Her hands move under my shirt. There they find marble planes of muscle, the corrugations of toned abdominals. She moves her fingers to my back, her tongue finding the outer shell of her ear and curling around it, my hand rising up her neck to meet it while the other, between her thighs, dives deeper.

“You’re still wet,” I whisper in her ear, my fingers probing into the hot opening of her cleft.

Her legs spread wider, drawing my fingers inside her pussy. Two slip inside to the second knuckle.

She gasps aloud at the intrusion, the quick ease by which I’ve penetrated her and the easy egress her arousal has allowed.

I add a third finger to the others, folded upwards and pressed against the roof of her pussy, rolling and twisting in the heated boiler room it has become.

In detail, I whisper every tiny detail of what my fingers find to her. I let the syllables of my voice clip together quickly, allowing her no respite.

Her legs are so wide they’re almost perpendicular to her hips, her center split fully open. My cock presses hard against my jocks, stabbing at the cotton in agitation.

I slide my fingers in and out of her body slowly, admiring the way her eyelashes flutter in time.

“Yes,” she mouths, lost.

I allow my fingers to curl inside her, the rough pad of my thumb playing with her clit, stroking it erect.

I feel a thrum start inside her, a pulsing in her core that signals her approaching orgasm. Her breath is warm against the side of my neck. I reach down and hold her back, cradling her as her climax builds and tightens around my fingers.

She’s soaking, offers no opposition. Each time I plunge in, her arousal is pressed outwards against the side of her thighs, her clit throbbing under the pressure of my thumb, her hips lifting to meet it.

I feel her tighten further, tell her to come for me—command it.

She starts to jerk and buckle on the pleather of the bench seat, her climax sure to overwhelm her at any moment.

I place my free hand over her open mouth just as it arrives. She bites lightly down on my fingers as her body shakes and thrashes against the hardened backboard of the seat.

I’m not done. I stroke the roof of her pussy in a come-hither motion, a second, weaker orgasm following the first that leaves her completely limp.

She bucks a final time, the wet walls of her sex clamping around my fingers, teeth marks visible in those that leave her lips.

My fingers exit her hole. Even through her sports bra I can see the stiff tufts of her nipples.

The rain continues to wash against the windows, the rest of the bus oblivious to us.

She opens her eyes and smiles, but all it does it flood my dick with fresh desire.

I’m surprised when she throws herself against me, her lips collapsing upon mine hard. There’s nothing submissive about it.

The virgin is gone.

I moan when her tongue spears into my mouth, her fingers fumbling with my belt in an effort to undo it, her breath uneven.

The wheels continue to turn over below us, the vibrations of the motion humming through the seat.

I can see the determination on her face. She wants to make me come as hard as I made her. Frankly, I don’t think it’s going to be a fucking problem. There’s nothing I want more than to feel my cock pulsing in her mouth right now.

Buckle undone, she pulls my zipper down as quietly as she can and fishes inside for my cock. She finds it stiff and completely solid, balls heavy as jackfruit below.

She kisses me again, rolling her hand over the glossy helmet of my prick, pumping it lightly with her hand.

A soft expletive leaves my lips, my head falling back against the seat.

“Do you like that?” she whispers.

I nod with satisfaction.

“How about this?”

She starts to fist my cock, leaning close to my ear to tell me how much she wants to taste it, to suck it.

She doesn’t give me a chance to reply, her head dropping over my stiff member. Her lips wrap around the head of my cock as it’s enveloped by the hot confines of her mouth, her hands running up my shaft to meet her lips.

I run my hands through her hair as she works. She’s enjoying it. I sense her savoring the way my body reacts, exploring the many ridges and textures of my cock with her tongue and lips, feeling it out.

Suddenly, she drives her lips down almost to the root of my cock, the act almost forcing my release, but I manage to hold off, my entire cock filling her tiny throat.

I seize her hair, my hips rising to drive my cock deeper.

She continues to pump with her hand—pump, suck, pump, suck—until I’m tense as a bear trap, hovering on the edge of release.

The Tower was one thing, but this would equally see us expelled, yet the naughtiness of it only makes me harder.

My cock pops from her mouth wet with her saliva. Her glazed eyes look up to mine. I read her lips, blinking to make sure I read them right.

“Come in my mouth,” she repeats.

She goes back to work, doubling the effort and quickly bringing me to the brink again.

I grit my teeth together when she drops down my full length once more.

I grip her hair tighter before stiffening completely.

I release, my cock pumping against her lips, my load firing hot down her throat.

She sucks and swallows, takes every last drop.

I slump back against the seat spent, my vision blurry and entire body beating.

She swipes a finger across her lower lip when she rises, slipping it inside her mouth to suck the last of my arousal away. “Mmm, delicious,” she moans, feral eyes alive.

She does my buckle and belt back up, sitting back as if nothing has happened.

I look down the bus, but no one’s any the wiser.

If there ever was one, the timid, virginal Lacey Nelson is long gone.

The rain lets up when we arrive back at campus.

I thank the bus driver as we’re getting off.

“Come again,” he replies, adding a wink for good measure.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

LACEY

I slip out of my bed early, leaving a sleeping, adorable Payton behind. I head straight to the admin office. I know I don’t have enough to make the minimum payment, but I’m hoping I can sweet talk my way to an extension, a pardon… anything.

Hope fades when I’m confronted once more by the stony-faced woman behind the desk.

“Hi,” I begin, trying to act chirpy, because I sure as hell feel it. The hot space between my legs is still tingling from last night, from the thought of Payton’s hand on my ass, his thick cock filling my pussy. “I’m here to make a payment.”

“Name?” she asks, not taking her eyes off her computer screen.

“Lacey. Lacey Nelson.”

Her eyes narrow behind her glasses. “Yes, your first semester payment is well overdue. How will you be paying today?”

I take out the four hundred I made at The Juicy Lucy and hand it over.

Her face twists in disgust as she takes the notes, as if common, physical money is somehow below her.

She adds it up and puts it aside, tapping something into the computer.

“Hmm,” she grumbles, and here comes the KO. “I’m afraid this isn’t enough. The first semester payment is one thousand dollars, and it was due last week.”

Damn. I lean over the desk. “I was hoping I could get an extension?”

She laughs, actually snorts at this. “I’m sorry. We’re not a charity here.”

“Could I speak with the Dean?” It’s a last resort, a final salvo, but I’m willing to try anything.

She smiles, finally looking up to me, no doubt to personally witness my heartbreak. “I’m afraid the Dean’s a very busy man. I’m sure you understand.”

“Please.” I hate that I’ve been reduced to begging. “I can get the money.”

Her eyes drop back to her screen. It’s over.

Her eyes narrow again. “Wait.”

“I’m sorry?”

Her finger goes to the screen, reading off it. “It looks like a payment was made yesterday. In fact,” she pauses to swallow, “your account is paid in full.” She looks at the screen again, shaking her head. “My mistake.”

“Paid? Paid by who?” I ask.

“I was on leave yesterday, sorry.” Her eyes return to the screen. “It was paid in cash but… I don’t have any more details.”

“Is there any way to find out?”

The phone on her desk starts to ring. She collects the money I gave her and hands it back. “I’ll see what I can do.”

She picks up the phone, my cue to leave, and I do before this sudden miracle evaporates. There’s just one problem.

I don’t believe in miracles.

I turn and start to walk away mystified, though there’s only really only a handful of people who know I was hard up here, and only one with the immediate means.

I close the door to my room and jump straight into accusation. “Did you pay my account up?”

Payton throws the sheets off, standing and walking towards me. “Excuse me?”

“Did you go down to the admin office yesterday and pay off my fees?”

He rubs the sleep from his eyes. “I… did not.”

I should be thankful for what he’s done, but it’s the fact he did it behind my back that has me annoyed, like I couldn’t handle it myself, that I’m going to owe him now. “I don’t need pity, Payton.”

He comes forward and takes me around the shoulders. “Back up. Like I said, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I,” he retorts. “I wouldn’t do something like that without your permission.”

Damn it all. He seems sincere.

Like he would tell you.

“You really didn’t pay them?”

He shakes his head. “No, ma’am.”

So be it.

I smile and place my hands on his hips as our bodies close together. “Call me that again.”

“Ma’am?”

“Yeah, I kind of like it.”

He looks behind himself at the clock. “One hour until class.”

“But we haven’t had breakfast.”

He reaches down and cups my crotch. “Yet.”

I shove him off, stripping off my jeans and reclining on the bed. I spread my legs. “Pleasure before business?”

I don’t know what he’s thinking. For once, his expression betrays no emotion.

Slowly, he approaches the bed.

I hold my breath.

He sits down on the bed beside me, his weight forcing me to roll slightly towards him. There’s still a hint of his cologne lingering.

I’m a mess inside, a broiling wash of emotion and energy.

I make the first move. I take his hand with quivering fingers and run it up my thigh, his fingers tactile overload on my skin, fire spreading below all the way to my pussy.

I rub his fingers along the thin crotch of my panties, shift them under the lace where it’s warm and wet. I let him slide them along my slit, gathering my arousal.

I close my eyes, the sensation so great I’m drawing tight with the now familiar pull of climax already.

I open my eyes and find him watching, eyes keen and alert.

Time to ramp this up.

I pull his hand away and take his fingers, two at a time, into my mouth. I run my tongue along them, suck them like miniature cocks and then let them sit on the pillows of my lips to dry. I watch him all the while, lose myself in his toffee-colored eyes.

Fingers clean, I lean forward and kiss him. I take his tongue deep inside my mouth.

He breaks away. “I like this assertiveness.”

“Get used to it,” I whisper into the shell of his ear, my boldness growing.

Finally, he responds, a hand on the side of my face clenching my jaw, pressing my mouth hard into his own.

I grow wetter between my legs, need building and growing.

I leave him, let the taste of my arousal percolate in his mouth, on his lips.

We look at each other for a moment and I think I start to see him break down, his breathing amplified slightly, his eyes glassy.

One hand on his chest, I press him down onto his back and curl into his body, the crotch of my panties hot against the side of his leg.

I kneel up beside him, fishing into his underwear for his cock. Hot and hard, it twitches in my hand, a rigid pole of coiled flesh, the head pale pink and flushed.

Brushing my hair over one shoulder, I take his cock around the root and draw it perpendicular to his chest. It’s beautiful, symmetrical.

The closer I get to his manhood, the more I smell him, the earthy, soapy scent of male arousal, the salty gift to follow.

I open my lips just slightly and slowly lower myself over his prick.

His body eases fractionally as I take him in, but there is no moaning. He doesn’t grunt or make commotion. Instead, he places one hand on my head and begins to work me up and down, his hand span the size of my tiny skull.

Screwing my hand around the girthy base of his cock, I take him deeper still, letting my throat muscles do the work now and allowing myself to adjust to his size.

Before Payton, doing something like this would have been completely out of character, but I feel like I’m a new person around him—wild as I might be.

I slobber and drool over his member, run my hand over the slickness and draw him in and out of my mouth, ringing and working away at his entire shaft until it’s clear that, finally, I am having some kind of effect.

His hips tilt from the bed, the rubbery buttress of his cockhead pressing against the back of my throat. I stifle the reflex to gag and let my jaw open wider, let him fuck my mouth at his leisure.

But this won’t be enough. An alpha like this needs control. He must be the one to finish it.

I release his slippery cock from my mouth, let it fall flat and wet onto his chest. I lie back on the bed, lifting my legs and drawing my panties away. The crotch comes away sticky from my sex, my arousal heavy and permanent in the air as I splay my legs and expose myself to him.

I take a deep breath and announce, “Do whatever you want to me.”

“I intend to,” he replies.

Driven by my words, he falls into action.

He stands fast and tugs off his jocks, the two eyes on his chest staring me down.

I’m lightheaded already, pins and needles at my extremities.

His cock bobs and dips before him like a baton, balls thick as plums below.

His hand snakes back between my legs and I melt further, lost in the sensation and newness of it all.

I freeze, completely motionless, my breath caught somewhere in the middle of my throat.

Yes. This is really happening. This man-god is right here, right now.

He splits my sex with his thumb, running the thick digit inside.

A jolt of pleasure runs up my spine.

“It’s warm,” I stutter, chilled by the thought of why.

He adds more, the knuckle skimming the roof of my pussy in a haunting echo of our bus trip back from the Mountain.

A hot fever comes over me, sweat staining my brow and my labial folds so wet they offer little resistance to the foreign object penetrating my pussy.

I had no idea it would feel this good, the way he’s caressing and using me.

He removes his thumb and replaces it with his index finger, letting it run deep into my slickness, the sound of it plunging into the slobbery mouth of my sex arousing in the extreme.

And I am aroused, my restraint slipping away and my body jerking in new, alien ways.

I begin to buck and moan, losing myself to this, the control and submission of it all.

“I’m close,” I tell him, hands clutching at the sheets and my breath catching, awareness building tight in my core.

Just as I peak, so close to climax, he withdraws, reaching forward to take hard hold of my thighs. He pulls me towards him and presses his cock down towards my open pussy.

It’s impossibly hard.

With agonizing slowness, he guides himself inside me.

I let out a long and guttural moan, my shoulders snapping together behind my back and my skull pressed deep into the pillow. The feeling is indescribable, the heat and warmth and wetness spreading throughout.

Half-submerged in my heat, he reaches down and tears my shirt apart, the buttons pinging against the wall. My bra receives the same treatment so my breasts are exposed. My nipples are fiercely tender and hard, towers of sensation rising from dimpled areole. Sensation runs between them and my sex, wet and throbbing.

I moan, my temples thudding and heart racing heart, still unable to believe this moment is real.

It is. He’s inside you.

He takes my thighs and presses them forward and down, folding me in half and at the same time stroking to the very back of my pussy.

I gasp aloud, thirsty for more. A desperate, must-be-fucked-inside-out flood of arousal flows from my core.

He draws back and drives me hard into the bed, his body a hammer.

“Uh,” I moan, a guttural ejection of sound as the sensation strengthens and builds into a crushing crescendo.

I focus on the swirling pleasure he’s bringing, the deep and all-consuming ecstasy he’s bringing my senses.

Again he comes, pounding me with a brutality and strength I haven’t known before.

I close my eyes, the hard lines of his body caught in a halo in my mind.

He fucks me harder, pounding into my upturned rump and driving himself to the hilt with every thrust. He shows no mercy, increasing both rhythm and speed until I’m flapping and convulsing desperate to find release.

I close my eyes and see the universe there, a floating cosmos.

He is an expert of manipulation, fucking me to the edge before pulling his cock free. With one hand under my back he flips me over onto my knees, forcing my legs apart and running the butt of his hand up into the hot apex of my sex. He saws it back and forth there, lets my desire coat his hand.

“Payton,” I whimper, under his complete power.

Suddenly, he raises his hand and sends it flying into my ass cheek.

The shock of it startles me.

I turn in shock. “Did you just spank me?”

It’s naughty, but I like it—the fresh sensitivity it brings.

I give a jerk and he raises his hand higher, the next smack coming louder and harder. With his free hand, he holds the next cheek in position, flattens and kneads it into shape so that the flat of his hand receives full coverage.

“Uh,” I grunt, thrown forward once more.

My orgasm’s building, tendrils of pleasure working away from my core.

“I told you I was going to fuck the naughty streak out of you,” he says.

He brings his hand down and I turn my head sideways, nuzzling it into a pillow that smells of cinnamon.

I know he’s enjoying the sting in his hand, the warmth of my ass so suddenly red and alarmed.

I let my cries grow. He shoves half his hand inside my mouth to silence me.

Two can play at this, I think, my competitive streak showing.

I bite down and he finally makes a sound, winces, adding blows with new intensity.

When he finishes, when his fingers are removed sticky from my mouth, he kneels back and admires his handiwork. Free of his hands, my ass returns to two perfectly symmetrical spheres, cheeks aflame.

I’m a bit shocked myself how much I enjoy the feeling, the tingly afterglow of his hand.

Below, my sex is split open, soft and yielding.

I’ve never felt anything this intense.

Body and soul, I am his.

My hand is over the side of the bed, gripping onto the mattress tight.

I turn just in time to see him pick up my panties, stretching them out. He draws my wrists together behind my back and ties them together with my lacey garment, the final twist of the knot making my pussy jerk in response. The ache between my legs is ever-present, my desire wet against the sides of my thighs.

I’m still panting hard, the lack of oxygen causing a strange euphoria to set in. Much more and I’ll hyperventilate completely.

On his back, he pulls me over his face, completely absorbed in my pussy. My body grows limp at this new touch, everything swirling and shifting in my head as his tongue moves in languid figure-of-eights. When it glances over my clit I almost lose it, the sensation so unbelievably intense.

I grunt and moan, pressing down hard onto his face. He holds the back of my thighs, eyes closed and deep in the concentrated scent of my sex.

I allow myself to relax, everything inside me beginning to unravel and draw long. The stress coiled in my core unwinds. From my feet to my head I prickle, the tension slipping away as I enjoy his tongue, the tight way his hands grip my thighs.

As I grow closer, he works harder. I can tell he’s enjoying the taste of me, that it’s getting him off, too. I push aside the need to have him slide his fat cock of his inside me. There is time enough for that later. For now, it’s his tongue and lips I’m concerned with.

One hand leaves my thigh and worms its way between my legs, two fingers sliding into my pussy while he lashes my clit. My hands twist in the lacy bonds, the knotted panties pulling tighter against the small of my back.

His fingers slam into me, tongue pressing and exploring, his teeth lightly brushing my clit. I buck down against him, suffocating him with my pussy. He continues to finger-fuck my hole, working us both towards what we know is inevitable.

His other hand slides higher up my thigh, works its way between my ass cheeks. Fingers in my pussy, tongue hard against my clit, he places the flat of his thumb against my asshole.

I can’t hold back.

My head jerks back, my legs spreading wide as I scream in arrival.

My sex clamps down on his fingers hard, my jaw aching, my teeth compressed hard together. The climax burns through my body, my bloodstream alive.

I shake above him as the orgasm eases off.

I shift off his face. His eyes blink open, mouth drawing in breath.

He throws me off him onto my back and straddles my chest. He presses his cock down between my breasts and begins to saw his cock through them. He slides back and forth, the pre-cum pearling from his cockhead the only lubricant. I tilt my head and open my mouth, take just the tip of him inside each time his cock comes towards me.

My nipples harden into chocolate daggers, breasts tender against the velvety sides of his shaft.

He unravels fast.

He sucks in air through his teeth, concentrating, two hands pressing the pale globes of my breasts together and his cock plunging between them faster and faster, pillowed in flesh.

I’m out of control, lost in a sexual frenzy.

The filth that pours from my mouth is almost unbelievable.

I tell him I want his cum. I tell him I want him to shoot it into my mouth, cover my face with it—his reward.

Gently, he takes me around the throat.

He groans, holding his cock steady. It spasms, dips and fires, hot ribbons of release landing over my chest and neck.

Spent, he falls to the side and we lay there, panting in the afterglow of our actions.

It all becomes too real. The light is too bright, the sensation too strong. I fear that if he even brushes my pussy I will be sent into a new string of convulsions that may well finish me for good.

“So, breakfast?” he suggests.

I’d reply if I could speak.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

PAYTON

The week passes by in a sexual blur.

I wake with my hand down Lacey’s pants. It’s fucking heaven. She stirs, half her face lit by the dappled light coming between the curtains.

She sees me and smiles. “Am I dreaming?”

I lift the sheets so she can see how hard my cock is. “Does that look like a dream to you?”

She pulls me on top of her. “As a matter of fact, it does.”

I brush her hair back behind her ear. “And here you were thinking it wouldn’t even fit inside you.”

She lifts her hips upwards, grinding herself on my manhood. “I suppose I’ve grown to accommodate it.”

I spot the clock. “Damn, fifteen minutes until breakfast finishes.”

I slide down her body, tugging away her pajama pants as I go. “Don’t worry. You can do a lot in fifteen minutes.”

*

Hernandez spots it. “Jesus, Nelson. You’re practically glowing this morning.”

“Thanks, Hernandez,” she replies, suddenly shy.

I take a seat beside her and look around at the others. “What’s happening, boys?”

Jackson leans forward over his tray. “Today’s the Worm.”

I share a concerned look with Lacey. “What the fuck is the Worm?”

Whatever it is, Jackson looks way too happy about it. “It’s not a nickname for your dick. I can tell you that much.”

Hernandez shakes his head. “It’s a fucking tube, thirty feet long, only big enough to wiggle through.”

Lacey stands, knocking over the salt shaker.

She rights it. “I’m, ah, going to grab a muffin.”

I head after her, catching up at the serving line. “Look, don’t stress about it. We’ve been training for this, right?”

But I see fear when her eyes turn to mine. “Only big enough to wiggle through? I’ll never make it.”

I place my hands on her shoulder. “You are going to make it. I’ll be right there.”

She selects a muffin. “What have I got myself into here, honestly?”

*

True to description, the Worm is precisely that—a snaking section of black tubing requiring those who enter it to lie down on their stomach and wiggle their way down with their elbows. I go first, but it’s tough. It’s far tighter than I thought it would be, the absolute darkness inside not helping matters.

I can hear the Captain lecturing the class outside as I breathe deep and push on.

“If you think something like this isn’t going to show up out there in the field, you are wrong. Air-con systems, sewer pipes… You name it, a firefighter has used it for access.”

I emerge covered in sweat. It’s hard to regulate my breathing, but I try to put on a brave face for Lacey. “Nothing to it,” I tell her, as she readies herself to enter the tube.

I place my lips against her ear. “You’ve got this.”

She takes a breath, her eyes turning steely. She lies down on her stomach and enters the tube, wriggling forward.

I watch her disappear completely. Holy shit, I think. She’s going to do it.

If she makes it through this, the Maze is going to be easy.

“You alright in there, partner?” I shout.

There’s no response.

Shit.

A minute later she comes backing out of the start of the tube at twice the speed she went in, standing and looking down at it like it’s the devil incarnate. “I’m sorry, Captain. I can’t do it.”

He shakes his head and marks it down on his clipboard. “You get one more shot at it next week, Nelson. Fail that and it’s goodbye Pemberton, I’m afraid.”

She wipes sweat from her brow. “Yes, sir. I understand.”

“Hernandez!” the Captain shouts. “Get up my ’chute.”

I take her to the side.

“You okay?” I ask, delicately as I can.

She just keeps staring at the Worm. “I’m not going to make it, am I? Be honest.”

I stand in front of her so the Captain can’t see. “Fuck that negative noise. You’re telling me you’re going to let a piece of fucking pipe defeat you?”

She starts to smile. “I suppose it’s back into the closet then?”

Three more fail to make it through the Worm before the morning is done, which makes Lacey feel a little better, but I still see her hesitation.

We’re walking to lunch when I hear Fielding’s voice from the back of the class. “I love me some tight, dark places. Ain’t that right, Nelson?”

I turn to tell him to shut the fuck up, but Lacey tugs on my arm. “Ignore him.”

Luckily, Hernandez has my back. “Sure, Fielding. I bet you love a tight, choir-boy asshole to sink your pencil dick inside.”

“Why don’t you fuck off back across the border, ese,” Ryan replies.

That’s it. Hernandez turns and rushes towards him.

I drop the gear I’m carrying and race to join him, but the Captain manages to get there before either of us, standing in the middle of the hallway. “That’s enough, all of you. You think this was a fucking MMA convention? You want to prove who has the biggest dick? You take that drive and aggression and you put it into training, got it?”

I’m the first to reply. “Got it, Captain.”

“Got it, Captain,” chimes Hernandez.

The Captain looks to Ryan. “Fielding?”

“Got it, Captain,” he says through gritted teeth, his eyes on us the whole time, nothing but pure murder in them.

We separate in the cafeteria, but I know he’s watching us, calculating and scheming.

Let him, I think. The prize is already won.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

LACEY

I take a seat at the bar with Payton, Hernandez and Jackson flanking us.

“Four shots, please,” Payton tells the bartender.

“Vodka?” she laughs, winking at Payton.

“Oh, so that’s how you want to play it?” he replies. “Real funny.”

“Hon,” she says, leaning over the bar, “girls stick together. Consider it a reminder how to handle the savvier sex.”

He slaps his hand on the bar. “Tequila it is then.”

While the bartender goes to fix the shots, I turn to him.

We kiss, basically dry-humping there by the bar oblivious to the world around us.

I can taste him on my lips when we break away, my tongue, and I intend to taste a lot more when we get back to my room.

But always at the back of my mind is training.

“The Maze was one thing,” I tell him, stroking the fresh stubble on his cheek, “but the Worm... I don’t know if I’m going to get through this thing.”

He takes my face in his hands like he’s never seen anything so beautiful. Even when he’s wearing his mask I still see those eyes beckoning me, drawing me like Aladdin to the cave.

“You are going to make it, baby,” he says. “We’ve been training. You’re improving.”

“Being holed up in a closet is a lot different to being wedged inside that rubber python.”

“Is it really, though?” He taps the side of my head. “It’s all mental, and it when it comes to smarts, you’re the leader of the pack around here.”

I sit back. “Is that so, Mr. Know-It-All?”

He places his hands on my thighs, rubbing my legs, his fingers running further and further down into the warm crux of my crotch. “My learned knowledge only extends to the sexual arts, I’m afraid.”

I let my legs spread, blushing. I don’t know how it’s possible, but I think I’m hornier than he is right now.

I place my mouth beside his ear and whisper. “We can practice our knot-tying skills later, if you like.”

It’s hard to miss the growing bulge. It’s trying so hard to break free of his pants he’d probably take the bar with him if he decided to stand. “I do like. What next? Butt plugs and a spanking paddle?”

I shrug. “I’m open to… exploration.”

“Come here.”

He pulls me into another kiss, his hand running from my crotch up to my cleavage, my nipples already diamond hard.

Hernandez shakes his head. “I can get this syrupy sweet bullshit watching daytime TV. I’m hitting the john.” He stands and walks off to the bathroom.

“I’ll join you,” says Jackson, hopping off his stool.

“Why? You want to hold it for me?” laughs Hernandez.

Jackson smiles. “Sorry, friend. I left my tweezers back at the dorm.”

Between us, my hand is shifting higher and higher up Payton’s inner thigh, just barely brushing the outline of his dick.

He leans over. “Sure you don’t want to call it a night?”

My fingers loosely grip his cock through his jeans. “We’re celebrating, remember?”

“We are?”

I draw my hand away.

“Oh, come on,” he protests.

I wink. “Easy now. Good things come to those who wait.”

“Say it again,” I whisper.

“What’s that?” he asks.

“Come.”

Over Payton’s shoulder I see the other half of our class cozied up in the corner booth, a few of them playing pool to the left.

Payton taps the bar again, placing more cash down. “We’ll take a bottle of champagne too, Lisa.”

The bartender jerks backwards, no doubt surprised as I am hearing her first name. She shrugs and takes Payton’s money. “I suppose you’ve bought yourself that privilege.”

Next to where Hernandez was sitting is Louis, one of the tallest in the class. He’s looking around the room, sniffing in the air.

“You alright?” Payton looks over and laughs. “If you were expecting potpourri, you’ve come to the wrong place.”

Louis continues to sniff. “You guys don’t smell that?”

“What’s that, hon?” asks the bartender.

Louis looks at her deadpan. “Smoke.”

I smell it too, Payton stiffening beside me.

Almost simultaneously we all look towards the door leading to the back room. Smoke is starting to wisp under the door.

Silence hangs at first… before all hell breaks loose.

Something shatters.

Someone screams.

Lisa is moving towards the door. “What the—”

“No!” Payton shouts as she reaches for the door handle, but it’s too late.

The door opens and the flames rush out with a whoosh, enough to force Lisa flat to the floor.

Payton jumps over the bar and picks her up, nodding at me towards the front door. “Get everyone out. Go!”

“Fire!” I yell, but it’s obvious what’s going on.

People crush towards the front door, another glass shattering.

“It’s locked!” someone screams.

Locked? The thought is pushed away as Payton lets Lisa down to her feet, pushing her low.

She has her hand over her mouth, the smoke growing thicker.

“Is there another way out?” asks Payton, blinking through the smoke. It’s getting thicker, flames stretching from the doorway.

Lisa shakes her head. “No damn windows in the whole place. There’s the back door, but…”

Payton looks to the door leading to the back, but the edges are alight, a glowing inferno beyond.

The smoke’s changing color. It’s everywhere, a rolling blanket of black on the roof.

There are civilians in here tonight, a full house. If we don’t find a way out, and soon, it’s going to be catastrophic.

I watch the fire start to peel and ripple across the roof. It’s out of control, spreading too fast to be contained.

You’ve trained for this. I get down low as I can and crawl with Payton and Lisa to the front door.

Sirens cut distinctly away in the distance, but there’s nothing to suggest they’re headed here.

My lungs revolt. I cough, suddenly noticing how coarse the sisal is underneath my hands.

What little light there is comes from the bar, from the flames. They cast a warm glow over the small confines of the room.

People are coughing, hacking.

Payton stands. “Everyone out of the way.”

The crowd parts miraculously at the sound of his voice.

He hits the door with the full force of his shoulder, but it won’t budge.

The smoke’s starting to get to me.

I cannot pull together my thoughts into any kind of coherence.

I’m squinting, my eyes stinging, crawling and scanning for anything, something to help us.

“Fuck!” yells Payton, ramming into the door again.

I spot it.

I stand and run to the side of the bar, a beam from the roof overhead crashing down in front of me, a wall of sparks gusting out.

“Lacey!” shouts Payton.

I make it to the wall and take hold of the extinguisher, pulling out the pin and hitting the trigger, but it’s empty.

Of course it is.

The smoke runs thicker now, washing away form and color. I struggle to see much of anything, bunching up my shirt and bringing it to my mouth, eyes watering above. I consider breathing it in, deep and fast, letting it take me before the fire does, before all that remains are dental records.

No. Not today.

I drop the extinguisher and take the fire axe beside it instead, jumping over the beam and tossing it through the air to Payton.

He catches it in one hand and tells everyone to stand back.

We all get low, coughing and panting, the smoke so thick now I can barely make Payton out as he pulls back and swings the axe into the door.

He hits it square, a chunk of it splintering off.

He swings again, the hole opening up. He reaches into the edges and pulls, but it’s not enough.

He shouts and drives the axe in over and over, cutting out a hole big enough to get his arm through.

Some of the other guys stand and help, pulling pieces of the door away, ripping it apart.

Finally, Payton is able to get his hand through and remove the obstruction. He drops the axe and stands back, kicking what’s left of the door. It swings open, dropping off a hinge, the smoke rushing out into the cold night air.

We all follow in single file, running out into the middle of the road bent over ourselves.

Payton comes up beside me, takes me around the shoulders. “You okay?”

I nod, coughing and pointing to my right. “Yeah, check on the others.”

I look at Dante’s. A second part of the roof collapses, a great cloud of smoke and flame rising into the sky, pops and crackles following.

Fire licks from the door we just left.

I see the Captain running over from the campus along with a couple of other staff members.

The first fire engine rounds the corner.

I look around and try to mark off faces in my head.

Jackson comes running in from the side. “Everyone okay?” he asks.

For a split-second I can’t work out why he’s coming from that direction, but this unusual fact is lost on me as a mighty explosion booms out from the back of the bar, the tanks going up in a giant fireball that climbs specter-like into the sky.

Lisa shakes her head beside me, coughing. “My god.”

We all stand there watching as the firefighters unload and charge the lines, but it’s clear there’s not a great deal that can be done. Dante’s is gone, and everything inside along with it.

Payton has his hands on his hips, breathing hard.

Jackson’s watching the flames with increasing wonder. “Will you look at that.”

“Much longer and…” starts Payton, his words trailing off.

“We’re okay,” I tell him, pressing myself into his side.

Another small explosion causes the ground to rumble under our feet, a second fire engine arriving, police, an ambulance, locals and campus students, some in PJs and dressing gowns.

“Why was the front door locked?” I ask, suddenly coming to the realization.

Payton shrugs. “I don’t know. Did you see the way that thing spread? Something doesn’t add up.”

“You think it was deliberate?” I ask.

He lifts his shoulders again. “I don’t know.” He nods towards Dante’s security guard, who’s walking over to the ambulance holding his head. “Maybe he has some insight.”

Louis stops in front of us, scanning around the road. “Hey, you guys seen Hernandez?”

CHAPTER TWENTY

PAYTON

We’re standing on the quad, the Captain flanked by two instructors who I recognize from orientation.

The Captain takes off his cap, his fingers raking through his hair. The campus flag is flying at half-mast today. It’s windy, unruly, the clouds dabbed grey.

The Captain looks up to the sky before speaking. “It’s a sad day here at Pemberton. You’ve lost a classmate. I’m sure many of you have lost a friend.” He pauses, shaking his head. “It’s a hell of a thing, but here you are.”

I look to Lacey beside me. Her eyes are bloodshot. Someone coughs down the line.

“There will be no classes today,” the Captain goes on. “I know many of you have spoken to the police and authorities, but I need you all to remain on campus in case they have any further questions.” He puts his hands behind his back. “Given the traumatic nature of this incident, the campus is offering free counselling for anyone who needs it. Simply head down to the admin office. Alternatively, my door is always open, any time.

“As I said, there are no classes today, but we will be continuing on with the curriculum tomorrow. I think you’ll all agree that’s what Hernandez would have wanted. Rest assured the authorities are working hard to determine the cause of the fire. Any news, you’ll be the first to know. Dismissed.”

No one goes running off. We all sort of stand there in a strange muddle.

I face Lace, keeping my voice low. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Who do you think did it?”

She looks around. “You’re sure it was deliberate?”

“They locked the damn door, the only way out. They knocked out the security guard. If that doesn’t spell ‘deliberate,’ I don’t know what does, not to mention the stink of kerosene out back before it went up. No, someone set that blaze alright. I’m certain of it.”

My eyes fall on Jackson. He’s simply standing there with a strange sort of smirk on his face. He sees me and the smile drops.

Lacey follows my line of sight. “Perhaps. He is creepy.”

“And he loves to play with that damn Zippo lighter.”

“You think we should say something?”

I shake my head slowly. “No. Not yet. Let the authorities do their job, see what comes up.”

Lacey looks back to the dorms. “Poor Hernandez.”

I nod in agreement. “It’s a real fucking shame—murder if you want to call it what it is.”

“What do you want to do now?” asks Lacey.

I draw her into my arms. “I want to be with you.”

*

We skip lunch to make slow, tender love, the midday sun turning the sheets below us warm. I don’t think either of us exactly feels like eating after what happened last night.

The police arrive and interview those of us who were there again. Afterwards, the Captain pulls me into his office.

He gestures to the single chair in the room. “Take a seat, Cox.”

I look around. There’s a desk, a single, framed photo on it, but that is it. The office is completely barren. “You don’t have a chair, Captain?”

“A chair?” he laughs. “Do I look like I have time to sit around like this is Club Med? As my father used to say, ‘Why sit when you can stand tall?’”

O-kay. Odd one, but I let it go. “Is this about Hernandez?”

The Captain takes off his cap, placing it on the desk and aligning it with the framed photo. “No, son. Hernandez is gone and there ain’t shit we can do about it. It’s in the hands of the police now.”

“But they could be a student.”

“If it was deliberate, ‘they’ could be anyone, even a group of people. Like I said, the police are handling it. I pulled you in here to show you this.”

He takes a file out of his drawer and slaps it down in front of me.

Whenever someone adds that kind of dramatic flair I know bad news is coming, but the Captain remains upbeat. “You don’t need to open it. It’s an assessment of your written grades and progress. The prognosis? Extremely goddamn good. I don’t know what you’ve been doing, Cox, hopefully hitting the books hard, but it’s paying off. You’re rising right to the top.”

I’ve been hitting something alright, but it’s not books. That isn’t entirely truthful, of course. The study time with Lacey has been productive, even if it always leads to the same, blissful thing…

The Captain smiles. “I know you and Nelson are an item, son. The whole campus knows, but we’re all adults here. Don’t let us catch you fucking on the quad and everything should be alright. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Captain,” I reply, struggling to keep the smirk off my face at the thought of having sex in the middle of the quad. Hell, the class could cheer us on. First to orgasm wins.

“Long story short,” continues the Captain. “You’re on a good thing here, Cox. Don’t screw it up.”

“I understand.”

I get up to leave. The Captain reaches into the drawer again and hands me a single sheet of paper. “By the way, take this. Show it around.”

I take the sheet. It’s a grainy color photo of a figure walking across the street opposite Dante’s. In it they’re wearing what looks like jeans, a Pemberton sweater, and a blue Atlanta Braves baseball cap.

“It’s someone the police would like to talk to,” says the Captain. “They want me to hand these out around campus, see if anyone recognizes the cap.”

I fold it in half and place it into my pocket. “I will.”

“Good. See you at chow.”

I take the photo out once I’m standing back in the hall, scrutinizing the photo, but given the angle of the camera it’s impossible to tell how tall or what kind of build the figure is. Everyone here has a grey sweater. It’s uniform, so that’s out. It all comes down to the cap, and I can’t think of a single person student I’ve seen wearing one.

I look closer. It could be Jackson, but it’s far from definitive.

I flick the picture. “I’m going to find you, you son of a bitch. I’m going to find you and I’m going to make you pay.”

*

The somber mood continues through to dinner. Only half the class shows up, Jackson amongst the absent.

I show the photo to Lacey, who’s busy pushing mashed potatoes around her plate. “Yeah, I saw it.”

“And?”

She shrugs. “It could be anyone.”

I point to the cap. “But this. Have you seen anyone wearing a cap like this around campus? The Braves aren’t exactly popular around here. Someone has to recognize it.”

“I’m sorry.”

I hold the photo with two hands staring at it, looking for something I know I won’t find.

They’re going to get away with it. They’re going to get away with murdering Hernandez.

“What did the Captain want?” asks Lacey.

“To tell me my written grades have improved, funnily enough.”

Lacey smiles, punching me on the shoulder. “Hey, that’s great. I guess all that study time’s been worth it.”

I look around before squeezing her ass. “And the reward.”

“You’re not a toddler,” she replies. “I don’t give you a lollipop at the end of each session.”

“No,” I laugh, “you give me something far sweeter than that.”

She looks up at me. “Did he say anything about… us, the Captain?”

I nod to my plate. “He did, but he said as long as we keep it on the down-low, it’s fine.”

“And you call going at it in the Tower stairwell keeping it on the down-low?”

“No, I call that hot as fuck, but he said, and I quote, ‘As long as you’re not out there screwing on the quad, you’ll be fine.’”

“Screwing on the quad?” laughs Lacey. “The gravel rash alone… But you would, wouldn’t you? You love that risky stuff.”

“I didn’t hear you complaining on the back seat of the bus.”

“That was different.”

“Just because no one said anything doesn’t mean they didn’t know what was going on.”

“Are you trying to turn me off right now?”

A sudden memory of the fire cuts through my head. I blink it away. “Sorry?”

Lacey puts her fork down. “I’m not really hungry.”

