Blaze: A Fireman Romance (Hard n' Dirty Book 4)

by Renee Rose

  “Okay, there it is.” She’s fully in my office now, hands on her hips. “I knew there was something you were trying to say to me. So what is it?”

  Her show of defiance makes my cock ache. I want to take this girl in hand so badly my palm twitches. I can’t stop myself from advancing on her until we’re toe to toe. Nose to chest.

  I’m dying to wrap my fist in her hair, tip that saucy head back to keep her eyes on my face. Fortunately for her, she lifts them of her own accord.

  “Enough, little dragon.” I tower over her, hands on my hips. “You don’t march into my office breathing fire and throwing out attitude. You have something to say to me, you show some respect.”

  She swallows and takes a step back. “I’m sorry, sir.”

  Christ, yes. The nipples are hard. Even through a sports bra and t-shirt. Her eyes are dilated, too, and the way she rubs her lips together makes my cock chubby.

  “That’s better.” I pin her with an authoritative stare and let the silence stretch between us before I go on. “I didn’t say anything to you I wouldn’t have said if you were a man.”

  She rolls her tongue around in her cheek. “You call the other guys little dragon?”

  I fight a smile. “Did that offend you?”

  She cocks a hip, her posture turned seductive. “Nah.”

  “Good. Are we okay?” I automatically reach out to thump her shoulder the way I would one of the guys after a talk in the office. At the last second, I pull the thump part back and just touch her. It’s just a shoulder—it’s not like I have hands on her face, or her waist, or anywhere intimate—and yet it’s like time freezes the moment I touch her. Our eyes lock, heat races through my limbs. I have to force myself to drop my hand but when I do, my gaze falls on those full, pouty lips.

  Damn.

  “Yeah, we’re good.” She’s lost most of her tough girl attitude, her expression more wondering now. It’s amazing how badly I want to see her stripped bare to me—the facade gone. I want to know the real Lia—what makes her tick.

  But that won’t be happening. No stripping—of clothes or otherwise. Not for me or any other asshole in this station.

  Chapter 2

  Lia

  I hop off the Staten Island Railway a couple blocks from my parents’ place and hoof it over, a pan of triple chocolate brownies in hand. It’s my nephew’s birthday, which means the entire house will be packed with family—my brothers and their wives and children, parents, uncles, aunts and then any neighbors who feel like stopping by and enduring the mayhem of the Burke family.

  I know I’m not always up for it, that’s for damn sure. Still, there’s comfort in the known. The predictability of how the afternoon will play out. Every annoying comment has already been said before.

  Of course, this is the first time I’ve seen everyone since I got the job at the fire station, so I have to brace myself for the millions of questions that will entail. I look up at the house, rebuilt to look exactly the same after the fire destroyed everything ten years ago. Given the chance for something new, my mom chose the known. Like her life could only be imagined one way and anything different would be wrong.

  Me—I never wanted to come back here. Certainly not after the fire. Not now after being on my own for five years. I took off the second I graduated high school to ‘find myself.’ But I’m used to the familiar ache in my chest at returning. The heaviness of being back with everything so familiar and foreign at once.

  Three of the older children bang out the door and race down the steps, laughing like they’re up to no good. Which I fully applaud.

  I step inside. “Hey, everyone!” I call out.

  “Lia! Whatcha got there?” My Uncle Juan—my mother’s brother—peers into my pan and snags a chunk of brownie where it crumbled up when I cut it. “Mmm.” He pops it into his mouth. “That’s a winner.”

  I twist to hold the pan out of his reach and walk past him to the kitchen toward the long table packed with every other dish of party food brought by the masses. Like my crazy family, a combination of Puerto Rican—my mom’s side, and Irish—my dad’s, favorites. Plates heaped with fried plantains, sliced jicama with lime squeezed over it, cilantro rice and beans, plus the platter of barbequed meat—hamburgers, hot dogs, bratwurst, Italian sausage. Packages of buns riddle the table, along with every condiment known to man.

