by Christa Wick
I rubbed my palm along her upper back in an attempt to stop her shaking. "How about I save the lecture for tomorrow?"
Burying her face against my chest, Eden nodded and I hugged her tighter. The rest of my engine team had finished putting the gear back on the truck and were stopping to stare at us. Cam, in particular, had pulled a knowing face. I shot him a look that told him to get his dumb ass back to work because he didn't know shit.
"Wait here." I sat Eden down on the bumper of the hose truck. "I'll get us a ride."
It took two minutes to find someone from the station house who would bring me my truck and another fifteen for him to arrive. After that, I folded her into the passenger seat and stripped off my turnouts so I could drive her to my house.
Closing in on two a.m., the streets were empty. With no traffic, it was about half an hour's travel to my single-story ranch. The drive passed mostly in silence. I didn't trust myself not to lecture her if I asked any of the questions racing through my head. She didn't seem inclined to volunteer any information either -- likely for the same reason.
I had bought the house about a year after my parents divorced, around the time my mom started dating my current station chief. Even though I had more or less stopped searching for Eden, I made sure my phone was publicly listed. Since my name hadn't changed, like hers might have, and I lived in the same town in which she had last seen me, there was no excuse for her not being able to find me.
That meant she had made the conscious decision not to seek me out.
The thought was almost enough to make me forget my promise to save the lecture for the morning as I pulled into the garage and killed the engine. She should have let me know she was in town. She sure as hell shouldn't have been living out of that damn hotel in Pole Town with its infestation of rats and the worst citizens any city had to offer.
Pulling the key from the ignition, I glanced at Eden. She hadn't made a single noise for the last ten minutes and it was clear why -- she was sound asleep. Adrenaline fatigue. Once I woke her and the night's events came rushing back, she'd get another spike of the chemical.
I postponed awakening her, of forcing her back into that shaky physical state.
Waiting, I watched. The garage light had come on, softly illuminating her lower body. One knee and part of her pale thigh peeked from between the blanket's edges. I struggled to suppress the memory of seeing her as the sheets had dropped.
It was a hard memory to bury. It wouldn't stay down no matter how much I tried. I pictured the athletic legs, creamy white thighs, and the red silk covering her pussy. That I had failed her as a friend after Michael's death didn't stop the sudden desire I had to pull back the blanket and touch her, caressing the bare skin of her legs before cupping her mound, my fingers working to turn her inner folds moist.
I clenched my hand into a fist in search of the barest control. I couldn't trust myself to wake her with a touch, so I continued waiting -- continued looking at her with a hungry need.
She shifted in her sleep, one edge of the blanket slipping, exposing her full thigh. Instantly, I was hard all over again and there was nothing I could do to stop the groan as it clawed its way up my throat. She moved. I quickly turned away, coughing as I opened the door and the dome light came on. She made a little gurgle of protest at the sudden brightness within the truck's interior and then came more awake. Wrapping the blanket tight around her, the effort impeded by the fist she had kept closed all this time, she got out of the truck and followed after me.
Despite my curiosity over the item she clutched, I said nothing. People saved crazy things from fires. Kids kicked and screamed as a favorite stuffed animal was left in the smoky bed they had been plucked from. The weirdest thing I could remember someone rescuing was an old map. I thought the seventy year old man must have been a treasure hunter. Instead, the well-folded paper was a memento. He had walked the trails marked on it with his father when he was twelve during the last summer his father was alive.
Unlocking the side door into the house, I turned on the kitchen light and ushered Eden inside, keeping my back to her while I willed my hard-on to subside. "Hungry or thirsty?"
"No."
The shy, soft voice told me she was likely lying. I would let her have her lies tonight.
I pulled a clean glass from the dishwasher and filled it with orange juice. "Well, if you want anything later, help yourself to whatever strikes your fancy."
I gulped down the juice, hoping she was too tired to have heard the want that coated my voice. Still unable to turn to her, I awkwardly led her into the living room and down the hall. The house was in the same subdivision she had lived in as Michael's stepdaughter. Each of the small ranches were exactly the same and she stopped in front of the guest bedroom, her hand reaching through the blanket's edges for the handle.
"You'll be in my bed," I said. She looked up, the blood draining from her face before I hastily explained. "I converted the extra bedroom to a home gym. I'll sleep on the sofa."
Color slowly returned to her face, the cheeks flushing slightly. I led Eden the rest of the way to the master bedroom. I entered first and pointed at the open door to the master bath.
"Should be plenty of shampoo and body wash to remove the soot before you hit the sack," I said, turning next to my closet. "And I changed the sheets before I left for work."
From the closet, I pulled out a big, black garbage bag that was half full of women's clothing. I dumped its contents onto the bed before sheepishly offering an explanation. "Old girlfriend. She never came back to collect it and I haven't gotten around to dropping it off at the shelter."
That wasn't exactly the truth. More than one woman had passed through my home for a few weeks or days at a time. I had fucked them silly then sent them on their way, not one of them capable of sparking a deeper interest in me. After each one left, I found myself on the Internet looking for some clue as to where Eden might have gone. I searched every open nursing registry online for licenses issued to women with the first name of "Helen." I tried image searches in which I uploaded pictures of Eden, Michael or her mother, hoping either mother or daughter had posted the same image elsewhere.
