My Fake Husband

by Black, Natasha L.

  He kissed my chin, my neck. I was arching into him and clutching his strong back in both my hands. He cupped my breast, stroked his thumb over my nipple, making it pebble hard in response. I whimpered as my breasts tightened and ached under his touch.

  He could have me right there, against this counter, my dress pushed up and my legs wrapped around him. I wanted that, wanted the primal surge of him thrusting inside me. I gripped his hair in my fist as he grazed my neck with his tongue and teeth.

  My phone rang, splitting the silence in the room and startling me. It was Kiera’s ringtone. I jolted away from him, guilty, flushed. I hurried to my phone and answered it so she could congratulate me on my loan.

  12

  Damon

  It was probably for the best that her sister called just then, stopping us from making a big mistake. I liked having her around, but if we ever got together, she’d freak out and bolt. I was fairly sure of that. At least that’s what I kept telling myself.

  I went and hid in my room. That was the only word for it. I retreated and did a hundred pushups to try to clear my head. When that didn’t work and I could still hear the sound of her voice on the phone, I changed to my basketball shorts and went for a run. A long one. Until all I could hear was my pulse beating and all I could do was try to take the next breath. I ran until I had to stop and stretch and then run back at a slower pace. The time on my phone said I’d been gone two hours. I hoped she’d be asleep. But when I walked in the door, I heard the shower. I needed to get in the shower and blast cold water, wash off the sweat and the lust off of me. But she was in there, standing naked under the spray of hot water, torturing me.

  I’d tasted her mouth, felt her passion rise and match my own. I’d held her in my arms. There was no place to go from here. I couldn’t pursue her. I wasn’t going to overstep our agreement again. Not when I’d married her as a favor and there was money involved. I didn’t want to be some creep who seemed like he expected sex in exchange for helping her get a loan. It made my skin crawl that she might think that of me. So we were on awkward, uneven footing where she felt obligated to me. That left me hamstrung when it came to taking our relationship to the next level. Beyond being just supportive roommates and tentative friends. When I wasn’t with her, I missed her. I wanted to spend more time with her. Including naked time, to be honest. I wanted the cheesy, rom-com montage of curling up on the couch and watching movies together with her in my lap or in my arms, us making breakfast together and laughing when we messed up the eggs or burned the bacon.

  I wanted my wife to be mine for real, and there wasn’t any way to make that happen in a sticky situation that was more minefield than marriage.

  At work, I walled off any thoughts about Trixie. I focused on my job, on keeping people safe, on taking care of grease fires and those idiots that burned drifts in their fields on a windy day. Some fool poured gasoline on his dad’s brush pile and set light to it last week. He deserved losing his eyebrows, maybe it’d teach him not to be so cavalier with accelerants. We got it put out, but he’d endangered his entire neighborhood. I gave his parents a talking-to about keeping any kind of accelerant locked up and away from him since he clearly wasn’t responsible. I also suggested some heavy chores to keep him busy since he was spending his teenage years acting like a careless dipshit. I may have left out the careless dipshit part, but I felt it.

  Fall was a slower season for us. We did tours for the kindergarteners and let them climb on the trucks, did fire safety talks, that sort of thing. In winter, the space heaters and the clogged chimneys would keep us busy, but there was a lull in autumn for the most part. So we were surprised to get an urgent summons from the Overton FD right as my shift was ending.

  A big warehouse on the waterfront there had caught fire and it was a bigger and hotter blaze than one fire department could handle alone. So the Rockford Falls Fire Department suited up and took off. We called in three men to take over the station while we were gone. We took the water truck and left the ladder engine behind in case it was needed.

  The eerie gold glow hung hazy over the waterfront as we approached. By the time we reached the warehouse, it was an inferno. Even the most experienced guy on my crew swore under his breath when he saw it. No question, that roof was about to go. The blaze could be contained, but the structure and contents would be a total loss. It was too far out of control, and a building wasn’t worth the lives of my men. We talked to the Overton chief, smeared with soot and breathing hard, defeat etched in the lines of his face.

  “We’re gonna have to pull back, treat the perimeter,” he shook his head.

  “I can help evacuate your crew,” I said.

