Flaming Desire - Part 2 (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (4 page)

She was only twelve years old. In a matter of seconds, her screams stopped, just as I reached her bedroom window. I slammed my fists against it, trying to break the glass. The policeman rushed up behind me, tried to pull me away, warning me of additional potential explosions.

I hadn't cared.

Watching through my sister’s bedroom window, I saw the two firemen try to get into her room, now fully engulfed in flames. They were forced to retreat by a falling ceiling beam and the literal collapse of half my house into her bedroom, right onto her bed. The rumpled bed instantly erupted into flames.

Shrieking my sister's name, I fought the policemen holding me back until one of them literally picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder, much as Matt had done this morning. One of the only other things that I remembered from those desperate moments were the words the policeman said to me as I bounced on his shoulder, pounding my fists ineffectually against his back.

“It's too late, honey,” he said, his own voice choked. “She's gone.”

As I told the story to Matt, striving to keep my voice as calm and matter-of-fact as possible, I nevertheless remembered the smells, the sounds, the emotions that had raged through me. I remember the acrid stench of the smoke as it consumed the furniture, releasing a pungent scent of a myriad of chemicals into the air, the wood framework and ceiling supports, reminded me of campfires over which my sister and I had made S’mores, laughing hysterically. I remember the sound of the water gushing through the fire hoses, the sound of shattering glass, the squawks of the communications systems of the police cars, fire engines, and then the comforting words of the policeman as he carried me out to the curb, sat me down, and watched over me until the ambulance took me away to the hospital.

I finished my tale, not realizing it until I looked up at Matt again that I could barely see him through the burning tears in my eyes. My throat ached as I held back my pain. He gently swiped a finger along my cheek, wiping away the traces of my ever-lingering grief. Then, without saying a word, he leaned close and brushed his lips against mine, so soft and sweet that I felt like weeping all over again.

His lips left mine and then touched each of my eyelids, and then my cheeks, literally kissing away my tears. The gesture touched my heart more deeply than anything had in my entire life.

“I'm sorry, Jesse,” he murmured. “I'm so sorry…”

I said nothing. What was there to say? Still, I felt different. I had never talked about that night, not even to the therapist the courts had ordered my aunt and uncle to take me to after they took me to their house after the fire. I hadn’t even spoken about it to my grandparents after I’d been sent to live with them.

Still, that night was not the last of my brush with fire. Only a year later, right after I graduated from high school, I lost my best friend to yet another fire. I didn't understand it, and realized only after several months of beating myself up that I had no power over certain things in my life. Since that night, I resolved to dedicate my life to helping others.

Yes, I had faced tragedy, not once, but twice before I even reached my twentieth birthday. Looking back, I had to admit that it was those very tragedies that shaped who I was today. I knew Matt understood, although I didn't know exactly why I felt that way. I just sensed it.

It only took seconds for me to begin responding to his kisses. Perhaps it was nothing more than the will to reaffirm life, especially after this morning, when I very well could have lost my own if it hadn’t been for Matt. I wrapped my arms around him, kissing him back with the same passion with which he kissed me. Suddenly, he broke off the kiss, staring down at me in the ever increasing darkness. I saw the flash of a smile.

“Come with me,” he said.

He opened his door and then reached his hand out for me. I scooted along the bench seat and out of the truck through his door. I had no idea what he had in mind, but at this point, I was ready to follow him anywhere. Life was precious. I knew that not only because of my own background, but because of what I saw in the emergency room every day. Sometimes, you had to throw caution to the wind, live life to the fullest. I didn't expect anything from Matt, but for this moment, I was willing to accept his comfort.

He led me around to the back of the truck and opened the tailgate. Then he reached down and wrapped his hands around my waist, lifting me into the bed of the truck. It was lined with a soft liner like the stuff they put under playground equipment these days.

“Scoot back,” he directed. I did as he hopped into the bed of the truck and then closed the tailgate behind him.

