by Kay Gordon
Reduced to Ashes
Book Three of the New Hope Fire Department Series
Written by Kay Gordon
Reduced to Ashes
Published by Kay Gordon
Copyright © 2018 by Kay Gordon
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover Illustration and Design Copyright © 2018 by RO3D
Dedication
To those that have been torn down in the past:
Rise from the ashes, brush yourself off, and keep going. Prove them all wrong and show everyone how kick ass you really are.
Table of Contents
Reduced to Ashes
Dedication
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Also by Kay Gordon
Sneak Peek
Summer by the Lake: Chapter One
About the Author
Prologue
Tori
I pulled the helmet off and swiped the back of my hand across my forehead. Spending six hours in a training simulation was more exhausting than working an actual fire. I was just glad that degree of training only happened once a year.
“You did good, Rookie,” Tim Palumbo, nicknamed Dumbo by our company, said as he stopped next to me. “You’re giving us all a run for our money.”
A grin spread across my cheeks as I tried to be modest. “I wasn’t that fast.”
“Whatever. You smoked Dunsworth’s previous record,” Leandro Reyes replied, elbowing Tristan Dunsworth as they approached. “You were smoked by a chick that’s barely old enough to drink. How does that feel?”
Dunsworth didn’t smile but scowled instead. He’d been doing a lot of that over the past few weeks. He glared at Reyes before turning that glare on me. It was a shocking contrast to the looks we’d been sharing just a month before.
“She got lucky.”
He was an attractive man when he wasn’t wearing that ugly expression on his face. He was a little over six feet with broad shoulders and a muscular physique. His black hair was cropped short on his head and his grey eyes were unique, giving him an exotic look. The badge bunnies flocked to him and I had been the one lucky enough to say he was warming my bed.
Until a couple of weeks ago when he started pulling away.
I wasn’t in love with him or anything but the rejection still stung. I’d been with Las Vegas Fire and Rescue for almost two years and he hadn’t originally liked me. Having a woman in the company wasn’t something he agreed with but when he realized I could pull my own weight, Dunsworth warmed to me.
About six months before at a bar where our company was drinking, he admitted that he was attracted to me and that attraction was one of the reasons he’d been so hard on me at first. That was all it took to get me to go home with him. An hour later, I was naked in Tristan Dunsworth’s bed.
He wasn’t some sort of Prince Charming or anything but he’d been good to me for the most part. He wasn’t the first guy I’d slept with but he was by far the most experienced and he taught me things, helped me explore my sexuality. He was fun.
And now he wouldn’t even look at me.
“Load up in the rig, ladies,” Lieutenant Morgan Widener said, breaking up our conversation outside of the training base. “I want to get back to the house and get some sleep.”
The young lieutenant wasn’t too fond of me. He and a few other guys, like Dunsworth, didn’t feel that a woman had a place in the station house. He didn’t make the same lewd comments some of the others did but he was cold towards me and did nothing when he witnessed the harassment.
We all loaded into our separate engines and I stared out the window with a smile as we headed back to the station. I had kicked everyone’s ass today and obliterated Dunsworth, who had been the fastest for three years running. I didn’t want to gloat but at the same time I wanted to shout it from the rooftops.
“Want to shower first, Rookie?” Reyes asked as we all hung up our equipment at the house and I shook my head. I could count on most of the guys to offer me use of the bathroom first but I always declined and let them all go, taking my own private shower afterwards.
“You guys go.”
The men all shuffled towards the bathroom and I went into my bunkroom to wait. While the snooze room was just a large open room with multiple beds for firefighters on duty to sleep in, I had been given a converted storage room to use as my bunk in an effort to give me privacy. Most of the men hadn’t cared, of course, except a select few who claimed I was receiving special privileges.
I checked my phone, responded to a few texts from my friends, and got my stuff ready. It was about forty-five minutes before someone rapped on my door.
“Bathroom’s empty, Rookie,” Dumbo called from the other side, using the nickname that had stuck well beyond my probationary period. “Go shower. I can smell your stink from here.”
I chuckled and stood up with my stuff. “Thanks, D.”
The station house was older and had a floorplan that didn’t have privacy in mind. Like the snooze room, the bathroom showers were all together and all completely open like a locker room. The first few times I’d showered in there, I had been jumpy and afraid of someone walking in. No one had in almost two years, though. They all respected my privacy.
I hung up my clothes and towels and took my caddy to the shower in the far corner. Once I had the water going, I stood under the hot spray and tipped my chin up. I could feel the grime siphoning off my body, taking some tension of the day with it. I knew I was going to be soaking in a long, hot bath when I got home to soothe my sore muscles.
