The Firefighter's Woman (3 page)

Her clever words only earned her another round of swats, six in total, each delivered by a palm almost larger than the cheek it was slapping. He did have very big hands. He had a very big… everything, she imagined, with a little blush that rose in response to an involuntarily naughty thought about the part of his anatomy pressed against her hip.

“I don’t know who the hell you think you are…”

She didn’t get any further into that statement before being cut off by a flurry of slaps that made her squeal quite loudly. Far more loudly than anyone really should be squealing in a hospital. Loudly enough that a passing nurse stopped and poked her head into the room.

“Help!” Sarah tried an appeal to the woman. “This man is…”

“The patient was trying to discharge herself against medical advice,” John said by way of explanation.

The arrival of the nurse might have been Sarah’s salvation… if she hadn’t already mouthed off at the woman multiple times since arriving. Sarah had always had a knack for making enemies quickly, and the nurse was clearly no exception.

“Carry on, sir,” she said, shutting the door.

“You see, even the nurses know you need this,” he said as the woman left Sarah to her fate over his thighs.

“This isn’t fair!” Sarah’s voice cracked with frustration. “You’re doing this because you want me to stay in the hospital. And I have to stay here because I might have a head injury, so you said… right?”

“Right…”

“So what is it you’re doing now, punishing a brain-damaged victim of a natural disaster?”

“There’s nothing wrong with your mind,” he chuckled, spanking her lightly. Even without any real pain involved, it was an incredibly embarrassing position to be in. Sarah wriggled quite furiously to try to stand up, but John wasn’t going to allow that to happen until he’d made his point. His arm was like an iron band around her waist, clinching her tight against his broad muscular thighs. She had never been in contact with such a large man before; more wall than man, really.

“Are you going to settle down and let me put you back into bed?”

“I’m allowed to discharge myself if I like,” she argued.

“I’ll take that as a no,” he said, slapping her bottom once more. The sting was reaching a very uncomfortable point that made her feel as though she’d recently sat on a porcupine.

“You can’t keep hitting me forever,” she pointed out pragmatically. “So what are you going to do when you realize this doesn’t make a difference?”

“I think it’s already made a difference,” he replied. “You’ve stopped calling me names and you’re thinking a little more rationally to try to argue your way out of this. Now will you get back into bed?”

“It’s my birthday,” she complained. “I should be out having fun. Instead my house fell on my head and now I’m stuck in the hospital.”

She felt his palm pass over her still very bare bottom.

“Okay,” he said. “I guess this isn’t much fun for you, is it?”

“No,” she said. “It’s no fun at all.”

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll help you get out of here on one condition.”

“Anything!” Sarah agreed quickly.

He palmed her bottom, his warm hand cupping her hot round ass as Sarah squirmed. “You come and get a beer with me.”

“Seriously? That’s the deal?” Sarah could not believe her luck.

“You want to take it?”

“Hell, yes!”

Chapter Three

Sarah looked a lot happier sitting upright on a barstool, and cute as hell even though she was wearing sweatpants and a sweater that didn’t match and were several sizes too big. Her dark blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail and the bottle of beer was pressed firmly to her lips as she took a long swig.

“This might be the first day you’ve been legally allowed to, but that’s not your first drink, is it.”

Sarah smiled and shook her head. “Not exactly.” Her blue eyes slid toward him. “Are you going to spank me for that too?”

“No point spanking you retroactively when there’s plenty to spank you for right now.” He winked back at her and chuckled as her eyes narrowed and a blush rose to her cheeks. She’d quite liked being over his lap, he was sure of it. And he was just as sure she’d never admit it.

“Thanks for the beer,” she said, changing the subject. “I needed this.”

“It’s got to be about the worst birthday, I guess, having your house be hit by a tornado.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head quickly. “This isn’t the worst birthday I’ve had. Not by a long way.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” she said, her eyes sliding back to her beer, her fingernail picking at the label. “I don’t really want to talk about it. Just take it from me, I’ve had plenty of birthdays that sucked.”

