by Marie Fraser
***
Sarah didn’t really know what to expect when she arrived at the hotshots’ headquarters, although she was fairly certain that she hadn’t expected it to be so devoid of firefighting equipment. “Where are all the vehicles?”
“We don’t have any,” Jackson said. “Well, we have a tanker truck and an engine, but they’re out and about, evacuating people and rescuing those who were stubborn enough, much like you, to stick around too long.”
“I’m not stubborn.”
“No,” Jackson laughed. “Not at all.”
“Maybe a little,” she grinned, playfully punching him in the arm. “Hey, I came didn’t I?”
Jackson stepped closer, smiling when he leaned even closer. “Not from where I’m standing.”
Sarah was so appalled by his lurid comment that she only saw red before her hand slammed against his face. It stung like fire, but hell if she’d let him know it. As she stormed out of the garage area, she heard someone yell, “Finally, a woman who can put the boss in his place!”
Ignoring them, she jogged out into the unnatural heat. A minute later, she heard Jackson approach, not turning toward him she said, “My house is gone now.”
“You’ll rebuild, pretty Sarah,” Jackson said, as his hands over her arms. “I’m sorry. I was out of line.”
“Yes you were,” Sarah sighed. She turned now and her dark eyes held a world of worry. “My love life is certainly none of your business.”
“It is if we keep seeing one another.”
“Then we won’t,” she said, jutting out her chin.
“Oh, put your pride away before you fall over it,” Jackson said. “Is that how you want it, Sarah, truly? To pretend like we don’t stir something in each other?”
Sarah sighed again and Jackson watched the last few hours wipe her out. “Hey,” he said, feeling clumsy as tears soaked into his shirt front. “It’s gonna be alright, Sarah. I just bought all your photos, remember?”
She coughed as a laugh caught in her throat. “You still owe me,” she said, lifting her face and looking into kind green eyes. Eyes that made everything else seem small in comparison. How had she gotten here, in this moment, with this infuriating man?
***
“I’ll write you a check,” he smiled, taking her mouth on a groan. Jackson felt like a damn was breaking inside him. He yanked her against him, wrapping a strong arm around her waist so he could keep a good grip on her. He’d meant to give her something soft, something to comfort her. But now he couldn’t stop himself from plundering, especially when she seemed to be just as needy.
Somewhere in his mind he registered that she wasn’t pushing him away, but straining toward him. Her tight little body fit snugly against the hard planes of his and Jackson felt a fire light inside him, one he’d ignored for the better part of two years now. “Jesus, Sarah.”
“What?” she whispered. Jackson couldn’t help but grin when he noted the dazed look in her eyes. Then the razor sharp focus returned and she stepped back. “I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure our impressions were about identical,” Jackson chuckled. “And it’s okay that you’re not particularly comfortable with that as I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it yet either.”
“You’re not?”
“Well, honey,” he drawled in his thick southern twang. “You’re a beauty for sure and I like your mind. It’s just that…well relationships come with strings and I don’t like getting tripped up.”
“Seriously?” she snorted. “You think just because we kissed, passionately, that I want to tie you up in a relationship? Talk about stereotypes.”
“Oh, well, if you’re good with just casual sex then I suppose we should talk more.”
“I’m not…dammit, Jackson!” Sarah huffed. “I never said anything about being okay with casual sex, or any sex for that matter. You kissed me and I liked it, so I kissed you back. That’s the end of it.”
“Only because I didn’t press my advantage,” Jackson mumbled. Sarah turned around, her eyes like tiny slivers of dark blue fury.
“Why is it always like that?”
“If a woman makes a man wait for sex, she’s a prude. If she doesn’t make a man wait she’s a slut. Why can’t it be that a woman likes sex and just wants to make sure she’s picking a guy worth the effort before she goes all the way?”
Now Jackson was getting somewhere, he thought. “Maybe guys don’t like to have to put in the effort of being worth it. Speaking as a guy, sluts are a dime a dozen. It’s the one we call prude to her face that we take home to our mamas. Now you, you have the body for the first, but the mind and heart for the second and you can bet your ass I’m working my way around to having you in my bed.”
