by Roxie Noir
Burning Lust
Copyright © 2015 Roxie Noir
All rights reserved.
This book is intended for audiences 18 and over only.
The cover model is just a model, not someone who endorses or even knows about this book.
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Burning Lust
Roxie Noir
EXCERPT
Sam took her other hand, so now she had one man on either side, holding her hands, both looking up at her.
“Take your time,” he said. “But we haven’t been totally honest with you.”
The two en exchanged a look, with Katie in her bathrobe, kneeling between the two of them.
“We got drunk one night,” Patrick started, speaking slowly, letting his fingers intertwine with Katie’s. “And we were both kind of lonely, on duty in the firehouse, just playing Xbox.”
He wasn’t looking at Katie, he was looking right at Sam, as if seeking the other man’s permission.
“We had sex,” Sam said bluntly, his eyes flicking from Patrick to Katie and back.
Her mouth made a perfect little O, just for a moment.
“You’re not gay,” she said. She was completely certain that they were both interested in her, at least.
“You of all people should know that sexuality is a spectrum, Dr. Callahan,” Patrick teased.
She laughed nervously.
“Are you still... you know?” she asked, not at all sure how to phrase the question. Are you still banging seemed like a rude thing to ask, did you do it again seemed... incorrect for the moment.
“Sometimes,” Sam said. “I’d say I’m about a two on the Kinsey scale.”
Zero was totally straight and six was totally gay, Katie knew from years and years of school.
“So mostly straight,” she said.
“Mostly,” Sam said.
“We argued some,” Patrick said. “But then we thought, why make her choose?”
Katie began to feel tingly again, and she licked her lips, trying to process what was happening here. They hadn’t come by just to chat, that seemed to be for sure.
“What do you say?” Sam said softly, his eyes suddenly seductive. “Give it a shot?” He lifted the palm of her hands to his lips, pressing them into the center, sending a shiver down Katie’s spine.
She swallowed again, wondering for a moment if she was having a dream.
“Okay,” she said.
Patrick took her by the upper arm, her other hand still in Sam’s, and pulled her to him, kissing her hard, his tongue pressing itself into her mouth, invading her. Katie’s tongue fought back, tangling with his, her hand on the hard side of his body. He slid his hand up her neck until it was buried in her hair and he held her there, against him.
When he pulled away, Katie sighed.
“You know I had a huge crush on you in high school, right?” she said.
He just laughed. “Did you?”
Katie nodded, blushing. She looked over at Sam, whose lips were on her wrist, then her forearm, sending sparks flying up her arm.
“I’m surprised you even remember me,” she went on.
“Sure I did,” he said. “I always thought you were kind of cute.”
Katie smiled.
“You grew into a fox, though,” he said, and grabbed her again, covering her mouth with his. She squirmed against his lap but he only pulled harder, his raw lust obvious.
Now Sam was at her shoulder, then slowly nibbling up her neck, and as Katie broke away from Patrick she moaned quietly, feeling the little shivers of pleasure move down her body.
At last, Sam made his way up her chin and to her lips, also kissing her hard, moving her mouth open with his and questing inside with his tongue.
Katie moved a little on the couch, so she was sitting up between the two men, facing Sam, Patrick behind her. Now he nibbled at the back of her neck as she kissed Sam desperately, her hands on the front of his white undershirt, moving over his thickly muscled shoulders, even as Patrick’s hands moved gently down her sides, to the front of her thigh, and then to the hem of her bathrobe.
With one finger he pulled it up, the entire hemline following in a V, until he’d reached the crease of her hip. He stroked that with one finger, at the same time that Sam was letting his fingers moving slowly down the cinched-in neck of her bathrobe, along the tender skin of her chest. She could feel that the pads of his fingers were rough and calloused, and the sensation made her shudder.
When they separated, Katie let out a tiny little moan — not at all what she’d meant to do.
Sam grinned. “Good,” he said. “For a moment I was afraid you might not be enjoying yourself.”
Burning Lust
Katie got on her knees in front of the fireplace and blew very, very gently on the newspaper she’d crumpled up beneath the twigs in her fireplace. She hadn’t made a fire since she was a girl, camping with her family — they hadn’t had a fireplace in their house, but she had one now.
Her face resting on the brick, not more than twelve inches from her makeshift kindling, she held her breath. This was her third attempt in the past hour, and even though she was getting a little closer every time, it was still nerve wracking and harrowing to watch as the blue flames inevitably took over the newspaper, burning brighter and brighter, then ignited the mess of pine needles, then licked up the tiny twigs she’d gotten in from outside.
They caught.
Katie put one hand to her mouth and bit her nail, a bad habit she’d been trying to stop for as long as she could remember, but she rarely even realized when she was doing it. Right now, it wasn’t until she bit into her skin that she noticed what she was doing.
“Stop it,” she hissed to herself, yanking her finger out of her mouth.
