A man sat at the bar wearing a fire department T-shirt, and he wasn't the man Sookie Logan wanted to find.

She froze in the doorway and thought long and hard about turning around and walking back out into the night. She could ghost on Chase. He would be upset, at first, but when she got him alone later to explain, she was sure he would understand. How could he do anything but thank her for ditching out when he saw Hank sitting there at the bar?

Sookie wondered who her brother was waiting for. Maybe Hank was hoping Lana would breeze through the Well door one of these warm California nights, but something told Sookie tonight was different. She had a suspicion her brother was waiting for her, specifically.

Better not keep brother dearest waiting.

Instead of bolting, she crossed to the bar and dropped down on the stool beside him. She signaled the barkeep for her usual Long Island. She had her heart set on a drink as much as she had it set on her evening with Chase, and she wasn't going to let Hank spoil it . . . even though every instinct in her shouted at her to run from whatever problem her brother was about to present.

She wasn't that person anymore.

"Evening, Sook." Hank didn't turn to look at her. He stared at the back wall of the bar, turning his whiskey around and around in its water ring. "Heard you went to see Lana."

"Yep." Her drink arrived right on time. Sookie took a long sip as she tried to pull her thoughts together. She had expected this conversation to be about her and Chase—not about her brother's ex. "Who told you? Dyna?"

"Doesn't matter."

Dyna, Sookie thought with certainty. She was the only other person with any foreknowledge of the meeting, and judging by Hank's cold tone, he certainly hadn't stopped in to pay Lana a visit yet.

"I wish you'd stay out of things," he said.

Sookie revolved on her stool. "Excuse me?"

"I said I wish you'd stay the hell out of it," Hank ground out.

"To what it do you refer, Hank?" Sookie snapped back at him. "Because the last time I checked, there was no it. There's nothing between you and Lana, and that's just the way you wanted things."

"You're on thin ice, Sook. You don't know what the hell you're talking about."

Sookie threw up her hands. She forgot that one of those hands held her drink, and some of the tea sloshed down the side, but she ignored it. "Then why don't you enlighten me? Please, Hank, I'm really fucking begging here. Or could it be that you have nothing new to tell me, considering I was there? I know exactly what you did to fuck things up with Lana, and you didn't just ruin your own life. You ruined the lives of everyone in the blast zone!"

"I don't want you going around there again," Hank said darkly. "You hear me?"

"You don't get to tell me who I can and can't see!" she exclaimed.

"That a fact?" Hank set his drink down and turned toward her. "You certainly seem hell-bent on proving it by sneaking around with my junior squad member."

"I'm not sneaking around with anyone," Sookie lied. "And I certainly wouldn't be caught dead sneaking around with a guy like Chase Kingston."

"Caught being the operative word," Hank said. "You meeting him here tonight?"

"No!" She slammed her drink down, and now the rest of it fountained out all over the bar top. She couldn't care less that her money was wasted—there was no way in hell she was sitting here a minute longer and subjecting herself to Hank's paranoia. "You know, you picked a really inconvenient time to start pretending like you actually give a shit about me. I'm not the sad little sister you left behind you in Cedar Springs, brother. I can take care of myself."

"That a fact?" he asked again. His eyes narrowed.

"That's a threat," Sookie clarified. She threw some bills down on the bar and rose. "Stay out of my way, Hank."

"See you soon, Sook."

Sookie banged open the bar door and released a full-throated growl into the night air. If she had longer hair, she'd be pulling it out in fistfuls right about now. She had mentally primed herself for a run-in with Hank now that she knew they were both in town, but their argument had still gone worse than she had imagined. He had a way of always making her feel like the irrational little sister. Deep down, it was even worse than that—after all these years, he still had a way of making her crave his approval. Maybe that was why she closed herself off and made herself difficult.

"Sookie!"

Sookie trained her glare upward, and found herself face-to-face with Chase. He so rarely called her by her given name that she almost hadn't recognized his voice at first. He stood on the bottom step up to the bar, concern—and maybe even the spark of preemptive anger—etched on every handsome feature of his face. He knew that she hadn't come storming out for no reason, and he was clearly prepared to meet the reason.

His face was inches from her own. They had never been this close before. Standing at the top of the stairs gave her extra inches . . . and her argument with Hank had just given her a new perspective.

"What the hell h—?" Before Chase could complete the question, Sookie planted her hands on either side of his jaw and drew him in for a kiss.

