The voice note arrives seconds later.
“Don’t even need to look at the screen to picture your mouth. I know the sound you make when you’re about to come, I can hear it. And yeah—I jerked off to that just now and I’m telling you anyway. Because it’s not enough.”
I send him back a video of just my hand, sliding the purple vibrator between my thighs. My voice is breathy but clear.
“I missyourmouth. Miss your cock. Miss the way you say my name right before you come.” A soft moan. “And I miss how you never stop until I beg.”
The responding phone call is immediate, and I answer it on a breathy sigh.
“Fuck, Frankie.” A shaky inhale. “I’m gonna tie you up the second I get my hands on you. Plug in. Legs spread. Slapping that pretty little pussy until you scream.”
I come hard not long after, but it’s not enough, not the same. But I fall asleep smiling, but I want his arms around me, his breath skating out in even beats on the back of my neck.
New Year's Eve
My suitcase is half-packed before I admit what I’m doing.
I stare at the pile of clothes, my laptop, the folder of unfinished design work. I bite my lip. He doesn’t know I’ve booked my train ticket.
By the time I make it into Maplewood, it’s already dusk. Snowflakes drift lazily from the sky, the kind that shimmer under the streetlights.
My breath clouds as I walk, dodging families headed toward the lake, and my stomach is a goddamn mess of nerves and anticipation.
It’s freezing—the kind of cold that bites your cheeks and seeps into your fingertips—but I don’t feel it. Not really. Not when I’m walking toward the lake, not when I know he’s down there.
A crowd’s already gathered. Families, couples, groups of teens flinging snowballs toward the lake’s edge.
Bonfires glow along the perimeter, casting orange embers up into the sky, and the sound system’s playing some kind of retro dance track that thumps beneath the crowd’s laughter.
He’s easy to find. Standing with a couple other firefighters, tossing salt onto a slick patch of the path and laughing at something one of the others said.
He’s in uniform pants, his fire department jacket half-zipped, and a knit beanie pulled low over his ears.
My heart thumps wildly as I cup my hands around my mouth, and yell across the snow-covered clearing.
“Hey, Fireboy! You lose another snowball fight?”
His head whips around, and he freezes for a split second, then he’s moving.
No hesitation, no slow smile or drawn-out reunion. Heruns.And when he reaches me, he doesn’t stop, just scoops me right off the ground, hauling me against his chest.
“Fuck me, you’re actually here,” he breathes into my neck. “I thought you couldn’t come.”
“I lied,” I say into his coat, fingers fisting the thick fabric. “And you bought it.”
He pulls back, eyes skating over my face like he’s trying to memorize it all over again. His nose is red from the cold, cheeks flushed, hair slightly wind-tousled under his beanie.
“You’re fucking perfect,” he mutters.
I grin. “Little dramatic.”
“Not even close.”
“You said you’d combust without me,” I shrug. “Figured I’d better prevent a city-wide emergency.”
He just stares at me, then muttersfuck, and drags me in by the coat.
The kiss is fire.
