Page 55 of Falling for My Grumpy Fireman

"Tell me to stop."

"Don't."

The lace slides aside. She's soaked. Drenched, and I haven't done anything yet but kiss her against a bandstand, and knowing that does something ugly and wonderful to my chest.

"Owen." A warning. Or permission. With her it's usually both.

I learn her right there in the dark with the band covering everything. Slow. Patient. Two fingers and she takes them with a sound she bites off against my jacket, and she is tight and hot and moving before I move, hips chasing my hand like she's furious at me for the pace.

She is. She grabs my wrist and tries to set her own rhythm.

I don't let her.

"Uh-uh." Low, against her ear. "You had your way for six weeks. This one's mine."

Her forehead drops to my shoulder. Her thighs are shaking. I curl my fingers and find the spot that makes her whole body stutter, and I stay on it, steady, thumb working her in slow circles while she clenches down on my hand so hard I feel my own pulse.

"There," she breathes. "Right—"

I stay right there.

She comes apart quiet. She has to. Both fists in my shirt, her body pulling tight and then shaking, squeezing my fingers in waves I feel all the way up my arm, my name pressed into my collarbone where nobody can hear it but me. I work her through it, slower, softer, and don't quit until she grabs my wrist herself and holds it still.

I ease out of her. She makes a small lost sound about it that I plan to think about for the rest of my life.

Out front, the song ends. Applause. Another one starts.

"Okay," she says. Not to me. To herself. "Okay."

"Okay," she says. Not to me. To herself. "Okay."

Her hand drops to my belt.

I catch it. Lace my fingers through hers and hold it there against my chest.

"Not here," I say. "Not up against plywood."

"Owen Peterson." Her laugh comes out wrecked. "You have terrible timing."

She's breathing hard. So am I.

Her hair's a wreck from my hands and her lips are swollen from my mouth and she is the best thing I have ever seen in low light.

"Owen." Different voice now. Quieter.

"I know."

"We can't keep—" She stops. Sets her forehead against my chest, right over the hammering. Her fists are still in my shirt. Holding on or holding off, I can't tell. Maybe she can't either.

When she talks again it comes out like a prayer she's stopped believing in. Her fingers are still trembling where they grip my shirt.

"Eight weeks. I leave in eight weeks, Owen. The contract's up and there's a placement board with my name on it and this—" Her fingers tighten. "This has an expiration date. It was always going to have one. So whatever that was out there, whatever this is back here, it ends in eight weeks.” “Six weeks."

The band winds down. Out on the green the crowd claps for the song, for the night, for everything they can't see behind this stage.

I take her face in both hands and tip it up so she has to look at me. Her eyes are shining and scared and daring me all at once, and I know exactly what a smarter man would say. A smarter man would let her have the rule. A smarter man never made it out of Chicago.

"Then stop wasting them."