Under Control Read online

  Under Control

  By Shannon Stacey

  From New York Times bestselling author Shannon Stacey

  Meet the tough, dedicated men of BOSTON FIRE—and the women who turn their lives upside down

  Veteran firefighter Derek Gilman’s new schedule means not working Saturdays, which means more time to spend with his two kids. His divorce may have been amicable, but being a firefighter and a single dad is a lot to juggle. He’s pretty sure he can’t handle more than he already does.

  Olivia McGovern’s business is earning her seven figures, but her personal life simply doesn’t exist. Getting trapped in a broken elevator figures in exactly nowhere, and freaking out in front of a sexy firefighter definitely isn’t on the agenda. Especially not one with two kids and an ex.

  They’re from different sides of the tracks, literally—with friends, family and careers to consider. But as Derek and Olivia discover, chemistry doesn’t allow for plans, and love doesn’t bother with logistics.

  One-click with confidence. This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you’re looking for with an HEA/HFN. It’s a promise!

  This book is approximately 75,000 words

  Edited by Angela James

  Praise for Shannon Stacey

  “Once again Ms. Stacey has blessed her fans with a novel that is filled with wonderful characters, some hot loving, tension in relationships and a look-see into the lives of firefighters and the ups and downs of their professional lives.”

  —Book Binge on Fully Ignited

  “Hot Response made a perfect weekend read for me: there was a comfortable mix of angst, action and banter and I loved reading about the interactions between the whole fire crew.”

  —Dísir of Unstuck Pages

  “My new favorite Shannon Stacey book. I loved Rick. Loved, loved, loved. Loved. The last firefighting scene had me shivering, and the last scene sighing for more.”

  —MJ Fredrick on Controlled Burn

  “Humor and genuinely affectionate family relationships ground Stacey’s third book in the Boston Fire series, allowing it to be sexy and fun, even as it deals with fraught subjects such as workplace sexism, parental loss and high-risk careers. The chemistry and incendiary attraction between the leads are palpable, as is their gradual change of heart about the viability of a long-term relationship.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Fully Ignited, 4 stars

  “Heat Exchange is a stimulating and fiery hot romance that I couldn’t get enough of. Shannon Stacey writes remarkable contemporary romance and I was definitely hooked on Heat Exchange. It had a vibrant feel, a truly emotional read with great sensuality and in depth characters!”

  —Addicted to Romance

  “Finally, I am out of my reading slump. I’ve read too many books of late that have had unnecessary drama and weak storylines and it was refreshing to pick up and read a low-drama, low-angst, romantic story with a couple who were completely endearing. I love me a fireman and Rick Gullotti was just what I needed.”

  —Goodreads user Nicola on Controlled Burn

  Dedication

  Life can be hard, and this book is dedicated to everybody who takes the time to help a person who’s struggling. Whether saving somebody from a fire, offering tips to make the nightly homework battle a little easier or simply listening, extending a helping hand makes the world a better place for all of us.

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Heat Exchange by Shannon Stacey

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Shannon Stacey

  Chapter One

  Nothing made a guy feel conspicuous like walking down the hall of an office building in full turnout gear.

  Or he would if anybody actually noticed him, Derek Gilman thought as he shifted to the right to avoid running into a woman looking down at her phone. How people navigated the hallways with their eyes glued to their screens was beyond him.

  One guy actually looked up from his phone as he brushed by, and then did a startled double take. “Should I be evacuating?”

  “You can evacuate if you want,” Derek said, “but there’s no reason to. We’re just doing some high-rise training.”

  Which was a fact everybody in the building was supposed to have been made aware of before they arrived. They didn’t have much in the way of glass skyscrapers in their neighborhood, so the crews of Engine 59 and Ladder 37 had schlepped across Boston on what should have been a day off to hone their skills.

  Remembering to bring everything they needed from the apparatus was apparently not one of their skills, however. Though he was over a decade past being a rookie, Derek was new to this Ladder 37 crew, so he’d been sent to retrieve the paperwork Rick Gullotti—their lieutenant and the guy in charge of paperwork—had forgotten.

  A woman stepped out of an office ahead and turned, walking ahead of him in the same direction. She was notable for two reasons. One, she wasn’t looking at a cell phone. That in itself was enough to make her stand out in this crowd.

  But it was her looks that captured Derek’s attention. He only got a glimpse of her profile before she turned, but she had delicate features and dark blond hair drawn up off her neck in a loose bun. Her navy suit looked as if it had been tailored specifically for her body, and the coat flared slightly, accenting the curve of her hips. Her legs were long, and his gaze lingered on her calves before sliding up to the soft spots behind her knees that were playing peekaboo with the hem of her skirt.

  And he’d never realized how sexy the click of high heels on a marble tile floor could be. When he was a kid, he’d hated the sound because the high heels usually belonged to an angry teacher he was following down the hallway to the principal’s office. But following this woman as she walked down the hallway with long, confident strides was a hell of a lot more enjoyable.

