"Are you sure?"
"Are you sure?" he countered.
Slowly, hesitantly, she nodded. Then, just in case he wasn't totally convinced, she wrapped her fingers around the back of his neck and drew him down for a kiss. He came unresisting, his hot lips snagging against her own; she opened her mouth, forcing his to follow, and thrust her tongue between them. He was too distracted by her kiss to notice the hand that crept between their bodies until it gripped the bulge in his pants with dedicated firmness.
"God," he broke away from their twining tongues to groan.
They dispensed with their clothes in a frenzy. Alex lost herself in a tangle of sheets and a frantic whirlwind of limbs; their naked bodies became so indistinguishable for a moment that the only way she knew how to tell the difference between them was by identifying the coarse bandages that flashed in and out of focus. She let her hands climb every inch of him as he kneaded her breasts. Her breathy little moans only increased the pressure of his hands on her. Now that she had tasted his touch, she craved to know his full strength. She wanted Landon as unleashed as she was in that moment.
Scratch that: she wanted him, full stop. Where the hell did that damn condom get to . . .?
Alex had her answer in the next instant. Landon gripped her inner thighs and parted her legs; her muscles twitched to life in halfhearted protest, but even her full resistance wouldn't have been enough to stop him. He was a man on a mission, an alpha determined to take what had been laid bare before him, and Alex's whimpers only urged him on. He gripped his sheathed cock and slid it inside her, inch by careful inch.
Alex's head dropped back onto the bed. Her breath came in great, shuddering gasps, and she stared hard at the ceiling, her vision swimming. No matter how she tried to control her panting, every additional inch Landon filled her made her want to cry anew. It was too much—it was not enough. When would it end, and how could she prevent it from ever coming to a conclusion?
How could she have even imagined there was an adequate substitute for having a man's rock-hard length filling her to the brim?
"Ahhh," she half-hissed, half-purred, and gripped his shoulders.
"Too much for you?" His voice was a velvet whisper. She was surprised she could hear it over the thunderous crashing of her heart. Her lonely bedroom suddenly seemed overfull of noise. Even Landon's eyes, focused tightly on her in the dark, spoke volumes more than she was prepared to hear. She thought she saw a truth buried there that was now suddenly, starkly laid bare: This wasn't just a hookup for him. He had craved her too badly for too long for the itch to be satisfied with a one-time scratch.
Even in the darkness, with his cock buried inside her, Alex saw the admiration in his eyes. It was more than purely physical for him . . . and for her, as well. The fact that it was Landon Brenner, the driven, maddeningly insistent man in uniform filling her, couldn't be denied or ignored.
"Fuck me," she whispered. She had to hear the rough word spoken out loud. She had to be the first to put a name to this thing, and she would give it the hardest name she knew. She would own their union, shape it, as best she could in that inescapable moment.
Landon began to move, thrusting in and out of her with enough force to propel her hips halfway across the bed. Alex clung to him, gritting her teeth as she rode his rhythm. The pain from having him inside her soon gave way to pleasure, and the burning friction became a desperately-needed deep massage. He pulled her right leg up over his shoulder, angled himself, and plunged, striking the secret node inside her, and Alex belted out a cry that seemed to shake the walls of the house they were sharing.
"Landon," she breathed urgently in the aftermath. "Landon—!"
"I got you," he said. It was a nonsensical assertion, but combined with the strength of his arms banded tightly around her, hugging her close, the words overwhelmed her.
She jolted and came; she crested and fell, carried away on an orgasm so powerful it was almost enough to knock her senseless. The deafening crash of her own blood drowned out her cries. She grabbed the sheet in fistfuls as her body writhed.
"God . . . you look so . . .!" But she would never know what she looked like in that moment, because suddenly Landon was following her over the brink and flowing into her. A moment later, he collapsed in a spent heap on top of her.
Alex stared at the ceiling spinning overhead. She tried to control her breathing as she came back to earth, but it was difficult with Landon's massive form sprawled on top of her.
Then again, it wasn't an altogether unpleasant feeling.
The opposite, actually.
Just as she was about to tentatively circle her arms around him, Landon pulled back. He withdrew from her and rolled onto his back. "Guess I'll head on back to my room now." The bed creaked as he swung his legs around.
Alex rolled over and caught his wrist before he could stand. "No." She breathed the simple word into the darkness, but it still seemed to shake the room like an earthquake. "Stay. I mean—it's all right if you stay."
Maybe she had only imagined the reluctance toward leaving in his voice. Maybe Landon had gotten what he wanted—and so had she. Hadn't she? The pressure steadily building inside her for four years had been released, hadn't it? It wasn't a bad thing to want sex.
But it was a bad thing to make it into anything more.
Landon said nothing. The mattress sagged beneath his weight once more as he took her in his arms and settled down on top of the tangled blankets with her.
Alex didn't protest. She didn't even try to pull the covers up over them. His body burned like a furnace beside hers, keeping her warm as she drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 9
Landon
He passed every night of the next week in Alex's arms.
So why did it feel like his angel still kept him at arm's length?
