Flash Point (Kilgore Fire Book 2) (2 page)

I didn’t bother asking him how he knew where I lived.

The man was Booth, after all.

All he had to do was ask his brother…my mother…or his mother for that matter.

Oh hell, anyone in town.

I watched him shift the Jeep. Watched the muscles in his arms flex and bunch.

His jaw was set tight, and he hadn’t said a word.

I closed my eyes and reached for his hand.

He clasped mine tight the moment our skin met.

He drove like that all the way to my apartment, even going as far as to pull into my driveway.

I got out, unsurprised to find him leading the way.

And the moment we got over the threshold of my apartment, he was on me.

Two years of sexual frustration exploded out from both of us.

Mouths collided. Skin was scratched.

Teeth clicked.

I closed my eyes as arousal bombarded me like a sledgehammer to the stomach.

Booth’s hands trailed down my back, skimming over the softness of his t-shirt, then dipped down into my pants without the slightest bit of hesitation.

“Take me,” I urged.

His hands went to my pants, yanking them down my legs all the while holding me aloft with his powerful upper body, pinning me between him and the door.

And he still hadn’t said a word.

Is it weird?

No, not really.

Booth was never talkative.

I swear I only got ‘I love you’ out of him all of five times in our entire two-year relationship.

But when I did get those words? It made it all the sweeter.

His mouth came down on mine then, and I lost control.

Clothes were gone, pants were shucked. Shoes were kicked across the room.

Booth’s hands were everywhere all at once, and I started frantically grinding myself against his taut, washboard abs.

He growled something so low I couldn’t make it out, then he dropped down to his knees, looping one leg around his shoulders before he buried his face into my pussy.

I’d never, not ever, felt something like this. Sometime so primal and full of need.

Partly because I’d been seeing Booth since I was sixteen.

And although I hadn’t seen him in two years, I still felt like I belonged to him.

I was his. Irrevocably.

And when my orgasm hit me, I was lost.

In him.

In our own little world.

The next few hours continued much the same way.

And when next I woke, he was gone.

Without a word.

And I was left with a hole in my heart.

He’d said he couldn’t stay. A few of the only words I’d gotten all night.

Granted, his mouth had been extremely busy, but I’d at least expected a goodbye.

I took in a deep breath, smelling the soft scent of his cologne on the bed surrounding me.

And I knew that we were done.

So done it wasn’t even funny.

I’d broken him.

He’d put on a good game face, but if he’d been whole, he would’ve stayed.

He wouldn’t have gone back to
that
place
…that place that threatened to take him from me every second of every day he was there.

I pulled the shirt that he’d worn last night into my chest.

He’d taken back the other one I’d worn to class, I noticed, and left me with this one.

It smelled like him.

Closing my eyes, I cried.

Who knew that tight jeans on a woman would make my jeans tighter?

-Booth’s observations

Booth

I was a dumbass.

I was going to get my heart broken again.

But I’d almost died—for the eighth time—and I needed to figure out my life.

I couldn’t keep going as fast and hard as I had been going.

My body physically couldn’t take it.

I was thirty years old, almost thirty-one, and I just didn’t heal like I used to.

What I was able to do when I was twenty was completely different than what I was able to do at thirty.

I’d been in the military now for ten long years, and I’d been avoiding this for too long.

Way
too long.

A blonde giant of a man came into the room where I was standing and offered his hand to me.

“Luke Roberts,” he said.

“Michael Jones. My friends call me Booth,” I introduced myself.

“Your brother recommended you highly,” Luke shook my hand and let go.

The door to the room opened and an older man walked in.

“Sorry I’m late. My wife decided she needed me to fix a light before I could leave,” the man apologized.

I blinked.

“My name’s Allen Shepherd. I’m the Fire Chief for Kilgore,” he greeted me, offering his hand.

“Ummm,” I hummed.

I was confused.

