Chapter 60
Rhett
Something was wrong, and I needed to fix it, now.
“Maybe we should…”
Garrett’s voice trailed away as I strode past him, closing the gap between us and Katie. She was standing there, nestled into Rhys’ chest, but when I appeared beside them, she looked up. That’s when I saw the tears. My shoulders tensed, my hands forming fists without thought. I wanted to tear apart whatever was hurting her, but the slight smile she shot me disarmed me completely. Tension bled out of my body as I cupped her face in my hands.
“What went wrong?” Fuck, I was being too blunt again, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. How the hell did I fudge around the issue, skirting it until some predetermined moment when it was OK to ask? “Katie, if we messed up?—”
“It’s our jobs.” Rhys shook his head, then pulled her closer. Those long, soothing strokes down her back, I wanted to be the one doing that. Anything but stand here and listen to this. “What parent is going to be OK with a guy or guys who can’t be trusted to turn up to the date he organised?”
“That’s it?”
It seemed like a small thing, and yet so immeasurably huge at the same time. I wanted to refute the charge, prove that I was reliable as fuck, and I was, at work. Always there on time for my shift, prepared to go the extra mile, fill in for teammates when one of the guys was sick. Fires were unpredictable, so I couldn’t afford to be.
“I mean, yeah.” I hated the self-effacing way Katie said that, the way she turned back towards Rhys, like he was the only one who could comfort her. “I tried to make them see…” She shrugged. “You guys work hard and save people?—”
“Not me.”
Rhys smiled down at her, but there was an edge to it I didn’t normally see.
“You help people feel better about themselves,” she said. “That’s what you did for me.”
But it wasn’t enough. I nearly took a step backwards then, an instinctive need to put distance between myself and a threat riding me hard. I didn’t get to where I was paying attention to that though.
“I…” My mouth was moving as my brain was trying to come up with solutions. “Is that the main problem, because I can…” I saw Charlie, Knox, and Noah then. They’d managed to find a way to make things work with Millie. Surely I could do the same. “I can talk to the guys at work, the married ones, and find out what they do. There’s gotta be a way forward.”
“Helen’s been telling me I need to start putting up boundaries with our unit manager.” Garrett scratched the back of his neck. “I was trying to be a team player, but I think I just ended up becoming the department doormat.” He shook his head. “I’ll talk to her, talk to our union rep about how to navigate this better.”
“Does that help?” Katie was like an ember rising up in the air and floating free, ready to set someone else alight, but I couldn’t let her go. “If we find a solution, keep on talking?—”
“That’s one hundred percent more than any other guy has bothered to do.” Katie shrugged. “I’m in uncharted territory here, so in theory, yes? We need to communicate clearly, like adults.” Her mouth turned down at the corners. “Be responsible. Gross.”
“But not tonight.” Garrett stepped in closer, ready to turn Katie’s head his way, when Bronson started barking. A couple of kids came rolling up, eyeing us and then the skatepark.
“Cool dog,” one said, approaching Bronson with his hand outstretched. The dog took a step backwards. “Is he friendly?”
“He is when he feels confident.” Katie pulled away to go and stand beside Bronson. “What do you think, boy? Can they give you a pat?”
The kids ended up dropping their skateboards on the ground, asking a million questions about the dog while giving him a pat. The two of them, they were in their element, and that had me looking at my best friends. Garrett watched everything that took place with hungry eyes and Rhys, he nodded, then ambled over.
“Nice board.” He picked up one and checked the line of it, then spun the wheels.
“You skate?” one of the older teenagers asked, looking Rhys up and down.
“Used to. Lend me your board?”
The kid shoved the skateboard into his hands, the lot of them watching sceptically as Rhys set it down. Eyebrows shot up as he started to roll forward. With an ease I rarely saw, he upped the speed, then approached the ramp at a speed that seemed way too fast. The board’s wheels lost contact with the concrete in what appeared to be a controlled movement, because Rhys spun it around, hitting the ground and then rolling back with a grin.
“Shit…” the older kid said, then grabbed a board off one of the others. “How about this?”
The sound of the sea meshed with the raspy rattle of the wheels along the concrete, punctuated by the laughter, the chatter of the crowd, Katie among them. Her grin, then her cackle when Rhys came flying off the board, having failed to replicate the kids’ trick, had me drawing closer.
