From the Embers

by Aly Martinez

  Quietly laughing, she stood and strolled over to me. Bree wasn’t particularly tall, so I had her by a head and shoulders, but she craned her head back to peer up at me. “I know you were dreading tonight. You always think you can hide it with a clever smile or a joke, but not with me.”

  Warmth flooded my chest, and I fought the urge to tuck a hair the night breeze had set free behind her ear. So damn much had changed. In all the years before the fire, I’d never really taken the chance to get to know Bree. Obviously, I’d noticed she was beautiful; with her thick, chestnut hair and piercing, green eyes, it was hard not to. But I was learning that beauty was only the tip of the iceberg with this woman.

  “I don’t hide anything from you.”

  “Good,” she said. “Let’s keep it that way.”

  My throat got thick, and as hypocritical as it was, I hoped the sweat breaking across the back of my neck and the tempo of my racing heart were both hidden. Her proximity suddenly felt suffocating, which was almost as confusing as it was intoxicating.

  Together, we stood there, surrounded by white lights and unspoken emotions. There were gratitude and respect, but most of all, there was love. Maybe not the conventional or romantic variety, but it was there all the same.

  “I’m really proud of you,” she whispered.

  It was silly. I’d heard those words before. Friends, family, Rob. Hell, she’d already told me five minutes ago. Bree seriously wanted me to hear it, and coming from her—easily one of my biggest critics in the past—it meant the world. Pride traveled all the way down to the marrow of my bones, reproducing and spreading throughout my entire being. There was no motivator in the world greater than having someone who truly believed in you.

  Shoving my hands into the pockets of my jeans before I had the chance to do something stupid—like drag her into a hug and possibly never let go—I rocked onto my toes. “This time next year, huh?”

  Her smile grew. “Yep.”

  “Okay. Challenge accepted. Twelve months from now and Easton Maxwell will be a household name.”

  She barked a laugh. “You gotta nip that in the bud. Don’t put it past me to take gift baskets to every radio station in America just so they’ll pronounce it right.”

  “I don’t give a shit if they call me Estonian Maxwrong as long as they play my music. Also, I’m really offended you didn’t save the Johnnie Walker for me.”

  “Who says I didn’t? We’ll crack into it this weekend. Act surprised when you open your fridge, and also bring the basket over for breakfast. There was a blueberry scone I had my eye on.”

  She’d spoiled her congratulatory gift, but I appreciated it all the same, so I gasped with mock horror. “Dear God. Sugar for breakfast? What are we? Animals?”

  Shaking her head, she moved into my side, sliding her arm around my hips, and gave me a long squeeze.

  Caught off guard, I froze, head to toe rock solid. Bree and I hugged sometimes. There were usually tears, emotional breakdowns, or panic attacks involved, but we were no strangers to physical touch.

  This was different though.

  I had no fucking idea why, but as I pulled my hands from my pockets and wrapped her up tight, our bodies sagging as if they’d finally come home, it was definitely different.

  And I’d be lying if I didn’t say I loved every fucking second of it.

  The song eventually ended.

  So did our embrace.

  Within an hour, we were both headed off to our respective beds.

  But something changed between us that night. A shift in the atmosphere. A peek of the sun behind the clouds. The turning of the tide.

  Or, as I would later learn, the first spark in a wildfire.

  BREE

  “Oh, God,” I breathed, pitch-black darkness cloaking my vision as I spread my legs wider, his callused fingers sliding over my opening. The ache inside me built as he circled and teased everywhere but where I needed him. “Please,” I begged into his mouth, his lips hovering over mine, his panted exhales filling my lungs.

  “Not yet,” he rumbled, an order and a promise.

  Hooking my ankles around his back, I dragged him down, his thick shaft pressing into my thigh, once again missing the mark. “I need you.”

  “I know.” He continued his tender assault with agonizing strokes that did nothing to release me from his breathless torment.

  Primal need roared in my ears as I writhed beneath him. Wordlessly, I continued to beg with my body as the game we’d been playing for what felt like an eternity became too much for me to take. “I can’t do this. I can’t—”

  He silenced me with a nip at my bottom lip, the pain traveling all the way down to my clit in a wave of ecstasy that was almost enough.

