Fighting the Fire: A Warrior Fight Club Novel

by Kaye, Laura

  He wiped what he could off his arm and shirt, then chucked the roll at her and smirked. “While you’re down there, make yourself useful.”

  Finally sobering up a little, Dani used the first sheet to dry and fan her face. Reaching out, she wiped up the spray of droplets that’d fallen from his arm, and then she crawled a little closer to where he stood to get the spill. Still chuckling, she wiped at the top of his bare foot. “Stand still,” she managed.

  “Would this be a bad time to mention that this is a nice view?” he said, amusement finally working its way into his tone.

  She glared up at him, which suddenly made her aware that she was basically kneeling at his feet. “Only if you don’t mind me punching your tomato-soup-covered junk.” The words made her chuckle again.

  With his uninjured eye, he winked. Freaking winked.

  Dani got to her feet and sighed out the last of her humor. “That was truly epic. Thank you. I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in a long time.”

  Sean rolled his eye. “Glad I could entertain you.” He pulled at the hem of his shirt to take it off, but grimaced as he tried to pull his arms out of it.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I need to wash this shit and I don’t want to drag tomato sauce down the steps.”

  “Uh, then let me help,” she said. When he gave in, she gently lifted the shirt over his head, which had her realizing for the hundredth time how ripped he was and how tall he was. She’d always found marked differences in size between a man and a woman sexy, and since he had a good seven inches on her, not to mention biceps and thighs like freaking tree limbs, Sean ticked every one of her boxes in that regard. She forced her gaze away from his bruised chest to see that she’d accidentally smeared the dot of soup on his cheek. “Wait.” Grinning, she reached up and wiped it away. “All better.”

  There was an intensity about the way he was looking at her that made her stomach take a little tumble she didn’t want it to be taking, so she turned away, found the trash can under the kitchen sink, and dumped all the dirty paper towels there before turning on the faucet to wash her hands. She grabbed a clean towel to dry off and turned—

  “What the fuck are you doing, Riddick?” she asked, finding Sean with his pants around his knees. The only thing he wore was a pair of dark gray boxers that fit snugly enough that they seriously did not leave much to the imagination—not that she needed to use her freaking imagination because Halloween-party hijinks of the sex-in-a-truck variety had ensued.

  Sean smirked. “Don’t get your panties in a twist. Ain’t nothing you haven’t seen before.” The pants hit the floor at his ankles, and he grimaced as he reached to pick them up. “I told ya; I gotta wash this shit.” He was a little pale by the time he’d finished his impromptu striptease. And the pants did in fact leave a new smear of soup on the floor that he might’ve trailed down the steps.

  So Dani bit back the urge to give him a hard time. “Just leave the stuff there. I’ll throw it in the washer for you.”

  He sagged against the counter. “Okay.”

  That he gave in so quickly told her everything she needed to know. “Stay right there. I’m going to grab you another set of clothes from your room, then we’ll get you settled on the couch again and I’ll bring down the food.”

  Upstairs, she beelined for his bedroom at the back of the house. A king-sized bed with a hunter green comforter dominated the room, which subtly smelled of Sean—all woodsy, smoky spice, like the way your clothes smelled after sitting around a campfire.

  It felt strange being alone in his space like this when, before today, she’d never been to the man’s house even once. Everything about the place was tasteful and understated, even if a little impersonal—well, except for the basement. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but a part of her wouldn’t have been surprised for his house to have resembled a frat, complete with foosball, sticky floors, and pin-up calendars. Which made her realize yet again how wrongly she’d judged the guy.

  That realization crawled around uncomfortably inside her head. All at once, she was barraged with a quick succession of memories: Sean wanting to get her off again and again that night in his truck. The blast of arousal she’d felt when he’d pinned her down yesterday at WFC. Him telling her she was better than him. Her finding all these new layers to the man…

  It was confusing as hell. And irritating, too. Because Dani didn’t want to feel confused about Sean. Or, frankly, about any man.

