“Killjoy. I get you have your dignity and all, but you are drool-worthy. You’d get tons of phone numbers.”
“I’m one hundred percent sure Mom wouldn’t have said that. Anything else?”
“Nope. Now that I’m sure you’re alive, I’m good. Don’t screw this up.”
In that, he agreed with her.
Chapter 20
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.”
