by Brandy Ayers
Somehow a teenager had slipped through the security line, and stared at the flames, his back to them. Somewhere in the back of her overtaxed brain recognition pinged.
The teen turned, only it wasn’t a teen, but a slight woman in her early twenties. Expression flat, eyes lifeless, Charlotte knew immediately this was Trudy.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Trey,” Charlotte whispered, her lips barely moving.
Trudy took a step in their direction, her glare directed at Charlotte.
“It’s her.”
Trey’s head flew up, his angry eyes landing on the approaching woman. In a split second he came to his feet, placing himself between Charlotte and the threat. “Trudy, stop there. You need help.”
She didn’t listen. Trey’s former foster sister continued to walk towards them. Charlotte tried to find someone nearby she could warn, but they were all still occupied with the fire.
“This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.” The woman’s voice sent chills through Charlotte. No emotion laid behind them. Just flat, lifelessness. Shouldn’t Trudy be angry? Livid? Inconsolable? But she was none of those things. She was calm, detached.
Between the activity marching on around them, the smoke tinged air, and biting acidic scent of gas, Charlotte’s head ached. Her heart pounded with this new threat, though her body was so weak she couldn’t force herself into action. Glancing back to the fire, she squinted in confusion, trying to make sense of everything. The fire had begun to dwindle, so it shouldn’t smell like gas anymore. The accelerant would have all burned off by now.
“Trudy. No.” Anger no longer laced Trey’s voice, sadness and disbelief taking its place.
As if she had just slipped on a new pair of glasses, everything became startling clear at once. The fear that had loosened its grip on Charlotte since escaping the house now flared to life once again. Details that had slipped by just seconds ago became glaringly obvious. The sleek dark blonde hair of Trudy’s hung in wet waves around her head. Soaked in gasoline. Her sweatshirt hung from her frail body, weighted down by the flammable fluid saturating the fabric. The woman’s hands fisted at her sides.
“Oh god.” Charlotte’s stomach turned over as the truth of their situation crystallized. She gripped the back of Trey’s shirt, silently pleading with the universe to not let him be put in any more danger.
Trudy’s hand came up revealing a silver lighter. “The flames were supposed to take her. You would have been sad, but you would see eventually. She’s not right for you. She’s all icy and cold. You need heat, Trey. You need me.”
“Trudy, you need help. Let me get you help. Don’t do this.” Sheer desperation tainted his every word. He took a step forward, but Charlotte refused to release her grip on his shirt, and so she followed him. Trey stopped, looking over his shoulder at Charlotte and shaking his head.
Three feet away from them, Trudy halted abruptly. The pungent liquid dripped from the tips of her hair, only to be reabsorbed into her clothes. “Why didn’t you love me? It’s all I’ve ever wanted. No one ever loved me.” A fissure of emotion cracked through the woman’s surface. Tears glistened in her eyes and her chin quivered. “You may never love me, but I’m going to make sure you never forget me either.”
Charlotte slipped off the thick blanket someone had draped around her shoulders, trying to keep her movements small.
Several things happened at once. Trudy flicked the lighter, which sparked, lit, then found the fuel it need to spread across Trudy’s entire form in one whoosh. Trey screamed at the top of his lungs for her to stop. Both he and Charlotte ran for the woman now engulfed in flames, screaming in pain. Trey knocked her to the ground, rolling her body back and forth on the water-soaked street. Charlotte threw the blanket over her, smothering the flames the water didn’t put out.
Chaos erupted. The men fighting the fire turned and rushed to their side. Paramedics pulled Trey and Charlotte away from Trudy, getting to work on the badly burned woman. Even in the short amount of time she’d been covered in the flames, they had done extensive damage.
Trey fell back onto his butt, he gathered Charlotte into his arms, cradling her across his lap. “Are you okay?” His hands skated down her body, checking for injuries.
“I’m okay. I swear.”
