“Sorry, Captain, but I’ve got a situation here.” I tell my chief about the woman. “I’m not sure, but I think she may have some mental condition. Maybe bipolar or something. One minute she’s stubborn but making sense, and the next she’s off the wall. I think I’m going to have to bring her out.”

Captain Gregory asks if she has transportation.

“A car,” I inform him. “She’s insisting on packing up her paintings, but there isn’t room for all of them. I don’t trust her to get out on her own, sir.”

He tells me to do what I can.

“The crew has cleared a firebreak, but I’m not sure how long it’ll hold. The wind is supposed to come up in the afternoon. We have maybe an hour before that happens.

“I’ll get her out ASAP, sir,” I promise. “Please keep me posted.”

I put my radio back in its carry pouch on my belt. The air is thick with smoke. Enough that if I didn’t know exactly where the fire was, I’d say it was just below the ridge where Lila’s cabin is located. The sky is cloudless, what is visible of it, but low and gray. In an hour or so, thunderheads will form, the wind will come up, and if we’re lucky, we’ll get a downpour, maybe even a little hail. If we’re unlucky, we’ll get some sprinkles and lightning that will start spot fires elsewhere in the area.

I don’t believe in luck, except what I make for myself. A streak of blue and white catches my eye, and I see Lila enter the back door of her cabin. It’s closer for me to meet her by going in the front, so I do. By the time I get there, she’s not there. What the hell?

A half-made sandwich sits on the counter. My stomach growls. Too many hours since breakfast in the pre-dawn. Cheeky I guess, but I take a large chomp out of the sandwich then call the dog again. Going out back, I decide to see if he’s in the studio. He’s likely chasing down his mistress and I suppose that’s where she’s gone again, packing up those weird paintings.

When I get inside, there she is, turning in slow circles, tilting her beautiful head from one side to the other. It looks like she can’t decide which painting to take. The creepy one with the ghost in it is gone.

I fucking hate this studio. Anyone who paints fire this obsessively could easily be an arsonist, if you ask me. I frown, then walk around to face her. What I encounter is not what I expect. Her eyes are unfocused, and swimming in tears. Her hand is gripping a knife.

“Lila!”

She doesn’t answer.

I try again, with a softer voice. “Lila, what do you know about this fire? Did you set it?”

She shakes her head.

“Lila, give me the knife.”

She raises her hand and looks at the knife curiously, as if she didn’t know she had it. But she makes no move to hand it to me. Instead, her fingers tighten around it.

I don’t want to hurt her. I could disarm her, but without exposing myself to a bad cut or worse, I’d have to hurt her. I need to think of another way.

“Sweetheart, put the knife down, please.”

She looks at it again, tilts her head.

“I was just—" She trails off. Then she looks directly into my eyes. “Jon, why did you leave? I’ve missed you so much.”

The hairs on my neck stand up. She’s entered a fantasy world, and I’ve become her dead boyfriend. I’m about to set her straight when it occurs to me I can use this. She’ll hate me afterward, but at least we’ll both get out of this alive. If I can persuade her to put down the knife.

“Baby, I didn’t mean to,” I rasp, not only due to the smoke getting thicker. “Will you forgive me? I’m here now.”

I take a step toward her, shrugging out of my turnout coat. I’m going to wish I hadn’t done that if I can’t turn this around quickly.

“You hurt me.”

Tears spill over, and suddenly I’m fucking pissed at the dead man who broke this woman’s heart. She’s magnificent, her hair now floating around her in a cloud of light red-gold. She has a pixie face, little pointed chin below a mouth made for kissing, a pert little nose, and eyes too big for her. They’re green again, now that she isn’t mad anymore.

I hold out my hand, wincing in anticipation of her slashing across it with the knife, but instead she lays it gently in my palm. I drop it as she moves into my arms again.

“I forgive you.”

She turns up her face, her lips moist and parted for a kiss. I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t but I do. I dip my head and take what’s offered. If she hates me after, then at least I’ll have had the prize. Her hands smooth my shirt and fumble for the hem, and just like that, it’s over my head. Her wet cheek presses into my skin, over my heart.