“Me neither,” I say. Time for another closet session then?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

LACEY

I can hear Payton on the other side of the closet door. “Fifteen minutes and counting. I think we’re good.”

I slide the door open and come out, surprisingly level-headed, my breathing stable.

He’s smiling at me. “I think you’re ready, rock star.”

I nod back. “Yeah, I think I am.”

The morning session comes around faster than expected, but I’m well prepared for the Worm this time around.

In full gear, I approach the start of the tube.

The Captain stops me. “Now, Nelson, I have to be clear. If you don’t make it through today, it’s game over for your time here at Pemberton.”

“I understand, Captain.”

“Good, because I sure as hell want to see you get through this sucker. Can you do this?”

I’m all focus. “I can do this, Captain.”

“Then slap on that mask and show us what you’ve got.”

I can hear the rest of the class shouting words of encouragement as I get down onto my knees and then belly. Payton’s voice is loudest of all.

I’ve forgotten how tight this cursed thing is, nothing but black inside.

I concentrate on my breathing like we practiced, slow everything down. I keep the mantra ticking over in my head—You’re free. You’re free.

I’m making good progress until what I hear is the halfway point from outside. My elbows seem to get stuck on something. I’m wriggling but making no forward progress. I struggle, my breathing starting to slip and panic rising.

But I hear Payton in my head. ‘I’m right here. You’re free.’

I readjust in the small space and stop. I meet the fear. I check it out, examine it. It’s not so bad.

I move on, shifting enough to unglue my elbows from the side of the tube and continue.

Before I know it I’m out the end of the tube, standing and pulling off my breathing gear to cheering and cat-calling from the other side of the gymnasium.

The Captain marks me off on his clipboard. “And that, gentlemen,” he announces, “is how it’s damn well done.”

I head to the side.

Payton meets me. “I’m proud of you, pumpkin.”

“Where the hell did you hear that? Have you been talking to my mother?”

He laughs. “She texts you a lot, huh?”

But I’m not mad. How could I be in this moment? Heck, he can call me whatever he wants right now. “I couldn’t have done it without your help,” I tell him.

He smiles. “Don’t worry. I can think of a few ways you can reward me for said help.”

He shifts closer. I check the Captain isn’t looking and press the palm of my hand against his cock. It jumps against it. I push him away. “You’ll have to wait, mister. Duty calls, but as for my ass, the one you seem so enamored with, it’s all yours,” I wink.

And I swear he’s creaming his pants right there on the spot.

*

We skip dinner and go straight to dessert.

I kick the door to his room closed with my foot, lunging for him.

He pulls me into a tight embrace, his kiss full of need and urgency.

He’s moving fast.

I can barely keep up, even as his hand moves down my jeans, curving around the side of my thigh and moving into the hot crevice between my ass cheeks.

Oh.

A single, hard digit prods against the buttonhole of my anus. I moan around his tongue, moving.

Hello.

He’s talked about taking my other virginity before. I find I’m eager, the naughty factor alone causing a firestorm in my panties.

His other hand slips down the front of my pants, fingers taking the arousal from my folds and gently massaging it into my asshole until I’m bucking and thrusting forwards desperate for more.

He takes my earlobe into his mouth, his face lost in the tendrils of my hair, our breath coming out hot, our moans stifled so as not to raise alarm.

Suddenly, he grabs me by the hips and thrusts me violently over his desk, wiping his textbooks off with his hand.

He presses me down with one hand between my shoulder blades until my cheek is pressed flat on the wooden tabletop.

I watch my breath peel out and then evaporate on the surface of the desk as he grabs my panties and jeans together at the waistband. He roughly yanks them down together until there’re bunched around my knees, my rump open under his eyes.

I hear his zipper coming down, his cock being fished out and I get wetter still.

He stands behind me, both hands on my buttocks, spreading them apart until I wince and protest, my ass opening up in invitation.

Truthfully, I don’t know whether I’ll be able to handle something of that size up my backside. I slipped a finger in there when I was fourteen, but this is different.

But he goes for my pussy first, sliding deep from the first stroke.

I gasp, fingers spanning out on the desk as I’m taken hard and fast.

He strokes in and out, his hands on my ass, the slap, slap, slap of our bodies filling the room.

He spanks me, one hand gliding up my spine to rest on my back.

When he withdraws, I protest.

“I’m going to fuck you in the ass now,” he states.

I tense, worried about his size.

“Relax,” he whispers, the pad of his thumb back against my taint.

I moan out and suddenly the slippery head of his cock is there, right against my asshole.

He’s going to do it. He’s going to fuck you in the ass, I think.

I try to relax and enjoy this new sensation.

One hand holding my cheek open, the other grabbing my hair, he spits down into the crack of my ass and begins to slide his cock back and forth to moisten my asshole.

I’m surprised again by how much I’m enjoying this already. It’s so unbelievably dirty, so forbidden.

“You don’t know how good that feels,” he says, his voice heavy with desire.

He dips just the tip of his cock inside, slowly getting me used to the sensation before using both hands to pull my cheeks apart as far as they will go and drive deep into my ass.

I gasp, pleasure spanning away from my core, pinging between my head and genitals in the most delicious way possible.

I’m wedged tight against the edge of the table, breath slammed from my body and half of his cock driven right up into my most private place.

There’s a warm fullness, the sensation both alarming and exquisite as he draws himself back and shifts forward again, the saliva following through with his shaft now and beginning to line the delicate walls of my anal passage.

It’s incredible how different it is to how I thought it would be.

He lets out a stiff groan between gritted teeth, fingers clawing into my fleshy rump, weight lifting over me and more and more of his cock swallowed into my greedy ass.

It’s so dirty, so primal and taboo I come almost immediately, actually crying against the tabletop, flapping and twisting caught in the deepest and most satisfying climax yet. My ass clenches and releases against his furiously pumping cock.

My core tightens, fingers bent. My climax is barreling its way to action, every nerve in my ass, my head, my body urging it on

Payton mutters something before slamming into me with all the force he can muster, filling my ass as we come together once more.

Released, I lift my head from the desk and twist to lock him in a kiss.

I take his tongue eagerly, my body continuing to roil and move with the last flutters of my orgasm.

He breaks the kiss and smiles, a finger sliding into my wetness.

“Was that alpha enough for you?” he asks.

I smile back. “I guess you’re not a bad fuck for a frat boy.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

PAYTON

I’m smiling to myself in the shower, the water and suds spiraling down the drain between my legs, my dick happily swinging like a dog’s tail. Lacey’s surprised me once again. She’s far more adventurous than I ever could have hoped.

I thought her pussy was tight, but her ass was even more amazing. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined she’d be down for something like that.

It just keeps getting better.

Better still, my grades are up, Lacey’s getting over her fears, and together we’re going to kick ass out there in the greater world. We’re fucking unstoppable.

I turn off the shower and step out, picking up my towel.

Jackson’s shaving, looking back at me in the mirror. “For a second there I thought I was looking at a three-legged man.”

I’m laughing, wrapping my towel around myself when something collects my shoulder.

I spin to find Fielding smirking at me.

“Watch it, Cox,” he says.

No. Fuck this. I grab his shoulder and turn him around.

The others stop what they’re doing.

Ryan throws his hands wide. He’s actually pretty cut for a dumb shit. “What are you going to do, Cox? Seriously? You waiting for your bitch to come save the day, is that it?”

Easy now.

I take a step towards him. “You’re skirting awfully close to an ass-kicking, my friend.”

Someone tries to grab me from behind. “Leave it, Payton,” they say. “It’s not worth it.”

I shrug them off.

Ryan takes a step towards me, smiling there smugly in his towel. He takes a second to eye me off before speaking. “The only thing I’m awfully close to is swiping that bitch right from under your nose. And you know what I’m going to do then?”

“What’s that?” I laugh.

The smile turns full span. “I’m going to bury my cock so far down her throat she’ll be coughing up cum for weeks.”

If he was looking for a reaction, he gets it.

Whatever thread of restraint I had snaps. I launch at his torso in a tackle.

The force is enough to lift him clear off his feet.

I drive him all the way into the tiled wall at the end of the bathroom.

He drops to the floor gasping, but he’s not down.

“Payton!” someone shouts in warning, but I’m too far gone.

I slam my fist into his gut and another into his stupid fucking mouth.

He manages to get a jab into my side, enough to distract me and get to his feet.

I yell and pick him up again, both of us thrown off balance, slipping.

We fall against a vanity, a chunk of porcelain crashing with us to the wet floor.

I’ve got him in a choke-hold, his feet kicking out uselessly on the tiles. We slide and writhe together. “How does that feel, motherfucker?”

The wormy prick manages to slip out and hammer an elbow into my chest, forcing my knees upwards.

The next blow comes right against my jaw, a bloom of pain firing down my shoulder.

I swing back, his nose bloody when he turns back to face me. He staggers to his feet and makes for the door, but I’m far from done.

I take out his legs, shrugging off another classmate who’s trying to pull me free. The water from the busted vanity is leaking out to flood the floor around us.

I manage to get on top of him, straddling him as I start to pummel his face—one fist and then the other.

Strong arms hold me from behind. I cry out in protest. “Let me fucking go!”

Two instructors pull me up, another two dragging Ryan away.

“I’m going to have her,” Ryan laughs, his bloody face maniacal. “I’m going to fuck your whore if it’s the last thing I do.”

I jump forward again, but the instructors have me tight.

I’m taken back to my room. “Dress,” the one on the left orders, throwing me in.

I hear Lacey’s voice past the doorway. “What’s going on?”

They don’t reply.

I sit on the bed and look at my hands, red and raw, the reality of what’s just transpired beginning to sink. It doesn’t matter who started it, who swung first, this is it. I’ve fucked it up. I’ve fucked it all up.

“Hurry up!” shouts one of the instructors. “Dress and get your ass down to the Dean’s office now.”

*

The Dean shakes his head. “What a mess.” He looks up to the Captain. “What do you make of this, Jerry?”

It’s strange hearing the Captain’s first name.

The Captain looks over me with cold eyes. “I think Pemberton Fire Academy is one of the finest training institutions in this here great country. I think Pemberton Fire Academy,” he repeats, “has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to violence, a policy that was made abundantly clear to all recruits when they signed on the dotted line, present company included.”

The Dean fixes on me from behind his desk. “The Captain’s right, Mr. Cox. We absolutely cannot tolerate violence here of any kind. I told Mr. Fielding that just now, and I’m telling you. At Pemberton, you work as a team, or you don’t work at all.”

The hot rage I felt earlier has mellowed into an odd resignation. “What are you saying?”

“Did the Dean say you could talk?” the Captain barks.

The Dean puts his hand up. “It’s okay, Jerry. I’m saying, son, that this is end of your time here at the Academy, both of you. As of this moment, you are expelled from Pemberton.”

Expelled—the word hangs there in my head.

It’s déjà vu, only this office looks different, with a different dean and some fucking ass bandit out there who’s going to get what’s coming to him.

The chair I’m sitting on is still warm. I can picture Ryan sitting here quietly, that smug expression on his face. Maybe he never wanted to be here at all, but I do. I wanted to prove to everyone I wasn’t going to fuck up again, and now the chance has been stripped away like it never was in the first place. I’m back to square one.

I look to the Captain. “Come on, Captain. You know this isn’t right.”

He remains stony-faced. “The Dean’s word is final, Cox. Pack up your things. You are to leave the campus immediately.”

I stand and slam my hand down on the Dean’s desk, my frustration getting the better of me. “This is bullshit!”

The Dean stands, hardening. “You watch your tone there, son. We took a chance on you, and you blew it.”

“But—”

“There are no ‘buts,’ no excuses. We need firefighters with restraint, not frat boys who are going to fly off the handle every time someone gets under their skin. Man up and face the consequences.”

I drag my hand across the Dean’s desk, pull all of its contents down onto the floor.

The Captain starts forward, but the Dean places his hand on his chest. “It’s fine, Jerry. It’s fine.”

“Fuck this place!” I shout, storming out the office.

I don’t look back. I don’t want to see the way they’re looking at me.

Lacey hears me come into my room. She appears in the doorway. “What the hell’s going on?”

I sit on the bed. “I was expelled is what’s going on. Fielding and me, zero tolerance and all that shit.”

“But… they can’t. I’ll go down there right now and tell them what he…”

She stops.

“Tell them what?” I push, sensing her reluctance. “Did he do something? Did he do something to you?”

I’m standing, shaking with fury. She backs up against the wall as I walk forward. “Tell me, Lacey. What is it?”

“It doesn’t make any difference now.”

I punch the brick wall beside her hard enough to bring fresh blood to my knuckles. “Tell me!”

She takes a step forward, forcing me back. “He tried to come onto me, force himself on me after class.”

The tension slips away to be replaced by horror. “Did he…?”

She shakes her head. “No. I kicked him in the balls, pretended you were in your room.”

“Jesus. Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“Because I knew something like this would happen, and it has. He’s gotten away with it.”

But I’m firm. “He’s not getting away with anything. Not on my fucking watch.”

Lacey goes to place her hands on my chest. “Don’t do anything stupid, Payton. I’m begging you.”

I throw my hands out. “I’m no longer a student here, Lacey. Once him and I walk through those front gates we’re two ordinary citizens again. The rules of Pemberton no longer apply.”

“This isn’t the end of the world,” she says, trying to comfort me, but I’m way beyond that now.

“For you, maybe,” I scoff, “but what do I have to go back to but my fucking father saying, ‘told you so’? I’m never going to live this down.”

“Since when do you care what your father thinks?” She presses herself against me. “Only I matter, remember? You said that yourself.”

I run my hand through my hair, my heart continuing to pump ahead of me. “It doesn’t matter. It’s done.”

“You’ll get through this. You’ll be okay.”

She lifts up onto her toes to kiss me. I let her, and with those lips on mine I begin to simmer. The tension falls away and I realize she’s right. It will be okay. I’ve got her. What the hell else do I need?

She holds the side of my face, pulling away. “Good?”

“Good,” I nod.

“You’ve got me, Payton. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know.”

I shift away, looking down at my knuckles, the pain starting. “I’m going to go clean up. I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll be waiting,” she smiles. “We’ll figure it out, together.”

I head to the bathroom, passing the door to Ryan’s room around the corner. It’s closed. He might be inside; he might not.

Let it go, I tell myself. What would bashing his head in now achieve apart from much-needed satisfaction?

I’m in the bathroom, alone, thinking it over. I’m kind of hoping he shows his face one last time when I hear commotion outside.

It could be anything really—a drill, a training exercise.

I notice the door to Ryan’s room is wide open when I come out of the bathroom.

Don’t do it.

I can’t help myself. I walk in.

His room’s largely bare, packed away in haste, save for a lone sock on the floor and a stack of textbooks in the desk.

I pick one up, not really sure why, when I spot the edge of something under the corner of the mattress.

I reach down and pull it out.

It’s a photo.

In it Ryan’s standing with a group of guys in front of a frat house—Sigma Phi or some shit. I study Ryan’s smug fucking expression, the one he seems to wear twenty-four seven.

And then I notice it.

He’s wearing a cap. Not any cap. The cap. The one in the photo the Captain handed me.

My first thought is that it’s a coincidence, but then I realize it’s anything but.

It all locks together.

“Holy shit.” I say it aloud.

It wasn’t Jackson at all.

At that exact moment, a deafening alarm sounds across campus.

I rush to the window.

Nothing.

The hell?

I drop the textbook and pocket the photo, rushing back into the hall. Louis has his head out the door of him room. “Any idea what’s going on?” I ask him.

He shrugs. “Fire drill, maybe?”

This whole damn place is a fire drill.

Lacey.

I jog down the hall towards her room, breaking into a run, but when I burst in, she’s gone.

She’s not in my room either.

The alarm continues to bleat, maddeningly loud.

And there’s no sign of Ryan.

Fuck.

I sprint to the middle of campus, right out into the center of the quad, the alarm changing, a male voice squawking intermittently, “Evacuate. Fire. Evacuate.”

When I turn, I see why.

The Tower is on fire, long flames clawing up the sides of it.

Students rush past me in the opposite direction, instructors headed towards the blaze with lines and PPE gear.

Jackson pulls up beside me, puffing. “Jesus, Cox, what have you done?”

What have I done?

I watch the fire climb in disbelief. It’s spreading fast. “It was Fielding,” I state.

“What?” says Jackson.

I take hold of his shoulders and shake. “It was fucking Ryan. He set the fire in Dante’s.” I point to the tower. “I’ll bet my ass he’s behind this one, too.”

Confusion clouds Jackson’s face. “Why?”

“Because he’s a fucking pyromaniac!” I shout. “I don’t know.”

“Evacuate. Fire. Evacuate.”

Jackson’s looking down at his feet shaking his head. “I don’t get it.” Smoke drags across the sky in a large gash. “But why now? Why set the Tower on fire now. I mean, I get he’s pissed, but…” Jackson smiles. “It would make for a great decoy if you were trying to escape campus or something.”

Decoy. The word sinks in.

I thought it could be one last fuck-you to Pemberton, but then I recall his last words in the bathroom.

“Have you seen Lacey?” I ask Jackson.

“Yeah,” he says, pointing behind him back to the dorms. “She was with Fielding, actually. Looked wasted, like she was half-asleep or something. I thought he was helping her to the sick bay.”

No.

A shard of dread digs deep into my gut.

“Evacuate. Fire. Evacuate.”

I grab Jackson again and look at him dead-on. “Where were they going?”

He’s scared. “Hey, man. I don’t know.”

“Where?!” I scream, sirens beginning to wail over the alarm.

Jackson’s eyes are wide. “The parking lot, maybe?”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. “Find the Captain,” I tell him, I handing Jackson the photo and pointing at Ryan. Show him this and do not fucking lose it.”

I start to run off.

“Where are you going?” Jackson shouts to my back.

There’s no time to reply.

I push through the crush of students heading for the campus gates. I cut across them, keeping my head above the crowd looking for any sign of Lacey or Ryan, but it’s chaos. People are moving in every direction.

I come out into the parking lot as an engine pulls in with its lights on. I look left and then right, spotting Ryan making his way down the line of parked student cars.

He’s carrying something, someone.

I look closer.

It’s Lacey.

What the fuck have you done?

He couldn’t have her, so now he’s taking her. And no one’s even noticed.

“Ryan!” I shout, cupping my hands around my mouth, but there’s too much noise.

He opens the door of a blue pickup and lifts a limp Lacey up into the passenger seat, slamming the door and running around to the driver’s side.

I take out my keys and double my pace to the Ram.

A girl screams when I shove past her. I mow down another guy, but there’s no time to turn back.

Ryan’s pickup is already pulling out of its space and moving through the crowd to the front gate, his horn honking.

I judge the distance to make it over, but it’s too far. Following him in my truck’s the only way.

I make it and swing the door of the Dodge open, turning the ignition and reversing hard, the tires chirping as I swing it around.

Ryan’s pickup is gone, already entering out the main road.

I honk at a group of students blocking the path, revving the engine in an attempt to get them to move.

“Fuck off!” I yell.

I slam my foot down on the accelerator and pull around them, knocking over a bollard in the process and cutting across the front lawn of the campus.

I come blind around the corner, over a garden bed, and onto the road, forced to turn sharply to avoid smashing into the side of another fire engine rushing to the campus.

In my rear-view I see the Tower completely ablaze, a plume of smoke painted across the sky.

I spot Ryan’s pickup up ahead.

He’s not going to get away with this.

I go to take out my cell before I remember it’s back on my desk.

I slam the dashboard. “Come on!”

A police cruiser blasts past, but it’s going too fast. By the time I turn around and catch up with it, Ryan will be long gone.

I hit the gas instead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

LACEY

FIVE MINUTES EARLIER

I’m going through Mom’s incessant texts. I swipe away the last of them, a picture of Payton and I together as my wallpaper, his arms wrapping around me from behind, our faces lit up by the cell’s flash. He’s been expelled, yes, but it’s not the end of the world. Besides, I’m still going to tell the Dean the full story, how Ryan came onto me, how he practically molested me. Surely they will cut Payton some slack after that.

Something presses against my back. I hold my cell up. “It’s a great shot, isn’t it?”

“I’ve seen better.”

I drop the cell, turning to scream as Ryan’s hand comes over my mouth, a gun held low against my abdomen.

His eyes are wild. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have a gun on campus, but fuck Pemberton. I’m not leaving empty-handed.”

I go to fill my lungs, his hand pressing harder against my mouth. “You scream or call for help, you’re fucking dead. Nod if you understand.”

I nod.

Keep calm, I tell myself. Payton will be right back.

Ryan removes his hand.

As soon as he does, I scream at the top of my lungs. I try to kick at him, but he’s ready for me this time, lunging out of the way.

My scream is silenced when he drives the butt of gun into my stomach.

The sound coming out of my mouth is cut off. I go down to my knees completely winded.

He takes me under the arm and yanks me up.

“I’m sorry about this,” he says, “but desperate times and all that.”

I’m still trying to breathe when he takes a cloth out of his pocket, smothering me with it.

There’s a strong, acrid smell.

I drift towards unconsciousness still struggling to breathe, but it never comes. Instead, I remain in a kind of limp limbo when he removes the cloth, my limbs like lead. Ryan tucks the gun behind his back and throws my arm around his shoulder, beginning to lead us out of my room and down the hall.

“Payton,” I call, but my voice is dry and weak.

What the hell is happening?

Jackson walks past. He says something I miss to Ryan, but it’s ignored.

An alarm starts to sound, loud like a jackhammer to the head.

Everything is so bright. My head is floating as we emerge into the parking lot, people starting to swarm around us heading for the front gates.

What’s going on?

Confusion has taken hold of me. I can’t make sense of anything.

Finally, even my legs refuse to cooperate.

I’m rising, lifting to the sky, marveling at the streaky clouds above. And then I’m being shifted into a seat, a seatbelt pulled across to hold me in place.

It’s a truck, I think dimly. Ryan’s truck.

“Payton.” It’s a whisper now.

Out the corner of my eye I notice Ryan slide the gun down the front of his pants and turn the ignition, backing out hard and heading with the crowds pushing through the front gate. I don’t know where we are headed, but it can’t be anywhere good.

We make it past the gate, the alarm dying out and a fire engine rushing past us onto campus ground.

Out the window I see the Tower alight. It can’t be real, none of this can be.

Ryan accelerates hard onto the main road.

“What are you doing?” I ask, my lips tingling.

He looks sideways at me, pulling his seatbelt on. “What I should have done a long time ago: taking what’s rightfully mine.”

It takes me a second to work out he’s talking about me.

The horror of it starts to sink in.

I realize I can move my fingers, but I can’t lift my arm. It’s too heavy.

Ryan watches the road, pulling left off the main road and headed south.

“Your thing with Cox?” he says. “I honestly don’t mind. It’s going to make it all the sweeter when I fuck your brains out.”

He smiles at that, proud of himself.

The horror increases, the warning, but whatever he drugged with me is holding it away, making me docile.

My eyes dart around the cabin of the pickup for a weapon. It’s empty.

I manage to lift my hand enough to reach the door handle, but when I pull it fails to open.

Ryan taps the door controls to his right. “You think I’m that fucking stupid?”

He looks over at me. “That pretty mouth of yours is going to look so good around my cock. You’re going to love it.”

Even drugged, I have to force the panic down, pack it away so it doesn’t overwhelm me completely.

“You know,” he continues, talking to his reflection in the windshield, “I didn’t know you were inside when I lit that place up. I thought you were back at campus. That fucking Mexican was a shame. Hernandez? Was that his fucking name? Collateral damage, I suppose.”

I suddenly realize what he’s talking about.

Dante’s

He started the fire.

“Did you see it? When you were standing outside? It was a thing of beauty, watching it spread and learn, the flames becoming conscious.”

He looks across to me. “Oh, you want to tell the cops? You want to go blabbing to your boy?” He laughs. “Your throat’s going to be so stuffed you’re never going to get a chance.”

He’s a psychopath, I realize. I’m stuck, half drugged, in this pickup truck with a psychopath and no one knows where I am.

I notice my hand has become lighter. Feeling has started to return to my extremities. I wiggle my toes in my shoes, testing. My arms are responsive again, but so what? I can’t fight my way out of here.

As if sensing my intentions, Ryan takes the gun out of his waistband and holds it against the wheel with his right hand. “We use it on the ranch, you know—ketamine. I probably should have used more, put you out, but no one wants to fuck a corpse, right?”

I reach for the handle again, pulling frantically, but the door’s locked firm.

I could attack him, scratch his face perhaps, but he’s physically stronger and he’s got the gun.

My head slumps back against the headrest. The road we’re on is deserted, a single stretching line of black heading across the sparse landscape outside. I don’t know where Ryan’s taking me, but if he makes it I’m done for. You don’t confess a crime to someone you’re planning on keeping around.

I look to the side mirror and notice a tiny speck of black following us. It’s getting bigger, but slowly, given the speed Ryan’s travelling at.

It might be Payton’s Dodge.

Or I might be imagining things.

No, Payton or not, I have to get out of this myself.

An idea occurs to me, but it’s risky.

I take note of the dash. This pickup is maybe thirty or forty years old.

I breathe in deeply, my stomach sore.

I see a band of trees in the distance either side of the road. After that the landscape returns to nothingness.

That has to be it.

I wait, start to count it out in my head and get a feel for the speed the pickup is travelling at.

With my left hand, I reach to the door and take hold of the grab handle. I tug my seatbelt tighter with the other.

I’ve got to do this quickly before Ryan has time to react.

I check the side mirror one more time, but the speck is just that.

The trees are coming up fast.

Right or left? I can’t decide.

“Soon,” says Ryan. “Soon you’ll have me all to yourself, baby. Don’t worry.”

I calculate the distance.

I brace my feet flat into the foot-well.

Now.

I reach over and unclip Ryan’s seatbelt. It pops out loose from the connector

“The fuck are you—”

Just as quickly, I take hold of the left of the steering wheel and yank it down as hard as I can, holding on and steering the truck towards the nearest tree, doing my best to line it up with Ryan’s side.

“Fu—”

But the truck pulls too far left into the dirt, the tree slamming right into the middle of the grill. Still, the force of the impact is enough to send Ryan smashing through the windscreen, his seatbelt catching and sort of whipping him across the hood.

I’m ready for the impact, but the violence of it surprises me.

The pickup’s too old to have airbags, my knees hammering into the dash.

The radiator hisses ahead, the horn sounding out.

I unclip my seatbelt, wincing at a new pain in my shoulder. I reach over and undo the door locks, pushing the passenger door open and falling free to the ground, my legs like sticks of butter.

I try to stand and almost fall over again, the incessant hissing and horn drilling into my head.

I look over and see Ryan lying in the shrubbery, his face cross-hatched with fresh blood.

I climb my way up the ditch we dropped into, almost to the road when a gunshot rings out behind me. I see it impact the asphalt ahead.

“Dead or alive,” comes Ryan’s voice. “I’m fucking you either way!”

Another shot, this one not quite as wide.

I make it onto the road and spot a vehicle in the distance, but it’s too far out to see me.

“You’re fucking mine!” screams Ryan.

I climb back down into the ditch, crawling behind a tree to wait.

“Here, here, little kitty,” calls Ryan, his voice closer.

There’s nowhere to run here. It’s flat desert.

“I’m coming for you,” he calls.

I tuck myself tighter against the tree, my shoulder and knees aching.

I stand and steal a glance at the road.

The approaching vehicle is a black Ram, has to be Payton.

Relief fills me. It’s short-lived, a bullet thudding into the tree.

“You can’t hide, you bitch. You hear me?”

Does Payton even know I’m down here? Can he see the truck’s gone off the road given the way we dropped into the ditch?

I can’t take the chance he’ll drive past.

I keep watching, can hear Ryan staggering towards me, his leg dragging along the ground.

When Payton’s truck is close enough, I run with everything I have onto the road waving my arms.

He doesn’t slow down.

“There you are!”

I turn to see Ryan hobble onto the road behind me, his face covered in blood. The gun wavers as he lines it up with me.

I turn back to Payton, but instead of slowing he cuts left of my position and pulls into a hard turn, skidding the truck sideways between myself and Ryan, the first shot striking the side of the cab.

But the Dodge has too much momentum. It keeps skidding, the tailgate collecting Ryan and flinging him a good six or seven feet backwards.

I see the driver’s door open and Payton get out, his legs moving underneath the truck.

I walk around the front of the Ram cautiously.

Payton’s down by Ryan, kicking the gun away. He places two fingers against Ryan’s neck. “He’s alive,” he shouts. “Get the rope out of the back of the truck.”

I find it and toss it over, Payton binding Ryan’s arms together behind his back, but given the strange angle of his leg and bloodied face, I don’t imagine he’s going anywhere.

Payton takes out Ryan’s cell and brings it to his ear. “Nine-one-one? Yes…”

I watch him disassociated from the scene, as if I’m floating above it.

Another car has stopped, an elderly gentleman stepping out and trying to take in the scene.

Payton puts down the cell and runs over to him, pointing back in the direction of the campus and the column of smoke rising from it.

The man gets back into his car and does a U-turn.

“Lacey!” Payton shouts, his voice distant.

He runs over and hugs me.

I’m feeling more lucid, but with it comes a fresh wave of pain.

I wince. “Easy, easy.”

He loosens up. “Sorry. You alright?”

“My shoulder…”

I grimace again when Payton touches it.

His eyebrows knit together. “It might be dislocated. I’m not sure.” He helps me over to the shade under the trees. “Sit down. Help’s on its way.”

“I think Ryan lit the fire at Dante’s,” I tell him.

“I know,” he replies, kissing me on the forehead. “I know.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

PAYTON

I’m sitting in a bare-bones hospital room with Lacey. She’s still groggy from the anesthesia they had to give her before popping her shoulder back into place, not to mention the drug required to counter the ketamine.

I’m holding her hand by the bed, a nurse cleaning up in the corner.

There’s a knock on the door. “How we doing in here?”

It’s the Captain.

I look to Lacey, her half-lidded eyes still the most beautiful thing I’ve seen.

Ryan’s in surgery last I heard, but it’s likely he’ll pull through to face the music. It’s just as well. Death would be far too light a punishment considering what he did to Hernandez.

“Look,” I start, as the Captain enters, “I’m sorry about what happened in the Dean’s office.”

“Let’s not talk about that now,” he says, leaning against the wall by the door. “I’ve just finished running this shitstorm over with the Chief of Police, gave him the photo you handed Jackson—all of which marks Ryan as our man along with Lacey’s account. And this thing, with Nelson… What he was going to do to her…” he trails off. “It’s sorry fucking business. You had someone check you over, son?”

“Yes, Captain,” I nod.

He takes a seat by the bed, smiling at the nurse leaving the room. He removes his cap. “You should be proud of yourself, Cox, for what you did today. You saved her life.”

“Does that mean I’m back in?” I joke.

The Captain grins. “Like I said, let’s talk about it later, but I’ve seen worse cases for reevaluation.”

“What happened,” I recall, “at campus?”

The Captain brings one leg up onto the other. “Well, I suppose lighting a fire at a fire academy isn’t the smartest of ideas. We let it burn out in the end. Truth be told, we were thinking about pulling it down this year anyhow, putting up one twice as tall, really put you recruits to the test.”

“But how did Ryan light it? I saw him in his room?”

The Captain nods to himself, as if he was expecting this question. “Given the slow spread on the bottom floor, we’re thinking he lit it before he came to the Dean’s office. I guess he knew what the outcome would be. But once it hit that kerosene store… Up she went. I have to give the little shit credit for paying attention in Combustibles.”

Lacey’s hand twitches in my own.

“You ever come across something like this before?” I ask.

The Captain straightens. “A fire bug in a fire academy? Sure, like moths to a flame. We tend to weed them out earlier on, but your friend Fielding kept it well hidden.” He lowers his voice, checking the door. “Between you and me, I thought it was King.”

“So did I.”

The Captain stands and puts his cap back on. “The kid’s still creepy.” He stands with his hands on his hips. “You’ve given your statement to the police?”

“Yes, sir.”

The Captain glances to Lacey. “Give my regards to our girl when she wakes, and come back to campus when you’re done. We’ll have a chat with the Dean in the morning.” He stops before he’s out the door. “Oh, and Cox…”

“Captain.”

He turns with a smile on his face. “Nice driving.”

*

The following morning Lacey and I walk hand in hand from the hospital. “You sure you’re okay? Mentally, that is,” I question.

She gives me a side glance. “It would take more than being drugged, kidnapped, and almost shot to concern me.”

Just thinking about it makes me wish I’d hit the fucker head on.

“The doctor said the drug’s all out of my system,” she continues, “which I guess is why I’m feeling a little more like myself today.”

“You mean scorchingly hot and quippy to boot?”

“I mean ‘not wanting to sleep for a hundred years.’”

“What if I was in bed with you?”

She reaches up to kiss the side of my neck, the tip of her tongue darting out to lick at my earlobe. “Then I really wouldn’t be the ‘sleeping’ beauty now, would I?”

“Did the Captain come around?” she asks.

“He did.”

“And?”

“He said we’re going to talk to the Dean, maybe find a way to get me back in at Pemberton.”

“That’s great,” she enthuses.

“You sure? You might not be so enthusiastic when I’m kicking your ass in training all day.”

She laughs aloud, head tilted back to the sky. “Remind me again why I’m with a guy with a hot-air balloon for a head?”

“Because he gives great head?” I retort.

She looks at me sideways and I’m dying already to get into her pants and help her forget this whole fucking mess. “The doctor did order rest and relaxation.”

I give a bow. “Your wish is my command, princess, and speaking of which, behold your carriage.”

My pickup’s been impounded, but King was kind enough to lend me his car.

Lacey explodes with laughter. “A pink Chevy Neon? I can almost see your balls shriveling.”

I open the passenger door and help her in, not like she needs it. Apart from a few superficial grazes and a sore shoulder, she’ll be in perfect health soon enough.

I run around to the driver’s side, hanging my head in shame when I spot a dancing Hawaiian girl on the dash. “Just my luck the only car available was a giant pink vagina.”

“Hey,” she says, “that’s offensive to vaginas.”

I lean over and kiss her. “Not all vaginas are as pretty as yours, pumpkin.”

She shrugs. “One, I’m not your pumpkin and two, I suppose all cocks aren’t as pretty as yours either.”

I start the car-slash-super tampon. “Call my cock ‘pretty’ one more time and we’ll be having words.”

She takes my hand and runs it down the front of her pants. I’m surprised to find she’s wet. “Wouldn’t you rather have something else?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I reply, and I can guarantee this Nova’s never moved so fast in its life.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

LACEY

TWELVE WEEKS LATER

I stand at the podium looking out over a sea of eager faces. Down at the front sits Pemberton’s graduating class of 2017, and what a proud bunch we are, none more than Payton.

I begin my speech, a cloudless sky watching on. “True heroism is remarkably sober. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost. My father was a firefighter. His name was Gregory Davis Nelson, and he was a hero.”

Through some divine miracle I manage to keep my composure through this first part of my speech, going on to discuss the merits of our class, the effort we’re put in, the many hardships we faced. At the end, I speak about Mateo Hernandez and his contribution to the class, inviting those gathered to take a moment of silence to remember him.

I finish with another quote, focusing on Payton and his beaming smile. “For many of us, it was not an easy decision to come here. To arrive, one must leave the city of their comfort and go out into the wilderness of their own intuition. The place we came looking for is not one you can reach by bus, only by hard work and risk, and by not quite knowing what you’re doing. But find it and what you discover is wonderful. What you discover is yourself. Thank you.”

The applause is thunderous, the Captain nodding as I step down from the podium.

The Dean takes my place. “Pemberton Fire Academy Class of 2017, it is my great honor to welcome you as probationary firefighters to the great institution that is the US Firefighting Service. Congratulations.”

Graduation caps whip into the air. I walk down from the stage and throw mine away, Payton pulling me into his arms and spinning us around as the class continues to whoop and shout. It’s a wonderful feeling, especially knowing I’ve found more than purpose these last sixteen weeks. I’ve found the love of my life.

We’re deep in a kiss, almost doing it on the quad, when I spot Mom walking over out the corner of my eye. Reluctantly, I peel myself from Payton. “Mom. Hi.”

She looks up (way up, given she’s barely five feet tall). “And you must be Payton.” She takes in his arms. “My, you are a strapping lad.”

“Mom!” I protest.

Payton extends his hand, smiling. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

“Ma’am!” she gushes. “And a gentleman, too!” She winks at him. “Maybe I’ll take you home for myself.”

“Mom! God,” I exclaim, mortified.

“It’s okay,” laughs Payton. “Beauty runs in the family, it seems.”

I roll my eyes. He’s playing Mom like a freakin’ fiddle.

By the time we make it across to the new Dante’s, now a café, they’re basically besties.

If only you met him when I first got here, I think.

It seems like forever ago now.

I’d never met anyone so arrogant, so full of themselves in all my life, but I’ve come to know a different Payton, a man of kindness and purpose and utter devotion… not to mention endless stamina. If I was to add up the amount of orgasms I’ve had these last few weeks it would make for a mile of O’s.

We sit at a table outside, Payton with a lemon, lime, and bitters. I don’t think he’s been too keen on heavy drinking since our little vodka showdown.

Mom’s not holding back. She has not one, but two cocktails lined up ready to go. “Are your parents here today, Payton?”

I stiffen, but Payton places his glass down, taking a moment to compose himself before replying. “I’m afraid not. We don’t exactly see eye to eye when it comes to my career choice.”

“I can understand,” says Mom, happy to have a confidant. “I basically begged Lacey not to come home, especially after what happened to her father,” she looks at me, “but I’ve come around. He would have been so, so very proud, kiddo.”

I take her hand and squeeze, close to tears. “Thanks, Mom.”

“My pleasure, pumpkin. Now, if we can only find you a nice desk job…”

“Mom…”

She waves it off. “I know, I know, but I’m a mother. It’s my job to worry. When you two have kids—”

Thankfully, Payton cuts her off. “You don’t need to worry about a thing, Mrs. Nelson,” Payton cuts in. “I’m going to take very good care of her.”

The innuendo goes right over Mom’s head; she happily sits there sipping on her piña colada.

While the two of them continue to chit-chat, I look around at the others. Jackson’s parents are completely not what I expected—stiff-backed and dead serious. He sits in their company like a schoolboy.

I have to laugh when he sees me watching. “Kill me,” he mouths.

We’ve been through a lot, the bunch of us. I meant what I said in that speech—every word. No other class in Pemberton history has faced the difficulties we have, but we’re going to be stronger for it.

There is one glaring absence. Last I heard, Ryan had been moved interstate to a proper penitentiary pending trial. There was talk he might try and plea down to manslaughter, even push for insanity. Maybe he is insane, but he needs to face the consequences.

It’s likely we’ll be called to trial to give witness, but for now I simply want to enjoy this moment and move on.

I see Mom off and head in to start packing up. It’s not like I had a lot of things here to begin with, but there’s a certain sadness knowing this is all coming to an end.

For some bizarre reason, I decide to keep the neon thong from The Juicy Lucy. I’m about to toss the latter into the box on the bed when there’s a knock against the doorframe.