She sealed her lips against his, and in the next instant, Chase was crushing his lips to hers. It was like she had fired a shot and they were off to the races, and it was the sheer instinct to conquer that seemed to propel him forward. He grabbed her waist and pulled her to him, until she was half-dangling off the top step, completely beholden to the strength of his arms. Sookie wrapped her own arms around his neck, but found she couldn't keep her hands still; they roamed up the back of his head, across the powerful, bunched muscles of his shoulders, and down the steep indent of his back. Chase was huge and hard, and in that moment, a mountain she was determined to scale. His lips claimed hers, hot and wet, and when she opened for him, he slid his tongue into her mouth.

This was wildfire country. It was only natural that their first kiss be molten.

"Sookie," Chase breathed. She wasn't aware until that moment that he had broken far enough away from her to speak. She leaned in to silence him, and Chase groaned. It seemed like he might resist, but he caved at the last second and swooped back in to catch her eager lips. Her tongue slid along the length of his, and when he groaned this time, she captured the reverberation with her mouth.

She knew what, or rather who, Chase was thinking of, and she didn't want him to think anymore. Hell, she didn't want to think about what would happen if Hank found them out here like this, and Chase didn't even know she had left her brother back there in the bar behind her. But making out on the front steps of the Well far surpassed reckless. Cedar Springs was a small town with a lively nightlife, and it surprised Sookie that no one had noticed them out here already.

Time for a change of scenery.

"Take me," she panted as she pulled away.

"Where?"

"Anywhere. The alley."

Chase didn't require more direction than that. He hoisted her up, and Sookie wrapped her legs around him. She kissed every inch of him she could reach as he carried her around back behind the Springs Well.

The alleyway was cramped, but it was darker than the town's well-lit Main Street. Sookie thought it would serve their purposes nicely. Chase wasted no time in thrusting her up against the wall and continuing where they had left off.

With her body pinned beneath his, his hands were free to roam over every inch of her. Sookie gasped and arched as his questing fingers explored her curves; hell, she was pretty sure she purred. Their kisses now were a series of short collisions as they tried to multitask. She grasped the collar of his shirt and attempted to pull it over his shoulders in the same instant Chase shoved his hands up under her shirt. The branding heat of his palms against her bare skin was a delicious shock, and Sookie cried out with surprise.

"Shhh," Chase hissed. He caught her mouth in his, and his fingers delved their way beneath the underwire of her bra. Her nipples were already hard despite how warm it was; it was because of the way Chase kissed her, a fact he discovered now for himself. He gripped her breasts, rolling the taut flesh. The rough massaging of his hands felt incredible, but it was when he backed off enough to pinch the flushed pink end of her left nipple that the sensation sparked and soared. Sookie bit down on her lower lip over another cry of delight.

Chase must have liked what he saw in her face. He pushed her shirt up and bent his head beneath her; the next instant, Sookie felt him draw her nipple into the wet, velvet paradise of his mouth. Her breath came in shallow, appreciative gasps. Further down, yet to be discovered by Chase, her underwear was getting soaked.

She reached for the front of his jeans and wrenched them open impatiently. The button flew off and sailed into the darkness of the alley, where it hit the ground with a little metallic ping! and rolled beneath the dumpster, never to be heard from again.

"Impatient little thing," Chase growled against her mouth. He strained closer, as eager to be free as Sookie was to get her hands on him. She found the length of his cock, long and hot and still swelling, and gasped along with him. She had figured from the way Chase carried himself that he was above average, but this just might be bigger than anything she had ever handled before.

"Surprised?" he asked her in breathless amusement

Sookie was trying to see between them in the dark, and now she glanced up sharply. "I've seen my fair share of these, Hotshot."

"Not what I meant."

Sookie decided not to dignify his fishing for compliments with a response. She tugged his cock a little more roughly than was necessary to get him out of his pants, and Chase hissed.

"Easy."

"I intend to be," she said mischievously.

"Nothing about trying to get into your pants thus far has been what I would consider easy," he pointed out. "Speaking of which . . ."

Sookie gasped and laughed as Chase lifted her up off the ground again. The way he manhandled her made her feel almost as weightless as she did when she flew. She undid her pants and pushed them down her legs. When he set her down again, their shirts quickly followed.

They stood apart for a moment to study one another in the dark. Sookie loved the way his eyes dragged over her bare curves, as if he could physically reach out and touch her with his gaze. He could touch her, very easily, but he seemed to be holding himself back. She wondered if he was trying to savor the sights as much as she was.

