by Cassie Cole
“Saw Brinkley and Cortez get picked up by the chopper five minutes ago. They were in the first group.”
“Still waiting on Jump Team Six to report in. Their transponders are still behind the burning edge.”
“Sale here. Fox and I are sheltered in the base camp by our drop point. Fire is moving over us now.”
“Shit. Alright, we’ll get the chopper to pick you up next. Has anyone heard from Donaldson or Hinch?”
There was silence on the radio. I flicked on my receiver and said, “Donaldson check. We came out the other side after sheltering.”
“No word on our end,” Foxy said, voice completely devoid of emotion.
“Guys, this is Donaldson checking in.” I tapped the mic in my helmet. “Can you not hear me?”
“We’ve got their last transponder location, so we will initiate a search once the chopper is cleared to land,” the spotter responded.
Shit. My microphone must have been damaged in the heat. We needed to get back to the base camp as soon as possible to let them know we were safe. The last thing I wanted was for our teammates to get hurt trying to reach our last position.
But with Haley laying on top of me, it was difficult to find the motivation to move.
She stirred again, and this time her eyes opened. Her skin was smudged with soot where her face shroud had been, which made her eyes seem extra large and white in contrast. She blinked at me and smiled.
Her first instinct is to smile, I thought. I make her smile.
“Where…” she muttered. “What…”
“We survived, if it wasn’t obvious,” I whispered while rubbing her back. “We lived, Haley.”
She looked at me skeptically, like what I had said was impossible. Then a huge smile split her face.
And she kissed me.
Her lips tasted like woodsmoke, but they were warm and soft and she pushed her whole body into mine. I sighed as our lips rubbed together, and held her close in a tight embrace.
She ended the kiss as quickly as it had begun, and her smile disappeared. “Oh my God. Trace, I’m sorry…”
I rumbled with laughter, which made her body shake on top of mine. “Don’t be sorry.”
“No! I was just…”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for.”
“I should have asked! I was just so relieved…”
I clamped my gloved hand over her mouth. Her eyes widened with surprise. “We just survived a wildfire. I think a happy we’re alive kiss is warranted.”
I removed my glove. She licked her lips and said, “I… Yeah. You’re right. It was just because we are happy to be alive.”
“Definitely,” I said.
We continued staring at each other, our faces just inches apart. I was totally mesmerized by her intense gaze. She was studying me, wondering if I meant what I said about the kiss.
I think she wants to kiss me again.
This time, I was the one to make the move.
I crushed my mouth against hers. She moaned and slid her tongue into mine, and we kissed like the world had ended. In a way, it had.
It didn’t matter that we were sweaty, and exhausted, and hadn’t showered in days. We were alive. That was all that mattered.
We stopped when a voice echoed in the distance. “Haley! Trace! Haley!”
We froze and stared at each other. “That’s Foxy!” she said.
Haley and I scrambled to our feet. My knees almost gave out under me, a reminder that we’d been working two days straight without a proper rest. There was nothing for us to gather from our makeshift campsite. We’d tossed our PG bags as far from our shelter as possible before hiding—which was done to keep it from burning near us—and our Pulaskis were reduced to charred hunks of metal. Together, we walked through the destroyed forest of ash and ruin.
“It’s so… desolate,” Haley whispered while looking around. “Like a bomb went off.”
“Shame we couldn’t save it,” I said. The words pained me. Everything around us was one giant reminder that we had failed our mission. All of our hard work had been for nothing.
Being alive felt like a consolation prize compared to that.
We followed the sound of voices until eventually we saw them. Derek and Foxy came sprinting toward us, faces plastered with shock and relief. Foxy scooped Haley up into his arms. “I can’t believe you’re alive.”
Derek hugged me and added, “Fire shelters?”
“First time I’ve ever had to deploy one in the field,” I said. We switched people, and I hugged Foxy while Derek embraced Haley. Even though I’d known these guys for scarcely a week, seeing their concern and relief for me was touching. Even though they hugged Haley just a little bit harder and longer than me.
There’s definitely something between them. Something to ask another time.
“My first time deploying one too,” Haley admitted. “It, uh, didn’t go well.”
We walked back to the base camp while explaining what had happened. Foxy made a joke about how cramped the fire shelters were, and how Haley had gotten to second base with me. We both laughed and avoided looking at each other.
Foxy reported our status on the radio, and the chopper was sent to our base camp. The peaceful valley meadow was now a desolate war zone of ash and smoke. The chopper landed, we climbed aboard, and then it flew us back to Redding Base.
I sat in one of the rear-facing seats, next to Derek. Across from us, Foxy and Haley were leaning on each other and holding hands. Occasionally Foxy whispered something to Haley which drew a smile from her lips. Next to me, Derek stretched his legs out such that they were leaning against Haley’s legs. They all looked as thick as thieves.
I couldn’t take my eyes off of Haley’s fingers interlocked with Foxy’s.
They cared about her deeply. That was clear. But rather than make me happy that I had such a close-knit team, it made me feel bitter. Jealousy raged within me. These three were very close, close in a way that I never would be.
Is it because of that, or because of how I feel about Haley?
