Ignite (Firefighters of Montana Book 3) Read online

  “If you insist,” he murmured, sinking into the urge to run the edge of his teeth down the tender curve of her neck.

  She groaned and arched into him, so he rolled until she was on top.

  “Oh,” she said on something like a gasp, wonder in her voice as he shifted until they were both sitting, him still deep inside of her, her legs wrapped around his waist.

  “Set the pace, Lina.”

  She swallowed. The flush of her cheeks—more from orgasm than embarrassment—had spread down her chest, and his gaze lingered there, and then his mouth. And it wasn’t until he drew a perfect, pink nipple into his mouth, did she begin to move.

  He gave ample attention to each breast, small yet sensitive, and he let her move however she wanted against him until he’d learned just the right angle and grip to give her exactly what she needed.

  When she lost herself a second time, her groan echoed through him like some kind of brand. It echoed in his head, in his chest. He couldn’t wait any longer to take his, to take hers, to give into everything he’d been trying to hold back.

  He rolled her onto her back, plunged deep one last time, everything narrowed to where they met, to where they were one. The orgasm shook him to his center, thundering through him, a heavy beat that threatened to weaken the hands that kept him locked above her.

  He focused on keeping his elbows locked, focused on staying deep, holding her through the last wave of absolute bliss.

  And then he narrowly rolled off of her before he collapsed, realizing only then how shallow his breathing was, how much of a loss it felt not to be inside of her. The dim room was filled with only the tandem sound of their breathing.

  Eventually, he gathered enough strength to get off the bed and get rid of the condom. When he slipped back onto the mattress, Lina was still lying there, completely naked, her gaze very intent on the ceiling.

  She twisted her fingers in the edge of the pillowcase, chewing on her bottom lip then very purposefully not. She didn’t look at him, and a wave of…

  He’d forgotten what it was like to care about someone, to want to protect them and shield them. It was a purposeful forgetting, because he’d always failed. Failed to protect Jess, failed to make their string of foster families love them, failed over and over again to give back to the one person who’d ever given a damn about him.

  But Lina, impossibly strong, even in her uncertainty, gave him the hope that maybe…this time…

  Don’t be an idiot.

  But he was one, because he reached out and pulled her to him, tucking her head in the crook of his neck, and linking his fingers with hers, resting the connected limbs over his heart.

  She let out a shuddering sigh, and he wondered if he’d misread something along the way. If…

  “Okay?” he asked, his voice gruff and rusty.

  “More than,” she replied, nestling in closer. “A little weird, but very okay.”

  He chuckled, and they lay together, entwined and sated. He didn’t want to move or leave. He wanted…this. He wanted to have this, for as long as he could manage it. For as long as he didn’t screw it up.

  And the elephant in the room?

  It was his turn to stare up at the ceiling, to twist his fingers—except his were linked with hers, so it was just twisting them together.

  There was only one thing he knew without a shadow of a doubt in the aftermath of all that had just occurred. He wanted her with a deep need and desperation that shocked the hell out of him. He’d changed his life—settled in one place, bought things, grown attachments and bonds to people.

  He wanted to keep on that path and, more than anything, he wanted to do it with her.

  The last woman he should have any lingering connection to.

  Which meant he had two choices. Run or…

  He had to tell her. He should have done it before. He should have forced the issue, because…

  This was something, and the lie was a heavy weight between them. She knew his sister, the woman he’d purposefully hidden from for the past ten years. To save her the pain of his continual failures, and those failures touching her.

  Lina didn’t just know Jess, she was friends with her. Lina’s family had taken Jess in, had given her a chance—the kind of chance Jess never would have had if he’d stuck around, and if the way Lina described her family was anything to go by, the kind of chance that could be ruined by someone like him being a part of her life.

  He wasn’t the surly, teenage rebel runaway anymore, no, but all his baggage lingered. A bunch of doctors were going to look at his demanding fire jumping job—the kind that couldn’t really be done well into a comfortable retirement—and think he was a dipshit at best.

  Jess and Lina were both tied to that family. He couldn’t stain them. Dad and all those foster parents couldn’t be wrong. He was a bad mark and the reason things went wrong—for them, for Jess, for anyone he dared care about.

  He ruined things. It was some flaw in his nature he couldn’t overcome except by giving himself an all-new identity.

  But his new identity didn’t matter when it came to Lina, because at least a part of her life was connected to his old one. He had to tell her, and let the chips fall where they may. “Lina, you have to let me tell you something.” Because he had to put it out there and if she had to tell Jess…

  He didn’t know. Did he run? Did he accept it? Run. Run, you’d have to run.

  For the first time in his life, running seemed like the worst possible outcome, instead of the best. He’d built a life, after an entire life of being little more than a nomad, the past three years he’d built a life here—in Kalispell, with the forestry service, and some insane, crazed part of him thought he could build a life with Lina.

  He’d sunk in roots, and he didn’t want to tear them out.

  But you will. You were not built for roots. What an idiot he’d been for thinking he could outrun that.

  Lina’s eyes finally met his, eyebrows drawing together. She reached out and brushed her fingers over his mouth.

