Wylder Bluffs Firefighters: The Complete Short-Story Collection

by Tarin Lex

  “I…” he starts saying something but then closes his mouth.

  “What?”

  It doesn’t matter that his face has changed from boy to man. When Atlas looks at me, he’s seventeen again, just like he always remained in my mind’s eye. I’m curvier than I used to be. Tired from textbooks and late nights. He doesn’t seem to notice, or care. He takes his time observing me. I spend those moments falling for him, stupidly.

  “God I’ve missed you.” He steps toward me, pulling my breath asunder when he holds my dirty face in his hands. My heart goes spastic. When Atlas flicks those dark blue eyes up to my face, fastening his gaze over mine, I study him closer. I spot something new in those depths. Something different. Off.

  Is that…pain?

  “You should go easier on a girl who was almost suffocated today.”

  “I should.”

  My heart tips. “Don’t kiss me,” I whimper, when he moves in closer. I press my palm into his chest. Damn, he’s solid. “Do you work out by lifting all of Wylder Peak? Geez-Louise.”

  Atlas smirks, chuckling softly. But there’s little humor in his gaze. “Why can’t I kiss you?”

  “Because I stink. I need a sho—”

  I can’t even finish before he seals his lips over mine, shutting me up and towing me in. My world jostles around on a swivel, then somewhat steadies, spinning my head ’round and ’round as my heart descends, spiraling down. Holy hell have I missed this.

  I melt in his kiss. Atlas shoves his big, strong hands in my hair, eliciting shivers that tingle every nook and cranny of my existence. I moan against his rush of affection. He growls in reply. His heated touch is all-consuming, holding me against him as his mouth brushes mine, his heavy cock pressed to the quivering apex of my thighs. I part my lips, letting his tongue delve deep and dance with my own, teasing me senseless, sparking desire for him like I haven’t felt since before it was legal to act on it. All these years…and we could’ve kept on doing this? I open my eyes to gaze at his face, so quieted this close to mine. So familiar… Does he even realize how much I craved him, yearned for him? How badly I hurt?

  I feel sudden tears spring to my eyes, and my thighs squeeze impulsively against his hips, uselessly to lock in the heat. His eyes spring open when I push him away.

  “I’m being so, so stupid.” I shake my head, slowly, crossing my arms over my chest. “We shouldn’t. I can’t.”

  “You can,” he coos. He laces my fingers in his, my god how we fit so perfectly, coaxing my arms apart. It works with little more effort than breathing. “We should.”

  In spite of his touch and hungry embrace that hints for more, I push him back again.

  “Ah,” he sighs. “I get it, Boots.” He nods, defeated. “All right. I’ll just be goin’.”

  “No,” I bark. Atlas looks at me and smiles halfway, revealing his sexy, reclusive dimple. Stupid sexy dimple and sexy lopsided grin! He smells like sweat and petrichor and his goddamn woodsy cologne. Those indigo eyes steal my breath. I look away.

  Before I can explain myself, my face falls into my hands. A throaty cry comes out of me, and big, fat, salty tears.

  “Why did you, Atlas?” I grieve into my hands. Am I really doing this now? I take a ragged breath and swipe my tears off my cheeks. My hands are the only part of me that’s clean.

  I can look anywhere but his face when I cry, “Why did you give up on us?”

  Five

  Atlas

  I never gave up—that’s what I wanna say to her, but it ain’t true. I did give up. Not because she wasn’t worth fighting for. Love wasn’t.

  I sigh, deeply, shoving my hands through my hair. “Boots.”

  “Don’t. Call. Me. Boots!”

  I grit my teeth. I have to step away now. My body’s on fire as anger and desire war each other and rock through me. I can’t think straight. Anything I say to her now would be a lie, or would sound like one.

  I stalk into the other room and issue a thunderous, vibrating howl. I’m not yelling at her. I don’t know what I’m yelling at, I just need to feel the release. I let it out as loud as I can. I slow my breathing.

  That feels better.

  I turn around to go back to her but she’s standing in the doorway, leaning over her better hip. It dawns on me that we’re in her old bedroom again. I just needed to walk away, but out of habit, I came in here. Three years, and it still feels only natural to step into her room. Where we fought. Where we made love. Where I told her to never think of me again.

