"I'll give you a boost," he repeated as he opened the door on an engine. "Not that the guys wouldn't appreciate the way that skirt would ride up if you climbed in on your own. But-" Before she could protest, Ry had gripped her by the waist and lifted her.

She had a moment to think the strength in his arms was uncannily effortless before he joined her.

"Move over," he ordered. "Unless you'd rather sit on my lap."

She scooted across the seat. "Why am I sitting in a fire engine?"

"Everybody wants to at least once." Very much at home, he stretched his arm over the seat. "So, what do you think?"

She scanned the gauges and dials, the oversize gearshift, the photo of Miss January taped to the dash. "It's interesting."

"That's it?"

She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. She wondered which control operated the siren, which the lights. "Okay, it's fun." She leaned forward for a better view through the windshield. "We're really up here, aren't we? Is this the-''

He caught her hand just before she could yank the cord over her head. "Horn," he finished. "The men are used to it, but believe me, with the acoustics in here and the outside doors shut, you'd be sorry if you sounded it."

"Too bad." She skimmed back her hair as she turned her face toward him. "Are you showing me your toy to relax me, or just to show off?"

"Both. How'm I doing?"

"Maybe you're not quite the jerk you appear to be."

"You keep being so nice to me, I'm going to fall in love."

She laughed and realized she was almost relaxed. "I think we're both safe on that count. What made you decide to sit in a fire engine for ten years?"

"You've been checking up on me." Idly he lifted his fingers, just enough to reach the tips of her hair. Soft, he thought, like sunny silk.

"That's right." She shot him a look. "So?"

"So, I guess we're even. I'm a third-generation smoke eater. It's in the blood."

"Mmm..." That she understood. "But you gave it up."

"No, I shifted gears. That's different."

She supposed it was, but it wasn't a real answer. "Why do you keep that souvenir on your desk?" She watched his eyes closely as she asked. "The doll's head."

"It's from my last fire. The last one I fought." He could still remember it-the heat, the smoke, the screaming. "I carried the kid out. The bedroom door was locked. My guess is he'd herded his wife and kid in-you know, you can't live with me, you won't live without me. He had a gun. It wasn't loaded, but she wouldn't have known that."

"That's horrible." She wondered if she would have risked the gun, and thought she would have. Better a bullet, fast and final, than the terrors of smoke and flame. "His own family."

"Some guys don't take kindly to divorce." He shrugged. His own had been painless enough, almost anticlimactic. "The way it came out, he made them sit there while the fire got bigger, and the smoke snuck under the door. It was a frame house, old. Went up like a matchstick. The woman had tried to protect the kid, had curled over her in a corner. I couldn't get them both at once, so I took the kid."

His eyes changed now, darkened, focused on something only he could see. "The woman was gone, anyway. I knew she was gone, but there's always a chance. I was headed down the steps with the kid when the floor gave way."

"You saved the child," Natalie said gently.

"The mother saved the child." He could never forget that, could never forget that selfless and hopeless devotion. "The son of a b.i.t.c.h who torched the house jumped out the second-story window.

Oh, he was burned, smoke inhalation, broken leg. But he lived through it."

He cared, she realized. She hadn't seen that before. Or hadn't wanted to. It changed him. Changed her perception of him. "And you decided to go after the men who start them, instead of the fires themselves."

"More or less." He snapped his head up, like a wolf scenting prey, when the alarm shrilled. The station sprang to life with running, feet, shouted orders. Ry pitched his voice over the din. "Let's get out of the way."

He pushed open the door, caught Natalie in one arm and swung out.

"Chemical plant," someone said as they hurried by, pulling on protective gear.

In seconds, it seemed, the engines were manned and screaming out the arched double doors.

"It's so fast," Natalie said, ears still ringing, pulse still jumping.

"They move so fast."

"Yeah."

"It's exciting." She pressed a hand to her speeding heart. "I didn't realize. Do you miss it?" She looked up at him then, and her hand went limp.

He was still holding her against him, and his eyes were dark and focused on hers. "Now and again."

"Well, it's-I should go."

"Yeah. You should go." But he shifted her until she was wrapped in both his arms. Maybe it was a knee-jerk reaction to the sirens, maybe it was the exotic and irresistible scent of her, but his blood was pumping.

And he wanted to see, just once, if she tasted as good as she looked.

"This is insane," she managed to say. She knew what he intended to do. What she wanted him to do. "This has got to be wrong."

His lips curved, just a little. "What's your point?" Then his mouth closed over hers.

She didn't push back. For nearly one heartbeat, she didn't respond.

In that instant she thought she'd been paralyzed, struck deaf, dumb and blind. Then, in a tidal wave, every sense flooded back, every nerve snapped, every pulse jolted.

His mouth was hard, as his hands were, as his body was. She felt terrifyingly, gloriously, feminine pressed against him. A need she hadn't been aware of exploded into bloom. Her briefcase hit the floor with a thud as she wrapped herself around him.

He was no longer thinking "just once." A man would starve to death after only one taste. A man would certainly beg for more.

She was soft and strong and sinfully sweet, with a flavor that both tempted and tormented.

Heat radiated between them as the wind whipped in through the open doors at their back. The clatter of street noises, horns and tires, sounded around them, along with her dazed, throaty moan.

He pulled back once to look at her face, saw himself in the cloudy green of her eyes, and then his mouth crushed hers again. No, this wasn't going to happen just once. She couldn't breathe. No longer wanted to. His lips were moving against hers, forming words she could neither hear nor understand. For the first time in her memory, she could do nothing but feel. And the feelings came so fast, so sharp and strong, they left her in tatters. He pulled back again, staggered by what had ripped through him in so short a time.

He was winded, weak, and the sensation infuriated as much as it baffled him. She only stood there, staring at him with a mixture of shock and hunger in her eyes.

"Sorry," he muttered, and hooked his thumbs in his pockets.

"Sorry?" she repeated. She sucked in a deep breath, wondered if her head would ever stop spinning."Sorry?"

"That's right.'' He couldn't decide whether to curse her or himself.

d.a.m.n it, his knees were weak. "That was out of line."