Delilah is moaning something deep and desperate.
“Do you want to come, darling?” I whisper hoarsely. “Will you come on my cock? Make my cock so fucking wet. You’ll make it so fucking wet.”
She’s groaning, whimpering for something.
I didn’t think I’d have a dirty mouth with her but it turns out I do.
Turns out she loves it.
“I’m going to make you come,” I say. Breathless. Rough. “I’m going to make you come so fucking hard.”
I move one hand down to her waist and grip her while the other squeezes in between her hips and the mattress until I reach her clit. It’s soaked and my finger slides over it with ease.
That’s all it takes.
Her body tenses and then starts to quake beneath me. She pulses around my cock, her clit throbbing under my finger. A sharp cry leaves her lips, then fades off into breathless little moans.
I come immediately after. There’s a rush along my spine until something at the base of me explodes. I grunt like an animal, thrusting deeper and deeper, the bed shaking, while the cum shoots hard into her.
I exhale loudly, my breath elsewhere, my heart thudding to a marching beat inside my head. I lean back on my thighs, absently run my hands over her bottom while I remember how to breathe. Then, when it doesn’t feel like I’m having a heart attack, when the sweat stops rolling off my brow, I gently pull out.
Leaning forward, I put my lips to her ear. “Did you like that?”
She turns her head, her eyes closed and makes a noise that I think means yes.
I brush the hair off her face and kiss her cheek. Then place tiny, soft kisses on her neck, shoulder, down her spine, until I finally get off of her.
We take a few moments, lying next to each other, trying to bring our breath back into our bodies and calm our racing hearts. We might even fall asleep for a bit. The sun seems to have shifted.
“Guess it’s time to feed Conan,” Del says with a yawn, getting out of bed. I watch her walk completely naked, that fantastic ass on display, all the way to the cage. She doesn’t care if I’m watching. Hell, she probably wants me to watch.
She manages to get out the syringe and the baby food, then she glances at me over her shoulder. “On second thought, I should probably put on some clothes before I do this. Don’t want Conan to think any of this is weird.”
“He’ll get over it,” I tell her. “Stay naked.”
But she slips on one of my T-shirts she finds on the floor and somehow that’s even fucking sexier.
Something inside me flinches, just a bit. It’s suddenly scary how much I’m loving this, watching Del fish that damn fucking squirrel out of the cage, how easy all of this is. I’m not used to finding this kind of peace, this softness in my life and now it’s here and it’s all Delilah.
And what happens after this? What happens when I have to leave again tomorrow? What happens when I come back? Every time I head out there now, I feel like I’m coming back with missing pieces. I used to fight fires to banish the doubt, to make myself feel like I was someone and worth something. But ever since Roy died, I’m afraid that I’ll come back changed yet again.
“Are you okay?” Del asks softly when she’s done, putting Conan back in the cage. He’s so much bigger now that it nearly takes me by surprise. Another sign of time passing, life changing while I’m gone.
I give my head a shake and feel the pressure increasing inside my head again. I’m almost out of pills and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get anymore from my supplier. “I’m fine, I’m just…”
Suddenly she’s sitting beside me, hand on my knee. I should be quite aware that I’m naked and she’s not but I feel any sense of self-consciousness slip away.
“Talk to me,” she says. I find the courage to meet her eyes and I see the Del that’s always there, the one that cares, that wants to hear what I have to say, the one that never judges.
“It’s nothing.”
“Fox…it’s something. I’ve been waiting for you to tell me because I know when I pry you usually clam up, but I want to know. I need to. Talk to me.”
I take in a deep breath. “You know Roy Smith from Fernie?”
“The Roy from your team, Roy?”
“Yeah. He, uh, he died.”
“Oh my god,” she gasps, covering her mouth with her hand. “I’m so sorry, Fox. I know you talked about him all the time. How did he…?”
“A snag. A dead tree we had burned the day before. We were high up on the ridge and the fire had crossed the line. We all had to evacuate. We were scrambling, panicked, so fucking tired. You know that’s when you make the mistakes and Roy was struggling. Trying to pick up the chainsaw, deal with his helmet. I should have gone over to him right away, I should have helped him. I saw the tree coming down and I didn’t react in time, it was like a dream…”
“Fox, please. You know none of this was your fault.”
“If I had reacted when I should have, if I helped him, he would be alive.”
“But you would be dead.”
I shrug. “He has a wife. Two daughters. It’s better me than him.”
Silence fills the room. I glance at her warily and see her lips pressed together, a rare kind of anger in her eyes.
“Don’t you ever fucking say that,” she says, her voice hard. “Don’t you ever fucking say that Fox. Okay?”
I have to admit, I’m both flattered that she cares this much and surprised that she’s getting this worked up about it. “Okay.”
She sighs, running her hands over her face. “Fox, I know that what you do is terribly hard and it sets you up for things like this, but you need to…look, you once told me that I make this dark and sticky and terrible thing go away. You were drunk when you said it, but you said it. That’s not normal, Fox. What you feel, that’s not normal and I’m glad that I can bring you peace but I can’t be there all the time. I worry about you so much when you’re out there fighting fires. So much. And it’s not because I think a snag is going to take you out. It’s because…”
I try to swallow, my throat feels like I’ve got sawdust inside. “What?”