  “I’m not angry,” I submit.

  “I know,” she says. “I remember.” My heart clenches, hard. She strides into the room, slowly, bracing her steps with one hand against the wall. When she passes me she stops in front of the bathroom door and gingerly lifts her shirt.

  “What’re you doin’?”

  “I need a shower.”

  “You want me to leave?”

  “I want you to help,” she says, throwing me for a crazy loop. She slides me a look, then snaps off her bra. “I’m kind of in a lot of pain.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  She bends halfway to strip her pants, still leaning on the wall for support, exposing a hot pink thong I’ve never seen her wear before. She probably has all new panties now. And how many men has she shown them to? Fuck. I lick my lips and squeeze my fists. The view of her toned ass and thick thighs makes me instantly hard. The idea that even one other man has touched her, or even seen her in these exact panties, provokes me with sudden rage I have to work very hard to temper.

  “Stop seething, Atlas. Can’t you be a professional about this?”

  I cross my arms. “No man who’s seen you in panties hasn’t fantasized about seeing more,” I measure my words. “I don’t care what his profession is.”

  “Well then, Firefighter Rutherford—” She whirls to face me.

  “Engineer Rutherford.”

  She ticks up an eyebrow. “Color me impressed, Engineer. If what you said is true, then I guess today’s your lucky day.” And without further ceremony, she slides down her thong.

  The sight of her fully naked body makes my dick throb, hard. I have to remind myself she’s in pain, she needs my help, this is not an invitation. When all I want to do is lunge toward her and love her so hard she forgets how angry she is with me.

  “Could you ever forgive me?”

  “You’ve never asked me to.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I am.”

  She stills, taking a while to consider that. “No,” she says. “I guess I can’t.” My heart shreds. She steps into the bathroom and runs the water. “Aren’t you coming in here with me?”

  Goddamn irritating, confusing-as-hell woman.

  I harness my emotions, undress, and step into the shower with her. If she hadn’t felt it before, now all eight inches of my rock-hard erection are saluting her. Piper grins, ever demurely, and hands me the soap. I take it from her and she spins around, grazing her nice, juicy ass against my groin.

  “Aghh,” I growl, biting down on a coarser word. I gawk at her ass, noting the way her curves align with the shape of my cock. I lather my hands. She shivers when I press them to her bare skin. “What are you doing to me, Boots?”

  “I guess I’m…punishing you.” Soapy water sluices down her hips, dizzying me. There’s lightness in her voice, but I ain’t amused.

  “I said I was sorry.”

  Piper scoffs. “Sorry’s what you say when you accidentally bump into someone as you’re walking ’round a corner.” She whirls around, gripping a well-placed support bar and kicking her head back so I’ll wash her frontside. My eyes roll back for a heartbeat. If she’s hoping I’ll listen to her, she’s making it very difficult with her tits right there, all soapy and wet.

  Mouthwatering tits.

  “Then what should I say, Boots?” Like that’s ever the thing to ask. Her eyes sadden. “Please,” I groan, sweeping my hands down her arms, over her stomach and bountiful chest. I lower down to my hau
nches to soap up her legs, indulging selfishly in the feel of her skin and the sound she makes when she hitches a breath.

  “You’re only sorry because I came back.”

  “No,” I say, prompting her to lift one foot. I lift my gaze to her wet, plush, warm little bud, where I used to spend hours touching and discovering her. I look down to her toes, washing her gently and thoroughly as Piper puts more thoughts into words that tear me apart.

  “Tell me nothing, or tell me everything. Why did you do it? How could you, Atlas? What was so hopeless about our love?” There’s deep, dark pain in her eyes when I stand up to hear her out, face to face. Her voice trembles as she sobs. “Why didn’t you ever come for me?”

  I swallow a brick of shame and wash the soot from her cheeks and she closes her eyes. Suddenly, finally…my own words come out.

  As I wash her hair, I confess, “I was watching my parents destroy each other. They’d been so much in love. And there was so much at stake. Hell, we were a family. Don’t that mean something to people? Fuck. I needed them!” I don’t mean to raise my voice. Piper watches me, unspeaking, unmoving. Letting me purge. “Not even that was enough to hold them together. They lost faith in each other—and I lost faith in love.”

