Chasing Fire

of the gravity.”
    “Okay.” He shifted off her to struggle with her clothes. “We should do naked tequila shots. Then we wouldn’t have to take them off after.”
    “Now you think of it. Alley-oop!” She held up her arms to help him strip off her shirt. “Gimme, gimme.” She locked her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck, then latched her mouth onto his.
    The heat burned through the tequila haze, fired in the senses. The world rolled and turned, yet she remained constant, chained around him. Caged, he met the desperate demand of her mouth, rocking center to center until he thought he’d go mad.
    The chains broke. She rolled on top of him, biting, grasping, lapping, then rolled off again.
    “Get naked,” she ordered. “Beat ya.”
    They tugged at shoes, clothes in a panting race. With clothes still landing in heaps, they dived at each other. Wrestling now, skin damp and slick, they rolled over the floor. Knees and elbows banged, and still her laughter rang out. The moonlight turned her dewed skin to silver, glowing and precious, irresistible.
    Breathless with pleasure, crazed with a whirling, spinning need, she threw her head back when he plunged into her.
    “Take me like you mean it.”
    And he did, God, he did, filling her up, wringing her out while she pushed for more. Catching fire, she thought, leaping into the heart of the blaze. She rode the heat until it simply consumed her.
    “Merry-go-round,” she murmured. “Still turning. Stay right here.” This time she drew him close before they slept.
     
     
    ANOTHER FIRE WOKE HER, the fire that killed, that hunted and destroyed. It growled behind her, pawing at the ground as she ran. She flew through the black, yet still it came, stalking her to the graveyard where the dead lay unburied on the ground. Waiting for her.
    Jim’s eyes rolled up in the sockets of the charred skull. “Killed me dead.”
    “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
    “Plenty of that going around. Plenty of dragon fever. It’s not finished. More to come. Fire can’t burn it away. But it can sure try.”
    From behind her, it breathed, and its breath ignited her like kindling.
     
     
    “HEY, HEY.” Gull pulled her to sitting, shaking her by the shoulders on the way. “Snap out of it.”
    She shoved at him, gulping for air, but he tightened his grip. He couldn’t see her clearly, but he could feel her, hear her. The shakes and tremors, the cold sweat, the whistle of air as she fought for breath.
    “You had a nightmare.” He spoke more calmly now. “A bad one. It’s done.”
    “Can’t breathe.”
    “You can. You are, just too fast. You’re going to hyperventilate if you keep it up. Slow it down, Rowan.”
    Even as she shook her head, he started rubbing her shoulders, moving up her neck where the muscles strained stiff as wire. “It’s a panic attack. You know that in your head. Let the rest of you catch up. Slow it down.”
    He saw her eyes now as his own vision adjusted, wide as planets. She pressed a hand to her chest where he imagined the pressure crushed like an anvil. “Breathe out, long breath out. Long out, slow in. That’s the way. Let go of it. Do it again, smooth it out. You’re okay. Keep it up, in and out. I’m going to get you some water.”
    He let her go to roll to her cooler, grab a bottle.
    “Don’t guzzle,” he warned her. “We’re in slow mode.” When she gulped the first swallow, he tipped the bottle down. “Easy.”
    “Okay.” She took another, slower sip. She stopped, went back to breathing, with more control, less trembling. “Wow.”
    He touched her face, leaned in to rest his brow on hers. The shudder he’d held back rocked through him.
    “You scared the shit out of me.”
    “That makes two of us. I didn’t scream, did I?” She glanced toward the door as she asked.
    Trust her, Gull thought, to worry about embarrassing herself with the rest of the crew. “No. It was like you were trying to and couldn’t get it out.”
    “I was on fire. I swear I could feel my skin burning, smell my hair going up. Pretty damn awful.”
    “How often do you have them?” Now that the crisis had passed, he could coddle her a little—a comfort to himself, too. So he touched his lips to her forehead as he shifted to rub her back and shoulders.
    “I never used to have them. Or just the usual monster-in-the-closet deal once in a while when I was a kid. But I started having them after Jim. Replaying the jump, then how we found him.