“Not in there you’re not,” Sarah said, pointing to the communal hotshot barracks.
“No?” he laughed. “Then maybe in a couple months I’ll really take you home, take some time off and show you that there’s more to me than just the man who keeps tripping over you when it comes to this damn fire.”
“You’re on,” she said, the challenge lighting her eyes.
***
It took two weeks before the fire was under control enough to call it quits. Local firefighters took over in their districts and Jackson pulled his hotshots back to base. “As of right now, we’re off-duty. That doesn’t mean we’re done with our contract, however. The Crescent Valley fire is finally under control. As of now we’re on clean up and disaster relief. We’ll canvas local neighborhoods, make sure civility is the rule of the day and help in any capacity we can.”
“Got it, boss,” Steve Jansen said, adding a cocky shake of his head.
“At night, we all make the change. We can canvas a lot more mileage that way.”
That night, like the rest of his Lobo Crew, Jackson shed his clothes and changed into the dark coated wolf he kept hidden most of the time. He patrolled close to Sarah’s neighborhood. It broke his heart to see all the suffering. Most of the homes had been completely burned down, leaving little behind of their presence except for a few shards of foundation stone. Sarah’s house hadn’t fared any better. He feared everything she owned, including the heirlooms she’d spoken of were likely destroyed. As he neared what had been the entrance to her home, he heard sobbing and stepped into the entrance.
The next two things he heard seemed far away, as if he were watching an action movie under water. Her sharp gasp alerted him to the fact that he’d startled himer. The second noise was like a loud crack of thunder as it rang in his ears. By the time he felt the searing pain, his wolf was already slipping away and he brought a blood covered hand away from his naked side. His green eyes found Sarah’s as his name slipped from his lips on a pained whisper. “Sarah.”
Chapter Four: Oh Boy!
Sarah stood stock still for what seemed like an eternity before the instant shock of shooting a rabid dog wore off. Where had the dog gone and why was Jackson lying naked in the entryway of what had once been her home?
“Jackson!” Sarah called, rolling him onto his back. That’s when she noticed the gunshot wound in his side. She’d shot him, but how? Running to her car she yanked a sheet from the back and went back to Jackson, wrapping the sheet around his waist several times before tying a tight knot over the wound. “Jackson, wake up!” She yelled and smacked his face hard enough to leave a print.
“Ouch,” he breathed. “You don’t have to add insult to injury you know.”
“Where the hell did you come from?” Sarah blabbered. “There was a damn dog here, a wolf, I swear it.”
Looking down, Sarah saw Jackson shaking his head up and down. “That’s me,” he said, his voice soft and wispy.
“What?”
“The dog is me. I’m a shape shifter. A man with the ability to become a wolf; although I should say I don’t do it often and almost always at night.”
“Why?”
“Ever tried to keep up with a dog?” Jackson
asked, coughing and then wincing with the pain.
“I’ve gotta get you to a hospital.”
“I’m a little indisposed for that, don’t you think?”
Sarah remembered then that Jackson was, besides the sheet, completely naked. “How do you get dressed if-“
“Usually we stash clothes at a point we can get back to. We don’t often plan of getting shot, however.”
“I don’t have anything here that can…cover you.”
“It’s okay,” he wheezed. “Can you run me back to the hotshot’s headquarters? If I can get there, my crew will know what to do.”
“Alright,” Sarah said, helping Jackson stand. “Is it shallow of me to be slightly impressed?”
Jackson grinned. “No, but it’s terribly arrogant of me to know you would be.”
“Only if you know what you’re doing,” Sarah said haughtily.
“Give me a few days, baby.”
***
Sarah drove like a madwoman back to the base where Jackson and his crew’s base of operations. “It’s okay,” he said. “You can stop here and let me out. They’ll know what to do.”
“I…I’m sorry, Jackson.”
