by Ruby McNally
“That’s it,” Eli says, when he’s as deep as she can take him. Addie shifts her hips, getting used to how it feels. It’s different like this, full in a new way. When he wraps his hands around her waist so he can move her, the gasp she lets out is half pleasure and half fear. “Touch yourself for me,” he mutters into her neck.
Addie does, everything wet wet wet down in between them. She can smell herself from this angle: Addie turned on at the end of the day. She thought it was going to hurt, that the stretch might be as intense as it was at the very beginning, but he’s barely started moving when all she can think about is more. “Faster,” she tells him, breathless. Her heart feels like a jackrabbit’s, quick and thready. “You’re fine. You can go faster. I want it.”
Eli groans against her backbone. “Can’t,” he bites off, holding down the pace. “Can’t, uh-uh. I’ll come, princess.”
The words make Addie clench, surprised. “Yeah?” She can feel the way his thighs are shaking now, how hard he’s holding back. He only looked down at where they’re joined for a second. “Close?” she asks, rubbing faster. Eli nods against her hair, fingers digging into her waist.
Addie hums, nudging her cheek at his. “Can see you,” she tells him quietly, staring down between her legs. “If you weren’t wearing—am gonna see it, when you do. Gonna watch the whole thing.”
“Fuck.” Eli gasps, hands spasming at her hips. “Addie.”
He fights it for a second, holding himself still and twitching inside her, but it must be too much because in the next breath he starts thrusting helplessly, groaning into her neck. Addie watches like she promised, the blurred band of latex as he pushes in and out at triple speed. It works for her almost criminally well.
“Stay,” she orders when he’s finished, working her slippery body harder. By now she’s too wet for traction. “Stay inside, just for—” She loses it before she can finish the thought, arching her back with a sharp whine. The move forces Eli to slide out anyway, leaving her clenching on nothing.
It’s still good—he gives her his fingers almost immediately, the blunt tips of them dipping inside like he wants to be able to feel it as it happens. Addie’s knuckles bump against his. “Fuck, Addie,” she hears him say, but barely—she’s coming and coming and coming, her own desperate sounds echoing off the walls of her skull.
“Oh my God,” she says finally, shuddering one last time, finally coherent enough to feel self-conscious. Her knees are still planted wide and obscene. Eli doesn’t care though—Eli never seems to care, truthfully, has never once looked at her naked body with anything but overt desire. He’s manhandling her up by her hips now, turning her to face him on the couch. The cushions are half-sliding onto the floor.
“Can you go again?” he’s asking, eyes dark and more focused than earlier. Somewhere in the back of her head it occurs to her that it’s rare he wouldn’t be able to hold out. Just for a second, she thinks of those beer bottles lined up along the sink. “Addie-girl, do you want to try?”
Addie hesitates. She hasn’t ever, has never even come close, but just the suggestion has something inside her tightening up again, some invisible string. “I don’t know,” she admits.
“Can try though,” Eli insists, maneuvering them so he’s sitting against the armrest with Addie in his lap. Addie can smell herself in the stuffy room, thick and close. She’s worried about messing up the microfiber upholstery, worried about being gross or greedy. “Wanna let me try?”
Addie swallows, looking down at his good familiar face. “Yeah,” she says. “Yes.”
Eli gets rid of the condom and scoots his ass down the couch so Addie is on his abdomen and not his exhausted cock. Of all the fucking days to drink too much to keep it together, Christ.
He runs his thumbs down her belly and past the line of hair instead, spreading her open so he can see her slick pink self. When he rubs lightly at her clit, Addie hisses. “Too much?” Eli asks, his mouth dry. Even with a hangover pounding hard at the base of his skull, he wants to get her off worse than anything.
Addie nods, shifting on him. Eli can still hear her gasps rattling around in the air.
“Okay,” he says. “You wanna try—” He slides down the couch even more, until his head is resting on the armrest. “You wanna come here, maybe?”
Addie looks at him blankly. She lifted up off his belly when he started sliding, inadvertently exposing all of herself. It’s enough to make Eli’s mouth water. “Up here,” he clarifies, tugging on her hips until she gets the message. Addie’s eyes widen.
