From Air (Wildfire)

Chapter Nineteen

CALVIN

Jaymes Andrews is the best mistake I’ve ever made. And if I had it to do over, I wouldn’t change a thing.

In my rookie year, I turned around after we were told to evacuate, and I went back for the two guys who were seemingly trapped. I managed to save one. After countless surgeries, he’s still unrecognizable, but he’s alive. He’s told me I made the wrong decision. And perhaps he’s right. However, his wife and daughter have felt eternally indebted to me.

So, if I had it to do over, I’d make the same mistake, because not all mistakes are bad. Sometimes, a mistake is taking a wrong turn, an unplanned detour.

Tonight, I’m going to enjoy this detour because this is my first party at a yacht club. As soon as we arrive, Melissa excuses herself since she’s one of the hosts.

We pass an impressive lineup of yachts and stroll over a wooden bridge to the clubhouse and its sprawling patio facing the water. Jamie clutches my arm to steady herself on the bridge.

Some guy in a fancy gray suit walks up behind her. “As I live and breathe.”

She turns. “Noah!” Her arms wrap around his neck, and he lifts her off the ground, turning in a slow circle before returning her to her heels.

“Melissa said you took a job in Wyoming?”

“Montana.”

“What the hell is that all about?”

“I needed a change. Oh”—she turns to the side—“Noah, this is my roommate, Calvin. Calvin, this is Noah. We attended nursing school together.”

“Nursing school together?” Noah questions, eyeing her suspiciously. “To put it mildly.” He chuckles.

He fucked her. I know that look. I had it two seconds before he arrived. But he’s kind of an asshole for saying it that way in front of another guy.

“Calvin’s a smoke jumper in Missoula.”

Noah shifts his attention to me, stretching his neck and pulling his shoulders back as if he now has something to prove. I don’t give a shit that he’s a nurse and I’m part of an elite group of wildland firefighters. We don’t need to compare dick sizes.

That’s never been my game.

But for the record, my dick’s twice the size of his. And Jamie knows it.

“I bet it takes a different kind of personality to do that kind of work,” Noah says.

I nod slowly. “Yes. Smoke jumpers are intelligent problem solvers. We’re focused. Brave. And then there’s the physical part. We’re in top physical condition all the time.”

“Noah’s looking into medical school,” Jamie announces, shooting Noah a reassuring smile that he’s not a loser.

He’s not.

Nursing is a necessary and admirable profession, as is being a doctor.

“Well, that’s great. Someone has to sign those prescription pads.” I grin. It’s not genuine. I must have misplaced the sincere smile.

Jamie frowns at me. Fine. I’m being a dick. The bigger dick. However, for argument’s sake, let’s say Jamie was my girlfriend. What kind of asshole picks up another guy’s girl right in front of him and spins her in a circle while she’s wearing a dinky dress that shows half her ass when she’s lifted off her feet?

I take Jamie’s hand as Noah opens his mouth to defend himself. “It was nice meeting you. Good luck with school, buddy.”

Buddy. It’s either a term of endearment for a guy who’s actually your buddy, or it’s what you say to a guy you never care to see again. And Noah’s fake smile says he knows it.

“Find me later, we’ll catch up,” Jamie calls to Noah as I drag her toward the clubhouse, where there’s music, food, and drinks. I don’t need another drink today, but I could use one.

“What was that?” Jamie pinches my arm.

I smile at the waiter and reach for two glasses of champagne from his tray.

“No way.” Jamie bats at my hand before I can secure the glasses. “We are not drinking.”

“You suck,” I grumble.

“What was that back there?” she repeats.

“What was what?” I head toward the food, since drinks are no longer an option.

“You were kind of a dick to Noah.”

I take a plate and start piling food onto it. “You think?”

“Yes. I think.”

“But would you say I was the bigger dick?”

“He wasn’t—” She catches it a little too late, and her smile wins. “You’re an idiot.”

“You mean I have a bigger dick.”

“I don’t think you need to have a pissing contest with the first guy who crosses our path.” She puts a few grapes and crackers on her plate.

“Jaymes, that wasn’t a pissing contest. Nobody marked you. He wanted me to know he’d slept with you, and I shared the same sentiment.”

“No. You don’t want anyone to know what happened.” She sets a serving spoon down and turns to me.

I feel her intense gaze on my face, but I focus on the buffet. We’re not talking about this right now, so I finish filling my plate and meander toward the windows with the panoramic view of the water.

Over the next few hours, I meet everyone at the party. However, the only names I remember are John and Sadie. John’s the chef responsible for the fantastic food, and Sadie’s the tall blonde bartender running the open bar.

I’m five rum and Cokes (minus the rum) into the evening.

We stand next to Melissa and some guy from the hospital who she clearly likes. I tune out their conversation because I don’t care about bowel reconstruction. “God, I love how that dress looks on you,” I murmur in Jamie’s ear because I’m bored and seeing her blush entertains me.

On cue, heat fills her cheeks.

“I also love how I feel between your legs.”

Melissa and her friend halt their bowel-reconstruction conversation, focusing on Jamie. “Are you okay?”

She freezes. “He’s drunk and saying incoherent things.”

