Chapter 4

She woke up under Kelly's arm. Careful not to disturb him, she turned over until she could see his face. There must be some outside lights because moonlight through the window wouldn't be so bright. Traces of silver highlighted his face. A man shouldn't look so beautiful. What was she doing here? Loving Kelly as a friend was easy. He made a great best friend. But as a lover? Most people would say she was out of her mind to try a relationship with him of all men. Except she knew the side of Kelly most people didn't. She remembered the hours he cried after the first Renee betrayed him. Most people thought he was habitual womanizer. The truth was all he really did was catch whatever was thrown at him and the pool of women willing to throw themselves at a good-looking Rescue Squad firefighter was pretty large. But was she going to be able to handle it when the next Nikki mailed her thong to him? She would probably want to claw her eyes out. She had certainly wanted to shred the original Nikki's face and possibility of a sexual relationship with Kelly then had been completely off radar. She had been territorial with the second Renee and it had hurt a lot more than she ever wanted to admit when he had started to leave for Madrid. That still didn't mean they should be together like this. Except she doubted it was possible to turn back now, so their friendship was dead. It was like losing Clarice and Wesley again.

Her crying woke up Kelly because suddenly both his arms were around her. "What's wrong?"

"I don't want to lose our friendship," she admitted.

He kissed her. "You're not."

Now reminded her too much of the nights she lain awake crying over the family she had lost. Kelly had held her plenty of those nights. Of course, they had been wearing considerably more clothes.

"It's okay," he whispered. "Everything is going to be okay."

She felt a coolness between her breast and a chain against her neck and realized what it was without looking. Nervously she rubbed his Saint Florian medal between her fingers. "Your grandmother gave you this." Grandmother Severide was dead over a decade and Kelly had worn the medal ever since she had known him. Neither she nor Kelly was a particularly devote Catholics, but the patron saint of firefighters was a level of sacred not to be played with.

Kelly kissed the medal; then, pressed it against her chest. "She would want you to wear this. Protecting you is the best way to protect me now."

It took another twelve hours for her to ask the question that had been burning in her head from the beginning. "How long have you planning this?"

She had expected him to look away or to look embarrassed. Instead he met her gaze without any reservation. "About a week and a half once it became obvious you needed to relax."

She threw a pizza crust at him. "You know what I mean. How long have you been thinking about the two of us having sex?"

His expression didn't change though his voice became sober. "When I first met you I thought about doing you, but that was just straight guy wiring. When you told me you were a lesbian it stayed in the back of my mind regardless. Then you became my best friend, so I had to force myself to put those fantasies under lock and key. It worked for a long while until we needed each other and then nothing I could do would stop what I was feeling."

She hadn't planned a response for him saying something like that. Kelly licked a smear of pizza sauce off her fingers. "Your turn," he said. "The night of the blackout, we slept in the same bed. Did you think about us having sex?"

Her face burned. "Not voluntarily."

This time Kelly kissed her hand. "I knew it! I am always going to remember how you squirmed in my arms that night."

She hit him with a large piece of crust. "You don't have to be such a jerk about it."

His expression softened. "Sorry, that's not how I meant it. I am always going to remember that night because it was the first time I thought maybe, I'm not alone in the way I felt. It gave me hope instead of feeling guilty about how much I enjoyed holding you. That's what I was trying to say."

She wasn't prepared to deal with Kelly like this. He was saying the right things. It was all the words she had dreamed of hearing, but from Clarice or even Corinne, maybe. Damn! This was not the way her life was supposed to be. She should be in a refurbished downtown loft comparing prints of the Gee's Bend Quilts with a Sandra Bullock look alike. Instead she was in a cabin by the Lake in the arms of a man who could probably be a body double for the next Superman and the Id primitive lizard portion of her brain was actually enjoying their time together.

They spent the rest of the weekend in bed. Well, at least she did. Kelly got up to pay the pizza delivery guy and to make her more absolutely divine pancakes. She had to give him is due. He was every bit capable of cashing the checks his ego wrote. There was hardly an inch of her body that had been left unexplored or unaroused. He would electrify her senses until she nearly lost consciousness from the pleasure then caress her back to reality. Afterwards his chest was the perfect pillow.

"You look sad again. Did I do something wrong?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I was just thinking about all the snarky things Dawson and I use to say about your revolving bed partners. I just realized I am one of them now."

He kissed her forehead. "No, you're not. Just say the word, and you walk back into the firehouse as Mrs. Severide."

