Noah got back to his house after eight p.m. Another long day. After his lunch, he had another meeting with Police Chief Reyes and visited the construction sites for the new firehouses in Battalion 9. Haskell brought four more manpower reports from his firehouses for Noah to review tonight.
He ran a hand over his face, feeling the stubble again. Tomorrow, he’d need to use his regular razor for a closer trim. He’d used his electric razor three times over the weekend because he’d been reluctant to leave Hudgens’s bed for even a second.
Scratch that.
Erin’s bed. He couldn’t call her ‘Hudgens now that he’d been inside of her. And she let him finish inside every time, sans protection.
Which had been a lot.
If he’d ever gotten his brain to work, he would have been concerned about that. However, she’d shown him the mostly used set of birth control pills in her bathroom. She explained she kept a backup set at the firehouse in case she got off schedule.
He was blown away by the amount of trust she’d placed in him. If his moral code was flexible enough to sleep with a subordinate, it might have been flexible enough to lie that he was clean. But she’d taken him at his word. When he’d tried to say something about it after one of their bouts, she pointed out she’d trusted him with her life anyway, so why shouldn’t she trust him with her body?
His cell phone rang with an unfamiliar number with a Washington state area code. He answered on the first ring. “This is Chief Baker.”
“I thought you didn’t want me to call you that,” Erin said.
“Sorry.” He moved from his kitchen to the couch. He was still in his uniform, the same one he wore to her place. He had quietly laundered his clothes overnight once he’d realized that when she wasn’t having sex, she slept like the dead.
“It’s okay. If I saw an out-of-state number, I might answer the same way.”
“About this morning… I had to run.”
“I figured. Got important stuff to do.” She was talking slightly above a whisper, likely because she was on shift.
“I couldn’t be late for my morning meeting. You had equally important stuff.” Noah didn’t want her to believe he didn’t value her job.
“You’re very good at important stuff.” There was a pause. “Do you want to do stuff like that again?”
“Going to a morning meeting? Yes, I think I’ll be doing that again.” Noah tried to contain the thrum going up his body. Was this her way of saying she was game to sleep with him again and again and again?
“You’re funny. I meant tasting the cake. Savoring each bite and crumb. Licking off the frosting.”
His brain immediately went to the memory of her naked, spread beneath him. His cock sent him the message that it remembered, too. “It was the best cake I’ve ever eaten.”
“That good? Care to eat the best cake more regularly?”
There was the dangerous question. Yes, he wanted to see her again. Yes, he wanted to sleep with her again.
But he was still the ultimate final boss, and he couldn’t solicit sex from his subordinates.
“In my position, I am not allowed to dictate the cake’s availability.” He hoped she understood his allusion.
“Oh, you’re worried the cake is feeling pressured. Or the cake is trying to jump to the front of the line.”
“It had crossed my mind.” They could argue this weekend was a one-time lapse. It’d happened repeatedly over forty-eight hours, but a one-off was potentially more forgivable with less repercussions than a coordinated plan.
“This cake doesn’t line jump. What happens to the cake in the privacy of its own home shouldn’t have an effect at work.”
“As long as we keep our dessert choices to ourselves, no harm in it.” She hadn’t said his name, which told him she was on board with discretion.
“Right. We can keep having the best cake ever whenever we want,” Erin told him.
“What if one of us wants to eat cake with someone else?” Noah had difficulty believing he was having a conversation in code about sex, but she was at work.
“You want someone else’s cake?” She sounded hurt.
“No,” he kept his answer very direct. “I want this cake only, but I can’t speak for your appetite. You’re not required to—”
Her silvery laugh pushed his dick to full erection. “I got it. I got it. Cake with only us. I’ll tell you if it’s time to stop eating cake.”
“If that’s what you want.” He tried to control his elation over this beautiful woman agreeing to sleep with him exclusively.
And regularly.
More laughter. “Wow, no one’s ever been quite this intent on confirming my consent. Yes. I say ‘yes’ to this best cake plan because it was damn delicious.”
The coil of emotion inside of him slowly unfurled. “Then we’ve settled it.”
“Not exactly. I got interrogated by my new captain about my type of coffee, and I greatly prefer cake to coffee. Can I have cake now?”
“Now?” he asked.
“I’m alone in my bunkroom. I got my downtime, and I’m unbuttoning my uniform top because it’s feeling tight.”
His body immediately responded. First, she’d agreed to keep sleeping with him, and next she wanted to have phone sex?
“You’re serious?” He would have never suggested this on his own. Then again, what firefighter hadn’t ‘helped’ himself during a slow shift?
“Like a heart attack. What would you be doing?”
“Could we be caught in this hypothetical scenario?”
“Doubt it. Engine went for a tiny kitchen fire, but mostly I was cleaning today.”
“In that case, we should the lock the door in the turnout room.” He suggested, unzipping his pants and taking his stiff penis out.
“The turnout room? Dirty. Okay, we’re alone in the locked turnout room.”
“Let me do a closer uniform inspection. That shirt belongs on the floor,” Noah said.
“Do you like what you see?”
“Unbelievably so. Your turn.” Forty-eight hours had been long and not even close to long enough.
“Since you gave me a command, I certainly can’t refuse. If you take off your belt and use it to tie my hands together, I’m following orders.”
He could hear the sounds of her touching herself, the rhythmic flesh on flesh. “The rest of your uniform needs inspection. Belt, pants, and thong off.”
“Thong?” There was a soft whoosh in the background on her end.
“What was that?”
“That was me getting on my knees. Because you can choose to fuck me from behind, have me suck you off, or spank me for insubordination.”
“You want me to spank you?” he asked, unsurprised at the moisture on his palm.
“That or put your mountain man beard between my thighs. I like the way it rubs me, makes me more sensitive. And every time I walk, I remember exactly what you did down there. Our little secret.”
Noah handled himself more roughly, imagining how wet she had to be. “Damn.” Noah heard her do something through the receiver. “What are you actually doing now?”
“I locked the door in my room because I’m on the bed with my tits out and my hand between my legs, fingering myself. What are you doing?”
“I’ve got my hand on my dick, getting off to the words of a Siren. And not the fire truck kind. The sexy kind with a hypnotic voice that convinces you to follow them home and eat cake.” He got his breath again. “I think I need a blowjob.”
“Oh, I can do that. Question is, how hard do you want me to go? Deep? Shallow? I promise not to use my teeth.”
“Erin . . .”
“I’m naked and wet. My hands are tied together with your belt. Your uniform pants are open, and you use the belt to pull my mouth over. If you’re a good boy, I’ll even swallow.”
“Fuck, Hudgens… Erin… Fuck.”
“A little bit faster, because I need you to fuck me. I’ll let you do whatever you want. You can have me any way you want it, whatever hole you want, I just need to come so badly…” Almost on command, his dam gave way. He caught his seed in his right hand. She made a brief squawk into the phone and then nothing.
“Erin?” he asked, breaking out of the fantasy when he didn’t hear much for a good twenty seconds.
“Still here,” she rasped throatily.
“Did you?” he asked.
“Yep,” Erin said. “You?”
“Probably about ten seconds before you. Your voice… does things to me.” He wasn’t embarrassed to admit it.
“While that is quite the compliment, this was less than a spoonful of cake, and I fully expect more.”
“Tell me when, where, and I’ll be there.”
She hung up. He saw his reflection in his flat screen TV. The other Noah looked relaxed and satisfied rather than exhausted and unhappy.
He could get used to this.