Chapter 8
The drive to Missoula takes four hours.
We don’t talk much. Felix is at the wheel, his forearm resting on the window frame, his other hand loose on the gear shift.
The radio is tuned to a station that fades in and out through the mountain passes, static swallowing half the songs.
His crew is somewhere behind us, the rest of the convoy splitting off at the highway junction toward the station.
He could have gone with them. He asked his captain for overnight leave instead. Said he had personal business in town.
I’m the personal business.
The sun drops behind the mountains, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink. The same colors as the fire. The same colors as the tower. But softer now. The world healing itself one sunset at a time.
He glances at me. “What?”
“Nothing. Just looking.”
He doesn’t answer. His hand leaves the gear shift and finds my thigh, his thumb tracing lazy circles through the denim.
We hit the city limits just after dark. Streetlights replace the blackness of the mountain roads. Felix pulls into the parking lot of a brick apartment building, kills the engine, and sits there for a moment with his hands still on the wheel.
He pulls into the lot and kills the engine. Sits there for a moment with his hands still on the wheel.
“It’s not much,” he says.
“I don’t care.”
He looks at me. The orange glow of the streetlamp catches the soot still on his jaw, the tiredness around his eyes.
“Okay,” he says. “Come on.”
We climb the stairs to the second floor. He unlocks the door. And I walk into his apartment for the first time.
Felix’s apartment in Missoula is small. A one-bedroom on the second floor of a brick building, with windows that face the mountains and a kitchen that hasn’t been updated since the eighties.
His couch is secondhand, his bookshelves are crammed with field guides and fire behavior manuals, and there’s a burn scar on the kitchen counter where he set down a hot pan and forgot about it.
It’s the most honest place I’ve ever been.
We drove here from the fire camp, the convoy splitting off at the highway, Felix’s truck the only vehicle left by the time we hit the city limits.
We didn’t talk much on the drive. We didn’t need to.
His hand rested on my thigh, his thumb tracing lazy circles through the denim, and the silence was comfortable in a way silence has never been for me.
Now I’m standing in his living room, my duffel bag at my feet, my cameras on the table by the door.
The air carries traces of detergent and something else, citrus and cedar, the cologne I caught hints of in the tower, on the cot, in the supply closet.
It’s everywhere here. On the pillows. On the towels.
On the jacket draped over the back of a kitchen chair.
Felix locks the door. No one to hide from. No crew outside. No radio crackling with someone’s voice. Just us, alone, with a real bed and clean sheets and all the time we’ve never had.
“We should talk,” he says.
“We should.”
Neither of us starts. He’s standing by the door, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders still carrying the tension of the last three days. I cross the room and take his face in my hands and kiss him before he can say another word.
He exhales against my mouth. His hands find my hips, pulling me closer, and the kiss deepens into something slower than the others. Not desperate. Not hungry. Intentional. The kind of kiss you give when you’re not afraid of running out of time.
“I’ve been thinking about this,” I say against his lips.
“How long?”
“Since the tower. Since you fell asleep on the cot and I couldn’t stop looking at you.”
He pulls back just enough to meet my eyes. “I wasn’t asleep.”
“What?”
“I was pretending. I wanted to see what you’d do.”
A laugh catches in my throat. “You’re an asshole.”
“You’re the one who didn’t touch me.”
“I’m touching you now.”
I push his jacket off his shoulders. It falls to the floor in a heap of worn canvas.
His shirt follows, then mine, our hands working buttons and zippers with the efficiency of men who’ve been waiting too long.
His skin is warm and rough under my palms, the muscles of his shoulders flexing as he pulls me toward the bedroom.
The bed is unmade, the sheets tangled from his last night here before the fire.
He lays me down on them, his body covering mine, and the weight of him is solid and real and nothing like the cot in the tower.
His mouth trails down my throat. His tongue traces the hollow of my collarbone, and I feel it everywhere, a line of heat that travels from my chest to my stomach to the base of my spine.
“I want to take my time,” he says.
“We have time.”
“I know. That’s the point.”
His lips close around my nipple, his tongue flicking, and the sensation travels straight to my groin.
I’m already hard, already aching, my cock pressed against my stomach and leaking a slick trail across my skin.
He moves lower, his mouth tracing the ridge of my ribs, the dip of my navel, the jut of my hip bone.
Each kiss is deliberate. Each press of his tongue leaves a cooling trail on my heated skin.
He reaches the inside of my thigh and stops. His breath is warm against the sensitive skin there, his stubble a rough scrape that makes my hips jerk. His fingers find the spot behind my knee, tracing circles, and I make a sound I don’t recognize, something between a gasp and a moan.
“You’re sensitive here,” he murmurs.
“Apparently.”
He bites the inside of my thigh. Not hard. Just enough to make me feel it, to make my cock jump. His tongue follows the bite, soothing, and then he’s moving lower, his mouth tracing a path toward my groin that stops just short of where I want him.
“Felix.”
“Patience.”
He reaches for the nightstand drawer. The lube is there.
He slicks his fingers and settles between my legs, his mouth never leaving my skin.
His lips brush the base of my shaft, a feather-light touch that makes my whole body tense.
His tongue traces the vein along the underside, and my hands fist in the sheets.
