Handcuffed in Bed with My Firefighter Ex

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I bought a pair of novelty handcuffs. While trying them on, the key fell into the crack of the bed, and I had no choice but to call 91

The door was forced open, and fully equipped firefighters burst into my bedroom. The captain leading them turned out to be my ex-boyfriend, whom I had dumped.

He saw me wearing a lace dress with pitifully little fabric, my hands locked to the headboard with pink fluffy handcuffs, in an extremely suggestive position.

The young team member beside him blushed, stammering: "C-Captain, this requires hydraulic cutters..."

My ex raised his hand to stop him, his gaze scraping across my exposed skin like a blade.

He walked to the bedside, looking down at me from above, his chest heaving violently, his voice so cold it could freeze:

"Quite the games you play, Ares. Where's the bastard? Did he handcuff you here and run off after pulling up his pants?"

1.

I felt like I'd been struck by lightning.

My hands cuffed to the headboard instinctively clenched, the metal core of the pink fluffy handcuffs digging viciously into my wrist bones.

It hurt.

But nowhere near as much as the shock of seeing Gustavo's face.

He stood there looking down at me, his firefighting combat gear still covered with wood splinters from breaking down the door, his helmet tucked under his arm, his whole body carrying the cold wind from outside.

His features still had that devastating quality. Sharp brows, high nose bridge, a jawline sharp enough to cut your finger.

Only those eyesthree years ago when he looked at me, they held entire galaxies.

Now they contained only murderous ice.

"C-Captain, these handcuffs are novelty ones, there's no keyhole, we need hydraulic cutters..."

Behind him, young team member Kane, blushing to the roots of his neck, held a toolbox, his voice shaking like a sieve.

His gaze clearly didn't know where to land.

Well, anyone would be stunned to see a woman wearing a black lace slip dress, hands locked to an iron headboard with pink fluffy handcuffs, positioned like a sacrificial lamb.

Especially when that woman was their captain's ex-girlfriend.

Gustavo didn't turn around.

He reached out, snatched the hydraulic cutters from Kane's hand, then slowly turned back.

That look made my spine run cold.

It wasn't the look you give a person. It was the look you give prey.

"Everyone out."

His voice wasn't loud, but it was like a knife stabbing into cottonmuffled and vicious.

Kane froze: "Captain, this isn't really regulation..."

"I said, everyone out."

Gustavo didn't raise his voice the second time, but his tone carried an additional layer of unquestionable coldness.

The team members behind him exchanged glances, but ultimately left with their heads down.

The bedroom door slammed shut, cutting off all sound.

The entire world shrank to this space of a few square meters, leaving only him and me.

I heard my own heartbeat, racing like it would explode.

Gustavo set the hydraulic cutters on the nightstand. He didn't immediately unlock me.

He turned and knelt on the bed with one knee.

The mattress sank sharply under his weight, and I slid uncontrollably toward his side.

The strap of my lace slip dress slipped off my left shoulder.

I bit down hard, desperately trying to pull it up with my cuffed hands, but couldn't reach it.

Gustavo's gaze slowly moved down from my exposed collarbone, sliding past what the slip dress barely covered, finally settling on my legs that I was trying to press together.

He reached out. Five fingers, one by one, closed around my ankle.

His palm was burning hot, his knuckles roughcalluses earned from years of gripping fire hoses and climbing ladders.

Goosebumps exploded across my entire body.

"Gustavo, what are you doing!"

He didn't answer.

He just brought his face close to my ear, his burning breath washing over it.

His voice was so hoarse it was like sandpaper scraping glass:

"This guy's got no guts."

"Ties you up like this, then pulls up his pants and runs?"

"Doesn't even clean up after himself?"

Each word carried the hatred of a dull knife cutting flesh.

My eyes instantly stung and swelled.

Not from fear, but from guilt. Guilt so profound my organs were trembling.

This manthree years ago, I had pushed him away with my own hands.

Gustavo raised the hydraulic cutters, the cold metal blade touching the skin on the inside of my wrist.

I hissednot from pain, but from the extreme cold that made my scalp tingle.

His hand was steady.

A fire captain's hand had held up collapsed beams in burning buildings, had single-handedly pulled jumpers from seventeenth-floor window ledges.

It never shook.

But I could see the muscles in his jaw clenched tight.

His masseter muscles pulsing, like he was about to shatter his teeth.

"I asked you a question."

His voice pressed down from above, heavy as lead.

"Did you use protection."

My brain instantly crashed.

What? What protection? What was he talking about?

I opened my mouth, and in my panic, without thinking, blurted out two words:

"Didn't."

I meant the handcuffs didn't have a spare key.

But those two words, to Gustavo's ears, clearly meant something else entirely.

His whole body jerked like he'd been electrocuted, his right hand gripping the hydraulic cutters suddenly tightening.

The veins on the back of his hand bulged one by one, like snakes crawling under his skin.

Click. The sound of metal breaking, crisp and viciousthe handcuff chain snapped.

The moment the chain broke, a flying metal fragment cut across the back of Gustavo's hand.