  Especially less than two weeks before Anthony’s anniversary…

  That thought brought a complete sucker punch of guilt that cut through all that confusion. Heaving a deep breath, she opened his dresser drawers until she found a T-shirt and a pair of worn-soft sweatpants that she thought might be more comfortable than jeans. Downstairs again, she found him standing, arms braced against the counter, head sagging, his back to her.

  For just a moment, the picture he made there stole her breath. His body was a freaking masculine work of art. The broad, muscled back. The tight ass. The tattoos stretched stark across his skin.

  How she could even notice such things with that guilt sloshing around inside her, she didn’t know. But it sure as heck didn’t make her feel great about herself, that was for sure.

  She was here as a nurse, and maybe a bit as his friend—but certainly not as his lover. Which had her looking past his body to see that his effort to help make dinner had drained him of whatever energy sleeping had provided. “Hey,” she said. “Here are some clean clothes.”

  He turned slowly, though not slow enough to fully remove the exhaustion from his face before he looked at her. “Thanks.”

  She stood in front of him. “Lean back against the counter and lift one leg at a time.”

  He reached for the pants. “I got it.”

  Dani shot him a look. “Conserve your energy, Riddick. This is going to be a marathon for you over the next week or two. Accept all the help you can get.”

  On a sigh, he rested his hips against the counter and did what she said, allowing her to slide one pants leg and then the other over his feet and onto his calves. Sean took over from there. “I don’t like needing help.”

  Well, she couldn’t blame him for that. “I get it. I don’t either. But sometimes we all need it, you know?”

  “Yeah,” he said as she put the shirt over his head.

  “Besides, would you rather have Mo or Billy helping you dress, or me?”

  He smirked. “Is undressing an option here? ‘Cause if so, I’d rather have you do that.”

  “Oh, my God,” she said with a groan. The last thing she needed was him flirting with her. “You are flippin’ relentless.”

  He chuffed out a little laugh. “I gotta be me. Ain’t no one else I can be.”

  “All right, well, take all of that—” She waved a hand in his general direction. “—and go sit your ass down. Dinner’s about to be served, and then you owe me some movies.”

  Sean gave a single nod and turned toward the stairs.

  Which was the first time Dani saw the writing on the back of his shirt.

  Engine Company 11

  Truck Company 6

  Finding ‘em hot

  Leaving ‘em wet

  “Even your freaking shirts are relentless,” she called.

  He stopped, looked down at himself, and then peered over his shoulder, a spark of Sean’s normal arrogance and challenge in those dark eyes. “Truth in advertising, D. That’s all it is. Not that I need to tell you.”

  Dani gawped. Then glared. Then shook her head. “I don’t have any damn idea what you’re talking about, Riddick.” Even though, hell yeah, she remembered exactly what he’d wrung out of her body. And how many times.

  He sniggered. “Play it that way if you want to,” he called as he started down the steps again. “But we both know that ain’t true.”

  Damn him. He was right. But no good would come of admitting it, not when she intended for it to never happen again. />
  * * *

  An hour later, they were on the couch together, dinner dishes discarded on the coffee table, the ice machine strapped to his chest, and laughing their asses off.

  Well, she sure was. He was more trying to laugh on the inside so that his chest would stop screaming at him. For fuck’s sake.

  At least this time, Sean wasn’t the butt of the joke.

  Dani was fucking loving ‘Deadpool’, and that fact delighted Sean to no end. She’d already been grinning as the credits rolled at the top of the movie, which he appreciated because they were fucking funny. And then she’d chuckled at the first fourth-wall break right at the beginning, where Deadpool talks to the audience about fondling Wolverine’s balls. And then she’d sat wide-eyed at the over-the-top nature of the first action sequence, grinned at the “some of the best love stories start with a murder” line which she remembered him saying at the hospital, and finally erupted in full-out belly laughter when Wade bit Vanessa with his plastic vampire teeth while giving her oral sex.