Payton walks in, nodding at the thong. “Now there’s a sight for sore eyes.”

I stretch it out. “At least it got your attention.”

He grabs my ass from behind. “This got my attention long before that strip club.”

“It did?” I tease, running my hand up his side.

“Yes, ma’am.”

A voice comes from the hall. “Get a room, you two.”

I see King standing there with a box of his own.

Payton continues to watch me. “You know, Jackson, maybe we will.”

Together, we pack the last of my things away.

We bump into the Captain in the hallway.

“Hold up there a moment,” he says, blocking the path.

I place down the box.

Hands on his hips, the Captain looks to Payton first. “Son, you put me through the wringer, you really did, but you know what?”

“What’s that, sir,” replies Payton.

A smile opens up on the Captain’s face, perhaps the first real smile I’ve seen him give. “I’m damn proud of you. Hell, I might even shed a tear when you’re gone.”

Payton smiles back. “I wouldn’t want you crying over me, Captain.”

He laughs. “Tears of joy, maybe.” He extends his hand, Payton taking it. “Well done, recruit.”

The Captain looks to me. “And you, Nelson. I don’t think I’ve seen finer in all my twenty years here at the Academy. Your dad would be proud. Top of your class, hard-working—You’ll make a fine firefighter. Money well spent,” I say,” he winks.

Money well spent?

And then I realize.

It was the Captain. He paid my fees.

“You—” I start.

He takes my hand. “Take care of yourself now.”

I shake. “Thank you, sir, for everything.”

“My pleasure, Nelson.” He takes a step back. “Now, get the fuck off my turf before I sign you up for another year.”

“Yes, Captain,” we reply in unison.

PAYTON

Lacey rolls off me breathing hard, her chest flushed. “That was…”

“Incredible?” I offer, lying there with the hands behind my back.

We’re in a five-star hotel by the airport, the only place that had accommodation this close to the holidays.

Lacey wraps the sheet around herself and stands, walking over to the window. “As for the view…”

The airport parking lot doesn’t make for a grand vista, planes soaring to the sky on the horizon beyond.

“So,” I ask her, “where do you want to go?”

“Go?”

“You didn’t seriously think we were going to hang around here in the desert for our eight weeks of freedom, did you? We are at an airport.”

She looks through the window. “You want to get on one of those planes?”

I point to the far right where the private jets are located. “No, I’m talking about one of those planes. I had the family pilot fly in this afternoon. He’s refueling right now ready for the morning.”

I can see the shock. “What exactly is it your father does again?”

I laugh. “He’s head of one of the biggest hedge funds in America.”

“Oh.”

“So believe me when I tell you you won’t be flying coach again. But you didn’t answer my question.”

“Where do I want to go?” She shakes her head. “I have absolutely no idea. This is a bit overwhelming. What about Mom?”

I toss Lacey her cell. She catches it with one hand. “What about her? Search ‘Random place generator.’”

“Like spinning a globe and pointing a finger at it?”

“Precisely.”

She starts to tap the screen. “O-kay.”

“Well?” I ask.

She tosses the cell back to me. “Somehow I don’t think the middle of the Pacific Ocean is going to make for a great getaway. You try.”

I pick up the cell and start to tap the screen, speaking aloud. “Random place generator, do your thing.”

The first search comes up.

“Where is it?” she asks.

My lips span out in a smile. “Oh, you’re going to love this.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

LACEY

It’s funny how fast things can escalate. One moment I’m bedded up with the World’s Hottest Guy and the next we’re road-tripping our way around Iceland.

Yes, I get the joke—two people fresh from firefighting academy journeying to the land of ice and fire, but it’s a whole new world for me. Prior to this, I’d never been outside of States. Here, in this beautiful country I’d barely heard of, I realize how much I’ve missed out on… and how much I still have to explore.

It’s exciting. From the private jet to the luxury hotels and fine dining, I feel like a princess. It’s cold, sure (I swear I’m going to have icicles instead of nipples after this), but it’s amazing.

We start in Reykjavik, where, what do you know, most people actually speak English, driving in our cozy camper from eye-popping landscape to landscape each more spectacular than the last, and all with names I can’t pronounce. Snæfellsjökull, Reynisfjara, Eyjafjallajökull—the latter of which seems a rather long name for such a small glacier.

We see the aurora borealis, wild horses… and then we have sex, and more sex, and sexy sex sex until I’m finding it hard to walk my legs are so jell-oish. I have no idea how Payton manages to remain hard all day. It’s like he has a telegraph pole for a penis—not that I’m complaining. It’s wonderful.

The Blue Lagoon is a peace incarnate. The milky blue water envelops us, piped in hot from the geothermal power station to our right. Payton reclines back against the rock, his arm over my shoulder. “It looks like the moon, doesn’t it?” he remarks, gazing out over the alien landscape.

“It’s a hell of a long way from Pemberton Fire Academy, that’s for sure. Doesn’t your Dad care you’re spending all his money like this?”

“Technically, it’s my money, but even so, he makes tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands a day. What we’re spending here is a drop in the bucket. Besides, he owes me.”

“For what?”

“For being such a prick my whole life.”

I rest my head against his shoulder. “He’s your father.”

“Luke Skywalker had a father, too, and look how that turned out.”

Steam rises from the water around Payton’s head. “Eventually, you’re going to have to patch things up,” I tell him. “He’ll come around.”

“We’ll see.”

I run my hand down the front of his swim trunks, the milky water hiding the act. I’ve become especially keen on public sex these last few weeks, and that’s something I never thought I’d say.

Payton starts to smile, his eyebrows lifting. “You’re going to get us kicked out of here, Ms. Nelson.”

I take hold of his cock—hard, as always—and lightly pump it, my clit already tingling in anticipation. “Do you have a better suggestion?”

“How does room service sound?”

*

It’s sub-zero outside the hotel, a star-filled sky looking down upon us. I’m rugged up like the damn Michelin man, though this look doesn’t seem to dissuade Payton in the slightest. He happily grinds into my ass from behind, our snow pants sliding together, my pussy as wet as the small stream running beside us.

Fresh snow covers the ground.

I turn around and kiss him, hold his face in my hands and savor the sensation of his tongue in my mouth.

He’s yours, I think. He is all yours.

“Have you thought about what you’re going to do when we get back?” I ask.

He takes a step back watching the sky. “I only know two things: I want to be a firefighter, and I want you by my side.”

“You mean, literally fighting fires together? Because that would be kind of hard given we could barely keep our hands off each other at Pemberton.”

He smiles and nods to the sky. “Do you see the northern lights?”

I squint into the distance and see them starting to dance ahead, a shimmery veil of luminescence. “God, they’re beautiful.”

There’s no reply.

“Payton?” I query.

Still no reply.

He’s gone.

I turn around and freeze… Well, freeze more than I am already.

Payton’s kneeling there in the snow holding a ring, the diamond in the center of it mirroring the borealis behind me. “Everything’s beautiful from where I’m standing.”

I’m so shell-shocked I can’t put a sentence together. “Pay-ton… Wh—”

“Lacey Nelson,” he starts, unable to wipe the smile from his face, “you are the reason my heart beats so hard, and I know that if I don’t ask you to be mine, I’m going to regret it for the rest of my life. You’re the only one for me, simple as that. So, My Miracle, will you set the world on fire with me?” He takes a breath. “Will you be my wife?”

I’m choked up, reeling, but I nod and rush into his arms, losing myself in the heated kiss, so fiery in contrast to the cold world around us.

He breaks away to look at me. “I don’t know how I’m going to top this for a honeymoon.”

I laugh. “As long as you’re there, it’s paradise enough for me.”

EPILOGUE

FIVE YEARS LATER

PAYTON

I bring the truck around onto the main road. “What are we looking at here, Lieutenant?”

“The biggest blaze this city’s ever seen,” she replies, emotionless.

I pick up the speed. “Well, guess I better put my foot down.”

“Watch out!” she shouts, as a giant girder crashes onto the back of the truck, forcing it over on its side.

I pick up the offending piece of Lego. “Now how are we going to put out the biggest blaze this city’s ever seen?’”

Our four-year-old, Poppy, is too busy giggling to care. She picks up the water gun beside the picnic rug and starts squirting it at the Lego building, a building that looks remarkably like the Tower now I come to think of it.

I pick up one of her dollies and pretend it’s walking through the city, kicking over buildings as it goes. “Oh, no! It’s the mega-dolly!”

“Not the mega-dolly!” cries Poppy, her cherry-red hair swishing around her face as her water gun turns towards Dolly… and then me.

I wrestle her over onto the backyard grass, my ears full of her happy laughter—the most beautiful sound in the world, an that honor used to belong to Mommy.

Lacey arrives with a tray of lemonade, setting it down beside us. “I see the firefighting is going well.”

Both Poppy and I stop with the same guilty expression on our faces.

Lacey shakes her head, smiling. “You are so much like your Dada, Pops. That’s all he ever used to do when we were at fire academy.”

Poppy jumps up clapping her hands together. “Tell me about fire academy, Mommy. Tell me about fire academy!”

I’ve never known any kid to be so excited about anything firefighting related. I guess that’s what happens when you’ve got the local lieutenant and chief as parents.

People often assume I’m the chief, whereupon I direct them to my lovely wife. I don’t know of many stations with a husband and wife team, but I think it’s worked in our favor. Austin’s a surprisingly busy city when it comes to emergencies, and while you won’t find a cowboy around every corner as I’d hoped, true Texas spirit is there if you look hard enough. I see it every day in the men and women of our station.

Lacey was lucky to slip into the position so quickly, but the old chief put in a solid word for her appointment, managed to have a word in the Commissioner’s ear and get her in. No one argued. They all love her here, and Poppy. It’s like a goddamn swoon session whenever I bring her in.

But Poppy is beautiful—the love of my life… not that I expected anything less given her genes.

You might think I somehow feel emasculated being under my wife, so to speak, but I’m proud, happy to take on the extra workload at home because she’s at the station late. When she was studying I’d do what I could. I even learned to make a meal that wasn’t mac ’n’ cheese, even though said abomination remains Poppy’s favorite.

Some people don’t like the heat out here, but I love it, baking in the sun with my daughter. And the way her imagination works. It’s spellbinding.

Lacey gets down onto the grass with us. The sunlight catches her hair, shorter now but no less sexy. In fact, she’s become more beautiful in motherhood, if that was even possible. We still make love almost every day.

“Would you like to go see the fire academy?” Lacey asks Poppy.

I shoot her a puzzled look.

“Yes, Momma!” Poppy cries, jumping into her arms. “I want to see where you and Dada went to fire school!”

Fire school. I love that.

“I know it’s a drive,” says Lacey, “but it’s Sunday and we’ve got nothing better to do, right?”

She’s right, so we jump in the car and take the two-hour trip out into the desert, Lacey tensing as we pass the spot Ryan’s pickup crashed.

I place my hand on her knee, her jeans warm from the sun. “You alright?”

She looks out the window, an elbow resting on the sill. “It feels so long ago, doesn’t it?”

I shift my hand down into her crotch. It’s scorching hot. “Funny, I remember it like it was yesterday.”

She snaps her legs closed, nodding to a sleeping Poppy in the rear-view, her cheeks rosy. “We’ve got company, remember?” Her hands close around her belly. “And we’re about to get more.”

I miss it at first before it registers. “You’re pregnant again?”

The smile that spans across her face is wide and all-encompassing. “Either that or really sick of eggs all of a sudden, but yes. I did the test last night.”

I lean over and kiss her on the side of her head, almost causing us to swerve off the road in the process, Lacey reaching across to steer us right.

“Wow. Anyone would think you’re excited.”

“Excited,” I laugh. “I’m fucking ecstatic.”

*

We arrive at Pemberton around lunchtime, Poppy wide awake in anticipation.

Both Lacey and I spot the new tower—twice as tall as the first just as the Captain promised. The rest of the campus hasn’t changed a bit since we were here five years ago, right down to the woman behind the admin desk.

“Oh, you,” she says simply when we arrive. Clearly she’s still yet to discover happiness. She does give us free rein of the academy, though, tells us to take our time.

“Wow,” says Poppy, her head tilting to take in the Tower in full. “Did you and Mommy climb all the way to the top?”

I wink at Lacey. “We did, with a short breather on the way down.”

Lacey slaps me across the chest.

I spot something in the corner of the quad, heading over. “Look at this,” I call.

Lacey and Poppy come up beside me.

It’s a plaque dedicated to Hernandez, an etching of his face in gold.

“Seems like yesterday, doesn’t it?”

I’d know that voice anywhere.

We both turn to find the Captain approaching. He’s a fucking time capsule, still wearing the same hat, shirt, and shit-face grin, his trusty clipboard underarm.

I reach out to shake his hand. “Captain.”

“Lieutenant.”

He reaches for Lacey’s. “Chief.”

“Captain,” she nods, smiling.

“Why don’t you call me Jerry?” he says. “I think we’re all on equal footing now.”

The Captain crouches down to Poppy’s level. “And who might this beautiful young lady be?”

“Poppy,” she replies, her lips puckering on the first syllable.

“Pleased to meet you,” says the Captain, tipping his hat.

He stands and shouts something to a group of students headed into the middle of the quad. “Get down and give me twenty, all of you. Consider that an appetizer.”

He turns back to us with a smug grin. “Sunday detention. I’m sure you remember, Cox.”

“I do,” I laugh.

I look behind myself. “I like the new tower.”

The Captain stands at attention, his hands behind his back looking proudly up at his baby. “Twenty stories of pure terror, a proverbial phoenix risen from the ashes. She’s a beauty. How’s Austin treating you?” he asks. “Hell of thing you guys pulled off with that school fire.”

He’s referring to a large, deliberately lit fire at a high school in Lakeway, but we got everyone out, even managed to save most of the school. I was the last one to leave the building, a thirteen-year-old girl in my arms with the same color hair as Poppy’s. Lacey and I performed CPR on her right there on the front lawn, saved her life.

“All part of the job,” replies Lacey.

“Well,” says the Captain. “You’re doing a damn fine one. I’m proud as a peacock in a glass of punch at you two. You’re the reason Pemberton exists, the reason I put you through the wringer.”

I lift my knee. “I’m still hurting from all those stairs.”

“What stairs?” asks Poppy.

The Captain crouches down and takes a plastic toy badge out of his pocket, just like the ones we used to give to school children who came to tour the campus. “How would you like to be honorary commissioner today?”

Poppy nods, beaming.

Once he’s pinned it to her dress, the Captain stands again. “Well, I’ve got asses to kick, but you two have fun… but not too much fun, if you know what I mean,” he says, tapping his cheek.

We watch him walk away.

“He hasn’t changed,” remarks Lacey.

“Not a god damn bit,” I laugh.

We meet a few more familiar faces on our way around campus, discover Jackson went on to become an EMT over on the east coast. He has a family of this own, apparently, two boys who are his supposed spitting image—poor bastards.

Back at home, Poppy safely tucked into bed with Dolly—her 1994 firefighting Barbie doll—I slip under the covers beside Lacey. “That was fun, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” she smiles, lifting up her knees and sliding off her panties. “But you know what would really make it a perfect day?”

“One of your extra sloppy blowjobs?” I reply, my hand running up her leg, my cock growing hard in expectancy.

She spreads her legs, my fingers finding the wet heat of her pussy. “You know the price.”

I slide under the covers, lifting a leg to get my head into place. “Yes, ma’am.”

Her hands fall on top of my head. “Call me ‘Chief.’”

I go to bring my head up, but she pushes it back down. “Just kidding. Never call me that in bed. Now, get to work. There’s a fire down there that can only be put out with an orgasm of epic proportions.”

I lick up her seam, the tip of my tongue flicking over her clit. “Will that be one or two?” I question.

She replies by thrusting her hips into my face, her fingers pressing into my scalp. “Shut up and start sucking, mister.”

Two orgasms each later, we lie spooning. Now I’m holding her, I can tell she’s pregnant, another addition to the Cox family. I’m excited and nervous in equal parts.

Lacey’s cell starts to dance across the dresser. “Duty calls, I guess.”

I take in her body as she stands to take it, that same peachy ass I fell in love with, the slender curve of her back. I never thought it was possible to love someone this much—a thought that was turned on its head again when we had Poppy.

It takes me back to our wedding at Antebellum Oaks, the ceremony framed by the towering giants. Even my family showed up, probably the only time we’ve got along for years. All of the politics and stress were pushed aside for that one, perfect day when my wife-to-be walked down the aisle, a garland of flowers on her head. ‘Angelic’ was the only word for it.

If I had of known then the super-sperm I was packing, maybe we would have taken precautions, but were both so eager for the consummation. She left the wedding dress on, for crying out loud.

But Poppy was worth it. The happiness she brings us, the small memories that will only bloom and glow brighter in the years to come, are gold.

The sense of satisfaction as I lie in bed is suddenly overwhelming. We’ve been through trials, every couple has, but we’re stronger together—in work and play.

And boy do we play.

Our jobs can get hectic, there’s always an ever-present element of danger, but I know we’re still partners. We still have each other’s backs. My old jock life seems a million miles away in this moment, even if I do pull out some of my old moves from time to time.

Lacey ends the call, already headed for the closet. “They need me at the station.”

“Do you need me?”

She walks over to kiss me. “Only to keep the bed warm.”

She dresses and leaves.

I lie back once more smiling.

Our relationship has survived because our loves burns brighter than the firestorm around it.

We can do anything together.

I want Poppy to know that too, that she can be whatever and whoever she wants no matter what people tell her.

Because an original is worth more than a copy.

Because you don’t need approval to follow your own path.

Because the only way through life is to live it in full.

So live, I will tell her.

Love.

Set your heart ablaze.

THE LIFEGUARD

Teagan Kade

* * * * *

Published by Teagan Kade

Edited by Sennah Tate

Copyright © 2019 by Teagan Kade

CHAPTER ONE

ARCHER

“What’s up, motherfucker!” Robbie enters the lifeguard tower with his usual enthusiasm.

I thumb towards the beach where hundreds of Spring Breakers are gathered. “Perhaps you should be down there.”

Robbie takes hold of my shoulder, pointing towards the azure water of the Atlantic. “Everyone knows the action’s out there, brother.”

He’s not wrong. It’s barely ten AM and we’ve done thirty preventions and three rescues. I shake my head. “Fuck Spring Break. Seriously.”

Robbie picks up a pair of binoculars. “Come on now. This is Miami—sun, sand and sex, and plenty of the latter.”

I face him smiling. “Oh, so you found some poor girl to handle that inch-long appendage you call a penis?”

He laughs. “Two girls, actually. Sisters, I think—Greek or blood I have no fucking idea only that those Bible Belt types are freaks between the sheets. Besides, aren’t you confusing inches with feet again?”

I look down to his pants. “How about I kick you in the balls? That’s a foot for you.”

“Hey, at least my dick doesn’t sleep in a matchbox with a cotton swab for a pillow.”

“At least the condoms I use don’t look like the thumb of a latex glove.”

“Your dick disappears when you breathe in and out, bro.”

“Heard you had sex with a shower head the other night,” I counter.

That gets him. He holds his chest in laughter, trying to keep the binoculars fixed to his eyes. His expression turns serious.

I pick up my binoculars and scan the water. “What is it?”

“Out back, far left.”

There’s a guy struggling in silence, his head bobbing under the water. “On it.”

I race out of the tower towards the sand, doing my best to cut a path through the human thicket of intoxication.

A girl with duct tape over her nipples jumps out in front of me with her lips puckered together. “How about you save me, handsome?”

I push her aside and keep powering towards the water, grabbing the nearest surf ski and throwing it past the first breaker.

It doesn’t take me long to get to the victim, but I’m just in time, reaching into the water and dragging him onto the board.

The idiot’s still wearing his shirt, shoes… skin pale as a sheet of paper.

I yell at people to clear a path, bringing the board onto the sand and dragging the victim past the wash.

I check his pulse as a crowd starts to gather around us. He’s unconscious.

Phones come out.

Fucking great.

Robbie will be on his way down with the kit, but there’s no time to waste.

I clear the guy’s mouth and prepare my CPR shield just as a group of guys busts through the crowd.

One of them shoves me back into the sand. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Another, with a fanny pack over his shoulder and an Angels cap back to front, steps between me and the victim. “None of that faggot mouth-to-mouth shit, you hear?”

Are these guys serious?

I stand brushing sand off myself. I’ve got to remain calm. You can’t take the risk with social media these days. Everyone’s got a camera. Everyone wants to be a star. “If you’re his friend, you should know he’s probably going to die without treatment, so either you stand aside and let me work or you explain to his parents why you’re bringing him home in a wooden box.”

The guy’s the dictionary definition of a ’roid junkie, a water-filled human balloon of testosterone and jungle juice, but he stands aside.

Thankfully, Robbie and Beach Security arrive at the same time, hustling people back.

“Compressions?” queries Robbie, unzipping the kit bag and taking out an air bag.

I nod and start, counting as I work.

It doesn’t take long before the poor prick shuttles back to life, water spewing from his mouth.

We roll him sideways and let him get it out.

The crowd applauds and whoops.

I let the rush sweep over me. This is what draws me to lifeguarding, dragging people from the clutches of Death himself. I can’t think of many jobs that offer that kind of hit, that allow you to work outdoors in the sun, on what remains—seasonal assholes aside—one of the greatest stretches of sand in the world.

That ain’t a pool out there, with confines. It’s a literal fucking ocean with deep and shallow spots, rips and currents, a shifting, constantly changing ecosystem of its own.

I’m breathing hard when we arrive back at the tower, the victim safely with paramedics and a whole slew of paperwork waiting.

“So,” says Robbie, picking up the binoculars again, “Bar None after shift?”

I take up my own binoculars. We’ve still got eight hours to go, eight hours where you can’t let your concentration drop for a second. Doing so could be the difference between life and death, especially with so many people on the beach. There’s no Facebook up here, no Instagram for screwing around. You watch the water—simple as that. That said, if I have to keep dragging obnoxious frat boys from the water, I’m not going to need one drink later, I’m going to need three or four.

“Fucking hey,” I reply. “Fucking. Hey.”

*

Bar None is the kind of tiny backstreet institution only locals know about. Lonely Planet hasn’t found it yet, nor have the hordes, which means it’s frequented largely by servicemen—cops, rescue, security guards. There’s not a string bikini in sight.

I join Robbie and the others at the bar.

Amy, a newly minted lifeguard with Miami Beach Ocean Rescue, lights up when I sit, brushing her honey-blonde hair over her shoulder. “Rough day?”

I signal for a beer. You won’t find fishbowls and kamikazes at this bar. “You could say that. It’s just the god damn stupidity of some of these kids.”

“Kids?” she laughs, “says the twenty-something who enjoys playing board games.”

I punch Robbie in the shoulder. “You told her about that?”

Robbie shrugs, already on his second beer. “Tell him how much you loved to play Monopoly, or Candy Land. He loves that shit.”

Amy’s cute, but she’s spoken for. I’ve got an endless line of morally loose Spring Breakers to sink my dick into and get off with. God knows the last thing I’m looking for is something long term, especially not with someone I work with—not again. “Everyone knows Hasbro is the Comcast of board games.”

“So tell her what’s hip,” Robbie suggests, leaning on his hand. “I bet she’s, like, super interested.”

I roll my eyes. “Ignore him. How are you doing?”

She holds the area around her ribs. “Still getting used to these workouts. You guys are brutal.”

She’s not wrong. Not many people realize how grueling the work we do is. Our workouts are simple: Run, swim, run, swim, run, swim, wash and repeat. We might do some calisthenics, push-ups, sit-ups… whatever we need to keep the blood flowing during our shifts, because when it’s on, it’s fucking on. You’ve got to be ready to go at any moment. It ain’t Baywatch.

Personally, I like to get out on the ski as much as I can, especially when there’s a bit of wind or swell. Nothing beats the water when it comes to bitch-slapping you into shape.

Before long, the bar’s packed. It’s Friday night, everyone who doesn’t have a shift tomorrow is keen to kick off the weekend right. For Robbie, that means heading out of here to slum it down at South Beach. He’ll get his shirt off and those starry-eyed youngsters will flock to him like moths to flame.

I join him sometimes, but not tonight. A man can only take so many American Apparel-clad college girls thinking they’re the next Sasha Grey.

I stand and reach into my pocket for my apartment keys, instantly remembering I’ve left them back at the tower.

Robbie sees me patting myself down. “What’s wrong, brother? Lost your balls again?”

“Left my keys at the tower.”

He takes his keys out, taking one off and tossing towards me. “Take mine.”

I hold it up. “I owe you.”

He throws his hands in the air. “Shit, doesn’t everyone?”

I say my goodbyes and head back down to the beach.

Spring Break may be in full effect, but apart from the odd couple engaged in coitus or passed out, the beach is empty.

I open the tower door and find my keys, pausing for a moment to stare at the ocean. It’s a full moon tonight, a silvery staircase having fallen across the water, the neon lights from the city turning the shoreline kaleidoscopic.

I’m about to turn away when I spot something in the water.

I pick up the binoculars and try to bring it into view, squinting to see through the blackish wash.

Shit.

Someone’s in the water, and they’re struggling.

I consider calling it in, but they’re not far out.

I shake my head. At least the water’s warm.

I switch on the tower lights enough to illuminate the water, but if they go under…

It’s a good hundred-and-fifty feet to the water. I shed clothes as I go until I’m down to my boxers. South Beach has seen worse.

I hit the water conscious of my slightly dulled senses.

The swell’s picked up. I power through the breakers searching until I spot the vic’s arm.

That’s the thing most people don’t realize. When somebody’s drowning, they’re too busy trying to breathe and keep their head above water than waste energy screaming or calling for help. It’s a silent killer.

The other silent killer is the shark, and while we haven’t had an attack here in forever, they’re definitely active after dark.

I reach the area where I saw the vic’s arm, but they’re gone.

There’s no time to waste. I take a deep breath and plunge below the surface of the ocean. There’s just enough light to see the victim, a woman, thrashing.

This is the other issue. You can swim out to help a drowning victim, but they’ll do anything to get that sweet, sweet air, even if it means dragging you down into the depths with them. Superhuman strength can be summoned when your only thought is staying alive.

But regardless of my own personal safety, I have to act.

I reach down and she grabs my arm with all the strength of an anaconda.

With effort, I drag us both to the surface. She clings to me coughing and spluttering as we surface, a wave breaking over our heads.

“Can you swim?” I shout.

She nods, then shakes her head, clearly having some kind of mental breakdown.

I wrap my arm around her and head for the shore in a turn and trawl. She’s mobile, no signs of spinal trauma, so a vice grip isn’t required.

My chest is burning when we hit the sand. She gets onto her knees beside me and I notice she’s in her bra and panties, both see-through thanks to her midnight dip.

She goes to stand, but she’s weak, her wet hair swaying around her head in inky tendrils, her skin as pale as the sand below our feet.

I pick her up under the legs, cradling her and making my way to the tower. Her hair hangs down and I notice a tattoo on her shoulder.

Her eyes open and focus on me, the tower lights catching their turquoise depths. She’s beautiful, with full lips and soft features, but this is no time for macking.

I use my foot to kick the door open and set her down on the treatment cot at the back of the tower. I take two blankets out of the back cupboard, placing one around her and the other around myself. I reach for the phone, but her voice comes squeaky and uncertain. “Please… don’t.”

I turn towards her. “I have to call it in.”

“Please,” she begs, her teeth chattering and those blue-green Gulf of Mexico eyes imploring me to abandon protocol.

I place the handset down. “Okay.”

I stand before her trying to catch my breath. In the low light she’s even more attractive—early twenties, maybe, the kind of girl I’d go for in an instant on the strip. “What’s your name?”

“Winter,” she whispers.

“Winter… in Miami?” I smile. “I imagine you can see the irony in that.”

She smiles ever so slightly. “I like the cold,” she says, but even she doesn’t sound so sure.

“And why were you out there tonight, Winter?”

She looks down, pulling the blanket tighter around herself. “I… don’t know.”

“You don’t know how you got into the water, or why?”

“Please,” she says, looking back up to me with wet eyes, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

I exhale. I expected to find my keys tonight, not a legs-for-days riddle like this. Still, there’s something about this girl that’s drawing me in. I want to protect her, keep her safe. The need of it is burning through me like a hot fever.

“Do you have someone I can call?” I offer. “A relative or friend, perhaps?”

She shakes her head, her hair hanging, framing her perfect face. “No.”

“There must be someone…”

Her eyes are steely when they return to me. “No.”

“Is there somewhere I can take you, home?”

She shakes her head again, seems on the verge of tears. “I have nowhere to go. Please.”

“Nowhere?”

She gets down onto her knees before me, which typically would be a sign things are about to take a welcome turn, but this is far from a sexual advance. “Please. Help me.”

I breathe out again. “You’ve got to tell me what’s wrong first. I can’t help you if I don’t know what the heck’s going on.”

“Please,” she repeats, eyes dinner plates in the light.

“Look, you can come back to my place, just tonight, but only if you truly have nowhere to go.”

“I don’t.”

“Are you in danger?”

She remains silent.

“Is someone trying to hurt you?”

“I’m… tired,” she says, her lips parted.

I open the cupboard again and find some woman’s clothes in the lost property box. The ‘Time Flies When You’re Having Rum’ shirt I select looks about her size. I doubt it’s her usual attire, but we don’t exactly stock couture here.

I hand it to her with a pair of denim shorts. “Here. I’ll, ah, turn around while you… you know.”

She takes the clothes as I face the desk.

Still, I can’t help but glance at the reflection in the window, at the delicate curves of her body, the sweeping mounds of her breasts and her nipples, bubble gum pink.

I look down again in shame, because this isn’t right—any of it. I should call this in right now and be done with it. Fuck knows why she was out there, a girl like this in nothing but her underwear.

I know there’s a dangerous undercurrent running here. Question is, how far does it go?

CHAPTER TWO

WINTER

It’s strange sitting here, in this stranger’s house. An hour ago I thought I was going to die, and here I am, good as new—reborn.

The lifeguard, Archer, hands me a steaming mug. “Drink. You’ll feel better. Do you want something to eat?”

“No. Thank you, and thanks again for letting me stay.”

He extends his hands. “My pleasure. I just wish you’d talk to me, tell me what’s going on. I only want to help.”

The mug is warm between my hands. “I know, but the less you know about me, the better.”

He takes a seat on the couch opposite. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

I smile, looking around. It’s an impressive apartment right on the beach, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the ocean—silver and infinite. I look to the other side of the room where a simple framed picture is hanging with the words ‘The Ocean Makes Everything Better’.

I nod at it with my head. “Do you really believe that?”

He brings his hands together, leaning forward. His arms bulge in the tight tee he’s wearing, ink showing underneath the sleeves. With his dark hair and steely eyes, he looks more like a cover model for Harley Davidson than a lifeguard. “I do. I’ve been around the ocean my entire life. My best memories are there, in the water.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Your best memories?”

He smiles and I can’t help but stifle a flutter of sensation making its way downwards towards the space between my legs. “Well, not all of them, but that’s not to say certain activities can’t be enjoyed in the ocean, if you catch my drift.”

I almost choke on my honey tea. “Excuse me?”

“You know,” he smiles, “surfing, fishing…”

Fuck-ing, my head fills, and damn it I’m choking again.

He goes to stand up. “Everything okay?”

I place the mug down. “Fine. Just a little hot… That’s all.”

You can say that again.

Change the god-damn subject.

I look past him to a set of shelves in the corner full of board games. “Have you got kids?”

He follows my eyes. “No. No, no.”

“You just, what? Really like board games?” I laugh, my throat dry and scratchy from the saltwater.

His mouth opens, but he can’t seem to find the words.

“Oh,” I realize my mistake. “You do. I didn’t mean to offend—”

He puts a hand up, standing. “It’s fine, a… hobby, amongst others.”

I can only imagine what other ‘hobbies’ Archer has given this bachelor pad, its bare minimalism projecting testosterone left, right and center. I’m sure if I simply stepped foot inside his bedroom I’d orgasm on the spot.

On cue, he gestures down the hall. “My room’s on the right. It’s yours.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I’ll be perfectly fine in the guest bedroom. There are towels on the rack in the bathroom down the hall. Take one of my shirts from the drawers if you want, clean boxers in the top. I’ll see if I can dig you up some, ah, female attire later.”

I smile. “Thank you, again, for all of this, for saving my life.”

He stops before he enters the kitchen. “Something tells me it was a life worth saving.”

*

I’m on a speedboat. It’s shuttling through the night at high speed, water whipping up like wet sheets from the sides. There’s a dark figure behind the wheel, but when I try to speak to them no words come out of my mouth. My lips are moving but nothing happens. There’s no sound but for the roar of the engines and the thud, thud of waves against the hull.

Suddenly, I’m flying through the air, the boat continuing to jet forward. I land in the water and start to sink. My arms are lead. The more I thrash, the deeper I go. But this isn’t water. It’s ink. I taste it in my mouth as I scream. It fills my lungs, takes away my vision, until all I see is black.

I wake up gasping, reaching for my throat.

I notice the ceiling, the unusual wallpaper, and panic sets in all over again.

I sit bolt upright.

Where the hell am I?

I’m wearing a navy shirt, oversized, and… boxers? Since when do I wear boxers?

There’s a muffled groan in the bed beside me. It, he turns over, reaching for me. It’s a guy, his body chiseled and cut and straight from a centerfold. There’s a scar running down his side.

It all comes back to me—the lifeguard, the water.

I look around again. This is not the room he sent me to. I went to sleep alone.

He, Archer, said he was sleeping in the guest room.

Oh, no. No, no, no.

I start to slide out of the bed as quietly as I can, slowly pushing the duvet away. He reaches for me again. “Hey, he mumbles into his pillow. Where you going, baby? I’m rock fucking hard here.”

His eyes open, he sees me, and then they open a hell of a lot more.

He sits up in shock, the duvet thrown off completely. His mouth drops, his eyes ping-ponging from my chest to my legs and back again before finally finding my face.

But I’m looking at his crotch, my eyes drawn to the very erect, and very large, penis on show. It’s dark, but the shadowy silhouette of it tells me all I need to know.

He covers himself with his hands, leaning over the side of the bed and replacing his hands with a balled-up leather jacket. It’s like some sort of weird Michael Jackson stripper routine.

“Jesus… fuck,” he starts, unable to work out where to look. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know… I mean… Hell, did we?”

“Have… sex?” I question, quite sure I’d remember my first time. “No. I don’t think so.”

He looks cute confused. I’d laugh if this wasn’t completely insane.

“But, but,” he stutters, “didn’t I put you in my room, down the hall?”

“I sleepwalk sometimes,” I confess. “Since I was a kid, actually. Once I got up, made myself a turkey sandwich downstairs, did the laundry and ended up asleep on the neighbor’s rooftop, so showing up here, with you, isn’t the weirdest place I’ve spent the night, sorry.”

“I had no idea.”

I climb out of the bed, pulling my shirt down. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. I guess you’re used to company, though?”

He flops back down onto the pillow shaking his head and staring at the ceiling, the jacket still covering his uberection. He laughs. “Generally it’s not a mysterious girl I plucked out of the ocean.” He sits up on an elbow. “You’re still not going to tell me anything about what happened, are you?”

I shake my head in return. “Sorry, but I do want to thank you—again.”

He waves it off, reaching over to switch on the bedside lamp. “Hey, just doing my job.”

I notice a picture on the drawers at the end of the bed, a group of guys in black tank tops standing arm in arm smiling, an endless stretch of sand behind them. I recognize Archer in the middle. “Friends of yours?”

He nods, finally pulling the duvet back into place, though if I’m honest the peepshow wasn’t entirely unenjoyable. The hot vice gripping my crotch is testament to that.

“More than friends,” he smiles. “The best human beings you could hope to find.”

My eyes move to what appears to be a large, metal cupboard of some description in the corner, a giant lock on the door. “Is that where you keep your extra-special stuff?”

He acts sheepish. “Of sorts.” He breathes out, glancing at the bedside clock. “Look, I’ve got a shift in a half hour, but you’re welcome to stay. The fridge is fully stocked. If you tell me your size, I’ll try and pick you up some clothes, but after that…”

I hadn’t even thought that far ahead yet. Survival was my only guiding marker last night. “Size six.”

He reaches up like he’s holding a pair of breasts. “And your, um…”

“Thirty-four double D.”

It’s always nice to see a grown man blushing, especially when he’s stark naked. “Great. Fine.”

I start to back towards the door. “I’ll leave you to it.”

“And you,” he replies, still red as a spanked tomato.

I close the door and giggle quietly to myself, trying to block out the mental image of his giant cock at DEFCON One.

CHAPTER THREE

ARCHER

The sun’s out, the drink is flowing. It’s going to be another shift from hell.

Robbie’s already in when I enter the tower. “Welcome to paradise, hombre.”

He doesn’t take his eyes off the water. I come up beside him, marveling once again how he can drink all night, no doubt fuck to the wee hours and still come into work so damn bushy-tailed and bright-eyed.

He looks at me when I don’t reply. “Oh, shit. What happened? You find a freshman on the beach in need of your special attention?”

You have no idea. “Not a student, per se.”

Robbie shakes his head, returning to the watch. “You fucking animal. Come on, details.”

I’m deciding how much to spill here. Winter made it clear she didn’t want details slipping to the authorities. Maybe she’s got a record, a warrant out? She could be anyone, though I’m considering doing some digging with an old cop friend of mine, find out what the hell’s going on.

I shrug, pretending to find the paperwork on the desk intensely fascinating.

Robbie’s eyes go wide. “No, no you don’t. Don’t you block me out like this.”

“Some things should remain a mystery.”

“You can save that shit for the fucking Loch Ness monster. Come on. Blonde? Brunette? Pierced?” The irritation increases. “Did she have a diamond for a vagina? Come. On. Bro. Give me something.”

I turn the tables. “And you? Because you can’t honestly tell me you weren’t getting laid last night.”

There’s the slightest upturn at the corner of his mouth. “Straight bottle-blonde Breaker who’s still got her blowjob learner license. Nothing to report really apart from braces, while hot in theory, don’t translate so well into the real world.”

“So she left your cock in one piece,” I laugh. “That’s comforting.”

“You’re stalling.”

A knock on the tower door is the conversation-breaker I was looking for.

“I’ll get it,” says Robbie, levelling a finger at me, “but we are far from done here, boy-o.”

I stand at the desk continuing to observe the water.

I hear Robbie opening the door.

“Hello,” comes the knocker’s voice.

I can’t help but glance over to the doorway. A man’s standing there who’s certainly no Breaker. He’s wearing a paisley gray-and-blue print shirt, chinos and boots. Who the fuck wears boots to the beach? His dark hair’s slicked back over his head, a single tear tattooed underneath his eye and a grin that cuts across his face like a knife wound. Normally, I’d write this guy off as another Escobar copycat, but it’s the two guys in suits behind him that are of greater concern—muscle.

Robbie seems as surprised as I am by our morning visitor. “Can I help you gents?”

