Hiding with the Mountain Man (Rosewood Ridge Fire #5)

Chapter 2

2

MINA

I was safe. I was seated in the Rosewood Ridge fire hall with a guy so big and strong, he could take on an entire football team. He could easily restrain a scrawny, deranged male fan.

There was no need for me to be so worried. My friend had rented the cabin where I was staying in her name, so there wasn’t even a paper trail showing where I was.

Still, I couldn’t help but feel uneasy. He could find me. He’d find a way. He’d tracked me down to my parents’ house where I’d been staying for three months, desperately trying to finish this book that was due in three weeks.

Finally, I’d given up and gone into hiding. But even here in this small town, every noise outside my window terrified me. When I looked into doing some research at the fire department, I saw they were offering a citizen’s academy. It was the perfect way to hide out.

I wanted to hide out. I wanted to feel safe, if only for an hour a week.

“This is the uniform we’re assigned when we sign up to be volunteers,” the super-hot fireman, whose name was Wyatt, said.

I had to focus. My mind kept drifting to fantasies of kissing him. Feeling his arms around me. Getting him naked and doing things I’d never done before.

I kept wondering if he’d help me with my steamy scene research. I needed more help with that than the details of being a firefighter. But already, he had my mind going, and that was a good thing.

“You can change into it if you’d like,” the fireman said. “You know, get the full experience.”

That was so unexpected I didn’t respond at first. I just stared at him, probably making him uncomfortable.

But if he was uncomfortable, he didn’t show it. Instead, he held my stare in a way that made my heart beat a little faster. Okay, a lot faster. This guy was making my insides all jittery.

I started toward him. “Where do you want me to change?”

His mouth fell open a little and he didn’t speak. It made me wonder if he hadn’t expected me to jump at his offer. Maybe I struck him as someone who wasn’t adventurous.

He wouldn’t be wrong about that. I’d lived a very sheltered life and new situations terrified me. But they didn’t terrify me as much as a guy named Bruce Andrews. A guy who’d shown up on my doorstep not once, not twice, but at least ten times, claiming to be my biggest fan. My doorbell camera caught every single one of them.

“There’s a bathroom that way,” Wyatt said, pointing toward the door.

I paused. “You might need to be a little more specific.”

We were standing just a couple of feet from each other, and I smelled a hint of pine. Someone had taken a shower recently, and the scent was drawing me toward him.

“It’s just outside.” He nodded toward the door. “You can’t miss it.”

He still didn’t break our stare. Was he feeling this? There was a heat between us, like he was seconds from dropping the bundle of clothes in his hand and reaching out for me.

We could be naked in no time, me positioned against this desk, him entering me from behind as he grabbed onto my breasts.

Holy crap. I’d been writing too many steamy things lately. I could picture it vividly in my mind, and in my imaginings, I wasn’t a virgin.

That wasn’t the reality, though. He couldn’t just plunge into me like he did in my imagination. No, he’d have to go slowly because it would be painful. There might even be bleeding. Or so I’d heard. It’s hardly the stuff romance novels were made of.

He held pants, a T-shirt, and even some red suspenders. The funny thing was, he wasn’t wearing suspenders. Or even pants like the ones he was holding. He wore the Rosewood Ridge Volunteer Fire Department T-shirt, but he’d paired it with jeans.

“I’ll be right back,” I said with a nod as I reached out for the stack of clothes.

My hand brushed his hand during the transfer and warmth spiraled through me, going straight to the area between my legs. I’d written about this so many times in my books—this zing of electricity between two people—but deep down I’d always believed the real thing would never be like that.

I was right. It wasn’t like that at all. It was a thousand times better than I’d described.

I was almost grateful to slip from the room so I could catch my breath. I’d come here to feel safe, but suddenly my heart felt anything but. I could be majorly crushed if this guy didn’t feel the same attraction I did, and that might be worse than my deranged fan tracking me down.