by Savannah May
“Lainie, look at me.”
I wait until she gathers the courage to raise her eyes to mine. I need to look into her gaze and know that I’m not getting snowed by a clever manipulator. As soon as her eyes join mine, I know she’s telling me the truth. She’d have to be Meryl freaking Streep to pull off this performance.
“I don’t want you to ever be ashamed of something that happened to you.” I tell her. “Or feel that anything’s your fault. Look at me.” I repeat when her eyes slither back down to the bed covers. “Promise?”
She says nothing.
“Promise me, Lainie. I mean it. Don’t give him any more power by making yourself feel bad. You hear me?”
Her lip is being suckled half dry and I feel my cock stir watching her mouth work and the thought of all the places I want her lips. All the places I want to put mine. It’s insane but I can’t seem to get control over my rampaging thoughts. I lose all sanity the instant I enter this hospital room.
“So will you go back to Jersey City now?”
Chapter 5
Lainie
What is with this dude and the personal questions? He stands there like an immoveable force waiting for me to reply.
I shake my head no in answer to his question and I’m aware of how much I’m trembling. It’s got to be the fact that the police were just here questioning me in harsh tones and not making a remote attempt to disguise the fact that they didn’t believe any answer I gave. They asked me the same thing over and over with increasing aggressiveness. It was really as though they wanted one particular answer to their question and were determined to get it out of me no matter what. I wonder if they’re always like that? Asking the same question over until you give in and tell them what they want to hear just to make them stop.
“Did they hurt you, Lainie?” The man that saved my life asks.
His voice is gruff, rasping as though he’s inhaled a lot of smoke although I know that’s not the reason. He’s just got that manly voice but he’s also kind.
That’s why I spilled out all the stuff I suddenly remembered about that night Thad turned up. But I shouldn’t have done so. The one cop had whispered in my ear that I better keep my mouth shut about that night or I’d wish I was in prison just to be kept safe from what he’d deal out to me. The fireman’s kindness is killing me. Along with the hunger in back of his eyes. I wish he’d go. I can’t take that much concern for my wellbeing. Why does he care anyway? I’m nothing to him.
I shake my head no again and ouch, my lip hurts from where I’ve been biting it so hard. I didn’t realize. My head hurts as well. My throat hurts. I’m shaking harder now and he’s looking at me so intently that prickles run down my arms.
“Good.” He rasps. “You’ve been through enough. You don’t deserve what’s happening now.”
His eyes are the deepest blue, like the most perfect day you ever had a very long time ago and they’re holding mine hostage so that I can’t look away. This is ridiculous. I must be imagining the look he’s drilling into me. No one has ever looked at me this way. I’ve seen intensity and longing, I’ve seen hunger and yearning but never this kind of concern. As he said, I’ve been through a lot, more even than he knows. It’s wish fulfillment to have a man like him rescue me. I don’t even know his name. He told me earlier, made a jokey remark out of it but I forget. Wondering how long it will be before Thad comes back for me has that effect.
“So if not Jersey, where will you go?” He asks, not for one second shifting his gaze from my face although from time to time it slides down to my mouth before he remembers and snaps it away. “Friends? Family?”
Friends? No. I don’t know a single person in this town. I’ve met a few guys in the bar, but none of them were the type you’d call friends. I look down, not wanting him to see that. What sort of person has no friends? He’ll think I’m horrible. I’m sure he has a ton of people that care about him. That would willingly take him in if some stranger stalked him and set fire to his apartment to prove a point. The point being, if I won’t give myself to him I may as well be dead. That’s what he said.
“Look at me, Lainie.” The hunky guy commands for like the thousandth time.
He is really impressive, with shoulders big enough to, well of course, to carry people out of burning buildings.
“Say something.” He insists, then adds, “Sorry, I forgot, does your throat hurt a lot?”
“No.” I say, “No friends. I’m fine.”
That last word croaks out and the hunk gets a twinkle in his eye then as though switching on a current running between us, we both break into a smile.
“You know that’s all you ever say to me, ‘I’m fine’. Is that the truth or are you putting on a brave act? Because that’s fine if you are but sometimes it’s good to be open as well. Let a friend know maybe you aren’t totally fine and allow them to take care of you.”
“I don’t want to be any trouble.”
“You aren’t.”
“And I tend to get into trouble when I let people take care of me.” I husk.
My voice sounds unbelievably sexy and I kind of wish it would never heal. I’d like to keep this husky tone.
“You’ve been picking the wrong people then.” He says. “So where will you go? Any ideas?”
“Why do you care?” I say, feeling defensive.
I don’t want to tell him. Nothing gets him riled up or aggressive. He doesn’t tell me to watch my mouth, nor does he lift his hand to slap it. He just smiles.
“Let’s just say I have a vested interest in that little mutt. We’ve become a couple of old men hanging out together on the sofa at night. I guess we bonded over pulling you out of that building.”
“I don’t know yet. It’s hard to make my brain focus on what’s next right now.”
“You could be dealing with some post-traumatic stress. It’s understandable.”
“Doctor’s on his way.”
