Crash Lights and Sirens, Book 1 Page 8

  There’s nothing for it. “Ready?” he asks, as if he hasn’t been the one finding other things to do.

  “Oh, um.” Taryn grins when she pivots away from the windows and finds him watching, raking a hand through her messy hair. She looks how Nick feels, red faced and wobbly. “Sure. Lead the way.”

  We could do it anyway, Nick promised her. Hang out.

  He takes her upstairs without another word, their feet sinking into the faded Chinese runner that Nick hasn’t gotten around to ripping out yet. Maddie’s wheelchair used to catch on the edges. There’s a skylight filtering sun all through the hallway, but the bedroom is dim for the middle of the day, east-facing windows and the blinds drawn. Nick made the bed this morning, even going so far as to rustle up some clean sheets. The entire time, he was acutely aware of what he was doing and why.

  “You sure?” That’s Falvey, stalled out in the doorway. She’s shoved her hands back in her pockets. “Because I’d totally understand if—”

  “Falvey.” His voice is steady, considering. It’s the voice he uses when he’s training, burn sheets and car wrecks, just stay calm and do what I say. “Get in the bed.”

  Falvey looks at him for another second, like she’s weighing her options.

  Then she gets.

  Nick exhales. “Come here,” he says, once she’s sitting on the edge of the mattress, chewing her bottom lip like possibly she’s trying to take it clean off. He props her foot on his thigh and unlaces her boots quick and efficient, just the same as he did in the Tahoe the other night.

  Well. Her hands behind her on the comforter, this triangle quilt Maddie’s mom gave them when they were first married—

  Not exactly the same.

  Nick pulls the boots off and her socks for good measure, a hot pink pair with hearts on them that hit below her ankles and look like they possibly belong to a middle-schooler. “They’re my sister’s,” she confirms when he raises his eyebrows.

  Nick smirks, grateful for even a momentary distraction. “S’a good look on you.” She’s got pretty feet, pale and painted, dark polish on her nails. He presses experimentally at her instep, and Taryn breathes in.

  “Jesus,” she tells him, wiggling her toes until he digs his thumb in again, harder this time. “Forget whatever else you were planning. You wanna just do that all afternoon, that’s fine too.”

  “Oh yeah?” He would, is the truth; not all afternoon, maybe, but honestly he just likes having his hands on her body. Nick rubs for another minute, then squeezes her calves and palms up the backs of her legs, the warm bend behind her knees. He gets closer, sets her feet on his hips and drops forward to kiss her. “You sure?”

  “Well.” Taryn grins for the first time since he brought her up here as he reaches for the waistband of her jeans, touching along the flat line of her stomach. Nick can feel the muscles jump right through her shirt. “Maybe don’t forget altogether.” She sinks back onto her elbows to give him room, watching curiously as he pops the button and lifting her ass so he can peel them down her legs. Her thighs are the same freckly pale as the rest of her. She’s got a motherfucker of a scar on one knee. “Fell,” she says, when she catches him looking. “When I was a kid.”

  Nick nods. It’s her don’t you dare be curious about me voice, same as when he asked about her brothers in the car the other day. Well, he is curious about her, worse and worse the more time they spend together, but he’s also not an idiot, and so he doesn’t follow up. Instead he drops to his knees on the carpet so he can get his mouth on the inside of her thigh, planting a kiss way down low. Her underwear’s a charcoal-gray cotton, and damp.

  When he tries to kiss lower, Falvey damn near kicks his head off. “Hang on,” she pants, bending one leg up to press those polished toes against his shoulder. Nick backs off obediently and she follows him, scooting her ass to the very edge of the bed and reaching down for his Henley. Once that’s off she goes for his belt too, resting her head on his shoulder as she bends. Nick chuckles, standing up to help her.

  “In a hurry?” he teases, gathering her tangled hair into a makeshift bun. She’s got handfuls and handfuls of the stuff, soft and thick. Nick knows from experience the baby fuzz around the temples frizzes up like anything when she sweats.

  Falvey nips at his abdomen, not entirely nicely. “Shut up,” she huffs, shucking his jeans. “Last time you got the full floor show and I got nothing. I’m just making it even.”

