Sooo, um, do I still apologize for the long break or are we close enough friends that we don't need to do that anymore? As apology, this chapter starts off nice and steamy for you. P.S. if anybody guesses that very real book Quil and Claire are reading, I will love you forever.

When you can't find quite enough air there to breathe, copy how I breathe – "Need You" by Penny & Sparrow

Claire

"You look thoroughly scandalized," Quil says, and I jump out of my skin.

It's a sleepy spring weekend day, the two of us lounging around his place with the windows thrown open as much as the rain will allow. He just got off a shift at the firehouse, and after making an "important stop" on the way home, gave me my first task in the Quil & Claire Sex Games (title's a work in progress, obviously): Read this cute little book with an illustrated cover, borrowed from Nessie Black herself.

"Nessie reads books like this?" I'd said yesterday, flipping it to read the back cover. "I thought she only read books written three centuries ago."

Quil had snorted. "Nessie just reads books. But she said she thought you'd like this one."

I'd stayed the night at his place again, only because by the time I'd managed to drag my attention away from the pages, it was well past midnight, and I couldn't keep my eyes open long enough to drive home.

This morning, when Quil asked what I wanted to do today, I'd looked guiltily toward the book on the end table, and he kissed my hair and went out to get us breakfast.

That was hours ago, and I could hardly stop to eat. There might be grease on the corners.

"It's not even that spicy," I mumble now, shoving my foot into his ribcage.

"Your cheeks are red enough that I have to disagree, sweetheart. Care to share with the class?"

"Not particularly." I try to focus on the page again.

Quil gives me a playful growl, which throws those efforts to concentrate out the window. "Should I read the book, then?"

The idea of this book between his fingers, when they're so talented elsewhere, has my breath stuttering in my chest.

He reaches for it, but I yank it away.

"He—he comes inside her," I blurt, then flush down to my toes.

He strokes a hand over his beard, a playful light in his eyes sparking up. "Is that all it takes to get you going? A well-timed cream pie?"

"Quil!" I can hardly look at him right now. Still, I manage a glance out of the corner of my eye.

His pupils are blown wide. One hand hooks around the nape of his neck. His other tugs at the crotch of his pants.

Oh.

"That's not all that happens," I try, enjoying this game more than I was expecting.

"Oh?" Quil says, the rasp of his voice like sandpaper against all the soft parts of me.

Are we really doing this? Only one way to find out, I suppose. "So he comes—"

"Inside her," Quil interjects unhelpfully.

"Yes," I spit through gritted teeth. I'm already throbbing between my legs, and I attempt to rub them together to relieve the tension. It doesn't help in the slightest. "And then, I don't know? Goes down there to—clean her up, is the word? I guess. I don't know. It sounds sexier in the book. Forget I said anything."

Quil inhales sharply, his gaze trapping mine as he closes the distance between us—and plucks the book from my hand unceremoniously, returning to his end of the sofa.

"Hey," I squeak, but it falls on deaf ears as he begins to read.

I'm torn between—a lot of things, really, as I watch him. Wanting to rip the book from his hands. Feeling the need to disappear into the cushions. Curiosity at his reaction.

He flicks back a few pages— "For context"—and despite my nerves, I'm surprised to find I'm not actually embarrassed. It's Quil. I am always safe with him.

I force my gaze to my phone, checking my notifications, and manage to glance at him only a few more times. The first time, his brow is furrowed in concentration.

The second, he's biting his lip, a stain of pink on his cheeks. The third is when he's handing the book back to me.

Anticipation flutters wildly in my belly. Is he going to try what was on those pages?

He gets to his feet. "You hungry?"

Oh, hell no.

"Not for food." I grab the hem of his shirt and haul him back to me.

We are a flurry of shed clothes and kisses that are more teeth than lips. He's inside me by the time we're in the hallway, my underwear still hooked around my ankle as he fucks me against the wall.

Heat surrounds me, his skin searing mine in all the places we touch. Rough hands tug down my bra, a lip wrapping around my nipple before I process that he's even moved.

My body spirals high and tight and fast, as fast as Quil can move his hips. And like always, he knows my body better than I do.

