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  Chris shrugged and watched him organize the box before Tucker locked it closed and swung back up onto the engine to put it in its usual spot behind the engineer’s seat.

  Tucker hopped back down off the engine and gave Chris a wink. “Wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with Morgan Daniels, now would it?”

  Chris felt his eyes widen, and the immediate need for denial sprang to his lips. “What? The fuck? No, God!”

  Tucker’s eyes crinkled at the corners, and he looked like he was holding back a grin. “Hey, easy. Ain’t gonna say nothin’ to nobody.”

  “How did you know?” Chris blurted out, then cursed himself for letting it slip.

  Tucker did grin then, shaking his head as he brushed past Chris on his way into the station. “Country boy,” he said, pointing to himself just before he opened the door leading into the kitchen. “Not stupid.”

  Chris watched the door close slowly behind him and wondered how long he should wait before going to look for Morgan.

  He didn’t have to make the decision at all, since just as he was stepping out of his turnout pants to hang them back up, Morgan appeared again in the garage. “Mr. Matthews,” he said in a conciliatory voice.

  “How come you always call me that when we’re anywhere except bed?” Chris asked, hanging up his jacket on the hook next to his pants. “Unless you’re trying to emphasize the age difference.” He said this last with a shrug that he knew would irritate Morgan.

  Morgan glanced around the completely empty garage before stepping closer. “Because if I called you Chris, people would be able to tell in half a second that I had your dick in my mouth two nights ago.”

  He hoped that what came out of his mouth didn’t sound like a squeak, but then it didn’t matter because Morgan was pressing him up against the front of the engine and biting down gently on Chris’s earlobe. It was such an uncharacteristic move—God forbid the prim and proper Morgan Daniels do anything so brazen where other people could see—that Chris was instantly turned on. Well, more turned on. If that was possible.

  Chris wrapped his fingers around Morgan’s tie and dragged his head up, kissing him until both of them had to swallow hard and separate or else risk being caught. It was still early, and a call could come at any time. The engine bay would be filled instantly with firemen. “What are you doing here?” Chris whispered, staring at Morgan’s mouth.

  Morgan straightened up and put a hand to his tie, smoothing it down to its previous perfect state. “New round of classes starting this month. I had to discuss scheduling with Rich.”

  A slow grin made its way across Chris’s mouth. “You could have called him. Or emailed.”

  “I needed the list of rookies that are finishing their first year but haven’t had classes. He has the list for the whole department, and I have to schedule them in tonight.” It sounded plausible, but the way Morgan kept licking his bottom lip and shifting from foot to foot blew big holes in his explanation.

  “You’re a liar,” Chris said, brushing a hand over his own cock and hoping there was no one in the bathroom. A fast rubbing off would be necessary after Morgan left. Which he apparently had no intention of doing soon.

  Morgan held up the paperwork he was holding and gave him a wry look. “Let’s be honest. You’re wishing I was a liar. Because that would mean I came here for another reason other than the one I gave.”

  Chris sat down on the front bumper and let his legs fall open a little, making sure the outline of his erection was clearly visible through his navy blue uniform pants. “Okay,” he said, his voice far more casual than he felt. “Your call. See ya.”

  When Morgan made no move to leave, Chris counted it as a small victory. He counted a larger one when Morgan took a step closer. “You think I came here to see you, don’t you?”

  “No,” Chris said with a shrug. He let one hand rest casually on his own thigh, high up near the crease of his pants. “You said you didn’t. I believe you.”

  Hot gray eyes watched Chris’s hand. “We’re not dating,” Morgan said with distaste.

  Chris snorted. “No, we’re definitely not.” He brushed away the tiny sting at Morgan’s words. It wasn’t like he wanted to date the guy. But dinner out once in a while might be nice.

  “Right,” Morgan said, advancing even closer. Chris knew if he stood up right now, they’d be within a hair’s breadth of each other.