She rubs her lips together, eyes roaming the room, thinking. Finally, she says, “You’ve got a big heart. You don’t always show it, but it’s there. It goes above and beyond for the people you know and don’t know. It’s like you’re always trying to make up for something and that’s fine, we all are. We’re all feeling like we’re lacking something and we do whatever we can to fill that void. But with you…I worry, Fox. I worry you don’t care enough about yourself. And that one day, you will pay that price.”
Del is not wrong. But even so, her insight surprises me. Most of all, I don’t want her to be right.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell her as firmly as I can. “You’re just making shit up on the spot.”
“Fine,” she snaps, getting up. “I’m making coffee.”
And at that, she quickly leaves the room and goes down the hall.
Fuck.
I just fucked up a nice little moment, didn’t I?
I shouldn’t punish her for being observant. It’s not her fault she knows me this well.
I get up, slip on a pair of boxer briefs and follow her.
She’s standing in the kitchen, the light illuminating her hair, making her look like an angel in just my T-shirt. It’s both the most heart-warming and sexiest sight I’ve ever seen and for a moment it hurts somewhere deep inside of me that I wasn’t having this side of her sooner.
As she scoops coffee into the filter, not turning around, I come up behind her and wrap my arms across her chest, hugging her, my chin nuzzled into the smooth crook of her neck. She smells like soap and lilacs and summer mornings.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, holding her close to me. “I didn’t mean that.”
She pauses with the coffee, sets the scoop down on the counter. “What?”
“What I said. That you didn’t know what you’r
e talking about. You do know, Del, you always have. Better than anyone. I guess…” I take in a deep breath. “I guess I just don’t like to hear the truth sometimes. Not from someone I care about.”
She sighs, relaxing into me and I place my lips on her shoulder, slowly leaving kisses along her skin. I lift up her hair and run my lips up her neck, sucking just behind her ear until she moans audibly.
The sweetest fucking sound.
“I don’t want to leave tonight,” I tell her, turning her around until she’s staring up at me. I cup her face in both my hands. “I don’t want to leave at all. Not so soon, not after all of this. I feel like I’m not getting enough time with you, all I want is days like this with you over and over again.”
“Me too,” she whispers.
I kiss her, taking her bottom lip in between my teeth and tugging, and then push the coffee maker aside, spilling the grounds everywhere.
I don’t give a fuck. I put my hands at her waist and lift her up until she’s sitting on top of the counter, her legs open and on either side of me.
I hunch over, sliding my hands slowly up the soft smooth skin of her inner thighs, pushing up her T-shirt until it’s around her waist and she’s all bare and exposed, just for me.
My head sinks between her legs, licking up the soft sides of her thighs, tasting her, tasting our sex from earlier.
I honestly can’t get enough of this.
Enough of her.
What are you doing? A voice flits through my head.
But I ignore it.
I’m lost to her again and there’s no place I’d rather be.
FALL
11
Delilah
“Well, well, well, look who it is. Mr. and Mrs. Nelson,” Riley says over her shoulder at Shane and Rachel who just walked in the bar holding hands.
They grin at each other, then at us. They just got back from their honeymoon in Maui and are looking more tanned and rested than I think I’ve ever seen them.
“Get a lot of baby-making done?” Riley adds with an exaggerated wink. “And by that I mean, fucking.”
Rachel rolls her eyes.
“We always know what you mean,” Shane says. “You never need to clarify. And yes. Lots of that.”
Rachel elbows him, blushing.
“I guess I should give you a welcome back beverage on the house,” I say with a sigh, though I’m glad to see them. It’s been a bit of a lonely three weeks, especially with both them and Fox being gone for most of them. I’ve been hanging out with Riley when I can, though she’s often busy with work and Maverick.
I get Rachel a glass of wine and Shane a cold beer, then I pick up the bottle of water I was drinking out of and raise it. “Here’s to the newlyweds. May there be plenty of babies in your future.”
We all cheers and Rachel smiles shyly. “Jeez, you’d think I wasn’t getting enough pressure already with my mother.”
“She’s really laying on the grandchild guilt, isn’t she?” Riley asks.
Rachel nods. “Yup. It’s a lot of ‘but I want to be a grandmother while I’m still young, don’t you want me to be able to babysit and run around with the kids?’”
I laugh. “Kids? You better turn into a baby-making machine, Rachel, stat.”
“Well at least making the babies is the fun part,” Riley says.
“You don’t want kids?” I ask her, though I won’t be surprised if she says no.
She shrugs. “Not really on my radar. I’ll adopt all the dogs in the world with Maverick but kids are something that I don’t think is in the cards for us. If we change our minds, great, but for now…nah.” She looks to me. “What about you, Del? Does your mom get on your case?”
“No, probably because I don’t have a guy in my life.” All three of them look at me expectantly. “What?” I go on. “I don’t.”
“Sure, and you and Fox were in that barn because you were bailing hay,” Riley says.