I return to the watch but continue to listen attentively.

Escobar smacks his lips before speaking. “I was wondering if there were any rescues last night, a woman, perhaps?”

I stiffen.

“Last night?” says Robbie. “The beach isn’t patrolled at night, sorry.”

“Nothing at all unusual?” asks the grease-ball. “Anything out of the ordinary?”

Robbie gives a nervous snigger. “You can save your money, my friend, because I’m telling you, if something happened on the beach last night, it would have been reported. Have you tried the Police?”

“Ah, the Police!” laughs the man. “Of course, but should you hear something about a girl, early twenties, brunette, attractive… be sure to let me know.” He passes what looks like a business card to Robbie.

“O-kay,” replies Robbie awkwardly. “See you ’round.”

He closes the door, waiting for a moment before coming over and lowering his voice. “What the flying fuck was that?”

It’s a damn good question. “Sounds like he lost his girlfriend.”

Robbie shakes his head. “So fuck knows why we’d know anything about it. I mean, you didn’t see anything when you came back here last night, did you?”

Now would be the time to say something, but lovable as he is, I can’t trust Robbie to keep this under wraps, and something tells me there’s a lot more to Winter than she’s letting on. “No. A couple of kids making out on the sand, a few passed out.”

Robbie holds up a business card. “Look at this shit. There’s nothing on it but a number. Could have done with the cash, though.”

I take the card, placing it down on the desk. “He tried to bribe you?”

“Dude had a wad of Benjamins ready to go, which is great if I actually had any information on his so-called mermaid.”

“Not that you’d tell him anything anyhow, right?”

“Right,” winks Robbie, picking up his binoculars. “Now, let’s see which lucky lady gets the Robbie Torony treatment today.”

*

I step outside the tower during my lunch break and take out my cell. It’s got to be upwards of eighty today, fuck-all cloud cover to keep the masses from turning into lobsters.

I bring the cell to my ear, bringing my hand up to cover the other to be heard over the din of tinny speakers and guys shouting ‘Sprinnnng Brrrreeeaakkk!’ like they’re Joe Franco.

I intended to call my friend at the police precinct, but just as I go to call I think better of it.

Winter.

Just thinking about her is making me hard, her soft features and doe eyes, the forlorn way she was looking at me in the bed this morning when all I wanted to do was pin her down and fuck her worries away. “Early-twenties, brunette, green eyes…”

She clearly didn’t want me going to the authorities, but what am I supposed to do?

I’m caught, ultimately deciding to let it wait a little longer.

“Fuck,” I exhale.

What happened to you, Winter who likes the cold? What the hell happened?

I stare down at the blank screen of my cell trying to piece it together but only coming up with shards, broken pieces of possibility. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve come across a damsel in distress, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let this one slip through my fingers.

CHAPTER FOUR

WINTER

It’s all gone to hell in a handbasket.

I wave at the smoke, trying to find a ladder, a step, a small child… anything to get up high to switch off the smoke alarm.

I hear the front door open.

“Winter?” comes Archer’s voice, an upwards inflection as he no doubt spots the smoke-fest his apartment has become. “Winter!” Louder now.

“In here!” I yell back.

He comes barreling into the kitchen, hands outstretched, eyes darting between the stove and me, back again, up to the smoke alarm.

He grabs a broom from the corner and uses the end of it to reach up to the smoke alarm and switch it off, immediately spinning around to turn off the stove burner.

The alarm might not be ringing any more, but smoke continues to float around the room like we’re at a vape convention.

“What the hell’s going on in here?” Archer asks, moving to open the kitchen window and doing his best to shoo the smoke out. I can’t tell if he’s mad or simply curious.

I point to the pan on the stovetop. “I’m so sorry. I thought I’d try and make dinner, some pasta…”

Archer looks into the pan. “Where’d all the water go?”

“Water?” I ask.

He smiles and the knot that’s formed in my stomach loosens just a little. “You do know you cook pasta in water, right?”

“Oh,” I squeak. “My father did all the cooking growing up. I don’t think I inherited any of his skills in the kitchen, sorry.”

Archer takes the pan and tosses it into the sink, turning on the tap. He’s still smiling, slowly shaking his head to himself. “I appreciate the sentiment, I really do, but perhaps we’ll leave the cooking to Gordon and Jamie, yeah?” He swings around to open the fridge, revealing a stockpile of TV dinners, beer, and what appears to be copious tins of whipped cream. None it seems to add up to the well-toned, muscled-up man in front of me. “I’m not much of a cook myself, as you can see.”

He spots me eyeing the whipped cream. “Hey, a man’s got to have his vices, right?”

“So you eat it?” I query.

He laughs. “What else would I,” suddenly working out where I’m going, though it wasn’t my intention at all. Sometimes my mouth gets in front of my head. He wags his finger at me. “I’m not that kind of guy. You’ve got the wrong impression.”

I raise an eyebrow. “I’ve seen my share of bachelor pads. What you’ve got here is straight out of the single-guy textbook.”

Archer looks around. “It’s not too bad,” he says, pointing out a floral tea towel by the sink. “See?”

“Who gave you that?” I laugh. “Your mother?”

He picks it up. “Well, yes, actually.”

Crapola. But I keep my expression firm. “I rest my case.”

He goes to flick the tea towel at me. I jump back through the lingering haze laughing, allow myself to be chased into the living room. “Okay, okay,” I say, trying to dodge him. “It’s not that bad.”

He places the tea towel down and stands there with his hands on his hips looking every bit the knight in shining armor… or rather tight red tee, ‘Lifeguard’ in bold lettering at the top, ‘Miami Beach’ below. For a second I imagine the kind of hard and wonderful things that are lurking below, shaking myself out of my stupor when he catches my eye.

I blush, pulling my hair across my face turning to busy myself by opening the sliding door, but, of course, it won’t budge.

Archer comes up beside me, reaching up to undo the bolt at the top. The door slides open freely, cool, sea air rushing inside and with it the sounds of seagulls and laughter and clearly drunk guys chanting ‘Ice cream, ice cream, ice cream!’ like a bunch of rowdy three-year-olds.

But I’m aware of another smell right beside me, of surfboard wax and sweat, salt and sand, an ocean-made man. It sends a hot flicker of sensation lashing at the tender spot between my thighs.

I step back like I’ve been branded.

“Everything okay?” asks Archer, seemingly always on alert.

I brush my hair back. “Fine. Totally fine.”

He leans against the door frame, a perfect canvas of blue behind him. “Are you ready to tell me what happened, who you are, anything?”

I’ve been considering it. I sat here for almost an hour today rolling my hands together and wondering exactly what to do. I considered leaving, but where would I go? I’ve got no money, no contacts, no family here. Worse, I shouldn’t be here at all.

I don’t know why, but I’m drawn to Archer. Maybe it’s savior syndrome, the fact finally someone was looking out for me, but I know it’s more than that. There’s a pull to him, an attraction I can’t deny. Telling him everything could put him in danger. I don’t know if that’s something I want to do, if someone so selfless deserves that.

What do you think he’s going to do? my head retorts. Go running to the cops?

Perhaps that wouldn’t be so bad, I consider. At least then I’d be truly safe.

Yeah, right. You know how far their reach goes, my head warns. There is nowhere you can go that’s safe. This is your best bet right now.

I shake my head meekly. “I’m sorry. I can’t, not now.”

I expect backlash, a plea for information, but Archer simply looks around the room. “Well, it’s going to take a while for the place to air out, and I’m starving, so how about we head out, grab a bite to eat?

My stomach gurgles in agreement—mortally embarrassing.

“Okay then,” Archer nods. “That settles it. What are you in the mood for?”

Some rather less culinary options come to mind, but I shift that aside. “I’ll eat anything,” I reply. “I’m not a fussy eater.”

“Good,” says Archer. “I know just the place.”

I look down at my shirt, or Archer’s rather, sniffing at it. “Do you mind if I take a shower? I don’t really want to go dinner smelling like a coal mine.”

Archer scratches his head. “Yeah, sure, no problem. Like I said, the towels are in there.”

I brush past his arm on the way through. It’s not a deliberate action, but the simple act sends fresh sensation bolting down my spine, goosebumps blanketing my body.

I step into the bathroom and close the door, pressing my hands against it, my head hanging between my arms like I’m doing a horizontal push-up. “Get a grip,” I whisper to myself, finding a fresh towel hanging on the door.

I strip and pile my clothes neatly on the stool next to the vanity, staring into the mirror at myself and unable to recognize the stranger that stares back. My hair’s basically a bird’s nest. There are deep grooves under my eyes that suggest either a) I haven’t slept in weeks or b) I’m some kind of drug addict. I look terrible, in short, not that Archer seems to think so. His eyes light up when he sees me, and I know it’s not a misunderstanding on my part. The attraction is running both ways. I’m sure of it.

Good thing dinner went so well then.

He didn’t seem to mind I almost burned his apartment down. It was almost like he found it… endearing? Given the state of his fridge, I don’t think anyone’s cooked for him in a long, long time, though I quickly dismiss the idea of trying again. I want to thank him, not kill him.

There are other ways you could thank him…

I dismiss that idea too, as inviting as it sounds. I’ve gone from a life-threatening situation to this. I know half of this excitement is down to the simple fact I’m still alive. That latent adrenaline is still clouding my thinking. I need time to get my thoughts back into order and decide what’s best. I don’t think it’s going to be jumping into bed with the first guy I meet.

Pity, I lament.

I turn on the shower and step under the stream, enjoying the way the hot water envelops my body. I run my hands through my hair and close my eyes. He’s there behind my eyelids, of course, smiling, looking wholesome.

My eyes snap open and I have to place one hand on the tiles to steady myself. My other hand’s on my belly, fingers starting to slide south, but I pull them back. Now is not the time and this is definitely not the place.

I keep the shower short and step out, quickly toweling myself off and suddenly realizing I don’t have anything to change into.

I wrap the towel around myself and open the door, making my way to the room at the end of the hall. I’m about to walk in when Archer appears in the doorway. Except he’s not wearing anything.

He’s unclad, exposed, au naturel, in the buff, not decent, starkers… naked as a nun without her habit.

I’m in such a rush I collide with him, or his penis rather. It smacks into my thigh first, the force of the collision enough to send me sprawling onto my back screaming.

Just as shocked, Archer can’t seem to decide if he should try to cover himself up or reach down to help me, his hand kind of stuck halfway between us.

On instinct I reach for his hand and misjudge, basically grabbing his cock, his momentum forcing him into a kind of crab-walk forward until said appendage is swinging no less than an inch from my face.

I’m still screaming somehow, eyes wide in confusion, Archer trying to hobble backwards, grabbing the wall for support.

And God damn it I can’t stop looking at it. My eyes are glued to the thing—again. I finally manage to stop screaming and force them upwards, whereupon I see his eyes are directed right between my legs, because yeah, I’m lying on my back spread-eagled basically about to give birth and providing him a premium, front-row seat to the vagina show.

He sees me seeing him and his eyes dart upwards, left, right, continuing to hobble backwards until he’s back through the doorway muttering apologies.

I take a breath and snap my legs closed.

What the hell just happened?

I can hear him trying to dress himself, cursing and hitting a wall. “Are you… decent?” he calls.

With some effort I manage to stand and pull the towel tight around myself. The heat in my face is real. It’s an inferno.

He emerges this time in a collared shirt and jeans, sort of shielding his eyes. “I’m so sorry,” stealing a glance at me. “I heard the shower going, thought you were still in there…”

He’s right. I can still hear the shower. I never turned it off. My eyebrows lift. “Oh,” I stammer, for the second time that night.

I walk back to the bathroom and shut the shower off, holding my towel up with one hand because I’m sure we’ve both seen enough skin for now.

I step back into the hall. “Sorry?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

We both laugh, the awkwardness passing, though I’m pretty sure the image of his cock swinging in front of my face like the pendulum of a grandfather clock is going to haunt me for all eternity.

“Ah,” he says, returning to the room, “I’ve got some clothes here if you, ah, want to, you know, try them on.”

“Yes,” I reply robotically, unsure what else to say.

He returns. “Okay,” he says, trying to shuffle past me in the small space of the hallway.

“Yes, good,” I say.

“Awesome.”

“Excellent.” The two us jammed up there.

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

“Good.”

“Now.”

“Great.”

And it’s with the conclusion of this intensely abstract conversation I finally make it into the main bedroom, closing the door and sighing against it after what is without question the most embarrassing moment of my life.

CHAPTER FIVE

ARCHER

I didn’t dare tell Winter where the pile of women’s clothes I had came from. Truth is, I keep a sort of ‘lost property box’ of my own under the bed. The simple fact it’s close to overflowing with panties, thongs, and sex toys should say enough, but I did manage to dig out a choice or two of dress, an old leather jacket of mine for fighting the nighttime temperature drop.

As I watch her eating, I’m blown away by how Winter makes even a simple red dress look so damn incredible. I noticed eyes gluing themselves to her as soon as we walked into the restaurant. A ‘roided-up jock shifted from the bar to say something to her… just before I eye-fucked him right back into his chair. He sat there and didn’t say a single word. Sometimes that’s all it takes to get these pricks to back down—a look. They soon work out who’s the real alpha around here.

Being my usual go-to place, the service is personalized, quick, and efficient—Cuban dining at its absolute finest. Yes, the place could do with a dust and looks sort of like a Tropicana porn set, but the food can’t be beat, and this is from someone who’s spent two glorious months on the island.

Winter’s too busy stuffing her face to care. She’s hoeing into her meal like it’s her last. She’s alternating between a rusty picadillo and a side of mojo shrimp.

“Anyone would think you haven’t eaten in a week,” I offer.

She doesn’t stop, her eyes simply glancing in my direction. She talks with her mouth full, which is simultaneously kind of gross but also oddly endearing at the same time. “This is so good. You wouldn’t believe what they gave me to eat in…” She stops, trailing off, eyes downcast.

I reach across the table and lift her chin up. “Hey, what were you going to say?” I ask, hoping for a clue.

She swallows and smiles, bright enough to light up the entire room. “It’s nothing. It’s delicious, thank you.”

I lean back in my chair, deciding to test the waters. “You do remember what happened, don’t you? You don’t have amnesia?”

She shakes her head. “I remember. I just don’t want to talk about it,” she says, reaching for a napkin to wipe some of the marinade off her fingers.

“I had a friend,” I go on, “lived up north as a paramedic. He was a medic in the Army back when I was serving, great guy. Anyhow, one day he found this girl shot in the head, couldn’t remember anything. The trauma was blocking it out, you see.”

“What happened to her?”

“She survived, but the people who shot her in the first place came after her wanting to finish the job. Thankfully, my friend knows a thing or two about survival, managed to get them into witness protection.”

Winter has stopped eating, her expression almost scowl-like. That skittish, paranoid look is back, her eyes darting behind me, to the darker corners of the restaurant. What is she looking for? I wonder. Who?

Her eyes find me and focus. “They were together, your friend and this girl?”

I smile picturing Ethan. “Yeah, fell for each other in the hospital, I guess you could say. Real rom-com stuff.”

“That’s sweet... You were in the Army? Those are your Army friends in that photo?”

“That’s right, and better guys you won’t find.” I don’t want to elaborate. Not now.

I play with my fork, turning it over and over. Outside, a siren whoops, Winter jumps in her chair.

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “Calm down. You’re safe here.”

She brushes her hair back over her shoulder. “I’m not so sure.”

“The chef here’s a kickboxer the size of a bulldozer. Everyone knows you come in here looking for trouble, you’re going to wind up on the pavement with half your teeth missing.”

“Is that supposed to be reassuring? What happens if you don’t like the food?”

I point down to it. “Come on. You tasted it. No one’s ever disrespected the food here.”

She smiles, but it’s fleeting.

On impulse, I reach across the table and take her hand, surprised how delicate it is in my fingers but also how warm and soft it feels. “Listen, I know you said you didn’t want to get the police involved, but I do have a contact, a friend, who works in the local PD here. He was also in Army with me, in my squad, actually. He’s solid. He could help.”

It’s not like I haven’t considered the possibilities. Winter didn’t just wash in from across the ocean. She must have been out there on a boat, a cruise… something. My guy could run checks, dig up files—a fuck-load more than I can do from the tower.

But Winter isn’t interested. Her hand slides out of mine. She crosses her arms over herself. “Look, Archer, I appreciate the concern, but I have to think first. Can you trust me?”

“Of course,” I reply, putting my hands up. “As I said, I only want to help.”

“And you’ve been a huge help, but I need to figure this out on my own.”

“Okay,” I relent. “It’s your call, but I’m here if you need me, and you’re welcome to stay at my place as long as you like.”

“Just as long as you keep your clothes on,” she grins

I’d forgotten all about our little encounter earlier, though it comes right on back in a second flat.

Every. Vivid. Detail.

She was lucky I didn’t poke her eye out.

I smirk, nodding easily. “I promise. No more surprises.”

She smiles back, returning to her meal.

We finish up, standing outside where the next wave of nightlife is busy meandering around the streets. It’s an eclectic mix.

A guy on a rainbow-colored Segway goes blasting between us, Winter immediately moving back into position by my side. “Where to now?” she asks.

I look at her stunned. “You’re still hungry?”

She shakes her head. “No, no, no. Any more food and you’ll have to carry me home, but I don’t really want to go back yet.”

I have to smile. “How do you feel about salsa?”

*

The Ball & Chain is a popular club any night of the week, but tonight it’s especially pumping.

“Archer!” the security guard on the door beams, reaching for my hand. “Long time no see, my friend.”

I give him a wink to suggest he can cut the act this time. He winks back in acknowledgement, directing his attention to Winter. “And ma’am. Nice to see you.”

Somewhat shy, Winter hides behind me, continuing to do so as we’re ushered through into the club proper. I stop by the cloak room, Winter looking at the dancefloor with something close to wonder.

I join her. A DJ’s up on stage cranking out an upbeat, heavy salsa groove so thick you could carve it with a knife. “Drink?” I offer, raising my voice to be heard over the music.

I’m surprised when she grabs my hand and basically runs us to the dancefloor. “Let’s dance first!” she shouts.

Now, I like to think my salsa skills are up to scratch, but Winter is something else. She heads right to the middle on the dancefloor and immediately starts sashaying and swinging her hips with such perfect syncopation it’s like the music is part of her.

I try to match her tempo, but her feet are moving like lightning.

She’s smiling so wide I don’t know where her face starts and her mouth stops, eyes yellow, then blue, then pink in the changing light. “I haven’t danced for so long!” she says, twirling and cheering.

I take her in position and we dance together, but it’s clear she’s doing the leading here. It’s hard work, and being this close to her isn’t exactly helping my concentration. I feel the side of her breast against my arm, the soft weight of it there, the natural, soapy scent of her body as she moves, her hair brushing past my face.

Before long we’ve started to attract attention, a space opening up for us. Winter takes full advantage, leading me into a complex series of breakthroughs. I almost miss a step, correcting just in the nick of time.

Winter’s lips are at my ear, her breath warm on the shell of it. “What’s the problem? Can’t keep up?”

Before I have time to reply she shuttles us into a Noventa, twisting and turning so fast I’m not quite sure what’s up and what’s down before immediately lurching into a slingshot.

We break apart and pull back, the crowd clapping and cheering us on.

I thought I could dance.

It would appear I was wrong.

I manage to use the shift in music to pull Winter away, reluctantly, from the dancefloor and over to the bar. I order two mojitos and take a seat, my feet, quite literally, burning.

I look at Winter like she’s another person entirely. “Well, you can dance a lot better than you can cook. Where on God’s green earth did you learn to dance like that, and don’t tell me it was your father’s doing?”

Winter seats herself gracefully. I don’t think she’s even broken a sweat. Meanwhile, I’m sitting here like Aquaman.

“It was my mother. She was an excellent dancer.”

“You clearly enjoy it.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You’re not so bad yourself. You actually dance behind the beat, like you should. Not many guys can pull that off, not in a busy, complicated percussion like salsa.”

“I lived in Cuba for a while,” I confess.

“A girl?”

I shake my head. “No, I was young, foolish, travelling the world. I ran out of money there, one thing led to another and before I knew it eight weeks had passed. It’s a beautiful country.”

Winter nods, but I also see sadness welling in her eyes. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

Our drinks arrive, momentarily breaking us out of our reverie. I use it as a chance to change the subject. “Have you ever thought about teaching?”

“Salsa?” she laughs.

“The way you were leading me around that dancefloor…” I give a whistle. “I bet you could teach a cinder block to hit the beat.”

“It looks energetic,” she says, “but the salsa is all about subtlety. It is pure expression, a gentle push and pull of the music… an ocean.”

“I’ve never heard it described that way before. Everyone just tells me it’s the horizontal equivalent of sex.”

I don’t mean to say it, but the line’s so practiced it simply slips out.

Thankfully, Winter seems amused more than anything. “Which tells me you like to dominate in the bedroom, take control. Am I right?”

Well, you’re not wrong. “Perhaps,” I reply coyly.

Suddenly, Winter’s face goes white, the color draining from it completely. I follow her eyes, turning around but unable to see anything in the mix of people there.

I turn back, reaching for her hand. “Winter?”

But it’s like she’s in a trance. She suddenly reaches for my hand, squeezing it hard. “We need to go.”

“Why?” I ask, still looking around for the source of this sudden change in demeanor.

“Please,” she begs, eyes wide and wet.

I stand and usher her around the side of the bar, heading us toward the exit. The whole time she clings to my side, unwilling to let go.

It’s only when we’re back in the apartment, the door closed and bolted, I see her relax, her shoulder sagging back, color returning to her cheeks.

I stand in front of the door unsure what to do. “Are you going to tell me what that was all about?”

She sighs. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

CHAPTER SIX

WINTER
“Try me,” says Archer, moving around in front of me. I hadn’t even realized I was standing with my back against the door, blocking it… stopping anyone from getting in.

I take a deep breath and attempt to rationalize this, but my head’s a hot mess. “I thought I saw someone, that’s all.”

Archer is all concern. “I’m guessing it wasn’t Santa Claus. An ex? Old boyfriend?”

I nod, knowing it’s a lie but unable to get the truth out. “Something like that.”

Archer scratches his head. “Jesus, the guy must have really done a number on you to get that kind of reaction. I thought you were having some kind of nervous breakdown.”

I was, I want to reply, because I’m sure of what I saw. It means I’m not as safe as I thought I was, that they’re slowly closing in. Still, I don’t want to leave Archer. “Yes,” I smile, “I just needed to get out of there.”

Archer nods, satisfied, and heads into the kitchen. “How about tea, coffee… something to calm your nerves?”

I don’t want to tell him how shattered and frayed they really are. Given the way he was looking at me in the club, I think he knows. “Yes, thank you.”

His head pops back around the corner. “So, tea or coffee? Which was it?”

Stupid. “Ah, coffee,” I stammer, “strong.”

“One strong coffee coming up.”

It’s with some reluctance I peel myself away from the door and take a seat at the small dining table with Archer. Even sitting there he is the picture of calm solidarity, a rock. My rock.

I take the coffee with both hands and drink. He wasn’t wrong. It’s seriously strong. Even so, my hands shake as I bring the mug away from my lips. It says ‘I love the Hoff’ on it complete with picture of the man in question flashing that famous Baywatch smile.

I try not to laugh, but it’s too ridiculous. I hold the mug up. “Gift from one of your exes?”

He folds his hands on the table, smiling. “Hey, you don’t disrespect the Hoff, especially in our line of work.”

“Is that what you all aspire to be?”

“David Hasselhoff?” he laughs. “Well, the guy holds a record for the Most Watched Man on TV, looks like he’s barely aged in thirty years, can sing like a bird, and is basically a god. Not to mention he got to ride around in a talking car. I mean, come on, who wouldn’t want to be him?”

“I think most cars talk these days,” I correct. “Let me guess, you ride a motorcycle because you’re such a hunky, beefy slab of man meat.”

“You think I’m hunky?”

I choke on my coffee, doing my best to recover. “Did I say that? Sometimes my mouth just kind of runs along ahead of itself when I’m nervous.”

“You’ve got nothing to be nervous about, not around me.”

I know there’s deeper meaning there, perhaps a hint of suggestion, but I hide myself behind the mug, watching him carefully over the top for any kind of reaction, a clue as to what he has in mind. When it’s not forthcoming, I place the mug down and simply stare.

“What?” he asks, a smile playing on his lips.

“Oh, nothing. I was just picturing you pounding the sand to the Baywatch theme, sun in your hair…”

“Sand under my feet?” he laughs. “Trust me. The life of a lifeguard is a lot less glamorous than what it’s made out to be. Not every person I pull from the water is a blonde with double Ds and an hourglass figure.”

He backtracks when he sees my expression. “Not that I’m suggesting… that… you know…” He hangs his head in his hands. “Shit, I don’t know what I’m saying.”

I pick up the mug again, my nerves indeed starting to calm. “It’s fine. You’ve done more than enough for me. You don’t have to add personal linguist to the list.”

I realize how close that sounds to something else and blush.

Thank god Archer changes the subject. “Look, it’s my day off tomorrow. How about we get out of here, go and do something fun. What do you say?”

“What did you have in mind?”

He tuts a finger in the air. “Now, now, that would be ruining the surprise, wouldn’t it? So, what do you say? Are you in or are you out?”

I leave him hanging, letting the silence draw out until it’s almost unbearable. “A mystery adventure with Miami Beach’s finest, how could I say no?”

*

We start with breakfast by the beach and I’m starting to think I could get used to this kind of eating, even if I do feel like I’ve gained a hundred pounds each and every meal. I feel guilty eating so much food.

Under a Technicolor sky, Archer suggests a boat ride, but I immediately recoil. To his credit, he doesn’t push me or ask why not. He simply lets it be and moves on.

Mid-morning and we’ve found ourselves on the other side of the bay in what Archer tells me is Miami proper.

We pass an ice cream store. Archer stops, bringing his fingers to the sides of his head with his eyes closed. “Don’t tell me. You’re a cookies ’n’ cream kind of girl. No wait,” he continues, correcting himself, “buttered pecan,” opening his eyes to gauge my reaction. “Plain vanilla? Surely not.”

I shrug. “I’m a simple girl, but isn’t it a bit early for ice cream?”

He raises a curt eyebrow. “It is never too early for ice cream.”

One vanilla single scoop and a monstrous, sugary-loaded freak of an iced creation called a ‘killer cone,’ we sit on a bench nearby and watch the people passing. It’s strange, everyone going about their business with no idea what’s happening in the wider world, everyone caught in their own little bubble.

Archer can see I’m lost in my thoughts. His tongue’s being kept busy stopping his ice cream from turning into a puddle. I have to admit seeing it in action has me considering how it could be put to other, more private uses.

I snap my thighs shut to stem off the growing need there.

But you are attracted to him, aren’t you? I ask myself.

At first it felt like a childish crush, but spending time with him, seeing how he interacts with people who others seem too quick to reject, I think I’m falling for him harder than I realize.

He stops licking, the drip-fest abated for now, locking me with eyes the same Blue Moon hue as the scoop on top of his ice cream. “You look deep in thought.”

I smile, delicately taking a small bite of my ice cream. “I was just thinking what a nice day it is.”

Archer leans back against the bench seat. “Somehow I don’t think the weather’s what’s on your mind.”

“You’re right,” I answer cryptically, looking to change the subject. “Can I ask what it’s like, your job?”

He rocks forward, the top of his arms bulging, the poor t-shirt he’s wearing stretching to accommodate them. “Being a lifeguard, you mean?”

“Yes.”

He takes a moment, nodding to himself and holding his killer cone with two hands. “Well, it’s the best job in the world. You’re at the beach. You’re in the sun. You’re saving lives.”

“Like mine?”

He looks down at his ice cream. “Not everyone’s as easy to save as you were. You get drunk idiots out there, huge, aggressive, or freaked-out kids. They’re panicking, trying to pull you under, and they will. Someone who’s drowning loses all rational thought. Their only focus is breathing, getting above water, and if that means pushing you under to get just an inch higher, closer to that sweet, sweet air, they’ll damn well do it. That’s why we’re trained to throw out our flotation device first, swim to help them once they’re calm. That said, there comes a certain point where you have to think about your safety first before you can save anyone, and you can’t save them all,” he adds.

“It sounds intense.” I can see by the look on his face it is, his own thoughts probably turning to the less-successful rescues, the lost.

“Every summer we’re tested. You’ve got to be able to run a mile in under nine minutes, swim five-hundred meters in under ten minutes, though Miami basically doubles that for good measure. We spend an hour each day doing shuttle runs, swims, drilling rescue scenarios. We’ve got this eighty-pound sack of sand we call Jabba we haul up and down the beach. That’s a real bitch.”

“What about sharks?” I ask, trying to lighten the mood.

“Probably the most misunderstood creature in the ocean, not that we get a great deal of sightings. People freak out when they see a fin, any fin. It’s usually dolphins. Those guys are a blast.”

“You make it sound like they’re friends of yours.”

“I’ve headed out there for a surf early and spotted them. They’ll ride right with you, jumping through the waves, almost taking your damn head off,” he laughs, wide tongue moving out to lap at his ice-cream.

“If the weather turns,” he says, “it can be kind of miserable. You’re cooped up, the beach is empty, and you basically have to entertain yourself in the tower. Let me tell you, yacking away to someone you don’t get along with for eight hours straight isn’t a good time.”

“What if it was me?” I ask, genuinely curious.

“I’d happily spend eight hours inside with you.”

‘With’—that’s the key word there. Without it that sentence would have a whole different meaning, but I don’t want to read between the lines.

He chomps down on his ice-cream, demolishing half of it in one bite. “Why do I feel like I’m doing all the talking here?”

“No,” I tell him. “I enjoy it. I like listening to you, hearing about your life.”

“Yet I barely know anything about yours.”

I hold up my cone. “You know I like vanilla.”

“Do you like everything in your life plain and uncomplicated?”

“Plain, yes,” I reply, “though I’m always up for some complication.”

“Chaos?”

“I didn’t say that now, but fun, excitement? Sure. Who doesn’t want those things in life?”

We finish our ice creams and Archer takes my hand. It’s the first real contact we’ve had, but I’m happy to let him do it, to enjoy the feel of his skin against mine even if it is only a couple of fingers twined together.

Walking the streets of Miami, we could be any couple out for the day, tourists even.

We’re stopped at a pedestrian crossing, side by side when a jaywalker shoves into me on their way through the intersection. The jolt knocks me into Archer’s arms.

For a brief moment he holds me there, my face, my lips, so near to his own, so close I can make out the individual pores on his face, feel the warm brush of his breath against my skin.

I find his eyes and our heads move closer together… until a horn blast from the intersection snaps us apart, the moment lost.

Seems the jaywalker almost wound up splattered across someone’s windshield.

We continue to walk until we come to a large area, a square of sorts in the middle of town.

“Where are we?” I ask, looking around in fascination.

Ever the eager tour guide, Archer responds, “Welcome to the Wynwood Walls, the most Instagrammed place in America.”

I’m so spellbound by the giant, colorful street art everywhere I look that it takes me a while to respond. “I don’t have Instagram. I don’t even have a phone.”

That takes him back. He swings around in front of me still holding my hand. “You don’t? But you seem fairly up to date on things. Where do you get your information?”

“I go to the library, use the internet there.”

He looks behind me, between my feet, over my shoulder. “Did I miss the time machine because, girl, you’re living in the past.”

I roll my eyes, tugging him towards a towering mural of a girl with fire for hair. “This is free?”

Archer nods. “One of the world’s great free outdoor art galleries, yes. A complete hipster-fest. But I don’t know. I like it here. There’s a good energy to the place.”

I know what he means. The crowd is young and trendy, the vibe almost overpoweringly cool.

“This area used to be one you’d steer clear of—literally. I’m talking taxi drivers would avoid it. It was all warehouses run by street gangs, full of drugs and crime.”

“Drugs?” I ask, squeezing his hand tight.

“Not anymore. I mean, there’s probably someone running around with a few joints, but it’s been, what do they call it? Revitalized? Gentrified? Look at it now. It’s a tourist hot spot.”

“How long has it been here?”

“Midtown was developed around the early two-thousands, a guy called Tony Goldman—great name—bringing it up to speed, talked about making this American Riviera.”

I’m still taking it all in. The colors are so strong and vibrant. It’s like the murals are leaping off the wall. “It’s extraordinary.”

“The best street artists in the world come here. It’s the place to have your work seen, to be seen.”

“Is that why you like coming here, to show off?”

He lifts up his arm, flexing his bicep. “We’ve got beaches for that.” He stops, pointing through a gap in the wall. “Funnily enough, you move a few blocks south that way and you’re back in the mean streets. There’s a warning sign about it, actually, right there.”

I press down the sudden urge to leave. I don’t want this to end, no matter the danger. Holding Archer’s hand, I feel safe, untouchable.

I think about the almost-kiss. We were so close, his lips almost on mine. A flicker of heat rushes between my thighs, snakes its way up my spine, and explodes in my head like a shower of champagne. That is the effect he is having on me.

We continue to walk, Archer pointing out artworks of interest and proving surprisingly knowledgeable on the subject given his beach bum—albeit a very toned beach bum—demeanor.

We spend almost two hours admiring the art and adjoining galleries and stores. It’s well into the afternoon by the time we finish, the clear sky now blanketed in high cirrus clouds that have swept in from the south.

I never want the day to end. It’s been joyous, nothing short of an affirmation of life, of what could be.

We stand back in the street and I doubt even a sudden rainstorm could wipe the smile from my face.

“Where to now?” I ask.

Archer smiles. “Isn’t it obvious?” he says, holding his belly. “We’re going to eat.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

ARCHER

The dream starts off the same way it always does. I’m heading out back, way past the breakers, but the swell’s massive. I see her, struggling to stay above water.

I swim harder, but she only gets further and further away, the shore slipping away behind my shoulder until it’s gone for good and there’s no girl, no land—just the infinite ocean.

There’s a scream, but when I open my eyes I realize it’s not mine.

It takes my sleep-addled brain a moment to work out exactly what’s going on, that my bed’s not empty.

Winter’s tucked up into my back, one hand draped over my side, the other clutching at her pillow. Her face is twisted, eyes moving fast beneath her eyelids, and her mouth caught open.

“Don’t,” she begs, her fingernails digging into my side. “Don’t, please. Don’t hurt him.”

I roll over, also noticing she has a bare leg thrown over my hip. I can feel the warm heat of her against my lower back, nothing but boxers separating skin from skin.

I snap out of it, turning and gently trying to shake her awake. “Hey, hey, it’s okay.”

“Don’t!” she suddenly screams. “I’ll do it, I promise. I’ll do it.”

I shake a little harder as she starts to fling about, halfway to a full-on convulsion. “Winter, wake up.”

Slowly, her eyes begin to flicker open, darting around the room until they find mine and settle in the dim light.

I can see the way the shirt she’s wearing billows in and out between her breasts, the way she tries to regulate her breathing.

Her mouth remains open. “I, I—”

“Hey, you’re good,” I tell her, trying to keep myself an appropriate distance, my hands up in a non-threatening manner. “I’m here—Archer. Remember?”

She must have sleep-walked right in here again, I realize, somehow lifted the blankets and simply slipped in. God knows how I didn’t notice a beautiful woman basically dry-humping me from behind.

Too lost in your own nightmares, my head interjects.

She’s starting to realize where she is, confused. She pulls the blanket tighter around herself, lifting from the bed and bringing her free hand to her head. “Not again. Did we? This time?”

I sit up on an elbow and shake my head. “Not by my recollection.”

I’m desperately resisting the urge to reach for her. “You okay? Looked like you were having a nightmare. You were telling someone you didn’t want to do it? Whatever ‘it’ is. We can talk about it, if you want.”

And for the first time I can actually see her considering it, but in the end she tucks her head into her shoulder, shaking her head. “It was nothing. No biggie.”

“You sure? I thought you were going to convulse your way right out of the bed for a moment there.”

She bobs up and down, the mattress springing away below. “It is a nice bed.”

You can stay if you like, I almost say, thinking better than to take advantage of a sleep-walking live wire of anxiety. “We can swap if you want.”

She slowly backs away under the covers, swinging her legs over the bed and standing.

Running on autopilot, my eyes drop downwards. She follows them and sees, like me, the t-shirt I gave her barely reaches her belly. She tugs it down, which only makes her breasts stand out more, nipples pressed against the fabric like small acorns. “I should, ah…”

“Yeah,” I kind of wave, “get back to bed, grab some rest. Big day tomorrow.”

“Is it?” she asks.

“It’s always big with me,” I reply, mentally slapping myself for how overtly sexual it sounds.

“O-kay,” she says, backing up to the door. “Goodnight then?”

And fuck knows why, but I salute. I actually salute her goodnight. “Goodnight, Winter.”

“Goodnight, Archer,” comes the equally awkward reply.

She turns, the top of the t-shirt caught in the waistband of her boxers, two perfect, peachy orbs of ass staring right back at me. They’re basically begging me to get up and go get her, but I keep myself on leash knowing this is not the time, and definitely not the moment.

*

The awkwardness runs right through the following morning. Winter gets up—dressed this time—making her way into the kitchen with the stealth of an alley cat.

“Morning,” she says behind me, taking me by such surprise I almost flip the pancake I’m tossing right to the roof.

I turn, bringing my attention away from the pan. “Good morning. I hope you like pancakes.”

“So that’s what the whipped cream is for?”

Among other things, I think.

“I went out earlier and got some fresh strawberries, bananas… It’s basically a fruit salad in the fridge.”

She looks at me incredulously. “Earlier,” eyes wandering up to the clock on the wall. “It’s seven AM.”

“And my shift starts at eight, but I didn’t want you to go hungry, considering your kick-ass cooking skills.”

She tilts her head to the side, lips tightly together. “That’s not going to win you any brownie points, you know.”

“I did save your life,” I tell her, waving the spatula around like it’s a magic wand.

She takes a step closer. “You did, and I’m in your debt, but insult a woman’s cooking and…”

I laugh, crossing my arms. “Whatever that was the other night, it wasn’t cooking. I mean, we could have scraped it out, sold it off as charcoal perhaps…”

She slaps me on the arm, the first real sign of physical contact between us that hasn’t been life-or-death, or via sleepwalking. I don’t think it goes unnoticed.

Winter clears her throat and takes a step back. “So, you’ve got a shift today.”

“All day, sorry. Do you want some money for the shops? Or you could stroll the beach—lots to see.”

“I think I’ll stay put,” she says.

“Your call.”

She looks past me. “By the way, Gordon Ramsey, looks like your pancakes are burning.”

“Shit!” I stammer, spinning around and flipping the pancake in the pan only to be met with a lovely shade of emo black. “Fuck.”

Winter’s loving it, of course, bent over herself in hysterics. “What’s that saying about throwing rocks from glass houses? Is that how it goes?”

The pancake in question goes straight into the trash. I point the spatula at her. “You better watch that tone, young lady”

“Why? What are you going to do? Spank me?”

