Fighting the Fire

by Jennifer Conner

  Mia moaned into his mouth as he pressed his body against hers giving a quick nip to her lower lip, and then ran his tongue along the seam of her mouth. He rubbed his cheek up the side of her face, bristled and rough and the motion sent chills through her. His large hand wrapped possessively through her hair. He tipped her head back and nipped at her chin, her neck, and then back to her lips.

  Mia stared into the deep blue of his eyes which held her captive. His perfect mouth was still close, when she breathlessly asked, “Where’d you learn to kiss like that?”

  There was a vibration against her lips as he laughed and tipped his forehead to touch hers. “Now, a boy can’t give away all of his secrets. And a girl should never ask.” His eyes twinkled. “All you need to know is that since the first time I kissed you there’s no one else.” He took her chin with his thumb.

  She cut him off and stepped back, overwhelmed by his words and emotions. “I was hoping you were going to come out of the bathroom in a towel again.”

  “Damn.” Cy snapped his fingers. “I thought about that, believe me, I thought about it. But I don’t know if that would have been a good plan for either of us.” His heated gaze, like fingers, trailed up and down. “That kiss will hold me until I get back.” He asked again, “You’ll stay here?” He adjusted the wide backpack straps and flipped the keys off the hook by the wall.

  She nodded.

  As he pushed open the door, he turned halfway through and looked at her with concern.

  Cy would be rotten at poker. Everything he was feeling was right there. With her powers, she could feel every emotion. She did a shooing motion with her hands. “I’ll be fine. Stop worrying, would you? You’re making me nuts.”

  That was a lie. She loved having someone care. “And I promise I won’t burn down your house.”

  “I never thought that for a second. I was only worried about you.” Cy shook his head and pulled the door closed.

  ****

  When Cy arrived home from his shift, he found his cabin empty. He’d thought about it on the drive back and wondered if Mia would be asleep or awake. It didn’t matter, as long as he could spend some more time with her. It was disappointing to find her gone.

  He could tell she was uncomfortable talking about how she felt. Had he pressured her too much? This was uncharted ground for both of them. Cy always thought he’d had the worst childhood ever, but at least he’d had the Wests and Sally. Mia had had no one. Anger coursed through him, she deserved so much more

  Maybe Mia had changed her mind about him. Someone better than you. His father’s harsh, cutting words filtered up from his memories.

  Cy got in bed and tried to sleep, but the air was hot and humid, and there wasn’t much of a breeze coming off the river through the window.

  After an hour staring at the ceiling, Cy groaned, got up, and pulled his jeans back on.

  He’d had an idea during his shift at the engine house and began to put it into place. He flipped the sheets off of the bed to the floor and remade it again.

  Happy with the first part of his plan, he threw the other two blankets over his arm and headed out the door to find Mia.

  ****

  The terror of her nightmare woke her along with the creak of the wooden basement stairs. She’d been tired, bone-deep tired, and had fallen asleep with nothing under her or around her but the cold press of concrete. Her cheek pressed to the chilly floor as she held her breath, listening.

  Nightmares plagued her sleep, and this night hadn’t been different. A visible outline of a man continued slowly down the stairs.

  “Mia?” the voice asked in a whisper.

  She breathed out in relief when she saw it was Cy, as he came down into the room.

  He stopped a few feet from her head and laid down his backpack. “It’s just me,” he whispered, waiting she guessed for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. “You’re on the floor again.” It was a statement, not a question. He sat down, crossed his legs, and asked, “Why’d you leave the cabin?”

  Mia rolled onto her back and looked at him. “I should have left you a note or something.”

  “You don’t need to answer to me, that wasn’t it. I was just worried. Hey, it’s Klahowya. There aren’t a lot of places you could have gone at two o’clock in the morning, but still. You don’t usually hang out at The Corral Tavern. I figured you’d come back here.” He looked worried. “Do you sleep like this on the floor every night?”

