Pressing both palms to the space where her legs joined her body, he met her heat with his mouth, pleasuring her with bold strokes and brash kisses. Each motion drove him harder, daring him faster and farther, and he refused to relent. His cock ached with a bolt of pleasure-pain, demanding attention, but he tamped it down. There was nothing in this moment but Ava, her taste, her openness, her pleasure.
He was giving it to her. Only her. Right now.
She dropped a hand to his shoulder, fingers sliding up to cup his face, and the gesture unlocked him from his frenzied haze.
“What are you doing?” Brennan’s pulse slammed through his chest as Ava tipped his jaw upward while lowering her other hand.
“You said to watch.” Her voice was honey and velvet and a thousand other things, but all of them escaped him when she dipped her fingers to the center of her body.
“But I want you to watch too.”
The sound in his throat was more growl than groan, but Brennan didn’t care. He swept back against Ava’s core, following her lead for only a second before taking it along with her. Her gasps became moans, her grip on his shoulder tightening as she rocked against his mouth, his lips, his tongue. She led him to every sweet spot, drawing him in with her fingers and her breathy sighs, until finally she started to tremble.
“Oh . . . oh God. I . . .”
Brennan punctuated the incomplete thought with one last thrust of his tongue. Ava’s free hand dug into his shoulder, clutching his T-shirt as she came undone around him. Her trembles grew into a full-bodied quake, her voice, her climax, all of it vibrating through him in lust-fueled waves. Slowly, he softened his touches breath by breath, pulling back just enough to catch her boneless body mid-slide down the wall.
“I’ve got you. Come on.” Brennan swung his bedroom door wide with one arm, wrapping the other around Ava’s rib cage. Christ, his bed had never looked so good.
But even as he led her right up to the edge of it in his moonlit room, Ava didn’t sit or lie down as he expected.
Instead, she turned his back to the bed, pushing him to sit before she took a step back.
“Ava—”
“Shh.” She leaned toward him just enough to brush her fingers over his mouth, refreshing her taste on his lips. “I might have come first, but you’re not done watching.”
Ava retreated just out of reach, dropping her gaze to the deep V of her shirt. The silky edge fluttered low over her thighs, offering a tantalizing suggestion of her nakedness beneath. She worked the buttons slowly, each one making him harder and more desperate to be inside her. As if he’d broadcast the thought out loud, Ava paused to shake her head at him in the shadows, and hell . . . how was he supposed to keep his hands to himself when she bit her bottom lip like that?
“You are gorgeous,” Brennan whispered, nearly choking with relief as she finally stepped back to the open angle of his hips. He reached out at the same moment she closed in, pressing him back over the mattress in a tangle of long legs and hot, fast intention. His T-shirt never stood a chance, and the rest of his clothes followed on a quick trip to the floor. Ava shifted to her side in the pool of dark bedsheets, propping herself up on one elbow with a sexy grin.
“That’s a two-way street.” Her eyes coasted slowly downward, and she followed her gaze with a light trail of her fingers. The contact shot through him in a greedy push of want, his cock jerking against her palm as she stroked him with perfect pressure. “Let me show you.”
“Ah. Ava,” Brennan swore, and damn it, he couldn’t wait. Grabbing her hips, he rolled her beneath him, kissing her deeply before pulling back to grab a condom from his bedside table drawer. Ava parted her knees in a wordless proposition, and Brennan answered by filling her with one smooth thrust. A hundred sensations sizzled under his skin, tightening at the base of his spine to send his hips into instant, ungentle rhythm. Every thrust tempted him deeper, each retreat calling him back to her sweet, slick center with more speed, and Ava’s velvety sighs urged him recklessly into both.
Christ, she was stunning, wild hair spilling over her shoulders, lithe body matching his movements, pulse for pulse. Ava dared him harder and faster, until finally, she locked her hands around his waist, pulling him in to cover her fully.
“Brennan.” The word broke from her mouth, her muscles growing so taut he could feel his own release threatening in the lowest, darkest part of him. Her hips moved even wider on a cry, and he hooked a hand beneath her knee, scooping upward to fill her completely.
