Chapter Thirty

Nicole crutched up to Emmet’s front door just as it opened.

Calvin stepped out with his phone pressed to his ear, followed by Kyle. Both firefighters wore chunky rubber boots and had soot on their faces, as though they’d just come from a callout.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Calvin said into the phone. “Really. I just talked to him, Mom.” He looked at his friend and shook his head. “Yeah, I will. Bye.”

He slipped the phone into the pocket of his work pants and turned to Nicole.

“Is he here?” she asked.

“Yeah, he just got home.”

She glanced at Kyle. Both he and Calvin reeked of smoke.

“Where are you coming from?” she asked.

“Warehouse fire near the marina,” Kyle said. “Owen called us as we were wrapping things up.”

Nicole’s chest tightened as she glanced at Calvin again. “How is he?”

“Looks okay. But fair warning—he’s in a shit mood.”

She stepped around him.

“Hey, Nicole.”

She looked over her shoulder, and Calvin was watching her with a curious expression, as though suddenly realizing that this was the second time he’d bumped into her at his brother’s apartment in less than a week, and there might be something going on.

“Don’t let him scare you away,” he said.

She nodded and reached for the door.

Clothes littered the darkened foyer—socks, a T-shirt, Emmet’s mud-caked boots. She crutched over the threshold and shut the door behind her. Emmet’s empty holster sat on the breakfast bar, alongside his backup pistol and a pair of six-round mags.

Nicole’s stomach tightened. The empty holster confirmed that he’d discharged his duty weapon today, and it was now evidence in an internal investigation.

“Fuck!”

She glanced at the hallway. A sliver of yellow light spilled from the bathroom. She followed the sound of curses.

“Cal? Can you gimme a hand here?”

She paused in the hall and pushed open the door.

Emmet sat on the side of the tub in a pair of gym shorts, no shirt. The top of his left arm was wrapped in a bandage, and he had his bare foot propped on his knee.

“Fuck.” He glanced up and looked surprised. “Hey. I thought you were Calvin.”

She moved into the bathroom. “What happened to your leg?”

“Nothing.” He stood up. “Just some glass, I think.”

He stepped around her and opened a cabinet. She looked him over as he rummaged through a shoebox filled with first aid supplies.

Muttering a curse, he shoved the box back into the cabinet and stalked out of the room.

She stared at the empty doorway. Then she followed him into the kitchen, where he was opening and closing drawers. He grabbed a pair of tweezers and sat down on a bar stool.

“The scene still active?” He glanced up from his leg, and she noticed the thin cut there.

“What happened?”

“Caught some glass at the junkyard.”

“Why didn’t they do this at the hospital?”

“I don’t know. They were distracted.” He bent over the cut, and she watched him dig a sliver of glass from his skin. He deposited it on the counter and looked up.

“How’s your arm?” She nodded toward the thick bandage wrapped around his biceps.

“Fine.”

“Fine?”

“Yeah.”

“You took a freaking bullet. How can it be fine?”

“It barely grazed me. I just needed a few stitches.”

He got up and walked around her, and her stomach plummeted as she saw the giant purple bloom on his shoulder blade.

“What is that?” But she knew exactly what it was. He’d been shot in the back, close enough to make a bruise through the Kevlar.

“Nothing,” he said, opening a cabinet.

“You didn’t tell me you were shot in the back.”

“I wasn’t.”

Tears burned her eyes, and she reached for the bruise.

“Ouch!” He whirled around.

She pulled back and bit her lip. Then she looked at his bare chest. His heart was just inches away from where two bullets had hit him, and that was it. Game over. All the terror, and stress, and frustration of the past four hours came pouring forth in one big wave.

“Shit,” he said with a sigh.

She buried her face in her hands.

“Don’t get upset.”

She choked back a sob. “Don’t tell me what to do!”

“Nicole, come on.”

He reached for her hands to pull them away from her face, but she turned away. She couldn’t look at him as another sob burst out of her.

“Hey.” He wrapped his warm arms around her, crutches and all. “I’m fine, all right? Look at me.”

She leaned into him, wiping her cheeks.

“Come on. Don’t. There’s nothing to cry about.”

She let out a strangled noise and pressed her fist into his chest. “Would you stop with that shit? You were shot today. Twice! I can cry if I want.”

She looked up at him, furiously wiping tears and snot from her face. She hated him seeing her like this. She rarely cried, and when she did, she made sure no one was around to see it. She tried to turn away, but he kept his arms wrapped around her.

“Hey.”

She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Nicole.”

Her heart hurt. And her stomach. And her brain. Never in her life had she experienced such bone-deep terror as watching him get loaded into that ambulance and whisked away. She’d spent every minute of the past four hours imagining him bleeding out on some gurney because that “flesh wound” had actually been a nicked artery. And it could have happened. If not for that Kevlar vest, he would surely be dead right now.

She opened her eyes, and his expression was pleading.

“Please don’t cry. Okay? You have no idea what it does to me. And anyway, I’m fine.”

She sucked in a breath to steady herself and pulled back. She couldn’t tell him how scared she’d been. She wiped her cheeks, then he eased her against his chest and kissed the top of her head.

