But I have to ask. “Are you okay?”
The question has her looking at me like I’m an idiot. “Fine.”
I gesture toward the bat. “You sure?”
“Yes.” She blows out her breath in a big huff, making her bangs dance around her face. I’m not sure how she got just parts pink, but it’s a talent.
“So you’re totally, completely good.”
She holds up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
And as if that’s not bad enough, seeing her tuck her pinky finger into her thumb and make the perfect space for my dick to play slip-and-slide, she sticks her tongue out at me. Hell yeah, my dick bellows. My inner caveman demands we toss her over our shoulder and find a mattress stat.
Time to go.
“You’re safe up here.” I have no idea where the fuck those words come from. They sort of slip out and I can practically see them hanging in the air between us. They also translate nicely into you fucking idiot. Sarah Jo’s fuckhot and more than a little sweet, but she’s made her disinterest in me—in any part of me, enormous hose included—perfectly clear and I have a hands-off, eyes-only date with a dancer named Candy Jones anyhow.
Sarah Jo blinks at me and chews on her lower lip as she processes my promise. She’s got a streak of caramel on her lower lip; she must have stolen the last Twix. I’m not sure how it happens, but my thumb swipes gently at the sticky spot. I’d rather lick her clean—and then lick her dirty for good measure. Too much? Yeah. I think so, too. She’s barely met me.
“You want to come with us?” I’m not sure where that idea came from. It’s not like there’s some kind of hard-and-fast rule that tit owners dance on stage and non-possessors-of-tits cool their junk in the audience, but I can’t remember ever seeing a girl watching the show. But maybe Sarah Jo’s the kind of person who likes breaking barriers. Maybe watching some girl shake her stuff is exactly what she likes to be doing best.
“To Tits Up?” She’s not scared anymore. Nope. She’s fucking shaking with laughter. Good to know I’m no longer the big, bad wolf.
“We can hit the place up.” I grin at her. Fuck, she’s kind of fun when she’s not hiding in her clothes. “Grab a beer. See the show. My treat.”
“Pass.” She makes a face. “If I want to see boobs, I can look down the front of my shirt.”
“You could pretend to be disappointed,” I point out. “You know, you’re rough on a guy’s ego. First you scream and point when you see me, and now you won’t even let me buy you a beer.”
“At a strip club.” She gets busy untying her flannel shirt from her waist and covering up. Guess she’s definitely remembered that I have a dick.
“Huh.” I stand up as Colt lays on the horn again. If he abandons me here, it’s a long walk back to fire camp. “Well in the spirit of fairness, we could look at tits tonight and then next weekend we could ride over to Sacramento. Find the Chippendales or something so we can look at dick packages.”
And then she giggles. She looks me straight in the eye, her face lights up, and she makes this fantastically dorky, wonderful high-pitched heehaw of sound that’s better than a million porn moans of do me harder, big guy.
“You have a good night,” she says.
I already am.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I met the mother of my children. She didn’t know it yet, but Sarah Jo was about to become mine.
Chapter One
Sarah Jo
“Kiss the first hotshot you see. Whoever’s first in line, just lay one on him.” Rosalie waves her spatula for her emphasis, ponytail bouncing like an exclamation point. She’s the head cook at fire camp and my boss for the last few weeks, which means I’m supposed to do what she says. Somehow, I don’t think sexually harassing the hotshot firefighters was what HR had in mind.
Another cook mimes kissing, hooking a tanned arm around the neck of an imaginary lover. “A hot kiss, mind you. You’re not kissing your grandma. A little lip, a little tongue—that lucky boy won’t know what hit him. Nothing to it. And nothing you haven’t done before, I bet.”