"Wanna make you come so many times," he grunts. "Please, sweetheart. Give them to me."

"Yes," I breathe. My head thuds against the wall as I throw it back. His hands are on my ass and in my hair and everywhere.

Quil stills, pulling out until just his tip is there, teasing me. Waiting.

I scratch my nails down his back, begging without words for him to continue.

"Touch yourself between those pretty little thighs for me." His tongue wets his bottom lip, and he growls. "So I can focus on filling up your pussy when you come."

My face scalds under his gaze as I pull my hand from his hair and trail my fingers down my torso, then to the throbbing bundle between my legs.

Quil has watched me touch myself a few times—even caught me once when I lost track of time after one of his shifts—but he's never been able to control himself long enough to let me finish on my own. Has always climbed on top of me and finished what I started. My orgasms are his.

Now is no different. With my last intake of breath before I break, he's inside me to the hilt, coming hard like I am. We dip a few inches—his legs are buckling.

He drops his forehead to mine as my fingers still between us. "I love you," he whispers against my lips. Tells me quietly, with a kiss to my nose and a hand that smooths sweaty hair away from my face.

"I love you, too," I say, because my heart is his, too.

Still connected, he carries me to the bedroom, lays me down gently with my head on my pillow. I miss him the second he disconnects us. Will it be like this forever? Wanting him whenever he's not having me?

He sucks a bruise into my ribcage as he explores my body. "I can fucking smell us together, Claire. It's driving me crazy. You're dripping with it. Making a goddamn mess. What did he say in that book of yours?" He grins wickedly from between my spread thighs, and it sends another pulse of want to my core. "'I'll clean you up.'"

I don't even have a chance to be self-conscious before Quil growls.

Growls.

He licks me like he usually does, but knowing he's already fucked me, already come, feels scandalous. He's tasting me, yes, but he's tasting himself too. Does he like it? I like it when the situations are reversed, whenever he pulls out midway through and guides me to my knees to taste my desire on his skin.

His tongue dips inside me as his thumb comes up to part me further, finding my clit with precision.

An unexpected gasp rips from my throat, and I fist my hand in his hair. "Quil. Don't stop."

Quil moans against me, sounding almost pained. "I won't, sweetheart." Another languid lick. "Fuck, I can't."

That—that will do it. Holy shit, that was fast.

I come apart beneath his mouth, and he guides me through it, strumming my clit like a guitar string as his tongue laps up every ounce of wetness between us. Mine or his, it doesn't matter. To either of us.

Quil rides out my waves with me, his kisses turning less frantic, gentler as I come down. Finally, he crawls back up my body, collapsing in the bed next to me.

The silence stretches between us until I can't take it anymore. I blow out a breath so big it flaps my lips. "So there was that."

With a soft chuckle, he turns his head to look at me. "Did you like it?"

"It was… it was different," I decide, leaning over to kiss the tattoo on his shoulder.

"It was," he agrees.

His gaze is playful, like he's withholding his true thoughts.

"How—how did you like it?" I ask, hiding my giddy, sated smile in the curve of his muscle.

He pulls me onto his chest, wrapping his arms around my bare back. He starts tracing letters into my skin, but with pleasure still warming my insides and Quil warming my outsides, I'm suddenly too sleepy to make heads or tails of them.

Quil kisses my forehead again. "Makes me want to read more romance."

Friday the following week, I show up to the firehouse in some old sweats and a t-shirt, toting coffee and ready to be put to work. Brady and Mia are getting married here tomorrow, and even though the venue was nonnegotiable, "it doesn't need to look like a firehouse just because it is a firehouse." Mia's words, not mine.

Quil and the crew have already hung sheets of white tulle across the back wall, where the makeshift altar will be. Chairs are stacked to the side of the room, out of the way until the last second.

"Coffee for you, Squirt," I holler to Colton Tate at the back of the bay, who flips me the bird even as he sets down the equipment he'd been cleaning.

At the mention of coffee, firefighters come out of the woodwork, and Chief even opens the door to his office. Quil files out behind him, and I try to remember if he told me they were meeting today.

