Her 2 Protectors

Nick steps up beside me. “Did you check to see if she was being treated?”

“She’s not. I’ve looked everywhere.” The woman presses a hand to her mouth and turns in a circle. “There’s no way she could have gotten out fast enough. Not without help…”

“Which floor is she on?” I ask, pulling an axe off the truck.

“Second—” Her eyes widen on the building, her fingers grabbing at my sleeve. “Jesus, there she is! I can see her in the window.”

The woman lunges toward the fire, but Nick catches her around the waist, the woman’s arms and legs pinwheeling in every direction. “Point her out,” he orders loudly to be heard over the sirens. “Which window?”

A keening sound breaks from the woman’s mouth, her shaking finger lifting to indicate a corner apartment on the second floor, where the outline of a person can indeed be seen behind a window. The woman inside is waving something that looks like a handkerchief, her movements sluggish.

“Ma’am, you need to remain behind the caution tape,” I shout, already jogging toward the closest building entrance. “Don’t follow us in.”

I say us, because I know Nick is already right behind me. Not that I would ever admit it out loud or say it to his face, but the lieutenant is pretty much a legend at the department. When I was a rookie, rumor had it Nick was immortal. Until Penny, he’s someone I knew from a distance, but as we charge into the smoke-filled stairwell, hooking right on the second floor toward the apartment where the woman is trapped, there’s a connection between us that wasn’t there before. We’re obsessed with the same woman and she needs us both. Her happiness depends on us both coming home and we’re walking into a death trap.

Fear like I’ve never felt before slings around my neck. There hasn’t been enough time to find the person who poses a threat to Penny. She’s vulnerable right now—at the mercy of the same asshole who killed her father—and we’re the line of defense surrounding her. Unless we don’t make it back. Who’s going to protect her if we don’t?

Testing the doorknob to the apartment and finding it locked, I step back and kick it open, both of us turning to protect against a backdraft. And then we’re moving, but I’m thinking back to that kiss we gave Penny earlier. How I was so fucked over worrying her that I overwhelmed her, kissing her until she couldn’t breathe. Then there was Nick, easing her concern. Comforting her.

If something happened to one of us, she’s going to need that, isn’t she? She’s going to need Nick, the immortal. The man she calls Daddy.

Although it causes me actual pain to say what’s needed, I stop in the process of raising my axe to break apart fallen debris in our way. “If something happens to me, just get out. Go to her, all right? She’s going to need someone. She can’t lose us both.” My throat constricts. “Just protect her, please. Keep her safe.”

Nick can’t hide his surprise, but buries it almost immediately. “Shut the fuck up,” he growls at me, brushing past to take the lead into the bedroom, where the woman is still waving…what I now see is a bra. “We’re both getting out of here. I’ve got her—you clear a path.”

So much for my attempts at being noble. I make sure Nick has the woman secured over his shoulder, before turning and moving back through the living room.

That’s when a beam falls from the ceiling.

CHAPTER SIX

Penny

I try to stay in the locked apartment. I really do.

But I didn’t count on seeing the fire from Zeke’s bedroom window. Smoke fills the sky and below…below is an inferno. I’m way too familiar with the experience of being surrounding by flames. Is that what my two lovers are seeing right now? A wall of fire, the inescapable smell of everything melting and being destroyed?

After fifteen minutes spent pacing the bedroom, I’m going stir crazy. I can’t lose Nick and Zeke. I can’t. They were my saviors in the fire and every day afterward, standing guard at my bedside, making me feel loved and cared for when I needed it most. Touching me with such passion one minute, holding me like a treasure the next. Already, my stomach is caving in on itself at the very possibility they could be hurt. Don’t firefighters get injured—or worse—all the time?

Yes. Yes…and if that happens, I have to be there to give them the same support they’ve given me. I have to do something.

Dark laughter fills my head. Shadows move in my memories. There’s a very good reason Nick and Zeke want me to stay in the apartment. I could be next on the To Kill list of the man who set the fire that brought my saviors to me in the first place. But I’ve moved three times since the fire. Surely the faceless evil won’t be lying in wait for me. Finding me so fast would be impossible, right?