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“Fair enough.”
He kissed her again, in his thorough, distracting way, before striding across the courtyard. Though he acknowledged Dirk, this time he was there to address Lisa directly.
Les didn’t have to hear the conversation to pick up on it. He would care for anyone under his protection and take that job seriously. Something any woman could love about him.
Including the woman moving from childhood crush to full-on falling in love with the man he’d become.
Brick returned to the table a few minutes later. “Okay?” he repeated.
“Better than.”
After an approving nod, his face settled into a serious mask of concentration. People were gathering, sitting at the tables on the outside of the wall or on the wall itself. One of the X shaped crosses had been positioned in the center of the courtyard.
From conversations happening nearby, the more experienced explaining to the less experienced what he was going to do, she could pick up the basics. But whatever she missed, she’d ask him later. Right now, watching him took precedence, without the interruption or distraction of technique or terms.
Brick sprayed the flogger’s woven wicks from a bottle with “my flogger mix” written on it. With his knowledge of fuel types, it made sense that he experimented with his formula, just like Heatwave.
He gripped the black wooden handle, his palm molded over the red fire logo. The staff had left one corner of the courtyard cleared of people, and he moved there before he began to spin the flogger, the wicks flying out in a fan as he twisted his wrist.
It explained Dirk’s term, “fire spinner,” and the comment about the splatter. As Brick spun out the excess alcohol solution, it was an appealing thing to watch, him in his jeans and tank, the muscles in his arms and shoulders flexing.
Dirk took Lisa to the cross. He removed the harness as well as the plastic skirt before he had her face the cross and clasp the handles, spreading her legs to position them along the bottom pieces. He threaded the tail of her braided hair over her shoulder, so it lay upon her breasts.
When he handed the harness and skirt to an attendant, he was given a wet hand towel. He started to stroke it with loving care over Lisa’s back and rounded ass. He caressed her with his free hand, murmuring to her. Her body relaxed further under his touch, even as there was a drifting kind of stillness to her, that shift in focus she’d told Les about.
When Dirk was done, he draped the towel over her head like a veil and adjusted his position so Lisa could see him. He would serve as a spotter, but not the only one. The assigned DM stood at another angle. Les saw Mick leaning against a wall by an exit door, arms crossed and watching the scene play out.
Brick had finished his spinning. He came to the cross, putting a hand on Lisa’s shoulder. In addition to being a reassurance, Les could tell he was using that touch to evaluate her tension and where her head was at.
He nodded to Dirk, an unspoken direction. Dirk cupped Lisa’s skull, pressing his forehead to hers. Then he put his hand between the bottom cross pieces, touching her between her legs. Lisa’s body quivered as he stroked her, his other hand rising to cup and play with her breast.
When she was quivering twice as hard, and Les could hear the rasp of Lisa’s aroused breath, see the twitch of her bare ass, Dirk kissed her once more and stepped back. He didn’t go far, staying in her line of sight.
Brick’s attention swept over everything once more. The two spotters, the safety measures he’d laid out on the table; fire extinguisher, bucket of water, a stack of damp towels. His fuel bottle was at the opposite corner of the table.
When he paced around Lisa, she thought he was confirming the size of the buffer between him, her and the audience.
He met Les’s gaze briefly when he turned in her direction. Belatedly, she wondered if she should have asked if there was anything she should be ready to do, like Dirk and the DM. But when Brick included her in that checklist gaze, she knew what he needed from her. Her medical knowledge. It made her an essential part of Lisa’s care team.
She really missed that feeling. Up until now, the enormity of what had brought her here had crushed her awareness of anything else. Dr. Portland had treated the reassignment of her patients as an unremarkable step, necessary due to her absence. But it was difficult not to take it as a no-confidence measure.
She liked having assigned patients, being the person who updated the attending and resident on their status. Remembering that enjoyment, the challenge of it, was her first evidence that the spark of desire to heal and help hadn’t been wholly quenched two days ago.
Brick had a jump medical bag as part of his supplies, no surprise since he’d gotten paramedic training when he was a firefighter. She did a quick inventory to confirm she had what might be needed, and she did. The man was thorough.
Brick picked up the lighter and touched the flame to the flogger wicks. They immediately caught, suddenly a dramatic fiery horse’s tail dancing below Brick’s grip.
Conversation around the stone wall died away. With the area illuminated only by strung lights, the flogger fire became everyone’s central focus.
As he moved back to the cross, Brick began spinning the flogger again, in a smooth rotation. When he was close enough to make contact, the first blow hit Lisa’s back with the fluidity of a cresting wave.
The power of the movement was in its restraint. The strikes on her back weren’t hard, but measured and controlled. From the way Lisa arched at the sensation, a little went a long way. A moan somewhere between rough sexual need and a purr of pleasure came from her. Les suspected the initial strikes delivered the flogger’s impact sensation; the heat would build with the greater levels of pain from the blows or increasing temperature, depending on where they made contact.
The green, gold and blue flame was a rush of color Les could see against her lids when she did a slow blink. When Brick cued Dirk a few moments later, he moved closer to Lisa’s front and began to stroke her between the legs again. One strong, lean hand gripped her shoulder, the heel of his hand on her breast, the nipple jutting against his wrist. His lips were moving, words Les couldn’t hear but knew were a mix of reassurances and demands. They would tell Lisa what he wanted from her, how much he loved watching her like this. How she was the center of his world.
There was no way to say this wasn’t sexual, but the erotic intensity vibrating off Brick wasn’t targeted toward Lisa. It expanded from him, an energy net that pulled all of those around him into the same sensual spell. It reminded every person watching they were sexual creatures, meant to play, come together, and explore all the ways that they could enjoy one another’s bodies, plus the hearts and souls connected to them.
Would Brick be amused to find Les was just as turned on watching him do this, as she was when he was doing his fire cop work? Both passions required his extraordinary level of awareness and concentration. He was tuned in to every detail, everything that mattered.
