Into the Fire (Bridge Book 2) (18 page)

“Sorry,” I said, looking her over as she moved into the fluorescent-lit room toward my desk.

“Is this your office?” She ran a finger over the cheap metal chair that sat across from me.

“No. I’m covering for the lieutenant tonight.”

She nodded.

“It’s nothing special. Just a bunch more paperwork.” I moved to the front of the desk, sat on the edge, and shoved my hands in my pockets. Needed to keep my hands off of her. Easier said than done. Watching her move around the room in those heels was giving me a hard-on.

Every time we were in the same room, I felt like I was in a tornado, wrapped up in emotions I had no idea what to do with, wanting the damn woman more than I wanted air.

“We’re not really supposed to have visitors.”

She turned to me and leveled me with those green eyes. “Do you want me to go?”

“No.”
Hell, no.

“I talked to Reilly tonight. He isn’t going to press charges.”

“Lucky me.”

“It
is
lucky. It’s not like him to let something like that go. You really shouldn’t have done that.” Her lips were a thin line.

I winced, remembering Reilly’s unwanted visit and the resulting conversation with my father. I hated the whole fucking thing. All because I couldn’t stand to see the way Reilly was treating Vanessa. Seemed like I cared more than she did, which pissed me off even more.

I straightened. “My dad is helping fund his little venture. Pays to know people with deep pockets. I suppose you know that.”

Her brows wrinkled, but I was already winding up.

“Yeah, I saw your boyfriend today. He told me all the good news.”

“My boyfriend?” She moved away from the chair, coming closer to me. Her heels clicked on the concrete floor. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Means you’re on your way up, red. And I like it right here where I am. If I wanted to compete with dirtbags like Reilly, I’d have done everything my parents wanted me to do. I’ll stick to bringing the bums off the street back to life and running into burning buildings. Maybe that’s not the life everyone wants, but it’s my life.”

“You’re not competing with him.”

I stood, ready to lay it all out for her. “No? He puts his fucking hands on you, and you’ve made it clear that’s not a problem. I mean, what really happened with him out there? I feel like maybe I’m not getting the whole story.”

“Stop it.”

“Then tell me what’s going on here. Explain to me how you justify working for a guy like that if you’re not in it for something else?”

“It’s my
job
.” She leaned in and her skin glowed, turning from soft peach to a glowing pink. “You can look down on me all you want, but I’m good at what I do. I’m trying to build a career and—”

“And you could be doing anything else but this.”

“I’m not like you, Darren. I don’t have rich parents to fall back on. It’s easy enough for you to turn your back on everything they offered you, but I never had that luxury. So don’t judge me for finding my own way.”

“You think you’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?”

“And you do?” She put her hands on her hips.

“I like my life.”

“Me too!”

A weak laugh escaped me. “Do you?”

“I liked it a lot better before you decided to punch my boss. You can’t go through life doing whatever you want, Darren. The world doesn’t work that way.”

She was shouting, and I wanted to shout back. My blood boiled when I thought about what Reilly had said. I inhaled deeply. I had to get her out of here before I lost control and did something stupid like tell her I loved her again. Lot of good that had done for me.

But before I knew what I was doing, I captured her arms and pulled her against me. Heat and anger pulsed between us.

Her gaze flickered to my mouth as she swayed toward me. “What are you doing?”

“Whatever the hell I want.”

B
efore I could speak
, his mouth came over mine in a bruising kiss. His taste was rough and masculine.

He was pissed off. So was I.

I met his fervor, burying my fingers in his hair and tugging him to me, even as his nearness made my senses spin.

“Damn it,” he muttered.

He hoisted my dress up my thighs and shoved me up on the desk in one fluid motion. Something crashed to the floor behind me, but I couldn’t see it and Darren didn’t seem to care.

I was anchored to him by his savage kisses while he went to work, tugging down the sleeves of my dress. My breasts spilled out, and he squeezed them, pinching my nipples until I whimpered. Then hard sucks at my breast lit fire under my flesh.

I wrapped my legs around him until our hips met and his erection strained against my thigh. Heat arrowed to my core where I pulsed for him.

Reaching between us, I fumbled with the button on his pants. I didn’t give a damn where we were or what the rules were. I had to have him. Right here, right now.

Every touch was intense, making me edgy and hazy all at once. The thin straps of my thong cut into my skin as he ripped it off. Then he was on his knees. He lathed his tongue over my aching clit, mingling my moisture with his. The sensation was heaven. My hips seemed to move of their own accord against his touch. Even as I wished this could go on, the torrent of desire pulsing through me demanded more.

“Darren. Now, hurry.”

He left me long enough to fish a condom out of his wallet. Shoving down his boxers just enough, he hastily rolled it onto his thick length. He pushed the head against my slick entrance, and I braced myself to take all of him at once. If his tight grip on my thighs was any indication of what I could expect, he’d be fucking me hard and long this way.

With one hand steady at my hip, he curled the other behind my neck and tangled into my hair. He held me that way for a moment, gazing into my eyes. His lips were wet with my arousal, his breath a warm whisper against my skin. Then he began to push into me slowly, fusing us together.