  “Thanks. We got a couple guys on the way to the ER in an ambulance, smoke inhalation. They were just stacking cargo in there when the smoke hit them.”

  “You got everyone out, right?”

  “We think so. They were both so knocked out by smoke they couldn’t answer questions. Every time we try to get in and search, some shit falls in and I can’t endanger my crew searching for somebody that isn’t even there.”

  “Have you contacted the owner of the warehouse? Did they have a shipping manifest and a list of who’s on shift?”

  “I’ve got dispatch making calls, but it’d be too late by the time we get word. Nobody could survive that much smoke inhalation, Vance,” he said.

  My men and I moved in closer and turned on our SEBA gear for breathing. I barked orders and summoned people down from the ladder truck. The roof was bound to collapse soon, and I didn’t want men dying on it. We scouted around the edges, spraying flame retardant and clearing any debris that would feed the flames. As I skirted around the back, I could hear something beneath the roar of the fire. I was so used to the creaking of burning structures, the hiss of flames, that I could tune them out partially. I heard a rhythmic thump, what sounded like a human voice and then thumping repeated.

  I looked around. No other firefighters were nearby. I knew it was stupid but I had to do it. I spoke into my radio that I was going in the back because I’d heard signs of life. Then I kicked in the door. I bent low and wound my way through charred detritus and dodged rubble that was burning hot. I went toward the direction where I thought the noise had come from. I heard it again and switched off my earpiece because the Overton chief was shouting at me to get out because the roof was going to go.

  I took my ax to the door because it was stuck, and chipped out a hole big enough to step into the small room—an office or storage closet. I was smoke blind, the black smoke too thick to see. I used my headlamp and glimpsed a booted foot. I reached down and grabbed an arm. The man tried to help me but he was mostly overcome. I lifted him and hauled him out as fast as I could. Which was pretty fucking slow because there was a veritable shower of cinders and burning bits of the ceiling starting to pepper the interior of the structure. I batted away anything I could, but I needed my arms to carry the survivor. The smoke was insane.

  I stumbled out of the back door and went to my knees. I laid the man on the ground and waved over the paramedics who were standing by. I ripped open the buckles on my coat, pushed back my mask and tried to get cool night air on my skin. I felt raw and blazing hot, the roar of the flames and the fear that crept in as the adrenaline receded made my head pound. It didn’t help that one of my guys and the chief from Overton were shouting at me about what an idiot I was and how I could’ve been killed. I had known there was a guy in there, and I couldn’t have forgiven myself if I’d let him die because I was too scared to risk going in. It wasn’t who my dad raised me to be. I would’ve let them know that if I hadn’t been so winded, so hot that I could barely get up off my knees. Someone handed me a bottle of water. I drank some and poured the rest over my head.

  After an hour, we had everything under control and I took my crew home. I was exhausted but proud. The medics said the guy I saved was going to the hospital for tests, but his oxygen saturation was already improving. He was going to make it. I
had managed to avoid the local news that camped out with their bright lights just outside the safety barricade. It had been a long night. I just wanted to go home, shower, drink about a gallon of water and get some sleep.

  When I unlocked the door, about four hours later than I had planned on being home, I found Trixie pacing the living room. When she looked up and saw me, she launched herself at me. I staggered back from the impact, my back going up against the door. She flung her arms around my neck, buried her face in my chest. She was ranting and raving, half sobbing, half angry as hell.

  “I heard what you did, goddammit,” she gulped out, dragging in a noisy breath. She gripped my shoulders and gave me a shake. “You could have died. I thought you were gone—I called your dad. He said you were just being a cowboy and you’d be fine, but then he asked me to call and let him know if you made it home so even he was scared. It was on the news, Damon! I saw you stumble out and lay down the guy you were carrying and just—go to your hands and knees and rip off your mask and then it cut away to the paramedics working on this guy—how could you do that?”

  I held her close, not realizing till I had her in my arms just how badly I needed this. I needed to feel her wrapped around me, proof I had survived.

  “Just because you’re fearless does not mean that I am!” she practically moaned, looking up at me with her eyes bright with tears. “I could have lost you.”

  “I’m not fearless, Trix. I was scared as hell. But I couldn’t leave a man to burn to death in that inferno.”

