Chapter 26
LONDON
Ihaven’t been called into the captain’s office yet, so I can only assume Miles took the full brunt of our consequences.
Still, we’re on our days off after a grueling, nerve-racking set of shifts with Schmiddy as our CO and Miles nowhere to be seen. He’s like a ghost around the house. Appearing and disappearing in doorways as the crew eats. As I work out with Davey.
Despite having a spare, I knock on his apartment door.
Going days without him in my space has been a special type of torture.
The door opens, and Miles leans on it, pushing a sad smile up over his gorgeous face. My heart crashes out.
“Can I come in?”
He hesitates, but steps back, pushing the door open. “Sure.”
Okay . . .
“How’s Petal?” I look around the apartment, and when I find her curled up on the bed, I squat. “Hey, baby girl.”
She bolts off the doggy bed and lopes for me. I tumble to my seat as she jumps into my lap, and I can’t help the chuckle that slips out. It’s strained under the weight of Miles’s stare. Under the somber circumstances our actions have found us in.
“Did you want a drink?” Miles says.
“Sure, thanks.” I look up from Petal’s licky kisses. “Have you been a good girl for daddy, baby?”
Something clatters to the counter, and I snap my gaze up to find Miles hunched over the sink, hands gripping the edge of the counter.
I shift Petal from my lap and rise to my feet before padding to where he stands motionless, bar his rapidly rising and falling shoulders.
I wrap my body around his, dropping my forehead to his shoulder. “You’ll work through this, I swear.”
His back shifts as he hauls in breath after breath before finally turning around. I step back, and his jaw tenses.
Something hot and searing lances through my veins.
He’s angry.
He has every reason to be. I cost him his captaincy.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I breathe as a stone swells in my airway.
He’s shaking his head as his jaw feathers.
My own face twists. I can’t believe the Cap actually took it away. If he’d spent one minute on scene with our crew he’d know this is the worst possible outcome for 53.
“No, it wasn’t you,” Miles growls. “I did this. I fucked it all up. And now—”
“I was part of this, too! I am just as much to blame as you.”
He steps forward, reaching for me.
I step sideways. This exact thing is what cost him his promotion.
“Don’t walk away from me, London. I won’t watch that again.”
Again?
I still, meeting his gaze.
“It wasn’t because of you and me. It was what I asked you to do on callouts. Ignoring Schmiddy’s orders. That’s what Cap reprimanded me for. I’m on a desk until further notice.”
What?
“Tell him it was for our safety. He—”
“I tried. He won’t budge on this. So . . .”
“So, if he doesn’t know about us, then?”
“Then you and me aren’t the problem. Not yet.”
I huff a disbelieving sound, and a crooked half smile grows over his face.
“Yet,” I breathe.
Air cycles through my lungs in choppy, shallow puffs.
He closes the space between us, and I press a palm to his chest. His forehead drops to mine. “I can’t breathe without you, London. This week has been hell, only seeing you from a distance. Knowing you’re in Schmiddy’s hands on every single callout is eating me fucking alive.”
Oh, Miles.
I cup his face with both hands and pause, making sure his attention is on me before I say, “I am not going to do a thing that will put me or any of our crew in danger, I promise you. I will be alright. Okay?”
He groans, his hands sliding under my ass as he hauls me to his hips. I hunt his mouth with my own, and when his tongue slides over mine, I whimper. Heat floods my core as his hands push and pull over my body as he moves for the bedroom.
The city lights out the bay window near the small writing desk in his room shine their neon and glitter over every wall, every surface they can find. It’s like a brilliant rainbow of need. Heat. Desire. Soft sounds that become more rapid, more desperate.
Lowering me so my feet find the floor, he pulls my jacket off, tossing it. The T-shirt is off next, then my jeans and underwear. He hauls his shirt from his back and steps out of his sweats.
He leans over and sweeps the items on the desk to the floor. Warm palms knead my ass before I’m lifted onto the desk. Fingers clawing at his shoulders as he devours my mouth, I send my hands into his hair.
His cock presses against my wet center and the throb he started in that very spot flares.
“Beautiful, I need to be inside you, yester-fuckin-day.”
“What the hell are you waiting for?” I cry.
He slams into me.
