Fighting the Fire: A Warrior Fight Club Novel Read online

  Ignoring his head games, Dani got into position. Fists up, elbows close to her ribs, lead leg forward. In this drill, Sean as the kicker could only make offensive moves with his legs. While, as the puncher, she couldn’t use her legs at all. Which meant she had to get in close while defending against his kicks.

  They circled. Feinted. Attacked.

  Sean was strong as hell, but she was faster by a lot. Dani used that to her advantage. Blocking and dodging his kicks and then getting inside to attack his ribs and gut and kidneys in the spare seconds before he regained his footing.

  Each punch she landed released a pressure valve somewhere deep in her brain. And that release was so fundamental that she barely felt the kicks that Sean landed. Not that she gave him much chance to get them in, because she kept him close, under pressure, and on the defense blocking her punches.

  “Damn, woman,” he said, respect and wariness plain in his voice.

  “You told me to bring it,” she said, looking for another in. He blocked a shot at his ribs and delivered a spinning side kick that landed on the side of her thigh.

  “Someone has some aggression to work out today,” he said.

  “Do you have to talk so much?” she asked, sweat curling down the side of her face as she attacked again. This time she drove forward, forcing him to retreat and not letting him get in a kick.

  Sean blocked and covered and dodged until they were in a clinch, breathing hard and face to face with no room to punch or kick. And for no good reason, heat roared over Dani. Heat that almost incinerated her from the inside out. Maybe it was the bulk of his muscles or the slick slide of their sweat or his scent of clean soap from a recent shower that couldn’t quite remove the hint of fire from his skin and hair.

  As if he sensed it, Sean’s dark eyes flashed hot and his jaw went tight. Breaking the rules, he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her in close, letting her feel his erection for one spare moment before taking her to the mats in a controlled move that showed just how freaking strong he was. She expected to get the wind knocked out of her, but he’d more laid her out than knocked her down.

  A whistle blew. “Switch up,” Colby called. “And follow the damn rules, Riddick. We’re not doing ground work right now.”

  Everyone laughed.

  But Dani and Sean were caught in a staring contest with their faces mere inches apart.

  She wanted him inside her so bad that she nearly gave voice to it.

  Her brain went immediately to that night.

  How they’d circled each other throughout that whole damn party. How Sean had walked her to her car, parked right in front of his, which she’d begrudgingly thought sweet despite her insistence she didn’t need a damn chaperone. How they’d started bantering about something she couldn’t even remember now—because all she could remember was how desperately aroused she’d felt. How she’d teasingly punched him and he’d caught her arm and hauled her in against him. How the shock of his erection against her hip had made her look up at him. And how he’d claimed her mouth and she’d let him.

  Oh, hell yeah, she’d let him do that and so much more…

  And she wanted it again.

  It was that thought that finally made her brain come back online. “Get. Off.”

  His brow arched. Just the tiniest bit. “You can take your aggression out on me anytime.” He spoke in a rushed whisper, but the words impacted her like a body slam, pressing her back into the floor with some unseen force. Because she’d heard that tone in his voice before, when she’d straddled his lap on the big bench of his pick-up and finally taken him deep.

  “Fucking hell, Dani. Take all of me.”

  “Now,” Dani said, hoping he didn’t hear that her voice was affected, too.

  In a move that seemed too lithe for someone his size, Sean hopped up then extended his hand to her.

  Shook as she was, Dani accepted his help, then regretted it when he didn’t immediately release her hand but instead held her right in front of him—exactly like he had that night. “Just say the word.”

  Dani swallowed hard. “Hold your breath waiting for it. Please.” She glared up at him, irritated with herself for letting him see inside her for that one unguarded moment when her body had reacted so viscerally to his. It was like that night had tuned their bodies into the same wavelength, and now they could communicate whether she wanted it or not.

  Amusement and challenge slid into his gaze. “You’ll not only say it, Dani. You’ll beg me for it.”

  She barked out a laugh, that was how incredulously funny she found his little pronouncement. What a giant, arrogant asshole. “Oh. Definitely hold your breath for that, Riddick. You’ll be a box full of dust before that ever happens.”

