The fire blazed out of control.

In her recent nightmares, Sookie had awakened in a cold sweat—a hard thing to accomplish most California nights at the height of summer—haunted by images of the wildfire raging all around her. She wasn't alone; the Hawk was grounded there with her, but no matter how hard she tried, no matter what she did or the desperate tricks she pulled, she couldn't get her beloved bird into the air. She was trapped in the cockpit, strapped in . . . she had retreated as far as she could go, and the inferno was bearing down on her on all sides. The glass cracked, and the sweat vaporized off her skin, and then . . .

It was over. She woke up.

This time, the fire wasn't a dream.

"Look at that!" Raj gave a low whistle into his mic, one that Sookie wasn't sure the copilot even realized he’d vented, but she had to agree with his sentiment.

At least I'm the air, she thought as she circled the burning blaze in her Hawk. She had always felt powerful beneath the spinning propellers, like she could slice the atmosphere to pieces if she had to, but no amount of fanciful thinking on her part could change the reality unfolding below her. The fire had more than crept, it had jumped—across a river, to be exact—and now raged beyond what any of them had expected or predicted. Must have been the wind, she thought, carrying a spray of embers across the water to ignite the trees on the other side . . .

"Sook? You there?" Hank's voice crackled over her headset.

"Hank!" she breathed. "Thank God. We lost communication when you went into that last patch."

"Don't thank God for me yet," her brother advised, and it was only then that Sookie realized she had said it out loud. She wondered what her brother would think of that . . . if they had had time to think at all in this situation.

She quickly filled him in on what she was seeing and heard in return the immediate cold acceptance in her brother's voice. "We had guessed it might jump," he said. "Listen, Sook, I can't stay on this line for long. Just wanted to tell you the squad's en route and coming to back you up."

The squad? Sookie's pulse beat in her ears louder than the wind—almost louder than Hank's voice. Chase.

Of course he would be there. What did she think he was in town for? Hadn't they bragged to each other these past weeks about their individual progress on this fire, almost as much as they’d wrestled between the sheets?

"Sook? You read me?"

"Loud and clear," Sookie affirmed as soon as she could be sure her voice sounded the same on both counts. "Be safe out there."

"See you back at the base. Over and out."

Several hours later, she touched down in the Black Hawk, and then she did something totally inadvisable: She launched herself out of the cockpit almost before the wheels touched the pad, leaving Raj and Frank to deal with the mop-up. She didn't have to search long. Hank, Garrett, and Chase were talking just inside the shade of the hangar, their expressions sober. Only Hank had taken his helmet off. They looked almost as if they were about to head right back out.

"Chase!" Sookie shouted his name, louder than she intended, but no sound came out. She realized belatedly that she still wore her noise-cancelling headphones and wrenched them off her head. Chase turned, and when he saw her, he started toward her—only Sookie got to him before he could take a half-dozen steps.

She stopped just short of barreling into him. Hank gave them both a long, irritated look, but then he left without a word. It was progress . . . in as much as Sookie thought Hank was capable of progress.

For a wild moment, she caught herself wanting to leap into Chase's arms. She knew from the look on his face that he'd be ready for it, too. Maybe he wanted it even more than she did. Instead, Sookie breathed in deeply and tried to focus on slowing her racing heart. "Everything all right?" she asked him.

"It's fine," Chase said. "Hank's just . . . probably trying to ignore the fact that we're screwing. He has to know by now."

Sookie shook her head, amusement tugging at the edges of her lips. "I meant you. Are you all right?"

"Hell, yes. Never been better!" He drew her in against him, for once heedless of who might be watching. "You know that fire's no match for us!"

Sookie loved the way he said us, obviously including more than just his squad, and she loved it even more when he took his helmet off and tipped it down over her eyes. "I was going to tell you not to get a big head, but too late," she remarked as she pushed it back up.

The way he was gazing at her, she thought he would kiss her right then and there on the tarmac . . . but whatever impulse she saw flicker in his eyes, he resisted it. She had done the same when she didn't run right into his arms, she reminded herself, in an attempt to not feel too disappointed. "You’re filthy," she pointed out.

"So I've been told."

She sighed. "No, I mean really filthy. Outwardly dirty. Physically unclean. Dermatologically—"

"I get the picture, nerd." Unable to pull her any closer, Chase settled for grinding his pelvis against hers, and she giggled, actually giggled, a bubbling laugh she had worked for years to suppress. She glanced around quickly, half to be sure no one had seen the lewd move, and half to be sure that no one had heard her. "Question is, what are you going to do about it?" Chase asked her.

"I have a few ideas."

The first idea Sookie had was totally unsexy, and that was to complete her landing checklist, so she gave Chase a playful shove, paired with a wicked look that promised, Later, and headed back out to the chopper.

