Page 91 of Knotting the Firefighters

There’s no escape now; even if I wanted to, even if I screamed for it, Calder couldn’t pull away until the knot subsides, until our bodies decide it’s time to let go. For the first time in my life, I surrender to being held.

I let myself collapse against him, sobbing once—not from pain, but from the ferocity of loving him so much it feels like my bones might never knit again.

Calder is shaking, arms locked around me like a life raft. He doesn’t say anything, just buries his nose in my hair, inhaling like he’s trying to breathe me down to the cellular level.

I can hear the frantic gallop of his heart, feel the sweat cooling along the planes of his chest. He whispers my name into the hollow of my throat, again and again, as if repetition could bind me more tightly than biology already has. I answer with myown:a broken gasp, a plea, a promise that I’ll never forgive him for leaving, but I’ll never truly let him go, either.

My body responds to the knot the way it’s meant to, clenching and milking, every muscle drawn tight in a spasm that goes on and on.

The pleasure is so intense it borders on agony, the crest of each wave somehow steeper than the last.

I ride it, helpless, nails digging trenches into Calder’s back, desperate to anchor myself to the moment before it passes. He grinds into me, every tiny motion reigniting the fire, and I realize I’m crying in earnest now—tears slipping down my cheeks, mixing with the sweat and saliva where our mouths have crashed together.

Calder kisses them away, each pass of his tongue both apology and benediction.

For a while, we’re suspended in this state—bodies locked, time irrelevant, nothing but the sound of our breath and the slow, involuntary pulsing of our connection.

It’s almost peaceful, in a way I’ve never known before.

There’s no room for thought or fear; it’s just sensation, just the animal simplicity of being trapped together, forced still until the world decides we can move again.

Minutes pass. Maybe more.

Gradually, our heartbeats slow, the frantic edge of desperation giving way to something else—a heavy, lulling exhaustion, like the aftermath of a tidal wave. Calder strokes my back, gentle now, tracing meaningless patterns along my spine, along the bandages.

I relax into him, letting my body go limp, letting my mind float away from all the things I don’t want to face. We don’t talk. There’s nothing to say. Everything essential has already been written in the sweat and the salt and the mutual destruction of letting ourselves love this hard, this helplessly.

Eventually, I feel the tension in Calder’s body ebb, the knot inside me softening, the grip loosening enough that I could pull away if I wanted to.I don’t…as if waiting for the end.I want to keep us joined for as long as possible, to wring every last drop of comfort from the fusion before morning comes to tear us apart for good. He seems to understand, because he holds me tighter, lips pressed to my temple, silent and steady.

It’s only when the first hint of sunrise filters through the window—turning the room a pale, merciless blue—that I realize how much time has passed, how much closer we are to the end.

Calder shifts beneath me, careful not to break the seal too soon, and I feel the stirrings of what might be words on his tongue. I clamp a hand over his mouth before he can speak, not ready to hear anything that sounds like an ending.

He laughs, just once, the sound muffled and wet, and kisses my palm instead.

We stay like that for long minutes, still joined, still unwilling to admit that morning is real and the future is ticking closer with every beat.

Our bodies cool, sweat drying on skin, breaths syncing up until it’s impossible to tell whose lungs are filling and whose are empty.

New day arriving while the old one dies.

Perfect metaphor for what we're experiencing.

The light reaches our window, filters through inadequate curtains, and illuminates the bedroom in a warm glow that makes everything look gentler than reality deserves.

Calder's arms tighten reflexively, like he can somehow hold back dawn through sheer determination, like a physical embrace creates a barrier against time's progression.

But nothing stops sunrise.

Nothing prevents the day from arriving.

Nothing postpones the inevitable just because we're not ready to face it.

The sun continues its ascent, flooding the room with increasing light, exposing our vulnerability, revealing tear-stained faces and tangled limbs, and the physical evidence of the connection we just shared.

Morning is here.

Ready or not.