I put the truck in park and really considered the question. "Patient. Funny. The kind of guy who would give you his last dollar if you needed it, but would lecture you for an hour about being more careful with money." I smiled at the memory. "He used to say that being a firefighter wasn't about being brave — it was about being too stubborn to quit when things got scary."
"Sounds like where you get it from."
"The stubbornness? Definitely." I pulled back onto the road, heading toward downtown. "What about you? What were your parents like?"
"Good people. My mom's a second-grade teacher who still sends care packages to her former students when they go to college. My dad teaches high school history and coaches JV baseball. They're the kind of people who have never missed a school play or a parent-teacher conference."
"Sounds nice."
"It was. Is." Jimmy paused. "They worry about me, though. Think I'm wasting my potential by 'just' being a nurse."
"That's ridiculous."
"I know. But they come from a generation where success was measured by how far up the ladder you climbed, not by how much good you did on the way."
I turned onto the main drag, where the bars and restaurants were just starting to come alive for the evening. "There's this place I like," I said, nodding toward a dive bar with a neon sign that flickered intermittently. "Best beer selection in the city, and they don't water down their whiskey."
Jimmy looked at the bar, then at me, and I saw something shift in his expression. "Izzy."
"Yeah?"
"I don't really want a drink right now."
The way he said it, low and rough, made heat pool in my stomach. "No?"
"No." His hand found my thigh, fingers tracing small circles through my jeans. "I want to see your place. I want to see where you live, where you sleep, where you feel safe."
I was already making a U-turn, heading back toward my apartment. "Good," I said, pressing down on the accelerator. "Because I want to show you."
My apartment had never felt smaller than it did with Jimmy init, but not in a bad way. In a way that made me hyperaware of every space, every surface, every possibility.
"It's very you," he said, taking in the clean lines, the functional furniture, the complete absence of clutter.
"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"
"It's perfect." He turned to face me, and I saw something in his eyes that made my pulse quicken. "It's honest. No pretense, no trying to be something you're not."
I stepped closer, backing him toward my bedroom. "Speaking of honest..."
"Yeah?"
"I've been thinking about getting you out of those clothes since we left your place."
His laugh was low and rough. "Have you now?"
"Mmhmm." I pushed him gently onto my bed, climbing up to straddle his hips. "I've been thinking about a lot of things."
"Such as?"
Instead of answering, I pulled my shirt over my head, watching his eyes go dark as he took in the sight of me above him. This was different from the slow, tender exploration at his place. This was hunger, pure and simple.
"Such as this," I said, and leaned down to him deeply, savoring the taste and feel of him beneath me. His hands roamed over my bare skin, igniting sparks wherever they touched. The slow, tantalizing friction between our bodies had me aching for more.
He sat up slightly, lips dragging down my neck, murmuring something incoherent against my skin. I shifted to straddle him more firmly, guiding him with a practiced hand as I lowered myself onto him, inch by delicious inch. He gasped, hands gripping my hips as he filled me completely.
We paused there for a moment, both of us adjusting to the sensation. Then I began to move, slowly at first — rocking my hips in a rhythm that was more teasing than anything else. He met mymovements with increasing urgency, his fingers digging into my skin as he whispered my name like a prayer.
The room around us faded into the background. There was only the heat of our bodies, the ragged cadence of our breathing, the wet, needy sound of our connection. Every movement drew a new sound from him, every grind of my hips pushing him closer to the edge.
