Flash Point (Kilgore Fire Book 2) (7 page)

Stuff like that required money…money that I could spend on my cat. Or myself.

Plus, I didn’t have any money until next payday anyway, a full week and three days away.

Booth’s motorcycle roared past me, and I grimaced as he took off, trying not to think about the fact that he wasn’t wearing a helmet.

Stupid man.

Getting in my Jeep, I drove to my parents’ house, but Booth haunted me the rest of the evening.

Fucking awesome.

Not.

I bet she wears his shirt. But all I want to say is that’s the rag we used to use to wipe up the come he’d left inside of me.

-Masen to Mia

Booth

“My leg! It burns!” The man that we’d just pulled out of the car screamed.

The car in front of him had cut him off, and the guy had done all he could do, which was to run into a truck that was hauling hot asphalt.

The tailgate of the truck had burst open, and the hot asphalt had poured into the guy’s broken windshield, saturating him and the entire car.

We’d gotten him out within seconds, having witnessed the accident, but there was still quite a bit of damage.

“Alright man,” I said. “I’m going to cut your pants off.”

If the patient was awake and scared, it helped to talk them through what it was that you were doing. A lot of times having their mind on something else helped them.

So I explained exactly what I was doing…until I saw
it
.

My eyes widened when I saw what looked to be a melted dildo sticking to the guy’s leg.

“What…” I cleared my throat, looking to my partner for the day, Bowe. At the shake of his head, I looked back to the patient. “What is that, sir?”

I knew what it was.

He knew what it was.

The fucking people across the street knew what it was.

I just needed confirmation.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said through tears. “My wife…she made me.”

His wife…made him.

Interesting.

With nothing else to do, I moved past the dildo that was melted onto his leg and checked his pupils while Tai started an IV.

“Equal and reactive,” I said. “What’s the BP?”

“148/72,” Tai answered as he saw flash on the IV and inserted the catheter.

“Good,” I replied. “What’s your name, sir?”

I asked him his name for two reasons, first to see if he actually knew it, and secondly because I needed to know it for my reports.

“Dean Redmond,” he answered on a sob.

I winced.

It was never fun to see a grown man cry.

“What day is today?” I asked.

“Thursday the eighteenth,” he cried harder.

I nodded, even though his eyes were clenched tightly shut.

“Can you tell me where it hurts, Mr. Redmond?” I asked.

“Thigh,” he said, pointing to the melted dildo. “And….my….my….”

He didn’t finish, instead he just pointed at the side of his ass.

“Do you have burns on your backside?” I asked.

Then he all of a sudden started blurting out everything.

“She made me wear the dildo to the store, and usually it sits just right inside my…ummm…anus. But the jolt of the crash caused me to clench…and well,” he shrugged as best as the C-spine collar we had him in allowed.

“So there’s something else in your…butt,” I guessed.

He nodded, a tear slipping out of his clenched eye lid.

“What about anywhere else on your body? How’s your head feeling?” I asked, checking for circulation and pulses on his extremities.

“Everything feels okay,” he said. “My jeans did a pretty good job of protecting me from the brunt of the burning asphalt. But my face kind of hurts from where I hit my nose on the steering wheel.”

I checked out his nose.

He had a parallel cut on the bridge that was likely due to the force that he hit the steering wheel with, and I was just about to grab some four by four’s when a woman started screeching.

“Redmond!” The woman yelled, bringing all of our attention to her.

“That’s my master…errr…wife,” he informed me.

I turned only my head, surveying the woman that was coming towards us.

Then blanched when I got a look at the bitch.

She was probably a few inches shy of six and a half feet. She was, however, wearing spiked chrome heels that likely gave her four inches.

Her hair was dyed black with purple highlights.

Her eyes were purple as well, and her body was stuffed into what looked to be leather, but was most likely fake.

She was also…large.

Very large.

Not fat, though, but solid muscle. More like Chyna, from the WWF way back in the day, big.