If blood wasn’t rushing to my cock before, it basically floods there now at the thought of her bare ass in front of me, bent over my knee.

She realizes what she’s said, her cheeks turning a wonderful shade of I-fucked-up red.

I let her simmer in it for a bit, pouring the next pancake. “Ask and maybe, just maybe,” I speak down to the pan, “you shall receive.”

*

It’s flat as a tack out there today, which naturally means all the trouble migrates to the beach. By the end of the shift I’m completely exhausted, my throat dry from shouting at idiot after idiot.

After our shift, I head with Robbie to Bar None, but a rather full-breasted redhead steals him away to fuck knows where. I’m left alone at the bar with a semi-warm Corona. My thoughts turn to Winter. In-between the idiot convention, she’s all I’ve been thinking about.

It’s then I spot a familiar face sitting on the other side of the bar.

We see each other at the same time.

Liam points to himself, back to me. I indicate the spare stool beside myself. Ten seconds later he’s sitting next to me, sliding his half-empty beer onto the bar.

He shakes his head for a moment. “Archer. Fuck me. It’s been a while.”

I notice he’s still in uniform, the blue and black get-up of the Miami Beach Police. “It has. How’s the Force treating you?”

He shrugs. “Shitty pay, a fuck-load of jerk-offs out there, but hey, at least we’re not buried up to our necks in sand and extremists, right?”

He’s referring to our Afghanistan tour. The sand got everywhere—nostrils, bed, clothes, right up in your asshole where the sun don’t shine. “Feels like forever ago.”

He takes up his beer. “Fucking hey. And you?” he says, glancing at my uniform. “Still pulling idiots out of the water and fighting the hordes?”

“Something like that,” I nod, staring down into the pale yellow of my Corona.

I think of Winter and realize this is my chance. She said she didn’t want to go to the cops, but there’d be no harm asking Liam his professional opinion, get his take on things.

I decide to keep it casual. “Speaking of things being pulled out of the water, I rescued a girl just the other night.”

“Fuck me. They’ve got you doing night shifts now?”

“No, no. I left something at the tower and spotted her out there halfway to death, pulled her in.”

“She’s hot, isn’t she? Did she grow legs and run off, tell you her daddy is Titan, king of the ocean?”

I shove him with my shoulder. “Fuck you, and yeah, she’s attractive.”

“What was she doing out there after dark?”

I wish I knew, I think. “I’m not sure. She was pretty quiet about the whole thing, wouldn’t tell me anything.”

I don’t want to mention the girl in question is staying with me just yet, that I didn’t even log the rescue.

“You think she was in some kind of trouble?” asks Liam, clueing in.

“Trouble? For sure, but what kind I have no fucking idea.”

“You patched her up and sent her on her way, or is she back at your place tied to the bed?”

I know he’s joking, but it still takes me off guard. “I’m a gentleman. You know that.”

He slaps his hand into the bar. “Fuck the fuck off. If you’re a gentleman, I’m the King of England. Seriously, what happened?”

I’m almost tempted to spill everything and bring him in, but I don’t know enough yet, and I don’t want to go against Winter’s wishes to not get the authorities involved. Selfishly perhaps, maybe I want to keep her around a little longer. I shrug. “The usual. Protocol, you know.”

“As long as you’ve got her number. Never know when she might be up for a bit more mouth-to-mouth, right… or is it mouth-to-cock?”

I do my best to smile. “Right.”

But Liam and I have known each other too long. When you serve together you develop a rapport with the people around you that’s unmatched in the civilian world, a bond that’s almost like a sixth sense.

He takes my shoulder. “If you need something, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you? I can help.”

“I know,” I reply, doing my best not to reveal my tells.

“If it’s to do with your mermaid, fucking let me know. I’ll put Miami’s finest to work, get you some answers. After all,” he taps his head, “knowledge is power.”

His phone buzzes between us. He reaches down to take it out, cursing when he sees the number. “My ex. She’s bleeding me fucking dry. Between the repayments for the new place, the alimony… I need a major cash injection, my brother, right fucking now.”

I raise my hands. “Don’t go looking at me. They’re paying us the same peanuts as you.”

He stands, drinking what’s left of his beer and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Good to see you again, man. You let me know if you need anything, okay?”

I take his hand. “Will do. Stay safe.”

“Likewise,” he replies, smiling before turning to weave his way through the bar crowd.

I continue to stare down into my Corona wondering if I should have said more, wondering if I said too much.

CHAPTER EIGHT

WINTER

I can’t cook, but I can clean. God knows I’ve done my share of that. I start in the kitchen, which still smells like a cigar room, and work my way out into the lounge and bedrooms.

As I do, I take in the small things that make up Archer’s apartment. Yes, it’s clear there’s a single man living here, but there is a running order to the chaos. As far as bachelor pads go, it’s definitely on the neater side. And the board games. They run completely against the bad boy exterior.

I consider what to do next, my hands moving autonomously. I think of dinner, dancing, opening my eyes on the beach to find him staring back at me, my savior.

Careful. It sounds like you’re getting attached, I warn myself.

Immediately, my mind turns to darker things, of how I came to be in this predicament in the first place.

But it could have been far worse, couldn’t it?

I think of the alternative and shudder, bringing myself back to the task at hand.

I’m cleaning down the side of his drawers when I notice something stuck behind them and the wall. I reach in and pull it out, blowing dust off the front of it. It’s a certificate for an ‘Award of Outstanding Service’ dated two years ago.

There’s a newspaper clipping attached to it. The headline reads, ‘Local Lifeguard Saves School Children.’ I skim the article quickly expecting Archer to arrive home at any moment, almost feeling taboo doing so.

The article says a group of school children were swimming off Miami Beach when a strong current began to pull them away from shore. It appears Archer was first in the water, saving four children, two girls and two boys, but a fifth was lost when Archer was unable to revive her before the ambulance arrived.

I place the certificate and article back behind the drawer with a new perspective. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to lose someone, to rescue them only to have them slip away back on shore against your better efforts. I know now why Archer looked so distant when we were discussing his job that day in town.

A knock on the door causes me to jump. I bring a hand up to my chest breathing harder than normal and get up, running to the front door to greet him home. I unlatch the door and swing it wide smiling, keen to see him, but the person standing there isn’t Archer.

Immediately, I shrink back into the apartment.

“Ah, hi,” the stranger says, looking confused, “is Archer home?”

The man’s in a police uniform, about the same age as Archer. He looks familiar, but I can’t place where I’ve seen him. All I’m thinking about is why he’s here.

I shake my head slowly, going to close the door, but he holds it open with one hand.

Paranoia sweeps through me, every instinct telling me this isn’t right, that I should run. Police can’t be trusted where I’m from. They’re as dirty as the criminals—more so because they sit in a position of power.

“I’m sorry,” he says, smiling with his free hand out in a sign of submission, “I’m Liam, one of Archer’s Army buddies from way back.”

I flinch as he goes to take something from his pocket, thinking he’s reaching for his weapon. “It’s okay,” he says, holding his free hand higher and drawing out what looks like a cell phone with the other, holding it up to me. “Archer left this at the bar. That’s all. I thought I’d drop it back. Here,” he passes it to me.

I take, or snatch it rather, pulling back inside and placing it on the shelf next to the door.

This Liam scratches his head. “Not one for talking, hey?” He tries to look past me. “Are you guys… together?”

I want to close the door. I want this person to go, but I can’t seem to speak or act, frozen on the spot.

He’s looking at my shoulder, pointing. “What’s that there? Some kind of tattoo?”

I pull my shirt back into place, finally finding my voice. “It’s nothing.” I smile.

Liam clicks his fingers. “Say, you’re not the girl Archer rescued the other night, are you?”

A cold chill runs down my back. He told him. Archer told him, the ‘police friend’ he was talking about. It’s all making sense now.

Damn it. I told him not to say anything, not to go to the police, and here he is, right in front of me. I can’t stop the feeling of betrayal that washes over me.

Liam goes to step forward. “Hey, you okay?”

I take a step back, still holding the door.

Both of Liam’s hands go out. “It’s alright. It’s okay. I’m a cop. If you’re in trouble, I can help. Here,” he says, fishing in his back pocket and returning with a business card. “Take it,” he says. “My number’s right there.”

I take it and place it next to Archer’s cell.

My mind’s racing ahead of me. The lost phone is a ploy, a way to get this friend here, trying to earn my trust, tell him what I couldn’t tell Archer.

You’ve been played.

I look at the gun holstered by Liam’s side shiny and black, look back to his eyes that don’t seem convinced I should be here, eyes that seem to see right through me.

“I’ve got to go. I’m sorry,” I tell him, and slam the door closed, harder than I intend to.

I press my ear against it, listening, expecting the officer to knock again or call out, but instead I hear his footsteps echoing down the hall.

I slump to the ground with my hands on my head, rocking there.

How could he? I wonder.

Archer went behind my back. He damn well betrayed me.

I don’t know why I trusted him in the first place.

Because he saved your life. Because he took you in, my head retorts. You’d be dead if it wasn’t for him.

Now, with the police involved, I’ll be dead because of him.

It’s all gone to hell and there’s nothing I can do.

There is, a voice whispers.

I suddenly realize what my next move must be. It’s a hard decision, but it has to be made. The police know I’m here. How long before they do?

I snap into action, running to Archer’s bedroom and finding an old leather duffle bag in the top of the wardrobe. I fill it quickly with whatever clothes I can find, take the money he left me on the table and food from the cupboard. I don’t know how long it will be before I can stop. All I know is I have to get as far away from here as possible.

CHAPTER NINE

ARCHER

I arrive back at the apartment, arms loaded full of groceries. I manage to lever myself against the wall and fish for my keys in my pocket, something of a contortionist act to get the damn door open.

“Winter?” I call out, trying to shuffle inside as best I can.

“Winter?” I try again, dumping the groceries on the kitchen counter, taking a moment to catch my breath. Place still smells like smoke, but I smile at the thought; thinking of her, how much life she’s brought into this apartment these few last days.

I go to call again when I realize she hasn’t responded. Surely she heard me.

Concern starts to eat away at me as I move through the apartment, but it’s not the Taj Mahal. I get through the whole place in two minutes, ending up in my bedroom. That’s when I notice the closet door is open. My eyes look up and see where the bags on the top shelf have been moved around, my old leather duffle from my Army days missing.

Shit, I think, moving quickly back through the apartment for anything I might have missed. I start piecing it all together fast after that.

The money I left on the table is gone, as are all the clothes I left out for her, but the most obvious clue is my cell, sitting on the shelf beside the door.

I check my pockets, realizing I left it back at Bar None.

But it’s the business card sitting next to it that seals my suspicions. It’s Liam’s, which means he came here while I was getting the groceries.

I pace around the lounge room holding the business card and trying to work out what happened.

He came here with my cell, to give it back.

But how did he know where you were living? I consider.

He’s a fucking cop. Of course he could find out.

I flick the card in my hand.

So, he comes here, and Winter opens the door thinking it’s me, but it’s a cop, the police, so she freaks out.

Realization dawns.

“She thought I went behind her back,” I say to myself. “She thinks I fucked her over.”

And now she’s gone.

I kick the closest thing I can find, which just so happens to be the floor lamp. It wavers but doesn’t fall. “Fuck!” I yell.

Think, I tell myself, and think fucking fast. Where would she go?

I’ve got no idea. Between the bar and groceries couldn’t be any more than half an hour, but she could be anywhere by now. Still, she’d most likely be travelling by foot, which does narrow down the search radius.

I consider calling Liam, but what would she think then? If she feels betrayed now, how’s she going to feel when the Boys in Blue show up, at my bequest?

It’s all fucked.

I kick the lamp again, but it does little to dampen my frustration.

I tap my head with two fists. “Think, motherfucker, think. Focus.”

I concentrate on my breathing as we were taught in the Force, let it flow in and out of my lungs until my heart rate slows and my head begins to clear. It’s then, and only then, I know what to do.

*

It’s a short walk from my apartment to the bus station. It’s the same one we were at when we went across the bay to see the Wynwood Walls, but I sprint the whole way there with a sole, singular focus.

I don’t know if this is where she’d go for sure, but it’s my best shot.

You should have left her a cell, I think, a way to reach you.

I skip around a mother walking a stroller and mutter an apology, bolting across the road in front of a blue sedan.

I’m surprised how off-kilter I am. There are plenty of chances for an adrenaline rush in the day-to-day of a lifeguard, but after a while you learn to suppress it. My stint in the Army helped. Nothing gets the blood pumping like bullets pinging into the wall beside you, the imminent threat of death, but it’s different out there in the water. It adds an extra element of unpredictability that can be addictive if you let it. That’s when it gets dangerous. That’s when you push yourself too far.

It’s what I feel now—that unpredictability and the flood of strong emotions that follows, plenty of which I know is because I’ve developed feelings for this girl. I saved her life and now I feel tied to it somehow, like it’s my job to safely guide her on.

But you want more, don’t you? my head intervenes. You want her.

There’s some truth to that, thrill in the chase, but again, I suppress it and try to rein my focus in to concentrate on the task at hand: Fucking finding her.

I’m almost at the bus station, the flow of peak hour pedestrians and traffic making things close to a nightmare. I round the final corner and clip someone’s shoulder, throwing my hand up in apology and stopping when I realize I’ve seen this individual before, at the tower with Robbie, the one who came asking if we’d seen anything the other day, the fucking dude with the teardrop tatt ripped right out of a comic book.

He sees me and slips away back into the flow of pedestrians.

I shake it off and continue to run on, moving as quick as I can for the bus stop we were at the other day. I remember pointing out to her exactly how it all worked, which number to take and how to navigate once you're in Miami proper.

I glance up and notice the security cameras dotted around the station, but they’ll be little use. It’s not like I can storm into the security office, flash my board shorts and expect an open book.

I circle the station once, twice, standing there with my hands on my head, grinding my teeth in frustration.

“Shit,” I grunt.

I’m about to move on when I spot a girl who looks like Winter exiting the women’s bathroom to the right.

Pushing people to the side, I try to get over there, but a procession of tourists cuts in front of me, walking around like garish zombies. By the time I get past them she’s gone again.

“Fuck!” I yell aloud.

“Archer?”

I spin around and there she is, my missing bag in her hand.

I rush forward and take her into my arms. “Winter. Jesus. What were you thinking?”

She pushes away from me. “I was thinking you went to that cop friend of yours when I explicitly told you not to.”

I’ve been concentrating so hard on finding her I hadn’t considered what I was going to say when I did.

I rub my chin, people swirling around us. This is far from the best place or time for this, but if I don’t say something now, she’ll walk.

“You’re right,” I tell her. “You’re completely right, but you’ve got to understand it wasn’t pre-orchestrated. We bumped into each other and got talking. I didn’t mention any details, didn’t tell him how I found you—none of that.”

I see her soften, but she’s still unconvinced. She drops the bag, speaking with her hands. “I still don’t know who to trust.”

I jab at myself, ignoring the curious looks of bystanders. “You can trust me. I promised you I’d keep you safe and I fucking well mean it.”

I take her hands. Again, they’re far more delicate than I expected, feathers in my fingers. “I. Will. Keep. You. Safe. Got it? I don’t know how I can make it any clearer.”

She nods quietly. “And you didn’t go to your friend deliberately?”

I place my hand on my heart. “On my mother’s life.”

She sighs and looks around but doesn’t let go of my hands. A tear runs down her face. “I just want to go home.”

I hang my head. “I don’t know where home is for you, but here, in Miami, I can give you one, for as long as you want. So, tell me, do you want to go home?”

She looks up at me with glassy eyes, nodding.

I smile and pick up the bag. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

CHAPTER TEN

WINTER

I collapse into his arms the moment the front door of the apartment closes. I can smell his dark mussed hair, hyper-aware of the hard warmth of his body against mine.

I know I’ll have to tell him soon what happened. He deserves to know the truth, but right now all I want to do is stay in his arms.

He’s breathing down my neck. It’s warm and ticklish, a strange mix of sensation pooling at the private space between my thighs.

I don’t know what I was thinking. I could have been taken out there… or worse.

I shiver and he holds me away from him.

“Are you cold?” he asks, ocean eyes all concern.

“No,” I reply simply.

It’s the best feeling in the world being held by him, supported by his strong arms and muscular frame, to take in the fresh, saltwater-and-surf wax scent of his body. I can hear music down below in the street. It provides a distant soundtrack, a pulsing beat to the music that’s already thrumming through my body.

I don’t know why, but I reach up to touch his face, fingers dancing on his jawline, his stubble ticklish where it passes beneath my skin.

His hand moves up to cover mine, pressing it against his face. It’s hot, smoother than I expected.

His voice is a deep rasp when he speaks. “Are you sure about this?”

My breath catches and I’m unable to reply, forced to nod instead because I know this is the moment. We both want this, need this.

We’re so close. His mouth has to be less than an inch from my own. It’s so inviting, his lips so soft…

I swallow hard, wait a second, and then he’s kissing me.

It starts firm, a press of lips to lips, his hand gliding over my lower back. It’s incredible, the sun breaking through storm clouds, light beaming out left, right, and center. His mouth moves over mine and I can’t hold back the new pleasure that spirals down my spine.

I bring my hands around his neck and deepen the kiss, allowing my tongue to slip past his lips and into the fruity cavern of his mouth. He groans at that—a small, delicate sound in strong juxtaposition to his bulky form. I gasp in turn, the kiss becoming more and more intense, his lips moving frantically against my own.

Our tongues tangle together, chests heaving as one. We press tighter and tighter until there’s no daylight between us, nothing to identify where Archer starts and I end.

I shift my hips slightly, ever aware of the growing bulge in his pants.

But this is more than a simple kiss. It feels right. What seemed fragmented and split before has been pieced together. In his arms, his mouth on mine, I am whole.

I have to break the kiss to breathe, drawing air deep and long into my lungs, my body buzzing.

He licks his lips, his mouth finding mine with fresh hunger.

My heart’s pounding against my rib cage, galloping along faster and faster. I want to feel this way forever. I never want it to end.

I break away again, locking eyes with him. “Take me to the bedroom,” I say.

He nods, scooping me up under the legs and carrying me swiftly towards the master bedroom.

The shutters are semi-open, a mesh crisscross of light spread across the room—an Escher drawing come to life. People are celebrating outside, but it’s nothing compared to the energy in this room.

He lets me down at the edge of the bed, pulling my skirt all the way up, bunching it around my waist while his mouth continues work over mine above.

One hand goes between my legs, rubbing me through the wet cotton of my panties. No man has ever touched me there before, the bold sensation that follows forces me to suck in a cold lungful of oxygen.

My body tenses, releases—a coil of need building.

He slips his hand down the front of my panties, the tip of his middle finger dipping into slick heat there and forcing an expulsion of sound from between my lips, new and alien.

I have to break away to breathe, leaning against his shoulder and muttering “Oh, God” over and over, a quiet prayer against this onslaught.

He stops when his finger comes up against my hymen.

He pulls back. “Holy shit. Are you…?”

I nod, embarrassed. “Is that okay?”

He smiles. “It’s perfect,” he whispers kissing me again, removing his hand.

He cradles me in his arms, lowering me down onto the bed and taking hold of my legs, dragging me to the edge of it.

My skirt bunches around my torso, my breath hitching again when he slowly brings my legs together, peeling my panties away. He unhooks them from my ankle and lets the warm ball fall to the floor.

“What are you doing?” I ask, my nerves getting the better of me when he begins to spread my thighs, kneeling there at the edge of his bed, his breath a hot apparition against my bare sex.

I’ve never let anyone look at me so intimately, shamed and embarrassed until I see that animal hunger in his eyes again, the way his body tenses drawing closer to my core.

“Arch—” but my words are caught when his mouth presses against me.

He starts slowly, kissing the insides of my thighs, holding me tight while I squirm and moan above in anticipation.

The tip of his tongue flickers over my clit and my eyes snap closed, spine bent towards the ceiling. I feel him all the way from my sex to the tight pillars of my nipples.

He sucks at my clit, his masterful tongue bringing me closer and closer to something I’ve never felt before only that I know it’s great and large and utterly terrifying.

I moan and rock my head from side to side, reaching out and finding him, slowly grinding against his face. His stubble brushes the bottom of my sex, his chin working there as he laps and licks, bringing me quicker towards the inevitable.

I’ve never had an orgasm, never come, but even so I know what’s about to happen, can feel the way my body flushes from head to toe, that tightness pulling inwards, tighter and tighter until there’s no going back.

He spreads me with his fingers and groans, dipping his tongue into the slick mouth of my sex.

I purr and moan aloud. I’m louder than I should be, unrestrained, but I don’t care. All I can think about is Archer—his lips, his tongue, the beautiful texture of it all against my wanton flesh.

He brings his attention back to my clit, strong hands spreading my thighs further, the sensation ratcheting up and up until I can almost see it there behind my eyelids, the end result, the ‘little death.’

Just when I’m about to crest over, my entire body tight as a piano wire, he pulls away and stands.

I sit up on my elbows breathing hard and labored, watch as he works at his belt and zipper, each movement quick and calculated, the animal hunger never leaving his eyes as he watches me, the aquamarine of them switching between my lips and the hot space below.

His cock comes free hard and long, far bigger than I remember from the other day. I’ve never really seen one up close before, appreciated the sleek look of the glans and shaft, the velveteen length of it all.

Archer moves to the drawers beside the bed. I hear a wrapper being undone and know he’s sheathing himself, returning to edge of the bed and pressing me back, climbing over me with his cock in hand and cool eyes above.

I take his face and press my lips to his, tighten further when I taste myself on them.

I gasp against his lips when he positions himself against me, spreading my legs wider so he slips in a fraction of an inch, poised there to take me.

“Are you ready?” he asks.

I take in a deep breath and nod.

For a moment he stops and we stare at each other, spellbound.

The world passes between us.

Need.

Fear.

Desire.

I hold his gaze, hold it as he slowly sinks into me with a single, fluid push.

I yelp, eyelids fluttering closed momentarily as my virginity is taken.

He holds himself there, one hand moving to hold the side of my face. “Are you okay?” he asks, his concern in such contrast to what I expected.

“Yes,” I whisper, reaching for his hips. “Keep going.”

He draws back and rocks forward again, running deeper into my wetness.

I let out a faltering breath and grip him tighter, urge him on with my hips.

He starts moving and the pain begins to subside and give way to pleasure. It’s unlike anything I’ve experienced, the shift from one to another, the pleasure building the more he moves, the more of his manhood that is swallowed up by my body.

He moves slowly at first, the urgency growing until I’m begging him to take me harder, deeper, rocking against his cock as it runs into me.

A fever builds between us, a waiting eruption simmering under the surface of my skin. I push my hips back and he thrusts forward hard, almost to the end of me, fresh moans coming from my mouth, my fingers dipping deep into his sides.

“Yes,” I moan, smiling against it all, “yes.”

He places a hand on my hips and pounds into me with abandon, fucking me hard and showing no remorse for it.

My body adjusts slowly, stretching to accommodate his cock, softening and reshaping itself around him.

I do my best to relax, to shift deep into a total and complete calm, but it’s useless.

He forges into me deeper and deeper. I can feel his cock twitching inside me, his own release imminent. I swivel my hips, lock my ankles against his back, a whole new slew of sensation following as his cock finds a new angle inside my aching pussy.

Embers of that coming firestorm fan into flame, rising higher and higher until he pulls back to the slackened mouth of my sex, holding himself there, teasing me until I beg him to continue, thrashing below.

He runs into me long, deeper than before, his shaft lightning, nerves set alight inside the hot channel of my sex. He brings his full weight against my body, driving me deep into the bed. It all merges in my periphery, the neon colors of the streets below, the ocean, the cut light of the apartment.

With every thrust his hard body presses against my clit. My focus shifts to that small spot of sensation and I know my first climax is imminent. I bring my hands up to his shoulders, bear against him with everything I have.

His neck drops, his lips against my ear. “Come,” he says.

I do, soaring higher and higher until there’s nowhere else to go. I scream, I think, and convulse, exploding with new pleasure that clutches my entire body, my sex gripping and releasing his beautiful cock in quick contractions, forcing his orgasm.

He stiffens against me, a long, guttural groan following as he thrusts one final time and finds his release.

His lips cover mine and our tongues meet. We laugh and smile, Archer collapsing sideways, his cock coming free to slap against the side of his leg.

He holds my thigh over him, the two of us staring up at the bands of light on the ceiling, the celebrations continuing outside.

He looks over.

“What’s this?” he asks, fingertips running over the brand on my shoulder, the one his friend mistakenly thought was a tattoo.

“Just something silly I did when I was a teenager,” I lie.

He studies it. “It looks familiar.”

I silence him with a kiss.

“That was my first orgasm, you know,” I tell him, changing the subject.

He plays with a long strand of my hair, looping it around my finger. “How do you know if you’ve never had one?” he queries, one eyebrow raised.

I can still feel where he was inside me, the afterglow of his cock. “Female intuition, I suppose.”

“Well, you did. I felt it.”

“You did?”

“Sure. So fucking hot.”

Silence falls. I feel compelled to fill it.

“Have you ever had a girlfriend?” I ask cautiously. “I mean, I know you’ve had,” unable to find the right way to phrase this, “women… but has there been anyone special?”

He kisses my forehead. “Like you?”

“Come on,” I tease, walking my fingers over the tight tessellations of his abs. “Tell me. I want to know everything about you.”

He draws in a breath. “Actually, I was engaged once upon a time.”

I sit up a bit in surprise. “You were?”

“We met when I was working at this marina during college, had a whole future planned out together.”

“What happened?”

“I joined the Army and she cheated on me while I was on tour, screwed another guy while I was out,” using air-quotes, “‘fighting for freedom’.”

“I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“It was a long time ago. I’ve moved on.”

But I can still see the echo of hurt sketched into his features. Whatever this woman did scarred him for life.

And I want to tear her eyes out.

He holds me tighter, pulling me into the warmth of his side. “It doesn’t matter, because now I have you. Who could want anything more?”

I smile, lay on his chest, but it fades when I think of the lies. Because breaking someone’s trust, especially someone who has been burned before, is like crumpling up a perfect piece of paper. You can smooth it over, but it’s never going to be the same again.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ARCHER

You’ve fallen for her, haven’t you? You’ve fallen for her hard.

My head, usually the point of irrationality, is spot-on for once. How has this girl who washed up into my life suddenly taken it over? A girl who I still know so little about yet feel like I’ve known forever.

I had a process, a system of quick and dirty hookups that would leave me satisfied, albeit briefly, before the next. I was living the dream.

But I know that satisfaction was only physical, and rarely even complete. No, what Winter provides me is what I’ve been missing all along but never able to place my finger on—emotional satisfaction, something to grab onto to stay afloat, a light cutting through the fog.

I’m leaning against the doorway watching her sleep. It’s almost mid-morning but I don’t want to wake her, to disturb what basically amounts to a scene so perfect it could have been painted by an old master, a modern Sleeping Venus.

She might have been a virgin yesterday, but I know the woman who will wake now will be hungry to explore her sexuality. It’s a privilege in a way, an honor to share that journey with her.

My cock hardens at the thought of how she felt, how it was to be inside her, connecting with her on a far deeper level than most women who pass through these hallowed halls. It wasn’t just sex. It was an elevation, a transcendent experience.

Can you even hear yourself?

I can alright—loud and clear.

Her eyes flicker open and she sees me watching her. She makes no attempt to cover herself up, surprisingly confident now in her nakedness. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” I reply, “and most definitely a good night.”

She buries her face in the pillow. “Mmm, you can say that again.”

“How are you feeling?”

She sits up, nipples a hot, rosy red. “Absolutely wonderful,” she replies, enunciating each syllable.

“Shall I start breakfast?”

“The best night of my life followed by breakfast in bed—a woman could get used to such things.”

“My woman,” I smile.

She sits up straighter, feigning surprise. “Oh, really? And what makes you think you own me, Mr. Big Shot?”

“Could be that nice ol’ handprint of mine on your ass.”

She kneels up and looks behind herself no doubt expecting to see the handprint in question, and hell, I’d leave my hand glued to that perfect ass if I could.

She looks back at me with a short smirk. “A lifeguard and a comedian. Do the two occupations go hand in hand?”

“Baby,” I tell her, pushing myself off the doorframe, “when you’re the hottest thing on the beach, you can be anything you want.”

“How about my own personal man-slave, ready to attend to my every whim and desire?”

“That can be arranged, but how about we start with that breakfast?”

She sits back on her ankles and I swear to the good and honest lord there is nothing more beautiful in the world than the sight of her bare body. “Sounds good to me.”

“Why don’t you hit the shower? I should have it up in ten or so.”

She stands and approaches me, hips sashaying with such sultry perfection it’s like a whole different person awoke this morning.

She stops as she passes me, looking up at me with eyes full of energy and life, that fragile bird who first showed up in my apartment having taken flight overnight. I see confidence there now, energy. I intend to put it to good use.

I reach down and cup her face, taking her lips with my own and allowing my tongue only the briefest of sojourns into the hot space of her mouth. She breaks away and smacks her lips, playfully spanking me on the butt. “Like I said, a girl could get used to this.”

I watch her walk down the hall to the bathroom, those wonderfully smooth orbs of her ass lifting and falling against one another. My cock feels like it’s going to snap in two it’s so fucking hard.

She could get used to this, yes, but she’d be the first. Almost every girl I’ve slept with is gone by the morning. I look at them in bed, just like I looked at Winter now, and all I feel is a strange sort of disgust, a distance that somehow grows between night and day. I look at them and I want them gone. It’s that simple.

But not today.

It’s all so new. I was starting to think I’d never feel this way about a girl, never experience…

Go on, say it, my head dares.

I let the L word linger there in my thoughts, test and prod at it, see how it feels against me. I’m pretty damn surprised when I find I like it.

I scramble some eggs quickly, doubling up on the butter because hey, who doesn’t like a bit of richness first thing in the morning. Chives, a dusting of salt and pepper, fresh sourdough that probably cost me more than a month’s rent from the hipster bakery downstairs… It’s quite the meal.

The crazy thing? I never cooked breakfast for anyone but myself until Winter came along. Is that selfish? Maybe, but the last thing I wanted was one of my lays thinking a hot meal was an invitation to hang around and make chit-chat about our cozy future together with two-point-five kids and a nice four-bedroom in the ’burbs. Nope.

I clean up and can’t resist the allure of running water and a naked, willing Winter any longer.

Smiling, I decide to join her.

Fuck it. Let the eggs go cold.

I’m back in the main bedroom, about to start stripping down, when I notice something under the large set of drawers against the wall—a tiny white triangle peeking out from the bottom of it.

I bend down to pick up thinking it’s an old bill, a piece of tissue, but when I pull at it several pages of paper come free.

I get down on my knees and look under the drawers, surprised to find there’s a whole series of papers pushed under there. I pull them out confused, because I sure as hell don’t remember putting them there.

The shower’s still running down the hall. I stand and start to leaf through the papers. There’s handwriting all over them, strange diagrams and maps, lists and lists of numbers. It’s not my handwriting, and I’m pretty sure Ernest Hemmingway doesn’t live here, which makes the whole thing even more unusual.

I do my best to decipher what it means, but it’s basically gibberish to me. I don’t even think it’s in English. It’s looks more like Spanish. There’s only one word I do recognize that seems to keep reappearing—cocaína.

It has to be Winter’s writing, but why would she write all this? What does it mean? I don’t think it’s directions to El Dorado. In fact, looks like something far more sinister.

I think I’m starting to get a picture in my head of what’s going on. It’s vague, still blurry around the edges, but it’s a hazy start all the same.

I know there’s only person who can provide answers.

It’s gone on long enough.

I need the truth, and I need it now.

I hear the shower shut off down the hall, looking past the doorway to see Winter emerge wrapping a towel around herself, twisting her hair into a messy bun atop her head. She can’t see me, but she’s smiling regardless—smiling like she’s won the lottery.

She enters the room and doesn’t look at me, heading straight to the pile of clothes in the corner. “You know, I thought you were going to join me in there, or is breakfast that elaborate today?”

She picks up a shirt and turns, seeing me standing there with the papers in my hand.

Suddenly, her expression goes cold. Color drains from her face and the shirt drops from her hands. “You found them,” she says.

I look down at the papers. “And that’s just the question—found what?”

CHAPTER TWELVE

WINTER

I look at my papers, my writing spread across the coffee table. I hadn’t realized I’d written so much. I suppose it became a stream of consciousness of sorts.

I pick up the coffee Archer made me and bring it to my lips, placing it back down and forcing myself to meet his eye. I see the desperation in his face, for answers, and I know this is the time. I have to tell him everything.

I pull in a breath before I begin. “I suppose you’ve read through everything, have some kind of understanding what’s going on, yes?”

He nods, hands on his knees on the other side of the table. “Well, it throws my theory out the window that you’re a mermaid.”

Even with the gravity of the situation, I can’t help but smile, reining it back in when I start to think how to approach my story.

I brush a strand of hair behind my ear, my hands tight around the Hoff mug. “I was born and raised in Cuba to a Cuban father and American mother. In fact, I’ve lived in Cuba my entire life.” My throat’s suddenly tight, but I press on. “My father was injured in a work accident soon after I was born, forcing my mother to find work. We weren’t well off, but she found a job at one of the clubs in town, used to smuggle me in to watch the dancing, the entertainers helping me with my homework. It was quite the education.”

“I can imagine,” says Archer, leaning closer.

My smile fades. “Two years ago my mother passed, cancer, leaving it up to my father to support us, which he couldn’t do. I found work, but it wasn’t enough. We were about to lose our home, lose… everything.” I fight back the tears, willing myself to get through this. Archer watches on with quiet attention, eyes firm.

I look down at the papers. “My father, unable to live with this, went to one of the local cartels, Lacoya, and asked for a loan.” I pause, collecting my thoughts. “I knew nothing of this, of the terms of the loan. My father told me it was inheritance from a long lost uncle. I believed him in my naivety, but when the cartel came to collect one day, I knew the truth.”

A hot tear cuts down my cheek. “They were going to kill him, men with masks and guns. I begged them not to, on my hands and knees, pleading for his life, offering my own in his place. Instead, they took me, telling my father I was to become a bride of Serpiente.”

“The Snake?” Archer fills. “The head of the Lacoya Cartel? You can’t be serious.”

I nod. “I am. The men had sent a photo of me to him. He liked what he saw, and I agreed on the condition my father’s life would be spared and the loan considered repaid. They took me then and there, a hood over my head that smelt like oranges, driving for hours to God knows where. Then I met Serpiente.”

“He didn’t…?”

I shake my head. “No. I was still a virgin, at least until last night. Believe it or not, but Serpiente is an incredibly religious man, refused to do anything until our union had been blessed.” I swallow down a hard lump in my throat. “He left on business, promising to return in three weeks. I was kept in a cage, barely fed for the first three days. Slowly, I gained the trust of the men and they allowed me to work packing the drugs that were coming in, then helping with the paperwork, the filing… By the end of the third week I had almost complete freedom in the compound. You’d have hardly known I was being held against my will at all—until one night I was told they were transporting me to him.”

I can see Archer piecing it together. “By boat?”

“Yes, during one of their late-night smuggling runs to Miami, right here where Serpiente has his own network of villas and men, tentacles that extend deep into America. You’ve heard of him?”

Archer nods. “Who hasn’t? One of the most ruthless cartel bosses in the world, by all accounts. We’ve had plenty of run-ins with gang members on the beach, regularly find bricks of coke washed up stamped with the cartel’s snake insignia. They’re fucking insidious.”

Another tear joins the first. “The things I saw them do…”

Archer stands and joins me on the sofa, holding me against him. “What happened next?”

“I knew it was my only chance at escape. Once they had me in another location I knew my life would be over, so I jumped, stood and leaped over the side of the boat when I could see the lights of the city.”

“They didn’t circle back, look for you?”

“They tried, but each time I would dive and keep swimming, deeper and deeper until my lungs felt like they would burst. I waited there in the cold vault of the ocean, waited for them to leave. I don’t know how many times I did it, only that I surfaced eventually to find they were gone but, I was exhausted, I couldn’t swim any longer. I tried to float, but…”

He holds me tighter, kissing the top of my head. “That’s when I showed up.”

“I almost died.”

“It’s okay. You’re safe.”

I pull away. “But I’m not. The man I saw in the salsa club. He was one of them, one of men who took me.”

Recognition flickers across Archer’s face. “There was this weird guy a couple of days ago, asking questions at the tower, seeing if we’d rescued anyone during the night. I thought it was strange at the time, but now… Now it makes sense.”

“What did you tell him?” I blurt.

“Fucking nothing, of course.”

I want to tighten into a ball and never leave the apartment again, but I urge myself to be strong, for my father if no one else, for Archer. “I don’t think they’re going to stop looking for me. And what if they find me? What then?”

Archer turns my face towards him. “Then they’ll have to get through me, and trust me, better men have tried.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ARCHER

Everything makes sense now—the paranoia, the skittishness. But frankly, I’d have preferred it if she was a mermaid. The Lacoya Cartel do not fuck around. I know that much.

“The brand, on your shoulder…”

Winter reaches for it. “It’s theirs. It marks me as the property of Serpiente.”

“And Winter, that’s your real name?”

She shakes her head. “No, it’s Willomina, but now, here, it’s Winter.”

“Why?” I ask, smiling. “Why Winter, and don’t tell me it’s because you like the cold.”

I can feel her body relaxing against me. “There was a little girl in the apartment next to us who watched Frozen twenty-four hours a day. I don’t know, but she was the first thing I thought of, all that ice and snow—things I’ve never seen before. You’ve seen it, the snow?”

“We skied every winter. Surf in the summer, head to the snow for the winter. It’s beautiful, but you think you could handle the cold? It’s not exactly Havana.”

She tucks herself in tighter to my side, the warmth of her body radiating through my shirt, the supple weight of her breasts against my chest. “How could I possibly be cold when I have you to keep me warm?”

I groan in satisfaction. “It is a promising picture, isn’t it? The two of us, a bottle of Dom chilling while we make love in front of the fire.”

“Sounds wonderful,” she purrs, before snapping upright. “If I live that long.”

I take her face with both hands, holding her gaze. “Hey, nothing is going to happen to you. Not on my watch. I’ve got contacts too.”

“You think you can fight Lacoya? They control everything, everyone.”

“Not everyone.”

“I wasn’t saying…”

“No, no, it’s fine, but what I am saying is that there are still good people out there who would be willing to help, starting with my friend in the PD.”

She seems uncertain. “I don’t know.”

I look down at the papers strewn across the coffee table heavy with her handwriting. “And all this?”

She rocks forward and picks up a sheet of paper, eyes glazed over as she skims the words. “Everything I saw during those two weeks is here—the movement of the trucks coming and going, names, any detail I could pick up. I’ve kind of got a photographic memory, but this is a dead woman’s switch—in case something happened to me. The hood they used had a hole in it. I know exactly where they took me, know the inside-outs of their entire operation. They made no attempt to hide it from me, thinking I was just another woman snatched off the streets, a lowlife.”