They watched from the sidelines, numb as the medics worked on Trudy, loaded her up, and raced for the hospital. It could have been seconds or hours that they sat there, wrapped around each other. Eventually a police officer approached and asked them both to give statements.
By the time their stories had been told multiple times to various people, the sun was peeking up from the horizon. Barely able to keep her eyes open, Charlotte didn’t protest when Trey scooped her up into his arms and took her to his car. Their movements were plodding, each step seeming to take extreme effort. They showered together, helped to watch the smoke and grime from each other. Without having to discuss it, they made sure Weasley was comfortable in the living room, and climbed in bed. It took almost no time before they both slipped into heavy sleep.
***
In all her life, Charlotte had never slept more than a full twelve hours. But when she woke in Trey’s bed to pitch black outside the window, she knew she’d slept through the entire day and well into the next night.
As soon as she became aware of her surroundings, Charlotte knew Trey wasn’t in bed with her. The lack of body heat at her back and strong arms banded around her body clued her into that fact.
She didn’t have to go far to find him, though. He sat in a club chair at the foot of the bed, watching her as she sat and rubbed her eyes. “Hey, did you get any sleep?”
Trey nodded. “Yeah, just woke up an hour ago. Got a phone call. Trudy didn’t make it. She had burns on eighty five percent of her body.”
“God, Trey, I’m so sorry.” Charlotte crawled over the mounds of blankets and pillows to get to him, climbing into his lap.
“It’s okay. She was a disturbed girl. This was probably for the best.” The empty words rang false to her ears.
“It is okay to be upset that she died, Trey. At one point, she was a part of your family. You tried to help her. Felt responsible for her.” Charlotte cupped his broad, masculine face, tilting it so he could no longer avoid her gaze. “Be sad. Mourn her. Or be angry. Whatever you need to feel, just let it happen. The only wrong reaction is to pretend you aren’t feeling anything.”
As if her verbal permission unlocked something inside him, Trey’s face crumpled and his body shook with powerful sobs. “I should have done more. Should have spoken up sooner. Forced her hand, gotten her help.”
“Shhhh, you can’t put any of that on yourself. You did what you thought was best. You helped her when she was a teen and welcomed her back as an adult.” Charlotte rocked him back and forth, not sure if any of her words made it past his despair. “You couldn’t control her mental health. You are a good man, Trey Smith. You did everything you could. Hopefully, now she’s found some peace.”
There comes a point after a tragedy that words no longer offer comfort. They can’t make it past the haze or grief and regret to make a difference. Knowing Trey wasn’t ready to hear anymore, Charlotte simply wrapped her arms tighter around him and held on as he fell apart beneath her.
After about an hour, Trey pulled himself together, and they both made their into the fire station to meet with officials. They recounted the entire ordeal from beginning to end once again, this time to the fire marshal. It was still early, and the streets were mostly empty.
With a start, Charlotte realized she no longer had a phone, having lost it in the fire. “Can I borrow your phone, I’m not sure the station has any clue what happened last night. Or why I’m not at work today.”
Trey handed her his phone, but kept his eyes on the road. After three rings Michelle finally picked up the phone at the station. “Oh my God, Charlotte, we heard what happened last night. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Sore throat from the smok
e. Actually, everything is sore and tired, and I’ve got a couple burns on my arm, but considering everything, I can’t complain.” Michelle listened intently as Charlotte filled her in on everything that happened the night before.
“This is insane, Char. Do they have any idea how she managed to set five fires in two zones in such a short span of time?”
“You can’t report this yet, but it appears she spent the day preparing each location with gasoline and then just drove from one to the other lighting them and driving away. My apartment was the only place she entered the building to set the fire. Security cameras in the neighborhood picked her up carrying two gas cans into the building about five minutes before a neighbor called 911.” Charlotte leaned her head against the cool car window, her eyes drifting closed as she recounted the details they’d just learned from the fire chief. “Each location held a significance to Trey or me. The tattoo parlor where we had our first date. The diner we ate breakfast at one morning. The park Trey used to sit at sometimes during our calls. She thought if she burned down everything we’d touched together, she could, I don't know, eradicate me or something.”