  “When the powers are at their worst, I have to. You saw what happened last night, I woke up in a big, scorched patch. When I’m around you…” She started to say that he always made it worse, but then her words trailed off. She didn’t want to hurt him anymore than she had. “I was so tired. I was afraid if I’d accidentally fallen asleep on your bed, or the couch at your cabin, it could have burned. Just like my house. I could never live with myself if something like that happened.”

  Cy scooted in and laid a hand on the dip of her back. Instantly, she could feel the tingling warmth from his fingers. “You left the cabin because you were afraid of falling asleep? Hell, I’m trying to imagine how terrible that must be. Every night, worrying about something like that.” He smiled and she could see his face illuminated in the slice of light in the room. “But I guess I think about the same things. Hoping there won’t be fires, and that everyone will be safe in their homes for one more night.” He stopped. “But this has to...”

  “Suck, I think is the word that you’re trying to find?”

  “That would be it.”

  “I try to keep everything back from the bed, but I don’t know what a safe distance is.”

  “I was sick of playing rummy with Mario. I just sat and thought. I had a brilliant idea. Will you let me try out my theory?”

  Mia eyed him warily, she knew she could trust him, but she didn’t want him to ever do anything that would endanger him. “Not if it could hurt you.”

  “Roll on your side.” There was the metallic sound of the zipper opening on his backpack, and then she felt the softness of a warm blanket being draped over her.

  Mia jerked to push it away. “Cy, I can’t. It’s not safe,” she protested, but he cut her words off.

  “It’s a fire-retardant blanket made of wool and fiberglass. The department has a bunch of them at the station. The special blend makes it fire resistant and then it’s treated to increase its flame retardation. They use it on baby blankets, and you can buy them over the counter, but this one’s heavy-duty. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier. Always a little slow on the uptake.” He moved closer behind her, spooning against her back, the blanket working as a barrier against their skin. There was the warm push of his breath against her hair, as he pulled her closer.

  Mia was always amazed, and a little overwhelmed by his thoughtfulness. “You did this for me?”

  His laugh was low and spread across her like the blanket which covered her. “Sort of. If I did it for purely selfish reasons, does it make it any less sincere?”

  She rolled over to face him and struggled in the darkness to see his face more clearly. “You came over here because you wanted to sleep on the floor?”

  “Give me a break.” Cy chuckled again propping his elbow and lifting his head. “Do you know how stinking hot it is in my cabin right now? I hate August; I can’t wait for October to be here. I’ve lived in Eastern Washington my whole life but too hot, is too hot. That’s what I meant by selfish reasons. I knew it would be nice and cool here in the basement and I thought you might share your cheap air conditioning with me, and I wanted to try out my blanket theory. I was hoping all that fire training would sink into my thick skull and do me some good one of these days.”

  “It’s a good idea. It’s a great idea. I didn’t think of it either. I always thought I couldn’t have anything around me, especially after the fire.” Mia sat up and pulled the blanket around her. “Why did I have to lose my house?”

  Leaving the blanket wedged between them, he pulled her
against him. “But you got out safely. We’ll deal with the house. I want you to do something for me.”

  “What?”

  “Say yes, and then I’ll tell you.”

  Mia nodded yes. Damn. Looking into those big, blue eyes she would pretty much agree to anything. Where had her rock hard willpower gone?

  “I worry about you too much when you’re by yourself. I talked with Sally Parker and she has a room for you. There would be someone there if I wasn’t, and you wouldn’t be alone.”

  “Cy, I can’t. What if another fire happens?”

  “I told you, the fire investigators thought the fire started somewhere outside, possibly under the front porch. So, you couldn’t be responsible. Let me help you with this. Sally has a cousin who is staying with her already. She said-one more would be no big deal.- Then I wouldn’t have to spend every moment worrying. It’ll all work out.”

  “Mr. Half-full?”

  His smile warmed her heart. “That’s me. You’ll do it?”

