Consumed

Danny lifted his head. Just as she was about to tell him she had to go, he started moving again, deep inside, slower this time. The thrusts were hell and heaven combined, and there was a challenge to in his eyes, like he knew she was going to downplay the sex.

Something that would have been easier if it didn’t feel so right.

But the sensations were the only thing that made any sense.

Closing her lids, she fell back into the abyss, her body taking over, her brain taking a seat in the waiting room. God knew there was going to be plenty of time to ruminate over the stupids she was rocking. For the moment, she might as well just feel him.

And God knew there was so much of Danny to feel.

He was so big and heavy, and all that mass and weight was part of the appeal. Built as she was, Anne didn’t feel dainty very often—and that little-girl-needing-rescue stuff wasn’t something she was interested in anyway. But there was something erotic about being under something the size and power of Danny—

From out of nowhere, an image of them in the fire together barged in, their eyes meeting through their oxygen masks, the fire roiling across the ceiling, the danger and isolation so real.

I love you.

As the words ricocheted around her head, she pushed at his shoulders, but it was too late. She was orgasming again, the release taking over everything. Tears, unexpected and unwelcomed, pricked her eyes and she blinked to clear them.

Danny’s big body churned above hers, and a panic that he might see her cry took her out of the sex, trapping her inside her head.

The truth was, he mattered too much to her just like she mattered too much to him. And so this collision was a recipe for disaster that was somehow totally inevitable.

When he finally went still, she was breathing hard, but not from exertion. And she decided to count to twenty in hopes she didn’t look as frantic as she was.

She made it to fourteen. “I have to go.”

Danny’s head dropped into her shoulder. “Okay. Yeah. Sure.”

Just as she was about to push at his shoulders, he moved back. And still she scrambled out from underneath him, barely giving him time to stand.

As soon as she was on the vertical, she was reminded that there had been no condom and she moved quickly to the bathroom, shutting herself in. There was a roll of toilet paper on the sink counter and she unraveled some around her fin, wadded it up, and tucked it between her thighs.

Out in the hall, she walked stiffly into the kitchen. She’d worn a thong with her leggings and put that on quick to hold things in place. She felt better when she was fully dressed, and it was only then that she went back to the sitting room.

She would rather have left without saying a word.

Then again, she had expected him to come out. And the fact that he didn’t made her uneasy, although that was part of the long list of things she didn’t want to examine too closely.

Coming back to the archway, she looked at him. He was where she’d left him, sitting on the sofa, his hair a mess. He’d done his jeans back up, thank God.

She remembered walking in on him the other night, those tattoos out on display for an audience he had not anticipated.

“I know,” he said roughly. “You don’t have to repeat it.”

“What.”

“Just one night. Only once.” He exhaled as if he were smoking, except there was nothing lit in his hand, no haze in the air. “We did that last time we had sex.”

Anne felt like she should apologize, but come on. They were two consenting adults, and he was right. That was exactly what she was going to tell him.

“I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

His laugh was sharp. “Yeah.”

Anne turned away. “Take care of yourself.”

She headed for the door, expecting to be called back at any moment. But he let her go—and as she stepped out into the cold, she told herself that was what she wanted.

“It is, damn it,” she muttered as she got into her Subaru.

Behind the wheel, she sat and stared out the windshield. A pain behind her sternum had her do an internal myocardial infarction inventory, but there was no nausea, left-arm pain, or dizziness. So she wasn’t having a heart attack.

She just hurt in a place that had been silent for a very long time. But that didn’t change anything. What had just happened between them was rooted in the past, in ten months ago, in a fire that had long ago been extinguished, not even the embers burning.

It had been . . . a physical release of all that emotion stirred up by the rescue call.

No implications further than that.

Starting the car and putting it in reverse, she found poetic justice in pulling out of his driveway backward—as if she could unmake the decision to go into that dark apartment with Danny. She didn’t remember the trip home. One second she was K-turning in front of the duplex. The next, she was parking at her house.

Letting herself inside, she was so glad she had Soot to look after. Otherwise, she was liable to pace around and clean something that was already clean.

Soot got up in his crate as she came in, his bony tail rattling the links.

“Hey, big man.” Crouching down, she let him out. “How about a piddle?”

She expected him to go immediately to the back door. Instead, he took his big head and rubbed it on her hand, her torso, the outside of her leg. Putting her arm around him, she gave him the space to circle. And circle. And circle.

Under her palm, his short fur was smooth and warm, and she loved the feel of him pushing into her.

“I’m glad to see you, too,” she said hoarsely.

Chapter 22

Midmorning the following day, Anne left the office and went downtown to the registry of deeds. Parking between a Chevy Equinox and a truck that had rusted lace around its wheel wells, she got out and walked up to a building that was right out of the seventies. Floor after floor of individual windows were covered by a superfluous lattice of grungy concrete that was about as attractive as those plaid suits with huge lapels had been.

If it hadn’t been for the set of steps, she would have had no clue where the entrance was.

As she walked into a lobby that was as well-appointed as a Greyhound terminal, she could smell old mold and ancient nicotine. Then again, the fake wood paneling had no doubt been an original installation and the stuff was porous when it came to scents, a jealous guard of dubious treasure.

The registry was on the first floor, and she pushed open a heavy door marked with the city seal and block roman lettering that was flaking off. On the far side, she got a load of the fry-station equivalent of civil servants. The two receptionists, a man and a woman, were seated behind a partition that was like a bank’s, with cutouts to pass papers through and twin computers, and the pair of them looked as if they were along the lines of that not-really-oak paneling: Mr. and Mrs. Anachronism were both in their sixties, with polyester uniforms and the same hair style of a perm pushed back off the face and sprayed into place.

Anne went over to the woman. Because girl power.

“Hi, I’d like to do a records search.” She smiled to seem warm. Nice. Nonthreatening. “It’s on six parcels of property downtown? I have the addresses, but when I tried to get a log-in online, I was denied.”

“Did you call the help line?”

The phone started to ring, and the man next door picked up after three, no, four . . . wait, five rings. “Hello. Help line.”

Anne glanced at him as he doodled on a pad. Looked back at the woman. “Well, it sounds like those calls get answered here.”

“Did you call the help line?”

Is this like a video game where you have to get to the next level? Anne wondered.

“Yes, I did. And I was told to come down here.”

The receptionist over on the phone said in a bored voice, “You’ll have to come down here and get one issued. Our server is down.”

“So that’s why I’m here,” Anne said. “Except if your server’s not working, how will it help to get a log-in?”

The woman took a piece of paper off a stack and slid it across the counter. “Fill this out.”

Anne glanced down. “Can I just go through a physical search?”

“Fine.” The form was retracted and an old-fashioned ledger was pushed across at her. “Sign in. And I’ll need to see your driver’s license.”