SCORCHED: A Firefighter Stepbrother Romance Thriller (18 page)

I’d
lost it somewhere. Let it skitter away into the fire and smoke and darkness
creeping in from all around us.

Fuck.

“She
won’t
leave here alive,” Connor said.
“Not while I’m still breathing!” He was at my side suddenly, emerging from the
toxic black clouds like a monster out of the fog. He pushed me with all his
might in an attempt to topple me again and I used his momentum to move with him
instead, though I still damn near lost my balance.

Connor
disappeared, lost to the smoke and the sound of my respirator. I was panting.
Wasting oxygen.

Losing
time.

The
knife. I had to find it. But there was no way. I knew that, as a fireman. But
as Tanya’s stepbrother, and as the man who wanted nothing more in
all the
world than to save her, I wanted to believe I could.

“The
whore must die!”

I heard
Connor’s footsteps approaching again, rushing toward me. I grabbed him around
his waist, this time using his momentum to shove him away from me. He stumbled,
but caught himself in time to keep his balance. He was thin and wiry, quick on
his feet, which gave him a definite advantage. My gear might have been keeping
me safe and alive, but up against a scrappy fuck like Connor, it was only
weighing me down. Wearing me out.

“She’s
not a whore, you crazy piece of shit!” I growled, spreading my feet wider apart
as Connor ran at me once again. I feinted left, hoping to throw him off guard,
but he ducked right, spinning like a damn ballerina as he threw out his foot
right toward my face.

“Fuck!”
I stumbled back as I felt my face starting to swell on my right side. The
little shit hit harder than I’d expected, and if this kept up, I knew I’d tire
out long before he did.

“Brute!
You think you can stop me from slaying my demon? You’ll only burn along with
her!” Connor chided, a peal of laughter bubbling up from his throat. “We’ll
all
burn!”

Connor
looked over to the spreading flames as they worked their way across the stage,
quickly catching the curtains. The orange light highlighted his gaunt features,
making his twisted grin all the more horrifying to behold.

“Like
hell we will,” I said, moving as quickly as I could while his gaze held steady
on his beloved fire.

He
noticed me coming for him, but it was far too late. I pulled back my fist and let
it slam right into his cheekbone. I felt part of his face give under my punch,
an inhuman wail erupting from his lips.

Connor
channeled that pain into anger, swinging himself back around, his eyes wild,
wide like an animal caught in a corner—the kind that are always the most
dangerous.

“I’ll
kill you!” he howled, launching
himself
at me full
force before I could regain my balance after my last punch. His hands were
around my throat before I could defend myself, forcing me to the ground as his
grip began to tighten around my windpipe. “I’ll kill you both!”

I tried
to move, but the weight of my gear and Connor pinning me beneath himself was
too much. No matter how much I struggled, I couldn’t get him to loosen his
grip.

Panic
began to set in. Adrenaline pumped into my bloodstream, but it only served to
use up what little of my breath I was already holding. If I couldn’t find a way
to get free, then I was done for.

Tanya
and I both were.

Everything
started to go dark around the edges of my vision.

“You
fucking worthless sack of shit,” a raspy voice said, though I could barely make
it out above the sound of my pulse hammering in my ears.

Tanya
was standing, clutching the chair she’d been tied to only moments before. With
every choked breath, my sister flew into a coughing fit, one she only barely
recovered from.

Don’t try to save me you, idiot
, I
thought, still fighting against Connor’s grasp.
Dammit, Tanya. Breathe!

She
sneered at Connor on top of me, inching closer. Her strength was flagging, but
goddamn, she looked pissed. I wondered if that would be enough. “Who the fuck
would ever want something as disgusting as you? You make me sick!”

I
looked up at Connor, his eyes no longer fixed on me as I lay beneath him. Instead
he stared fixedly at Tanya, his mouth open,
eyes
wide
and full of madness.

“
You
,” he hissed, his lip curling up in a
feral snarl, “I
knew
it was you! You
couldn’t fool me, Mother. I could always see past your lies!”

Connor
scrambled to his
feet,
releasing me from the
stranglehold he’d had me in. I gasped for air, watching as he stumbled toward
my sister.

This
was going to be my only chance.

I pushed
myself up, taking huge, greedy gulps of air—what little of it was still
breathable. The fire had consumed the curtains
completely,
tongues of flame reaching up into the rafters and catwalks above.

