Wylder Bluffs Firefighters: The Complete Short-Story Collection

by Tarin Lex

  3 | Thorne

  One

  Maisie

  Every weekday morning I clock in, holding my Starbucks to-go coffee and everything bagel, and immediately look over my assignments. Most of my patients see me regularly for weeks or months, in a predictable rhythm I tend to get used to. I see to lots of lower back pain, herniated discs, torn ACLs. Occasionally my patients have more severe injuries, nasty wounds that haven’t healed, scars and worse disfigurements. I hear about how they got them too. Accidents, rescues, acts of violence.

  The stories are often as hard to hear as the injuries are to look at. But working with each patient, seeing them improve week by week, gives me so much satisfaction I can’t imagine doing anything else.

  My brother, Jason, told me about the horrible accident three weeks ago involving a massive fire near the Wylder Bluffs wilderness preserve. Fortunately it wasn’t a heavily populated area or it could’ve been worse. Sadly, one firefighter was killed fighting the blaze and another, the lieutenant, severely injured. That man happens to be my brother’s best friend since before I was born.

  Lieutenant Thorne.

  My heart tips when I see his name on my schedule for today. Thorne’s been hospitalized for the last three weeks and is just barely strong enough to start physical therapy. I had no idea that I would be the one to help him.

  I’ve had the worst crush on Thorne since before I could string two words together. I still get nervous before seeing him, but he’s never paid much attention to me. Even all grown up, to him I’m still just Jason’s baby sister. Whatever feelings I have, I need to set them aside. From what I hear Thorne’s been through hell and back. I’ve mended wounded firefighters before—I can do this.

  I take a big bite of my bagel and look closer at my assignment. A compound fracture of the shin, sprained fibula, broken femur. Big ouch. There’s a note that warns me of scars on his face and all along his left side, and a questionable state of mind.

  I gulp my coffee and sudden anxiety as I read it. Thorne’s a mess. He needs me.

  I’ve wanted to tell him how I really feel for a while now. Now he’s officially my patient for the next twelve weeks. I love this job; I can’t compromise it for anything. No matter what, I’ll have to be strictly professional.

  And let go of all the words I was almost ready to say.

  Two

  Thorne

  When I step—or more like clamber—into the PT’s office, I’m immediately taken aback by the backside of a fit-looking woman with long wavy auburn hair and curves I’d love to travel down. Her fitted black leggings do very little to hide that supple bottom. Mm. Well if that isn’t just the ray of sun I needed like air to breathe, water to drink…

  She spins toward me and my lungs constrict. Shit. Was I just drooling over Jason’s kid sister?

  Fuckin’ figures.

  I’ve been on a fast downward spiral. Not a month ago, I got one of my best men killed. Since then I’ve been tormented by nightmares and physical pain, the doctors and nurses poking and prodding at me like a lab rat, the dull compression of four plain white hospital walls closing in on me every day.

  “Thorne. You made it.” Maisie’s soft, sweet voice and friendly smile are exactly what I need right now. My heart thumps. It’s hard to move on a good day, impossible at the moment. She arrests me with her doe-shaped hazel eyes. I inhale her strawberry scent.

  “Hey, you.” I shift a little away from her, concealing the jagged scar on my face as if she didn’t already see it. She’s an angel for keeping a straight face, anyhow. “You gonna nurse me back to health?”

  “Uh-uh.” Maisie puts her hand on my shoulder. “I’m gonna whip your butt back into shape.” There’s an image.

  Of all the parts of me that are broken, suddenly my dick flexes hard on cue. Christ. Jason would strike me dead if he knew what I was thinking right now. Even if she wasn’t my best friend’s dynamite little sister, I don’t stand a chance. She’s beautiful, charming, smart as hell. I’m the official World’s Worst Lieutenant, and broken and scarred because of it.

  “Maybe don’t go too hard on me.”

  “You know I’m partly teasing.” She loops her arm through mine, a foot shorter than me but still halfway holding me up. Damn, she is strong. She leads me into her private office. “Promise me something?”

  I gesture down at my torn-up leg, wincing when she lets go of my arm. “I’m pretty much at your mercy here.”