  “So tell me,” Chris murmured into the heavy quiet of the garage. “If you took me around the other side of the engine right now and went down on me, that would just be an added bonus, right? Not the reason you came here?”

  Morgan was close enough to stand within the V of Chris’s legs, his own hard-on nearly at Chris’s eye level. It was all Chris could do not to reach out and run his fingers along the length, but he clenched his fingers into a fist and waited.

  He didn’t wait long.

  Morgan dropped his briefcase and paperwork and hauled Chris up all in one smooth move, dragging him around the side of the engine that would be hidden from the door to the kitchen. “This is not the reason I came here,” he whispered, just before bringing his mouth down hard on Chris’s and shoving his tongue inside.

  Any smart remark Chris would have made in return fled when he felt Morgan’s cock pressing against him, thick and hard in his slacks. Chris moaned into Morgan’s mouth and dropped a hand to cup his ass, bringing Morgan even closer as they kissed frantically. Chris couldn’t help rubbing on him, hooking an ankle around Morgan’s calf and finding the perfect spot to relieve the building pressure.

  Morgan had started to work at Chris’s belt buckle, but it seemed that task had fallen by the wayside, because Chris couldn’t make himself move the necessary few inches in order for Morgan to get his buckle open. He didn’t care. Morgan began to pant in his ear and was worrying up a mark under Chris’s jaw while they grinded on each other, and Chris didn’t think he was really that far from coming.

  “You’re supposed to go down on me,” Chris groaned into the stillness, clutching at Morgan’s shoulders and pushing his crotch against Morgan’s thigh.

  “Later” came the ragged response, Morgan pushing back just as hard.

  Later was fine with him, Chris supposed, his head going back against the engine with a soft thunk. Right now all he cared about was getting off, and he didn’t give a shit how he did it. He had clean clothes in his locker.

  Chris felt it building at the base of his spine before he was ready, but this wasn’t the time to draw out his orgasm. They were already being risky by messing around here at the station. He gripped Morgan’s hips tightly and shifted him so that both of them could slide against each other, and Chris smiled to himself at the tiny hitch in Morgan’s breathing.

  “You’re gonna come right here, aren’t you,” he whispered to Morgan. “Right here against the engine in your nice, expensive pants. But this isn’t why you came here, is it?”

  His answer was a low growl and teeth against his neck, and then Chris’s balls drew up tight. “Damn,” he whispered as his climax whipped up his spine and then out, making him shudder against Morgan as he came.

  It couldn’t have been more than three seconds before Morgan was gasping and holding Chris firmly to him while his hips bucked. “Jesus,” Morgan was muttering against Chris’s neck.

  Shaky and careful, Morgan finally eased off him and glanced down at the growing dark spot on the front of his trousers. “I just got these back from the dry cleaner yesterday.”

  Chris indicated his own uniform pants with the matching spot. “Same here. Good thing I have about five other pairs.” He couldn’t help grinning at Morgan’s rueful expression. Damn, he felt good.

  “You can owe me for the bill, Mr. Matthews.” And just like that, Morgan was back to his formal self, rounding the engine to pick up his discarded belongings.

  “Yes, sir,” Chris snapped back, all good feelings disintegrating in the face of Morgan’s asshole personality making its return.

  Morgan straig
htened up and gave him a long look. “I like it when you call me sir,” he said, and then walked out of the garage into the dark parking lot.

  Chris watched Morgan get into his car without sparing Chris a backward glance, but he refused to watch Morgan drive away like some lovesick kid. Heaving himself up into the engineer’s seat of the fire engine, Chris slumped down and leaned his head against the steering wheel. Fuck.

  How did it always end up like this? And why did it matter? Like Morgan had said clearly, they weren’t dating. They weren’t in love. Chris wasn’t even sure he liked the guy, and the feelings on Morgan’s end were definitely mutual. So why did Chris always feel so… let down? He had no idea what he was expecting, but it had to be more than this vague, unsettled feeling he was left with pretty much every time he and Morgan were together.