Her eyes were all for the man in front of me, real concern etched on her face.

“Oh, Red, honey. Are you okay?” The man—I mean woman—said.

She sounded like a man, though.

She could probably pass for one, too.

I wouldn’t blink an eye if I saw her pissing in the stall next to mine.

“I’m okay,” he said, eyes glancing at me. “But my,
erm
, toy is gone.”

The woman’s face didn’t change, but her eyebrows did.

And they rose to the very top of her forehead, right to her hairline.

“And where,” she said, “might I ask, is your
toy
?”

He bit his lip, then started to cry.

I chose that moment to load him into the back of the ambulance.

Maybe if we got out of here all this wouldn’t seem so fucking messed up.

“Let’s get him going,” I ordered Tai, who’d miraculously been quiet this entire time.

His eyes, though, said something completely different than quiet.

They said he was dying.

Of laughter. Not actually dying.

“You will not,” the woman said, getting down on her knees and looking into the Redmond’s eyes, “let them destroy that toy. It’s my favorite to use on you.”

The man nodded, but I could’ve told him that promise was futile.

They’d do whatever they needed to do to get that thing out. Even if it meant destroying it.

And I felt that most likely Redmond wouldn’t enjoy the consequences of this accident.

“That was a first,” Tai said as he got into the passenger side of the ambulance after the call. “I don’t think it’s ever been so hard to hold my laughter in.”

I didn’t say anything, mostly because my eyes were on the woman directly in front of me.

She was laughing with Bowe who had his hand resting on her shoulder.

I’d heard through the grapevine that Bowe and Masen weren’t together.

However, the way he was touching her so intimately said otherwise.

Masen threw her head back at something Bowe said, and her hair fell in soft waves down her back.

My hand gripped the steering wheel even tighter as he pulled her into his chest.

Masen wrapped her hands around his chest and laid her head against it, and I stared into her eyes as she did.

My jaw clenched.

She didn’t look away, and neither did I.

“Medic two, MVA at Stone Road and Rural Route 22,” the dispatcher said.

I still didn’t look away.

“Booth,” Tai said.

My teeth ground together.

“Mike,” Tai said again.

Masen tightened her arms around Bowe, purposefully.

“Earth to Mike Jones,” Tai yelled.

“Who?” The stupid student that’d been riding with us all day said.

I finally released Masen from my gaze and turned to glare at the student who’d be lucky not to receive bad marks on his evaluation report later on.

“That stopped being funny five years ago,” I snapped.

He instantly shrank back from the venom in my words and sat back down meekly before turning his gaze.

“Sorry,” he said.

“You fucking better be,” I growled, throwing the ambulance into drive and pulling out of the bay in the next moment.

I didn’t look back at Masen.

But she never strayed far from my thoughts as we ran ourselves ragged for the rest of the afternoon.

And by the time I arrived at the station and found Bowe sitting slouched on a bar stool with his back against the bar, my temper ignited.

He’d begged me to switch him the medic for the quint today, and I’d done it…for some stupid fucking reason.

I was normally a pretty easy going guy, but seeing him kicked back eating a fucking bowl of chili while I hadn’t eaten a goddamned thing since this morning really set my teeth on edge.

That, or maybe it was the fact that he had his hands on
my woman
.

And that was more true than anything.

Masen was mine.

She’d been mine since I’d taken her virginity at seventeen.

And although ten years had passed, the feelings hadn’t.

She hadn’t moved on, and neither had I.

And I never would.

So when Bowe shot that smirk in my direction, I nearly lost it.

Nearly
just because Tai stopped me before I could get two steps in Bowe’s direction.

“Hey,” Tai said, stopping me with a hand on my chest.

I looked down at him.

He was six foot or so. I was six foot five.

I had plenty of inches, as well as pounds on him.

He just plain didn’t have the bulk that I did, but I respected Mia.

Respected the man she chose, even if I didn’t necessarily like him.

“What?” I asked through clenched teeth, not taking my eyes off of Bowe.

