Sudden Response (EMS #1)(46)

He was her best friend and that's all. That much was clear when she was done with her shower, dressed and hitting her fridge for a drink before she went to bed. She knew that if he wanted to be here that he would already be here, but clearly he'd realized they'd made a mistake.

Fine, she thought, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge before heading to her room. If that's what he wanted then that was more than fine with her. She could pretend that he hadn't given her the best sex of her life or that she was dying to touch him again. She was a big girl. She could handle a little rejection. She closed the blinds, darkening the room and flopped down on the bed more than ready to put this day behind her.

She was going to kick his ass, she decided three hours later when she couldn't fall asleep or get him out of her mind. If he didn't want anything to do with her then he could have damn well said so instead of giving her the cold shoulder and treating her like every other woman in his life. She'd been his best friend for over twenty years and deserved a hell of a lot more consideration than he was giving her at the moment.

Furious, she grabbed her keys and headed for the front door as she thought up all the ways she was going to make him pay for this bullshit. After she was done with him he was going to wish-

"Where the hell are you going?" Eric demanded when she practically ripped open the front door, startling her, but not enough to distract her from her purpose.

"To kick your ass," she snapped.

That slow 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 discarded her and spent the entire remainder of their shift acting like nothing happened. That pissed her off. Then he added insult to injury by brushing her off so that he wouldn't have to deal with her.

Well, now he was going to do 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 into the house or when he shut her door and locked it. All of her attention at the moment was on his mouth and the way he was kissing her breathless.

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? she wondered as she pushed him away.

"I take it you're mad at me," he noted with a sigh.

"You could say that," she snapped, crossing her arms beneath her br**sts 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 giving her time to calm down and a promise to call later she was a bit surprised.

"Look," he 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?" she asked, not even bothering to hide disbelief in her tone.

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

"Why did you get held over?" she 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 could get pissed.

"I had to do a favor for Bill."

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

What in the hell was wrong with her?

She should still 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," he said around a yawn.

"Greg?" she asked, surprised that he was still around. He rode the truck daily for what must have been two weeks and not one of those shifts counted towards his training time.

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

"Us," she said, biting back a groan.

"Mmmhmm," he said absently as he ran his eyes over her. "And the best part of course is that somehow the little bastard is even cockier."

This time she didn't bother biting back her groan. She knew the man was going to be trying to save face by acting like it was no big deal, 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, she thought dryly.

"You were coming to kick my ass?" he asked, drawing her attention back to their problem.

"Maybe," she said, shrugging it off like it was nothing.

"In only my old t-shirt and panties?" he asked, running hungry eyes over her.