“Eli,” she says, sounding scandalized. Eli loves that about her, how for all her bravado she’s so fucking easy to shock. It makes him want all kinds of things.
“Want this,” he promises her, moving down the couch just a little more until she’s hovering over his shoulders, knees planted on either side. Eli swallows. He can smell her, chemical from the latex but like herself underneath, salty and thick. He reaches up and spreads her open, nudges her with one leg until she drops all the way down.
“Eli,” she murmurs again. She’s self-conscious, he can tell she is, those strong tense thighs and how she’s shaking just a little. “Are you—?”
“You’re beautiful,” he says, half a second before he starts licking. Addie lets out a quiet whine. She’s got one hand clutching the back of the sofa, like she’s looking to ground herself somehow. He flattens his tongue against her clit and she gasps.
“Oh,” she tells him.
Eli shakes his head from side to side slowly, giving her some pressure, then licks back to where she’s still artificial-sticky from the condom lubricant. After a minute the chemical bitterness is all gone and it’s just her. Eli closes his eyes and presses his whole face against her, breathing deep.
“Whatcha need?” he asks, pulling away far enough to form words. “Need to come again? You close at all?” The words make his dick jump half-heartedly. Addie whines, wiggling against his nose. From the toss of her body, Eli guesses she’s either shaking her head or nodding. “Gotta talk to me,” he says, reaching up to massage one vibrating thigh. “Can’t see you. Can only see your—”
“Hey,” Addie hisses sharply, hand darting down to fist in his hair. Then, mumbled, “Need to.”
Eli sucks at her clit, a sharp, pressurized tease, then pulls back. “Need to what?” he asks.
“Ugh,” Addie says, sounding enormously frustrated. She’s rocking her hips just the slightest bit. “Mean, you’re so—” She breaks off and gasps as he uses his teeth, just a little, prodding. “Oh God, Eli, need to come.”
It takes a little while after that, Eli curling his tongue and pushing inside her, the whole bottom of his face gone slippery and wet—but eventually he hears that telltale intake of breath and then suddenly she’s grinding, more in charge than he’s maybe ever known her.
It’s…pretty much the hottest thing she’s ever done.
He squeezes her ass and lets her work her way through it, lets her use him however she needs. He’s never gotten her off twice in a row before, how usually she shoves his hand away if he gets it into his head to so much as try. Already he knows he’s going to want to do it again though, to try for three or even four next time, to go until she can’t think anything but his name.
Right now she’s coming down, slumping boneless until she’s sprawled on his chest like so much warm dead weight. “Um,” she says, nudging her forehead at his sloppy chin like she’s shy all of a sudden. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Eli laughs, running both hands up her back to tangle in her hair. “How you doing?”
“Goooood,” Addie slurs, hiding her sweaty face against his neck. “Better than I felt after dinner, that’s for sure.”
“Yeah?” Eli rubs across the skin of her back, tracing down to the wicked curve of her waist. Her lips are against his pulse point, slow breaths. “Was really that bad, huh?”
“Uh-huh.” Addie reaches up with one thumb to smear his slippery mouth. Eli can still taste her eve
rywhere, behind his teeth and on his tongue. It’s so much better than the stale beer. “How about you, how was your day?”
Eli thinks about the hours he spent staring mindlessly at the TV and trying not to think about Will, about running from the burning shack to get help all those years ago, choking on the smoke. “Boring,” he tells Addie, kissing her ear. “I’m sorry about your dad.”
“Me too.” Addie snuggles further in against him, arms around his chest. “Set the alarm for early, okay? Gotta run back to my apartment before shift.”
“Okay,” Eli says, holding her head against him with one hand as he reaches over to the clock. “Six a.m. okay?”
“Mmm.” Addie nods. She’s already half asleep.
Eli isn’t. He stays awake for a long time.
Chapter Thirteen
The third arson happens on a bright, sunny Tuesday morning the first week of August, a split-level four blocks from the site of the first one. It’s the same accelerant as the last house, the shrubs outside going up with an audible whoosh just as the company trucks pull up with the lights and sirens raging. The only thing that’s different?
