New Recruit (14 page)

Her.

He put his boot on the first rung and began to climb. By the time he hit the halfway point, he was burning with anger. After he had her safely tethered to him, he was going to make sure she never did something like this again.

Two-thirds of the way up he could make out her features. Tense with strain but her eyes wide with relief. He picked up his pace. The minute he’d seen her face, his stomach had dropped out again.

What he felt for Hanna was more than simple lust. He didn’t know nearly enough about her, but he wanted to. And she was damn well giving him a chance.

He reached the ledge and unraveled a rope he had looped to his belt.

“Jagger!”

Relief swept him, but this was no time to feel the effects of emotion. Not when they were both so high and the winds were making the ladder tremble. He planted his feet and tossed the end of the rope up. “Put your arms and legs through the loops and use the carabiner to clamp it all together.

He didn’t dare look into her eyes now. No wonder this type of rescue went against policy. He felt shaky when he never would if the woman on the ledge was a stranger. When she was strapped into the makeshift harness, he said, “Good. Now take this and connect it to your chest.”

“It’s attached to you.” Her voice wobbled, almost undoing him.

He shot a peek at her face, but let his gaze drift away. “Yes. I’ve got you. Now after you connect the tether, slide carefully off the ledge.” If the small shelf of rock could even be called a ledge. It was barely enough space for her small body. He started thinking about how long she’d been up there, and then severed the thought from his mind. This wasn’t the time.

When she shimmied her feet off the edge, he braced himself and reached for her. She slipped easily into his arms. For a heartbeat, he didn’t think he could let her go. He held her for the briefest of moments, his heart throbbing so loudly he could barely think. But he eased her onto the ladder to stand a rung above him.

“Don’t look down. Just feel for each rung with your foot.”

“I climbed up here without a ladder. I got it.”

“And we’re going to discuss that when your feet are on solid ground, dammit.”

She snorted. “I knew you’d be this way.”

He paused with one foot dangling over the lower step. Staring at her tight calves wasn’t making him less antsy. “We’ll discuss this later.” It came out as a snarl, but she didn’t speak further as they descended.

Partway down, he saw her muscles were trembling. So she wasn’t as invincible as she believed. Her ordeal had taken its toll on her physical well-being.

“Easy, beautiful. Only think of the next step and the next.”

She didn’t respond, but that was okay. He had her inches away from him, and he was breathing easier. The minute he had her cleared by the paramedics, he was taking her in his arms and giving her the hell she deserved.

Right after he kissed her into boneless submission.

∙•∙

A cheer went up as Hanna’s feet touched the rocky ground. Her face scorched, and she knew her blush was captured by the photographers who were on the scene. She wished the ground would open up and swallow her.

Ever since making her desperate call to Jagger, she’d been suffering from wounded pride. She didn’t like feeling helpless or being the damsel who needed rescued by the big, strong fireman. But she was glad it was Jagger who’d been on that ladder with her. His presence had kept her sane, and his irritation with her had kept the tears that were so close from falling.

Jagger hooked his arm around her middle and leaned over her. She sucked in a breath of pure man, every muscle in her body shaking with relief and hunger for him. His eyes were dark with fury, and that piece of hair had fallen over his forehead under his helmet.

“Don’t you ever put yourself in danger again.” His gritty tone speared her pussy with undying need. She’d squeeze her thighs together to ease the ache if her muscles weren’t jelly.

“Let us get her checked out, Jagger,” a medic said.

“In a minute.” He stared into her eyes for a long second. And then he crushed her to his chest, burying his face against her throat.

She wrapped her arms around him, aware of the fear that had flashed across his handsome features. He truly did care about her. This wasn’t a game to him, as she’d been to Dominic. To her, Jagger had always been the real deal—real firefighter, real hero, real amazing lover, and a good guy. But he could mean so much more…if she just let him.

All her inner walls crumbled, and she clung to him. The tears she’d held at bay finally filled her eyes and overflowed as he rocked her in his arms. “Don’t you scare me that way again,” he said raggedly against her skin.

“I won’t.”

“I need you too much.”

