God, the man made her forget she had knees. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Me, too.” He let out another breath. “But I want you to know how much it meant to me that you were there for me today.”

She stared at him, the words I always will be stuck in her throat, because she could feel that goodbye to the very corners of her soul, and knew he meant it. “Forget the thanks. Get back to the goodbye, which I was so enjoying.”

She needed to keep this light.

Very light.

Or she’d fall apart, and she didn’t allow herself to do that, ever. So she lifted her mouth to his and he met her halfway, going back to ravishing her mouth as if he were a man starving after a two-week fast and she was a twelve-course meal.

She felt the same. She needed to fill herself up with him. Straining against his leanly muscled form, she ran her mouth along his jaw, impatient at not being able to reach any of the good stuff. “My hands, I need my hands to touch you.”

“You touch me with your eyes. You touch me with your voice. You touch me with your damn heart, you just can’t admit it.”

Stung by what was undeniably the truth, she went still, but he tilted her face up to his, stared into her eyes, swore roughly and kissed her again. “You touch me every time I look at you,” he managed gruffly when they both came up for breath. “Or when I think of you. Hell, I dream about you. It pisses me off, Cristina.”

“Then you shouldn’t have come. You shouldn’t have come.”

“Damn right, but I did. I came to say goodbye.”

“What does that mean exactly? Where are you going?”

“I’m leaving the station and going back to what I wanted to do in the first place. It might take me a little time to get it all in gear, I still have to sell the house, but I wanted you to know.”

Her heart had stopped at the words I’m leaving the station. She tried to turn her head away to blast him with some more words, words that would scare him off, make him get the hell out, but he wouldn’t allow it. He took her mouth with his, nipping at her resistance with hot, hungry bites until, with a moan of surrender she arched closer, clutching at him, giving in to everything, anything, he wanted of her.

It was insane, this surging swell of need and hunger she felt. It flooded her, nearly blinding her, and before she knew what she was doing, she’d torn her hands from his and yanked at his pants, desperate to get them open, even more desperate to get him inside her. While she fought his zipper, he had her jeans down completely and a condom out of his pocket. “Wrap your legs around my waist,” he commanded in his low, rough whisper, the one that had her shivering and rushing to do what he asked.

“Yeah, like that,” he ground out. “God, just like that.” Lifting her up against the door, he pushed inside her.

As she cried out in sheer, unadulterated pleasure, her head thunked back against the wall and she gripped his shoulders for all she was worth. She had no idea how she could want him like this, but she did. “Dustin-”

“I know.” Sliding a hand up her back to cradle her head, protect it from the door, he began to move. “I know.” Leaning into the door, he pressed her between the hard wood and his equally hard body, thrusting into her over and over again, until her toes curled, until she was panting out his name like a mantra in mindless plea as he kissed her, using his tongue in a matching rhythm to his body.

Within moments, she burst, and he was only seconds behind her, and for long ragged breaths they were both gone. Then his knees wobbled, and with an oath, he slapped a hand back on the door to hold them upright, his muscles still trembling. But instead of letting her go, he turned his face into the curve of her neck and nuzzled there, softly kissing her damp flesh.

“I can’t feel my legs,” she gasped.

“I’ve got you.”

And wasn’t that just the thing. The terribly confusing thing. “I…need to feel my legs.”

Lifting his head, he looked into her eyes as he let her legs slide down his body. When her toes touched the floor, her legs nearly buckled, but he caught her, his jaw against hers, his breathing-still uneven-disturbing the hair at her temple.

“I’m good.” Proving it, she stepped back, coming up against the door, but holding her hands up to show him that she was fine.

Dustin just stared at her. “What the hell was that?”

“Some damn amazing goodbye sex.”

“Yeah.” He turned in a slow circle, shoving his hands through his hair as he came back around. “I really don’t want to do this, to say goodbye.”

“Well then, don’t. Don’t say it.”

Stepping back, he shook his head. “I want more.”

She closed her eyes.

“And you still don’t,” he said quietly.

“Dustin-”

“Goodbye, Cristina.”

She was standing there, mouth open when he walked right out the door.

ON DUSTIN’S next shift, his unit was called out just as he set foot in the door of the station.