  “Yessss,” I hissed, the pressure inside me soaring. So damn close. One touch and I could have stepped off the edge of climax. One damn touch anywhere on my fevered body and I’d have fallen apart in his arms.

  Then everything suddenly stopped.

  “Be patient,” he ordered. “You’re not ready yet.”

  “I am,” I pleaded, my voice breaking with desperation. “I am. I swear.”

  “Just a little longer,” he growled, my body withering without him.

  “I’m done waiting,” I snapped, frustration overtaking my desires. “Quit playing with me and make me fucking come already. This is cruel.”

  “Is it?” he asked, his deep voice dripping with challenge.

  “Yes!” I yelled, that one syllable scorching my throat as it tore free from my soul.

  “Then come get it.”

  A bright light illuminated the room, my vision returning all at once as Eason appeared in front of me. Dear God, he was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. And not because muscles lined his torso, a six-pack rippling his stomach. Nor because of his chiseled jaw or his full lips. It wasn’t the tantalizing tattoos or messy, blond hair that all but begged for my fingers. It was just him, Eason, and the easy grin pulling at his lips that always managed to warm my chest.

  But there was something different written on his face, something desperate and urgent as he stared back at me.

  A lump formed in my throat. “Eason,” I breathed, reaching out for him, but without moving, he was transported out of my reach.

  Panic exploded in my chest, and I lurched from the bed. “Wait. Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere.” He slanted his head and smiled, but in the next blink, he was even farther away.

  I scrambled after him, but my limbs wouldn’t cooperate. Instinctively, I knew that if I could just catch him in my arms, everything would be okay.

  Another blink and this time he was barely visible in the distance.

  “Eason!” I shouted.

  “I’m right here,” he replied.

  But he wasn’t, and the pain was paralyzing. “No, no, no. Come back.”

  Out of nowhere, I landed flat on my back, his heavy weight on top of me, pinning me down. His hands were in my hair. His mouth on my neck. The most chaotic bliss overtaking me as he drove inside me, hard and fast.

  “Oh, God!” I cried, my climax once again roaring inside me. If and when I fell over that edge, there would be no turning back.

  Then suddenly our roles reversed.

  “Wait, wait, wait. It’s too soon,” I begged, all the while rolling my hips and meeting his every thrust.

  “Let go,” he growled, his rhythm speeding until it was as blissful as it was punishing. “You’re ready.” Lifting his head, his smoldering, brown eyes locked on mine. “Hurry up, Bree.” He smiled, arrogant and taunting. “Before I’m gone.”

  Like a rubber band, my body snapped, an orgasm tearing through me, jolting me awake. “Eason!” I gasped, my fingers circling my clit as a shattering orgasm rocked through me. My rational mind broke through the sleep, and the pleasure gradually ebbed into guilt.

  “What the fuck,” I breathed, my body sagging into the bed.

  “Hurry up, Bree. Before I’m gone.”

>   No, seriously, what the actual fuck was wrong with my subconscious. Eason?

  Not Shamar Moore or Michael Fassbender or even Henry Alexander?

  Of all the men my brain could conjure for a sex dream, it picked Eason?

  At just the thought, a vision of him staring down at me as he worked me hard and fast, his cock stretching me in all the right ways, made heat bloom between my thighs again.

  Okay, shit. That was not how I was supposed to feel about my husband’s best friend. My dead husband’s best friend. My husband who had only been dead for a freaking year. My best friend’s husband. My dead best friend’s husband.

  Jesus, what a double slap in the face.

  After rolling out of bed, I wandered to the bathroom and turned the shower on. There was still an hour before my alarm was set to go off, but I didn’t trust my brain enough not to cast Eason in a temporal lobe reboot of Magic Mike.

  Though, if I was being honest, the teenage wet dream of sorts wasn’t the only thing I needed to wash off. The fear I’d experienced when Eason had slowly disappeared was the kind that embedded itself in your bones. Now that I was awake, I could process that Eason was only yards away, asleep in the pool house, but the panic and loss still lingered in my veins.