  Nicks rubs at the tip of one pale ear for a moment, not saying anything. She’s got a real thing about even, he’s noticed, gas money and first moves and orgasms. And now, apparently, nudity. It’s not something Nick loves, the keeping score.

  But. He also doesn’t want to lose the lighter mood.

  “The full floor show, huh?” he asks, letting her reach down and do his socks too. “What is this, a Chippendales?” She’s left his boxer-briefs on so far, although she is definitely not shy about butting her head against his fly while she pulls off the socks. Nick sucks in a breath, and she does it again. “Besides,” he pants when she sits up and stops horsing around. “I think you got a pretty good look the first time.”

  Too late he wonders if it’s a mistake to keep bringing it up, the night of the fire and everything that came after. But Falvey just grins at him. “You were covered in soot,” is all she says, leaning back on her hands and taking a long, obvious look. “Plus it was dark. Speaking of, go open the blinds or something. I wanna see.”

  Nick raises his eyebrows, fighting down a smile. Fuck, he really—he likes this girl. It’s getting to be a problem. “Bossy,” he tells her, only then he does exactly what she says. He wants to see too.

  Taryn’s stripped off her tank by the time he turns back around, staticky hair and a plain black bra that stands out like ink against her skin. The sudden wash of sunlight looks like it’s lighting her up from the inside out, every single freckle etched in sharp relief. She’s the brightest thing in the entire room, no question. Not that it’s any real contest, Nick guesses, dull bedspread and faded pink carpet, those graying cabbage roses on the wall, but God. For a second he honestly just stares.

  Falvey’s staring a bit herself. “Okay, yeah,” she says, laughing. “That’s—yeah.” She waves a hand. “Come over here.”

  So. Nick comes.

  He gets his knees on the mattress and crawls up her body, laces his fingers with hers on either side of her head. The old bed frame creaks under their weight. Taryn squeezes tight, which surprises him—he wouldn’t have guessed in a million years she was the type to like having her hand held. In any case, Nick squeezes back.

  They stay like that for a minute, weak-tea sun streaming in through the picture window and him dropping featherlight kisses down her sternum and along the line of her practical bra. He really, really likes how she smells. He stays between her breasts for an extra beat to breathe her in more, nudging his face against the vanilla-soft skin there and feeling the fast, thready tap of her heart against his cheek. Taryn scritches her short fingernails through his hair.

  “So I lied,” she tells him breathlessly, gasping as he bites at her nipple through the fabric. Nick wants her naked and to draw this out as long as possible in equal amounts. “I didn’t actually come here ’cause I have a huge thing for Kevin Garnett.”

  He licks down her rib cage, circles her navel. “Oh no?” he asks casually, biting again.

  “Nope.” Falvey’s hips are moving now, impatient just like earlier on the sofa. She’s pressed against his chest and squirming, like she’s looking for someplace to grind. “I actually like Paul Pierce way better.”

  “Clever.” Nick drops down closer. He can smell her through the cotton of her underwear, clean and private and animal. He pushes his tongue at the damp spot, and Taryn jumps. The thin elastic waistband is slipping and he pulls it even farther, tugging it down over the jut of her hips. He means to get two fingers inside her, show her exactly what he thinks of her little comedy routine, but he gets caught up short, su
cking in a noisy breath when he sees how bare and smooth she is.

  “Jesus, Falvey,” he mutters, shaking his head as he drags the panties all the way down to her ankles. He liked the hair between her legs, fuck, all that pretty coppery-gold, but. He likes this too.

  I imagined it, she told him the other night in the backseat of the Tahoe. Nick thinks of her doing this before she came over here, if not for him exactly then knowing he was going to see it, and feels himself get even harder than he already is.

  Falvey’s just grinning, meanwhile, knees slightly bent and one of them rocking back and forth. Nick can see where she’s pink and swollen, but barely; he reaches down and wraps a hand around her ankle, spreads her open himself.

