by Score, Lucy
Visibility was almost nil as the smoke rushed him.
The flames were eating at the wall, licking at the neatly made bed. He saw the body under the window, the dog lying next to it, and crawled forward.
The dog’s tail wagged slowly. The body was a woman. Elderly, frail. Unconscious. With his gloves, he couldn’t tell if there was a pulse, and there was no time to check.
“Hey there, buddy. Let’s get you two out of here,” Linc said through his mask.
“Command to BFD chief.” His radio crackled. “Can man’s reporting the roof is gonna go any second now. Get the hell out of there.”
“Copy that. Found two victims. One unconscious woman, one large dog. Third floor. Back bedroom. Extracting now.”
“Copy that. Holding for you at the window.”
The flames were coming for them. Hypnotic flares, sensual snakes of orange and red. The black was closing in. The black and the heat. He could hear the monster’s roar through all his protective layers.
Sweat, every drop of water in his body, was being pushed through his pores. There was a rumble and roar. He felt the floor shake under him and prayed the ceiling in this little room would hold just another minute or so.
“What the fuck was that?” Linc yelled.
The dog gave a pitiful whimper and crawled closer to him.
“Anyone have eyes on that?” Sam called.
“Engine 21 to Command. Ceiling in front room of east unit collapsed.”
And just like that, Linc was trapped in a burning apartment with someone’s grandmother and a dog that only had a minute or two left to live.
“There’s a window in the back bedroom. Get me the ladder!” he yelled into the radio.
“Copy that, chief.”
He got to his feet and hooked his gloved hands under the woman’s armpits. She was a tiny thing, and pulling her the short distance to the window took little effort. The dog belly-crawled after them. Its whimper barely audible above the snarl of the fire. They were in the belly of the beast, and it was only a matter of time before the roof rained down, crushing them.
Linc braced the woman against him and shoved at the window, relieved when it budged an inch and then two. Air. He couldn’t feel it or smell it through his mask. But it was there.
His breath was coming in pants, and he carefully slowed it to manage his air.
“In place. Window is stuck,” he reported.
The dog gratefully shoved his nose through the crack for a moment before turning his devoted attention back to the limp and lifeless woman in Linc’s grasp. Back and forth, he went to breathe and then to lick.
It felt like hours, and as those precious seconds ticked by, Linc lost all visibility again. Clouds of smoke, an entire sky’s worth, filled the room, black and hot. And in another minute, there wouldn’t be a life left to rescue.
He used his body to shield woman and dog from the flames that were closing in around them.
There was a rumble of engine, and he could just make out the ladder truck easing into place, half in the alley and half in the grass, its ladder extending toward him.
Linc shoved his hand out the window and waved.
The dull thud of a ladder hitting the brick was the sound of salvation.
As was the tap on the glass. The dog barked again.
“Extraction team in position. Window’s stuck. Chief, might want to get back. I’m gonna bust the glass.”
“Do it,” he said, curling himself over his charges as the glass broke behind him and shards rained down on them all. He felt, rather than heard, the dog’s pathetic whimper.
“Gonna be okay, buddy,” he promised. “Just hang in there.”
Smoke poured through the window frame now. But he could see Zane’s big, gloved hands and then the rest of him as he climbed into the room.
“Good timing, Stairmaster.”
“I like to make an entrance.”
Linc all but shoved the woman at him. Zane held the victim by the arms while another firefighter got her legs. And then they were gone. Disappearing onto the ladder in the rush of smoke.
“Your turn, buddy,” Linc said, crouching down to find the dog. “Try not to bite me, okay? I’ll forgive you if you do because this is scary shit, but it’ll just slow us both down.”
There was no graceful way to do it. He moved by feel, kneeling down and shoving his helmeted head under the dog’s belly. “I’m gonna wear you like Granny Lily’s shawl, but you’re getting out of here,” he promised
The dog gave a groan and shifted listlessly on his shoulders.
“Steady now,” Linc said as he backed out of the window, feeling for the rungs through gloves and boots. “Just another second.”
He found the first rung and the second. And just as he swung out of the window and onto the ladder, the ceiling inside came crashing down.
Halle-fucking-lujah.
“Roof’s going,” he gasped into the radio as he climbed as quickly as he could under seventy pounds of limp dog. “Get us out of here.”
Debris rained down on them as the ladder swung away from the building.
“Thank fuck,” he sighed. The dog licked his mask.
“Real pretty scarf you got there, chief,” Zane called from just beneath him on the ladder.
Back on the ground, a paramedic found a pulse on the woman and had an oxygen mask strapped to her before Linc made it off the truck. Zane, still in his mask, helped him heft the dog off his shoulders onto a blanket on the ground.
He was weak. His fur was badly singed. And there was a nasty cut on one of his pads. But he looked up at Linc and wagged his tail. Linc dragged off the helmet and mask and took a deep breath.
“Here.” Khalil, the six foot six ex-point guard for Benevolence’s high school basketball team, handed Linc an oxygen mask.
He shook his head. “I don’t need it.”
“No, but your friend here could use some.”
Together, they gently slipped the mask over the grateful dog’s nose.