“Don’t!” Jackson said sternly. “I…I don’t do well with tears.”
Sarah dried them up and smiled sheepishly. Then, feeling the need, she leaned over before Jackson got out of the car, and brought her mouth to his. She gave him a piece of herself, something she didn’t do often and just when she would have pulled back, Sarah felt him surrender and a power she’d never felt whipped through her like a tidal wave.
“Sarah,” he whispered. “Oh, pretty Sarah. Do you have any idea what you do to me?”
Sarah kept her eyes on his and grinned. “Get inside before you bleed out.” She watched him walk inside and wondered about his question. She’d been poised to ask the same thing of herself. The only trouble was that she was terribly afraid of the answer.
She turned her car around again and headed back to what was left of her home. She had some things left to sift through and wanted it done before daylight.
***
“What the hell happened to you?” JJ asked, looking at the bullet hole in Jackson’s side.
“Thought I’d check on Sarah’s home. I heard her crying so I stepped through the doorway to see if she was okay. She turned around and shot me. Granted, I was a huge wolf at the time.”
“Jesus,” JJ chuckled. “She’s got you pegged and she can shoot.”
“Shut it, Jansen,” Jackson said in his usual joking manner. “Just sew me up, will you?”
“Once I get the bullet out,” he smiled. “Just so you can’t say I didn’t warn you. This is gonna hurt like fuck.”
“Just get it over with.”
Jackson laid down on a backboard and waited for JJ to strap him on. Then he bit down on the stick JJ offered and waited. “Just remember to breathe, okay?”
Jackson watched JJ sterilize a long Bowie-knife and held his breath when he knelt close to Jackson’s hip. “You ready?”
Jackson gave a curt nod and would have surely bit his tongue off if not for the stick in his mouth. His whole body went taught as pain radiated through his body from the center point of where Sarah had shot him. Ten excruciating minutes later, JJ declared, “Got it.”
“Fuck!” Jackson yelled when he could finally speak. “Jesus H. Christ!”
“Told ya,” JJ beamed, holding the bullet in a pair of tweezers.
Jackson was moving around slowly that night when he heard the alert howl of Steve Jansen, who was on patrol. He moved to the door only to find Sarah on the other side. “Hey,” she said when he opened the door to her.
“Hey.”
“I…I was going to say I was in the neighborhood, but-“
“It’s okay,” he smiled. “Thirsty?”
“A little,” she grinned. Jackson noted the way her legs filled out the set of dark blue jeans she’d worn. The woman had a hell of a figure. “No. Dammit, Jackson.”
“What?”
“You!” she said, obviously flustered. “You drive me crazy. One minute you’re all it’s my way or no way. Then you’re all, whatever you want to do. Could you please just pick one and stick with it so I know what to expect?”
“So you’re angry because I’m not a raging dick all the time?”
“No, I’m angry…Jesus this is mortifying. I’m angry because you make me want things that aren’t good for me.”
“Like what?” Jackson said, truly confused.
“Like this,” Sarah said, lifting her shirt over her head.
“Jesus, Sarah,” Jackson said, bending down to retrieve her shirt, only to wince as pain shot through his side. “Damn.”
“Did you get the bullet out?”
“Yes,” Jackson hissed. “Little good it did me. So I die of blood loss instead of infection.”
“Sit down,” she said, her no non-sense tone throwing him off. “I’ll stitch you up so it stops bleeding.”
“You ever sew anything, blondie?”
“Just sit down.”
Jackson was reluctant, but did as she asked. The idea of going through more pain wasn’t on his priority list, but what else could he do short of taking his sorry ass to the hospital. He watched Sarah thread a needle and then she unwrapped the bandage around his wound, cleaned it with iodine and pinch his skin together. “Want a shot of whiskey?”
“Not ‘til after,” he said. “Just do it.”
***
Sarah had to admit that Jackson got huge points for balls. The man could take some pain. Never did she want to know what it was to be sewn up without anesthesia. “One more stitch,” she said, moving quickly and tying a complicated knot at the end. “There.”
