Page 38 of Jack Frost
"I have no choice."
"It's not fair. You need help."
"That's why I'm here. I can feel you, even when I'm out there." He jerks his head toward the blaze. "I think if I can be with you for a few minutes, I'll get some of my strength back."
"I don't want to be your generator. I want to help fight the fires."
"But you can't, without powers." He glances away as if there's something else he wants to say, but he's holding back.
Of course he's right. I'd be worse than useless out there. All I can do right now is support him, and although my feminist self revolts at the idea of playing the backup role, I care about him too much to let my pride get in the way. After all, everyone needs help sometimes. Jack and I seem to take turns assisting each other, and right now he needs me. It's my turn to do something for him.
"What should I do?" I look down at my hands.
"Just—sit with me." He sinks down to the earth, with his back against the tree.
Awkwardly I sit beside him, scooting in until my thigh touches his.
Jack closes his eyes and exhales deeply.
How is he still gorgeous, even with his soot-coated face? Tentatively I trace the angle of his cheekbone, leaving a white line in the wake of my fingertip. His lashes flutter open, and he looks at me with pain-glazed blue eyes.
My heart cracks. In all the world I want nothing more than to ease his pain.
Softly I place both hands on his shoulders, careful of the burns, and I lean in.
His lips taste like embers and ashes and smoke. I kiss him delicately, twice. He sighs, nearly a whimper, helpless and wanting; so the third time I kiss him harder, and I slip my tongue into his mouth. Past the bitterness of the ash is the sweetness and coolness I remember—the essence of him. The taste prickles through me like the tiny points of snowflakes, a tickling, teasing desire waking in all the hollows of my being. I am blue snow glowing white in the starlight, ice turned glittering and transparent under the moon. Eyes closed, heart open, I press my fingers to Jack's cheek and I kiss him with all my soul.
Sometime later, I realize that I'm kneeling between his legs, cupping his jaw with one hand while the other drifts down his chest. Where my knee presses to his crotch, there's an unmistakable hardness.
Flushing, I draw back. He asked me to sit with him, to lend him my energy; and like the nonsensical idiot I am, I decided it was time for a make-out session, and I turned him on in the process.
"I'm sorry," I mutter.
"Emery." He stretches out his arm. "Look."
He's still wounded, but the worst of the burns are no longer raw. They've scabbed over, as if he's days into the healing process. He grins at me. "You have magic."
"No, I don't."
"Humans can't do that, Emery. I've kissed a few since I changed, and they couldn't do this for me."
"Who did you kiss?" I ask, and then I shake my head. "Never mind. I don't have magic, Jack. I'm human."
"Right." He hauls himself upright again, tugging at the tightened crotch of his pants with a smirk. "Well. I should get back to work."
"Likethat?" I wince at the bulge he's sporting.
"Are you offering to take care of it right now? Here? On the edge of a horrible forest fire where homes, lives, and workplaces are being threatened? I don't know about you, but to me that seems wildly inappropriate."
"No—I just—"
"Your concern is appreciated. I'll be fine.For now." At the last two words, his eyes flash with a raw desire that turns me hot. "You're blushing, sweetheart," he says, as snow erupts around his feet again. He ascends, sweeping the frosty wings that have reappeared at his back. "See you soon."
I hurry to the edge of the cliff so I can watch him sail into the fray again; and though I'm delighted that I was able to help him, I'm terrified, too. Terrified that he won't come back. Terrified because this is actual proof that something about me is different. Something inside me reacts with him, has a tangible effect beyond the obvious hard-on. It's weird, and scary, and fascinating.
As I watch the fire roar and advance, and writhe and retreat, I have to admire the skill of the humans who are fighting it. They have no supernatural powers, but they understand the movement of the hungry flames, and they counter as skillfully as possible, determined soldiers in a war against the roaring maw of nature itself. They've done a couple of controlled burns, and now they are working to keep the oncoming inferno from leaping those burnt strips. Jack assists with blasts of icy wind and sprays of sleet.
But behind it all, on the slopes of the mountains, the wildfire rises like a dreadful symphony, orange flames sucking upward into the sky, wavering and dancing and snapping like living figures.
