Chapter Three Pressure Cooker
Chapter three
Pressure Cooker
Reece slammed the fire doors shut, cutting the music dead like a severed artery.
Humid night air soaked through his muscle vest as he staggered back to the rough brick, thudding his head hard against it.
Maybe he could knock some sense into himself as well as cool the fuck down.
He squeezed his eyes shut, then drew a sharp, ragged breath and tried to smother the sting of rejection burning low in his chest. But it sat there anyway, a bitter ember refusing to die out.
He should walk away. He’d told himself that already. Hell, he’d tried . But his feet wouldn’t move, legs locked tight as if his body was holding out for something his pride couldn’t stomach.
And Christ, he didn’t understand it.
This fucking pull to Trent.
No other man had ever got under his skin like this.
Had him strung out and hanging on with nothing but a look.
No woman either. He’d always been proud of how easy it was to move on.
How cleanly he could cut the ties. Casual flings, no regrets, no messy aftermath.
Even the ones who ended it first, Freddie among them, he’d taken it on the chin, shrugged it off, flashing his best grin and muttering plenty more where that came from .
He was bi. No limits, no restrictions. The whole damn world laid out in front of him. Open doors and easy exits.
But Trent?
Fucking Trent …
The paramedic with a death wish and a chip on his shoulder big enough to bury a man under. Why was it him Reece couldn’t put into that box labelled conquests and move the fuck on?
The fire door crashed open behind him, the metal slam ricocheting off the alley walls. Reece flinched, instinctively pushing off the brick, bracing for the usual bollocking. That tired line about how being a firefighter didn’t give him personal access to every bloody fire exit.
But it wasn’t some pissed-off manager this time.
It was the last person Reece expected, yet somehow surprise never came.
Trent was like fire. Inevitable. Unforgiving. And utterly consuming. Dangerous in his beauty, impossible to touch without getting burned, and no matter how far Reece tried to run, he always found himself drawn back to the heat.
“Where’s the fire?” Trent slurred, a lopsided grin plastered to his flushed face as he flicked his damp blond curls back, trying, and failing miserably, not to look drunk.
Reece clocked the sway in his stance, though. The distant glaze in those usually sharp blue eyes. He was wasted. Completely gone. That soft, heavy-lidded look only ever showed up when Trent had drunk himself past the point of caring .
Christ, Trent…
Reece clenched his jaw, electricity crackling under his skin. Because no matter how many times they ended up here, with Trent drunk and reckless, looking for something to burn it all away, Reece couldn’t fucking help himself.
He stepped in close, dropping his voice low and filthy as he gripped his groin and, with a rough, teasing, growl, said, “Right here, sweetheart.”
Trent’s cocky little grin faltered. Because Reece had reminded him exactly how this night was going to end.
“That your new trick, is it?” Trent angled his head towards the club. “Get me wound up, then walk away before I say something I can’t take back?”
Reece dragged a hand down his face. “Jesus, Trent. What do you want me to do? Stand there and beg for it?”
Trent let out a harsh laugh, stepping in close, jabbing a finger hard on Reece’s chest. “Don’t act like you don’t love this. The drama. The push and pull. All of it.”
Reece grabbed his wrist before he could pull away. Tight. Not to hurt, but enough to make a damn point. “No, what I love , Trent, is not watching you burn yourself alive to prove you’re fireproof.”
Trent flared his nostrils. “Let go.”
But Reece wasn’t done. “It’s always the same, isn’t it? The callouts. The close shaves. You with that blank fucking stare, standing in the smoke like you’re trying to become the ghosts we can’t save. Then you come here. Or wherever. Drown yourself to forget. Get me to fuck it all away.”
Trent’s jaw clenched so hard Reece thought it might shatter. “You know nothing about me.”
“I see more than you think.” Reece took a half-step forward, their chests almost brushing.
“You think I didn’t see you at the warehouse fire last week?
Standing too close to the edge? Waiting for something to fall on you?
And today— Christ , today—you were gonna run straight through that bloody corridor before anyone cleared it. ”
“Someone had to,” Trent ground out, eyes wild now. With alcohol. With trauma. With fire . “There were people in there. An old woman who no one helped.”
“I fucking helped her!” Reece let Trent’s wrist go to stab his chest. “And there are other paramedics, Trent. Yet you’re always the first through. Like you’ve got something to prove. What are you trying to prove?”
