I make a concerted effort to avoid the mirror as I wait for the water in the shower to get warm. I don’t want to see what it’s sure to show me: A bedraggled woman looking more haggard that I should at twenty-five years old. My hair a mess, dark circles under my eyes, maybe some paint on my nose. I’m in need of the shower to rejuvenate me after a long night spent tossing around trying to find a way to sleep.

Without any luck and ripping at said hair as though that would shut my brain off somehow, I got out of bed and went back to the canvas that wouldn’t release me. All the pre-dawn hours spent in a kind of frenzy, capturing the latest nightmares, have depleted me.

The finished canvas sits drying in the studio, ferocious in the intensity of heat coming from the color. Orange and red and purple. Flames again. The stuff of my nightmares. I paint nothing else.

Someday, when I’m famous for them, the fire canvasses will give art critics plenty of fuel for analysis. Burning trees, the flames licking up the trunks like a lover worshipping his love’s body. Riots of crimson, cinnabar, vermillion, tangerine, a dozen yellows. As the layers draw the viewer in, she can make out a shadowy figure among them.

Who am I kidding? Those canvasses would earn me a one-way trip to the funny farm if I ever showed anyone. Someday I’ll have to. The demands from my gallery and the collectors will become more insistent. I won’t have the luxury of creation. The money will run out, and I’ll have to leave this place, my refuge from reality.

I step into the shower with his name on my lips. It’s been more than a year since his hands have touched me in places only the water caresses me now. Oh, Jon, why did you have to leave me?

The water is just a few degrees warmer than my skin, perking me up from the grogginess. The late-summer day promises to be a scorcher, so I don’t want a hot shower. And what I have in mind, anticipating as I shampoo my hair, requires warm, not cool.

I inhale to the bottom of my lungs and let myself remember.

Not the bad part, but before.

Before the fight that made him storm out of the apartment.

Before the call that … no don’t go there every pore seems to cry out.

I inhale again and breathe out hard. Let’s start over, remembering only the good parts. A languid mood steals over me as I squeeze the creamy body wash in my hands, foregoing the shower puff. I smooth it over my skin, stroking my legs, my belly, my ass, felling my skin start to tingle as I picture him.

It’s so easy. The broad shoulders at my eyeline, bulging out into powerful biceps. His entire upper torso just built for shouldering the helpless, the fearful. Those arms that could pick me up and shoulder me as though I weighed nothing.

I loved to palm the hard swell of his pectoral. The muscle beneath the smooth leathery skin, pushing and alive. So alive.

Watch it. Don’t stray from the goal.

I close my eyes and see, feel in my eyes, the hard grooves laddering down his stomach, to that perfectly etched vee over his hipbones, cupping the huge cock, standing erect and swaying with anticipation.

My nipples peak as my slick hands cup my breasts. Moisture gathers between my legs. My hands slide over the soft mounds of flesh, flicking the stiff peaks with my thumbs. I pinch them lightly between my finger and thumb and squeeze, just a little. then a little harder. The pain feels good and makes me gasp. My legs tremble, and my core begins to throb with urgent need.

It’s time. I fiddle with the shower controls, lift the hand-held part of the shower head down, so that a single stream of warm water is pulsing from its central outlet.

Eyes closed, I direct the forceful water first to my left nipple, then the right. Remembering his touch. It feels like his lips and teeth, teasing me. When one nipple begins to go numb, I move the stream to the other. Ah, that one. God, yes.

It could be better. Jon’s hands would be on both breasts, mounding the flesh insistently, adjusting the pressure from caress to grasp. But I only have one free hand. I’m losing the fantasy. Do something else.

Sighing, I point the water down, down, there. Oh, God- this. Waves of pleasure ripple through me as the water thrums my clit. Very soon the tension begins to build, and build. Take the water away, make it last. Don’t let it be over.

My eyes are squeezed tight shut. Almost as if by its own volition, the water pours over my breasts again, left nipple, right nipple, now down to my thighs again.

I’m no longer in control. My entire focus is on keeping the water right on my clit, while I’m trembling so badly I can barely aim it. I need more. My other hand, busy teasing my nipples, drops to spread my flesh. Pulling my lips apart so the exposure ratchets up my hunger.

