Sizzle & Share: A MFM Firefighter Romance (Surrender to Them Book 9)

by Kelli Callahan

  * * *

  The next day

  “Good morning.” Hudson opened his door and smiled as soon as he saw me.

  “I need you.” I stepped into his house and wrapped my arms around his neck.

  “You don’t even want coffee first?” He pulled me close as our lips came together.

  I didn’t need coffee. What I needed was something that would make me buzz more than caffeine, nicotine, or even liquor could ever hope to do. I needed Hudson to give it to me, and I would beg for it if I had to. I needed him to punish me—for daring to consider leaving even though he didn’t know the conflict that I had been struggling with. I needed the liberation—the emotional release—the purity that only he would be able to give me. There wasn’t enough time to explain it. I might even try to talk myself out of it if I tried to put those thoughts into words, but it was a craving. I saw the way it made his eyes burn with desire, and while that storm had raged many times when I was in his arms, I needed it to be even more intense. The beast that lingered below the surface needed to be freed from his soul as bad as I needed to become its victim. I finally saw that. I finally understood the true path to redemption.

  “I’ve been a naughty girl.” I leaned against his ear and purred. “Do you still remember what you do to naughty girls?”

  “I do.” He pulled back from me and I saw a smile form on the corner of his lips. “You’re certainly in a mood this morning.”

  “Well you better do something about it.” I bit down on my bottom lip and our eyes locked together.

  The first time he put me over his knee and spanked me, it had been playful, but it brought something out of him. I needed to bring it out of him again. It was almost there. Just the mention was enough to make it burn below the surface. Hudson seemed to understand what I needed, or at least understood what I was asking for. I hoped he would see the need once we were in the bedroom. He pulled me down the hallway, pausing to kiss me along the way. I loved the way his lips felt on my mine, but the gentle sweetness didn’t satisfy the craving. He started unbuttoning my jeans as he walked backwards, pushing them down my hips as he sat down on the edge of the bed. My heart started to beat a little harder as the moment drew closer. The need got stronger when he pulled me down across his knee and I felt his hand on my panties. He stripped them off of my ass with a quick tug and then I felt his calloused hand on my bare skin.

  “So what made you want to try this again?” He pushed a hand between my thighs and rubbed against my clit.

  “I’ve been naughty.” I moaned from his touch. “I need to be punished.”

  “What did you do exactly?” He pulled his hand away from my clit and rubbed the surface of my ass again. “Why do you think you need to be punished?”

  How do I even explain it to him? How do I tell him that I’m so broken that I can’t handle being normal—can’t exist without embracing some form of pain?

  “I’ve just...” I looked over my shoulder at him and my words trailed off for a moment. “I need you to spank me.”

  “Then I guess we should get started.” He lifted his hand.

  SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!

  Hudson didn’t ask any more questions. Maybe he saw the need burning in my eyes, or maybe my submissive nature finally brought the dominance out of him. The first few smacks were gentle, but then he tried a few that were harder. That was what I needed—that sting. I lifted my ass to greet his hand as it came down, trying to show him that I wanted more. I was scared to be honest with him about the reason I begged for him to put me over his knee. He was the kind of man that would wrap his arms around me and try to quell the fear with love, but that was what he always did. I needed it when I first came back to Andalusia and realized the truth, but that need was gone for the moment. If he was going to convince me to stay, even without knowing that leaving had been on the edge of my thoughts, then he was going to have to show me he was strong enough to give me a taste of the pain my body couldn’t function without.

  SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!

  “Have you been punished enough, naughty girl?” Hudson’s hand moved between my thighs and rubbed against my labia. “I’ve got something much better than a spanking for you if you’re ready to be good.”

  “No.” I exhaled sharply and moaned as his finger sent pleasure shooting through my veins. “You have to keep punishing me.”

  SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!

  “You’re going to end up with a red ass if I keep it up.” He rubbed the stinging flesh where his hand had just landed. “Are you sure this isn’t too much?”

