by J. K Harper
Voice still a low growl, feeling the blood throbbing into his cock, Tanner answered, "Damn straight it does. It's half killing me to stand here watching you do that and not touching you."
The velvet stroke of her laughter wrapped around him. "Good. That was the intended effect."
With that, she lay back on the bed to unbutton and unzip the soft gray pants she wore. Gently shimmying them down her hips and off her feet, when she was done she leaned over onto her side, cocking one leg in front of her and resting her head on her hand like a pinup model. "What do you think now, my sexy firefighter wolf?"
He thought he might swallow his tongue was what. Jordyn's succulent breasts beautifully filled the dark red bra she wore. Matching panties hugged her hips, the whole of it so damned gorgeous Tanner's breath quickened even as his cock hardened and lengthened. How well he knew her glorious body. How familiar he was with it, how sure he was of his ability to draw soft moans of delight and unfettered screams of bliss from her. He knew just how to touch her, exactly where and at just what rhythm.
The same way she knew exactly how to touch him. The same way she knew everything about him.
"I think," he finally managed to growl, the soft burn of pleasurable anticipation lighting through him, "that you're stunning."
Jordyn's eyes darkened even more. Her jaw fell slightly open, her pulse beating hard in her neck. Carefully, Tanner stepped onto the bed and straddled her with his knees. Caught on her side, she started to roll over onto her back. But he shook his head. Leaning down for a long, slow kiss, one in which he pressed into her mouth with his tongue, tasting the rich spices of her and feeling the heat of her mouth.
"Wait," he murmured into her ear. "I want to kiss you all down the side of your body. Stay just like this for a minute longer."
Just the sweetly hissing inhale of Jordyn's voice told him how much she liked that idea. He started with her ear, gently nibbling the shell before kissing and sucking on the soft lobe. With one hand, he reached around to slip his fingers into her bra and gently stroked her breasts, first one, then the other. The nipples tightened immediately beneath his touch, and she slightly arched her back. An appreciative moan slipped out of her mouth. With his other hand, he reached around to unclasp her bra. Gently tugging the straps over her arms, he tossed it to the edge of the bed and let the beautiful bounty of her freed breasts fill both his hands after he slipped his other one beneath her back and around her front. Slowly sliding his body down alongside of hers, he licked and kissed his way down her neck, over her shoulder, down her taut, fit biceps. He moved his head to kiss and nibble along her ribs, gently pushing her arm out of the way. She moved it so eagerly he laughed, enjoying the fact that as always, she loved him touching her.
For his part, he felt the molten heat slipping like liquid through his body merely from being right beside her. From touching her. From breathing in her intoxicating scent of sweet, musky jasmine.
"Keep going," she urged him in a throaty voice. The one that told him how aroused she was.
Smiling against her sweet, bare skin, he kept moving downward until his lips tipped over the curve of her waist, and up along the gorgeous swell of her hip. The red, lacy underpants met his mouth. Moving his hands down so he could slightly brace them against the bed, he gripped the light slip of fabric with his teeth and tugged it down her leg. She helped by pushing it down on the other side. As he went, he trailed his fingers along her long, smooth thigh, down to her toes.
She giggled suddenly. "Don't you dare kiss those feet of mine. I think they smell like feet.”
He huffed out an amused bark of laughter. This was one of the many things he loved about her. Her sense of humor, even during—
Wait. Pausing slightly just before he pulled her underpants all the way off her feet, his mind tripped over the word he'd use. Lovemaking.
Love.
Yes, his wolf murmured at him, completely in the moment with him.
A small shock of confusion and conflict roared into him once again. Jordyn, sensing his hesitation, turned on her back and leaned up on her elbows to give him a quizzical look. "Everything okay down there, fire wolf? Is the smell of my delicate tootsies giving you the vapors?"
This time, a genuine peal of laughter snorted out of him. He tossed the pretty lacy panties aside and shook his head. Damn, she knew how to make him smile. "Never," he assured her. "I was actually just thinking about how much I love the way that you can make me laugh even in our most intimate moments."
He gazed up at her from his position down by her feet, feeling as though he worshiped at the feet of a goddess. She looked back down at him, silken strands of her hair caught up on one cheek, face slightly rosy in what was another one of her signs of arousal. Her gorgeous nutmeg-brown eyes had the added sheen to them that meant her wolf was just as present as his. As they looked at one another, he felt all the desire racing and tumbling back through him, carrying him along in a growing inferno he welcomed.
Voice a deep, growled whisper, he said, "Spread your legs for me, babe. I need to taste you right now."
***
As soon as Tanner said that, Jordyn was lost. Something deep had stirred in his eyes just a moment before he spoke. Inside, her wolf murmured at her, Mine. Jordyn let the truth of that flare over her, lighting her senses with a sizzling zap. She felt electric. About ready to pop off into dazzling fireworks.
Tanner always did this to her. Always.
Silently, just looking at him, she let first one leg, then the other slide open over her bedspread. A dark, desirous smile spread over Tanner's face. The smile of a man being gifted most incredible thing he could imagine. Barely breathing the words, he said, "So damn beautiful, Jordyn. You are so damn beautiful."
