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The fire from the warehouse had spread so quickly, and the more she’d thought about it over the past few days, the harder it had been to shake the feeling that something hadn’t been right. Fire didn’t behave that way unless it was coaxed.
“I don’t know,” Isabella said, her doubt clear in both her tone and expression. “It’s kind of a big leap for a couple of small-time fires. If they were set on purpose, wouldn’t whoever’s doing it burn down something bigger?”
“Probably,” Shae agreed. “I’m not saying all of those smaller fires weren’t set on purpose. But vandalism is a totally different thing than arson. I’ve been up close and personal with true arson.” She paused here to grimace, and Lucy remembered hearing about a string of arsons she’d helped investigate before Lucy had joined Seventeen. Shae had almost been killed in one of them. If anyone knew what nefarious looked like, it was her.
“It’s usually got a pretty obvious purpose, like insurance fraud or revenge or to destroy the evidence of a larger crime,” she continued, “but vandalism is just a destruction-of-property thing. All shits and giggles.”
“Like torching an old shed or a car, just because you can?” Quinn asked.
“Exactly,” Isabella chimed in. “Or the shed fires could’ve been caused by accident. There are lots of abandoned structure fires in the winter. People without homes trying to stay warm by building a fire, but then it catches onto God knows what and the next thing you know…”
Lucy nodded. They’d responded to plenty of accidental and negligent fires in vacant buildings, some caused by squatters trying to stay warm, others by people carelessly tossing cigarettes or joints. That’s probably what had happened at the warehouse. After all, she and Faurier had seen that backpack and sleeping bag. Hell, Faurier had seen the person they’d likely belonged to. If he or she had accidentally started that fire, it would be one hell of a motive to run.
“You guys are right,” Lucy said, shaking her head to dislodge the thought. Arson was far more unusual than anyone thought—certainly less likely than TV and the movies made it seem. Yes, the warehouse had burned quickly and the burn patterns had been strange. But fire didn’t exactly discriminate, and once it grew big enough, it ate everything in its path no matter how it had started. She should forget these crazy thoughts, once and for all.
Except, even two hours and two glasses of wine later, after she’d hugged her friends goodbye and climbed into bed, Lucy still couldn’t quite shake the image of those flames, no matter how hard she tried.
* * *
Lucy had fully intendedto sleep until mid-morning. Before she’d climbed into bed, she’d triple checked to make sure her curtains were pulled tight, with not even a slice of space between them to allow daylight to rouse her. She’d adjusted the thermostat to the perfect sweet spot that allowed her to sleep peacefully without feeling too sweaty or too chilled. She’d even pulled up her favorite setting on the sleep sounds app she swore by when she wasn’t on shift, letting the soft hum of fan blades lull her into a deep sleep.
So it really,reallysucked when her eyes flew open just shy of five a.m., her brain instantly zeroing back in on the memory of the warehouse fire.
“Uggghhh,” Lucy groaned into her pillow, burrowing deeper beneath the covers and forcing her eyes closed. Okay, so she was cursed with the occupational hazard of having to get up at o’dark thirty every time she was on shift, and after three years of being a firefighter, plus the ten months she’d spent at the academy before that, her brain and body had gotten used to her early riser status. But whenever she was off work, she could usually relax enough (and she was usually tired enough, because those middle of the night calls for faulty carbon monoxide detectors going off were real) to let her at least snooze until the sun came up.
But her brain wasn’t up for a chillfest this morning. Nope. Instead, it was going to provide a technicolor slideshow of the fire she’d run into as she’d impulsively left both the rules and her spotless work record in the dust.
“Okay, come on. Time to put this one behind you, once and for all. Back to sleep.” Reaching for her cell phone, Lucy cranked the volume on the white noise app. She settled back into the cocoon of her blankets, focusing on each breath as she drew it into her lungs, slow and deep. It took some effort to let go of the thoughts crowding her mind, but after a few minutes, her muscles loosened, her body going warm and lax as she allowed her mind to wander, then drift. Lucy’s thoughts became shadowy, then dreamlike as she floated closer to the sweet twilight of sleep. Her body grew hotter, not unpleasantly—in fact, this heat was intoxicating, running under her skin, through her veins, sparking awareness in every spot it touched. Lucy pulsed with it, her heart beating faster as the heat spread, intensifying.