  He’s still being sweet—still being nice.

  “It’s not enough.” I looked over my shoulder and moved my ass against his hand. “I need you to spank me harder—I need you to really punish me.”

  Something clicked in his eyes and the jovial expression faded from his face. I saw the beast simmering below the surface again. I didn’t want him to hold it back until the spanking was over and he was inside me. The roughness had to come out—life had to be breathed into his dominance. He lifted his hand and brought it down hard enough to make me squirm. I dug my fingers into his leg and braced for the next one, and it was even harder. I pushed my ass up to greet his hand and the crack of his calloused palm on my tender flesh echoed through the room. The fury was finally coming out of him. He tapped into something that finally started to give me what I needed to feel truly alive. The pain intensified, and my ass started to burn instead of sting. I closed my eyes and endured it, because it was finally a reflection of the pain I needed.

  SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!

  “Harder.” My body rocked forward, and my fingernails dug into his leg. “Don’t stop.”

  SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!

  I was really starting to squirm. My body was embracing the fight or flight that came from the pain. I felt the emotional release that shot endorphins into my veins. My eyes started to water. I tasted years of heartbreak, my abandonment issues, and the lies Preston told in an instant, magnified in a way that was almost therapeutic. His hand began to slow down, but he delivered a few more hard smacks in the center of my ass before he stopped. He could have kept going and I would have taken it, because I didn’t know how to break away from the pain once it was flourishing inside me. He rubbed my ass, but the burn was still there. Physical pain was so much different than the internal turmoil I was used to. It would always fade. His powerful arms wrapped around my waist and he pulled me up until I was locked in an embrace. My head fell against his shoulder, and the tears finally started to really come.

  “Let’s just lay her for a little bit.” Hudson shifted on the bed and kept me in his arms as he stretched out.

  It felt so good to be in his arms, and it felt good to cry on my own terms—to push myself towards the pain with both eyes open and then let it go like a hard burst of air from my lungs. Hudson held me for almost an hour without saying a word. I heard silence in the air, and silence in my own thoughts. In that moment, I knew I would never leave Andalusia. I would never leave Hudson’s arms. He had given me what I needed most—a way to remain where I should have stayed all those years ago. The truth was separated from the lies. A new clarity settled into my soul. I would never be able to be fill the need with peace and love, unless I had a way to dip into the pain when my body cried out for it. It was too familiar to leave me permanently.

  “Are you going to tell me what that was about?” Hudson lifted his hand and ran his fingers through my hair. “It was hot—don’t get me wrong, but I got the feeling that it wasn’t about a sexual urge.”

  “It wasn’t.” I lifted my head and looked into his eyes. “I have to tell you something…”

  “You can tell me anything.” He leaned forward and pressed his lips to my forehead. “I know you’ve been through a lot in your life.”

  “I have been struggling, but it isn’t b
ecause I care about you. It’s the opposite.” I exhaled sharply. “It’s hard for me to feel happiness without having a sense of dread attached to it. I’m always afraid of what’s lurking in the shadows, even when there’s nothing out there. It always feels like something is coming for me—something that will destroy any hope that I allow myself to have.”

  “That’s understandable.” He nodded. “That’s what you’ve lived with your whole life.”

  “I just needed to feel the pain in my own way—I needed to be able to control it.” I dropped my head against his chest. “You gave me that. Thank you.”

  But now the sense of dread is starting to creep up again, because I know there’s only one way to truly fix everything. I have to find a way to bring the three of us together again—to undo everything that happened the day Preston lied.

