After a night full of bliss far away from prying ears, Jules woke up to the sunshine streaming through the window. She slipped out of the king-sized bed to use the bathroom, grabbed one of Tyler’s oversized t-shirts and took the opportunity to observe his apartment.

It wasn’t big or flashy, unlike Rock Marten’s mansion, but it was so him. A wooden table stood in the middle of the dining room, lined by six chairs. She grinned. A lot for a bachelor, but probably not enough for a man with that many siblings. The rest of the furniture was sparse. No couch. No coffee table. No knick-knacks. No paintings or posters on the walls.

Only two wooden bookshelves crammed with thrillers and fantasy books lined the walls, and two very comfortable armchairs standing opposite each other, plus a small stool to prop up feet.

She liked it. A lot. She loved the empty space in the room that alleviated the feeling of confinement she always felt at her mother’s place. Jules wrinkled her nose. Here she was, a twenty-seven-year-old woman still living with her mother. It had seemed like a practical thing to do, because she lived half of the year on the base and that didn’t justify spending that much money on rent for the other half. She brewed coffee and returned to the bedroom with two mugs, finding him awake and smiling at her.

“Hmmm…I smell coffee. Good coffee…” he said, sitting up.

“Here, no sugar, a bit of milk, right?”

“You paid attention.” He grinned and took the mug she handed him. “What’s better to start the day than being served coffee by an amazing woman in a sexy shirt.”

“I hope you don’t mind that I used your—“

“No way. I love how my shirt barely covers your gorgeous ass and I love the idea that you’re wearing my things, because you’re my girl. “

Jules felt herself flushing. The fling-deal wasn’t working out too well, it seemed. Someone would get hurt when the inevitable dirty ending of their relationship came, although up to now every day had been better than the last. And every day she fell a bit more for him, despite her efforts not to get her heart involved.

“Come here,” he pulled the bed sheet aside, exposing his marvelous naked body and padded the place at his side.

“That’s not fair,” she said, her eyes fixating on his muscled chest, stomach and all the way down to his primed cock.

“What’s not fair, sweetheart? That you’re going to wake the neighbors with your screams of pleasure?”

Jules felt wetness dripping from her core and her nipples sprang to attention, eagerly awaiting his hands and mouth on them. “You said nobody could hear us,” she said, putting the coffee mug in the nightstand and climbing into the bed with him.

“I may have underestimated the intensity of your screams,” he said with a smug grin on his face.

“God Tyler, you’re terrible.” She swatted at his shoulder. In that instant, he turned her around and before she knew it, she lay face down across his lap, his hand slapping down on her butt and his erection pressing hard against her stomach.

Next, she felt his hand move across her ass and delve down between her thighs rubbing it through the moisture, before he started teasing her tightest hole and slowly pushed his moist finger inside.

She’d never done that before, and the sensation was so overwhelming, she screamed out. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!”

“You like this?” Tyler asked while he moved his finger inside her ass.

“Oh yes,” she whimpered on his lap.

He pushed his other hand between her body and the bed, searching for her nipples. When he found one, he rolled the taut bud between his fingers making her whimper harder. With his finger rubbing inside her ass, while the other hand squeezed, rolled and rubbed her nipple, Jules thought she’d go crazy with the sensations flooding her body. She rubbed her core against his throbbing erection until she came with another scream loud enough to wake even the profoundly deaf.

Tyler held still for a moment, then pulled out his finger, and laid her on her back, climbing atop of her and pushing his huge erection inside her. She felt the explosive waves of yet another orgasm crushing over her as he buried himself to the hilt. Whimpering, squealing, and convulsing she grabbed his butt to shove him closer to her.

“I need more…harder…need to feel your weight…” Her breath came in spurts.

Tyler complied and crushed her with his entire weight as he came to lie upon her body, tightly connected from head to toe, while he moved his hips making her come and come and come. After what seemed like an endless hour of bliss, she was completely spent, her muscles shivering from the effort.

“Please, Tyler, I can’t take it anymore,” she begged him, since he showed no intention of stopping.