“We’ll find a way to fix this.” When she looked up at me, when I put my arms around her, I was reminded of the other night. She’d taken care of me so perfectly. Now it was my turn to do the same. “I promise.”
“And tonight?” The spark was back in her eyes, lighting me, lighting us up.
“We’ll look after you tonight.” Garrett came to stand beside us but didn’t even spare a sidelong look at the skateboarders. “In every way you’re open to.” He held up his phone. “Notifications on silent. I’m not on call tonight.”
“What if there’s an emergency?” she asked, which had my hand stroking her cheek.
“There is one.” Her brows creased in confusion. “Right here.” Bronson was barking furiously, chasing Rhys up and down the ramps. “You’re not happy and we need to step up to fix that situation.”
“I’m OK?—”
She said that way too quickly.
“No, you’re not.” I ran my hand through her hair. “But you will be. Rhys!” My shout had his head popping up. The skateboard was handed back and he said goodbye to the kids moments later. He and Bronson jogged over. “We’ve got a job to do tonight.”
“One we should’ve made our top priority a while back.” He looked Katie over then with heavily lidded eyes. “It’s time to make clear how sorry we are.”
“In a way you still feel tomorrow.”
Her little gasp, the way she stared at me open mouthed, that’s what had me sweeping forward and hoisting her on my shoulder. Rescuing someone from a situation that threatened to destroy them? That was just another day for a firefighter.
I don’t know how the hell we made it home. My car was still sitting on the side of the road because we couldn’t seem to stop for long enough to pick it up. Tomorrow, because tonight was all about Katie.
I was kissing the back of her neck just to hear her giggle, my hands tracing the shape of a body that haunted my dreams. My cock was so damn hard it ached, and yet it wasn’t my focus. Just a dull counterpoint to the feel of her pressed against my body, my skin against hers.
“Uh uh…” Garrett knocked her hands away when he climbed onto the bed. Katie reached for him, and right when I was about to argue that we should be giving her whatever the hell she wanted, he made clear his vision. “Tonight is all about you.” Those hands were collected up and then a kiss was pressed to her knuckles. “It’s time for us to make amends.”
“That’s what we’re calling it?” Rhys shuffled closer on her other side and tilted her lips his way, right as his hand dropped lower. He kissed her through her gasp, then her sigh, as his hand closed around her breast. If she liked that, then she’d like… Katie pulled away, looking back over her shoulder open mouthed as I traced the hard bead of her nipple, then grabbed it between my finger and thumb. Her breath came in time with the little tugs. “You like that.” Rhett pressed a kiss to her throat. “Does that make you feel better?”
I let out a hiss at the same time Garrett did, shooting him a dark look, because rather than flutter closed, Katie’s eyes flicked open. She smiled though, helping ease some of the tension.
“Better…” She barely breathed that out. “So much better.”
Katie had no idea how much I needed to hear those words. They drew me closer, kisses, so many kisses, raining down on her neck and shoulders. It felt like I needed to map every inch of her, lest she slip away.
“Katie…” Why the hell was I mumbling her name with increasing urgency? “Katie…” She looked back over her shoulder, staring into my eyes. Whatever she saw there had her smile fading. “Need your eyes on me,” I insisted, despite her change in mood. Perhaps because the moment my hand covered her breast, fingers sinking into her softness, her eyes grew heavily lidded and as I toyed with her nipple, they threatened to fall closed again. “No, babe, eyes on me.”
I wanted to see her respond to me, us. The need to see all that pain wiped away and replaced by passion, pleasure, was overwhelming. It was the only way I could take a full breath. Oxygen starved, my lungs sucked it in and her scent with it.
“That’s a good game to play.” Garrett picked her up like a doll, Rhys and I losing our grip on Katie, only for him to set her back down facing us. Her thighs were spread wider, and then he was pushing his head through the gap, kissing the soft skin there as he went. “Eyes on Rhett or we stop.”
Garrett’s brain never seemed to stop, always concocting some new ploy to use, but that wasn’t what I needed right now. I loomed taller, gazing down at Katie as I went in for a kiss.
“Eyes on me,” I told her. “See me. See us and everything we can become. See a future with us and…” I couldn’t pretend, not like Garrett could. “And I’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy.”