by Tory Temple
“I remember.” Christopher slid his backpack off one shoulder and placed it on the bench. “But we didn’t bring lunch.”
“That’s not why we stopped.”
Chris approached Morgan from the front. His eyes twinkled and he shrugged out of his jacket, then helped Morgan to do the same. “I know.”
Their motorcycle jackets were not exactly as soft as a blanket, and there was the hard elbow padding to deal with, but they were better under Morgan’s back than the splintery wood of the table. And with Chris on top of him, Morgan didn’t care what was under him, really.
Two pairs of riding pants lay in a crumpled heap next to the table. Chris fumbled over Morgan’s head for the lube he’d stashed in his pack and swore when he couldn’t immediately find it. Morgan smiled to himself and began stroking his own cock. He loved being out here with only the singing cicadas to remind them they weren’t alone.
“Ha,” Chris eventually muttered. Morgan assumed he’d found the lube.
His assumptions were proved correct a moment later when he felt two warm fingers probing him. An abundance of lube allowed them to slide in with practically no effort at all, and Morgan sighed with pleasure. Chris was good at a lot of things, but sex was one or two on Morgan’s list, depending on if Chris had made his mom’s German chocolate cake that day.
“Ready?” Chris whispered. His hand was at the head of his prick, nudging gently against Morgan’s ass. No foreplay. Morgan was okay with that. His own dick was already leaking into his palm.
Chris was watching him intently, so Morgan gave a short nod and let himself relax even further. He was rewarded with a hard kiss on his mouth and the feel of Chris’s cock easing inside him. Morgan took him in with a quiet breath and didn’t clench until he knew Chris was buried inside.
The insects hummed ever louder. Chris kept himself very still, and Morgan took a moment to adjust to the sensation of the heavy prick inside him. He bottomed for Christopher occasionally, not often, but Morgan always wondered why he didn’t do it more frequently. The boy knew how to fuck.
Chris demonstrated his talent now, pulling out just a fraction and then sliding back in. He did this again, and then again, until all Morgan could focus on was the tiny back and forth movements of Chris’s cock.
“Chris,” he murmured. Morgan no longer stroked himself but merely kept his cock in a tight fist, allowing the movement of their bodies to provide the friction.
The small in-and-out thrusts became longer and deeper, and Morgan could hear Chris making soft sounds of pleasure in his throat. One of Chris’s hands found its way into Morgan’s hair and curled in a fist. The slight sensation of tugging made Morgan’s dick throb harder.
Morgan didn’t know how long they’d been out there by the time he couldn’t wait anymore. It felt for a moment like it had been days outside in nature, just the two of them, just the cicadas and the wooden table, and Morgan had a single, childlike moment of wishing their lives could be just this—just the wilderness, just the two of them. His worries had no place here.
He didn’t tell Chris he was going to come. Morgan didn’t know it himself until it was too late, and then the warm drops on his hand and belly felt like rain. He shivered as if cold, even though he wasn’t, and the tingling from his balls traveled throughout his entire body. Morgan didn’t make a sound, but he could tell Chris knew anyway.
“Oh, shit,” Chris whispered. He drove in deeply and bucked his hips, and Morgan couldn’t tell if it was an effort to stop his orgasm or bring it on. Either way, he could feel Chris trembling above him and hear him take rapid breaths as he came.
The insects stopped buzzing as soon as Chris relaxed into a heap atop Morgan. “Damn,” he mumbled into Morgan’s neck. “How am I supposed to ride home?”
Morgan snorted affectionately and held Chris tight. “We’ll go slow.”
CHAPTER THREE
WHEN MORGAN tried to remember later where he’d been the day of The Incident, he couldn’t. It was only by looking at his day planner that he realized he’d been giving a late-afternoon class on wildland building codes at Station Fourteen.
Trip Hallwell, the captain on that particular shift, opened the classroom door and approached Morgan with intent. Morgan glanced at him but kept on teaching, since there were five minutes left and he usually didn’t waste any educational time at all. The more safety and knowledge he could impart upon impulsive firefighters, the better.
