Bethany’s making this terrible noise, similar to a rabbit getting skinned alive.
Push back and up. I thrust with even more strength.
I’ll never give up on Bethany, like she’s never given up on me.
Push back and up.
Finally, I hear her cough. She doubles over then falls from my grasp onto the floor. I follow.
Whither thou goest, I will go.
She’s smiling and crying and wiping my face, her face still so red. Her body is shaking.
“I’m okay, Jane. You saved me. I’m okay.”
I didn’t know I was crying. I’m bawling.
“And it’s about fucking time you get laid,” she says and starts to laugh. “Just don’t shock me so much when you say something like that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m kidding, silly sausage.” She’s Australian, hence the endearing euphemism. She’s also loud, crass, has maroon hair and I love everything about her. My only friend.
Someone tries to take my shoulder and bodily move me. But I won’t have it. I need to keep Bethany in my view. I need to make sure she’s okay because I love her so much and if one more person dies on me I’ll buy a gun and…okay, not really. But I couldn’t stand life without her.
I fight strong arms, gripping me around my waist, pulling me away from Bethany. I kick, buck, do everything possible to get my body back under my own volition.
Whiskers rake my cheek. “Shh, shh, I got you,” a man whispers. His arms hold me even tighter.
That’s when I see the firemen around Bethany. Their royal blue pants, royal blue t-shirts, light blue gloves over large hands.
“That’s it,” the man holding me says. “That’s it. You gotta make room for the men to work on your friend, baby.”
Baby?
I’m breathing so hard my lungs feel like there are fissures in every inch of them. The man has me in a weird grip, almost cupping one of my breasts, and I realize the position of my hands are forcing him to hold me that way. But I don’t let go of him.
“You saved her?” the man whispers into my ear.
“Yes, she saved me,” Bethany says loudly, smiling at me, still so red-looking it scares me. “She did the Heimlich thing. That’s my friend, Jane, Jane Emory. She’s super smart and super fast and she saved my life.”
I want to laugh at Bethany’s statements, but I just can’t. I want to cry. However, my hands relax against the man’s iron-like forearms. I notice the striations of his muscles there. They twitch, still holding me in a firm grip. He has blond hair. Golden. It sparkles in the light. His chest encompasses me from behind. It’s so firm, and his heart is beating into my back. His whiskers are still against me. This is intimate.
“Good job,” he says.
My bottom scrapes against his crotch. Was that…? Is he…excited? God, it’s been so long since I’ve felt a man’s erection I can’t tell if that’s just him or if he’s slightly aroused. Probably not aroused by me. Like my name, I’m plain. Well, I’m fairly certain I’m plain. The way my husband treated me led me to think I’m nothing extraordinary.
But I like the feel of the man holding me. He’s hard everywhere. My awareness of his body, of him, a man I haven’t even seen yet, invades me, penetrates too deep. My nipples contract and I’m embarrassed.
“You did really good work,” he whispers.
Ambulance workers pile into the small bar. The firefighters are talking with the new medical men to see if Bethany needs to be taken to the emergency department.
“I want to go with her,” I shout into the fray of what seems like a million men fighting over who takes care of Bethany. God, she’s got to be loving this. She is smiling at me, and glancing at the man behind me.
“You’ll get to go with your friend,” the man promises.
I sigh. I hate to admit how good it feels to be held like this. My legs are shaking and I’m not sure I could hold myself up otherwise.
“You okay if I let you go now? No kicking my ass again?”
I snort a laugh. “I didn’t kick your ass.”
He softly chuckles and it bounces down my spine like the low keys of a piano. Plonk, plonk, plonk—the noise ricochets, descending into my clitoris.
He caresses his face against mine. His jaw feels like warm granite. His whiskers make my nipples contract even harder. Slowly, he releases me and stands beside me. His hands are out as I, embarrassingly, sway. He catches me by my waist, and my cheek smacks against something so hard I thought it was a wall at first. Nope, it’s just his chest.
“Whoa, there. You all right?” he asks into the top of my head.
