Page 15 of Just a Little Crush
It’s just a little crush, and that’s all it’s ever been. I know Rennie would never think of me that way. I’m also certain that, despite his appearance doing utterly wild things to my insides, he’d be so nice in bed I’d barely make a dent in the list of the things I want him to do to me.
My fantasies about Alistair Rendall are bordering on unhinged. Rennie rescuing me from various plights. Rennie climbing through my bedroom window and ravishing me in the night. Taking me here, there, and everywhere. Rennie turning his firehose on me and blasting my clothes off. Don’t tell me the science, I don’t want to know.
Unfortunately, my rescue scenarios never extended to being pulled from the wreckage of my beloved car. No, that was never the way I imagined his hands on me.
“Well, you’ve not even been here 24 hours,” Alyssa says. “If it turns out he does do naked yoga, promise me I’ll be the first to know.”
“I promise,” I fib. No way would I tell a soul. I would take those memories to my dirty grave, with a thousand orgasms along the way.
8
Rennie
WhydidIopenmy big mouth? I was just teasing, and now I can’t get the thought of Bec watching porn in my house out of my head. After discovering the stuff she reads and listens to, I’m desperate to know more about what she likes.
Having her in my home is a bad idea. It’s one thing to fantasise about having her in my bed. Quite another to have her sleeping on the other side of the wall.
It’s too late now, though. I offered my help without a second thought, not realising I’d be putting myself through a week of torture. I can hardly send her home. She’s had enough hurt. I won’t hurt her more.
Fortunately, the morning has been quiet on shift. Unfortunately, that means there’s plenty of time for the crew to ask me questions about yesterday and make jokes about Bec and the situation we found her in. Turns out I’m not the only one who was shocked by what they heard.
We spent our afternoon on a call out to a barn fire, and now I’m rounding out the last of my shift with extra time in the gym. I’m almost done when the Chief Fire Officer, who happens to be my Uncle Jeff, pokes his head in.
“Alastair, a word.”
I follow him down the corridor and into his office. Not much has changed in here over the years. I got to visit a few times when I was a boy, and later when I became more serious about joining the fire service, but this is the first time I’ve been in for a bollocking.
“Sit,” he says, and I perch on the edge of the office chair across the desk from him. “How’s Rebecca doing?”
“She’s fine.” My knee jiggles up and down and I lean forward, pressing my elbow into it to make it stop. “Sprained ankle, sprained wrist, bit of whiplash. She’ll be OK as long as she rests properly.”
“Oh, she won’t like that. Did I hear that she’s staying with you?”
“Yes Sir, that’s right. She can’t manage the stairs to her flat on crutches.”
“Something going on between you two I don’t know about?”
“No, Sir.” He glares at me for an uncomfortably long time.
“So about yesterday. I hear you broke protocol about fifty different ways. I hear you approached the scene without appropriate caution or protective gear. And I hear you pulled her from the wreckage without securing the crash site and before an ambulance was on scene. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“I’m sorry Sir, I apologise. I shouldn’t have done what I did, but I needed to get her out of there as quickly as possible.”
“What if she’d suffered a spinal injury?”
“She hadn’t.”
“And how did you know? You been moonlighting as a paramedic?”
“I just knew.”
“Do you love her?”
“What?”What is he talking about?“I... er—“
“Listen Alastair, I’ve been in this job long enough to know there are only two reasons a man behaves like you did yesterday. Either they’re losing their mind over the pressures of the job, or they’re losing their mind over a woman. I hope for both our sakes that in this case it’s the latter.”
“I—“ I genuinely don’t know what to say.Love? Bec? Is that what this is? No, that’s fucking crazy.
