Chapter Five

CHAPTER FIVE

Nick

God, she’s beautiful when she sleeps. Her long, blonde hair is in disarray on the pillows, her mouth in a pouting bow. Zeke’s fingers are still curled around some strands of her hair, as if he passed out in the process of bringing it toward his nose for a sniff. The swells of her sweet, young tits rest on my chest, her nipples lost in my chest hair. I’ve got a hard-on to beat the fucking band. It’s pressed in between Penny’s belly and my own, begging for her pussy, but no way I’m taking her again tonight. She’s worn out, still covered in our come and definitely sore.

I told myself I’d take her with more care. Didn’t happen that way, though. She gives me feverlust, this girl. When she’s in that take-me-take-me state, like earlier tonight, control is futile. Lord, she accepted me so good in that tight body, milking me dry until I fucking collapsed. She’s more incredible than anything I could have imagined—and while I’m still not fucking happy about sharing her with another man, I’m starting to understand why she finds it’s necessary.

Penny is…love. That’s a fanciful thing for an old bastard like me to say. Or even think. But hell if it isn’t true. She’s full of love, this girl we rescued from the flames. There’s too much inside of her to give only one man. It’s selfish of me to want to hoard that love all to myself, but that’s my instinct. Doing so would hurt Penny, though, and I’m not capable of making her unhappy. Her happiness has become my reason for getting up every morning.

Which is why I hate lying to her. Even by omission. I told Penny I had a meeting yesterday, but didn’t tell her where. Or why. The suspicious nature of the fire that killed Penny’s father got the cops involved early. My friend at the police department came through with a tip—my meeting yesterday was with him at the precinct. I was already aware of Penny’s father’s gambling debts, but now I know his creditor.

Boris Volkov. A Russian mob giant with a lot of influence, not to mention murderous tendencies. A man who’s been suspected of setting more than one fire. What my cop friend told me chilled me to the bone. When a gambling debt goes unpaid, Volkov goes after the entire family. Penny was meant to die in the fire…and Volkov likely won’t stop trying to stub out her light.

Over my dead body.

The Russian is elusive, though, and moves around between several hideouts to avoid law enforcement. My first attempt to find him yesterday at an underground gambling den just past the city limits brought me up empty. He’s on the move. I just have to find him. And I won’t stop until I do.

I realize my hands are racing over Penny’s hip and ribcage, as if to reassure myself that she’s safe. She stirs in her sleep and nestles closer to me, making my heart boom like a dropped microphone. When my phone starts to buzz on the nightstand, that’s what I think I’m hearing. But…no. Zeke’s phone goes off seconds later, rattling right and left behind him.

We’re trained to wake up and be clear-headed on the turn of a dime and that’s exactly what happens. We each sit up in twisted sheets and answer our phones, a dispatcher’s voice filling my ear with fire codes and an address. I can tell by Zeke’s expression that he’s hearing the same exact thing. A look passes between us, both of our gazes dropping to Penny immediately after.

She’s already stretching sleepily, her unclothed body on full display. Her smile dims when she sees our faces. “Is something wrong?”

Zeke cups her cheek. “There’s a large structure fire downtown. Ten-story building. It’s not our district, but they’re calling in trucks from all over the city.”

Penny sits up slowly, her face white as a ghost. “Are you going to be in danger?”

Neither one of us says anything, which is answer enough.

I press a kiss to her forehead, then climb out of bed. “You stay inside this apartment, sweetheart. Door locked.”

“Don’t leave for any reason,” Zeke says, pulling on jeans, zipping them up over his erection with a wince. “Promise us.”

I’m in the same state of arousal, because there’s no way around it. Penny is kneeling naked on the bed, eyes wide as silver dollars, her lower lip trembling. An insanely beautiful angel, covered in moonlight. My protective instincts are bashing against my insides, howling at me to comfort her. Lay her down and slide into her cunt real slow, fuck her with deep, long pumps until she starts to hiccup my name, while I whisper in her ear that I’m never leaving her. Not fucking ever.

I open my mouth to ask Penny one more time for her promise to stay put, when she bounds out of the bed and throws herself into my arms. My cock protests the confines of my pants, my hands roaming down to her bare ass out of necessity. “Everything is going to be fine. We’ll be home before you know it.”

“You better,” she mutters, stepping back, turning and walking face first into Zeke’s waiting embrace. “I’m not happy about this.”

Zeke and I laugh. “Trust us, baby,” he says. “Neither are we.”