  “You don’t go too hard on you, ’kay, Lieutenant?”

  I shake my head. “I’m not the lieut—”

  “Yes. You are.” Her eyebrows knit together, admonishing me already. “You think I don’t know you, Thorne?”

  I still. My gaze locks on hers.

  “You’re strong,” she says. “One of the strongest men I’ve ever met. You can do this.” Her tenacity, and something that looks a lot like real faith in me, gleam from her eyes. I don’t deserve it. “I can help.”

  “Thank you, Maisie.” I lower my head to look at my feet.

  I made a bad call. I should’ve been the one to die in that fire. Is this my penance? Working with the most beautiful woman I can’t have? Not that she’d date a monster like me. When she could have any other man she wants.

  I don’t deserve her anyhow.

  Three

  Maisie

  Don’t look at his penis.

  I repeat: Do Not Look At His Penis!

  That’s what I try to tell myself, but damn if it isn’t just right there as Thorne lays back and spreads his thighs. Heat pools between my own thighs, and I shift my stare away from his bulge.

  Thorne has very long legs so I need to situate myself between his knees. “Is this position comfortable?”

  “Indeed,” sounds his raw baritone voice. I swear his hickory-colored eyes darken as his pitch bottoms out, rocking me with more warm, wet desire. Guess I can’t look at his eyes, either. Even with half his face marred, he’s still disastrously good-looking. Some of those scars will stay with him for the rest of his life. I fear I’ll always think he’s magnificent anyway. And that I’ll never get to tell him.

  “All right, T. I’m just going to see where we’re starting from here.”

  “Very well.”

  Before we can work on his strength and range of motion, I need to examine the extent of the injuries and see how well he’s healed from surgery. There’s a lot of inflammation. Potential scar tissue forming along the incisions. I mind the stitches and metal pins. Thorne groans coarsely when I gently graze his ravaged thigh, not sure if it’s an anguished or a pleasured sigh.

  That is, until the outline of his impressive cock becomes even more apparent beneath his sweats. He likes the way I touch him?

  Stop Staring At His Cock!

  Suddenly Thorne winces hard, followed by a sharp cry of pain. I jerk my hands away from his leg.

  “Sorry!” I yelp. I fetch him some water to help him relax.

  He takes a drink. “Ah. It’s a’right. I didn’t expect you to touch me…like that.” I lift an eyebrow in question. I’m equally surprised by the effect my compressions had on him. It’s textbook technique. I didn’t touch him unprofessionally.

  I wanted to.

  I lay my hand over his knee. “You have some inflammation there—try not to tense up. Relax. I need to stimulate the stronger muscles before we can strengthen what’s atrophied.”

  He glowers at his wounds. “Strong muscles? ’fraid I don’t have any left.”

  “You do.” Mindlessly I caress his knee with soft little circles. My chest rips in two. I can’t stand the idea of him feeling depressed. “Remember when you stayed with us during Christmas one year? Jason and I got the flu, but you kept perfectly hardy and hale?”

  “Had to take care of both you guys.” He chuckles.

  “You did.” I smile. I was seventeen. Thorne was twenty-four. Our parents had all gone on a winter cruise together. Thorne bellyached the whole two weeks he was nursing Jason and me back to hea
lth, but it was a lighthearted sort of complaining. He checked me for fever ’round the clock, made the best chicken noodle soup. God. I was as lovesick for him as I was actually sick. I came so close to telling him then.

  “Remember when my engine died and you literally had to push my car with your bare hands, down the street up to the driveway?”

  “Ha.” Thorne nods. “What’s your point?”

  I’m still standing between his legs, one hand on his knee, the other suddenly, impulsively reaching out to touch the lacerated side of his face. He frowns, flinches slightly away from me. I steady my hand close to his cheek, smiling at him compassionately, and he finally yields.

  “You can power through this.” I stare into his downcast eyes. “I’ve never known anyone more capable of overcoming affliction than you are.” I sigh, deeply. “Thorne. You’re a hero!”

