by Celia Crown
“Do not ever doubt your power over me.”
Chapter Seven
Anna
“It’s a secret,” my lips stretch over my teeth as the grin strengthens when Luke narrows his eyes at me.
He asked where I was going and demanded that I was given an answer before he lets me near my shoes by the door, but I stay strong and resilient to the death stare. Luke has to go to work since his shifts are unstable; other firemen have a twenty-four-hour shift and a forty-eight-hour break.
Everyone rotates their day-shifts, so not all firemen are working at once. Luke is the Chief; his duties are much more than the firemen who work for him, and his paperwork can’t be held off at the same schedule as when he was a fireman.
“I’ll be back before you get home,” I say as I lean on my toes to kiss him.
He scowls at me, “Where?”
“It wouldn’t be a secret if I told you!” I jut my bottom lip out.
He is too similar to Leslie and Forester; sometimes he would remind me one more than the other or both at the same time, and it could be the reason why I can get used to his prickly presence much faster than other people.
Luke is not swayed by my pout, he either has great control, or he doesn’t care. I know when I pull a pussy-dog expression, Luke’s demeanor softens, and he lets me do whatever I want to as long as I am within the safety rules that he imposes.
I don’t mind. He’s just looking out for me.
“Okay, fine,” I sigh as I scrunch my nose, “I’m going to the library.”
He backs off a little for me to put on my shoes as he opens the door of his apartment unit, the lively blue sky laughs at my face as I squint away from the sudden change of luster.
“Why?” he asks.
That is one answer that I will not give him, it’s a surprise, and I refuse to put another foot down to satisfy his curiosity.
“Don’t worry!” I lace our fingers together as he shuts the door.
He arms the door with the deadbolt and pockets his keys. Luke doesn’t have any keys in his ring as I only counted five. I only know the two keys to the door, I have no idea what the other three are for, and I just assume that it’s got something to do with the fire station.
They have stuff in there that are sensitive to the public eyes. I’m sure he wants to keep those files under lock and key.
“Books can’t hurt me,” I assure him with a smile as he leads me to the elevator.
I honestly don’t like that elevator. It has preferential treatment to Luke and I. He gets special treatment where it opens whenever he pushes the button, but when I’m by myself, it takes its sweet time to come down or up from the end of the building.
Not once have I saw Luke wait for an elevator; it’s spiteful to me for something I didn’t do. I still remember that one elevator incident where I thought I was going to die, and it was also the time that we had our first kiss.
It was hot but awkward at the same time because I was in a fugue state and he was not having my nonsense.
“It’s a surprise for you, so you can’t follow me!” I point the finger at him as he hits the ground button.
The thing about Luke is that I never know what he’s thinking. I could tell him not to follow me to the freaking library, and he could be thinking of a covert operation to blend in as a book enthusiast looking for books in the same row as me.
I wouldn’t notice it’s Luke in disguise no matter how much he would stand out with his muscular body. I get too focused on my research to notice the world ending around me. Searching for a little niche for inspiration from history and art books has perks; history books give me a background in a dish that generated from that area while art allows me to amp up the beauty of it for my viewers that come to my blog.
I never thought I would be loving research and reading after school has ended. I couldn’t stand sitting still and reading a book about Roman Emperors or World War Two. I understand the significance and the aftermath of them, but I was the type of person to read at my own pace the books that spark my interest.
Doing the reading and finishing my work has me forgetting the content the moment I turn my homework in, but when I read for my own benefits, I remember everything down to the littlest details.
The old Anna can’t read a science book in one week, but the Anna that I am now can take in details that I need to understand to the chemical foundation of how my cream can be whipped up to the fluffiest.
I once read the entire book on the production of the best watermelon, and Leslie thought I had a fever for reading all two hundred pages of scientific words and testimonies from fruit experts.
She wasn’t complaining when I made her the best birthday cake with her favorite fruits; the layered cake had less sugar in it, and the whipped cream was light to offset the natural sweetness of the fruits that I had let sit in the refrigerator to keep their shape and prevent them from browning with lemon juice.
Leslie forgave me for filling our apartment with hordes of books. One would think that I’m studying every law book to rewrite the constitution; there were just that many stacks of books.
“Forester,” Luke says mysteriously, and he stops there for a moment.
I wait, and he doesn’t seem like he’s going to finish. “Am I supposed to guess what you’re going to say?
“How do you know him?” he finishes as he rubs his thick fingers over mine.
I breathe in the nasty scent of gas exhaust and freshly cut grass, there is a hint of motor oil too, and it’s got to be the oddest combination I have smelt yet. During my time in the kitchen surrounded with failed dishes, I experienced many funky scents, but this is pungent as it makes my skull buzz.
“Well…” I begin to think of the first time I met him, and it’s not a pretty story.
I guess it’s technically my fault, but I can’t take all the blame because my nosy neighbor got involved in businesses that aren’t his just because he’s a bored, old man with nothing better to do than to report young people for doing things that aren’t what they seem.