I closed my eyes with a shaky sigh.

No matter how angry I was with him, I couldn’t deny how we fit. Moments like these brought us together and convinced me that Darren was the only one I could ever love. He’d wanted to ruin me, and he had.

Liquid and molten, I was melting into him, becoming his…irrevocably. Warmth snaked through me as he rooted deeply, stretching my sensitive tissues until I trembled. A mist of sweat swept across my skin. Already I was on edge, craving the next invasion, ready to succumb to the intoxicating rhythm our bodies created together.

He pulled back and thrust, a measured stroke that had my sex rippling around him. He traced the bow of my mouth with his thumb before pushing it past my lips. I licked and swirled my tongue around the rough pad, sucking the salt from him.

He closed his eyes and shoved again so deep I cried out.

Holding me close against him, he set a rugged pace. “Tell me what you want. I’ll give you anything. Anything, baby.”

I clung to him, struggling to take him deeper, to find places where our flesh could meet and crush together. “Darren…” Every breath was a desperate sound as he pumped into me.

“Tell me…Tell me, Vanessa.”

“Darren…I…”
I love you. God, I love you.

The words rang in my mind, punctuated by the fierce thrusting of his hips against mine.

Now, even when my love for him seemed to move like honey through my veins, swimming with my desire, mixed up with my anger and frustration, I couldn’t form the words out loud. I couldn’t tell him like this, in the heat of it, when everything else was such a mess. My courage deserted me, and I fell back on the lust that was ripping me apart.

“Fuck me. Fuck me, please. I need you.”

That need was a knot of heat buried deep. Only he could reach it and satisfy the violent craving that rocked me.

A flicker of emotion passed behind his eyes before he withdrew and turned me around to face the desk. He licked up the column of my neck and nipped hard at my ear.

“If that’s what you want…”

With his hand firm on my back, he bent me forward over the desk. My thighs pressed hard against the cold metal edge. Hauling my hips back, he slammed home abruptly, reaching the deepest part of me.

A scream crawled up my throat. I found the edges of the desk to brace his punishing drives, but I was entirely as his mercy.

My desire climbed like a raging fire under my skin. When I thought I couldn’t last a minute more, he withdrew.

His palm came down hard on my ass. I jolted, but the desk under me allowed no room to escape. The smack echoed off the walls. Heat radiated from the place where he’d made contact. My pussy tightened, aching for his cock inside me again.

Another one fell in the same spot.

The pain was sharp, sizzling through me all the way to my toes and lifting me higher. He slapped the spot again and the world spun. The higher I flew, the more I wanted.

“Darren. Please…” I said his name like a prayer. I needed release.

He answered by filling me again. Then a series of fierce thrusts that took me outside of my body.

I was lost. Free falling. Completely at his mercy.

“I’m coming,” I moaned. Because, sweet Jesus, I needed to. My whole body buzzed, tensing around his penetration. He was everywhere. Incredibly deep.

He made a desperate sound and buried himself deep enough to set off one last wave of pleasure through me.

A quiet tone went off in the distance, and I remembered where we were. Must not have mattered because Darren didn’t move. His breath was ragged like my own.

I was weak. Drained. Emotionally frazzled. Physically sated.

We’d resolved nothing. We’d only satisfied an ache that never seemed to wane.

I tried to catch my breath. What the hell had just happened?

I slipped from her, and she turned in my arms. Christ. She’d walked into the room the picture of elegance, and I’d reduced her to this. Her bared breasts were mottled with dark red from where I’d sucked her, badly wanting to make the marks that could show anyone else who cared that she was in fact
mine
. Her ass wore the imprint of my hand. I’d nearly shredded the condom to come inside her. The need to possess her ran that deep.

I’d lost my goddamn mind. All sense of control and self-preservation had flown out the window. How had I grown to care for a woman this much?

Her cheeks were flushed. God, she was beautiful down to her bones. Even if she didn’t love me, I loved her, past her skin and the physical attributes that had attracted me to her.

All her raw beauty, her fire, her kind heart. The whole of who she was had taken hold of me, challenged me, changed me. I couldn’t help but want to fight for her.

Day by day, I’d fallen into this dangerous attraction, so consumed that I was losing all sense of who I was.

I’d risked my job this morning without a second thought. I’d let a few swings fly in the military, but those careless days had passed.

I slept with women, took and received physical pleasure, discarded any problematic feelings, and carried on with my life. I never tried to take their hearts. That had all changed with Vanessa, and I was in over my head. This was wrong. For her. For me.

In an instant, I saw everything differently—raw and more clearly than I’d ever wanted or intended to.

I stepped away from her, immediately regretting the loss of her warmth and the memory of her tight around me. I buried the condom in the trash and tried to pull myself together. I could straighten myself out, but my head was a clusterfuck of emotion.

Nothing but the shuffling of shoes on the concrete floor and the quiet rustle of clothes coming back into place pervaded the sound of my heart beating in my ears. A heavy silence. Filled with all the things that were welling up inside of me. Things I didn’t want to say but had to.

Finally I came to face her. “I’m in a world of shit if anyone finds out what happened here. You should go.”