“Bailing hay, is that what we’re calling it now?” Shane says, grinning at me like a smug bastard.
“Whatever. I don’t have anyone.”
What I do have is a lot more complicated.
“So how is Fox?” Rachel asks.
“Still away,” I tell her. “I haven’t talked to him much, just a text here and there. He was supposed to maybe be home last night but it could be tonight. Could be tomorrow.”
“I heard about what happened to his teammate Roy,” Shane says in a low voice. “That’s got to be hard on him.”
I nod, not wanting to get into it. What Fox told me felt intensely private and I already fucked shit up by telling everyone we slept together in the first place. “He hasn’t been taking it that well. I wish his team had some sort of mourning period, you know, where they could just pay respect and deal with their feelings instead of being trucked off again to fight yet another fire.”
“It’s hard being here and worrying about him,” Rachel says quietly. “The not knowing.”
“Well I should be used to it, shouldn’t I? The only bright side to all of this is that the fire season should be ending soon. It’s already mid-September somehow, and by October first they should be going into off-season training which is a lot more manageable.”
“And so…” Rachel starts, pausing to take a sip of her wine and think before she continues. “Are you two…you know? Fuck buddies?”
“Ugh, please don’t use that term about my brother,” Shane grumbles.
“Don’t worry, I won’t use that term,” I tell him, then address Rachel. “And I don’t know what we are. All I know is…I’d be happier if he were here. That’s all.”
Rachel, Riley and Shane stay for a couple of hours and then head on home, leaving me alone in the bar. Now that September is half-way through, the town has become a lot quieter, and as a result, so has the bar. There are still some tourists around since the autumn foliage can look really photogenic against the brightly colored shops of the downtown area. There will be more tourists when the ski hills get snow, but for now, I should probably enjoy the downtime, even if it means less money.
I’ve just shut off the OPEN sign when I get a text from Fox.
Just one look at his name flashing on my phone and my heart does flips inside my chest. I feel giddy, an immature sort of happiness like I did when Fox was just a schoolgirl crush.
I just got back a few hours ago. Come over?
I grin. I know this is a booty call now but I don’t care.
Okay be right there
I close up the bar, get in my car and ten minutes later I’m parking outside the chalet. There’s a cold nip in the air as I walk to the front door, signaling that fall is truly on its way now.
The house is warm and cozy as I step inside. Even though I’ve been spending a lot of my days here while Fox has been gone, taking care of Conan, it already feels different now that he’s home. There’s a charge in the air wherever Fox is, something that reaches deep inside of me and rearranges the molecules, making me feel more vibrant and alive and electric.
I go up the steps and see Fox in the kitchen, the lights on low. He’s holding out a glass of a champagne in one hand, a rose in the other.
“Are we on The Bachelor?” I whisper as I stop in front of him.
He gives me the rose. “I’ll pretend I’ve seen that show.”
I smell the red rose and smile, though it never smells as strong as you think it would, and my eyes happily rest on Fox. He is looking insanely handsome tonight. Maybe it’s because I haven’t seen him in weeks, maybe because I’m so happy just to be here with him, maybe because I’m just so fucking in love with him, but he honestly makes my skin hot just looking at him.
He’s got a cut on his forehead, which is a bit concerning, but in a way, it adds to his rugged charm. He’s got a full-on beard going, his eyes are shining at me in an easy way. He’s wearing those deadly sweatpants of his again with a thin, worn white T-shirt with the North Ridge Hot Shots logo on it.
“What happene
d to your head?” I ask, as he gives me the glass of champagne. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, I’m great,” he says in such a way that makes me wonder how much champagne he’s already had. “Even better now that you’re here.”
I take a sip of the drink. “I have to say, the rose and the champagne are quite the surprise.” I pause. “A good surprise. So, what happened to your head?”
“A branch,” he says rather sheepishly. “Jumped out and got me as I was running.” He jerks his head toward the living room. “Come on, let’s sit down.”
Well I’ll be damned. I’m as nervous with him now as I was the day after the two of us got together. Nervous, anxious, excited. I feel like every time he comes back, we have to spend a bit of time together getting our groove back, finding out how we fit. The only problem with that is the fact that by the time we do find this new rhythm with each other, he’s gone again.
I settle down on the couch beside him and finish the rest of the glass in a few gulps.
“Maybe I should be asking if you’re okay?” he asks and I swear he slurs his words just a bit.
I frown. “I’m fine. Say, how hard was that hit on your head?”
“Not hard. They gave me pills, I’m fine.”
“The same pills you took in the barn at the wedding?”
He shrugs and seems to think about that for a moment, a flash of clarity coming across his eyes. “No, different. But I’m fine. Are you?”
I nod and sit back in the cushions and he puts his arm around me. “I’m good. Things have been good. I guess I’m just…can I ask you a question?”
“Always,” he says, peering down at me. “What is it?”
“Well, one is more of an observation than a question,” I say, twisting a little on the couch to see him better. “And that’s just…well, I’m fine and all, but if you’re ever wondering why I’m acting strange, it’s just that I’m, uh, nervous around you.”