Page 16 of The Smokejumper's Lady
He breathes in slowly, eyes scanning the low ceiling for a beat before answering. “Lost my little brother in a house fire when I was eighteen.”
Oh.
My chest tightens, my heart aching for him.
“We were supposed to be home together,” he says quietly. His voice is even, but there’s something raw beneath it. “I left to hang with some friends. He fell asleep watching cartoons. A faulty wire sparked. He didn’t make it.”
“Ryan…” I reach for his hand, threading my fingers with his instinctively. “I’m so sorry.”
He nods once, like he’s heard that a million times. Maybe he has.
“I wanted to fight back,” he says. “Against something. Anything. It felt like if I couldn’t save him, I could at least save someone else. I didn’t care how dangerous it was.”
My throat tightens. I see him so differently now…more than just brawn and sex and adrenaline. He’s grief and purpose. He’s loss transformed into fire.
“You did save someone else,” I whisper, looking into his eyes, hoping he believes every word I say, because I mean them. “You saved me.”
He meets my eyes, and something shifts. Something hungry and unspoken.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “I did.”
A moment passes. He reaches up, fingers brushing through my hair again. It’s soft now, almost dry, and I lean into the touch like a cat begging to be petted. His hand slides around to the back of my neck, warm and sure, and I close my eyes.
I shouldn’t feel this safe. This seen. Not this fast.
But I do.
I shift closer, my cheek resting against his bare chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart under my ear. His skin is warm, rough with faint stubble where his collarbone dips.
“You’re different from what I expected,” I whisper.
He huffs a quiet laugh. “You expected a caveman.”
“I mean…” I grin against his chest. “You did almost maul me on a medical cot earlier.”
His hand finds my hair again, stroking through the damp strands. “You didn’t exactly say no.”
I hum. “No. I didn’t.”
He pauses his strokes, then shifts slightly, pulling away just enough to reach for something on the nearby table. I don’t see what it is at first, until I hear the clink of ice in the tin cup we used earlier. He plucks out a single cube and gently places it on my collarbone.
I jolt slightly, a gasp slipping free. “What the—?”
“Just trying something,” he says, his voice husky with something that tugs at the strings in my core.
“Is that so?”
The chill is already spiking through me, a stark contrast to the way my blood simmers underneath. After the heat of the fires, the sharp cold sensation is lighting up my body in ways I never would have expected.
Ryan runs the ice down, slow and unhurried, tracing a path from my collarbone to the curve of my shoulder that’s exposed by the wide collar of my shirt. My skin pebbles in its wake, and every nerve lights up like it’s been plugged into a generator.
I don’t look away.
I can’t.
The cube circles my neck, trailing under my jaw, and then he leans in, his mouth following the path he’s carved, his warm lips grazing over my chilled skin. The contrast is almost unbearable.
“Ryan…”