“We figured we’d just go ahead and do this interview together,” Allen grinned. “Saves us both time.”

I nodded, not sure what to think about that.

“Okay.” What else was there to say?

My head hurt.

“So we’ve heard you just got out of the Marines,” Chief Allen started.

I nodded.

That hurt my head worse.

“Why’d you leave?” Luke asked.

I turned my eyes to him across the small table from me.

“Because I was tired of getting shot at,” I replied drolly, not holding back.

Luke’s mouth twitched.

“Honesty. I like that,” he said. “You’ve received two purple hearts. That’s pretty impressive.”

I laughed. It was impressive. Most people got them
after
they died.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” I shrugged. “I was shot once in the leg and once in the back. Both areas are healed and don’t affect me at all.”

Luke nodded.

“We’ll only need you on a rotating schedule,” Luke explained.

“I’ll need you full time. You’ll be on B-shift where your brother used to be,” Chief expounded.

My stomach knotted.

My ‘brother’ was actually my stepbrother. His mom married my dad when we were nineteen.

Aaron had been my best friend even before our parents had gotten together, and it’d been convenient as hell to call him my brother afterwards.

Because we’d always been brothers.

He’d had my back since we were in the fourth grade and Jonny Alps tried to pants me.

Aaron had beat the shit out of Johnny, and I’d shared my Little Debbie Zebra Cakes with him at lunch later that day.

The rest was history, and he’d been watching my back ever since.

I, on the other hand, hadn’t watched his back.

He’d nearly died in an automobile accident caused by his fucked up psycho cunt of an ex-wife. Although he’d lived, he had a long road to recovery ahead of him, as well as a divorce to deal with.

And he’d asked me to come home.

He’d never done that before, and I owed it to him.

It didn’t hurt that I’d seen a bullet fly right past my face only hours before Aaron had made the request.

My mind got the best of me as I looked at The Chief. “How’s the morale there?”

Chief Allen shrugged. “It’s been better. I expect it to pick up once the shift is full again. They’ve had a new guy or gal in there every shift. Consistency with them is the key.”

I nodded.

Morale was a huge factor in the overall feel of a job.

I’d had my share of shitty jobs, and I didn’t really want to work anywhere that was going to bring me down.

My blood pressure couldn’t take it.

And my fucking headaches.

“Good. Aaron—Fatbaby said that everyone was doing okay. I just wanted to make sure,” I crossed my leg over my knee.

Luke studied me, but Chief Allen started to talk about some bullshit course that we were required to pass before they could officially hire me.

“You’ll need to run a mile in less than seven minutes. Pull a human sized dummy from the top of the stairs, out a makeshift window, and fireman carry him down seven flights….,” Chief Allen was saying.

I ignored him.

He just didn’t have a clue what I’d been through the last ten years.

The only way I couldn’t pass the test he was talking about was if I had to do it through a hail of gunfire, and to be honest that would only be because I didn’t
want
to do it.

I was over having bullets aimed at my head.

Sure, I was applying for the SWAT team as a medic, but that was only because I didn’t think I would be completely satisfied if I stayed solely as a paramedic/firefighter.

I was what one would call an adrenaline junkie.

The feel of adrenaline running through my veins gave me a high that I couldn’t quite kick…at least not cold turkey.

I was used to intense situations, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be just a plain old, every day firefighter.

I’d also gotten an overnight shift at the hospital as a security officer.

That, I had to admit, was to make myself as busy as possible.

Being back in the same town as Masen was going to be a strain, and I needed the distraction.

“The same test will be used for both departments,” Luke continued where Allen left off.

I nodded.

“When do you want to do it?” Chief Allen asked.

I looked at my watch.

“I can do it now,” I offered.

Chief Allen looked at me dressed in slacks and a nice button down shirt.

“You want to do it in that?” He asked, staring at my shoes.

I nodded.

“Yeah, I’ll do it now. I got a t-shirt on under this shirt,” I pulled on the dress shirt I’d worn.