The nurse bustles in and starts pulling at my covers, fixing up the bed ready for the doctor’s visit like a private preparing for drill inspection.
“Hello again.”
She gets that stupid grin women get when they look at a man. And I’m just as stupid for getting that flare in my stomach because she’s smiling at him like that. What reason could I possibly have for being jealous?
“Okay, I’ll step out and give you some privacy.” The fireman says.
“Are you coming back?” I blurt out, surprising both of us with the urgency of my tone.
The fireman turns back to look at me and a hundred fizzles flow through my limbs, like my body is a bottle of champagne, shaken and uncorked. Time becomes elastic and slows to a halt as his eyes delve into me, questioning, wondering. The nurse is bent into her tucking, frozen apparently, but I’m barely aware of her there at my bedside. My entire being is glued to the man in the door, looking at me with eyes that could launch me to the moon.
“Where did that dog come from?”
The nurse comes back to life when she notices Jersey squirming in my arms.
“Sorry that’s on me.”
The fireman steps up to take Jersey from me, saving my ass yet again. I’m wondering if this dude has a savior complex. I guess it comes with the paycheck.
“You know animals aren’t allowed in the hospital, Ryder.”
The nurse simpers at him like she’s talking to a naughty boy.
Ryder. She knows his name.
I wonder what else she knows. A crazy feeling comes over me, right after an even crazier impulse to slap her. I can’t stop thinking that the nurse would like to be a naughty girl for my fireman.
Mine?
Whoa, I must be suffering some sort of survivor victim syndrome where I want to bond with the one who saved me. Isn’t that what gets girls like me into trouble? My eyes flick to his face, in the attempt to figure out whether there’s something more than first name basis between them.
I can tell Nurse-y is into him but from his side, it’s a slamme
d shut book. Obviously the smoke has done something to my mind because I have no right to be checking up on Ryder’s extra-curricular affairs. It’s none of my business. None at all.
After he slips Jersey back inside his leather jacket and pulls up the zip, leaving a gap at his throat for air to enter, Ryder’s glance slides back to me. When he catches me watching him, his lips turn up in a grin. A cocky grin at that.
“Yeah, I’ll be back.” He says.
He leaves my room without acknowledging the nurse who is ogling his rather fine rear. Moments later the doctor barrels in with five medical students tagging along.
We go through the whole ‘How are we feeling today’ shit and I tell him I feel fine even though the truth is I feel like shit. And it isn’t made better by the groupies staring at me like they’d like to get me on a table and slice me open. A bunch of grinning Doctor Frankensteins.
“That’s good news because after we run this check up I think we can discharge you.” The doc is saying. “Is there someone who can come pick you up to take you home. Your Mother must be wondering where you are.”
My stomach rolls over. No there’s no one to pick me up. I doubt my mother has thought of me in months. And what home? I thought the nurse told me my little studio room attic was completely destroyed in the fire.
“Yes I can call someone.” I say before I think it through.
I don’t want these smug new doctors, none of them any older than me, thinking I’m a pathetic case just because I didn’t have wealthy parents investing in my future. The only thing I can think to do is to call the bar, okay dive, because bar is too classy a word for the joint Bernie runs on the edge of town, and ask to speak to Daphne. She’s the older woman, my mother’s age, who works the same shift as me most days. There’s not much warmth between us, you certainly wouldn’t call us friends, but I think, if I beg hard enough I could convince her to come check me out of here. I could lie and tell the nurse she’s family.
The nurse leans in to mutter something under her breath in the doctor’s ear. The students all wait on tenterhooks, like it’s the most important thing ever what the old dude is going to mouth off with.
When I come back to awareness of what’s going on in my head, I realize my mind has drifted to Ryder without any input from me. It’s like he freaking sneaks into my head every time I’m not monitoring my thoughts. I turn away for a second and there he is again, filling my imagination with pictures of his broad body and dumbass smile. I can visualize his torso bared, the powerful shoulders and carved stomach. And especially the taut curve of his fine ass.
The man has me at a disadvantage. He’s witnessed my ‘finer attributes’ as he calls them, my butt naked body. I on the other hand have no idea what he looks like beneath the perfectly fitting jeans riding low on his pelvis and a tight tee shirt that isn’t douchebag tight - you know what I mean? It’s so funny how a man as hot as he is comes out with those kind of old-fart terms like ‘finer attributes’ when most guys would say booty.
I wonder how old he is. Not that it matters There are plenty of guys my age who are more like my father they’re so unadventurous. Ryder’s seen me naked and had his arms around me and sadly I don’t remember any of it. I guess the situation I’m currently in has fired up all my fears because all I can think of is curling up safe into Ryder’s arms. I don’t even like the man. He’s too sure of himself and too bossy, needing to rescue me. Why does he have to try so hard to be a good person? Acting like he cares. It’s just that - an act.
“Okay then, it seems like we need to order a few extra tests before we check you out of here.” The doctor says, with a grimace after listening to the nurse’s whispered update.
I bet I know what they’re for and who ordered those tests. The detectives determined to find some trace of drugs in my body. And I bet if they don’t find any they won’t be above putting them there themselves.