  Any further thought was put on hold when two soft dings sounded overhead and the garage lights flickered on. Chris scrambled down out of the driver’s seat and reached for his turnouts, listening for the calm, automated female voice that would come over the loudspeaker and tell them what kind of call they were going to.

  It was a traffic accident just a few blocks away. Chris finished getting his pants on as the rest of his crew came swarming out the door into the garage. Tucker stopped near him and reached for his own jacket, hung on the hook next to Chris’s. “Your friend leave?” Tucker asked him.

  “He’s not my friend” was Chris’s automatic answer, even though he wasn’t exactly sure that was true. He and Morgan had formed a tentative sort of friendship over the past several weeks, which was good, considering they were fucking on a semiregular basis.

  “So what do you call him?” Tucker laughed, slipping into his turnouts.

  “I don’t,” he snapped. “Drop it, McBride.”

  Tucker just snickered at him and swung up into his spot on the engine. Chris followed more slowly, irritated at Tucker’s prying and also by the fact that he hadn’t gotten to change his pants. Now he had to go through an entire call with damp, sticky clothes. At least no one could see them.

  The accident was in a residential neighborhood, so Dave used the lights but not the siren. As they rolled up, Chris could see the two cars that had collided in the middle of the intersection. One was a late-model Mercedes, small and black. The owner stood next to it with a furious expression, ignoring the cut over his eye that was beading with blood. The other car was a minivan containing a young mother and what Chris assumed was her toddler, secured in a car seat in the back and crying with a healthy set of lungs. Neighbors from the houses lining the street were standing huddled together in groups of two or three, watching the man with the Mercedes grow angrier by the minute.

  Even as Chris dropped down to the street and the man was blocked from view, he knew what was going to happen. Sure enough, Chris came around the front of the engine in time to see the man stalk to the driver’s side of the minivan where the woman still sat, trying to reach around and comfort her screaming child. A stream of profanity began flying from his mouth, cursing the woman, her driving abilities, and what sounded like the female gender as a whole.

  He and Tucker gave each other the “here we go” expression they reserved for situations like this, and Tucker grabbed the medic box as they headed toward the minivan. Chris heard Rich mutter something to Dave, and then Dave was walking toward the raging man with a carefully neutral expression.

  Medics on scene were kept busy caring for the patient, while the captain gave orders and assisted where necessary. That usually left the engineer to control scene safety, and sometimes that meant calming down difficult patients. Dave was good at it; he’d been an engineer since before Chris had graduated from high school. Chris had seen him speak soothingly to the most irate of people and usually had them blushing and apologizing within minutes. On the rare occasion, the patient sometimes needed to be physically restrained, so it was good that Dave was one of the bigger guys on the crew.

  Chris ducked in under the man’s waving arms in order to get close to the woman; he figured the guy’s cut on his head could wait until Dave had calmed him down a little. Tucker slid open the back door of the van and was crouching on the floor in front of the baby, trying to determine if he was screaming because he was hurt or if he was just scared. Apparently deciding the latter, Tucker started cutting through the straps of the car seat in order to lift the child out.

  Chris had donned his gloves and was trying to keep out of the man’s way as he scanned the woman for obvious injury before asking her the standard procedural questions. His job was made difficult, however, by the man’s insistence on leaning over him to shout more derogatory comments at the hapless woman.

  Just as he was straightening up with the intent to tell Dave to just go ahead and forcefully subdue the guy, the man’s left hand flung out and popped Chris in the eye. Chris jerked his head back, but he could tell it was too late. His eye began to water immediately, and his cheek stung where the fucker probably had had a ring on.

  There was a flurry of activity around him, with Tucker yelling “Hey!” at the man, and then there was empty space next to him as Dave finally gave up all pretenses of being polite and yanked the guy away from the car.

  Chris shook his head to clear it and was relieved when his eye stopped watering, although it hurt when he blinked. Great. Should make a nice shiner come morning. Well, he could always tell people he got in a bar fight.

