Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
K atie should run and never look back.
Dancing in a supply closet with Frank, after what had happened in the parking lot, and expecting her panties not to melt off her body was pretty much the definition of insanity.
Running was the smart option.
Instead, she closed the door behind her and stepped into place so her right hand was in his and her left on his shoulder. According to all the dance lessons the nuns had forced them to do in middle school, his hand should have rested lightly on her side. But when Frank brought his hand down, it landed on the indent of her waist and slid around to the small of her back. He didn’t pull her in closer. She went on her own, letting her hand glide across the length of his shoulder so her fingers brushed his hair.
There wasn’t enough room to do anything but sway to the music coming through the door, but that didn’t matter.
He brought their hands in so the back of hers rested against his chest, above his heart. It was beating as fast as hers was. Resting her cheek against his shoulder, she inhaled the woodsy scent of his cologne. It made her think of curling up with Frank in front of a crackling fire while the snow piled up outside. She could learn to really love that smell, and this feeling of warm anticipation and desire that made her senses go on full alert.
“This is the saddest song,” she said, the words coming from the need to distract herself before she did something dumb. “He dreamed big and took a chance on making a change and it didn’t work out.”
“True, but he doesn’t say what happened once he got off that dock. Maybe he went back to Georgia, fell in love, and lived his best life.”
She peeked up at him, half expecting a smirk or the grin, but neither were there. Frank was being sincere and it made her breath catch. Who was this guy?
“You’re a romantic,” she said, answering her unspoken question.
“Don’t rat me out,” he said, employing the grin for massive effect. “The guys will give me so much shit about it.”
Nope. It was too late. For the first time, she was actually seeing Frank Hartigan. “So you think there’s always a happy ending?”
“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to do my job,” he said as he spun her around—which was a bit of a miracle since they were squeezed against the shelves of cleaning supplies and pair of two-drawer filing cabinets.
“Why’s that?”
He didn’t say anything at first, and Katie thought he wasn’t going to answer. She couldn’t blame him. They weren’t anything to each other. They were just dancing in a supply closet.
“I see people at what is probably the worst moment in their life,” he said, finally. “Their house is burning down, or they’re stuck in a mangled car, or the people they love most in the world are trapped behind a wall of smoke or fire. I have to believe that it’ll be all right so I can go in there and make it as close to okay as I can—take that worst day and just make it a bad day.”
She bit the inside of her cheek to ward off the tears pricking her eyes. “You’re good at it. Dad says you’re one of the guys he can always depend on at the scene.”
He let go of her hand and tucked a loose hair behind her ear. “That’s just because I’m too dumb to run away from the flames like all the smart people.”
Katie slid her arm up so that she could join her fingers behind his neck and shifted her body so they were lined up perfectly. “I don’t think you’re dumb.”
He chuckled as he let his arm fall so he had both arms around her, his thumbs resting lightly on the sliver of skin between the top of her skirt and her sweater. “My grades in high school tell a different story—especially compared to yours.”
She glanced pointedly around at the stacks of brown paper towels and gallons of Clorox. “And look where that got me.”
“The job you love in a place that isn’t your favorite, for sure. But it’s home, and it’s filled with people who care about you.”
Her comeback was on the tip of her tongue, She was ready to give him a real what-for about how she’d had plans for her life, and she’d tried, and she’d failed. She might as well be sitting on that dock, watching the plans she’d had get washed out on the tide. That was what she was going to tell Frank.
But as soon as she looked at his face, his fierce expression stopped even a single syllable from passing her lips.
“I’m not a brainiac, Katie, but I know what I’m good at.” Determination and promise thickened his tone. “And I’d be really fucking good at loving you.”
Her heart stopped dead in her chest. There was no whooshing of blood in her ears or thump against her ribs. Everything just stopped, in the moment, because, God help her, she believed him. And that was the scariest thing that had ever happened to her in her life. Facing down a dozen Mike Myers would be less frightening.
