Chapter 10
OLIVIA
W hen I left the diner, the guys were still out, fighting a fire.
It was a big one, according to a customer, a friend of the local sheriff, who was texting him in real time.
It’s been a few hours, and I feel my stomach knotting with concern as I glance out the living room window, waiting to see Dax, Beck, and Leo return home.
I’m pacing through my kitchen, still trying to reach Chloe’s cell, but to no avail. I call Dax, hoping he’ll pick up. I get his voicemail.
“Hey,” I say with a trembling voice. “I know you’re busy; I just hope you’re okay. Give me a call when you get this message.”
It’s uncomfortable wrestling with this swelling anxiety all on my own.
Luke must be worried, too. I know Leo has a sitter for him when they’re on shift but even so, I’m compelled to go next door and see if they’ve heard from the guys. Growing restless with each passing minute, I head over and knock on their door .
Stacy, the sitter, answers. She’s a twenty-something college student with big brown eyes and a dimpled smile. “Hey. Olivia, right? From next door?”
“Hi, Stacy. Yes. I was just checking to make sure you guys are okay.”
“Yeah. Luke is in his room. I told him to hit the sack, but I’m pretty sure he’s trying to finish another Lego project his dad got him.”
I laugh lightly. “He loves his Legos. Speaking of, have you heard from Leo or the guys?”
“No,” Stacy says, and I instantly recognize the concern in her voice as it echoes mine. “Not yet anyway.”
“Have you tried calling them?”
She nods. “Texted, too. Nothing.”
My stomach drops. “From any of them?”
“Nope,” she shakes her head slowly. “I’ll admit, I am a little worried. My mom called to tell me that there were some fatalities at the fire they were called out to, but she said they were warehouse workers.”
“Okay, thank you, Stacy,” I reply and go back to my place.
I hear the door close as I walk down the path. My pulse races as I reach for my phone and try calling them again. First, Dax. I get his voicemail. Then, Leo. His phone is turned off completely.
I try Beck next. Again, I get his voicemail. This can’t be right. It doesn’t feel right.
I can’t exactly run to the scene of the fire, crazed out of my mind, looking for them .
“Melinda,” I mutter to myself and search her contact details in my phone. “She’ll know more for sure.”
“Hey, Mel, sorry to bother you at this hour.”
“It’s fine, honey, don’t worry about it,” Melinda says. “Jim and I were just about to pop open a couple of beers. Are you okay?”
“Me? Yes, fine, thank you. It’s just… have you heard anything about that warehouse fire?”
The silence on the line makes my heart skip a beat. “Dax and the guys were on shift for that one?” she asks, but the tone of her voice sounds different.
“Yes.”
“Crap.”
“What happened, Mel?”
“Well, I heard from Carlos that they have a dead firefighter on top of the two victims they managed to get out,” she says. “A bomb went off inside, apparently.”
“Oh, God,” I feel the air leave my lungs and I fail to breathe any of it back in.
“Had I known that Dax and the guys were on it, I would’ve paid closer attention,” Melinda says. “Listen, you stay put. I’ll start making some calls.”
“What’s wrong?” I hear Jim say in the background.
“It’s that warehouse fire,” she tells him. “Dax and the guys were on shift.”
“Melinda, where’s the warehouse located?”
“I doubt you’ll find anybody left there at this hour.
The fire has surely been put out by now.
The place is probably swarming with deputies, arson investigators, and crime scene techs.
Ember Ridge may be small, but the local sheriff has invested heavily in these operations.
This is wildfire and meth lab country, after all. ”
It’s a beautiful country, quieter than other parts of America. But the region does have its share of crime and nuisance, much like everywhere else, though I doubt three arsons in two weeks is a common occurrence.
“Where do I go then?” I ask helplessly, eager and desperate to find Dax, Beck, and Leo. To find them alive and well . But Melinda said that a firefighter died, and their phones are off, and I think I’m going to be sick.
“I don’t know. Try St. Anthony’s Hospital. They’ve got an emergency burn unit,” Melinda says. “Hold on Olivia, let me make some calls and find out first, okay?”
Without even thinking, I hang up and grab my car keys.