"That's not going to change anything," she said.

"Yeah, it would," he said.

She felt his fingers working their way lower on her back. He had such marvelous hands. She should stop him. She shouldn't let him distract her from the reality of the situation with sex. They ought to talk about this. But they didn't. He kissed her and the world fell away.

"Marry me, Shay?" he whispered.

"Stop asking," she managed to say as his lips began their match across her jaw.

He captured her mouth and teased her with his tongue. "Say yes and I'll stop asking."

"It's too soon to even think like that," she said.

He rolled their bodies over in one smooth stroke.

"Where did you learn that move?" she asked. The question had become pillow talk with them.

"A paramedic taught me." His smile was dazzling. Drugs ran in her veins when she looked at him and all she could think about was sex.

The last night at the cabin she wore one of his muscle shirts and let him feed her triangles of grilled cheese and fruit slices.

"You have beautiful shoulders," Kelly said as he played with the strap. "Will you let me buy you lingerie?"

"No way. You would probably pick out something sick and perverted." She hopped on to his lap causing the mattress to bounce a little. He grabbed her bottom to hold them both steady. His eyes were playful.

"There's a shop called Intimates over by the big Eddie Bauer. There was a nightgown in their window I wanted to buy you, but I didn't have the nerve. It was blue silk." His fingers touched the furrow between her breasts. "With a little yellow band that ran down the front."

"You know those are the colors in my paramedic uniform," she said.

He looked surprised. Apparently, he hadn't actually made the connection. A blush crept onto his checks and then another million-dollar grin. "I guess I am sick and perverted." He kissed her shoulder. "Anything you want to see on me?"

In a split second she thought of things: silk boxers that teased with the outline of his shape and a robe the same color as his eyes. Instead of allowing her mind to think about possibilities that would only prolong this craziness past their expiration date she made a joke. "Plaid. Plaid flannel is the ultimate lesbian seduction wear."

"You know I think my Aunt Ruth sent me a pair of winter pajamas in lumberjack plaid. If I dig them up will you sleep in the top if I wear the bottoms?" he asked.

"That wouldn't keep either one of us warm." Kelly's ears seemed more interesting for nibbling than an apple slice now. She was always amazed at how soft his skin was. All the heat exposure should have turned him into leather instead he reminded her of velvet. His hands went underneath the shirt gliding over places that had seemed to lie dormant before, but were now awake. Most of her apprehensions and anxieties over what they were doing had long since been changed into wonder. It was always so different. Each time they were together she thought they had reached their limits until the next time. Each next time, he pushed her over another abyss. His mouth went between her breasts. It was like he was literally kissing her heart.

She locked gazes with him. If the eyes were the windows of the soul, Kelly had knocked out the glass in his venting his emotions out in the atmosphere around them.

"I would keep you warm," he said.

I bet you would. She let that die before it reached her lips. Suddenly an image formed in her head of them making out back at their apartment. She was wearing that pajama top only he had undone all the buttons and was kissing every part of her that was exposed. When his lips reached her breast her hands went to his waist, pulled down his waistband, and shoved him back unto the coach. Suddenly he laid two fingers against her mouth, winked and whispered, don't wake the baby. In the fantasy she pushed his hand away and said, "This may be our last chance on the couch. Once she learns to walk we can only have sex behind locked doors."

Kelly jarred her back to reality. "You okay?"

She nodded, but felt awkward. "I was just lost in thought."

"About me?" he asked.

The truth was way too dangerous. "You're ego doesn't quit."

His arms went up around her back pulling her closer. "It's not my ego. It's my hope." He covered her body with kisses. She wasn't use to lovers this thorough. There was no quick sex with them. He worshiped all the nicks and curves stringing her out until passion was the lifeline and he was the tether point. Sweet heaven, did Kelly have to be so good at this?

The next day when it was time to leave she felt her chest breaking open. The cabin had been their Eden where nothing could contaminate the surge of feelings they had succumb to, but like all perfect things she knew it couldn't last.

"Don't be sad. We'll come back." Kelly said once they were both in the car.

"It won't be the same," she said.

He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "Yes, it will. Mostly. We'll probably get stuck with that forth bedroom for a while. One day, it will be our kids upstairs in the loft playing with their cousins all night."

When Clarice and she had been together they had talked about a cabin on the Lake and lazy summers watching their children play. She felt his lips against her face again. When she gazed up his eyes were mesmerizing in their intensity. "Everything is going to be a lot better for both of us from now on," he said.