  Of course, she reached the elevator just as the door opened and a man stepped out. Because he’d slowed to leave enough space to appreciate the view, Derek knew there was a good chance the door would close before he reached it and there was no way in hell he was taking the stairs if he didn’t have to.

  “Hold the door, please,” he called as the woman stepped in and pushed a button on the panel.

  She looked up at him and he saw the hesitation in her body language. She didn’t want to, but he watched the fact he was a firefighter register, plus it would be rude to pretend she hadn’t heard him after making eye contact. He smiled as she hit the button to hold the doors.

  “Thank you.” The button for the lobby was already lit, so he stepped back as the doors slid closed.

  She only nodded and pulled her phone out of the back pocket of the leather journal she was holding, which was stuffed with notebooks and paper from the looks of it. But Derek could see her reflection in the highly polished metal door and she was looking at him. And not a quick glance to make sure the stranger was staying on his own side, but a lingering look.
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  He should say something, but he wasn’t sure what to say, since women wearing power suits in the Back Bay were way out of his league. The floors were ticking past like seconds on the clock, though, and he was running out of time.

  She was taking a step forward, probably in anticipation of reaching the lobby level soon, when there was a grinding sound and the elevator lurched to a stop. Off-balance, she stumbled and—thanks to good reflexes and maybe some good luck—he ended up with an armful of beautiful woman.

  Apparently he was getting an extension.

  She tilted her face up to him, and he saw the distress in her pretty greenish-blue eyes. “What’s happening?”

  “We stopped,” he said, hoping she’d find the obvious answer funny. In his experience, humor relaxed people. She didn’t even crack a smile, and he cleared his throat before continuing. “There are a few reasons it could happen, but the system probably has a problem or a malfunction somewhere and it shut the elevator down to be safe.”

  “This is not safe.” She wasn’t in a full-blown panic, but her anxiety practically crackled around her, and she was clutching his arm so tightly he could feel her grip through the heavy bunker coat. “And what do you mean by a malfunction? So something could be more wrong than the fact we’re not moving anymore?”

  “Everything’s fine.” He had to let his arms fall away from her as she backed away, wincing a little. “Are you hurt?”

  “No.” He wasn’t reassured by the quick way she said it, as if it was a reflex and maybe not the truth.

  He pulled out his phone to send a quick group text to Danny Walsh—Engine 59’s LT—and Rick Gullotti. Elevator’s stuck. Why? Then he peeled off the heavy coat and tossed it on the floor, dropping the helmet on top of it while she sent a text message of her own to somebody. “We’re okay in here. Just try to stay calm and we’ll be out in no time.”

  “Stay calm,” she muttered as her phone vibrated and she sent another text. “That’s easy for you to say. Being brave in the face of death is part of your job.”

  That was a little dramatic, but she wasn’t totally wrong. About his job, anyway. “You’re not facing death. I promise.”

  His phone vibrated with a response from Walsh. Working on it. Stand by.

  The woman’s face was slightly flushed. “Shouldn’t you... I don’t know. Go up through the ceiling hatch and climb up the cable or something?”

  Derek managed—barely—not to laugh outright at her, but he couldn’t hold back a short chuckle. “I’m a firefighter, not John McClane.”

  “Who’s John McClane?”

  Oh, she did not just ask that. “The greatest action hero of all time? The guy from Die Hard?”

  “I’ve heard of those movies, but I’ve never seen any of them.”

  If he’d needed any more of a definitive sign this woman wasn’t his type, that was it. There were six movies, so she had to work at not seeing any of them. “You’re missing out. So, what’s your name?”

  “Olivia.”

  “Pretty name.” Classic and elegant, and it suited her. “I’m Derek.”

  “Can you pry open the doors?” she asked, clearly not in a place to be distracted by small talk.

  “With my bare hands?” He held them up, showing off his lack of tools. “I work out a little, but not that much.”

  Her gaze flicked over his body, and he stood up straighter and sucked in his gut. Not that there was much to suck in, but he wasn’t in his twenties anymore. Hell, he was barely still in his thirties. “You work out more than a little.”

  Her tone of voice made it sound like just an observation, but he didn’t miss her gaze lingering for a second on his chest or the way her eyebrow lifted as her mouth curved into a hint of a smile. She wasn’t flirting, but she liked what she saw and he’d take the win. He’d need all the ego boosting he could get once the other guys started giving him shit for having to rescue him from an elevator.

  Then she shifted her weight and, when she winced again, Derek gave her a stern look. “You’re hurt.”

  “No, I’m not. I twisted my ankle a little when the elevator stopped.”

  “You need to get those shoes off and let me look at it.”

  She laughed and shook her head. “I don’t care how nice this elevator is, I am not touching the floor with my bare feet.”

