Chapter 10

Gracie

I woke up feeling oddly sore as I stretched and hit hard steel in my bed. My eyes slowly opened to find Ryan sleeping soundly next to me.

As I propped myself up on one arm to look at him, his eyes opened and he gave me a lazy, sexy-as-hell smile.

"Good morning."

"You stayed," I replied, still a little surprised by it all.

"Should I have flown home instead?"

"No, it"s fine. I just wasn't expecting it."

I"d been the one to invite him into my house, into my arms, and into my bed. But even at the time I wasn"t certain why.

Ryan was handsome and everyone adored him, but I hadn"t understood the attraction between us. I certainly felt it, but it was confusing because on the surface he was clinical at best. He also looked perfect and said and did all the right things, almost robotic at times.

I hadn"t known what to expect, but after he"d kissed me in the field, I knew I had to find out, and thank God I had.

Wow! Never in a million years had I imagined he could be so passionate.

I had no words to explain what had happened between us, but despite being tender and sore, my body craved more of him.

This could definitely be a problem.

I had genuinely thought that having sex with him would help me get over this ridiculous attraction, but instead I was more confused than ever now.

Why was he here? I"d never had a guy stay over like this. Hell, I"d never had a guy over to my house at all. What had I been thinking?

No one had ever stayed over; I didn"t entertain at my house. I always went to his place and would never stay the night. So this was all new territory for me.

"I"d offer to make breakfast, but I already know you don"t likely have anything for that. And I"d suggest going to The Diner, but that probably won"t play in my favor either."

I snorted remembering how I"d freaked out when he"d suggested we have lunch together even though technically it would have been perfectly fine, a work lunch even. I never thought twice about going to lunch with Andrew, Dan, Rodney, or any of the other guys. Hell, Big Dick and I had a standing lunch date every Thursday. But for some reason, it just felt different with Ryan.

Probably because I don"t want to screw those other guys.

"I do have coffee."

"Oh, thank the Lord for that. I have it programmed to be ready when I wake."

I shook my head and smiled. "Of course you do."

The man had washed, dried, and put away all of my dishes. Not just the ones we"d used for dinner, but the mound of dirty ones in my sink too. And he genuinely didn"t seem to mind doing it.

He looked at his watch and frowned. "It"s later than I thought."

"Well, we were up pretty late."

His smile was real. I"d seen his fake smile enough to know the difference.

"Yes, we were."

There was no sense in denying it, and I was grateful he wasn"t trying to ignore the fact that it happened at all.

"Let"s get some coffee and get to work. What do you say? Maybe there was another fire last night."

He seemed a little too excited about the idea.

"And maybe you need to go home and change first."

Technically we were both still naked, but I was sure his clothes had to be a wrinkled mess, and what if someone noticed he was wearing the same outfit as yesterday?

He seemed to consider that for a moment, and then grabbed me by the waist and pulled me against him. He kissed me, catching me off guard.

"I think I need you more than coffee right now."

I sighed. "I guess we can start our day a little later."

His large hands encircled my waist and pulled me on top of him.

I propped up on my hands to look down at him. It was a different view from what I"d so far experienced. He"d been very in control yesterday and seemed to have relinquished that control to me this time.

I loved it!

Not that I hadn"t loved him taking control, too. But he had no idea how much it meant to me for him to encourage me like this.

I started to sit up straight while straddling him, but he reached up and captured one of my breasts in his hand and tugged me back to hover over his mouth as he drove me insane with that wicked tongue of his.

It wasn"t just affecting me either as I felt him throbbing between my legs.

When he pulled away for a second, I pushed against his chest to sit up. I was already so wet and ready as I adjusted us so I could slide down on his long, thick length. It felt like heaven.

Fully seated on him, I closed my eyes and let my head drop back as I moaned loudly and then I started to move.

Sex with Ryan took me to a whole new place. It was surreal. It wasn"t that I"d been with bad partners before, they apparently just hadn"t been good if he was any indication.

In my need to scratch the itch I had for him, I hadn"t considered it would just lead to even more desire. And now the bar had been set so high, I wasn"t even sure I could ever enjoy sex again. And I knew that a guy like Ryan wasn"t going to be long term for a girl like me.

Frustrated by that thought, I turned off my mind and let myself just feel and get carried away in the sensations as I rode him hard, seeking my own orgasm even knowing he was right there with me every step of the way. And when I crested at last while crying out his name, he let go and followed me over the cliff of absolute bliss.

