“I plan to,” I said.
“Fuck,” he growled before joining me on the bed and leaning over me. One of his knees pressed down on the bed between my legs, and the other rested on the outside of my leg. He held himself above me on one elbow while the other hand ran up the side of my hip and waist. And he kissed me.
I practically melted beneath him. The heat of his body above mine was positively delicious. It had been a long time since I felt a man’s body like this. And damn, did it feel good.
Derek started raining kisses down my neck and over my chest. He worked his way down the line of my stomach and around my belly button. Then he was kissing my hips and the top of my thighs.
He hooked his thumbs in the waistband of my panties and drew them down. I lifted my ass off the bed so he could pull them all the way off. He came back down to me and settled between my legs.
“Wait,” I whispered as he bowed his head. I had never let a man go down on me before. I was sloppy wet and a bit embarrassed. I wasn’t sure if I was ready for this sort of intimacy.
His hazel eyes lifted to meet my gaze. “I want to take care of you.”
I licked my lips. Take care of me? Slowly, I lowered my head down and stared up at the ceiling. Derek wrapped his arms underneath me so he could lift my hips to his mouth. And then he started licking me.
I flinched when his tongue rolled over my clit. He drew it between his lips and swirled his tongue around as I moaned breathlessly. His tongue plunged down, tracing the opening of my aching pussy, until he indulged me in long sweeping licks that had my whole body screaming with pleasure.
I sank my fingers into his hair and held him down on my clit. Derek kept doing what he was doing, gentle flicks followed by long moments of him suckling on my clit, until my legs started shaking and I let out a short cry of ecstasy as I came.
“Oh my God,” I whispered as I smiled like an idiot. Derek grinned, his lips glistening, and kissed my thighs.
“You’re too fucking sexy.”
I sat up as he undid his jeans and kicked them off. His boxers were navy blue, relatively short, and left little to the imagination. His thighs were thick with muscle, and his cock was barely contained beneath the thin, stretchy fabric of his boxers. When he tugged them down, I had to stop myself from gasping. Instead, I just said, “Good for you,” like I was congratulating him on catching a big fish in the river.
He flashed me a white smile.
I was in trouble with this one.
I rolled to the edge of the bed when he went to his knees beside me. He tried to pull me back, but I squirmed out of his grip and opened the drawer of my nightstand. I rummaged through my junk—journals, bookmarks, old birthday cards, and a vibrator—until I found a condom. I went back to him where he was laying on his back with his hands clasped behind his head.
“She comes prepared,” he mused.
“Shut up.” I tore open the condom. He watched, apparently fascinated, as I took hold of the base of his cock and rolled the condom on for him. Then I swung my leg over and straddled him.
Derek stared up at me as I lifted my hips and arched my back. I guided his dick between my legs and lowered myself onto it. I wanted the control here. It had been too long.
I had good reason to be intimidated by the size of his cock. Pressure built inside me as I lowered myself down. I couldn’t fit all of him, so I took it nice and slow, rotating my hips and warming myself up to his size.
Derek had his hands on my hips as I fucked him. Nice and easy. His jaw was clenched, and the way he looked at me made me feel sexier than ever.
He squeezed my thighs as I straightened above him and threw my head back. He made a sound beneath me in the back of his throat as I took all of him inside me. I moaned too. The pain was temporary, and the pleasure was unreal.
Soon, I was bouncing on him and pausing to grind my hips back and forth. His cock pressed into all the right places, and I was building to an orgasm. Based on the way he was breathing and thrusting beneath me, I suspected he was close too.
When Derek tried to roll me over, I put both my hands on his chest and leaned over him. Then I started fucking him hard and fast. He growled with need, and I lowered myself to crush my lips to his. He drew my hair off my face, sank his fingers into it, and tightened them into a fist. He held me like that as I rode him, and he bucked wildly beneath me until we both reached an exquisite rhythm.
When he let out a soft groan in my mouth, I whimpered. He drove himself upward, and the pressure that had been building up inside me was suddenly released. My orgasm was fierce and powerful, and he came at the same time, holding me down over him until he was done.
I sat on top of him until I caught my breath, and then I rolled off to fall on my back beside him. I could feel Derek watching me, but I didn’t say anything. My body was singing his praises, and I knew I would sleep well tonight.
When I finally did look over at him, his eyes were closed. I got out of bed and set to collecting our clothes. He cracked open one eye and watched me. I handed him his clothes, and he took the hint and started getting dressed.
My brain had come back from where I left it on the shelf, and now it was yelling at me for being a fool. This was the exact thing I hadn’t wanted to happen. I didn’t want a man in my life. Not even a little bit. And this one was walking a fine line with me.
“I’m sorry, Derek. But this has to be a onetime thing.”
He stepped into his jeans and tugged them up. “All right.”
“I had fun.”
Derek looked me in the eyes, despite me still being completely naked. Why did I want him to soak in the sight of me one last time? Why did I want him to tell me no?
“Me too, Katie.”
13
Derek
Allen glanced up from his clipboard when I stepped into the station. In the shade, it was instantly cooler, and I took my sunglasses off and hooked them in the collar of my shirt.
