Slow Burn
Page 3
My brain is still rattled, with words and thoughts swirling around. Ty, naked, chest, cock, shoulders, belly, hair, calves, eyes… the events of the last twenty minutes have me thoroughly discombobulated. Beau runs up to me and drops the red ball at my feet. I pick it up and toss it, and he runs after it, then brings it back for me to throw again.
After a few throws, I take a seat in the shade on the patio. I look over Ty’s backyard and see an old rope swing hanging from the branches of the biggest oak. There’s a small vegetable garden to one side, and a shed that looks to be still under construction. It’s so peaceful here, away from the city. Within minutes I find myself starting to relax.
Beau and I continue to play catch as my brain calms. At one point, instead of bringing the ball to me, he goes to the pool, drops it in the water, then starts barking at me. I get up, grab the ball out of the water, and throw it for him. He retrieves it, then drops it in the water again. It dawns on me that he wants me to play pool catch with him, like he was doing with Ty.
“Sorry, Beau. Didn’t bring my suit.”
I walk back to the patio, then throw the ball into the yard. Again, the dog drops the ball in the pool and starts barking. That’s when the twisted part of my brain decides to speak up.
Take off your clothes, Jess. Get in the pool and play catch with him. Your naked body will be in the same water that Ty’s naked body was in a little while ago. That’s so sexy.
It’s a silly thought. What’s even sillier is that less than two minutes later, I’ve nearly talked myself into it. Ty won’t be back for a while, and there’s nobody else in sight. Between the oak trees and the distance to the next house, I’d pretty much be guaranteed a private swim.
The only problem might arise if Ty happens to come back just a few minutes after leaving, and catches me naked in his pool. I seriously doubt they’d call him to a fire, then say, “Oh, never mind. Sorry!” At least not this quickly. And what if he were to catch me? I could just tell him it looked inviting and I didn’t think he’d mind. What man is going to get upset about finding a naked woman in his pool?
I take off my shoes, then my shirt. My pants follow, and I carefully drape my clothes over the back of the chair. The breeze feels good against my body. I think about going in with my bra and underwear on, but that seems stupid, so I strip them off, too. Then I casually walk across the grass to the pool, without a stitch of clothing. My nipples stiffen as I stick a toe in the water and find it a little cool. Once I start down the steps, though, my body quickly adjusts. Then I hold my breath, duck under water, and swim to the middle of the pool.
When I surface, the most amazing feeling of calm comes over me. The water feels wonderful against my body, and my breasts feel lighter now that the water is keeping gravity at bay. I grab the ball and throw it for Beau, and for the next twenty minutes, we play catch. It’s like meditation, and eventually I’m totally at peace, and the sense of dread I’ve felt since yesterday’s fire seems to dissipate. I get the feeling that somehow, everything will be okay. This water must be magical.
I remember that Ty was naked in this pool, and I suddenly realize how intensely horny I am. It’s been months since I’ve had sex, at least with another human, and being so close to this handsome man has had an pronounced effect on me. Not to mention seeing that cock and feeling his rough face against mine during the half-second he kissed me.
One hand begins to massage my breast, playing with the nipple, which responds to my touch. The other slides down over my belly, across my trimmed pubic hair, and lightly touches around my clit. I close my eyes and imagine that it’s Ty touching me.
I’m jerked out of my sexy thoughts by Beau’s barking. I quickly grab his ball and throw it for him, then laugh at myself. I can’t masturbate in this man’s pool. That would be thoughtless and rude and… very sexy. But I can’t. In fact, it’s time to get out of the water, feed this dog, and go home.
I exit the pool and walk back to the patio, standing on the concrete as the water drips from my body. I imagine Ty standing there inside, watching me, and can almost feel his eyes on me. When I open the sliding door, though, there’s nobody there. I head down the hallway, looking for a bathroom or a linen closet. His bedroom door is open and I see his blue towel on the floor, so I pick it up. It’s still damp, but it’s not wet. I sniff it, but it just smells like chlorine. I towel off, acutely aware that microscopic bits from Ty’s naked body are mixing with mine.
Returning to the patio, I slip back into my clothes. Part of me wants to be nosy and look around the house, snooping for clues as to who this man is and what he’s all about. Common sense gets the best of me, though, and I take Beau inside and feed him. While he’s eating, I put the pie in the refrigerator.
I wait outside for Beau, and when he’s done with his food, he walks out and nudges me, then goes out into the yard. I give him time to do his business, then lead him back inside. After I say goodbye to my new friend, I leave through the front door, locking it behind me.
Then I get in my car and hurry home because I really, really need that orgasm.
Chapter 4
Ty
I ordinarily don’t mind too much when I’m called in on a day off. Knowing that there’s a fire somewhere that requires more manpower than is available at the four station houses is reason enough to get me away from whatever mundane thing I’m probably doing. This time, though, I really wished I could have stayed home with Jess. Who knows where things might have led?
Sure, she may have had innocent enough intentions in bringing me that pie, but my actions were anything but innocent after I saw her in my driveway. I could have easily excused myself to put on some clothes, but it was so much more fun see her reactions at my walking around wearing only a towel.
