Burning Ambition (20 page)

As she clung to him, arched toward him, coaxed him—as if he needed any coaxing—he lost all awareness of where they were. They could be five feet from a raging fire…God knew it was hot enough. He wouldn’t notice or care. All he knew was Faith. The way her dark hair fanned over the seat. Her scent, sweaty and female, with a lingering touch of her floral perfume. The sounds she made—sexy gasps and short breaths and, damn, the things she was saying.

His need for release built, climbed so high he could taste it. He lifted her legs, angling deeper inside her, and she sank her teeth into his shoulder as she came. Joe watched her, and that was all it took for him to shatter into a million pieces.

As he slowly came out of his personal nirvana haze, he did his best to keep his weight from crushing Faith. It was nearly impossible, so he slid his arm beneath her and rolled onto his back on the small seat, holding her to his chest. They both breathed hard. The temperature in the car had to be about a hundred degrees, but he wasn’t ready to bail out yet. Wanted to hold her for a while longer. Maybe a couple of weeks.

Joe brushed her hair back from her face and pulled her head closer to his for a long, quenching, soul-satisfying kiss.

For those few minutes, he was perfectly content, satisfied, at peace with everything in the world. He dared to let himself think how wild he was about this woman—only for a moment. Then he moved toward the door, telling himself it was just the combination of great sex and the backseat of the car he loved. Nothing more.

Her heart skipped a beat. Even though it was nearly four-thirty in the morning and the night was more than halfway over, this was big. Scary.

If she stayed tonight, slept in Joe’s arms, would she ever be satisfied to sleep without him again?

“But,” Joe continued, and she expected him to cancel the offer. “Aren’t you staying with your mom this week?”

“Yes.” Nadia had family in town for a few days, and Faith couldn’t let herself take up her friend’s only guest bed. So she’d sucked up her pride to bunk with her mom temporarily. As temporarily as possible.

“Won’t she wonder where you are?”

“She’s well aware that I’m a big girl.”

“Sure, but staying out all night? She wouldn’t approve, would she?”

Faith laughed. “Of course she wouldn’t approve. Does that mean I’m going to jump up and run home to her?” Faith kissed Joe slowly, tenderly, not trying to start anything. “No. I want to be here.”

He studied her in the near darkness with a quiet intensity, and Faith felt it again—some new level of connection between them. A contented ease that settled in once their frantic physical hunger for each other was sated.

“That’s one of the things I love about you,” he said after a while.

“What is?”

“That you do what you want to do because you want to do it.”

“Why else would I do something?” She touched his strong jaw, rubbed her finger back and forth, lightly, over the rough stubble.

“Troy said something to me earlier. Got me thinking.”

“What’d he say?”

Joe hesitated. Rolled onto his back. “Accused me of living my life the way other people want me to. Not for myself.”

“Okay. Do you?”

He looked at her pensively. “I care what others think, I guess. Maybe more than I should.”

“That’s pretty normal,” Faith said.

“Do you care what your mom thinks?”

“That goes a lot deeper than just having her disapprove of what time I come home at night. She’s disapproved loudly of my career choice for years. Before I ever got out of high school.”

“But you became a firefighter, anyway.”

“Wouldn’t you? If you burned to do something and your mom didn’t think it was a good idea?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on. Really?” Faith propped herself up on her elbow.

“It’s so far from what I’ve experienced. My family was always so deep into firefighting, there was never any question. My dad hung out at the station from the time he was in single digits. My mom, well, she jumped in with both feet when she met him.”

“That’s so cool. My mom married my dad in spite of his career.”

“So it must’ve taken courage to tell her you were going to follow in his footsteps.”

Faith shrugged. “Not that much. I was more interested in the chance to share it with my dad. So I’m probably not courageous at all.”

Joe gave a low, sexy chuckle. “Trust me. You’ve got courage in spades.”

They lay there in silence for a while, both of them lost in thought.

“If you couldn’t be a firefighter, what would you do?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I love my job.”

“You know it will change a lot when you get that promotion.”

“
If
I get that promotion.”

“What if you don’t like pushing paper, Joe?”

“I want the job.”

“For yourself? Or is there something to Troy’s comments?”

He didn’t answer.

“What would your mom think if you decided not to go for assistant chief?”

“She’d be disappointed,” he admitted. “But not for herself. Because she knows I’ve been aiming for chief for so many years.”

Faith settled in next to him, her head on his thick chest, his arm around her. “Personally, I think you’d be good at whatever job you do for the department. But there’s something I’ve noticed.”

“What’s that?”

“Whenever you talk about becoming the chief, going for assistant chief…you never use the word
dream
. Are you going for it because you want it more than anything else, or are you doing it because it’s what’s expected of you? What would make your mom proud? Make your stepbrothers respect you?”

Joe hugged her to him and kissed her forehead. “All of the above.”

She turned to stare into his eyes.

“Really,” he said.

“Okay, then. Just making sure.”

He tightened his hold on her. “I care about you, Faith.”

She swallowed hard. “I know. Me, too.”

“Too much.”

She nodded, smiling sadly. “Me, too.”

