He gave a shout and his whole body stiffened. Unbridled ecstasy whirled in his mind. Reeling, he didn’t move. Couldn’t move. He rode the wave of pure rapture until the last throb faded and his breathing slowed to almost normal.
Cassie’s face glowed. He’d never seen a more beautiful woman.
“I’m too heavy for you.”
“I don’t care. I love having you on me,” she panted.
“Me too.”
On you. In you.
“You can’t breathe.” He rolled to the side and pulled her snug in his embrace. “There. That’s better.”
“Mmm. I feel absolutely wonderful.” She snuggled against him, skidding her breasts on his chest.
“Hmmm, wonderful,” he said, feeling exactly the same way.
Damn, he loved the feel of this woman. He was finding, he loved everything about her. Way too much.
Heartache may lay ahead, but for now, that didn’t bother him. He would snatch the precious moments they shared—however long it lasted.
Chapter 23
Slow days were appreciated at Station Eight. That meant there were no fires and, for the moment, people were safe. Jared and Laredo had the radio blaring while taking inventory of the gear. Cooper was taking his turn in the kitchen, showing off in front of the new recruit. Mike inhaled. Hmm, oven fried chicken. The kid was preparing one of Mike’s favorites.
Shep had been closed up in his office. Mike tapped on the door.
“Come in.”
He stepped inside and found Shep buried in paperwork. “Anything I can do to help?”
“I’ve been going over the updated manual. Nothing new. It outlines the same procedures we followed in training last month.”
“But?” Mike asked as he settled himself in one of the two chairs in front of Shep’s desk.
“I keep tracing our steps on this one.”
“We did everything by the book,” Mike interrupted.
“Wilson is a by the book guy. But I wonder how the perpetrator managed to get the gas open and get out of the way before anyone caught on. How?”
“The bastard was watching us, waiting for his opening.”
“Still. Someone should have seen him. Smelled the gas, even if he’d planted the shit before the crew showed up that morning.”
“What else can we do? Put guards at our training sites?”
“That’s not a bad idea.” Shep raked a hand through his cropped hair in frustration. “How did the son-of-a-bitch find out about the training site? The location, the time? How the hell did he get his information?”
“Following procedure and Wilson keeping the crew back is what kept the number of injuries down. For this to happen the way it did, this character had to be planning this strike for a while.”
Shep stared out the window with an exasperated expression. “What pisses me off even more is the prick could have been there watching.”
“The thing that scares the shit out of me is he wore a firefighter suit, walked around with the rest of us. Like he was one of us.”
By the grim look on Shep’s face, he didn’t like the concept any better.
“Close enough to set it up, but at a distance where he wouldn’t be in the fallout.”