However, Trip didn’t sit at a desk and listen like Morgan had anticipated. “Morgan,” Trip said in a low voice. He turned his back to the group of six men. Station Twelve was attending class as well, so there were two crews in the room. “I need to speak to you.”
There went his five minutes. “We’re done.” Morgan sighed. “Go ahead, guys. Next time we’ll cover code testing standards.”
The men gathered up notebooks and thanked Morgan on their way out, though Morgan knew they were just glad to be finished with their required classroom hour. He could hear them head down the hallway to start dinner and expected Trip to ask him to stay for chow.
Instead of smiling, Trip motioned at the cell phone in Morgan’s shirt pocket. “You should check your phone. I just got a call from County General. It seems there was an incident on Rich Parker’s shift today.”
Rich was Christopher’s captain at Station Nineteen. Morgan reached for his cell while his eyes were still trained on Trip’s face. “What kind of incident?” Incident could mean anything from forgetting a helmet on the garage floor to crashing the fire engine.
Trip began talking, but by then Morgan had checked his missed calls. He kept his phone on silent during class time, since it was only an hour. Apparently, he’d had two calls from Chris during that time and one from a number Morgan didn’t recognize.
“So we can drive you,” Trip finished up. He looked at Morgan expectantly.
“Hold on,” Morgan said. He finished keying in his voicemail password and listened.
“It’s me. I know you’re in class. I’m okay, but there was a… thing that happened. It was an accident, but I’m fine. Uh, kind of fine. Call my cell when you get thi—” Chris’s voice cut off abruptly, and Morgan bit a thumbnail while he waited for the next message to play.
“Morg.” Christopher again, but he sounded weaker and more thready this time. “You have to come get me. They won’t let me go back to work. I think Rich will call you. Call me back.”
Morgan assumed the third message was either from the hospital or Rich, but he didn’t bother listening. “Who called you?” he snapped at Trip.
“Rich did. Chris is at General and we can drive you, Morgan. From what I understand, he’s all right. His injuries are not life threatening.”
Injuries are not life threatening.
The word injury was the one that stood out to Morgan. “No,” he replied abruptly. “I’ll drive myself. Thank you.”
Rush hour didn’t care that Morgan was desperately trying to get to a hospital. He regretted soon enough not taking Trip up on his offer of a ride and began cursing at the cars blocking his way. When he did finally catch a green light or two, fifteen minutes of traffic had effectively sent Morgan into panic mode.
His fear, his greatest, most overwhelming fear, was that something was going to happen to Christopher as it had happened to his first lover, Kyle. The way Kyle had ended up had been a nightmare for all involved and had cemented Morgan’s dislike for firemen and their daredevil natures. But then he’d met Chris, and things had changed. Just slightly, though.
The emergency room lot had one parking space left. Morgan screeched into it and set off for the double doors. His heart was in his throat, and he clung to the knowledge that he’d heard Chris’s voice on the phone.
Not life threatening. Not life threatening.
Injuries.
Not life threatening.
Once inside the hospital, the sounds of the ER crashed over Morgan with alarming clarity. Monitors and doctors and shoes squeaking on t
he tile all blended with the low hum of wheels on gurneys, and Morgan found himself lost. There were at least twenty beds, most with curtains around them, and Morgan was about to invade the privacy of all of them in his panic. He’d been in plenty of emergency rooms in his life, but only once before for someone he loved.
“Morgan.”
He wheeled around at the sound of his name and came face-to-face with Chris’s captain. Relief washed over Morgan at the sight of someone familiar. “Rich,” Morgan said hoarsely. “What the hell is going on?”
“There was an incident.” Rich’s face was impassive, but Morgan could see the tightness in his jaw. “One that will involve a lot of paperwork.”
“I don’t give a shit about the paperwork.” He wasn’t trying to be disrespectful. Morgan liked Rich and considered him a good captain. Reliable, smart, safe. But at this moment, Morgan couldn’t care less what kind of paperwork Rich would have to do. “Where’s Christopher?”