An image flashed in her mind, someone’s body close to hers, pressed against her from shoulder to hip, making her breath catch hard in her lungs. She must be dreaming—there was no one in her bed with her. In fact, she hadn’t had sex in ages. But wait, she wasn’t in her bed, was she? She was somewhere else, a place lit by firelight, shadowy and hypnotic. Heat shimmered around her in waves, filling the edges of her vision with a soft, orange-gold glow. God, she felt sohot. Whoever was with her shifted, caging her body with his and sending sparks through her body, lighting her up. Making her want. The spot between her thighs grew slick and wet, and she turned, searching.Needing.
And there he was, right there, pushed tightly over her, his mouth on the skin of her neck, his palm covering her shoulder. The man’s body was hard and heavy on hers, but not unwelcome or even unfamiliar. Lucy wanted him,allof him, desperate for him to fill her, to fuck her, to ease the heat now making her breath ragged.
Then she caught sight of his face, recognition slamming into her at the auburn hair in the firelight and the full, firm lips forming a confident smile, and she bolted upright in her bed with a gasp.
She’d just had a crazy-weird sex dream about Sam Faurier, in which she’d wanted nothing more than for him to rip off her clothes and screw her senseless.
“Oh, no. No, no, no,” Lucy said, throwing the covers off her body and vaulting out of bed. Not even the cool predawn air in her apartment could chill the memory of the freakishly realistic dream, and okay, she needed damage control. Preferably something that didn’t involve her diving back into bed with her vibrator so she could assuage the raw desire still pulsing through her at the memory of the dream.
Oh, God, that dream had been so. Freaking. Hot.
“No,” Lucy said again, this time, more forcefully. She might not be actively mad at him anymore—impulsive mis-step aside, he really was a good firefighter, and he’d put his nose to the grindstone this week to prove it—butstill. Having steamy thoughts about him wasn’t acceptable, and she needed a way to stamp them from her mind’s eye (and her other parts. Oh, my God, asexdream? Really?)
Scanning her room, her gaze landed on her cross-trainers, and yes. Yes! She was going to go for a run until she was so good and tired that she wouldn’t dream of anything, let alone Sam Fucking Faurier.
OrSam Faurier fucking her.
Lucy took the handful of brisk strides needed to reach her bathroom, splashing cold water on her face and letting the minty burn of her mouthwash bring her common sense back online. By the time she’d swapped the silk headwrap she wore at night to keep her curls intact for a tight braid held in place by an athletic headband and had dressed in her cold-weather running gear, the dream had been banished to the hinterlands of her mind.
Okay, fine, so she’d always thought Faurier was sexy despite every last one of her no-firefighters-in-my-pants rules. But come on. That was a far cry fromdreamingabout him. Naked. On top of her. Kissing her neck and making her—
Go outside where it’s cold. Do not pass GO. Do not collect any more thoughts about Sam Faurier. Especially not naked ones.
Lucy slid her reflective running jacket over her long-sleeved compression top, making sure her smartwatch was fully charged and her ID was in the little zipper pouch at her waistband before exiting her apartment. She locked up and put her key beside her ID, heading downstairs and pushing through the front doorway. The cold air hit Lucy right in the solar plexus when she stepped outside, chilling her lungs on her sharp inhale, and damn, at least that did the trick on her thoughts of naked Faurier.
Her apartment was in a pretty suburban part of Remington even though it was definitely still in the city, with coffee shops and grocery stores and dry cleaners lining the streets on either side. The park where she normally ran on her days off was only a mile away, but the sun hadn’t risen yet, and she knew from experience that the paths weren’t super well-lit. She never ran with her AirPods in—staying alert and aware of your surroundings was safety rule number one—but it still didn’t seem worth the risk to run there in the dark. The streets were empty, and even the early birds wouldn’t start heading to work for another hour.
Deciding to stick to the safety of the sidewalk, Lucy broke into a slow run, moving through her well-practiced routine of warming up for a mile before stopping to stretch at a streetcorner, then increasing her pace in increments. The order of it brought her comfort, two miles becoming three, then four. Her feet hit the pavement in a steady rhythm, the soundtrack ofthump-thump-thumpallowing her to let go of the thoughts that had bottlenecked in her brain for the past week. Her muscles burned with the intensity of her workout, and although Lucy wasn’t necessarily uncomfortable yet, shehaddone all those stair drills yesterday. The last thing she needed was to add literal injury to cap off the insult of her week. Plus, the sun was starting to turn the sky pink and orange and gold, which meant soon, the streets would get more crowded. She should probably loop back around so the journey home wouldn’t be spent dodging pedestrians and traffic.
