For fans and future fans of @ziggylong's King of the Woods, you are in for a treat with this erotic spin-off featuring Byron!

Kate

Kate lay still and quiet while the man cut off her clothes. His knife passed easily through her plaid, misnamed boyfriend shirt and neon-yellow sports bra without a single scratch. The cold steel soothed her burning breast, and when its rounded tip danced along her ribcage, her hips bucked involuntarily. She prayed that he hadn't noticed.

The man kneeling beside her had shoulder-length, layered black hair, dark eyes, and tanned skin. Her display did not disturb his look of calm concentration or his firm grip on the knife. He was tall for an Asian man, and lean, but his khaki shirt could not conceal the breadth of his shoulders or his muscular forearms. A patch on his sleeve displayed three trees and the words, "Florida Forest Service."

He slipped two fingers inside the waistband of her denim hiking shorts, brushing callused fingertips against the sensitive skin beneath her navel. Stifling a moan, she arched off the asphalt, but he did not pull the shorts down; he sliced them lengthwise and peeled all of her clothes aside. He had only spared her panties.

He examined her exposed body and gave her a reassuring smile. "Miss, you're going to be all right. Can you tell me your name?"

"Catherine. Kate. What happened?" she asked, covering herself with her hands. Her chest and arms throbbed painfully. Gasoline and charred fabric filled her nostrils, and black smoke filled the sky. She lay in the parking lot of a Kangaroo Express gas station. One of the pumps was pinned between a support pillar and the burnt-shell of a car-her car. A glittering heap of safety glass lay beneath her open driver's side window.

"You veered off the road to avoid a deer," the man said. "The pump shattered your windshield and doused you. You're lucky just your clothes caught fire."

I'm lucky you pulled me out of a flaming car, she thought.

The ache in her chest and arms worsened. "Can I have some ice?" she asked.

The man shook his head. "Ice is no good. I'll get you cool water and a blanket or something, just hang tight. The ambulance is on its way." He stripped off his shirt.

Kate could not keep from staring. The man only looked lean with his clothes on. She did not go for the swollen bodybuilder look at all, but he was perfectly proportioned. She wanted to sharpen her fingernails on his muscular chest, to nibble his collarbones, and to tread the cobblestone path of his abdominals, guided by the V shaped crease that pointed the way further down like an arrow.

She stifled a giggle. I'm off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Cock.

The man draped the shirt over her. "Sorry , it's a little sweaty."

Despite the smoke and gasoline in the air, his shirt smelled like clean laundry and fresh exertion. He prodded red spots on his arms and chest and winced. He had been burned worse than she had. Catching the look of concern on her face, he pretended, unconvincingly, to scratch his chest.

Oh my God. You're acting macho for me. Her nipples tented the fabric.

He walked to the gas station and returned with an armful of bottled water. "Rony-that's the gas station guy-said the ambulance will be here soon."

"Will you hold my hand?" she said.

"Sure," His hand was thickly-padded and scratchy as sandpaper in places, but his grip was surprisingly gentle. He opened a bottle of water with his free hand. "This should cool you off."

No chance in Hell. She nodded.

He trickled water onto her burns. It hurt, at first, but she refused to let it show. "Mmm," she moaned, pulling his fingers to her mouth.

His eyes widened.

Gotcha. She glanced at his inseam, imagining his cock thicken.

"You know," Kate said, putting her hand on his thigh, "I've heard that everything feels more intense after a near-death experience. And I'm very grateful for what you did."

"I'm just doing my job," he said, gently removing her hand. "I'm a Forest Ranger."

Bah, professionalism. "This shouldn't count, it wasn't a forest fire," she said.

Ambulance sirens approached. Kate cursed under her breath.

"Let's get you to a hospital," he said.

Kate could have ignored the sirens or his words, but layered together the sounds hung in the air heavier than the smell of smoke and gasoline. Hospital. That sounded bad, with sirens in the background. Sirens made the word sound serious. When she was arching off the asphalt or putting Byron's fingers in her mouth, it was easy to ignore how she had gotten here, because it was a good place to be in so many ways. But her chest throbbed, now that she was paying attention to her burns instead of the way Byron made her nipples feel. She shivered, just for a moment, but it was long enough to imagine flames dancing over her skin.

Cold. She felt cold.

--

Byron

Byron propped his feet up on the field unit's break room table and scrutinized his cell phone. Catherine Kate had talked up the emergency response team and male nurses -until she'd gotten his number. They had exchanged texts for two days; mostly, she updated him on her condition.

"How's your head?" Byron texted. He'd initially typed 'ur' instead of 'your,' but she was worth the extra key presses.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Kate responded. She'd told him to just call her Kate; that was cool, some of Byron's friends called him by his last name too.

Byron scratched his temple. "That's why I asked?"

"Head is fine. My burns are healing well, see?" She sent him a picture.

He fell out of his chair, landing hard on his arm. When he had pulled Kate out of the car, her hair had been stuffed under an ugly sun hat with a chin strap, and she hadn't been wearing any make up, only a smear of zinc oxide on her nose. It was all the same to him, or so he'd thought. But it wasn't the same at all: She'd selected a peach blush to accentuate her light freckles and arranged her reddish-brown curls over her breasts like Lady Godiva. Her twinkling green eyes suggested mischief; her coral-colored lips promised world-altering sex.

He rubbed his bruised elbow furiously. Her burns did look better. The swelling had gone down, at least on Kate.

She texted, "So, can I take you to dinner to say thank you?"