Frank was waiting for her, impatiently tapping his foot, his wisps of hair askew as if he had just been blown by a strong wind (which, considering his constant proximity to the helicopters, he had). He thrust the clipboard into her chest and turned to stoop beneath the Hawk to start registering complaints. Meanwhile, Raj looked pointedly toward the hangar and then back at Sookie, giving her a grin and a discrete thumbs-up, before apparently becoming completely absorbed in his own copy of the checklist.

She reunited with Chase afterward, and the two of them went back to her place. There was no chance of them going to the temporary lodgings Chase shared with the rest of the squad. While Sookie's housing situation was equally temporary, the little one-bedroom afforded them some privacy, at least, to go at it like rabbits in the off-hours.

Chase had been over almost every night since their first encounter in the Well's alleyway. It was getting harder and harder to sleep restfully through the nights he wasn't there, though Sookie had already convinced herself that her nightmares were completely unrelated to the stress she felt when Chase wasn't there. It was good to have another body beside you, that was all, even if Chase's base temperature tended to burn them both up like he was a human furnace. Clothes rarely factored into their nightly routine anymore. It was the first time in her life Sookie had ever consistently slept naked, and there was really no going back to a camisole and cotton shorts after that. She supposed she would, one day, when the National Guard assigned her somewhere cold, and her fling with Chase was just a distant memory.

But she chose not to think about that now.

"Come on, Hotshot." As soon as they got home (and she really needed to stop thinking about it as home), Sookie took him by the hand and led him to the shower. Chase went obediently.

She ran the water and undressed him slowly. He let her do it, watching her with a curious expression all the while. Sookie staunchly avoided looking him too closely in the face. She was afraid of what she might find there.

She wasn't sure if it was the weight of Chase's look she feared more, or the way her heart clenched every time she thought too hard about how things could have gone differently today—whatever it was, it made her eyes slip off his face time and again. She focused on the task at hand.

As soon as he was completely naked, Sookie stripped out of her own clothes. Steam rose from the shower, although she hadn't cranked it too hot. She backed into the tub and drew Chase along with her.

She started slow. She lathered the bar of soap in her hands, then worked the lather into his face, neck, and shoulders. Her fingers didn't shy from any of the territory, and they weren't gentle. Chase groaned at the deep intensity of her massage, and beneath the water, Sookie felt his muscles start to slowly relax.

He had been carrying a hell of a lot of tension. It was only then she realized how good he normally was at hiding it.

He watched her, head bent, water streaming off his forehead. She still tried not to look at him too closely, but when he caught her wrist and paused her activities, it couldn't be helped. When he captured her chin, she raised it. When his lips lowered, hers soared to meet him. The inside of his mouth was hotter than the shower they were sharing. She tasted the darkness of the coffee they had both downed at the station that morning, and smelled more than a hint of the smoke still clinging to him despite her best efforts to get it off him. Gray water swirled down the drain between them as the ash that streaked his hair and face slowly bled away.

Sookie hadn't intended to have sex. It had just seemed like the most logical thing, to share a shower and conserve water. But she could feel Chase's erection butting its way between her thighs, and she knew the monster had intentions of its own. A guiding hand on her waist turned her around, and she complied, pulse hammering with excitement.

His fingers found her slit and pried it open. Sookie moaned and wiggled against him. Chase slowly inserted one digit, and then two, stretching her in preparation. Her clit throbbed, and he found that, too. He pressed and rolled the hard bead of flesh with his thumb until Sookie moaned again.

She reached behind herself, grasping for him, unwilling to wait any longer. Her fingers closed over his cock and guided it to her. His dome slotted itself at the entrance to her passage, and Chase eased his way inside.

It was slow going at first. The shower was significantly more cramped than the alley where they’d first hooked up, and the water made it difficult to find purchase, but Sookie braced herself against the wall and arched her spine as best she could. She was rewarded for her efforts when Chase's cock slipped all the way inside her. He groaned with surprise at the ease with which he penetrated. Sookie threw her head back, wet hair whipping behind her.

Chase thrust into her, and his plunges matched the driving of the water pelting down onto her back. Sookie moaned. The acoustics of the shower amplified the noise, and the noise amplified the intensity of Chase's desire.

"Mmm!" The force of his next thrust nearly flattened her face against the wall. "Ah! Ah!"

"Yeah, baby. Come on, baby," he coaxed behind her.

"Yes! Just like that . . . oh God, yes," she answered him. His hands were on the slippery slope of her ass, digging in hard, cutting her pleasure with a delicious spark of pain. Their flesh slapped together, harder, faster, until even her wild cries couldn't drown out the sound completely. She threaded a hand down between her legs, eager to touch herself, and her fingers forked around his cock as he slammed its girth inside her again and again. Feeling how big he was, how he filled her, was almost enough to make her pass out.

