Chapter 2: Ambushed by Love
The rig back to the station was silent, the usual post-call decompression replaced by a buzzing in Natalie’s veins that had nothing to do with caffeine. The MVA had been messy, a torn-up sedan and the metallic smell of blood she’d washed from her hands with industrial soap that left them raw. All through it, beneath the focused calm, Zebby’s voice had played on a loop. Pound into you. The memory was a phantom warmth against the chill of the Victorian night.
She shouldered her heavy kit through the station doors, nodded to the crew coming on shift, and drove to Brittany’s in a haze. The string lights in her cousin’s living room window glowed like a beacon in the dark suburb. All she wanted was a shower, a moment of quiet, maybe to listen to Zebby’s last message again.
She pushed the door open, the weight of the day bowing her shoulders. “Brit, I’m borrowing your hot water forever—”
The sentence died.
Zebby was there. Perched on the edge of the oatmeal-colored sofa, her long legs folded awkwardly, a duffel bag slumped at her feet like a faithful dog. She wore a faded band t-shirt and jeans, and her auburn hair was shorter than in their video calls, tickling the tops of her ears. Her hands were clenched in her lap, knuckles white.
Natalie’s medic bag hit the floorboards with a thud.
Time didn’t slow. It fractured. The two years of distance, the six months of official longing, the pixelated fantasies and the sticky, lonely sheets—they collapsed into this single, impossible point in Brittany’s cluttered living room. The postcards, the globes, the leaning photo frame, it all receded into a blur.
Zebby stood, unfolding to her full height, swallowing the space between them. “Surprise,” she whispered, the word cracking down the middle.
From the hallway, Brittany emerged, holding a glass of red wine. She took in the scene, her smile wide and knowing. “Hey, Nat. Your anniversary present arrived. Seems a bit jet-lagged.” She set the wine on a stack of textbooks. “I’m, uh, headed to Mia’s for the night. Possibly the weekend. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” She grabbed a jacket from a hook, squeezed Zebby’s arm as she passed, and was out the door, the click of the lock echoing in the sudden silence.
They were alone.
Natalie’s feet carried her forward without command. She stopped a foot away, her eyes tracing the realness of Zebby’s face—the faint freckles across her nose, the slight chapping of her lips from the plane air, the dark uncertainty swimming in her grey eyes.
“You’re here,” Natalie said, her voice unfamiliar to her own ears.
“Brittany helped. The tickets… it was the present you said was ‘en route’. I thought you meant a parcel. Not… me.” Zebby gave a shaky, self-deprecating laugh. “If this is too much, I can—”
Natalie closed the distance. Her hands came up, cradling Zebby’s jaw, her thumbs stroking the high planes of her cheeks. She felt the tremble in Zebby’s skin, saw the vulnerability threatening to spill over. This wasn’t the confident woman on the screen, commanding her to come. This was the raw nerve beneath.
“Shut up,” Natalie breathed, and then she kissed her.
It was not soft. It was a collision. A claiming. It tasted of salt—from Natalie’s skin, from the tears now leaking from Zebby’s closed eyes—and of the faint, stale coffee from Natalie’s lips and the peppermint gum Zebby had been chewing. It was desperate and hungry, two years of want igniting in the meeting of tongues, in the sharp nip of teeth.
Zebby groaned into her mouth, a deep, shattered sound, and her arms banded around Natalie’s waist, lifting her clean off the floor. Natalie wrapped her legs around Zebby’s hips, her uniform rough against Zebby’s jeans, and they staggered, knocking into the shelf. A postcard from Vancouver fluttered to the ground.
“Bedroom,” Natalie gasped against Zebby’s mouth. “Now.”
They didn’t make it.
Halfway down the hall, Zebby pressed her against the wall, the impact shuddering through them both. Her mouth was at Natalie’s throat, sucking, biting, as her hands fumbled with the button of Natalie’s tactical trousers. “Need to feel you,” Zebby growled, the words hot against her pulse. “Need it real. Fuck the bed.”
