“You’d better be on this, Tommy.”
“You need to go now, Zach.”
Yeah. Yeah, he did, before he did something he might deeply regret. Like lose his job.
When he finally got to the fire station and went to the kitchen for something to put in his empty, gnawing gut, Brooke was there. He’d hoped to see her last night at his place. In his bed. But clearly she’d thought a little too much. He tried to move past her, but she grabbed his arm.
“Brooke, don’t.” He felt raw. Exposed. If he let her touch him right now, it might make him all the more vulnerable. Pulling free, he backed up a step and came up against the damn refrigerator.
She merely stepped in against him, trapping him there. He could have shoved past her, but he didn’t. Her warm, curvy body pressed to his, her eyes wide and open, reflecting her sorrow, her sympathy.
“The house is completely gone?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Was she right about the guy she saw? Was it arson?”
“I believe so.”
“Tommy-”
“Told me again to stay out of this.”
“Oh, damn. Zach, I’m sorry.” She slid her hands up his chest to cup his jaw. “I’m so sorry.”
But not sorry enough to have come to him last night. Knowing that, he might have been able to resist what she did next, except he didn’t. She pressed her mouth to his cheek, and then to the corner of his mouth, and then, because he’d apparently lost his mind, he turned his head and hungrily met her lips with his.
Reason went out the window. Everything went out the window as he did his best to inhale her whole. She had her arms wound around his neck, her hands fisted in his hair. He had a hand up the front of her shirt cupping her breast over her bra, the other down the back of her pants, when he vaguely heard someone clear his throat behind them.
Shit.
Lifting his head, he locked eyes with Blake over Brooke’s head.
“Bad time?” Blake asked drolly.
Brooke squeaked and hid her head against Zach’s chest.
“Very bad,” Zach said.
Blake gestured to the refrigerator at Zach’s back. “But I’m hungry.”
With a choked sound, Brooke stepped away from Zach. Without a word, she walked out of the kitchen.
Blake just arched a brow, gesturing to the fridge.
“Jesus.” Zach pushed away from the refrigerator and let Blake at it.
The next night, off duty and at home, Zach sat at his own kitchen table with all the evidence he had on the arson fires so far spread out on a board laid in front of him. He was trying to connect the dots instead of thinking about Brooke when the doorbell rang.
It was pizza delivery by Aidan. His partner handed off the extra-large, loaded pie and pushed past him to get inside.
“Well, gee,” Zach said dryly. “Come on in.”
“We’ve got to talk.” Aidan moved into the kitchen and helped himself to a beer in the refrigerator. He twisted off the top, drank deeply, then gave Zach a long look.
“It’s not good,” Zach guessed.
“It’s you. And what you’re doing.”
“Look, we’re both adults. If we decide to go at this until she leaves, it’s our business.”
Aidan looked confused. “Huh?”
“You’re not talking about Brooke?”
“No.” Aidan cocked his head. “Although, I did hear some interesting rumors today, which I ignored. Erroneously so, apparently.”
“It’s no big deal.”
“Okay.”
“It’s just casual.”
“Okay.”
“But Jesus, the way everyone’s going on about it, I might as well marry her.”
Aidan’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “Whoa. The M word? Out of your mouth?”
“It’s just a word.”
Aidan was still eyeing him like a bug on a slide. “Why are you harping on this?”
“Because you are.”
“I said okay about twenty minutes ago, dude. It’s all you.”
Zach opened the pizza box, pulled out the biggest piece and stuffed a bite in his mouth. “Jenny brought me pizza a while back. Hers was better.”
“That’s because hers came with a hot bod. You boinking her, too?”
“No.”
“Then can I boink her?”
Zach sighed. “Why are you here again?”
“To yell at you. But not for the women. I only wish I had half your woman problems.”
“Hey, you’ve had your problems.”
“Name one.”
“Okay, how about you doing Blake’s soap-star-diva sister and not telling him about it.”
Aidan winced. “Hey, she wasn’t a soap-star diva at the time. And besides, I was really young and really stupid back then.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You’re unusually testy. You’re either PMSing, or those new rumors are definitely true.”
“Which are what exactly?”
“That you and Brooke nearly did it up against the refrigerator. Which, by the way, if it’s true? Nice.”
“Do you ever think of anything besides sex?”
“Alas, rarely.” Aidan grabbed his own huge piece of pizza.
“Fine. But I don’t want to talk about Brooke.”
Aidan shot him an amused look. That rankled. “Okay.”
“I don’t.”
“Fine. Let’s talk about a little thing called arson. You told Tommy you thought Phyllis’s house fire was deliberately set.”
“Yes.”
“Are you crazy?”
“It was arson.”
“Okay, but Tommy is the best investigator this town has ever had and you know it, which means he’s on it.”
Zach opened his mouth to speak, but Aidan stopped him. “And you also know he has the biggest mouth this town has ever seen. Everyone is talking about you.”
“So what?”
“So what? You love this fucking job, that’s what. You work your ass off. You’re one of the best in the whole damn city, and there’s a lieutenant position coming up that you’re going to take yourself right out of the running for because you won’t leave this alone.”
“I can’t leave it alone.”
Aidan sighed. “You’re that damn sure?”
Zach pointed to the material he’d been working on.
Twisting one of the kitchen chairs around, Aidan straddled it, steepling his hands over the back and setting his