  Sean looked at her with a knowing gaze. A gaze that told her he remembered too freaking much about that night, too. She might’ve punched that annoyingly sexy arrogance off his face if headshots hadn’t been off limits at WFC.

  Instead, Dani tugged her hand free. “Are you going to spar with me or did you want to braid my fucking hair while you keep talking?”

  He knocked his gloves together and scanned his gaze around her face to where the length of her French braid trailed over her shoulder. “Looks like you already took care of your hair, sweetheart. So let’s spar. My turn to punch.” His grin was so annoyingly satisfied. He knew he’d gotten to her.

  Dani rolled her eyes. “You’re still talking,” she said launching a round house kick at him. And then it was on again. The fighting. The focus. The fire deep in her belly.

  But, damnit, the heat was still there, too.

  The kind of soul-deep, bone-melting heat she’d only ever felt with one other man, one who’d died six years before.

  And Dani freaking hated Sean Riddick for that. For making her body want something her head and her heart weren’t about to allow her to have. Not again. Because she didn’t want a relationship, a man in her life, or a frenemies-with-benefits situation, and certainly not any of those with a man who drove her freaking batty ninety percent of the time and made her worry about him the other ten because he raced into every burning building he could. That was all way more aggravation than any woman needed.

  Nope. She’d done the whole relationship thing with a hot-headed warrior and ended up a widow at the age of twenty-eight, thank you very much. So the last thing she needed was to set herself up to be left again.

  Sean landed a kidney punch that stole Dani’s breath. Because you’re thinking about him and relationships and Anthony and not fucking focusing. Damnit.

  “Shit, Daniela. You okay?” Sean asked, his face blanched, his expression full of regret.

  She forced a deep breath but reveled in the pain. Little made it easier to focus than pain. “It was a perfectly fair hit, Sean. I’m fine.” Her voice didn’t sound quite right even to herself.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, shoulders down, hands slack at his sides.

  The last thing she wanted was sympathy. That reminded her too much of the way people had treated her right after she’d learned that IEDs had taken out a third of Anthony’s convoy. “Let’s go already.”

  “Dani, just take a minute—”

  “Sean, I’m fine,” she snapped. Of course, she did it in a way that made it clear she wasn’t fine. But whatever. She could handle hot Sean Riddick being an asshole, but not hot Sean Riddick being a good guy. The hot good guy was a whole helluva lot harder to resist.

  “Yeah, okay,” he said, not at all sounding convinced. Which probably explained why he backed off on the power of his punches after that. And that just pissed her off even more.

  “Stop holding back,” she finally bit out. Because he wasn’t blocking as aggressively anymore either.

  He ignored her. His punches felt more like taps.

  Dani inhaled to tell him exactly what she thought of that when the whistle blew again, marking the end of the drill. She arched a brow at him and silently told him everything she thought about his treating her with k
id gloves. He arched a brow right back telling her what he thought of her I’m fine routine.

  “Fine,” she bit out.

  “Fine,” he retorted.

  Coach Mack gave them their next drill instructions, which fortunately didn’t involve partners this time.

  But before she and Sean parted ways, she turned to him. “You know what? Next time treat me like I’m your equal in here, okay?”

  Sean’s whole face slid into a frown and something she couldn’t read roiled behind those dark eyes. “Fuck that, Dani. You think I wouldn’t go easy on anyone I just hurt? I more than see you as an equal. Hell, I think you’re a lot fuckin’ better than me.” With that, he walked away.

  Well. She blinked. Fuck.

  “Everything okay?” a deep voice said from beside her.

  And Dani…literally had no idea. She wasn’t sure which had her more gobsmacked—the flash of hurt she would’ve sworn she saw in Sean’s gaze, the guilt and regret she heard in his voice, or that he thought she was better than him.

  “Dani?”

  She turned to Moses, a former Army Ranger and another mountain of a man who’d joined WFC at about the same time Dani had. “Yeah, everything’s fine.” There was that word again. It wasn’t true this time either. Because now she felt bad about being bitchy toward Sean when he’d just been looking out for her. Apparently. Damnit. “Thanks, Mo.”

