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Worth the Fight by C F White
Worth It, Book 2
It was never going to be just one night. Not when it burned this hot.
Firefighter Reece Morgan is the station flirt. Tattooed, reckless, and always up for a laugh or a hook-up. He’s made a name for himself across Worthbridge, and he’s fine with that. No strings. No drama. No need for more.
Until one heated night in a sauna changes everything.
Trent Lawson thought it would be just sex. One night to forget, to shut off the noise inside his head. But the fire Reece ignites won’t stop burning. Not in his skin. Not in his chest. Not when every emergency throws them back together, stoking something far deeper, and far more dangerous.
Reece isn’t used to caring. Not really. But Trent isn’t just another fling. Behind his sharp tongue and cool control, Reece sees the exhaustion, the cracks, the way Trent’s numbing himself with all the wrong things. And for once, Reece doesn’t want to walk away. He wants to fight. For Trent. For every kiss denied and every glance that means too much.
But when the flames turn deadly and the danger hits close to home, Trent must face the past he’s been running from and decide if Reece is the one thing worth stepping into the fire for.
Because in Worthbridge, sparks are flying.
And some flames are worth the fight.
Worth the Fight is the second book in the Worth It series, a gritty MM romance series set in a small coastal town featuring first responders entangled in a criminal case that threatens the community they serve and the people they love.
The fire door crashed open behind him, the metal slam ricocheting off the alley walls. Reece flinched, instinctively pushing off the brick, bracing for the usual bollocking. That tired line about how being a firefighter didn’t give him personal access to every bloody fire exit.
But it wasn’t some pissed-off manager this time.
It was the last person Reece expected, yet somehow surprise never came.
Trent was like fire. Inevitable. Unforgiving. And utterly consuming. Dangerous in his beauty, impossible to touch without getting burned, and no matter how far Reece tried to run, he always found himself drawn back to the heat.
“Where’s the fire?” Trent slurred, a lopsided grin plastered to his flushed face as he flicked his damp blond curls back, trying, and failing miserably, not to look drunk.
Reece clocked the sway in his stance, though. The distant glaze in those usually sharp blue eyes. He was wasted. Completely gone. That soft, heavy-lidded look only ever showed up when Trent had drunk himself past the point of caring.
Christ, Trent…
Reece clenched his jaw, electricity crackling under his skin. Because no matter how many times they ended up here, with Trent drunk and reckless, looking for something to burn it all away, Reece couldn’t fucking help himself.
He stepped in close, dropping his voice low and filthy as he gripped his groin and, with a rough, teasing, growl, said, “Right here, sweetheart.”
Trent’s cocky little grin faltered. Because Reece had reminded him exactly how this night was going to end.
“That your new trick, is it?” Trent angled his head towards the club. “Get me wound up, then walk away before I say something I can’t take back?”
Reece dragged a hand down his face. “Jesus, Trent. What do you want me to do? Stand there and beg for it?”
Trent let out a harsh laugh, stepping in close, jabbing a finger hard on Reece’s chest. “Don’t act like you don’t love this. The drama. The push and pull. All of it.”
Reece grabbed his wrist before he could pull away. Tight. Not to hurt, but enough to make a damn point. “No, what I love, Trent, is not watching you burn yourself alive to prove you’re fireproof.”
Trent flared his nostrils. “Let go.”
But Reece wasn’t done. “It’s always the same, isn’t it? The callouts. The close shaves. You with that blank fucking stare, standing in the smoke like you’re trying to become the ghosts we can’t save. Then you come here. Or wherever. Drown yourself to forget. Get me to fuck it all away.”
Trent’s jaw clenched so hard Reece thought it might shatter. “You know nothing about me.”
“I see more than you think.” Reece took a half-step forward, their chests almost brushing. “You think I didn’t see you at the warehouse fire last week? Standing too close to the edge? Waiting for something to fall on you? And today—Christ, today—you were gonna run straight through that bloody corridor before anyone cleared it.”
“Someone had to,” Trent ground out, eyes wild now. With alcohol. With trauma. With fire. “There were people in there. An old woman who no one helped.”
“I fucking helped her!” Reece let Trent’s wrist go to stab his chest. “And there are other paramedics, Trent. Yet you’re always the first through. Like you’ve got something to prove. What are you trying to prove?”
“It’s my job.”
“Bullshit,” Reece snapped, the word cracking through the narrow alley like a gunshot. “It’s foreplay, and you fucking know it. Every siren, every close call. You live for it. Because it’s the only time you let yourself feel anything. And I’m right there, aren’t I? Every damn time, ready to drag you out if it goes wrong. And then we end up here. Like this.”
His breathing hitched, rough and uneven. So did Trent’s. Reece could feel it, see it, in the way his chest rose and fell too fast, and how the alcohol-fuelled flush crept up his neck. And they were close. Closer than Reece should’ve let himself get. But that invisible thread between them pulled tight, taut enough to snap, and fuck, he wanted it to break.
Trent blinked. And for one unguarded second, Reece saw the fight bleed out of him, the walls crumbling enough to reveal the man hidden beneath all that reckless bravado. The real Trent. The one Reece ached to know. Not the adrenaline junkie looking for his next hit of danger. Not the man who used sex like a pressure valve to bleed off whatever he refused to feel.
But the man Reece could have something with.
Something that wasn’t pent-up anger and desperate, back-alley release.
Something real.
Then that hard, defiant edge slid into place again. The same ruthless resolve allowing Trent to walk straight into hell, patch the broken, and drag the dying back from the brink. The man who could walk through fire and refuse to burn.
And fuck if that didn’t make Reece want him more.
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Check out Book 1: Worth the Wait
Worth It, Book 1
It was never over. It was just waiting.
Nathan Carter didn’t return to Worthbridge looking for a second chance. He came back for a roof over his head, a job that pays, and maybe, if he’s lucky, a way to connect with the teenage son he’s barely known. Life in the army taught him how to survive, but not how to be a father… and definitely not how to live with the choices he made the day he walked away from everything. Including Freddie Webb.
PC Freddie Webb never left Worthbridge. Not the town. Not the ghosts. Steady, dependable, the man everyone trusts to hold the line when things fall apart, he’s spent years keeping his head down and his heart locked up tight. But all that control shatters the moment a routine arrest throws him face to face with the boy he once loved… and the son that boy now has.
What started between them as teenagers was messy, intense, and unforgettable. Sixteen years later, it’s no less complicated. Eespecially with Alfie, Nathan’s angry, guarded son, caught between them and already spiralling toward trouble.
As old desires resurface and old wounds reopen, Nathan and Freddie are pulled back into each other’s orbit. But with the whole town watching, tensions rising, and the past refusing to stay buried, they’ll have to decide: play it safe… or risk everything for the love they never got to finish.
Because in Worthbridge, the past never stays buried.
And some loves are worth every second of the wait.