I pick up a paper, now realizing what I was looking at. “That’s incredible.” I shake it in the air. “This could really help, really put a fucking dent in them, maybe close them up for good.”

“I can’t have them hurting my father,” she pleads, tugging at my arm. “He’s the only family I have left.”

I look at the paper in my hand but don’t really take in the words, thinking what to do. I’m a lifeguard—simple as that. Former soldier, yes, but all this is way above my paygrade. It’s very simple. We need help.

“What are you thinking about?” asks Winter, or Willomena. I don’t know what to call her now. Everything’s been upended, but the one simple fact I have to keep her safe, to keep her close. If it means laying down my life, I’d do it, no hesitation

To hell with the consequences, right?

Yes, I retort. Consequences be damned.

She is my priority now.

I lick my lips. “You can’t let fear get the better of you. I know you think you’re being hunted down, but if you don’t keep up some kind of normality, if you don’t get outdoors, you’re going to go insane. I won’t allow it.”

She stands. “But they are out there.”

I raise a hand. “Look, there’s a beach volleyball competition tomorrow, for charity. The police, the lifeguards, and firefighters all face off. I have to go, and I think you should come. No one’s going to touch you surrounded by police.”

Secretly, I’m thinking about Liam. I know he’s going to be at the comp tomorrow, know there’s a chance Winter might confide in him if they’re face to face again. I can keep it casual, light, make it seem unforced.

Winter isn’t convinced. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll be right there,” I tell her. “I won’t let you out of my sight.”

I see the suggestion of a smile. “Do I have to wear a disguise?”

I laugh, thinking about the lost property box. “I’m sure we could come up with something.”

When she doesn’t reply, I say, “Come on, it will be good for you—sun, sand, great food, plenty of half-naked men pretending they’re in Top Gun.”

She smiles wider. “It does sound like fun.”

I pull her down to me, dragging her across my lap, holding her face in my hands. “Until then, why don’t we forget about everything and simply be together for a while, just you and me, maybe a sex toy or two?”

She laughs back, grinding up against my cock, a flat plane of heat pressing against the head of it. “You promise you’ll keep me safe?”

I look deep into the oceans of her eyes, into the pain I now know is hiding there. “You have my word.”

She reaches between us, her hand sliding underneath the waistband of my jeans and finding me hard. “Help me forget then. Take me until I’m numb.”

*

Something stirs beside me. I smile knowing it’s Winter, half-naked but fully satisfied.

Last night was incredible. Yes, the sex was next level, orgasm after orgasm blending together in a never-ending night of mutual pleasure, but it was far more than physical. Last night we connected on a level I’ve never connected on with anyone before. We were completely in tune, body and soul, moving, thinking as one. If I was being protective of Winter before, I know now I’d do anything to protect her—even catch a bullet if it came down to it. She deserves more in life than the shitty hand she’s been given.

You think she deserves you? says my inner voice. What can you offer her?

I shut that self-critic shit down real fast. I learnt a long time ago it doesn’t do you any good. That talk’s poison, liable to get you up from the inside-out.

“Mmmm,” Winter purrs, nuzzling into my shoulder. Her bare legs are tangled in mine, the heat of her sex pressed against my upper thigh. Suffice to say, it’s a welcome start to the morning.

I glance at the clock next to the bed. “We should really get up. I’ve got to be down on the sand in an hour.”

“For the big volleyball match?” she asks, one of her cheeks rosier than the other where it’s been against my chest.

A single shard of sunlight has found its way across the bed, halving her face and turning one of her eyes opalescent.

I smile back. “Like I said, it’s a real big deal. For charity yadda-yadda, but I think everyone knows the real reason is seeing a bunch guys getting sweaty with their shirts off.”

She laughs. It’s lighter than usual, unburdened. She taps against my chest with a closed fist like she’s knocking on a door. “You’re talking about this? People come from far and wide to see this?”

I block her hand with my mine, locking fingers. “Yes, as a matter of fact. This chest right here is the real moneymaker around these parts. Besides, I didn’t exactly hear you complaining last night? In fact, I’m surprised I can hear anything at all the way you were, you know…”

Her smile grows. “I was a bit loud, wasn’t I?”

“Not at all. I only think they heard you in Fort Lauderdale. No biggie.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“I’m your asshole.”

She throws her head back. “Maybe not the most romantic line I’ve heard.”

I shift sideways so she can feel my hardness, let it slowly grind against her skin. “Who needs lines when you’ve got this?”

“Careful,” she replies, reaching down to take hold of my cock, “you still need energy for today, remember?”

“Baby,” I tell her, “I’m the god-damn Energizer bunny.”

*

As usual, Main Beach is insane today. After this morning’s frivolities, we make it with less than five minutes to spare at the red-and-yellow tower colloquially known as the Ronald McDonald House. The court’s already been set up in the sand, a makeshift stage to the left with a DJ and live music, trophies ready to go for the winners, read: us. We haven’t lost a game in ten years, even if the local firefighters are a bunch of injectable gym junkies. The cops aren’t much competition. They’re just here for the free food.

I enter the tower first, finding Robbie standing there with his shirt off, a bottle of olive oil in one hand and cling wrap in the other. He appears to be applying it to his chest. I have no fucking idea what the cling wrap is for, and don’t really want to find out. “You looking to slide out of here like a seal, do some tricks for the crowd?” I suggest.

He turns about with that shit-eating grin I know all too well, Ray Bans in place. “Bro, I’ve got to look good for my fans out there.”

“Bro,” I laugh back, “you’re going to cook like a Sunday roast with all that oil.”

He spots Winter hiding behind me. “Hello there.”

I step aside, but her body language is still ten kinds of cautious. “This is Winter,” I tell Robbie.

He looks at me with an eyebrow raised saying ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this?’

I throw him a double-brow raise that replies, ‘You don’t need to know everything, dickhead.’

“Hi,” squeaks Winter meekly.

Robbie points between us. “You two are…?”

I pull Winter into my side. “Seeing each other, yeah, so paws off, big boy.”

He puts up his hands. “Hey, hey now, like I said, I’ve got plenty of fans out there. Swipe left. Swipe right. I can have my pick, baby.”

“You see what I have to deal with?” I tell Winter, which elicits a small smile.

Robbie’s right, though. These comps always deliver. I usually come home with enough numbers to fill a phonebook.

Not today, I think. They’re all yours, Robbie.

Amy enters the tower in a red one-piece looking every bit a younger Pam Anderson, but I only have eyes for Winter today.

The horn blows outside, signaling the first match is about to begin.

Robbie pushes me towards the door, smiling at Winter. “Nice to meet you, Winter, but your boy’s got business on the sand.”

I look at Amy, knowing the girls’ team won’t be playing for another few hours. “Amy, do you mind looking after Winter here, keep her at the tower?”

Amy shrugs. “Sure thing,” smiling at Winter with a wink. “Best seat in the house.”

I place my hands together. “I owe you.” I kiss Winter on the cheek as I pass. “I’ll be playing right outside. Anything you need, just ask Amy, okay?”

Winter attempts a smile. “Okay.”

Robbie and I hit the sand. It’s hot enough to peel skin off, but years of running around on it have turned my feet to Teflon. I look back to see Amy leading Winter out to the balcony on the front of the tower overlooking the makeshift volleyball court.

Robbie places his arm around my shoulder as he walk onto the court to join the others.

“Jesus,” I tell him, “you’re like a super-slippery Dwayne Johnson, and I’m talking the WWF years.”

Robbie laughs aloud, smiling and waving at the crowd. His bicep flexes against my shoulder. “You didn’t tell me anything about this mystery girl? Keeping her under wraps, huh, you dog?”

I slip, literally, out of his grip and take up my position as center, clapping my thighs and jumping on the spot to warm up. “She’s a special lady.”

“Yeah, right,” he bellows. “What’s the longest relationship you’ve been in, since I’ve known you? That girl, the one with the braces, the weird inverted nipples?”

“Brenda,” I confirm.

“She was two days, or was it three? A Benjamin says your Winter’s on her way back to her ice castle come tomorrow morning.”

I wave it off. “No, she’s different.”

Robbie cups his ear. “Excuse me. I didn’t quite catch that.”

“You heard me fucking fine, and she’s staying. I’m looking after her.”

He reaches down and grabs his dick, a cheer going up from a group of college girls to the left. “Looking after her with that shiny schlong of yours, I bet.”

“Beats your car crash of a cock.”

He blows me a kiss. “You fucking love it.”

The firefighters enter the court on the other side of the net in matching red speedos, flexing like it’s Mr. Universe. The crowd goes wild.

I stretch out as best I can.

“What’s the matter?” asks Robbie. “Long night?”

“Something like that,” I smile back, looking back to the tower and seeing Winter wave. I wave back wondering how I got so damn lucky. I know she’s what I’ve been searching for. Now I’ve just got to keep her close, keep her safe until I can untangle the mess she’s wrapped up in.

“You know they’re making a Top Gun 2, right?” says Robbie, flexing one bicep and then the other like the aforementioned Mr. Johnson.

“Really?” I reply. “Tom’s got to be, what, sixty?”

“Fucking Maverick hasn’t aged a day in thirty years. Real time-travel shit.”

The second siren goes off signaling the start of the match. I squat down, placing my hands together, glancing over at Robbie. “You ready for this then, Maverick?”

He smiles back, teeth blinding in the sun. “Bring it on, Iceman.”

It’s easy pickings. The firefighters put on a show, but they ain’t got game. The cops don’t fare much better.

This year is different in one way, though. I struggle to divide my attention between the game and the tower where Winter stands watching on. I look back one time to see her gone, see her emerge again with a water in hand, Amy pointing at the ball flying for my head. I barely managed to dig it back into play.

I meet Winter at the tower after the second game.

“I’ll leave you to it,” says Amy, giving me a sly wink as she disappears into the tower.

I lean over the railing.

“You’re sweating,” Winter notes.

I look down to the side of the court where Robbie’s busy mingling with the crowd… or every attractive, single girl in a two block radius rather. “At least I’m not a human oil spill.”

“He seems nice, your friend.”

I nod, squinting against the sun even though I’ve got my sunglasses on. “We’re tight here. A family.”

“It must be nice,” she says, sadness returning to her eyes.

I reach up to her face. “Don’t worry about your father. We’ll sort it out. I promise.”

“How can you promise that?” she says. “The cartel… You don’t know what they’re like.”

I’ve had a couple of run-ins with drug runners, mules… Desperate people doing desperate things, but she’s right in one way. Direct contact with the cartel? No, even if I have seen their handiwork first hand. Still, the bigger players tend to keep a lower profile on local soil, preferring to work remotely.

“As I said,” I tell her, “you have my word.”

The siren goes again. “I’ve got one more game, sorry. After that, I’m yours—sweat and all.”

She smiles. “Who’s left?”

I look down at the court. “Paramedics, but don’t be fooled by their scrawny appearance. These guys can actually play.”

She leans forward to kiss me, her lower lip sticking to mine in the heat as she pulls away. “Better put on your game face then.”

I bring my hand down over my face, changing my expression to a serious scowl.

“Archer!” Robbie shouts from the court. “Get your ass down here.”

I jump off the railing back down to the sand. “Wish me luck.”

“Luck!” Winter shouts.

The last match is tighter than the rest, but we still manage to pull ahead, the poor paramedics forced to concede.

I whoop and holler with Robbie, the crowd in a frenzy by now. He’s busy lapping it up, climbs the umpire’s chair to beat his chest and throw water over the crowd.

I decide to leave him to it, turning around to find Winter but spotting something in the crowd to the right. It’s quick, fleeting, a blur of black, but I have an instinct for these things, know trouble when I see it. But just like that the mystery person I think I saw, the man in black, is gone, blended back into the crowd.

I dismiss it and climb back up to the tower, taking hold of Winter and spinning her around. The crowd below us gives a small cheer.

“Well done,” she says, unable to keep the happiness from her face.

I lead her into the tower. “Come.”

There’s another female lifeguard inside. She tosses me a water. “Quite a show.”

I twist off the top and drink the entire bottle in seconds, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “Thanks,” I reply, dropping the empty bottle into the bin and taking hold of Winter again, leaning her over the small table we keep up here. No one seems to be taking notice, and I wouldn’t care if they were.

“How should we celebrate?” she asks.

I’m about to reply when someone taps me on the shoulder.

I turn around to find a grinning Robbie standing there. I’m about to tell him to fuck off when he holds up a set of keys. “You might be needing these.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

WINTER

It’s close to midnight. Outside, the beach is a dark teal, little moon to provide illumination bar a light shimmer across the surface of the ocean. The sound of the waves is only muffled by the windows of the tower—a living, breathing energy.

At first I didn’t know why Robbie was giving Archer the keys to the lifeguard tower, but now it all makes sense, as does our shopping excursion to Agent Provocateur following the tournament.

I’ve never worn lingerie before, but feeling the silk against my skin, the delicate fabric sitting against my most intimate area, I’m starting to understand the appeal. Archer was like a kid in a candy store. I had to stop him before he spent his life savings buying everything in the place. We almost did it right there in the changing room, but Archer assured me this would be worth the wait.

I didn’t think about the cartel, about my precarious position here at all during the day, too caught up in the excitement, of being with Archer, to care.

The view is impressive, I think, my thoughts not lingering on the ocean, but the incredible specimen of a man before me.

I seat myself on the desk near the front windows.

Archer closes the door and stops there, watching.

“Aren’t you going to lock it?” I suggest.

He starts to walk forward. “And where would be the fun in that be? Why do you think I wanted you here, at my place of work, so to speak, taking you here so I can think about it every day, think about how you sound when you come over and over and over again.”

My greater concern is someone seeing us from the beach, but I remind myself it’s darker in here than it is out there. No one will be able to see in even if it’s like looking out of a fishbowl inside.

He stops before me. “Why don’t you spread your legs for me?”

A hot blush runs up my spine, moving into my shoulders and neck. Slowly, I spread my legs. Given the obvious and growing bulge in his pants, it looks like he’s enjoying it.

His eyes light with the hint of a smile. “Good girl.”

Just having him watch me is such a turn-on.

He dips his head. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say those new panties of yours are already wet. Have you been touching yourself?”

My cheeks burn with shame even though I’ve done nothing. I play along regardless, reaching down with a tentative finger and hooking the crotch of my panties, pulling them to the side and allowing a second finger to roam across the swollen bud of my clit above. It’s not long before my breathing’s short and fast, each breath rushing in and out of my fast burning body.

Watching, Archer slides a hand down the front of his trousers. I can see it working below the fabric. Seeing him touch himself only sends fresh sensation to my core.

“Slide a finger inside yourself,” he says, eyes glued to the dark space between my legs.

I nod and press my longest finger inside myself as deep as it will go, right to the second knuckle. He’s right. I’m wet, my hot sex begging for the kind of attention I know only Archer can provide.

“Yes. Beautiful.”

I stare at him across the space of the tower through half-lidded eyes.

With his free hand he reaches down and unzips his trousers, pulling his cock through and continuing to stroke it before me. He concentrates on the head of it, balling his fingers before stroking back down over the shaft. “Are you thinking about my cock right now, how it would feel inside you, filling you up?”

“Yes,” I murmur, drawing my finger out of my center to concentrate on my clit, rubbing it while I keep my eyes fixed on his hand and swollen cock.

We start to match rhythm, our hands moving in time to one another, our breathing rushing in and out in tight syncopation.

I think of hot summer nights spent back home beneath the sheets, my hand working against myself. I never came, though. I didn’t have someone in mind when I masturbated back then , but I sure do now.

My mouth hangs open, my sex slick and wet.

“You’re making me so fucking hot,” he says, voice clipping, the wet sounds we’re making filling the small room and only seeming to turn him on more.

He pulls lightly on his scrotum, his eyes never leaving mine, that intangible connection between us remaining unbroken as I begin to lift towards orgasm.

I’m panting, barely able to get in enough air. I know I’m close to release, but deeper still I’m quietly hoping he’ll let go of his cock and come to me, press it into my body. I don’t just want to come. I want him to feel me come, to feel my pussy grip and squeeze his cock. The thought almost sends me over the edge.

I concentrate on my clit, the sensation fast becoming overwhelming. I bite down on my lower lip to stave it off, to contain the sounds I want to scream out aloud.

I’m so close.

He loosens his top button, his pants falling to the floor in a puddle. He steps out of them, walking towards me still pumping away at his cock. His eyes are hot, full of desire.

I bite the inside of my cheek, anything to hold my climax back a little bit longer.

When he’s a foot away he reaches for a manual of some sort on the desk beside me, smacking it lightly on the desk.

Thwack.

The front of the manual is laminated plastic, spiral bound. I begin to realize what he’s planning.

His stare is hard and unmoving. The manual meets his palm again and I flinch at the noise, struggling to contain the building excitement at what I know is inevitable.

“You’ve been a bad girl, haven’t you?”

I shake my head slowly, playing along. “Yes, sir.”

He waves the manual in the air, testing it. “Do you think you need to be punished?”

“Yes,” spills from my lips.

“Turn around. Put your hands on the desk.” His tone is stern and firm, far from the Archer I’m used to.

I turn and place my palms on the desk, pushing my ass out in wait.

I flinch again when I feel his hand, but it’s only to lift the back of my dress up, to place it in the shallow of my lower back and bare my ass for good.

“That’s a very pretty thong,” he says. “Did you choose it yourself?” I don’t have to turn around to see the smile.

The manual lands hard and flat against my right ass cheek. I yelp in surprise and shock, easing when his hand smooths over the spot. “Don’t move,” he commands.

He presses me down into the desk, but the next strike doesn’t come for quite a while. Again, he brings the manual down hard onto the other buttock. I cry out, my face burning with shame and strange emotions I haven’t felt since I was a child.

This time I feel his lips press against the burn, unable to control the moan that falls from my open mouth.

I can’t get my head around why I’m so turned on by all this, why being hurt like this can somehow feel so good, can provide so much pleasure. It’s a strange contradiction.

I wait for the next blow, shivering when I feel the hard butt of his hand sawing between my legs. Strong sensations flood through me.

“Yes,” he says. “You do like that, don’t you?”

Another blow comes unexpectedly, right in the center of my ass, the very bottom of the manual kissing my lace-covered flesh.

His hand returns, a finger snaking below the lace to press against my clit. I rise almost immediately to orgasm.

“Don’t stop,” I moan.

“It’s okay,” he coos. “You can come. Come all over my fingers, baby.”

I’m panting long and deep, reaching between my legs to hold his hand in place, his finger continuing to rub against my clit.

The climax hits me hard and fast. I shout aloud, hot desire leaking from my core, wave after wave of pleasure washing over me until I no longer see the ocean ahead but a mix of technicolor. My legs shake, new heels rattling against the floorboards.

I close my eyes and it starts over again, Archer easing up on the pressure and allowing me to slowly glide back to earth.

I turn around to look at him, see him slide his still-wet finger into his mouth and moan his approval, his tongue swirling around the tip.

He takes me by the thighs, spinning me around to face him before instructing me to lift my arms above my head.

“I want to see you,” he says, voice rough. “All of you.”

He lifts the also-new dress up and away, his heated stare boring into every inch of my exposed body. A light, cool air works its way between my thighs, desire cooling on the skin there.

With a single snap he unclips my bra, pulling it away and tossing it into the corner. My nipples are tight and needy, a tawny blue in the moonlight.

He kneels, peeling my panties away and lifting my leg. As he does so, the colder air touches the heated apex of my pussy, my folds still wet.

He spreads my legs wider apart, dipping his head to examine me. “You’re fucking soaking wet,” he comments, reaching up and dipping two joined fingers into my pussy. He draws them out and uses them to spread my need over the head of his cock, palming it into his hand. Not once do his eyes leave mine.

All I know is that I need to be filled, and now. Nothing short of his cock will do it.

“I want you,” I tell him, the deep voice that comes from my mouth unrecognizable.

“I’m yours,” he says, standing and unbuttoning his shirt.

I push the cotton to the side and find the bronzed, chiseled muscle below. I smile as his skin comes alive against my fingertips, seeking out every crevice and fold.

He presses his lips to mine, a hand moving to the back of my head and drawing me forward, fingers caught in my hair. He takes hold of my hips, grinding his length against me.

“Tell me what you want, baby.”

“I want you to…” I start, hesitating.

He places a finger on my lower lip, pulling it down to expose my gums. “Say it.”

I draw in a breath. “I want you to fuck me.”

To my surprise, it doesn’t sound corny or cliché, but instead sexy and seductive. It’s empowering.

He lifts me by the hips back onto the desk, coming up between my open legs.

I hear the ocean, louder now, in my ears, the rush and pull of it matching my labored breathing.

“Please,” I beg him, reaching for him, “put it inside me.”

“Put what inside you?”

“Your cock,” I beg. “Put your cock inside me.”

I shuffle forward, but still he holds back, finally moving forward to settle himself in my folds.

I’m so wet I know there’s going to be no resistance.

He pushes into me, sliding it until he can go no further, the full length of his cock taken from the very first stroke.

That sensation flows out and folds over itself, my head tingling with it.

I tense and release as he draws back.

“You’re so fucking tight,” he whispers, thrusting forward again. He pulls back and presses in again.

I hiss and start to shift, anything to take him deeper, to take him all and finally satiate this growing need inside me.

My left eye starts to twitch, my toes curling.

With effort, I manage to lever myself off the desk and move to the edge of it, reaching around to hold his ass. I dig my nails into the hard flesh there, beckoning him on.

His lips press against my forehead, his hips swinging forward and filling me so completely, so full I don’t know how I will ever be able to top this.

His body slides against mine. We’re on, Archer leaning on his forearms and my nails digging deeper and deeper. He fills my mouth with his tongue, my soaking pussy with his cock, his face shifting away every now and then to look down at me.

It’s not long before he’s increasing the speed of his thrusts, swinging into me like a human battering ram, each thrust inching me further and further across the desk. The manual lies discarded beside me, Principles of Advanced Resuscitation, forcing a hot flicker of need out from my core.

That deep ache inside my core starts to intensify, sensation building and building as I beg him loudly for more, to go harder, faster…

I move with him, lifting my hips to meet his, heels dropping to the floor as I lock my ankles at the base of his spine so he can bottom out inside me. The slight adjustment of angle provides a whole new wealth of pleasure, better than anything I’ve felt in my entire life by my own hand, better than our first time.

It’s different. We’re not making love. No, this is sex, fucking, hard and fast just like in the movies, raw and primal.

With every thrust he pushes me closer and closer to the brink, fucking me full until he scoops me from the desk completely, holding me afloat in the air by my ass, letting me lift and drop onto his cock.

I gasp against his shoulder, nipples tight against the hard plane of his upper chest. I can feel the tension in his biceps as he holds me there, the strain of it.

When a finger slides between the cheeks of my ass, when it finds the tight knot of my taint and presses there, so taboo, I explode.

I bite down on his shoulder and scream out a loud and profane release.

“Fuck, I’m going to…” but he can’t get the rest of the words out.

Holding me with one hand I feel him reach down and pull himself free, his cock jerking against the bottom of my ass in release, ribbons of heated desire falling to the floor.

He jerks again, lifting me up and down with the motion, my own climax refusing to release me.

Groaning, he stumbles back, collapsing us onto the sofa to the side of the room. I sit there straddling him, his still-convulsing cock caught between my ass cheeks.

We regulate our breathing together, doing our best to gather oxygen again and find some sense of normality.

At any moment I expect the door to open, for a flashlight to expose us, but it never comes.

I can feel his heartbeat against my ribcage—solid and strong.

Place my head against his shoulder, my hair matted against it, and look towards the floorboards where we were just standing. “Quite the mess you made there.”

He simply smiles, running a hand through my hair. “Speak for yourself.”

A solemn quiet fills the space and I feel compelled to dismiss it.

“I’m still scared,” I tell him. Whatever was holding me back from truly expressing myself is gone. I’m completely open around him, feel like I can tell him absolutely anything.

“You don’t have to be,” he replies, “and tomorrow I’m going to prove it—prove you can do damn near anything.”

Curiosity builds. “Why, what are we doing?”

His only reply is a wide, sheepish grin I know is going to be the undoing of me.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

ARCHER

We arrive at the airfield just after noon. The sun’s high in the sky, the humidity like walking into a brick wall, but the wind’s low and heavens clear.

Oh, yes. Conditions are perfect for flying.

Getting out of the car, Winter sees the planes, looking over the roof of the truck at me with a questioning expression on her face. “You want to take me on a plane?”

I look up at the sky, smiling with my hands on my hips. “No. I want you to jump from a plane.”

Her eyes go wide. “No. Absolutely no way.”

She goes to get back into the car, almost closing the door before I grab it with my hand and crouch down beside her. I place a reassuring hand on her upper thigh, momentarily consider ditching this idea and taking her somewhere a little private for a flight of a different kind, but I know this will be good for her. There’s no better way to face your fear, whatever it may be, than throwing yourself out of a plane, letting go of everything.

I’m not going to tell her the first time I skydived I was pretty much pissing my pants, or that I had trouble with my ’chute, or that I ran off course and almost ended up in powerlines. No, think I’ll keep those details to myself.

“You have been flying before, haven’t you?”

She shakes her head.

Oh.

“Well, there’s nothing to be afraid of, and as for the skydiving, you’ll be strapped to me, safe as a teddy bear. All you have to do is enjoy the ride.”

She doesn’t look convinced.

“Look,” I inch closer, pointing up at the sky, “you get up there, you jump, and trust me, you’re going to feel a hell of a lot better. You’ll be untouchable, a real badass.”

And finally I’m rewarded with a small smile. “Like you?”

I slap my chest. “Fuck yeah like me. These idiots who took you, all that shit? Gone. You’ll walk out of here a foot taller with actual balls swinging between your legs.”

“I don’t, ah, think I want balls.”

“Yeah, kind of a bad analogy, but you know what I mean. At least come inside and meet the guys. They don’t bite. I promise.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’ll come in, but I’m not saying I’ll do it.”

A yes is always better than a no. Any salesman will tell you that. Keep them saying yes and they’ll agree to anything. “That’s my girl.”

She eyes me curiously. “I’m your girl now, am I?”

I look around. “I don’t see any other burly, handsome guys trying to claim you.”

Another ex-Army buddy of mine, Gary, meets us inside, coming around the desk to take my hand. “Archer, my boy. Haven’t seen you around here in a while.”

“He’s brought girls here before?” Winter asks, much to my surprise.

Gary shakes his head. “Actually, you’re the first,” he says, looking to me, “which means you must be all kinds of special.”

“How much is he paying you to say that?” she queries.

Gary laughs, deep and gravelly owing to the bullet he took to the neck in Afghanistan. “On what they’re paying lifeguards these days? He’d be lucky to have two dimes to rub together.”

“Hey, hey,” I butt in, “I’ll have you know I’ve got plenty of savings.”

Gary just smiles. “What do they say? A bag of pennies does not a fortune make?”

I shove him in the chest. “Thanks for that, Socrates. Now, you going to get us up in the air or what?”

Gary looks to Winter. “You know what you’re getting yourself into here, love?”

She shakes her head.

“Yeah, thought as much.”

*

We run through the practice, the briefing, Winter still unsure about the whole thing. Thankfully, Gary’s you-can-do-it attitude wins her over. Even I’m surprised when, suited up, she steps towards me beside the plane.

“You look adorable,” I tell her, and she does in her red-and-white striped jumpsuit, a sexy candy cane come to life.

She holds the side of the jumpsuit, pulling it out like a bird’s wing. “I look like I’m wearing a diaper.”

“You want one?” I joke. “It can be arranged.”

She rolls her eyes again, looking past me to the plane. “We’re going up in that?”

Gary walks past us on his way to the cockpit. “Come on. That’s no way to talk about ol’ Lucifer here.”

“O-kay,” she says to me, waiting until Gary is inside the plane, “so he just called the plane ‘old’ and it’s named Lucifer for crying out loud, and again, you want my first flying experience to be in an oversized tin can literally named after Satan?”

“Hey, he was an angel once,” I note.

“Right before he lost his wings and crashed down to earth, yes. I’m familiar.”

I take hold of her, nipping off her next words with a deep kiss. I lean into her ear. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” she sighs.

“So trust me when I say you won’t regret this.”

She exhales long and deep. “Okay, but if we die I’m going to come back as a ghost and haunt the crap out of you.”

I take her hand. “Alright then, but I’d rather you stayed corporal. You know, for later.”

It’s a short flight up to the jump altitude of twelve-thousand feet. It’s loud, cold, and certainly not the most comfortable way to fly, but Winter’s here strapped onto the front of me. That’s honestly further than I thought she’d get once I discovered she’d never flown before.

She is unusually quiet on the way up, slightly pale, but I dismiss it as nerves more than anything else.

Gary turns around and gives me the thumbs up from the cockpit.

Waddling, I shift us to the open door and set us up to jump. “Are you ready?” I shout, the green go light blinking on and buzzer sounding.

“No,” she squeaks back, her voice breaking.

“Good,” I shout back, and jump.

It’s been a while since I dived, but that first hit of freefall gets you every time. The wind rushes up into your face, your body sending warning signals left, right and center, adrenaline pumping hard.

Winter gets her arms out, as instructed, her dark hair whipping past me.

I expect her to remain silent, but she’s definitely vocal. At first I think she’s screaming until I realize she’s actually whooping and hollering, loving every minute. That shy, caged-up girl is gone—at least up here in the sky. She’s free as a fucking bird.

Below you can see all the way from Bills Baggs to Surfside, the full stretch of coast and the ocean cutting into it bright and blue.

Before I know it I’m pulling the ’chute and guiding us back to earth, Winter squirming against me and provoking one of the weirdest erections I’ve had in my life.

“You good?” I ask, raising my voice to be heard over the wind.

“That was…”

She’s breathing hard, trying to find the voice. “It’s… I…”

“It’s awesome, right?”

“Yes.”

She sounds like a kid at Christmas, all bubbled-up joy and uncontrollable emotion. It’s beautiful seeing her this way, seeing that look of pensive fear give way to something greater.

We land a little harder than expected in the drop zone, a skip and a jump finally putting us onto land.

We collapse together onto the parachute laughing. That joy I see on her face is fucking addictive, pure and unbridled. This could have gone much differently, but I’m ecstatic she’s enjoying herself.

“Wow,” she says, leaning forward to kiss me, looking at me sideways, half her face tinted red from the color of the parachute below.

“That was…” She shakes her head, still unsure how to summarize it. “The fall, the flying… I didn’t think I’d enjoy it. I was scared at first, but when we jumped…”

“Tell me, are you a badass?”

Her entire demeanor has changed. “Yes,” she says, voice firm. “I am a badass.”

“Say it again,” I demand. “Fucking sing it. Shout it out loud so all of Miami can hear.”

She jumps up onto her feet, cupping her hands around her mouth. “I AM A BADASS!” she yells, laughing.

“Good to know,” says Gary, walking over from the main building.

He stops, standing over me, the view up at his crotch an instant boner-killer. He reaches down to help me up. “Things went well, I take it?”

I wink at Winter, smiling wide. “As they say, if you want to experience the elements, get the fuck out of the vehicle.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

WINTER

My adrenaline is still pumping an hour later. I feel like I could conquer the world, that not even the stupid cartel can touch me. I mean, I jumped out of a freaking plane today. Archer is right: I am a badass.

We stop at a corner shop restaurant called La Sandwicherie, a popular spot owing to the line near the counter, a strange collection of cars parked out front—a fire engine red Lamborghini right next to a period-correct Kombi.

Archer shows me how to order. I opt for saucisson sec, or French salami, on wheat with lettuce, tomato, peppers, French pickles and mayonnaise. Archer goes for something far more manly—a sandwich stuffed with so much meat it’s basically a butcher shop.

We sit on two stools outside watching the flow of people and eating our sandwiches.

“I think this is the best sandwich I’ve had in my life,” I tell Archer, talking with my mouth full, two hands wrapped around the sandwich in question.

He finished his a full five minutes ago; took him all of two bites. “It’s a bit of Miami tradition, this place. There are sub places all around here now, but the difference here is the quality of the ingredients, plus they’re open super late. Trust me, there’s nothing to cure a hangover quite like a bowl of hot chicken noodle soup, chaser Cuban sandwich with pulled pork, swiss cheese, pickles…” He licks his lips. “God damn it I’m getting hungry again.”

I work my knee between his legs. “You know your ‘Cuban’ sandwich isn’t actually Cuban, right? I don’t know where you Americans come up with these things. That said, I’m kind of hungry too, though it’s not a sandwich I’m after.”

“More like a foot-long then?”

“You wish, buddy.”

He shifts himself a bit closer, the bulge of his cock pressing up against my knee. “You didn’t seem to be complaining earlier.”

I put my sandwich down, meeting his eyes. “I will admit you have certain… skills in the bedroom.”

“Baby,” he laughs, “I wrote the book on sex, and trust me, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

“Is that so?”

“It is. You must have some fantasies. Some kinky thing you’ve been wanting to try all these years now you’ve lost your… you know.”

I play coy. “No, I don’t. And what is it I’ve lost now?”

He just smiles on back, holding up his hand. “There’s a whole chapter dedicated to my pinky finger alone.”

“You’re going to play ‘This Little Piggy Went to Market’ with me?”

He sits back. “Well, I’ve never heard it quite called that before, but sure.”

I laugh back, surprised at how easy-going we’ve become around each other. “Shouldn’t I meet your parents first?”

Archer sips from his cola. “They’re down in the Keys living large. They retired maybe five, six years ago now, got a tiny place down there you can barely swing a cat in, but they’re happy, you know. The water is a short walk, there’s this trendy vegan café on the corner Dad goes nuts for… They’re happy.”

“You sound like you have a lot of respect for them.”

The sun’s getting lower, Archer’s face becoming more golden by the minute. “I do. They’re hard-working people who have devoted their lives to others. Dad was in the Army too, Mom worked in a retirement home for thirty years. I guess I saw all that and wanted to give back in my own way, you know? I want to leave the world a better place than when I found it. I want to make a mark, even if it’s one life saved, one tragedy prevented. You can’t save everyone, I know, but I can sure as hell try.”

“How many people do you think you’ve saved?”

“As a lifeguard? I used to keep count. I think everyone does when they start out, but after a while the number doesn’t really matter. The cards of thanks you get do, seeing someone you’ve saved come back three, four years later, some pregnant or with a new partner. Those are the small details I love, where you can see the impact you’ve had, can actually see the tangible result of your actions.”

“I’m a lucky girl.”

He leans forward and bumps into me with his shoulder. “Because you fell for a schmuck like me? You could have had your pick of Miami sugar daddies.”

I shrug. “But I’ve got you, haven’t I? And I wouldn’t trade that for the world.”

He leans forward to kiss me, the sugary aftertaste of cola still on his lips, his tongue. I melt into it, allow myself to fall slowly forward until I almost send us both skittering over.

I straighten, laughing, hooking my hair over my ear.

He stands, helping me up. “Come on. Let’s get back to the apartment and start working our way through the Kama Sutra.”

“The what?” I ask, knowing full well what it is.

He gives me a playful slap on the butt as we walk back towards the truck. “Why, my very favorite picture book.”

“Oh, so it’s not The Little Engine That Could?” I tease.

He pinches my left ass cheek. “There’s nothing little about my engine, baby.”

The drive back, the sun setting, is almost a spiritual experience. I never thought I’d be here, in America—illegally, yes, but I am here. Cuba’s known for being bold and bright, but everything here in Miami seems turned up to eleven. It’s the excess, I realize, the money, that unusual contrast between the old and new, the kitsch and avant-garde.

And I freaking love it.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

ARCHER

Owing to a street carnival, the road is blocked ahead. I decide to park the truck and walk us the couple of blocks back the apartment. It’s such a beautiful night out anyhow it seems a shame to waste it driving.

Winter’s happy for the exercise, seems wrapped up in the carnival.

“What’s it living in Cuba like, permanently?” I ask, curious to relate it to my own experience there.

“Is that a serious question?”

“It is.”

She brings a finger to her lips. “Hmm, well, I guess you could say it’s like living in a kind of musical nirvana.”

“How so?” I press.

“There’s always music playing wherever you go. People don’t care if it’s loud or boisterous. They dance and sing and move, all ages… In Cuba you can dance anywhere and everywhere, any hour of the day. It’s beautiful. What’s more, you’re never ridiculed if you’re not a good dancer. Even if you’re the world’s worst dancer, but you try all the same, people will embrace you, hug and kiss you. Basically, go crazy.”

“So, what you’re saying is I’d get a lot of hugs and kisses if I started dancing in the street in Cuba?”

She bumps into me, looking up into my eyes. “Cubans love to see yumas dancing.”

“Yumas?”

“Foreigners.”

“You don’t think I could pass for a local?”

She kind of pouts and bites her lips in a quizzical way that’s adorable. “Ah, no.”

“So it’s just the music you like?”

“No, it’s the entire lifestyle there. For example, there are no big billboard ads or magazines trying to push a certain type of beauty, this product to cure that or make you look better. No, I tell you, every woman in Cuba loves their body. It doesn’t matter their age or shape, they’re proud of who they are. That is a beautiful thing.”

“You are a beautiful thing.”

“Will you take me back there one day?”

“To Cuba?”

We stop to cross the road, a cavalcade of costumed performers streaming past. “I don’t think I can. I’m too scared of the consequences. I couldn’t risk it.”

My cell starts to buzz in my pocket.

I signal Winter to give me a second, stepping into the shadow of a nearby building where I’m sure she won’t be able to hear. I bring my phone to my ear and cover the other with my free hand to block out some of the noise of the parade. “Liam,” I answer, “long time no speak.”

I can picture him smiling on the other end of the line. It sounds like he’s at work, the general cacophony that is the central Miami cop shop. “It was great to catch up the other night, brother.”

“It was. Just like old times.”

“Only without me having to be wheeled out of there with my pants full of piss and my head full of nails.”

“Almost like old times,” I correct.

“You got your phone?”

“I did, thanks.”

“Look,” he says, “I was thinking about what you were saying the other night, about that girl, was it? The one you found on the beach?”

I look over at Winter, give her a small wave. “Sure, sure. What about her?”

“We’ve known each other a long time, right? I can tell when something’s up.”

I’m not too sure what he’s getting at here.

“What I’m saying,” he continues, “is that I’d like to help. When I showed up at the apartment, she seemed… I don’t know… scared or something. It is the same girl, right?”

I don’t know where he’s going with this. “She’s fine. Really, but thanks for your concern.”

“I saw something on her shoulder, the other night—kind of like a weird tattoo or something. You know anything about that?”

Liam’s not a stupid guy. He’s probably seen the brand on Winter’s shoulder and made the connection to the cartel, which might make things a whole lot more complex. I know I can count on him to be discreet, and yeah, he probably could help, but Winter said she didn’t want any police involvement. I have to respect that.

“Can’t say I’ve really asked her about it,” I lie.

“You down on the strip?” he asks, breaking the silence that follows.

I look around, my fingers raking through my hair. “Ah, yeah. Just swung by La Sandwicherie, about to head back to my place.”