I
staggered forward, reaching out and grabbing a handful of Connor’s shirt in my
hand. I pulled him hard, jerking him around to face me as I pulled my left arm
back and let loose right underneath his jaw, sending him sprawling to the
floor, unmoving.

If
there was a choice to be made in that situation, I don’t think there was even
an option of which I had to make. I turned away from Connor the moment I heard
Tanya’s scream rise from her throat, the flames mirroring themselves in my
visor. I didn’t deliberate, I didn’t second-guess myself—I just acted.

I leapt
toward Tanya, my gear protecting me from the brunt of the heat as I took her
into my arms. She felt just as light as she had the day I’d taken her from her
apartment, saving just like I’d done before. I looked down into her eyes,
half-open and red from the smoke, the eyes I never wanted to stop staring into.

A loud
crack
broke me from my reverie, pulling
my gaze upward as a heavy beam from the ceiling above began to give way.

Shit
, I thought, glancing down at
Connor’s lifeless form. I had every mind to leave him there, to let him burn in
his own damn mess—but something inside of me couldn’t do it.

“This
is Gunner. I’m down at the stage. I’ve got two civilians in here that need
immediate-
evac
and medical treatment.”

“Copy.
Tim is heading your way. Grab whoever you can and we’ll meet you outside.”

I
turned my gaze back to my stepsister, only to find her passed out in my arms. I
frowned and started walking toward the back-stage door and out toward the front
of the theatre, stepping over Connor’s body on the way.

“Get a
cop ready to put the other civilian into custody—he’s the fucker who
started this blaze. I’m bringing the victim out now.”

“Roger
that, Gunner. EMTs are standing by.”

I
carried Tanya out through the back stage
exit,
the
double doors at the lobby streaming light like a gateway to heaven. I could
practically hear a choir singing in the background.

“Gun,”
Tanya whispered as we emerged out into the light of the afternoon sun. “This is
the second time you’ve taken me out of a fire.”

“Yeah,”
I whispered, as I carried her to a waiting stretched, a team of EMTs waiting to
put an oxygen mask over her mouth. “Probably not a good idea to make this a
habit. There are better ways to come see me when I’m at work.”

Tanya
smiled as they fit the plastic mask over her face, breathing deep.

I
breathed with her, exhaling a sigh of relief and turning around just in time to
watch Tim hauling Connor’s limp body out of the theatre. I couldn’t help but
smile as I watched an officer put cuffs on his wrist and attach the bastard to
a stretcher just before rolling him into another ambulance.

I
stripped off my gear, throwing it into the cabin of one of the fire engines
before making a dash for Tanya’s ambulance before it managed to head off
without me. I wasn’t about to let
her
wake up without
anyone there—without
me
there.

Chapter 20

Tanya

Three months later . . . 

“All
right, baby. Where to?”

I
looked at the road map in my hands, frowning at all the lines and squiggles. I
turned it over, scouring the back for a clue, but then Gunner turned it
right-side-up
for me and I sighed through my nose.

“Can’t
we just use GPS like normal, civilized folk?”

My
stepbrother grinned at me, the sunlight glinting off his shades. “We
ain’t
normal, baby.
Never have been
,
never will be
. Now, pick a place.”

I
shoved the map back into the glove compartment and shook my head, looking over
my shoulder and into the backseat of Gunner’s
newly-repaired
Mustang. “What do you think,
Jax
? Where should we
go?”

Jax
stared
at me, jaws agape, his big, pink tongue lolling out and splattering drool
everywhere.
For a guy who loved to boast
about the integrity of his classic car, Gunner sure didn’t seem to care a whole
lot about dog slobber ruining the leather seats.

“He
don’t know
nothin
’,” my stepbrother said, scratching
Jax
behind his ears before turning back to me. “But I’m
serious, baby. I really
wanna
know.”

I put
my bare feet up on Gunner’s dash and gave the question a moment of thought. We
were leaving the city far behind us—at least, for a little while.

Gunner’s
vacation time was long gone, but the Captain gave permission to take a leave of
absence at the fire station. After what happened with my stalker, the shrink
the department kept on hand thought it’d be a damn good idea. Broken firefighters
were of no help to anybody. Often, they did more harm than good. You needed a
certain kind of mettle to pull people out of burning buildings, and if that was
compromised, you ran the risk of a fireman turning more dangerous than the
flames themselves.

But
when I looked at my stepbrother, I didn’t see
dangerous
or
broken.
Not
in that way. I saw the man who’d saved my life—multiple times. The guy
who’d rescued me in every sense of the word.

