Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
NICK
I watch Rachel, taking in her expression of awe as she looks up at the open sky, the infinite nature of it wrapping around us, emphasizing how alone we are out here.
I could watch her forever, mentally tracing the curve of her cheek, the graceful line of her neck. The way her eyes sparkle, reflecting the stars above.
She turns, catching my eye, and smiles. “What are we doing?”
I pop the tailgate, revealing the tied-down air mattress, and retrieve a few blankets and pillows from the cab. “We’re stargazing. There’s a new moon tonight, so the sky should be darker than usual.”
Her smile widens. “That sounds amazing.”
Climbing into the bed of the truck, I situate the blankets and pillows. “Come on. You can’t fully appreciate it until you’re lying down.”
I reach for her hand and help her up, settling in beside her on the mattress. She’s warm where she stretches against my left side, and I’m glad she doesn’t let go of my hand.
I use my free hand to point upward. “Want to see the Big Dipper?”
“Ooh, yes.”
“First, we’ll search for the pointers. They’re the two outer stars of the bowl.” I do my best to guide her, outlining the familiar shape, but it takes her a bit to recognize the pattern.
“I see it,” she says, sounding excited.
I mean to show her more, but it’s impossible to look anywhere but at her. Her face is bathed in soft moonlight, lips parted slightly and eyes wide with wonder. As vast as the sky is above us, she’s completely unaware that she’s the biggest thing in my world right now.
The feelings I’ve always had for her have grown these last few weeks into something as boundless as this night sky, impossible to put into words. I’m standing at the edge of something immense and unknown, but it isn’t scary. It feels a hell of a lot like falling, and I’m fully ready to embrace it.
I know Rachel isn’t at that point, but I’ll wait however long she needs. I want to watch her like this for the rest of our lives.
“My first constellation,” she whispers.
“The Big Dipper is actually part of a larger constellation—Ursa Major.”
“That’s the bear, right?”
I nod. “It’s harder to see, though.”
“Is one of those the North Star?”
“That’s the Little Dipper. If you draw an imaginary line through those two pointers I showed you, it heads straight to Polaris.”
She nudges my side. “Look at you, all knowledgeable. I didn’t take you for an astronomy buff.”
“I’m not really,” I confess sheepishly. “I did some research before taking you out here.”
Better to admit it now before she trips me up with a question I have no clue about.
She looks over at me. “You learned about constellations so you could take me out stargazing?”
When she says it like that, it sounds… weird. “Yeah,” I say lamely.
“Nick…”
My palm goes sweaty, expecting her to let go of my hand. To tell me I’m trying too hard.
“I love how thoughtful you are. Thank you.”
Warmth unfurls in my chest at her appreciation. “Of course.”
“Now what about Orion’s Belt?” she asks. “That’s the one with three stars in a row, right?”
“Ah. I found out that’s a winter constellation. It’s only out during the day now, so you can’t see it.”
“Hmm. I guess we’ll have to come back out here in the winter, then.”
I like the sound of that. Something to look forward to for the future.
Our future.
“It’s a date,” I tell her, and I’m rewarded with a squeeze of my hand.
I show her a few more constellations I learned, like Cassiopeia and the Summer Triangle, and then pull up the astronomy app I downloaded on my phone to search for others.
I love being here in our own private world, and as the night goes on, she snuggles into the blankets I brought, the conversation shifting to our days.
“Jae came in the bakery today,” she says, still looking up at the sky. “She showed me that article in the paper about the fire last week.”
“Oh.” The only reason I know about it is because Chief read it out loud to all of us at the station during the shift change. It’d been mortifying when it mentioned me and everyone looked my way.
“Why didn’t you tell me how dangerous it was?”
My stomach flips, as if I’m guilty of something. “I’m a firefighter. Sometimes stuff like that happens, but it’s part of the job.”
She moves to her side, facing me. “It said a roof collapsed on you.”
I’ve seen fire spread across a roofline faster than I can blink. Flames eat up walls and floors. Smoke swallow a building whole. I know danger.
But those things hadn’t made my chest feel as tight as it does now with Rachel looking at me like that, worry etched on her face.
“I know what I’m doing out there,” I tell her, stroking a hand down her arm in comfort. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
She huffs out a shaky breath, but the concern is still there. Fear, too. Funny how I can read her so easily now. “I keep thinking about what might have happened.”
