Into the Flames

by Multi-Author

  Every time I had a new encounter, it was at this point that I almost put on the brakes, aware of my own belt-notching or one-upping or whatever the hell it was I’d been engaging in since Vegas. But the concept of stopping now seemed so completely ridiculous I actually giggled as I arched my back, wanting to get even closer to him as he untied the robe and let it slip to the floor.

  “That makes two of us I guess,” I said as he dropped into a chair, pulling me close so I stood straddling him. He cupped my breasts, almost reverently, running rough-skinned thumbs over my nipples. “Nice,” I muttered, trying to cover the alarming bolt of urgency that shot through me.

  “Hmmm,” he said, leaning forward and taking one between his lips for a few seconds of intense teasing. The fingers of his other hand kept moving, tracing lines across my stomach and around to the small of my back. He used a light touch, tickling some, but leaving what felt like a trail of fire everywhere he touched me.

  Letting go of my breast while keeping his mouth on my nipple—sucking now, hard, harder, using his teeth—while that wandering hand cupped my ass and the other slipped between my spread legs. I heard someone making breathy, pleading noises. I realized they were coming from my mouth, originating low in my throat somewhere as my hips moved, and I leaned over to press my nose to the thick brown tangle of his hair.

  The familiar odor seemed to emanate from him now, as if the more turned on he got, the smokier he smelled. It was fucking intoxicating.

  He moved to my other breast, licking, sucking, biting then letting go to caress with his tongue. I gasped when his fingers finally found their target.

  “I haven’t done this in a while,” he muttered, looking up at me from the vicinity of my boobs. “Hope I haven’t forgotten…oh….yes, I remember now.”

  “Like riding a bicycle,” I whispered, breathless, every inch of me desperate for him but not just his fingers, although those were doing a very nice job at the moment. “Oh, hell yes. Right there.”

  He grinned and latched onto my nipple again, stroking down below with a light touch in exactly the right place. “Inside,” I yelped. “Please…oh shit, George.” My body pulsed, and the room dimmed around me as he used some incredible combination of fingers to rock my world as promised.

  He withdrew, keeping his face pressed against my now sweaty torso as I rode out the orgasm, letting his hands rest on my hips. He was saying something I finally registered as my name. After a few minutes when I could think straight, I tilted his chin up so I could meet his eyes. They were sparkling with a look I knew well.

  Smiling, but yet somehow on edge in a way I didn’t understand, I put my hands on his shoulders and lowered myself onto his lap, covering his mouth with mine. He tangled his fingers in my hair, tugging, hanging on for dear life as he met me more than halfway, making the same kind of needy sounds I’d been as our tongues tangled and teeth clicked together in a kind of urgency that felt more natural than any practiced encounter.

  “Harriet,” he mumbled into my lips, breaking away and putting his hands on either side of my face. “Stop. Listen.”

  “No. I’m not listening. I’m just doing what seems right. Do it with me, okay? George?” I reached down to unbutton his shirt, going slow, loving every minute it took to reveal the man’s Photoshop-worthy torso. He sucked in a ragged breath as I did my own fingertip roaming after shoving his shirt down his arms. The compulsion to cover every inch of him with my hands, my lips, and my body was so strong it frightened me. He watched as if observing some other guy on the receiving end of my admiration as I moved closer so I could put my lips to his skin.

  Unsurprisingly he tasted of sweat and smoke and that combination, becoming more familiar to me by the minute, drove me even wilder. Shifting back, I unbuckled his belt with shaking fingers, feeling more like a virgin about to glimpse her first dick than I had when I’d been that over-eager teenager so many years ago. Just as I was unzipping him, he put his hand on mine, gentle but firm.

  “No,” he said, his voice calm.

  I glared at him, surprised, my fingers itching to get further. “But…” He eased me back up to my feet. “I’m…I want…” I could sense myself pouting. I did want him, badly, but in a way that sort of confused me and didn’t really fit with the way I usually handled these events. “You want me. I can tell.” I leaned over him, putting my tits near his lips again and my hand on his zipper, mouth practically watering at the length and heft of what I felt underneath it. “George,” I whispered, biting his earlobe as I stroked him through the soft fabric of his trousers. “Come on, baby. Just once. I promise I’m not clingy afterward or anything. We both need this, just this.” I started easing his straining zipper down again as I kissed my way down his neck. I felt his pulse against my lips, fluttery and rapid.