“I hate that you got shot,” she whispered.

“Yeah? Me, too. I’m pissed. And now I’m going to be stuck behind a fucking desk until I’m cleared to work again.”

She choked out a laugh. “That’s why you’re mad? Not your gunshot wound?”

“It’s just a few stitches. I’ll barely have a scar.”

She sighed deeply and closed her eyes. Her ear was pressed against his sternum, and she could hear his heartbeat.

“Hey.”

She pulled back, and the tender look in his eyes made her insides twist. She wiped her wet nose.

He took her crutches from her and leaned them against the counter.

“What are you doing?”

“Come here,” he said, reaching down and carefully lifting her off her feet. He walked her into the living room and deposited her gently on the couch. Then he tossed the cushion to the floor to make room for her boot.

She gazed up at him as he leaned over her, resting his weight on his palm. They were alone again, finally. And it was strangely similar to last night, when they’d been on her couch, and one kiss had turned into a mind-blowing sex binge. But last night all she could think about was getting him inside her, and now she was thinking about how close he’d come to death.

He stroked the back of his finger over her wet cheek.

“I promise I’m fine.”

She took a deep breath. “You could have died today.” She rested her fingers against the stubble along his jaw. “You really scared me.”

“Yeah?” His eyebrows arched. “Now you know how I feel every damn day.”

“You do not.”

“I do. You terrify me, Nicole. You’re so stubborn and fearless all the time.” He shook his head. “If anything ever happened to you...” He shook his head again.

“What?”

He leaned closer, close enough for her to see the flecks of gold in his eyes in the light from the kitchen. The silence stretched out, and something passed between them. She didn’t know what it was, really—some sort of understanding or acknowledgment.

This was more than a one-night thing. Much more. They were bound together by a tangly vine of friendship, and loyalty, and intense physical attraction that refused to be ignored, especially now that they knew how next-level hot they were together. There was no way she could ever go back to not knowing what it was like to be with him, and—for her at least—sex would never be the same.

She traced her finger over the snowy white bandage on his upper arm.

“So.” She took a deep breath. “How many stitches are we talking about?”

He hesitated a beat, and she knew he was thinking of lying. “Six.”

She pursed her lips. “That’s going to leave a scar.”

“Probably.”

She met his gaze, and he leaned down and kissed her. It was soft and slow, and she felt him sink into it. She did, too, absorbing his taste and his smell, relieved beyond words to be with him like this. She’d been so worried, frightened out of her mind. And now he was right here, and she could feel him and taste him and assure herself over and over that he was alive and breathing.

He moved from her mouth to her neck.

“Emmet.”

“Hmm?”

“We shouldn’t do this again.”

He stopped and looked up. “Why not?”

“You know why. It’s going to be a problem at work. It’s already a problem. We were in the middle of the op today, and all I could think about was you getting shot. And then you did get shot, and I nearly fell apart.”

He gazed down at her, and the unguarded look in his eyes put a lump in her throat.

“I don’t think we can not do this again.” He watched her for a beat. “Do you?”

She gazed up at him and bit her lip.

He brushed a lock of hair out of her face. “I’ve been wanting this for years, Nicole. And now that it’s happening, I don’t want it to stop.”

“Years?”

He nodded.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“When?” He smiled. “You’ve been busting my balls all this time and competing with me. I figured a relationship with me was the last thing you wanted. And you’ve had a thing for my brother.”

She squirmed to sit up. “I do not have a thing for your brother. I have a thing for you.”

He smiled slightly. “Yeah, I kinda picked up on that recently.” His smile dropped away. “But then you started going out with David, and I’ve been losing my mind.”

He’d been jealous. Nicole had sensed it, even though he’d never said anything outright—it was based on his foul mood whenever the subject of David came up.

She leaned back on the cushion. “Well, I’m glad you’re done being clueless. But none of this addresses the real problem. We work together. Our department is too small to keep secrets, and as soon as Brady gets wind of this, he’s going to want to put a stop to it. And with good reason. Emotional entanglements cloud people’s judgment, and it’s not safe. Today was a perfect example. Everything devolved into a shoot-out, and I wasn’t thinking about protocol or Adam or Owen or even the armed subject we were trying to arrest—all I could think about was you.”

He sighed. But he didn’t argue because he couldn’t. She knew that when everything was going sideways, he’d been thinking about her, too.

“Stop worrying,” he said.

“How can I stop worrying?”

He rolled his eyes. “Just... stop, all right? We’ll figure something out.”

“But—”

He kissed her to cut her off. And she let him. He tasted so good, and the heat of his body reminded her of how much she loved the way he touched her.

I’ve been wanting this for years.

He kissed her deeper, harder, and heat rippled through her as his hand slid up her thigh.

“Have I told you how much I like this skirt?”

His hand glided beneath it, and she arched her hips.

“You haven’t, no.”

He slipped his hand between her legs.

“I fucking love it.”

She tipped her head back, savoring the low groan in his chest as his fingers found her.

“We really shouldn’t do this tonight,” she said. “Aren’t you supposed to... rest or—oh my God.”

His mouth settled on hers as his fingers worked their magic, and she felt him smile against her lips. “Not a chance.”