Every head in the fire station turned to stare at him. “What?” he hollered, trying to get the attention off him. He was just here as a lowly volunteer, looking for something to do.
Murphy laughed, the first good belly chuckle anyone had heard from him in months. Dylan had recently, quietly, funneled a substantial five-figure sum to him to pay for a caretaker for his wife and father. With good care, she was expected to have a strong chance of survival. His father, though, was fading fast. The money bought some peace and space for the family, and isn't that all anyone could ask for?
“A torn AC/DC shirt and jeans? You are the strangest f**king billionaire I ever met, Dylan,” he said.
“Only f**king billionaire you ever met, Murphy. You probably don't even know any thousandaires,” Joe cracked. Everyone chuckled, Murphy included. The chief shooed them off to do work.
“You slumming?” he asked Dylan.
“Nah. Just covering a volunteer shift.” Truth be told, he was bored and lonely with Mike gone. But he couldn't say that at work. The guys might be good at heart, but a few were as enlightened as a lamp post.
“You can do that from home, you know. Scanner.”
“Mine's broken.”
Joe's eyebrows flew up. “And you can't afford a new one?”
“So sue me. I just want to hang out here.”
“Poor little rich firefighter?” Joe's voice wasn't mean. Just inquiring. It put Dylan on edge, made him ball his hands into fists, temper rising.
“Something like that.”
“Grab one of the scanners from here on your way out, then. There's a big training going on in New York and a bunch of guys are there, so we can use all the volunteers we can get tonight. You OK with being on call through the night?”
A warmth spread through him, making him stand taller. He remembered this feeling. Happiness. Purpose. Power.
Action.
“Hell, yeah! Thanks, Chief.”
“Let's just hope it's a quiet one.” He always said that. Superstition. If he didn't, one of the guys would jump in and say it. You don't f**k around with bad luck in a station crowded with firefighters. They need every drop of help from whatever forces in the universe help out, from God to Jesus to the Flying Spaghetti Monster to Mother Nature. Even Mayor Menino, who wasn't divine – yet. One more election win and he'd be damn close.
“As quiet as a church mouse,” Dylan answered. Secretly, though, he wanted to do some good. Help someone. While he'd never actually hoped for a fire or a medical emergency, the thrill of the run was always in his blood. Helping people was exactly why he'd gone into this business, and it gave him purpose.
If someone needed him tonight, he'd be there.
Stuffed like the turkeys that had popped up in grocery stores everywhere, Laura lurched into her living room and plopped down. In a few months, she wouldn't able to get up on her own. Time to start training Snuggles to offer her a hand getting out of deep, overstuffed chairs.
No one else would.
“Oh, stop,” she muttered to herself. After dropping Josie off, she'd thought long and hard on the drive home. Picking up her phone and texting Mike and Dylan would be the hard part. Four months. Four long months. This wasn't a reunion outreach, though.
It was business. The business of, well, this. Her hands cupped her belly with pleasure, willing love through her palms to the baby. So much love. Only nineteen weeks along and now little Naomi – no, Claire – no, Elizabeth – no, Caitlyn – ah, whatever! – was part of her heart.
This child was a Michaels-Stanwyck, or Michaels-Pine, creation. Time they knew about the baby. Guilt settled in just as her sciatica flared up, the painful nerve running from hip to toe making her rub her muscles to no relief. Walking helped, so she grudgingly lifted herself up and hobbled to the kitchen.
No need for food, but a glass of water and her prenatal vitamin would do for an excuse to move. Sheri said hot showers sometimes helped. Waddling down the hall, she turned on the spray to warm and grabbed a towel. On second thought, she also grabbed a new toy, a sleek little vibrator that couldn't go too deep, but that had turned out to be just enough to take the edge off her horny second trimester.
Too bad vibrators couldn't slap your ass and tug your hair. If someone made one, they'd be filthy, smutty rich.
Undressing wasn't too hard, though she was rapidly losing the ability to bend down and slide pants off; plucking each leg out was becoming the norm, like tying shoes by bringing her feet up and crossing one leg at a time, leaving the laces tied on the insides. Lifting one leg carefully, balancing herself, then lifting the other over the small bathtub lip, though, would be a struggle in a month or too. Shit. This single-mama-pregnancy crap was bad enough in terms of a libido the size of Montana, but if basic self care was going to be a problem, she might have to resort to taking Josie's offer and letting her move in.
Hot jets instantly relaxed her neck, the warm wetness a relief. Closing her eyes, she soaked quickly and sank into her well-grooved fantasy about Dylan and Mike. For as much as she barricaded herself against them in real life, in her dreams they were very much present.
Overwhelmingly so.
Mike's strong hands were eating up every inch of her skin, his mouth on her ear. “Your belly is so amazing,” he crooned in her ear. “My daughter. You're growing my daughter.” His fingers slid down over her navel, delicately stroking her swollen front, then diving down to tease a much-abandoned, very-needy cl*t that begged for release. He turned her around, hands creating a trail of caressing love on her back, her hips, her br**sts, all leading the way, a map to her mouth, his palms clasping her jaw and bringing his lips to hers, the first kiss a communion, the second a ravaging.
