by A. J. Downey
“You been under too long,” Reflash said, arching a brow at him.
“Man, I don’t like it either, but bitch be batshit fucking cray-cray,” Oz said.
“I say we do it. We don’t and she’s gonna kill somebody,” Golden chimed in.
“I showed you mine, now you show me yours,” I demanded and Youngblood sighed. He slid his phone out onto the table and hit play. Lil’s panicked voice filled the room.
“You’re recording this, right?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Then I’ve got some things to say.”
“You just say what you need to, just stay on the line with me.”
“If something bad happens to me, if I somehow don’t make it out of here, I need you to play this back for Emmet Calder of the Indigo City Fire Department. Promise me.”
“Nothing bad is going to happen, ma’am. I promise you. The ICFD is on their way, they should be there any minute.”
“Promise me!” Lil snapped savagely.
“Yes ma’am, I will do my best.”
There was a bunch of muffled choked coughing and Lil’s voice came back on the line.
“Emmet, Backdraft, I just want you to know I love you, you have given me the best weeks of my life and if this goes badly, it’s not your fault, baby. None of this is your fault. I don’t want you to blame yourself. I want you to live for me. Okay? I love you so much…”
“Ma’am, do you hear the firetrucks? They should be there now.”
“Yes, yes, I hear them. Tell them I’m on the third floor, in the bathroom.”
“Turn it off,” I said grimly and Youngblood shut off the recording.
Skids cleared his throat.
“All in favor of doing this thing, raise your hand.”
Every hand went up and no one looked happy about it, but every damn one of us looked resolved.
“I’ll get the paperwork started, have your officers come see me,” Yale said, getting up.
“Investigation is out of the ninth,” Youngblood said.
“That’s us,” Driller said and dropped the front chair legs to the floor. “I’ve got it.”
“I gotta get back out there,” Narcos said. “Doesn’t sound like you need me for anything.”
“Nope,” Driller affirmed. Narcos grunted and I nodded.
“Thanks, you guys.”
“This isn’t by the book, but sometimes everything ain’t in the books,” Skids said with a sniff.
“Doesn’t make any of us feel any better about it,” I said.
“Fuck that,” Oz said. “Hell, naw, getting that hooker off the street is gonna feel great.”
Laughter broke out around the table. Youngblood nodded.
“It’s true. It may not be by the book, but I think we can all agree, we’re on the side of the angels with this one.”
“Here, here,” Reflash said and we all knocked on the table top in agreement.
I send the audio file to Youngblood; he’d know what to do with it.
“I need to find out if Lil is still at Trinity Gen,” I said standing up. Golden picked up his phone and shot off a text.
“Angel says naw, she’s gone home.”
“Then that’s where I’m headed. Thanks, you guys.”
“Don’t thank us yet. Thank us when the bitch is locked up,” Golden said and Oz held out a fist to him. Golden knocked it with his.
“Alright, I’m out,” I said.
“Take care of your woman,” Skids ordered.
“Ain’t gotta tell me twice, Captain.”
Ain’t nobody got to tell me twice.
32
Lilli…
The police found me in a curtained-off area of the emergency room. I’d been given a breathing treatment and had coughed up some nasty phlegm with grey and black streaks in it. They’d given me some IV fluids and some medicine to calm me down, too. I guess they were concerned I would go into shock.
My robe was toast, soot-stained beyond saving and reeking of smoke. My hair, too. I had black smudges on my feet, chest and hands. I was assuming there was some on my face, too, but I couldn’t see it so, yeah. I was in a hospital gown and one of the nurses said she would scare me up something to wear home.
The police came into my little curtained-off area before she came back, one of them peeking into the curtain saying, “Knock, knock. How you feeling, Ms. Banks?”
“Okay, I guess.”
“Up to talking with us?”
I nodded, and he slid into the little area with me, a female officer behind him. They were both in uniform and I wondered if that was normal.
“I’m Officer McKernan and this is Officer Hart, we’re here to take your statement.”
I told them everything and they were patient with me when I found myself tearing up again. They told me that they would pass my statement along and if there was anything else needed, someone would contact me. I swallowed hard and nodded, keeping it to myself but thinking, That was it?
The nurse came in as they were finishing up and set a set of folded green surgical scrubs and a pair of those hospital socks with the grippy bottoms on the end of the bed.
“By the time you finish putting these on, I’ll have you ready for discharge,” she said kindly.
“Thank you,” I said hollowly. My throat hurt, but they assured me that was normal and would go away.
I put on the clothes on offer and was surprised they fit. When I pulled the curtain aside, I figured out how they managed to know my size.