  All of which made Sean glad he’d given in to her demand to watch ‘Deadpool’ first even though he’d tried to explain the whole order of the Marvel universe thing. She just hadn’t cared that ‘Deadpool’ was nowhere near the beginning. And it didn’t matter to him just then either, because she was digging something he loved.

  And Sean couldn’t get enough of it.

  “Stop watching my reactions,” she’d finally said after the montage of sex scenes ended.

  “I’m not watching you,” he lied. Because he was definitely watching her reactions. And liking them. And liking looking at her in this unhurried way that he never had with her any other time.

  Damn, she was fuckin’ beautiful. The long glossy dark hair. The almost regal shape of her face, with its high cheekbones, wide eyes, and bow-shaped mouth. Her easy smile and laughter.

  Her being gorgeous was not a news flash, of course, because Sean had clocked that from the first second he’d seen her at Warrior Fight Club almost five years ago. But admiring that beauty as she sat in his house, on his couch, watching ‘Deadpool’ with him and loving it? That was something way the hell else.

  He liked it a stupid lot.

  As if that mattered. He knew it didn’t. He was well aware that Daniela England was sitting in his house and on his couch while laughing at his movie only because his ass needed caring for in the wake of getting up-close-and-personal with a box truck. She was here out of a sense of duty, out of being the kind of person who did right by other people. Not for any other reason. And certainly not because she cared what he thought about her.

  Words were tumbling out of his mouth before he’d made the conscious decision to spill them. “You don’t have to stay, you know.”

  Dani’s gaze whipped toward him, her brows cranked down. “What the fuck, Riddick? I’m watching ‘Deadpool’ here. You can’t be all ‘you’re a woman in serious need of a movie marathon’ and then kick me out halfway through the first flick.”

  With a little chuckle he held up his hands. “Wasn’t trying to kick you out, D. Stay as long as you like. Just didn’t want you to feel, I don’t know, stuck here. I got it from here.”

  “First of all, Mr. Campbell’s Soup Man, you’re only, like, thirty hours out of getting your butt run over. Second, I don’t feel stuck here. I’m happy to help. Now can we get back to seeing if Wade is going to catch Francis and rescue Vanessa or what?”

  He smiled despite the soup-related dig. “My Deadpool is your Deadpool.”

  They watched the rest of the movie in silence—well, not talking. Dani’s amusement kept it from being anything but silent. Not that Sean was complaining.

  And then, finally, Vanessa and Wade were together again, facing each other, as Vanessa saw how much Wade’s appearance had changed for the first time. Dani wore a perma-grin as the scene unfolded. And then Vanessa said a line that was easily one of the best movie lines of all time:

  “After a brief adjustment period and a bunch of drinks, it’s a face…I’d be happy to sit on.”

  Laughter erupted out of Dani, and she sat rapt through the end of the movie until the credits finally rolled. “Oh my God, Sean, that was epic.” She turned toward him, smiling and recounting some of her favorite lines. Enthusiastic as all hell.

  A little bit blown away, he nodded and joked in all the right places. It was just that Dani was always such a bad-ass bull-buster that he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen this funny, laid-back side of her, the one open to his kind of stupid humor. Was it possible that, with all his sarcasm and snark, he’d never given her the chance to show him that side of herself?

  And then Dani suggested they watch ‘Deadpool 2’.

  Even though it was after ten, he was wasted, and his eye was aching like a motherfucker, Sean was happy to oblige. Because Dani wasn’t interested in this out of obligation or to humor him. She was truly into this.

  Which had one of Sean’s favorite lines going through his head: “Your crazy matches my crazy. Big time.”

  Not that he was sharing that with her.

  Because he didn’t even know the point of thinking it himself.

  Chapter Six

  The first thing Dani knew was the kink in her neck. The second thing was that her pillow was really hard. The third was that she was not in her own bed.

  She flew into a sitting position, her heart taking sudden flight. Hitting the home button on her cell phone revealed that it was four in the morning.

  Not late. Okay, not late. Calm down.