"Hey, you," Quil says, pressing a drive-by kiss to my temple before stepping away. He prefers to keep PDA to a minimum while he's at work; Omar was about to mow him down anyway to get his own coffee, so it's for the best.

"It's starting to look great in here," I say, taking in more of the decorations. The kitchen has been cleaned to sparkling and will be set up tomorrow with finger foods and appetizers, enough to feed an army of firefighters. "Mia and Brady?"

"They had to run to the courthouse to get their marriage license," Aaron says.

"Done," Brady himself says as he comes up behind us. "I thought they closed at four, but it's noon on Fridays. My lovely wife reminded me of that."

Mia, who is impossibly pregnant, rolls her eyes, even as she leans into his side. They've never had qualms about publicly displaying their affection. I wouldn't be surprised if the bun in Mia's oven started bakin right upstairs. "Don't call me that yet. It's bad luck."

"Bad luck implies luck in the first place," Brady argues. "But baby, there was no luck in getting you to fall in love with me. That was all skill."

We all groan, and Chief throws his loose coffee top at him.

The speaker sounds, and as the crew listens to the message, I get a flash of something on Mia's face, so quick I can't decipher it before it's disappeared.

"Car went into a river," Quil says softly to me, and my heart drops. At my expression, he's quick to add, "Sounds like passengers already got out, but we need to be on scene to help the tow truck with the water recovery."

Chief nods at his assessment. "Quil, take Omar and Aaron with you. You've got this. We'll stay back."

Quil has gone on a few solo missions before, but this combined with them being in a meeting when I got here has my gears spinning. I make a mental note to ask him about it later.

"Be safe," I say, and Quil squeezes my shoulder before jogging over to the uniform rack alongside Aaron and Omar.

Those who remain move aside as they pull out on the truck, and with coffee in hand we get to work.

Until five minutes later, when the alarm sounds again.

The remaining crew members jump into action, letting me know this call is more serious than the first. The thing about small-town fire departments is they are understaffed and overutilized. If more than one thing pops up at a time, the resource bucket is almost completely emptied.

Chief looks at me, then to Mia and her belly. Back to me. "Claire, did anyone show you how to divert phone calls?"

Mia waves a hand. "Hello? I am right here. I'm not an invalid just because I'm eighty weeks pregnant. I can divert a few phone calls. I've been doing it for months." Mia parks herself behind the desk, crosses her arms across her chest as if it to say, try and stop me.

That problem taken care of, Chief and the rest of the crew climb into the truck and pull out of the bay. The sound of sirens fade, leaving Mia and I in a room filled with awkward silence.

I hand her the only decaf coffee on the tray. "You can still put me to work, if you want."

Mia isn't the type to hand out unearned praise or compliments, which is why I don't take offense to her wary gaze. We've gotten to know each other a little bit over the last few months. As much as her walls will allow her. As much as The Gray will allow me. She shifts in her chair, takes a hesitant sip of coffee.

"Not to go all Cinderella on you, but there's a stain on the floor by where the altar will be. If you wanted to work on that, I would—I would appreciate it."

The floors were scrubbed clean as part of the renovation after Quil won the merit award, so it irks me a bit that there's already a stain.

I hold my tongue. "Sure thing." I grab supplies from the cleaning closet, a few different options in case the stain is stubborn or sticky. Once I've gotten everything set up, I throw another glance at Mia. "Why are you so mean to everyone?"

Even across the room, I see her roll her eyes. "I just told you I appreciated it, and you accuse me of being mean."

"Is it an accusation if it's true?"

"Touché," she grumbles. She's quiet so long I don't think she's going to answer, and I turn my attention to the stain.

"You know I have endometriosis, right?" Mia says, breaking the silence.

I keep my focus on the browning spot on the floor, what I'm guessing is rust or something similar in color. "I did know that. Quil told me. I'm sorry if he wasn't supposed to."

"That's okay. I'm trying to share more about myself, but it's hard. Having endo is not something the world really recognizes as a disability, as a problem. Lots of invisible illnesses are that way."

I think about my depression, and I have to agree.

