Claimed By The Possessive Fireman - Flora Ferrari Page 0,1

if I told them that, because we’ve been out to bars and clubs together – retirements and birthdays and things like that – and they’ve seen the women that throw themselves at me.

I feel a note of distaste rise in the back of my throat when the memories carve into my mind.

The way they prostrated themselves, leaning forward, battering their eyes lashes, telling me in all but words – and sometimes in plain words – that if I wanted I could whisk them home and do whatever I wanted to their bodies, it doesn’t excite me.

I want a woman who’s mine, just mine, all mine.

I want a woman who I can shoot my hot seed into, watching as it sprouts into a child in her belly, a woman I can support and be with forever.

But that has never happened to me and, at forty-two years old, the idea that it might never happen has settled like an uncomfortable truth over the surface of my life.

I’m jolted from my thoughts when the alarm blares through the station, immediately leaping to my feet and letting the cards drop on the table. We move in the well-orchestrated chaos of the fire department, grabbing coats and gear and heading for the truck, not even having to talk, just gliding into position and waiting for another slice of hell to become our world.

In the truck, I sit with the new kid, Craig. He must be only twenty and he looks even younger, like a small insect almost being stifled in the fire jacket, his helmet askew, his eyes with that wild, panicked look some of the new guys get.

How the fuck did he get through training?

But training and the real thing are two very different realities, and perhaps the notion of actually facing the real thing will be too much for him.

I sit down beside him as the truck rumbles to life and the sirens wail like mythical creatures. He’s got big green eyes and, despite his muscular build – a necessity in our business – he still seems tiny next to my six foot seven frame.

“Craig,” I growl over the sound of the truck. “You won’t have to get out today. You’re here to learn. But you also need to remember that people’s lives rely on us having our shit together. Can you do that, kid? Can you get your shit together for me?”

He blinks up at me and his eyes are watery, and, goddamn, he looks like a scared lost little lamb.

Something like regret punches me in the chest when the realization that he won’t make it hits. Some people simply aren’t made of the right stuff.

I clap him on the shoulder.

“You’ll be alright,” I say.

“Do you think so?” he whispers, sharp weakness infusing his words. “I’m trying, Dominic, I’m really trying.”

I grit my teeth and suppress a groan of annoyance, because trying doesn’t mean much when there’s a family who needs you to brave smoke inhalation and searing heat and burns and all the rest of it to make sure they’re safe. In that situation, trying is the same as failing.

But there’s no use in making this poor bastard feel worse than he already does, so I just clap him on the back again and sit with my head resting on the surface of the truck behind me, feeling the thrum of the road in my body.

Strangely, an image comes to me, a vignette biting into my mind.

It’s her, the woman I’ve been waiting for all my life, and even if I can’t make out any physical features, I can feel her essence, whatever the fuck that means. It’s like there’s this force calling out to me, perhaps her womb telling me it’s ready for everything I have to give, to start a life together.

But then it’s gone.

And it’s time to go to work.

The fire has already spread over a large portion of the theater, a squat detached building with a rustic look about it that looks out of place against the Miami skyline. The flames lick and hiss and before I know it – after the hoses and the taming – it’s time for me to don my gear like a soldier in post-apocalyptic wayfarer and brave the remaining heat and smoke.

I’m practiced at switching off my emotions as I hack away at the charred door, smashing an opening and striding into what was once the lobby, but is now a wasteland of burnt-out nothings and the detritus of destruction.

I head