  She’s slick, he can see that clear as day with the blinds up. Nick’s about to give her a hard time, lick everywhere but where she wants it, when he realizes something. “Falvey,” he starts, peering at all that newly exposed skin. “Is this gonna be…?” He backs off and drags his day-old stubble against her inner thigh to demonstrate, watching it burn up pink right away. She marks up so easily, Christ, all that delicate redhead skin. It’s possible Nick remembered and didn’t shave on purpose, that night in the truck and how much he liked seeing her chest and neck go red from him. He never once anticipated that she’d—God. Completely bare like that, it’s gonna hurt.

  “Oh.” Falvey doesn’t look so smug anymore, up on her elbows to watch him. Nick’s about to call it quits and just start fingering her when she speaks up again. “It’s okay, that’s not— I like it.” Right after she says it, that bottom lip gets tucked between her teeth, like she’s thinking about taking it back. Too late, because Nick heard. He definitely, definitely heard.

  “Sure,” he says evenly, trying not to act like a guy who feels like the top of his own head is about to come off. Only then he tests it out, rubbing his scratchy chin against that soft, white skin. Just to see what she’ll do.

  Whimper, as the answer turns out. More than whimper really, this truly desperate sound Nick’s never heard from her before, knees thudding to either side on the mattress like she’s begging for more of it. She wants it, Jesus, rough and—yeah. Nick loses his cool then.

  All told, he convinces her to get pretty loud, sloppy sucking at her clit and the entire lower half of his face gone wet. No finesse at all, but it doesn’t seem to matter. The whole production takes maybe two minutes from start to finish, tops.

  “Oh my God,” Taryn pants when she’s through, tugging at him. “Come up here. Nick, Nick, come up here.” She’s not even really done, Christ—Nick can still feel her twitching against his chin—but hearing his name like that is a pretty good incentive to move.

  She muscles him down tight as soon as he’s in reaching distance, a look on her face like maybe she just shocked herself. Nick lets her manhandle him, skinny arms and legs, all this surprising strength he knows she has from watching her handle a stretcher alone. Most paramedics retire by age forty from back injuries, a statistic Falvey seems determined to join.

  “You okay?” he asks, kissing her jaw. Taryn nods, head tucked into his neck. Nick’s going to lighten the mood then, tease her maybe, but then he catches a glance down between their bodies—already, fuck, already she’s turning pink everywhere his stubble touched—and what comes out instead is, “You like that, huh?”

  Taryn rolls her eyes. “I mean,” she starts, and Nick’s waiting for the inevitable smartass comment, but she changes course midsentence and makes a face at herself instead, like she’s embarrassed. She shrugs once, this fast up and down into the pillows. “Pretty much, yeah.”

  Nick nods. It feels strangely like he’s won something, that she’s willing to make herself even that vulnerable, to admit even that much to him out loud. She’s a hard nut to crack, this girl. “Okay,” he says, dragging her lower lip down so he can kiss her, the pad of his thumb skating along the sharp ridge of her bottom teeth. “Good.”

  For a minute they just lie there and stare at each other, Falvey’s hair red and wild and this honest-looking expression on her face he’s never seen before, like if he pressed her she might tell him a secret. Then she blinks and it’s gone. “Okay,” she announces loudly, the fucking Celtics breaking a huddle at the end of halftime. She reaches down and yanks at the waistband of his boxers, sliding her hand inside. “Come on.”

  So. Moment over then. Nick groans as she wraps her small fist around the width of him, dragging her hand up to circle the slippery head and using the other to tug the cotton down over his hips. He pushes himself into her touch even as he’s working one hand underneath her to get to the hooks on her bra. For a second they’re a tangle of limbs and underwear, Falvey giggling like she’s really into this fun game the two of them are playing. After that, they’re a hundred percent naked in his bed.

  They stop for another second, Taryn’s eyes flicking fast up and down his body and Nick fully aware that he’s staring at her golden-pink nipples and not being able to do hell of a lot to stop himself. Her chest is moving hard with the force of her breath. Taryn breaks first, which shouldn’t surprise him. “Move,” she says, shoving him onto his back so she can investigate more thoroughly, swinging one leg up and over so she’s straddling his waist. His hands migrate to her thighs all on their own. “Tell me you came prepared this time,” she orders.

