the bathroom floor with our splashing. He reaches into a cabinet and in a moment he’s back, ripping open the square package, sliding on a condom.
Then he lifts me. My legs wrap around him, my arms circle his neck. He grips me under the butt, holding me so that finally my pussy, swollen and still sensitive from orgasm, is in direct contact with his cock.
I ease up and down in his arms, sliding against his length.
He groans and kisses me, hot and demanding. Urgent.
The urgency’s contagious, and now I need to feel him inside me. I tear my mouth from his. “Yes, Mick. Now.”
We shift, adjust positions, then he’s moving into me, sliding the thick head of his cock between my slick, swollen lips. He’s big, but my body stretches to swallow him up.
Friction, hot wet delicious friction as he eases all the way in until the base of his cock rubs my clit. He rests there a moment, my nerve endings scream move! The he slides out, almost all the way, then thrusts back and my clit waits eagerly for that tight press when he’s fully inside.
He sets a rhythm. The pound and splash of the shower is a background counterpoint to the steady in-out thrust of his cock, the rising beat of our panting breaths.
Each movement teases my nub, and it’s craving hard, firm pressure. Mick knows it, I’m sure, and he’s deliberately drawing this out. He gives me a little pressure, and when my body’s tightened and my breathing gone so shallow I’m almost not breathing at all, he changes the angle, eases off, and the tension relaxes.
And then it dawns on me. For the first time in my life, I might have a second orgasm.
Now it’s within reach, I want it so badly. I deserve it, after all I’ve been through.
And if he doesn’t give it to me, I’m going to kill the guy!
I capture his mouth, pour everything I’ve got into the kiss. Every ounce of that sex goddess I saw in the mirror.
And it works, his movements change, stop being rhythmic and start going wild and uneven. Even so, he manages to find the exact angle to stimulate me, inside and out.
We break the kiss, both panting for air.
All my nerves are wound tight, screaming for release, and he thrusts hard and I’m almost there and then he’s sliding out and rushing back in again, grinding his pelvis into mine and yes, that’s it—and OH MY GOD!—that’s exactly it, and he yells out his release as I climax in spasms all around him.
It seems like we cling together for hours in that pulsing orgasm.
Gradually, sexual satiation fades pleasantly into tiredness. My head’s on his shoulder and I could close my eyes and go to sleep.
“Hey, Tash.” He jiggles my body. “Don’t go to sleep.”
I struggle to raise my head. “You’re mean.”
His whole body shakes with laughter. “Better not insult the guy who’s holding you up.”
Oh yeah, right. I’d almost forgotten, it’s so comfortable here in his arms. But the poor man is hoisting well over a hundred pounds.
Reluctantly I let him ease out and set me down. “Sorry, I’m just so tired.” My body illustrates the point with a jaw-wrenching yawn.
“One of those women who falls asleep right after sex?”
“I was tired at the hospital,” I protest, “but you made me forget. D’you know I was traveling for more than twenty-four hours, then only got a couple of hours sleep before the fire, and there’s the jet lag factor too, and—”
“Tash?” he breaks in. “I was teasing.”
“God,” I groan. “Sorry. My brain’s not functioning.” I yawn again.
“Let’s get you to bed.”
“Have to wash my hair.” I gaze around, bleary-eyed and fuzzy-headed, looking for shampoo.
He sighs. “Girls. Course you do.”
Girl? “I’m a woman,” I grumble.
He chuckles. “Yeah, I’d noticed. Sorry. You some kind of feminist?”
“You some kind of chauvinist?” I retaliate, knowing Aussie men are reputed to be. Damn it, he may give amazing sex, but a woman deserves respect too.
He laughs. He also takes me gently by the shoulders and tips my head back, into the shower spray, careful the water doesn’t run down my face. “Not so’s I’ve noticed.”
“Good.” I think about his work, and how it must attract alpha males. “Are there many female firefighters here?”
“Sure. Not as many, because the physical tests involve things like lugging a lot more pounds than you even weigh.”
“If they make it, are they treated as equals?”
He picks up a bottle and squeezes some of the contents into his hands. “A few of the guys give them a rough time. But the women bring a lot to the team and the other firies are learning to respect and trust them.”
“Uh, firies?” I try to replicate his Aussie twang, not sure if he said “fairies,” or what.
He turns me so my back is to him, and begins to shampoo my hair. Oh, bliss!
“We call firefighters firies here,” he says. His fingers stroke through my hair, massaging my scalp, making it hard to concentrate on anything else. “You know,” he adds. “Oz is the place where we add ‘ie’ to everything. Barbecue’s a barbie, can of beer’s a tinnie.”
“Firefighters are firies?” I giggle.
He pauses in his scalp massage. “Yeah. What’s so funny?”
“Sounds like fairy. Which in Canada’s a word for gay. And I’m guessing that’s not how most of you alpha male firies want to be thought of.”
He chuckles. “Too right. Course we do have a few gays, including a couple of the female firies, but yeah, there’s lots of testosterone at the fire station.”
Testosterone. Mick has it, in plentiful supply. But he isn’t above shampooing a woman’s hair, and making a fine job of it. His hands are like his lips. Soft but strong, gentle but deft.
I sigh with pure enjoyment.
When he eases my head back and rinses the suds out, I regret the end of the massage. “I always shampoo twice,” I tell him. It’s only the truth, after all.
“I can arrange that.” He lathers up again, and repeats the shampoo massage. I let him support most of the weight of my tired head and think blissfully that I could handle hours and hours of this. Day after day. I yawn again and close my eyes.
Somehow I manage to stay on my feet as he rinses my hair again, then soaps my body. I’m grateful he doesn’t linger too long on my erogenous zones. I don’t have the energy for more sex, no matter how wonderful it might be.
Dimly I’m aware of him saying, “You’re asleep on your feet.” And of turning off the shower and drying me with a big towel. Then he hoists me into his arms and next thing I know I’m sinking down between navy cotton sheets, rolling over, feeling his warmth spoon against my back and…I’m gone.
When I wake, it happens slowly. I’m aware of a sense of well-being, comfort. Smugness, like I’ve done something wonderful.
Gradually, awareness seeps in, like a movie being rewound in slow motion. The sleeping man beside me. Amazing sex in the shower. The motorbike ride. The hospital—oh God, Nana!
5
I jerk up in bed. Is Nana okay? What time is it? Light streams through the window, so at least it’s still daytime. Mick’s bedside table holds a clutter of newspapers