Burn So Good (Into The Fire Series Book 5)

by J. H. Croix

  I lost sight of everything, my focus narrowed to nothing but sensation. By the time she drew me back into her mouth, I was on the verge of exploding. But that wasn’t what I wanted. Not just yet. I snatched onto a thread of control, tightening my grip and groaning her name. Lifting my head took immense effort, but I managed it and was rewarded with the sight of her swiping her tongue along her lips.

  “Come here,” I murmured.

  She shook her head, a sly smile stretching across her face.

  “Please.” I wasn’t above begging. “I need to be inside you,” I said bluntly.

  She stared at me, the air nearly vibrating between us. After a moment, she rose up. “Okay. If that’s what you want,” she said, her voice husky.

  Then, she was straddling me and easing down over me. She teased me some more, her wet pussy sliding back and forth over my cock. Much as I wanted to take the reins—as it was I was at the end of my tether—I sensed she wanted to hold onto the control now. Then, she was rising up, adjusting the angle of my cock and sheathing me. She took me into her, inch by devastating inch, until I was buried deep in the core of her—hot, wet, tight, and pulsing around me.

  Chapter Twenty

  Ella

  A wave of emotion rocked me as I looked down at Caleb. He filled and stretched me, the feeling so delicious it sent a shiver through me, every fiber of my being humming at the sense of our connection. My hands rested on his chest, nothing but muscle. His hands rested on my hips. His dark chocolate gaze was on mine, the look there so intent I could hardly bear it. I didn’t quite know what to make of how quickly I was tumbling into this, but I couldn’t look away.

  His hands slid up my sides to cup my breasts, teasing my nipples. They were puckered so tight, they ached. The subtle brush of his thumbs across them made me cry out, arching into his touch. I couldn’t hold back anymore and I rose up along the length of his cock and back down. His hands eased along my sides again, gripping me just above the curve of my hips.

  He didn’t even hesitate to touch over the area that was nothing but scar tissue. Tears pricked at my eyes with sensation, need, and emotion colliding together in a storm inside of me. The intensity ran so deep that I tumbled into it, caught in the tornado of everything between us.

  Caleb flexed into me, his hips arching up as I rocked into him again and again. Every surge of him filled me deeper, and then he slid one hand free, pressing his thumb over my clit. Sensation gathered, coiling tightly inside. With another press of his thumb, I flew apart, pleasure splintering through me like shards.

  I cried out, his name a chant on my lips. I felt the heat of his release inside of me as he went taut when my channel clenched around him. Curling over into his arms, I didn’t realize I was crying until I felt the moisture on my cheek against his skin. I rested on him, my breath coming in gasps. I didn’t want to talk right now, and I was relieved he didn’t try. His palm slid in slow passes up and down my spine.

  I didn’t know how long we lay still there until I felt him tug the covers up over my back. My skin prickled against the cool cotton sheets. Yet within seconds, I was warm again.

  I finally lifted my head, the sense of emotional overwhelm fading. Resting my chin on his chest, I looked at him—his mussed brown hair, the strong lines of his face. As if he sensed my gaze, he opened his eyes. For a moment, his gaze was somber. He lifted a hand, brushing my tangled hair away from my eyes and smoothing it down my back.

  “Your hair is so long now,” he murmured.

  I was relieved at his casual comment. I knew that he knew I’d been crying. But I wasn’t up for talking about it just now, because what would I say? There weren’t words to attach to what I was feeling—simply that it was all so much.

  “It is. Sometimes I think about cutting it again,” I replied.

  He shook his head quickly. “Please don’t.”

  I laughed softly. “I wasn’t planning on it. That’s why it’s long. When I had it shorter, I needed to get it cut more often, and it was just one more thing to deal with. You know me. I’m not much for dealing with things like hair and make up.”

  His mouth hitched up at one corner in a grin, and my belly did a little flip, flutters twirling inside. Just a look from him, nothing more, and it barely mattered we’d just had crazy hot sex first thing in the morning. Because I could’ve done it all over again.