“Jane!” Bethany yells. “Jane, are you okay?”
I nod, humiliated. My legs are that of a newborn calf.
“Breathe,” the man reminds me.
I glare at him, although I don’t know why. I’m angry at myself. Not him.
But I stop my frown when I look up into the most open face I’ve ever seen. His breathtaking light blue eyes are the kind of azure only seen on a mountain top where the air is still virgin. His countenance is devastatingly handsome. The huge firefighter, still with his hand on my waist, is smiling at me. Or is that a smirk?
“You sure you can stand?” he asks.
I nod, unable to talk any longer. God, he’s beautiful. I love his voice too—smooth, masculine, with just the right kind of roughness to land a few of his words into my body, making me much more turned on than I should be in this circumstance.
What’s odd, I think, is the way he’s looking at me. Maybe I have guacamole on my face. Maybe I’m ashen. I can’t tell if he’s looking at me with concern or ridicule. Or something else entirely.
His hand is still on me. Now the small of my back. The very small of my back that on some days is kind of my ass. He just smiles at me.
“Do I know you?”
I shake my head. I would remember him. Well, no one would ever forget meeting him. He’s huge, about six and-a-half feet, all muscle, a blond god. He’s Odin. He’s Thor. One of those Nordic gods who makes mortal women weak in the knees. Which would be perfect if I did genuflect before him. Then I could suck his cock.
Just where are these thoughts coming from?
I decide to take a lover then imagine taking another?
Who am I?
“I think I do know you,” the man leans over, whispering in my ear.
I stiffen, sickened. When I escaped my uncle’s proposal, my family, the fanaticism and horror, a reporter followed me around, asking me personal questions and annoying me senseless. She got her story then moved on. I had been told they’d blurred my face, but I worry if years later someone would reveal the real me to the world. An abused girl. A victim. I loathe that word. It can’t define me. But it does anyhow.
The man rubs his cheek against mine, his whiskers are enough to make me want to clutch at him, pull him even nearer.
“I’m pretty sure you’re my new girlfriend.”
I can’t believe I’m laughing at that.
“Cheesy line, huh?”
I don’t agree with him. I don’t know why, but I love that line. Perhaps he said it to get me to laugh, to feel stronger on my own two legs. Perhaps some crazy part of him is trying to hit on me. Whatever the purpose, I think I love him a little. And I don’t even know his name.
He helps shepherd me though the crowd of people, following Bethany on a stretcher. He argues with the EMT workers, saying I should be in the ambulance with Bethany even though I’m not family. He makes several points, promises to wash an ambulance on his day off, then I’m inside the medical van.
I make sure Bethany’s okay, hold her hand, try to think of something reassuring to say. Then I glance out the back of the ambulance, heartbroken. The blond demigod is gone. He was just giving me a line to make me laugh, to make me feel stronger than I was at that moment. I hate how disappointed I am that he vanished so fast.
I keep smiling at Bethany. The ambulance workers are like wonderf
ul bees, always working, buzzing around.
“Can you believe this?” she asks me.
I smile at her and shake my head. The ambulance begins its trek to the hospital, and I’m even more disheartened that my blond fireman didn’t do more, didn’t mean his cheesy line.
“I should have done this ages ago,” Bethany says. “I haven’t seen such hot guys since I was in college, back in 1645 or so.”
I laugh. Bethany’s a tad older than I am, but she’s always exaggerating about her age. The thing is, she has more energy than I do. So I think of her as younger than me.
We make it to the hospital in minutes. There’s a lot of nurses, and then there’s a lot of waiting as the apparently one and only doctor in the whole hospital—I am exaggerating—will eventually see my friend. I’m not sure why we’re in the hospital now that the emergency is over. I guess they want to check her throat, make sure she can eat again. And as the minutes tick by, I hate how much I’m thinking about that big, blond man who was at my back.
Bethany takes a nap as I fantasize about the demigod, taking me from behind. I can imagine his huge hands covering my breasts. His tongue slides down my neck and we kiss over my shoulder. He bites my lip and back. He’s thrusting inside of me and—God, I miss sex.