His admission dizzied her, but she didn’t feel like running as she had all the past times when he made her feel more than just a bone-racking orgasm. She gripped him tightly and turned her face up.

His mouth crashed over hers, and another cheer sounded. As Jagger plunged his tongue between her lips, she was vaguely aware of the flashes going off around them and cheers and whistles.

Passion ran like molten lava through her veins, but her adrenaline had fizzled out, and her knees went out from under her.

Breaking the kiss, Jagger caught her in his arms and carried her over to the ambulance unit. He set her in the open back. As he unclicked the carabiner holding them together, he stared deeply into her eyes. He started to back away.

Then the corner of his lips twitched up into that crooked, bad-boy smile she loved. He turned, coiling the ropes looped to his person.

A warm fuzzy feeling enveloped her, and she barely noted the paramedic’s attentions. She was given a drink with electrolytes and a little oxygen, which she hadn’t realized she needed until her breathing grew less harsh and her vision came more into focus.

“Hey, Jagger.” Corey waved at him, and Jagger walked a couple feet away to talk. “Just got word that Firehouse 9 might have a bead on the arsonist. Some of us are headed there now. You in?”

Judging by Corey’s face, he probably knew the answer as well as Hanna did. Jagger shook his head. “I’m tied up at the moment.”

“I get it. Just make sure she has strong rope.” Corey swaggered away, and Jagger moved to another group to discuss the breaking news on the arsonist. She listened with half an ear, but the more they talked, the more relaxed her lover’s shoulders became.

What had seemed like a constant tension between his shoulder blades eased. When he twisted and shot her a glance, her heart rolled over. She was through with running.

She offered him a smile, which he returned.

He was patted on the back and congratulated on his good job. As he aided his team in retracting the ladder and readying the truck to roll out, she envisioned all his muscles working overtime. Bulging biceps and forearms. Her breathing hitched.

“I’m fine. Can I go now?” she asked the EMT from behind her oxygen mask.

“Yes, you’re all clear.”

She tore off the mask and leaped from the back of the ambulance. Her legs were still shaky, but most of it had to do with the gorgeous firefighter striding toward her, his face alive with an emotion that, up until today, she’d hoped to never see on a man’s face again.

Love.

»»•««

Jagger cupped Hanna’s full breasts, and water sloshed up the wall of the big bathtub.

“How’d you luck into such a good apartment with an old-fashioned tub?” she asked, her nipples swelling under his palms. He kneaded them lightly and ran his nose up the side of her throat to the most fragrant part behind her ear.

“Right place at the right time. Same as I lucked into you.”

She shivered at his words, and it was impossible for him to hold back his grin. She wiggled her backside closer to his erection.

“Keep that up and I’ll have you without a condom.”

She fell still, and only the sound of her roughened breathing and the occasional drip from the faucet sounded in the space. She pivoted her head slightly, bringing his lips in contact with her delicious flesh.

“We can, you know. I mean, I’m on the pill. And I’ve been checked.”

A growl of absolute ownership escaped his throat unbidden. Without a hint of control in his entire body, he yanked her back onto him. His cock split her wet folds, the tip poised at her opening.

He sucked her neck, battling the need to thrust home right now. “You’re sure about this? I’m clean. Checked every few months for work.”

She wiggled, and he grasped her hips. Hard.

“Are. You. Sure?” He punctuated each word with a small jerk of his hips. Water sloshed over the sides and onto the vintage tile, but all he cared about was the heat wrapping around his cock head.

She braced her hands on his thighs, panting. “Yes. Take me, Jagger.”

Without hesitation, he plunged into her clenching heat. She cried out and he cupped her breasts tighter, hauling her down over him. “Slide down this pole, beautiful. Show me your tricks.”

A quivering sigh left her as she pushed upward and eased back down with excruciating, blissful slowness. An ache spread through his balls and his cock lengthened another fraction. His eyes rolled back in his head as he absorbed the amazing sensation of being inside her without a barrier.

Her trust in him sank into his chest walls too, and his heart throbbed hard and fast for her.