  15

  Hudson

  The woman who appeared on my doorstep with the far away look in her eyes was no version of Eliza that I had seen before. There was a difference in her body language, a need in her eyes that I didn’t recognize, and what she asked me to do—that was beyond unexpected. We played a game once. She was a naughty girl, and I pretended to punish her. It wasn’t real. It left her ass a little pink, we laughed, and then we had sex—explosive sex. That’s where I thought she was going with it until we got to the bedroom. I wasn’t entirely ready for what she begged for, but I did it. Mostly because I could see that for whatever reason—it had to happen. The memories of the last time I spanked her weren’t very pleasant for me. That was the day I told her how I truly felt. That was the day she left my bed and never returned. I just thought it was her choice and my fault until I found out that my brother was the one who ultimately drove her away from my arms forever.

  Once the so-called punishment was over, she told me why she needed it, or at least she did so with the words she could find. It was in that moment that I realized exactly how broken Eliza really was. Our reunion had been amazing, but the damage that had left a mark on her heart wasn’t one that could be wiped away with a kiss or covered up by passion. She still carried too much of that hurt, and when her heart wasn’t able to feel it, her body had to endure it instead. The summer we spent together brought something out of me—something that I had rarely tapped into since then. It was a dominant desire lingering in the back of my thoughts and on the edge of my subconscious. That was the man she needed, but it wasn’t a sexual need, because the pain she needed to experience wasn’t one that pulled her into a loving embrace. She needed more, and I began to realize that in order for our relationship to survive, I had to wear that mask sometimes. I had to be strong enough to hurt her—and that tore me apart.

  * * *

  One week later

  “Hudson, we’ve got a call. I need all hands on deck. There’s a house fire in Indian Hills.” Chief Traywick pointed towards the fire truck.

  “Yes sir.” I jumped up immediately and ran to get my gear.

  “Indian Hills. Of course, it’s all hands on deck when a rich person’s house in on fire.” Preston snorted in disgust as he walked up and started putting on his gear.

  “Someone might need our help.” I grabbed my helmet and started towards the truck at a hurried pace.

  I hadn’t said much to Preston since Eliza and I reconnected. I had long since forgiven my brother for what he did, but there was still a lingering anger that I hadn’t fully let go of. It was easy to push that out of my thoughts before Eliza returned, because there was nothing on the other side of that anger except disdain. I didn’t want to hate my brother, even if he was an asshole who destroyed my world with his lies. Having Eliza back was a reminder—one that I faced every day, even when I tried to avoid it. The reason she needed to feel pain was because he hurt her. She trusted him, and she trusted me. She gave us everything and when she finally believed there was more in the world that just pain, she got slapped in the face with his harsh dose of fabricated reality. Regardless of what he had done, we still had to work together when we were on the job, and I couldn’t let my own turmoil interfere with that.

  “According to the chief, there’s nobody inside.” Preston climbed up in the cab beside me. “We just have to put out the fire. We’re bringing everything we have, of course.”

  “That’s a waste of resources—resources we don’t have.” I grunted under my breath and waited for the rest of the team to climb on the truck before I cranked it up.

  “Yeah, but like I said—it’s a rich person’s house.” Preston looked out the window as I put the truck in drive.

  We drove to Indian Hills and I could see the smoke in the distance, bellowing up into the sky. Indian Hills wasn’t just upscale, it looked like a piece of Hollywood that had been carved out of California and dropped into rural Alabama. I had some theories about where some of that money came from, but like everyone else, they were just conspiracies in my head. The mayor lived in Indian Hills, and so did most of the people who financed his last campaign. When we got to the location of the fire, I realized the house belonged to the Walford family, who owned the sawmill which kept Andalusia thriving once upon a time. It had been closed for years, yet they still seemed to be doing okay. We started doing what we could to contain the fire, keep it from spreading, and just when we began to make progress, a long black Cadillac pulled up beside our truck. I knew it belonged to Mayor Stevenson, even before he opened the door.

  “What the fuck is going on here? Why isn’t this fire out!?” Mayor Stevenson walked over and looked around at us.

  “We’re doing what we can.” Preston turned towards Mayor Stevenson. “We’ve got it contained.”

  “There’s another hydrant right over there!” Mayor Stevenson’s face turned red as he spoke “Get a hose hooked up! Now!”

