Meredith flipped her long strawberry-blonde hair and let out a sexy trill of laughter. “I would hope so.”
“Ryan,” Katie interrupted. “You know there’s going to be fifty girls here. How many firemen does it take to make one drink?”
“When it’s Sex on the Beach, the more the merrier,” he answered without missing a beat.
“Ha ha.”
But Bridget and Meredith both laughed until they cried.
“Not to worry,” Ryan told Katie under his breath. “We have a different system worked out for multiple, simultaneous drinks.”
Katie gulped. Did he have to make everything sound dirty?
Dirty, it turned out, was the name of the game at Meredith’s bachelorette party. The girls came swarming in, wearing outfits straight out of a strip club, and went right for the hunky firemen and their drinks. Katie knew some of them, and they knew her. She got a lot of “Look at Bridget’s little sister!”
Meredith’s brother, who worked at a consumer electronics store, had loaned them a pair of top-of-the-line speakers for the night. Bridget plugged in her iPod, and the sound of Lady Gaga shook sprinkles of plaster off the wall of the old Hair of the Dog.
Instant party. Ro-ro-ro-ro-rom . . . Meredith grabbed Bridget and they began swiveling and thrusting to the beat. In a few moments, the bar had turned into a sea of sexy moves and the walls shook with the combined voices of fifty girls singing along to “Bad Romance.” So this was what Katie been missing all those years she’d been hanging out playing Guitar Hero with Doug. She had to admit, it looked like fun.
Katie quickly figured out she wouldn’t last long in the high-heeled shoes Bridget had made her wear. She kicked them off and padded around the bar in her sparkly tights, delivering crab cakes and platters of hummus and pita.
Once the party was in full swing, the firemen were too busy to pay any attention to Katie. They all got busy pouring drinks and dazzling the girls with their smiles, not to mention their physiques. They sure were efficient when it came to drink deliveries. As the evening blurred into drunken revelry, Katie felt like a fly on the wall of a million flirtations.
“I’ll have a G-Spot, straight up,” a redhead in a tube top asked Vader. “Do you know what that is?”
“Honey, I invented the G-Spot.” Vader leered.
“Seriously? The drink or the, you know . . . ?”
“Both. At the same time. With one hand tied to a bedpost.”
“You’re so cute! Oh my God, isn’t he adorable?”
“I think this one’s adorable,” her friend purred at Stud.
Fred turned red and stuck his head in the bartender manual. “A G-Spot is raspberry liqueur, orange juice, and Southern Comfort.”
“No coming on to the guests,” hissed Ryan after the girls had left with their drinks.
“Are you fucking kidding me? A girl asks me for a G-Spot, what am I supposed to say?”
“Just . . . don’t get crazy.”
“Crazy? Have you seen these girls? It’s like Bridesmaids Gone Wild in here. And check out the bride!”
Meredith and another girl were now dancing on a table, batting around balloons.
“Bridget, are you trying to tell me something? Should I be insulted?” Meredith shouted down to the crowd.
Bridget wasn’t drunk enough to tolerate a lapse from perfection. “What’s the matter? Whatever it is, I’ll fix it.”
“There’s a balloon with a dog face up here! I think it’s barking at me! Ruff, ruff!”
Meredith grabbed the dangling string of a big balloon that looked like Clifford the Big Red Dog.
Bridget aimed a sapphire glare at Katie. “What is that?”
“Sorry!”
“ ’T’s okay,” called Meredith. “I always wanted a dog. Don’t have to feed this one.”
“No, you just have to blow it!” someone shouted. Meredith nearly fell off the table from laughing. Ryan stationed himself beneath her, moving as she moved, ready to catch her. When she saw that, she launched herself into the air. Everyone screamed as she swan dived into his arms.
Even though he instantly put her on her feet, she clung to him, feeling his arms and shoulders. Katie held tight to her serving tray. It wouldn’t do to hurl shrimp cocktail at the guest of honor.
Someone turned the music up. The partying went into turbo drive. One girl twirled a pair of red pantyhose overhead and let it fly. It landed on Joe the Toe, who tossed it to Stud, who turned bright red and handed it off the Vader. Vader tied it around his head like a bandanna.
