Page 33 of Tasting Fire
His dark blond hair stood out in rebellious little tufts, and he’d pushed one of Miss Joan’s old quilts down his torso, baring the golden perfection of his chest. Emmy had never wanted to palpate an abdomen as badly as she wanted to scrutinize Cash’s six-pack. The line of hair trailing from his stomach downward mesmerized her. He’d taken off his shirt. What else had he shucked last night? Pants? Underwear?
None of your nosy business, Emmy Lou.
Oh, but she wanted it to be her business.
Her very up-close-and-personal business.
Turn away while you still can.
Yeah, she needed something else to focus on besides the delicious Cash Kingston body buffet. Her elbow grazed the slab of eggplant bread from Cash’s mom. Hmm. Maybe it could be salvaged.
Emmy hopped up and rummaged around in the tiny kitchen until she found a serrated knife. She unwound the multiple layers of plastic wrap protecting the bread and set to slicing it.
What she concluded was that it would probably be easier to saw through the human sternum with a grapefruit spoon. Still, she kept at it until half the loaf was sliced and her hand was numb from pressing the knife so hard. She dropped four slices into the toaster and clicked the lever.
By the time it popped—sluggishly—back up, she had small plates, butter, and muscadine jelly at the ready. She looked over her shoulder, but Cash hadn’t moved other than the arm that had been flung over his head was now angled across his belly, with his other hand burrowed under the covers. Between his legs.
Oh. She imagined her own hand resting—or working away—in that same spot. Suddenly, the heat she was feeling had nothing to do with the bright red toaster coils.
She forced herself to turn back to the so-called toast and slapped butter and jelly on the crispy pieces. To choke that down, Cash would need some liquid assistance, so she made two cups of coffee in the single-serve machine Grif had left behind in the apartment, bless him.
It made her realize she had no idea how Cash took his coffee or if he even drank it. They hadn’t been big coffee consumers when they were teenagers.
She carried a plate and cup over to the couch and waved the coffee close to Cash’s face.Boom!His eyes opened. Guess that answered the question about his coffee preferences.
“Gimme,” he said, trying to sit up and reach for the cup in one movement. But he stalled out mid-move when he realized one of his hands was tangled under the blanket. A trail of pink inched its way up his throat, and Emmy glanced down at his lap.
“You might need both your hands for that.” Because it was now clear that he’d woken with a skyscraper of an erection.
“Shit.” He jerked his hand from under the covers. Not looking Emmy in the face, he reached for the coffee. With the other hand.
A little surprised at his embarrassment, based on what they both did for a living, she plopped down by his hip, forcing him to angle farther into the couch. She sipped her coffee nonchalantly. “One time, a guy walked into the ER—well, I should say he waddled into the ER—with, as he said, ‘a little something going on down there.’ Turned out he had chronic epididymitis. Let me tell you, everyone on shift wanted to get a look at those baseball-sized testicles.”
“Poor bastard.” Cash snorted into his cup. “Have you ever wondered if there’s something wrong with us, people who get their jollies from other people’s pain?”
“Oh, I don’t wonder. I know. But as one of the nurses at BaltGen used to say, ‘You know shit’s gonna go down, so why not wish for it to go down whileyou’reworking?’”
“Yeah, we are all kinds of wrong.”
Emmy focused on the plate she’d set on the low coffee table. “Why did you become an EMT, Cash?” After all, he’d never expressed interest in the medical field when they were younger. That had always been her dream. His only passion had been football, and Mrs. Southerland had helped him land a scholarship to NC State.
“Turns out, it’s one of the professional-type jobs a guy can actually get with a GED.”
His words hit Emmy and froze her muscles. He hadn’t taken part in their high school graduation ceremony, but she’d never realized he hadn’t actually graduated. She knew she’d gutted him when she rejected his proposal, but even love shouldn’t throw someone for that big of a loop. “You… decided to quit high school six weeks before graduation? How did I not know that?”
“Because I didn’t want you to.” His smile was nostalgic and a little sad. “Turned out for the best, really. I wasn’t cut out for college.”
“But you obviously completed EMT and paramedic coursework.” Not to mention firefighting and tactical medicine training.
“Compressed programs with a fucking point to them. I’m not as patient as you. I couldn’t have done four years, then med school, and all that other bullshit.”
Yeah, the timetable wasn’t for everyone. She’d worked with a number of nurses, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants who would’ve made better doctors than the doctors they worked beside. Hell, many of them were better and more knowledgeable than the doctors. But for whatever reason, they’d decided the med school route wasn’t for them.
“How did your family feel about your decision not to go on to college?”
“We’re not exactly a homogenous crew, now are we? Maggie’s the high-achieving firstborn. Shep was homeschooled. Riley’s the most educated by far. Way’s…well, Way is Way.”
She’d missed his offbeat family. Cash’s house had always been a bit chaotic, but that was to be expected in a family with five kids. They’d maintained a loose structure because Shep’s Asperger’s demanded it. But otherwise, they were like a big pile of puppies. Lots of yapping, playing, and rough-housing.