The sex was heavenly. It was out of this world. Every time she invited him into bed with her, Landon felt like he grew wings of his own. For a woman who claimed to have gone through an extended dry spell, she sure knew how to work him. Landon let her take anything and everything she wanted from him; he always came down from the high feeling like it was time deliciously spent.
But regular sex with Alex didn't make living together any easier. They were learning how to cooperate both inside and outside of the bedroom, but they still differed on one incredibly important opinion: namely, where and when it would be all right for Landon to return to work.
"It's too soon." She stared him down over her dinner plate. She had barely touched the meal he had spent the past two hours cooking, and Landon wondered if she was on to him. His mother had always told him most arguments could be solved over a good meal, and he had taken that advice to heart in an attempt to sway Alex to his side.
"It's not too soon." True, he didn't share her medical background, but Landon still felt certain he knew his body better than the woman who insisted on working it into a fevered sweat night and day. "Hank's been calling me. Some of the new volunteers aren't cutting it. He wants to know when I can return to the fire. I told him my shoulder's good, but there's still the matter of the evaluation—"
"It's too soon," Alex repeated stubbornly. "And I'm basing my opinion on your injuries, Landon."
"No. You're not." He surprised himself by arguing the point. "There's something else, Alex. I've sensed it all along, even when you were taking care of me back at the hospital. So what is it?"
"It's nothing outside of what I just told you."
"Bullshit." He met her eyes. "You're holding me back. I don't know why. But maybe it's time I make one thing clear: Fighting fires is my job, but it isn't something I just do for a paycheck. I volunteered to come down here."
"I get that, Landon. I do. And . . . I know I don't have any right to be so insistent. I'm sorry."
Landon blinked. He sat back in his chair. "Are you worried about me?" he pressed cautiously. "Is that what this is all about? You being worried I'll get injured again?"
"I have to go to
work." Alex rose abruptly.
Landon caught her arm before she could escape. He kept his pressure gentle but firm. He didn't want her getting out of this conversation so easily. It was his life, his career, on the line. What's more, he suspected his very sanity might hang in the balance. If he wasn't out there making himself available for those who needed him . . .
"Do you really?" he asked her.
"One of my few paid shifts," she said grimly.
He believed her. He let his hand slip from her arm. "I'll pack your dinner up for you." He rose also. Guess it's dinner with Raphael again tonight.
"That won't be necessary."
"You're not eating out of the vending machine anymore," he said. "Not while I'm around."
Alex spun on her way out. "What? Who told you that I—?"
"Cherise told me. Dyna confirmed it. Both of them say you're a fan of the strawberry toaster strudels." Landon crossed his bandaged arms and leaned against the sink. "Not exactly a balanced meal."
Alex bestowed him with a tired, crooked smile. "Well, I didn't have you around before, did I?"
He held onto those words for a long time. Half an hour after she'd gone, once he’d assured himself she wasn't going to come back and surprise him, Landon made his way into her bedroom.
"Don't look at me like that," he muttered to Raphael as he nudged open Alex's door. "Not like I'm not in here every night anyway."
But he couldn't shake the guilty conscience that hung off his shoulders like a lead shroud. He knew what he was about to do was wrong, but he couldn't stop himself now. He had to get to the bottom of what was going on with Alex. He had to break through the last of the emotional barriers she had erected. If he didn't, it wouldn't be just his career on the line, but their blossoming relationship. He wanted them to succeed.
So he opened her closet and pulled out the cardboard box he had seen stowed there. Scrawled across one side in a hasty hand that he recognized from hospital forms was one name: Henry.
Raphael wound around his legs, purring, as he knelt down to sift through the contents. He would just skim a few items off the top, he told himself. A few photos.
"Handsome fella," he told Raphael. He wasn't surprised at the revelation, of course. Henry's picture could still be found almost everywhere around the house, although he'd noticed in recent days that several of the framed photographs had gone missing. He was unsurprised to find them now at the top of the box's secreted stash.
His fingers grazed something cool and metallic. He pulled the object out and found that it wasn't just some token, but a medal. He let the short ribbon run over his fingers reverently as he turned it around in the light. "I recognize this," he mentioned to the circling cat. "This is awarded to police officers when—"
His throat closed over the words. He set the medal back where he’d found it and pulled out a newspaper clipping. He stared into the grainy face of Henry, seeing the headline. His eyes caught on a series of smaller words below.
Killed in the line of duty. Survived by his wife.
Landon sat down, leaning his back against the bed, and buried his face in his hands. Images of Pete flashed before his eyes: his friend laughing, his friend grinning that damn goofy grin he’d had for one summer only when his tooth got knocked out skateboarding, his friend reaching for him as the flood wall raced toward them . . .
Henry was dead, and Pete was long dead. Still, their ghosts lived on and only seemed to gain power over those living, until their memories morphed into an unshakeable stranglehold. Who was he to help Alex get over her dead husband when he had never really let go of the tragedy of that summer? He would be a hypocrite of the highest order.
But he had to try something. If he couldn't break them both out of this miserable routine of anguish and heartbreak, then maybe he could break her out. She thought she was saving him, but maybe she was the one who needed rescuing.