Natalie helped her, shoving the fabric down over her hips, kicking free. Her own hands tore at Zebby’s jeans, yanking them and her boxers down just enough. Their bodies met, skin to skin, for the first time. Natalie’s back was against the cool wall, Zebby’s hard, hot length pressing against her stomach. The reality of it—the size, the heat, the smooth velvet-over-steel feel of her—stole Natalie’s breath.
“Look at me,” Zebby pleaded, her forehead pressed to Natalie’s.
Natalie opened her eyes, drowning in the storm-grey intensity. “I see you.” She reached between them, wrapping her fingers around Zebby’s cock, guiding it. She was so wet, aching, open. “Now. Fucking take me.”
Zebby pushed inside.
It was a blunt, breathtaking stretch. A fullness that transcended every fantasy. Natalie cried out, a sharp, unfiltered sound as Zebby slid deep, burying herself to the hilt, their bodies locking together. No pixels. No distance. Just this searing, perfect connection.
“Christ, Nat,” Zebby choked, her whole body trembling with the effort of holding still. “You’re so… fucking tight. So hot.”
“Move.” Natalie commanded, dragging her nails down Zebby’s back. “Don’t you dare be gentle.”
Zebby obeyed. She pulled out almost all the way, then slammed back in, a punishing, perfect rhythm that drove the air from Natalie’s lungs. Each thrust rattled the framed pictures on the hallway wall. The sounds were filthy, obscene: the wet slap of skin, Zebby’s guttural grunts, Natalie’s broken, pleading gasps.
“This what you wanted?” Zebby panted, her lips at Natalie’s ear. “When you were in your little room, fucking your fingers, thinking of this cock?”
“Yes,” Natalie hissed. “Harder.”
Zebby shifted her angle, hooking Natalie’s leg higher over her hip. The next thrust hit a spot that made lights burst behind Natalie’s eyelids. Her nails bit into Zebby’s shoulders. “Right there! Don’t stop, don’t you fucking stop!”
Zebby’s control snapped. Her thrusts became erratic, animalistic. She was everywhere: mouth on Natalie’s, tongue tangling, teeth clashing; hands gripping Natalie’s ass, pulling her onto each driving plunge. The coarse denim of Zebby’s jeans chafed Natalie’s thighs, a sharp counterpoint to the devastating pleasure coiling in her gut.
“I’m gonna come,” Zebby warned, her voice ragged. “Gonna fill you up.”
The words, the sheer visceral promise, tipped Natalie over the edge. Her climax tore through her, violent and consuming. Her cunt clenched rhythmically around Zebby’s thrusting cock, milking her, and she screamed into Zebby’s shoulder, her body convulsing against the wall.
The sensation pushed Zebby over. With a final, deep roar, she shoved in as far as she could go and held, pulsing, hot release flooding into Natalie in thick, endless waves. They stayed like that, locked together, shuddering through the aftershocks, their sweat-slicked bodies heaving for air.
Slowly, the world seeped back in. The hum of the refrigerator. The faint smell of Brittany’s perfume. The ache in Natalie’s back from the wall.
Zebby’s grip loosened. She carefully withdrew, a soft, exhausted groan escaping them both. She kept Natalie from sliding down, holding her up, her face buried in Natalie’s neck. Natalie felt the warm trickle of Zebby’s spend on her inner thigh.
They stood in the wreckage of the hallway, uniforms and jeans around their ankles, clinging to each other.
Zebby’s breath was warm against her skin. “So,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. “That happened.”
A laugh bubbled up in Natalie’s chest, raw and real. She pulled back, looking at Zebby’s flushed, dazed face. She kissed her, softly this time, a slow melding of lips. “Welcome to Australia.”
They made it to the bedroom eventually, a tangle of limbs on Brittany’s guest bed. In the dark, Natalie traced the lines of Zebby’s face, the solid reality of her shoulder under her palm.
“Two weeks,” Zebby murmured, her eyes closed. “I have two weeks.”
“Then we make it count,” Natalie said, her own eyes growing heavy. The empty space beneath her ribs was gone, replaced by a terrifying, exquisite fullness. The hum of the lockers was replaced by Zebby’s steady breath. For now, it was enough. It was everything.