by Zoe Chant
“Upstairs,” Jamie gasped, when she could draw breath. She clawed at his shoulders, and hated his coat for keeping them as far apart as they were.
They staggered into the fire station and he kicked the door closed behind them so hard that it bounced open again. Jamie tackled him against it to close it again, wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders and kissing him hard.
He had his hands up under her coat, and they struggled together with her zipper as they shed gloves and hats, leaving them carelessly strewn behind them as Jamie led him to the stairs going up to her efficiency.
His coat was left halfway up the staircase, hers slightly after, and Jamie was walking up backwards, undoing his buttons and pushing his shirt back off his shoulders when she ran into her door, hard enough to knock the breath out of her. Devon’s hands were up around her face and he was kissing her again, even though her lips were already so bruised it felt like she was standing too close to flames.
“In,” she said, but she didn’t have her keys, they’d been left in her coat pocket on the stairs. She got free and skipped down to gather it up and dig into the pocket.
“You said you wanted to take it slow,” Devon said, panting like she was. “I’m sorry…”
“That was before I got your shirt off,” Jamie said honestly, fishing her keys out and raising them triumphantly. “Inside, now.”
But Devon was suddenly shy again as they went into the tiny apartment. “I didn’t mean to be so…”
Jamie threw her keys onto the desk and reached for him. “I did,” she assured him.
He was frozen under her lips, and when Jamie backed away, she could see the doubt and fear in his eyes. “I don’t…I’ve never...this is…”
Jamie blinked with a sudden suspicion. “Are you a virgin?”
Devon’s blush was answer enough. “I told you, my life is…”
“...complicated,” Jamie finished for him. She took him by the hands and drew him down to sit on the bed with her. “This isn’t.”
She put her hands on his shoulders, his broad, gorgeous shoulders, and traced the muscles down his arms. His shirt was outside the apartment door somewhere. He shuddered under her fingers and his breath came faster.
Jamie pulled off her own shirt and watched the hunger in his face sharpen like a knife. “You can touch me,” she said, and to her own ears, it sounded like she was begging.
Maybe she was.
When his hands touched her skin, careful and clever, Jamie sucked in her breath like she hadn’t ever tasted air. He traced the line from her neck, along each collarbone, and then down to cup her breasts reverently. He dipped his head to kiss her shoulder, and then the top of her closest breast, and when he leaned into her, Jamie fell willingly back onto the bed.
He explored her eagerly, struggling with her bra until she took pity on him and undid it herself. At every stage, he paused, assessing her enjoyment, and Jamie could barely keep herself from imploring for more.
He was huge inside his jeans, and when Jamie rubbed her hand over his straining cock, he growled like an animal and every muscle in his body tensed up. “Yes,” she told him. “Yes…”
With his lips on her stomach, he unbuttoned her jeans, so slowly and carefully that Jamie caught herself pulsing herself at him and whining in need. As he slipped them down past her hips, the cool touch of air on her nethers made her squirm. “Yes, please...yes…”
“Jamie,” he hissed, and he touched her so lightly that Jamie wanted to cry out, drawing one finger wonderingly along her swollen lips. She could feel how wet and ready she was, and he was still, frustratingly, wearing his jeans.
“Devon,” she warned. “If you don’t get out of your pants, we are going to have a problem.”
She was not sure how he got out of them, but she spent the time getting her own jeans off her ankles, and then he was naked and urgent and beautiful above her, and she was spreading her legs in welcome.
“Wait, wait,” he said suddenly, pausing with his freed cock just teasingly out of reach. “Condom. I brought one. It’s in...my coat!”
“I’m on the pill,” Jamie said swiftly, not sure how he’d been able to even remember what a condom was. She was so keyed up that her world seemed no bigger than the space between his arms.
“I...don’t...I might...I can’t…”
She could read the animal desperation in him. “You can,” she told him. “You’d better…”
Then she was lifting her hips to meet him as he gave a raw noise of need and slipped, hard and huge, into her.
