Consumed (Firefighters #1)(83)

His eyes teared up again as he relived bringing that axe down on a part of her precious body. He could see the remnants of the infection’s ravages; the skin across the end was bumpy and discolored.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she said quietly.

Well, it was agony for him.

Drawing her arm up, he kissed the inside of her elbow, where the blue veins ran down, and stroked her skin with his thumb. Then he went lower with his lips as he cradled her limb in his hands.

“It must have been hell,” he said hoarsely. He had been through pain, but losing a spleen, what did that matter? At least when he’d been hurting, he’d known that when he came back from that stretch of torture, he was going to be himself again.

Physically, that was. Mentally, he hadn’t been right—although how much of a change was that?

“I don’t remember much of the infection. But it’s true what they say about phantom limb pain. It’s terrible. I could feel my hand and my palm, even though they weren’t there.”

It had been the same for him back at the stationhouse when he’d returned. He’d seen her at every turn, in the break room, the bunk room, on the engines and the ladders. He’d heard her voice, caught the scent of her shampoo.

And yet she was not there, and it had been agony every time reality had come crashing back to him, reminding him that she was gone.

“Sometimes I still can.”

It took him a minute to catch up with what she was saying. “Does it wake you up at night?”

“Yes.”

He knew how that went. It was why he drank so much. The alcohol helped him get through the dark hours when his brain insisted on running through that series of events like somewhere, in those memories, there was the treasure he searched for.

Forgiveness.

“Kiss me,” she said.

He would have given her the world. That all she wanted was something he would have begged her for was more than he deserved.

They ended up with her straddling him, her thighs split around his hips, the tub big enough to accommodate them. Sitting her up straight, he took one of her nipples into his mouth and held her core against him through the warm water. As she arched, he entered her and they both groaned.

Anne rode him slow, and as he leaned back into the curve and cupped her breasts, he had never seen a woman so captivating, the fading light making her glow.

Or maybe that was her soul.

Before he got lost in the orgasming, he said, “I need to tell you something you’re not going to want to hear.”

She stopped. “What.”

Brushing some of her wet hair back, he picked the lesser of two not-so-hots. “I don’t want this to be the last time.”





chapter




38



On Monday, Anne dropped Soot off with Don at the office and proceeded over to SWAT headquarters. Having been born and bred in New Brunswick, and then having worked on the fire service, she knew every nook and cranny of the city

It took her three tries to find the sprawling, unmarked building out by the airport. Talk about hiding in plain sight. With all the airplane hangars, UPS storage facilities, and shipping businesses, the SWAT team’s base was just one more metal-sided, flat-roofed location.

As she pulled up, a side door opened and Jack gave her a wave. “Park over there.”

“Got it.”

She eased the muni sedan off the asphalt and parallel to the facility. “Thanks for having me out here.”

“No problem.” He gave her a quick hug, and then welcomed her into an open bay that was so big it should have had its own zip code. There were thirty or so marked, unmarked, personal, and armored vehicles lined up, along with all manner of four-by-fours and ancillaries. The ammo room was a locked cage in the far corner, the weapons mounted on pegs in rows, everything from assault rifles to shotguns to handguns registered and accounted for, in addition to whatever the officers had on their bodies at the time.

“Check out our new BEAR.” Jack played Vanna White in front of an armored troop transporter. “Her name is Shirley. We also call her Big Momma.”

“She is beautiful.”

“I love a woman who can appreciate fine equipment.” He led the way over to a coded door. “Come on in, I’ve got everything up on the computer.”

The conferencing space was a lecture hall with two dozen tables set up facing a dais and a screen. Off to one side, a dozen men of Jack’s physical description were clustered in groups over laptops, and there was both an electronic board and a dry-erase with all kinds of staffing notes and tables on them. Framed photographs of teams from different eras were mounted around a blacked-out American flag, and a glass display shelf had a lineup of badges, officers killed on the job.

All of the men and two women looked up as she entered, their eyes making a quick and professional assessment before returning to their work.

“We’re over here.” Jack took her over to a laptop. “So meet Ollie Popper.”

Anne sat down in an office chair. “Tell me that is not his given name.”

“It’s what he’s known by. Works for him, don’t it.”

The mug shot showed a twenty-ish Caucasian with long dark hair, bulging eyes, and the pockmarked skin of a meth user.

“Cute, huh. Bet his mother loves him, though.” Jack changed images. “And here is his collection.”