Page 18 of Hearts on Fire

She shuddered her way through it, finally flipping a leg over Naomi’s head and coming to lie beside her.

6

Naomi

It was still dark outside when Naomi turned in bed and her eyes fluttered open. It took her a moment to remember where she was—the very last place she was supposed to be- in Scotti Saunders’ apartment— with her leg draped over Scotti's firm tanned waist.

They had fallen asleep naked without knowing when, both exhausted from dramatic circumstances of the day and pleasure in each other’s bodies that they had ended the day with.

Naomi stared at Scotti for a moment in the dim lighting of the room. Her short blonde hair was ruffled and messy around her face. In her sleep, she looked angelic; her skin was smooth and golden brown, her chest and small breasts rising and falling rhythmically. Her golden eyelashes flickered.

Naomi found it hard to not reach out and touch her. She ran her finger softly across the side of Scotti's face.

She didn't realize when her heart began to thud and her pulse picked up the pace. When her finger ran over a scar at the side of Scotti's neck, her heart skipped a beat.

She didn’t want Scotti’s lovely body to be scarred and harmed. Her finger quivered with fear.

Naomi could bet that Scotti had gotten that wound on the job. She wanted to know how it happened. What happened.

Although it had surely happened a while before Naomi met Scotti, Naomi found herself worried by the incident.

What if Scotti had died then?

She fell back onto her pillow, suddenly worried. Of course she was overthinking this and she knew better, but she couldn't help but get worried by it.

She knew the answers though and the issue was that she didn’t want to know the truth. Scotti was a woman who ran into dangerous situations. It was somewhat inevitable that Scotti would come to injury and harm in the course of her work.

And as much as she wanted to feign indifference to Scotti and even convince herself of that, Naomi knew that what she felt for Scotti was different from what she'd felt with others in a while. She never was satisfied with what she had with Scotti. She just wanted more and more. She wanted Scotti and wanted Scotti to herself alone.

But Naomi knew she had never really healed from her last loss. She could still remember how everything had stilled that evening after a long drawn out surgery when she was told that her patient hadn't been the only one involved in the shootout. She was exhausted already and was walking out of the office as she heard the story. There was a cop who'd gotten a bullet. But her patient had more complications and Naomi was the best to handle it. Her surgery was successful, thank goodness. But the cop, Naomi was told, had flatlined only a few moments after she'd been opened up.

Naomi was deeply sorry. Then she heard the cop’s name and had crumbled right there at the exit.

Sasha.

It was only early days of their dating, but Naomi had enjoyed being with Sasha. She had loved the way her deep brown eyes crinkled at the sides when she laughed. She knew she had been falling for Sasha and Sasha was cruelly ripped away from her before their relationship ever had the chance to become more.

Naomi had struggled a lot with the loss of Sasha. She had only known Sasha a matter of weeks, so she didn’t have the right to be devastated in the way that Sasha’s friends and family were at her death.

At the funeral, Naomi was nobody. She was in no man’s land. Just some woman Sasha had been dating before she died. None of Sasha’s friends even knew she existed. She had heard Sasha’s mother breaking down speaking about her hero daughter. Sasha’s police colleagues speaking so highly of her. This was the woman Naomi almost loved. Would things have been different if Sasha had survived? Would things have been different if Naomi had been the surgeon to work on Sasha? Maybe.

The thoughts haunted her.

Nothing, not even what she thought she felt toward Scotti, was enough to make Naomi think she could risk going down that route again.

At that moment, Scotti stirred and woke up. Finding Naomi awake and sitting up, she sat up too and turned on the bedside lamp. Her eyes looked darkest of navy blue in the dim light. Her golden hair flopped across her face.

Fuck, she is so beautiful.

“Are you alright, Naomi?”

Naomi nodded, putting a smile on her face and greeting Scotti. Scotti frowned, refusing to fall for Naomi's act. “I don't believe you. What's up? A patient?”

But Naomi could only think of the way she'd met Scotti. Of course, it had to be a dangerous situation where Scotti had risked her own life to save her. What if Scotti didn't get out next time she risked her life in a fire?

What if, once again, Naomi had a lover who sacrificed her life for another person?

“How bad do fires usually get before you arrive? Our fire- it was a bad one, wasn’t it?”

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