After rolling my head on my shoulders, I sigh, sexually frustrated and maybe suffering from some wounded pride too.
“Go get a drink of water.”
Bethany has one eye open, which is looking at me crossly.
“Sorry, did I wake you?”
“I wasn’t quite asleep, but you need to run off some energy. Go get some water or a magazine to read.”
“I’m too loud, huh? I’m sorry. I—”
Bethany encompasses my hand with both of hers. “Honey, I’ve told you a million times how you sound Canadian when you apologize so much. So stop it.”
“Sorr—”
She laughs. “But you’re kind of driving me nuts.”
“Now I really want to say I’m sorry.”
She laughs harder. “Just take a walk, then come back. I don’t want to be alone for too long, okay? But I need you to calm down.”
“I can calm down. I—”
“Will you get me a magazine?”
Bethany is outwitting me by asking for the magazine for her rather than for me. I must be annoying the shit out of her. After biting my lip, I nod.
“Thanks, honey.”
I leave, again feeling like I want to cry, which is silly. I wasn’t the one who choked. And it embarrasses me to feel like this. So, stiff upper lip and all that, and I walk through the emergency department to the waiting room, where I’m sure to find a good stack of outdated magazines.
First, I see three men in all blue. Firefighters. My heart stutters.
One of the men begins talking on a walkie-talkie. He’s too far away to make out what he’s saying. I want to ask him if he knows of the huge fireman who held me. I’m that besotted already.
And, hey, wasn’t I already committed to having Paul become my lover?
He’s a nice man, Paul. I know his name, unlike the blond firefighter demigod.
I’m too ashamed of the way I feel about the fireman to actually ask about him. I’d look like a fool, wouldn’t I? I mean, he only said that line to make me laugh. To make me feel better. He’s a nice, beautiful man who wouldn’t be interested in me.
There’s a family huddled together in a corner of the brown labyrinth of the waiting room. They’re watching TV in a daze. I hope they’re okay. I hope their loved one getting worked on is okay. Seeing a soda pop dispenser, I decide to get something when I realize I don’t have my purse. I left everything at the bar. Of course, I’m fairly certain Nan will store our purses for us.
But that leaves me standing there in front of the soda pop dispenser, feeling through my pockets for loose change when a deep voice asks, “Looking for something?”
My purse and Bethany’s swings in front of my eyes. The straps are held by a huge hand, this time without any blue latex on it. And I can’t help but smile widely at the blond demigod with his dark golden whiskers that catch the light. I know what they feel like against my cheek.
Now, I’m not at all religious. Thanks to my past, I shy away from all forms of worship. And I’m a wee bit of a cynic when it comes to faith. But as for demigods, maybe they do answer prayers
About the Author
Red L. Jameson is an award-winning and multi-published author. She writes in many genres. Her pen name, L. B. Joramo, includes the odd combination of historical and paranormal for the Immortal American Series. However, it is under her “Red” name, her nickname too, where all her stories are strongly laced with love, including contemporary, historical, time-travel, paranormal, and erotic romance. Red lives in the wilds of Montana with her family and a few too many animals, and is currently working on her next novel that she hopes will make her readers laugh, cry, think, and fall in love.
Please feel free to sign up for her email list, where she shares her latest releases or rambles about other books.
Or you can contact Red through her website www.redljameson.com
Other Books by Red L. Jameson
The Wild Love Series
Shine, Book 1
Fly, Book 2
Awake, Book 3
Bad Medicine, Book 4
The Glimpse Time Travel Series
Enemy of Mine, Book 1
Highlander of Mine, Book 2
Cowboy of Mine, Book 3
Duchess of Mine, Book 4
With These Wings Series
Wing These Wings, Book 1
Anthology
Coming in Hot
Titles by Red L. Jameson written as L. B. Joramo
The Immortal American Series
The Immortal American
The Bones of War
Bad Medicine (Wolf Love Book 4) Page 24