Melissa snorts. “Incoherent or inappropriate? You’re blushing, babe.”

“Stupid things,” Jamie replies with a tight smile while stealing my Coke and setting it on the table. “Your liver’s raising a white flag, Fitzigan. Let’s go. We’ll get a ride back to your apartment.”

Fitzigan? Does she know her pet names for me only get me hard?

“Night, Jamie,” Melissa says while Jamie takes my hand and pulls me toward the door.

“Tell your parents ...” I slur my words. “T-tell them ‘happy birthday.’”

“Anniversary,” Jamie corrects me.

“My bad. I’m drunk.”

“You’re not drunk.” She tugs me toward the boardwalk next to the lineup of yachts.

“I’m so drunk. I’m afraid we’re going to have sex again or accidentally get another tattoo. But I’m glad you’re sober to stop us from doing epically stupid things.”

She halts, releasing my hand and facing me. “Having sex with me is epically stupid ?” Her tone extinguishes every last spark of amusement.

With a heavy sigh, I rest my hands on my hips and glance at the sky for a beat. “Depends.” I look at her. “Can it just be sex for you? Can the tattoos be nothing more than two people getting caught up in a moment of stupidity? Can it not be the end of the world and not be the beginning of anything? Can I not be the reason you don’t travel from job to job, following your dream?”

She balls her hands, and her whole body vibrates while a storm of emotion fills her eyes. “Why do you have to come with a warning? Why can’t you just kiss me like a normal person? Kiss me because you want to kiss me. Kiss me like—”

I kiss her, but not because I’m a normal person. I kiss her because she makes it impossible not to kiss her. Her bravery is commendable. But the problem with normal people like Jamie is they have normal reactions to things like kissing. Jamie has a gooey little heart that clings to things like hopes and dreams, kittens, the cycle of the moon, and late-night kisses.

It’s not a fault. It’s a gift that normal people possess.

I want to jump out of a plane. I want to put out fires. I want to run for miles. Work my body to the breaking point. Rinse and repeat.

I don’t want to kiss this woman. I need to kiss her. It’s my biggest weakness.

“I want you to be mine,” I breathe over her lips while my fingers slide along her bare shoulder to the back of her neck and the bandage hidden beneath her hair. “Until you leave.”

She draws in a shaky breath.

“But I can’t be yours.”

“Why?” She pinches her eyes shut.

“Because I never want you to feel that kind of loss. And you can’t lose what you don’t have.”

Her eyes open. Jamie’s mastered the contemplative look. She’s unintentionally mysterious. One minute, I’m begging her for silence because she’s oversharing, and the next minute, I want to crawl inside her head and get lost in her thoughts, live in her world.

Her fingers lace with mine, and she pulls me down a walkway between two rows of yachts.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

No reply.

Against my better judgment, I help her step onto a yacht. “I feel like we’re going to get arrested.”

“No.” She smiles. “Bobby J’s dad died and left him the yacht. But Bobby J hates boats. So the yacht never gets used.”

“Who’s Bobby J?”

“An old friend.” After finding a key under a deck-seat pillow, she holds it up, proud of herself. It takes her several attempts to get the key in the hole because it’s so dark. When the door unlocks, she reaches for the rail and descends the steps leading below deck.

As soon as I catch up to her, my fingers slide into her hair, and my forehead rests against hers. “You fuck up my head, Jaymes. You fuck it up so badly.”

A tiny flicker of light from the yacht club flashes across her face through the porthole on our right. “So what?” Her hands remain limp at her sides. “You’re not mine. But I’m yours, so the question is, What will you do with me?”

I cup the side of her face and kiss her neck. “Mine,” I whisper.

She melts into me, kicking off her heels. “Lower,” she says in a breathy voice, fingers knotted in my hair, tugging me in the direction she wants me to go.

I slide the dress straps down her shoulders, exposing her breasts. As I suck a nipple into my mouth, she hikes up her skirt so the whole dress is gathered around her waist.

“Kiss me lower . . .”

I kneel in front of her, peeling her black thong down her legs. The pads of my thumbs tease her inner thighs as I bury my face between her legs, spearing my tongue inside her as far as I can get it.

“Yesss ...” She moans, tightening her grip on my hair with both hands to keep me where she wants me.

By the time she cries my name, I’m so hard that I can barely get my dick out of my pants fast enough. As soon as I do, I lift her to me and thrust into her. With my pants and briefs shackling my ankles, I shuffle us into the bedroom. The patient version of me would help her out of her dress instead of leaving it bunched at her waist, and I’d toe off my shoes to remove my pants and briefs. But I only go so far as to remove my jacket and shirt because I fucking love her breasts pressed to my chest. And I want her nails digging into my back while she chants, “Oh, god ... yes.”

She does too. She chants it so loudly I bet everyone left at the clubhouse knows she’s getting close to having her second orgasm of the night.

This woman has me unhinged.

Both of her hands claim the sheet beneath us, jerking at the cotton while her heels dig into the mattress, and she grinds against me. “Y-yesss!”

My endgame should be my release, but it’s not. With Jamie, it’s watching her fall apart beneath me. It’s the sexiest, most divine thing I have ever witnessed.

But the grim reality is that this is nothing more than an illusion.