For a moment, he just held her there, and Jamie felt like she was wound to a fever pitch she’d never experienced before, poised on a wave of pleasure that she hadn’t even realized was possible.
Then he was moving, slowly at first, then with increasing frenzy until he was crashing into her like a force of nature, faster and deeper, clutching her closer and closer until Jamie felt her last resistance falter and vanish and she was only pleasure and release and she was falling from a great height to a perfectly safe place.
At her cry of bliss, he found his own release, and she felt him tense and spill deep into her at last.
They coupled together a long moment afterwards, slowing and remembering how to breathe again.
“I’m sorry…I’m sorry…” he gasped. “I couldn’t…”
“You...have got...to stop apologizing…” Jamie told him, willing her heartbeat to slow. “That was perfect.”
“I should have…”
“Perfect,” Jamie insisted, drawing his face back to hers for a kiss. “Absolutely perfect.”
All the tension in his body slowly released as they lay together in her tiny, narrow bed. “Jamie…” he said, cradling her close. “My Jamie.”
It should have terrified her, the possessiveness in his voice. She should remind him now that good sex was just making him feel delirious.
But she felt like his. She felt like she’d never been anyone else’s, like she belonged here, in his arms the way she’d never belonged anywhere else in her entire life.
“My Devon,” she whispered, too softly for him to hear. “My home.”
9
They dozed together for a while, drifting in and out of contented comfort, until Devon started to feel cramped in Jamie’s tiny bed. His feet were off the end, and he could feel the slope of the mattress falling off at the very edge of his back.
“I should get home,” he said reluctantly.
“Want a shower in the utility room before you go?” Jamie offered practically.
That sounded marginally better than putting his sweaty, sticky body back into his clothing, and Devon had definitely not yet had enough of Jamie’s silky skin yet. “Yes,” he agreed. “If you join me.”
“Deal.” She spilled out of the bed and padded to the closet. “You’re in luck and I’ve got two clean towels.”
Wrapped in these towels, they went to the door and crept downstairs like burglars. Fortunately, there was no sign of Turner or Carter and they snuck into the shower where they leisurely soaped each other and stood in the blazing hot water exploring each other with care.
She was compact and strong, with perfectly proportioned limbs. Devon was enthralled with her collarbones, her hips, her breasts, the little dimples in the small of her back, the place her neck met her shoulder, her wrists...everything about her was simply fascinating and gorgeous.
Was she shifter strong? Devon wondered again, but he couldn’t quite make himself ask. One world-shattering new thing at a time, he decided.
He wasn’t sure how long they would have stayed in the steaming water...if the station alarm had not suddenly begun to shrill.
Jamie fell against the water controls, shutting off the heat abruptly, and began to towel off furiously as she fled for the stairs. “Turner will be here in just a minute!” she exclaimed, and Devon took the second towel and followed her, gathering their coats and hats and gloves and shirts as he went.
He had never dresse
d so quickly in his life, pulling reluctant clothing over damp limbs, but it wasn’t quite fast enough. He raced after Jamie down the stairs still trying to button his shirt as she went for the turnout gear waiting in the station bay…and met Turner coming in from the outside.
He was keenly aware of his wet hair and the fact that he’d started his shirt buttons off-square, so he had three buttons left and two buttonholes.
“Er...hi,” he said awkwardly. The radio in the truck was crackling with incomprehensible directions.
Turner gave him one raking look and was going for his own turnout gear as Jamie swung into the driver’s seat of the fire truck and smashed the button to open the garage door. “First one ready gets to drive!” she called merrily. “Every second counts!”
Turner was still putting his arms into his coat as he pulled himself into the passenger seat. Jamie was pulling away before his door was even closed, and then Devon was alone, disheveled, in the cold, empty garage as the truck’s siren faded away.