But this wasn't the time to halt activities. They could admire each other later, when they weren't both standing half-naked in a small-town alleyway that might or might not be infrequently trafficked by other people. Sookie pulled at him, and he attacked her mouth with new fervor. Her pulse sped. She knew what the intensity of his kisses meant. Chase ground his hips against hers, thrusting slowly. She wondered if he even noticed he did it. His erection felt as big as a battering ram against her inner thigh, and Sookie knew the intention behind it was the same.

"You packing?" she gasped when Chase next released her mouth.

He grinned at her in the dark. "You tell me."

"I meant a condom, genius."

His jeans still hung around his hips, and he reached now into his pocket to draw out a thin black package. He wagged it at her, and Sookie rolled her eyes.

"Ambitious of you."

"I like to be prepared," he said modestly.

"I meant the size."

"It's cute of you to worry if it will be enough to sheath my enormous cock." Chase bent beside her ear to whisper the words, hot breath ghosting along her face and neck. "But I think I'll manage to fit, somehow."

Sookie shivered at the promise. Now her panties had really outlived their usefulness. She dropped them like a bad habit as Chase unrolled his rubber. As soon as he was ready, he took hold of her and lifted her back up against the wall. Sookie threw a leg over his hip and straddled his waist, heart beating like a war drum in her chest. She felt the thick head of him press at her entrance. The pressure built, and then Chase slid a few inches inside her.

"You're so wet," he moaned. He eased in a few inches more.

Sookie's head fell back and struck the hard brick of the wall, but she barely noticed the pain. She couldn't bring herself to focus on anything other than Chase's thick cock, stretching and stretching her until she felt she would burst. Every time she thought he was in all the way, he gave her another inch. By the time he sank into her fully, she was shuddering. She wrapped her other leg around him and linked her ankles behind his back.

"Too much for you, Angel?" Chase's lips were still by her ear. His tone was teasing, but Sookie sensed the concern behind the question was real. She shook her head, then turned into his mouth.

"More," she breathed.

"Roger that," he murmured.

For a man who claimed to call the shots, he certainly took instruction well. Sookie wrapped herself around him as his hips began to move. His cock plunged deeper into her, and she moaned as he struck the sweet spot secreted within her that made her see bursts of starry silver behind her eyes. His next thrust sent her several inches up the wall, and she clutched for the back of his head. His mouth found her breast, bare and bouncing beneath her hiked bra, and he nipped her areola lightly with his teeth. The hot sweep of his tongue tasted the tender area in the next instant, in time to his thrust, and Sookie cried his name.

She had never screamed a lover's name before.

"You hear something?" There was another voice, suddenly. It sounded distant enough to be an ocean away, but Sookie pulled herself back from the brink of near orgasm (she never came this fast, normally!) and snapped to attention at once.

"Chase!" she hissed.

"Say my name, baby." He rutted into her, and Sookie had to rip her hand away from the back of his head to clap it down over her mouth and suppress a moan. Without any other means to warn him, she used her other hand to swat his head. He only seemed to get more into it then, and had her by both wrists before she could struggle against him anymore.

"Chase! There's someone outside the alley!"

For a man mid-fuck, he certainly reacted quickly to the possible news of being caught. He whisked her off the wall and carried her around behind the dumpster.

Sookie wrapped her legs tighter around him and buried her face in his neck, watching the smear of streetlight recede over his shoulder. The dumpster hid them completely as Chase backed them behind it and pressed her into the wall once more.

They froze together, holding their breath as one. Chase's cock was still buried inside her, and Sookie ached to wiggle her hips and regain that delicious friction. Her alerted brain was at complete war with what her body thought it needed. Chase, too, seemed to be having trouble concentrating. He kept nuzzling her temple, and the pressure of his hands on her arms was possessive. Even if they were discovered, Sookie had her doubts he would break apart from her until he’d finished.

The voices receded once more into the night. Chase began to rock into her once more, and she scrambled for a firmer grip. For the first time that evening, she was starting to think she had acted rashly, that she had made a mistake. What if they were discovered? Everyone in Cedar Springs would know that Sookie Logan had put out for a firefighter. She would never hear the end of the whispers. She would have to run again, if only to escape them—but she knew, deep down in her core, that she could never run far enough or fast enough to forget this night.

There was no going back. The sex sizzled. It was everything she had never known she needed from a man. It was too much.

"Chase!" she gasped again. Why fight her need to plead with him? His name still lingered in the air between them from when she had shouted it earlier.

