Read Reckless for Free Online Page B

But not only is she the soup kitchen’s first in command, the place is so freaking understaffed, she’s the only one in command.”
    â€œWell, that explains why sweet talk is off the table,” Brennan said. “Zoe is Cap’s golden child. I know you’ve got balls of solid steel, but . . .”
    â€œI’m reckless, dude. Not brainless.” There were only a handful of hard and fast rules that Alex stood by, but he stood by them hard. Always have another firefighter’s back, live every second like it could be your last, don’t piss into the wind unless you can handle the mess....
    And the captain’s daughter is hands down, one hundred percent off-limits. No questions. All the time.
    Especially since barely four days ago, Captain Westin had gone to bat to save the career Alex desperately needed, and Alex had sworn above all not to let the man down.
    O’Keefe narrowed his eyes in obvious thought, leaning back against his bar stool. “So flirting your way to less time is a no-go, clearly. But Zoe is still Westin’s daughter, and even though she hasn’t been around much lately, it’s not as if she doesn’t know all of us from being around the station. You can’t get her to throw you a mercy bone for being in-house?”
    Alex fought the urge to let loose a rude snort, but just barely. “Despite her heritage, I’m pretty sure Zoe is unfamiliar with the concept of mercy. She’s as serious as a sledgehammer, especially when it comes to getting things done at Hope House.” Hell if Alex didn’t have the screaming muscles and throbbing feet to prove it. Running a kitchen wasn’t supposed to be literal, for Chrissake.
    â€œOkay,” Cole said, ever the calm, cool strategist. “If you can’t catch a break in the soup kitchen with Zoe, how about trying to switch to a different placement?”
    Unease took a tour through Alex’s gut as he did a mental revisit of the phone call he’d placed on his fifteen-minute lunch break. “Already ahead of you, brother. But apparently these placements are one and done. You either take what they give you, or you don’t take a thing.”
    The rep from the fire chief’s office had been summer-sunrise clear. The only way Alex was getting out of being placed at Hope House was if the director booted him, and if that happened, there would be no parting gifts at the door. As bitter as the community-service pill was on his tongue, his only available option was to grit out his time in the soup kitchen with his head down and his eyes forward.
    No matter how curvy Zoe’s hips looked beneath that freaking apron.
    Alex shook his head in an effort to dislodge the mental picture—and all the heat that went with it—from his frontal lobe. Aside from the fact that, hello, she was his captain’s freaking daughter, she was essentially his boss for the next four weeks. Okay, so it was more theory than technical fact. After all, the FFD still signed his paychecks—or at least they would when he got his job back. But Zoe was one hundred percent in charge of Hope House’s soup kitchen, and by default, his fate lay smack in the center of her iron fist. Thinking about her curves, or anything other than punching the clock and getting this ridiculous sentence done as fast as humanly possible, was a crap idea of the highest order.
    Especially since the last time he’d seen her at the annual barbecue, Alex had damn near obliterated one of the few rules he lived by and kissed Zoe Westin senseless.
    â€œDamn,” O’Keefe said, remarshaling Alex back to the crowd noise and clinking glassware at Bellyflop’s bar. “That sucks, man. At least maybe the department will let Cole do his community service there with you.”
    Alex’s thoughts screeched to a stop like an old record being yanked from a turntable, his thoughts of Zoe disappearing in a hard snap.