Then he slid himself up, nestled his face between her legs, and took a long, dragging stroke of his tongue through her damp folds. Jordyn didn't even bother to stop the ragged groan that tore out of her mouth at his touch. Every nerve ending she had down there immediately responded, the feeling crackling through her like wildfire. There long, flirtatious foreplay during dinner had primed her body. That, combined with the deep knowledge that she needed to enjoy every single second she had left with this man, made the wildfire he started with his touch instantly turn into an explosive inferno.
"Oh, Tanner, I—now!" she commanded, breath heaving.
Another long, slow drag of his tongue down, then back up to all her folds and crevices. She exploded into what felt like a million shooting stars beneath his tongue and lips. Bucking her hips into him, reaching down to press his face into her, she let a wild cry rip out of her throat as the orgasm exploded throughout her. He kept licking, swirling his tongue up and down, back and forth, with rhythmic intensity as she arched against him again and again from the force of it.
Finally, boneless, spent, she fell back onto the bed, gasping for breath, relaxing what she belatedly realized had been a death grip on his head. He gave her a long last taste before moving his head back. "Jordyn, you taste so good. Just listening to you to come made me so hard I was about to lose it right then."
She managed to blink open her eyes and focus on his face. She caught her breath at the utterly focused, feral expression he wore.
Oh, yes. She knew that look. She knew exactly what it meant.
He didn't disappoint her.
"Turn over and get onto all fours, Jordyn." His order was pure gravel that mere human ears would not have been able to understand. "Now, babe, now. Please." That last, ragged word was still an order, but the shaking need beneath it tugged at both her molten core and her hammering heart.
Feeling her pulse slamming in her neck, a new wave of excitement thundering between her legs and arms making her dizzy with renewed need, she swiftly obeyed. Getting on all fours, turning her back to him, she leaned her head down on her arms and nestled her rear back toward him. His answering groan shivered through the room.
Without another word, he reached forward, grasped her hips to pull her back e
ven closer to him, and plunged his steel-hard length deep inside her.
***
Tanner thought his head might shoot off his body the second he thrust himself into Jordyn's slick center. Her sweet heat enveloped him just as her soft cry did, mingling with his own rough groan. She looked up at him from her head nestled on her arms, her eyes dark and smoky, her lips parted as her breath came in pants between her own groans. "With me," she whispered, her movements already matching his. “With me, Tanner."
Her soft command rattled through him, shoving aside all reason, all thoughts, all concerns and inner conflict. Their bodies melded in tandem so that they could explode at the same time. Higher and faster, like the winds whipping the flames of the fire he never wanted to go out, they spiraled up with one another. Eyes locked with hers the whole time, slamming into her willing caress and being met stroke for stroke, he felt his climax shatter out of him in a crashing explosion at the same time she shuddered and tightened and spasmed wildly.
His bellow of joyful release echoed off the walls of her room, matched in harmony by her long, keening cry.
He stroked into her with almost desperate final thrusts, riding it until the very end. Utterly lost in the fiery explosion of stunning release that happened each time he was with this woman. Each time he let go when he was with her.
Each time trusting her, his wolf whispered in the back of his mind. Each time letting her trust me.
His mind totally scrambled from the explosive bliss and the sensation that he was exactly where he was meant to be and that everything in this world was right, Tanner could only agree with his wolf.
Eventually, he slowly collapsed down on top of her, still nestled inside her. He rested his face against her neck, kissing her shoulder and reaching down with one hand to take her hand in his. They interlaced their fingers as he reached his other hand around to gently curve around her head and softly tangle in her hair.
Slowly, her breathing returned to normal. Slowly, he felt her heartbeat beneath his settle back into a quieter rhythm. Slowly, he became aware of the other noises he'd completely blocked out in the moments of passion with her. A car alarm going off somewhere in the distance, the slight whoosh of traffic coming from the main drag a few blocks down from Jordyn's apartment. The creaks and ticks of the building itself, which was one of the older ones in town.
All the things of which he'd been utterly unaware while he was wholly focused on Jordyn and her pleasure mingled with his.
Her hand squeezed his. "You take my breath away," she said simply.
He smiled against her neck. "Sounds like you have enough breath to talk right now," he teased back.
She giggled and halfheartedly flailed around with her other hand to try to slap him on the butt. She missed by mile, amidst both their laughter.
Dammit. What the hell was he thinking, leaving this woman behind anyway? His wolf immediately supported that line of thinking by rubbing up against the corners of his mind, giving a short bark of approval.
"Jordyn," he started slowly.
She tensed slightly beneath him, alerted by his cautious tone. "Yes?" Her voice sounded a mixture between deliciously sated and cautiously questioning.
"I'm not sure—" he managed to get out before his phone suddenly went crazy, quickly followed by Jordyn's.
"Damn," he swore, pressing a firm kiss against her neck and giving her as much of a hug as he could while lying on top of her before gently easing out of her to spring to his feet.
She was moving just as quickly. But when he glanced at her he saw the regret in her eyes. Both their phones blared out with the special alert that was calling them in. These sounded when there was a really bad fire for which the department was simply asking for anyone who was available to show up to report to the station immediately.