“Hey, man,” Allen said. “Almost done. We’ll hit the road in five.”
I tipped my head. “Sounds good. I’m running in to grab a bottle of water. Want one?”
Allen nodded and continued walking around the ambulance. The only person in the kitchen when I walked around the corner was Mav. He was flipping through a magazine and looked up when I tugged the fridge open.
“How’s box duty going?”
I glanced over my shoulder at him. “This week has been better than last week.”
“That’s good. Still no action this side of the tracks. Two potential carbon monoxide calls but—”
“It was just dead batteries both times?”
“You know it,” Mav said, the corner of his mouth curled in a smile. “You should ask the chief to put you back with Hayden.”
“Nah.”
Mav twisted around in his chair to stare at me. “Nah?”
I shrugged. “No sense to it. If he wants me in the box, that’s where I’ll be.”
Mav didn’t say anything. I waved over my shoulder and wished him a good shift before slipping around the corner and heading back out into the garage where Allen was now waiting for me in the driver’s seat of the ambulance. I got in and tossed him his water bottle. He unscrewed the cap, took a few mouthfuls, and tucked the water bottle in his door panel before backing out of the garage and out onto the street.
We hadn’t been driving very long when Allen cleared his throat. “Hayden tells me you ride a Vmax.”
“Uh, yeah. I do.”
“I have a bike, too.”
“Oh?” I felt my eyebrows creep up my forehead.
Allen nodded. “I ride a Kawasaki. An old military bike. Nothing fancy and more for off road, but fun on the pavement regardless. We should go on a ride some time.”
Holy shit. Allen Yellich had just invited me to hang out. Admittedly, riding was a pretty solitary thing, but it was more fun with another rider; someone to chase you or for you to chase. I wasn’t one to say no to having a little extra push on the
road.
I grinned. “I’m in.”
“All right. Good.” We drove for the next fifteen minutes or so in comfortable silence. I’d gotten used to sitting with my thoughts while driving in the box with Allen. He appreciated his quiet time, so I had tried to develop less of a hatred for it over the past week. Then Allen sighed. “So, did you do something to Katie, or what?”
“What?”
“Katie. The nurse you had the hots for at Searing General. You know, red hair?”
“I know who Katie is.”
“All right. Then what’s the deal?”
I blinked at him. I wasn’t quite sure what point he was trying to get to here. “What do you mean, ‘deal’?”
“Man, don’t play dumb. She’s been avoiding us all week. I mean if it was just you she was steering clear of, I wouldn’t say anything, but she won’t even say a word to me. She and I used to be fine. So, the only logical conclusion I can come to is that you did something. Or you opened your big mouth and said something stupid.”
“I didn’t say something stupid. I haven’t talked to her since—” I stopped talking.
Allen arched an eyebrow at me. “Since?”
“Never mind.”
Allen rolled his eyes. “So, the two of you hooked up?”
“Yeah.”
He shook his head at me as we took a right turn. “I should have known. And here I was thinking you’d taken my advice and left her well enough alone.”
“It wasn’t like that. Her car broke down last week, and I happened to be riding by. I got it working and asked her to dinner. You know, to make up for how much of an ass I’d been since I started working this damn shift. She said yes. And then one thing led to another, and I haven’t talked to her since.”
“Is that your call or hers?”
“Hers. She told me it couldn’t happen again.”
“At least one of you has some sense,” Allen muttered.
“Man, what’s your issue with me seeing Katie? Do you have the hots for her or something?”
Allen shook his head. “No, I just don’t like to complicate things. You and Katie just complicated things.”
“Whatever. I’ll talk to her about it.”
Allen chuckled. “You can try.”
And then, like clockwork, we got a call. All the symptoms of a heart attack came through over the radio, and I gripped the handle above my head as Allen picked up speed and flicked on the sirens and lights.
We tore through traffic to reach the patient: a fifty-eight-year-old man with a history of heart disease in the family.
When we arrived at the address, we found ourselves pulling up in front of a small rancher. There was a man sitting on the curb with another younger man—maybe a son. Allen and I got out of the ambulance and hurried over to him.
Allen started asking him the routine questions, and the man was able to respond without difficulty. I talked to the kid, who at first I thought might be in his early twenties, but when we got closer, I realized he was far younger. Probably closer to sixteen. I asked him what happened.
“My dad started having chest pains while we were trimming that tree over there.” He pointed to one of the trees in their front yard. “He was up on the ladder, and I made him come down. He got really lightheaded and couldn’t breathe.”
“It’s passed now,” the father said. His name was Ken Harbour. “The pain only lasted a couple minutes. Once I sat down and caught my breath, it went away.”
Allen helped Ken to his feet. “I think it would be best if we still took you to the hospital, Mr. Harbour. This kind of thing might be a red flag for a problem in the future. If you catch it early, it can save you from a lot of trouble down the road.”
“I don’t know—” Ken started to say.
“Let’s go, Dad,” his son said.
I clapped the kid on the shoulders. “Smart kid you’ve got here, Mr. Harbour. Come on. Let’s go. Hopefully you’ll be back before sundown.”