“It was about four years ago. I was in love with the idea of Mardi Gras when I met this lovely woman. Her name was Piper, and she was from New Orleans, she’s got this southern twang that makes me laugh from other than her humor.”
We talked, hand in hand, and passed the dog park with playful barks chasing each other. I liked how the floor we lived in made it impossible to hear anything with the exception of one drunk individual screaming at the top of his lungs or sirens blaring. Those noises are common in big cities, but I’m surprised that the noises didn’t reach up to this high in the building.
I never lived anywhere with more than two floors. I’m experiencing new things every day, and it’s shocking why I didn’t move to a high apartment unit sooner. I got woken up so many times because one of my previous neighbors had a motorcycle and everyone hated her more than IRS agents.
She would come in and out of the neighborhood at times where people were still in bed or already went to bed, and when she would start her motorcycle, she wouldn’t ride off right away and wait at least five minutes with the engine running. It’s the most obnoxious noise ever when I was trying to update my blog.
“Anna?” Luke squeezes my hand, and it brings me out of my thoughts.
I tend to go into the depth of my thinking, and one thing leads to another, I might suddenly go from cleaning the ocean to floating into space.
“Sorry,” I sheepishly laugh and rub the neck of my neck.
“I wanted to make the traditional King Cake, but I didn’t know how to, so she taught me. We would meet at the library, and she would have books ready for me, she told me the history behind Mardi Gras and the connection of the King Cake.”
Birds chirp over my head as we pass a shaded sidewalk with trees blocking the harmful UV lights, “When he returned to New Orleans, I tried to make it, and I needed to buy decorations for presentation. I only went to the store for maybe five minutes of the forty minutes
cooking time, but I kind of forgot and I almost set the apartment on fire.”
I pause with a grimace and shake my head; that’s the wrong thing to say. “The worst was burning the cake, so I ‘m exaggerating a bit, but I didn’t think so at the time because I forgot my keys and it was exigent circumstances.”
“You broke into your own apartment,” Luke says, it’s easy to finish the story since we all know where that was going.
“Yeah, my neighbor called the police about a robbery in progress. It’s how I met Forester, first or last name. I didn’t know, and I still don’t know,” I sigh with a huffy pout.
“He’s not your anything?” Luke’s growl is endearing as I laugh with a small shake of my head.
“Other than a pain in my butt, no. He’s Leslie’s gorilla boyfriend. It was love at first sight because the dispatcher also called the fire department.”
He stops me in front of the library with all kinds of people walking around; businessmen with briefcases, students with backpacks, and simple people who want a quiet place to read. Some are outside on the benches and grass, with a book open and a concentration that will not be broken by the ambient noises from the environment.
“As you can tell, Forester and Leslie are an item. If they keep it up, I’ll be officially homeless from escaping their salacious activities,” I shudder in disgust. I have seen both of them naked more times than I can care to count.
“Live with me,” he says out of the blue.
We haven’t discussed my stay in his apartment. It’s natural for me to fall into his bed without any preemption. I haven’t been in my own bed at all, and I know that Forester has taken camp in my unit with Leslie. They’re always coming home at different times and leaving separate ways to avoid suspicion.
They can’t trick my keen eyes. They try to make it look like they are simply friends when they’re screwing on every surface they can get their hands on. They do the old trick of leaving at different times, but they have one door to leave from the apartment unit so anyone who lives in the same floor would see Forester leaving a unit that only has two girls.
We got more nosy neighbors in closer proximity. Nothing we do is private anymore, and I think that Leslie has stopped caring about the potential backlash from both the fire and police department.
Luke doesn’t mind fraternization as long as it’s not in his house because he would rather avoid the fallout from the breakup. He speaks as if it had happened before, or it was a rule that was passed down from the previous Chief.
It’s just an unspoken practice that people overlook and still fraternize. I guess the sexual tension, mixed with adrenaline of a high-risk job, tends to bring out the lusty part of their mind.
“I don’t know,” I whisper in a low voice; people are starting to look our way.
It’s either because of Luke’s colossal body, or we’re standing there doing nothing but talk. We’re not blocking the walkway, but we do bring in a lot of attention when people are reading to past time.
“I want to,” I correct myself with a purse of my lips, “I just don’t want you to get sick of me.”
I have had people tell me that I’m a lot to handle and it takes patience with me to understand that I’m not trying to make their lives difficult, but I have my own system when I do things. Leslie is the only one that understands the chaotic mess in the apartment; I leave things where they are because I know I will need them soon, I make a mess of the kitchen to take the best picture for the blog, and it takes me a while to clean it up, and I’m a clumsy individual.
I’m not an ideal roommate; being a girlfriend is out of the question for me for a long time.
Luke hasn’t gotten in the deep corner yet, he’s going to see all the bad qualities that I have, and he would regret ever letting me into his life and home.