  “We don’t have another hose.” I walked over and took off my helmet.

  “Then call for another fire department! What the fuck do I pay you people for? Do I have to do everything myself?” Mayor Stevenson pulled out his phone.

  “Good luck.” I shook my head angrily. “They usually call us when they need help.”

  Mayor Stevenson walked away from us and yelled into his phone for several minutes while Preston and I went back to work on the fire. The house was going to be a total loss, just like the farmhouse we tried to save, and just like the Bed & Breakfast downtown. Money couldn’t fix a problem when you were looking back at it in the rear-view mirror, and that’s all Mayor Stevenson could really do. He finally came to terms with that, I guess, because he just leaned against his car and stared once he was done yelling at people who had no help to offer. I knew there was nobody out there close enough to help, because that was what we dealt with every time there was an emergency in Andalusia. After another hour, the fire was finally starting to smolder instead of blaze, and we were at the end of what we could really do on our own.

  “You guys did a piss-poor job.” Mayor Stevenson grunted when we walked back towards the truck.

  “What do you expect?” I said it under my breath, but louder than I probably should have.

  “I’m sorry, what did you say to me?” Mayor Stevenson pushed off his car and started walking towards me.

  Fuck it, I’m done with this shit.

  “I said—what did you expect?” I put my hands on my hips and turned towards him. “Chief Traywick has been telling you for years that our equipment is outdated! If you want us to do more than contain a fire and wait for it burn out, then why don’t you try allocating some budget money to us, instead your in-ground pool!?”

  “You better watch your tone with me, Hudson” Mayor Stevenson’s lip turned to a snarl.

  “Why? Are you going to fire me?” I glared at him.

  “I should. I should have fired you for that stunt you pulled at the Bed & Breakfast. Do you know how much damage you caused?” Mayor Stevenson shook his head back and forth.

  “Hudson saved my life.” Preston took a step forward. “And if we had better equipment something like that wouldn�
�t have been necessary.”

  “I should fire both of you.” Mayor Stevenson narrowed his eyes angrily and turned his attention directly on me. “If your Dad didn’t give so many years to the fire department, I would do it without a second thought! I’d make sure you never found another job too—not in my fucking town.”

  “I’ll save you the trouble.” I pulled off my helmet and threw it at his feet. “I quit.”

  “Hold on.” Preston bent over and picked up my helmet. “Hudson, think this over for a second. You’re just upset.”

  “I’ve been upset for a long time, and it’s past time that I did more than just watch from the sidelines with no way to fix it.” I took my helmet from Preston and threw it at Mayor Stevenson’s feet again, hard enough for it to leave a mark in the dirt.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Mayor Stevenson’s jaw tightened, and he tilted his head.

  “You won’t have to worry about me finding a job in Andalusia again.” I turned away from him. “I’m going to take yours.”

  I started walking away from the scene of the fire, feeling my anger build as what I said truly began to resonate. My anger got the best of me, but of all the people in Andalusia that could have criticized what we did, I couldn’t take it from Mayor Stevenson. I grew up hearing the rumors of where the money went, and if even half of them were true, he was a disgrace to the office he held. People looked the other way because they were either in bed with him or scared of the repercussions. One call from Mayor Stevenson could do to them what he threatened to do to me—make sure they became unemployable in our small town. There weren’t enough jobs to go around as it was.

  There was another reason I was angry, and it wasn’t just because a rich person’s house burned to the ground. Mayor Stevenson’s mismanagement was why Eliza had such a hard life. The foster system had been in shambles for years. He refused help from the state because he didn’t want them in his business. People who took in foster kids got a stipend for doing so, but it wasn’t enough to look past a few problems. It was easier just to push one kid out the door and find one that was more likely to behave. If the system wasn’t so badly mismanaged, there would have been more homes available. I was going to have to get my hands dirty if I was going to actually challenge the incumbent mayor in the upcoming election, but I had to do something.