Just as well. He needed to keep busy, because after this shift he was giving his typed resignation to the chief, and he didn’t want to think about it.

At midday they met up with Cristina and Blake’s rig outside a small grocery store on the corner of Main and Third. Inside there’d been a brawl in the liquor aisle over the last of the peppermint schnapps, leaving the manager with a black eye and a customer headed for a night behind bars.

“I guess that guy really needed that peppermint schnapps,” Cristina said.

“Maybe he should have gone for a beer instead.”

She gave him a tough-girl stare. “Sometimes, you just have to have what you have to have.”

“Yeah?” Knowing he was stepping into the frying pan, he shifted close. “And what is it that you have to have?”

She paused, then sagged a little, losing the attitude. “That’s the problem. I always figured it was one thing and now I’m thinking it’s another entirely.”

Just then Blake called her away. Dustin had to restrain himself from yelling, “What the hell does that mean?” after her.

They met up again several hours later, outside a small house. “People are so stupid around the holidays,” she said.

He happened to agree. People were stupid around the holidays, as evidenced by the fact he was loading a guy into the ambulance minus his fingers, which he’d cut off with his new turkey carver, right into his kitchen sink. Earlier he’d had a guy who’d fallen off his roof putting up the Christmas lights, and a woman who’d accidentally electrocuted herself when she had stuck too many strings of lights into one socket and then touched it with wet fingers.

Yeah. People were stupid around the holidays. Including himself.

And then came the defining moment of stupidity. He and James were called back to the grocery store from earlier that day for another unknown injury.

“The call came from the deli,” one of the clerks in the front told them as they came through. “Someone’s down.”

“I’ll go get the stretcher,” James said.

Blake and Cristina entered, as well. “They said they might need a fire unit,” Blake told them. “What’s up?”

“Don’t know yet.” Blake radioed dispatch for more information while Dustin headed in, extremely aware of Cristina at his side. At the back of the store, a wide-eyed clerk peeking out from a swinging door behind the deli counter waved them over. “You’re just EMTs, right?” she whispered frantically. “No police?”

“What’s happening?” Cristina asked her.

“No questions!” The clerk grabbed Dustin’s arm. “He said no questions! Oh, God, you have to hurry, or it’ll be too late!”

Dustin went with her, with Cristina right on his tail. They both looked at each other, nonplussed, when the clerk locked the door behind them. “He said just two EMTs.”

Dustin opened his mouth to correct her that Cristina was a firefighter, but Cristina stepped on his foot. “It’s just us two,” she said quietly.

“Okay, good.” The clerk gulped in air. “Because if I let anyone else in, he’ll kill all of us. Hurry!”

Kill?

The back area was empty, except for two people-the manager they’d met earlier, down on the ground, still sporting his black eye, but now holding on to his shoulder, as well, which was bleeding all over the floor.

And the customer from earlier, who stood over him.

With a gun.

“Well, it’s about time,” he said, tightening his grip on the gun. “This idiot made me shoot him.”

“You’re crazy!” the “idiot” yelled, writhing in pain, bleeding out on the floor as Dustin watched. “And so is the courthouse for letting you out on bail! They should have put you in a seventy-two-hour hold! And for the record, all I said was that you’re more stupid than you look if you think I’m going to apologize to you!”

“And you’re not only as stupid as you look, you’re also going to be dead.” He aimed the gun between the manager’s eyes. “Now say it. Say you’re sorry.”

The wounded man was bleeding fast and furious, and going very pale. “No.”

“Say you’re sorry!”

“No!”

“You have another shoulder, you know. And I’ll shoot you in it-Hey!” The shooter turned his head toward Dustin, who’d shifted closer to the victim. “Stay right where you are until I tell you to move!”

Ignoring him, Dustin went down on his knees to look at the wound. The bullet couldn’t have hit any major arteries or the manager would probably already have bled out completely-one thing in the guy’s favor.

Dustin lifted the torn and bloody material away from the entry wound.

The manager hissed out a pained breath. “I’m going to die, aren’t I? How long before I die?”

Cristina went to move closer to help but crazy-gun-guy protested. “Stay where you are!”