Page 49 of A Sudden Response

That sexy grin of his did not affect her. It didn’t. She also didn’t care that he looked as exhausted as she felt or that she was happy to see him. Nothing mattered except that he’d pissed her off and spent the remainder of their shift acting like nothing happened. Then, he’d brushed her off so that he wouldn’t have to deal with her.

Well, now he was going to deal with her because she was so ready to kick his-

Her thoughts sort of drifted off when he grabbed the back of her neck and leaned down and kissed every last coherent thought out of her head. She was barely aware of him guiding her back inside the house or when he shut the door behind him. All of her attention at the moment was on his mouth and the way that he was kissing her.

When he finally stopped kissing her, and she wanted to kick his ass for that alone, her mind began to clear and she remembered that she was angry with him. Who the hell did he think he was treating her like that? Joe wondered as she pushed him away.

“I take it you’re mad at me,” Eric said with a heavy sigh.

“You could say that,” Joe snapped, crossing her arms beneath her breasts as she glared at him and waited for the typical Eric response to any form of female drama. When he didn’t give her some lame ass excuse like he was just giving her time to calm down with a promise to call later, she was taken by surprise.

“Look,” Eric said, running both of his hands down his face in frustration, “I know I shouldn’t be here and that I should be giving you some time to sort through things, but I couldn’t stay away.”

Her eyes narrowed on him. “You were giving me time?” Joe asked, not even bothering to hide the disbelief in her tone.

“Well, that and I got held over for two hours after you left,” he said, sounding miserable as he sat down on the arm of her couch.

“Why did you get held over?” Joe asked, inwardly wincing when she realized that he must have covered for her. Although it wasn’t a rule at their station, if dispatch was looking for them and there was only one of them there putting away the truck, they got pretty pissed.

“I had to do a favor for Bill.”

“What favor?” Joe asked, leaning back against the wall to put some space between them. It was a little unnerving that she couldn’t think straight with him in the room. All she could think about was running her fingers through his hair and over his body.

What the hell was wrong with her?

She should be focused on kicking his ass, but she couldn’t stay mad at him. It was a weakness that she really needed to work on, but later.

“He asked me to go over all of the equipment with Greg,” Eric said around a yawn.

“Greg?” Joe asked, surprised that he was still around. He was on a truck for two weeks straight and not one of those shifts ended up counting towards his training time.

He gave her a firm nod that told her that he wasn’t happy about it. “It seems that he has an uncle on the City Council who called in a favor. He’s claiming that Greg was just nervous and would like Bill to give him another chance, so guess who’s getting a third rider for the next two weeks,” Eric said dryly.

“Us,” she said, biting back a groan.

“Mmmhmm,” Eric murmured absently as he ran his eyes over her. “And the best part is that somehow the little bastard is even cockier.”

This time, she didn’t bother biting back her groan. She knew that Greg was going to try saving face by acting like it was no bigdeal, but that was going to make their jobs a hell of a lot harder. It also meant that he was probably going to ignore whatever they tried to show him. It should be a fun two weeks, Joe thought, biting back a sigh.

“You were coming to kick my ass?” Eric asked, drawing her attention back totheirproblem.

“Maybe,” Joe said, shrugging it off like it was nothing.

“In only my old tee-shirt and panties?” Eric asked, running hungry eyes over her. She felt a blush make its way up her neck when she realized that she’d been seconds away from storming outside in his old tee-shirt right around the time that she remembered that she wasn’t wearing any panties.

Something in her expression must have given her away because that sexy bad boy grin that she loved so much suddenly graced his face. He crooked a finger in her direction. “Come here.”

She just barely stopped herself from doing just that. With a snort, Joe shook her head. “I’m not your bitch. You come here,” she said, stubbornly crossing her arms over her chest even tighter, mostly to hide her nerves.

This was such a bad idea. Was she really thinking about tackling him to the ground so that she could rip his clothes off and run her hands over him before she had her dirty little way with him?

Yes, she was.

Before she could rethink her plan, or add a few things here and there to prolong her enjoyment, Eric was pushing off the arm of the couch and was standing in front of her. He placed his forearm against the wall above her head as he leaned in.

“Are you wearing panties, Joe?” Eric asked in a seductive whisper that had her licking her lips as she reached up and ran her hands over his chest.

“Shouldn’t we talk about this?” she asked, avoiding his question.

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