26. Mack
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
mack
I wake before her in a bed that isn’t mine, light still barely filtering through the curtains. Darcy’s tucked against my side, her cheek resting on my chest, her breathing slow and even against my skin.
For a while, I just lie there taking stock of it.
The fact that I stayed. The fact that I’m here alone instead of downstairs with Tyler down the hall. The fact that this is her apartment, her bed, and sometime between last night and now crossing that line stopped feeling remotely temporary.
I’ve been keeping track of the rules I’m breaking.
This one’s important enough that I don’t look at it too closely.
A strand of hair has fallen across her face. My hand moves before I think better of it, brushing it back behind her ear, and somewhere in the middle of doing it I realize touching her has already started feeling automatic.
She stirs beneath my hand, waking slowly, letting out a soft exhale before her eyes find mine.
“Morning,” she murmurs, her voice still rough with sleep.
“Morning.”
She smiles to herself before stretching against me without any hurry, warm skin sliding against mine beneath the blankets, and I watch her the same way I have since sometime around midnight—without bothering to hide it anymore.
Darcy props herself up on one elbow, her fingers wandering absentmindedly through the hair on my chest before she catches me still looking.
“You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“That look.”
“What look?”
She squints at me.
“The one where you’re staring at me like you’re trying to solve a problem.”
The corner of my mouth pulls.
“Maybe I am.”
“And?”
“Still working on it.”
She smiles like that’s answer enough, then pushes up onto her knees and settles over my hips. My hands find her bare thighs automatically as she straddles me.
I’ve never had much interest in being anybody’s good boy. But Darcy, barely awake in my T-shirt with her hair still a mess from sleep and that look in her eyes, could ask me for the world right now and I’d hand it over without a second thought.
My palms ghost over her hips while I let her set the pace.
She shifts against me slowly, fully aware of exactly what she’s doing to me.
The shirt rides higher over her thighs as she moves, and her mouth parting slightly before she bites that plump lower lip when she feels how hard I already am for her.
Jesus.
I watch through hooded eyes as she reaches between us and angles herself before sinking onto my cock. I let her adjust until she finds her rhythm, then I let her take what she needs, which is not something I do for everyone.
But I can’t help it when she’s fucking gorgeous like this—completely at ease, taking exactly what she wants without asking permission.
She rolls her hips slowly, getting herself off on me, and I don’t interrupt once.
“That’s it, baby,” I murmur, my hands tightening just enough at her hips to let her know I’m there. “Take what you need.”
She starts to rock faster, her wetness soaking me and making me almost lose it.
I slide one hand over hers where it rests against my chest, lacing our fingers together as I meet her thrust for thrust. It’s not too long before she comes with her fingers digging into me, my name falling from her lips, and I’m right behind her because I don’t have it in me to hold back anymore where she’s concerned.
I wanna wake up like this every morning.
We lay there for a while after, her cheek back on my chest, my hand tracing lazily up and down her spine.
I’ve got a forty-eight starting in two hours. I should get moving. Normally I’d already be downstairs making coffee before shift.
Instead I’m still here.
“I’m on shift today,” I say. “Forty-eight.”
Her head lifts almost immediately.
“Forty-eight hours?”
“Yeah.”
She nods once, looking like she’s doing math in her head.
“Right.” A small smile tugs at her mouth. “Firefighters.”
A beat passes before she adds, quieter this time, “So…you’re leaving.”
“In a bit.”
I watch her while I say it, catching the tiny shift in her expression before she smooths it away.
“I’ll see you when I’m off.”
The words are out before I realize I never asked if she had plans.
She nods once. She doesn’t say she’ll miss me, and I don’t say anything else either.
But catching the disappointment she tries to hide makes leaving for shift feel different than it ever has before, and I have to look away before I start asking myself why.
“Unless…” I add after a second, “you want to come announce yourself properly this time.”
She stills.
“...I’m sorry?”
“The firehouse.” I shrug. “Door’s always open. You already know the way.”
Color starts creeping up her neck.
“You’re unbelievable.”
“So you’ve told me.”
“You’re never letting that go, are you?”
“Probably not.”
I pause just long enough to watch her narrow her eyes at me.
“Mason.”
“Darcy.”
She smacks my chest with the flat of her hand, more exasperated than annoyed. My fingers close around her wrist, holding her hand there against me.
That feels natural, too, and I try not to spend too much time considering why.
“For what it’s worth,” she says after a second, softer now, “I’m glad you showed up.”
My thumb brushes once across the inside of her wrist before I answer.
“Me too.”
I squeeze her hand once before letting it go, then start pulling my clothes back on while she watches from the bed, the sheet gathered around her and that same thoughtful look in her bright eyes.
I’d better leave before I find another reason to stay.
With eight hours left in my forty-eight, Tyler finally catches me alone in the bay.
I’ve got the chauffeur interview in three weeks.
Captain’s been riding my ass about it for months, finding excuses to stick me behind the wheel whenever he can.
Every shift it’s something different—back the Truck into an alley, thread it through streets that were never meant for something that size, squeeze it into spots that make everybody else nervous.
“If you can put it there,” he likes to say, “you can put it anywhere.”
He’s probably right, but it doesn’t mean I’m telling him that.
A helmet thuds onto the bench behind me.
“You look like shit,” I say without turning around.
