Page 78 of Set Me On Fire

My hand went to my hip as I looked him up and down.

“Professional, remember? I can drive myself.”

I’d need to so I could make a quick getaway once I’d dropped the news on them.

“Wear something like that red dress again and I’ll pay for everyone’s dinner,” he said.

Was he…? Knox was so damn closed off I couldn’t tell if he was fucking with me or flirting. Flirting, I decided, which made no bloody sense after the conversation we’d had days ago, but the wink he shot me as he walked out couldn’t be construed as anything else. I was still standing there, mouth hanging open, when Judy appeared.

“How’s it going?” She surveyed the mess. “Sorry for sticking you with this job, but my doctors have said no heavy lifting.”

“Don’t be.” I wove my way between the boxes. “So it's lunchtime. What’s the baby craving today?”

“Chinese food?” she said with an impish grin.

“Well, let's get you all the MSG.” I grabbed my bag and slung it over my shoulder. “My shout.”

“OK, that was a mistake,”I groaned, rubbing my stomach as we waddled back into the station half an hour later. “Now all I want to do is sleep on the office couch.”

“Now I’m carrying triplets,” Judy said. “I’ve got a food baby to go along with my actual babies.” We walked up to the store room and I glanced at the door, surprised to see it was ajar. I was fairly sure I’d shut it behind me, but maybe some of the men had gone in at lunchtime to grab more shirts. “I’ll send some of the guys down to help. This time of the day, they’ll be itching to get out of training.” She glanced at the boxes. “They can move all the old uniforms out to the shed at least.”

“That would be awesome. Just gotta push through to five o’clock, right?”

“Five o’clock,” she agreed and then went waddling down the hallway.

I pushed open the door,surveying the mess as I mentally kicked my own butt. If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well, that was my parent’s rule, but right now I wanted to replace that motto with near enough is good enough. Instead, I bent down to open the next box, only to feel hands going to my waist.

I was an idiot.

For a split second, I thought it was one of my guys having snuck into the room to catch me unawares. Maybe pull me back against him, making clear how hard I had him, even after that night. But as soon as I felt those fingers dig in, I knew. My elbow was jerking backwards, slamming into his ribs, and a satisfying oof had him releasing his hold on me. I whirled around, slapping my hands on my pockets, looking for my pen knife, when Dave dangled it in front of me.

“Looking for something?”

There were sleazy guys and dangerous guys. In my old job, it paid to know which one was which. This was the moment when Dave switched from one to the other. There was a dark light in his eyes, one that flared brighter the longer he stared at me. Hissmile made me feel nauseous because he knew he was scaring me and that didn’t put him off for a second. This wasn’t a prank; this was an attack.

“You think you’ve got everyone fooled,” he told me in a low snarl of a voice. “That you’re just here to get a pay cheque, but I know.”

“Know what?”

I meant that to be strong, confident, but my words came out a little shaky. Dave smiled.

“That you’re a little slut.”

There was nothing, and I mean nothing, I hated more than that word. The Stafford was a pub frequented by men who worked hard and played hard, so it was bandied around often enough. The weird dichotomy that they were supposed to be having as much sex as possible with women because that made them manly but that women were used up, played out, if they actually fell for their bullshit, was all embedded in those four letters. That’s what had my spine snapping straight, all doubt, all uncertainty, leaving my body.

“Then I’m not worth your time, am I?” I jabbed my finger at the door. “Get the fuck out before I go and have a long and detailed conversation with Brent about the fire service’s sexual harassment policy.”

That was apparently the wrong thing to say. His smile faded so fast it was as if it was never there. His brows drew down as he prowled closer.

“Why the hell are you here?” he growled. “You banged the three of them, then you accepted a job at the station?” I swallowed, now able to see the disconnect for him. Dave had become more than just a sleazy guy who wouldn’t take no for an answer. “You’re a badge bunny; I just fucking know it.”

This is why I always kept a baseball bat behind the bar at the pub, I thought, as he approached.

“You don’t want to do this…” I stammered out, my mind shrieking for me to do something, anything, because Dave was escalating fast. “That’s not why I’m here.”

“That pretty little mouth is gonna taste so good.”

He wasn’t seeing me, hearing me, instead, a weird kind of blindness setting up. In his mind, some scenario was playing out and he couldn’t be redirected. I backed up, my legs hitting boxes as I blindly found a path.

---