My back arches, head hitting the glass as I whimper. My hands leave his hair and grab the window frame as the desk wobbles with every punishing thrust.
“God, Miles.”
His wrecked, pained face is shattering my heart.
The way he needs me. How it’s strangling him, sending him spiraling as I clench around him.
“Don’t you ever take an order you can’t walk out of, you hear me?” His voice breaks.
I’m shaking my head, tears burning the back of my eyes.
“Promise me, London.” He picks up the pace, sending his thumb ghosting over my clit.
Oh fuck.
“I—I . . . promise. Miles, I promise.”
Arms reaching for me, he pulls me from the window, wrapping his body around me as he lays down rough, messy kisses over my face, my neck. Every thrust is sloppier than the last as a groan strangles his throat.
“I promise,” I breathe into his chest.
He growls, pulling out before slamming back into me.
“Oh fuck. Please, please . . .” I cry.
He thunders into me, sending me crashing over the edge until every part of me has separated and burst outward.
Wave after wave of bliss smashes into me. Hands grip my face, tilting it up as his hot mouth comes down over mine. Open and hungry.
His hot release spills into me.
Thrust after thrust, he fills me up. Giving me every last drop of him.
Like this man always does. He always gives everything he’s got.
This time, I pull him into my embrace, dusting sweet kisses over his throat as it bobs, his jaw as it feathers, then his mouth before I whisper, “Always, I promise.”
He swallows hard, and I tamp back the emotion he pulls straight through my chest from the depths of my soul.
Before I can object, I’m swept up in a carry hold and he’s on his knees walking over the mattress. The sheet rustles as he moves it and lays me down. He slides in behind, and a heartbeat later the sheet glides over our tangled bodies.
“Always, London.”
His arms slide around my body, pulling me closer until my back meets his chest. I’m little spoon to this gorgeous man’s big spoon. And it makes the complications, the hurts and dangers of the world seem to disappear, even for a moment.
Even for just this moment.
I’ll take it.
The alarm wails. I open my eyes and send my gaze through the dark space around me.
Quarters. In the house.
I sit up and swing my legs off the bunk, pulling my boots on before tucking my shirt into my pants. My door snaps open, hitting the wall as Davey flies past. “Up and at ’em, Tenny.”
Ah fuck.
I rub my eyes with one hand and follow the blurry bodies of my crew down the well-lit hallway that’s making me squint.
I swear time is all fucked up on shift.
Yesterday I was tucked up against Miles, comfy and warm. Rested, thoroughly fucked, and settled. Today—well, tonight, I’m frazzled, exhausted, and on my way to our fourth callout in twenty hours.
The city can go die in a hole tonight, I swear.
I grab the pole and drop to the garage floor before rushing my turnouts. Davey is pulling his up, a grin on his face.
“Why the hell are you so damn happy?” I grunt.
He chuckles and winks like an idiot. “Someone’s not getting enough rest.”
Fuck off.
“Ha ha. I’ll ask again, what’s with the”—I wave my hands at him—“happy-in-the-middle-of-the-night shit.”
“Wasn’t snoring like someone else.”
“I was absolutely not snoring. Again, why are you awake?”
“Was talking on the phone, is all.”
My eyes widen with surprise.
“To who?”
“A girl I met a couple weeks back. She’s a nurse, also on night shift.”
“Ha! You dirty dog,” I say with a chuckle, punching his shoulder.
“If the children are done playing in the sandbox,” Schmiddy says.
Oh shit. Right.
I swing my jacket on and haul my ass into 53 before Sandy has us rolling out into the street.
Schmiddy runs through the stats. “1700 Third Avenue. We have a multi-structure blaze that has already taken the first two levels.”
“That’s a damn school.” Sandy is shaking his head.
“On a weekend. Vandals, fifty bucks.” Owens holds her hand out.
“Raise you fifty electrical.” Sandy slaps her hand before returning his focus to the road ahead.
“We are not here to assess motivation, only to put out the fire.” Schmiddy’s stare burns into Owens.
“So, you don’t want in on the bet, Cap?” Owens raises both brows. “Unlike you to not gamble with life or property.”
Holy fuck, Heidi.
Schmiddy scowls at her and she scoffs a lighthearted laugh before turning her focus to the road ahead also.
This is going to go well.