  “I know you couldn’t. I know you’re a hero, Vance. But I’m not one. I can’t handle it.”

  She buried her face in my neck again, holding on tight. I pressed her against me, held her for my comfort as much as for her own. I reminded myself I wasn’t going to push her, wasn’t going to pursue her. So I disentangled myself or started to.

  “I know I smell like smoke. I better go have a shower,” I said, clearing my throat. My voice was rusty from the smoke I’d inhaled, and I was trying to peel her hands from behind my neck. Finally I ducked my head to get out of the circle of her clinging arms, and she bumped her lips against mine.

  “Don’t go. Don’t do anything right now. Please, Damon. I almost lost you tonight,” she said, breathless. I saw her eyes, dark and desperate. I remembered the impact of her body that sent me reeling. I felt her wrapped around me, one leg hooked around my thigh, both arms around my neck, plastered against me. She had given me my opening, had come to me, and I would be damned if I turned her away when she felt more essential than air at that moment.

  I grabbed her hips and lifted, and she wrapped her legs around my waist, her strong thighs holding on tight. I dipped my head and took her mouth, spun around so she was against the door. I kissed her, my tongue in her mouth, her sweetness blocking out the bitter smoke that had filled me, taking the taste of fear and death from my mouth and filling me with her instead. I groaned, taking more of her mouth, plunging my tongue deeper. I drew back, nipped her lip with my teeth and got a tiny moan from her for my trouble. She was delicious, she was cold water after the fire I’d survived, she was fresh air dispersing the thick smoke. She was everything clean and pure and bright wrapped around me, clinging to me like she’d never get enough.

  “I need you,” she whispered against my ear and kissed the pulse point just behind it, her tongue hot and sweet on my skin.

  “I’ve always needed you,” I answered her, playing it cool be damned. I’d nearly been killed, and my wife was waiting for me, afraid and hungry for me. I’d give her all of me, hell, I’d do more than that. I’d do anything she asked.

  I pressed her into the door, my mouth going to her neck, sucking and licking, leaving a love bite where her neck met her shoulder and making her arch into me. I dropped to my knees and draped a long, bare thigh over my shoulder. I put my mouth between her legs, my tongue hot and wet through her cotton panties. Her hands were in my hair, and I gripped her thighs like she was my anchor to this earth. The sweet taste of her sex as I pushed aside her panties was intoxicating, like drowning in the sea and not caring at all. I was on my knees, worshipping her body, and the miracle was she was allowing it.

  13

  Trixie

  He started so softly, his questing mouth wet on my panties, then his finger pushing them aside. The brush of his finger on the slick flesh of my sex made me dizzy all at once. Then he took first one tender lip and then the other between his lips, kissing, licking, sucking. My knees were so weak. I tossed my head back and forth against the front door, my nails scoring into the wood behind me. He turned his head and kissed the inside of my thigh, then higher, then tongued my pussy again, and I started to wail. My keening, high-pitched cry started and got louder and louder until I drove my hands into his hair to steady myself, tugging at his scalp, riding his face. I knew my slickness was soaking him, and knew he didn’t care. He had a grip on my thigh that might leave a mark as I bucked my hips in desperation.

  “Oh yes, yes, please, Damon. Please fuck me!” I said, shameless and needy.

  He slid a finger inside me, stretched me and pumped in and out as I writhed, desperate to be filled by more than one long finger. He caught my clit between his lips, laved it with his tongue and lapped at it, sucking, flicking it until I ground my crotch into his face, arching up on one tiptoe and clutching his hair, riding his face until everything splintered apart, and I screamed my climax. Weak, I sank to the floor, to my knees.

  Damon pulled me across his knees and held me. “You are so sexy,” he said. I mumbled a sound that wasn’t even a word at all, and he chuckled. “Now that made me feel like a hero. I made you speechless.”

  I let him cradle me against his chest right there in the floor beside our front door. I held on to his t-shirt, breathed him in, acrid smoke and all. I started to cry a little, and then I sat up, straddled his jean-clad lap and wrapped myself around him like a monkey and clung. His arms went around me and he held me close, synced up our breathing and stroked my hair.

