The Firefighter's Woman (7 page)

She rode him with a carnal desperation, as if fucking herself on him would chase away the darkness he so often saw in her eyes. She was clinging to him and he held her back just as firmly, meeting her thrust for thrust and finally, pinning her hips in place, stilling her on his cock.

“John!” She whined his name, trying to wriggle around, but he put a stop to that with one hard slap to her bottom.

“Stay still,” he commanded gruffly. His cock was as hard as it had ever been and he knew he was close to coming.

She pouted, but only for a second. John tipped her back slightly, one arm wrapped around her waist to keep her upright, the other on her hip to steady her as he started thrusting harder and faster than she ever could have done, his cock pounding inside her with stroke after stroke, which made her breasts bounce and her mouth fall open in a near continuous wail. This was no longer lovemaking, this was a hard, carnal fuck. She needed it as much as he did. She needed to feel him pound her, to make her pussy his. He could feel her pussy melting with her juices, and the rest of her body going tense as her climax came rolling up through her. His matched hers and with a growl of pleasure he threw caution to the wind and slammed deep inside her, pulled her hard against his chest and filled her with his cum, spurt after spurt of his hot essence shooting deep inside her bare cunt.

For several minutes they sat locked together, his cock softening slowly inside her, his cum slowly leaking out onto his lap.

“You came inside me,” she said in a soft voice.

“Yes,” he said, meeting her eyes, searching them for a reaction. “I did.”

His cock slid from her completely as he put his hand between their bodies, scooped some of the cum from her pussy and rubbed it gently around her clit in a soft, wet massage, which made her shiver and bite her lower lip.

“You’re mine,” he murmured softly to her as he rubbed his seed into her pussy. “Mine to fuck. Mine to fill. You’re going to have my cum inside you a lot, Sarah. Understand?”

Her eyes were filled with emotion as she looked at him with a little smile on her face. “Yessir,” she said in a breathy little voice.

He tapped his fingers lightly against her clit and watched her buck. Finally, they had an understanding.

Chapter Eight

If only it was as easy as an orgasm. If only the hot lashes that remained for hours after John put them there with his belt could chase away the demons that came to her when she was alone. If only life was simple and all sorrows could be healed by sex, Sarah might have lived happily ever after from that moment forth.

Unfortunately, once the heat of the spanking and the glow of orgasm faded, once she was alone for a little bit, the old darkness seemed to creep back in, and a new sadness from loss. She tried to put a brave face on it when John was around, but whenever he left her alone she would bury her face in Odin’s fur and sob until the tears would no longer come. The dog seemed tolerant of her emotional outbursts, occasionally licking her hand or head, but otherwise did not interfere in her grief.

John was involved in the cleanup effort and as a result he often ducked out for a couple of hours at a time. He’d given her instructions to call his cell if she needed anything, and she knew well enough that she wasn’t supposed to go out, but she couldn’t help herself. Staring at the walls, listening to the talking heads on the television blather on about rebuilding after the tornado, about lives lost and lives saved… she couldn’t take it anymore.

She picked up her jacket, shoved her cards into her pockets, and almost walked out the door. Just as she put her hand on the doorknob, she hesitated, went back to the kitchen and scribbled a note. Then she left.

* * *

John had worried when he’d come home to a Sarah-less house, but he was relieved to see she’d at least left him a note:
At the bar

At least this time he could call… “Oh, for…” His curse trailed off into an impatient sigh. Sarah’s phone was sitting on the counter not far from the note. Oversight? Or deliberate attempt to avoid him?

Sighing, John crumpled the note and tossed it into the trash, shaking his head. As usual, Sarah left more questions than answers. Which bar? He hoped it was the same one he’d taken her to on the night the tornado hit, otherwise he was going to have to comb a whole lot of nightspots.

The local bar was only a few minutes from the house. He could have walked, just like Sarah probably had, but John took the truck anyway, suspecting that he might be in for some cleanup duties where Sarah was concerned. Upon arrival, he went straight to the bartender. Knowing Sarah, she would have made an impression on the young man with half his hair shaved off.