This was utter fucking madness. She should get the fuck out of here. Hell, she never should have come in here to begin with. All this time, she’d been worried about her damn panties when her heart should have been her number one concern. Falling for Frank Hartigan was the absolute worst thing she could do.
So she wouldn’t.
She refused to.
She controlled what happened to her heart. The fact that she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted anyone, or anything, in her life had everything to do with parts of her body far south of her chest.
His grasp on her waist was still loose, but she didn’t want it to be. She slipped her hands from behind his neck to his shoulders, sinking her fingers into the muscle there. Pulling him downward, she raised herself up on her toes. “I’m not looking for love,” she said, drawing her metaphorical line in the sand.
“And that’s exactly when you find it,” he shot back before dipping his head and kissing her like he’d already had.
Desire rushed through her like he’d set a Zippo’s flame to the spray from a can of AquaNet. She couldn’t have stopped even if she’d wanted to. All of her self-denial melted away under the heat of it. She was kissing him back on the next heartbeat, desperate to touch him and taste him everywhere she could.
Her fingers yanked at the hem of his T-shirt, pulling it upward so she could slide her hands underneath. Fuck he was rock solid, with hard muscle built on the job not in a gym. It was functional, practical. She didn’t have enough blood going to her brain to figure out why that was such a turn-on but it was—it was proof that he wasn’t all flash and show. Logically, she knew it would be better if he was, but reasoning had taken a backseat to the want firing through her.
“Whoa, slow down,” Frank said when she started in on the button fly of his jeans. “We have time.”
“No we don’t.” And she wasn’t sure she could now that they’d finally started—not that she was going to admit that to him. “The clocks already ticking on someone noticing we’re missing.”
He curled his fingers around her wrists, but didn’t move her hands from where they were so cruelly close to what she wanted. “And is that a bad thing?”
“You know it is.”
There would be talk—the kind that got back to the firehouse, and then it would really spread. Before she could come up with a game plan to deal with the gossip, she’d be just another notch on Hartigan’s bedpost to them. It wasn’t fair, but it was what it was.
He shook his head at her statement. “I don’t know that.”
It was pretty to think so, but this was 1981. Things had changed, but she’d still be at fault and he’d be the stud. That they both wanted to be here didn’t matter. It was the kind of small time thinking that had made her want to get out of Waterbury in the first place. Sometimes this town crowded in on Katie, and it was enough to make her want to scream into the wind—or give in to what she really wanted and have a one-night stand with Frank Hartigan.
“Frank,” she said, her heart slamming against her ribs. “Do you want me?”
He took her hand and cupped it against the thick line of his hard cock. “What do you think?”
Lungs tight with hope-soaked razor wire, she sucked in what air she could and laid it all on the line. “Then fuck me right here, right now.”
For a second, he didn’t say anything. Just appraised her—not because he was checking out her boobs or something, but with caution, as if she was offering up the one thing he’d always wanted but never thought he’d actually get. “You sure?”
She pulled her hand free from his hold, hiked up her mini skirt, and hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her panties, hesitating only long enough to clock that he was looking at her like he’d never seen something he wanted so much in his life. Then she shoved her underwear down her legs.
“What do you think?” she echoed.
After that, there wasn’t the time or inclination for more talk. She sank to her knees and went back to work on his button fly before yanking his jeans down, along with his jockeys, freeing that glorious dick of his. Long and thick, she wrapped all ten of her fingers around it—or at least she tried. There really wasn’t much she could do to encompass him. She stroked his cock while looking up at him and watching. He fought to hold onto his control as she double fisted him, pumping up and down in slow, sure strokes.
“Jesus, Katie,” he said, his voice strained. “You don’t have to?—"
Whatever he was going to say next transformed into a harsh groan when she opened her mouth and took him in as deep as she could. Hands still at the base of him, she worked him with her hot mouth, tongue and fists getting a little farther each time, relishing the way his body reacted to her touch.