  They managed to get the woman and her kid out of the van, and the kid blessedly stopped his screeching when placed in his mother’s arms. No injuries on either one, save for bruises across the woman’s chest where her seat belt had dug in, and no trip to the hospital was necessary. Chris and Tucker turned reluctantly to the man now sitting on the curb, glaring up at Dave.

  “He’s all yours,” Dave said cheerfully. “But I’ll stand here and watch. Just in case.” This last he directed at the sullen patient, who apparently had decided it wasn’t worth arguing with someone who was a good two inches taller. Especially now that the police finally started arriving on scene.

  “My fucking car,” the man muttered as Tucker knelt in front of him on the street. “Stupid bitch.”

  Tucker arched a brow at him and took the gauze from Chris’s hand. “That ain’t nice language,” he said calmly, dabbing at the wound over the man’s eye.

  The guy blinked. “Did you see my car?” he asked, disbelief evident in his voice.

  Tucker shrugged and gave Chris a sidelong glance, taking the antibiotic ointment that Chris held out to him. “Yep. Looks like you got a little scratch in it.”

  Chris choked back the laugh that threatened to make its way out and watched the man grow purple with fury. “A little scratch?” the guy roared, dodging as Tucker tried to put ointment on the cut. “You call that a little scratch? That’s a five-thousand-dollar ‘little scratch’ that bitch did to me!”

  The next thing Chris knew, Dave had secured the man’s arms behind him and Tucker was in the guy’s face. “I said,” Tucker drawled, accent growing thicker, “that ain’t nice language, ’specially when you’re talking about a lady. And I want you to apologize to my partner, here.”

  The man threw Chris a disdainful look. “Why?”

  “Because you hit me in the face, sir,” Chris said calmly, and Tucker looked over and winked.

  “I’m sorry,” the man spat, and then went back to moaning over the loss of his car while Tucker rolled his eyes and finished dressing the wound on his forehead.

  They stood on the curb together sometime later and watched the man wave his arms around while he talked to one of the police officers. Tucker shook his head in disgust. “Shoulda brought that ass to the hospital just to run his insurance up,” he muttered, and Chris laughed.

  “He’s a dick. But now I’ve got a good war wound to show people.” Chris touched his cheek gingerly and felt the welt that the man’s ring had left on his skin.

  Tucker grinned at him. “Yeah, you do.”

  By the
time they made their way back to the station, it was close to ten thirty and most of the guys headed to their bunks. Chris was too wound up to sleep, however, and went to the kitchen for ice cream instead.

  It occurred to him as he stood over the sink with the carton, spooning Cherry Garcia ice cream into his mouth, that he hadn’t thought about Morgan Daniels in nearly two hours. There was something to be said for out-of-the-ordinary calls. At least they kept his mind off things.

  When he finally did fall asleep that night, however, he dreamed of Morgan.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ONE GOOD thing Chris found about not being in a real relationship with Morgan was that he didn’t have to deal with the inconveniences that came with real relationships. No answering to someone, no explaining where you’d been, no arguing over inconsequential things.

  Except the last part, the arguing part, seemed to happen kind of a lot for not being in a real relationship. More than Chris liked, really, since he’d never been one for fights or disagreements or anything that involved confrontation. He was pretty happy with life on a regular basis and the whole “not being in a relationship” thing had helped a lot with the avoidance of disagreements.

  Until Morgan Daniels, that was.

  Chris sighed, running a hand through his hair and looking at Morgan across the kitchen table. Chris had arrived not more than a half hour ago, takeout in hand, and already they were bickering. “Fine. Jesus. Forget I asked.”

  “Chris,” Morgan said in that patronizingly slow tone that Chris loathed, “I’m not really interested in a dinner party with firemen.”

  “The hell, dinner party? It’s a fucking barbeque on Sunday afternoon.”

  “With firemen,” Morgan said again, as if that explained everything.

  “Yes,” Chris said patiently. “With firemen. I am a fireman. My friends are firemen. I hang out with firemen.”

  “I don’t” came the short response.