“Good boy,” Linc said. “You saved Grandma.”
The dog’s tail tapped lightly as his eyes closed. Linc swore the dog was smiling.
29
The late-night rain pelted the windows of the cottage. It was past her bedtime, but Mack wasn’t inclined to admit that she felt compelled to wait up until she saw the lights come on at Linc’s.
As a first responder herself, she had a unique perspective. She knew exactly how much training and protocol went into responding to an emergency. She was also acutely aware of all the ways a routine call could go sideways.
She turned the page in her novel—because she had time for fiction now—and adjusted the pillow under her boot again.
Sunshine snored contentedly, her fluffy head resting on Mack’s shin. If she was going to do more dog-sitting, she’d need a bigger couch.
She caught a glimpse of light from the backyard and craned her neck.
“Your daddy might be home,” she told the dog. But Sunshine was too busy dreaming of rabbits and vanilla ice cream to respond.
Carefully, Mack eased her leg out from under the dog’s head, replacing it with a pillow. She limped quietly into the kitchen and spied the lights on at Linc’s.
“Good,” she whispered.
The soft knock on the back door startled her. There on the other side of the glass was Lincoln Reed.
Illuminated by the lonely porch light, he was filthy. Ash and dirt streaked his face and forearms. Rain soaked his t-shirt through to the skin beneath. Those blue eyes burned brighter than any flame.
Mack knew what would happen if she opened the door. He knew it, too. A frisson of understanding passed between them through the glass.
Her heart thudded in her chest. The familiar tendril of adrenaline awoke in her belly like a sleeping dragon.
She wanted this. She wanted him.
She reached for the handle and slowly slid the door open. Another pause. Another beat as they eyed each other. The attracti
on so palpable, she wondered how she ever thought she could ignore it.
“Send me home, Dreamy,” he rasped.
In this moment, there was nothing she wanted more than this man’s hands on her.
She shook her head. And it didn’t take any more than that. Linc stepped inside. Into her space, into her arms.
He smelled of smoke and rain. His skin was wet and hot beneath her eager palms as she roamed his arms, his shoulders, his back. She felt the energy crackling off him, recognized the adrenaline of a call that couldn’t be slept off.
There were other ways to burn it off, to ride that wave until the blood was cool again.
Carefully, he pulled the door shut behind him. Then his mouth was closing over hers.
Teeth and tongues tangled. Lips bruised. His hands slipped under the hem of her t-shirt to rest on the bare skin of her waist. Thumbs skimming just under her breasts. She breathed him in, tasted him.
She let him lead as he backed her farther into the kitchen.
He lifted her onto the counter. Rain pattered steadily on the window above the sink.
“Linc.”
“Don’t change your mind. Please, Dreamy.”
She cupped his face in her hands. “I’m not changing my mind. I just like saying your name while your hands are on me.”
He dropped his forehead to hers. “Jesus. You level me.”
“Hoping you plan on returning the favor,” she said, nipping at his jaw.
He growled low in his throat and shoved a hand into her hair, gripping it tight.
She saw the clench of his jaw, the flutter of his pulse in his neck, as he carefully loosened his grip.
“You don’t have to be gentle, Hotshot. I’m not some fragile flower.”
“No, you’re not,” he said. His fingers tightened on her hair again, testing her. He guided her head back and took her mouth.
The fierceness of his desire sent her own heart galloping.
She ran her hands up his chest and dug her nails into his shoulder. His muscles tensed and bunched under her touch. His palms worshipped her skin, stroking over the flat of her stomach, the subtle dips of her waist and hips, and finally, finally the curves of her breasts.
Thank God she hadn’t bothered with a bra tonight. If she had, she still wouldn’t know exactly what it felt like when her nipples hardened against Linc’s rough calluses.
Her head fell back, knocking smartly against a baby blue cabinet door.
“Are you okay?”
But she was too busy reeling him in, tightening her legs around his hips so she could feel him.
“Hallelujah for sweatpants,” she moaned when that thick shaft those pants didn’t even try to contain notched against her clit.
Big, hard, and impossible to resist, just like the rest of him.
The ache that started between her legs before he touched her intensified to an empty throbbing.
Now she knew want. Desire. Lust. Need.
Everything before was a faded black-and-white photo. But Linc’s body pressing hers against cabinet and counter was in full, high-definition color.
This was what had been missing.
He was who had been missing.
The magnitude of her train of thought, the tsunami of physical sensation, overwhelmed her. Terrified her to the bone. This felt like life and death. And that only made her more excited.
She reached between them and dragged the waistband of his sweats down. His cock sprang free triumphantly.
And those blue eyes bored into hers as she closed her fingers around his shaft. She stroked up and down and reveled in the shudder that rolled through his body, the moisture that leaked from the blunt crown.
He wanted her. Craved her. She knew it in her bones. And knowing was powerful.
Boldly, she slid her other hand into his pants and cupped his balls.
“Dreamy, if you don’t stop looking at me like that or touching me like that, this is gonna be a real disappointment for us both,” he said, gritting out the words.
“Make me.”
