The Firefighter Meets His Match (Red Hot Reunions Book 4) (6 page)

“Sweaty, with my makeup running down my face?” Faith asked, leaning down to capture his lips.

“Yes,” Mick said, kissing her with the word. “Does that make me a dirty bastard?”

“No,” she said, biting her lip as his hands returned to her breasts. “You’d be a dirty bastard if you wanted to pull my hair while you took me from behind.”

Mick cursed again before he pulled away to gaze up at her, a hooded look in his eyes that made the knot of longing low in Faith’s body twist tighter. “Is that what you’re in the mood for?”

Faith reached down between them, popping the top button on his jeans before reaching lower, caressing his erection through the thick fabric. “If you’re up for it.”

“I’m up for anything as long as it involves being buried inside you in the next two minutes,” Mick said, surging to his feet, holding her in his arms with her legs wrapped tight around his waist as he headed for the bedroom.

Moments later, the rest of Faith’s clothes were off and Mick’s hand was fisted in her hair and his cock was filling her, stretching her, driving inside of her until there was nothing but Mick and the sounds of their bodies coming together and the way he made the pleasure building inside of her swell until she was blind with it, until she had no choice but to let go, bucking back into Mick’s thrusts as he joined her release with a rough cry.

“I am never going to get tired of this,” Mick said, rolling them over, fitting her against his chest.

“Having really great sex?” Faith nuzzled closer to his skin, feeling she might start purring with satisfaction.

“Having really great sex with my best friend,” Mick clarified before kissing the top of her head, sending a warm, loved feeling flooding through Faith, followed closely by a familiar wave of disbelief.

Sometimes it was hard to believe this was her life, that she’d really found a man who loved her with the perfect blend of heart, humor, and bravery, who never let her down, always had her back, and made her the happiest she’d been in her entire life. After growing up with a mom addicted to bad relationships, the notion of happily ever after had left a sour taste in Faith’s mouth. It seemed crazy that in eight short days she would be saying her “I do’s” and marrying the man of her dreams.

But it was really happening, and so far, she and Mick seemed to be living under a blessed star. Faith had been worried when Naomi decided to adopt Mick’s ex-girlfriend’s baby—concerned that Mick’s ex might want an open adoption and to remain in the picture—but Bridget had chosen a closed adoption and left town without trying to contact Mick, bound for some expensive inpatient clinic in Northern Arizona.

Since then, there hadn’t been a single bump in the relationship road. She and Mick rarely fought, and when they did it was about something silly and usually ended in a wrestling match, which led to sex, which led to them both forgetting what they’d been bickering about in the first place. They agreed on their five-year plan—from when they would take off work to climb Kilimanjaro, to when they hoped to buy their first home, to when they’d start talking about babies, if Faith decided she wanted children.

Mick had even been understanding about Faith’s anxiety about starting a family. He wanted kids someday, but had sworn he wouldn’t be upset if Faith decided motherhood wasn’t for her. He promised he would never regret marrying her, and that she was all he needed to be repulsively happy.

He was perfect.
They
were perfect. Everything was perfect.

Too perfect.

Faith should have known that her lousy luck wouldn’t let all that perfection continue unabated without throwing a wrench into the mix, but she was so blissed out by the time she went to sleep that she didn’t think to worry about it.

Even when she got a call from Jamison at eight the next morning, asking her to come into work a day early to help assist in emergency rescues over at a subdivision that had unexpectedly flooded overnight when part of the levy collapsed, Faith didn’t let the news stress her out.

Helping avert disaster—and saving lives in the process—was one of the reasons she loved her job so much. Sure, she had only gotten six hours of sleep and was still foggy from drinking a few too many Lady Slippers the night before, but that was nothing a shower and a big breakfast couldn’t cure.

She showered and dressed in record time and swung into the kitchen just as Mick was scooping scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese onto her plate and plopping two biscuits down beside it.

“Thank you, baby,” Faith said, kissing Mick’s cheek as she claimed her plate and carried it over to the table. “You going to head into work today, too?”

They’d planned to spend the day on the couch binge-watching
Buying Hawaii
together and hiding out from the rain. But Faith knew Mick had been jonesing to finish up the dry wall in the extra room Mick had helped Jake add on to his place in preparation for baby number two, a little boy he and Naomi were hoping to adopt in the fall.

Mick shook his head. “I think it’s going to be too damp to hang drywall. Even with the dehumidifier going, it will take the compound forever to dry. I’ll probably work on that app Jung-Su and I have been tossing back and forth. He’s got a buyer interested and if we can each clear twenty grand on the job, you and I can start looking for houses when we get back from the honeymoon.”

Faith smiled at him over the rim of her coffee mug, grateful for the fog-clearing effects of caffeine. “Sweet. But if it doesn’t work out, that’s fine too. I seriously don’t mind staying here longer. I think it’s better to keep some money in savings than dump everything on a house.”

“I agree,” Mick said, settling across from her at the table. “But I like the idea of house hunting with you.”

“Assuming there are any houses in our price range that haven’t been flood-damaged by the time we’re ready to start looking,” Faith said, shoveling her last forkful of eggs into her mouth. “This weather is crazy.”

Mick made a considering sound. “Be careful today, okay? I was listening to the news while you showered. The water is rising fast in some places, and they had a sinkhole open up north of town and swallow half a house.”

Faith nodded as she stood to take her plate to the sink. “I will. Don’t worry. We haven’t had to do any flood evacuations since I joined the department, but I know the protocol and I’m good with a boat.” She breezed back past the dining table to the front door, grabbing her rain slicker from the coat tree and shrugging it on. “I’ll see you at family dinner tonight, okay? Bring the frozen rolls in the freezer if you remember.”

