Holy hell, was this guy hot. He was tall—tall and built like a brick wall. He slipped out of his fireman jacket as he approached, revealing a torso packed into a light blue shirt with the FDNY logo on one of his bulging pecs. His biceps were thick and looked on the verge of tearing through the sleeves of his shirt. His hair was short and blond, cropped into an efficient military style. His eyes were a luminous blue, and the rest of his face looked carved from marble.

He was so hot, in fact, that I completely forgot about the reason I’d come to the fire station to begin with.

“OK,” he said, his voice resonant and deep. “You’ve got the man in charge. Now, tell me why you’re here blocking the damn driveway.”

He crossed his arms over his massive chest, and my eyes locked on to his ropy forearms. He tilted his head up toward the huge truck idling on the street, whose engine making me think of a big, angry dog.

“Oh, shoot,” I said, realizing that I was, in fact, blocking the path. “Sorry.”

With quick steps I moved out of the way, the other firemen following me over. The truck started moving and pulled into the cavernous garage behind us.

“Now,” said the man in charge. “First things first: Is this an emergency?”

“It’s not,” I said. “I mean, it’s important, but it’s not life-or-death.”

The man, realizing that whatever I wanted didn’t require the attention of half the staff, gestured to his men. They nodded and headed into the station, leaving the tall fireman and me alone.

I shot out my hand toward him.

“I’m Miss Parker,” I said, forgetting for a moment that I wasn’t in front of my students. “I mean, I’m Chloe Parker.”

The man regarded my hand skeptically for a moment, then took it into his. A shiver of delight ran through me as he shook it. His hand was meaty and warm and rough, and it caused a tingle of…something, to spread out from down below. My face went hot with blush.

“‘Miss Parker’?” he asked.

“I’m a teacher,” I said, dropping his hand and doing my best to regain my composure. “Third grade down at PS 204.”

“I figured it was either that or a dominatrix,” he said. “Anyway, my name’s Ethan Stokes. What’s the situation?”

I felt a little silly for giving the impression that I might’ve had some kind of emergency, but I went on anyway.

“I was just stopping by to see if it’d be possible to bring my class into the station sometime. We’re doing a career month right now, where I’m going over a bunch of different jobs so the kids can have some idea of what they might want to do when they grow up. And since half my class is boys, the subject of firemen came up more than once.”

Ethan leaned back against the red brick of the station exterior, his arms still crossed over his chest.

“You know,” he said. “There’s this thing called a ‘phone.’ We’ve actually got a few here, and we sometimes use them to talk to people.”

I was starting to realize that I had a little bit of a smartass on my hands. Lucky for me, however, my line of work had given me plenty of experience when it came to dealing with back-talkers. Just because this one was six and a half feet tall with a face like a male model and muscles he probably could’ve used to lift that truck, well, that didn’t make the underlying process any different.

“True,” I said. “But I’ve lived in the city for long enough to know that dealing with any kind of government agency over the phone is about the fastest way to lose your damn mind. And this place is on the way back from school, so I figured I’d just drop in.”

“Part of that ‘drop in’ involve getting into spats with my men?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, maybe you should tell your ‘men’ that just because a woman is talking to them it doesn’t give them the right to hit on her like a couple of horny teenagers.”

Another smile tugged up at the corner of his full, sensual lips.

“You’ll have to forgive the boys,” he said. “We’re kind of in a high-testosterone environment here. And we don’t usually get too many women stopping by the station for social calls. Tends to get them a little hot under the collar.”

But Ethan didn’t seem to have too much trouble keeping himself under control with me. In fact, he was beyond cool and collected. Some stupid, insecure part of me wondered if that meant he didn’t think I was attractive. I tossed these childish thoughts out of my head and went on.

“Anyway, now that I’m speaking with you, I figure we can work something out.”

“Just what is it you’re looking for?” he asked. “You want to bring a bunch of kids here and let them climb all over the trucks or something?”

“No,” I said. “They’re not going to be treating the station like a playground. The plan would be to bring them in, give them a guided tour of the station, and let them see what the day-to-day is like for real New York firemen.”

“And what if we get a call while they’re running around here?” he asked. “This place is like a well-oiled machine. We have some rugrats getting in the way and it might have some, uh, problematic results.”

“Are you suggesting that I don’t know how to keep my kids in line?” I asked, now feeling a little indignant.

“Nah,” he said. “Just wanting to make sure you know what you’re getting into.”

At that moment, I glanced through the garage door windows and caught sight of a handful of firemen watching Ethan and me talk. Well, most of the “watching” was in my direction. Ethan looked in the direction of my attention and spotted his men. With a shake of his head and a wave, he sent them running.

“I see you’ve got no problems with discipline,” I said. “How long have you been chief for?”

“Oh, I’m not the chief,” he said. “Just one of the guys higher up on the ladder, so to speak. Chief’s too busy for stuff like this.”

“Good to know that the FDNY is happy to address the concerns of the citizens,” I said.

“Hey, if you’d showed up here and told me that something was on fire, we’d be there now.”

“Anyway,” I said. “What do you think? It’d really, really mean a lot to the kids. And who knows? Maybe you’ll inspire one of them to join up someday.”

Ethan looked away, appearing to consider the matter. And as he did, I felt my teeth bite down on my lower lip just slightly. This guy was having a major effect on me, and it was beyond surprising.

“How about this,” he said. “If you’re gonna be bringing your kids to the station, you oughta have your homework done first.”

“Sure,” I said, agreeing with the sentiment but not sure where he was going with it.

“You know what a ride-along is?” he asked.

“Yeah, where you go in the back of a police car and sit with them while they do their shift.”

“Bingo,” he said. “But swap out ‘police car’ for ‘fire truck’ and you’ve got the idea.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You want me to go around with you guys? Won’t I get in the way?”

“I’m a little surprised to hear that’s something that’d bother you,” he said, grinning.

“Funny,” I said.

“But to answer your question, no. We do it all the time. You’d check out the station, see what it’s like to go out on a call should we get one, and when you show up with the kids you’ll have a better idea of what to tell them about how things run here.”

It all sounded pretty reasonable.

“Wait,” I said. “Does that mean you’re agreeing to the field trip?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, here,” he said. “We can see how the ride-along goes and then figure it out from there.”

I figured that this was as good as I was going to get.

“Tomorrow evening work?” he asked. “I’ll be here, and you can just stop in after you’re done with your day.”

“Sure,” I said. “Sounds like a plan.”

I stuck my hand out again, and he shook it. My tiny palm was once again enveloped in his massive mitt, and I realized that I was just as interested in having his skin on mine again as I was in cementing the deal.

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow evening, Miss Parker.”

He winked and was off, ducking into the small steel door leading into the station. I caught one last glance at the firemen inside staring at me as I turned to leave.

Heading back down the street, I smiled at a job well done. Sure, I’d have to go on that little ride-along, but I could think of worse guys to be stuck with for an evening than someone like Ethan.

Besides, how hard could it be?