She thrashed, and more water soaked the floor. “I’m so close already. You feel so good.”

Thumbing her nipples, he filled her to the hilt. A haze of raw need drove him. He released her breasts and wrapped his arms around her, lifting her out of the tub and off his cock.

Her whimper of disappointment shattered his last thread of control. He got out of the tub, water sluicing down his body, lifted her, and speared her with his cock. Their shared groan echoed off the walls. Claiming her mouth, he started to fuck her with slow, rhythmic thrusts. Deep. Deeper still. She pulsated around him, and he knew she was close even if he didn’t taste her desperation.

She was a wildcat in his arms. Writhing on his shaft, taking what she needed. “That’s it, beautiful. Come for me. Come on my cock.”

Her lips parted with her panting breaths and he couldn’t resist trapping her full lower lip between his teeth. Dizzying lust blazed a path through his body, and he was suddenly too close. On the verge of losing it inside her. All her tight heat clenching around him as he spurted into her body.

“Fuck,” he ground out.

She knew what she was doing to him and started pumping her pussy up and down his cock with wild abandon. Her ass felt like pure heaven in his palms, her pussy so tight. So wet.

In the other room, his cell was going off with long, angry peals.

“A fire,” she gasped.

“Yeah, right here between us.” He drove so deep that he bumped her innermost point. She cried out, shuddering uncontrollably in his arms. As she came apart, he watched her face with all the absorption of a man in love.

Right before spilling his hot come inside her.

»»•««

Watching Jagger get into his clothes was as erotic as watching him get out of them. He shot her a lingering look filled with regret. “I’m sorry I’m leaving you. And today of all days.”

She propped herself on one elbow, her legs tangled in the sheets of his bed. “What’s different about today?”

“For starters, I could have lost you.” His gritty tone reverberated with the traces of the fear he’d obviously felt. Her heart flexed. He braced his legs far apart and tugged his shirt overhead. As every ridge of his abs vanished beneath the fabric, she wanted to beg for them to come out and play again.

“You didn’t lose me, Jagger.” She pushed onto her knees and moved to the edge of the bed where she could touch him. She brushed her knuckles over the scruff on his jaw and stared into his eyes. “But thank you for saving me.”

“We’re still going to have that discussion about you putting yourself in jeopardy.”

“All right.”

He raised a brow at her lack of argument.

“And thank you for saving me from myself. I…didn’t realize how locked up I was until you found the key.”

He released a quick breath and his eyes softened. As he looped his arm around her spine and pulled her against his hard, cotton-clad chest, she closed her eyes. Resting her face over his heart for the briefest of moments was the best end to their time together.

She pushed him away. “Go. Save someone else. Interrogate the arsonist they have in custody.”

“Oh, I intend to see the man I passed by that day and say a few choice words about his character.” For a minute, emotions warred on his chiseled features. Then his mouth tipped up at the corner. “You don’t mind my job so much now?”

“I never did. I’m proud of my man. Now go. Save the world, Jagger.”

“I’m not trying to save the world. I can’t. But I’ll do my part because I don’t know any other way to operate.” In a few long strides he was gone, leaving her with a warm ache in her chest that was so pleasant that she stretched out on the bed.

She lay staring at his high bedroom ceiling, toying with her still-hard nipple. She ran her fingertip lightly over the peak. Her thighs were damp with his essence, and somehow the intimacy that had been between them from the start gave her a thrill.

She was falling. Might have already fallen. She wasn’t sure, but in time, she had no doubt that Jagger could be a permanent fixture in her life.

That didn’t scare her as badly as it should. But after two years of avoidance tactics, she’d finally given herself—to the right man.

Her man who was not in this bed with her after their first bareback sex romp. Even a week ago, this would have driven her crazy with fear, but not now. Jagger had proven that he was here for her. She wasn’t a toy to him, and while his career was important, she admired him for it. Not a hint of that former worry of being nothing to a man filled her. Not with Jagger.

She flipped over and buried her face in his pillow. All her muscles still ached from being on that cliff for so long, but she had all day to laze in bed and wait for Jagger to come home to her.