  “I do know you,” he murmured, his gravelly voice sending a prickle up my spine as he sifted his fingers through my hair. “You never were one for make up. I think the most I ever saw you bother with was lipstick.”

  A grin stretched across my cheeks. “That’s the most I’ve ever bothered with. What’s your schedule today?” I asked, shifting gears. “Cade sometimes works on weekends. I’m assuming you do too.”

  “Sometimes, but not today. The crews rotate weekend duty.”

  “Okay, so what are we gonna do today?”

  My question elicited another slow grin from him and butterflies spun wildly in my belly. “Let’s go into Anchorage. I need to pick up some gear for the crew, and I’ve got some errands to do. Plus, we haven’t had dinner at Susitna Burgers & Brew in forever. It’ll be like old times.”

  A giddy, bubbly joy rose inside. When you were in high school, the most exciting thing to do was go to the closest big city nearby. Given how rural Willow Brook was in the big scheme of things, it’s proximity to Anchorage made the city seem amazing. At least, when we were younger. Having lived in Anchorage for a while when I was in college and then another large city out of state, the glow of city life had faded. But the idea of spending the day with Caleb doing something mundane in Anchorage and then stopping to have dinner at one of our old favorite restaurants was irresistible.

  What followed was one of the best days I could remember in years. In fact, it might’ve been as long as since before the accident. It was odd that I didn’t think of my small roll in the ditch a few weeks ago as much of an accident. The first accident was a dividing line in my life – the before and the after. There was always the weight inside my heart from it, the ache of losing a friend. I had carried on and became strong again in so many ways. But, just when I started to get my feet under me inside and think about making my own decisions again—decisions for me, not because I was simply running from the emotional pain—well, that was when everything started with Lance.

  He’d ruined so many things for me. But this day, nothing particularly special about it, meant so much. He couldn’t touch it.

  Later that night, after running errands, including a solid hour spent in the gear shop for the fire station, we walked hand in hand into Susitna Burgers & Brew. Glancing around, it looked just as it had the last time I’d been here. It was a casual place with an open dining area with tables scattered in the center of the room and booths against the back wall. A bar was on one side and an open kitchen on the other. Exposed, weathered beams and polished wooden furnishings gave it a warm and cozy feel even though the space was large.

  Slipping into the booth across from Caleb, I looked to him. My heart gave an odd skip and clenched, a feeling only he could elicit.

  “Why don’t you have some wine?” he asked when our waitress stopped by the table.

  I shook my head. Seeing as he was driving, I figured we’d both stick to water. What followed felt like a hazy dream. Our dinner was relaxed and easy going. Aside from all the memories slamming into me, I was more relaxed than I’d been in years. If only because I didn’t have that lingering anxiety I might be being watched. Even when I was just having dinner with friends in Portland for the last year or so, I never knew when I would later see photographs of myself sent over email or text.

  It was late enough when we left that Caleb suggested we get a hotel because snow had started to fall softly while we’d been having dinner. Though it was only October, it wasn’t out of the norm to have a bit of snow here and there. It wouldn’t stay, but it was a harbinger of the winter to come. I didn’t care to argue the point. At all. There
was that, and the fact that I simply didn’t want the night to end.

  It didn’t. I’d given up trying to come up with excuses to my parents why I wasn’t coming home and just told them the blunt truth. I fell asleep with Caleb holding me close, boneless after another earth shattering climax.

  I woke in the darkness, startled out of my sleep. The vibration of the phone woke me, the insistent sound of one text after another coming in.

  The contrast of my internal state was jarring. I’d been in a deep sleep, more relaxed and peaceful than I’d felt in years. The novelty of being with Caleb was starting to wear off. It was feeling more and more comfortable.

  Yet, I was highly attuned to that repetitive sound. There was only one person who ever texted me in the middle of the night like that.