Not sure what else to do, he closed the garage door against the cold night air, fixed the buttons on his shirt, and let himself out the man door on the side of the garage.
He walked home slowly, wondering if he should worry for Jamie, if he should worry for them, if he’d been any good, what Abby must think, how quickly rumor spread in Green Valley…his mind was a tumble of doubts and confusion.
Then he remembered Jamie’s joyous face, and the feel of her in his arms and he knew that it was all going to be fine. His lynx was purring in his head, certain that everything was unfolding exactly as it should, and he knew that they were meant to be happy together.
She had texted him by the time he got home, assuring him that the call had been nothing more than an overheated car. “Poured some water in the radiator and watched Turner give them a fun lecture on car maintenance.”
As Devon was still trying to figure out what to text back, she added: “See you tomorrow?” and his heart leapt in his chest.
“Shaun’s at 10?” he proposed eagerly and a thumbs up emoticon had never looked so beautiful. He promptly called Dean and begged for the morning off.
They met for coffee the day after as well, and the following morning, Jamie showed up at his door in a jogging suit with a light jacket over it. “You’re going to help me work off all of Shaun’s rich desserts,” she said, barely giving him time to change before she dragged him, with a brief hello at Abby, out the door to go running with him.
“Get to school on time!” he called back to his sister.
“I don’t usually go jogging,” Devon protested, as Jamie teased him and jogged in circles around him at the gate, looking at her watch. “Aren’t you cold?”
“You have to actually start running to stay warm,” Jamie said. “Try to keep up!”
Then she was off down the middle of the street, and Devon would have followed her anywhere. He sprinted to catch up, and she took it as a challenge, and then they were racing and laughing in the cold air.
The snow from the week before had all melted, so the roads were dry again, and Green Valley never had much traffic. Jamie led him down tiny alleys and through parks that Devon didn’t even know about, and once they had slowed down a little, could tell him a little about some of the places they were passing.
“I caught Andrea in this park once, completely buck naked and with a sprained shoulder. She said she’d been sleepwalking, but I am sure there was a guy involved,” Jamie said. They were barely jogging now, just above a fast walk, and the color was high in her cheeks.
“Shaun’s wife?” Devon asked. He knew her a little; she was one of the other waitresses at Gran’s. She was juggling a writing career and had a millionaire for a husband so he knew she was only doing it as a favor for Gran. She was also a terrible waitress, so he wasn’t sure how much of a favor it really was.
Jamie was jogging backwards so she could talk to him. “Yeah. She and Patricia—do you know Patricia?—they were two years older than me in high school, and they were always really nice to me. When my mom died, they made sure I had like...a prom dress and heels and stuff.”
“How old were you?” Devon asked.
“Eighteen,” Jamie said, and they both gave up the pretense of jogging as she checked her watch and her heart rate.
Devon stared at the side of her face. Eighteen. Barely older than he’d been when his parents died and he’d taken custody of Abby.
“If it hadn’t been for them, I probably wouldn’t have finished school. They convinced me to do the last semester and graduate before I hared off to Alaska. I was old enough that I didn’t have to go into foster care, and I had a lot of trouble seeing the point of...well, anything. But Andrea and Patricia...and Turner, they got me through.”
“What happened to your dad?” Devon had to ask.
Jamie was quiet for so long that Devon wondered if he had said something wrong.
“My mom told me he was a war hero. Afghanistan or something. Died when I was a baby. Except that by the time I could do math and figure out dates, they didn’t add up. Then it was Iran. Then it was just overseas, and the story of his service kept changing.”
“He wasn’t a war hero?”
“I don’t know what he was,” Jamie said, her voice completely neutral. “Was he a deadbeat? Were they ever married? She lied to me my whole life because she wanted me to have...I don’t know...maybe a comforting fiction. But I never forgave her for keeping secrets from me. That’s not what you do to people you love.” The neutrality left her voice, replaced by bitterness. “I deserved the truth, and she was too cowardly to tell it until it was too late.”