People's lives could be in the balance right now.
Yanking on his clothes while Jordyn whipped over to her closet and did the same, Tanner said through his shirt as he pulled it over his head, "I got something to say to you, babe. After this call, though, okay?"
She nodded at him, darted back over to give him a quick, sound kiss on the lips that they both lingered over for just a moment. Then she rushed back to continue shoving on her own clothes.
Together, they ran out the door and downstairs, heading straight to the station and their jobs.
Chapter Seven
Gouts of flame sliced out through the open windows of the building. Smoke billowed into the sky. Sirens, people yelling, the enormous rush of water from the hoses and an official-sounding voice through a megaphone sharply commanding bystanders to get back and allow the fire department do its job all added a sense of urgency to an already acute situation.
"Tanner! Over here!" Zach's shout got Tanner's attention. Tanner ran over, still tugging on his oxygen tank over one shoulder. Small knots of the team had gathered near a side entrance, each of them calmly and efficiently working as they prepared to go in.
"People still inside?" Tanner dodged around a visibly shaken woman being escorted back to the fire trucks and presumably paramedics as he called out his question.
Zach nodded, jerking his head toward the front of the building and jabbing his thumb into the air. "Upstairs. Two men. We only saw one, he was shouting to us through that window.” He pointed at it. “He said his father has a heart condition and is having a lot of issues with the smoke. He couldn't get them down his own but he said he thinks there's still a clear path up to the back. Moving down fast, though. We need to get to them."
Tanner nodded, situating his tank and making sure his helmet was jammed firmly on his head. "Let's do this."
Behind him, a newly sharp siren drew his attention. The ambulance. Turning, he watched for a brief moment as it pulled up and Jordyn and Sean jumped out. Jordyn, focused on her job with the businesslike precision that had insured her steady career rise and cemented her place here, was sexy as hell as she went about checking on the dazed woman Tanner had brushed past moments earlier. Jordyn's touch was gentle yet thorough as she checked the woman over, her expression professional and utterly caring.
Ice Princess, my foot, he thought with a mixture of growl and incredible pride in her abilities. His wolf, utterly focused on the job at hand yet also definitely aware of Jordyn's presence, give a sharp bark of agreement in Tanner's mind. He turned back to Zach and the burning building. "I'm right behind you," he called out, striding quickly to enter the building behind Zach and the chief.
Inside, it was dark, smoky, and what Tanner knew must be terrifying for those still trapped upstairs. Luckily, they weren't actually trapped. The narrow yet perfectly serviceable staircase marched up ahead of them, free of flames, heat, and all but the barest wisps of smoke. The chief called behind him as he took the stairs two at a time, "Looks all clear, boys. It'll be a clean run. Everyone stay in position."
Tanner bristled slightly at that. Everyone here damn well knew their role in a fire rescue. That warning was aimed directly at him. The chief was still sore at Tanner's supposed insubordination.
Angry to lose teammate, his wolf thought in a short, sharp staccato in his head. Knows each one is strong and smart. Important.
Huh. That was interesting. His wolf was often far more attuned to the hidden intricacies of other people. Their body language.
Or maybe, he allowed himself to think in stark honesty, it was just that Tanner himself had been so focused on his own personal blind spots he didn't want to allow for the inherent humanity in his chief.
Snorting slightly to himself at the touch of irony of having his wolf force him to consider his own humanity, he followed quickly behind the others to slam through a door that opened into a hallway. The smoke was definitely heavier here, but still not bad enough to be instantaneously hazardous. At the end, he saw two figures. One was seated on the ground, leaning against the wall, breathing into a mask. The other figure knelt behind beside the seated one, but he jerked his head around and jumped up at the sound of the burl
y firefighters quickly heading down the hall toward them.
"Thank god," the guy said as they approached. Probably in his fifties and relatively fit, he still clearly wasn't capable of hefting the weight of the far larger, definitely not-in-shape man seated on the floor next to him. "Dad's having trouble breathing."
As Zach and Max knelt down beside the older man to quickly assess him and get him into position to carry out, the chief said, "You sure the two of you are the last ones up here?"
The other guy shrugged even as he shook his head. Coughing slightly, he said, "I think everyone else got out, but I can't say for sure. I pounded on a couple doors, but when dad went down, I ran to the window to yell for you guys, then I came back stay with him. There are only six apartments on this floor," he added, pointing farther down the hallway. "That one belongs to my folks, across from it is empty. The one next to him and this one I knocked on. The other two, I don't know. My mom is outside already," he added. The relief on his face was palpable.
The chief looked at Tanner. Tanner was already nodding and moving down the hallway. "I got the north apartment," he said, knowing chief would check the other one while Zach and Max got the guys out. Pounding hard on the door, he shouted, "Fire department! You in there? We need you out now."
Behind him on the outside of the hallway, he heard the chief doing the same. Zach and Max's voices faded along with those of the two men they were rescuing as they descended the two brief flights of stairs to the ground floor, the hallway door slamming shut behind them. With a practiced aim, aided a bit by his wolf's strength, Tanner kicked down the apartment door and ran inside to check it out.