“Have you seen a woman? Blond, pretty, but snarky?”

“Misery guts?” the bartender said with a smirk. “She’s over there.” He pointed to where Sarah was draped over the end of the bar, slumped on a stool. She was wearing a pink sweater and pre-ripped jeans, no makeup to speak of. She’d obviously not gone out for fun, but for a serious drinking session. As he walked toward her, she didn’t notice him. She was too busy staring into the depths of a bottle of beer as if the secrets of the universe were contained in the deep brown glass.

“Hello,” he said, sitting down on the stool next to her.

“Hey,” she slurred. “I thought you were out heroing. Or is that what you’re doing here? Come to rescue me again?”

“You’re drunk.”

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s the idea of alcohol.”

John nodded. He was going to tan her hide for this; that much he was sure of. But not right away. As much as he wanted to drag her out of there, lecture her, pull her pants down and slap her butt red, he needed to hear her out if she was capable of sense.

“You didn’t let me know you were going out.”

“No, because you would have stopped me,” she pointed out pragmatically. “I wanted to drown my… things.”

“Sorrows?”

“Yeah.”

She still hadn’t made eye contact with him. He didn’t know if that was because she was ashamed, or scared, or just too drunk to care. Probably a mixture of the three.

“And how’s that working out for you?”

“Shuddup,” she replied. “I’m not done yet.”

“You won’t ever be done. Sorrows don’t drown in alcohol. They swim in it. They breed in it. You start with a sorrow or two and you end up with dozens more.”

She snorted. “You talk so much shit, John.”

“Mhm, and you’re deep in the same stuff. Come on, let’s go home.”

“Don’t want to.”

“Don’t care if you want to,” he replied. “It’s time to go.”

Sarah took a firmer hold of the bar. “You can’t make me,” she said defiantly. “I’m going to stay here as long as forever.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” John swept her up over his shoulder and carried her out of the bar in a fireman’s lift. There were a few whoops and cheers from intoxicated patrons, who seemed to enjoy the spectacle of a squirming blonde being taken in hand by her man. For her part, Sarah amped up the drama by flailing about, squealing at the top of her lungs and generally carrying on.

“Settle down,” he said as he put her into the passenger seat of his truck. “And if you’re going to be sick, do it out the window.”

He started buckling her in, noticing that she wasn’t fighting him anymore. She was just staring at him with a glazed blue gaze.

“You’re mad at me,” she said with a shift in mood so common in drunk people. “You hate me, don’t you.”

“I don’t hate you,” he said calmly as he snapped the seat belt into place.

“I want to go home,” she said sadly.

“We’re going home.”

“I want to go to my home, but I can’t, can I. I can’t ever go home ever again.”

John made no reply to that. He knew she was sad, but being sad wasn’t an excuse for the sort of behavior Sarah was starting to indulge in, and there was no way he was going to let her get away with it. He shut the passenger door, walked around the truck, got in the driver’s seat, and drove her home without another word.

Sarah had dozed off by the time they got back. There was no point waking her up to lecture her. There was no point doing anything other than putting her to bed and keeping an eye on her to make sure she wasn’t sick. He did both, making sure she was tucked in nicely, ignoring the way she smelled of secondhand smoke as she curled up beneath the blankets, drooling on the pillow in deep slumber.

“What am I going to do with you?” He murmured the question softly to her sleeping form.

Sarah did not reply.

* * *

Sarah woke up the next morning with a pounding headache and a sense of keen regret. She got out of bed, pulled some clothes on, and stumbled into the kitchen, where she just managed to make it into a chair at the kitchen table. “Urgh,” she said, drawing her knees up to her chest as she put her hands to her head.

“Morning,” John said, sipping his coffee. “How do you feel?”

“Look,” Sarah said, in an effort to get ahead of the trouble. “I’m sorry, okay, I know…”

“Let’s talk about it later,” he said. “You should eat a little something first.” He walked over and put a plate of toast in front of her.

She could barely bring herself to look him in the face, but she had to. She had to see just how angry he was with her. He was probably furious, she figured.