He doesn’t take me in his mouth. He just teases, his lips and tongue working the length of me without ever giving me the full heat I want. My hips lift, chasing the sensation, and his free hand presses down on my stomach, holding me still.
“You’re going to kill me,” I breathe.
“Not yet.”
His slick fingers find my entrance. The first press is gentle, a question rather than a demand.
I breathe through it the way he taught me in the supply closet, letting my body yield, letting him in.
One finger, then two, working me open with a patience that makes my hips roll against his hand.
He curls his fingers inside me, finding the spot that makes my vision blur, and I groan so loud I’m sure the neighbors can hear.
“Give me something more,” I breathe.
“You sure?”
“Don’t ask me that. I want you to fuck me.”
He withdraws his fingers, and I feel the absence like a wound. Then his hands are on my hips, turning me slightly, and I feel the weight of his cock settling between my cheeks. Not pushing inside. Not yet. Just resting there against my rim.
He moves his hips. Just a small roll, a slow drag of his shaft along the cleft of my ass. The head catches on my entrance with every pass, a teasing pressure that promises more but doesn’t deliver it. The lube makes everything slick and hot, the friction just this side of too much.
“You like that?” he asks.
“Felix.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He does it again. Slower this time. The full length of him sliding along my crack, the head pressing against my hole for one agonizing second before moving past. His cock is slick and hot and so close to where I need it.
I can feel every inch of him. The weight of his shaft.
The way the head flares just enough to catch on my rim before he pulls back.
“Please. Please fuck me.”
He positions himself. I feel the blunt heat of his cock pressing against my asshole, the pressure building as he leans into it.
The head pushes past the first ring of muscle, and I gasp, my body stretching to accommodate him, the burn of it sharp and sweet and exactly what I’ve been craving.
He stops there, just the tip inside me, and I can feel my pulse hammering around him.
“Look at me,” he says.
I open my eyes. He’s braced above me, his dark eyes locked on mine, his face inches from my face. The intimacy of it—the vulnerability of being seen like this, spread open and wanting—steals the breath from my lungs.
He pushes deeper. Inch by inch, letting me feel every pulse of his heartbeat through the skin.
The stretch is a burn that borders on pain and then tips over into something else entirely.
My back arches off the mattress. My hands find his shoulders, my fingers digging into the muscle there, leaving crescents in his skin.
“Okay?” he asks.
“Keep going.”
He buries his cock inside me. We stay there for a moment, his forehead pressed to my forehead. I can feel him everywhere, filling me, stretching me, completing something I didn’t know was missing. The sensation is overwhelming. Heat and pressure and a fullness that goes deeper than the physical.
He finally moves.I want this more than anything.
His hips roll against mine in a rhythm that makes the bed creak beneath us.
His hand finds my cock, stroking me in time with his thrusts, and it unravels something deep in my core.
I’ve never felt this. I’ve never been this exposed, this raw, this completely surrendered to another person.
The angle shifts. He hits that spot inside me, the one that makes my vision go white at the edges, and I moan like I never did in my life. He does it again, and again, and the pleasure builds in waves, each one higher than the last.
“Graham. I’m close.”
“Me too. I want us to come together.”
He thrusts deep and holds there. My legs wrap around his waist, pulling him in, and the new angle makes us both groan. His rhythm falters, control giving way to desperation, and I feel the tension coil low in my stomach, tighter and tighter, until there’s nothing left to do but let go.
I come with a cry that’s half his name and half something wordless.
I cum between us, my body clenching around his cock.
The sensation pushes him over the edge, he drives deep, a guttural groan tearing from his throat, and I feel the pulse of him inside me, the heat of his climax flooding through me.
We collapse together. His weight is solid and warm on top of me, his breath ragged against my neck. The sheets are tangled around our legs. The headboard has left a mark on the wall. The room smells like sex and cedar and the faint, lingering scent of smoke from our clothes on the floor.
I trace the burn scar on his forearm. It’s old, a pale, puckered line that runs from his wrist to his elbow. He told me once, years ago, that he got it on his first fire. A blowup. A wall of flame that moved faster than he could run. He barely made it out.
“You kept fighting fires,” I say.
“It’s what I do.”
“You could have died.”
“I didn’t.” He lifts his head, his eyes meeting mine. “I’m still here.”
I press my lips to the scar. To the raised skin. To the proof that he survived something that should have killed him.
A prescribed burn is intentional. You choose what to let go. You choose what to save. I’ve spent my whole career chasing fires with a camera between myself and the heat, and none of it ever felt like this. None of it ever felt like coming home.
“I’m staying with you,” I say.
“I know.”
“No. I mean I’m staying. For good. Missoula. This apartment. Whatever fire comes next.” I cup his face, my thumb brushing the cheekbone I traced in the dark of the tower. “I’ve been running for two years. I’m done.”
He stares at me. His eyes are wet at the corners, but he’s smiling. “You mean that.”
“I told you I was chasing you. I meant it.”
He kisses me. It’s softer than the others, slower. The kind of kiss that doesn’t have to lead anywhere because we have all the time in the world.
I close my eyes and let myself be still. I’m not thinking about the next assignment or the next flight or the next horizon. I’m thinking about this bed. This man. This moment. The fire that burned through me and left something new in its place.
Something that looks a lot like him.