My stomach wrings itself out like a soggy dishtowel and I tremble in every limb. It hits me full force that I have nowhere to go and that leaves two options. When they finish up with their tests, I’ll either be in jail or in some halfway house type place for homeless girls. The third option doesn’t bear thinking about. I lived on the streets for a brief time, when my mom first threw me out and it’s the furthest thing from romantic.
Chapter 6
Ryder
It goes against every ethical code but my legs have carried me to the nurse’s station before my mind gets to intervene and tell me I’m acting way above my pay grade.
“I need some information on Lainie, er…” Shit, I don’t know her last name. “The fire victim in four-two-nine.”
“And you are?”
The nurse looks up at me and her features soften. Women always do that when they look a man in the eye.
“Ryder Marshall.” I lie. “Fire Department.”
As I hoped, her brain puts ‘marshall’ and ‘fire’ together to equal bureaucratic force. And if I do say so myself, something about my physique sets her mind looping, so that without thinking it through, she taps a few keys to bring up Lainie’s record.
“We’re curious about any drug use, indicated in the blood tests.” I say.
“Let’s see here - nope, none detected. But I see the police department have requested a second blood work up and a urine test to specifically isolate crack cocaine.”
“Yeah.” I nod, like I already knew that. “But the first test indicated no trace?”
“That’s right.” The nurse smiles at me. “The patient doesn’t have the usual signs of an addict.” She adds.
I can tell she wants to keep me talking. Best not let my face burn too hard into her memory. I could get into real shit for this.
“That’s my take on the situation too,” I say. “Thanks.”
“Let me know if you have any more um, questions you need, you know, taken care of.” She says. “My shift’s over at four.”
I walk away as fast as possible. All the while wondering why in hell the cops need another drug test. There was zero drug paraphernalia around Lainie where she lay, unless I missed something.
When I come back into the room, Lainie’s slapping furiously at her cheeks. She looks up and startles when she sees me like she’s forgotten I said I’d be back. She’s been crying again and it’s plain she doesn’t want me, or anyone else, to know it. Before I can inhibit myself, or even realize what I’m doing, I’m across the floor at her bedside.
“What is it? What’d the doctor say?”
My heart is pounding for no apparent reason beyond I am literally terrified that she’s had some bad news about her medical condition. Smoke inhalation can be a killer long after the fire’s been doused.
She looks up at me with such a soft expression, I think I might lose my mind. She’s like a different woman. Her eyes are huge and limpid with emotion, she’s sad yes, but she’s also rocking something else, some sort of pleasure. I can only fantasize that it’s when she sees I’m here. We gaze at each other for what seems like a week, lost in some ridiculous other world where none of the hardcore reality of day to day life matters because we have each other. Because we take comfort knowing there’s one other person on the planet who genuinely gives a damn about what happens to you and whether you’re starving or cold, or plain lost.
It’s only when Lainie snaps the spell by snatching her hand out of mine that I realize I’d been holding it in my palm. The cool silkiness of her small fingers lingers there even after she pulls away and snaps at me.
“Don’t you have any real friends to go play hero with?”
How does a woman change tempo on a heartbeat?
I’m about to come back with some snappy remark but instead I hear myself saying; “I guess I don’t if I’m honest.”
“Oh.” Lainie says, with a fleeting expression of regret, for bringing my failure into the light. “Sorry.”
“It’s not easy in my line of work. The odd hours. And it’s hard for people to talk about the job in a norm
al fashion beyond wanting gory details of your last call out.”
“That must get old.” She says. “What about the guys in your, what do you call it, your squad?”
“Then we mostly end up talking shop or trying not to.” I tell her. “There’s so much stuff we’re trying to avoid reliving, you know?” She nods slowly as though she does although of course she couldn’t. “So we end up talking bull-crud, stupid jokes, sports.”
“And here I thought that was all any guy had to say for himself.”
Our eyes lock on and there’s an instant where she must think maybe I’m gonna accuse her of man-hating or sweeping generalization and she sets a hardness around herself. Then it falls away and we both laugh. Because isn’t it true? Unless a guy is some science nerd or a literature geek in New York City, what’s he got to say for himself? Especially to a girl as ballsy as Lainie?
For some reason she’s easy to talk to. I feel comfortable sharing this shit with her in a way I don’t normally do with women. I guess I’ve learned that they don’t want me to have problems, they need for me to be the superhero without any issues of my own. Despite her vulnerability, Lainie looks like she could eat a superhero for a snack.
“There was one guy - we had each other’s back, we could go out for a beer and shoot the breeze without it all being about the job, but…”
“But what?” She asks.
“No, nothing. He went away suddenly. I don’t see him any more.”
“That’s hard. People are always leaving. Even with email it’s hard to keep up with people.”
“I’m not an email guy.”
She laughs.
“Not because I’m a dinosaur. I just like people to be in front of me where I can see them.”
“In the flesh.” She interrupts and her cheeks turn a tiny bit pink as she looks up from under her eyelashes.
Her soft gaze makes my blood spurt in my veins and the image of her naked body rises unbidden in my mind and refuses to leave. My cock starts to stir at the recalled visualization which it never did when she was actually butt naked in my arms.