“You ever thought about looking him up?” Devon asked hesitantly.
“Lots of times,” Jamie said, in that same blank voice. “I tried, after mom died. But I didn’t really know where to start, or if I really wanted to know the truth. I mean, I do. Someday. I guess. If I even can. It was a long time ago, now.”
“How’d...how’d your mom die?”
Jamie was quiet again, then flashed him an ironic smile. “House fire.”
“Oh,” Devon said. “Oh.”
“I’m surprised you hadn’t heard already, thanks to the great Green Valley gossip line. Turner’s never forgiven himself. He’s the one who paid my plane ticket to Alaska, the first year.”
“And you’ve been living there ever since?”
Jamie shook her head. “No. I travel a lot. Took some classes at a college in Calgary, spent a few years bumming around Hawaii. Footloose and fancy free.”
Running, Devon thought. She’d spent so much time running.
“What made you come back?” Devon had to ask. Jamie was shivering, now that they weren’t running anymore and he drew her into his arms and rubbed her shoulders.
“Turner,” Jamie said. “I hate Green Valley, but he needed another pair of hands in the station...and like I said, he never had forgiven himself. He kept tabs on me the whole time. Sent me jail money once, so I kind of owed him.”
“Jail money?” Devon sputtered.
“Trespassing and vandalism,” Jamie said with a playful shrug. “No big.” She hopped in place. “We should be running,” she scolded him.
“Are you a felon?” Devon said in mock outrage.
Jamie made a rude noise with her lips. “Misdemeanor,” she scoffed. “I got off with a slap on the wrist. C’mon, slowpoke. I got things to do.”
They jogged without talking for a while and came back into town, with its tidy neighborhoods and little shops. Some of the neighbors were taking down Halloween decorations, and turkeys and ears of colored corn were being put up in windows. The grocery store had piles of pumpkins in the entryway marked down.
“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” Devon asked. He plowed forward without pausing for her answer. “Abby wants to do a big turkey spread, but we’d never be able to eat it all ourselves. You could come. You should come. Will you come?”
“I don’t usually plan that far ahead,” Jamie
said with a look of alarm followed by a carefully casual shrug. “Ask me later.”
They took reckless advantage of Abby being gone at school, and afterwards, languidly lying on Devon’s bed running lazy hands over each other, Jamie commented that she hoped that the neighbors had been out, too.
“It’s not like they haven’t guessed what we’re doing,” Devon said. “It’s Green Valley. Everyone knows everything.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Jamie snorted. “Tiny, awful little town.” She sat up and gazed down at him. “What are we doing here?”
Devon felt like he had a bird held caged in his hands. She wasn’t struggling, exactly, but if he opened his fingers too far, she’d be gone forever.
“What do you want to be doing?” he asked carefully.
“I asked first.”
Devon wanted to tell her everything. He wanted to explain that there was no one else for him, ever. She was all of his happiness. She was his perfect mate, and he would never be whole without her. But he knew that if he squeezed too tightly, he’d break her wings.
“I want this to...work out,” he said cautiously, reaching up to touch the side of her face.
The conflict in her face was swiftly hidden with a laugh. “Well, this part certainly is,” she said with an appreciative glance at his body. “Take me on a date this weekend.” It sounded like a challenge.
“Harvey’s?”
“I said a date, not a drink,” Jamie scolded him. “Someplace fancy. Someplace not Green Valley.”
“I’ll make it happen,” Devon promised.
10
Jamie wondered if she’d made a terrible mistake.
She had half-hoped that taking Devon out in public would put him back in perspective. He’d be geeky and shy once she got him away from the safe, domestic backdrop of Green Valley and she’d remember that she went for alpha assholes and bad boys with tattoos.
And instead, he’d shown up at the station ridiculously early for dinner in a suit and coat that took her breath straight out of her chest, looking like someone from the secret service or a private bodyguard service.