  I’d never been one to read into dreams. In high school, I used to have a reoccurring one that my history teacher lived under my bed and kept me awake all hours of the night by pelting me with Pop Rocks and women’s shoes. I was sure there was a doctor out there somewhere who could have had a field day with that one. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that this one meant something more.

  Maybe it was shame, but that morning as I got ready, I saw Rob everywhere. From his body wash still on the shelf in the shower to his toothbrush on the charger beside his sink. There was a handful of change on his nightstand and a pair of shoes still tucked out of sight under the bed. I’d cleaned and tidied around his things week after week, making sure nothing collected dust, but I’d never quite gotten to the point where I was ready to get rid of them.

  But as I stood in the middle of my room, it all felt so sad and suffocating.

  “You’re ready,” Eason repeated in my head with that intense, dominating tone.

  Yeah, okay, fine. The dream had been hot, but so was Eason. That was no secret. I was a woman. I had eyes. But a tantalizing game of push-and-pull wasn’t who we were. He was Jessica’s husband and Rob’s best friend. That dream wasn’t who we would ever be.

  But maybe Dream Eason was right. Maybe it was time to finally let go. Rob wouldn’t have wanted me to live in limbo forever. Moving on didn’t mean erasing him from our lives. He was still Asher and Madison’s dad. And my first love. But, at the end of the day, he was never coming home, and while it felt like I’d come to terms with that, I was still holding on to bits and pieces of the life we’d shared.

  It was time.

  Drawing in a deep breath, I smiled and closed my eyes, trying to conjure a memory of my husband’s smile.

  Only he wasn’t the man on the backs of my lids.

  “Hurry up, Bree. Before I’m gone.”

  Fuck.

  “Bree?”

  A pair of toffee-brown eyes I couldn’t stop thinking about disappeared as my office came back into focus. “Huh?”

  “Are you okay?” my secretary Jillian asked as she sat across the desk from me, equal parts concern and bewilderment showing in the wrinkles on her forehead.

  Clearing my throat, I straightened in my chair. “Yeah, I’m just a little, um, distracted today. Go ahead and finish what you were saying.”

  She pointedly lifted her yellow legal pad. “Actually, you were saying. I was taking notes.”

  Shit. “Right. Okay. And…um, what exactly was I saying?”

  Resting her notepad in her lap, she leaned forward and offered me a tight smile. “How are you doing, honey? I know we hit the one-year mark without your Rob not too long ago. After I lost my Edgar, the anniversaries were hardest.”

  Yes. The anniversary of the fire had been awful. Eason and I had both been zombies that week, lost in a sea of regret. But that wasn’t why a boulder of guilt sat on my chest as the most inconvenient desire of my life sparked between my thighs.

  “No, it’s not that.”

  She offered me a warm, motherly grin. “You know I’m always here if you’d like to talk.”

  Damn, I missed Jessica. Not that, if she were still alive, I could call her up and say, “Oh, hey, I had a sex dream about your husband last night.” God, I was an awful person.

  Sure, I had Eason. We talked about everything, though I suspected this was going to be a smidge out of his comfort zone. And like twenty-four thousand miles beyond mine.

  Jillian stared at me expectantly. “Anything you need, Bree, I’m here, okay?”

  I let out a sigh. This was going to feel like talking to my grandmother, but I was just desperate enough not to care. I was sure I could find a way to ask her about it without scandalizing her too much.

  “Actually, can I ask you a personal question?”

  She inched forward in her chair. “Of course. Anything.”

  I swallowed hard. “After you, um, lost Edgar, did you ever have a…dream about someone else?”

  “Oh,” she breathed before stretching her lips in the universal eek face. “Wow, you really did mean personal.”

  Shit. Mayday. Mayday.

  Note to self: stick to dictating correspondence to Jillian and not dissecting dreams where your husband’s best friend gave you the best orgasm of your entire life.

