Keri Arthur: Fireborn

“Hey!” I lightly kicked the foot hanging off the end of the bed. “Time to get ready for work.”

He didn’t respond, so I kicked the foot again. This time he muttered something I suspected wasn’t polite. I grinned and kicked him a little harder. He grunted, and this time the muttering was definitely a word. “Bitch,” to be precise.

“You’re on morning shift, remember, and your captain did warn you last week not to be late again.”

He rolled over onto his back, and the rest of the blankets slipped from the bed onto the floor. He worked out in the gym and ran around the nearby Tan Track—a 3.8-kilometer stone aggregate track around the beautiful Botanic Gardens—so he was slender but well toned, with long, lean legs, a flat stomach, broad shoulders, and well-defined arms.

And he was, I noticed with amusement, more than a little horny this morning.

I walked around the bed and flung open the curtains. Sunlight flooded the room, turning his red hair—which was a feature of all phoenixes—to copper and highlighting the dust and the mess. One thing Rory had never been was tidy.

“Fuck,” he muttered, his deep voice gravelly and harsh as he flung up an arm to shield his eyes. “That’s just cruel.”

“I thought you liked your job.”

“I do, but—”

“The only butt I want,” I said, unreasonably cheered by the fact that I wasn’t alone in feeling shitty, “is yours climbing out of that bed and into a shower pronto.”

A devilish light began to gleam in the warm amber depths of his eyes. “I’ve got a better idea.”

My grin grew, but before I could actually react, he lunged forward, grabbed my arm, and dragged me down onto the bed beside him. For good measure, he threw a leg over the top of mine to prevent me from escaping, though I hadn’t actually tried.

“How about you and I waste a little time and energy?” he murmured, as he tugged at the dressing gown’s sash.

“How about you try to keep this job a little longer than six months,” I said wryly, even as I gave in to temptation and let my fingers play over his well-defined arms. It would only encourage him, but the fires within hungered for closeness, warmth, and caring—no doubt to counter the cold darkness I’d faced last night.

“They won’t sack me.” His expression became distracted as the sash came undone. “I’m too good a fireman, and they know it.”

He slipped a hand underneath the silky material and traced a line along the length of my hip with one heated finger, skimming the scars as tenderly as the rest of me. My breathing hitched a little and the pulse of excitement grew. But as much as I wanted to give in, I didn’t. Not only because he actually liked this job, but because he also liked the people he worked with, and it was the first time in the four years since Jody—his human fiancée—died that he’d actually cared about anything or anyone beyond those in our immediate circle. Despite his current nonchalance, I knew it would hit him hard if he was fired.

So I ignored those deliciously trailing fingertips and slapped his arm. “Enough. Go take a shower. A very cold shower.”

His gaze rose to mine, and a reluctant grin stretched his kissable lips. “You, my darling girl, are going to be the death of me.”

“Actually,” I said primly, “I believe I already have been. Two lifetimes ago, in fact.”

“Three,” he muttered; then, with a groan, he released me and climbed off the bed. “Fair warning, sweet Emberly. I intend to pick up where I left off once I get home tonight.”

“And I shall be naked and waiting.” I watched him walk into his en suite. Rory and I had been friends and lovers ever since we’d been teenagers, which was so many centuries ago now I could barely even remember them. He was my life partner, the spirit I was fated to be with forever, and the only man I could ever have children with. But we were not, and never had been, in love.

It was said that at the very beginning of time, a phoenix spurned the affections of a witch after taking her virginity. In her anger and shame, she cursed us with the inability to love one another, forcing us to forever seek—but never find—emotional completion outside our own race, thus ensuring that we would forever be left with little more than love’s bitter ashes, as she had been. I’m not sure I believed the whole witch-curse thing, but it certainly held more than a few grains of truth when it came to phoenixes and love.

As the shower came on, I bounced out of Rory’s bed and headed into the kitchen to make us both breakfast. He walked in ten minutes later, dropped a kiss on the back of my neck, then swept up one of the plates of pancakes and headed for the table.

“So, did you manage to save your soul last night?”

I glanced at him sharply, and he gave me a lopsided smile. “If I can’t read the signs by now, Em, something is seriously wrong. So who was it this time?”

Sam’s warning shot through my thoughts as I picked up the two steaming mugs and the other plate of pancakes and joined Rory at the table. “No one important. And yes, I did.”

His expression indicated he didn’t believe the lie, but he let it slide, asking instead, “What’s on your agenda for today, then?”

“I don’t exactly know.” I pushed one of the mugs across to him. “Mark mentioned something about discovering a critical amino acid in the molecules he was studying yesterday, so I daresay he’ll be in the lab all day and I’ll be transcribing his notes all night.”

“Ah, the exciting life of a research assistant,” he said, voice dry.

I resisted the urge to point out I wasn’t actually a research assistant, even if that was what they’d classified me as. Mark hated interference of any kind, even if it came in the form of help to set up and monitor experiments. After he’d gone through more than a dozen qualified assistants in less than two months, the powers that be at the Chase Medical Research Institute had given up and resorted to employing what amounted to a secretary. Meaning I transcribed his notes and generally ran around after him but otherwise didn’t interfere in whatever it was he was doing.

And Rory was right—it wasn’t exciting. But I’d done the whole exciting bit the last time around. Right now, all I wanted was something easy.

Besides, this lifetime was supposedly his turn to do the dangerous stuff, not mine. Not that that had ever stopped me from getting into trouble in previous lifetimes.

“You’ve never done well coping with a staid and boring life,” he added, obviously guessing my thoughts. “And I’m betting you won’t last much longer working for that crazy old man.”

“They’re paying me damn good money to run after that crazy old man, and that makes up for the boring. Besides, for an old guy, he’s not bad scenery—he has nice legs and an eminently watchable ass.”

“So have you,” he said dryly. “He made a play for it yet?”

I snorted softly. “He’s old, remember? Besides, I seriously doubt he notices anything not connected to his microscope or his books. Not everyone in this world is as randy as you.”

“That he’s in his sixties doesn’t make him dead from the waist down—a fact we’ve both proven over our many years together.” He glanced at his watch, then gulped down his coffee and pushed away from the table. “Five minutes to go. I’d better run.”

So had I. If I didn’t hurry, I’d miss the train. Mark was a man who meticulously planned every minute of his day, and my being late would not only upset his timetable, but turn him into an unreasonable grump for the rest of the day. Although his somewhat unpredictable temper wasn’t the only reason I was getting higher pay; he believed I should be available to work whenever he wanted me, be that day or night.