Consumed (Firefighters #1)

by J. R. Ward

  Danny lifted his head. Just as she was about to tell him she had to go, he started moving again, deep inside, slower this time. The thrusts were hell and heaven combined, and there was a challenge to in his eyes, like he knew she was going to downplay the sex.

  Something that would have been easier if it didn’t feel so right.

  But the sensations were the only thing that made any sense.

  Closing her lids, she fell back into the abyss, her body taking over, her brain taking a seat in the waiting room. God knew there was going to be plenty of time to ruminate over the stupids she was rocking. For the moment, she might as well just feel him.

  And God knew there was so much of Danny to feel.

  He was so big and heavy, and all that mass and weight was part of the appeal. Built as she was, Anne didn’t feel dainty very often—and that little-girl-needing-rescue stuff wasn’t something she was interested in anyway. But there was something erotic about being under something the size and power of Danny—

  From out of nowhere, an image of them in the fire together barged in, their eyes meeting through their oxygen masks, the fire roiling across the ceiling, the danger and isolation so real.

  I love you.

  As the words ricocheted around her head, she pushed at his shoulders, but it was too late. She was orgasming again, the release taking over everything. Tears, unexpected and unwelcomed, pricked her eyes and she blinked to clear them.

  Danny’s big body churned above hers, and a panic that he might see her cry took her out of the sex, trapping her inside her head.

  The truth was, he mattered too much to her just like she mattered too much to him. And so this collision was a recipe for disaster that was somehow totally inevitable.

  When he finally went still, she was breathing hard, but not from exertion. And she decided to count to twenty in hopes she didn’t look as frantic as she was.

  She made it to fourteen. “I have to go.”

  Danny’s head dropped into her shoulder. “Okay. Yeah. Sure.”

  Just as she was about to push at his shoulders, he moved back. And still she scrambled out from underneath him, barely giving him time to stand.

  As soon as she was on the vertical, she was reminded that there had been no condom and she moved quickly to the bathroom, shutting herself in. There was a roll of toilet paper on the sink counter and she unraveled some around her fin, wadded it up, and tucked it between her thighs.

  Out in the hall, she walked stiffly into the kitchen. She’d worn a thong with her leggings and put that on quick to hold things in place. She felt better when she was fully dressed, and it was only then that she went back to the sitting room.

  She would rather have left without saying a word.

  Then again, she had expected him to come out. And the fact that he didn’t made her uneasy, although that was part of the long list of things she didn’t want to examine too closely.

  Coming back to the archway, she looked at him. He was where she’d left him, sitting on the sofa, his hair a mess. He’d done his jeans back up, thank God.

  She remembered walking in on him the other night, those tattoos out on display for an audience he had not anticipated.

  “I know,” he said roughly. “You don’t have to repeat it.”

  “What.”

  “Just one night. Only once.” He exhaled as if he were smoking, except there was nothing lit in his hand, no haze in the air. “We did that last time we had sex.”

  Anne felt like she should apologize, but come on. They were two consenting adults, and he was right. That was exactly what she was going to tell him.

  “I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

  His laugh was sharp. “Yeah.”

  Anne turned away. “Take care of yourself.”

  She headed for the door, expecting to be called back at any moment. But he let her go—and as she stepped out into the cold, she told herself that was what she wanted.

  “It is, damn it,” she muttered as she got into her Subaru.

  Behind the wheel, she sat and stared out the windshield. A pain behind her sternum had her do an internal myocardial infarction inventory, but there was no nausea, left-arm pain, or dizziness. So she wasn’t having a heart attack.

  She just hurt in a place that had been silent for a very long time. But that didn’t change anything. What had just happened between them was rooted in the past, in ten months ago, in a fire that had long ago been extinguished, not even the embers burning.

  It had been . . . a physical release of all that emotion stirred up by the rescue call.

  No implications further than that.

  Starting the car and putting it in reverse, she found poetic justice in pulling out of his driveway backward—as if she could unmake the decision to go into that dark apartment with Danny. She didn’t remember the trip home. One second she was K-turning in front of the duplex. The next, she was parking at her house.

  Letting herself inside, she was so glad she had Soot to look after. Otherwise, she was liable to pace around and clean something that was already clean.

  Soot got up in his crate as she came in, his bony tail rattling the links.

  “Hey, big man.” Crouching down, she let him out. “How about a piddle?”

  She expected him to go immediately to the back door. Instead, he took his big head and rubbed it on her hand, her torso, the outside of her leg. Putting her arm around him, she gave him the space to circle. And circle. And circle.

  Under her palm, his short fur was smooth and warm, and she loved the feel of him pushing into her.

  “I’m glad to see you, too,” she said hoarsely.

  chapter

  22

  Midmorning the following day, Anne left the office and went downtown to the registry of deeds. Parking between a Chevy Equinox and a truck that had rusted lace around its wheel wells, she got out and walked up to a building that was right out of the seventies. Floor after floor of individual windows were covered by a superfluous lattice of grungy concrete that was about as attractive as those plaid suits with huge lapels had been.