“Okay,” Chief shrugged.

They got up, and I walked behind them as they led me out the back of the police station.

Our departure caught the attention of a few of the men sitting in a conference room, and they followed us out.

Luke led us to a field where a track was around a lot of equipment ranging from an old house made out of tin to a huge steel frame of stairs that I guessed to be the seven stories Chief Allen had said I’d have to come down with a dummy.

The track had seen better days, but I’d run on worse.

Stopping next to the table next to the track, I started to empty my pockets.

I debated whether to take the two guns off my hip and ankle, but chose not to, instead leaving them in place.

I didn’t know these men.

Sure, they were officers, but I didn’t trust my weapons with anyone.

Not even my own mother.

I did, however, get my keys and phone out.

As well as the few extra clips I always carried.

My wallet was the last thing to follow, and then I yanked my button down shirt up and over my head, instantly feeling better.

I hated dress shirts.

I was a jeans and t-shirt man.

Or a t-shirt and tactical pants.

I hated it when I had to get into my dress uniform.

Not that I would be doing that again if it was within my power.

“You want me to see if I can find you some shoes, man?” A guy asked from behind us.

I looked over to see six men behind me.

They were all dressed in SWAT gear, sans body armor.

At least what I could tell. Unless they’d suddenly invented some super-secret armor that didn’t look like you were wearing it.

“No. These are fine,” I said, looking down at my boots.

They were work boots.

Slip on boots that had steel toes and had definitely seen better days.

I could run in them, though.

Hell, I could do a goddamn lot of things in them.

Lift. Work on a car. Kick the shit out of someone. Fuck in them.

Not that I’d done that recently.

Hell, I hadn’t done that since Masen.

I turned my brain off at that thought.

It wouldn’t get me anywhere today.

Once I was in my t-shirt, I nodded at Luke who nodded back, pulling out a phone and holding up three fingers.

“Three,” he said. “Two. One. Go.”

I went.

The first lap was the one that I ran slower than the others.

You always had to get a gauge of the terrain.

Once I had that gauge, I started to run full out.

There was no other way to do it.

And I finished in less than five minutes.

“Four forty-eight,” Luke said, stopping the timer on his phone.

Out of habit I checked my heart rate, watching the dials on my watch as I did.

Ninety-eight beats per minute.

Good.

“What’s next?” I asked, panting slightly.

Chief Allen pointed at a dummy.

“That dummy has to get up to the top of the stairs and in through that window up there,” he pointed.

I followed the direction of his hand.

“Okay,” I said, picking up the dummy he’d indicated and started to climb the stairs.

“I was going to give you another ten minutes,” he said, shouting slightly.

I waved him off.

“I’m good,” I said, jogging up to the top.

Once there, I tossed the dummy in through the window.

“Ready,” I called down.

They all stared at me like I was crazy.

“What?” I asked, mostly to myself.

Nobody answered.

The chief held up his hand long moments later, then threw it down.

I took that as my cue to go and grabbed the dummy, tossing it over my shoulder and going down the stairs two and three at a time depending on where I was at on the stairs.

I reached the bottom and tossed the dummy into the chair that it’d recently been residing in.

“He took the heavy one,” one of the men muttered under their breath.

I didn’t look up, instead focusing on my heart rate and getting oxygen into my lungs.

Not because I was actually tired, but because I thought I looked stupid panting when everyone else around me didn’t have a drop of sweat on them, seeing as it was a cool fifty degrees out.

“What next?” I asked once my breathing was under control.

“We need to do CPR on that dummy,” he pointed to an ambulance that was pulled up with a dummy on the gurney in the back. “You have to do that for twenty minutes, then sprint through that obstacle course with the dummy on your shoulder.”

Sighing, I did as I was told.

Twenty-four minutes and thirty seconds later, I was putting my phone back into my pocket, along with the magazines for my guns.