I was lying earlier. Our kiss wasn’t just the exhausted, relieved, and elated response between two people who were happy to be alive. I’d wanted Haley since the moment she stepped into Redding Base and shook my hand. Everything she had done since then had only bolstered that desire.
I closed my eyes for the rest of the helicopter ride so I wouldn’t have to look at them.
Commander Callaway was waiting for us on the tarmac back at base. He hugged each of us tightly, me more than the others. “We thought we’d lost you two,” the slender man said, eyes shimmering with emotion. “When your radios went dead and your transponders stopped moving…”
“You always said I was stubborn, sir. Happy to prove you right.”
He roared with laughter and patted my chest. “Atta boy, Donaldson.”
“How many others are…” I trailed off, unable to say the words.
“No casualties,” Callaway said with a long, relieved sigh. “Still coordinating the evacuations, but everyone else fell back ahead of the fire. You guys just happened to get the shit luck of being at the spear-tip of the fire’s advance.”
“Bad luck,” Derek said, deadpan. Haley shared a knowing look with him.
What was that about?
A dark look fell over Callaway’s face. “I’m going to take this up the chain. I shouldn’t have allowed them to pressure us into such a dangerous, spread-out mission at the last minute. It’s easy for the jack-offs at the Forestry headquarters to push us into increasingly dangerous missions, but I won’t let those desk-jockeys do it any more.”
“This mission was pushed on us?” Haley asked. She shared another look with Derek.
“Lots of missions are earmarked from above. That’s politics. But this time I’m going to make sure every pencil-pusher gets a piece of my mind. You have my word.”
Callaway nodded solemnly, then jogged back inside to resume coordinating the evacuation.
There was no gear for
us to unload. A small silver lining in an otherwise awful mission. Wordlessly, we all hit the showers. I stood under the water in my stall and watched the water run black into the drain at my feet.
“I could die happy in here,” Foxy said in the next shower over.
“Way ahead of you,” Derek replied. “If I drown in here, someone clear the browser history off my laptop, alright?”
“Consider it done,” Foxy replied. There was a pause, and then he said, “Hey, uh, boss. Thanks for saving Haley back there.”
I felt my throat tighten. “I would have done the same for anyone.”
“Yeah, well, even still. We’re close with her. On account of us coming up in the same smokejumping school class, you know. I’m real glad you brought her back alive.”
“Is that why you’re close with her?” I knew I was asking an invasive question, but I was too tired to stop myself. “Because you two were in jump school with her? Or is there something else there?”
The silence that stretched before they answered told me everything I needed to know.
“She’s special, is all,” Derek said. “You know?”
“Yeah, I do know,” I said as I watched the filthy water circle the drain.
I stayed in the shower long after Foxy and Derek got clean. Only when I heard the doors open and close did I get out and dry myself off. My skin was red and there were scratches up and down my right arm. I couldn’t remember when I’d gotten those. Probably sprinting through the forest when we were trying to escape encirclement.
I felt defeated. It was a miracle that nobody had died, but I couldn’t make myself see the glass as half full. There was a tightness in my chest that wouldn’t unwind. Maybe this was what management felt like. Feeling the weight of responsibility even when a failure wasn’t your fault.
I wrapped the towel around my waist and exited the locker room. Someone was walking by right at that moment, and we bumped into each other. Haley started to apologize, then sighed and smiled.
“You were in there as long as me?” she asked.
I smiled. It was impossible not to when Haley was smiling at me. “Took that long to get my hair clean.”
“You could use a comb,” she teased as she turned toward the barracks hallway. “But otherwise, you look good.”
I watched her disappear down the hall. The tightness in my chest had disappeared for a few seconds, but already it was coming back.
What am I going to do about you, Haley Hinch?
30
Haley
I knew I was blushing after bumping into Trace. Maybe he hadn’t noticed. He seemed to be blushing too, but then again, his entire chiseled body was pink from the shower.
A massive body rippling with muscle from head to toe…
I slipped into my room and closed the door behind me.
The towel around his waist hadn’t hidden much. Trace was a beautiful monster of muscle. Shoulders and biceps that bulged without effort. Pecs you could bounce a quarter off. A six-pack of abs that I wanted to spread butter on and then lick up…
“Get a hold of yourself,” I told myself in the mirror while drying my hair. “One kiss in the forest and suddenly you’re pining over this guy?”
But it wasn’t just the kiss in the forest. Trace had been looking at me since we got to Redding Base, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t look back at him. It was tough not to. He looked good. Men like him were made to be looked at and admired.
It just so happened that he was my team lead.
And then there was the fact that I was already involved in a relationship at Redding Base. Hell, now it was two relationships. I didn’t know what was going on with me and Derek, but I knew it was more than just physical. It was a continuation of the flirty crushes we had on each other back at McCall. And it grew more intense every time we slept together.
Then why can’t I shake this feeling about Trace?
Everything felt different with him now. We had shared something out there in the forest. The kind of intimacy no normal couple would ever experience. It was normal to have feelings for him now, and for him to maybe have feelings for me…
Did he have feelings for me? The thought spawned a swarm of butterflies in my stomach.