Jess is a very attractive woman, something I sensed despite her looking so messy at the shelter fire. That day, she was nothing more than a couple of big blue eyes surrounded by a smudged face, mussed-up hair, and a dirty work uniform. Even her nice tits were hidden at the time. In my house, though, they practically jumped out at me from her T-shirt.
She also seems very sweet, although there was something about the way she acted around me that seemed weird. I guess it was because of the towel. Regardless, I’ve already decided I want to see her again. I just have to figure out how to do that casually, because I’m not ready to ask her out just yet.
It’s dark by the time I get back home from the fire. It was another big structure fire, this time on the west side of town. It’s rare that we have two fires like that in a month, much less two days in a row. Unlike the fire at Jess’s shelter, we were able to save seventy-five percent of this one. No injuries to either civilians or my guys, although my friend Manuel was treated for smoke inhalation.
The following day is another day off, though I’m on-call again. I have plans to finish the backyard shed I’ve been working on for the last month. I take a ride into town to get some stain and paint from Home Depot, and on my way back decide to swing by the remains of the shelter to see if anything was salvageable.
Apparently, I’m not the only one who had that idea, because there’s a car in the parking lot as I approach. When I pull in, I see a lone figure in the middle of the rubble, and quickly realize that it’s Jess. Guess it’s my lucky day. I park the truck and see those big blue eyes as I approach. They’re red and puffy, though. This has got to be difficult for her, so maybe I can cheer her up a bit.
“Hey, you,” I say. “I was driving by and saw you here. Thought I’d stop to thank you for taking care of Beau yesterday.”
She smiles wanly. “My pleasure. He’s so much fun.” Her hands are black from ash and soot, and there’s a dark smudge on her forehead.
“He didn’t con you into playing catch with him, did he?”
“Actually, he did. I didn’t mind, though.”
“The problem is, he eventually would have wanted you to throw the ball from the pool. That’s his thing—he finds it funny, I think.”
“Anything worth saving?” I ask, looking around the charred remains.
“No, I think it’s hopeless. Somewhere in here is a fireproof box with our backup hard disk. That’s the only thing that would be impossible to replace.” Her eyes tear up. “Look at all this.”
Suddenly, she’s full-on crying. I wrap her up in my arms and she responds by hugging my waist and putting her head on my shoulder as she sobs. I’m six-one, and guess that Jess is about five-five or five-six. I realize immediately how delicious her soft breasts feel pressed against me. I try to ignore that, though, because it makes me feel guilty for having sex-related thoughts at a tender moment like this.
After about a minute, she pulls away, dabbing at her eyes with her T-shirt.
“I’m sorry,” she says through her tears. “I’m just so sad about this.”
“No, no, it’s no problem. Glad to offer my shoulder.”
She sees that her tears have left a wet spot on my shirt. “Oh, shit, look what I’ve done.”
“Seriously, it’s okay. Come on, I’ll help you look for your hard disk. Show me where about where it was.”
Jess walks gingerly through the burned pieces of her past, then stops to look around.
“The office was right about here. I think. It’s so hard to tell.”
We both start moving pieces of crap, digging around. It’s tedious, shitty work, especially in the hot summer sun, and soon we’re both drenched with sweat and covered in soot. I really don’t want to tell her that those supposedly fireproof boxes often melt in a blaze like the one that claimed this building. After half an hour, we’ve covered only about a hundred square feet.
“By the way, I’m going to need that pie recipe,” I say.
She looks up and smiles a little. “Don’t tell me you ate it all.”
“Not quite,” I say, “but I ate half. And I left the other half on the counter while I was in the shower this morning and Beau finished it off. From the look of things, he liked it as much as I did.”
She laughs. “I’ll bake you another one for you helping me today.”
“Promise?” I’m going to hold her to this.
“Promise. Maybe I’ll bake a separate one for Beau this time.”
We get back to sifting through the layers of burned materials.
“This is hopeless,” Jess says after a while. “You don’t have to stay, Ty. I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than dig through all this.”
At that same moment, I move a piece of what looks to have been a metal desk or table. Underneath it I glimpse the corner of a charred gray box that looks like it could be the item we’ve been searching for. I move some more trash and dig it out of the ashes. Sure enough, I’ve found it.
“Did it look something like this?” I say, holding it aloft.
“Oh my god! That’s it!” The delight and relief on her face are worth the sweat.
We take the box to the parking lot to inspect it, and the lock appears to have fused as it melted. I grab a crowbar from my truck and after a minute or two, the top of the box opens up enough for Jess to slip her hand inside. She pulls out an external hard drive enclosure that looks to have avoided damage, at least externally.
“I don’t believe it,” she says, stunned at this bit of good fortune. “Thank you! I’m so happy!”
She stands and kisses me on the lips. It only lasts a split second, but I can still feel her lips as she’s doing a cute little happy dance on the pavement in front of me. Her face is glistening with sweat and smudged with ash, and her clothing is beyond dirty. She’s still beautiful, though, and those big blue eyes are no longer filled with sadness.
I want to take this further, to kiss her again, or at least ask her to dinner to explore this chemistry we seem to have. Only I would feel like an asshole doing it today, especially here at the site of her misery. Better to wait, I guess.
