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

Chapter 3

3

WYATT

M y lesson plan had us touring the fire station first. It was going nothing like I’d expected.

First, I’d planned to be leading at least a half-dozen people around. I’d also assumed crew members would be everywhere. Instead, nobody was here. We had the whole place to ourselves.

But the biggest surprise was my student. How was it possible Mina made even the firefighter uniform look hot?

“So how do we start up the lights and sirens?” she asked. “Or would that be too noisy?”

We were sitting in the front seat of the fire truck, and I’d shown her everything I could think of. The truth was, being so close to her made it tough to teach. My plan was to get her back to the classroom before I gave in to this urge to kiss her.

“You press the switch for the lights,” I said, reaching over to show her. “If you want sirens, you hit this one.”

She watched me as I spoke, and I swore her gaze drifted to my mouth a few times. Was she thinking about kissing me?

“It’s pretty noisy, though, especially in this small garage,” I said.

One corner of her mouth twitched upward, and she tilted her head slightly. “I’m not afraid to make a little noise. Are you?”

The combination of her words and her expression went straight to my dick. Blood rushed to that area, and I tried to make myself think of something else. Anything else.

I did not need a hard-on right now. Not when I had to stand up in front of her in our conference room after this tour was over.

“Not at all,” I said.

She ripped her gaze from mine and, with a smile, pressed the button to activate the lights, then the sirens. Even though I was prepared for the noise, I nearly jumped out of my skin when sirens began blaring. I just hadn’t expected it to be so loud. It was clear that I was especially jumpy right now, and she was the reason.

After a few seconds, she flipped off the lights and siren and asked, “What else can you show me?”

I showed her around the fire engine, suddenly aware of my erection painfully pressing against my zipper. I just hoped it would conceal it. It wasn’t very professional to have an erection in front of your female student. She might even claim harassment.

“Do we get to use the hose?” she asked once we’d stepped out of the fire truck and I was showing her the ladder and storage areas.

Her question made me aware of how close we were standing. Had I done that or had she? I couldn’t even remember how we’d gotten this way.

“Not this first lesson,” I said.

She smelled amazing. A light, fruity aroma. Was it apple? I couldn’t quite place it, but it made me want to pull her into my arms and hold her there.

“I was thinking my couple could have relations on the fire truck somewhere,” she said. “Maybe up there.”

She pointed toward the ladder, and I cleared my throat. It was feeling awfully dry. Relations. That was her polite term for sex.

I shook my head and pointed toward the corner of the garage. “Not here. There’s a camera right there. The chief is security conscious.”

“So you’d have to be out in the field for that to work,” she said.

She was still staring at the fire engine. Was she imagining where a couple could have sex? Maybe inside the cab, as I’d pictured when I was sitting in there with her.

The more important question, though, was whether the two of us were the couple in her fantasy. Maybe she was picturing her fictional characters, while I was thinking about the two of us.

I stared at the truck thoughtfully. “I’m not sure how that would work. We never go out on a call alone.”

“Maybe if my hero was taking it for a wash or repairs,” Mina said.

I shook my head. “We do all that here. You don’t exactly run a fire truck through a car wash or take it into the shop for service.”

“So you hire a mechanic?” she asked.

“We do the work ourselves. It just so happens the chief knows his way around a vehicle.”

“That means the chief would be able to get away with sex in the truck, but probably nobody else.” Mina looked back over her shoulder at the camera before returning her stare to the fire truck. “Hmm. Where else could a couple have sex in a fire hall?”

I sucked in a deep breath, still not looking over at her. I worried she’d see my thoughts written all over my face, and I certainly didn’t want to come across as a perv.

“I’ll show you around,” I said.

I gave a shrug, as though this conversation didn’t have my head spinning, and started walking, gesturing for her to follow. I showed her the fire pole that we rarely used, and she chewed her lip thoughtfully.

“Kind of like a stripper pole, don’t you think?” she asked.

I frowned at it. “I guess you could see it like that. Do they still call them stripper poles?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Maybe dancer poles? They teach classes on that sort of thing for fitness, you know.”

“Well, there you go. Maybe the woman in your book took classes, and now she can work a dancer pole.”

I showed her the kitchen area, but there was nothing all that special about it. She bit her lip as she looked around, and I wondered if she was imagining a couple having sex on the various surfaces. If she was imagining us having sex on the various surfaces. That image replaced the one I had of us in the cab of the truck.

Her eyes lit up as soon as we walked into the locker room. It was empty, but rows of cubbies filled with helmets and uniforms lined one wall.

“So you don’t keep these at home?” she asked.

“We don’t stay at the fire station like paid firefighters,” I said. “We have to be prepared to head straight to the location when a call comes in.”

Mina gestured to indicate the gear that surrounded us. “But there are uniforms here.”

“The chief gets everything cleaned for us. We drop it in that bin over there and pick up a fresh one.”

“Can he do my laundry?” she asked with a laugh. “Seriously, though, it has to be scary. Running into burning buildings and all.”

I shrugged. “Not too much of that in this town. But we’re first responders, so if someone has a heart attack or car accident, we’re dispatched to the scene.”

She was watching me as I spoke, and her eyes flashed. She saw me in an all-new light. At least that was how I interpreted the look. It made me want to continue to say things that impressed her.

“Can you put one on now?” she asked.

I frowned, not sure what she was asking. But she gestured, and I followed the direction of that gesture to the cubbies.

“You want me to put all that gear on?”

She nodded. “It’s part of my research. My hero will be in full gear when my heroine meets him. I want to see what that’s all about. I’ll go outside while you change.”

Not even waiting for my response, she turned and walked out of the locker room, leaving me standing there. Just how much research did she plan to do here?

Something else bothered me. Her use of the word hero. I wanted to be her hero, and I was ridiculously jealous over a fictional character that existed only in her head.