Katie had to admit that muscleman Vader was the hit of the party. Carlos came in a close second. Ryan, for some reason, was lying low. As the energy in the room skyrocketed, he looked more and more nervous.
“I don’t know if we should go through with it,” she overheard him tell Bridget.
“You’d better.” She jabbed him with her forefinger. “A deal’s a deal.”
“But look at these girls. I’m not sure it’s safe. I don’t want my guys hurt.”
Katie couldn’t help butting in. “What are you guys talking about?”
“You’re about to see,” said Bridget. “Right, Ryan? You can’t back out now. I promised Meredith the best surprise of her life.”
Ryan sighed, then signaled to the other firemen. In a flash, they abandoned the bottles of vodka and jiggers of Kahlua and disappeared into the kitchen.
“What’s going on?” Katie tried to follow Ryan, but Bridget dragged her in the other direction, toward the gyrating girls.
“Come on, let’s get a front-row seat.”
“For what?”
“Listen up, girls!” Bridget turned down the music to get their attention. “The Bachelor Firemen of San Gabriel are about to give us a verrrry special performance in honor of our bride-to-be, Meredith. So hold on to your panties. Make yourselves comfortable. Oh, and you might want to grab some dollar bills.”
A shriek of excitement swept across the room. Everyone seemed to know what was about to happen except Katie. Dollar bills? Were they getting a nice tip together for the guys?
Bridget selected a song on her iPod, then turned the stereo to rock-out level. A familiar bass line throbbed through the bar. Then the guitar joined in, and the Talking Heads sang out, something about getting what you’re after.
The door from the kitchen swung open and Vader strutted through it, followed by the other firemen dancing in a conga line behind him. They wore their firemen’s helmets and big, goofy grins. The women screamed at the top of their lungs. Katie felt a sound coming from her own mouth. She was shrieking like the others, through a huge smile she couldn’t control. They were so damn cute, all of them, cute and muscular and sexy, and God, she wanted to eat them up.
The men danced—fumbled might be more accurate—their way to the end of the bar. But instead of coming around front, they jumped on top of it, one by one, until all five stood gyrating their hips to the sounds of “Burning Down the House.”
“Oh my gawwwd,” Katie heard herself yell, as if possessed. Bridget rushed the bar and stuck a wad of bills in Vader’s waistband. His lip curled up in a hound dog kind of way. On cue, all five men jumped a hundred and eighty degrees so their backsides faced the girls. They swung their hips from side to side, not perfectly synchronized, but close enough so Katie realized with the nonfrenzied part of her brain that they must have practiced this routine.
Which made her love it even more.
What were they doing now?
They did a slow, sexy twist to face frontward again. “Look out below!” Vader yelled.
Oh my God, they were handing off their helmets to the closest girls, who scrambled to grab them. Katie was too mesmerized to move. Then the men put their hands to the bottom edge of their T-shirts and lifted up, up, up in time to the beat of the music. Ryan’s broad, tanned chest was unveiled, inch by tantalizing inch. She couldn’t seem to drag her eyes away from Ryan to check out the other guys.
They did another hundred
-and-eighty-degree turn so their backs faced the girls. She stared, hypnotized, at the rippling muscles under Ryan’s taut skin. God, he was absolutely chiseled. Her heart hopped into her throat.
Once again they turned to face their screaming audience. The men crooked their fingers at the girls who held their helmets. A pretty blonde had Ryan’s helmet. With sheer magnetism and a playful smile, he drew her toward him, looking deep into her eyes.
“Warned you,” said Bridget in her ear. Then . . . “Now for the fun part.”
Chapter Thirteen
Ryan took his helmet from the curly-haired girl, who couldn’t seem to stop hyperventilating. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. He put his helmet back on his head and shot a sidelong glance at Joe the Toe next to him. Joe, who most definitely could dance, had lifted a buxom blonde onto the bar next to him. He ground his crotch into hers.
The music shifted to “Bringing the Sexy Back.” He caught Joe’s eye, and gave the nod. Joe lowered the girl to the floor and put his hands to his zipper.
The sound level went up another ten decibels as all five men eased down their black chinos.