“Just a bit more,” he said, “I love when you come hard like this.” He raised up on his elbows, removing some of his weight, and letting much needed cool air between their sweating bodies. Then he hammered into her with such a force, she had to press her hands against the headboard to keep from being shoved against it. Her entire body pulsated, convulsed, shivered, when he finally spilled his semen deep inside her.

* * *

“Are you nervous?” Tyler asked her, as they parked the car in front of her mother’s pretentious house.

“A little,” she sighed, feeling like a little girl. Bringing Tyler to see her mom was more than a little daunting and she had a foreboding that her mother wouldn’t be impressed. Worse yet, that she wouldn’t be able to mask her displeasure.

“Hey, relax. It’s just your mother, right?”

“You can talk. Your family is wonderful,” Jules said, ringing the doorbell. Her mother answered the door and greeted them, “Jules, honey. And who’s this handsome young man?”

“Mother. I’d like you to meet Tyler Armstrong.”

Her mother looked him up and down and then pursed her lips. “Armstrong? Hmmm, that name doesn’t ring with me. But come in and sit down.”

Tyler and Jules followed her into an elegant sitting room done in all white. “So, tell me Tyler…what do you do for a living?”

“I’m a firefighter.”

“A firefighter? You’re pulling my leg,” she laughed and offered them iced tea.

“Thanks, Mrs. Cooper, but I’m serious. I worked as a firefighter in L.A. before I joined the hotshot group in Bear Mountain, where I met your daughter.”

“Oh.” She finished pouring the tea and plastered a fake smile on her face.

“Mom—,“ Jules said.

“Don’t ‘Mom’ me! Isn’t it bad enough that you insist on doing this dirty and dangerous job? No, now you have to bring one of your colleagues here? When will you finally come to your senses? You could have any A-list actor. You really don’t have to settle this low.” With those acerbic words, she excused herself to bring biscuits.

Just as her intuition had told her, it had been a mistake to come here. Her mother only was interested in the material aspects of a man, not his personality. Jules turned to Tyler with a ready apology on her lips, but he shook his head. “Tyler, I’m so sorry…”

“Don’t be. She’s exactly what you said she was. No harm, no foul. Her opinion doesn’t matter to me.”

She heard his words, but she knew her mother’s callous behavior still stung. She knew she would have been devastated if Annie had treated her like a second-class citizen.

Before she could mount another explanation, her phone range and she glanced at the caller ID. Chief Carter. Jules frowned, a strange queasiness taking over her stomach. Both of them were marked off the boards for the weekend, so it must be something really important if the chief interrupted her personal time. Like a massive wildfire.

“Hello Chief, what’s up?” she answered the phone, seeing a deep frown appear on Tyler’s forehead. He observed her every expression as the phone call unfolded.

“There’s a monster of a fire in Sequoia and they’re asking for help from every other hotshot across the country. I’m really sorry to cut short your weekend off, but the beast’s gaining traction by the minute and we’re the nearest crews to get in.”

“Sure.” Jules sighed, adrenaline taking over. It wasn’t the worst of things to have the terse meeting with her mother cut short. “Where and how?”

“I’m sending a helicopter to get you. Florence and Denis will be on it already with your gear.” Chief Carter gave her the coordinates of the meeting point.

“We’ll hurry and be there in time.” Jules disconnected the call and then turned to Tyler who glanced expectantly at her.

“We have to go. Sequoia called in for help from every other hotshot company. Our teams are already on the way,” she explained.

“Sequoia? Well, I for one hate seeing those gorgeous trees burn.”

“Chief’s sending a helicopter to meet us. He said he was sorry to cut our weekend short, but all of the men were needed immediately.”

“Hey, that comes with the job, right?” Tyler hugged her, saying, “You say your goodbyes and I’ll meet you outside.”

Jules nodded, bid her mother a terse goodbye and then joined him outside. Once she sat with him in the car, she smiled. “It kinda was perfect timing. Don’t you think so?”

Tyler reached for her hand and kissed the back before saying, “Don’t worry about your mother, or the cancelled weekend. As long as I’m with you, I’m happy.”

Jules smiled at him and for the first time she gave serious thought to possibly hanging onto him after the season ended.