“Y’okay, baby?” Pasquale asked me.
“Been better,” I said and was fishing through the plastic personal-effects bag looking for my phone.
“I have to get back up to the upper floors now, but I heard through the grapevine you was here. What happened?” I told him and his face, strangely ordinary devoid of makeup, fell into lines of ‘You can’t be serious’.
“Fucking bitch,” he said flatly and I smiled, but it held no humor.
“I just need a ride back to the Echelon.”
“Well, your chariot has arrived,” he said and waved behind him. I looked up and blinked in surprise as much to see if I was seeing things right. Everyone from Backdraft’s firehouse, his whole shift, was standing around the nurse’s station looking at me expectantly.
“Wow,” I said, blushing hotly. A collective laugh swept through them and I went forward.
“Don’t suppose I could get a ride home to the Echelon tower?” I asked meekly, taken aback by their presence.
“You surely can; c’mon, this way,” the captain said, and steered me toward the emergency room doors.
“Your discharge papers!” my nurse called out and ran forward. She got my signature on a couple and I let Backdraft’s team take me home.
Security let me up to my apartment. I thanked them, and they assured me they would have new keycards made for me and brought up.
I threw my ruined robe down the garbage chute and took my phone with me into my condo, grateful for the biometric locks. I paused at the laundry in the hall and tossed what I was wearing directly into the washer, pausing only to set my phone on the dresser as I made a beeline to my bathroom. I just wanted the stink of fire and near death off of me.
I don’t know how long I huddled in the bottom of my shower in the corner, crying, but it was a good cry, cathartic, and that was where Backdraft found me. He didn’t even hesitate. Just opened the glass door and got in with me, fully clothed, sitting on the tile floor with me and pulling me tight to his chest. I huddled there and let it out and it was the perfect thing. Just what I needed.
He tipped my face up to his and I gripped his face between my hands, surging up to press my mouth to his. He kissed me back, his arms crushing me to him, our tongues lashing against each other, the desperation we both felt, the fear and gratitude, mixing into a heady cocktail, carrying us both away on a storm surge of passion.
“Off, off!” I ordered between impassioned breaths, and he hauled his wet shirt over his h
ead while I worked at his belt and the button fly of his standard issue indigo-blue uniform pants.
He had his back against the wall and lifted his hips for me so I could pull his pants down. His cock sprang free of its wet cloth prison and I straddled his hips, rising up on my knees. He pushed his cock down so it was at the right angle and I settled over him, moaning as I took him into me in one single, hard fluid thrust.
It was too quick, almost too rushed, too much, but it was exactly what we both needed. I rode him, rising and falling steadily, and dropped my forehead to his, murmuring in a breathy voice, “You saved my life.”
“I saved our life,” he growled, kissing me. When the kiss came to its natural conclusion, he drew back to look me in the eyes and said, “My life is nothing without yours, Lil, so I saved our life, baby.”
I bit my lower lip and closed my eyes and let the power of his words renew me. They shook me to my very core, unmade me, and then carefully put me back together again into a new, better, stronger whole. Our mouths met again and his hands found my ass, gripping, pulling and pushing, rocking me on his cock. I got back into the swing of things and cried out, close, so very close, ready to die the little death for him, with him, with absolutely no regrets.
33
Backdraft…
She was wildfire moving above me and I was consumed, gladly consumed. I held her soft body as she writhed like dancing flame; beautiful, exotic, hypnotizing, and I felt like her air to breathe, her fuel. It wasn’t totally one-sided, either. This? This was a fluid exchange. For now I fed her flame, and when I needed it, she fed mine.
I’d never felt a part of something so completely, and to be honest, I never thought I would. Her mouth worked mine and she tasted of life itself. Her body worked mine and I could feel she was close, so very fucking close and when she came above me, I went with her, falling, hurtling back to earth a ball of wildfire, devastating everything around us like an active fucking volcano burning every bit of doubt and fear to fine ash.
We slowly came back to ourselves, limp and spent, clinging to each other as the warm shower water pattered around us. She gasped, and slowly pushed off my shoulders so she could look at me and I let her, loosening my hold around her back.
“That was,” she swallowed before she could finish. “That was, wow.”
“That was, wow,” I said and she laughed. I felt a slow smile, full of life and full of light, bursting with joy and love overtake my lips and I was suddenly laughing, too.
We sat there, for the longest time, both laughing, that laughter bouncing off each other and the glassed-in shower walls, until all we could do was sit there and laugh, clinging to each other, joyous and free.
I was never, ever letting go, either.
It was us; forever and always. Us.