This time, they aren’t fast enough.
The casualty’s a woman in her forties, Addie learns later, stepmom to two teenage girls and a chronic insomniac who took a sleeping pill around four in the morning. She probably never even woke up. The ambulance drives off in silence, and Eli doesn’t say a word the whole trip back to the house.
“You okay?” Addie asks when she finds him by the lockers later that morning, hair still wet from the showers and dripping down the back of his tawny neck. The muscles in his shoulders are bunched and angry. The scars stand out silvery and raw-looking on his arms. “Hey,” she says quietly, when it takes him a moment to answer. “Eli.”
“Yup,” Eli says without looking, yanking a T-shirt out of his locker. His mouth is a moody line. “I’m good.”
Addie frowns. “Okay.” She has the St. Florian medal out of her left boot in hand, taking it back to stash in her locker. Everyone who got accelerant on them is being issued new gear, Cap’s orders. “Are you—” No one else is around, Jill Buono and the boys out back hosing off the engine. Addie drops her voice. “You sure?”
“Yup,” Eli repeats, pulling the shirt over his head roughly. He scrubs a hand through his curls, spraying droplets everywhere. Then he turns to face her with a sigh. “Yeah, I am. Yeah. How are you?”
Addie rubs the rounded points of her Florian cross, feeling weirdly stung. His voice is gentle enough now, but his face is still etched in stone. “Okay, I guess,” she says. She looks down at the medal. “You got a good luck charm?” she asks Eli, trying for a new topic. “Like, for going out on a call? My dad had a medal just like this. Still does, actually.”
Eli holds out his hand for the cross. “Yeah, huh?” He examines it for a second, turning it this way and that. “No,” he says finally, handing it back. “Don’t need good luck.”
Addie feels her eyebrows jump. “Yeah? You’re probably the only firefighter who doesn’t.”
Eli smiles without it touching his eyes. “I’m special,” he says.
Addie thinks of him lying on his back underneath her, two orgasms in a row and a third the following morning. “You’re special,” she echoes, smiling back. “You’re also done at noon, aren’t you? You wanna go to lunch? See a movie, maybe?”
He looks for all the world like somebody who needs to be distracted, and for a minute Addie’s sure he’ll say yes—she feels herself brighten at the notion, a burger and an afternoon in the chilly, sugary dark of the multiplex in the Berkshire Mall, far away from the heat and stench of this morning’s disastrous call. She’s picturing it, holding his hand across the armrest, making out like she never actually did with anybody in high school, when Eli shakes his head.
“Next time, princess,” he tells her, slamming his locker hard enough that Addie’s teeth rattle. The edges of the cross bite into the meat of her palm. “Got plans.”
So. Plans is maybe overstating it.
By one o’clock Eli’s working a buzz at Kitty McLean’s, a dank dive bar down at the dicier end of Lee near the highway. By two o’clock, he’s good and fucking drunk. It smells like sweat and yeast and beer, and Eli’s head is swimming pleasantly, the glass heavy and warm in his hand. Between the fifth and sixth beer he staggers out to the Outback and grabs the shoebox out of the trunk, sits it beside him on the bar stool. Another beer, he tells himself. Another beer, and he’ll open it. Throw it in the garbage, flush it down the toilet, maybe. Just open it.
It doesn’t so much happen like that.
“Is this seat taken?” someone asks as Eli’s trying to figure out if he wants to switch onto the hard stuff. He turns around and there’s Addie. “Eli, right?”
Eli blinks and it’s her cousin standing there instead, the one who makes out with girls behind the Stations of the Cross. The Addie-through-a-funhouse-mirror effect is exacerbated by the booze, but now he can see her straight hair, her skinnier angles. “I—hey,” he says. “No, no. Of course not.” He scrambles to shift the shoebox to the bar top. The clock on the wall-mounted TV says it’s just after three. There’s no one in here but the bartender and another drunk down the other end of the bar.
“It’s Jenn,” Jenn reminds him, sitting down. She plunks her purse beside the shoebox and orders a vodka tonic. “You didn’t break up with Adelaide, did you?” she asks after she’s had a swallow. “Because I didn’t get a text.”