  If it hadn’t been for the set of steps, she would have had no clue where the entrance was.

  As she walked into a lobby that was as well-appointed as a Greyhound terminal, she could smell old mold and ancient nicotine. Then again, the fake wood paneling had no doubt been an original installation and the stuff was porous when it came to scents, a jealous guard of dubious treasure.

  The registry was on the first floor, and she pushed open a heavy door marked with the city seal and block roman lettering that was flaking off. On the far side, she got a load of the fry-station equivalent of civil servants. The two receptionists, a man and a woman, were seated behind a partition that was like a bank’s, with cutouts to pass papers through and twin computers, and the pair of them looked as if they were along the lines of that not-really-oak paneling: Mr. and Mrs. Anachronism were both in their sixties, with polyester uniforms and the same hair style of a perm pushed back off the face and sprayed into place.

  Anne went over to the woman. Because girl power.

  “Hi, I’d like to do a records search.” She smiled to seem warm. Nice. Nonthreatening. “It’s on six parcels of property downtown? I have the addresses, but when I tried to get a log-in online, I was denied.”

  “Did you call the help line?”

  The phone started to ring, and the man next door picked up after three, no, four . . . wait, five rings. “Hello. Help line.”

  Anne glanced at him as he doodled on a pad. Looked back at the woman. “Well, it sounds like those calls get answered here.”

  “Did you call the help line?”

  Is this like a video game where you have to get to the next level? Anne wondered.

  “Yes, I did. And I was told to come down here.”

  The recept
ionist over on the phone said in a bored voice, “You’ll have to come down here and get one issued. Our server is down.”

  “So that’s why I’m here,” Anne said. “Except if your server’s not working, how will it help to get a log-in?”

  The woman took a piece of paper off a stack and slid it across the counter. “Fill this out.”

  Anne glanced down. “Can I just go through a physical search?”

  “Fine.” The form was retracted and an old-fashioned ledger was pushed across at her. “Sign in. And I’ll need to see your driver’s license.”

  After filling in her name and address, Anne flashed her ID, and the receptionist hit a buzzer that released a locked gate over on the right.

  “Here is the map. We’re here for questions.”

  But I’d have to fill out a form, right? Anne thought. Or call your buddy.

  With a nod, she took the piece of paper and walked through. The deed room was lit bright as an OR and had a tall ceiling that was useless, as the rows of metal file cabinets only went up to chin height. There was a long desk with three computers on it, but she never did get a log-in sorted. Besides, she preferred to do things by hand—

  Between one blink and the next, she got an image of her fingers clawing into Danny’s shoulder as he churned on top of her.

  Exhaustion, a parting gift from her night of not sleeping, bear-hugged her. But she’d already spent enough time trying to frame what she’d done into any kind of rational framework of no-big-deal. At least Danny hadn’t tried to call or text. She needed space.

  On that theory, she should move to Canada.

  Right, time to look at the map and go on the hunt.

  A number of desks with chairs were in the middle of the room, and she claimed one by putting her bag and her coat on it. As she got out her notes, she thought of her new boss’s pep talk. Someone had died in at least two of those old warehouse fires. And hell, she had been permanently changed.

  So there were crimes to solve here.

  There was still something worth fighting to protect. And in this case, it was justice.

  • • •

  “Sorry I’m running a little late.”

  As Danny got up from a sofa that was too soft, he put his hand out to a fifty-year-old woman with thick gray hair and a shapeless brown dress that reminded him of the tarp he had over the chopped wood out at the farm.

  “It’s okay,” he said.

  Her limpid, concerned eyes made him want to go Warner Bros. cartoon through a wall.

  “Daniel Maguire.” She smiled as they shook. “That’s a good Irish name.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m Irish, too. Dr. Laurie McAuliffe. Won’t you come in?”

  Not if I have a choice. “Sure.”

  The office beyond was pretty much what he expected, a lot of earthen tones and more Wonder Bread furniture, an ornamental water thingy in the corner making I’m-a-fountain noises.

  “Where do you want me to sit?” he said.

  “Anywhere you like.”

  Danny surveyed the choices—two-seater couch, armchair, armchair, rocker—and wondered whether this was the first of the tests to determine whether he was keeping his job or not. As he couldn’t guess what it was assessing, he went with the closest armchair.

  Lowering himself down, he was not surprised she took the rocker. Given the pad on the little table next to it, it seemed like it was her normal perch.

  “So, do you want to talk a little about why you’re here?”

  No. “I have to do this to keep my job. How long does the test take?”

  “Test?”

  “Yeah, I have to pass a test, right?”

  The woman smiled again. “Not really.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  As her eyes narrowed, he got his first inkling that maybe things weren’t as loosey-goosey, touchy-feely as he had thought. “That’s not a lie. My job is to evaluate your mental and emotional state, but I do not do that by giving you a bunch of fill-in-the-blanks.”

  “You’ve read my personnel file, right?”

  “Yes. I have. It’s right over there.”

