knelt in front of her, gathered her hands in his, and brought them to his lips.
“You are diabolical and an evil planner of debauchery, and I loved every second.”
She smiled. “So you weren’t angry that more than half a dozen of the guys you work with on a daily basis saw me naked?”
“Oh hell no,” he growled. “My stock just went through the roof at the firehouse.”
“You’re a nut.”
“Baby, my nuts are about to burst.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “I thought they just did?”
He grinned. “They’re ready to go again.”
She glanced back and wrinkled her nose. “I’m not having sex on this couch. The wall in the hallway was bad enough, but I do not want to know what’s been on this couch.”
“Then I suggest you get some clothes on so I can take you home and fuck you for about the next six hours.”
She scrambled up and reached for her clothes strewn over back of the couch.
His smile broadened. “Damn, I love it when you’re so eager.”
To say he walked around with a smug, shit-eating grin was the absolute truth. As soon as he hit the firehouse the morning after Zoe’s dance routine, he was greeted by a chorus of whistles and catcalls. He was lauded as the man and while immature, it was total male arrogance at its best.
Chase grinned and took the good-natured ribbing in stride. He took it better than Tate and Brody did. His two friends scowled every time one of the guys mentioned Zoe.
It wasn’t until noon that Chase got a moment alone with Tate and Brody. The three were in the small kitchen taking their turn at dinner duty while the others washed the two fire trucks in the garage.
What he wanted to ask them wasn’t something he could just blurt out. Every time he opened his mouth to say it, he hesitated and kept quiet. Which started him examining why he couldn’t just bring it up.
After five minutes, Brody was the one to bring an end to the awkward silence.
“Are you really cool with what happened, man?”
Surprised, Chase turned around to look at Brody. Tate stopped what he was doing as well and tuned in with keen interest.
“Yeah, I’m cool with it. Were you worried I wasn’t?”
Brody lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “You seem a little tense. I wanted to make sure Tate and I hadn’t stepped in it by going along with Zoe’s surprise for you.”
“Everything’s cool. I actually wanted to talk to you . . . About Zoe.”
Tate frowned. “Is everything okay? I mean you’re not mad at her , are you?”
“No, things are fine. I swear. You two need to chill out. I’m not sure how much or what Zoe told you about why she did the dancing thing.”
“She said it was some fantasy of yours,” Brody said.
“Yeah, we sort of traded fantasies one night. I want to talk to you about hers.”
Tate groaned and held up his hands in surrender. “You gotta give me a second here. I’m still trying to get over seeing Zoe in the buff and having to listen to you two fucking in the hallway, and now you want to lay her fantasy on us?”
Brody just frowned. “Isn’t that shit supposed to be private or something? I mean, would she be okay with you telling us this stuff?”
Chase chuckled to himself. Trust Brody to be all protective of Zoe. They’d all been friends for a long time, but Brody had always been super protective of Zoe. Even back in high school. Chase had occasionally wondered, if he hadn’t asked Zoe out, whether Brody would have worked up the nerve.
That was something they didn’t discuss, though. They talked plenty about Zoe in the casual sense, but they never discussed Chase’s relationship with her or whether things were serious. Maybe Brody didn’t want to know.
“I can’t very well make her fantasy come true if I don’t talk about it,” Chase said dryly.
“Oh shit,” Tate breathed. “I had a feeling we were coming to this.”
Chase cocked an eyebrow at his friend. “You don’t know what I’m going to ask.”
“Ask?” Brody echoed.