I’m terrified that I may have lost one of the very few, truly good things in my life. The uncertainty is too much to handle, and I need to move, to do something.
I need to be somewhere else.
As I open the front door, however, I find myself breathing a sigh of relief. The kind that loosens all my joints and makes tears spring to my eyes. “Thank heavens,” I manage as I look at them.
They’re alive. Granted, they look like they lost a fight with a particularly vicious oven, but they’re okay. Dax has a bandage on his forehead. I measure each of them from head to toe before I’m fully able to breathe again .
I see light burns on their skin. Scratches and scrapes turned dark brown on account of Betadine. Smudges of soot and dried blood cover them. Their fire department–issued tee shirts are wrinkled and sweaty. They have messy hair and tired eyes. I catch a whiff of burnt wood as I breathe in.
“Olivia,” Dax says, his expression pained and exhausted.
“I couldn’t reach you,” I manage, the tears now flowing freely down my cheeks.
“I know,” he replies.
Beck comes closer. “We’re sorry. We were held back. Cops, arson investigators, doctors. They had us go through the whole incident before we could leave and the second shift took over.”
“Come in,” I say and take a step back.
They walk forward, zombie-like, and I want to do everything in my power to make them feel better.
“What happened?” I ask.
They join me in the hallway and start taking off their clothes. I listen as I help them undress and escort them to the bathroom, where I turn the shower on.
“Cold water, please,” Leo says. “I can’t stand the heat right now.”
“Whatever you need. I heard you lost one of your own today. I was coming out to find you,” I tell him.
Dax nods solemnly, then kisses my temple before getting out of his pants. “Our captain. It was an all-hands-on-deck type of situation. He took the candidates up to the roof to ventilate it. ”
“I’m so sorry,” I say.
Beck washes his face and hair thoroughly in the sink before he slips under the cold stream, just as Leo comes out and wraps a towel around his sculpted waist. His injuries look much better now that he’s clean. He smells of strawberry shortcake, which is my favorite shower gel fragrance.
Were it not for the gravity of the situation, I know we’d have a laugh about it.
“We found a secondary device while we were sweeping the place, looking for survivors,” Dax explains, scrubbing his beard and face rigorously with lather from a bar of soap, occasionally stealing glances at himself in the mirror. “I had a guy on my shoulders. We were just about to get out when?—”
“It blew up,” Leo interjects, pulling me into his arms. He’s still wet, and the water seeps into my cotton dress, causing chills to run down my spine and igniting a fire deep within my core.
“It caught the captain and the candidates while they were trying to get off the roof. The candidates made it out with a couple of broken ribs, a broken leg, and some scrapes and bruises, but at least they made it to the ladder. But the roof tore open under the captain’s feet. ”
“Oh, Leo…”
“We tried getting here sooner,” Dax says as he steps into the shower after Beck steps out.
Beck joins Leo and me. He takes a deep breath as he looks at me. “We wanted to be with you, Olivia.”
“I was so worried.”
“I know,” Leo sighs. “For a moment, I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again. ”
When Dax is finished, I give him the first-aid kit from under the sink to change the dressing on his forehead wound. I help him while Beck and Leo open a bottle of wine from the fridge. They need something to take the edge off, to release the tension and ease the exhaustion.
“Was this from the explosion?” I ask Dax.
He nods once. “It knocked me out pretty good, to be honest. For a moment, I figured that was the end for me.”
“Dax…”
He pulls me into a deep, feverish kiss. “I know that we don’t yet know where we’re going with this or how we’re going to make it work in the long run, but I can’t imagine a future without you in it.”
“It’s okay, I feel the same way,” I tell him. “It’s strange, and there’s still so much I need to figure out for myself, but this thing between us, it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Dax allows himself a soft smile. “That’s good to hear.”
“I didn’t see it coming,” I giggle, then rest my head against his chiseled chest, a thought occurring to me. “Stacy was getting worried, too. Have you let her know you’re okay?”
“Yeah, we called her and asked if she could stay a bit longer. She was cool with it.”