An electric thrill shoots down my spine and almost drops me. Almost there, almost. An eternity passes while my body hangs on the brink of orgasm. And then I curl into myself, the pressure moves me to the edge, shudders start taking me. I lean back against the tile for support, on the brink of falling in the tub from the promise of relief, but not there yet, my knees threatening to buckle. Then Mr. Pete starts barking.

My beagle pup’s insistent alert snaps me out of my fantasy and I’m just a lonely young woman getting herself off.

“Great timing, Pete,” I mutter.

I’ll get out of the shower in a minute. Can I recapture the glow? No. It’s gone. Well, there’s always tomorrow. Or maybe later this afternoon I’ll… what the hell is wrong with that dog? He sounds as frenzied as though there’s an animal in the cabin. Oh, shit! Has that raccoon gotten in again?

Mr. Pete begins to croon. I grab my towel, stumbling out of the tub. Clutching the towel, I yank open the door and tumble into the bedroom. Run through, stubbing my toe on something I’ve left in the floor, and shoot into the kitchen, looking for the dog. My still aroused pores now on alert for the intruder rifling through my food supplies. Where did I leave that broom?

He’s standing stiff-legged, his little brown head with its funny white face thrown back, ears down, mouth wide open in song. “Pete, what’s wrong?”

He stops baying, throws a wide-eyed, panicked look behind me, into the front of the room, and begins barking again. I turn toward the front door. And see a ghost.

“Jon?”

This can’t be real. And my body agrees; my knees wobble and are about to give way as I’m overtaken by a powerful shaking.

Jon?

The towel falls from my nerveless fingers and I drift toward the tall, blue-eyed, impossibly handsome specter in my doorway. He’s dressed in his turnout gear, just as he was a year ago today. When they pulled his singed body out from under the fire shelter that failed to save him.

The apparition doesn’t answer me.

Of course, it doesn’t. It’s a ghost, I tell myself, as if that makes perfect sense. Or my fantasy mind bringing an apparition. I sway toward it, desperate for Jon’s powerful arms around me again, knowing it will dissolve into nothing when I reach it, like always.

Only, when I reach the huge form and reach my fingertips, they land on solid flesh. Its huge arms come around me, holding me up before I drop to the floor.

“Sorry, lady, I heard the dog inside, and…”

His arms are still around me. My naked skin is being scratched by the coarse Nomex, bringing me from the surreal to the real in a heartbeat.

Where the fuck is my towel?

He smells of smoke. I look up at him, and he has a cocky grin on his face.

Oh, fuck no. This is not happening. He doesn’t look like Jon at all. My heart hammers. Who is he? Why is he here?

“Who are you? What the fuck are you doing in my living room?” I squeal, my voice cracking.

I think better of the words the moment they’re out of my mouth, but it’s too late. With relief, I see something else in his expression. The cocky grin fades, and his eyes turn serious, though he’s still holding me. For some reason, I have no desire to leave his arms.

“I’m Shawn Newton, ma’am. You know my name. You said it a minute ago.”

“What? No, I didn’t,” I squawk.

“Just before you dropped your towel.”

The grin is back, and it infuriates me. I push away, and he lets me go, but only after momentarily resisting. I turn my back on him with as much dignity as I can muster, walk to the towel I dropped. I stop myself just in time from bending over and fold at the knees, dipping to pick up the towel while hopefully not giving him a view of any more of me than I already have. Could this get any worse?

Yeah, I tell myself. At least he hasn’t tackled you and had his way with you. Yet.

With my back still turned to him, I belatedly wrap the towel around my perky tits and measure the distance between me and the knife block, in case I have to defend myself. I’m at a disadvantage, so I go on the offense.

“You still didn’t tell me what you’re doing in my living room.”

“Well… “

I have the towel wrapped around me, now, tucked in between my breasts. To my annoyance, my nipples are still stiff, inspired by the rough material of his turnout coat. I need to turn around, just in case he gets any ideas about sneaking up behind me, but I don’t want him to see. I cross my arms over my boobs and turn.

The bastard is obviously trying hard not to laugh.

“Well?”

Before he can say another word, Mr. Pete starts barking again and rushes to get between us. The guy looks down at my comical little dog baying like a wolf in his puppy voice and lets out a low throaty laugh.

The ridiculousness of the situation finally sinks in, my eyes lift to the stranger’s at the same time and I can’t stop the smile.