House on Fire
Brandon Wood
Copyright 2011 by Brandon Wood
Smashwords Edition
Tobias opened his eyes wide, the screeching of the fire alarm his first sign that something was wrong. He took a deep breath and smelled no smoke, could see no smoke, either, but the house felt different, felt warmer than it should for a cool spring night. He had left the windows open and where there should be a cooling breeze, there was only a stifling, damp heat. “Wake up,” he said to the man laying next to him. How could he sleep through the fire alarm? “Forrest,” he said, remembering the man's name. They had met at the bar that night and had spent hours having sex before they had fallen asleep. Apparently Tobias had worn Forrest out, because the man was snoring softly. Tobias shook Forrest, abruptly bringing him out of his restful sleep.
“What's up?” Forrest said casually in his southern drawl. “What's that noise?”
“I think my house might be on fire.” Tobias pushed the covers away and walked to the door, putting his hands on it to see if it was hot. The door didn't feel hot, so he lightly brushed a finger against the door knob that was cool to the touch.
“I don't think you're supposed to open a door if you think there's a fire,” Forrest said. Tobias turned and couldn't help himself from taking a moment to admire the man who stood stark naked, his muscular form illuminated by the light of the full moon. Tiny beads of sweat were dripping down Forrest's strong, smooth chest, continuing to fall down his abdomen, slipping across each well-defined muscle of his six-pack. He looked pretty like a model but that deep, rugged voice had been irresistible to Tobias.
“I think you're right,” Tobias said. He opened the door anyway. “How else was I supposed to know if there really was a fire?” he said in response to Forrest's raised eyebrow, those sea-green eyes looking at Tobias with a mix of amusement and incredulity.
Tobias leaned out of the open door and looked down the hallway. No smoke, no fire. But when he looked down the stairwell, it all came back to him: drunkenly making food when they had come home from the bar and Tobias suddenly recalled leaving the oven on with the frozen pizza still inside. Smoke was hovering at the bottom of the stairs, tendrils of it creeping up the stairwell. A soft orange glow cast the smoke in an ominous light and Tobias quickly shut the door and locked it. Then he unlocked it, shaking his head at himself. Locks didn't keep out flames, but they did keep out firefighters who might need to get in to the room to save them.
Forrest was already on his phone. “My friend's house is on fire,” Tobias heard Forrest say. He sounded calm and collected, just what Tobias needed right now. Sure, the idea of losing his home made him numb, chilled him to the bone in spite of the heat, but there was nothing he could do. A single mistake, leaving the oven on just once, and the two years he had invested in the place were gone, literally up in smoke. He would beat himself up about it later. For now, he had to focus on doing what he could, which included getting the fire department to his home.
Forrest passed the phone to Tobias. “I don't know your address. You should talk to them,” Forrest said. Tobias took the phone and told the person on the other line his address and listened to her instructions: if there was a safe way to get out of the house then do so; otherwise stay in the room until the firefighters arrived. “So what's the escape plan?”
Tobias appreciated how calm Forrest was being about the whole situation. If Forrest had started freaking out, Tobias wasn't sure that he would have been able to handle it. It was hard enough for him to accept that he couldn't save his home; he could only wait for the firefighters to come and hope that they would be able to stop the flames before they consumed the house. He couldn't dwell on the damage that was mounting by the minute. “We can climb out of my window,” Tobias said, walking to the open window and looking at the drop. They'd be able to shimmy down the gutter and even if they fell, Tobias doubted that they would break any bones. Since the fire was still downstairs, Tobias didn't feel a great sense of urgency. Just a calm acceptance of the fact that his home was burning and that he could do nothing to prevent it. There would be time for grief, for regret, later.
“I'm really sorry about your house. We called the fire department quick enough that they should be able to save the house.” Forrest had walked up behind Tobias and placed a hand on the small of his back that was both comforting and sent tingles up his spine. Tobias never brought strangers home from the bar, but Forrest hadn't felt like a stranger. Talking to him at the bar had been effortless.
“Thanks,” Tobias said, feeling truly grateful to have someone so calm and so compassionate and so beautiful standing there next to him. When he turned to face Forrest and saw the concerned look in his big eyes with those long lashes, saw his pink soft lips that Tobias could still taste, he melted in a way that had nothing to do with the fire below. Without thinking, Tobias leaned in and kissed Forrest, wrapping his arms around Forrest's tight frame and sliding his hands down to Forrest's firm ass. His tongue traced the inside of Forrest's mouth while he hands moved of their own accord, grabbing handfuls of the man's generous, full, smooth ass. Tobias felt himself getting hard and could tell that Forrest was responding in kind to his touch.
“Shouldn't we be fleeing the burning building?” Forrest said, pulling away from Tobias who immediately noticed the absence of Forrest's lips. There was a smile on Forrest's face but a very real concern in his deep voice.
“Probably,” Tobias said, wrapping one hand around Forrest's dick and gently massaging his backside with the other, “but the fire department will take a while to get all the way out here, the fire's contained downstairs, and all this excitement has made me pretty horny. Haven't you ever wanted to just forget about what was going on around you and have hot, passionate sex? My house is on fire and I can't change that and maybe it'll all burn down and I'll be left with nothing but right this moment you're naked in front of me and I can't focus on anything other than how good my skin feels pressed against yours.”
Tobias didn't think that what he had said was all that meaningful—he really couldn't think, not with Forrest's smooth, naked body pressed against his; not with Forrest's cock that fit so perfectly in his hand; not with that ass that had been so tight and fulfilling earlier in the night; and never mind the fact that his house was burning down around him—but the worry vanished from Forrest's voice when he said “Fuck me.”