Rich motioned Morgan to follow him. “He’s all right. Banged up, bruised up, and I’m pretty sure they’re going to have to set his ankle, but maybe he’ll avoid surgery. The doctors wouldn’t tell me much, even though I came in with him.” The annoyance could be heard in Rich’s voice.
“But what happened?” Morgan wanted the full story. If this “incident,” as Rich was calling it, involved carelessness on Chris’s part, well…. Morgan’s stomach hurt to even consider it.
“We were on a small structure fire in Shadowline.”
Morgan nodded; he knew the wealthy waterfront neighborhood in Oceanside.
Rich rubbed his forehead and stopped walking. “It wasn’t Chris’s fault, or Tucker’s. Both of them were exactly where they were supposed to be.”
At the mention of Chris’s medic partner, Morgan wondered briefly if they’d called Chance. Another example of a good captain and probably just as worried as Morgan. “Okay,” Morgan said. He waited for Rich to continue.
“We have a rookie—” Rich started to say, but was interrupted.
“Morg!” A nurse had swept aside one of the curtains surrounding a bed, allowing the patient a view of the ER. It was Christopher.
Completely forgetting what Rich was about to tell him, Morgan went straight to Chris’s bedside. “I was teaching,” Morgan said in a rush. “The phone was on silent. I couldn’t, I didn’t….” He couldn’t find what he wanted to say, which was unlike him. Suddenly it was imperative that Morgan make Chris understand why he’d missed the call.
“I know.” Chris’s voice was hoarse. There was a darkening bruise around his eye and looked to be moving its way down his right cheek. “I told them you were. I’m okay,” he said.
“Not that okay.” Rich had reached Chris’s bed and stood with arms folded. “But better than expected, considering.”
Alive was better than expected, if Morgan was being honest. Some part of him hadn’t believed any of the assurances that Chris was all right until he’d seen for himself.
Of course, they’d told him that Kyle was all right too, and then Morgan had gotten to the hospital and learned the truth.
He took a step back from Chris’s bed and assessed the damage. A small gash along Christopher’s temple had bled down over his ear but appeared to be scabbing over. Chris’s helmet should have protected him from that, unless he’d taken it off for some reason. There was the bruise surrounding his eye. And his ankle was resting on several pillows, the skin shiny and swollen and painful-looking.
Morgan rested a hand on the top of Chris’s head. Blood and sweat made the normally soft blond hair feel gritty, and Morgan wanted to wash it for him. “So someone tell me what happened.”
“I don’t remember that well.” Chris shifted slightly in bed and winced. “Tuck and I were trench cutting on the roof.”
This meant Chris and Tucker were preparing to stop the fire from advancing farther. Morgan nodded in understanding and continued to stroke Chris’s hair.
“I had the chain saw, Tuck had the ax.” Chris’s expression turned thoughtful as he apparently tried to recall the scene in his head. “I looked up, saw Rich signal me to start cutting, and turned the saw on. That’s all I got.”
Rich cleared his throat and sat down in the lone chair next to the bed. “Dennison was in the bucket of the ladder. Do you remember that?”
“Uhhh… yeah!” Chris gave a short nod. “Okay, I remember.” He looked up at Morgan. “Rookie. Been on six months or so.”
Morgan gave the “keep going” motion and refrained from rolling his eyes. Christopher got sidetracked easily.
“Well.” Rich rubbed a hand over the knee of his turnout pants. “Something happened and the wind shifted. A wave of smoke blew over him as he was directing water to your left and he had to readjust. You and Tucker caught the stream.”
“The hose? He got hit with the fucking water?” Morgan stared at Rich in disbelief. That was fifteen hundred gallons of water per minute.
“Yes. Luckily, it wasn’t a direct shot for either of them. Tucker got knocked to the side and was able to get to his feet and back away, but Chris got slammed against a pole and his helmet was dislodged.”
That explained the gash on his head that Chris’s helmet should have prevented as well as the bruise on his face. Morgan’s stomach started hurting again. “His ankle?”
“Was probably wrenched when he got lodged between the pole and a retaining wall up there. Nice clean break, though. He’s been X-rayed already.” Rich shook his head. “It wasn’t really anyone’s fault, Morgan.”
