Axel all but carried the last few civilians out of the building and into the parking lot. “Is that everyone?” He yelled loud enough to cut straight through all the chatter and wailing.

“I think so!”

“Did Clive go home already?”

“Where’s the new boy?”

“Oh! He’s nice!”

Axel catalogued all the faces in front of him. It was three seconds’ work to ascertain that Fox wasn’t among them.

He spared a look to the lady he’d given his phone to and found that she’d already gotten off the line, so he crossed to her and held his hand out. “You made the call?”

She swallowed as she placed his phone into his hand. “Yes. They say they’ve dispatched a fire crew.”

“Good job. Keep everyone together.” He gestured toward those who were sitting on the curb and added, “Make sure they stay conscious.”

“Okay.” She gave him a brave nod.

Fox wasn’t here, and that meant he was still inside the building which was now firmly ablaze. In Axel’s experience the average home had three minutes of fire before everyone inside was dead. An office like this maybe had five or six without any sprinkler system in place.

This was cutting it way too close.

Axel ran into the building and headed for the corridor. “Fox? Fox!”

Everything was on fire. Hell, the flames were bursting out into the open plan area now, flowing across the ceiling like oil on water. It made shadows from partition walls leap and stretch across the floor.

One of the shadows didn’t move.

Axel tore his jacket off and held it over his head to protect himself from the rain of fiery ceiling tiles.

Fox was on the floor, surrounded by computer hardware, curled up in a ball.

Axel didn’t have any time to figure out whether Fox was injured. He threw Fox over his shoulder, then covered them both with the jacket. With Fox balanced, he stacked the servers on top of each other and picked them up, then walked as swiftly as he could toward the exit. The metal casings of the computers were hot as hell, and he had to keep switching fingers out to stop them all getting burned at once.

Damnit, if Fox had croaked, Axel was going to be pissed.

He didn’t want to think about it. All he had to do was make it outside, then they could take it from there. One step after the other, careful not to trip over anything the fleeing staff had left on the floor.

“Axel?” Fox wheezed.

“Yeah. It’s me, buddy.”

“If you wanted to pick me up, all you gotta do is ask.”

Axel snorted at him and didn’t respond. The poor guy sounded like he wasn’t totally conscious, just like back in Aleppo. And just like in Aleppo, Axel was finding it hard to resist Fox’s magnetism, his humor.

His cute winks.

Axel kicked the door open and broke out into the fresh air, but hurried away to his car rather than the rally point. He didn’t really want people to see that they were stealing a whole bunch of hardware. Nor did he like the idea of people gawking at Fox in his current condition like the guy was a car crash to stare at on the freeway. There wasn’t anything dignified in that.

He crouched by the trunk so he could put the servers down, and settled Fox onto the curb beside them, tossing the jacket aside to get a look at him.

Fox’s face was red, but that could just be from hanging upside down over Axel’s shoulder. He was shaking badly, trembling as though he’d just run a marathon, and his eyes were glossy with tears.

Axel placed hands on Fox’s shoulders and squeezed softly. “Fox? Talk to me.”

Fox’s breath rasped. His fingers flexed, then he felt his way up Axel’s arms until he clung onto Axel’s biceps. “Captain Ford?” he croaked.

“That’s Special Agent in Charge to you, Walker,” Axel said gently.

“In charge, huh?” There was a glimmer of that smile at last, though tears trickled free as Fox blinked. “I told you, you gotta buy me a beer first!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Axel leaned in and peered into Fox’s eyes.

Fox seemed to try and focus on him, but he flinched when the sound of sirens reached them, turning his head away for a second. Axel had to release a shoulder so that he could gently steer Fox’s head back to face him.

Fox echoed the movement. He took a hand from Axel’s arm and cupped his cheek with it.

In the space between one breath and the next, Fox leaned in and pressed his lips to Axel’s.

Time stopped.

The sirens, the fire, the crying and the smoke, all vanished. There was nothing but Fox’s mouth on his, warm and soft, pressing firmly. It was a confident kiss, no hesitation or worry in it, and Axel’s lips moved against Fox’s as though it were the most natural thing in the world, like he and Fox had done it before and would do it again.

Like they belonged together.

Fox’s fingers slipped across his jaw and cradled the back of his neck, and they sent little sparks down his spine. Before he’d fully processed what was happening, Axel found that he’d pushed his hand up into Fox’s bright hair and clutched a fistful. There was hot breath and hotter lips and nothing else mattered.

Fox broke free with a gasp, and the world came crashing in as he gazed up into Axel’s eyes.

“Oh God,” Fox whispered.