“Cool, cool,” he says. “Well, I just thought I’d call anyhow, let you know I’m here.”

“I appreciate it,” I tell him, “and if I do need anything, I’ll call, okay?”

“Okay.”

“What about you?” I ask, swinging the conversation around. “Working late?”

“I could work twenty-four hours a day and not put a dent in the bills I’ve got stacked up. Damn debtors got me by the balls.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s my own stupid fucking fault. You go on, have yourself a good time with your mystery mermaid there.”

“I will,” I laugh, “and don’t you go working too hard.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

We sign off and I hang up, sliding the cell back into my trouser pocket and walking back towards Winter, silhouetted by the low-hanging sun.

“Who was that?” she asks.

“An old Army friend,” I reply, which isn’t technically a lie.

“You seem to have a lot of old Army friends.”

I take her hand and we start walking. “What can I say? I’m a likable guy.”

She puts her hand on my chest. “Stop it.”

“Being likable? Shit, I don’t know. It’s kind of my thing,” I smile.

We arrive at the apartment building and enter through the rear because the crowd’s so thick out front. I don’t even know what the parade’s for, but that’s the thing about living here in Miami—it’s a party a minute and you rarely know why.

Once we’re inside, I direct Winter into a small alcove under the main stairs that used to be where a payphone was located but is now a quiet nook with an ugly patch on the wall where the phone used to be.

I press Winter up against the wall and bring my lips to her neck, her arms wrapped around me. “Archer…”

“I don’t know if I can make it up the stairs you’re making me so god damn hot.”

Her words are spoken directly into my ear. “You want to have me here, don’t you?”

“You’re reading my mind.”

I run a hand down her side and lift her thigh, my fingers walking towards the heat of her sex.

My cock’s a fucking rod of steel in my pants. A little more pressure and I’m pretty sure they’re going to split.

I slowly pull the crotch of her panties away and move a testing finger towards her pussy, not surprised to find it wet, but this wet? It’s a god damn pool party down here.

“Fuck me you’re wet,” I announce.

She reaches down, rubbing my cock through my pants. “And you’re hard. Isn’t that how this works?”

I tilt my hand and the finger in question is basically sucked into her body, gliding easily to the second knuckle in her heat and wetness. It’s exquisite inside her.

I start to move it in and out, lightly pushing her up against the wall, letting the bulge of my cock press against her clit. It doesn’t matter there are layers of fabric between us, that it’s not skin on skin. The sheer friction alone sends a flush of rosy red to her cheeks, her head angling back against the wall.

I bury my nose in her hair, breathing her in, the night air mixing with the sounds of the parade outside and the whole thing a heady mess of sexuality.

I can’t believe how quickly this has escalated. I press my hard body against her, add a second finger to join the first and slowly fill her out. My free hand moves over a breast, a nipple, firm, under my hand.

I know need’s building in her core, her pussy, the way it grows wetter and hotter around my joined fingers. I continue to work them in and out, watching her with eyes the color of an upturned iceberg, watching the way she succumbs to me body and soul, the tether growing shorter and shorter.

The idea of making her come in here, in such a public space, is beyond hot.

I withdraw my fingers, the crotch of her panties coming back into place. I run the two digits into my mouth still hot with her desire, take my time tasting them in front of her and watching the way she melts in return with both shock and delight.

“That’s… hot,” she moans, struggling to get the words out properly.

I groan back as she uses the butt of her hand to press against the glans of my cock. “You want to be inside me, don’t you? Inside my warm, wet little pussy.”

“You’re getting awfully good at this dirty talk thing, you know.”

She strokes downwards to my balls. “I guess you could say I’m being taught by the best.”

“And I’ve got a lot more to teach yet.”

“Like what?”

“Like the insane pleasure taking your ass is going to provide.”

“My ass?” she laughs. “I don’t think you’d fit.”

“We’ll see about that.”

If I don’t watch out all this talk’s going to make me come before I even get my cock out of my pants, but that’s the effect Winter has on me. A single word, a simple gesture, and I’m fucking putty in her hands. It’s oddly freeing, in a way.

I’m about to take out my cock, to slide it in when I hear the rear door click open and someone enter with what sounds like grocery bags.

“Wait here,” I mouth, stepping out just as one of the guys from the lower levels enters.

“Oh, hi,” he says, wrestling with his grocery bags.

“How you doing?” he asks.

“Good, man. Good.”

He gives me a smile and shifts past me, completely oblivious to Winter still with her back against the wall in the nook.

I consider finishing the job, but it’s peak hour at the apartment block, people constantly coming in and out. I don’t think one of my fellow residents finding me engaged in hot, sloppy coitus will go down too well with the building owners.

I reach out for Winter’s hand. “Come on,” I say. “We’ll finish this upstairs.”

“Only if I get to come first,” she says, peeling herself from the wall and flattening her skirt down.

I growl as she comes out into the hallway, leaning forward to kiss her, to taste that sweet mouth I’ve been craving all damn day. “As you wish.”

Giggling like a couple of teenagers, we head up the stairs.

On our way up, a door to our left swings open, a woman in her eighties poking her cotton wool head out. “You having a party or something up there, Archie?”

I stop, can’t be bothered correcting her. “Mrs. McKinsley, how are you?”

“Sounds like you’ve got a pack of elephants stomping around. You know the rules about parties and gatherings. Anything like that must…”

“…be approved by management,” I finish. “I know the rules, Mrs. McKinsley. Are you sure it wasn’t the parade outside?”

“Is the parade happening on the floor above me, wise-ass? No, it’s damn well not.”

“Alright, Mrs. McKinsley.”

She gives a sharp ‘hmpf’. “Well, keep it the hell down, will you? Some of us are trying to watch Jeopardy, you know.”

“Nice to see you too, Mrs. McKinsley,” I salute, though it’s to a closed door.

“Neighbors,” I shrug to Winter, who laughs beside me.

“She didn’t seem very friendly.”

“After the racket we’ve been making, do you blame her?”

But as I think on it, I’m pretty sure that’s not what Mrs. McKinsley is talking about. I’ve had girls up in the apartment who could shatter glass they were screaming so hard, girls you’d think I was murdering with my cock up there, but no one’s ever complained, least of all Mrs. McKinsley with her hearing aids all amped up.

It’s curious, is what it is.

“Everything alright?” asks Winter, sensing the shift in my demeanor.

“I’m not sure,” I reply cryptically.

I get a strange feeling as we ascend the stairs leading to my apartment. It deepens when we reach the hall and I see the front door’s open.

Fuck me.

I push Winter around my waist. “Stay behind me, okay?” I tell her.

Her eyes are wide and I know what she’s thinking, but I’ve got to be sure and I don’t want her downstairs or out in the open.

I move slowly past the threshold, listening for anything in the apartment, but it appears quiet.

I wait and move inside, and that’s when I know we’re in deep, deep fucking shit.

“Oh, my god,” says Winter, moving out from behind me.

The entire apartment has been trashed. Every print and painting on the wall has been ripped down and torn apart. Even the carpet’s been shredded and lifted up. The kitchen cupboards are open, plates and saucers forming a demolition pile of porcelain on the floor.

Now I realize what Mrs. McKinsley was talking about.

I fight down the shock and move carefully to the bedrooms and bathroom, but they’ve suffered the same fate.

I stop and allow myself to think, Winter still standing in the middle of the lounge with her hands on her head.

So the cartel knows she’s here. They came looking for her. That’s clear. When they couldn’t find her they tossed the place, but looking for what? Or maybe they weren’t looking at all. Maybe they were just pissed off.

I know one thing is certain: They’ll be back.

“It’s not safe here anymore,” I tell Winter, trying to be as direct and honest with her as possible, trying my hardest not to freak her out.

“Don’t worry,” I continue, “I’ve got somewhere we can go, but we’ll need to leave now.”

I take her face by the chin, directing her eyes to mine when I see them shift away to survey the damage. “It’s just stuff, okay? Stuff can be replaced. You cannot.”

That gets through. I see some of that tiger spirit I saw earlier at the airfield return to her eyes. “Okay,” she repeats.

I know whoever did this could come back anytime. Hell, they might even be watching us right now, watching the building.

There’s no time to pack. As calmly as possible, I rush us down the stairs, stopping at my mailbox on the lower level and taking out my key. I open it and take the envelope from inside, the envelope containing all the notes Winter wrote about the cartel’s operation. I figured it would be the safest place for it, thought somewhere way back in my head this might happen. That’s part of being a lifeguard. You’ve got to anticipate conditions, to think ahead.

I’m about to lead us out the front doors when I think better of it.

“We’ll go out the side, through the garage,” I announce. “Just in case.”

“Are we going to be okay?” Winter asks.

I nod, opening the door leading to the basement. “We’ll be just fine.”

But in reality, I’m not so sure.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

WINTER

If the threat wasn’t real before, seeing Archer’s apartment tossed like that brings it into perfect, terrifying focus. They were so close.

The first thing Archer did was leave his cell there. He bought another from a service station, said he was lucky he had a head for phone numbers.

Day has turned to night and everything somehow seems sharper, more dangerous. I keep checking the side mirror expecting to see a suspicious car there, the cartel come to claim me back.

Have I thought about going to Archer’s police friend? Of course I have. After all, Archer said I could trust him, but back in Cuba the police were as corrupt as the cartel members themselves—often worse because they were already in a position of power, basically untouchable. The whole thing makes me sick to my stomach.

Archer has been quiet as we drive. From time to time he’ll reach across and stroke my cheek, squeeze my leg in reassurance, and while I do feel safer with him, losing this second skin of unease I’m wearing is proving impossible.

Two hours of driving and the lights of Miami are left behind for a complete sort of darkness only the countryside can provide. But this is unlike any countryside I’ve known. The foliage is thick, an earthy smell creeping into the cabin of the truck as we work our way deeper into what Archer tells me are the Everglades.

Finally, we turn down a narrow single-lane dirt road flanked by tall, twisting trees, moonlight flashing between them. Another ten minutes bumping and rolling along, what sounds like a stick stuck in the undercarriage, we reach our destination.

Archer brings the truck to a stop, the headlights illuminating a small log cabin that looks direct from Deliverance. Without the sound of the engine and tires, you can hear the swamp—the calls and whistles of strange creatures in the night.

Archer’s still holding the steering wheel, staring at it. “It’s not much, I know, but it’s completely off the grid. We’ll be safe here.”

“Is the cabin yours?” I ask.

“It was my grandfather’s, actually. He lived here for almost thirty years after his wife died, went walking one day out in the swampland and never came back. They think the gators took him, but no one knows for sure.”

“That’s not helping.”

He attempts a smile, switching off the headlights. “You’re right. I’m sorry, but it has a bit of hillbilly charm to it, right? It’ll be like an adventure.”

“But we can’t stay here forever, hiding,” I protest.

“Just until I can come up with a plan,” he says, opening his door and starting to step out.

I pop my door open and join him outside. The air is thick and muggy, heavy humidity that feels like a blanket wrapping around you wherever you walk.

He points to the cabin. “You can go on. It’s unlocked. There’s a gas lantern just as you walk past the door, a bunch of firewood out back if you want to get it started.”

I smile and try to remember his words: It will be like an adventure.

I look around and realize he’s right. There’s no way the cartel’s going to be able to find us here. It really is the middle of nowhere, so deep and far in the sticks not even a satellite could find it.

Archer squats down next to the rear wheel of his truck, looking under the wheel arch. “I’m just going to see if I find the damn stick we picked up on the way.”

“Sounded more like the whole tree,” I note.

I leave him to it and head inside, finding the gas lantern and turning it on. It slowly lights what is a small but cozy space. It’s not going to win any interior design awards, but it’s far more well-furnished than it appears from the outside.

I’m about to head out back when the front door bursts open, Archer standing there, his face white.

“What is it?” I ask, whipping around.

He holds up something in his fingers. It’s small and black, looks a bit like a garage door remote with a single, blinking red LED. “We’ve got to go.”

“Is that a…”

“I think it’s a tracking device, yes. Someone planted it under the wheel arch. If it wasn’t for that fucking stick… but we need to go, and we need to go now.”

We just got here, I want to say, almost too tired to move again, but I know every second counts.

I nod and we both race back to the truck, Archer throwing the tracker into the scrub.

We both swing inside the truck cabin simultaneously, Archer turning the engine over and a rooster-tail of dirt flying up from the back of the truck as we do a full one eighty and skid back towards the one-way road we came in on.

Archer’s breathing harder than normal. “I don’t know how good the signal is. It might have dropped out around here. Still,” he says, “we’ve got to move.” He slams his foot down, the truck fish-tailing down the road.

That safety net is gone and familiar dread worms its way right back into my gut.

We’re five minutes down the road when I spot lights in the distance, coming the other way. I point. “Look.”

Archer slams on the brakes, clouds of dust washing forward, lighting up the headlight beams. “Shit. It’s got to be them.”

“What do we do?” I ask frantically. “We can’t go back. It’s a dead end.”

I can tell Archer’s thinking, tapping into that well-practiced calm his job demands. “Hang on,” he says, throwing the truck into reverse and turning the wheel hard, the truck leaving the road and crashing through the scrub to the side.

I look out the window and see the lights getting closer, moving fast.

Archer settles the truck about ten feet from the road, moving back until the truck won’t go any further, and cuts the headlights, the din of the swamp returning.

All we can do is wait.

They’re going to see us, I think. They’re going to see us and we’ll be dead. My father is going to lose his only child.

As if reading my thoughts, Archer reaches across and takes my hand. “We’re going to get out of this. You understand?”

I nod.

The lights get brighter and then suddenly overpowering, but when the vehicles arrive, plural, they blast right past where we’re sitting in the scrub, hidden from the road.

Archer waits until they’re gone, an excruciatingly long time. “Okay,” he says, turning the key and engine rumbling to life ahead, “I figure we’ve got maybe five, ten minutes to haul ass out of here.”

“And then what?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I’ve got no fucking idea.”

I’m thrown back against my seat again as the truck drives out of our little hidey hole, swinging back onto the single-lane road, a steely determination settling on Archer’s face as we make our escape.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

ARCHER

I look over to where Winter’s asleep against the passenger window, passing cars illuminating her on and off.

It’s tearing me up. I’m doing my best to keep her safe, but it seems like a losing battle. It seems the more I try to help the further I’m digging us down into the shit.

If I’m honest with myself, I don’t know a way out of this. It’s us, the two of us, against one of the biggest drug cartels in the world, and they don’t fuck around when they want their property back.

Did you really think you could take them on? I ask myself. One guy against an army?

I tighten my grip on the steering wheel and concentrate on driving, just focus on the lines of the highway. Billboards and signs pass by, but I still don’t know where we’re headed. I keep a tight eye on the rear-view. I expected us to be followed, but so far I can’t pick up a tail.

I consider, for probably the tenth time in an hour, driving us straight to the police station and getting Liam involved, but I know if I did the trust Winter has so carefully placed in me will be lost. I’m not willing to put what I have built with her at jeopardy just yet.

There’s not going to be a relationship if she’s dead, my head interrupts bluntly.

The thought is too terrible to consider.

I check my watch. It’s just past midnight and I still don’t have a plan of action.

“Think, motherfucker, think,” I tell myself aloud. “You’ve got a brain. Fucking use it.”

I’m watching the lines in the road trail on to infinity when it comes to me.

At first the idea seems ludicrous, completely insane, but the more I think about it the more I realize it may be Winter’s only hope.

You can’t run, I tell myself. That guy I bumped into at the bus station, clearly one of the cartel heavies, he just missed her. They must have pinned her on the security cameras near the station somehow, which is a pretty fucking good indication of their reach.

An exit looms up and I take it, heading us back towards Miami.

*

I reach across and shake Winter lightly. “Winter, baby. Wake up.”

She stirs and sniffs, wild-eyed as she looks around.

I place my hand on her knee. “It’s okay.”

“Where are we?” she asks. “Are we back in Miami?” she adds with increasing nervousness.

She sees Robbie leaning on against the driver’s window sill looking in.

“Hey,” he says. “Nice night, isn’t it?”

I give him the you-fucking-asshat look and turn back to Winter. “You’re going to stay with Robbie for a bit at his place while I go sort something out.”

She looks scared. “Sort out what?”

“A way out of this. Trust me, okay?”

“I don’t bite,” adds Robbie.

It’s testament to my desperation I’d trust Robbie to look after the only woman I’ve ever cared about, but for all his testosterone-primed bravado and chest-beating, all that ‘pussy slaying,’ I’m pretty sure ol’ Robbie’s gayer than a rainbow-colored clutch. Not that he’d openly admit it. I’m pretty sure he’s so deep in the closest he’ll never find his way out.

“I won’t be long,” I tell her, squeezing her thigh. “Go on.”

“You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?”

What I’m planning is basically stupidity personified, but I nod and smile. “I’ll be fine, baby.”

She leans across to kiss me and holy God above do I just want to stay here and take her in my arms, forget about everything. But I can’t.

She opens the passenger door, Robbie helping her out. I reach across and grab his shoulder, talking quietly. “You look after now, you hear?”

“Bro,” he smiles, “I’ve got this.”

All I can do is shake my head. “What the fuck am I doing?”

He shrugs in turn. “Beats me, but you make sure you come back, hear? I can’t be the only sexy lifeguard left on the beach.”

I can’t help but smile back, looking past him to where Winter stands on the sidewalk with her arms wrapped around herself.

I know if I don’t leave now I never will, so I take off as soon as Robbie closes the door, take off heading right into the viper’s pit.

*

A general rule about American cities: The nicer the suburb sounds, the worse it is. Such is the case with Liberty City, the Airport Expressway to the south and I-95 to the east. It’s a fucking rat’s nest of crime and poverty best avoided twenty-four seven.

The Encantado bar is well-known for being a Lacoya hot spot. It’s common knowledge to anyone who’s lived in the area. I pull up on the other side of the road and cut the gas.

There was one thing I took from the apartment when Winter wasn’t looking. I check my pocket to make sure it’s still there and pull in a deep breath.

I stare across the road.

Fuck this. I’d rather jump into a tank of sharks.

I look at the shady characters hanging outside.

You are, I realize.

It doesn’t get any better inside. The place is loaded with gang-bangers and low-lives. As I walk in, I swear every eye is on me as I make my way to the bar. Shitty narcocorrido plays from tinny speakers mounted in the walls, the paint peeling, the stench of stale alcohol almost overpowering.

I reach the bar unscathed and get the attention of the barkeep, a leather-vested Danny Trejo lookalike who probably doesn’t even know what a smile is.

I come right out with it, keeping my voice a little louder than it should be. “I need to speak to someone who’s in Lacoya, someone with clout. I’ve got an important offer.”

He whistles, stepping back from the bar. I swear the music drops. “My friend, you got a fucking death wish? Coming in here with your big, fat American balls doing what? Slumming? Looking for some blow?”

No use beating around the bush. “I’ve got Serpiente’s girl. I’m pretty sure he’d like to hear about that.”

At the mention of Serpiente, the barkeep tightens his lips and flicks his eyes towards a shadowy figure at the end of the bar.

“That guy?” I point, but my question’s answered when the man that was pointed out stands and approaches me, the guy who was sitting beside me standing to give him his seat. Unlike most in the bar, this individual is well-dressed, with leather shoes, clean shaven… He looks more like a banker than someone who’s deep in the Cartel.

“Speak,” he says, “and be clear.”

I settle myself before I talk. “I have Serpiente’s girl, the one he lost a few days ago off the coast. I want to buy her, settle any debts. Tell him I’m the lifeguard who found her.”

The man provides no hints as to his thoughts on this. “Is that so?”

“Can you relay that to him, or do I need to find someone else who has his ear, someone with actual connections?”

Now the fucker smiles, standing. “Give me a moment.” He clicks his fingers at the barkeeper, who slides a shot of what looks like rum in front of me. “Drink, friend. It might be your last.”

I swig it down fast. It’s more like rocket fuel than liquor.

I watch the man in charge talk quietly on his cell in the corner, looking in my direction from time to time. When he snaps the cell shut and walks back over, he’s flanked by two large gentleman who were previously watching the door. Once more, every eye seems to be upon us.

I’m starting to doubt myself. Did I really think they’d go for this?

“What are you prepared to offer?” the man asks, standing before me.

I try not to swallow. “Fifty large. I’m not well-versed in human trafficking, but that seems like fair compensation.”

I’ve got the money. That’s not a problem. Years serving this country saw to that. I can go up to a hundred if I need to, but after that I’m all out.

“She means something to you, this girl, Serpiente’s property, as you said?”

I don’t like the clarification. “Are we talking business or not?”

The man brings up a finger. “This is what Serpiente is counter-offering: You give her to us, now, peacefully, and we don’t cut off your balls.”

I should have expected this. What did I seriously fucking think was going to happen? They’d take my money, give me a receipt, and I’d go happily on my way?

I chastise myself. Stupid. Fucking Stupid.

Still, I try. “A hundred,” I offer, “but that is final. Go, tell him.”

His finger waves from side to side in front of me. “Uh, uh. You don’t come in here ordering me around like a fucking puto.”

I throw my hands up. “Fine. The deal’s fucking off. He knows where I am if he wants to talk.”

I go to walk out, need to get out, but I’m blocked by a bunch of men who stand up from the bar. The whole place seems to tighten around me.

Fuck.

Was she really worth dying for? I ask myself, but the answer is unequivocally ‘yes.’ I had to try, to do fucking something. I knew the only thing the cartel would be interested in would be money, but it seems like even that isn’t enough. I hoped Winter would be just another girl to Serpiente, an easy sell, but it appears I’m not the only person she’s won over. Or maybe it’s more. Maybe they know she knows too much. Maybe they can’t afford to have her running around out there. I hadn’t even considered her father, how they could play him into all of this.

No, you didn’t think at all, did you?

“I’m sorry, my friend,” says the man in charge, “but we can’t let you leave before you tell us what we need to know.”

I have to play my hand, and I have to play it fucking now. I reach into my pocket and pull out the grenade I took from the apartment, holding it aloft so everyone can see. With a flick I pop out the pin, squeezing the trigger tight. In a perfect show of theatrics, the pin lands right in front of Pretty Boy.

“Get the fuck back!” I yell. “Get back or I swear to Christ I’ll send us all to kingdom come.”

There’s hesitation, but a quick nod from the Pretty Boy sends everyone scooting back.

“Back!” I yell at the top of my lungs, shaking the grenade for effect. “I will fucking do it. Do NOT test me.”

I start to back out towards the door. I’m sweating up a storm, that adrenaline I’d been trying so hard to suppress flowing thick and fast now.

I walk back but they are still too close. “Back!” I yell, waving the grenade around and trying to look as crazy possible. “You want to redecorate this place with your fucking brains? Do it. Please. My fingers are getting itchy. I’m dying to let go.”

“Easy, easy,” Pretty Boy warns, slowly trying to walk towards me but as yet no one’s tried to wrestle the grenade away from me. For good reason, too. No one wants their arm blown off tonight.

I manage to make it outside, the whole bar gathered in front of me as I walk across the road to my truck.

A car comes screeching to a halt in front of me, the horn blasting, but no one pays it any attention.

I open the door of the truck with one hand and slide myself in, still holding the grenade out the window as I close the door. Meanwhile, they continue to stand there as a silent mob, the Thriller music video come to life.

Even when I hit the gas and drive off, they’re still there watching me—calm, quiet, cold.

*

As soon as I’m sure I’m not being tailed, after I’ve burned through half a tank going pedal to metal back towards Robbie’s, I toss the grenade into the glovebox. It was a souvenir from my time serving abroad, nothing but a replica, but it did the trick.

Even when I reach Robbie’s, I loop around the block looking out for tails, any suspicious cars. It’s quiet for two in the morning, making the task a little easier, but I’m still cautious.

I park a good three blocks away and walk, knowing I can’t return to the truck now they’ve got a fix on it.

In a strange switch of direction, Robbie opens the door and welcomes me in to what looks like a sleepover. He’s in his pajamas, there’s popcorn and candy on the table, some sappy movie playing on TV.

“Can you believe she’s never seen When Harry Met Sally?” He sees my haggard expression. “Fuck. What happened?”

“They didn’t go for it.”

Winter hears my voice, getting up from the sofa and running into my arms. “Are you okay?” she asks breathlessly.

I nod. “I am now, but it didn’t, ah, go so well.”

“What do we do?” she asks, and I sure as hell wish I had a better plan.

“We have to go to my friend,” I tell her. “We have to go to the cops. It’s the only move.”

She’s shaking her head, pulling away. “No, no, no.”

“Yes,” I say firmer. “Liam can protect us. I can trust him. We don’t have any other option. They’ll find us.”

I expect more defiance, more fight, but I can see the toll all this running around has taken on her. “Alright,” she says weakly, “if you think it’s best.”

“I do. We’ll go first thing tomorrow. For now, I think we both need rest.”

“I’ve already set up a bed down back,” chimes in Robbie. “Will that do?”

I clap him on the shoulder. “My friend, I’m so tired I’d sleep on a concrete slab.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

WINTER

Once the door to the bedroom is closed, I take Archer by the shoulders. “What did you try and do?”

“Something very, very stupid,” he confesses.

I reach up to kiss him. “I’m just glad you’re back.”

“How was Robbie?”

“We were having a nice time.”

“Reenacting the Breakfast Club?”

“He’s quite in touch with his feminine side, actually.”

Archer’s eyebrow lifts in surprise. “Who would have thought?”

He kisses me again, his hand searching down my side.

I hold him away, very conscious of my own, growing desire. “I thought you said you were tired.”

He holds me away to look at me. “I’m never too tired for you.” He kisses me on the lips—oddly, a hint of whiskey there. “Do you know how absolutely fucking perfect you are?”

My cheeks flush hot.

Archer starts walking forward, forcing me towards the bed. I hit the end of it and fall back, but he manages to take me by the thighs before I reach the bed and toss me onto my back. He steps between my thighs at the edge of the bed and pushes them apart with his knee.

I look into his eyes and see a hunger there that’s new, like he simply can’t wait to devour me whole.

I want to say something, but I can’t find my voice, too lost in the heat and moment.

When I do find it, it’s coarse and rough. “Won’t Robbie hear us?”

Archer laughs. “Robbie’s heard worse. Now, strip.”

With shaking fingers, I stand and do as he commands, watching while he slowly strips himself until we’re standing there completely naked in front of one another, exposed.

Without warning he grips my hips and pulls me against his hard body, driving us back into the bed.

I swallow, even that simple action almost too much to bear.

“Tell me you want me,” he says, his voice surprisingly calculated.

“I want you,” I reply, my voice weak.

“Where?” he asks, looking to the hot space between my legs. “Where do you want me? Say it.”

I swallow again. “My pussy,” I stammer. “I want you in my pussy.”

“That’s fucking right you do.”

And I do. I want him to kiss me, touch me, fuck me into oblivion so I never have to think again. I want him to love me harder than anything he’s known before.

Light flashes through the window behind the bed, enough so I can see the urgent hunger in his eyes, the way they glint in the light like precious gems, so striking, so beautiful.

His grip firms on my hips. “I’m going to take you now, as hard as I want, and you’re going to come, harder than you ever have before. Yes?”

“Yes,” I reply, but it’s barely audible.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes… please.”

He doesn’t waste a second more. He covers my mouth with his own, the kiss rough and fast. We break and he draws my lower lip into his mouth, releasing it and pulling away, making me work for each and every kiss, breaking away again to trail them down my neck.

I kiss the top of his head, breathing against his scalp as he takes my nipple into his mouth, swirling his hot tongue around the sensitive pillar of it until my spine snaps forward, pleasure licking at my body from bottom to top, a constant, never-ending swirl of sensation.

“Yes,” I moan. “God.”

But even a higher power can’t save me from Archer’s tongue. It moves from my right nipple to my left, latching there, tending my need until I’m a senseless, panting muddle.

“I need you,” I tell him, growing more confident, my thighs spreading further and my sex open and wet.

“And I’ll tend to your needs,” he tells me firmly, “but we’re doing this by my rules tonight, my way.”

He kisses down my chest, hands sliding up to cup my breasts. He pinches my nipples, twisting them lightly until the mix of pain and pleasure threatens to tear me limb from limb.

“Please,” I beg, “I can’t take it.”

“You will,” he purrs. “You will and you will enjoy every fucking second of it.”

Lord help me.

He rises, using his large hands to push my knees apart until they can’t go any further. He kneels, almost solemnly, and starts by pressing his lips against the soft, puppy flesh of my inner thigh, slowly working his way inwards.

The way he kisses me, the way his tongue moves… It’s incredible. He is incredible. I try to focus on what he’s doing, to compartmentalize and capture the moment, but it’s all happening too fast, the flood of sensation too much to pin down.

His hands slide up and down my thighs, warming them, squeezing them tight. I clench with anticipation, my breathing raspy and dry. I’m bucking from the mattress, levitating until a firm hand presses me back down, Archer’s lips inches from the wet mouth of my sex.

“Are you ready?” he asks.

I nod, drawing in a sharp intake of breath when I feel Archer’s tongue sweep over my sensitive folds, the tip of it hunting for the tight confines of my hole.

I reach out and grip the sheets, pulling them tight as he hums against me, licking from tip to tail but never moving inwards. He circles, teases, nips… always moving, avoiding my clit until I’m begging him, body and mind, to apply his tongue.

It’s torture of the grandest kind, exquisite. My eyes shutter tightly closed, all I know the deep sensation, the way my aching clit pulses for him.

He lightly sucks on the lips of my labia, letting them fall away wetly before dipping his tongue inside me.

A guttural “uh” is released from my lips, my mouth open.

Another jolt runs up my spine, his breath hot, on my clit and then, finally, it’s followed by the warm plane of his tongue.

He laps at it like a man possessed, just the right amount of pressure to slowly build me towards orgasm.

“Oh, God,” I mutter, lost in the moment.

He hooks his arms around my thighs and flattens his hands against my stomach, pressing me down into the bed, making me his own, his personal little fuck toy.

I inhale when his tongue shifts, curling around my clit but with such slow intensity it’s practically criminal. I can’t help reaching down and running my hands through his hair, holding him tightly against me, suffocating him with my sex.

By the time he’s sucking my clit in earnest, I’ve lost all control, bucking hard against his face, my thighs tight around his head, locking him against me. He continues to focus on my clit, sucking and running his tongue in hot figure eights, the pressure always perfect.

It builds, pins and needles forming in my extremities, my entire body tight as a bow, pulling, pulling, clenching, building, until I cannot take a second more.

I don’t fall off the edge, I throw myself from it, the climax crashing into me with all the intensity of a winter tempest. My thighs are clamping against his head so hard I worry I’ll crush it in some dim, distant corner of my mind while my orgasm carries on, forcing the wet wall of my pussy harder against his mouth.

It’s forever before I remember to breathe, able to suck in a quick draw of breath before it all starts over again, Archer’s tongue relentless. I rise and fall in orgasm, riding it until I don’t know where I end and he begins.

It’s only as my eyes open and start to focus again, that I can see where I am, I’m able to process just what happened.

I sit up and see him looking back at me with a lazy smile—head intact.

He comes forward, crawling onto the bed. I can taste myself on his lips, bringing my arms up and around his neck, pulling him against me. “How do you want me?” I ask.

“You’re going to ride me,” he replies. “You’re going to ride me until I come in that tight little pussy of yours. You think you can do that?”

“Yes, sir,” I smile.

He rolls onto his back and I waste no time throwing my leg up and over, straddling his body. He reaches up to palm my breasts, barely big enough to fill his hands. He doesn’t seem to mind, smiling appreciatively. “Did I already say how beautiful you are?”

“Once or twice.”

He reaches back, sharply smacking my ass, enough to elicit a surprised yelp. He looks down between us. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

Nervous, I take hold of his cock, thick and hard in my fingers, and guide it against me. It parts my pussy, sitting there while his hands come to my waist, his eyes finding mine saying ‘Do it.’

Slowly, I let myself down, rolling my hips to take just the tip of his cock inside, being sure to watch his expression when I lift and then drop, watching the way his eyes widen when he slides deep into the silky glove of my pussy.

I thought his tongue felt good, but the way his cock fills me, the wonderful sense of satisfaction it provides, is without equal.

“God, yes,” I moan. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

I rock and grind against him, lifting and falling, taking him to the hilt every time until my pubis is flat against his chest, my clit rubbing exquisitely against the hard slab of his lower chest.

He thrusts upwards from below, urging me on, telling me in minute detail how it feels, the wet warmth I’m providing.

He grunts and takes hold of my ass, rolling us over until I’m on my back and starting to thrust deeper.

“Yes,” I choke, “fuck me.”

I never thought I’d ever hear myself utter those words, but in that moment I am someone else completely, someone possessed.

His head drops, his lips brushing mine. I lift myself up to meet them, my neck straining, but he always pulls away at the last second, each taunt forcing my pussy to clench around his cock.

He groans and bucks against me harder now, the wet slap of our bodies echoing around the room, the erotic sounds we’re making only adding to the act.

I can’t suppress the sounds coming out of my mouth.

If Robbie couldn’t hear us before, he sure can now.

“I can’t wait to have you every night,” Archer tells me, his breathing labored, cock sluicing in and out of my sex. “I want to know every part of you intimately—your mouth, your pussy, your asshole. They’re all mine. Understand?”

I nod, unable to do much more. I dig my nails into his back, rake them against his shoulder blades as he fucks me. His words, the way he takes me… It’s turning me into a hot mess, more animal than woman, a new and profound creature of his making.

“I want you to look at me,” he says, a sharp thrust sending a bolt of pleasure up my spine. “I want to see the look on your face when you come again.”

My eyes begin to roll back in my head, but he takes my face in his hand. “No, no, baby. I said look at me. Look into my eyes. Yes, you fucking like that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I whisper, already feeling the familiar strum of something building, growing inside me.

He builds in turn, each thrust running deeper and longer, harder and harder until the entire bed is shifting.

He doesn’t tire, continuing on and on, head dropping to take a nipple into his mouth, pulling it away from my breast until I grunt with pleasure.

“Yes,” he says, “come for me. Come all over my cock, beg me to fill you.”

“Y-yes,” I stammer, “please. Please,” I repeat, a hot tear sliding down my cheek.

This time the climax comes unexpected, a freight train barreling from the darkest of nights. I half-scream, half-shout in surprise, stiffening before my body falls into a complex series of contractions from which there is no escape.

I twitch and buck, exploding from within, my sex gripping and releasing Archer’s beautiful cock in quick succession. It’s at that moment he grunts aloud, finding the end of it and stopping there, a flood of heat following.

We come together, holding each other tight through it, never wanting this to end.

With a final jerk of his hips, he allows himself to breathe, falling against me and sliding to the side, his cock coming free to sit wetly against my thigh.

My body continues to thrum, alive and energized.

“That was…” but I can’t find the words.

He rolls onto his back beside me, his leg bent over mine. “Yes, it was, wasn’t it?”

The need’s cooling between my thigh, a growing wetness there I’m pretty sure it going to ruin these sheets for good.

He reaches a hand across into the space there and feels the mattress.

“Holy shit,” he says. “You came so hard. Do you know how fucking hot that is?”

I was kind of embarrassed, but now I smile. “I don’t know what happened.”

He rolls back on top of me, brushing my hair from my face and covering my mouth with his own. I slide my tongue over his lower lip, testing while he presses his forehead against mine. “How do you feel?” he asks.

I look deep into his eyes, sliding my hands around his neck. “Better,” I smile.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

ARCHER

We arrive at the police station just after noon. The precinct is surprisingly quiet given the madness outside, but I’ve heard they keep a tight ship around here.

Beside me, Winter seems uncertain, holding her arm, eyes darting everywhere but straight ahead.

We talked about this again this morning and agreed this was the right decision, no matter Winter’s distrust of law enforcement.

I pause before we get to the front desk. Taking her by the arms and holding her gaze. “This is the best way,” I tell her. “I’ve known Liam forever. We served together, we fought together… He’ll treat you right.”

“What if they lock me up? I’m an illegal alien, aren’t I?”

I pretend I’m checking her head. “Two eyes, no antennas… Seems like you’re pretty human to me.”

She’s in no mood for my antics. “I’m serious, Archer.”

“I have Liam’s word you won’t be locked up. You’re an informant, after all. I run my thumb lightly over her forehead. “There’s so much knowledge up here, and in here,” I say, waving the envelope with her notes, “the Lacoya Cartel can kiss their narco asses goodbye, and I don’t think anyone’s going to be sorry to see them go.”

She nods. “I suppose you’re right.”
She drops her eyes, but I lift her chin back up. “You can be strong, can’t you, for me? You’re a badass remember?”

She nods again.

I lean forward to kiss her. “Good. Come on.”

Liam meets us at the front desk, taking Winter’s hand. “Winter, is it? So nice to meet you properly.”

“And you,” she replies meekly, shaking it.

There’s no subtle wink in my direction or wise-crack about her rescue. Liam is in full business mode. He stands there with his hands on his hips, pulling his jacket back into place when he sees Winter’s eyes wander to his weapon. “Welcome to the Miami Beach PD, I guess,” he says, looking around. “It ain’t the Westin, but it’s got a quaint kind of eighties charm, you know.”

We share a glance, Liam taking a step towards Winter. She steps back ever so subtly.

He puts his hands out. “Look, Archer here and I go way back. You’re going to be safe here, okay?”

I place my hand on her back. “He’s right. This is the safest place right now. Just tell Liam what you told me, tell him everything.”

“I’ll make it as quick as can be,” says Liam. “You’ll forget you were even here.”

I’m not quite sure how he’s making that promise. It’s like he’s suggesting she’ll be free to go.

I jerk my head to the side at him. “Can I have a quick word?”

“Sure, brother,” he smiles.

We step over to the wall.

“You’re sweating,” I tell him, pointing to the perspiration on his forehead.

He dabs at it with the corner of his jacket. “Fucking AC around here. I swear to God. I bet garbage collectors get a bigger budget than we do.”

The place does look it’s falling apart somewhat, a set direct from Lethal Weapon. I wouldn’t be half-surprised if Mel Gibson and Danny Glover were to appear around the corner, a hot-tempered Captain Murphy on their tail.

“Is she going to be okay?” I ask.

Liam presses his cheek out with his tongue. It’s the kind of simple personal tick that throws me right back to our time serving. “Of course. If what you told me is true, if she has the heads-up on their operation, she’s basically gold—untouchable, even not being an American citizen. I’ll speak to the Feds, the only people I can trust, and we’ll make it work. I’ll have you two back to bumping uglies in no time.”

“It’s not like that.”

He takes my shoulder. “Like I said, we go way back, so don’t tell me you ain’t getting a good piece of that.”

“Just promise me she’ll be safe.”

He places his hand over his heart. “This we’ll defend, brother.”

He looks down to the envelope. “That for me?”

I hand it over. “She wrote it all down. It’s all in here.”

He takes it, holding it up. “Can’t wait to see these pricks go down.”

“You and me both.”

I look over to where Winter’s standing. “Can you give us a minute before you take her in?”