I tossed aside my hair towel in annoyance. I needed to stop this right now. I was already with Foxy and Derek, which was risky enough by itself if anyone else found out. I couldn’t start thinking about my team lead that way.
From this moment on, I won’t think of him that way any more, I decided with a confident nod.
That’s when Trace walked into my room.
He didn’t knock. He didn’t do that thing where you open the door a crack and ask if it’s okay to come in. He just opened the door and strode in like it was his room, closing the door behind him and then standing in front of it as if to block my escape. It was such a dominant, possessive move that my entire body quivered at the sight of him, still wearing just a towel around his waist.
I was wearing only a towel too. But compared to the intimacy we’d shared in the fire shelter, this was mild by comparison.
Trace set his square jaw and gazed at me passionately. His eyes were the most delicious shade of caramel I’d ever seen, a shade I could stare into for hours. “Haley,” he said in his deep rumble of a voice. “I…”
“I know,” I breathed. “Me too.”
Relief filled his eyes, then hunger.
He crossed the space between us and wrapped his arms around my body. We were like two starving animals feasting on each other, a tangle of lips and arms and fingers, fingers which gripped and squeezed and held on for dear life.
Trace ripped my towel off my body and tossed it aside. His fell to the floor. His narrow waist was criss-crossed with bulging veins and the lines of his pelvis. His penis was devoid of hair, all of it shaved off except a scant shadow around the base. His manhood was massive and erect, curving slightly upward and glistening on the tip.
I sucked in my breath at the sight of him. He was beautiful in all the ways I had expected, but seeing it in person still took my breath away.
I desperately wanted to taste him, to drop to my knees and worship his cock, but before I could Trace lifted me off the ground. I wrapped my arms around his statuesque body as he gripped my ass with both hands and lowered me onto himself. I was drenched with juices, enough that the tip of his cock slid inside with ease.
“Ohh,” he moaned. “Oh Haley…”
“Trace,” I breathed.
I surrendered completely to him as he lowered my ass, spearing me completely on his cock. The pleasure was intense and sudden, like a lightning bolt, but rather than lasting only a flash it continued on, and on, and on.
After nearly dying in the forest, all of my senses were heightened. The pleasure of his cock filling me was twice as incredible, the taste of his tongue in my mouth twice as sweet. We didn’t just desire each other in that fervent, erotic moment. We needed each other in a deep, primal way.
“Don’t let go,” he demanded, like a man who was saving my life. “Don’t ever let go.”
“Never,” I breathed.
I clung to his body and savored being alive as he held me in the air with his strong arms, impaling me onto him again and again until we came together in a flash of euphoria and bliss.
31
Haley
“I’m surprised you had the strength for that,” I said as we cuddled in bed. I was draped across his wide chest, just like how we’d been after surviving the wildfire.
He arched an eyebrow. “I’ve surprised a lot of people in my career, first in the Marines and then here. But I don’t think anyone’s been surprised by my strength.”
I poked him in the ribs. It was like poking a cement driveway. “You know what I mean. After everything we’d done out there, the only thing I wanted to do was collapse in bed.”
“Oh, so you didn’t want me to come in here and…”
“Fuck my brains out?” I finished for him.
/> He frowned. “I would have said made passionate love. But yes.”
I kissed him lightly on the chest. “No, I’m very glad you did. And I’m glad you had the strength for it.”
“When the need is great, a good smokejumper can dig deep for a burst of energy.”
“So I was a need, not a want?” I clarified.
“You’d better believe it, Haley.”
I sighed against his chest, more satisfied than I’d ever been in my life. It was the burst of endorphins my body needed after two days toiling in the forest.
“Well would you look at that,” Trace rumbled.
He reached behind us and pulled aside the window blinds. My room faced east across the runway where the sun was peeking above the Cascade Range, spreading a beautiful orange sunrise across the sky.
“I didn’t think I’d live to see that,” I whispered.
“Me neither.” He rubbed my back comfortingly. “Glad we did, though.”
Trace’s fingers and palm were relaxing me so quickly that I was close to falling asleep on his warm body. “Am I the first subordinate you’ve slept with?” I asked absently. “You’re the first superior I’ve slept with. Just in case you thought I was one of those Air Force girls.”
I felt his body stiffen underneath me. “I’ve never done this before,” he said curtly. “Is that what you think about this? Just a subordinate sleeping with a superior?”
“What? No!” I pushed up onto an elbow to look down at him. “That’s not how I see this at all.”
“Then how do you see it?”
“I don’t see it any way,” I replied defensively. “I haven’t thought about it until just now. I was just mumbling whatever came to my head. I didn’t mean to alarm you…”
“I should go,” Trace said. He rose and swung his tree trunk legs over the bed and bent down to grab his towel, giving me a view of his tight little butt in the process. As he stood and started to leave, I did the one thing I could to stop him.
I jumped on his back.
“You’re not going anywhere!” I hissed, wrapping my arms and legs around him like a spider monkey. “I was just making a joke. You’re supposed to laugh at jokes, not get all defensive and clam up like I threatened to blackmail you to Callaway.”