We turn onto Third Avenue, and the blaze has lit up the street.
“Geez,” Davey utters.
“On my command, we set up and haul ass,” Schmiddy yells over the headsets like we can’t fucking hear him.
My gut flips.
I hate this already.
41 is already on scene when Sandy pulls over and sets the engine to idle.
We bail from the cab, looking up at the building as it roars, shattering the front windows.
Hell.
Hell has nothing on this mammoth of a fire.
The captain of 41 marches for us the second Schmiddy swings down from the engine. “Schmidt, your crew is on ventilation.”
“Said you on whose authority?” Schmiddy hugs the tablet to his chest.
The secondhand embarrassment is almost as hot as the blaze mere feet from us.
“You need me to radio for Hammond?” the 41 Cap, Barratt, snaps.
Schmiddy huffs, waving a hand at me and Davey. “Up you go.”
No independent assessment. No sending a probie and a seasoned firefighter . . . Just, up we go.
I don’t move.
“Don’t take any orders you can’t walk out of . . . promise me.”
God, where is Miles?
“Come on, Tenny. Before the geezer blows a fuse and reports us, too.” Davey hands me a pike pole and NY hook.
We don SCBA masks and test the seal before ascending 41’s ladder.
The heat is searing. My turnouts quickly turn warmer than is comfortable. I climb over the roof’s lip and tap the first panel with the pole, testing it for sturdiness. It’s solid, and I step onto it.
Davey follows my lead.
We work our way across the roof, testing, stepping. Until we come to the built-in vents of the flat roof.
They’re melted shut with the heat.
Not surprising.
I flip the pole around to the sharp point and start making a new hole for the steam, smoke, and heat to release through. “Make as many of these as we can by the rafters. Don’t destroy the integrity of the roof.”
“Got it.” Davey starts ramming his pole into the greyed roof.
I bash the pole down and the roof crumbles, creating a hole the size of an apple. I step back as the steam, smoke, and heat billows through it like a geyser.
“Good one, Tenny!”
I twist back, not moving my feet. “Focus, Davey.”
He stares at me for a beat before he returns to ramming his pole through the roof. A minute later we have a second vent made. An infinite number to go.
I tap the roof with the blunt end of my pole once more, tracking my way to the center of the large space. When I’m sure I’m over a junction in the rafters, I flip the pole and start on the next vent hole.
Ten minutes later, we have seven vents in the large roof. Not enough, but at least some of the heat is escaping, which should work in deescalating the fire’s ferocity and damage.
Hoses are raining toward the windows of the second floor, their shimmering arches spilling from the hoses metal mouths.
Down on the ground, Owens is yelling at Schmiddy as she works the hose with Sandy. Her gaze alternating between Davey and me on the roof and Schmiddy.
Something’s off.
I raise my hand to the radio on my shoulder as prickles run up my spine.
Davey moves. “Tenn—”
I snap my gaze to him. His foot slips through the vent he made. The roof caves, and he disappears down into it.
A second later, smoke and steam rush up like a volcanic event.
“Davey!”
I rack my brain to where my footsteps went on the way to where I am. I tap the roof frantically as I track toward the gaping hole in the roof. The end of his poke pole has wedged between the rafter and adjoining beam.
Smoke puffs out in a rhythmic plume.
Between waves I catch sight of him.
Davey’s wide eyes are stuck on the hand on the other end of the pole. The hook before the point has hooked through the center of his glove. Through his hand.
Oh fuck.
FUCK.
My trembling fingers grab for the radio. “Fi—firefighter down. MAN DOWN!”
Slowly, I squat, setting my pole down before I lay on the roof to spread my weight. Waving at the steam and smoke I try to get a better visual.
I try to grip the pole, and it slips in my gloves.
Davey screams, his mask fogging up as he dangles helplessly on the hook. The smoke continues to billow past him, searing everything it touches.
“Davey! Hang on, grab the pole with your other hand, come on!”
He passes out, his head lolling to one side.
“No!”
I grab for the pole again, and my gloves slip. Again.
“Fuck!”
The roof groans, and I jerk as fear trickles its ugly heat down my spine. I close a grip around the radio, depressing the button. “Davey is down, I repeat, Davey is dow—”
The roof under me gives way.