  I hadn’t bothered to change the settings on Caleb’s phone, so when his texts came in, there was a chirp. Yet, mine was set to vibrate. I couldn’t help it, I had to see. I slipped out of Caleb’s arms and tiptoed over to the dresser where I could hear the phone buzzing against the surface.

  Caleb’s voice startled me. “Ella?”

  I spun around in the darkness. “Come back to bed,” he said. He slid up on the pillows, beckoning with his hand.

  I stared at him. The room was dim with hazy light filtering through the curtains from the parking lot. “I just want to see…” I started to say.

  He climbed out of bed, moving swiftly. In a few quick strides, he was at my side, reaching past me to the dresser and snagging the phone off of it. Without even looking at the screen, he turned the phone off.

  “Hey,” I protested. “I wanted to see who that was.”

  He set the phone back on the dresser, his hands sliding from my shoulders down my arms. His touch was warm and reassuring. “You know who it is, and you don’t need to worry. That was the whole point of you not even worrying about your phone anymore,” he said softly, his voice gruff with sleep.

  “Yeah but…” But I don’t know how to let go. The thought passed through my mind, colliding with another. This worry was what I’d considered my penance for the accident. Years later, it had stepped in to fill a role that I’d hated, but thought I deserved. Letting go of it was the only option, and I had to find my way through to that release.

  I was tense, anxiety vibrating through me and dread churning in my gut.

  “Ella, it’s three in the morning. What’s the point?”

  “Why don’t we just turn your number off altogether? I’ll get a new number in my name, and you can just let that number die.”

  I knew it didn’t make a lick of sense, but that felt like giving in and allowing Lance to win.

  I looked up into Caleb’s eyes in the darkness and sighed, letting my head fall against his chest. I hated it, absolutely hated how this whole situation made me feel. But I knew he was right, at least for now.

  “I’ll think about the number,” I mumbled.

  “And come back to bed?” he asked, his hand sifting through my hair.

  I nodded against his chest. With a gentle tug on my hand, I followed him back to bed, falling asleep surprisingly quickly.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Caleb

  A week had passed since our night in Anchorage. In the intervening time, we had fallen into a rhythm. Ella insisted she couldn’t stay with me every night. So about every other night, she would be at my house and at her parents’ place in between. Meanwhile, she was actively looking for her own place to stay, which rankled me.

  I knew what I wanted—for her to stay with me. Yet, I knew she needed to come to that conclusion on her own without pressure from me.

  In the meantime, sporadic bursts of texts from Lance, or the asshole as I called him, continued to come in every few days. I had to give it to the guy, what he lacked in creativity, he tried to make up for with persistence. Rex had let me know the emails also came in similar bursts.

  My patience with Lance’s bullshit harassment was wearing thin. I’d vented to Rex about it the other day. He was just as frustrated as me, but he thought he had some movement with the help of his buddy in Anchorage. It galled me to no end that he kept repeating it would be easier to pin something on Lance if he had physically harmed Ella. As if stalking her via text and email for over a year wasn’t enough.

  Cade kept tabs on the situation as well. Yet again, Ella encountered us once talking in her father’s office. Her annoyance had been obvious. Her eyes had narrowed, and she chewed the corner of her lips, a sure sign of her frustration.

  With those thoughts in mind, I drove home, hoping to see her that evening. We didn’t plan ahead much. It was more happenstance that she would text and see what I was doing. I would invariably invite her over. Her parents had invited me over for dinner as well. That was nothing unusual, and nothing I hadn’t done even while Ella wasn’t living here. Cade was a friend, and Rex had become one in ways now that I’d been working on one of the crews at the station for a while.

  That night, I arrived home to find my refrigerator empty and no text from Ella. I considered texting her, but decided to wait. I was hanging back more than I would like, if only because I saw how annoyed she got with any sort of pressure. I didn’t know how much longer I could hang back like this, but I was trying to play it slow.

  Creamsicle leapt down from the windowsill and onto the counter. I snagged a bottle of beer from the fridge, and he rubbed his cheek on the serrated edge of the cap where I set it on the counter. I stroked his back while he purred up a storm.