A few more days would pass and then I would be on to the next girl to warm my bed. My only defense as a man whore was that I was honest with the ladies. They all knew I wasn't looking for anything permanent. And they all thought they could change my mind.
Moving to the nightstand, Eden placed face down whatever she had clutched in her hand all through the fire and drive home. She turned to catch me looking curiously at the item.
"It's the only picture I still have of Michael."
I nodded my understanding. She had always been a sweet, sentimental girl who loved her daddy. It didn't surprise me that she had thought to find and rescue the photo instead of her wallet.
Passing in front of me, Eden lowered the blanket and tucked it like an oversized skirt around her waist. The t-shirt she had on was white and I could see the darker circle of her nipples. They were still achingly hard. I looked back to the pile of clothes to see her pulling out a Hello Kitty tee and pink sweatpants with HAWT boldly emblazoned along the butt.
She quirked an eyebrow at me. "Old girlfriend?"
"Ex-girlfriend," I amended. I mostly dated women my age. There had been one cougar, a woman stuck somewhere between my age and my mother's. I had foolishly assumed she was only looking for a boy toy. But that particular lady had taken all her clothes with her when she left -- and a pound or two of my flesh.
A smart-alecky grin I knew all too well surfaced across Eden's beautiful face. "You rescue her from a fire, too?"
That had been the case with my cougar, but Eden didn't need to know. I scowled at her, ignoring the question. "Try to get some sleep. I have tomorrow off and we'll go to the mall, get you something that fits and--"
She shook her head at me. "I don't have any money."
"Little girl, you don't need money."
Realizing I shouldn't h
ave called her that, I shut my trap. She'd been on her own for who knew how long, surviving as best she could. She didn't need me to use a patronizing nickname from a past in which she really had been a little girl. I lost the right to pet names when I stormed away from her drive that night three years ago then buried myself in a hole until she was out of reach.
She gave me another shake of her head, more emphatic than the first. "I don't know when I would be able to pay you back. I don't have a job--"
I raised a hand, stopping her. She had forgotten how things worked in her stepfather's world, how we all took care of one another at the station. Not just those on the job but their families, too. I was going to have to remind her.
"What makes you think I'd let you pay me back? Your dad was family, you were..." I stopped as another wave of failure clawed at my gut. "Just...don't worry about paying me back. If you can one day, then good, if not, that's fine, too."
I raised both brows and gave her a hard stare to let her know I meant everything I had just said. I had failed her in the past, but Eden was here now, with me. Whatever she needed, I'd give it to her. "Is that clear?"
She answered with a short nod, her gaze not quite meeting mine. Whether that meant she wouldn't protest the new clothes in the morning or was too damned tired to argue about it didn't matter. We'd cross that bridge later. Right then, she clearly needed sleep. She was swaying lightly and I didn't think her legs would hold up much longer.
I took a step forward, ready to plant a kiss on her forehead like I had sometimes done in the past. Then I realized she probably wouldn't welcome the gesture. She hadn't come looking for me even though she was living in the same city. If the fire hadn't happened or someone else had pulled her from the building, she would have been gone before I ever found out she had ghosted through town.
I put my hand on her shoulder and gave a little squeeze. "Sleep tight, Eden."
I turned to leave but she called me back with the soft whisper of my name.
"Dare..."
I looked, saw the tears in her eyes and rushed back to draw her trembling body into my arms. "What's wrong?"
She clutched the fabric of my shirt and buried her face against my chest. "Thank you...for saving my life...for bringing me here."
I hugged her tighter, kissed the crown of her head, stroked her hair until she stopped shaking. I wanted to do a hell of a lot more, but I didn't have the right and the timing couldn't be worse. Not even two hours ago she had been seconds from being burned alive.
"You're safe now. Just try to get some sleep, okay?"
She nodded and slowly withdrew from my embrace. I felt the absence like a hard punch in the gut. Wanting to pull her back to me, I forced myself to take that first step toward the door and to keep on walking until I was in the living room grabbing a pillow and blanket from the coat closet.
The sofa was a pullout and I fumbled with getting it open. My hands shook. My heart thumped heavily in my chest. A thin film of perspiration covered my forehead and chest. I flopped onto the mattress and unfurled the blanket across me.
I knew an adrenaline high when I was locked in one. It was all part of the job and I had started fighting fires at eighteen as part of the auxiliary volunteers. I had three full years on the force, my dedication and focus bringing me to the rank of sergeant faster than any other man in the city had earned it.
Whenever I returned home from a fire as big as what I had just faced, I usually rubbed out a quick orgasm if I was alone to ease the tension and celebrate being alive. Seldom was I actually alone. More nights than not, I fucked my partner until she was a wet puddle of nerves.
But it wasn't the fire that had me on edge. It was the driving need to have Eden be the one melting beneath me, aroused, electric. To violate that sweet body until she was creaming and crying my name, promising to stay within the circle of my arms forever.