It took her almost a minute, but finally she gathered the courage to glance up over her toast. It struck her all over again just how handsome he was. He was wearing a t-shirt that was just tight enough to show the outline of his pecs, and she could see the definition in his arms as well, strength that could be used to comfort, or…

“Am I… in trouble?”

He looked at her steadily with those warm brown eyes. “What do you think?”

“I think I am trouble,” she said, her voice scratchy. “I think I should get out of your hair.”

“I like you in my hair, Sarah,” he said calmly. “We’ll talk after breakfast.”

She attempted to consume a piece of toast, but there was no way her stomach or nerves were going to cooperate.

“I can’t eat,” she said, giving up after having nibbled a fraction of the crust. “Too nervous. Can you please just beat me now?”

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s talk now. On the couch, young lady.”

Sarah did as she was told, not wanting to make John any angrier than he probably already was. Not that he seemed all that angry. He seemed calm. But that was how he was whenever he dealt with her in a disciplinary way. She found herself blushing, embarrassed that he felt the need to discipline her at all. But she also knew she’d brought it on herself. She’d not only gone out and gotten drunk to the point of passing out, she’d left him a note telling him she was doing it. To tell him it was none of his business now wouldn’t even make sense. On some level, she’d wanted him to do exactly what he’d done—come and drag her butt out of the bar and make sure she didn’t do anything like it again.

John sat down next to her, turned toward her so he could see her fully. “What got into you?” He asked the question relatively gently. “I thought things were going well between us. Are you trying to sabotage things?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe.”

“Why?”

Suddenly she couldn’t look at him anymore. She could only manage the barest glance at John, tears gleaming in her eyes. “Everyone I ever loved, or whoever loved me is dead. So I can’t like you. And I can’t have anything good. I know, if I have something good, it will get taken away.”

“Oh, baby…” He wrapped his arms around her as she began to sob against his chest, the pain of decades unleashed.

“I can’t,” she said over and over. “That’s why you have to go. Why I have to go. We can’t be together, John. It will kill you, and I think that will kill me.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“You literally run into burning buildings for a job,” she said, pulling back and wiping the tears from her eyes.

“That’s right. And I’m good at it,” he said. “We don’t act at random, Sarah.”

“But you put yourself in danger.”

“Life is dangerous. You know that. That’s not a reason not to live. And it’s definitely not a reason not to love—if you could help it, which you can’t.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her eyes flashed with anger.

“I know more than you think,” he replied. “You’re not the only one who ever lost someone, Sarah. You’re not the only orphan in this room either.”

She frowned at him. “You mean… you…”

“Lost both my parents when I was twelve,” he said. “House fire. It’s why I became a fireman. That was my way of dealing with it. I couldn’t fix what had happened to me, but maybe I could stop it from happening to someone else. And I think I have. So I can find some peace with what happened back then, and I don’t have to live in fear of what might happen now.”

She curled up next to him, feeling the strength of his body against her smaller frame. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That’s horrible. And I’ve been acting… I’ve been selfish. I never even asked anything about your parents, or you. It’s been about me this whole entire time. You could be from Mars for all I know.”

“You just lost your home,” he said comfortingly. “And I’ve never told you that much about my past. There was no way for you to know any of this.”

“So that’s why you helped me,” she said. “That’s why you’ve been so nice… through everything.”

His eyes were warm as he looked down at her. “Like attracts like, Sarah. I knew what you were the moment we met. I think you knew what I was too. Maybe not consciously. But I think you knew we shared something important. I think that’s why you’ve trusted me since the beginning.”

“So how do you do it? How do you act so… why aren’t you like me?”

“Why aren’t I a cute girl with an attitude?” He grinned as she rolled her eyes at him. “Well, I’ve had almost a decade longer than you to work through things, plus, I was lucky. I went to military school.”

Sarah screwed her nose up. “Doesn’t sound lucky.”

“It gave me a family. Gave me camaraderie. And I never got the chance to get too far out of line or go off the rails. I worked out my anger on the sergeants and they worked that right back on me.” He smirked. “By the time I got out of there, I had my head on straight. You would have benefited from that kind of discipline.”