Slide (23 page)

“The aerial tower?” I rolled my eyes. “That’s the firemen, sugar, not me.”

In my peripheral vision, I saw Ash smirk. He looked for all the world like he was having himself a lunchtime snooze, but I knew better. He could hear every damn word, and he was laughing his ass off at me. He knew all too well that Rebecca had never been particularly impressed by my chosen profession.

After a few minutes of banal small talk, predictably, Rebecca had somewhere else to be. Her whirlwind energy drove me nuts back in the day. I was a bit of a sloth at home; I liked a quiet life.

She brushed her lips over my ear as I returned her farewell embrace. “I’ve seen you with that hot guy before. Is he—” I nodded before she could finish. “He’s
gorgeous
,” she said quietly, releasing me. “You’ll have to introduce me next time.”

She’d never minded my attraction to men. In fact, though I’d never tested the theory, I’d always got the impression she liked it. Still, I didn’t miss her. She was a nice chick, but I’d gone through a decidedly male phase after we split for good. “I will,” I promised. “Take care.”

She disappeared into the crowds. I moved back to the bench and kicked Ash. “Asshole.”

Begrudgingly, he opened his eyes and sat up, his amusement clear. “Was that your ex?”

“Uh-huh.”

He squinted at Rebecca’s rapidly vanishing back, like he was trying to place her. “She’s hot.”

“So are you, apparently.”

I kicked him again as his grin turned into a full-on laugh, and I hauled his ass up from the bench. “Shut your mouth and get up. You’re going to be late for work if we don’t go now.”

We set off for home, but considering he’d just whipped my ass in the batting cages, Ash was uncharacteristically quiet. The silence began to grate on me. I gave him a playful shove. “What’s got you all broody?”

“Nothing,” he said absently. “I was just thinking about your hot ex.”

“Rebecca?”

He looked down at the sidewalk and kicked at a discarded soda can. “Not just her.”

“Are you missing chicks?” I asked, half seriously.

It had never come up before. We didn’t have an open relationship—
hell
no—but I wasn’t necessarily opposed to him hooking up with a woman. There were certain things I couldn’t be for him, and I’d never felt threatened by the idea of him with a girl. Strange, really, given my reaction to his friendship with Joe, an obviously straight man with a girlfriend.

“I was thinking more about you, actually.”

What the fuck?
“Me?”

Ash shrugged, averting his eyes again. “You seemed pretty tight with that girl. Can you tell me you wouldn’t want to fuck her if she asked you to?”

His tone was mild, with no hint of accusation or insecurity. Anyone who didn’t know him would’ve thought he was just curious. Not me. I knew him too well, though discussing it on the street wasn’t his style. I thought back to the last time I’d been with a woman and compared it to the hellacious blowjob he’d given me in the shower just that morning. There was no contest; there never had been. “Of course I can. Ash, I don’t miss banging chicks.”

“Why not?”

“Because they aren’t you.” I glanced around out of habit. “I don’t think of anyone else like that anymore. If you’ve got an itch you want to scratch, that’s cool, but it’s not an issue for me.”

It was the truth. I’d enjoyed girls in the past, but I preferred men. A woman’s breasts were a wonderful thing, but they had nothing on the chiseled planes of Ash’s chest. And a man couldn’t fake an orgasm—with a chick you could never be sure if she was really into it, and that gave me a complex I didn’t need.

I nudged him again. “I’m not missing anything.”

“Yeah, you are, aren’t you?”

Abruptly, I stopped walking and caught his arm. “What are you trying to say? You think I want to just fuck some girl for the sake of it?”

“No. That’s not what I meant. Just forget it, okay?” He twisted out of my grip and forced a grin. “Maybe I just liked seeing you with a girl. She
was
really hot.”

I glanced at my watch and shook my head. “You’re crazy, and… shit, you’re pretty damn late for work.”

Being on time wasn’t something he ever worried about, but as the tattoo shop appeared in the distance, he suddenly realized I was right and he had to run. I nodded absently as he said good-bye, still completely bemused.

