As much as Remi Washington loved his job, there were other places he would rather be on a Friday night than stuck up a tree, in the dark, trying to sweet-talk a kitten down who couldn’t seem to care less she was perched several feet above a swimming pool.

“Oh, Smoky, be careful!” the old dear, Mrs. Albany, called below, ringing her hands. Remi gritted his teeth and clung to the flimsy branch, reaching another couple of inches closer to the gray kitten. “Thank you so much, sweetheart,” the elderly lady cried up to Remi. “I just don’t know how she got herself up there.”

Remi knew exactly how. She was a sassy little thing who, judging from the way she was smugly licking her paws, would spend her life getting humans to run around after her because she was too adorable. He sighed. He loved cats, but this one wasn’t helping him out at all.

“Here, kitty kitty kitty,” he cooed, lying on his stomach to reach as far as he could with one hand, clutching the wood with the other. “Come to Uncle Remi.”

“Hey, Remi,” one of his fellow firefighters, Channing, called up from by the pool. “You having trouble getting a little pussy?”

Remi rolled his eyes at his crew all standing around watching, and now laughing, at him. “Remind me again why Alondra isn’t doing this?” he asked with a raised eyebrow they probably couldn’t see in the ambient lighting around the yard.

Alondra, the only female member of the third watch, pointed to her foot inside the big chunky regulation boot they all had to wear. “Sprained ankle from kickboxing,” she said with over-the-top remorse.

“Yeah, right,” Remi grumbled. “You did that weeks ago.”

He knew his coworkers were punishing him for eating the last donut at the station earlier without asking. Alondra was tiny and nimble. Remi was over six foot and spent half of his free time lifting weights down the gym.

The tree creaked underneath him.

“You wanna hurry it up, buddy?” Greg hollered with a cackle. Holby smacked his arm and pointed to the distraught-looking owner of both the house and the kitten. Greg cleared his throat and nodded at Mrs. Albany before looking at Remi again. “I mean, do you need any help?”

“We could get the ladder in?” Captain Bishop suggested, his deep voice rumbling from closer to the truck where old Travis was probably already napping.

“No,” Remi grunted. “Y’all will only tear up Mrs. Albany’s nice lawn. I got this.”

“I’ll go warm up the ladder,” Remi heard Greg mumble before he trotted back off to the truck.

Remi shook his head. “I can do this,” he said more to himself than anyone else. But when he reached for Smoky the kitten again, she hopped further down the branch, swishing her tail and meowing shrilly. “Goddamn it.” He sighed.

“Oh, do be careful,” Mrs. Albany cried.

Remi forced himself to smile down at her. “I promise I will, ma’am.”

But at that moment the branch gave a terrible crack. Smoky froze, snapping her head to look at Remi. Then she dashed down the branch, deftly avoiding his grasp, running over his back and scaling the tree to the lawn where Mrs. Albany reached down to snatch her into her arms.

“Oh!” she cried. “You did it!”

The branch cracked again. Remi only had a second to grab onto it with both hands, as if that might somehow stop the inevitable, before the whole thing gave way and he dropped with a lurch, plummeting into the swimming pool.

When he reemerged, his coworkers were doubled up with laughter. Greg came jogging back from the truck, his hands in his hair. “Aww, I always miss the good stuff!” he bemoaned.

Remi gasped for air and spluttered out chlorinated water. “Mother fucker!” he cried.

Mrs. Albany covered Smoky’s ears with a shocked expression on her elderly face. Smoky, the little bastard, looked damned pleased with herself.

The team made Remi strip off before allowing him or his drenched suit and gear back into the truck. At least Holby threw him a blanket for him to drape over his shoulders. It wasn’t that he was ashamed of his body. He was extremely in shape. But it made it easier to take all his buddies’ ribbing while not just sitting in his underwear.

Back at the station, most of the crew set about organizing some late supper. But all Remi wanted to do was take a shower and get all the chlorine off his skin.

After a call, they quite often piled into the bathroom together, except for Alondra who had naturally managed to secure her own shower cubicle in the women’s room. After a more strenuous job, they all generally needed a freshen up. But seeing as the rest of the team had stood around watching Remi get bested by a kitten, the upside was he now had the entire bathroom to himself.

He washed the suds from his hair and body in about a minute. When a call could come through at any time, he didn’t want to be running back through the station with soap in his eyes.

But he was enjoying the solitude. It was rare he got a moment to himself during his twenty-four-hour shift unless he tried to grab a nap, but then Travis was usually in the breakroom snoring. Remi closed his eyes and rolled his shoulders, relaxing. The only sound was the water running down his body.