  “I’ve got you, baby. You didn’t lose me,” his words were meant to soothe me, but I shook my head, weepy and sweating, hectic.

  “I could have. It could happen any day.”

  “It could happen to any of us, at anytime. You could step off the curb—” he broke off, buried his face in my neck for a change. “I could lose you, too, you know.”

  “If you hadn’t come out of that building. If a beam fell on you and trapped you, if you couldn’t escape, I would have died. I know it, Damon.”

  He took my mouth then, no longer soothing me, no longer talking. He fondled my breasts through my t-shirt, his hands warm and rough, and I sparked to it, to the pinch of my nipple and the way it shot straight to my clit. Then he turned gentle, his touches feather-light, his mouth nipping at mine softly. He rubbed circles on my back and kissed the corner of my mouth.

  “If you don’t want to go any farther… If you were just—”

  “Are you kidding me? Jesus, Damon,” I said, exasperated.

  “Are you saying you don’t wanna stop then?” he teased, his mouth crooking up at the corner.

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  He surged to his feet, taking me with him, lifting me, carrying me to his big bed. I held on, awestruck, feeling like I was in a dream. My lifelong crush, hero firefighter Damon Vance, was taking me to bed to do naughty things to me all night. I wanted to pinch myself, but if this was just a vivid dream, I didn’t want to miss it.

  I reached for him, pulled off his navy blue RFFD t-shirt and ran my hands all over his chest, every line of lean muscle traced by my fingers. He wore a chain around his neck, a gold cross. I reached for it, pulled it over his head.

  “No offense, but I don’t think the Lord wants to see this,” I said, and he howled with laughter.

  “I never dreamed you were like this. That you wanted me like this,” he said.

  “Have you looked in the mirror?” I deadpanned. “You saved me, saved my business, put
a ring on my finger and helped me scrub mildew off my shop walls and re-grouted the sink. You said you had faith in me when we went in for the loan, and I had cold feet. You say nice things about my cooking, and you held me when I was scared tonight. You’re the first person I want to tell good news, and the person who can help me survive the bad when it comes. Was there ever a moment in your adult life when you realized how I felt about you?” I blurted out.

  He held my cheek in his palm, looking at me, his eyes full of something I couldn’t explain.

  “My sister gave me nonstop shit about how I wasn’t marrying you out of the goodness of my heart. Because I always looked at you, and that at the Fourth of July last year she caught me almost falling out of my chair watching you.”

  “I thought you really liked the potato salad, that you were excited to get some before it was gone,” I said, flushing pink with pleasure.

  “Oh I wanted to get some of something, but it wasn’t potato salad. It was the long-legged woman in the cut-off jeans. You have no idea how many times I thought of you in those shorts and that red bathing suit,” he said, swallowing hard.

  “Tell me you want me. Just me. Tonight.”

  “I want you. I want to be with you all night, until we go to sleep as the sun comes up. I want to call in sick and keep you in bed all day with me. Don’t think my mind is gonna wander, Trix. It never will,” he said.

  I bit my lip and then pressed my lips over his and sucked his tongue into my mouth. We made out for a while, all hands and mouths and horny teenage groping. Then the way he kissed me turned dirtier, his hands framing my face, his lips sucking at mine, and his tongue touching the corner of my mouth and retreating, baiting me onward. He rolled me on my back, covered me completely with his body, pressed me into the mattress. He kissed my freckles, my cheek and chin, my neck. I was trembling with just the pleasure of his kisses, his soft caress and the weight of his body pressing me deeper into the plush mattress. His hand slid beneath my oversized t-shirt and his fingers slipped over and around my nipples, teasing in closer and then making me bite my lip and groan when his touch skated away from where I wanted his fingers. Then he worked the shirt off of me and over my head, tossing it someplace. He dipped his head and worked my nipple with his lips and tongue until I cursed and begged and shoved my fingers into his hair. One of his hands stole along my side and down my hip. He hooked his fingers in my panties and, little by little, he drew them down my legs until I kicked them away. Then his hand stroked my stomach, sending little thrills up my body before he slipped his long fingers between my legs, sliding around in my wetness, feeling how swollen and tender I must be from arousal, how my sex-starved body was practically weeping for him.