Not wanting to talk about it anymore, Charlotte changed the subject to the station and how they had handled everything that had happened the night before. Michelle filled her in on he scrambling to get crews at all the fires. The realization that Charlotte’s apartment had been hit. The cell phone video that had come in that morning showing Trudy setting herself on fire, and the ensuing fight between station management and Michelle to not show the grotesque video. Michelle won in the end, and it never hit air.
After Michelle insisted Charlotte stay home for a few days, they said their goodbyes and hung up. The resulting silence in Trey’s SUV stretched on, putting Charlotte’s already frayed nerves on edge.
Finally arriving at Trey’s building, he found a parking spot and roughly threw the car into park. Neither of them moved, stuck in some weird limbo where neither knew how to react. Where to go from there.
Trey broke the silence first. “I’m sorry, Sugar. There were so many points along the way I could have stopped this. But I just kept thinking I could do everything. I could protect you, be with you, and I could get Trudy the help she needed. Could stop her from causing more damage. Obviously, I was wrong, and I understand if this changes things between us.”
Did this change things between them? Charlotte turned to look at Trey, really examining him for the first time since they left the apartment that morning. He looked as tired as she felt. His normally warm brown skin had a grey tinge, and bags hung under his eyes. And yes, maybe he could have handled everything differently, but she understood why he had reacted the way he did. And nothing could be changed at that point.
Charlotte’s aching heart soared as she traced her gaze down his clenched jaw, stiff shoulders and hands gripping the steering wheel. No, she wouldn't let this change them. Or at least not for the worse.
“I don't have any place to live now.” As she contemplated the words that balanced on the tip of her tongue, she found a suspicious lack of nerves. Perhaps she had lost something in that fire. Maybe a little of her fear had turned to ash along with all her possessions. The only emotions coursing through her system were love, hope, and excitement. Okay, yes and exhaustion and sadness. “Since half your clothes got ruined right alongside mine in my apartment, I noticed your closets have lots of space.”
Trey turned hopeful eyes on her. “Tons of space.”
“Think I could put some of mine in there once I buy more?”
That big broad chest Charlotte loved having pressed against in her bed deflated with relief at her words. “You want to stay with me?”
“As long as you don’t mind sharing your place with a spoiled cat, yes, I would like to move in with you. I’d like to live with you. Build a life with you. Do you still want that with me?”
Reaching over, Trey unbuckled Charlotte’s seat belt and hauled her from her seat onto his lap. “Yes. Fuck yes. I want to trip over that damn cat every morning. I need you in my arms every night. All of it and more. Someday, I want to put babies in your belly, get a ring on your finger.”
“Maybe not in that order?”
“I don't care what order it all comes in, as long as we do it all together.” Trey pressed his forehead to hers. “I thought I lost you last night. I’ve spent the past twenty-four hours thinking you would leave me after all this. And I was trying to find a way to be okay with it if you did leave. But I was failing spectacularly.”
“Good. I hope you always fail at letting me go.” Charlotte cupped his cheeks, letting the warmth of that moment sweep away all the shit that had come before. “I love you, Trey. I should have told you before, but I was scared. I’m not anymore. I love you.”
“I love you too, sugar. Forever.”
Epilogue
Six months later
“Trey, please. I’m going to be late again.” Charlotte gripped the back of the couch for dear life, grinding her pussy back onto Trey’s devilish mouth.
“Then stop wearing these damn heels around me.” No sooner were the words out of his lips, then he delved back to suck at her clit. He speared one finger deep into her channel, twisting it around to find that spot he’d memorized. “Don’t know if I need to thank Bekah or curse her for introducing you to these things. So, fucking hot.”