We sat side by side for a moment, and then he pointed upward. I looked up, amazed. Even though it was early in the evening, millions of stars already dotted the night sky. I hadn't spent time looking up into the night sky in a long time. It was beautiful. Magical.

“When I get upset or have a lot on my mind, I make it a point to look at the stars,” he explained. “For some reason, looking up into the night sky, seeing all the stars and the constellations… the Milky Way, I feel as if I'm part of a bigger plan, a bigger universe. I realize that I can't control everything in my environment. I can only control my reaction to it.”

I stared up at the sky, feeling a small smile lift the corners of my mouth. In the next moment, his mouth had captured my lips again, and then we were laying side by side in the bed of the truck. No one would see us here; the parking lot was deserted. Besides, the sides of the truck hid us from anyone's view, and for the moment, I thought of nothing except his touch.

Oh, and what a touch it was.

I shifted position so that I lay down on my back, my knees bent while he hovered over me, his forearm cushioning my neck and head from the base of the truck. His left hand reached up to caress my breasts as his tongue plunged deep into my mouth. He was trying to make me forget the awful memories that had settled into my brain, and he was doing a damned good job of it.

After several moments of breathtaking kisses and tongue wrestling, his thumb began to slowly circle the tip of my breast. Beneath my scrub top and my bra, my nipple responded. He groaned low in his throat and then he removed his hand from my breast. I almost moaned in disappointment until I felt his fingers making their way underneath my top. He gently pushed my bra up over my breast. The next moment I felt the warmth of his hand cupping me.

I invited his touch, arching myself off the truck bed, inviting further exploration. In a matter of moments, I was divested of my scrub top and my bra. For several seconds, he just stared down at me, his gaze moving from my eyes to my lips and then down to my breasts and back again. Every time his eyes landed on my breasts, my nipples puckered. Without saying a word, he lowered his head and began to suckle on first one nipple and then the other until my breasts were tingling with desire. That same flame of desire burgeoned deep inside me.

While his lips pursed around one of my nipples and pulled gently, the fingers of his left hand deftly untied the bow of the string of my scrub pants and began to maneuver them down around my hips. I helped by lifting my hips up from the bed of the truck. As his hand worked my scrub pants and panties down my legs, his lips left my breast and began to trail their way down my upper abdomen, and then stopped at my belly button.

He swirled his tongue around my navel for a moment, and then, for just a second or two, I didn't feel the heat of his lips or the warmth of his hands on my body. I moaned in frustration, feeling bereft. I sensed that he wanted my scrub pants and panties completely off, and after only a brief second of hesitation, I worked my shoes off. Divested of all my clothes except for a pair of socks, I lay naked beneath his gaze. There, under the stars, he literally worshiped my body with his lips.

I couldn't reach much of him with my hands as his head dipped lower, his kisses caressing my lower abdomen now, and then along one hip bone and down along my right thigh. I was on fire, the flames erupting from embers deep inside me, catapulting my body into an intense sensation of incredible desire and yearning. By the time he parted my legs and situated himself between them, I could only reach his head and shoulders with my hands. The instant his tongue caressed my slit, I clenched my fingers in his hair and uttered a sound that issued from deep within my throat. Oh my God, the feelings, the sensations, the absolute ecstasy of his tongue swirling around my clitoris just about had me writhing beneath him.

His tongue left a trail of flame everywhere it touched. He teased and suckled, and then his lips kissed my lower ones, the lips protecting the very core of my being. His hands clutched my hips and lifted my buttocks off the bed of the truck. I wrapped my ankles around his waist, doing my best to encourage even closer contact. Soft, mewling sounds escaped my throat as I threaded my fingers through his hair, then stroked the side of his face until I began to feel the waves of pleasure overcome me. My hips surged upward with every long, sensuous stroke of his tongue. Then, his mouth focused on my clitoris, gently suckling, then releasing, suckling, releasing, his tongue soft, warm, and swirling around and around, he propelled me toward the cliff of the most exquisite climax I had ever experienced in my life.

