Men of Courage Read Online Free PDF

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.
    The sun was bright, baking down on his head and back. July had started on a heat wave that showed no signs of relenting. Shimmering hotwaves rose from the blacktop parking lot. Ethan wore his aviator-style mirrored sunglasses, but still he had to hold a hand up to shield his eyes when he reached Riley’s.
    There were few people out on this sweltering afternoon, so he stood alone on the sidewalk with only the occasional passerby. Still, he maintained a casual air of indifference so he wouldn’t look suspicious. The second he peeked inside, he spotted Riley rolling around in the middle of the mat with someone. It took Ethan less than three seconds to realize the person in the baggy T-shirt, snug shorts, sneakers and headgear was Rosie.
    Calm control took a flying leap.
    In three long strides Ethan had the door open and had advanced halfway across the gym. He ripped off his sunglasses to better see their shameful behavior. “What in the hell are you doing?” The rafters trembled with his bellow.
    Riley, his head stuck between Rosie’s thighs, looked up in surprise. His voice was a bit strangled, due to the way she had her legs clenched tight around his neck, when he said, “It’s called the North South Position.”
    He grunted, did a quick flip and ended up on top with Rosie peering at Ethan, her face red with exertion, her head now between Riley’s thighs.
    Ethan gawked and fought the urge to bodily separate them. “That’s…that’s obscene. ”
    Rosie tried to buck Riley off—and that only made matters worse from Ethan’s perspective. His vision started to blur.
    “I’m learning…leg…chokes,” Rosie managed to gasp around her panting breaths. To Ethan, it appeared her eyes were starting to water.
    He was more than ready to intervene when they rolled again and Ethan had to jump to keep from getting caught in the fast-churning tangle of arms and legs. When they stopped, Rosie was on top and she had Riley’s arm caught in an awkward position, using her whole body to keep a steady pressure on it. Riley, around his strained laughter, cried uncle.
    Rosie jumped up, punched a fist in the air like a world conqueror, and gave a ferocious battle cry. “Ha! Gotcha with a chicken wing.”
    Riley stood, too, grinning from ear to ear, but he shook his head at her. “You hadn’t sunk it good enough. I could have gotten loose if Ethan hadn’t been standing here breathing fire.”
    Rosie gasped in high indignation. “That’s just like a man to claim he lost to a woman only because of another man.”
    Riley slipped his arm around her. “We’ll keep working on it.” He winked at Ethan.
    At that particular moment Rosie wasn’t the least attractive. Her hair stuck out in crazy clumps around the headgear, some long tangled tendrils loose, some looped in and around the straps. Her face was flushed and there was sweat on her forehead and upper lip. The wrinkled, sweat-dampened clothes she wore couldn’t have been less appealing.
    And Ethan wanted to throw her over his shoulder, smack her behind soundly, and remind her in no uncertain terms that she’d not only professed her love, but she’d given him a week to get used to it.
    Instead, trying to hide his disgruntlement, he said to both of them, “If anyone taped your lessons, they could sell them for porn videos.”
    Cocking one shapely hip and giving him a siren’s come-and-get-it smile, Rosie quipped, “Gee, honey, ya really think so?”
    The pose should have been ludicrous