“Thanks,” Jackson said, reaching up to touch her face. Sarah figured now was as good a time as any, considering she hadn’t thought about anything else for at least the last few hours.
“You’re welcome,” she said, moving to block him from jumping off the table. She put her hands on his thighs and ran them up over tight muscles. “I wasn’t quite done yet.”
“Okaaaay,” he grinned.
Sarah felt like a fool, but she knew that nothing risked was nothing gained. She grabbed the hem of Jackson’s jeans and undid them, moving her hips closer as her fingers unzipped them. “I want you, Cap.”
His eyes focused on her face and Sarah wondered how he could be so singular when it was obvious, by his massive hard-on, that he wanted her just as desperately. “Sarah, I-“
“Don’t tell me you’re going to go all chivalrous on me.”
“No, I…I’m not exactly prepared for you.”
“Good thing I came prepared then, huh?” Sarah pulled a box of condoms from her purse. I don’t carry these around, but considering I knew what I wanted when I headed this way, I figured better safe than sorry.”
Jackson grabbed her wrists then and Sarah thought for a moment he might just push her away. Then he yanked her forward so that her hips bumped his obvious erection and her laughing mouth smashed haphazardly into his. This kiss was playful, but all too soon it turned to a need both of them wanted to express, badly.
“How do I do this, Sarah?” Jackson asked, his words muffled in her hair as his mouth laced heat over the soft flesh of her neck. “I can’t control this if I let it out.”
“I know,” she said, feeling heat flash through her like a back-draft. “Hurry.”
***
Jackson felt like his whole body was on fire and it burned so damn good. Even knowing the pain of it, he couldn’t stop himself from picking Sarah up and letting her warm legs wrap around his waist. He settled her pretty ass in his hands and moved her back and forth, letting his cock speak for the need that pulsed through him. “Jesus,” Sarah breathed. “When?”
“Soon,” Jackson breathed, both from wanting her and from the pain that seared his side. He carried Sarah to a slightly more private area before he laid her down, tearing her panties from un
der her dress. “I’ll replace them.”
“Jackson,” she purred, her breathy pleas driving him crazy. He filled her on that first thrust, burying himself to the hilt inside the wet heat of her pussy. Her cry of pleasure was all the encouragement he needed and soon Jackson had her ass in his hands again and he pumped into her over and over again, driving them both on as if all the demons of hell chased them. “Jackson!”
He heard his name ringing in his ears as that final, primal thrust took him over and Jackson was barely aware that Sarah was trembling, her body uncontrollable beneath him. “I’m sorry,” he breathed, “I just couldn’t…”
He felt her mouth against his, tasted the heady flavor of her arousal and felt himself hardening inside her. “Seriously?” she giggled.
“First time for everything,” he grinned.
With the monstrous dragon of need subdued, Jackson took her up slowly this time, pleasuring her whole body. He took time to satisfy her breasts, each pretty pink tip going hard under the attention of his hands and tongue.
“You’re so damn sweet, Sarah.”
Jackson wanted to show her that he could be tender, that he cared about her satisfaction. Slipping his hand between her legs, he found her hot and ripe and she bucked against his touch. “Jackson,” she cooed. “I don’t need-“
“I do.” And the truth of that shocked him. He’d always played fast and loose with women, never taking more than he was willing to give in return. What was it about Sarah that made him want to stay? He stroked her, needing to feel and hear her pleasure as her body responded to the gentle, constant pressure.
“Please,” she begged, her cry almost breathless. When she opened those lazy baby blues, Jackson filled her, watched the way her pupils dilated as that first rush of fresh arousal hit her. Then he kissed her deeply, filling her again and again until she cried his name and found her climax.
***
“Sweet Jesus,” Sarah said, when she was finally able to move. What the hell had happened between them? Did Jackson feel it too, or was she just delusional? “Did you…”
“What?” he asked, his green eyes meeting her evenly.
“Did you feel that?”