  At the break in my voice, Piper says, “I’m sorry about your parents. But we weren’t them. Atlas.” She tilts her head, letting the shampoo rinse away. “We were so in lo—”

  I huff a laugh. “C’mon, Boots. We were fighting all the time.”

  “Yes!” she counters. “We fought because we gave a damn!”

  “You wanted to live in the city, go to college. That wasn’t in the cards for me.”

  “Don’t.” Piper levels me with her pained expression. “Don’t spin this to say you did it for me.”

  “I did though. I swear to God.”

  “You crushed me.”

  “And I’m so fuckin’ sorry, Boots! It killed me to say goodbye to you! It killed me to break your heart!” I slam my clenched fist against the tiled wall. “For three years I’ve been living in hell without you! I can’t breathe for thinking of you with another man. I can’t fuckin’ stand how long it’s been since I could see you, and hold you, and kiss you, and make love to you. Even this”—I gesture back and forth between us—“sparring with you over stupid stuff, and bigger stuff.” I hold her face with both hands, she lets me, and I gaze in her eyes. Between the running water and my deluge of regret, I hadn’t noticed those pretty orbs fill with tears. I lower my voice. “Letting you go was the biggest fucking mistake of my life.”

  I don’t look away. I can’t justify any more. Piper takes a long, broken breath. Then she stands on tiptoe, and kisses me, and my whole world rolls around. She lets go.

  “That’s what I needed to hear, babe.” Her soft smile ignites my desire and steadies my heart. “That’s all you had to say.”

  Six

  Piper

  My heart flaps like a tiny bird in its cage, set free when Atlas pulls me in to deepen the kiss. Three years apart dissolve down to mere moments. As if only a day’s gone by since we were together.

  At the same time, it’s exciting and new. The way his coarse stubble grazes my cheeks. His arms, whipcord and strong, hold me close. We survey each other. I watch the water drip from each dip and bulge, over his wide chest that tapers down to washboard abs and narrow hips, where his tan line abruptly ends. I trace my fingers over every newly formed crenel and ridge. He was always a dish, but damn, he’s worked mighty hard for this Adonis body.

  So many questions come to mind. When did he know he wanted to be a firefighter? Is it everything he thought it would be? Has he been seeing someone else?

  No—never mind that last one. I don’t really want to know.

  Our bodies mold to one another, as we kiss, claw, and groan against the flame glowing hotter between us, hunching and grinding as we rediscover each other, and find a new rhythm.

  “Atlas,” I sigh against his mouth, open and hot and wet against mine. “Let’s go get in bed.”

  “You’re sure?” He presses a tender hand to my hip. My heart speeds. I want this man with a greedy, hungry, incessant need. Judging by his passioned kiss and the unyielding cock jerking against my core—he wants me too. But shower sex is hard enough with two good hips.

  “Hell, yeah,” I purr. I grip him by the nape of his neck. “Make love to me, babe.”

  Atlas swoops me into his arms and carries me to the bedroom, unaware or unaffected by the fact we’re both sopping wet. He lowers me down and kisses me from head to toe, stopping to languish on the parts of me that have missed him the most. My mouth. My throat. My breasts. Goosebumps skitter along my erogenous zones. He sweeps his tongue up along my inner thigh. He arcs his deep-sea gaze up toward mine, poised to wreck me with more of his pleasure. He saves my pussy for last.

  I moan, breathlessly, bowing my hips up to meet his mouth, where my desire feels agonizingly concentrated. He proffers nips along my bud, his stubbled jaw chafing against my sensitive skin, then licks with the delicate softness of light chiffon. So fine in the wake of his more ravaging touch. I sigh in tandem with every stroke of his tongue up and down my bikini line and between my silken lips, till he finally admires my trembling clit. I feel my pussy drip on his mouth, my pulse intensify when Atlas draws little circles there with his velvet tongue, setting my heart and my world on fire. When I’m close, I feel him smile, then he finds my center and delves deeper with his tongue, pistoning me as I cry out his name.