Mere moments later, I hear the glasses clink as they’re left on the kitchen counter, followed by echoing footsteps as Beck and Leo join Dax. They take me to the bedroom, removing my clothes in the process.
“The idea of never touching you again, fucking hell, it stung more than any third-degree burn,” Leo mutters as he lets my dress drop along the staircase.
Beck turns me around just as we reach the bedroom doorway, his fingers hooked through my panties as he trails kisses down the side of my neck. I’m set ablaze, moaning softly as my eyes close, then peel open again when I feel a tall, brooding presence in front of me.
It’s Dax, looking down at me as he unclips the front of my bra and releases my full breasts. “You, Olivia, you’re the light that brought us all back today. I need you to understand that,” he says.
I shudder as he kisses me, grabbing handfuls of my breasts as they slowly edge me closer to the bed. Leo comes in to amplify the foreplay by a thousand degrees as he slips a hand between my legs.
He finds me wet and wanting, my clit swollen and aching for release.
Beck gets down on his knees behind me while Dax sits on the edge of the bed, beckoning me to bend over. I take his massive, throbbing cock in my mouth as I feel Beck’s tongue slide between my slick folds.
A whimper escapes my throat as Leo reaches under and applies pressure to my clit, circling it while Beck repeatedly penetrates me with his tongue.
The frenzy mounts to a whole new level of ecstasy as I deep throat Dax until I can’t breathe anymore, only pulling back for an inhale before we lock eyes and I wrap my lips around him again.
“You’re fucking perfection,” Dax tells me as he runs his fingers through my hair .
The words cause an avalanche of sensations as Leo licks my clit. I come hard, groaning harshly while sucking Dax as Beck drinks me whole, his tongue lapping, my legs shaking like crazy.
“Come here,” Dax says, then pulls me up into his lap.
I taste him on my lips and tongue as he has me climb on top of him, my pussy still rippling in the aftermath of a delicious climax. I settle down, slowly letting him fill me to the brim.
“Leo,” I whimper as he gets on top of the bed, offering his gargantuan erection. “Oh, Beck!” I cry out as Beck comes up from behind and firmly joins Dax inside me. “Oh, oh, fuck.”
I hold my breath for a moment, adjusting to the sensation.
Tonight, we’re taking it to a whole different dimension, and I welcome every glorious inch. I’m stretched out of my mind, every nerve ending screaming as I arch my back for the best angle.
“That’s our girl,” Leo says as I welcome him into my mouth.
Gripping the base of his cock, I stroke him in a succinct rhythm as I suck him hard. At the same time, I let my hips sway slightly, my tender clit rubbing against Dax’s groin while he and Beck fuck me out of this world.
My breasts bounce in Dax’s big, strong hands. He squeezes tighter and tighter, then pinches my nipples as I moan in wild passion. Beck thrusts into me, harder and faster. His hand comes down to slap my ass, causing a chain reaction that makes me lose all sense of time, space, and self-control.
“Fucking perfection,” Beck growls as his fingers dig into my hip while the other hand smacks my lower cheek again .
“Oh, don’t stop,” I cry out, taking a breather from Leo’s delicious cock because I need them to drill me at this specific rhythm and speed. I feel a tumultuous orgasm building up inside, the pressure so powerful that it turns everything into stars, sparkling white all around me. “Please…”
“You take us all so well,” Leo says and slides down my throat.
I relax my muscles and look up.
I lose myself in the deep brown pools of his eyes as I ride Dax harder. At the same time, Beck gleefully responds to my demands and gives me thrust after thrust of his hard, stiff, throbbing cock until finally…
I explode.
Wave after wave of indescribable pleasure washes over me, sending all three men into a beastly frenzy.
“You were made for us,” Dax grunts as he stiffens deep inside of me.
I feel him filling me, his hot seed shooting upward. Beck bites my shoulder, and I cry out in the most wonderful kind of ecstasy as he, too, comes. I’m loaded and sated, looking up as Leo unleashes down my throat.
I swallow every drop as we adore one another.
This is the kind of intimacy I’ve only ever read in books. And as I come down from the shimmering clouds and welcome their hungry kisses, I realize I’m in far deeper than I ever thought I’d let myself get.