Decorated with a fire-scarred five storey concrete building, surrounded with pitted pavement dotted with all manner of wrecked vehicles--or the husks of those vehicles. Two buses, one articulated, hung forelorn and broken on a hillside, windows long since smashed, tree branches surrounding draped with fire line tape. No one would ever accuse the City Public Safety Training Facility of being a beautiful thing.
Still, Madeleine loved being here--loved it enough to be pulling her Toyota SUV into the parking lot adjacent at zero dark thirty, loved it enough to bow her head to the hard winter Seattle rain and unload her gear in the sopping unfailing cold, hauling all 140 pounds towards the low-slung building that served as a meeting and conference centre at the site.
Reaching the door, signed helpfully with “NO BUNKER GEAR INSIDE FACILITY”, she scanned her badge and pushed on the crash bar with her right hip. The door gave way rather quickly, though, and instead of stepping into an empty hallway, she fell quite without any grace into the body of another human being.
“Mads!” The joyous greeting, rather like that of an overly excited Golden Retriever, came from City firefighter/paramedic and Maddie's current co-instructor, Jeff.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, Jeff. I didn’t see your truck. You okay?” She put the gear bags on the floor and hugged him as always, kissing his left cheek. He didn’t usually respond to her hugs with the same enthusiasm as which they were given, but this time he grabbed all of her definitely not petite self about the waist and lifted her from the floor, spinning in a circle.
“The actual fuck, Jeff? Are we dancing?”
He put her down. Mads, smiling slightly, unzipped her coat, smoothed down her dark navy shirtdress, the one embroidered with the City Fire Department logo on the left breast, and looked evenly at Jeff, waiting for an answer.
“No, I’m just...I’m just happy you’re here. It’s been a while.”
“It’s been four months. Life interferes. Someone has to do the paperwork to fund this shit, and you’re looking at that someone. C’mon, let’s get set up.”
She turned from him now, striding towards the main conference room, missing the slight failing of his broad grin.
He picked up her bags and followed her into the conference room, his eyes, unbeknownst to Mads, taking in all of her height, her dark hair pinned into a practical chignon, the sway of her wide hips and the flare of her dress as she walked, the way she was sliding her coat off of her shoulders. The faint scent of her rose perfume wafted in her wake, and that, along with the visual, made Jeff want to tell her a thousand things, none of which had to do with his job.
Better that she didn’t know. Madeleine Johnson did not come to be where she was in the Fire Department’s Office of Emergency Management by way of simple seduction.
She reached the two tables set up at the front of the room, and Jeff put down her bags, watching as she went to the myriad closets, hauling out equipment. Watching, not helping, because God help him, he loved how her dress--meant to be midlength but short on Mads--obediently lifted to display the curve of her thighs meeting her ass every time she bent over.
“You going to stand there holding down the carpeting, or are you going to come be useful?”
It wasn’t a question. Jeff walked over to Mads and took the first of several cases she had flung out behind her. Hauled them to one of the tables, turned around, and suddenly found himself unable to breathe. Not normally, at least. Fuck.
Her navy cotton pointelle sweater had caught on the hem of her dress, and in her concentration on sorting through the cases, she hadn’t noticed that both her dress and slip had been pulled up to her waist. The sight of her lacy stocking tops and the navy mesh and white embroidery of her tanga cut panties...fuck. Her ass. Fuck.
Breathe, Jeff. In, out, in. Three long strides and he was right behind her, his Mads.
Somewhere in Jeff’s brain, he thought, his Mads? The one who could do a fireman’s haul of a 75 kilo dummy out of that burned up concrete building outside? That Maddie?