"I've had to toughen up to be able to take what the world's thrown at me, but I guess somewhere along the way I toughened up too far. I needed people to still take me seriously, not see me for a diagnosis or as weak, because I was in constant, chronic, debilitating pain. I have a tattoo down my spine that hurt less than some of my cramps.

"I took this job because I wanted to be the badass I knew I was, regardless of what my body was telling me. And I love this job, love the action and adventure and helping people on their worst days, but I needed to know that I could do it for me. So, I built walls. I had to protect myself and my feelings, not let anyone else see my weaknesses. But I guess I forgot to build doors into those walls, because I ended up shutting everyone out."

I know a thing or two about building walls of my own. Mia and I have more in common than I realized. "Brady stormed the castle, though. He found a door."

"Brady," Mia sighs, and it's the kind of exasperation that comes from loving someone so much it hurts to think about. "Brady tore down the walls altogether. But that's the thing about love. He sees the most vulnerable parts of me, when I get out of my own way and let him. And every time—every single time—he still thinks I'm strong."

Hadn't Quil done the same thing, chasing me around the world? Holding the weight of my world when I couldn't do it on my own?

Sometimes I still think I won't ever be able to do enough to apologize for how I treated him after my mother died. I told him I would love him forever, that he was the only person on earth for me, and in the next breath, I left him. I told him with my actions that he wasn't enough. Wasn't worth fighting for.

All he's ever wanted was to fight with me. By my side. The way he fights fires.

Maybe now that my heart has healed enough, I can do that. I can fight for us, hold up his

shields when it gets too heavy. Partners. Our own team.

Across the room, Mia sniffles, and I come back to the present. "Are you crying?"

"Only a little. You're going to be mad," she hedges.

Panic spikes in my chest. "When you say it like that, you're probably right." I push to my feet, the stain forgotten. "What's wrong?"

Mia huffs, resigned, and drops her head into her hands on the desk. "When's a good time to tell you my water broke about an hour ago?"

I drop the scrub brush onto the concrete, and stain remover splatters across my shoes. "About an hour ago would have been perfect."

She bites her lip, looks up at me, and a trepidation I've never seen from her casts shadows in her eyes. "So, if I were having contractions—"

I laugh. I should have seen this coming. "Of course you're in labor."

"I'm not," she says, eyes wide as she pushes to her own feet. She nearly doubles back over in pain, and I close the gap between us quickly as she catches herself on the desk. "I told Brady we couldn't have the baby until we were married."

"Oh, well." I throw up my hands. "That makes perfect sense. Come on, I'll drive you to the hospital."

I start to reach for her, but she recoils. "No. I'm not doing this without him."

Seriously? Not this again. I'm having flashbacks to Marie's birth, in Nessie and Jacob's cabin. If Brady shows up without his clothes on, I'm moving. I hope Quil likes Brazilian food.

I try to reach for her again, but she takes another step back. For as stubborn as Mia is, I should have known this would be no different. "It's going to be fine, Mia. Come on, let me take you to the hospital. We can call Brady on the way."

"I can't leave the station unattended. We can get in serious trouble for that."

"I think they'd understand."

"I think I'd rather wait for Brady."

Is every female in this town stubborn to a fault? I hear Dr. Cullen's voice in my head, an echo from years ago that has stuck with me. For exactly this moment, maybe.

Mom, you're really going to have to help me brave here. "Let's see if you're dilated, I guess. And you can call 911 while I'm at it."

We head to the bunk rooms, and as Mia lays down, I wash my hands in the attached bathroom, studying myself in the mirror. Maybe it's having done this before, albeit in a much less important role, but I'm not as panicked as I would have imagined.

Do I wish Mia would just go to the fucking hospital? A hundred times, yes.

Do I feel like forcing a woman in active labor, one who bites my head off on a weekly basis, to do something she's not completely on board with? Not a chance.

I get some towels from the linen closet and throw the hot water tap wide open. I don't remember what the hot water was used for when Marie was born. Hopefully the paramedics will get here before I have to worry about that.

"Have you done this before?" Mia asks nervously, her phone poised to dial the emergency line.

I look up at Mia, and flash her a grin as I lean up and dial the number for her. "You'd be surprised."