And she believed she would see Mick at dinner. Flooding wasn’t something to be taken lightly, but it wasn’t anything compared to
primary interior search on a working fire, or cutting roof holes for smoke evacuation
. She expected to log a long, hard, wet day, rescue the stranded, and be back to the firehouse by supper, ready to dry off and eat her weight in ribs as a reward for a job well done.

It wasn’t until she was waist deep in cold water, slogging through a brutal current with nothing but a rope linked to the harness on her suit to tether her to the motorboat idling in the deeper water behind her, with an uprooted tree bearing down on her as she tried to reach a golden retriever shivering on top of a dog house, that she began to worry.

And by then it was too late.

The tree rushed closer. The men behind her started to tow her back toward the boat, but Faith knew they wouldn’t be able to get her free of the tree’s path in time. And if they held on, she’d be forced under the water as the tree passed over her head, get trapped in the branches, and potentially drown before she could find her way out.

Trusting her gut, Faith reached back and unhooked the rope from her harness, lifting her legs and allowing herself to be carried away by the current just feet ahead of the uprooted tree. On her way by the doghouse, the golden retriever barked and launched itself into the water, swimming hard toward her as they were both swept away down Lost Oak Lane.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Mick

At ten after two, Mick got a cold, miserable feeling in his gut way too intense to be a hunger pain, especially after the massive breakfast and lunch he’d eaten. At a quarter after two, he shut down his computer and went to turn on the police scanner—deciding that stalking the emergency crews’ radio signals would ease his stress about what was going on with the rescue effort—but his cell rang before he could flip the switch.

The second he saw Jake’s number, the hair on Mick’s neck prickled. He and Jake were close, but not talking-on-the-phone close, and Jake didn’t make social calls while he was on duty. There were only a few reasons his brother-in-law-to-be would be calling him, and none of them were good.

“Tell me Faith’s okay,” Mick said, putting the phone to his ear and bracing one hand on the back of the couch, pretty sure his legs were going to give out if Jake replied with anything but “she’s fine.”

“We don’t know,” Jake said, the misery in his voice making it clear how worried he was. “Her team lost sight of her five minutes ago.”

Five minutes ago. Ten after two.

Mick’s eyes squeezed shut as he fought a wave of panic. Ten after two, it was like some part of him had fucking known.

“She was trying to rescue a stranded dog when an uprooted tree came rushing through the flood water out of nowhere,” Jake continued. “The team said they tried to pull her in, but the current was too strong. Faith ended up unlatching her tether to get out of the way before the tree ran her over.”

“But she was okay,” Mick said, fighting to get the words out past the vice gripping his throat. “She was conscious, right? Her head was above water?”

“She was conscious,” Jake confirmed. “And she’s a strong swimmer, but that current is deadly and the debris in the water even more so. The ground’s so damp from all the rain the past week, trees are falling left and right.”

“So what are you doing to find her?” Mick asked, anger rising inside of him. This wasn’t the time to talk about how much danger Faith was in, it was time to figure out how to get her out of it. “If her cell’s working, we can track her location, right? Or her beeper? Don’t you have some kind of—”

“She left her cell in the boat when she went in after the dog, and she wasn’t wearing her beeper,” Jake said. “But I sent her team to search in the direction she disappeared. And as soon as my other boats deliver the people they’ve got on board, I’ll send them back out to assist in the search. All the residents have been evacuated, but Faith’s team volunteered to go back and rescue as many pets as they could.”

Of course they had, of course
Faith
had, because she had a huge heart and knew how much an animal could mean to their owner. Mick knew that, like he knew that risking her life to save others was a part of Faith’s job. But right now he couldn’t think logically or even be proud of her, all he could think about was that he might never see her smile again, never hold her, never get to promise his life to her, and it felt like he was being shredded from the inside.

“I know how you must be feeling,” Jake said softly when Mick stayed quiet for too long. “If you want to come down to the firehouse you can. We’ll get you a cup of coffee, find you a place to hang out, and you’ll be the first to know if there are any developments. We’ve already evacuated the west end of Main because of rising water, but sandbags are in place up and down Market Street. We’re pretty sure we won’t have to evacuate the firehouse, and if we do it won’t be until late tonight. The weather people are promising this shit is going to stop by five o’clock.”

Mick ran a shaking hand through his hair. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

He hung up and launched into motion, hurrying down the hall to the bedroom to snag a pair of running pants and a quick-drying shirt he wore when he worked out, trying to dress as appropriately as he could for spending hours in the rain.

Jake was crazy if he thought Mick was going to sit in a corner and sip coffee while everyone else searched for the woman he loved. He was going with them, and he refused to take no for an answer.

A few minutes later, he shrugged into his water resistant jacket, pulled the hood over his head, and jogged out into the rain. The firehouse was always a quick walk from Faith’s place, but today Mick reached it in record time, bursting in the front door and taking the stairs to the second floor office space two at a time.

Jake was on the phone, but as soon as he spotted Mick he lifted a hand and raised one finger. He ended the call a minute later and crossed to where Mick stood dripping near the hooks on the wall. But Mick didn’t intended to add his jacket to the line of raincoats, not when he planned to be heading back out as soon as he found out where to meet up with a search crew.

“How you holding up?” Jake said.

“I’m fine,” Mick said, ignoring the way his heart lurched in his chest. “And I want to help. I want to join a search party.”

Jake shook his head. “Mick, I can’t let you do that. You don’t have the training these men and women have and—”

“I don’t give a shit about training,” Mick said. “My fiancée might be dying out there, and I need to go look for her.”

“I get it, Mick, but it’s more complicated than that,” Jake said in a cautious tone that made Mick fight to keep control. He couldn’t lose it with Jake right now or he’d never get assigned to a search party.