I rubbed at my eyes, reminded myself a dozen times over who -- what -- I was to her. I was Michael Burke's godson. I was the child of a marriage her mother had ruined. I was the hurt twenty-year old who abandoned her and I was the stranger who had rescued her from death in a hotel she never should have been forced to stay in. I had no right to lust after her as I was doing. If I screwed up so soon after finding her, especially after the night's horrors, I would never get another chance.
Rolling onto my stomach, I buried my head under a pillow and hoped she would be able to find a good night's sleep.
One of us had to.
Chapter Eight
Eden
Alone in Dare's bedroom, I folded the blanket I had wrapped around my waist then removed my t-shirt, leaving me completely naked. Realizing I should lock the door in case he had forgotten something, I tiptoed across the carpeted floor, quietly slid the lock into place then went into the bathroom and secured that door.
I sat on the toilet and emptied my bladder, looking around the room at the same time. There were shelves opposite the toilet and the lowest one had two small, lidless storage cubes overflowing with cosmetics. Either Dare was a closet drag queen or clothes weren't the only thing his former girlfriends had left behind.
My lips quirked in a knowing smile. He had tried to give me the impression that there was only one ex who had forgotten half her closet, but I wasn't blind and I wasn't so dumb I couldn't accurately interpret what my eyes took in. While the taste in clothing was almost universally bad, there were too many different sizes and most of the colors were uncoordinated, as if each woman had only left behind an item or two.
The contents of the storage cubes confirmed my suspicions. It seemed like forever since I had been able to afford any make-up, but I knew that most women were particular about their brands and the shades they wore -- particularly when it came to foundation. Looking at duplicate brushes, foundations for wildly different skin tones, and various eyeshadow that were super expensive and others that were super cheap, I started to feel a little sick in my stomach.
Dare had turned into a player since I last knew him. Worse than that, he didn't try to hide it from the women he brought home to fuck. The clothes and cosmetics were warning flags to all the hotties who entered his inner sanctum that each was temporary, just one more layer in the collective debris of his sex life.
If he had been serious about a woman, he would have erased the trace of his past lovers before he brought her by his place for even a casual visit. What I saw before me and in the bag of clothes was more than a few months of accumulation.
Or so I very much wanted to believe. Only a pathological sex drive could sample so many women in less than a year.
Shoving the bins onto their shelf, I flushed and stepped into the shower. I turned the water as hot as it would go and started washing the soot from my body and hair. I cleaned myself twice, still feeling dirty but knowing I was spotless -- at least physically.
Out of the shower, I wrapped a thick towel around me. Big as Dare was, he needed oversized towels and the material covered me from my collarbone down to my knees. Letting my hair dry on its own, I returned to the containers that had made me feel sick earlier. In addition to the half-used cosmetics, there were several toothbrushes in unopened packages.
My stomach made another queasy somersault as I wondered if the women had left these behind as well, or if Dare brought women home without notice so often that he kept spare hygiene items. Grimacing, I peeked in the cupboard below the sink to see what other feminine amenities my gracious host might have stocked up on.
To my surprise, the cupboard's items were all unisex, like toilet paper, or solely for a man's body, including two boxes of condoms. My knees turned a little weak and I sat on the floor, the thick towel shielding my bottom from the bare tile. I pulled the boxes out. Both were marked magnum, suggesting Dare was a big man all around. Feeling more than a little perverted, I read the rest of the labeling. Both boxes were variety packs -- some ribbed, some latex, some sheepskin, some with warming gels for lubrication. The second box was only half full, the rest of t
he interior space holding a separate tube of jelly.
Clearly, he was serious about his pleasure. I'm sure his women were, too.
Resting my forehead against my knees, I wrapped my arms around my legs and took several slow breaths. Dare had a home, a job, put his life on the line for others, but I wasn't sure I could respect the man he had grown into. Not that I wasn't grateful for his bringing me into his home and for saving my life. I was. Yet a part of me mourned for the boy who had kissed me on our last night together, who had shown all the promise of a young man on the verge of becoming a real man, not someone like his father who had betrayed his wife and his dead friend's memory by fucking my mother.
"You don't know who he really is," I whispered before pushing up from the floor. "These are objects, not facts."
I put the condoms away and opened one of the packages containing a toothbrush. A little paste, a little water, and then I was brushing my teeth in the bedroom while I sorted through the clothes on the bed for something to sleep in.
"Beggars can't be choosers," I sighed as I plucked up a light blue t-shirt that had the outline of a woman with long hair and sunglasses and the word BOSS written across the front, the letters made up of circles so that it looked like the lights on a vanity mirror. Suddenly I was badly missing my very plain, very nondescript white tees and faded blue jeans.
"No panties? What the fuck?" Realizing I had just blurted the words, I snapped my mouth shut and sent up a little prayer that Dare hadn't heard me. But, seriously, how could the women have left all those items behind without also leaving a single pair of panties? Did all his "dates" go commando or something?
At least the BOSS lady had been on the tall side or liked long tees, I mused after I pulled the material over my head and saw how the bottom hem fell well below the top bend of my thighs. If for some unfathomable reason I had to run from the room or the house in the middle of the night, I wouldn't be flashing my lady bits at anyone.
