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Category: Erotica/Erotic Romance
Description: Two firefighters battle the hottest flames they've encountered--their attraction to one another. After a fire sweeps through the school where she teaches and she's unable to save the life of her best friend, Faith Sloan leaves the chalkboard jungle for a career as a firefighter, only to find that one of her former students may be the arsonist responsible for the current devastation in her area of the city. Without losing her trust, Captain Chance James must ensure that his rookie firefighter doesn't get caught between the truth and a killer. He's willing to bend the rules to protect Faith from harm, but there's nothing he can do to shield his own heart once they become lovers. Faith takes him into her bed, her parents take him into their home as he recuperates from a freak accident, and soon the rough-and-ready firefighter must decide what he wants most?his woman or his career. Product Warnings Warning, this title contains the following: explicit sex and graphic language.
eBook Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd., 2006
eBookwise Release Date: February 2011

Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [147 KB]
Words: 30878
Reading time: 88-123 min.

Chance remembered his chief's final words moments later as he lay beneath the beams that had him trapped on ground level. Covered. He was covered all right. Couldn't see a damn thing, barely heard his own voice as he tried alerting his men that he and Mullins were down and that Mullins was unconscious. And to make matters worse, one of his own legs was broken.

He looked about, searching for something to tell him where he'd fallen. The wall that had given left a huge, gaping hole, and he could see large drums of what looked like flour and sugar. He was near the kitchen, which meant cleaning chemicals, food supplies, all manner of cans that would soon be bursting from the pressured heat.

Just then his guts felt like they were going to explode as one sharp pain after another assaulted him. "Fuck!" he yelled, clutching his stomach.

He clawed through the rubble, fought to escape the fire that licked the beams pinning him. Save your breath, he warned himself. Someone will come for you.

He just didn't expect it to be Faith.

Blinded by pain and smoke, he peered through his mask as she shoved against the thick, porous wood with her shoulders, wedging herself between him and the flames, as two burly firemen he didn't recognize hoisted, lifted, moved the offending fallen structures and pulled Mullins free. They were all coughing and choking, despite their masks, indications the situation was serious and that they all needed to get the hell out of there.

"Faith?" one fireman called.

"I've got it--go on!" It would take their combined strength to haul Mullins outside, and what could a matter of seconds alone cost her?

She soon found out. Faith stopped, almost as if in some drastic ballet movement, and Chance followed her eyes toward a pile of metal drums. Metal. Chemicals, most likely, not just perishables, but something that would be the end of them.

Her eyes met his, and he willed her to leave, but she didn't. As soon as Mullins was freed, she shrugged off the two beams stacked one on top of the other and reached for him, grasping his suit through her awkward gloves and tugging on his body.

Another beam fell, and this time she screamed. They were trapped. There was no way Faith could lift him--she was tired, weak with exhaustion, in as precarious a predicament as he was, only she was saddled with saving him...or dying with him.

Before he could try persuading her to leave, she lifted her axe and swung near his feet, scaring the shit out of him. She swung again and again, and he sensed what she was doing. She was trying to forge a hole in the floor, and he prayed that this old restaurant was like others in the district, with older wooden floors instead of cement slabs beneath the surface.

She side-stepped his body and swung again, and when he felt the floor beneath him jar and shift, he latched onto one of her legs and twisted his body so that he'd fall feet first. Better to land on something already broken than to land on his damn head.

Boom! The floor gave, and the two of them shot through the deteriorating boards. Chance had one slim window of opportunity of falling beneath Faith if he was lucky. One chance to cushion her small frame as they descended into unknown territory.

Faith's back felt like galvanized rubber; every bone in her body screamed in protest, even though she'd managed to land on top of Chance, so she could only imagine the pain he'd suffered during the fall.

He'd been knocked unconscious at some point, but she'd had the strength to haul him away from the hole where they'd made their escape. Now she had him in a dank, dark corner where cement surrounded them, and where they had a small, grill-covered ventilation port to the outside. The air wasn't fresh, considering the debris outside, but it was better than what they'd had above the crawl space.

That one leg needed to be reset, but there was nothing she could do about it at this point. No room to maneuver even if she did know how to tend him. All they could do was wait.

Chance stirred, and Faith twisted her body so he was resting his head on her chest. "Baby?" she asked hopefully. "Chance?"

"Mm." He shifted his weight slightly then groaned. "Something's wrong!"

"Don't move. You've broken a leg," she said. "But we're safe for a while."

Chance coughed then huffed through measured gasps. "No--not the leg. Something else..."

"They're across the floor near the entrance to the room--I can feel the vibrations from their boots," she said. "It's just a matter of time. Hang in there!"

He nodded. "Thanks. You should have left, though."

She snorted. "And risk the bragging rights for saving your butt? Not on your life."

Their eyes met, and she knew what he was thinking. Literally--not on his life. He'd have died for sure without someone to get him away from those beams that had nearly broken her back as she hoisted them.

"Faith?" he whispered as the footsteps sounded nearer.

"I know." She bent to kiss his forehead as they heard the first voice above them yell for assistance.

"We need to talk," he insisted.

"And we will." She turned her head toward the hole above them, bellowing for assistance. "He's hurt--broken leg!"

"No--it's...it's not that. I don't think I'm going to make...I think I'm bleeding internally. Get..." He started talking, but before he could say anything else, he passed out for a second.

"Hurry!" she cried. "He's passed out, but he said something else is wrong--he may have been pierced--he was clutching his stomach!"

Faith watched them lower the belts and seat for her to use to strap him inside and gritted her teeth. "I've got you, Chance," she murmured as she adjusted his body and passed the rescue equipment between his legs, cinching the belts. "You're not going to die on me, and you're not getting away once you're out of here."

"I'm getting out of here." She'd apparently reached him before he completely succumbed to unconsciousness, but Chance's eyes closed.

Faith studied his expression then hollered once more for her comrades to make haste. This didn't look good at all.