  He glanced across at a desk he’d missed when he’d come in. There was a stack of books on the blotter and another pad, a mug with the Harvard crest, and a thick manila folder right in the center.

  Danny shrugged. “So you know everything I’d tell you anyway. Why don’t we save time and agree I’ve got your version of PTSD. Then we can put together a therapy plan, that I won’t ultimately follow, and be on our merry ways.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what’s in that folder?”

  Danny leveled a stare at the woman. “Mother committed suicide when I was twelve. Father was a drunk. Brother died on a job three years ago. Lost a fellow firefighter two years ago. And then . . . yeah.”

  “And then what.”

  He shifted his eyes to the water feature. Given that it didn’t have a cord running into a socket, he guessed it was battery operated. Or, knowing the inevitable politics of people like Dr. McAuliffe, solar powered. ’Cuz global warming—or climate change. Whatever they were calling it these days.

  “Danny? And then what.”

  “There was an accident at work, and whatever, no one died.”

  Danny thought about Anne the night before, fully dressed but for her leggings, staring at the ceiling while he orgasmed into her. He could still feel the hard contour of her prosthesis across his lower back.

  She had gotten off, too. He’d been sure of it. But he wasn’t fooling himself. She’d used him like a dildo, and he’d let her do that a thousand times again if she wanted to.

  “Tell me about that accident.”

  “You read the file.”

  “I know the facts, not how you feel about them.”

  Danny looked back at the doc. “I was thrilled that I cut Anne Ashburn’s hand off. Absolutely the highlight of my career, something I’ll look back on with pride and satisfaction. for decades to come My only disappointment is that I didn’t get some kind of commemorative plaque down at the stationhouse for it. How’s that?”

  That stare narrowed again. “You do realize that if you ever want to go into another fire again that I’m going to have to sign off on it? There is a pass or fail on this, even without the pen and paper. So you’re incented to be candid as opposed to belligerent. Assuming you do want to go back to work.”

  Sitting forward, Danny pegged her with hard eyes. “This is bullshit. Twenty years ago, firefighters didn’t have to sit through—”

  “This psychology crap? I can guess where you’re going with this tantrum, and in the interest of saving time—which seems to be an imperative for you—I would tell you that what is bullshit to you is a field of discipline that I’ve got a PhD in and will spend the rest of my life further researching, participating in, and advocating for. So if you’re looking to persuade me that there isn’t value in what I do, you’re pushing water uphill. You’re also not changing the reality that I am the gatekeeper of the hurdle you need to get over if you want to ever hold a charged line again.”

  “So what if I just lie to you and tell you what you want to hear.”

  “You don’t know what I want to hear.” The woman smiled again. “So how about we start with Anne Ashburn. Tell me what happened ten months ago.”

  Danny crossed his arms over his chest. And then dropped them because of the whole tantrum thing.

  “Believe it or not,” Dr. McAuliffe murmured, “I want you to get back to work. I really do. It may not feel like it, but I’m here to help you. We have the same goals, you and I.”

  He thought back to Anne showing up and finding him passed out on his couch the night before last. She’d thrown a lot at him, but she’d had a point. She was the one dealing with a permanent injury. He was just being a little bitch
, trying to light the world on fire because he was angry at himself.

  “I’m in love with her,” he said gruffly. “Anne, that is. And that should pretty much tell you what you need to know.”

  chapter

  23

  Anne was back at her office, packing up for the day, when a sharp knock got her attention. “Yes?”

  Don walked in. Her boss had his suit jacket off, and the sleeves on his business shirt rolled up. His tie was red and the city’s signature anchor was on repeat.

  He looked like he was on the twelfth hour of a ten-hour shift. “We need to talk.”

  “Yup, I got you something.”

  As she leaned down to her bag, he muttered, “Is it Advil?”

  Straightening, she held out a pink plastic bag. “Surprise.”

  “You mind telling me why Charles Ripkin is on my phone.”

  “Here, I’ll open it for you.” She put the bag on her desk and took out a wrapped-up object. “Unless you want to do the honors?”

  “He’s threatening to go to the mayor and complain.”

  She shrugged. “On what grounds?”

  “He said you demanded a meeting with him? Wanted to see proof of insurance? Were harassing his executive assistant. What the hell are you doing? You think you’re a cop?”

  Probably not a good time to remind Don about his pursuit-of-justice pep talk.

  Anne unwrapped the white mug and turned the thing around so the black lettering faced him. “Ta-da!”

  Don took the thing. “ ‘World’s Greatest Boss’?”

  “You’re my Michael Scott.”

  “I’m thinking about firing you again, FYI.”

  “But it’s for a much better reason, right? Now you’re frustrated that I’m taking the job too seriously, so this is improvement.”

  Don’s lids dropped to half-mast. “You are my punishment for sins in an earlier life.”

  “More like virtues. Anyway, I went down to the registry of deeds this morning.”

  “So I can expect a call from them as well? The private sector always moves faster than we in government do, which was why Ripkin got to me first about you.”