It’s the world’s oldest story: a girl, her fireman… and her other fireman.
The plane finally landed and Lea picked up the beat-up old Civic she’d rented. Sean had told her that he’d have loved to pick her up, but he wasn’t going to be getting off duty until about the time Lea landed, and since she was going to need a car the next day anyway to get to the interview, she drove herself north from the airport — around the city and into Cobb County, where Sean and the other firefighter shared a place, where she’d be sleeping on their couch.
Well, she thought let’s not lie: Lea hoped that she wouldn’t be sleeping on their couch. She hoped very much that she would at last be sharing Sean’s bed. She knew that she should have been thinking about the interview, but hey — there are lots of jobs. There was only one Sean, and she’d lusted after him for far too long.
Well. She was thinking about the job interview. It was for the position of assistant business manager of a mid-sized professional theater — her chance finally to work somewhere other than the glorified community theaters she’d been slaving at since graduation. She was excited by the opportunity.
But Sean….
Her thoughts less on the road than they should have been, she followed her phone’s directions around the city, past dozens of malls, hotels, and office buildings mostly bearing the name Peachtree Whatever, and out into the gently rolling hills and lush greenery of the Atlanta suburbs. “Exit the highway,” said her phone, and she exited. “Turn left,” it intoned, and she turned left.
She wondered if she could give her GPS voice a Southern accent. Tuhn leyeft, honey. That thought made Lea smile.
She reached the complex, parked, and followed Sean’s very clear directions to his second-floor apartment. Fighting down the images of Sean’s broad chest — and narrow hips — that had driven her to the airplane lavatory, she knocked on the door.
A muffled voice called out, “C’me in! It’s unlocked.”
She opened the door and was assaulted simultaneously by the delicious smells of something sweet baking and something frying, as well as by the vision of the tall, tapered figure at the stove.
Him. Cooking. Looking like every masturbatory fantasy Lea had ever had about him, only better. Except fully dressed, but food. S__.
“Sorry I couldn’t come to the door,” he said in that sweet Georgia drawl. He finished flipping something in the pan. “I’m up to my elbows in fried chicken. Hope you like — ”
Lea threw her arms around him from behind and took joy in squeezing his chest hard. “I love it! Thank you so much for having me.”
“Uh. Welcome.” He stiffened before relaxing and turning in her grasp. “Nice to meet you, too, miss.”
Lea looked up at the eyes smiling down at her. Brown. At the dimpled chin. Not Sean. Oh, S__. She released the man — he had to be Sean’s roomie — and stammered, “I’m so, so… I, uh…”
“Naw, miss, don’t be sorry, that was a nice hello, no doubt!” The roommate put down his tongs and smiled at her. He held out his enormous hand. “I’m Andrew. You must be Lea.”
She shook his hand and nodded, still speechless.
His grin grew. “Really, don’t feel bad. It happens more often than you’d think — the captain mixes us up so much he’s taken to just calling us the Twins.”
“Huh,” Lea grunted. She was feeling the ghost of that muscled chest on her fingers.
“There you are, Lea!” Another Southern voice called from the other side of the apartment. She turned: it was Sean, no doubt this time. Blue eyes. Square jaw. Nothing on but a towel around his waist. Oh. Sh__y sh_-sh_. He ran his hand through his short, wet hair. “Sorry, I was just taking a shower, I didn’t want you to have to smell me like the hog I am.”
“Huh,” Lea repeated.
Sean smiled warmly. “I see you met Andy. I hope, Andy,” he said, his voice lowering in mock threat, “that you’ve conducted yourself like a gentleman toward this young lady.”
“I wasn’t the one came out half-naked,” joked Andy.
Lea found her voice. “Besides, I was the one molesting him.”
Sean raised his eyebrow, that supremely wicked grin on display.
“Yeah,” laughed Andy, “lucky me! She thought I was you. Couldn’t see your ugly face ‘cause I was dealing with supper.”
“My ugly face!”
“Anyhow,” Andy laughed, “why didn’t you tell me our visitor was such a bombshell? Begging your pardon, Miss Lea.”
Lea felt Sean’s eyes flash to hers, saw the smile turn from wicked to evil. “Didn’t want you getting ideas, Andy.”
Lea couldn’t think of anything to say to that.
“Ideas, huh?” Andy snorted and turned back to the stove. “You go get some pants on, boy, and we’ll have some supper and then we can talk about who’s getting ideas.”
