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There was no way I wasn’t going to want to do this again, to feel this again.
How was I already addicted to the idea of fucking Parker when I hadn’t even been inside him yet?
“Looks like I’ve got another satisfied customer,” Parker joked, as he rose to his feet with a smirk.
“Parker… that was…”
“Fun, right?” He offered me a wink before he nodded down at my waist. “Although, you should probably pull your pants back up before we get back out there. Sadie might like us but I don’t think that’ll be enough for us to not get banned for life if we’re just walking around with our dicks out.”
Parker pushed open the bathroom stall, disappearing out of my view entirely. “I’m going to go check on our drinks! Maybe order another round! Come out whenever you’re ready, okay?”
I opened my mouth to say something in response but instead I let the words just fall to the ground, unspoken and unannounced.
Because I didn’t know what the hell I was going to say to Parker, not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever.
How was I supposed to tell him how badly I wanted to bend him over and just?—
No.
I needed to snap out of it. I needed to accept that I was just overwhelmed because it’d been such a long time since hooking up with someone had been this good, like someone who hadn’t had sugar in years and suddenly decided to try a slice of cake. There wasn’t some mystical, magical connection between me and Parker, I just hadn’t indulged in far too long.
Besides, there was zero guarantee that Parker would even be interested in doing this again. It wasn’t like he’d said as much when it was all over. For all I knew, he’d be headed back to the dance floor by the end of the night, going home with someone else, thinking my jealousy had been a one-time thing.
I cringed at the thought of Parker hooking up with someone else tonight.
And then, I pulled up my jeans, and headed back out to the bar myself, trying my best to shake the thought away, trying my best to keep things uncomplicated, simple, fun.
Even if all I could think about was Parker naked in my bed.
“George? Are you pranking me right now?”
It was 3AM, the time blinking on my alarm clock as I shot up in bed. Parker was sleeping soundly next to me, all partied out from the honky-tonk. I’d been pretty deep in my own sleep cycle, too, before I heard my phone vibrating loudly on my desk.
“Nope. Not a prank.” George sighed on the other end of the line. George was one of the higher-ups at the fire station, and despite knowing he wasn’t prone to prank behavior, I was still hoping that he’d recently changed his mind about them. “Sorry. We’re going to need you to come in, Cooper. I know it’s not ideal but hopefully the situation resolves itself?—”
“And, what, exactly, is the situation?”
“One of the guys is pretty sure they saw the beginnings of a forest fire on the edge?—”
“Right, but why am I being called in again? You don’t have enough guys to handle it?”
“Oh, you’re really going to make me say it?” George barked out a laugh. “You really need your ego stroked that badly, Cooper?”
“Say what, George?”
“That you’re the best we’ve got, kid,” he replied. “All the guys look up to you as a leader around here, which means, they’re not as confident going into something like this without you. Especially since it could be even worse than we think.”
“Understood.” I groaned, a part of me desperately yearning to go back to sleep, even as I rolled out of bed. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for you, kid.”
George ended the phone call with a click and I paced around my darkened bedroom, the only light spilling in from the window. I groaned again as I located my suit, pulling it on despite my eyelids still so heavy with lingering dreams. I was never one to shy away from running toward a fire, and honestly, the fire wasn’t what was making me so reluctant to show up to the station.
It was just that putting out this literal fire was another thing preventing me from putting out the fire I’d started with Parker back at the bar. I knew that I needed to address it somehow, especially since I hadn’t stopped thinking about Parker since we’d been all over each other in that bathroom stall. I still had no idea what I was going to say to him but as we’d both tumbled into bed, I knew that I needed to say something. There was no way I could keep being this close to him without something breaking, without accidentally revealing every dirty thought I’d been having about him in my head.
I grimaced as a new thought wiggled through my brain just as I made my way to the hall, already halfway out the front door.
There was still the very real possibility that Parker never wanted to do that with me again.