He believed her. They were written all over her face. She was young and she was pretty and she should have been carefree. It was her birthday. She should have been out with a gaggle of girlfriends laughing, drinking, and getting themselves into trouble, flirting with frat boys. Instead she was sulking next to him.

“Well, maybe this is the last one that will suck,” he said, reaching out to pat her on the back. She gave a wry smile.

“I doubt it, but thanks.” She let out a little sigh. “It just seems to keep getting worse. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“I do.”

She half-smiled, half-scowled at him. “You know what I’m going to do?”

“You’re going to come and stay with me,” he said. “I’ve got a two-bedroom place, that’s one bedroom more than I need. You’re more than welcome to stay in it until you get back on your feet.”

Sarah looked at him with suspicion glittering in her gaze. “Uh huh. What’s the catch?”

“The catch?” He had to think about that. “Well, I guess, if there is a catch, it’s that acting like a brat will get you spanked again. Aside from that, no catch.”

“Oh, so staying in your house means you get to…” she glanced around and lowered her voice to a hiss, “spank me? What kind of BS is that, John?”

“You’re worried you’ll deserve a spanking and get one,” he said, grinning.

“No, I’m worried that you have some ideas out of a bygone era which make you think you have some right to punish women…”

“Not women. You.”

“Oh, me. The woman you didn’t even know until about five hours ago.”

“You’re just that badly in need of discipline, I guess.”

* * *

Sarah stared at him. John made no apologies for what he was, or what he was saying. He wasn’t that old; she guessed he was maybe starting to push thirty. And yet for reasons she didn’t understand, he seemed to have gotten his personality from another era. John was an old-fashioned man who believed in discipline and taking care of the fairer sex, and she was one he’d happened to have taken pity on.

“I’m surprised you don’t have your extra bedroom stuffed with waifs and strays already,” she said, draining the very last dregs of her beer. One really wasn’t enough, but she figured she’d be pushing it if she asked him to buy her another beer on top of everything else he was already doing for her.

“So what do you say?”

“I don’t know,” she said, her survival instincts kicking in. “I mean, it’s nice of you to offer and all, but you don’t know me and I don’t know you and my mother said never to stay at the houses of strange men…”

“Well,” he said, nodding. “Under ordinary circumstances, I’d take you back to your place, but your place isn’t exactly fit for habitation at the moment. You’ve not tried to call any friends since we got here, so I’m guessing you won’t be trying to stay with one of them. Unless you want to spend tonight alone in a hotel, my place is the only option.”

“I guess,” she said. “Thank you. For the offer. But I don’t want you getting any funny ideas. I’ll stay tonight. I’ll crash on your couch and tomorrow morning I’ll go and see about sorting out somewhere more permanent. I don’t want to impose.”

“You’ll have to sleep in the spare bedroom,” he said. “The couch is already taken.”

“By who?”

“You’ll see.”

Chapter Four

Twenty minutes later, Sarah was meeting the reason why she couldn’t crash on John’s couch. The large leather three-seater was taken by a very large, very fluffy dog who let out a groan and stretched his long legs out in front of him as Sarah and John stepped through the front door of his house.

“Oh, my god!” Sarah let out a little squeal in spite of herself. “What sort of dog is he?”

“Newfoundland mix.”

“Is he friendly?”

“Very,” John smiled. “You can go say hello.”

Sarah sat down on the arm of the couch. The dog nosed her, long tail thumping against the couch with many wags, then put his heavy head in her lap. When she patted him, her hand slid through his fur and utterly disappeared.

“Oh, my god, what’s his name?”

“Odin,” John said, grinning at her reaction.

“You are the fluffiest doggy ever to exist,” she informed the dog. “Yes, you are. You are a Mr. Fluffy.”

“I want to sleep on the couch,” she said. “He’d make a better pillow than any other pillow, I bet.”

“You like animals, huh?”

“Love them,” she said, grinning as Odin licked her face with a tongue that seemed to extend the full length of her face.

“You don’t have any pets yourself?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t get anything that might die. I don’t have any more room for urns on my mantelpiece.”