  Nick laughs. “In the nightstand,” he says, letting her go for them on her own. She’ll appreciate the opportunity to snoop, he thinks, not that there’s really anything for her to find in there. Also, her up on all fours and reaching off the edge of the bed is—Jesus. It is a view. She’s got a tattoo at the small of her back, what he thinks is a pair of antlers, ram’s horns maybe. He noticed it way back on the night of the fire, didn’t get a good look at until now. “What’s that?” he asks, leaning forward to trace it with one finger.

  Taryn snorts. “S’a tramp stamp,” she says, reaching back to brush his hand away. “Don’t look.” Then, glancing over her shoulder and grinning at him, kind of sheepishly, “I got it when I was sixteen, like an idiot. I’m an Aries.”

  “I’m a Capricorn.” Nick grins back, nods at the dark-blue ink. “I like it,” he tells her.

  “You would.” Taryn rolls her eyes, turning her attention to the nightstand before he can ask her what that means. “Nerd,” she pronounces right on cue, finding the men’s extra strength body lotion Nick rubs into his hands during the winter months, how they’re constantly removing their gloves to work on patients. Taryn’s own hands are rough and red, nails bitten all the way down. Nick likes how they feel against him way too much.

  “I exfoliate too,” he tells her, watching as she looks over the couple paperbacks he keeps on the nightstand, Grisham and a couple of Hardy Boys he got back when they cleaned out his parents’ house, the Greek Orthodox Bible that used to be his mother’s. Finally she comes back to straddle him, dropping the foil packet on his abdomen and leaning in for a kiss. Nick hands it back to her when she pulls away, closing her fingers around it. “See if you can’t handle that.”

  Falvey smirks, ripping open the packet and wrapping her small, chapped fist around him again, jacking hard. She does it for way longer than she needs to, past the point of fully erect until Nick’s leaking pretty seriously, bucking up into her hand. She’s got a mean streak, no question, watching his face like she’s looking to prove a point.

  Nick breathes. “Okay, can you just—” He reaches between her legs to retaliate, all that roughed-up smooth skin. Falvey hisses when he finds her clit, scooting up higher to hover over her working hand, close enough that the head of his cock is almost touching her body on the downstroke. The condom is still tucked up inside her fist.

  “Are you, um…” Taryn gulps, thighs shaking. “Are you, like, clean? Because I’m on the pill and…” She trails off, looking down at herself. Nick catches her meaning just fine.

  God. He’s mostly used to the latex now, twice with her and once with the private-school teacher from Great Barrington,
but he remembers what it felt like with Maddie, and anyone who tells you it isn’t better without is fucking lying. “I’m clean, yeah,” he says, backing off her clit and slipping one finger inside. She’s so crushingly warm, all that slick, gripping muscle.

  “Okay.” Falvey bites her lip, fucking herself down to the second knuckle. “So am I. And I mean—I trust you if you trust me.”

  Nick cups her with his whole hand. She’s messier without the hair, wet all the way down to the crease of her thighs. “I trust you,” he says.

  “Okay,” Taryn repeats, breathless. The condom gets dropped to the bedspread as she reaches down to line them up. Nick moves his hand so she can do it properly, every sensation amped up to eleven without the barrier. “It feels really good like this,” she promises him, just before she sinks down. “Feels awesome.”

  Awesome is one way to describe it, Nick guesses. Christ God, her mutable eyes half-lidded as she works herself open on him, way slower than the other night in the Tahoe and how that plus how bare she is means he can watch her take every single inch. It’s not until she bottoms out that he realizes he’s been holding his breath the entire time. “Okay?” he asks, once he trusts his own voice not to screw with him. She’s stretched ridiculously tight around his cock.

  Taryn’s eyes open wide and sudden, like she just performed a magic trick and she’s holding for applause. “Yeah,” she says, nodding hard and fast. She moves on him, experimental, pulling halfway off and sinking back down. Something hits for her, that same spot from the other night maybe, and she lets out a sharp, wordless sound. “Yeah, that’s—um.” Taryn’s spine arches, like she’s angling for more of it. “That’s good.”

  “Good.” Nick lets her set the pace, this slow, heavy rhythm and the lean muscles in her thighs flexing under his hands. The soles of her feet are cold when they brush his calves. He slides his palms up her rib cage till he gets to her breasts, thumbing at the nipples so they’re standing up swollen and stiff.