“I’m sorry.”

Hurting her now would be easier than hurting her later. “I’m sorry too.”

She froze for a second and then blinked as if she’d caught the true meaning of the words.

“I’m sorry I let this get so out of hand.” I steeled myself to say what I needed to say. I went to war inside, but reaching for the man I was before she came into my life was easier than I’d expected. “With everything that’s gone down…maybe we should take a break.”

A hint of glassiness swept her eyes. A cold mask tightened my expression as I guarded myself for the worst. I’d cut things off with women before, when they started wanting a relationship, expecting that I could be capable of one. It was never easy, never something I welcomed or enjoyed in the least. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but I had to protect myself. Now, I had to protect us both from a path that I wasn’t sure was good for either of us.

“What are you saying?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

“Things are moving too fast. This morning was proof of that. We should take some time, let the dust settle for a while, and figure out what we really want here.”

“Is this about Reilly?”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

“I don’t know what he said—”

“Falling for you is ripping my fucking life apart, Vanessa. I’m risking things I’d never risk.”

She swallowed hard and straightened before me. “Your timing is impeccable, Darren.” The strength in her voice wavered, as if she were close to tears even if her expression didn’t show it.

I opened my mouth to speak, to somehow justify how I could have sex with her and then say the words I’d just said. But before I could, she pushed past me.

“Vanessa.”

I was calling her back and I’d barely let her go. Sickness twisted inside me.

“Vanessa!”

She was out of sight, and I rushed out the door. Down the hall after her and a second later, I was standing outside the station, watching her get into a cab and disappear down the street.

She was gone.

And I’d let her go.

Once the tears started, I couldn’t stop them. The cab driver was eyeballing me in the rearview mirror. I didn’t care.

Darren had ripped my heart out tonight, and I had seen it coming a million miles away. I’d known it weeks ago. Falling in love with Darren had been a mistake. Maybe I hadn’t said the words, but I’d said it in my heart. I loved him. I’d let him inside me in all the ways that mattered.

Despite his promises, despite the passion between us, I’d known full well that I was flirting with disaster. A raging fire, so beautiful and seductive that I couldn’t resist—I’d walked right into it, knowing full well the risks.

Some people couldn’t change. They weren’t meant to. Deep down I knew this. I’d grown up knowing it.

I scolded myself over and over, but the truth was that Darren was temptation personified.

Now I had to pick myself up from the ashes.

I walked into the apartment and dropped my things onto my chair. I paused at the threshold into the living room.

Eli was sitting cross-legged on the couch, a full glass of wine in his hand. “You okay?”

I shook my head, and the tears started again. “No, I am not okay,” I muttered. I’d just been screwed and disposed of by the man I loved.

“What’s wrong?” He jumped up and came toward me.

The closer he came, the less control I had over the sobs that racked my chest.

“Come here, hon.”

His arms came around me, and we crumbled into a heap on the floor. He, hushing me as I cried, and I, purging the last of Darren Bridge, swearing to everything holy that I’d never let him hurt me again.

I felt her slipping away every second she was gone. She was upset, and rightly so. I’d fucked her and told her to get out of my sight. Something I was used to, but the fact that I’d done it to the woman I loved was making me sick.

Something had snapped. Reilly’s words clanging in my head. The feel of his face too fresh on my knuckles. I balled my hand into a fist, ready to find the guy and punch him into next week, even knowing it would solve nothing.

What I needed was a stiff drink, but the punching bag at the station gym was calling my name. I walked in, and Ian was doing pull-ups nearby. He said something as I passed that I didn’t hear. I went right to the heavy bag and hit it hard without breaking stride.

“Whoa, buddy. You all right?”

“Stay away from me.” I hit the bag again hard. This wasn’t exercise. This was violence.

“Darren. Buddy. Slow down. You’re going to break your hand.” Ian was beside me now but giving me a wide berth.

“Don’t fucking care.” I hit again and again. Slowing down only every few rounds.

“You’re going to care when you’re out on disability getting fat. What’s going on?”

I kept hitting it. How many times it would take before I could get her out of my head? Never had a woman do this to me. Never. Why now? Why her?

Bang. Bang. Bang.
My hand was starting to ache, but I welcomed the pain. Had to feel it, until I couldn’t feel anything at all.

“Is it Vanessa?”

I paused. Ian had never used her name before. She was always the redhead, the chick who had me pussy whipped, the broad. I narrowed my gaze at him.

“So she’s a person to you now?”

“She’s your girlfriend.”

Bang.
“Not anymore.”

He hesitated, eyeing me cautiously. “What happened?”

I stopped to catch my breath.

“I broke her boss’s nose, and when she came to talk to me about it tonight, I fucked her and told her to leave.”

“Wha— Okay.” He shook his head. “Tell me about the boss.”

“He came onto her when they were out of town. They got off the plane and I punched him. She freaked out and told me to leave. Yeah, that was about thirty seconds after I told her I loved her. Not sure. She could be fucking him.”

“Jesus Christ, I do not envy you.”

Deep down I knew she wasn’t. But like her, I was becoming prone to believing the worst.