Landon replaced the box inside the closet, closed the door, and went back into the living room. He called Hank.
"I'm coming in," he said.
"Yeah? You been cleared for duty yet?"
"I'm feelin' one hundred percent myself again, Chief, I'm telling you. Having Alex take care of me has done me wonders. My arm still aches sometimes, but my mobility is back. I'm going to take the exam with medical again."
"I'll send Kingston over to help sweet talk some of the female medics," Hank said.
"You really don't have to do that," Landon replied. "Besides, what would your sister say?"
"Hell, it was Sook's idea. She brought it up days ago."
Landon grinned. "Glad to know the family misses me."
"We need you, brother. Now more than ever. Get your ass down to the station and let me know how it goes."
"Will do.”
Landon hung up and turned.
Raphael stood in the doorway, round eyes glinting gold, his whiskers puckered in a frown. "Don't look at me like that," Landon repeated.
Chapter 10
Alex
His arms were a scarred, angry red map. Try as she might, she couldn't picture them any other way. But they must have been whole once, completely unmarred. They would have been beautiful arms then . . .
And they were beautiful arms now. Alex had seen her fair share of burns in her career, but never had she seen any that spoke to her the way Landon's did. On him, they were a tattoo—a signature—of a life she thought she could only barely comprehend . . . but one that, deep in her heart, she thought she knew all too well. His arms were the arms of a man who didn't shy from danger.
And she couldn't stop thinking about them.
"Lex, are you listening to me?"
Alex snapped back to the present—and to the rude realization that she was standing in Scott's office, once more being undressed in every way that wasn't literal. His eyes dragged down her length even as his nasty tongue wagged between his teeth, verbally lashing her over and over again. Her scrubs had never felt so tissue-thin.
"So where the hell is that form you promised me?" he demanded. "Gabriella said that you said you already faxed it over to me, but hell if my fax machine has made a single peep this afternoon!'
"Gabby must have been mistaken." Alex hated to throw Gabriella under the bus, but she knew the receptionist would forgive her for not calling Scott out on his own error. "What I told her was that I would get it faxed over to you by the end of the day."
"I needed it three hours ago!" he retorted. "In what world is 'getting it to me by the end of the day' at all acceptable?"
"I'm sorry, but if I had known the timeline was expedited—"
"What kind of operation do you think I'm running around here? You think I'm at my leisure these days?"
"No," Alex responded firmly, "but I had no idea you intended to discharge our patient early. In fact, the last several patients you’ve let go have been released without informing the relevant staff until the last minute. If we're going to stay ahead of this fire—"
"You missed one of your check-ins this morning." Scott flipped the conversation so quickly on her that Alex was momentarily left mentally reeling. She watched as he pulled a clipboard off the stack piled on his desk and analyzed it. It was better than having his eyes on her curves, at least. "The same patient, if I'm not mistaken. He needed his vitals checked. Cherise had to do it. Did Cherise fill out the form, as well?"
"Yes, I missed it," Alex said. "I'm sorry. I've already apologized to all parties involved, and Cherise has updated me on the patient's progress. The form is—"
"At this point, I would prefer for Cherise to fill it out," Scott interrupted.
Somehow she managed to keep her tone even. "I will let her know, and make sure she gets a blank copy."
"I mean, what's with you?" Scott leaned back in his chair suddenly, chuckled derisively, and shook his head. His personality seemed to shift again, and the hair on Alex's neck rose. Their exchange had been semi-professional so far, but now, she could see the smug former frat boy in him once more rise
to the surface. "I heard you're shacking up with one of the firemen. He keeping you busy all night long? Is that why you're so tired?"
"Everyone is tired." Alex felt a howl rising in her to meet his disgusting accusation, one she knew she couldn't vent. "This fire is straining everyone to their limit."
"Yeah? That guy straining you to your limit?"
Alex turned to leave without a further word.
Scott called after her: "You know what, Lex? Don't bother about the form. I think it's better you just head home. I bet there's no place else you'd rather be, right?"
Go figure. These were paid hours. She stormed by Gabriella and snatched an entire stack of blank forms without a word. She fought the urge to vindictively run them through the shredder on her way out. Any revenge she thought she was taking on Scott would only negatively impact those coworkers she could actually stand. Instead, she dropped them on Cherise's desk with a note furthering her earlier apology.
As soon as she got home, she called out, almost mutinously, for the man Scott had accused her of tangling with. "Landon?"
The house was empty, silent as a tomb, save for Raphael's meow echoing to her from a distant, desolate room. Alex set her bag down and wandered into the kitchen.
She had gotten used to him being there, she realized. She ran her hand over the clean stack of drying dishes. The kitchen sparkled. It had taken some growing pains to get here, but now Landon was proving an indispensable presence to have around the house. When he wasn't here, she felt his absence acutely. It was like a knife digging into her chest and carving the heart that resided there, the heart that had only just started to beat again . . .
The front door opened, and she turned, abandoning the dishes as she headed for the kitchen's threshold.
"Alex . . .?” Landon called out into the house. "You home?"
Californian Wildfire Fighters: The Complete Series Page 18