  After a few minutes, restless, I strode to the windows and scanned the view. Autumn was a brief season in Alaska—a burst of color and then rapidly shortening days with winter nipping at his heels. Winter would be making itself known soon.

  After another drag on my beer, I decided to go outside and chop some wood, needing something to do to burn off my restless energy. Within minutes, I was absorbed in the task, the force of the axe cleaving into the wood easing the tension bundled inside.

  This thing with Ella was so unexpected and so intense, it was throwing me off. I wanted everything, all at once. More than anything, I want to erase her uncertainty, her tendency to hold back and her insistence on keeping me at bay in some ways.

  With every thwack of the axe into the wood, I reminded myself it was worth the wait. As impatient as I might’ve been, there were years between us and more than enough baggage. Not to mention everything she’d been facing on her own.

  As I chopped away, letting myself get into the rhythmic activity, Creamsicle meandered over and stationed himself on a stump nearby. He did that often—following me about the yard and observing whatever I happened to be doing from a safe distance.

  After a solid hour of chopping wood, when I was good and tired, I returned to the house, feeling more settled inside. Creamsicle followed me back inside, bounding across the yard and dashing in through the door immediately. After a quick visit to his water bowl, he returned to his favorite perch in the windowsill.

  A series of insistent buzzes on the counter caught my attention as I came out of the shower. I’d forgotten to bring my phone outside with me. I hoped it was Ella. But it wasn’t.

  It was another series of texts from the asshole, including two pictures of Ella and me when we had dinner last week in Anchorage. Hot fury raced through me, and then went cold. I was so fucking relieved she didn’t have this phone. I did not want her see this. As much as it infuriated me, it scared the hell out of me.

  Not for myself, but for her. Because it meant Lance was around and he wanted to push the envelope. For the first time tonight, I was relieved she wasn’t here. Because I knew if she were here, I wouldn’t be able to hide my tension. I didn’t want her to know about this. Not until we had a plan.

  Rather than texting Rex, I called him. He picked up on the second ring. “Hey Caleb. You don’t call often, so cut to the chase,” he said by way of greeting.

  He was right about that. Though Rex and Ella’s mother were good friends with my pare
nts, and he had become a friend of sorts since I’d been stationed at Willow Brook Fire & Rescue, social chatting was something I saved for group situations.

  “I wanted to call and give you a warning before I sent you these. I gotta tell ya, the only reason I’m not replying is because you told me it would be best if I didn’t. I’m ready to hunt this guy down. But he’s around and he has been since last week.”

  “What?” Rex asked, his tone low and cool.

  Pulling my phone away from my ear, I quickly forwarded him the texts. “The pictures are going to show up in a sec. Ella and I had dinner there last week,” I explained.

  I heard a distinct chime through the line, indicating the arrival of my texts.

  “Oh, this is bullshit,” he muttered. “Ella’s here, and I don’t want you to talk to her about this.”

  “Trust me, I don’t want to talk to her about this. We only have one problem. We know where she’s staying. It’s either there or with me,” I said, abandoning any effort to ignore that detail. “But she goes to Anchorage once a week now. Somehow, we need to tell her he’s around.”

  Rex was quiet for a beat. “Fuck.”

  Rex wasn’t one to swear much, not as much as I did that was for sure. He saved choice words for moments when he was really pissed off.

  “Well, you’re right about that, but she doesn’t go to Anchorage for another few days. I’m going to talk to Cade and see if we can come up with a reason for him to need that truck again. One of us can give her a ride. I’ll do it or you can do it, but we’ll figure it out. If I need to be at the station and Cade’s crew is on duty…”

  I cut in. “I’ll talk to Ward. I’m sure he’ll let me take the day off if I need to.”

  I knew we needed to figure something out, but I didn’t feel comfortable lying like this. But I also didn’t want Ella to get stressed knowing Lance was around. The only upside to all of this was if we could track him down, we could finally do something about him.