I took a ten minute shower and redressed in a pair of navy blue pants and a matching t-shirt that had the LVFR logo down the front. I didn’t bother drying my long blonde hair and just ran a comb through it and patted it with the towel.
Once I was dressed, I dropped my stuff off in my room and headed out to the common areas. I was almost to where the TV was when I heard Dumbo speak, his voice firm with anger.
“Turn it off. Now.”
I don’t know if they did as he said because no one responded. I continued moving forward when a noise stopped me.
A moan. A throaty, pleas
ure-filled moan.
Gross. The guys were watching porn.
Dumbo and Reyes were pretty protective of me so I knew they probably had to be irritated that the guys were watching something like that with me around. That crap didn’t bother me, though, so I continued moving forward just as Reyes yelled for someone to turn it off, too. I rounded the corner, ready to tell them it was no big deal, when another moan sounded from the TV and the image came into view.
“Yes! Oh, Tristan!”
It was me moaning.
There, on the sixty-five-inch screen, was me. I was naked and straddling Tristan’s equally naked body as I rode him enthusiastically. The camera, a camera I didn’t have a clue was filming us, was somewhere off to the side, giving everyone a full view of me while I threw my head back, causing my blonde hair to fall down my back and my mediocre breasts to push forward. Tristan was gripping my hips and looking up at me with a grin on his face.
“That’s right, babe. Ride my dick. You’re a slut for it, aren’t you? Your pussy is mine.”
All of the men in my company were looking at the TV. Dumbo was fighting his way to the screen while several guys blocked him and Reyes was in Dunsworth’s face.
“Give me the fucking phone before I break your goddamned nose!”
I gasped and covered my mouth as I stared at the TV. Humiliation flooded through every part of my body. Someone must have heard me because several faces turned in my direction. Some of the guys looked mildly ashamed, some of them wore shit eating grins, but I ignored them all and looked to Dunsworth. He and Reyes had stopped arguing and he was staring at me with those cold, grey eyes. A smirk curled at the corners of his lips and he gestured to the screen.
“You look good on screen, babe. Although I think it’s true that the camera adds pounds because your tits look bigger here. Especially in the next one where I blow my load all over them after you suck my cock.” He paused as the me on screen moaned again. “That’s where your pussy belongs, Jones. In a bed with a dick in it, not in the station house.”
Dumbo finally made it to the TV and turned it off just as Reyes got a swing in and hooked Dunsworth in the jaw. Two men grabbed both Dunsworth and Reyes, holding them back from each other, and I felt someone come stand next to me. I turned my head and through my tears, saw Lt. Widener standing there.
“This is why it was a bad idea to let a bitch into the company,” he murmured so only I could hear. “Look what you’ve done.”
“What I’ve done?” I whispered, swiping at my face. Lt. Widener nodded his head and watched the chaos, not bothering to tell anyone to stop.
“You don’t belong here, Jones, but I think Dunsworth is right. You look mighty fine in the bedroom.”
A strangled sob escaped my lips and I turned as fast as I could. I ran to my room and slammed the door behind me, wishing like hell it had a lock on it before sliding to the floor. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and fumbled until I had the screen unlocked.
Dread filled me when I saw that I had over ten missed calls and even more text messages. Most of them were from my brother, who was a Hazmat firefighter at a station across town. I wiped the tears from my eyes and dared to look at the text messages he’d sent.
Vincent: Vic, where are you? Answer your phone!
Vincent: Shit, I need you to call me.
Vincent: Are you on shift? Go right down to your captain’s office. Don’t talk to anyone.
Vincent: Vic… There’s a video and it’s not good. It’s circulating through all of the houses.
Vincent: I’m on my way to your station. Either go to your captain’s office or your room and stay there until I get to you.
Vincent: I’m so sorry.
Circulating through all of the houses?
Oh, god. All of those men watching me have sex. My reputation, my career.
What was I going to do?
Chapter One
Tori
Seven years later
As soon as I was in the middle of the backseat, I pulled the helmet off of my head and let it drop to the floor of the truck with a small groan. We’d been on the scene for almost nine hours and every muscle in my body was sore. Couple that with the intense huger and extreme fatigue and I was a hot mess.
“God, that sucked.” Nick Christos had his helmet off, too, and his head was resting against the seat behind him. His face was dirty- stained with sweat, soot, and who the hell knows what else. I was sure mine didn’t look any better. “I need a shower, some food, and a nap.”
