Ladder 54: Five Firefighter Romances Read online

  So were the internal twitches that made her pussy pull against the clamps that held her so intimately parted.

  “What’s the problem?” he asked, and it was all she could do not to huff a breath full of nothing but frustration.

  “This just isn’t my kink, that’s all,” she said instead.

  “Ah.” His quirk of a smile was given to the handful of ripe tomatoes he was washing. “It’s not spanking.”

  Her bottom prickled. The clamps bit deeper, became that much harder to ignore. “No, it’s not.”

  “And that’s what you were really hoping for. Lots of little girl bratting, coupled with an equal amount of bare bottom, over-the-knee discipline to keep the ‘home fires’ burning for a good long time.” His wink waylaid her growing suspicion that he might actually be making fun of her. Setting three newly washed tomatoes on her tray next to a bell pepper, onion, and a minor mountain of button mushrooms, he said, “I’d be more than happy to do that for you, Rylee. All you have to do is ask, and you know it.”

  Shutting off the water, he propped himself against the counter, long legs crossed at the ankle while he dried his hands. His gaze on her was the most laid back and yet the most alert and predatory that she’d ever been scolded under. And that’s exactly what this was starting to feel like: a scolding.

  “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

  Hell, no. Fighting to keep from wilting in front of him, she rolled her lips against any involuntary confessions. Her stance must have shifted when she averted her eyes, because the next she knew the onion knocked into the bell pepper, sending a shower of tomatoes and button mushrooms rolling right off the edge of her tray. Even bound, her hands tried to grab. So did Walker, who fumbled the mushrooms but caught two tomatoes. The third fell, and Rylee both jumped and kicked, as if startled into a culinary game of Hacky Sack, something that had been all the craze back in her pre-teen years.

  She’d been lousy at it then, too.

  Missing her foot completely, the tomato splattered a crimson spray over three feet of white tile floor. The kitchen was dead silent for all of the two seconds it took her heart to find a stable rhythm again.

  Walker tipped his gaze back to hers, quirking another smile and rumbling a half-amused, half-censuring, “Bad table.”

  And just like that she was transported out of the CCC kitchen and back into her own dining room where, just a few days ago, she’d stood staring down at his very capable lap and the broad hands waiting to apply their ‘practice’ on her. Her heart fluttered all over again. Her stomach dropped. And suddenly, it hit. More than wishful thinking, this was what the reality of living with a man inclined toward domestic discipline was like. This was the confrontation between what she had always envisioned happening and the starkness of the daydream brought to life right before her startled eyes.

  Only, unlike the dreams which were always so erotic—titillating, exciting—this was different. This felt… confusing. Awful in a way that had nothing to do with the accidental dropping of one insignificant tomato or the gentle teasing with which he was inclined to treat it. Their sauce would be short one tomato, so what? Except that instead of shrugging it off as the insignificant matter it was, all Rylee felt was the added weight, dragging her down.

  “I’m sorry.” Dismayed, she watched him clean up the mess with a dishrag and dump the split tomato into the garbage disposal.

  His gaze on her sharpened and his smile faltered. He shut the water off again and once more dried his hands. “Do you think I’m upset?”

  She’d dropped a stupid tomato. Why did it feel as if she’d just ruined their entire meal? “No.”

  Careful not to sound either censuring or surprised, he asked, “Do you want me to be?”

  No, of course not.

  Maybe.

  Yes.

  She couldn’t look at him. She didn’t want to answer him, either. She squared her shoulders and bolstered the tray balanced across her bound arms instead, doing her best to be a stupid table.

  Walker grunted, reading things in her that he shouldn’t be able to if she wasn’t looking directly at him. But then he pushed off the counter, edging around her to pick up his knife. He put himself at the cutting board. “I suppose before I do anything, I ought to ask a few questions first,” he said, almost too brightly. “Let’s start with this: How was your day?”

  Her day? How about this whole last week since the auction? Rylee floundered, at a loss to explain how in such a ridiculously short amount of time, everything could suddenly become so completely dependent upon Walker, what he might think, what he might do… what he wouldn’t do. This last week had felt like a month. And tonight? The sun was only just tucking itself behind the curtain of trees surrounding the lake, painting its sunset across the rippling waves. They’d been here less than two hours and yet everything that had happened from the moment she’d stepped across the cabin’s threshold and heard him order her to remove her clothes to now—it already felt like she’d been here a lifetime.

  She couldn’t tell him that. Searching for something safer to say, she tried to focus on the normal things. Her days weren’t all that exciting. She talked about day trading and her work as an assistant librarian. Her day-to-day there mostly consisted of cataloging books and scraping gum off the underside of chairs and tables. But, as he browned the hamburger in a pan and diced vegetables for the sauce he made from scratch, she told him about the mundane things. About the kids she liked, the few she wasn’t so very fond of, and the teacher she had an altercation with over something stupid, like how it wasn’t her job to make him coffee in the teachers’ lounge. And she carefully avoided all the important things, the stuff that actually meant something to her.