My big
damn hero.

Not
that he didn’t have a few scars to show for it.
But
damn, didn’t we all? Nobody ever came out unscathed from a fire. Whether that
was a metaphor for life or the real damn thing, the outcome was the same.

Those
first few nights back at Gunner’s house had been rough on us both. I kept
waking up from nightmares of Connor sneaking in and setting us on fire while we
slept. Or sometimes he was just this monster
made
of fire, and he was chasing me
down
the hall, but the hallway never ended and I would just scream and scream and
scream.

Sometimes
I even woke up screaming. Sometimes Gunner woke up ready for a fight. Even
though our waking minds both knew he was in jail—and that whether he
stayed in that cell or they moved him to a psych facility, there was no chance
of him ever getting out—that didn’t stop us from suffering through the
terror he’d left in his wake as soon as we closed our eyes.

Those
were the nights Gunner took me the hardest, trying to fuck away the memories
haunting us both.

So
knowing that my stepbrother was weighed down by what we’d been through was no
surprise to me. We all carried around our own burdens.

Today,
though, that load was
gonna
get a little lighter. We were embarking on an adventure, a road trip through
all fifty states. We’d camp out under the stars. We’d stay in pet-friendly
hotels. We’d see the sights and all the landmarks. He’d promised me we’d even
stay at a few haunted places and try to catch some
ghosts
.

We were
finally going to have that family trip we’d always wanted. Always deserved.
Except we were adults now, and the nature of our family had become . . . 

 . . . 
well
,
different.

And it
was getting larger… My hand swept over my belly, feeling the swelling that had
begun to show. There was no way to be sure this early, but I already knew we
were going to have a son.

Gunner
leaned over to me and swept my hair past my shoulder with his fingers. When I
looked at him he cupped my cheek and smiled. “You got two choices, baby. Are we
goin
’ east, or west?”

I bit
my lip and tried to think of an answer, but it was hard to think of
anything
when my stepbrother was looking
at me like
that
. Of course, he wasn’t really my
stepbrother now. Our parents were gone. There were no laws that said we
couldn’t get married. Nobody would even know unless we told
them
.

Nothing
was set in stone. We weren’t making any commitments or decisions. This trip was
about fun, about
living,
about
getting to know each other as friends and lovers. This was our chance to get
the hell away from the consequences for a while and just be us. And I was
gonna
relish every damn moment of
it.

I’d
spent too long running from my stepbrother. Now, I was
gonna
run with him.

I
looked up at the sky outside the windshield.

“Las
Vegas,” I said with a smile. “That’s the direction I
wanna
go in.”

Gunner
grinned. “Might take us a while to get there, baby, but you got it.” He brushed
his thumb past my lips. “Sin City,” he mused. “Something
tell
me we’ll fit right in.”

“As
long as I’m with you, we can go anywhere. Do anything.” I kissed his hand.
“Wherever we are, if I wake up next to you, that place is home.”

Gunner
pulled me toward him, pressing our foreheads together. “You’re goddamn right.”

We
shared a kiss, one of many we’d indulged in these past few months, but one
unlike any other I’d known. This was a kiss of unbridled passion, of
liberation, of freedom. The first kiss of our new lives together.
The start of a journey.
The start of
something new.

I
closed my eyes and let Gunner’s desire engulf me. When he pulled away, I could
feel his lips had left mine scorched.

“I love
you, Tanya,” he whispered to me. I could tell by the pounding of his pulse that
he’d never said those words to anyone. Not like he said them to me.

My
heart swelled. I cupped his face in my hands. It felt so good to feel his skin
beneath both of them now that I’d gotten my bandages off. “I love you too,” I
told him.

We
kissed again, harder this time, high on our confessions
and
the thought of new beginnings. But then
Jax
barked,
reminding us that we were idling on the side of the road that split before us,
one side taking us east, the other west across the country.

“Las
Vegas,” Gunner chuckled, adjusting his shades. He put the Mustang into gear.
“Maybe we should visit one of those drive-thru chapels.”

I
laughed at him. “You’re out of your mind.”
But really?
I wouldn’t have minded it. I had no intention of ever leaving Gunner’s side.
Not when we’d finally, truly found each other.

We
pulled onto the highway that would lead us to parts unknown, our hands entwined
over the gear shift, just a car full of suitcases, the world’s worst guard dog,
a baby on the way, and two people madly in love.