“I’ve missed you so much,” she breathes. “I need you, Jon. I want you. Right now.”

Fuck. There’s no time, but if this will make her cooperate.

Shit, who am I kidding?

I’ve been hot for her since she came dashing into the room I’d busted into and promptly dropped her towel. I’ve never seen such a perfectly voluptuous little body. And now her small hands are fumbling with my belt. I push them away and instantly regret it.

She mewls out a snark of frustration and I lose all my good intentions. I can get the closing undone faster than she can. As soon as I do, her eyes stretch wide and she yanks her tank top over her head. The lacy bra I saw earlier is gone now and her naked breasts bounce into my hands like they need to be there permanently.

My Nomex brush pants are around my ankles, and she’s pushing down her jeans and panties as I crowd her backward toward a table behind her. Her ass hits it and I lift her hips as I tumble her onto her back. She lets out a whimper as I tug one leg of her jeans off her foot and then rip clean through the bikini panty when it gets caught.

An image of the little foil packet that’s always in my wallet flashes briefly in my brain, the part that’s still working that is. The small part that hasn’t been totally detonated by the raging desire to be buried deep inside red. Yeah, real red. My wallet’s in my truck. No time, fuck it, and damn the consequences. If things don’t change in the next hour, we could both be dead anyway.

Damn, she’s gorgeous. Her creamy skin is so soft, and the thin strip of red-gold cloud between her legs looks like strands of silk. Dripping wet silk. I take a beat to enjoy the sight of her pink pussy pulsating and glistening with her desire. Then I rise up tall and take in her tits, also tipped with pink, taut buds.

Her fingers claw at my shoulders, dragging me between her thighs as she moans hungrily. I’m more than ready. My dick is pushing forward like a racehorse at the gate, and this needs to happen fast.

I tip down to take one nipple between my teeth and nip gently. Her gasp tells me she’s more than ready, too and my fingers find the evidence as I part her. Her juice slicks my fingers when I graze across her swollen clit to push two into her. Her tight little pussy clenches around them. Her nails gouge into my bicep and then a white-hot light flashes behind my eyes as I slam my dick into where my fingers were only a second ago. Lila lets out a high-pitched scream and throws her head back.

My eyes snap open. Is she okay? Have I hurt her? I’m bigger than most so I’m told and I’m not exactly being gentle here. My hips don’t care—they’re pumping as if my life depends on it and my dick’s enjoying the ride. Her head is still back, eyes closed, mouth open and panting. A deep blush extends all the way to those delicious tits, which are bouncing with each of my thrusts.

She’s saying something, as usual more to herself than me.

“Harder,” she whimpers when I demand that she repeat herself. “Fuck me harder.”

I curl down to tug one of her pointed tits into my mouth and she tightens convulsively around me. Fuck, I’m not going to last. On the heels of that thought, my brain starts working again. Doesn’t matter, we’ve got to get out of here.

Shit, I’m not a complete dickhead. I like my women to get off before I take the glory, too. I’m almost there—is she? With my mouth still sucking hard on one nipple, I reach to tweak the other, and sure enough, another squeeze. I reach down between us and find the sweet spot. AS i strum across her bulbous clit, the tight squeeze of her pussy around my pole almost does me in. Lila wails and begins to writhe against me.

That’s it, sweetheart, let go.

I pump harder, faster, and she meets me thrust for thrust. She’s dug her fingers into my back, the nails drawing blood, maybe. I nip the stiff bundle of flesh, and she digs in harder, squeezes with that incredible pussy tighter, and I can’t hold back anymore.

With a deep groan, I push in and let go, gushing into her like a fucking geyser. My mind goes blank.

When the first molecule of oxygen-rich blood reaches my brain again, I’m holding a woman who’s gone stiff as a day-old corpse. Except corpses don’t tremble from head to toe, and they don’t have pussies like vices. At least, not to my knowledge. She’s humming a note I’ve never heard before. Somewhere, the dog starts baying.