Now Sean’s grin turned sunny again; he waved and turned, and Lea was treated to the sight of his retreating, naked, rippling back and his tight, towel-clad ass as they made their way down the hall.
I’m getting ideas, Lea thought, and then tried very hard not to think any more.
Dinner — supper — was of course fried chicken, with, of course, corn on the cob and amazing peach pie. “You’ve now hit all of the high points of Georgia cuisine,” Sean joked.
“Hey!” said Andy, “we haven’t even got to grits and boiled peanuts!”
Making a face, Sean said, “What a shame.”
“You call yourself a Georgia boy?” said Andy. “You’re all city, Sean, admit it.”
“You have to be from the country to be a Georgian?” Sean raised an eyebrow.
“Naturally,” Andy replied. “Q.E.D.”
Trying not to get totally lost in enjoying their banter (flirtation?), Lea said, “Sounds like something my mom always used to say: if you live in New York, you’re Jewish. If you’re Jewish living outside New York, you’re goyisch. Um, gentile.”
“Me,” said Sean, “I have always considered myself a citizen of the world.”
Andy laughed, “Yeah, listen to the cosmopolitan here. Visit’s his sister off in California, and he comes back talking about artichokes and pizza with all kinds of fancy stuff on it, and sushi.”
“I didn’t know you liked sushi, Sean!” To be honest, Lea couldn’t remember Sean ever eating a meal that he didn’t seem to enjoy.
“Oh,” Sean said, he eyes holding hers once more, “I love sushi.” His tone barely changed, and his expression seemed to hold exactly the same open, welcoming grin, but there was something about the way he said it that made Lea’s middle flutter as she imagined him kneeling between her legs. Imagined the feeling of his tongue… He winked.
He’s flirting with me, Lea reveled. Oh, god, yes, he’s flirting with me.
Andy laughed again and popped open another beer for Lea. “Now see,me, I like my fish too, but I like it as the first course, not the main dish.”
Lea’s eyes snapped to Andy’s and she saw that he too had a lazy, sexy smile on, and that — yes — she hadn’t imagined the sexual undertones this time either. Playing games, gentlemen? She took a swig of her cold beer and twirled the drumstick bone she’d been fiddling with. “Well,” she said, letting her voice grow raspy, “I like my meat red, generally. Love to chew on a rib, for instance. Nice, long, hard rib, dripping juices down my chin…” She ran her tongue up the length of the bone. “Mmm.” When both men’s jaws dropped, she couldn’t help it: she laughed.
Sean and Andy were both turning bright red, but they too laughed, long and hard.
“Mind,” Lea finally managed to say, waving the bone, “this chicken really was fabulous.”
“Thank you,” Andy said with a smile and mock bow.
They proceeded to drink and talk. And drink some more. Beer. And then some bourbon. And then some more.
And Lea was flirting with two fantastically hot firemen, and they were both flirting back, and she felt absolutely f__ing fabulous.
And just at the point that Lea was ready to pull her shirt off and yell,COME TO MAMA! to them both, Sean — or maybe it was Andy — stood up and reminded Lea that she had an interview in the morning. And then Andy — or maybe it was Sean — walked remarkably steadily over to the couch, pulled it out, and began to make up Lea’s bed.
And the other helped.
For a brief moment, watching the two burly boys arranging her pillows and smoothing her sheets with an almost military precision, Lea indulged in an image of both of them stripping off their t-shirts, dropping their jeans and joining her….
But then both stepped away, wished her a good night, and sauntered together back toward where their bedrooms were. Each seemed to be trying to make sure that the other was leaving the room first, but eventually they left side by side, their shoulders barely clearing the hallway walls.
Well, sh_.
As Lea slipped off her skirt, her shirt, her bra, and the panties that she’d been wanting to shed since she entered the apartment, she stood there, horny, naked, and more than a little drunk. I could sneak into Sean’s bed, she thought. He wouldn’t kick me out, I know it. Or Andy’s. Or…
She shook her head. No. They’d made the sensible choice. She sat down and started to look for her pajamas….
But the air was warm and thick.
And she was tired. And light-headed.
And so she slipped, pajama-less, under the covers in the foldout bed, dreaming that the fingers stroking her clit and teasing her nipples belonged to two very large, very strong, very different sets of hands.
Lea’s dream was very, very pleasant. In it, someone… Or perhaps more than one someone… Well. In either case, licking of her foot was involved, by a tongue or tongues unknown. Mmm.
Her eyes fluttered open.
It wasn’t a dream.