Trying his best to synchronize with the others, Ryan scooted his pants down to below his knees, then kicked them out into the crowd. Five pairs of pants went flying through the air and fifty screaming women scrambled after him. Make that forty-nine. Katie looked too shell-shocked to scramble. She seemed to be the only one actually looking at him at the moment. More accurately, looking at his crotch.
She peered at his boxers, an incredulous look spreading across her face. He didn’t blame her. How often did you see five grown men dancing on a bar wearing pink boxer shorts? With words printed on them? She stepped closer, obviously trying to read the writing.
Uh oh, her scrutiny was making him hard. The last thing he wanted was a major boner at eye level to fifty excited women. To distract himself, he looked over at the guys. Stud’s face looked as pink as his boxers, but since he had three women jumping around in front of him, the embarrassment seemed worth it.
Vader kept flexing his biceps and roaring like Tarzan. He did some trick with his stomach muscles that kept the girls riveted. Carlos, surprisingly, kept things low-key. Until he turned around and wiggled his butt, pointing at the writing on his ass. The girls shrieked and crowded around the bar so they could read what it said.
Oops, he’d missed the cue. He spun around so his rear was to the girls. He wiggled in time with Joe the Toe.
“ ‘Meredith plus John,’ that’s what it says,” he heard someone yell. Cheers rose up from the crowd. He smiled. Exactly how they were supposed to react. “What about the front?”
“Turn around, turn around!”
“No, take it off, take it off!”
The chant filled the room. “Take it off, take it off!”
He looked at the other guys. They’d decided to wait until the last minute to determine if they would go all the way. He hadn’t promised Bridget anything more than a fun striptease.
“I’ll kick in an extra thousand dollars if you take it all off,” she’d said. “Just like in the movie.”
He’d seen The Full Monty, and he’d put his firemen up against those guys any day. But he’d told Bridget to keep her money. If they went all the way, it would be for the fun of it and if it felt right when the moment came.
Now the moment was here. He cocked his head at the other men. Joe was the first to nod. All down the line, nothing but nods.
He gave a shrug. Full Monty, coming up. He moved to the beat, waiting for the line that was their cue. Something about burning up . . . there it was.
With his left hand, he plucked his helmet off his head and covered his crotch with it. With his right, he pulled down one side of the boxers to reveal one butt cheek.
Shrieks of excitement nearly deafened him.
He switched hands and pulled the other side of his boxers down. He looked down the line to see how the other guys were doing. They were all fighting to keep a straight face as they waggled their bare asses around.
He gave a nod. They all jumped around again, helmets held tight over their dicks, and shimmied like a row of ducks shaking off water. Ryan felt his boxers slide down his legs. When the cloth reached his feet, he extracted one foot, then used the other to lift the boxers into the air and kick them into the crowd.
A sea of hands clawed for the pink underwear. The curly-haired girl, who also happened to be half a head taller than the others, snagged them easily. “I got ’em, I got ’em!”
But no one was paying attention. How could they, when five naked men were dancing to the beat wearing nothing but firemen’s helmets? The girls went crazy, clutching at each other and jumping up and down. In the middle of the crowd, Meredith was laughing so hard, tears were streaming down her cheeks.
Time to wrap things up.
At the line about watching your back, they spun around one more time, bare asses toward the girls. Vader’s helmet tumbled to the bar and bounced off into the crowd. By his smirk, Ryan knew he’d done it on purpose. Ryan kept a tight grip on his own helmet, hoping it covered everything.
As one, the firemen jumped off the bar into the bartender’s domain. Stud led the way through the swinging door into the kitchen.
“Hot damn!” Vader leaned against the stainless steel counter, letting it all hang out. Nothing Ryan hadn’t seen before. Firehouses didn’t keep a lot of secrets.
Still panting from the striptease, Ryan shushed him so he could hear the reaction from the bar. The buzz of shrieks and the last beats of the Justin Timberlake song were punctuated by the sound of girls yelling out the words from the boxers.
“It says ‘Too Hot to Handle’? Oh my God, too cute!”
“Mine says ‘Fire Me Up.’ ”
“Ohh, I want that one! Gimme that one! I get to choose, I’m the bride.”