  Derek picked up his coat, letting the helmet roll free, and—with a flourish—spread it over the floor in front of her. “Your carpet, milady.”

  * * *

  Olivia McGovern didn’t have time to be stuck in an elevator today. Her schedule was so tight the Lyft driver who was hopefully still waiting outside for her after her text would determine the fate of her punctuality streak, and she hadn’t been late to a meeting in the three years since she’d officially hung out her McGovern Consulting shingle.

  But none of that seemed to matter when she looked into the warm blue eyes of the firefighter smiling at her right now. It had been the smile he gave her as he stepped onto the elevator that first caught her attention. That smile that was just a little friendlier than a polite thank-you and radiated warmth had been sexy, she had to admit. His helmet coming off to reveal tousled dark, dirty blond hair, along with the Boston Fire T-shirt showing off a very nicely built upper body, hadn’t hurt, either.

  But it was the boyish grin he gave her as he spread his coat out like a gentleman in a story that really kicked her heartbeat into high gear.

  As did putting her hand on his arm to steady herself as she stepped out of the heels. The first time she’d clutched his arm—when she’d been thrown into his arms—he’d been wearing the coat she was standing on. But now she could feel the firm muscle and the warmth of his skin through the blue cotton.

  “Thank you,” she said in a slightly choked voice. Her ankle really wasn’t that bad, but being out of the shoes for a few minutes would definitely help.

  Then he dropped to his knees in front of her and she sucked in a sharp breath. His hands closed around her ankle and she pressed her lips together so she wouldn’t make any sort of a sound when he ran his hands up over her calf muscle and back to her ankle. He pressed gently with his thumbs, and maybe it was her imagination, but it sounded like the deep breath he took shuddered just a little.

  “No swelling,” he said, pushing back to his feet. “It doesn’t look bad, but you should elevate it while we’re waiting. You can sit on the coat.”

  Getting into a sitting position on the coat while wearing a skirt was a challenge, but Derek had turned away to retrieve his helmet so she did it as quickly and with as much modesty as she could. She assumed he was going to use the helmet to prop her ankle up, but he simply set it right side up and then sat down at her feet.

  An unexpected rush of heat flooded her when he lifted her foot and shifted so he could rest it on his thigh, and she hoped it didn’t show on her face.

  “It really should be elevated more, but we don’t have a lot of options,” he said. “Is this okay?”

  His hand was massaging her ankle and she didn’t trust herself to speak, so she nodded. He had calluses and his hands weren’t abrasive, but just rough enough so a shiver went through her.

  “Are you cold?” he asked, his thumb brushing over her ankle bone.

  “I’m fine,” she forced herself to say, but she was struggling with the awareness that for the first time in her life, she was very tempted to make out with a total stranger in an elevator.

  “So, Olivia,” he said in a low voice that turned her on almost as much as his hands on her ankle. “You know I’m a firefighter. What do you do for work? That’s quite a book you’ve got there.”

  She looked down at the leather cover protecting a variety of notebooks and papers, then back at him. “I’m a productivity systems consultant.”

  “Oh. Cool.” He obviously had no idea what that meant.

 
“I shadow a company’s employees and talk to them for several hours, trying to get a feel for their business flow. Then I present several productivity suites I think would help them work more efficiently—whether digital, paper or a combination. I help them set it up and train them on how to use it.”

  “Huh.” He gave her a look she’d seen many times, as if he still wasn’t sure what she did. She was used to that.

  Before she could say anything else, though, his phone chimed and he checked the message before sending back a brief reply. “They’re going to pry the door.”

  It was utterly ridiculous that disappointment would be her first reaction to imminent rescue, but it was. Followed fairly quickly by the awareness of how much time had passed since she sent an update to her Lyft driver and her assistant, Kelsey Harris.

  “Does that take long?”

  “Shouldn’t. They’ve probably already cut the power to make sure it doesn’t start moving again at a bad time, so it won’t take long to bypass the door restrictors and get the doors open. How’s the ankle feeling?”

  “Better, thanks.” The ankle was better, but now the rest of her body was a little hot and achy. “I think I can get up.”

  He helped her, of course, taking her hands and pulling as she pulled her legs under so she was on her knees and then got to her feet. And he didn’t let them go once she was standing. They were close—so close she had to tilt her head back slightly to see his face—and for a few crazy seconds, she thought he was going to kiss her.

  And she wanted him to.

  “Can you put weight on it?”

  This time she knew the blush was visible because she could feel it on her face. He was holding her hands because of her ankle. “It’s fine. It really wasn’t that bad and sitting for a few minutes helped.”

  As did his hand massaging her ankle, though she didn’t say so. And she managed to stifle the sigh of regret when he released her hands. Then she heard sounds on the other side of the metal doors and realized they wouldn’t be in the elevator much longer.

  She sent a quick text message to her Lyft driver. They’re getting ready to open the doors. It shouldn’t take long.