“It’s my job.”
“Bullshit,” Reece snapped, the word cracking through the narrow alley like a gunshot.
“It’s foreplay , and you fucking know it.
Every siren, every close call. You live for it.
Because it’s the only time you let yourself feel anything.
And I’m right there, aren’t I? Every damn time, ready to drag you out if it goes wrong. And then we end up here . Like this.”
His breathing hitched, rough and uneven.
So did Trent’s. Reece could feel it, see it, in the way his chest rose and fell too fast, and how the alcohol-fuelled flush crept up his neck.
And they were close. Closer than Reece should’ve let himself get.
But that invisible thread between them pulled tight, taut enough to snap, and fuck , he wanted it to break.
Trent blinked. And for one unguarded second, Reece saw the fight bleed out of him, the walls crumbling enough to reveal the man hidden beneath all that reckless bravado.
The real Trent. The one Reece ached to know.
Not the adrenaline junkie looking for his next hit of danger.
Not the man who used sex like a pressure valve to bleed off whatever he refused to feel.
But the man Reece could have something with .
Something that wasn’t pent-up anger and desperate, back-alley release.
Something real .
Then that hard, defiant edge slid into place again. The same ruthless resolve allowing Trent to walk straight into hell, patch the broken, and drag the dying back from the brink. The man who could walk through fire and refuse to burn.
And fuck if that didn’t make Reece want him more.
But he couldn’t have him. Not like this. Not the way he wanted.
So he turned his back and went to walk away.
“You’re leaving?” Trent called after him. “Like that? You’re going?”
“What’s the point in staying?” Reece hung his head. “You’ve made it clear enough. I’m not what you want.”
A beat. Then, “Surely there’s someone else in there for you. You don’t strike me as the type to go home alone.”
Reece couldn’t prevent the hard, humourless laugh, then spun and faced him through the hazy dark. “Do you practice this shit, or does it come naturally?”
“Practice what?”
“Fucking with a man’s head.”
“No.” Trent roamed his gaze shamelessly down Reece’s body before snapping back up. “But I like to practice fucking.”
The air left Reece’s lungs in a rush. His heart pounded hard, a low thrum of want vibrating through every tense line of his body. He scratched a hand through his closely cropped hair, knowing he was losing the battle.
“You tell me to fuck off,” Reece rasped, “then reel me back in with those eyes like I’m on a goddamn leash, and now you say that?
” He lowered his gaze to Trent’s parted lips and, fuck, the need to taste them was right there, teetering on the edge of restraint.
“I’d say you know exactly how to fuck with my head. ”
Trent stepped in close, too close, pupils blown wide and glassy, the bright blue of his eyes hazed at the edges as if the world had gone soft focus.
“All I want…” Trent swallowed hard, flicking his tongue to wet his lips as if his mouth had gone dry.
“Is for you to quit the fucking noise.” His voice cracked, a flash of raw honesty breaking through before he shoved it down hard and dragged a shaky hand through his curls, balance tipping before he caught himself.
“So do what you’re good at. Stick to that. ”
And the way he said it, as if begging for Reece to ruin him so he could feel something through the fog, left no doubt how this night was about to end.
But he had to make sure. “And what’s that, sweetheart?”
“Fuck the noise away.”
Reece swallowed hard, his control fraying with every shaky breath. “You keep talking like that, and I’ll forget how to be a gentleman.”
“Who the fuck’s asking you to be one?” Then, with a slow swagger, Trent reached down and palmed Reece through his jeans.
Reece’s breath stalled in his throat, and he held Trent’s gaze as Trent massaged him, ghosting his lips along the line of Reece’s throat. Not quite a kiss— never a kiss —but close enough to feel the heat of it.
Close enough to burn.
Reece bit back a groan. He knew better. Knew the rules. The ones Trent had laid out from the start, clear and brutal. No kissing, no strings, no feelings . No talking .
Ten months since that first time in the steam room, right after one of the riskiest cliff rescues Reece had ever pulled off.
Trent had smelt of fear and adrenaline, fresh from patching up a kid who’d nearly died in his arms. Reece hadn’t expected him to walk in.
Sweet, polished, too-good-for-chaos Trent, dropping his towel and turning the steam room into something else entirely.