The twigs caught fire, burning brighter and brighter. Katie coughed. She was so close to the fire that the smoke was starting to get to her, so she backed off another foot, still kneeling on the floor and peering into the fireplace.
One medium-sized branch caught, the bright flames licking up its sides, and Katie clapped her hands together, delighted. After three tries, she’d built a fire! Yes, she did have an advanced degree, and yes, she had been in school since she was five years old, but this felt like a totally different accomplishment. She’d built a fire. With her hands.
Well, and some matches.
She coughed again, covering her nose and mouth with her sleeve. Her eyes were starting to burn, and it looked like this was going pretty well for now, so she rocked back on her heels and stood up, still coughing.
That was when she realized that she hadn’t just been too close to the fire — the whole room was filled with smoke.
Katie panicked. She’d finally managed to build a fire, only to have everything go wrong, but why? It was a functional fireplace — her real estate agent had bragged endlessly on that when she’d bought the place last month, visiting from Boston.
Her eyes fell on the metal lever to the right of the fireplace, near the floor.
She hadn’t opened the flue. How could she be such an idiot?
Katie dropped to her hands and knees, still gasping and coughing, and pushed on it with her full weight. She tried and tried, and she thought she got it open just a bit — she felt something give — but the smoke was getting too thick.
Katie dropped back to the floor, took a deep breath, then rose to her knees and crawled to her living room windows. She took another breath from the floor and then heaved them both open, gasping in the fresh air.
Then, she ran to her front door and exploded out of it, falling down on her grass
y front lawn and panting.
From there, she could see the gray smoke flooding out of her living room windows. Even though she knew the fire was in the fireplace, not burning her entire house down, it sure looked worse than it really was. Moreso, Katie wasn’t really sure what to do — even with the windows open, she couldn’t go back inside until the fire had burned itself out and the smoke had cleared.
She sat up on her lawn and crossed her legs in front of her. There were a few trees scattered on her front lawn, and they were just beginning to shed bright orange leaves onto it.
At least it’s the most beautiful time to be outside with nothing to do, she thought, gazing at the tree tops, just beginning to go gold and red.
It’s kind of nice out here, actually, she thought. I could do with a little more downtime in my life.
She’d grown up in Montpelier, Vermont, but hadn’t lived there in ten years, not since she went to New York for college and then Boston for grad school, but she’d gotten tired of the big city, so when she was looking for psychiatry jobs, she’d looked mostly in small-town New England, with a heavy emphasis on the place where she’d grown up.
So while her peers had been going to Chicago and Atlanta and Seattle, Katie had been ecstatic to head to a town with a population of about 7,500, close to mountains and lake and skiing, almost in the middle of nowhere. Her parents had been happy enough that they’d cosigned her mortgage, and now she had a very reasonable house, albeit one currently filled with smoke.
Still, she thought, twirling a leaf in her fingers, casually waiting for the smoke to clear, it was a pretty good life.
When she heard the sirens from far away, they didn’t even register. She’d been living in cities for so long that they were just part of the background noise of life, as far as Katie was concerned, and she didn’t pay them too much mind. It wasn’t until she realized they were coming closer and closer that she really noticed them, looking over her shoulder at her quiet, residential street and wondering what all the fuss was about.
The fire truck pulled onto the side of the road right in front of her house, smoke still drifting from her open windows, and then Katie realized this might have something to do with her. She stood quickly, brushing the grass from her jeans and dropping the leaf back onto the ground, hoping to explain that this was all a big misunderstanding.
A fireman jumped out of the cab, fully kitted out, and strode quickly to where she was standing. Another got out, oxygen mask on, and made for the house.
“It’s fine!” Katie shouted, but she didn’t think he could hear her over the din.
“Miss, are you all right?” asked the fireman who’d approached her.
His voice was familiar, but she couldn’t place him, not with the coat and the hat and all the madness.
“I’m fine,” she shouted at the top of her voice.
Finally, the sirens went off.
“I’m fine,” she said again. “I started a fire in the fireplace and forgot to open the flue.”
The fireman smiled, and Katie realized that he had a square jaw and dimples — like a fireman in a movie or something, not in real life.
“Is the fire anywhere besides in the fireplace?” he asked.
She shook her head.
From the next yard over, her neighbor Doug, a gray-haired guy wearing khakis and a light blue polo shirt was stepping through the small like of trees that separated their properties.
“Gosh, that was fast,” he said. “I only just called. Katie, you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said. She could feel herself turning beet red — the whole town of Montpelier seemed to be out here, and all for pretty much nothing. “I forgot to open the flue.”
“I just saw all that smoke coming out of your windows and feared the worst,” he said. “I’m glad you’re not in there.”
The other fireman appeared in the doorway and waved to the one standing by Katie.
Then he gave a thumbs-up and disappeared back inside.
“Looks like your house is fine,” said the square-jawed, be-dimpled man standing in front of her. “We’ll get that fire out and open some windows. Got any fans?”