Ava’s eyes flew wide, her release riding out on a pleasure-soaked moan. The sound snapped Brennan’s waning control in half, pushing him over the brink. His orgasm flashed all the way through him, sudden and powerful, and he gave in to it with a curse and a shout. Raw sensation dominated his body, locking him against Ava’s hips as he came in wave after wave of pure, intense pleasure.
For long seconds, Brennan forgot how to breathe, but then slowly, surely, he filtered back down to reality.
He was gripping the back of Ava’s thigh with one hand, pinning her in place on the bed.
Hard.
“Jesus,” Brennan hissed, jerking away from the frame of her body as if she’d burned him. A punishment he’d have full-well earned, for how he’d just lost control. “I’m sorry, Ava. I—”
“Stop.” She stilled, but her expression held no hesitation or fear. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
“I got carried away.” He gestured to her leg, but she propped herself up over the covers and cut off his argument with a laugh.
“I should hope so, seeing as how I seduced you the second I walked in the door.”
Still, he couldn’t give in to impulse like that. What if he’d lost control and hurt her?
Brennan opened his mouth to renew his protest, but Ava shifted to claim the space he’d put between them.
“This is mutual, Brennan.” She paused, pressing forward to brush a kiss over his lips. “It might be a little impulsive, and maybe a little more crazy, but that’s okay with me. As long as that part’s mutual too.”
“I didn’t hurt you?”
“No,” she said, without pause. “Because if you had, I’d have told you. I want this, just the way it is.”
A vulnerable flicker mixed in with the honesty on Ava’s face, and he realized again that she’d had the chance to hide her feelings, or worse yet, to run.
And once more, she hadn’t taken it.
“Just the way it is, huh?” Relief eased through Brennan’s veins, doubling up at her throaty giggle as his return kiss became a gentle nip of her bottom lip. He couldn’t deny the attraction between them, and more importantly, Ava was genuine, and genuinely okay. “I guess I can live with that.”
“Good,” she said, her sassy smile flashing in the moonlit shadows of his bedroom. “Now do you think you can live with taking a break for dinner? I’m all for seduction over sustenance, but at some point, a girl’s gotta eat.”
A quick visual inventory of his fridge told Brennan he was going to have to dig for a whole bunch of culinary prowess if he wanted to feed Ava something other than chili from a can. But working with Adrian for the past eight months had taught him a thing or two about food, not the least of which was that chili from a can should probably be outlawed.
“Pickings are kind of slim,” Brennan apologized, sending a sheepish look over his shoulder. “I kind of asked you over on the spur of the moment.”
But rather than get awkward, Ava simply grinned at the mention of his spontaneous invitation. “I’m glad you did. Sorry I’m not much help in the kitchen, though. The only thing I know how to make really well is a mess.”
“You want to learn?” The question launched from Brennan’s mouth before he could stop it, but the spark of interest in her emerald green eyes made him glad as hell he’d asked.
“You’d teach me how to cook?”
“I’d teach you how to scramble eggs,” he clarified, sliding the cardboard half carton from the refrigerator. “It’s not that
hard.”
Ava gave a mock shudder, but padded over to the cooktop nonetheless. God, she looked cute with his borrowed T-shirt covering her to midthigh and her hair piled on top of her head in a semimessy knot. “You’re giving me a whole lot of credit there.”
“Or you’re not giving yourself enough.”
“Mmm. You should probably reserve judgment until after you’ve seen my appalling cooking skills.”
“You don’t believe in yourself much, do you?”
As soon as the words had crossed his lips, Brennan silently cursed his utter lack of brain-to-mouth filter. Ava hadn’t had a set of parents who’d believed in her or encouraged her efforts the way his had. And now, with her douche truck of a boss following suit and knocking her career, there was little wonder Ava was light in the self-credit department.
Her expression shifted, so slightly he’d have missed it if he hadn’t been trying to read her. “You’re talking to a woman who thinks graham crackers mixed with milk is a culinary delight, remember?”