Stud looked at Ryan. “They’re all different?”
“I couldn’t decide. Yours was ‘Light My Fire.’ ”
“Really?” Stud looked pleased. “Cool. I wish I could keep mine. I bet chicks would dig it.”
Joe the Toe snorted. “I, on the other hand, have no intention of ever again donning a pair of pink underwear featuring the words, ‘Stand Next to My Fire.’ And Meredith and John can keep their names off my big black ass.”
“I thought it was a nice touch,” said Carlos, rummaging through his duffel bag for his other clothes. “My fiancée would have gone nuts over it. I may have to hire you chicos for another performance.”
“Count me in,” said Vader instantly.
“Don’t you want to know what your boxers said?” Ryan asked him. Vader showed no signs of wanting to get dressed. The guy was a freaking exhibitionist.
“ ‘Too Hot to Handle,’ of course.” He clenched his abdominal muscles so they quivered.
“Nope. I made a special one for you. It said ‘Burn Genitals Burn.’ ” Ryan tried to keep a straight face, but Vader’s horrified expression didn’t make it easy.
Vader grabbed his duffel bag and covered his crotch with it. “Damn it, Hoagie, you know I tested negative. I posted the results on Facebook.”
As the other firemen cracked up, Ryan finally winked. “Don’t get your nonexistent panties in a wad. Yours said ‘Feel the Heat.’ ”
“ ‘Feel the Heat.’ I dig it.” Repeating it under his breath, Vader finally started getting dressed. “I might make that my new motto. ‘Vader Brown. Feel the Heat.’ Might be a waste of time to put clothes on. They’re going to rip them off as soon as I get back out there.”
Carlos buttoned his shirt. “I gotta go home, Hoagie, or my girl will kill me.”
“You don’t have to stay. We’re done here. What happens from here on out is your business.” Ryan held up a hand. “Don’t ask, don’t tell. And thanks to you all for a job well done. Best damn strip show in town.”
The men, some still only partly dressed, slapped hands. It was almost, in a weird way, like the shared satisfaction of putting out a fir
e.
Carlos heaved his duffel over his shoulder and headed for the back door. “Don’t get into too much trouble, dudes. If you do, don’t tell me about it. Don’t want to know. Just don’t want to know.” The door slammed shut.
“I’ll stay for a while, if anyone else is. You guys staying?” Stud looked around anxiously.
“What do you think, squirt? I got two blondes and a redhead with my name on them.” Vader put an arm on Stud’s shoulder and dragged him, still zipping his pants, out the door.
Joe the Toe buttoned his shirt. “If you want that girl, you’d better do some quick talking.”
“What girl? What do you mean?”
“Oxford, remember?” Joe tapped his head. “Besides, I’m a black man in a white man’s world. I see things. You like her.”
Ryan shrugged on his shirt. “There’s fifty knockouts out there. Why waste time with the one who doesn’t want me?”
“Despite my subsequent dismissal of my initial impression, maybe you are as dumb as you look.”
Ryan gave Joe the Toe a hard look. “That’s a lot of big words to hide a half-assed insult in.”
“My apologies. Next time I’ll aim for the entire ass.”
Ryan snorted. “Thanks for the warning.”
“You’re welcome. Here’s another one. That girl wants you so badly she doesn’t know what to do with herself. And you’re right there with her. Why would you go through all these shenanigans if you didn’t feel something for her?”
“Dude. It was a good deed. I wanted to help her out.”
“You’re all heart.” Joe the Toe rapped him on the head. “And perhaps some brains, all evidence to the contrary. Party time.”
Joe dove through the swinging door. The sound of music and laughter came in waves as the door swung back and forth in his wake.
Ryan slowly finished dressing. So Katie liked him, according to Joe. A lot. And according to Joe, he liked her. Of course, he’d already known that. He liked hanging out with her. He wanted to help her out. And on top of all that, he wanted her. In bed.
So what was the problem? Why did all this make him panicky?
Maybe it was the combination. It was one thing to like Katie, to like her a lot. Another to want to sleep with her. Both things together sounded like big trouble.
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