  Like the anxiousness with which she had gotten up this morning, because she knew what today was and how it would end—with her being here. She omitted that her stomach had been so full of butterflies that at lunch time she had scarcely touched her food. And that her boss had noticed, commented even. He’d thought she was sick and ought to take a half day off. She probably should have too, because it had taken the entire latter half of the day before she finally convinced him she wasn’t coming down with anything that could be passed to him. That she was just… going on a date was how she had phrased it. One would have thought she’d said ‘set off a bomb.’ He couldn’t have been more surprised.

  No, she wasn’t going to tell Walker about that. She kept those things to herself, mostly because she didn’t want him spending the rest of their date (if such it could be called) with Fatal Attraction theme music playing in the back of his head. And through it all, with beef sizzling on the stove and the warm garlicky-tomato smell of the sauce just beginning to bubble, he listened—nodding, humming when appropriate, making small comments—the sort of noises that people made when they weren’t really listening.

  Which was what she thought he was doing, too, right up until he interrupted by saying, “So, just to sum up, you’re a kinky librarian, your days are pretty normal, and I never crossed your mind at all. Nor did any of the things I might do to you.” He looked at her. “Is that right?”

  There were no more vegetables for her to keep steady. All she had on her tray now was the ceramic spoon holder and, when he wasn’t using it, the spatula for stirring. Both of which rested flat, something that should have made them easier to keep from falling off, but not when he looked at her like that.

  Her belly flinched and the tray tottered. She caught herself before anything fell off, but the ceramic spoon holder did slide. Walker grabbed for it and the spatula.

  “Careful,” he said, flashing her a wink and a boyishly crooked smile. “If I have to get out another wooden spoon because this one hits the floor, there will be two spoons on this tray. One for the supper and one for you.”

  Finally.

  A clever person might have said something witty to that. Like, ‘Don’t threaten me with a good time.’ Rylee was too startled by the instant crawl of nerves awak
ening all across her bottom to think of anything smart like that. What came popping out of her mouth instead was instant deflection. “Well, what about you?”

  “Oh, no.” Walker shook his head. “You’re not getting off that easy. Answer the question.”

  She’d sooner walk through a minefield. Blowing her leg off would be quicker, easier, and far less devastating. “Of course I thought about you.”

  She tried to laugh so it wouldn’t come out sounding so much like a Broken Heart’s confession or worse, more romantic than what this was supposed to be. This wasn’t permanent. They were two strangers about to have dinner, about to spend the night doing deeply sexual, sensual, kinky things (hopefully), and in the morning they would go their separate ways. If she saw him again, which would be every time the CCC got together for one of their play parties, he was going to become her constant reminder of everything she wanted and yet couldn’t have. And she…? Well, she would be the girl who watched from the shadows while he picked through his entourage of willing submissives for his next play partner.

  “It’s normal to be scared before you do something like this,” she said a little defensively. Because it was the truth. She couldn’t imagine anyone, no matter how experienced, coming into a situation like this without being a little bit scared. Except that wasn’t the truth. She was more turned on than she was scared. And even though she wasn’t getting what she wanted, the titillation was still there, in the crawling that kept moving across the backs of her thighs and up over the swells of her butt. And down in between, where the clamps bit just a little bit tighter every time her neglected sex pulsed.

  Shifting her legs apart, she winced. The clamps really did feel like they were biting now. Her labia throbbed at each point of contact, something she could almost compartmentalize and ignore, except that now she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  For a man who was supposed to be occupied by his cooking, she hadn’t realized he was paying that close attention to her until he said, “Getting tender?”

  “A little,” she confessed.

  “Want me to move the clips?”

  She nodded, the throbbing intensifying just at the thought of his hand wandering back down between her legs.

  Adjusting the temperature on the stove, Walker set his stirring spatula aside, wiped his hands on the back pockets of his jeans, and then one hand on the counter, his smoky stare boring straight down into her eyes with that smile of his doing numbers on her already flipping stomach, he reached down under the lip of the tray. She hadn’t realized how tender she was until he bumped the clamps. The pain merged into the most confusing of pleasures as the lengths of his broad fingers followed the curve of her sex, tracing her parted folds before he cupped her. The whole of her. Her knees weakened when he squeezed, and again when she saw him draw a deep, steadying breath.

  For just a moment, it seemed he had to fight not to close his eyes right before he said, “We are wet, aren’t we? Are you sure you want the clamps moved?”

  He twiddled his fingers, tapping into the chains that dangled down between the clips, making them jingle and kicking all that throbbing, pinching pleasure-pain up a higher notch. She barely kept the tray level as she arched up onto her tiptoes.

  “Yes, please… Please…” she gasped, wanting so hard to spread her legs just to ease the pressure. Or was it just so his hand could squeeze more comfortably in between her thighs?

  “Oh, sweetheart,” he said, the corner of his mouth twitching as his smile grew. “I really like hearing you beg. Don’t move.”