Every part of her that could swell, did, from br**sts to lush n**ples, swollen folds and rosebuds that screamed out Mike's name. As their tongues danced and he used his to convey a secret message, hands raking her hair, lips bruising hers, her hip pressed hard against his thick rod, wanting it in her, now. Four long months of new hormones and bursting, flush desire made this, made her –
Her own hands turned the vibrator on; no more shower head, in case it pushed water or an air bubble up inside her. The tingling was enough, along with her Mike, his tight hands, his wet chest hair scraping against her sensitive br**sts...
More hands. Dylan. Ah, there you are, she thought. The vibrator tip made quick work with her, getting her so close, so fast, that Dylan had little time to make his case, his body pressed hard against her back, lifting up, riding friction in the cleft of her ass as she thrust backward, Mike's fingers going straight to her intense heat, the –
“Oh, oh, oh!” she screamed, tipped over so fast as Dylan lunged for her, tongue lapping fast, Mike's fingers in her, the vibrator plunging at her entrance, only in a few inches, though, the clamping and contractions of her p**sy walls nearly torpedoing it into the shower wall. Huge spasms made her h*ps ache and howl, her body squirting now, the effort enormous compared to non-pregnant orgasms, the release four times harder than she was accustomed to experiencing.
Climaxing was anti-climatic, though – what she wanted now were strong arms to slump into, and preferably four of them. Someone to rub her feet. Another someone to get her favorite ice cream.
Instead, she got to finish her shower, towel off, somehow twist her way into her jammies and climb into bed, her cats curling up against her. They didn't quite count as those four arms, but as the day faded into sunset and she patted her growing belly, she whispered, “Good night, sweet baby girl,” resolved to tell the guys in the morning.
It was time to be a grown up about this. To act like someone's mom.
To stop being Ryan.
Chapter Seven
Wah wah wah wah 345 wah, Somerville, Dylan heard, his ears ringing as he sat up fast, the cold night air hitting his bare chest when the down comforter slid to his waist. The dispatcher's words sounded so familiar.
When she repeated the address again, his blood ran cold. Then the words: multi-unit fire.
If you had told him even a year ago that he could move that quickly, shove on pants and boots and a jacket, be down God knows how many sets of stairs and out the door and in his car in less than two minutes, he'd have told you were a fool.
Tonight? Not tonight, though, because that was Laura's address the dispatcher just announced, followed by the words multi-unit fire. Blood pumping hard, he fumbled for his phone (thank God it was still in his pants from yesterday) and as he peeled out of the garage he tapped through his Contacts list to Mike.
Multi-unit fire.
Weaving across two lanes, he sped to her place, the drive inching by so slowly. The dashboard clock read 3:11 a.m. Shit. Mike might not answer. Mr. New Age sometimes turned the damn phone off for peace and serenity and all that shit that he'd surely left behind the last time Dylan saw him. Please let him answer. Please don't have blocked him.
Please.
Multi-unit fire.
“'Lo?” Mike's voice. Dylan shot through a red light and prayed, making a sudden turn on a one-way street that might buy him an extra minute. Or kill him. Either chance was equally possible.
He put it on speaker. “Laura's apartment is on fire.” Not the time for preliminaries.
“WHAT!” Mike's voice went up an octave.
“Sorry to be so blunt. Get over to her apartment. You remember where it is?”
Mike's voice had a weird quality to it. “Oh, yeah. I do. Just – shit! Just save her, Dylan.” Click.
Multi-unit fire.
Ask for so little, Buddy. He took a right so hard he thought the Audi might flip, but damn if that fine European engineering didn't come in handy when you're doing 77 mph on Mass Ave. If a cop saw him, he was toast.
No cops yet.
Two minutes.
Multi-unit fire.
In a multi-unit fire, two minutes could mean death. Block that thought, Dylan, his mind shouted at him.
One minute. He heard sirens, ears perked, discerning the direction. Going away from her part of town. Damn it! He might beat them all at this rate. He shot through four different stop signs, hoping like hell no one was walking an unleashed dog in the middle of the night, and slammed on his brakes, halting in the middle of an intersection, running for her building.
Smoke poured out of the basement windows. Fuck f**k fuck. That could make the first floor – literally, the floor itself – a structural nightmare, depending on where the actual fire was. Firefighter mind battled with his lover's (ex-lover's) mind and love won out as he sprinted up the steps and felt the front door using the back of his hand. Cool.
Red lights and his all-too-familiar siren sound caught his attention, the truck making its slow turn. “Stanwyck!” someone shouted. Murphy. Dylan waved as felt the locked doorknob, then kicked in the door. A mother with two teens ran past him, followed by a young woman, college-age, carrying a cat and dragging her bike.
Laura. His mind raced, plotting out the scene. No heat – yet – but tons of smoke. Crouching, he found clear air on the ground and began feeling his way to her front door. Just feet away, he felt it; cool. Locked.
“Thank God,” he muttered, two bodies moving past him as he heard the steady thump thump thump of fireman making their way cautiously upstairs. A loud clanging from below; a different crew was sourcing the fire, figuring out the focal point to work on containment and the level of danger.