  Heaving a deep breath, she shook off the haze of sleep and peered to her left, to Sean, who was sound asleep despite her freak-out. He was mostly sitting upright, pillows piled high against his far side to offer support. A sliver of light spilled over his sleeping face from the bathroom, where the light had been left on behind a mostly closed door. The only sound in the room was the soft whirr of the ice machine.

  Awareness finally returned. They’d been watching movies. And, oh, hell, ‘Deadpool’ was a freaking riot. It was so totally Riddick’s brand of snarky, innuendo-laden, off-color humor, though she couldn’t deny that she’d laughed more at those two movies than she had in a long time. So clearly it was her humor, too. Which was interesting to her.

  Obviously, she and Sean had things in common—prior military, WFC members, a shared group of friends. Typically, all that was overshadowed for her by how much he tended to get on her last nerve. Yet, she’d been the one to push for watching ‘Deadpool 2’.

  But after the mostly sleepless night she’d had at the hospital, her eyes had grown so heavy that she’d stretched out on her side of the couch… She didn’t remember falling asleep.

  And certainly not against Sean’s thigh.

  The light from her phone illuminated something on the floor beside her, and she reached down to find that a blanket had puddled there. The thing was, Dani hadn’t had a blanket when she’d laid down, which meant…Sean had covered her.

  Which was something Anthony always used to do.

  Dani would fall asleep watching TV or reading a book, and he would grab the blanket off the back of the couch and cover her up. Waking up with the blanket on her always made her smile. Proof that Anthony was thinking of her and taking care of her, even when she didn’t know it.

  With the comparison sitting uncomfortably in Dani’s gut, she got up and closed herself inside the bathroom. She couldn’t quite meet her own gaze in the mirror, which was maybe ridiculous since she hadn’t done anything to feel guilty about. Still felt guilty all the same, though.

  But why in the world would Sean make her feel guilty?

  Sure, they’d hooked up that one time, but that wasn’t why she was here now. And anyway, she was too old—and her field of fucks-to-give was too barren—to feel guilty over fulfilling a perfectly natural urge from time to time. Having sex didn’t make her feel guilty, because sex was just…sex. It didn’t mean that there was a relationship or a commitment or emotion. And Sean hadn’t been her f
irst partner after Anthony.

  She used the toilet, grimaced at how loud flushing sounded against the stillness of the night, then washed her hands. Finally, she looked at herself in the mirror.

  Out of nowhere, a knot filled her throat and threatening tears stung the backs of her eyes.

  She was lonely. God, she was so freaking lonely.

  That’s what Sean covering her and leaving a light on for her made her feel. Because the last person who’d done things like that for her was her dead husband.

  “No,” she whispered to herself. “No.” Dani shook her head, fisted her hands, and clenched her eyes—all to push those tears back. Tears helped exactly nothing. You couldn’t see anything while your eyes were blurred with tears—her granny taught her that. Besides, Dani had no cause to throw herself a pity party. She had a good life—friends, a fantastic job, a nice apartment, and money in the bank. She wasn’t looking for a relationship. She wasn’t particularly interested in having kids. This was the life she’d purposely created after Anthony died. And lots of other people she’d cared about were gone and no longer had any kind of life at all. She should be grateful.

  Right. And she was. So.

  She forced a deep, cleansing breath, pushing the last of the unusual emotions away.

  Glancing at her phone told her it was now almost four thirty. She had to be at the hospital at seven and debated just going in early. The likelihood of falling back to sleep at this rate seemed slim. But it also felt weird to sneak out on Sean in the middle of the night as if she were doing some kind of walk of shame.

  Whatever she decided, she was itching for a shower and a fresh set of clothes she hadn’t been wearing for going on thirty-six hours. She’d brought a set of scrubs to sleep in but had fallen asleep before changing. At least that left her clean clothes for work….

  Which settled it. She was getting a shower. And if Sean didn’t wake up on his own by six, she’d leave him a note and remind him that Billy would be over some time in the morning. It was a plan—a plan that just required retrieving her duffle bag from the family room.