  With a grunt, he grabbed my arms and pushed me off him. “You got what you came for, Harriet. You can go now.” His jaw clenched and unclenched. His eyes were hooded and unhappy in a way that did not box with the rest of his loud and clear body language.

  I stood, blinking fast, trying to compute this bizarre statement. “What is wrong with you?” I demanded, shoving his shirt all the way down to his wrists and pointing to the black inked flames he had on both his forearms. “Who the fuck are you anyway?”

  He sat there, legs sprawled, amazing cut chest bare and heaving, pants tented, and pissing me off. “Fine,” I said, grabbing the robe he’d peeled off me and stepping around him. “I’ll call a cab. Don’t get up.”

  I made it all the way down to the bathroom and back into my slinky seductress dress and heels before he honored me with his presence. He loomed in the doorway, shirt still unbuttoned, pondering me with a flat expression. “Excuse me,” I said, shouldering past him. He took my hand, but I pulled it free. “I’m not in the mood anymore, George. But thanks anyway.”

  “Listen to me a minute, will you?”

  “Why?” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m here to get laid, get my world rocked, snap off a piece.” I snapped my fingers, which made him flinch. “I don’t want to marry you. I don’t even really like you. Hell, you don’t even have to make me coffee in the morning. I’d be gone before you wake up. I’m like, your goddamned dream date.” I passed my hands over my breasts to my waist. Watching his eyes darken, I lifted my skirt and put a finger to my uncovered, still damp, sex. “I like to fuck. Something wrong with that?”

  For some odd reason, a tear slipped down my cheek. I swiped it away, dropped my skirt and headed for the stairs. “I’m not about to beg for it though, doll. I know when I’ve worn out my welcome.”

  As my foot touched the first step, he tugged me back, turned me and held me close, pressing his lips to my hair and forcing more stupid tears from my burning hot eyes. The smoke smell soothed me at first, but I struggled out of his embrace and stared up at him.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he said. “And you haven’t worn out your welcome. I’m…I’m just…” He stopped and moved back from me, hands on his hips. “Stop trying so hard.”

  I laughed at the echo of Lucy’s earlier words but was not really amused. “Hard? Oh, honey, I don’t have to try at all. That’s why I’m leaving. I don’t need this drama or whatever the fuck it is you’re slinging. I’ll email you the sales agreement. Sign it, agree to his closing date and we’re done.” My heart was whamming against my ribcage, hurting me in a way I’d never experienced.

  “Are we?” He stepped in front of me as I tried to head upstairs. “Are we really?”

  His kiss shut out everything even the rising fury at his behavior. I felt consumed by it, held close, protected, and at the same time more turned on than ever. Fumbling and unwilling to take no for an answer, I unbuttoned and unzipped his trousers, gripping his length and drawing a sigh from him against my lips. Dropping to my knees, I took him into my mouth as deep as possible—I have a decent skill set in this area—and found myself actually enjoying it this time, moaning when he buried his f
ingers in his my hair.

  “Stop. Wait,” he said softly, obviously not meaning it. I rose, swiped my lips with the back of my hand and pushed him so he dropped onto the bed. His eyes seemed almost haunted as he watched me resume my position. His hips moved up, shoving more into my mouth, gagging me a little, but at that moment, all I wanted was one thing. I pulled out all the stops. My body was on high alert, and I thought I might very well join him I was so intent on this mission toward a single goal; which I achieved within a few minutes.

  His roar of satisfaction made me shiver all over as I swallowed, then sat back on my heels, admiring everything about him from his broad shoulders, closed eyes, and long dick still slick from my efforts.