A gash immediately opened, blood flowing down between his fingers, dripping onto my white sheets.

One drop, two drops, three dropsshocking to see.

"Your hand"

"Don't worry about it."

He threw the hydraulic cutters on the floor with a dull thud.

My newly freed hands immediately grabbed the blanket, wrapping myself from feet to chin, wishing I could bundle myself into a dumpling.

"You can leave now."

My voice was shaking terribly, but I tried to maintain the last shred of dignity.

"Thank you, Captain Gustavo, for responding. Sorry for the trouble, goodbye."

Gustavo didn't move.

He stood up, turned his back to me, and began unbuckling his firefighting combat gear.

One buckle, two buckles, three buckles.

The heavy flame-retardant jacket slid from his shoulders, revealing the sweat-soaked black compression shirt underneath.

The fabric clung tightly to him, outlining every muscle on his back.

My throat tightened. I looked away.

The next second, I saw Gustavo grab the chair by the bedroom door

With a bang, he jammed it against the door.

Then he turned around, sat down heavily on the chair, legs spread, elbows on his knees.

His injured right hand hung down, still dripping blood.

He didn't even glance at it.

He just raised his head, staring at me with those bloodshot eyes.

"I need to write an incident report."

He said. His voice cold as poison:

"Ares, I need you to cooperate."

"Give me a detailed account of what happened."

"When it started, how long it lasted, when the other person left."

"Speak clearly."

I gripped the blanket tightly, my nails digging into my palms.

He was settling personal scores. Using the most legitimate excuse to inflict the most extreme humiliation on me.

Three years. This was the hatred he'd been holding for three years.

Blood flowed from the back of his hand to his fingertips, then dripped from his fingertips onto my bedroom floor.

He didn't wipe it, didn't bandage it, didn't even furrow his browas if it was someone else's hand.

As if all his attention, all his hatred, all his madness, was focused on me.

I couldn't take it anymore.

"What's wrong with you, Gustavo!"

I sprang up from the bed, wrapped in the blanket, and shouted at him:

"There's no man! No one! Just leave!"

"This is my house! What right do you have to stay here!"

Gustavo squinted slightly at my outburst, but he didn't move.

His lips even curved into a smile so cold it chilled to the bone.

"No one?"

"So you're playing with handcuffs by yourself?"

"Tying yourself up?"

"Dressed like that to tie yourself up?"

Each rhetorical question was like a hammer pounding on my skull.

I stood there open-mouthed, unable to say a word.

Becauseeverything he said was true.

Gustavo didn't give me a chance to breathe.

He stood up from the chair and began searching through my bedroom like an enraged beast patrolling its territory.

He yanked open the closet, hangers clattering. He glanced downno men's clothes.

He kicked open the space under the bedstorage boxes with a few shoes, an old suitcase. He crouched down, looked for three seconds, stood up.

He jerked open the balcony curtainsempty, just a few pieces of underwear on the drying rack swaying gently in the evening breeze.

Gustavo scanned each item, his brow furrowed tight enough to pinch a fly.

No trace of a man. Not a single trace.

This bedroom was as clean as a sealed tomb, inhabited by only one person.

I huddled on the bed, clutching the blanket, feeling like a rabbit cornered against a wall.

Watching helplessly as he searched through my closet, under my bed, my balcony.

Finally

His gaze landed on the vanity. My heart skipped a beat.

Don't go there. Please, don't go there.

But he was already moving.

I sprang from the bed like a released spring. The blanket fell and I didn't even care.

I rushed over, blocking the vanity before he could reach it, spreading my arms.

"You can't search here!"

My voice had already changed pitch, sharp and thin, with a crying tone.

Gustavo looked down at me.

He was a full head taller than me. Right now, blocking his path, I looked like a kitten baring its teeth and claws while trembling all over.

"Move."

"No!"

He didn't say it a second time.

One hand wrapped around my waist, lifting me away from the vanity like picking up a cat, pressing me against the nearby wall.

His other handthe one still bleedingpulled open the bottom drawer of the vanity.

Inside the drawer was nothing belonging to a man. Not even a single strand of male hair.

Just a delivery box. Already opened, then resealed with tape.

The seal was crooked, as if it had been repeatedly opened and resealed.

Gustavo frowned, peeling back the tape with one hand.

The box opened with a rustle, its contents spilling out.

A photo slid to the floor.

In the photo were two peoplehim and me.

Three years ago, summer, in front of the fire station. He wore his training uniform, I stood on tiptoe holding a water bottle over his head. Both of us grinning carelessly.

Next to the photo was a dark green hardcover notebook.

The cover was worn and fraying at the edges, like it had been opened countless times.

Gustavo bent down and picked up the photo, his fingertips slowly sliding across my face in the image.

Then he picked up the notebook.

All the blood in my body froze.

"Don't look!"

I lunged at him like a madwoman. My fingers caught the corner of the notebook, desperately pulling it back.

Gustavo restrained me with one hand.