  Tara was right. Things had gotten more intense between them since the night they’d shared. And Dani wasn’t sure what to do about that. It wasn’t like she could avoid the man altogether. Not when they both belonged to WFC, and not when Sean’s work sometimes brought him to Dani’s emergency department.

  Mo nodded and ran a towel over the deep brown of his face and bald head. “You coming out afterwards?”

  “Uh, yeah, I think so,” she said. A group of them usually went out to dinner after WFC, and Dani often joined. Her frenemies situation with Sean aside, she liked these guys. And it was the one time in her week when she got to be around people who understood a whole side of her life that her civilian friends really couldn’t.

  Even in its quietest moments, going to war was a visceral experience that couldn’t be fully understood without going through it. It was living under the constant threat of violence. It was constantly knowing your actions could lead to life or death for others—men and women you cared about and who were counting on you to have their backs. It was a head game that forever changed how your brain assessed and handled stress, threats, and even basic day-to-day sensory input—noises, smells, flashes of light.

  “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

  Mo nodded. “Good. Now go kick some more ass.” He winked at her.

  Dani managed a chuckle, then got in one of the lines for the spinning side kick drills they were running.

  And she began planning the apology she owed to Sean that she knew he would hold over her until the end of time. That didn’t mean she didn’t owe it, though.

  Chapter Two

  Hurting other people seemed to be Sean Riddick’s fuckin’ specialty.

  Standing in the shower, he braced his hands against the wall, closed his eyes, and let the scalding water rain down on him. The other guys were laughing and talking as everyone cleaned up after WFC, but he could barely hear it for how his brain kept replaying the gasp of pain Dani made when he punched her. The way the light golden brown of her face went pale. How her arm instinctively cradled her side.

  Daniela England was tough as nails. No question. But Sean was a fuckin’ tank. And he should’ve known better than to allow his aggression to ramp up in response to hers.

  And that was to say nothing of the way he’d taken her to the mats. He wasn’t sure why he’d done that—

  Scratch that. He knew exactly why he’d done that. They’d been in that clinch. And her cheeks had gone flush and her lips had parted, her gaze latching onto his mouth.

  Whatever that moment of desire was had unleashed something inside him. Something he’d kept boxed up where Dani was concerned ever since their one night together eight months before.

  Sheer base animal need.

  That was why he’d done it. It didn’t matter to his body that Daniela didn’t like him nor that he tired of her ball-busting him all the damn time. And his cock didn’t give a shit if Sean himself hadn’t ever had a real relationship because he was convinced that he was destined to hurt those around him.

  Nope. None of that seemed to matter when Sean got close to Dani. Because that night he’d spent with her was quite possibly the best he’d ever felt in his whole miserable life.

  “Yo, Riddick, you need us to send the Coasties in after you or what?” Billy called out to a round of laughter.

  “Fuck all y’all,” he responded, turning off the water. He ran his hands over his face, then grasped the towel and gave himself a quick onceover before securing the terrycloth around his waist.

  “There he is,” Mo said when Sean turned the corner to the group of lockers where the other guys, mostly dressed already, were hanging out. Among them were Mo, Billy Parrish, and Noah Cortez, the three guys Sean knew best of anyone in the club. Jesse Anderson was also there, a WFC newbie and fellow prior navy guy like himself who Sean liked a lot.

  “You look beat,” Billy said. Parrish had been an Army Ranger who now worked as a private investigator, and while they’d known each other for about two years through WFC, it was only in the past few months that they’d finally gotten closer. Largely because Billy’s girlfriend, Shayna, brought them together. Last fall, she’d witnessed and been the first photojournalist on the scene of a four-alarm apartment-building fire caused by a natural gas explosion. And Sean’s company had been called to the scene, which was how he learned that Shayna was hurt but still doing her job and helping the residents out, too. After it was all over, working that fire had brought the three of them closer. Crisis did that, sometimes. “You okay?”