  “You know what, don’t answer that. It was completely out of line. I’ve just had—”

  “Now, hold on there, honey. You know I love working here at Prism. Rob made this my home years ago and I would hate to do or say anything inappropriate to ever risk losing that.” Using two fingers, she tucked her short, gray bob behind her ear. “But if this is just a little girl talk between two friends, then…” She lifted one shoulder in a half shrug.

  “Oh, totally.” I waved a hand between us. “This would be off the record. Just two gals chatting during a break. I didn’t mean to make you feel otherwise. Your job is always safe, Jillian. Prism wouldn’t be the same without you.”

  “Well, in that case.” An ornery smile stretched across her face as she leaned back in her chair, intertwined her fingers, and rested her joined hands on her stomach. “Please God tell me this was an absolutely filthy dream about that fine hunk of man Eason Maxwell.”

  My mouth fell open at her brazenness—and also her alarmingly accurate guess. “Well…I mean.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, child. I’ve had so many dreams about that man. We should compare notes.”

  A laugh bubbled from my throat as I scolded, “Jillian!”

  She shrugged. “What? I can’t believe it’s taken you this long. When you had me call him the day Madison cut her hand, the look on his face when he came flying through the door, white as a sheet and yet still nipple-tingling hot…” She tugged at the front of her white silk blouse comically—but also completely serious—fanning herself. “Lordy, I was hot and bothered for a week. I don’t know how you do it, living with him in your guesthouse, seeing him every day. If I were you, I’d wind up either in his bed or in jail for trying.”

  “Oh my God.” I leaned over and buried my face in my arms on the desk.

  “Nope. No getting shy on me now. Spill it. I need all the details.”

  “Are you crazy? I’m not giving you details.”

  She huffed. “Oh, I see how it is. You get to watch him all sweaty and doing shirtless pushups in the yard, but you won’t even share the juicy details of your imagination with a lonely old lady.”

  My head popped up. “Who said he does sweaty, shirtless pushups in the yard?”

  She quirked her eyebrow and shot me a glare. “Oh, please. A man does not have a body like his without pushups. If you aren’t watching, invite me over and I will.”

  Another round of laughter struck m
e, but I finally sat up and kicked my chair back. “Okay, stop. Seriously. I can’t breathe.”

  For a few seconds, she sat there staring at me with a proud smile on her plump face. “All right, now that we got the embarrassing stuff out of the way. Tell me why you’ve been in la-la land all day.”

  All humor suddenly vanished, my arch nemesis reality clocking in for the day. “Ugh,” I groaned. “It is Eason.”

  “Oh, I know. We covered that.”

  “No, I mean it’s Eason. Rob’s best friend. Jessica’s husband. That’s a lifetime’s worth of wrong.”

  “But…” she prompted.

  “But…I can’t stop thinking about him.”

  With a loud clap, she sat up straight. “All right. Jillian your best gal pal is gone. Time for some tough love from Mama Jill.” Another clap. “Bree, honey. Wake. Up.”

  “I am awake. Though this being one big nightmare could account for why we just discussed Eason’s abs.” I pressed my palms to my eyes and then shook my head to rattle away the image of Mama Jill gawking at him beside my pool.

  “You aren’t awake. You’re stuck. And given the way you lost Rob, I don’t blame you. But maybe this dream of yours is telling you something. If Eason is off-limits, fine. I respect that. Leave him for the rest of us. But it’s okay to want that kind of intimacy with someone else. You two spend a lot of time together. Maybe your brain got some wires crossed. But that doesn’t mean you have to feel embarrassed about it. You’re a young, vibrant woman with needs. No shame in that.”

  But shame was exactly the emotion washing over me. “It was more than that though. In my dream, he left. And I was begging him not to go. I was so scared.” Tears welled in my eyes and I flicked my gaze out the window in an attempt to fight them off. “It was the abandonment.”

  “Now that is something different,” she whispered. “You’ve lost a lot. That kind of hurt sticks with you. It sounds to me like Eason has taken over a lot of roles in your life. You depend on him. Care about him. Trust him. And now, you’re starting to feel some things you weren’t expecting. But that doesn’t make it wrong. Is it possible he might have feelings for you too?”