  Dropping to one knee to better see what he was doing, he unclipped first one side of her labia and then the other. She heard his tsk, a sound that was more like a sympathetic groan as he rubbed her folds, massaging her aching labia. The minute pressure of his hold teased her clit as the throbbing shifted its focus. Now she could feel it everywhere, that heady pulse—part hurt, part ecstasy, part… Riley gasped as his fingers slipped between the petals of her sex to either side of her clit and pinched. How the hell was he holding her? It was as if he’d wedged her clit between his fingers and then tapped it with his thumb, applying steady pressure right to the sensitive head.

  “I like this,” he said, pushing, caressing, rolling the pad of his thumb all over the rounded peak. “We’ve only just gotten started and already you’re this responsive. Beautiful,” he murmured.

  She more felt than saw it when he leaned in, cupping her hips to steady her as he angled his head. The tip of his nose brushed her mons, the only warning she had before a gentle flick of his tongue replaced where his thumb had just been and rocked her to her soul.

  Rylee’s body locked. Her breath sucked up through her and her hands grabbed, latching onto the top of his head and sending everything that had been on her tray crashing right down over his back and onto the floor. That the ceramic spoon holder didn’t shatter when it hit the floor tiles was nothing short of miraculous. The stirring spatula, however, left a streak of Morse code grease-dots straight down the back of his shirt, across his jeans pocket, and all over the floor. Spatters of it even flecked the fridge.

  “Oh,” she mewed, shuddering deeply. She opened her eyes, completely unaware that she’d ever closed them. Before, during, or after the lick, she didn’t know. But when she looked down there was Walker, staring up at her with that smoky hunger filling his eyes as he licked the taste of her from his lips. “Bad table.”

  Her lungs were frozen. She had to make herself breathe, and it was such a hiccup-y gasp of a thing. It felt every bit as unsteady as her knees.

  “Stand up straight,” he said, gaining his own feet as well. He bent to pick up both spatula and holder. Stepping carefully over the mess, he placed them in the sink and wet a rag to clean the floor. Again. “I think you need more practice at this. Shall I make you come to my house every day for the next week and be my table while I cook dinner?”

  She knew better than to take that seriously. She hadn’t paid for that and she wasn’t the type of girl that men offered to do that with anyway. Having been a member of the CCC for years now, it never happened before this and it wasn’t likely to happen after her time with Walker was done, either.

  And yet, when he finished and dropped the rag into the sink with everything else, and then returned to lean into her very small bubble of personal space, he had her attention just as fast as if he had reclaimed his hold on her clit. And all he had to do was reach past her, taking two more wooden spoons out of the crock pot by the stove.

  “One for the supper,” he said, laying the first on her trembling tray. The other was a longer, thinner wooden spoon with a very narrow head. That was the one he showed her, letting her startled gaze linger on it while her skin erupted into wave after wave of dread-filled prickling. “One for you, my naughty… unfocused… disobedient little table. However are we going to deal with this?”

  She didn’t realize he was backing her up against the counter until she felt the bump of it at her hip and back. He pinned her there, much as he pinned her attention with just his eyes.

  Her table wasn’t the only thing trembling now. She’d never known how deliciously sensual and erotic it could be to shake like this.

  He shifted his body again, moving to one side of her. Backed as she was against the counter, it was hard and unyielding and offered no avenue in which she could escape. All she could do was stand there and watch it happen, feeling the trepidation as the spoon in his hand vanished underneath the tray until she couldn’t see them anymore. Feel, then, became all that she could do, tingling and dreading right up until the flat wooden head come to rest against the puffy flesh of her mons. He found her clit without even trying. It was right there, hidden under the press of the spoon, with nothing more than a thin barrier of cringing flesh to protect it. He patted, and Rylee forgot how to breathe all over again.

  He was going to spank her—there of all places and that was something she had never considered. Never once had she ever seen him spank somebody there, not in
all the times that she had watched him scene. This was a side of him she had never witnessed before, and she liked it. She wasn’t sure she ought to, but she did, and that was a side of her she had never witnessed before either.

  “What do you think,” he asked, sultry as a lover. “Will five swats help you focus?”

  Rylee didn’t know how to break it to him but she was one-hundred percent focused on everything he was doing right now. It was probably a rhetorical question anyway, because that wooden head gave one circling press against her clit, and then he said, “Five it is.”

  She locked her lips on her involuntary squeak. She locked her gaze too, desperately on him as if he were the only anchor she had against the rising storm within. He was the rock, both inflicting this singularly unexpected punishment and helping her get through it. She’d have touched him if she could, if only her hands weren’t bound. She gripped his shirt instead, clutching even as she spread her legs that much wider.

  “Ready?”

  How thoughtful of him to ask. She nodded, breathing in deeply once, holding it and trying to send all the strength and courage she had down into her shaking legs so she wouldn’t move.

  Light flicks of his wrist sent that wooden spoon into a steady but gentle assault against her sex. Heaven help her, but her scattering mind counted out each one of those steadying taps.

  “Five!” she blurted, just as soon as he reached the appropriate number. And she hadn’t moved. She was so proud of herself, proud and scared, and maybe just a little close to tears, especially when that sultry look of his yielded to startled surprise, grudging admiration, and even a hint of amusement.