  “My body is broke,” he mourns, hopelessly. I feel the hard muscles in his jaw tick against my hand. “My muscles are shredded,” he grits. “My face—”

  “Is still so, so very handsome.” I trace the fresh scars with all of my fingers.

  “You have to say things like that,” he muses.

  “No.” My heart stitches to my throat. Stop talking, Maisie! “I shouldn’t say things like that.”

  He surveys me, intensely, as silence comes over us. He takes another drink of water.

  I step back, clear my throat. “You’ll be ready for the gym before you know it. Right now I just need to work these areas a bit.”

  “A’right.” He almost sounds contented by that. Did I do that to him? Comfort him, encourage him, just by speaking from the heart? “Maybe warn me next time,” he says, teasingly. “When you…change things.” He grins a very inspired grin.

  “How ’bout this.” I take the water from him and set it down behind me. “I’ll demonstrate the technique on your good leg first. So you know exactly what to expect.”

  He nods, indicating his other leg. “Do your worst.”

  Gently, I repeat the same kneading motion around his foot, ankle, and calf, stimulating blood flow. The femur is most damaged and the main reason he’s in pain. It will take longest to heal. I work my hands slowly over his knee up to his midthigh, eliciting another low groan from Thorne. “This is where I’ll work my compressions on the other leg.”

  “Mm.”

  “Is it okay?”

  “Yes.”

  I slink my fingers into his inner thigh and then up a little higher in a tender kneading motion. Thorne shuts his eyes as I touch him a little bit more the way I want to, a little bit less the way I should. He spreads his legs another inch. He tips his head back and I watch the Adam’s apple bob within his bared throat. I’ve never seen his jaw and neck so covered in dark scruff—he needs to be clean-shaven for The Job—and it’s so becoming on him that my panties sop.

  I pluck my gaze away, again, only to find his arousal perked and straining against his sweatpants now. Geez, he’s so big! My throat tightens. My fantasies go way off course.

  As Thorne opens to me more than he needs to, my fingers skitter up his thick thigh higher, higher, and higher, until I’m a breath away from skimming his balls and nice, rigid, straight rod. His erection spasms hard, and my breathing shudders audibly.

  I wrench my hands away. “S-sorry,” I mutter.

  “Maisie.” Thorne opens his eyes that have darkened like burnt sienna. He angles his face, his eyebrows form a V and his full mouth ticks up halfway in a serious yet amused smirk. I step back. My heart flutters spastically when he glares at me like that. Anger and longing dancing and dueling in his smoldering gaze.

  “Maisie,” he grieves. “You shouldn’t torture a man who can hardly move.”

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  Thorne lays his hands over his thighs. He doesn’t even try to hide his massive dick. He rakes my figure with his eyes. “Jason,” he groans, shaking his head, “…he’s like a brother to me.”

  Hello Knife, meet Heart.

  Thorne takes a deep, sobering breath. I do the same. I think of my job, I think of my brother. Both topics squelch the desire, like tossing embers into a lake. “Let’s never speak of this.”

  “Mm.”

  I have no idea what to make of that noise.

  “Let’s…start over,” I say.

  “That’s going to be quite difficult, Maisie.”

  “What do you mean?” Is he firing me?

  “I’m a goddamn mess right now.” He pins me with his still-dark stare. “After you fix me up…I’m gonna want you to try that again.”

  Four

  Thorne – 10 weeks later

  For ten weeks I’ve been subjected to Maisie’s ass-kicking therapy, along with her perfect ass I’m all but dying to bite into.

  “You’ve improved.” She smiles as she checks on me on the leg press machine. “How much weight could you press before?”

  “Not much more.”

  “Didn’t I tell you?” She puts her hand on her jutted hip. “I want you to try the hack squat next.” Before I object, she shimmies away to check on one of her other victims—er, patients.

  All kidding aside, Maisie’s right, I’ve made good progress in the last ten weeks. I owe it to her. She designed a safe, effective program just for me. My body feels almost completely rehabilitated, thanks to her patience, methods, and dedication. Even when I yelled at her, cussed at her, flirted with her… she stuck to me like hot melt.

  So fuckin’ hot.