What might have been a somber moment was transformed by Odin putting his big paw on her lap, gazing into Sarah’s face, and licking her nose with enough force to make her squeal and pull away for a breath.

“You are a silly dog,” she informed the animal. “The silliest dog there is.”

Odin wagged agreement.

“I’m going to sleep out here with him,” she reaffirmed, sliding down onto the couch with the dog. His big furry lumpen body was warm and comforting after a very scary day. Outside, dawn was beginning to break and Sarah suddenly felt her eyelids starting to get heavy. Something about being in a comfortable warm house with a friendly canine pressed by her side made her body give up the battle for consciousness.

* * *

John chuckled at his dog’s confused face as he picked Sarah’s sleeping form up from the couch and carried her to the guest room. She barely stirred, so exhausted that not even being laid on a bed that was not hers woke her up.

He felt a welling in his heart, a warmth that spread through his chest. He didn’t know why, but it just felt right having her there, as if something that had been missing all along had finally come. He bent down and pressed a chaste kiss to her sleeping forehead.

“Good night, Sarah,” he murmured softly before retiring to his bedroom. With Sarah safe, he finally let the exhaustion that had been creeping up for hours overcome him and draw him into a deep and dreamless sleep.

A scream several hours later brought John out of bed. He was on his feet before he was really awake. The sound wasn’t coming from the spare room. He turned on the lights in the hall and then the lounge and finally the kitchen. That was where he found Sarah, standing in the middle of the kitchen wild-eyed but still very much asleep. She was in the middle of a night terror, which was not surprising after what she’d been through.

“What are you doing, sweetheart?” He kept his voice low and gentle.

“I need a hammer,” she mumbled. “Have to build a house. It got huffed and puffed down. There’s a wolf on your couch.”

“Okay, back to bed,” he said firmly.

“I need a hammer,” she insisted as he walked toward her, put his hands on her shoulders, and gently steered her back to bed. He didn’t put her in the spare room. Instead he took her back to his own bed. She needed to have an eye kept on her, especially given the fact that she was looking for hardware. He wouldn’t have put it past her to try to actually rebuild her house personally when she was awake; she had that kind of dogged determination about her.

Sarah did lie down when he told her to, but she squirmed as she lay next to him, tossing this way and that until he looped an arm around her waist and gently pressed her firmly against his body. The hard lines of his frame seemed to settle her and she quietened after a while, the little non-verbal whimpers becoming quiet snores.

Chapter Five

Sarah woke up next to a very large, shirtless man. For a split-second of morning amnesia, she didn’t know who he was or where she was. The room wasn’t familiar. The bed wasn’t familiar. Her reaction to the confusion was to panic.

“What the hell!” She leaped out of bed, staring at the stranger.

He woke up, eyes bleary with sleep. Realizing she was only wearing a sweater, Sarah pulled it as far down her thighs as she could as slow memory began to return.

“Easy,” he said, his voice deeper for being groggy with sleep.

“I didn’t go to bed with you,” she said, scowling at him. She couldn’t actually remember if she had or not. She couldn’t remember much besides the roaring that suddenly echoed in her head, the memory of her house swaying and then cracking around her. The image somehow superimposed itself over the bedroom for a few seconds, making her blink the fear away.

“Hey.” He reached out to her. “It’s okay, come sit down.”

Sarah scrunched her eyes tight, then opened them again, turning her fear into anger at him.

“You took advantage of me!”

“I didn’t,” he said, pulling the sheet up over the tent in his shorts. It didn’t do much to hide the thick length of his morning erection. Her eyes were drawn to it inexorably, widening as she put her hand down between her thighs out of reflex.

“Okay, so you didn’t,” she confirmed. “If you had… I’d be in two pieces.”

John let out a laugh. “With the right preparation, I’m sure you’d take it beautifully,” he said with a wink that made her glow bright red.

“Oh, my god,” she half-said, half-squealed, clapping her hands to her blushing face. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

He smiled handsomely and crooked a finger at her. “Come here.” He drawled the order in slow, sexy tones that made her obey. She sat down beside him, tentatively at first, unsure of herself.