Page 4 of Fire & Ice

“City Medic Four respond. 800 Park Avenue at Sunny Acres Retirement Home, Room 1501 for an ALS Medical.”

Immediately, Leander’s demeanor shifts, morphing into the consummate professional Tripp knows him to be. To be honest, watching that transformation only makes the situation in Tripp’s pants increasingly dire.

“Marley,” Leander says, all confidence and a take-no-shit attitude. “Please put our unit available and responding to that call. Ask Dispatch to leave Four on standby at the fire scene while they complete overhaul.”

“Aye-aye, Captain,” Marley affirms with a sloppy salute, holding that same hand up for Tripp to slap high-five as she passes by him before climbing into the truck. “Later, skater.”

“Bye, nerd.”

As Leander closes the back doors to the ambulance, he lingers inside Tripp’s personal space bubble, only for a moment. “Will I still see you later?” he asks softly, his hand hoveringjustabove Tripp’s chest, andGod,does Tripp ache to close the space between them. It’s all he can do to remind himself that this is atease,this is Lee fucking with him, nothing more. It’s not romance, it’s not affection, it’s just…foreplay.

Goodforeplay, but still.

They are not a couple. They are not on their way tobeinga couple, no matter what the already-crossed wires in Tripp’s head might want to believe. It’s a mind-fuck, for sure, but sex and flirting? That Tripp can do. He would never have agreed to this—thisthingthat Lee suggested, if compartmentalizing wasn’t already his strong suit.

Love ‘em and leave ‘em,that is his personal M.O., after all.

“You know it,” Tripp replies gruffly, hoping that the rough scratch of his voice translates as pure arousal and not the messof conflicted emotions that being around an openly sexualLeeunwillingly brings out in him. To both Tripp’s great relief and incredible disappointment, Leander gives nothing away, just grins knowingly at Tripp before stepping away and disappearing around the side of the vehicle.

Tripp watches from beneath the neon-lit red and blue lettering that spells “EMERGENCY / TRAUMA” across the overhang as the ambulance pulls away, vanishing around the corner in a blur of flashing lights and wailing sirens.

What the fuck has he gotten himself into?

***

The final hours of Tripp’s shift drag, and not only because he spends a chunk of it sitting on a freezing cold bench outside Central’s ER with only a t-shirt on and absolutely nothing to do. It winds up taking longer than anticipated for Gunnar and Fifteen’s engine crew to be released from the fire scene and to swing by the ER to pick him up. Long enough that Tripp has to hide around the corner of the building when Lee and Marley’s truck returns to drop off the patient they transported from the nursing home, leaving him to reevaluate his life from the shadows.

Normally in a situation like this, Tripp would just text his younger brother Beau. Kid’s a trauma surgeon here at Central, and—barring any surgeries getting in the way—is usually down to hang out in the cushy doctor’s lounge for however long. His luck must be in the toilet, though, because Beau's not working tonight.

Humiliatingly enough, the waiting and hiding ends up being for nothing after all, since Leander and Marley wound up swinging by the fire scene to return Tripp’s coat, the one he accidentally left in the cab of the ambulance. Back at the station,Gunnar hands it over with a questioning look, ultimately taking pity when the color drains from Tripp’s face and he drops his forehead into a sweaty hand.

“Don’t ask,” he mumbles into his palm.

“Whatever you say, brotha,” Gunnar replies easily, but Tripp catches him smirking as he saunters away across the fire bay. That reaction provokes a spike of anxiety in his gut, a baseless suspicion that Gunnar mightknowsomething, even though there’s no possible way that could be true.

When the clock strikes midnight, Tripp’s out of the station like a shot, freshly showered to ditch the residual smoke and sweat clinging to his skin, and dressed in clean clothing that was packed for this express purpose. He’s in his car and halfway across town to Leander’s apartment before the nerves really start to settle in, and the questions(reservations?!)begin running through his mind.

Is this really a good idea? What if Lee isn’t actually into it, what if he’s just humoring Tripp and his grossly-obvious crush? Worse, what if Lee is as into it as he claims, but Tripp turns out to be a big fuckin’ disappointment? What if Leander regrets this thing in the morning?

What if they both do?

It’s tough, because there’s no question in Tripp’s mind—he wants whatever pieces of Lee he can get. They’re best friends and that’s great, he wouldn’t change that for the world. But Tripp’s also an idiot, and he somehow let himself fall for the one guy who doesn’tdoromance, the one person on the planet who would never see him that way, even if he did.

It’s too late for Tripp’s feelings, that shit is a done deal. A smarter man, awiserman would likely point out that gettingphysical with Lee won’t make them easier to deal with, not by a long shot, but Trippwants.

He wants to touch Lee, wants to know what it’s like to be touched by him. With this offer, with theknowledgethat Lee is open to it—how the hell is Tripp supposed to pass that up? Maybe other people are stronger or smarter than him, but when the dude he’s been pining over foryearsoffers to straight up fuck him ‘til he passes out, all in the name of “stress relief,” well. Tripp simply feels that hollering, “fuck, yeah,” in response is actually a really understandable reply.

Maybe it would have been easier for him to say no, or at least to hesitate, if they didn’t have the whole BDSM thing working like padding to ease them into it. Lee has never hidden his life as a Dom—the opposite, really. In fact, he’ssoopen about it, he’s probably responsible for half of the City Fire & EMS crews being twice as satisfied with what goes on in their bedrooms than they were before he moved to town.

And while Tripp’s never actuallydoneany of that submissive stuff—or even admitted to anyone besides Lee that hewould—he really wants to. The truth is, Tripp’s long been interested in dipping his toes into those proverbial waters. That is,ifhe could find someone suitable and trustworthy enough to take him for a swim.

…Which isn’t to say that hemeantto suggest he’d be open to Leander doing exactly that, what with his experience, and the fuckin’playroomin his apartment, and hisverybig muscles that could maneuver Tripp around by the hair as he—wait, what was he thinking about?

Right. So maybe he struck up a couple of leading conversations. Maybe he asked a few too many pointed questions. Maybe he let the back-and-forth banter between himand Lee wander further into the dirty and sordid more often than he should have, for a guy who just wanted to be friends.

But hell—Lee was low-risk back when they started hanging out, no matter what the subject matter of the shit they talked might’ve been. At the time, the guy had a long-term,contractually-boundsubmissive, and while Lee was as vocal about his indifference to both gender and sexuality as he was passionate about BDSM itself, the subwasfemale, and Tripp didn’t want to make any assumptions.

Especially when Leealsohad no qualms in declaring publicly that his relationship with said sub was “exclusive, sexual-platonic”, whatever the fuckthatmeant.After some probing, Tripp concluded that it was Lee’s phrase for “fuck-buddies,” or contractual friends with benefits, no other strings attached.

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