  “Lina, I—”

  “It isn’t important,” she said, cutting off his confession, her eyes never leaving his. An intensity to her statement, to the way she looked at him. As though she knew. As though she knew and it didn’t matter.

  “But—”

  She shook her head and pressed her mouth to his, her fingers curling around his scalp, cutting off everything he needed to say.

  “We’re just us,” she whispered against his mouth. “It doesn’t matter.”

  He sifted his fingers through the soft silk of her hair, let her lips sink into his again. She wouldn’t let him tell her, so maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe he really could just be this person he’d built out of the ashes.

  With her.

  Chapter Ten

  Somehow, two months passed like the blink of an eye. Between demanding work hours, sleep, and then…Ace, whenever their schedules meshed, Lina had a life that involved more than work.

  The process of becoming a doctor had always been her goal, her focus, and the crux of her life. Doctor, doctor, doctor.

  These days it felt less like her—her center, her being, her motivation for everything, and more like just a facet. For the first time in her life, she felt…kind of well-rounded. Like her life was full. Not just of this one thing, but of lots of things.

  A satisfying job, because as much as she’d become a doctor to serve the McArthur purpose and plan, she’d always really enjoyed the work of being a doctor, dealing with emergencies, diagnosing issues. Medical work was the best version of her still.

  But she also had an actual friend in Cherrie, the kind of friend she could talk to in ways she’d always been too afraid or too determined to be strong instead.

  And she had a…boyfriend. Somehow, someway she and Ace had fallen into an actual relationship. It wasn’t exactly easy with their schedules, and they didn’t exactly talk about spending all their matching free time together.

  They just d
id. As much as she’d been determined to live a life where she would define it, rather than follow in the steps her mother would have preferred—molding herself into wife material—these months had changed her, shaped her into a different person.

  A better one, really. It wasn’t just Ace. It was all of it—leaving Marietta, having non-McArthurs in her life, wanting a change and making it.

  *

  Ace was…good at reading a room. He knew how to flatter people, how to put people in their place. He could turn on the charm, or ice it off completely, and she found she was improving her bedside manner simply from spending time with him and observing him.

  She was a better person with him, which was great and concerning and a whole mix of things she was trying to compartmentalize in a way that wouldn’t make her blurt out crazy words like love and commitment.

  She mused about all those words the entire way home. Because obviously for as good as things were, there was still that little…thing. The Dean thing she didn’t want to face. How could she think of love and commitment when that hung between them?

  She chewed her lip, wondering if she should push it. Ace had texted this morning that he’d be waiting, with breakfast, and then he’d let her sleep. But they could talk, they could…

  She couldn’t help but shut that thought away. She didn’t want to do that. She didn’t want to ruin how good things were. Maybe the pretending was important. After all, she’d been letting him pretend for this long, and she’d been the one to keep him from telling her in the first place. So… It wasn’t time for all that yet. There was still so much to enjoy.

  Ace was on call tonight, so she and Cherrie had made plans to see a late movie and keep each other awake so their sleep schedules for their two-week-long night shift didn’t get totally messed up.

  This was her life. She’d actually made it into something that fit her and made her happy and better. Leaving Marietta had truly been the best decision she’d made, and bringing Marietta business into it would only ruin everything.

  *

  Determined, pushing those little slivers of guilt away, she pulled her car into her parking spot. But as she walked up to her apartment, she found some of Marietta had found its way to her doorstep.

  “J-Jess. Cole.” Lina nearly dropped her bag at the sight of her brother and her best friend standing in the hallway outside her apartment door. “You…”

  “Surprise!” Jess offered, unlinking her arm from Cole’s and moving forward to pull Lina into a hug.

  It was a quick squeeze and release and when Jess pulled back, she cocked her head. “I know it’s a surprise, but it’s not an unpleasant one, is it?”

  “No! Of course, not. I’m just…surprised.” Lina laughed uncomfortably, looking around and behind her brother. Ace had said he was waiting, but where was he?

  Lina tried to breathe, but panic was banding around her lungs. Because if he had been here, if he had…

  She closed her eyes against the wave of guilt swamped her.

  “Did we come at a bad time?”

  Lina forced herself to open her eyes, to smile at her brother. “No, I just worked all night and I’m really feeling it.” She focused on Cole because his familiar blue gaze seemed safer than Jess’s warm one.

  Blue eyes just like… Oh, Lina, you idiot. This is what you get for being happy.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she managed. “I’ve missed you both.” But only one of those was true. She wished they’d go back to Marietta or Wyoming or wherever it was they’d come from since they split their time between the two places.

  She swallowed, her throat closing. Damn, she wished they’d given her more time in the little fantasy life she’d created the past two months.

  Because if Ace had been here, and now he wasn’t, there were no explanations, there were no more excuses. She had to face what she’d always figured. She had to face what he’d wanted to tell her that night they’d first slept together.