Byron had a code intended to prevent Stockholm syndrome, or Adriana Lima syndrome, or whatever it was called. When a paragon of masculinity such as himself rescued a woman from a volatile situation, he had to take care not to land in an even more volatile situation. It was only natural that they would imprint on him like a baby bird, but Byron Wong was not one to fuck baby birds. So, he let women-the ones that he rescued, that is-make the first move, and he waited a couple weeks to let them get their heads straight.

A couple weeks, not a couple days. But Kate was no baby bird; she knew exactly what she wanted. And Byron wanted to grip her broad hips while she arched into him, to taste the coral of her lips, and to draw out the throaty moan she'd made when he'd tended to her injuries. But... "Dinner, Saturday at 9," he texted. "What's your address?"

"You're going to pick me up? I have a loaner car."

"We're staying in."

Kate took a minute to respond. "Aren't you cocky."

Byron pocketed his phone. It chimed again a minute later. He didn't need to check it.

--

Kate

Saturday morning, Kate woke up while it was still dark. The vertigo from the swerve, the jarring impact as her car hit the pump: these were things she didn't think about. These were things she only felt in dreams--not every night, but often enough. They would fade in time, she was sure, because those parts of the dream dissolved when she opened her eyes. What stayed with her was the fire. Squeezing her eyes shut didn't help, and flames danced in the darkness in front of her and in the darkness inside her eyelids. It didn't matter.

She had read that human beings didn't burn well, not really. That had always seemed reasonable before. Now it seemed ridiculous that anyone could say that--humans burned well enough, or at least their skin did. Her skin did. Or: it could have. And now that she knew how easy it would be to burn, she didn't know how to forget.

It took her a long time to get back to sleep.

Saturday afternoon, and Kate was feeling better. By Saturday evening, Kate was humming AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long" while she touched up her smoky eye make up.

Kate wore a little black halter dress to balance her pear-shaped frame. She had a love/love relationship with her body, flat chest and all; she had been reliably informed that her ass "did not quit," so it had something in common with her. Beneath the dress she wore lacy, royal-blue lingerie with jewel-green trim and the kind of thread count that got French royals guillotined. She blew a kiss at her reflection. Damn the proletariat. I'm sexy.

The tea lights, and the surprise, were ready to go. The doorbell rang. Kate peeked through the peephole. Byron wore dark olive pants and a blue denim shirt; he had undone his top buttons and rolled up his sleeves to show off his chest and forearms. She had braced herself for muddy work boots, but his boots were polished and bourgeois.

Behind the safety of the peephole, Kate clutched a hand to her collarbone and took a deep breath. God, Byron was hot. She had considered that he might seem less miraculously attractive, less dreamily handsome, when he wasn't saving her life. Maybe it would be like really flattering lighting, and he would walk away from the lamps and look--well, all right. Good enough, maybe.

But no, Byron was just authentically hot. Maybe it was his wide shoulders; maybe it was his forearms, which he had correctly decided to expose; maybe it was the bit of exposed chest and how it called attention to his neck and how she wanted to fill the hollow of his throat with kisses. Who knew? The only thing she knew for certain was that he was hot enough to send a bolt of last second nerves down her spine, and Kate shook herself to snap out of it. Sure, he was hot, but he was here to see her. There was no reason to be nervous.

She was a little nervous. And it was a weird word, the way it was used, hot. No time to ponder slang etymology. However she wanted to phrase it, there was a preposterously good looking man on her doorstep. Kate fiddled with her curls for a second. Deep breaths. Okay. Good. She was good.

Kate opened the door.

"Nice place." Byron entered carrying a brown paper bag and gave her a polite, one-armed hug. "Where's the kitchen?"

Kate opened the bag and found something far more troubling: a baguette and a neat stack of Tupperware. She pointed an accusing finger at Byron. "Bullshit. You are not a chef."

Byron shrugged. "I have to eat every three hours or I get catabolic. I thought you were okay with staying in?"

Kate gaped. Was he making fun of her? God, he was dead serious about dinner. She wanted to weep. Instead, she walked him to the kitchen. He unpacked the groceries on the counter.

"It won't take long." Byron rinsed red and yellow cherry tomatoes and scooped them onto a chopping block. "Most of it's prepped already, but I thought we'd make bruschetta together."

"Next you'll tell me you grow your own," she grumbled.

"Actually-" he said, taking a knife from her knife rack. "Oh, the tomatoes? I got them from Publix."

The rhythmic thunk of blade against wood lulled Kate into a trance. Few pleasures could compare to watching a knife skillfully wielded in masculine hands. He gripped it loosely, pinching the blade between thumb and forefinger, but his forearm muscles still popped. She still recalled the overwhelming tension and release when he'd cut through her clothes; she wanted to feel it more keenly.

She laid her hand on the back of the blade. "Is this how you kept from cutting me before?" she asked.

"Try one, then I'll show you." Byron held up a piece of tomato.

She took it with her teeth, licking the sweet juice from his thick, rough fingers. He murmured inaudibly.

Gotcha.

Byron ceded the knife and chopping block. She stepped up to the counter and asked, "What should I do?"

Clasping her waist, he leaned down to nuzzle her neck. She arched her back, grinding into his growing bulge, and pulled his arms tight.

Kate looked up at him and parted lips. He took her invitation; his kiss tasted sweet like a cherry tomato. She returned his kisses frantically, fumbling for his belt. He hiked up her little black dress and cupped her ass in his firm hands.

Frenzied, Kate yanked his shirt up so she could work her hand under and scratch furrows from his throat to his belly button.

He grimaced in pain-much more pain than she had intended. Oh, shit. That went right over your burns.

Byron looked at his chest, then to Kate. His grimace turned into a broad smile. He planted his palms on her ribs and lifted her off her feet. She wrapped her legs around his trunk.