  “I’ll try one night at Sally’s. Then we’ll see if she still wants me around.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t say stuff like that. I know you’re working through so many things right now, I never know what’s too much. Should I stay? Should I go? Back up, go forward— it’s like the Electric Slide moves at the Grange Hall. Be truthful. I don’t want to become a stalker.”

  Mia smiled at his words. “Stay. We both want more than we can have right now, but I need you here.” It was a confession that surprised even her.

  “I’d like that too.” Cy rubbed a thumb quickly across her cheek, accompanied by a snap of electricity, and then rose to his feet.

  Chapter 11

  With only the light from the stairs, Mia watched Cy move in the darkened room, smooth and graceful like a panther. She rolled over on the floor to watch him. He dropped his backpack into the chair, reached for the top button on the fly of his Levi’s, and kicked off his sandals. He caught her gaze and a seductive smile curled the corners of his mouth.

  He was partially backlit. She could only guess like in a strip club. Her own private Chippendale dancer that she’d seen on TV once, and not one who was just pretending, but a real fireman to boot.

  A really hot fireman.

  Maybe her luck was starting to change. Cy lifted the edge of his -T-shirt to give her a peek and ran a hand slowly over his hard stomach. He trailed fingers across muscled abs, then over the trail of dark hair that led lower until his fingers reached the zipper tab.

  Was he grinning?

  Her mouth went dry and her pulse pounded. Cy was the sexiest man she’d ever seen, and he was here, in front of her, stripping. Was she still awake? Maybe she’d better pinch herself to make sure?

  He slid the zipper slowly down and pushed the jeans down his marbled thighs causing Mia to squirm under the blanket.

  Cy’s grin turned devilish. “Boxers.” But then he apologized, “Sorry.” The large bulge of his erection tented forward. The outline of him was hard as steel and pressed toward the waistband. “Sorry, not sorry. When I’m around you, I’m always hard. I can’t control that part of me, it has a mind of its own.” His gaze burned her. “And it’s a turn-on that you are watching me.”

  “You’re turned on, have you looked at yourself?”

  “No. No mirror close by.” Cy shrugged. “Never been into that.”

  “Are you doing this on purpose?” she asked, and heard her voice shake as she spoke.

  A smile spread to his handsome face and he said innocently, “This is the way I sleep. You can’t expect me to sleep in my jeans, can you? But if you keep looking at me like that, I’m not sure if the boxers are staying on.” He folded the jeans in a neat pile, and then pulled something else from the bag before dropping it back on to the chair.

  “You don’t have to sleep on the floor. You can sleep on the bed.” She flicked her head to the other side of the room.

  Cy had brought another blanket, similar to the one he had draped over her. He smoothed it on the floor and then lay down on it. “Alone? When I just figured out a way to do it? No way, you’re not getting rid of me that easily. Here, come closer, so you’re not lying on concrete.” Cy stretched out his long, six-foot-plus body and groaned. “It’s been a long day. I can’t wait to have a few days off. I’m beat. What about your day?”

  “Isn’t this what married couples sound like at night?” Mia propped a hand up under her head.

  “That’s not a bad thing. It means we can talk to each other about things that happened in our day. We’ve moved into comfortable. I think that’s a big step for both of us, being able to share with someone how we feel.” He turned on his side to face her -so that the curls of his hair bobbed over one eyebrow. Mia reached up and pulled the hair off his forehead. He added, “It’s kind of good without the sex. Don’t get me wrong, I want you so bad I ache. But it forces you to get to know the other person.”

  “Before, with others, it had just been sex?”

  Cy watched her a second and then answered, “Yeah. I’m beginning to see that’s all it was, and there’s a difference.” He rolled on his back and looked at the ceiling, “Great, now that I’m lying here, I’m wide awake.” He reached out and ran a hand across the top of the blanket over Mia’s stomach. “Tell me a story.”

  “I am not telling you a good night story. You’re not a three-year-old.”