“Well, my work here is done,” I say. “I should get home. I’ve trying to finish a project I’ve been working on.”
“Thank you so much. It would have taken me all day to do this alone.”
“You’re welcome. And I’m serious about that pie.” When she brings it to me, I can ask her out without feeling like a creep about it.
I get in my truck and drive away. I get about a mile before I realize I don’t want to wait. What if Jess takes a week or two to make that pie? A month, even? Or what if she never gets around to it, or thinks I was just joking about it?
I’d rather not risk that. I make a U-turn in the middle of the street and head back quickly. I’m back at the site of the shelter about five minutes after I left.
Sadly, Jess is already gone.
Chapter 5
Jess
The first day or two after Ty helped me find the fireproof box, I considered baking him another pie. Actually, I did bake him another pie, but I ended up eating it myself, one piece every day for breakfast. I needed to be bad with my diet because it gave me some pleasure in an otherwise difficult week. The scale of the work lying ahead of me, to help get a new shelter up and running, was bad enough, but Grace let me know by mid-week that it would be two months before the architect she hired could even have the plans ready. At least she decided to rebuild on the same site, so there won’t be any need for a real estate search.
But my emotional stability is only one reason why I ate Ty’s pie, rather than taking it to him. The bigger reason is that I convinced myself that he was just being polite about it, that he didn’t really want me to bake him another pie.
Why would I think that? Maybe because he’s so damned handsome, and I’m just a regular girl. A man like that can have any woman he wants, so why would he even be flirting with me? I can’t help but think that flirting I felt was a figment of my horny imagination, and that this man was merely being nice to me.
Then again, maybe he just liked the damn pie and wanted some more.
Anyway, I’ve been a wreck all week, and rational thinking is difficult right now. Maybe I’ll bake him that pie and take it out to his place this coming week. Better late than never.
I decide to go for a run around Two Bridges Lake to work off some of these pie calories. I haven’t felt like exercising since the fire and I really need to get back into that part of my routine. It’s a very hot June afternoon and it isn’t long before I’m sweaty and sticky and feel terrific as my muscles stretch out.
I make two laps, for a total of three miles. I know I could do another lap, but I’m afraid of getting heat stroke. As I head back to my car, I pass children playing in the Center Street Fountain. Since I’m in no hurry, I buy an ice-cold bottled water from the guy with the hot dog cart and sit on a bench to watch the kids. The fountain is only a few months old, and is just a big concrete circle with a couple dozen jets of water that spray up into the air from time to time. Sometimes they erupt all at once, and other times they spray in patterns. Children, and sometimes adults, run around inside the circle, squealing and getting drenched. Watching them takes me back to when I was a kid.
An hour goes by and I am totally relaxed for the first time all week. It’s late afternoon and there are only a few kids left, and two women other than me. Time to get home, although all I have to look forward to is another Friday night alone.
As I stand, I see a very young kid, maybe three years old, staring down at the hole that produces one of the water jets. He’s going to get hit in the face, I think, a split second before water erupts and catches him somewhere around his eye, knocking the little guy backwards. His feet slip out from under him and his head lands hard on the concrete. It all happens in a heartbeat, and then he’s absolutely still.
I rush to his side, arriving at the same time as one of the women, who starts screaming hysterically. The child’s eyes are glassy and he’s not making a sound, but he’s breathing. I know instinctively that this is his mother, and that she’s useless in her cu
rrent state.
I look at the other woman, who’s frozen to her spot. “Call 9-1-1!” I shout. She looks at me, confused, and I scream, “Now!”
Meanwhile, the mother is screaming and I’m trying to tell her not to move her son. All this time, the water jets are turning on and off, drenching the two of us, and the other kids have surrounded us and are shouting. It’s a madhouse, but what little emergency training I’ve gotten from watching TV tells me to keep this boy still until someone arrives who knows that the hell they’re doing.
Seconds tick by and the little boy is still motionless, with no reaction from his eyes. He’s still breathing, though. The hot dog guy is smart enough to pull the shade umbrella from his cart and bring it over, and he opens it enough to prevent the arcs of water from landing on us as we wait with the kid. Nice gesture, but a few hundred gallons too late.
After what seems like an eternity, I hear sirens in the distance and see a firetruck driving towards us. Two guys climb out, one rushing over while the other runs off in a different direction entirely. I recognize the firefighter who reaches us as one of the guys I met at Ty’s station, which makes sense because it’s the closest fire station. Why would 9-1-1 send firefighters instead of an ambulance, though?
As if he read my mind, the firefighter says, “EMTs are on their way. Tell me what happened.”
The mother manages to get the story told, and I add a detail or two. Suddenly, the water jets stop and the sound level drops accordingly. As the firefighter looks at the little boy, I hear more sirens and see an ambulance coming towards us.
“How is he?”
The voice comes from behind me, but I immediately recognize it as Ty’s. I turn, and sure enough it’s him. Ty seems equally surprised to see me.
“Probably a concussion,” says the other guy. “His breathing and pulse are normal.”
“Is this…?” He stops before completing the question, and I realize he wants to know if this is my child.