Page 62 of Only You and Me

“Do it. I’m right there, too.”

Without further delay, Ben somehow holds me up effortlessly and fucks me as if our lives depend on it until we both explode within seconds of each other. Our mutual orgasms are so hot I’m positive they’ll melt us into puddles of satisfied pleasure.

Moments later, we’re both deliciously spent, and I try to wiggle down from Ben’s hold.

“Uh uh. Not yet.”

The man carries me to the bathroom, sets me down on the edge of the tub, and turns on the hot water in the sink. Grabbing a washcloth off the bathroom shelf, he moistens it with warm water, then kneels before me.

“I can do that,” I tell him, a little embarrassed.

“No,” he pulls his hand away when I reach for the cloth. “You’re my wife and I’m gonna take care of you, not because you need me to, but because I want to.”

A few minutes later, we walk back to the bedroom holding hands and Ben pulls back the blankets, then turns to face me. “Do you still like to be the big spoon?”

“I-I don’t know.” I look away from him for a second then turn my gaze back to him, “I haven’t spooned with anyone since you.”

Ben stares at me for several long seconds, and without me telling him, I can see he knows that I just allowed myself to be vulnerable with him. That I opened myself up to him by letting him know I wasn’t so unaffected by him all these years, like I tried to make him think.

With utter tenderness, he places a hand on each of my cheeks and kisses my forehead. Then he pulls back and looks at me. “Well, we’ll try it, and if you don’t like it, we can adjust.”

Without making me respond, he lets me crawl into the bed and position myself, then climbs in and lies in front of me before switching off the light.

Within moments, I drift off to sleep, completely at peace.

CHAPTER20

TRINA

Something bad is going to happen. I’ve been waiting for it since I woke up this morning and headed to work. Despite it being unusually sedate for a Monday at the Fire Station, I can’t shake the heaviness in my chest. It’s already twelve-thirty p.m. and we’ve had no fire or emergency medical calls. Definitely not a normal day. That only adds to the eerie feeling I have about today.

I know this is a manifestation of anxiety coming from this foreboding apprehension I sometimes experience. I remind myself that I’m not always right when I get this feeling. But about seventy-five percent of the time, it’s warranted.

I suspect it’s some weird sixth sense my psyche developed to protect me from a mother who could fly off the handle at any time. Translation: When things seem too good to be true, something bad is likely just around the corner.

So, when the alarm signaling a fire screams out at the station and the dispatcher alerts us that there’s a kitchen fire at one of the local nursing homes, my blood stills.

Our crew rushes to the garage and Gio and Thompson take one ambulance. I’ve assigned Anderson and Ian to the second. Tony drives the engine with me and the remaining three of our fellow A shift firefighters as passengers.

“Maybe it’ll be another false alarm,” Jeffries says from the back. “Seems like we get called out to these facilities every few months and it’s usually just a pan fire.”

Jeffries has only been a firefighter for two years, and the casualness in his voice tells me this is a teachable moment. Since I’m his captain, it’s my job to take that on.

“Until it isn’t,” I say. “I know you all know this, but we go into every situation expecting the worst, then we’re prepared and not taken by surprise. So, everyone clear your minds and go over your role in your heads. Okay?”

“Yes, Captain,” a few of the guys reply.

Three minutes later, we pull up to the scene and ominous, thick black smoke billows out from the right side of the building.

“Shit. How’d you know this would be a bad one, Cap?” Jeffries asks.

“I didn’t. But I’m not surprised, and that’s key.”

Once Tony puts the engine in park, we all jump out and begin preparing to fight this fire like the well-oiled machine we are. A middle-aged woman with a large binder in her arms and a flushed face, her head swiveling and her eyes darting around, jogs over to us and I meet her halfway.

After she tells me she’s the nursing home administrator and I introduce myself, she gives me details of the fire—it started in the kitchen after meal service when the cook went to take a quick call. She didn’t realize she’d left a kitchen towel covering an open vat of cooking oil and the edge of it was touching a hot burner and caught fire.

The facility staff have already moved all residents in that wing to the area of the building furthest from the fire. The frazzled, now sweaty administrator tells me they’ve shut all doors and fire doors and placed wet towels at the base of the main doors to the other units to help limit smoke from entering.

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