“Katie.” He whispered her name like a soft curse. “Get off my fucking dick before I lose it.”
Looking up at him, she just winked and kept going.
“Is that what this is?” he ground out. “A game of torture?”
She lifted an eyebrow in mocking retort because they both knew they were having the time of their lives.
“Watch out, honey,” he said, promising a whole lot with that warning. “Two can play at that game.”
He was breathing hard when he put his hands on her shoulders, holding her in place as he stepped back. His eyes went dark as he watched her wipe the corner of her mouth with her thumb and then suck the moisture off of it.
Frank moved fast for someone who could be mistaken for an oak tree. He had her up in the air on the next inhale, and before she could even think to exhale, her ass was barely on one of the two-drawer filing cabinets. With her legs spread wide, Frank’s fingers traced circles around her wet opening as he kissed the ever-loving hell out of her. All she could do was plant her hands on the corners of the cabinet and lean back to give him better access as pleasure washed over her.
Just when she thought she couldn’t take it any longer, he moved from sliding in and out of her clenching core to circling her clit as he kissed his way down her neck, teasing and nipping at her sensitive flesh, stringing her tighter and tighter with each swipe of his thumb and brush of his lips.
If there was a world outside of the supply closet, Katie didn’t give a fuck any more. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the way Frank was touching her. Hot need curled in her belly in rhythm with the speed of his strokes as he alternated between teasing her clit and sinking two fingers in her pussy, making things better and worse at the same time until everything was too much and not enough.
“Frank,” she ground out from between clenched teeth as her orgasm built. “Don’t stop.”
“Never,” he said, biting the sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder and then kissing it better, sucking on the spot so there was no way he wouldn’t leave his mark behind.
Later she might care. Right now, she just needed him to keep going. To keep doing exactly this, until she came. Thank fucking God, he did, moving in time with her body as she undulated against his hand until her climax hit, rolling over her in pure sweet bliss.
Fighting to regain her sight and her ability to suck in air like she hadn’t just run a marathon, Katie tried to understand what in the hell had just happened to make that so fucking good. Her gaze, finally clearing, landed on Frank who stood in front of the filing cabinet, his jeans halfway down his thick thighs. His huge hand was wrapped around his hard cock, stroking it slowly as he watched her, seemingly memorizing the moment. The sight had her clenching as if he hadn’t just curled every one of her ten toes.
“Please,” she said, too far gone to care that she sounded like she was begging, “tell me you have a condom.”
He shot her the grin, making her shiver in the absolute best way. Then he pulled his wallet out of his jeans and fished out a condom. She had her doubts about it fitting, but Frank proved, again, that he knew what he was doing.
“Get off that cabinet and come here,” he said.
Maybe she should drag it out, tease him with made-up indecision, but she couldn’t make herself do it. She wanted him too badly.
Back to the shelves, he bent down enough to curl his very talented hands around the back of her thighs and lift her up as if she weighed nothing. Her hands fell to his shoulders automatically, as if they belonged there, as if this is the way they always did things. She kissed him, losing herself in the feel of him as he lowered her down onto his cock.
Slowly, oh so slowly, she took him in until she was filled with him and her legs were wrapped around the small of his back. Pleasure edged with a sting of something more filled her as she moved, getting used to feeling him inside her.
“That’s it, Katie,” he said, his hands on her waist keeping her from falling. “Show me how you like to fuck me.”
God help her, it was like a switch had been flipped. She went from ‘getting used to you rocking’ to ‘desperate, needy grinding.’ Lifting herself up and then returning, she tilted her hips, pulling him deeper so the head of his cock wasn’t just brushing the bundle of nerves inside her entrance, it was pounding against it, hitting everywhere at once. Her body clenched around his dick, holding him in place as she lost the ability to control herself. She was moving hard and fast against him, desire running through her like lightning, making it impossible to be distracted by the things that usually kept a first orgasm, let alone a second one, at bay. It was just too good for her to worry about what face she was making, or if her thighs were quaking with the effort. Need built and built as she took him in, again and again, so damn close that her ass was already tingling.