It wasn’t until I was stood in the grocery store that what he was trying to say suddenly clicked into place. But even when I figured he was talking about the bottoming role he rarely played in the bedroom, I still thought he was nuts. His issues only bothered me because they bothered him. I’d never been with
anyone
who owned my body the way he did. Top or bottom, it didn’t matter—he was the hottest fuck I’d ever had.

The grocery shopping didn’t take long. It was just all the boring crap he forgot to buy—detergent, shampoo, razors. If he couldn’t eat it, he didn’t buy it. I headed home with two full bags and chucked it all in the cupboards before going through the apartment looking for towels to put in the laundry. There wasn’t a single clean one anywhere, so I was pretty sure Ash was hoarding them in his studio.

Cautiously, I pushed open the door. I didn’t often venture into his old bedroom. On the whole, he was pretty easy to live with, but he was neurotic about his work, especially if he was engrossed in something. Recently, I hadn’t been around enough to know if that was the case, so I was careful as I poked around.

Predictably, my hunch about the towels proved correct, and I found a whole bunch of them stashed in the corner. I bent to retrieve them. A pile of newspapers caught my eye as I stood up. I stepped closer and peered at the top page. It was the
Chicago Tribune,
the edition the mug shot of the fugitive wife beater had appeared in. I picked it up, frowning. I was sure I’d chucked it out. What was it doing in Ash’s room? Curious, I quickly flipped through the other papers in the pile, but I came to an abrupt stop as I reached the final one.

My breath caught in my throat. Even though I’d never seen his face in one piece, I recognized the kid in the park immediately. Nausea swept over me. I let go of the papers and took a stumbling step back. I’d avoided all press coverage in the days after his death, and life had moved on. The horrific call was just a memory, another job I’d rather forget, but looking at the boy, I felt everything I had that night and more. Damn. I felt sick, and I was suddenly pissed as hell with Ash for reminding me of it. It just went to prove no good ever came from poking around in his stuff.

I took the laundry and made my escape. Leftovers made up my dinner, and I settled on the couch for the night. I was drowsily watching TV when Ash finally appeared. He wasn’t late, but the empty apartment was pretty boring without him. I felt like I’d been waiting for him forever. He inclined his head toward the bathroom and stretched his tight muscles. I went to bed, but knowing he’d look hot as hell when he reappeared, I forced myself to stay awake. Ash fresh from the shower was worth just about anything.

He crawled into bed bare chested, all damp hair and glistening skin. Unable to resist, I pulled him on top of me and kissed him like a man possessed. He made quick work of returning the favor, but pulled away and rested his forehead on my chest before things could get too heated. I touched his wrist and caught a droplet of water he’d failed to dry, then traced it all the way up his arm with my fingertip. “Tired, fucker?”

Ash rolled off me, a hum his only answer. I eyed him as he shifted onto his back and appeared to fall asleep almost instantly. It was a real rarity for him to turn down sex, especially when it had been a little while since we’d had the chance. In recent weeks, the weather had turned even colder and the bathroom was the only place we’d both been naked together for any length of time, and unless I wanted to lose twenty pounds and have him lift me up, having sex in the shower involved doing shit that he just wouldn’t do. Blowjobs and the odd mutual jerk off kept us going, but still left me craving that feeling of being completely connected to him.

I’d assumed he felt the same way, so I was a little confused when he blew me off and passed out, especially when it happened again a few nights later. Another week went by, a week in which we went back to hardly seeing each other, and by the time he woke me up in the night a few days later, I was about ready to explode.

I
CAME
awake with a full body shudder. A throaty chuckle rumbled, and I opened my eyes to be greeted by the best sight ever—Ash with his mouth on my cock.

“Fuck, yeah.”

My toes curled as his answering hum flowed through me.

I jerked beneath him. His restraining hands were gentle. My brain was slow and addled by sleep, but he had me exactly where he wanted me, right on the edge of something mind-blowing. The headboard creaked, Ash slid a warm, wet finger into me, and I was suddenly and completely undone.

My back arched from the bed. I came hard with a satisfied groan. The sound was unnaturally loud in the dark room. I fought for breath, ripped the pillow from beneath my head, and hurled it across the room. Ash released me from his mouth. His stormy gaze held me for a moment, pinning me against the mattress, before I pulled him up and smashed our lips together, the message clear.