“I think there’s one in the bedroom,” Katie said. “On top of a box, it was hot a few nights ago. I just moved in so a lot is unpacked, sorry for the mess.”
He laughed. “Believe me, we see worse messes.”
With that, he left her standing next to Doug, her neighbor, and went inside, strapping his oxygen mask to his face. She was still sure that she knew him — after all, she’d grown up in Montpelier, and there weren’t that many people in the town — but she couldn’t place him. High school? Before that? It had been ten years, after all.
“I feel like an idiot,” she said.
Doug patted her shoulder in a very fatherly way. “We’ve all done it once,” he said. “We don’t all get the fire department called, but we’ve all done it.”
She sighed.
“You gotta get the flue cleaned before you open it, too,” he told her. “Let me get you the name of my chimney service. They’re great, been using them for thirty years. Leakey and sons, let me go find you their number.”
He walked back across her lawn, through the tree line, and into his house, leaving Katie standing alone on the grass.
Inside her house she could hear the two men walking around and talking, and then she watched the smoke begin to really billow out of the windows. They’d found the fan, it looked like.
Katie ran her hand through her hair, glancing back at the fire truck behind her. At least only two firemen had come — she’d have felt awful if the whole squadron had shown up, only to set up some fans in her living room.
The two men came walking out, taking off their oxygen and hats as they did, unbuttoning their heavy coats. Underneath they just wore suspenders over white undershirts.
That was when Katie realized who the fireman was: it was Patrick Tahoe. Of course it was. She’d had a huge crush on her throughout most of high school, though they’d barely ever talked — how could she not recognize him at first?
“Looks like everything will be fine,” Patrick said. “It might smell a little smoky in there for a while, but that should dissipate before long. No real smoke damage.”
“I’m so sorry you had to come out here,” she said. “I feel like like a moron.”
“Listen, don’t worry about it,” Patrick said. Then he tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, just a little. “Katie, right?”
She nodded. Patrick paused, like he wasn’t sure what to say next.
“Katie Callahan?” he said at last, sounding really unsure.
She nodded again. “And you’re Patrick?” she said, tentatively, even though by now she was nearly positive.
He smiled, that wide, easy, perfect grin back on his face. “That’s right,” he said. “I’m amazed you remember me after all these years.”
“It’s not like Montpelier High has that many students,” she said.
“But still, you were always off, doing debate team, all that smart stuff. Weren’t you valedictorian?”
Katie tried to laugh that off. “Well, yeah.”
He shook his head, still smiling. The other fireman came up to him. Under his helmet he had a head full of loose brown curls, and he ran his hand through them where they stuck to his head with sweat.
“This is Sam Mendel,” he said. “Transplant from New York, joined the volunteer firemen for some excitement.”
“Hi,” said Sam, shaking Katie’s hand.
“You moved back?” Patrick asked. He had his helmet held in front of him, his hands crossed over it.
“I did,” she said. “I’m working as a psychologist in the Truman medical center, downtown.”
“Wow,” Patrick said. “A psychologist. Were you in school this whole time?”
“I took a summer off.”
“I just barely made it through an Associate’s degree,” Patrick said.
“Well, I almost set my
house on fire, so I think we’re even,” Katie said. “I’m really sorry you had to come out here for nothing.”
“Are you kidding?” piped up Sam. “We love this shit. Now we get to feel like heroes for setting up a couple fans.”
“Besides, I found out you’re back in town,” Patrick said, winking at her. “That alone was worth it.”
Katie blushed hard, again.
“Well, thank you for saving me,” she said.
“We should get the truck back,” Patrick said. “See you around?”
Katie just nodded.
As the fire truck drove off, Doug came back through the trees with a post-it note in his hand.
“Here you go,” he said. “They’ll clean your chimney until it’s spotless, just tell ‘em I sent you. And listen, kid, don’t worry. We all make dumb mistakes.”
Katie laughed. “Thanks, Doug,” she said.
A week later, Katie was at her first meeting with her new associates, sipping at a glass of water, wearing her most professional outfit, and absolutely nervous as hell. It was a problem she often had, feeling like she’d somehow tricked everyone into making them think that she was a real psychologist, whereas she often felt like she had no idea what she was doing.
You’re qualified and prepared, she reminded herself. You deserve this. Stop it.
She realized that she’d drawn nearly a whole page of little loops on the legal pad, and quickly flipped the page over.
“One last thing,” said Dr. Malcolm, the chief psychologist, a no-nonsense woman with short gray hair. “Every year we do pro bono psych evals for the volunteer firefighters association,” she said.
Katie sat up straighter.
“Just make sure they’re handling the stress well, nobody’s getting too down about fighting fires, that kind of thing.” Dr. Malcolm took a quick sip of water and cleared her throat. “There haven’t been any fire fatalities in a few years, so I don’t think there’s too much to worry about, but we do this every year. Any questions?”