Charlotte whined, shifting back and forth on her feet, hoping to convince him to pick up the pace. Over the past few months, Bekah had introduced Charlotte to the wonderful world of stilettos, and Charlotte found they made her feel even sexier than the lingerie she and Trey would pick out together. Wearing them both together, and nothing else, often got this kind of reaction from Trey. So, she really should have known better than to parade around their apartment in nothing but a pink lace thong, matching bra, and silver four-inch heels while she ironed her clothes for the day.
The iron had barely warmed up when he pulled her away and bent her over the couch.
Trey slapped her ass, and Charlotte moaned in response. “You do this on purpose. Just love seeing your man act the caveman, don’t you?”
She couldn’t deny it. She did love this side of him. Since moving in together, Trey and Charlotte had spent quite a bit of time exploring each other’s sexual needs. Charlotte discovered she liked to be manhandled. And the best way to get him to the edge where he’d just take her roughly was to tease him. Turned out Charlotte was a great tease.
“Yes, I love it. Please, I need it, Trey.”
Another slap shook her ass. “I’ll give you what you need, sugar. But first I want my morning drink.” Trey spread her legs even farther apart, pushing the thin fabric of her panties to the side once again so he could access her wet sex. With a slow, methodical pace, Trey worked her body until she shook and nearly sobbed, begging for release. But he kept her there, right on the edge of stepping into the abyss.
Time lost all meaning, and Charlotte no longer cared how late she would be to pick Bekah up. She chanted pleas over and over again as he kept his pace, never wavering, never giving her that one little push to a screaming release.
“I should leave you like this. Just stop and not let you come. Let you walk around all day with this aching need between your legs.” Trey fucked her rough with two fingers, purposely brushing against her g-spot without giving it the direct attention she craved.
“No. Please, no.” Charlotte sobbed and pumped herself back onto his hand. “I know you won’t. You need it just as much as I do.”
Trey climbed to his feet. “Fuck, you’re right. Need this pussy milking my cock more than I need my next breath.” He notched the tip of his cock at her entrance, then gripped her hips in his rough hands and pulled her back, seating himself fully inside her. “Gonna make you scream until your voice is hoarse, so every damn one of those over-styled reporters you have to talk to knows your man fucked the ability to talk right out of you.”
If Charlotte hadn’t been teetering on the edge of an
epic orgasm, she would have laughed. Trey had come to pick her up one day two months ago while she was chatting with Sean outside. He’d been jealous and possessive just seeing her talk to another moderately attractive man. As if anyone could compare to her big, rough firefighter.
But given the state she was in, the only sounds to make it out of her mouth were keening moans and screams.
Trey stood almost completely still behind her, only using the hold on her hips to move her up and down his giant cock. Jacking himself off using her body. Using her for his own pleasure and taking her along for the ride.
“Touch that sweet little button between your thighs, sugar. You want to come, you make yourself come, I’m too busy losing my ever-loving mind in your hot cunt.”
Obeying his orders, Charlotte skated her hand between her stomach and the back of the couch, finding her pulsing clit and giving it no more than a second’s worth of attention before a great fault line split her right in two, the climax pouring out of her in wails that would have the neighbors complaining. Again.
“Fuck yes. Love that pretty pussy weeping all over my cock. Soaking me in your sweet juices. I’m not going to let either of us clean up after. You’re going to walk around with my load dripping out of you all day, and your sweet cream is going to be soaking into my skin.”
Recovering slightly from her epic release, Charlotte pounded back against him, the slapping of their meeting flesh filling the apartment. She reached the hand that had playing between her legs up behind her. “Want my taste on your tongue too?”
He didn’t answer. Just sucked her covered digits into his mouth and slammed home. His cock swelled even more, triggering a smaller after shock orgasm in Charlotte, and roared as he spilled hot waves of his seed into her channel. Trey collapsed over her, pressing his hot body against hers, peppering open mouth kisses over the back of her neck and shoulders.