  He was Dean. He was her best friend’s brother and she’d kept him to herself. She’d known that, of course, but she’d been so desperate to ignore it, to push it away, because she’d finally simply fit with someone the way everyone else seemed to do so easily and…

  It had been a betrayal. Of Jess, of friendship, maybe even of the budding relationship she’d started with Ace—knowing he was lying, him knowing she knew he was lying, and both of them accepting it because the now had felt better than truth and reality.

  “Are you going to open the door?” Cole asked, his tone teasing but…gentle, too, and they were both looking at her as though they were concerned. Concerned she wasn’t okay.

  Because she wasn’t. Not at all.

  She pulled her keys out of her pocket and forced some approximation of a smile she knew didn’t fool either of them. But she pushed inside and waved them in. “Come inside. Make yourselves comfortable. Let me just…wash up and try to wake up a little bit. Then we need to catch up.”

  “You can sleep first, if that’s really what’s wrong,” Jess said, concern etched in her furrowed brow and all-too-assessing eyes.

  Lina felt like crying, but she didn’t. “Maybe I’ll lay down, just for a little bit. You guys can help yourselves to anything in the kitchen, and I’ll leave my keys here if you want to go anywhere. I just… I’m dead on my feet.”

  Jess nodded and Cole settled himself onto the couch. “Sure thing. Get some sleep. We’ll talk when you wake up.”

  “Everything’s okay, right? It’s not Dad or…”

  “Everything is fine,” Jess said, starting to maneuver Lina toward the hall. “We just wanted to visit. Get some sleep. We’ll take you out for dinner, okay?”

  Lina nodded weakly, allowing Jess to propel her toward the back of her apartment. But when she stepped into her room, she didn’t immediately fall onto her bed. She dug her phone out of her bag and typed a text to Ace.

  Where are you?

  On call—big fire north.

  She frowned at the text, because he wasn’t supposed to be on call until this afternoon, and because…well, the word fire suddenly meant a lot more to her than it used to. Because as much as she respected his work, knew he was good at it, every time he got sent out, her heart seemed to…hold a breath.

  He had said he was here, and now Jess was here, and he was going to jump into that danger without telling Jess that he was here, that he was okay. He was going to face that threat without facing his own sister.

  She’d let that be okay for the past two months, but with Jess here, right outside the door, Lina knew she couldn’t keep the status quo any longer. Not for her own happiness, or for his.

  She had to do what she should have done in the first place.

  *

  Ace fidgeted as a crew got ready around him. They’d jump, and then he’d go with the next group. Probably closer to evening.

  He hated waiting. Especially when, right now, he’d sure as hell rather be fighting a forest fire over facing…

  He had to clutch his hands into fists to keep himself from coming unraveled completely.

  Jess had looked so much the same. Those ten years that separated them and she was the sister of his memories, only smiling, happily linking her hand with a man as they chatted in the hall outside Lina’s apartment.

  Ace had crested the stairs, had one heart-beating second where he’d considered stepping forward, considered facing her.

  But she’d been smiling and happy, and he hadn’t been able to get himself to do anything but turn right around and go back down the stairs. Hadn’t been able to text Lina. Hadn’t been able to do anything except what he’d been doing since he hitchhiked out of Marietta as a teenager.

  Run.

  He shoved his fingers through his hair and tried to get his shit locked down. He was shaken, and he had to let go of it all before it was his turn to jump. There would be a fire to fight and thank Christ because he knew how to do that.

  He knew how to jump out of a plane, how to do his be
st to cut the heart of a fire out. He didn’t know anything about fixing all the ties he’d severed. He didn’t know anything about being a brother.

  He wasn’t the same little boy who ruined everything he touched, no, but…

  But what?

  “Clark. Someone’s looking for you,” Jacqui’s voice called into the hall.

  Thank God, something to do to keep his mind off—

  “Ace.”

  He stilled at Lina’s voice, turned slowly. There she was, something like battle shimmering in her eyes, determination in the rigid straightness of her back. People moved around them, but he couldn’t focus on anything that wasn’t her.

  “Lina. I…” God, she was beautiful, and somehow she’d wrapped herself around him so that she felt like a part of him. He should have never let it happen, but there it was.

  “You need to come with me.” She took another step toward him, using that calm doctor voice on him that made him want to bolt. “You should come with me.”

  She stood there, a few feet away from him and, for the first time in all the days he’d spent falling for her, he felt unworthy and tainted. The kid he thought he’d escaped. Because she was strong and telling him what to do and he didn’t know how. “I can’t. I have to jump.”

  “You can’t jump into…that.” Her voice wavered and she swallowed, as if she were scared—scared for him. But he didn’t have time to dwell on that when she kept talking. “You can’t jump into that without talking to her.”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t. Don’t. You know I know.” Something in her face crumpled, and he thought she might cry, but whatever tears filled her eyes didn’t fall. “I’ve always known,” she said in little more than a whisper.

  She took a step toward him again and he had to fight the urge to turn, to flee. He didn’t want this, not her to look at him like this, to demand more of him, to know.

  Yeah, he’d known she’d understood he was really Dean, but she hadn’t pushed it. So, he’d thought… Somehow he’d thought if she didn’t push it, it never had to matter.