  Atlas knows—he remembers—this is my favorite way to come. All over his lips and tongue. As gently as he needs to be, he holds my hips against his mouth, inspiring me. He doesn’t stop until I’m there. Fireworks enflame my pearl. Atlas moans against my shuddering core, and the little vibrations pulsate toward every one of my nerve endings, rending me. Ending me.

  “Oh. My. God!” I sing.

  “You still taste…” Atlas makes a show of sweeping his tongue over his lips, a cat-ate-the-canary grin plastered on his face. “…so fucking good.”

  “My turn?” I offer, eyeing his cock.

  His eyebrows form a V as he considers it. He pumps his shaft in one thick handful, looking immutable as a stone tower. With his other hand he crawls over me, tracing his fingers over my mouth, tickling me.

  “As pretty as your lips are, Boots…I’m dyin’ to get inside of you.”

  “Yes! Please!”

  He rises up to straddle my face anyway. I part my lips, letting him touch the head to my tongue. He eases the fullness of his snake all the way in my mouth. I wrap my lips around the shaft, and all but swallow his cock from root to tip. With a quivering groan he lowers back down, and kisses me, spreading my own honey all over my lips.

  It doesn’t matter that I just orgasmed all over his handsome face—when Atlas buries his cock inside my core, I feel relit, trembly and weak with desire for him. My hips, feeling suddenly pliant and loose, buck up against his carnal, rhythmic thrusts. A new wave swells in my veins.

  Atlas surveys me with his darkened, denim gaze. “Christ I love fucking you, Boots.”

  My climax reaches a fever pitch. I’m almost there… “I love you, Atlas,” I breathe, coarsely. “Come in me. Give me your come!”

  “Yeah, baby.” He growls, proffering an almost pained expression, and clinches my breast with one strong, sturdy hand. I yelp as Atlas speeds his thrusts. At the top of everything that I can handle, I cry in delight, his cock flexes hard, and my walls cling to him like a vise, as his sweet, syrupy seed launches deep inside of me.

  “You love me,” Atlas whispers after a dulcet sigh.

  “I did,” I confess. “I still do.” As if I was never in any pain, I wrap myself around him. “I never stopped.”

  “Don’t ever stop.”

  “You, neither.”

  Atlas grins, contentedly. He cradles my face. He kisses me, then stares in my eyes. He says, “Marry me.”

  Epilogue

  Belinda

  When
I went to Madeira, Portugal, I did it for Love.

  I’d been spending all my time catering to every sweet tooth in the Wylder Bluffs. Stanbery, Idaho, is a beautiful town, but I wanted, had to experience a different sort of beauty. I needed a bit of peace and quiet. No, there wasn’t a man waitin’ for me across the sea. I went to Madeira out of love for myself.

  But I confess…I had quite the shameless ulterior motive.

  Ya see, I’d born witness to two souls pining over each other silently, perhaps even unknowingly, from afar. All I had to do was get Piper to come back to Stanbery. Preferably alone. The rest, I knew, would take care of itself. I’m a believer in fate, if nothing else. Some things are inevitable.

  True love always finds its way into open hearts.

  Figured that girl’d start a fire one way or another; didn’t expect my granddaughter to literally burn down half the pastry shop makin’ it happen. Lucky for all of us, Dominic was strolling by to check on her when he smelled the smoke. The firetruck was just around the corner from there. Apparently, Love also has a wry, cheeky sense of humor.

  Bless Dominic for helping me to rebuild. Piper insisted he treat me to dinner for all us girls put him through. We got to talkin’ and one thing led to another. Sooner than later we were joining hearts as well as storefronts. Turns out we’re better together than we ever were alone.

  I went to Madeira, Portugal for Love…and Love was waitin’ for me when I came back.

  Dominic is with me now, holding my hand over his lap, as we witness Atlas and Piper profess their love and promise forever in front of nearly every citizen in the Wylder Bluffs. She’s just about showing in her wedding dress, but none are the wiser. I hope she’ll always trust me with her secrets. Piper is a beautiful, blushing bride, and I’m the proudest Nana there is. Look at her, all grown up. And Atlas looks as handsome as ever. That man couldn’t be more deserving of Piper’s devotion. I smile as I dab tears from the corners of my eyes.

  Love always finds a way.

  The End