“How could I forget?” Brennan paused, putting the eggs on the counter so he could slide both arms around her waist. “I still wish you’d give yourself some credit.”
“What about you?”
Her return question was more wide-eyed interest than reporterly intrusion, but Brennan still sidestepped it out of instinct.
“What about me?” He pulled back, crouching down low to slide his lone skillet from the cabinet next to the cooktop. Of course Ava was waiting for him with an expression reading really? when he stood to place the pan on the burner.
“You saved a little boy from a burning building, Brennan. Don’t you think that deserves some credit too?”
Brennan blew out a breath. Instinct had the answer on his tongue even though his defenses whispered in no uncertain terms that he should clap his pie hole shut. But come on. He wasn’t airing things out to Mike freaking Trotter. This was Ava, for God’s sake.
Ava, who had come right over when he’d called, no questions asked. Ava, who had just shuddered and screamed beneath his hands, who’d made him shudder and scream right back.
Ava, who had just looked at him with nothing but pure, sweet honesty as she’d asked what about you?
“I don’t know,” Brennan admitted, balancing his words against the emotions flinging themselves around in his head. “I get that most people think what I did at Joe’s is heroic.” He countered her brows-up shock with a shake of his head. “And yes. In a way, it is. But I didn’t become a firefighter for the recognition. All the fanfare feels unnecessary.”
“Hmm. So for you, even something big like risking your life to save someone else’s is all just part of the job.” Ava tipped her head, her nearly black bangs sweeping down over one eye as she processed his words and watched his movements at the cooktop. She took in both with such natural interest that the words just kept tripping out of his mouth.
“Exactly. It’s important, but it’s also what I was trained for.” He grabbed a carton of milk from the fridge, bare feet shushing over the floor. “I mean, wouldn’t you feel weird if people made a huge deal every time you wrote a story? It’s what you do.”
Ava laughed. “Come on, Brennan. Saving Matthew Wilson from a burning grocery store is a far cry from me writing about the Riverside Turnip Festival. It’s not even apples and oranges. More like apples and . . . well, turnips.”
“On the surface, maybe. But let me ask you this. Do you ever think twice about a really difficult story? Or did you treat the Turnip Festival the same as you did the story on the fire?”
“Stories are stories. They’re all important,” she said, emphatically. “It wouldn’t be right to pay attention to only the big ones.”
“Right.” Brennan cracked a few eggs into a bowl at the counter, adding just enough milk and some salt and pepper before passing it to Ava. “Being a firefighter is the same. Whether I’m running into a five-alarm fire or pulling a kitten out of a neighborhood oak tree, it all matters. And it’s all part of the job.”
“Have you ever been to a five-alarm fire?” she asked, and God damn it, he’d waltzed right into that one, hadn’t he?
He yanked the refrigerator door open, willing his hand to stop shaking. Breathe. In. Out. “Once.”
Ava clutched the bowl to her chest, her delayed realization obvious. “I’m sorry. That was a really stupid question. What, um, what do you want me to do with this?”
She plunked the bowl to the countertop in front of her and started rummaging through his utensil drawer in a clear bid to divert the subject, and a flare of guilt twisted behind his sternum.
“It’s okay. You’re kind of programmed to ask questions,” he said, his arm brushing against hers as he reached in to scoop a fork from the drawer.
Ava paused for only a second before taking it from his fingers. “Just like you’re kind of programmed to dodge them, huh?”
The words held no accusation, and hell, it wasn’t as if she was wrong, anyway. Firefighters rarely got loose lipped about the darker parts of the job, with each other or anyone else.
When the shit hit the fan, Brennan had been able to count on the firefighters at Station Eight for two things. To always have his six, and to never say a single syllable after a tough call.
He hadn’t spoken to Cole or Alex in nearly two and a half years.
“There are parts that are hard to air out, yeah,” Brennan admitted, the rest of his past grinding to a stop in his throat.
“I understand,” Ava said. “None of my friends here in the Blue Ridge know about my parents. Nadine was the only one, and even then, we never talked about it before she moved. I don’t think either of us quite knew what to say. But . . .”