He held the notebook high over his head. I couldn't reach it.

I jumped. He stepped back.

I jumped again. He stepped back again.

Finally I stepped on one of the scattered photos on the floor, my foot slipped, and I pitched forward.

Gustavo caught me around the waist with quick reflexes, but his other hand never lowered the notebook.

He sat me down on the edge of the bed, then stepped back two paces, lowered his head, and opened the notebook.

The first page. The first day after we broke up. His pupils trembled slightly.

Silence.

I saw his Adam's apple bob sharply.

He turned to the second page. It had dried, wrinkled water stains. His fingertips began to shake.

The third page. He closed his eyes briefly, the corners reddening quickly.

The fourth page. His lashes held fragments of the bedroom's warm yellow light, glistening with moisture.

Thenhe turned to the last page.

The last page was dated yesterday.

Gustavo spoke.

His voice sounded like each word was being ground out from his chest, hoarse to the point of distortion.

He read

"Day one thousand and twenty-three since the breakup."

"The fire station downstairs changed their siren sound."

"It took me three days to get used to it."

"Before, when that sound went off, I knew he was going on a call."

"I'd lean out the window and watch the fire truck leave."

"Then count the seconds until it came back."

He paused, his Adam's apple rolling violently.

He continued reading.

"Today I passed the mall and smelled cigarette smoke on a man."

"It was Camel brand. He used to smoke those too."

"I stood there in a daze for a long time."

"Everyone around me was staring."

"I pretended to be waiting for someone, but really I was waiting for the tears to go back inside."

At the last sentence, Gustavo's voice completely shattered, like a piece of glass violently smashed on the ground.

"One thousand days since the breakup. Why does the smell of smoke still make me want to cry?"

The notebook hung limply from his hand.

He didn't close it. Just held it there halfway, knuckles white, the blood on the back of his hand already congealed into a dark brown scab.

His eyes were rednot just slightly bloodshot, but the entire whites burned crimson.

The bedroom was quiet as a tomb.

Gustavo lowered his head, his gaze moving from the notebook, slowly, slowly, settling on the cut pink fluffy handcuffs on the floor.

ThenI saw his expression change.

The anger was gone, the mockery was gone, that bone-deep hatred was gone too.

In its place was something I'd never seen on his face before.

That thing was calledheartbreak.

He understood everything now. No other man, no hookup, no one who pulled up their pants and ran.

Just a woman he'd left behind, holding his old photos and a diary full of his name through one thousand and twenty-three nights after the breakup, rotting alone.

Even buying novelty handcuffsshe was playing alone.

I crouched by the bed, burying my face in my knees.

My shoulders shook like leaves in the wind.

Utterly humiliated.

Ares, oh Ares, look at yourself now.

Wearing a lace dress, cornered in your bedroom by your ex-boyfriend.

He read your diary, recited your most pathetic thoughts, saw your ugliest secrets.

In front of him, even your last shred of dignity has been stripped away.

Tears fell heavily onto my knees, spreading dark stains.

I raised my head and forced a smile at him, uglier than crying.

"Satisfied now, Captain Gustavo?"

"Now you know."

"Ares is just this pathetic."

"Three years broken up, can't forget you."

"Are you happy? Can you put this in your incident report?"

I roughly wiped my face with the back of my hand, stood up, and pointed at the bedroom door.

The final order to leave.

"If you've seen enough, get out."

"Please."

"Leave me... just a little bit of dignity."

My voice broke in my throat.

The bedroom fell into a long, dead silence. Gustavo stood motionless.

I thought he would leave. He should leave.

Three years ago, I was the one who broke up with him. I was the one who said "I don't love you anymore." I was the one who packed his things in a box and left it at the door. I was the one who changed my phone number and moved, cutting ties completely.

He had ten thousand reasons to hate me.

He should laugh coldly, slam the door, and leavethat would be the normal script.

But he didn't.

I heard the notebook fall to the floor with a dull, soft thud.

Then footsteps.

One step, two steps, three steps, getting closer.

Close enough that I could smell the smoke from his fire gear, mixed with sweat and the metallic scent of blood.

A hand covered in wounds and dried blood cupped my face.

His palm was rough enough to scrape skin, but his fingertips were trembling badly.

I was forced to lift my head, meeting his eyes.

Red, moist, like a wounded beast with its heart gouged out but refusing to fall.

Gustavo knelt on one knee before me.

This man who had pried open twisted car doors with his bare hands in fires.

This man who had carried two children down from the fifteenth floor through thick smoke.

This man I had pushed away with my own hands and then abandoned.

He knelt before me, cradling my face.

His voice so hoarse it sounded like he was speaking through broken glass.

"Since you miss me so much"

His thumb wiped across the tear tracks on my face, the pressure so light it was like touching something fragile.

But the emotion churning in his eyes was fierce enough to make your legs weak.

He unbuckled his tactical belt, the metal clasps clanging in the silent bedroom.

Gustavo pressed his forehead against mine, nose tip to nose tip, breath intertwining.

"why use some cheap toy? Use me."