Axel’s gaze dropped to his lips as they moved. They were pink, damp, and incredibly fascinating.

“I’m so sorry.” Fox flapped his hands as Axel leaned back from him. “I don’t know what happened.”

Axel withdrew and swayed as he stood up, leaving Fox on the curb. He wanted to answer, to tell Fox that he knew damn well what had happened, as much as his brain was still reeling from it. That it wasn’t just a kiss. It was something other, something vibrant that sparked and jolted and wouldn’t let go.

It was chemistry.

Shit. How? How! Was it the adrenaline? The fire? Was it down to him working too damn hard and not getting out enough? He’d already been having weird-ass feelings, but to react like that to a kiss was way out of left field.

A kiss from a guy.

It wasn’t expected. Axel hadn’t ever tried it before, but maybe he’d been missing out. Maybe it took someone like Fox, with all that courage and confidence, to make him even consider it.

It was confusing as hell, that was for sure.

Fox rubbed tears from his cheeks, and it left clear smudges on his smoke-touched skin. “You can’t tell anyone,” Fox urged him as he looked to the building. Flames licked the edges of windows now. The whole place was well and truly burning. If they’d still been inside they’d be dead already.

Axel’s features twisted into a scowl without any conscious choice on his part. “You’re not serious!”

Fox’s head whipped back around, and his amber eyes were wide with fear. “Axel, I haven’t done that in years, okay? If the Company finds out, they’ll take me off active and put me through psych evals, and I’m fine! It was just a one-off. Please, swear you won’t mention it! It was just the stress, that’s all. I… I panicked and I lost track of time and that’s all it was. It won’t happen again.”

Axel struggled to keep up as his thoughts switched gears. Fox wasn’t talking about the kiss. That wasn’t what he wanted kept secret. No, it was the fact that he’d panicked in the middle of a potentially deadly situation.

He reached past Fox and picked his discarded jacket off the floor, patting it down as he stood. It reeked of smoke, but then so did everything else. “You remember anything?” he asked, keeping his tone as casual as he could.

“I don’t… I don’t know.” Fox drew his knees up and leaned his elbows on them, then planted his face in his hands. “I went in and the whole place was going up. I think that’s where the explosion must have been. It was ruined in there.” He took a deep breath. “I didn’t have time to search for backups, I just took the servers out of the rack and ran. Who doesn’t even have hot-swap drive bays anyway? It’s the twenty-first century! These guys are cheap, that’s their problem.” He huffed and dropped his hands so they hung over his knees. “Assholes. It’s not like hot-swap chassis cost a fortune.”

“Yeah.” Axel said it off-handedly as he tossed his jacket over his forearm. He glanced away as the fire truck screeched to a halt and the crew began leaping out of it. They moved like a well-oiled machine, a routine they’d practiced time and time again as they hooked up to the hydrant and unfurled the hose. The truck’s flashing lights just added more red to the scene. “What happened next, Fox?”

“I dunno. I think I just ran.” Fox looked down at himself, then snorted. “Lost my tie. Used it as a mask. Didn’t really help any. Then I just…” He winced. “It doesn’t matter. I’m okay. It won’t happen again.”

Axel’s gaze fixed on the firefighters. It helped him hide from Fox for a few precious seconds.

“Remi!” One of the firefighters called to another. “Ready for interior crew!”

“Yessir,” was the reply, presumably from Remi, who pulled his breathing apparatus on and gestured for others to follow him into the building.

Axel rubbed his jaw as he turned his back on the truck.

Did he dare ask whether Fox remembered kissing him?

No, this wasn’t about Axel’s wounded pride or his complete bewilderment. This was about Fox’s panic attack and the fact that it had almost killed him. Hell, one false step and it could have taken them both down.

Axel had seen guys freeze up before. Of course he had. A hundred years ago they called it shell-shock, but now there was a modern term and a modern understanding of the underlying cause.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

He wasn’t a psychiatrist, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to make a snap diagnosis based on a single event, but if Fox was carrying some kind of baggage around with him that made him freeze up when the going got rough, he could get himself killed.

The idea that Fox might be hurt, let alone dead, made his blood boil.

“Excuse me, sir. I understand you’re with the FBI?”

Axel spun toward the new voice and found one of the fire crew not two feet away. He had to shelve the concern for Fox at the moment and do his job. “Yessir. Special Agent Axel Ford.” He shook the guy’s hand and took in the pair of gold bugles on the firefighter’s collar. “How can I help you, Captain?”

He listened as the Captain launched into his questions, but at the back of his mind he tried to figure out what to do about Fox. Or at least his feelings about Fox.

Or whether Fox felt anything in return.