Page 48 of Nailed

All that mattered was that I could lay her down there, climb on top and watch her eyes drink me in as our bodies rejoined. My name had never sounded as beautiful as when she kept reciting it over and over again, and when she came, she dragged me with her.

We tumbled over the edge together, our moans swallowed by a kiss that wiped my mind of everything but the taste of her. We stayed like that for a while, with me still inside her.

I wished I could capture that look on her face forever. It was like—

The bubble of the moment was instantly pierced by an electronic shriek that had both of us quickly move apart and scramble off the counter. I realized in horror that the pizza base I’d left in the oven had triggered the smoke alarm. I didn’t even notice.

Lauren couldn’t contain her amusement as I scrambled to turn off the oven and waved an oven mitt to waft out the heavy smoke.

“I think it’s a little overdone,” she said, a gleam in her eye.

I chuckled, feeling the highest I had in a long time. “Well, Miss Lauren, if we’re going to start a fire, I guess there’s no better place.”

18

Lauren

I’d just finished preparing four mugs of steaming hot coffee when Brock strode into the kitchen, his jaw set and an aura about him that suggested he was on business today. Rafe raised an eyebrow curiously but Callum was the only one to actually ask the question that had the three of us puzzled.

“Boss? Everything okay?” he said, taking a tentative sip of his coffee.

Instead of answering immediately, Brock simply walked over to the fridge and stuck a piece of paper against the door, a square of tape keeping it tacked in place. We made our way over to take a look and as I read what was written there, my heart swelled.

The plumbing and HVAC permits had been approved. I shrieked, jumping up and down with excitement. The relief of having some progress after almost a month of stagnation was so sweet that it felt like I was walking on air. And being able to celebrate this small victory with the guys only made it better. Callum laughed, sharing a look with me that sent the butterflies in my stomach on a rampage, not helped by the fact that our proximity to the fridge called back memories of what we’d done just days before.

While Rafe had been a bit more distant since the party, even he couldn’t hold back the small smile at the news. “Well it’s about damn time. I was getting bored.”

Brock, while tight-lipped and professional as ever, had a glimmer in his eye.

“Okay boys, you know what this means. We’re officially in demolition mode today,” he said, addressing Callum and Rafe, who both nodded. A small and foolish part of me felt a little disappointed that he didn’t even so much as acknowledge me beyond a tight little nod before handing out tasks for the day.

They were planning on tearing through the place, laying out a trifecta of mechanical rough-in work that I wouldn’t be able to help with like I’d been doing for the past few weeks during the limbo period. So instead, I readied my camera and asked if I could take a few photos of them while they worked to track the progress.

I wanted to have a wall of snapshots of the entire experience, detailing the firehouse’s transformation as part of my display gallery and portfolio. They agreed, some more reluctantly than others.

But as they started really getting into their work, I found myself taking more pics of them than the rubble. Callum tried to explain what they were doing during little breaks in all the sledge-hammering and wall stripping, but I was barely able to concentrate despite my best effort.

It was damn near impossible when all three of them were shirtless, sweaty with labor and dirty with a cocktail of industrial grit and grime. I hid my lust behind my camera, feigning interest in the naked walls and exposed bones of the building, or the floor trenching or glimpses. But I was captivated by the way their muscles moved under the strain of all that heavy-lifting, and how the sweat glinted off their bodies. Each of them were focused, their individual skillset highlighted by the sudden drive to do bigger reno work after weeks of holding back.

And every time I saw Callum run new vent stacks or use a blow torch to sweat joints, I thought of his careful, reverential hands on my skin. When Rafe went back to his work tearing through the walls like they were made of paper, my thoughts drifted to how that intensity and power translated into the way he fucked. And overseeing everything was Brock, barking orders and handling the HVAC units with strength that I was growing more and more eager to experience first-hand.

I lowered my camera, grabbing my water bottle and splashing some of the contents onto my face. Shit, I was overheating like a dog in heat. But the raw energy of the firehouse was almost more than I could stand, not when I knew how that energy turned on the dime of arousal.

Well, almost. I was still missing one.

I weaved in and out of the chaos of the site, trying to stay out of their way as much as possible while still capturing the shots I wanted. And it didn’t take long before some of the simmering energy bubbled over.

Rafe was the first to acknowledge it, of course.

I’d run out to buy more bottled water and was passing them around when I reached Rafe. I stopped in my tracks, watching as he swung the hammer in a wide, violent but precise arc. His back muscles coiled like heavy cables, his powerful arms bringing steel to brick with a bone-jarring crack and spraying red dust over his damp skin.

He let out a long, ragged breath as he relaxed, leaning against the half-broken wall with a look of satisfaction on his face as he wiped a smear of grime across his forehead with a shaky hand, his adrenaline still buzzing.

His smile tugged more at the corner when he saw me watching him and he held out his hand for the bottle. “How sweet of you.”

I rolled my eyes, ignoring the fact that my heartbeat was giving the pounding he’d just delivered to the wall a run for its money. I was trying even harder now not to focus on his body up close, but in what genuinely felt like a show of spite, he let some of the water drip from his mouth down his body. A trail of it ran down his torso, between the defined narrow line separating his abs.

It was his deep, raspy chuckle that broke the spell, as usual. “Just take a picture, Lauren. It’ll last longer and you can keep it in your little ‘happy place drawer’ for when you get lonely.”