“You feel so fucking good. You’re so wet, so tight, so?—"
Desperate and on the edge, Katie grabbed Frank’s face, cupping it between her hands, and kissed him with everything she had as she came, her body going rigid with her orgasm at the same time that Frank surged deep inside her and his entire body shook with his climax.
“Holy hell, Katie,” he said, dropping his head so their foreheads touched. “I?—"
The doorknob rattled, giving Frank just enough time to do a quick pivot to block Katie from the view of whoever flung open the door.
“Nice ass, Frank,” Sandy said with a giggle. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell who you’ve got in here, but it’s a good thing I decided to try one of your known haunts to find you. You’d better come out, your brother is—" She let out a surprised gasp. “Oh. My. God. I can totally see the top of your bangs, Katie”
Katie knew there’d be a downside to going heavy with the teasing and hairspray tonight. “Hi Sandy.”
“Okay, I’m gonna owe O’Rourke twenty bucks about you two finally doing the nasty,” she said, “but only if he finds out. So consider me properly motivated to keep my mouth shut.”
Embarrassment on multiple levels made her cheeks burn. But at least Frank yanked her skirt down, so if her other cheeks were red too, Sandy wouldn’t see that.
“Thanks,” Katie said.
Dear God, kill me know.
After giving her a once over and giving her skirt one last downward tug, Frank made quick work of the condom, then pulled up his jeans. Sandy didn’t bother to look away, instead glancing over at Katie and giving her a thumbs up while mouthing “Wow.”
Oblivious to what Sandy was doing—or pretending he was, Frank asked, “What’s going on with Paul?”
“He decided to remind Connie about all the times Blane cheated on her before she takes that asshole back,” she said, pausing to snap her gum a few times before continuing. “This did not go over well with Blane who is getting all up in Paul’s face.”
“Shit,” Katie and Frank said at the same time.
“Exactly,” Sandy said, with a knowing look on her face. “You’d better get out there before Blane’s mouth writes a check your brother’s fist decides to cash.”
As if on cue, shouts from the bar cut through the music blaring in the background.
Frank grabbed her hand and brushed a kiss across the back of her knuckles. “Katie, I’m sorry. I’ll be back, I just have to?—"
“Fellow twin remember? I understand.” She gave him the best smile she could force her lips into when it felt like the earth had gotten knocked off its axis. “Go get your brother out of trouble.”
“We’ll talk later,” he said, rushing out the door when the shouting graduated to a crash of beer bottles being broken.
Katie watched the empty space where he’d been standing for longer than she meant to considering her arch nemesis—who had seen her banging the one guy in town she should be staying away from— was still there. Emotions spinning around inside her like a tornado on cocaine, she tried to figure out what she was supposed to do now. All she wanted to do was bask in her post orgasmic glow. But like nearly everything else in her life, what she wanted didn’t really count for much. It was all about what she had to do. She had to give up her dreams of adventure. She had to come home. She had to be the smart twin who didn’t fall for a guy who’d spent enough time in the supply closet that Sandy had known to look for him here.
God. What had she done?
“So you and Frank, huh?” Sandy asked, cocking her head and giving Katie an accessing once over. “I wouldn’t have pictured you two being a thing.”
“We’re not a thing,” she mumbled.
“Whatever you say.” Sandy reached into her purse, pulled out a Bonnie Bell compact, and held it out to Katie. “Here, you’d better use this. He left a hickey.” Her glance dropped to Katie’s panties on the supply room floor. “Also, you probably don’t want to leave Friday behind.”
Cheeks burning, Katie scooped up her panties that hadn’t literally melted and balled them up in her fist, promising herself that she would do whatever it took to avoid Frank Hartigan. Because non-melted panties or not, she couldn’t trust herself when he was around him. She was already halfway to falling for him, and if she was ever going to get out of Waterbury, falling for Frank was the last thing she could do.