I silently vowed that this, this feeling we had when joined together, would be my primary driving force for the rest of my life.
I’d do the job I’d been trained to do. I’d enjoy the job and give it my all, but it would never be more important than Maisey. Never more important than what we were when we were together.
I rolled to my side so I could hold her tighter without crushing her.
“I’ll have to find you an appropriate medal,” she laughed, placing a kiss on my chest. “You definitely delivered as advertised.”
“You rushed me,” I grunted out. “That wasn’t award-deserving, darlin’.”
“Rushed? That was hardly rushed.” She shook her head, her face alight with happiness. And that look, full of satisfaction and love, made me hard all over again. Feeling it pressed against her stomach, her breath hitched in that way that only ignited me more.
“This time”—I rolled so I was on my back, and she was on top—“we’ll start here, and I will taste every single nip and corner of you. I will hear you chant my name at least two more times before we finish.”
She sat up, straddling me, and I shifted so she couldn’t take me in yet. My hands moved, squeezing, twisting, and soothing, and I watched with satisfaction as that blush covered every single inch of her perfect skin, and her pale eyes turned a dark forest green once more. She whimpered in pleasure.
“If you’re successful in your mission, Fireball, I’ll build a monument to you in town.”
I picked her up and centered her core over my mouth. “Challenge accepted, my Maisey-girl. Challenge accepted.”
And I spent the next few hours showing her just how successful I could be.
? ? ?
An incessant buzzing jerked me awake. I wasn’t on duty, but if an all-hands situation came across the wire, I’d be called in anyway. My heart sank at the idea of leaving the hotel room. Leaving her.
With Maisey spooned up against me, her back to my front, I had no desire to move. No desire to know what disaster had struck that required me to answer a call and leave the woman I’d just sworn I’d never be without again.
A second buzzing joined the first. Both our phones were vibrating from wherever we’d left them.
Shit.
I slowly unknotted my arms and legs from hers, rolling off the bed.
I searched the floor for my pants and the phone tucked in the pocket. I glanced back at her as I yanked it out. She’d sat up, and the spun silk of her hair spread around her face and chest. Her eyelids were heavy and sated. All I wanted to do was throw my phone away, crawl back onto the bed, and take her all over again.
“Is that my phone too?” she asked.
I nodded, glancing down at a string of text messages. What I saw had ice hitting my veins.
The calls hadn’t all been from dispatch at the firehouse. Most of them were from Fallon.
Maisey was halfway to me, naked and beautiful, when my gaze lifted from the phone to find hers.
She pressed a hand to her stomach in alarm. “What? What is it?”
I hated that I was going to be the one to not only burst the bubble of love and happiness we’d found but to send her into a spiral of worry and fear.
“It’s your dad. He’s missing.”
She wobbled. I took one stride and caught her before she hit the floor. For two seconds, I made soothing noises, and then she was pushing away, out of my arms, and running to pull her phone from the clutch she’d tossed aside last night.
She’d already dialed as I scrambled into jeans and a T-shirt and began shoving all our items into the luggage.
“Fallon! What happened?” she demanded.
I handed her the first items of clothing I found as Fallon’s voice, full of remorse, came back over the speaker. “I’m not sure, Maisey. Mom said when she went by her guest room this morning, the door was already open. She thought Lewis was in the kitchen, but he wasn’t.”
“He doesn’t have a car with him. Where could he go?” Maisey’s voice cracked, and my heart did right along with it. Her fear and anguish scored the tender pink muscle more than my own would have.