His nostrils flared at the challenge, and she thought it was the sexiest thing she’d seen. At least until he slid his hands down to her hips and yanked her tight against him. She stroked him again, harder this time, taunting him. The head of his hard-on was pinned between them. The fabric of her shorts was saturated. Every time she stroked him, he was nudging up against her hungry clit.
With impatience, Linc grabbed her shorts and pulled.
She was so fucking glad she’d shaved her legs.
“Fuck me, Mackenzie,” he breathed, skimming his hands up her bare thighs to her hips.
“That’s the plan.” Her breath was coming in quick draws already. She reached for him again, but he stopped her, pinning her hands to the cabinet behind her.
They both looked down. His veined cock strained toward her aching, empty pussy. Her muscles clenched and closed over nothing, anticipating what it would be like to be filled by him.
“I need a condom,” he said.
He licked two fingers like they were a popsicle, and Mack nearly blacked out watching him slide them into her wet flesh.
“You came over here all hot and bothered and didn’t bring one?” Her voice was shaking with need. Two fingers felt damn good.
“I didn’t want to presume.” Slowly, with the patience of a saint, he pulled his fingers out of her.
“Presume the fuck away, Hotshot.” She ended on a hiss when he drove them back into her and flexed.
Any numbness she had carried with her thawed, then simmered.
“I need to be inside you. Feel you tighten on me, squeeze me.”
On command, her walls spasmed around those skilled fingers.
“I want to know what it feels like when you come on me, Mackenzie. I need to know.”
She didn’t know how he could have so damn much to say while her body was ripping apart at the seams. He kept talking, kept pumping his fingers into her, and her body welcomed it, begged for it.
“I want to watch you come. I want to make you come. I want to see you when you’re feeling nothing but good.”
She wanted to touch him, too. To do what he was doing to her. Make him feel out of control. But her hands, her fingers, gripped the edge of the counter convulsively. She was going to come on her kitchen counter without that fine cock making it past her opening.
It seemed wrong.
But wrong didn’t stop the orgasm that was building in her.
It lifted her like the crest of a wave. Up and up she went, and then she detonated.
“Fuck. Yes, Mackenzie. Ride my hand, baby,” Linc crooned to her. He forced her knees up higher, wider. Drove his fingers into her harder. And she closed around him, clamping onto him in beautiful, agonizing surrender.
“Linc,” she gasped, trying to pull her soul back into her body.
“Now I really need a fucking condom.”
“Upstairs. Bedroom,” she said, slumping against his chest. The thunder of his heartbeat calmed her. She’d come apart on him, and he wasn’t immune.
“Let’s go, Dreamy. I’ve got plans to experience more of those orgasms of yours.”
He wrapped her legs around his waist and dragged her off the counter.
She clung to him, knowing it was almost certain that her legs wouldn’t support her. “Don’t wake Sunny. She’s asleep on the couch.”
The big firefighter, carting an adult woman, danced up the stairs in ninja-like silence.
“That was impressive,” she whispered.
“I’m extremely motivated,” he said, shoving open a door.
“Bathroom,” she snickered.
“You could give me some directions here.”
“I already had an orgasm,” she said smugly.
“Dreamy, you don’t want that to be your only one tonight.”
“Point taken. Next door on the right.”
They fell on the bed, where Mack reveled in the feel of his big body stretched out over he
rs. They fit like puzzle pieces reunited. He was hot and hard, every inch of him. It made her feel soft and delicate in comparison.
“I need to touch you,” she hissed, shoving a hand between their bodies and palming him through the soft cotton of his pants. The head of his cock had once again fought and won the battle for freedom. It was the most erotic thing she’d ever seen in her life. “I fucking love sweatpants.”
He thrust eagerly against her hand. “I’ll wear them every fucking day if it gets you off.”
She dragged the waistband down, down, down. Until his glorious dick sprang all the way free.
“I want to taste you,” she said.
“Not this time. This time it’s gotta be fast and hard. You should find something to hang on to.”
She gripped his shaft tighter.
“Funny.” He dipped his head to her breast and sucked the nipple into his mouth. When his teeth closed over the sensitive peak, she hissed. Remembering that she had the upper hand, she gave his erection a rough stroke.
There was too much here. Too much to feel. Too much sensation electrifying her nerves. Reporting scrambled messages to her brain.
“I want top,” she demanded. Needed it. Needed the control before she lost her damn mind.
“Just make it fast and hard, Dreamy. Ride my cock until we both come.”
He rolled, their legs a tangle with covers, half discarded pants, and that damn walking boot. Sprawled over his body, Mack reached for the condom in the nightstand and shredded the wrapper. Her hands were shaking when she reached for him. He noticed and steadied her. Together, in a sinful moment of intimacy, they rolled the condom onto his thick shaft.
She felt the pulse of his blood beneath the surface. Knew he wanted it as much as she did.
And took her rightful place on his cock.
“Watch,” she ordered, notching the blunt crown in place. “Watch.”
She took an inch of him. Just enough to have sweat dotting his brow, his jaw clenching. It was too much and not enough. He stared down at where they were joined.