I walk forward to join them, wrapping a hand around the nape of her neck. I’m hot as hell to kiss her myself, but I put myself to the test, fighting my possessive urges and sharing instead. Like she needs. I have to give Penny what she needs. “Give him a kiss goodbye.”

Energy snaps in the air between Zeke and Penny, Zeke swooping down with a groan to molest her little pink mouth with a hunger I recognize in myself, although it’s far more untamed. A young man’s urgency. When I sense Penny is running out of air and Zeke has no intention of giving her oxygen, I tug her away and feast on that mouth myself. My kiss is meant more to calm her than rile her up, though. It’s slow. A promise of things to come. As I feel it working, her body sagging into me, a sense of rightness fills me so completely, I’m shaken by the time I pull away.

“Come back to me,” she whispers a moment later, closing and locking the door behind us. And I’ve fought fires my entire adult life, but I’ve never been so determined to live through one, knowing the kind of happiness waiting for me on the other side. Penny.

* * *

Zeke

It’s bad.

Catastrophic.

When our truck arrives on the scene, it’s mayhem. The streets surrounding the out-of-control fire are littered with cops trying to corral pajama-clad tenants behind caution tape, EMTs treating burn victims and giving oxygen to others. Trucks are in haphazard rows, ladders raised, hoses drilling water into the building from all sides. There is no organization whatsoever.

I’ve barely stepped out of the truck and opened the equipment compartment when a woman in a fuzzy pink robe rushes toward me, grabbing me by the front of my turnout coat.

“Please…” Her eyes are wild, the fire reflecting in their depths. “I can’t find my mother. I-I…she’s older and moves slow. I was in a rush to get my kids out, but when I went back for her, she wasn’t in her bed.”

Nick steps up beside me. “Did you check to see if she was being treated?”

“She’s not. I’ve looked everywhere.” The woman presses a hand to her mouth and turns in a circle. “There’s no way she could have gotten out fast enough. Not without help…”

“Which floor is she on?” I ask, pulling an axe off the truck.

“Second—” Her eyes widen on the building, her fingers grabbing at my sleeve. “Jesus, there she is! I can see her in the window.”

The woman lunges toward the fire, but Nick catches her around the waist, the woman’s arms and legs pinwheeling in every direction. “Point her out,” he orders loudly to be heard over the sirens. “Which window?”

A keening sound breaks from the woman’s mouth, her shaking finger lifting to indicate a corner apartment on the second floor, where the outline of a person can indeed be seen behind a window. The woman inside is waving something that looks like a handkerchief, her movements sluggish.

“Ma’am, you need to remain behind the caution tape,” I shout, already jogging toward the closest building entrance. “Don’t follow us in.”

I say us, because I know Nick is already right behind me. Not that I would ever admit it out loud or say it to his face, but the lieutenant is pretty much a legend at the department. When I was a rookie, rumor had it Nick was immortal. Until Penny, he’s someone I knew from a distance, but as we charge into the smoke-filled stairwell, hooking right on the second floor toward the apartment where the woman is trapped, there’s a connection between us that wasn’t there before. We’re obsessed with the same woman and she needs us both. Her happiness depends on us both coming home and we’re walking into a death trap.

Fear like I’ve never felt before slings around my neck. There hasn’t been enough time to find the person who poses a threat to Penny. She’s vulnerable right now—at the mercy of the same asshole who killed her father—and we’re the line of defense surrounding her. Unless we don’t make it back. Who’s going to protect her if we don’t?

Testing the doorknob to the apartment and finding it locked, I step back and kick it open, both of us turning to protect against a backdraft. And then we’re moving, but I’m thinking back to that kiss we gave Penny earlier. How I was so fucked over worrying her that I overwhelmed her, kissing her until she couldn’t breathe. Then there was Nick, easing her concern. Comforting her.

If something happened to one of us, she’s going to need that, isn’t she? She’s going to need Nick, the immortal. The man she calls Daddy.

Although it causes me actual pain to say what’s needed, I stop in the process of raising my axe to break apart fallen debris in our way. “If something happens to me, just get out. Go to her, all right? She’s going to need someone. She can’t lose us both.” My throat constricts. “Just protect her, please. Keep her safe.”

Nick can’t hide his surprise, but buries it almost immediately. “Shut the fuck up,” he growls at me, brushing past to take the lead into the bedroom, where the woman is still waving…what I now see is a bra. “We’re both getting out of here. I’ve got her—you clear a path.”

So much for my attempts at being noble. I make sure Nick has the woman secured over his shoulder, before turning and moving back through the living room.

That’s when a beam falls from the ceiling.