She dug her heels into the tight flex of his ass, finding the right angle—there, oh, yes—for him to send her flying. He hunched over her, letting go of one wrist so he could find her breast again, tweak that nipple as she arched beneath him.
When she lost control, so did he. He powered into her, his orgasm ripping out of him with a shudder and growly groan, and then he collapsed on top of her.
“God,” he whispered, his mouth hot next to her ear. “Fuck. Ah, fuck, Kerry, I—”
Oh, holy crap, did she know the feeling. She smiled and nodded as her eyes drifted shut.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Three weeks after Thanksgiving,Becca and Hayden moved into an apartment together. The hockey team had unexpectedly come through for them after finding out Hayden was being given a rough time by some of his teammates. The coach argued that players who came to the team from out of town were placed with families—essentially, providing accommodations due to need. Local players stayed with their families, but this was an exceptional circumstance, and the coach happened to own an apartment building. It was a gift that meant Hayden could keep playing without worrying about a job, at least for the winter.
Owen helped them move, and then filled their fridge.
When he got home, his house was just as empty as it had been around Thanksgiving, but he felt differently about it now. It was empty in a forever kind of way, in abuild that home gymkind of way, and he didn’t know if he liked it.
So when he picked Kerry up for dinner a few nights later, and saw a sign that the parking lot would be closed for two weeks for re-paving, he had a Very Good Idea. “You should stay with me while the lot’s being re-done,” he suggested over dessert.
“I can park on Main Street and go up through the clinic,” Kerry said. “It’s fine.”
“Sure.” Owen gave her his most temptingly wicked grin. “It’sfine. But is itfun?”
“Ahh,” she said, catching on. Her eyes twinkled. “Are you lonely?”
“A little. The house is kind of quiet.” He hastened to add, “And I’d love to have you in my bed, all night. I should have led with that.”
“I can come and go, but it would be nice to not have to jostle for parking on the street.”
“You can come and stay, too. Up to you.” But if he could trick her into staying the whole two weeks with good food and great sex, he wouldn’t be above such deviousness.
The next night she showed up with a duffle bag, which he helped her unpack into two drawers he’d cleaned out for her. “You can use the closet in the spare room, too. Or this closet. I can move my shit.”
She hopped up onto his bed, kneeling on it so they were eye-to-eye, and cupped his face in her hands. “I don’t need closet space. It’s all good. Thank you.”
“I want you to be comfortable here,” he said, feeling a bit unsettled. “So you might stay over more often even after you don’t have to.”
She laughed and pulled him down on top of her.
The days slid by in quiet delight. Cooking with another grown-up, who shared his tastes, was totally different than cooking for a picky teenager, even one who ate a ton of vegetables and had turned into a great chef herself.
But Kerry was open to anything, and they lingered at the table, slowly talking as they ate. They discussed everything from their shared politics to very different taste in art, future hypothetical travel and curious food trends—and often, they talked shop. She’d always expressed an interest in emergency response on the interagency working group, but spending most evenings together, for hours, allowed them to dig deeper into spirited explorations of how emergency response ran into primary medical care.
And she griped good-naturedly about some of the EMTs she had run into over her career as a midwife. It wasn’t that uncommon for paramedics to respond to spontaneous deliveries or assist in a birth if a second midwife couldn’t get to a home birth in time. “You know who absolutely gets it? Matt Foster,” she said. “If I see him come through a door, I know my client’s going to be in good hands.”
“He’s one of my best,” Owen said, proudly. “We used to be partners, before I took the supervisor role.”
“I see your influence on him.” She stroked her fingers down his forearm. “I’d like to see you in the field more.”
“Me, too.” Owen blinked. He hadn’t meant to say that.
Kerry cocked her head to the side. “Are you tiring of being a supervisor?”
“I dunno.” He tugged her into his side and rested his chin lightly on her hair. “Maybe.”
That question kept coming back to him over the next week. There were parts of his job that he loved. He liked the sense of responsibility he had for the station as a whole. He loved making dinner for the volunteer firefighters on training nights, and ensuring that his paramedics had the schedules and training support they wanted. He liked knowing everyone was doing okay, and intervening quietly if they weren’t.
But he missed being in an ambulance every day.
When he came home from firefighter training the following week, and found Kerry curled up on his couch, wearing nothing more than a pair of booty shorts and a tiny tank top, there was a little whisper in the back of his mind that he could have more time with her, more time for himself, if he went back to being a regular EMT.