Epilogue
Lilli…
Victoria had been arrested and booked into the Indigo City jail. She was still awaiting trial and refusing to take a plea. Yale said he was confident he could and would get a conviction on attempted murder charges; we would just have to wait and see, though. I didn’t take anything for granted anymore. Especially not one single moment with Backdraft.
There was extensive damage to the brownstone, enough that Backdraft and I talked it over. With the discoveries that I made about the building, we decided it was just better and easier, to let the professionals handle it and with Veronica’s help, her dad being in real estate, I became an official investor on that end. The neighbors who were in the other two occupied brownstones were more than happy with my generous offer to relocate them to a hotel for the duration of the remodel to open up the basements and garages. All the work on our unit would take months, but when it came to opening those basements and garages, we started with theirs so it would only be a matter of a few weeks until they were able to come back in.
In the meantime, Backdraft moved in with me, full time at the Echelon. In the intervening weeks between then and now, I never did run into Mark, and I could only assume his fiancée took the right course of action and kicked his ass to the curb.
Now, it was Christmas Eve, and Backdraft’s parents and brother were due to arrive any minute. We’d unfortunately missed Thanksgiving with them this year, partially because Backdraft had drawn the short straw and had to work that night and partially because I just wasn’t ready to meet them.
“They’re downstairs,” he told me and kissed me quickly.
I dusted off my hands even though there was nothing on them and smoothed them down the front of my sweater dress.
“Okay, I’ll see you all in a few.”
“I love you, don’t be nervous, they’ll love you too.”
I gave him a look that said he wasn’t helping my nerves at all saying something like that and said, “I love you, too.”
“Us. Always,” he said, walking backwards to the door.
“Us. Always,” I said back, gravely.
I took the plate of appetizers I’d been plating over to the table and set it down.
“Don’t even think about it, you two,” I said to Jaspar and Marigold, who eyed the table speculatively, one from the back, the other from the arm of our couch.
The front door opened right as I took a fortifying sip of wine and Backdraft piled in with his parents and brother in tow, calling, “Babe, come on over here.”
I swallowed my sip of wine carefully, tried valiantly to shove my shyness to the side, and turned to face the music.
I had no idea what I had to worry about. Of course, the family to produce a man like Backdraft would have to be everything he embodied. Warm, welcoming, funny, and kind. We made it all the way through dinner when his dad turned and asked, “Well, son, when are you going to ask her to marry you?”
“Dad!” Bryant, Backdraft’s older brother admonished.
“What?”
Backdraft laughed and reached over, taking my hand. I smiled and he stared at me, saying, “No rush, pops. We have all the time in the world and in the grand scheme of things, it’s all just fine print.”
“Well, I, for one, am glad to see you so happy,” his mother said.
His dad looked at me and winked saying, “I have to agree.”
I laughed and said, “Thank you.”
“Welcome to the family, Lil.” Backdraft’s brother leaned back in his seat and smiled at me. “It’s nice to have you here.”
I looked over at Backdraft and he pursed his lips in a phantom kiss. I rolled mine together and blushed furiously.
“It’s nice to be here,” I said and it was. It so was.
* * *
The End
A Special Note from A.J.
If you want to read Hallowed Be Thy Light by Timber Philips, the book does exist and can be found here:
* * *
Hallowed Be Thy Light
Also by A.J. Downey
The Sacred Hearts MC
1. Shattered & Scarred
2. Broken & Burned
3. Cracked & Crushed
3.5 Masked & Miserable (a novella)
4. Tattered & Torn
5. Fractured & Formidable
6. Damaged & Dangerous
The Virtues
1. Cutter’s Hope
2. Marlin’s Faith
3. Charity for Nothing
The Sacred Brotherhood
1. Brother to Brother
2. Her Brother’s Keeper
3. Brother In Arms
4. Between Brothers
5. A Brother’s Secret
6. A Brother At My Back
Indigo Knights
1. Her Thin Blue Lifeline
2. His Cold Blue Command
Paranormal Romance (with Ryan Kells)
1. I Am The Alpha
2. Omega’s Run
3. Hunter’s End
About the Author
A.J. Downey is the internationally bestselling author of The Sacred Hearts Motorcycle Club romance series. She is a born and raised Seattle, WA Native. She finds inspir
ation from her surroundings, through the people she meets, and likely as a byproduct of way too much caffeine.
She has lived many places and done many things, though mostly through her own imagination…An avid reader all of her life, it’s now her turn to try and give back a little, entertaining as she has been entertained.
* * *
Stalker Information:
www.ajdowney.com