White, blinding flashes of ecstasy pulsed through me along with intense contractions inside my pussy. His lips continue to caress the softest parts of me, his tongue gently licking, gradually slowing as my internal contractions finally ebbed. Then, lying completely satiated and feeling as if I didn't have an ounce of energy left, he shifted position and then laid alongside me, once again cushioning my head from the floor of the truck with his arm.

I knew he had to be as hard as a rock and ready for his own release, but when I tried to move, he murmured in my ear, his hand once again cupping my breasts.

“No, Jesse, tonight is just for you.”

I was going to protest, but felt so lethargic that I didn't even have the energy. We lay there, unmoving, for I don't know how long, just staring up at the stars. To say that I was utterly content would be an understatement. I didn't feel uncomfortable with the silence though, quite the opposite.

***

By the time we got back to the hospital, the parking lot was just about empty. The staff parking lot, located across the street, was also about half full. Visiting hours were over, patients sleeping, or trying to, and I knew that the hospital nurses on shift, if they were fortunate, would be able to take advantage of some of the downtime to work on their charting, on their MDS datasheets, update care plans, and medication charts.

I had worked the graveyard shift on numerous occasions but didn't really like it. Depending on the night of the week, the emergency room wasn't too busy after midnight, although we did get an occasional drug overdose, a car accident, or police dragging in injured and drunk brawlers.

My mind wasn’t focused on the activities of those working inside however, but on Matt. He pulled his truck up next to mine and then turned off the engine. Once again we were wreathed in darkness.

“You okay, Jesse?”

Was I okay? I pondered the question. Physically I felt wonderful, filled with a calm sense of satisfaction, the aftermath of sex, the physical closeness and support as well as strength that his attentions had given me this evening.

Emotionally, I wasn't quite as sure. Talking to him about my past had brought it rushing right up in my face again, more powerful than ever. Pandora's Box had opened, and along with it all my doubts, guilt, and more than one ‘what if?’

I'm glad that Matt and I had talked. I felt as if something had changed between us. I was no longer his mentor, he no longer the new guy on the block. We were equals, peers, perhaps even friends, or at least I wanted to think so. I still didn't know anything about Matt, or his history. I didn’t know if what Jeremy had said was true. It didn’t matter. At least not right now.

He knew some of my secrets and I wondered, and not for the first time since we had started the drive back to the hospital, whether I should have been so susceptible to his urgings. Not the sex part, that was as much my doing as his, but the sharing of my innermost secrets and emotions with him without any mental reciprocation on his part.

The plain truth of the matter was that as far as I was concerned, Matt was a mystery. He was my mystery man. Oh, while I knew a little bit about him and his past, at least in regard to his career, and of course, the fact that he was a Hotshot firefighter like me, I didn’t know anything about Matt, the man when he wasn’t a nurse or fighting fires. Not once had I ever heard him talk about his parents, any siblings, or even if he'd been married, or was. I doubted it. For one I had never seen a wedding ring, and for two I had never heard the inkling of a rumor about a wife. Then again, how would I know?

I turned to him and nodded. “Yes, Matt, I'm okay. Thank you for…” Here I went again. What was I thanking him for? Sex? We hadn’t even had dinner, which had been the original plan. I smiled and shook my head in the darkness. The best laid plans of mice and men…

“Are we going on another ride-along tomorrow?”

“Yes, but not until the afternoon shift. Diane told you about changing your schedule, didn't she?”

“No, but that's okay, it's not like I had anything planned.”

“Me either.” Another moment of silence, and then I reached for the door handle. “Well, thanks, Matt, for listening.” How awkward was that? I opened the door and slid down off of the seat until my feet landed on the asphalt. The interior lights glowed, casting his face in a light blue tinge, almost ghostly in nature. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said, shutting the door.