He squeezes my shoulder. “Take all the time you need.”

I head back over to Winter, holding her by the hips. Fuck who sees it. I kiss her lightly on the forehead. “I’ll be right out here, okay, waiting. You’re going to be fine. We are going to be fine.”

She attempts a smile.

“That’s my girl.”

She looks to Liam standing by the door leading to the secured area.

“All ready?” he says.

We kiss one final time. God, I don’t want to let her go, but I know I have to.

I hold her hand until the last moment, my arm lifting up until it’s just our fingertips touching and then nothing at all.

She reaches Liam and looks back, smiling, but I see it drop the moment he opens the door and ushers her through.

Liam gives me a thumbs up before disappearing himself, the door closing with a mechanical click.

I stand there and take a breath.

It’s done.

But something’s bothering me. I sit and try to work out what’s got me rattled, but nothing’s coming to mind. All I’m drawing are big fat fucking blanks.

I pick up a magazine, but the words blur together. I can’t concentrate. I try the TV on the wall, but it’s some crappy reality show I can’t stand.

I don’t know why, but I become increasingly restless sitting there, my hands fixing themselves over and over. The AC seems to be working just fine, but I’m still sweating like a Sunday roast.

I decide to head out front for a quick breather.

Outside, it’s overcast, a cooler front moving in from the east.

I regulate my breath, starting to feel a hell of a lot better when I spot a khaki Jeep Wrangler emerging from the police parking lot and waiting to turn into the traffic.

It’s Liam’s Jeep, the one he bought the very day we got back from Afghanistan, with its now fading ‘American Patriot’ bumper sticker and the dent in the side where an old woman in a mobility scooter crashed into it.

I dismiss it at first, think maybe someone else is driving, it’s another car maybe, but I can see him through the window, clear as day and, beside him in the passenger seat, Winter.

I squint, looking harder, but there’s no doubt about it.

It’s her.

What the fuck?

I don’t know where he’s taking her, why she isn’t inside like he said, but immediately a deep sense of unease knots itself in my stomach.

It was the thumbs-up, I realize. When the hell ever has Liam done that before? It was out of character. A middle finger, sure, but a fucking thumbs-up? It makes no sense.

Something’s wrong.

I spot a South Beach Yellow Cab in the flow of traffic, basically running in front of it, the car screeching to a stop and the driver throwing his hands up. “What the fuck, man?” he yells.

I open the rear door and slide across the back seat and pointing through the windshield. “I need you to follow that Jeep up ahead, the khaki one. You see it?”

The driver, a young Hispanic man, looks out his window and sees the police station. “Oh, shit. Is this like official police business?”

“Yes,” I half-shout, eager to get moving. “Go!”

The cab tears away, cutting off a minivan and snaking into the flow of traffic.

The driver, whose name is apparently Mateo given the license on the dash, slaps the steering wheel with excitement. “Holy shit, man. Who are we after? Bank robbers? Murderers? Or is it some real sick shit, like mad conspiracy shit?”

I lean forward, holding the headrests. “Just keep on them, but not too close, okay. Hang back a little.”

“Yes, boss,” he salutes, smiling in the rear-view. “I’ve waited my whole life for this.”

I want to remind him we’re not in the Fast & Furious here, but I’m too busy concentrating on Liam’s Jeep. If I had laser eyes I’d be burning a hole right through it about now.

I expect Liam to turn around, to realize his mistake, to at least call me… something, but the Jeep continues to drive on. I try his cell, try calling the precinct, but it’s no good. He’s AWOL with Winter in tow.

Where the fuck are you taking her? I’m thinking, that knot growing tighter and tighter the further away we get from Main Beach.

I rattle my brain trying to think of who else I can call, but it’s like my head is filled with pea soup, all that training from the Army of keeping your cool and focusing completely gone.

I know it’s Winter. It’s my emotions getting the better of me, my attachment to her. I promised her I would keep her safe, that nothing would happen to her, and now what?

But you don’t know where they’re going, the more rational part of me pipes up. Maybe she was hungry. Maybe they’re going to get something to eat, going to a different, secure location. Maybe he’s fucking you over, the darker part fills.

Mateo’s doing a stand-up job, hanging back just enough so as not be conspicuous, though the traffic’s heavy enough a taxi isn’t exactly going to stand out.

Another fifteen minutes and we’re headed to the Glades. The knot tightens until it’s a solid mass, a physical pain in my gut.

The traffic thins as we move away from the main roads, the seaside giving way to new estates and roads that haven’t seen attention since Reagan. It’s not a good sign. I know it. I feel it. I should never have handed her over like that.

If Liam hurts her, if he fucking touches one hair on her head, I don’t care what our history says, I’m going to fucking kill him, take him apart piece by piece and feed him to the gators.

Ahead, the Jeep enters a small industrial estate, two G-series Mercedes in black pulling off the side of the road to follow behind.

“Careful now,” I tell Mateo. “Nice and slow. Just creep up there.”

He does as I tell him, the taxi slowly driving past where I saw the Jeep and G-wagons enter.

I see them pulling up out front what looks like an old packing warehouse.

“Stop,” I tell Mateo. “Wait a second.”

Liam emerges from the Jeep, four or five guys hopping out of the Mercedes all different shades of no fucking good. Even from here I recognize one of them as the guy who came to the tower that day asking around—the cartel muscle.

They talk for a moment, Liam looking strangely meek. They seem to finish, and he walks around to the passenger door, pulling Winter free. She’s holding onto the grab handle, refusing to let go until one of the goons takes her by the hands, two of them basically tearing her away and leading her inside the warehouse, Liam following scratching his head.

She screams and it takes everything I have not to leap from the vehicle in full on attack mode.

But my hatred is centered on Liam.

You motherfucker, I think, pure, heated rage boiling through my veins. But this is no time for fucking around. I take all the money in my wallet and hand it to Mateo. “For your trouble.”

He turns around in his seat looking confused. “You’re not going to wait for backup? Put on a vest?” He looks down. “Where’s your piece?”

“Left it at home,” I lie.

I open the door. “Go on now. Get as far away as you can.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” he says, apparently reconciling something with himself. He nods to the back of the car, the trunk unlatching. “Have a look, under the floor. Maybe you can find something useful back there.”

I have no idea what he’s on about until I get out and open the boot. I lift the floor, expecting a spare tire, my eyes greeted with a weapons cache that would do Al Capone proud.

Even with the seriousness of the situation, I can’t help but smile.

Fucking cab drivers.

“You’re not going to bust me, are you?” Mateo shouts back.

I look over his little collection. “No, my friend. Not today.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

WINTER

It’s over. This Liam, Archer’s supposed cop friend, has betrayed me, handed me right on over to the very people I’ve been trying to escape. But far from the look of smug satisfaction I think I’ll find on his face when I look in his direction, it’s sadness and uncertainty I see.

He’s not sure about this. I know it. Whatever they’re offering him must be real good to betray Archer like this.

As far as I can tell, we’re in a large warehouse in some kind of industrial area. In the corner two men are unloading tins of paint from the back of a truck. From my time with the cartel I know they’re actually full of liquid methamphetamine, cleverly concealed. This is the missing piece, I realize, the one location I couldn’t work out, and here I am, my hands cable-tied together in front of me, right in the middle of it.

There are another two men standing in front of me. I recognize one as the man I saw at the Ball & Chain, the other from Cuba, Serpiente’s lieutenant. In a way, I’m flattered… until the realization sinks in I’ll never see Archer again, never feel the warmth of his arms or touch of his lips, his wry smile.

Hold it together, I remind myself. There’s still hope.

But is there? We’re a long way from Miami Beach. It’s the weekend. No one’s around. We may as well be on Mars.

That hope turns into any icy ball in my stomach when I see one of the men unloading the truck remove an empty body bag, laying it down on the floor.

So they don’t intend for me to walk out alive. They’re going to torture me, find out what I know, and then dispose of me. It’s their way. Worse, I’ve seen what they do to people, heard it first-hand, sounds that will haunt me until the day I die. Today, I guess.

Liam approaches, snapping me out of my thoughts. He stops before me, leaning in conspiratorially. I’m hoping against hope he’ll whisper the cavalry is on its way, that this was all an elaborate ploy to bring the cartel down, but that’s not what he says.

He licks his lips, wiping sweat from his brow. “Look,” he starts, keeping his voice low. “I’m sorry it had to go down this way. You seem like a decent person, but I’m in over my head. I need the money, understand?”

I spit in his face, a surprisingly defiant move that simply happens—no prior thought, no thinking.

Liam wipes it away, nodding to himself. “Well, that makes it a little easier now, doesn’t it?”

“Archer is going to kill you,” I tell him, trying to keep the nerves from my voice.

“Archer’s never going to know, hon. No one is going to know. Do you understand that?”

He takes a step away, thinking I’m going to spit again. “Again,” he says, “I’m sorry,” placing his hand over his heart in the emptiest gesture the world’s ever known.

I see someone emerge from behind a shipping container at the back of the warehouse and my heart drops further.

It’s him.

It’s Serpiente.

He walks slowly towards us, whispering something is his lieutenant’s ear before moving to Liam and taking his hand, smiling. “My friend. Thank you for this.”

He hasn’t even looked in my direction yet.

Liam nods back. “The money?”

“Being transferred as we speak,” Serpiente smiles, but I know that crocodile smile when I see it, spotting his lieutenant slowly and silently moving around behind Liam and drawing his weapon.

I know shouting, trying to warm Liam, will be useless.

“Excuse me,” says Serpiente, stepping aside and nodding at his lieutenant, who’s now standing behind Liam with a gun raised to the back of his head.

I scream when it goes off, the front of Liam’s face blown apart, his faceless body standing upright for what seems like far too long before finally slumping forward onto the ground.

With a whistle, Serpiente signals the men who were emptying the truck, one of them picking up the body bag and bringing it over.

I feel sick to my stomach, a prickly, all-encompassing kind of sickness that takes over my entire being.

Still smiling, Serpiente walks towards me with his hands behind his back. His hair is slicked tight to his head as per usual, the large cross he wears around his neck sitting against his shirt. I know he’ll be holding his rosary beads his father left him behind his back, slowly thumbing the beads through his fingers. It’s his way of alleviating the guilt—if he’s capable of feeling anything at all.

He stops before me and looks back at Liam’s body. He touches his shoulders and the top of the top of his head. “May God rest his soul.”

His eyes are the color of a deep moss, cold and impassive. He reaches and lifts a strand of my hair with his finger. “I thought we’d lost you, but the Lord has brought you back to me. This time I won’t be so reckless with you.” He looks down my body, pausing when he reaches my nether region. “This time I will have my reward.”

“My boyfriend,” I say, the term odd in my mouth, “he will kill you.”

Serpiente starts to pace around me in a wide circle. “The, ah, what is it called? The lifeguard, yes? He’ll be dealt with.”

I swallow down the dread knowing Archer doesn’t stand a chance against the cartel. If only I had been able to warn him, to tell him to save himself.

“You don’t know God,” I tell him, finally finding the courage to speak my mind. “You are the antichrist, and you will pay for your crimes. If not here, up there,” I nod to the sky. “One way or another, you will be held accountable.”

He places a finger on my lips. It smells of tobacco. “Hush, hush, hush. After all, you’ll need to conserve your energy for what I have planned for you.”

That icy ball becomes a solid rock in my chest.

I want to cry, to scream, to do anything, but I know it’s fruitless. I will not allow him the satisfaction of seeing me break. I will fight this to the end. If nothing else, Archer taught me that much.

I picture his face, see him holding me. ‘You are a bad-ass,’ he’s saying. ‘You can do anything.’

I pull in a deep breath and force a smile onto my face. “You cannot hurt me,” I announce, being sure to look Serpiente in the eye. “You can have my body, but you’ll never have me.”

He laughs, wagging his finger at me. “But your body is all I want my little virgin. We’ll see how much you’re smiling when every man, every dog has their way with you when I’m done.”

He gives another whistle and walks away, the body bag zipped up and slid away towards the truck in the corner, a horrible mess of blood and gristle remaining on the ground.

It’s a terrible thought to think I’ve seen worse.

“Bring her,” Serpiente shouts, the man from the club with the teardrop tattoo walking over and taking me under the arm. “Walk,” he barks.

You’ll have to damn well drag me out of here, I think.

“Wal—” he goes to say, coughing through the end of it and turning to look at me with wide eyes. It’s only then I notice the hole in his neck. He reaches for it, mouth wide, but there’s too much blood. It flows around his fingers like thick, cherry syrup before he tilts and falls to the floor, his hand releasing my arm.

I can see the shock on Serpiente’s face.

There’s another loud “oof” from the right, another man going down, this time with a ruby dot on his forehead.

Serpiente shouts something, but with two more muffled expulsions of sound in the distance the men unloading the truck go down, one and then the other, a second shot hitting the poor guy in the back as he’s trying to crawl away.

Another ‘pfft’, another separation of air, and then Serpiente’s lieutenant screams aloud, falling to one knee and reaching for his gun, only managing to get it halfway up before he’s struck twice in the chest, slowly rocking forward onto his stomach.

It all happens so fast I barely process what’s going on.

Serpiente looks around, but his entire team have been dispatched somehow, all of them lying dead and dying around the warehouse in the space of seconds.

He looks up, past me, and rushes forward, taking me by the arm and shifting behind me, walking us back towards the shipping container. As he does, I see something, a glimpse of something I’ve never seen on his face before.

Fear.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

ARCHER

I reload from my position high on the emergency stairwell at the side of the warehouse, a perfect eagle’s nest from which to work.

I wasn’t a sniper in the Army, but Liam was. I picked up enough to know what to do—find a high vantage point with multiple exits, sufficient cover, work quickly, have an out, watch the wind… There’s barely a breeze outside—perfect conditions for shooting up assholes.

The rifle I found in the back of Mateo’s taxi is a SAKO TRG 42, a long-range Finnish weapon generally considered one of the finest of its kind in the world. The serial number’s been filed off, of course, which I imagine is going to make things interesting when the questions come later.

The trunk of the taxi was basically the Punisher’s own personal war chest, but I had to pick and choose fast, thankful for Mateo’s lifeline.

It wasn’t easy taking down these pricks from such a distance, but seeing Liam going down, shot in the back of fucking head like a chump, I found the nerve I needed.

But the one behind it all, the one who has to be the Serpent himself, is right behind Winter blocking my bullet. I’m lying down, looking through the scope as he takes her, drawing out his own weapon, a gold-plated Ruger, and holding it to her side where I know it will do a fuck-load of damage if it goes off.

He’s looking around wildly, doesn’t know where the shots came from.

Good, I think, packing up quickly and making my way down the stairs.

“Where are you?!” he shouts, his voice booming around the warehouse. “Fucking show yourself, coward!”

I have every intention of doing so, approaching from the north-west corner with the rifle slung and a Glock drawn, holding it tight with two hands while I move towards the center of the warehouse where he’s holding Winter.

I want to stop, to tell her it’s going to be okay, but I have to focus. If I look at her eyes it might all come undone, and I can’t lose her. Not now. Not fucking ever.

“That’s fucking close enough,” spits Serpiente. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Give me the girl,” I tell him, speaking slowly, “and I’ll let you run back to your fuck buddies in whatever hole you crawled out of.”

He laughs, jamming the gun into Winter’s side. “This bitch? You’re who, the fucking lifeguard?”

“Sure am. Saving lives in style since twenty-oh-nine.”

He likes that, throwing back his head. “Fucking David Hasselhoff, yes? You American assholes all thinking you’re heroes. Do you even know who I am?”

He’s acting confident, but his body language, his tone, is suggesting he’s shitting his pants. I just have to be patient.

I take another tentative step closer, moving slowly. “Let her go. I won’t say it again.”

“I said stop where you fucking are!” he shouts, but I keep on moving forward.

He’s getting irritated now, the fear getting the better of him, swallowing him whole.

And finally, he breaks.

“I said fucking get back!” he screams, moving the weapon away from Winter to point at me.

I don’t hesitate. I fire.

He shouts as his hand is blown away, the weapon going wide, his entire torso exposed in the movement.

I fire two rounds in the middle of his chest, waiting until Winter manages to spin away before punching another one right into the middle of his stupid fucking skull.

That does it. He goes down. Dead—the head of the mighty Lacoya cartel taken out by a fucking Miami Beach Lifeguard.

Winter rushes forward into my arms, but I keep my gun raised, moving us towards the front doors. We’re still exposed here.

“Archer,” she says, pulling on my shirt.

I look outside, can already hear sirens in the distance, but I take a moment to hold her in the doorway, kiss her lips. I don’t care she’s sweaty, dirty, scared, she’s back and that’s all that fucking matters. My baby is back and I’m never going to let her go again.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her, the sirens building. “I didn’t know.”

“Your friend…” she says, looking sideways to where what’s left of Liam’s head remains.

I swallow down a sudden thickness in my throat because yes, Liam betrayed me, but I know it could only be out of the deepest desperation, know I could have stopped it if I’d only been quicker. My anger turns to pity.

Sensing this, Winter reaches up with her bound hands and holds my face. A single tear cuts down her cheek. “It’s not your fault. You saved me… again.”

“I think it’s becoming a habit,” I laugh.

A police car swings into the parking lot of the warehouse.

“Walk out with your hands up,” I tell Winter, “Slowly. It’s all going to be okay. Serpiente’s dead. He can’t hurt you.”

Another police car joins the first, a third and fourth following.

I place the rifle and Glock down, placing my hands on my head and walking out into the sunlight, stopping and getting down on my knees.

Beside me, Winter does the same.

I know what’s coming isn’t going to be a walk in the park, but for all I care Miami PD can make me walk across hot coals.

Winter’s safe.

That’s all that fucking matters.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

WINTER

We’re back together at the police station, the familiar, all-too-bright lighting causing my eyes to water. Or maybe’s it just the rush of emotions I’m feeling. They’ve been drawn up and rearranged, scrambled and reordered until I’m not sure exactly what I’m feeling only that I’m thankful I’m alive. I have Archer to thank for that—again.

We’re seated against the wall in a holding area of sorts, not that we’re under arrest. The policemen who took us in, a couple of which I recognized from the volleyball competition, made that very clear. The way Archer was talking with them, it was almost like he was a cop himself.

I tug at his arm beside me. “That’s twice now you’ve saved my life.”

He smiles at me. “I wasn’t counting.”

“What happens when it hits three?”

He kisses my forehead, leaving his lips there, warm, against my skin. “I hope it never comes to that.”

I let my head rest on his shoulder. “Me too.”

I can see a group of men enter the adjoining room. Men from the Drug Enforcement Agency arrived at the scene along with a parade of emergency services. But these men look different again.

“Who are they?” I ask, jerking my head in their direction.

“ICE agents,” Archer replies, his expression clouding.

“Immigration?”

“Yes,” he says, rubbing my arm, “but don’t worry about it. It’s just protocol. They might take you, ask some questions, hold you for a bit, but the information you’re providing… I’ll make damn sure you stay put.”

“Are you sure you have that kind of power?”

He laughs. “Baby, I can charm anyone—male, female, canine, feline. I’m a walking, talking eight ball that only comes up ‘Yes’.”

I can’t help but laugh along, but deeper down I’m scared. I am here illegally. Won’t they send me back? Wouldn’t that be the easiest option?

But Archer’s right. With the things I know, the information on the cartel, I am the one in a position of power, one I’ve never been in before or known. I should take advantage of it.

Haven’t you been through enough? my head interjects. Don’t you deserve this? Don’t you deserve happiness?

I look across at Archer and nod to myself. Yes. Yes, I do.

Eventually, after countless interviews and meetings, people, strangers asking question after question, I’m turned over to the ICE agents, but they’re not as threatening as I imagined. In fact, Archer, as predicted, has managed to charm them.

“…and then the bastard threw up, right up into my face as I was doing mouth-to-mouth. There’s nothing about that in the training manual.”

He sees me, telling the agents. “Can you give us a second?”

They nod together.

Archer approaches me with his hands in his pockets. He looks as tired as I feel. He points behind himself at the ICE agents, lowering his voice. “Alright, these guys are going to have to take you now, but you’ve got nothing to be worried about. I’ve talked to them and they understand. They’re going to make a great case for getting you temporary residency, at least until we sort the rest of this shit out. Everyone’s going to want to keep you a) close and b) protected.”

“Will I have to testify?” I ask, questions popping into my head faster than I can process them.

He takes me by the shoulders, squeezing gently. “I don’t know, baby, but I’m going to be here, right by your side, the whole way. You’re safe and we’re going to make sure your father’s safe, too. Precautions have already been made.”

“They have?”

I feel guilty not even having thought about my father.

Archer stands back grinning. “Come on now. I told you I could work miracles, didn’t I?”

“Can you miracle up a bed, because I’m real tired.”

He brushes hair from my forehead, his eyes relaxed and warm, telling me it’s all going to be okay. “Soon, I promise.”

He kisses me one last time, holding my face with both hands, deepening it until together, we can barely breathe, desperate to hang onto each other.

I break away and a fresh tear slides down my cheek. Archer wipes it away with his thumb. “Don’t cry now. You’re strong, remember? You’re a skydiving, cartel-kicking badass. Don’t you fucking forget it.”

I can’t stop the tears, but I smile through them. “I won’t.”

He steps aside, the agents ushering me out the door.

I see Archer there through the window doing his best to stay composed, but the glazed look in his eyes, even from this distance, betrays him. It would appear this man, this rock, might just be soft inside after all.

SIX WEEKS LATER

“Where are we going?” I ask, unable to see a damn thing with this blindfold on. I extend my hands out in front of me, Archer leading me from behind.

It doesn’t help it’s nighttime, my only clue the odd flash of neon or streaking light, which tells me, together with the noise, we’re probably somewhere near Main Beach.

We’ve only been back together a couple of weeks, the processing taking longer than expected, but now I’m here legally—at least temporarily. If I want to stay in the US, well, that’s a different question.

I was able to speak to my father, confirm he was okay. He told me he’d been moved to a new house. ‘It even has a working shower,’ he told me, ‘a fridge!’ speaking about these basic things like they were part of an elaborate Aladdin’s Cave he’d inherited. I burst into tears, of course, a blubbery, wet mess on the phone, but it was good, so good, to hear his voice.

I mentioned Archer briefly.

‘A life-what?’ my father had asked, confused.

‘He saves people,’ I replied simply, knowing whatever I could come up with would not do him justice. No, I’d need them to meet, curious as to how it would pan out. Archer told me he can charm anyone, but a protective daughter’s father, especially one of an only child? That could be a hard sell.

For now, the sense of normality has returned. The information I provided was acted on quickly, the cartel taken down in an international effort, the first of its kind. From all accounts, it worked. It helped, Lacoya was gone, the head of the snake cut off for good. Other cartels will rise to fill its place, I’m sure, but there’s no more Serpiente, no more of his personal evil tainting the world.

I was offered witness protection, but I declined knowing if Archer couldn’t keep me safe, no one could. I’ve kept my new name, even have half a wardrobe of shiny American clothes to wear, including a whole drawer full of fancy underwear for those special occasions, which are many. There is still a fear, a small shred of it that seems to stain even the best moments, but I try to keep it at bay. It might never leave, but I know with Archer by my side at least I can minimize its presence, observe it from a distance like one would a lingering squall.

“Okay, stop,” says Archer, his breath tickling the side of my neck.

It’s quieter here. I can hear the ocean, but I’ve still got no idea where we are.

“Are you ready?” he asks.

“For what?” I hit back. “If I open my eyes and find we’re about to get on that damn Lucifer the skydiving plane again…”

“No, no,” he laughs, “I think you’ll like this even better.”

I’m unsure, but nod all the same.

He takes my blindfold off, undoing the knot in the back and letting it fall into his hands.

I look around, my eyes slow to adjust.

We’re in the lifeguard tower on Main Beach, the Ronald McDonald one. There are no lights on, the beach dark, all shadow ahead through the windows.

“We’ve had sex here before, remember?” I tell him, pointing. “Me, up on the desk there. You, between my legs.”

Even in the low light Archer can’t hide his smile. “Oh, I remember, but we’re not here for that. Well, maybe later…”

I can’t take it anymore. “What is going on? Tell me.”

He points through the window at the front of the tower looking down over the sand. “Watch,” he says, flicking a switch on the wall.

Immediately, spotlights on the front of the tower illuminate a wide stretch on the sand in front and below us.

An area of it’s been cordoned off and written there, in giant sandy grooves, are the last words I expected to see: Marry me?

I turn to Archer in shock, but he’s already on one knee, a box in his hand, something glinting inside from the spotlights outside.

I’m so surprised, I stammer ‘No!’ stepping back.

Archer just continues to smile. “Oh? Because I really thought you’d say ‘yes’.”

My thoughts are moving a million miles per hour. “I didn’t mean—”

He takes my hand and draws me to him. “Shh now. Let me talk.”

I nod, starting to smile myself, bubbly excitement rising up inside me.

“Winter,” he tells me, locking eyes, “I know we haven’t been together long, but I also know I can’t live without you. You’re the ocean, the air I breathe. You are everything to me, and I want you to be my wife… please.”

I want to come back with something witty, clever, but I’m so excited, so terrified this chance will slip away, I rush into his arms, bowling him over onto his back.

We kiss, Archer managing to hold the ring aside somehow.

When we break apart, he says, “I take it that’s a ‘yes’?

I reply by kissing him back, the ocean shifting outside, the sound of the nightlife a mere murmur in the air.

Finally, I allow myself to sit back on my haunches.

Rocking forward, Archer takes the opportunity to slip the ring onto my finger. I can see now it’s a simple but timeless design, a classic solitaire set in silver.

“Do you like it?” he asks, and I’m pretty sure I detect a hint of nervousness in his usual steely voice.

“Baby,” I reply, borrowing his favorite term of endearment, “I’d wear a rubber band if it came from you.”

“It was a touch more expensive than a rubber band. Let’s just say I’ll be doing plenty of overtime when they let me back in here.”

“It’s beautiful. You are beautiful.”

We hold each other, simply sit there on the floor of the tower listening to our breathing, taking in the new world that’s just been created between us, and I know, just know, it’s going to be incredible.

Archer pulls back. “You think I should tell Robbie to come in now?”

“Robbie?” I ask.

“Yeah, I left him outside on security detail. Had to make sure no one disturbed our masterwork down there.”

I smile, allowing my hand to snake between us and find Archer’s hardness. It responds instantly, jerking against my fingers, eager, no doubt, to make this union official.

“Why don’t we let him wait a little bit longer?” I suggest.

EPILOGUE

ARCHER

ONE YEAR LATER

“I can’t believe it’s taken us a whole year to have our honeymoon,” I say, reclining in the sand.

Feeling sorry for us, the lifeguards pooled together a pretty impressive wedding gift, though life always got in the way of letting us actually spend the money in question and get away. But, finally, here we are—the beautiful Westin Lagunamar in Cancun.

I know it’s more luxurious than anything Winter’s seen before, people waiting on us hand and foot, though Winter’s been fairly ‘hands on’ herself, so to speak. I’m just thankful the wing we’re in has been quiet, because we are definitely not.

It’s almost sunset, the sun peeking out from the clouds on the horizon, everything around us flaxen and gold.

We didn’t really believe a fellow hotel guest when they told us they knew of a secluded beach, especially not around somewhere so built up as Cancun, but an hour on a dodgy bus later, half an hour of walking, and here we are. It’s not exactly secluded, given the walking trails on the cliff above, but we haven’t seen a soul since we got here.

It’s been bliss. Even the water was more temperate than it should be, and this time I don’t have to save anyone, keep up a constant state of vigilance. I’m free to enjoy it with the woman I love, my wife.

I think back to our wedding. We had it on Main Beach, naturally, one of the prettier towers done up in ribbon and silk, a small group of bare-footed friends watching on.

I stood there at the altar, more of a paddleboard shoved into the sand, and thought of Liam for a moment, wishing he was there, but when I saw Winter, bright and white and so damn pretty the whole picture was a postcard, I only thought one thing.

You are one lucky son of a bitch.

It was the greatest day of my life—great Cuban food, salsa, Bar None putting on a kick-ass spread. Cocktails flowed, questionable choices were made, but it all worked.

“Shouldn’t we be getting back to the resort before it gets too dark?” Winter questions.

“I don’t care,” I reply, moving to pull aside the top of her bikini bottom. “I need you.”

We kiss, the breeze cooling on our bodies as they melt together. Her bare chest presses against me, nipples hard in the open air.

A wave rushes over our feet, the bubbly foam tickling our toes. Winter laughs, free and unrestrained. None of that fear remains from when I first found her on the beach so many moons ago.

I kiss her neck, moving to the soft mounds of her breasts. She reaches down and hooks the crotch of her bikini, shifting her lips to my ear. “I want you inside me,” she whispers, her voice mixing with the ocean and breeze until they’re indecipherable from one another.

I push her leg aside and shift against her. When I enter her, she gasps, her mouth forming a perfect oval before me, her toes curling against the sand.

I ease out and run forward again into the wet, warmth of her sex. She moans and I swallow it with a kiss, drawing back to watch the way the sensation shifts inside the opal cages of her eyes.

The water rises and falls around us, pulled forward and swept back as I move inside her. I never tire of this, of the way her body welcomes me.

Another wave rushes in around us, high enough to tease my thighs.

Hand on my side, Winter breaks the kiss and leans forward to look at the ocean. “I can’t tell if the tide’s going in or coming out.”

I ease myself back and run forward right into the hot depths of her pussy. “Oh, it’s definitely going in,” I reply, letting her adjust to my size.

I thrust harder, ramping up the speed and depth of my strokes until she’s mewing and moaning beneath me caught between the sand and the hard plane of my body above.

I wait until I see the red in her cheeks growing, feel the way her body blooms in need.

“Oh, God,” she moans. “Yes, yes.”

But I can’t let her come—not yet.

I draw away and pull her up, flipping her onto her hands and knees in the wet sand. She stretches forward with her arms against the side of her head, her swinging breasts kissing the water that rushes between us.

She laughs as we start to sink in the sand. “We’re not going to be washed away, are we?”

“Not on my watch,” I reply, plunging into her again.

I brace a hand on her hip, the other on the small of her back, and stroke again, hitting her G-spot just right.

She groans against the sand, moving to thrust back against me while the wind whistles and the oceans rears up again, everything in motion—organic.

The surf swells around my ankles, but I press on, filling her over and over until her cries are loud enough to drown out the ocean itself.

Winter looks back as I pound into her, her back arching and adjusting the angle of entry yet again, the velvety walls of her sex closing in around my cock.

I grit my teeth, staving off my own release.

Ahead of us, the cliffs rise like rocky onlookers, a goat trail running up the side anyone could use. If they were to stand on top of the cliffs we’d be exposed, the next viral hit soon forgotten. It adds a delicious thrill to the encounter, knowing our heated act here could be uncovered at any moment.

“Yes,” Winter moans, drawing out the ‘S’, her head falling back down between her arms, hair falling to the sand.

I wonder if she’s looking between her legs, can see my cock as it runs deep into her body. The thought brings me to the edge, all the willpower I have required to stop myself from losing control.

But that’s what she does to me. My life used to be so ordered, so predictable, but Winter came in like a whirlwind and upended it in the best way possible. I don’t know where I’d be without her.

The sun’s setting, the water and sand growing colder with every passing moment.

I can feel the heat leaving my shoulder blades, can imagine the bright orb of the sun slowly bobbing below the horizon. Overhead, the sky burns pink and orange, a fiery blanket above.

I’m tied to the ocean, can sense a large wave rising up behind us. It smashes into me from behind, washing over us. Winter shakes with the chill of it, gasping aloud as the sand slips away around her knees.

I thrust harder and harder, angling myself for maximum sensation, the two of us continuing our slow descent into the sand. The surf crashes over us again, Winter’s hair whipping over her back as she lifts her head.

I know we won’t be able to stay here, but I also know how close she is to release.

I shutter my eyes and take her with all the energy I can muster, gripping her hips tight. My breathing hitches in anticipation, her moaning rising to a sharp crescendo. A wave hammers me from behind and I’m thrust to the very end of her, to the molten core of her sex.

It undoes me. I tense, unable to hold back any longer. With a groan I thrust into her a final time and let go.

It sends her over the edge. She stiffens, shivering before falling into a violent series of convulsions that grip and release my cock in quick succession.

I don’t know how long we stay locked there in ecstasy, slowly letting our orgasms ebb away.

A rogue wave knocks me back into reality and I pull out, helping Winter up and out of the surf, running up the sand until we both collapse on firmer ground laughing and struggling to breathe.

We watch the burning sky together, our fingers locked. Winter’s swimsuit is still bunched up around her waist, her nipples a hot red in the fading light, the tips of a poker that’s been sitting in the fire too long.

I know I’m getting hard again, and I know she can see it.

Her free hand reaches over, stroking me softly, almost an afterthought.

I turn to her with a half-smile. “So eager.”

She grips me a little tighter. “And you aren’t?”

I have to laugh at that. “You know me. The mere mention of sex has me at full mast.”

“Sex on the beach, though… That’s something you don’t do every day.”

I reach over and touch her lips lightly, trace them out with the pad of a finger. My only reply is to roll us over and kiss her again, my lips crashing down on hers hard while the world grows cold around us.

She lets a soft moan escape her mouth as I bite down on her lower lip, pulling back and letting it free.

“What now?” she asks, her voice strained with desire.

“Now, my love,” I reply, “we dance.”

She places a finger on my lips, holding me away. “There is one thing I forgot to mention.”

“What’s that?” I ask, already eager to be inside her again.

“I haven’t been taking my birth control.”

We’ve been discussing this. I smile, the thought of having a child with this woman, the love of my life, more than my heart can take. “Even better.”

WINTER

FOUR YEARS LATER

“Got you!” I shout, rolling another snowball in my mitten and aiming it into the distance where Archer and our three-year-old Willow are hiding, giggling away in some big snowy conspiracy.

“Watch out, Mommy!” comes Willow’s tiny voice.

I see her stand and fling a snowball. It goes wide, Archer pulling her back to safety and the two of them continuing to laugh and plot.

I take a moment to look around. I never thought I’d ever see the snow, but here we are, in the Australian High Country, flakes of snow falling slowly from the sky like time itself is playing catch-up. Yes, Australia has snow. Who knew? It’s incredibly beautiful, made more so by the company I’m sharing it with.

“How about his one, Mommy?” Wren, the second of our triplets, hands me a snowball, though it’s more of a square than a ball. “Thank you, honey,” I smile.

“What about mine?” squeaks Weslee to my right, the third of our three. “I take her snowball, almost as big as her head, cradling the collection to the ground and pulling the girls close. “Now, let’s get Daddy and Willow good, shall we?”

It’s on—the great snowball fight the girls have been talking about all week. Yes, we are over three-hundred miles from Sydney, from home, but Archer’s always coming up with random trips like this, whisking us away into the middle of the night to the extraordinary natural gems this country has to offer.

It took a lot for Archer to pull strings and get us over here, especially considering we are still in witness protection, so to speak. Generally, sending a witness overseas is a no-no because they tend to stick out like a sore thumb in the homogeneity of the population, but Australia’s so multicultural it hardly matters.

Besides, I’d already testified, the cartel had already been broken down and disbanded, more cartels no doubt fighting over the territory. I was assured the danger had passed, that we could lead normal lives, but I don’t think I’d ever really feel safe in the US anymore.

Most people in witness protection aren’t angels. They’re criminals the American government wants to keep close tabs on, but not me, not Archer, so we were given some slack—even if Archer did need to tug on every string he had. The sheer volume of information I provided was enough to buy me leeway with the authorities, however, and that’s what did it.

Through a friend, Archer managed to find himself a lifeguard position at Sydney’s famous Bondi Beach. After that it was a simple case of packing up and shipping ourselves over—not that I had much to pack.

The triplets arrived six months later, all at the same time, all jostling for position inside me. Watching the way they act, I think the girls are going to be just as competitive as their dad.

I’ve never really seen Archer get perturbed by anything, but when the doctor announced we were having triplets, all identical girls, Archer went pale as a sheet. I think it took a solid week before it all sunk in we’d soon be a family of five.

The birth—my god. I thought my poor vagina was going to explode. I kept yelling down through gritted teeth, “One at a time, guys!” but the girls were too eager to get out and explore the world. That sense of wonder pervades everything they do. They’re so naturally curious about, well, everything.

Of course, naming them all ‘W’ names sounded like a cute idea at the time, but it has made rather life interesting when you’re trying to call across the house.

They’re active, energetic, blessed with good genes and the most adorable little faces you’ve ever seen. They look at me at night with their big blue eyes and I just want to die from cuteness overload. I look at them and I see Archer—I see the man who saved my life.

We’ve even had my father over to visit. It was quite the operation, very covert, but he loved the girls and, after a firm handshake and stare down, Archer too. Archer’s like that. Give him five minutes and he’ll charm the pants off even the most un-charmable of individuals. It’s gone a long way here.

I watch him playing with the girls. He’s a golden standard of a dad, tackling domestic duties with aplomb and getting right into the Aussie DIY spirit. Our house is modest, barely big enough for the five of us, but it’s a home. That’s all I ever wanted. I think it’s all Archer ever needed.

“Got you, Dad!” Weslee squeals… right before a snowball smacks her square in the face. I hold my breath waiting for the waterworks, but they never come. She simply giggles and goes about scooping up another.

They’re resilient, my girls, just like Yours Truly. I’m teaching them to be strong and independent. I know with Archer by my side they’ll be able to achieve anything, though I’d love to skip forward another ten years to see how he does with periods and boyfriends. I’m pretty sure he’s going to forbid them from going outside when they grow breasts.

Defeated, Archer and Willow return to our side with their hands up.

I shuffle the girls along. “Go on, girls. Go and play.”

They dart off lightning quick back into the snow, rolling around and laughing like a bunch of sugared-up snow bunnies.

Archer snakes his hands around my waist, squeezing me tight. “Getting a bit cold, isn’t it?”

“There’s a fireplace back at the cabin, you know.”

He kisses his way up my neck. “A bottle of wine chilling in the fridge, a cheese platter, a rug, a handsome man to make love to you all night long…”

I reach behind myself and find his cock firm as always when it’s pressed up against me. “We wouldn’t want the girls to hear now, would we?” I tease.

“I can be quiet,” he whispers. “Remember Robbie’s place?”

“That was not quiet,” I laugh.

“The question is, can you be quiet?” he continues.

“Hmm,” I purr, taking up his hand and slowly slipping his middle finger into my mouth, sucking on it before letting it free, “I’m sure you could find something to put in my mouth.”

“Mmm-mmm,” he groans back, “what did I do to deserve you?”

“You did save my life—several times, as I recall.”

“Well, you know what they say—guard hard, or go home.”

I bring a finger to my lower lip. “Funny, I thought it was ‘beaches be crazy’?”

He laughs and smiles, that smile I know and love, the smile of a husband and a father, a man without equal, a man who basically pushed me out of a plane. “It can be whatever you want, and it will, because we’re here, we’re together, and we’re not going anywhere but up.”

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