  Maisie’s brand of therapy helped me to heal myself. My heart, too—when it isn’t twisted in knots. I’m still afflicted by nightmares, guilt, and wanting a woman I know I can’t have. Until very recently I still thought of Maisie as a young girl. The fact I’m falling in love with her now is a little bit troubling, to be honest.

  I finish the set and amble toward the barbell. She’ll want me to try first without any weight. I catch her gaze. She smiles, encouragingly.

  “D’you need me?” she says.

  “Naw.” The incisions are almost totally healed. I shake the tightness from the leg presses out of my calves. I do feel stronger. “I’ll be a’right.”

  She turns her attention back to an elderly man working out his hamstrings. I bend at my knees, minding my spine and lifting with my quadriceps. It’s pretty easy without any iron attached to the barbell.

  Just when I think I feel awesome, I overhear two dudes lusting out loud, ogling Maisie.

  “Watch her as she spots his rep…” one of ’em says, leering slimily. I grit my jaw, listening. “Lookit how those tits bounce,” he whispers loudly. “I’d like to sink my teeth in those.”

  “Fuckin’ mouthwatering,” the other guy moons. I ball my fists around the bar, my heart beating erratically. “And that. Ass. I wanna give her a bath.”

  I lose my grip and steady, calculated form as heat rockets to the roof of my head and the barbell falls from my fists. My ankle twists. My knee torques. Pain rips through my leg as the metal bar clatters against the weights on the floor and all pairs of eyes in the room land on me.

  “You’re dead.” I point to Stooge number one, dismissing the pain. “And you’re dead.” I point to Stooge number two. I pound my fist against my palm. They don’t realize Maisie is mine.

  They’re gonna learn.

  “No! Thorne!”

  Hot tremors rock through my busted leg as I clamber toward them. “Who wants to go first?”

  They trade a look. Stooge number one steps forward. “You got a problem, Beast?”

  “I gotta problem with your fuckin’ mouth, son.”

  “Thorne—I mean it!” Maisie pleads.

  I step closer to Stooge anyhow, so he can see precisely how my throat lines up with the top of his head. I’m bigger than he is. I may be weaker than normal, scarred, disfigured and somewhat mentally unhinged—and maybe those are the reasons he should be scared. If these are steps backward in my recovery, it’ll be worth it to see him shudder.

  Stooge takes several s
teps back. Smart man. His cohort throws up his hands in defeat. Also smart.

  I level them both a menacing gaze. “I oughtta knock your goddamn teeth right outta your jaw.”

  Next thing I know Maisie’s in front of me, arms crossed, her hazel eyes even more threatening than I can imagine mine could be. She pins my chest with an iron finger. “My office—Now!”

  Ah, shit.

  #

  “What the hell, T?”

  “I won’t repeat what was said.”

  “This is my work.”

  “Yeah, I know. And I’ve got half a mind to put those guys into body b—”

  “Stop it,” she grits. “Just stop!”

  I shouldn’t grin. Little Maisie’s all grown up now, and as fiery as her auburn hair; as take-charge as her older brother. I kinda like her this way. Feisty. Assertive. I bet when her back’s to the wall she handles herself just fine. That thought pleases me very much. Doesn’t stop me from wanting to safeguard her. To cherish her.

  Am I a jerk for wanting her to myself? Am I an ass for putting the fear of God into any man who reduces her to a piece of meat? Yeah, she’s sexy as fuck. But she’s so much more than that.

  “Your doctor called,” Maisie says, nicer now.

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re just about done with therapy.”

  “I thought I had two more weeks?”

  She shakes her head. “Few more sessions, and he thinks you’ll be finished.” She points to my newly busted-up leg. “If this doesn’t set you back.”

  I huff a laugh. “That’ll save me forty bucks, three times a week.”

  A beat of quiet lays over us. Slowly, then, we look at each other. She smiles.

  I smile.

  I muse, “I won’t be your patient anymore.”

  “Nope.” And that’s very good news for our little…situation.

  She’ll still be my best friend’s baby sister. I’m struggling to care about that at the moment. Forget what’s right. She’s an adult.

  She Is Mine.