“Don’t you know it.” Erin tossed a fry in the air and caught it with her mouth. “Williams must have mastered the microwave at some point, or he’d starve.”
“Jacen burns water.” Noah stole a fry from her pile. She twitched her lips and stole one back. He grabbed her wrist when she tried for his milkshake. “No, this is mine.”
She followed her arm in for a kiss. Their lips met, and she couldn’t remember why she’d been annoyed. They needed to get horizontal. “You like chocolate milkshakes.”
“Yes.” He released her, simmering heat under his tone. He made an effort to dial it back. “I think I saw your neighbor.”
“Angela?”
“Blonde, white coat, and arms full of Panera bags?”
“That’s my next door hermit crab. If the hermit lived mostly at MetroGen and walked her dog occasionally,” Erin said, yet another flare of jealousy in her chest. Angela was an accomplished doctor with huge boobs and a tiny waist. A better match for Doctor Row’s Sexiest Man.
“Hmm, didn’t see her very well. She didn’t even look at me.” Noah sounded wary now.
“Too bad for you. I’ve never seen her boyfriend, but he gave her a bunch of hickeys.”
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?” Erin replied, trying not to meet his eyes. She got dating around, but they’d agreed to be exclusive. Was he like her father who got a divorce and immediately started a new family when it was convenient?
“You’re as gorgeous and funny as always, but you’re muted.”
Supposedly confession was good for the soul, so she blurted, “I saw your interview this morning. Am I sleeping with the Sexiest Bachelor in Cuyahoga County?”
He laid his head down on her table. “That.”
“You said we would tell each other when we wanted out. I thought you’d tell me in person. Or text me. Or not let me hear about it onNew Day Cleveland.”
He lifted his head. “I don’t want out.”
“You’re not Cuyahoga County’s Sexiest Man?”
“Hannah Fitzpatrick—our PR director—set it up right after active shooter training. She saw it as good exposure for CCFD, and I couldn’t tell her about… us.”
Erin absorbed his words, realizing it had been a month already. “It’s a PR thing? You aren’t planning on—”
“No!” he denied with unexpected force. Noah lowered his tone. “I want nothing to do with it, but you didn’t hear what I negotiated her down from. I vetoed the shirtless photo session. It’s one of my least favorite parts of my job, keeping up a certain appearance.”
Erin exhaled. “Appearances only?”
Noah took the bit by his teeth, “I don’t want out of our shared cake arrangement. I can kill the project. It’s not fair to you if you are—”
“Putting my career on the line? Breaking a bunch of rules to get chief-nookie?”
“The department doesn’t have a say in our personal lives. Should you feel it’s encroaching into that sphere, I am obligated by my responsibility to my… you.”
Her heart lurched forward. He had been searching for the correct word—lover, girlfriend, secret sexual harassment suit?
No. No. No. Erin Hudgens was not the girl who dropped her daddy issues on dates. He chose to come here with dinner, which signaled some type of relationship. Noah Baker was more honorable than that.
And she wanted him with such drugging desire that she couldn’t make herself care.
“Don’t do that. I can handle it. I trust you.” No reason to fight this, might as well embrace it. “Want to be my kitchen’s Sexiest Guy?”
If he was hers for now, she could be unrestrained. He was more than impressive in bed. Few men understood that part of the goal was not an orgasm but to make the partner feel as good as possible. Noah took a great deal of pride in how many moans he could induce or how loud he could get her to scream his name.
She always gave as good as she got—or better. She leaned kinkier than him, but he was always a more than enthusiastic participant and a voracious leaner. The unassuming Fire Chief studied her and filed away each lesson to be trotted out later. The knowledge that he would follow through burned hotter and sexier than she could personally imagine.