As much as I hate it, maybe it’s good to have this conversation now, when things are still new between us. “You can’t play what-if games. You’ll drive yourself crazy.”
She nods, swallowing hard. “I know you’ve probably faced situations like that before, and I can’t ask you to stop doing what you love. I wouldn’t want you to. But I also can’t pretend like it doesn’t scare me.”
My hand moves to her back, rubbing up and down, trying to comfort her as I search for the right words. A way to make this easier for her. I don’t think there is an easy way, though.
“Every time that alarm goes off, there’s a chance it could go south,” I tell her. “That’s the job. But I take every precaution I can. I can’t guarantee nothing bad will happen, but I can promise I don’t take unnecessary risks.”
She nods, her gaze searching mine. “I just don’t want to lose you. Not right when I’ve finally found you.”
Something in my chest cracks open at her small confession. No, it’s not a declaration of love. Nowhere close to it. But with the way it makes my heart pound, you’d think it was. Like we’re edging closer to it.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I whisper, leaning in to kiss her.
She meets me halfway and stargazing is quickly forgotten as my lips move over hers. Her hand strokes my jaw, fingers curling around the nape of my neck, and something about the action feels like possession to me. As if I’m hers.
I want so badly to be hers.
We haven’t defined what this is we’re doing yet with labels or who we are to each other, but there’s no doubt in my mind about what she means to me. I don’t want to scare her off, though. Not when she was so hesitant to let me in even this far.
The kiss continues, the familiar ache of lust rising within me. She has no idea what she does to me. How much I want to settle on top of her and grind against her. To feel her thighs part for me. To make her as crazy with desire as she makes me.
My hand is still on her back, over the hook of her bra, and my fingers twitch, wanting to unclasp it. To bring my hands to her front and shape her soft weight. To discover if she likes gentle squeezes or rough pinches better.
I end the kiss and lean away, my blood too heated, and rest my forehead against hers. She wants to go slow. I have to remember that.
She exhales roughly. “What is it?”
“I was getting a little too into it,” I confess. “I know you want to go slow.”
Her grip tightens on my nape, the soft scrape of her nails making a delicious shiver run through me.
“Maybe we can speed things up,” she says. “If that’s okay with you.”
It takes a moment for her words to sink in, unsure if I heard her right or I made it up.
“Uh huh,” I reply dumbly, not thinking of anything but kissing her again.
My mouth moves over hers more deeply, her tongue slick and warm, and I can’t hold back my groan as she nestles in closer against me.
My dick hardens behind my fly, but she doesn’t shy away, instead hitching her leg over mine to give me better access.
Oh, fuck.
I grind into her, just like I imagined earlier, like I’ve imagined a thousand times, and the reality is so much more. That brief moment on her couch two weeks ago wasn’t enough, and I make up for the lost time, letting my hands roam down her back and over the curve of her ass.
She makes a sound of pleasure, and I leave her lips to make my way over her cheek and to the long line of her neck, eliciting more sounds of satisfaction, her head falling to the side. She moans as I lick the tender spot behind her ear and arches, her breasts rubbing against my chest.
“You like that?” I whisper, outlining the shell of her ear, loving the panting confirmation she gives me. I want to wring every kind of sound out of her I can, greedy for more.
Her hands dance over my shoulders, nails digging in as she drags them over my back, and I revel in the full-body shudder that runs over me.
I’m not surprised at how amazing it is between us already, the chemistry I’ve always felt alive and kicking. I need to make sure it’s good for her, though. That she knows what to expect going forward. That I’ll always put her needs first.
I grind one last time against her and move back, breaking the connection. She whimpers lightly, the sound changing when I bring my hand to the same spot, rubbing her over her jeans.
I toy with the button, meeting her eye. “Is this okay?”
She nods, eyes wide as I unzip her, tracing a finger over the edge of her underwear. I kiss her again, swallowing her moan as I tease her over the thin fabric, outlining her cleft. I can’t believe she’s letting me do this, that I finally have my hands on Rachel, warm and willing underneath me.
I slip under, sinking my middle finger through her folds.
“Oh my God, Nick.” Her breathing is rough, and pleasure suffuses me knowing I’ve brought her to this state already.
She’s wet for me, and I gently curl a second finger into her, stroking in and out.