Eli blinks again. His eyelashes feel slow. “I—no. Why?” His brain is running two steps behind the game, still trying to reconcile her clattery jewelry and gigantic purse with this highway bar. Suddenly and wildly he’s worried Addie decided to dump him, told her cousin first, and is back at her apartment just waiting to drop the bomb.
But Jenn just shrugs. “Midday drinking,” she says, gesturing around them with her glass. “Generally a breakup.”
Ah. Eli picks at his coaster. “That why you’re here?”
“Me? No.” She twists her engagement ring around her finger. “Not my problem either.”
Eli remembers then, about her family and her wedding, Addie’s angry, helpless expression cutting through the haze in his head. He makes a face he hopes is commiserative. “To not breaking up,” he says, raising his bottle. Jenn clinks.
“So what’s in the box?” she asks, once she’s sipped a bit. She’s got thin leather bracelets stacked up on one narrow wrist.
Eli feels himself stiffen. “Nothing,” he mumbles, wiping his mouth with one clumsy hand. “I don’t know.”
Jenn raises her eyebrows. “See, you should have just said shoes,” she advises, crossing her legs like she’s settling in for the long haul. “That would have been the clever move. Now I’m curious.”
Eli drains the rest of his beer. “Too drunk to be clever,” he tells her.
“I can see that,” Jenn says, sounding for all the world like her cousin. Eli can picture them, dimly, what they must have been like as kids and teenagers. He bets they were a mouthy pair. “A reptile?” she guesses, when he doesn’t answer. “The head of John the Baptist? Schrodinger’s cat?”
That makes Eli laugh. “Schrodinger’s cat,” he says. “Exactly. He’s in there, and also he’s not.” He blinks at her for a moment, then signals the bartender for another. “You ever been to New Hampshire?” he asks.
Jenn raises an eyebrow. “No. Is it nice?”
“It’s where I’m from,” Eli supplies. Then, “No. I never thought it was all that great, actually.”
“Uh-huh.” Both of them watch his beer arrive, a fresh coaster with it. “Is this related to Schrodinger?” Jenn asks as Eli pulls the glass toward him. She’s finished off her own drink, he notices. He wonders if it was something specific that brought her here today. If he asked Addie, he bets she would probably know.
“Addie isn’t going to like this,” he hears himself saying, too loud.
“I won’t tell if you don�
�t,” Jenn promises. She taps her nails across the top of the box. “Now, are you going to make me open this myself? Because if it really is a head, we probably don’t want witnesses.”
“It’s from New Hampshire too,” Eli says, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “It’s not a head.” He’s going to have to tell Addie anyway. Fuck, he’s such an asshole. His new beer tastes watery and metallic, hovering somewhere just below room temperature. “I mean, it’s mine from New Hampshire. It’s stuff I took before I left for college. From my old house.”
“And you keep it in a shoebox to bring to bars?” Jenn gestures for a refill of her own. “That’s different.”
“I’m different,” Eli tells her. Then, a second later and with a different inflection entirely than the one he means to come out of his mouth, “I’m pretty fucked up, I think.”
“Looks that way,” Jenn says, and it sounds like she means it in a broader sense than just drunk on a Tuesday afternoon. She nudges the box back in his direction, like she’s letting him off the hook. “Eli,” she says after a moment, not unkindly. “Are you fucked up in a way where I need to be worried about my cousin?”
Fuck. “No,” he says immediately. Shit, that’s all he needs, her family spooking and then— “No, I’m sorry.” He tries to look as sober as humanly possible. “I’m not trying to give you a hard time. It’s stuff of my brother’s, in the box.” He shakes his head and just like that he’s bad drunk, not good drunk, here in this bar with Addie’s cousin. He should see if he can get a glass of water. He’s going to need to call a cab. “He died when we were kids, my brother. I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be an asshole.”
“Hey, hey.” Jenn puts a hand on his shoulder, familiar. They’re touchers, the Manzellas. “You’re okay, relax. I’m sorry. I was being nosy. I’m the one who was being an asshole.” She shakes her head. “Addie really likes you.”