  I plunk the brownies down as my brother, Tommy, sweeps by and grabs a handful of chips. “There’s the little traitor.”

  They like to rib me for joining the fire department instead of the police force. As if they ever would’ve let me follow them into the profession. I give him a hug and kiss my niece, Madison, the cherubic three-year-old perched on his hip. She kicks to be let down and runs off to join the rest of the kids.

  My mom gets me next, with the two-cheeked kisses and a stream of chatter I don’t even hear. I have this automatic tune-out that happens when I’m here. I’m so used to being talked over, unheard, projected on, that I just sort of settle into the hologram of what they see me as. I swear, until the day I packed up to join the Forest Service summer hotshot crew, no one comprehended I really intended to pursue my ambition to become a firefighter.

  I still don’t think anyone believes I can do it.

  “Hey, squirt.” My brother Eddie wraps an arm around me from behind, picks me off my feet and gives me a shake. “Yep. Still tiny.”

  “Small in size, not in personality,” I sing. Again, this is routine. I could do it in my sleep.

  “Hey, there she is!” My dad gives me a kiss. “You giving them hell over there?”

  “Yep, Dad. All good.” I pat his shoulder. Don’t need Dad or my brothers to go apeshit protective on me. Because Lord knows, they would.

  He shakes his head. “I still don’t like the idea of you—”

  I hold up my hand. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know—way too dangerous for your little girl. I can take care of myself, Dad.”

  My father looks genuinely pained and I experience a moment of remorse. I’m sure he does worry about me. And it’s true this job is dangerous. But no more or less dangerous than being a cop, which was fine for all of my brothers.

  It’s the curse of being the youngest, a girl, and the only one in the family who got my mother’s height. It’s like they will forever think I’m still that little girl running around in footed pajamas or something.

  All he says is, “I sure hope so, sweetheart,” and ambles on.

  I fix myself a plate of food and head outside to the back, where more meat is being grilled by the man-pack gathered around. This is where I feel like I don’t belong. I’ve always had that sense. The women here are all talking about the children, and families and stuff that doesn’t interest me. Before there were nieces and nephews, they were talking about girl shit that didn’t interest me. I can fake it, but I always have that sense I’m a stranger in my own family. I open a folding chair and plunk myself down on it.

  My oldest brother, Alex, sets up a chair beside me. “So?”

  “So, what?”

  “The guys hazing you?”

  I roll my eyes. “That’s what Dad asked, too. Are you going to go kick their asses if I say they are?”

  “Hell yeah, I’m going to kick their asses! Nobody messes with my baby sister.”

  I bump shoulders with him and stand up. “I can take care of myself.”

  “Wait up, Lia.” I turn back. “I got a friend over there—not at your station, but he’s a battalion chief. He told me they’re taking bets on how long you’ll last.”

  Seriously?

  Even though I’d guessed this much, hearing it confirmed sends a flush of white hot anger and oily humiliation mixing in my veins. I suddenly hate the men I work with, and my brother for relaying this shit to me. I blink rapidly, my eyes and nose burning.

  “Oh yeah?” I square my shoulders. “What are you betting?”

  He holds his hands up. “Whoa, whoa. I’m on your side.”

  “Really? How is
telling me that a help?” I snap. I’ve raised my voice, which gathers some attention from the family members around.

  He pulls a long face and shoves his hands deep in his pockets. “I just thought you should know what you’re up against.”

  “Yeah, I do know. Not that every member of this family hasn’t warned me at least fifty times each.”

  I have a tendency to exaggerate. Sue me.

  I turn on my heel and head into the house, ignoring Alex calling my name.

  Inside my mom is talking to one of my sisters-in-law about some toy. “I had the same set of alphabet blocks my mother saved for me. All five kids played with them—long after they were little. It breaks my heart they were all lost in the fire.”

  My eyes dart to the burn scars on her forearm and my stomach clenches. I’ve heard this refrain so often over the last ten years but it never gets easier. The gnawing guilt never goes away.

