“Fancy meeting you here,” he said when I finally reached him.

“Fancy that,” I sassed back.

I tried monumentally hard to force my eyes to behave, but they were currently mapping the extensive breadth of his chest without my permission. As a matter of fact, they’d found their newest obsession, tracking the descent of a drop of water that looped around his navel and froze midway down his happy trail.

“What brings you here, Cola?”

I jerked my gaze back to his mischievous grin, contemplating ways to torture my best friend.

I was also debating whether leaning forward and licking him would be inappropriate. “Um, learning fire safety?”

His bark of laughter and dimpled smile detonated somewhere inside my chest and melted my insides into warm goo. Which, of course, drew my attention to his beautiful mouth and the fact that he intended to kiss me with that mouth on our next date.

“Let me guess,” he finally said, amusement still prevalent in every word. “Marly?”

“So, I’ve been wondering if stretching her on a rack would be forgiven by local law enforcement. Do you think they’d give me a free pass, considering,” I waved my hand at him and the surrounding scene behind him, “all this?”

“By this, you mean dragging you to watch a dozen firemen strut around without their shirts on?”

“So y’all do know that half of Green Valley’s womenfolk are gawking at you from across the street, right? Only half of which are actual moms of the scouts? If that.”

He nodded and exhaled a sigh, but that wicked smile remained in place. “Chief McClure said it’s a local tradition, and the fine ladies of Green Valley also donate generously to our annual fundraiser, so we just do as we’re told.”

“Basically, this is a Magic Mike show, minus the actual lap dances, where you get your tips at a later time.”

He edged closer, my eyes betraying me once again to dip down along his beautiful body, realizing that delectable drop of water had slipped down into the holy land.

“I’ll give you a lap dance for free if you like, Lola.”