Our lieutenant and one of my good friends, Simon Owens, made a noise of agreement from the front seat but didn’t say anything else. The driver of our rig, Tyson Lennox, was already in behind the wheel and currently chugging down one of the bottles of water a Good Samaritan had been handing out at the scene.
Gil Trujillo finally climbed into the seat next to me and shut the door. Owens mumbled something to Lennox and the truck lurched forward almost immediately. I let my eyes close and tried to ignore how disgusting I felt or how much we all smelled. Even though I was used to it, there were some days that it was almost too much for even me.
I had been a firefighter for nine of my twenty-eight years, having started as a first responder at just eighteen and entering the academy at nineteen. Since the moment I’d been old enough to understand what a firefighter did, I knew that’s what I wanted to do with my life. My brother felt the same way and the two of us had spent our lives pushing each other to be as good as possible.
It didn’t take long before we were pulling into the bay of the New Hope Fire Department, Station Three, and none of us moved even after Lennox had turned off the engine. Hell, I wasn’t even sure we were all awake.
“Get out, guys,” Owens finally said, taking his own advice and pushing open his door. “Rinse down so you can go home and pass out.”
“I told Renee I’d get Eli after our shift,” Christos grumbled as he heaved himself out of the truck, not bothering to offer me a helping hand. He knew I’d break it if he did. I jumped down after him and we both went to hang up our turnout gear.
“I’m sure she’ll understand. I bet she’d rather keep him than risk you falling asleep mid-feed.”
Christos and one of my other close friends, Kelly, had married a little over a year before. Just four months ago, Kelly had given birth to their son, Elias, and I’d seen Christos mature leaps and bounds with those two in his life. Gone was the playboy who chased skirts like they were going out of style and instead a devoted family man had replaced him. I was happy for them both. Besides, I got the cutest little pseudo-nephew out of the deal.
Christos muttered something that sounded like an agreement as he followed me up the stairs to the second floor of the station house. That level housed the basic comforts of home, including the kitchen, dining room, entertainment room, bunkrooms, and bathrooms. The areas were occupied with members of the 22nd company, who had started their shifts two hours ago when ours were supposed to end.
They weren’t offended when we walked past where they were eating breakfast and watching TV, barely mumbling our hellos. They knew how tiring long shifts could be so they left us alone to go bathe the souvenirs of fire off us.
As we neared the bunkrooms, the guys started moving a bit faster. They rushed to get to their rooms for clean clothes and raced one another to the bathroom. There were only six stalls in the men’s room and nine male members of the company. Showers after the end of our long shifts were always a frenzied race. I joked at one point that some of them could shower together to save water and paid for it later when the assholes hid the cookies from me.
Touchy little boys.
Being the only female in the company had its perks, at least with the New Hope Fire Department. Not only did I get my own bunkroom because sharing with males wasn’t an option, I also had the women’s bathroom all to myself. That meant never having to wait for a shower and never having to worry about dealing with some of the ra
ncid smells that came along with nine people sharing two toilets and two urinals.
Both also had locking doors which meant I didn’t have to worry about my safety.
I ducked into my own room to grab a change of clothes and didn’t waste any time heading into the bathroom. My shower supplies were on a shelf in there next to one other woman’s. She was a member of the 23rd and the only other woman that was assigned to our station house.
My clothes were disgusting. Still damp with sweat in places, I left them on the floor and stepped into the spray, sighing in relief the second the hot water hit my sore muscles. My bi-weekly massage appointment was scheduled for the next day and the thought alone was enough to put a smile on my face.
Although I could have stayed in the water forever, I got out once I was sure I didn’t stink anymore. Since I was going off-shift, I pulled on a pair of jeans and a red t-shirt that was at least a size too big.
Despite it being the middle of summer in Southern Nevada, I refused to wear shorts, tank tops, or fitted tees around my co-workers. I learned my lesson after my experience in Vegas. If the men saw me as an attractive female, they treated me like I was nothing more than that. I could deal with it if it was just being seen as weaker. It wasn’t hard to prove to most of the guys that I was stronger than them, even the ones that outweighed me by a hundred pounds.
The sexual harassment and sexual assault, on the other hand, had the potential to break me.
After that video was released, Dunsworth was suspended by the captain and chief but the damage was done. The other guys in the house took that as a green light to approach me, asking if I wanted to take a ride on their dick or telling me how pretty my tits were. They didn’t stop at words, either. Some of them walked in on me in the shower, others actually copped a feel of either my ass or my breasts. I’d even woken up to one of the guys jacking off in my bunkroom while he watched me sleep.