“I’m fine,” Chris murmured. He reached out and took Morgan’s hand.
Morgan looked down at their hands joined together and noted the differences between them. Chris’s was dirty and grimy with small cuts along the knuckles, while Morgan’s was clean and his nails were manicured. Such a contrast. He folded his fingers tightly around Christopher’s and squeezed.
“It sounds like it was your rookie’s fault.” Morgan leveled a gaze at Rich. Whether that was true or not, Morgan wanted—needed—to find a scapegoat. Accidents like this didn’t just happen for no reason. That was unfair on too many levels. There had to be user error somewhere, and Morgan was just grateful that the error hadn’t been Chris’s.
Rich’s expression didn’t change. “It was not my rookie’s fault,” he said calmly. “When I write it up, my report will reflect that. I was there on the roof and saw it all.”
“Morg.” Chris’s voice was getting weaker, but the pressure on Morgan’s hand was still strong. “Don’t freak out. If Rich says that’s what happened, then that’s what happened. You can ask Tucker, maybe. Okay? I’m fine.”
“You are not fine.” Morgan lowered his tone and met Chris’s eyes squarely. “You were in an accident that could have killed you, and it was someone else’s fault. Someone who wasn’t careful or paying attention.”
Rich rose from his chair. “Hey. I know you’re upset. So am I. Chris and Tucker are good firemen. This was an accident, pure and simple. I can’t have you making accusations against a rookie when you weren’t there to witness it.”
It was only the feel of Chris’s fingers in his own that kept Morgan from arguing further. There would be time to deal with it later. Right now he needed to keep the panic at bay, and the only way to do that was to keep holding Chris’s hand. The warm and dirty skin was giving Morgan strength.
He felt small and ashamed of that fact. It was Christopher who lay injured in a hospital bed and was supposed to be receiving strength from Morgan. It was actually the other way around: Morgan felt as if Chris’s hand was a lifeline, and he would not have been able to let go for floods or fires.
“Okay,” Morgan said gruffly, turning away from Rich and focusing on his battered partner instead. This was not the time or place, and he could tell Chris was getting upset.
Later. Morgan would make sure this was dealt with later.
CHAPTER FOUR
“LATER” WAS pushed to the side and nearly forgotten for a long tim
e. Getting Chris home and healed was Morgan’s only priority in the weeks following the incident.
Morgan refused to think of it as an accident. “Incident” was more appropriate, he felt. He’d known enough firemen to realize there were no accidents. Just carelessness.
A one-night stay in the hospital was one night too long, but it was better than two nights. Morgan brought Chris home the following afternoon and helped him hobble to the couch.
“Bed?” Chris asked hopefully, but Morgan glanced at the stairs and then back at Chris with a raised eyebrow.
“You’re the fireman, not me. I can’t carry you up there.”
“You used to be a fireman,” Chris reminded him with a grumble.
“Luckily, not anymore.”
The phone calls began that evening. Chris’s cell phone rang almost nonstop for at least two hours, and Morgan listened to him tell the story four different times. Chris placed no blame on anyone, much like Rich had done, and Morgan had to grudgingly admire Chris’s impartial retelling of the incident.
John and Maribel Matthews made their expected appearance the following day. Morgan and John left Maribel in the living room to fuss over her only son, despite Chris shooting murderous glares in Morgan’s direction. Morgan winked and slipped out the back door to sit on the small patio with Christopher’s father.
Their discussion was centered on inconsequential things for the first while. The unusually mild winter, the dismal showing by the San Diego Chargers that year, and whether or not John should take his wife on the cruise she’d been hinting at. Morgan enjoyed the opportunity to talk about something other than what had happened to Chris.
Finally, Chris’s father took a swallow of his beer and said, “Well.”
Morgan steeled himself for what was to come. “Yeah.”
“Chris tells me you’re gunning for someone to pay.”
“I’m not gunning for someone. That makes it sound like I’ve joined the mob.” Morgan sipped from a glass of the single-malt scotch John had brought him. “I just want the right person to be held responsible.”