“Thanks.”
“How’d RIT go?”
Tyler groans as he drops onto the running board beside me.
“They passed me.”
“That bad?”
He rubs a hand over his face.
“They made us drag a two-hundred-pound dummy up three flights twice.”
I snort and shut another compartment.
“You still throw a ladder like a rookie?”
He shoots me a look.
“You still pretending you’re not nervous about Chauffeur?”
“I’m not. Been driving that engine for months now.”
“You’re full of shit.”
I glance over.
“You done?”
“Not even close.”
I shake my head, fighting the smile anyway.
Some things don’t change.
Tyler drains the rest of his water, then watches me for a few seconds. I keep working instead of looking at him, setting a wrench back into place, popping another latch shut. The silence stretches just long enough that I know he’s waiting for me to acknowledge him first.
“So,” Tyler says eventually.
“So.”
“You gonna make me drag this out of you?”
I don’t look up from the open compartment.
“Drag what outta me?”
He grins.
“You didn’t come home last night.”
I cut him a look.
“And?”
Tyler nods once, like hearing me say it out loud confirms what he already knew.
“How’d that go?”
I squint at him.
“How do you think?”
He huffs a laugh at that, more acknowledgment than amusement.
“Fair.”
He leans forward, elbows braced against his knees, turning the water bottle between his hands.
“I’m not apologizing for bringing her here.”
“Wasn’t asking you to.”
“I wanted to see her.”
“I know.”
“And I don’t regret it.”
“Neither do I.”
Tyler looks back toward the bay.
“I didn’t like knowing you were upstairs with her.”
I reach into the open compartment, straightening a webbing strap more out of habit than necessity.
“I didn’t like that she’d been here while I was thirty feet away.”
He lets out a breath through his nose.
“Guess we found the problem.”
“No. We found a new one.”
His brow furrows.
“We’ve never had to think about this before.”
“Because we’ve never wanted to.”
“Wanted what?”
I close the compartment and lean back against the rig.
“Time.” I shake my head. “I liked having her to myself.”
“Well…shit. I liked it, too.”
Tyler scratches at the label on his water bottle.
“So what the hell do we do now?”
I think about it for a moment.
“We stop acting like it has to be one or the other.”
“I don’t wanna be left out.”
“No.”
“But I’m also not gonna tell you not to have time with her.”
“Same.”
“If she wants you…”
“She gets me.”
“If she wants me…”
“She gets you.”
“And the other guy?”
“He knows.”
Tyler nods slowly.
“No more surprises.”
I nod in agreement.
“She just got out of something real. She doesn’t need to feel responsible for whatever the hell we’re figuring out.”
“I know.”
“That part’s on us.”
“Agreed.”
I glance over.
“And if this starts becoming something different…”
“We talk.”
“Before somebody gets blindsided.”
He exhales through his nose, the tension finally bleeding out of his shoulders.
“So…” A grin starts pulling at the corner of his mouth. “We’re really doing this.”
I shrug.
“She’s fun. We like having her around, we both like fucking her, and she obviously likes being with both of us.”
“And nobody’s trying to stop.”
“Not particularly.”
I nudge my chin at him.
“But no more showing up grinning like an asshole.”
Tyler looks genuinely offended.
“It was one time.”
“Ty.”
He groans dramatically.
“Fine.”
He starts to walk away before stopping beside the Truck.
“For what it’s worth…I’m glad you went upstairs.”
I hold his gaze, waiting.
“Now we both know.”
“We do.”
Before either of us can say anything else, Coop wanders into the bay with half a sandwich in one hand and stops dead the second he sees both of us.
“…Should I come back?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“No,” Tyler says.
Coop looks between us.
“I’m getting mixed signals right now.”
“Leave.”
Coop points his sandwich between us.
“You sure? This looks personal.”
“It is.”
He nods once.
“Good. Glad we cleared that up.”
He takes another bite.
“Anyway… Darcy texted me.”
Both of us look at him at the exact same time.
Coop just grins.
“Why does she have your number?”
The question comes out rougher than I intend. I hear it the second it leaves my mouth.
Tyler definitely does too, judging by the way his mouth twitches.
Coop blinks.
“Because I gave it to her? She’s cool. I’m allowed to have friends.”
“You don’t have friends.”
“Rude,” he frowns.
“You have a roster.”
“That’s…offensive.”
Tyler’s already laughing when I open my mouth to answer him—
—and the tones drop.
The first one cuts straight through the bay. Before the second hits, Coop’s sandwich is on the workbench, Tyler’s reaching for his turnout coat, and I’m already moving, dispatch cracking over the speaker.
Engine 37, Ladder 26, Rescue 1—box alarm, Huntington and Mass Ave. Reported structure fire with occupants trapped.
Whatever we were talking about gets shoved aside without a second thought. There’s time to finish it later if we’re lucky.
I shrug into my turnout coat as I head for the Truck, Tyler falling into step beside me while Coop breaks for the Engine. The bay doors roll open, cold air flooding inside as diesel rumbles to life beneath us.
I haul myself into the cab and settle into the seat, every movement automatic by now. Everything else waits. Darcy. Tyler. Whatever the hell this thing between the three of us is becoming.
I hit the air horn as we pull into traffic, watching the cars scatter while Boston opens up in front of us.