It didn’t take much more convincing after that to get Mr. Harbour into the back of the ambulance. His son rode in the back with me and his dad, and I made sure to keep them both talking for the duration of the drive.
Chances were that Mr. Harbour had angina or some other form of heart disease. Hopefully, it was as easy a fix as putting in a stent for a clogged artery. But it could be as big of an issue as having to go in for open heart surgery. Mr. Harbour looked healthy enough, and he didn’t have a history of other diseases that could give him complications, like diabetes. Hopefully, it didn’t come to surgery.
Hopefully, it was a quick fix. Maybe just medication for high blood pressure.
After parking the ambulance out front of the drop off for Emergency, we brought the patient into the ER. There was a bed ready for him when we got there, and I made sure he and his son were comfortable before I left.
When I walked away from his bed, I looked up and spotted Katie behind the nurses’ desk. She hastily looked back down, turned around, and ducked into the break room.
“Oh, hell no,” I muttered. Allen was walking over to the nurses’ station to hand in the report. I plucked it out of his hand and marched straight to the break room. I heard him hollering after me, but I ignored him and pushed through the doors.
Katie was standing at the counter, making a pot of coffee. There were two other female nurses in the break room sitting together at a table, and they looked up at me and then at Katie.
Katie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, she put her back to the coffeemaker and braced herself on the counter as I brought over the patient report and put it on the counter beside her hand.
“That’s for Mr. Harbour.”
“Thank you,” she said thinly.
I almost walked away. Almost. And I probably should have. It would have been easier for both of us. But I didn’t. “Why are you avoiding me?”
Katie licked her lips, a habit I noticed she had when she was nervous. “I’m not avoiding you.”
“Oh no?”
“No.” She shook her head.
“What is it then? Because every time I’ve walked through those doors for the last week, you’ve up and walked away.”
“Derek,” she said softly.
“What?”
She searched my eyes. “I just… don’t know what you want me to say here.”
I rubbed my forehead. “I don’t want you to say anything. But I thought we’d be able to keep doing our jobs like adults. Just because we—you know—last week, doesn’t mean we can’t be professional here.”
She licked her lips again and nodded once. She wouldn’t meet my gaze. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I won’t avoid you.”
I smirked “So you were avoiding me?”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re impossible.”
I tapped the patient report beside her. “Don’t forget about this. Have a good rest of your shift.”
“You too,” she said, but she hesitated, and by the time the words left her lips, I was already on my way out of the break room and marching back to Allen, who was waiting at the nurses’ station with his arms crossed over his chest and an annoyed scowl on his face.
He fell into step beside me when I walked by. “Got that out of your system?”
“Not even close,” I muttered.
When Katie had kicked me out of her place that night and told me we couldn’t see each other outside of work anymore, I had thought there might still be a chance that she’d go back on her word. I’d had a lot of fun that night, and I was pretty sure she enjoyed herself as much as I did. But now, I was starting to think that I misread things, and she really did mean it.
And I wasn’t thrilled to discover that I was disappointed. Which meant I cared about a girl for the first time in a long time.
14
Katie
I poured the coffee I’d just brewed into one of the mugs from the break room cupboard and sighed. I hadn’t even wanted a cup of coffee. I’d only
made it to get away from Derek, and he’d come after me anyway.
It had probably been childish of me to avoid him over the course of the week. I had just wanted to spare myself any potential awkwardness. I hadn’t slept with a man since I’d been with my ex, and I wasn’t sure what the appropriate etiquette was for things like this. Should I act like nothing had happened? Should I crack jokes? Should I thank him?
I shook my head at my own idiocy. Yeah, that would be totally normal, Katie. After you fuck his brains out, you thank him for the good romp in the sheets the next time you see him. Real smooth.
My coffee went from dark to creamy as I stirred in a splash of creamer and then a half teaspoon of sugar. All we had in the break room was the pure white processed stuff. I wasn’t a fan, but I was less of a fan of unsweetened coffee. I took a sip and burned my tongue.
“Karma,” I muttered as I picked up the patient report and made to leave the break room.
Emily came in as I was about to go out, and she stopped me. “Why did Derek just follow you in here? He’s not allowed to—”
“I know,” I said.
“Then why… Oh. Wait. Did you guys…”
“Did we what?” I asked.
“You know.” She waggled her eyebrows and then winked.
I so wished I could say “No, I didn’t fuck him,” but I couldn’t. I sighed, looked around to make sure no one was listening, and said, “Yes. We did.”
“Oh shit!” Emily clapped both hands over her mouth as her eyes widened so much I could see white all around her irises. “Did you run in here to hide from him?”
“I can’t talk about this right now, Emily. I have patients to see.”
“You can spare two minutes. None of them are emergencies. Come on. Spill the beans.” Emily took my elbow and guided me to a table, where we sat down, and she pulled her chair up so close in front of mine that our knees were touching. She leaned forward on her elbows. “So you fucked?”
“Don’t be so vulgar.”
“And you say you’re not a prude,” she said flatly.
Set the Night on Fire: A Bad Boy Firefighter Novel Page 8