  “Better yet, I’ll tell you a story.” Cy blew out a long breath. “I used to always want to make Captain. You know, taking Captain West's position when he retires. But the night of the fire at your house, that changed.”

  “Other than the fact that you almost died, what else happened?”

  “No. It’s not that. When I went into your house, all of us were really behind the eight ball. We were dangerously short on men who were over at the Mill Street fire. Did you know there was another fire that night?”

  Mia nodded, she’d heard Mickey mention it at the restaurant.

  “When I came in through the back door, the house was already bad, flames had engulfed the living room and were up in the roof and walls. The captain tried to stop me from going in on my own, ordered me even, but I didn’t listen. I knew there was still someone there. You’re not telepathic too, are you?”

  Mia laughed. “I hope not.”

  “But I could have endangered all of the men by the decisions I made. Do you see that? They would have come in after me with the decisions I made.”

  “The other men couldn’t get to you?”

  “No, they couldn’t. If the roof had caved, after I got you, and we’d been trapped, the other men would have done anything they could to get us out. Captain West was on the outside trying to make those split-second decisions, trying to decide. Pitting one of his men’s lives against all the rest, against yours. I would always go in, try and save the victim, but you can’t. Sometimes it’s too dangerous, you have to put your men’s safety first. West has never lost a man, and he almost did that night. Me.”

  Mia grasped his hand tight through the blanket. “Everything I’ve learned about you shows me that you can make those hard decisions. You have it in you, not many do.” She rubbed her leg up and over his, keeping the blanket pinned. “Now if you don’t want to become captain, that’s one thing. But I know that you could and you’d be able to lay out all the options at a fire and make the right decisions, keeping your men safe.”

  His dark steely eyes watched her. “Thanks. You don’t know what that means. You know, to have someone believe in me? I never thought I had what it took to be captain. I told you about the car accident my dad was in. There were two people killed. A young couple who left behind a son, Jason. He was the same age as me. I wished so many nights that my dad had been the one killed in that accident instead of that innocent family.”

  “He was the cause of the accident.”

  “He did time.” Cy shook his head. “He knew what he’d done. Another -DUI. He’d destroyed that family’s life, just like he destroye
d mine. Things got a lot worse after that, he was depressed and drank even more. The beatings came more often. He’d always tell me I’d never accomplish anything, always telling me I was a loser.”

  “It must have been terrible.”

  “The kids would talk and whisper behind my back. I thought they all hated me, but no one hated me as much as Jason. The poor kid. He lost both of his parents and blamed me every day when he saw me at school. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “There was nothing you could have. It wasn’t your fault.”

  Cy repeated sincerely as he ran the tips of his fingers through her hair, “It means a lot what you just said.”

  The sounds of the hissing air conditioner from the restaurant upstairs and the water pipes replaced the loss of words between them.

  Trying to break the silence Cy said, “Okay.” He let out a big exhale of breath. “While we’re on this roll. I have another confession.”

  “Do I need to put on my priest robes?”

  “You might.” Cy cleared his throat. “A few nights ago when you took a shower, and I waited for you? I could—well, see you through the shower door. I felt crummy afterward like I was sneaking a peek. I should have left or at least said something.”

  Mia pulled her body closer, and whispered, “I knew you could, that’s why I didn’t put the screen all the way in front of the door. You thought I didn’t know? And you felt bad?”

  “I did. Really. I did.” Cy laughed.” I want things to be on your terms. I just don’t want to push you too far and take the chance of you taking off.”

  “Before, I always thought about where I could run next. Trying to convince myself that in the next town things would be different, things would be better.” Mia raised her head. “I don’t want to run anymore. I might just have found a reason to stay this time.” She was happy that it was dark it gave her more confidence. “Back to the shower confessional...”

  Another laugh rumbled from Cy. “That sounds like a late-night Skinamax series.” He began to hum a boom-boom-chucka-boom tune that would be suited better to background music for a porn movie.