  And this is why I’m not giving up. I’m not going to be hazed into quitting.

  I had to become a firefighter.

  Because me and fire—we like each other way too much. And if there’s anyone who should be running into burning buildings and pulling out kids, it’s me.

  I owe the world that much.

  Chapter 3

  Lia

  The alarm sounds through the fire station. My heart pumps as I rush through the steps that training ingrained into me. I pull on my turnouts and step into my boots, faster this time than the last three times. My time is improving.

  I climb behind the wheel of our fire truck. There are five of us on the crew, and Blaze assigned me the chauffeur job. I know it’s because he thinks I’m not strong enough for the other jobs. Like I didn’t pass the same firefighter test all the rest of them did.

  Which is fine. I’ll show them all soon enough. I put on my earmuffs and start the engine and lights.

  “Everyone in?” I’m ready to pull out when I hear a bang on the side of the truck.

  “Hold up.” The front passenger door swings open.

  Terence, who is sitting shotgun with me, looks up in surprise.

  “I’m riding up front.” It’s the captain.

  Terence moves immediately and Blaze climbs in beside me.

  Damn the man. He’s keeping an eye on me.

  I swear he’s put himself next to me on every fire to make sure I can do the job. Or maybe he’s trying to prove I can’t.

  Well, if he wants to intimidate me, I’m not going to scare so easily. That’s what all these guys expect. I see the doubt on their faces. No one here thinks I can handle a serious fire. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if hiring me was some kind of equal employment opportunity—or whatever it’s called—some mandate to prove the FDNY isn’t discriminating against females. In which case, my brother was right and this crew probably intends to haze me until I quit on my own.

  So far, in the four tours I’ve worked since I started, the guys haven’t welcomed me into their circle yet. Aside from our ill-fated poker game, I haven’t been included in any socializing. Conversations die when I appear. It’s been worse since the poker incident, like now they’re gun-shy about joking with me. My attempts to fit in have failed. I know how guys shit each other. They’re not acting normal around me.

  But I’m going to make sure that, in addition to being capable of the job, I can hang with the worst of them.

  “You worried I’m going to cry when I break a nail, Captain?” I challenge as I pull out into traffic, siren wailing.

  His sensual lips tighten and a muscle ticks in his jaw. “Shut up and drive, Burke.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s what I’m doing.”

  Blaze can be a dick, but that doesn’t stop my raging attraction to him. Too bad I have to pick the guy who seems to want me here the least to drool over.

  “Just making sure you can really handle yourself.”

  Well. At least I know where I stand. I tip my hard hat to him. “I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

  He surveys me with cool blue eyes, but says nothing.

  Whatever.

  Even my own family thinks I’m incapable of keeping this job. They never thought I’d land a position in the first place. When I did finally get hired, my mom cried. And they weren’t tears of joy. If it wasn’t for the constant encouragement from my cousin Talia, a journalist and environmental activist in Mapleton, a small town outside Chicago, I probably would’ve given up on this dream.

  We pull up in front of an old brick building—a Catholic high school.

  Arson fire. Set by a student. I don’t know how I know, but I do. I know the mind of a teen pyro.

  The flicker of flames light the windows on a lower wing. The captain directs me to the nearest fire hydrant and I line the truck up perfectly, then jump out and start my job of getting the pump in gear.

  The captain stays on my ass, letting Scott do the officer-in-command thing, providing initial size-up and forcible entry. I set the pump to the right pressure and get the water flowing. We have the fire out in ninety-eight minutes. Damage reached the second floor, but the sturdy brick and concrete construction kept the building from sustaining structural problems.

  I can’t shake the urge to figure out where the fire started—to prove my hunch is correct.

  A heavy hand claps down on my shoulder. “Good work, Sparks.”

  I turn, hoping it’s the captain, but it’s Scott.