This isn’t over.

I rolled a condom onto him, and moments later he was inside me. He didn’t need long, and knowing the apartment next door was still empty, he didn’t hold back. He chased his release, smashing the bedframe into the wall, and a few intense minutes later, he choked out a strangled curse. Though sated, I convulsed beneath him again, moaning with residual pleasure.

Ash lifted his weight from me and rolled to the side. I let go of the headboard and found his hands, gripping them tightly. We hadn’t fucked like that for a while. For weeks, he’d been careful while my ribs healed, cautious and restrained, and then there’d been his recent inexplicable hesitation. I’d been craving something heavy and raw, a sexual encounter without restriction or worry. The experience left me boneless. My memory of how incredible he was when he really let go had clearly faded, because this blew my mind. I’d only ever felt that way for him. Fucker made me forget my own name.

We lay in silence for a while, both utterly spent, until he pressed his face into my neck and kissed me once before he rose from the bed and disappeared into the bathroom. I shivered and considered searching for my discarded sweatpants. I didn’t move. The night was cold, but I couldn’t face the effort.

Ash came back from the bathroom. He smirked when he saw me still sprawled out on my back, spaced out in a postcoital daze. He cleaned up, slid the pillow he’d retrieved back under my head, and lay down beside me. He pulled the covers over us and gathered me against him before his breathing quickly evened out again. I wasn’t surprised he was tired; he’d been out with Charlie when I’d come home from work. Though I couldn’t smell booze on him, it was highly likely he’d taken Charlie back to his place and only just made it home.

I didn’t go back to sleep. An apprehensive glance at my cell phone told me I had to get up in less than an hour, so with Ash warm and safe beside me, I just played with his hair until it was time to move. It was hard to leave the bed, but eventually I got in the shower and washed the scent of sex and sweat from my body.

I crept back into the room when I was done, giving in to an uncharacteristic urge to say good-bye. Ash was stretched out on his side of the bed with his arm slung over my pillow, the only sound in the dark bedroom his deep and even breaths. I set my bag down and bent to kiss to his temple. He stirred and reached out. I caught his hand before he could pull me down, but he tightened his grip as I made to stand.

“Don’t go.”

He never asked me for anything. Though I knew he was probably asleep, it killed me to refuse him. “I have to. Just sleep, babe. I’ll be back tonight.”

I kissed him again, but he didn’t open his eyes, and his hand fell slack. With a final longing look, I picked up my bag and backed away from the bed.

I
T
WAS
a pretty average shift: a couple of injuries caused by falls on the icy ground, a schizophrenic meltdown, and an elderly man who’d forgotten to take his insulin. We made a hospital stop and transferred a terminally ill teenager home to die at the end of the day. That was a bummer. The girl had the sweetest smile I’d ever seen, and it didn’t seem right that she was going to die so young. Jobs like that never failed to remind me that life wasn’t fair.

Back at the firehouse, we set to work cleaning the rig up so we could head home. Neither of us looked up, lost in our own thoughts, until some of the firefighters began to filter through the vehicle bay. It had been a quiet day for them too, so like old women, we exchanged precinct gossip. I was only half listening until I heard something that caught my attention.

I shoved the final equipment pack into place and jumped down from the ambulance. “Are you sure?”

If I’d heard right, the little girl who’d been abducted by her father—the same guy who’d taken a baseball bat to me—had just been found. I jumped down from the back of the ambulance.

The firefighter shrugged. “That’s what we heard. Apparently, she was wandering the streets by Union Park.”

Mick eyed me as I processed the information. Union Park was just a few miles from the firehouse. It was slightly disturbing to think the dude who’d battered me could have been so close all that time. I was even more perturbed as I realized that with every other shitty call we’d had since, I’d pretty much forgotten the young child.

“Any sign of the dad?” Mick said. “PD told us he’d left the state.”

“Who knows?” the firefighter said. “Maybe he never left at all. All I know is they’d better hide that woman and her kid properly, none of that hostel crap. That guy was bat-shit crazy. It’s obvious he wanted the mom dead. You have to wonder why he didn’t just keep the kid as bait to get her back.”