She broke off, shifting her weight from one bare foot to the other before exhaling in a wordless here goes nothing. “Just because the past is painful doesn’t mean it’s all bad. Don’t get me wrong—growing up with abusive parents was pretty horrible. But if I forgot my past completely, I wouldn’t be who I am. As crappy as it was, my past makes me stronger in the present. Sharing the truth with you made me realize that. So I guess what I’m trying to say is, sometimes stories are worth telling. Even if they’re difficult.”
For a second, Brennan stood completely poleaxed on the linoleum. Yes, he’d give anything to forget that fateful, awful night that he’d climbed into the back step of Engine Eight for the last time. But it had never crossed his mind that stuffing back the past also meant forgetting who he’d been, things that had been sewn into his very fabric, not just as a firefighter, but as a person.
Losing the past would mean forgetting Mason. And fuck. Brennan was supposed to have had the guy’s back. He owed his best friend so much more than that.
Even if it meant Brennan would have to spill his secrets in order to man up.
“I got hurt in an apartment fire,” he said, the words tasting rusty in his mouth. Brennan reached for the bowl Ava had set on the counter, desperate for something to focus on other than the memory welling up in his mind like a gut-wrenching wound.
Ava nodded, passing the fork back over as if he’d broadcast his need for control, even over something as inconsequential as scrambled eggs. “Sounds like a big call,” she said.
“The fire started out small enough, but the building was old.” Christ, the speed with which the flames had rolled over every surface, unrelenting and eerily graceful, had damn near stunned him into place in that first hallway. “We had to get everyone out before we could even think about containing the flames. Even with squad on scene too, it was rough. The building was one of the biggest in Fairview. Plus, it was the middle of the night, so nearly everyone was home and in bed.”
Brennan stopped, measuring his breaths along with the soft clink-clink-clink of the fork as he whisked the eggs. His heartbeat slammed in his chest, pushing a rush of white noise through his ears while the muscles in his back knotted over, one by one. But Ava stood firm beside him at the counter, and her quiet presence sent more wo
rds fumbling past his lips.
“We do searches in pairs, but visibility was nil after only a few minutes. A lot of tenants managed to get out on their own, but some needed help, especially as the fire spread.”
“I’m sure they must have been frightened,” Ava said, and he nodded in return.
“That’s an understatement.” The sharp sound of a mother’s voice, desperately begging him and Mason to find her son, echoed through his mind, and damn it . . . he couldn’t do this. If Brennan unleashed the entire story, he wouldn’t be able to control his anger, his grief.
His guilt.
Above all, have each other’s backs.
Ava slid the bowl from his unsteady hands, allowing him to laser in on both his waning calm and the skillet he’d left perched over the dormant burner. He cleared his throat, grabbing the butter he’d taken from the fridge along with his resolve.
“Everyone inside the building was pretty much in a full panic. No one could see, and even getting from apartment to apartment was tough going after a few minutes,” he continued. “But when the rubber meets the road, that’s when we’ve got to be the most calm. It’s against human nature to want to run into a burning building. But I was trained to do the things that scare the hell out of most people. And everything I’d ever trained for came down to that call on that night.”
“God, Nick. I can’t even imagine how hard it must’ve been.” The honesty glinting in Ava’s bright green eyes hooked directly into Brennan’s chest, pulling the memories from his mind to his mouth.
“To be honest, even with the countless calls I’d been on before that, and all the rescue squad training on top of it, I couldn’t have imagined it either. For every person we got to safety, two more popped up in their place needing help. Between the smoke and the darkness, we might as well have been blindfolded and shoved inside a pressure cooker. Keeping accurate track of which spaces we’d already cleared was damn near impossible.”
Brennan had never admitted out loud how gut-twistingly overwhelming that fire had been—it wasn’t like there was room to show fear or, hell, anything other than balls to the wall certainty when a call got really hairy. But Christ, the fire that night had slashed into them with a thousand razor-sharp teeth. There hadn’t been time for hesitation, let alone fear. Not until after, and then it was too late.
All Wrapped Up (A Pine Mountain Novel) Page 21