It occurred to him that it had been a while since he’d had some fun in the shower.

He wiped the water from his eyes and looked around. He was still alone and he had left the rest of the team in the kitchen and around the TV. It was unlikely any of them would get the mad urge to take a shower in the next five minutes.

He grinned, feeling mischievous, and wrapped his fingers around his cock.

Ordinarily, the idea of doing this anywhere vaguely public would make him too nervous. But he’d found some new porn last week that he couldn’t stop replaying in his head. He didn’t see any harm in knocking a quick one out.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t watched two dudes fucking before. He’d given most porn a try in his twenty-six years. But there had been something so fun and playful about the guys he’d discovered last week. And it had brought Remi’s mind back to a place it had been hovering over for a few years now.

What would it be like to try having sex with another guy, just once?

He didn’t have anybody in mind as he began to stroke his shaft. He’d seen a few guys around the gym from time to time. Slim fit guys that had lit something inside him that he was normally too afraid to acknowledge in the cold light of day.

But with his eyes closed under the running water, he wondered what it might be like to hold a body like that for a change? What would it feel like to have a guy suck his cock? Would it be any different? Would he know what he was doing any better?

Remi had watched enough porn of guys jacking off to know he found the sight fucking erotic. He tried telling himself that every guy found all kinds of porn hot. It didn’t mean they wanted to do it for real. But as his rhythm increased, he found himself visualizing some cute guy sucking him off, touching his own cock as he did.

Wow, fuck, yeah. That was doing the trick. Remi bit his lip harder and rubbed the head of his cock with his thumb before squeezing the shaft hard. He was close, but he wanted to build up his orgasm a bit more. He wasn’t sure he’d ever have the guts to do this anytime again soon, so he wanted to make the most of it.

Which is of course why the alarm chose to sound at that moment.

“Fuck!” he cried, slamming the water off and grabbing a towel, his dick immediately softening with the shock. He barely gave himself a once-over with the towel before shoving his feet through his dry pants, forgoing underwear to give him that extra couple of seconds.

“Engine five,” the composed voice from dispatch announced over the PA system as Remi ran from the bathroom, pulling his polo over his head. “Ladder three. Building fire. Corner of Jefferson and Row Street.”

Shit. An actual fire. Another one? For months, Hidden Creek had gone without a blaze. Then after some shady business involving the CIA in April, they’d had three separate callouts for explosions. Now this?

He was a big guy, but he could fucking run when he needed. So he sprinted through the empty common room where everyone had abandoned their toast and bags of chips. Then he skidded to a halt in front of the engine at the same time as the rest of his half a dozen crew, stepping into his suit.

“What have we got?” he asked as he and the rest of them jumped into the engine, lacing up his boots. Channing was behind the wheel. Within seconds they were peeling away from the house, the siren blaring and the lights flashing against the night. No matter how many times he did this, even after almost seven years, his heart rate still sped up every time.

It didn’t help that it had kind of already been elevated.

His almost orgasm was a million miles from his mind, though, as they sped through the town, heading past Victory Boulevard. He and the rest of the crew looked at Captain Bishop as the seconds ticked by. Every single one counted in an emergency situation.

“Three-story building appears to be on fire,” the captain said, looking between the guys and Alondra. “Call came from the only tenant. Says he lives above a bar. He’s stuck on the top floor.”

Remi’s blood ran cold and he leaned across to look down the street. He could just make out the orange glow of the fire in the distance against the night sky. “Fuck,” he said. He hadn’t recognized the address from the street names, but he knew where he was now.

He resisted the urge to ask Channing to drive faster. They would get there as soon as they possibly could. That didn’t stop Remi’s heart from racing.

“What?” Holby asked, always the first to pick up when someone wasn’t doing so good.

“The bar,” Remi said, turning back to Captain Bishop. “It’s the gay bar on the intersection, right? Bottom’s Up?”

That got a snigger from old Travis, but Remi was too preoccupied to shoot him a glare.

“I believe so,” said the captain. He narrowed his eyes at Remi. “What is it, son?”

Remi turned back to look out the front window. The sirens from both the engine and the truck were howling in his ears. As they reached the intersection, he could see the whole first floor of the bar was already up in flames. It was hard to tell in the dark, but it looked like the smoke might already be turning black.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. They couldn’t be too late. They couldn’t.

“I know who lives there,” Remi said through dry lips.

And they were going to damn well get him out.