  I got up, towering over him. He opened his eyes then narrowed them when I smiled. “Now we’re definitely done,” I declared, snagging a tissue from a box at his bedside, touching it to my lips before tossing it onto his heaving chest. “I’m a giver, don’t you ever deny it. Watch your email, George, and thanks for the interesting times this week. Have a nice life.” Not giving him a chance to reply, I ran up the stairs to the deck, clamping down on my urge to panic, and climbed out onto the dock.

  After sending a quick text to a cab company I trusted, I leaned against his SUV, shivering and willing him to come out here and take me back inside while at the same time, praying he would not. He didn’t.

  Chapter Six

  The next morning I sat staring at my computer, fuzzy and unable to focus on a single thing but the memory of him, of his body, his lips and voice, not to mention that tiny little T-shirt in his closet. I sipped coffee that I’d let go cold, barely tasting it. The phone remained annoyingly silent by my elbow, the half dozen or so texts I’d composed and deleted still rolled around in my head.

  “Good morning,” Lucy said with a wide yawn as she wandered into the kitchen. “Just get in?” She poured herself some coffee and held it in both hands.

  “No,” I said, my voice pinched and defensive. “I’ve been in for a few hours.”

  “Oh? Things not go so well with Mister Mysterious?”

  “He’s a freak,” I declared, shutting the laptop, unwilling to do any of my self-mandated social networking at the ungodly hour of seven on a Sunday morning. The required positivity simply wouldn’t manifest itself, and I’d made a vow never to be an on-line whiner.

  “And not in a good way I take it,” Lucy said with a small smile.

  I grunted by way of reply and got up. Stretching my arms over my head, I relived the strange combination of emotions I’d been privy to for the past hours and days thanks to one George Lattimer the Third. Pondering some way to regain control over my own head, but knowing it might be impossible until I got the man out of my system, I sighed. “Gonna take a bath,” I muttered, heading down the hall.

  “I’ll listen if you want to talk,” Lucy called out. “Oh, and, um…”

  When I walked past her bedroom door, it opened, revealing a tall, dark and very naked dude. “Oh, hey, Dante,” I said. “Welcome back to the fold. About time.”

  “Thanks, Jane,” he said in his deep sexy voice. “Sorry.” He grabbed a blanket to wrap around his waist.

  I waved as I kept walking toward the bathroom, noting without really realizing it that the exhaust vent in the peeling ceiling was clogged with dust and lint. On a whim, I tried to raise the window, whamming it with the heel of my hand to unstick the humidity-sealed paint, wanting fresh air and hearing George’s comment about the place being a firetrap over and over in my head. With a curse and wishing myself back to the unknowing, unaware Harriet Jane of a few days ago, I let the water flow into the big claw foot tub, mesmerized by the bubbles rising higher and higher.

  I slipped into the hot water with a sigh of satisfaction. I always did say the first few moments of a hot bubble bath were better than sex. And they had been until recently.

  This morning I couldn’t settle into it, to relax the way I usually could, and for that, I could thank the man who’d gotten me off and would not exit my brain. Giving up about ten minutes into what would normally be a half hour enterprise, I drained the water and climbed out, having decided to do two things right away: go to the office and work on some marketing pieces for the coming months and call Harrison. I needed his brand of distraction, ASAP.

  “Hey, Janey, you want some pancakes?” Dante’s voice floated back to my bedroom. I glanced around, taking in the older windows, which only opened if they felt like it, the high ceilings with their distinct lack of sprinkler system, the outdated electrical outlets. A sudden vision rose in my consciousness—me, trapped and screaming as the smoke filled my room and flames licked at the walls, and George my tall, hunky, hero wearing nothing but a fireman’s helmet and uniform trousers like you see on the cover of some romance novel, stomping in and picking me up, carrying me to safety.

  Oh Lord. No fireman works shirtless, dumbass. Time to purge this guy.

  I shot Harrison a quick text. ‘Meet me at the office at noon; emergency with a tenant. It was our established shorthand for ‘Come in here and fuck me and be quick about it.’

