Page 17 of Savage Fire

Heaving a sigh, Tessa knocked her head against the passenger window and gazed out on the parking lot of the Wendy’s where they’d parked for lunch and to finish up their paperwork for the last call where they’d transported a kid with a broken arm. He’d broken it while doing skateboarding stunts off a homemade ramp in his driveway. His mom had been out of her mind with worry and anger at the kid, but the kid had been as cool as a cucumber.

“What’s with the sigh, Tessa?” Tommy inquired, his tone just this side of hurt. “I know I’ve been hinting at a repeat of that one night, but I don’t think I was the only one who enjoyed themselves.”

No, he hadn’t been, but apparently, she’d been the only one to regret it. She’d used him as a stand-in for someone else, and that was pretty shitty.

Turning toward him, she met his gaze, one filled with longing.

God dammit! Why couldn’t she be attracted to Tommy? He was gorgeous, had a steady job, was fun, and he did alright in the sack. And…he was known around the firehouse as a stand-up guy, one who treated women right. He was a one-woman man, and he wanted her to be that woman.

It took everything in her to smile right then, when all she really wanted to do was curse, beat her fists against the glass, and scream into the sky. Why was everything so fucking unfair?

Tommy must have seen something in her expression because the longing on his face slipped away, replaced by cool detachment—but not before she saw hurt flash in his eyes.

“I know that look,” he remarked, sighing. “That’s the ‘I had fun, but I think I just want us to be friends’ look.” He grunted, his hands closing into fists on his lap. “And I really thought we could have something.”

Well, she felt like shit warmed over then dunked in piss and snake venom.

She leaned toward him, placing a hand on his forearm. The muscle beneath her fingers flexing with restrained emotion. At her touch, he flinched, and guilt swirled through her guts.

“Ididhave fun, Tommy, and you really are the kind of guy I should go for—”

“But you’re still wrapped up in that biker,” he said, the last word like acid drops from his tongue. “I honestly don’t know what you see in that guy. You have to know he’s going to treat you like shit—and you deserve to be treated like a queen, Tessa. I would have treated you like a queen.”

Swallowing down the ball of tears that was quickly forming in her throat, she blinked back the burning in her eyes and replied, “It isn’t just about him, Tommy. We also work together, and you know that would get tricky. As much fun as we had that night, it can be the only night if I want to keep things professional. This job is the only thing I have left. I don’t have MMA anymore, and if I lose this job, if I can’t put on the uniform and ride in this rig every day, I’ll lose the last piece of me that means anything.”

When she’d first come to Vegas seven years ago, she’d been shell shocked, listless, wary, and adrift. She’d spent most of her life living hand to mouth with a single mom, then the last several years sequestered on Jacob’s ranch in the middle of nowhere. She wasn’t completely cut off from people, but her interactions with anyone outside of the ranch had been heavily monitored by Jacob, and if not him, one of his “ranch hands”, all of which shared in his lifestyle choice. When she finally escaped, she traveled around, using the bus lines to move from town to town, and when she eventually ran out of money, she’d stop and work an under the table job at a diner, farm, and even, once, an animal shelter, where she stayed overnight and cleaned the dog shit out of the kennels.

Once she hit Vegas, she had fifty bucks in her pocket, and the desperate need to settle down. She was weary to the very fabric of her being. She was scared, exhausted, and she missed her mom and step-siblings so much it was agony. So, when Sin City snagged her, she determined to plant some roots. To find some place to call home…and to find a way to contact her mother without Jacob finding out she’d helped Tessa escape, and where Tessa had ended up. That last fucking thing she’d needed was for Jacob and his goons to show up and try to drag her back so she could “marry” her perverted stepfather. She’d fucking die before she let that happen. Realistically, it had been seven years since she left, and she had no idea if her mother or Jacob were still alive. She could only hope that her mother had outlived that asshole and found a way to live a happy life. Worst case, though, was the forced lifestyle had beaten down her heart and spirit so much, she was just a shell of the lively, loving woman she’d been before Jacob had stopped them on the sidewalk that day fifteen years ago, and shoved them onto the path of misery and fear.

Tessa eventually found an apartment for rent over a pawn shop, and the owners let her work the shop for cash under the table, which gave her shelter and income. Unfortunately, the shelter was devoured by fire a year later, when an old wire in the cooling system shorted. She’d been sleeping when fire came through the floor and into her apartment. She was trapped. Fortunately, fire and rescue saved her ass from being burned alive. The EMTs that cared for her and transported her to Sunrise Hospital, were angels. In a moment of her greatest terror and grief, they’d provided comfort.

And she’d found her calling.

Tommy’s hiss of resigned breath pulled her back into the now, and she gazed at his face. She saw understanding and disappointment in his handsome features.

“I get that, Tessa, I do. I just wish you’d see that you deserve better than that man will ever be able to give you.”

The sad thing was sheknewthat, deep down in her bones. She knew Fang had the potential to tear out her heart and burn it to ash—and no amount of fire and rescue could save it. But there’d been something between them, something that had connected them, wove them together. Bonded them. It was more than just desire, more than lust—though there waslotsof that. There was also a deep knowing. Like her soul called out to his, and his answered.

She couldn’t explain it, couldn’t understand it, but she was stupidly determined to see what it all meant.

She just hoped she came out the other side intact.

In that moment, her mother’s last words to her rang ominously,“Be safe….”

After her uncomfortable conversation with Tommy, her shift dragged on even slower than before, but finally she was able to clock out and get the hell out of there. She still had two hours before she had to meet Fang at the clubhouse, and she needed every one of those one hundred and twenty minutes to prepare—mind, body, and heart.

When she’d texted him about what to wear, he told her to wear something sexy but comfortable. What the hell did that mean? She was comfortable in old sweatpants and an old Steele Fist MMA gym hoodie, but she could easily assume Fang hadn’t meant for her to wear her at-home comfy clothes. He probably meant something easily removable, because he was a dick like that.

She didn’t own anything sexy, and she refused to spend money to buy something new just for Fang. Though…would it really be so bad to dress to kill and then watch him die of a heart attack when he saw her for the first time? She smirked to herself, pondering where the hell she could get a sexy dress that would fit her awkward, big and tall frame in less than an hour.

Pulling out her cell, she dialed Skathi.

“Hey lady,” Skathi answered, a smile in her voice. God, it was like the woman was perpetually happy, which made since. She was in love with a man who worshiped the ground she walked on, and she was pregnant with a baby she’d always wanted and couldn’t have because her douche bag of an ex-husband and screwed her over, then screwed a ring bunny and got her pregnant instead. Skathi had earned her life of happiness. Tessa just wanted a little bit of that for herself.

But was Fang really the one to give it to her?

“Hey lady, are you at home?” As in the clubhouse apartment she shared with her old man, Odin.

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