All Riled Up: Trapped! / Riley

She rolled her eyes. “You make yourself look defensive.” Her expression softened. “You make yourself look...well, lovesick.”

The humiliation of being jilted in front of half the town and all his friends and family would be burned on his brain for the rest of his life. It wasn’t the sort of thing that a man just got over.

It wasn’t the sort of thing that Ethan would ever forget.

Rosie took a step closer to him. “Getting drunk and picking up strange women is certainly not the behavior of a hero, a role model for the community.”

Because he didn’t like the way she looked at him, and he especially didn’t like the topic, Ethan backed up. “Screw that. I never asked to be called a hero.”

In fact, part of the reason he’d started drinking last night was the ceremony honoring him. It had been every bit as bad as he’d imagined. He’d felt ridiculous, the center of attention for the first time since the wedding. And he’d felt undeserving.

“Ethan.” Rosie’s tone chastised as she continued to advance, nearly backing him into the pantry. “You’re a firefighter and that’s heroic enough. But you risked your life to save those people.”

He sidestepped away from the pantry and found himself in a corner, next to the stove. “I did what any guy would have done, especially a firefighter. I did my job. That’s all there is to it.”

“In near-zero visibility? Knowing that the house could have collapsed at any moment?”

Ethan dropped his head back against the wall and stared at the ceiling. Three weeks ago when he’d entered the flaming residence, he hadn’t had heroism on his mind. Through the crackle of burning wood and shattering glass, he’d heard people calling, pleading for help. Their voices had been raw from the thick smoke, desperate. Weak. Ethan had simply reacted.

He’d done what he was trained to do.

It hadn’t been easy to carry the man out while dragging the teenage son. Everything was ablaze, the smoke so dense he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. He’d made his way through, inch by inch, but he’d managed, and they’d all lived. He was grateful for that—and embarrassed that so much hoopla had been made about it. He didn’t ever again want to find himself as the focus of a crowd; it always reminded him of that awful wedding day when he’d been left standing alone at the altar.

Yet there he’d been last night, at the damn ceremony, being applauded by the very people who’d looked at him with pity the night his bride had failed to show. He’d been dressed up then, too, and he’d felt just as numb.

The memories assailed him, churning through his blood, ringing in his ears. He breathed hard, nearly panting, but it didn’t help.

God, he was going to puke again.

Rosie touched his chest, gently stroking his right pectoral muscle. Her fingertips grazed his nipple.

It so startled him, the awful memories faded beneath a new emotion. He felt his body stir with sexual awareness.

“I was so proud of you, Ethan, when they gave you the Fire Commission’s Valor Award. But then I’m always proud of you. You risk your life all the time without a second thought. You do what most men won’t do—to help others. You’re always so tall and commanding and direct. And last night you looked so incredibly handsome in your dress uniform.”

Trying to ignore his unwanted arousal, Ethan focused on her soothing voice and eventually on the familiar features of her face. Rosie smiled at him and rested her palm over his heart.

“You know, you owe it to yourself for the person you are, and to the community for the person they see you as, to stop being a self-pitying jerk.”

He lurched at the shock of her words, such a contrast to the mood she’d created. Rosie poked him in the chest. Her voice was no longer quite so soothing. “I understand how you feel, Ethan—”

“You can’t have a clue.”

That seemed to make her angrier. “You’re obviously, rightfully, embarrassed that Michelle jilted you.”

“In front of two hundred people.” He hadn’t meant to shout, not that it fazed Rosie at all. No, if anything, she stepped closer until he felt her legs against his.

She tilted her head way back so she could stare him in the eyes. “When you carry on the way you do, it looks like you’re still pining over her.”

Ethan snorted. Personally, he thought just the opposite to be true. People saw him with different women, saw him enjoying his bachelor life, and it proved that he was over Michelle, that he didn’t care.

That she hadn’t ripped his heart out.

Leaning closer still, until her nose nearly touched his chin, Rosie said, “But I know you’re not lovesick, Ethan. I know, because you didn’t love her.”

Ethan grabbed her shoulders to keep her from getting any closer. He would have moved away from her, but she had him boxed in. That thought almost made him smile. He weighed a smidgen off two hundred pounds, and Rosie couldn’t possibly go over one-thirty, yet she did her best to intimidate him with her body.

Her best was pretty damn tantalizing, he admitted, when he felt her soft belly against his crotch.

All humor vanished.

She stared up at him, her eyes the color of an approaching storm. “You want people to know you’re over Michelle, that she didn’t really affect you? Well, I have a better suggestion than what you’ve been doing.”

Ethan could barely breathe. Her mouth was right there, so close he could smell the toothpaste she’d just used and damn, it looked good. He wanted her, whether he denied it or not, whether he wanted to or not. Unable to move, he growled, “What suggestion?”

“Get involved with a nice girl.” Her gaze dropped to his mouth and her voice lowered, went husky in a way he’d never heard from Rosie before. “Quit playing the sexist Neanderthal and get serious again. Stop running scared.”

“I’m not—”

She touched his bottom lip, stealing his thoughts, making him tense. She whispered, “Let me love you.”

* * *

ETHAN KEPT TO THE SHADOWS of the large elms that lined the street, skirting buildings while trying not to look too furtive. He wanted to see her without being seen himself.

He couldn’t believe he was doing this.

Actually, everything he’d done in the past twenty-four hours fell into the realm of the “not to be believed,” starting with getting rip-roaring drunk, and ending with Rosie in his bed. So what did one more idiotic thing matter?

It didn’t. Besides, his curiosity was too keen to keep him away. Luckily, Riley’s studio had an enormous front window, so he’d be able to see what kind of lessons Rosie was taking without her knowing he spied.

He could only imagine what she’d think if she knew. The silly goose already thought herself in love with him. If she thought, even for a second, that he returned that overly valued emotion...

Ethan grunted, but deep inside himself something warm had started stirring the moment she’d said those four little taunting words. Let me love you.

He knew it was only lust. And no wonder with the way she’d been coming on to him. An ordinary woman he could have withstood, but Rosie...he hadn’t wanted to chance it.

Nearly panicked, he’d sent her on her way with the explanation that he loved her, too—as a friend, and only a friend.

He’d looked her right in her beautiful blue eyes and lied through his teeth, telling her he didn’t want her sexually, that he saw her as asexual, like a pal. Totally sexless. No sex thoughts involved at all. Sex, no. Friends, yes.

Rosie was not stupid.

She’d sighed, patted his chest in a curiously tender way and told him she’d give him a little time to get used to the idea.

He had a week.

Then she’d dressed and left and he still didn’t know what the hell had happened last night in his bed. He’d be deranged with curiosity in a week. He had to find out something soon.