“I’ve wanted you since the day your dad brought you into my office—”

“When I was seventeen?” she asked, with feigned shock.

“God, no. What would I want with a crazy hormonal teenage girl?” He laughed. “Since your first day at work.”

“Oh, that.”

“I mean all-out, can’t-get-you-out-of-my-thoughts wanting. Physical.”

“I kind of noticed.” She tried to keep it light.

“But there’s more. I don’t know….”

“Shhh. We can’t go there, Joe.”

He nodded, seeming to understand exactly.

There was more than physical desire on her side, too, but she didn’t want to think about it. Couldn’t let herself. Because with every minute she spent with him, she wanted it—
him
—more and more. And knowing they were so close to almost having something, but not being able to reach out and take it, hurt a hell of a lot more than having a building collapse on you.

Screw that. No excuses.

She was on the verge of being the weak link, and if she didn’t get over this hesitancy now, tonight, she had a lot of thinking to do about her future. You couldn’t fight fires if you let your fear get the best of you.

“Faith, you’re with Nate,” Joe said. He pointed out their way in and told them what size hose to take. As usual, he’d come alive as they neared the site, though there wasn’t any question they had “something” this time. When you were the third company called in, you knew there was a live one.

Faith busied herself in standard preparations. She turned her air cylinder on, put her mask up to her face and took a test breath to ensure it worked. Settled her Nomex hood and helmet in place. Adjusted her air pack at her waist and donned her gloves. Breathed deeply.

Her equipment was ready.

The question was her. Was she ready?

Joe came up beside her and walked with her toward the door. Nate was about ten feet ahead of them, not paying any attention beyond a periodic glance behind him to make sure Faith was coming.

Nate paused at the entrance and checked his pocket for his radio.

Faith felt the blackness, the dread starting to seep in. Her heart pounded and bile rose in her throat. She closed her eyes, fighting it. Willing it back. Telling herself she had to stop panicking.

“Faith,” Joe said, his head close enough to hers that she heard him over the chaos around them.

She met his eyes. They sparked with excitement, but she was more taken with the calm confidence in them.

“You can do this. You’ve done it a hundred times,” he reminded her. He grasped her wrist loosely around the heavy turnout coat, a professional, supportive touch. “I trust you completely.” He nodded once and gave her a long look.

Joe trusted her. He knew she could do her job. He believed in her.

As he’d told her in the past, she needed to trust herself.

He let go of her arm and moved away to talk to another officer.

Faith wasn’t sure if she truly trusted herself yet, but she decided if Joe believed in her, the least she could do was fake it.

To hell with the self-doubt.

“Let’s go,” she told Nate.

She followed him in with no more hesitation, giving herself a split second to savor the small victory before becoming fully engaged in the task at hand.

He’d just sent the message to the engine to give him water when Faith realized something wasn’t right. Something was going wrong.

In half a heartbeat, she knew. Something was caving in on them. She ducked, doing what she could to protect herself, her mind screaming out in utter terror.

Excruciating seconds later, the deafening noise subsided, and it was back to just the usual roar of fire devouring a building and everything in it.

Faith opened her eyes and did a mental inventory for any pain messages from her body. There were none. Whatever had come down had missed her.

“Thank you, God,” she said as she located her radio. Tears leaked from her eyes as a hysterical relief bubbled up in her. The radio was there. Her limbs were fine. She was okay.

She crawled toward Nate, noticing he hadn’t said anything. Hadn’t checked on her. She’d made it only a few feet when her path was cut off by what looked to be a beam of some kind. As she stood up slowly to check if she could see Nate on the other side, something caught her eye to her left.

Shit! Nate was down.

Faith assessed the situation as quickly as she could, trying to fight off her panic at seeing him. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly against it, but instead of erasing the cold fear, she was taken back three months to when she’d been the “man down.”

She shook herself and opened her eyes again. It appeared the beam or column was on top of Nate’s left leg, possibly pinning him to the floor. She made her way toward his head and bent over him. He didn’t acknowledge her, but at one point he moved his head slightly to the side, letting her know he was alive.

She checked the progress of the fire. It was creeping closer. She grabbed her radio and reported the situation to dispatch.

Without waiting for a response, she bent down again and tried to free Nate. She needed to get him out of there, to Scott and Paige at the ambulance, but his left leg was wedged beneath the beam.

Her brain moved on automatic then, creating a plan to get her colleague to safety. She had to fight the urge to wrestle with the beam by herself. Equally pressing was the advance of the fire.

She picked up the hose, which was lying a foot or so from Nate’s feet, and opened it on the flames, waiting for help to arrive, and battling the urge to yank Nate out of danger.

Before she could make much progress with the fire, Clay and Olin got to work freeing Nate. Joe had sent in Evan to help Faith on the line.

Every so often, she glanced down to her left to check on Nate. It seemed to take them forever, but again, she had no real concept of seconds or minutes in here.

At last they managed to move the fallen beam and carry Nate out. She couldn’t see whether he was conscious. Turning away and saying yet another prayer for him, Faith made her way farther in to knock out the flames in this part of the building, Evan on her heels.