“You need to take a step back. You’re at work. Bowe’s at work. You have to work with him for however long you plan on staying here. Don’t fuck it up,” Tai’s voice of reason barely penetrated my brain.

I bared my teeth at him.

“She’s mine,” I snapped.

Tai snorted.

“Then fucking get her back. Stop fucking around, and get her the fuck back.”

Just got 20 minutes of cardio from trying to pick an ice cube up off the kitchen floor. Do I still need to work out?

-Masen’s secret thoughts

Masen

He was wearing my shirt. Or the shirt he’d taken back from me. The one he was wearing when we met.

It wasn’t anything special.

Just a navy t-shirt with the words ‘LETU baseball’ across the chest.

The sight of him wearing that shirt shot me back years, to a better time…and a better place.

Making me freeze in the middle of the parking lot and stare at the man that loved to torture me.

Twelve and a half years ago

Masen- 16 years old

Booth- 20 years old

“Please, please, please, please,” Mia chanted over and over again.

I looked at her, blindly picking up a French fry and dipped it into the ketchup before I shoved it in my mouth.

“Why do we have to go to a college game?” I asked. “There’s going to be no way in hell that any guy even takes a second look at us.”

I was sixteen, almost seventeen, and I knew, logically, that I’d never get anyone that was that much older than me.

Not to mention it was illegal seeing as I was still sixteen.

Twenty-five days until I’m seventeen.

Those thoughts flittered through my head as I absently finished off my fries before I answered Mia.

“Who’s there that you want to see again?” I asked.

“Jeff Tidwell’s brother is playing today,” she said. “And he invited me. And if you loved me, you wouldn’t make me go by myself.”

I sighed.

“Fine,” I said. “But you have to buy me nachos while we’re there.”

“Deal!” Mia cried, holding out her hand.

I took it and shook, making her laugh.

“Now, I want to throw your trash away so we can go,” she said laughingly.

I rolled my eyes and handed her my trash.

Mia had been my best friend for a very long time, but there were times that I couldn’t handle her exuberance.

Although, had she not been exuberant, I probably wouldn’t be where I am today.

She’d pulled me out of a lot of my delinquent activities, before they went too far, making
sure I never got into too much trouble.

“Let’s go already, we’re going to be late,” she ordered, grabbing my hand.

I sighed, following her out to my Jeep.

It was pretty.

And old. But still pretty.

Well, to me anyway.

Mia didn’t like it because it made her hair blow all over the place due to the top being off.

Me, I liked it. Mostly because the air had gone out in it a few months back.

The only problem I had was when it rained.

Which in Texas, in the dead of summer, didn’t happen all that often.

“Where am I going, exactly?” I asked.

I’d never been outside of Kilgore driving by myself yet.

Mostly because I couldn’t afford the gas, and my parents didn’t help me with gas at all.

They couldn’t.

And my job paid for my insurance and car payment.

So, once a week, I put ten dollars into it, and prayed it’d last me the rest of the week.

“Stop there first, and I’ll fill your tank up,” she said.

I pulled into the gas station thankfully.

I didn’t want to even contemplate how I was going to pay for the gas, but I was willing to do it for my friend, even if I had to walk to school for the rest of the week.

After filling up the tank and grabbing a few snacks, we headed to the baseball field.

“I’ve never been on the South Side before,” I said, looking warily around at all the people on their front porches.

“Turn here and pull into the first parking lot,” Mia ordered.

I did as directed, pulling into a parking spot that was nearly a quarter mile away from the entrance to the park.

“Wow, it’s busy,” I observed as I got out.

I didn’t bother locking the Jeep.

There was no point without the doors and windows.

Mia jumped out her side and came around the vehicle to grab my hand.

She led me all the way to the front before she dropped it and pointed.

“Those are the ones we’re rooting for,” she said, pointing to the ones in yellow.

I nodded.

“Okay,” I said. “Where’s Jeff at?”