  Tugging on his jeans, Sean nodded. “Yeah. Just didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  “Work?” Mo asked.

  Sean pulled on a shirt then sat his ass on the bench to put on his shoes and socks. “Yeah. We got a bullshit false alarm at two thirty. Couldn’t fall back to sleep after that.” Only good news was that he wasn’t scheduled again until Tuesday, so he had a few days to recuperate. That was the beauty of a firefighter’s schedule—ten twenty-four-hour days a month and he was done. Although, in practice, Sean picked up as many additional shifts as he could. And why not? He didn’t have a wife or kids or other family obligations like a lot of the guys.

  Nope, he didn’t have anyone at all.

  “Well, some food will help,” Noah said. The former Marine had joined WFC at the same time Tara had last year, but he fit in so well it was like he’d always been here. “Where are we going anyway? I think Kristina might join and I gotta text her.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Billy said. “Shayna’s coming, too.”

  “That’s perfect,” Noah said. “I know Kristina and Shayna wanted to talk about the menu for our big July 4th shindig.”

  Sean shook his head. “I think I’m sitting this one out.”

  “Wait. What?” As if he wasn’t sure he’d heard Sean right, Noah turned his head to bring his good right ear closer to the conversation. He’d experienced a partial loss of vision and hearing on his left side—another war-borne demon. God knew they all had them. “You’re not coming to July 4th?”

  “No, no, I wouldn’t miss that. I mean dinner. I’m out,” Sean said.

  “No way, Riddick.” Billy frowned at him. “I already told Shayna you’d be there.”

  He shrugged. “I’m shit for company right now.”

  “We’re all shit for company sometimes, son,” Mo said, rising from the far end of the bench. “You’ll fit right in just like always.”

  Dani’s flinch played before his mind’s eye again, and Sean had no idea if he could even stomach food right now. Because hurting her was only the most recent time in his life that h
e’d fucked up and gotten someone hurt.

  Mo stepped right in front of him. “Besides, if you don’t come, I’m gonna be fucking outnumbered. It’ll just be me and all these lovebirds over here with their better halves”—he thumbed toward Noah, Billy, and Jesse.

  “Dani and Jayne are coming, too, Mo,” Billy said, smirking. “So you can hang with the ladies if our PDAs get to be too much.” Everyone chuckled.

  I’m no fucking lady.

  The memory almost made Sean smile. Because Daniela England was many things, but a proper lady she was not. And that was no knock on her. Because Dani was part angel and part fuckin’ warrior. A nurse who’d flown into combat zones on helicopters routinely targeted by enemy antiaircraft fire. And now an ER nurse in one of DC’s busiest hospitals. Still getting up and going every day, and doing real good in the world, all despite losing her husband.

  Daniela England might’ve been a stubborn, sharp-tongued ball-buster who somehow knew how to push every one of his buttons, but he couldn’t deny that she was also a badass. Who he’d still managed to hurt.

  And since she’d been pissed at the end of their drill, no doubt she’d prefer he wasn’t at dinner. Which, fine. All things considered, he wasn’t up for more of her digs at him tonight anyway. She always seemed to know how to crawl under his skin, and he was already raw enough as it was.

  Sean rose and clapped Mo on the arm. “The ladies are all yours, big guy.” He grabbed his helmet from his locker and shut the door with a resounding metallic clank.

  “Shit, Riddick, you’re really not coming?” Billy asked.

  “Nah. Another time, man.” They all left the locker room, and found Dani, Tara, and Jayne waiting by the doors.

  “About time, ladies,” Dani called. The fuckin’ ball-buster. It almost made him smile.

  “How the heck did we get ready faster than you?” Tara asked with wide eyes. “Again.”

  Some good-natured ribbing got flung back and forth, but Dani was all Sean knew in that moment. At first, he had to look at her to make sure she was okay. And, truth be told, she seemed completely fine. But close on the heels of that observation was taking note for the millionth time of how fuckin’ gorgeous she was, dressed casually now in a pair of skinny dark-wash jeans and a royal blue shirt that set off her flashing black eyes and silky black hair, down from the braid she’d worn earlier.