  I kick myself for wanting Blaze’s approval so badly. I know I’m doing a good job and that’s all that matters, right? So far, I haven’t frozen up once. Even when I wanted to just stand back and watch the flames, my fascination with the destruction is a deadly pull. It must be that same pull that nudges me about this fire.

  The guys are packing the hose back up, and I should be helping, but I slip away for a chance to do some searching on my own. I circle around to the back corner where the fire was biggest.

  There, outside a broken window, I find a gasoline can.

  “Burke!” the captain calls, jogging over to me. “Why the fuck aren’t you helping pack up the truck?”

  “I was just trying to figure out the cause of the fire.” I point out the gasoline can.

  He purses his lips. “Don’t touch anything. We’ll leave it for the inspector to investigate.”

  I nod.

  “And Burke? You’re not an inspector. If you wanted to search out clues, you shoulda been a cop like the rest of your family. Now get back with the team.”

  Asshole.

  “Yes, sir.”

  But then I realize what he revealed. He knows my family. Why does that set off alarm bells? Is he the source of information for my brother’s friend at another station? The one who told him they’re betting on how long I last?

  “I don’t need a fucking hero, understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” I repeat.

  I’m not trying to be a hero. I know that’s why most of them are here, but not me. I’m here because I have twin needs that will never be quenched: Fire. And atonement.

  Blaze

  I smell the scent of sulfur from behind Lia’s closed door and grit my teeth. She’s lighting matches again. That girl seriously needs a talking to. I rap sharply on the door and push it open.

  —and then I stop cold.

  Or maybe hot is the right word.

  Lia’s standing there in a pair of goddamn pink panties, her FDNY t-shirt knotted above her waist.

  I gape for one room-spinning moment, then I step in to shut the door. Wait—fuck! I can’t be in a closed room with her—when she’s in her panties!

  But I sure as hell can’t leave it open for other fire-fucks to see her this way, either.

  Screw it—I kick it closed.

  She’s laughing at me now, triumph over my dance with the door evident in her eyes.

  “What in the Sam-fuck are you wearing?” I boom, too loud.

  Her full lips stretch into a shit-eating grin. She loves seeing my unfortunately full-bodied reaction to the sight o
f a mere triangle of soft pink fabric covering what must be the sweetest little pussy in the five boroughs. “I’m pretty sure you’re aware of what I’m wearing.”

  “Th-those are not regulation,” I sputter. What I mean is that they look like they’re made of a non-compliant material—like polyester or a rayon blend. And yeah, I shouldn’t be looking that close, but I did.

  If we run out on a fire tonight and she gets burned, those panties would melt and fuse to her skin.

  I force myself to look away. I can’t discuss it with her standing there like that. My self-control will frazzle. “Just… stop playing with fire. Put your pants on.”

  “Why, Captain?” the little minx purrs, knowing she has me by the balls. She cocks a hip. “Am I making you... uncomfortable?”

  My fingers twitch. “Put some goddamn pants on before I spank that juicy ass red!”

  Oh shit.

  I clap a hand over my mouth, then attempt to hide the gesture by rubbing the stubble on my face. I definitely shouldn’t have said that. All this time I’ve been trying to protect her from harassment, and I’m the first asshole to bring it.

  Well, I knew that, didn’t I? In reality, I’ve just been trying to protect her from me.

  Of course, I can’t tear my gaze from her now, and I watch her eyes grow dark, full lips part. Her nipples bead up beneath the t-shirt. “Wow, Captain,” her voice sounds breathy and high. She reaches one hand between her legs and curls her fingers in. “That’s kinda hot. Maybe I should take them off for that.” She hooks her thumbs in the waistband of her panties and starts to slowly pull them down.

  “Stop it.” I stride forward and catch her wrists. In about two seconds I have her backed against the wall, wrists pinioned in one of my hands.

  She’s not breathing. I guess I’m not either.

  “Fuck,” I curse. “I’m pretty sure you just lost me my job.” Not that it makes me any more willing to let her go. Unless I see a real protest, I’m seeing this scene through, job be damned.