I collapsed onto his chest, and he wrapped his arms around me and just held me as he sweetly planted a kiss to the top of my head. We laid like that until the panting subsided and our heartbeats slowed to normal.

We didn"t waste words on pillow talk or affections. We both knew what this was, and if I could just keep that at the forefront of my mind just maybe I"d survive this affair with Ryan, but I was pretty sure neither of us was ready for this to end.

"I should probably just fly home and let you get ready in peace."

"What? You don"t want to join me in the shower?" I teased.

I could see the excitement on his face.

"I was kidding. You could really go again?"

"What?" he asked innocently. "I could handle a platonic shower with you."

I didn"t have the heart to tell him that I"d shared plenty of platonic showers with the guys down at the station and none of them had looked at me the way he was looking now. There was absolutely nothing platonic between us now. I didn"t even know how we were going to be able to even be around each other without everyone knowing what had happened.

"No you couldn"t," I told him.

He laughed. "You"re probably right. I"ll fly home and clean up. Pick me up in an hour. Or should I just meet you at the station?"

"What? Don't you have more important mayor things to do?"

"Not this week. I had my schedule cleared to help with the case."

"The case?"

He grinned sheepishly and shrugged. "That"s my official story."

"You can do that?"

"Of course I can. I"m not a total slave to my job."

Somehow, I knew he was lying. I eyed him suspiciously.

"Fine, I am, but I don"t have to be."

"So you"re saying you need a bit of balance in your life?"

"Maybe. I"ve never really thought so before, but now I"m not sure. To be honest, I"ve never actually done anything like this before."

"Oh please. You can"t convince me you"ve never had sex before."

He chuckled. "Not that part."

"Then what?" I asked, surprised that I really did want to know. I wanted to know everything there was about this man.

"The staying the night thing. I"ve never done that. And I have to admit, I had no idea what to do this morning. I"m used to a pretty regimented morning routine and there"s just nothing within my norm today."

"What would a normal day look like for you?"

"Well it doesn"t start with a beautiful woman naked in my arms."

I blushed.

I was so used to being just one of the guys that I"d forgotten what it felt like to be a woman and embracing my femininity.

"Let"s see. I wake up and shower, get dressed for the day. My coffee and breakfast are usually waiting for me since I program my coffee and prep breakfast the night before. I eat, take a few minutes to go through my calendar for the day, and prepare for any meetings or proposals I have to tend to. Then I clean up and head to the office, or in the case of this week, to meet up with you."

"It sounds very, well, regimented."

He chuckled. "I suppose it does. My day always feels off when I deviate from that though."

"Oh no. How will you possibly cope with today then?"

He smiled. "I think I"ll be okay. Who knows? Maybe I"ll even get used to it. My siblings are always telling me I need to lighten up a bit."

"Are they not just like you?"

"Not even close. We couldn"t possibly be more different. You don"t have any siblings, do you?"

"No, I don"t. Though I suppose I have a lot of adoptive brothers at the firehouse."

"I imagine they"re quite protective of you."

I shrugged. "I suppose they can be. I don"t know. I haven"t given them much reason to be. Well, not outside work at least."

"Why did Clarence bench you this week and assign you to me? Not that I"m complaining about that."

I sighed. This was the last thing I wanted to talk about.

"I"m a witch."

"Well yeah, we all are."

"I"m a fire witch."

"Aren"t most of the Montgomery Flock?"

"Yes, but mine"s a little different. I can"t really create or manipulate fire the way others can. I just can"t be burned by it."

"What?"

"Fire can"t hurt me, and so in this case we were out by the cliff at the first site I showed you and a wind blew through as we were putting it out. It was like a catalyst and there was a spike in the fire. Big Dick was too close to it, and I could see he was going to get burned, so I ran through the fire to push him out of it."

"That doesn"t sound like a bad thing."

"You"d think." Of course, I was leaving out the part about me getting stuck in the fire and my unit having to watch me go through that process. It wasn"t like it hurt me or anything. But it seemed to freak them out, enough so that Clarence had benched me for it.

He checked the time and frowned.

"I should probably get home. Are you picking me up?"

"Um, sure. At your apartment complex?"

"Yup. You know the place?"

"Yes."

"Top floor to the right."

"So you want me to come up?"

"You don"t have to."

"I don"t mind."

In truth, I was dying to see what his place looked like.