“You’re thinking too much,” he says with a clipped snap of his voice, “I want you, and I will fucking change your mind if I have to.”
There he is, the grouchy and impatient man that I first met.
I giggle, “You can’t say I didn’t warn you when I make a mess of your apartment.”
“You won’t,” he says cryptically, holding our laced fingers up to his lips and sinking his teeth into the bone of my ring finger.
“I will punish you when you don’t clean up after yourself.”
My cheeks burn. His innuendo coils in my belly as my lashes drop to look at the thick bulge between his dark pants. It is not noticeable from a distance, but I can see how much he wants to bring that punishment to light.
I know he means to help me get into the habit of cleaning and being an orderly person, he’s always got a different agenda in his words when he wants to help me, and I appreciate his efforts. It's not going to be my apartment, it’s his too, and I want to put forth the effort to keep it up to his standard of clean.
“Okay, go, go. You have to work!” I squeeze his hand.
I meet him halfway for a kiss, humming a soft giggle to his lips as he tilts his head to deepen the kiss. We are in public, and he doesn’t care who’s watching us. There are eyes on the back of my head, and my skin reddens more.
I promise with another kiss that I would be home before him, it shouldn’t take me too long to do my research, and it’s not going to take the whole day. I have to buy the ingredients to make the dish that I have chosen from multiple options.
“I’ll text you when I’m home, two hours max.”
He reads my face for any inconsistencies, and he should do that because I know myself and I often forget how long I have buried my nose into a book with its interesting contents.
“Not a minute late,” he hisses, protectiveness seeps from his body as he ducks his head into my neck and bites the tender skin above my pulse.
I hold back a squeal of laughter as his fingers dance up my waist, “P-promise!”
He doesn’t want to let go as he tightens his grip, but I make him release his death grip around my waist. My spine isn’t supposed to be pressed that tight by his forearm, and we are gaining serious attention, and I might have sworn I saw a security guard walking our way to yell at us for indecent public display of affection.
“See you soon,” I say as I push his back towards the stairs that lead down to the street with a busy road.
This library is the biggest in the city, and it contains more books than I can read in a lifetime, but it’s an attraction that lures book lovers in and stay the whole day.
Luke looks back, and his dark eyes don’t brighten in the sunlight; it’s the darkness in them that searches for the mysterious feeling I have for him.
I don’t know what it is, but it’s special, and the thought of losing him sounds like death. Losing my blog and my followers don’t sound as bad as not having Luke in my life. All I know is that Luke is special, and my heart has never been wrong about letting a selected few in. Leslie takes a huge part in me. Forester may be an annoying prick, but he’s like that brother I always wanted.
Luke rivals Leslie in my heart. I’m not going to tell any of them that Luke might be winning my whole heart. Rivalry is Leslie’s hobby to pass the time, and I don’t want her and Luke to fight over me, but they are too mature to even think about it.
From the looks of it, neither of them has a problem with each other, and they respect one another since they are all fellow firefighters.
Luke has a good friendship with Forester too, both are the Chiefs of their departments and communicate better than I have ever watched on television shows about departments not catching the perpetrator for years because they don’t talk to each other.
I admire Luke. He’s a good man and someone I see myself being with for a long time.
I gasp, throat constricting and heart singing a tune of siren’s melody.
I’m in love with Luke.
Chapter Eight
Luke
Exactly two hours after I got to work was when I got a text message and a photo of Anna posing with a two-liter soda bottl
e, a grapefruit, and five lemons on my kitchen counter.
Six hours into my day, I received news of a massive fire at a university.
When I got there, the wreckage was massive, and the entire campus was engulfed in flames. If it was an accidental fire, then it would concentrate on one building, but the entire block was set ablaze by the incoming reports of people throwing Molotov cocktails and using accelerants to spread the fire to the homes in the near surroundings.
It soon turned into a riot of every kind of degenerates coming in and fueling the flames with kerosene and lighter fluid; those are accelerants available to the majority of the people.
Ambulances on the scene, firetrucks blasting water into the buildings, police officers pushing the perimeter back to get the people to safety because there are pipelines and other hazardous elements from the science building that could blow up the entire block.
Diverting the traffic was hard for the police between securing the campus and desperate people looking for their loved ones, the firefighters can’t help them because we have a job of putting out the fires before they reach the houses in the area.
Some houses are up in flames already, and other police officers are trying to round up the people who were throwing accelerants. They were caught up in the mob and wanted the excitement without thinking they would get caught for it.
My suit protects me from the flame and the smoke as I search the building for any remaining victims who are trapped in this burning hell. My intel tells me that this is the building that first started a cascading effect of a widespread fire.
It’s as if someone thought these buildings were trees and wanted a wildfire, but these people’s lives are at risk for being here at the wrong time.
“H-help!” a panting voice comes from one of the rooms.
The building is for a place for astronomy majors; there are melted models of the solar system and broken replicas of space shuttles for physics students.