His fingers manacled her wrists and pinned them above her head. His hips surged in a hypnotic rhythm, and she undulated to meet him, thrust for thrust, riding his cock like an expert. You'd think she'd done this before in the alleyway behind the Well, the way she carried on, but Sookie was convinced that they were the ones christening it there and then. She couldn't imagine anyone else from this small town going out on such a reckless limb.

"Fuck, I'm going to come." Chase gritted. His thrusts picked up. He flattened her against the wall with his chest, and Sookie couldn't have escaped him if she wanted to.

She held on for dear life as she felt her own orgasm start to build. His cock drove into her, relentless in its quest for completion, until there was no holding herself back anymore.

Sookie wailed as she came, a high, wordless cry that would be unmistakable in nature to anyone passing by. Pleasure rolled through her in waves that rippled all the way to her fingers. Her toes curled. Her thighs shook.

Maybe it was the way she clenched herself in that moment that put Chase over the edge. He buried himself inside her and held his position, snaking his arms around her and clutching her close. Sookie drew his left ear between her teeth and was rewarded with a gasp and shudder. Chase's fingers dug crescents into the flesh of her leg as he spent himself inside her. Sookie still rode the aftershocks of her own orgasm and enjoyed that she shared it with him.

He finally relaxed enough to slump against her. Sookie once more summoned the part of her brain that wasn't pure animal instinct in an attempt to gather her thoughts. She knew one thing right off the bat.

That was the best goddamn sex she had ever had.

She knew now what it meant to have her mind blown. It meant she couldn't readily think of what to say next. Words suddenly seemed much cheaper when you could communicate what Chase had done with his body alone. Sookie had never felt so worshipped, so wanted. It was a feeling she could get used to. It was a feeling probably best observed from a safe distance, bottled up in a viewing globe where it couldn't impress upon you or hurt you directly.

But it was too late now. Sookie had shattered the globe, and the truth of what Chase could make her feel raged uncontained. They had just shared their first thoroughly-good fuck, and already she was imagining a hundred and one other ways to lead Chase into temptation and do it all over again.

"We could be in town a while, you know," she murmured as Chase pulled away from her. "We could make this a regular thing."

"I knew you'd be a bad habit," he mused.

She laughed lightly, breathlessly, and was surprised when his hand came up to push a stray strand of disheveled hair from her face.

"We need to establish some rules," she said, all at once. She didn't know what it was about his gentle touch that startled her, but she suddenly felt like a jittery rabbit in negotiations with a fox. She needed to get a handle on the situation first. "No telling my brother. Obviously."

Chase groaned. "At least let me put my dick away before we start talking about Hank."

"You're the one who said you wanted something not serious," Sookie pointed out as Chase tucked himself away and zipped up the front of his pants. The metallic tear it made in the night air was so deliciously illicit that Sookie licked her lips. Sex with Chase had been phenomenal, but shadowy alcoves and secrecy was another component she intended to enjoy.

Because if she didn't have fun, and fun only, with this, she might actually stop to think about why she was doing this in the first place. It was the mental jigsaw puzzle she had tried to piece together last night, all over again.

Why had she let things escalate with Chase? Was it because he was arrogant and dead sexy and everything her heart warned her to stay away from—and everything her traitorous body wanted at the end of the night? Did her shitty relationship with Hank factor into the equation at all? She couldn't deny that Chase's appeal had increased the moment she learned he was a member of her brother's squad—but that was also admitting the appeal had been there to begin with.

She liked Chase. A lot. That was a big problem. That's why rules were so important. A part of her suspected that she needed them more than he did, but she also couldn't shake the impression that he had his own wounds.

Rules, then, would help them pretend otherwise.

Chase grinned down at her in the dark. "Just a fling, then?"

Sookie nodded. "Absolutely. No strings attached, whatsoever."

"Because usually when I make this arrangement with a girl, things don't turn out the way we both agreed they would.”

"I told you, Hotshot," she said testily. "I'm not like any girl you've ever met before."

"You could say that again," Chase growled. His lips were on her neck again in the next instant, and Sookie sighed with pleasure.

She threaded her fingers through his short-cropped hair and let her head fall back. She gazed up at the Cedar Springs stars swimming above and lost herself in the moment. Chase's mouth was more than competent; it was well-versed in everything it did to her. It made her blood sing beneath the skin he nipped and sucked.

Please let this be a fling, she prayed to the smoke-obscured heavens above. I've tried for years to fly above it all. Please don't let me fall now.