"Oh God, Chase, I'm going to come!" she shouted.

He didn't relent. His thrusts picked up the pace as she went rigid in his grasp. He jackhammered, hips pumping, as Sookie cried and fell hard over that final ledge.

Orgasm erupted inside her, impossibly huge, so big a sensation that she didn't think her body could possibly hold it. She moaned and trembled all over as her fingers worked herself between her legs, milking every last jolt. Chase was like a machine, never stopping, never ceasing, not a single hitch in his unabating rhythm. To Sookie's astonishment, she could feel something starting to build inside her again.

"Oh, fuck," she moaned. "Oh, Chase, yes . . .!"

"Come with me this time, baby." He wrapped a hard arm around her sternum and pulled her in close. Her breasts bounced with the force of his driving hips. He exhaled a loud moan, completely unrestrained, and his obvious pleasure alone was enough to put her over.

He shot his load as Sookie came again in the same instant, soaring high and spiraling down, down, like the milk-white threads of Chase's seed that swirled down the drain.

It was all she could do to keep herself standing upright after that. She was so totally spent that she would have collapsed beneath him, if it weren't for Chase's arm keeping her firmly affixed in place. She stayed standing, enjoying the warm, solid feel of him behind her. He placed a kiss on her shoulder, and Sookie turned her head to catch his lips lazily with her own. "Mmm," she mumbled. It was all she could manage until intelligible words returned to her.

"Yeah," Chase agreed.

They waited to get out until the water ran cold. Chase kept a duffle bag at her house, now, with a change of clothes. Sookie kicked it out from beneath the bed for him as she sat down to towel her hair off. She supposed she could spare one of the dresser drawers for him, but it seemed counterproductive to the fast and fleeting nature of their fling. It seemed like a step in the wrong direction, somehow . . . still, she kept thinking about extending the invitation, and suspected she would, eventually. It just makes sense, she assured herself. Like the shower.

Chase didn't pick up his bag immediately. He gazed at her perched on the bed. He seemed to have forgotten she could see him doing it.

"What's that look for?" You've been wearing it all day, she thought. It was the look she hadn't let herself notice until now.

"You're just beautiful." Chase's tone was unapologetic. Sookie stared. He nodded, shrugged, and turned away to get dressed. She knew it hadn't been a casual observation, though. A man didn't say something out of the blue like that, with that much ease, if he hadn't been thinking about it for a long time.

It had been the comment of someone who was getting attached.

Sookie's heart stammered in its rhythm. It was on the tip of her tongue to remind Chase to keep his distance emotionally. She would just be watching his back for him, same as she did out on the grid. He would probably thank her for it . . . but instead of issuing a warning, Sookie rose and crossed to him.

Chase turned, and his arms came up to receive her as she slipped her own around his neck. She kissed him, long and lingering. When she drew back, his eyes were hooded, and she knew it had been as good for him as it had been for her.

"What was that for?" Chase asked her.

"Nothing in particular," she lied. Hearing herself say it out loud was important.

"I've got half the day off tomorrow," he mentioned. "How would you feel about getting out of town? Not far, just . . . a little way out?"

Sookie thought about it. "I'm on duty . . ." she said slowly. "But I can trade my spot on the roster and meet you after, if that works."

Chase's lip curled in a crooked smile. "It's a date," he said.

Sookie swatted his bicep. "We'll have to come up with another term for it."

"Why? It's what I intended. To ask you on a date."

Her mouth went dry, suddenly, unexpectedly. She should call him out, work herself up to anger. Chase watched her war with herself.

"I said it on purpose, Sookie," he reiterated.

Break it off! the rational voice inside her shouted, so loud she was surprised Chase couldn't hear it himself. Break it off now, Sookie, or let yourself be the one broken!

She knew the danger. She knew ending the fling, here and now, would be the cruel—and right—thing to do. And wasn't that the point of a fling? To be able to terminate it at a moment's notice without causing all the damage and destruction that came with an actual failed relationship.

I can't, the irrational voice inside her argued helplessly. I can't. And she knew it was the voice she didn't want to listen to that spoke the truth.

Like the fire today, the situation with Chase had taken an unexpected turn. It could wreak havoc on her, maybe even destroy her. She wished the wrong thing didn't feel so damn right in this instance.

"Okay . . . it's a date, then. It better be fucking epic, though," she quipped.

Chase grinned. "All right. I can do epic. But you gotta dress up."

"How the hell am I supposed to manage that with you around?" Sookie laughed, because now Chase was on top of her on the bed, straddling her waist, taking the towel from her fingers and guiding her down onto her back.

"Good question. I regret I don't have an answer for you," he said between fervent kisses. "I'm sure you'll come up with something."