  Wrapped in a towel, I sat holding my phone and that stupid unopened pill bottle until someone knocked on my door. “Janey? Honey?” Lucy walked in without waiting for an answer. I stuffed the bottle back under the pillow. “Now I’m really worried. You never turn down pancakes.” She sat next to me, prying my phone out of my hand and putting an arm around my shoulders. I shook my head, for the first time in a long while not really willing to discuss whatever was happening to me in the wake of this strange week. I patted her leg and disentangled myself.

  “I’m good. I’m going to the office for a bit.”

  “I wish you’d dump him for good,” she said, flopping back on my huge pile of pillows in the mess of my king sized bed. I loved my bed. It was my refuge. I’d spent a fortune on the mattress and box springs—some kind of sleep number deal I got roped into and didn’t regret for a hot minute. I’d retreat to it for sleep, Netflix binge watching, popcorn eating, but I’d never, ever, spoiled it by letting some guy invade it for longer than an hour or so.

  “Dump who?” I asked, but I knew the answer. Lucy didn’t disapprove of much, but Harrison gave her the creeps and she’d been thrilled when I’d cut him off after his brat was born.

  “The boss man.” She held up her hand. Something on it caught my eye. I gasped and jumped onto the bed alongside her, snagged her hand and pulled it to my face, exaggerating my leer at the obnoxiously perfect diamond ring she now wore.

  “Holy shitballs. You’re leaving me?” I was only half kidding. The thought of Lucy getting married was almost too much for me on the Morning After I was having.

  “Nope,” a deep voice intoned from the doorway. Dante stood dressed in scrub pants, holding two cups of coffee. “I know you’re a package deal.” The man smiled, handed us our cups, kissed me on the forehead and my lucky friend on the lips. “Guess we’re moving to Utah, huh, sister wives?”

  “You wish,” I whacked his ass, but the tickle of jealousy made me furious with myself. Lucy was my friend; my best friend, my only friend, and we’d weathered a lot of bullshit together. I set the cup down, unwilling to observe much more of the way they stared at each other all moony-eyed. A girl can be supportive but sometimes she should absent herself from the perfection around her, lest she pop off and let her jealous bitch face show. “Gotta go, kids. Don’t be bumping uglies on my bed.”

  I found jeans and a shirt then turned to find the two of them staring at me looking for all the world like the worried parents I’d never had. “Don’t stare at me in my skivvies, Doctor Davies,” I said by way of deflection. “She will get all jealous and make everything awkward. It’s a sister wife thing.”

  “Don’t go to the office, Janey. Come out to the park with us. We’ll get our rollerblades out. It’s gonna be a gorgeous day.”

  I stuck my feet into sandals, already contemplating where and how I wanted Harri
son to take me to get George out of my brain and hoping he was up for a hard sweaty session. “No, you guys have fun. I really do have work to do.” I didn’t meet my friend’s eyes. She knew what I was really going to the office for, and for the first time ever, I was embarrassed by it. “We’ll talk important wedding shit like the weekend-long bachelorette fling we’re gonna have somewhere warm and perfect and on your dime, Doc, when I get back.”

  I left. The peeling paint, rickety stair railings, broken fire alarm, and all kinds of crap I never had noticed before, jumped out at me on my way down to the first floor. It reeked of cheap lotion and shattered lives down here. For the first time, instead of invigorating me, reminding me of what I’d managed and accomplished, it was deeply depressing. I felt as if I had my own personal thundercloud over my head when I stepped into the blinding light of a beautiful Detroit summer morning.

  Harrison was already waiting for me when I arrived. He rose to his feet, sending a shaft of lust and sadness through me I purged with his help, twice.

  Chapter Seven

  Two weeks later

  “Jane, can you come here a second?”

  I looked up from the latest volley in an extended, problem-riddled transaction that filled my computer screen with roadblocks and stalling. Frowning at the buyer’s attorney’s legalese-riddled response to my seller, I stood, pulling my hair back in a tie and noting a new email drop into my inbox from Trey@firebrew.com. I deleted it without thinking. I knew I had to get it back though and hollered at my assistant to retrieve it and answer whatever question he had before heading for Harrison’s office.

  He was standing at his floor-to-ceiling window with his back to me. “Yeah? What is it? I’m trying to wade through the damn—”