Heat penetrated the fog of her embarrassed shock, radiating from a concentrated point where his hand, wide and heavy, covered her shoulder in a reassuring squeeze. “Go down to Sam. Stay with him.”
And then he was bypassing her on the narrow stairwell, somehow managing to keep all that brawn from doing more than warming the scant space between them. The proximity was unnerving, distracting her even more than the scene she’d witnessed on the rooftop...where this guy was heading...his every step landing like an increasing threat.
Wait. Did something happen?
Oh...no.
Her breath caught.
Oh, no.
“Oh, no! Wait,” she gasped, realizing too late what he’d been asking her.
The eyes that looked back at her as his steps continued were anything but laughing. “Go downstairs. I’ll take care of this guy.”
Take care of—? She watched his retreating back expand impossibly, blotting out the light of the evening sky beyond. “No, really,” she yelped, scrambling up the steps behind him. “You—um—blue-eyed guy—wait!”
But he just held a staying hand behind him as he hit the open access to the rooftop. At best this was about to get extremely embarrassing for both of them. She had to do something—and fast.
“Sex!”
Oh, God, that hadn’t come out right either. Except the guy’s steps slowed and his head cranked around, revealing all that deep blue intensity replaced with confusion. “Excuse me?”
She raced up the stairs behind him, heart pounding—though not due to any sort of exertion from the short flight. Heck, she and Maeve could run a half-marathon on the treadmill if they had a season of Game of Thrones playing in front of them. Her heart had hit double-time due to embarrassment and a desperate need to stop this really protective guy before he tossed someone off the side of the roof.
Swallowing hard, one hand waving around, she looked for a salvation that wasn’t coming. Finally she looked at him apologetically. “They were sort of having sex up there. That’s what happened. I’m sorry...and...um...thank you too—I think.”
She’d never seen eyes change in so many ways in such a short span of time. But this guy’s were like a visual aid for defining “window to the soul.” Everything was right there within them. Shock, relief, amusement, and then a slow-growing interest that tugged at some long-forgotten place inside her.
Something she shook off without more than a second’s consideration.
A fractured cry of the climactic variety split the air between them, setting her cheeks to blaze like the sky beyond.
“Damn,” was his only response, and something about the smacked look on his face struck her as ridiculously funny within the awkwardness of the moment.
“Yeah.” She laughed, covering her ears. “You’re telling me. I think we ought to give them some privacy...but I really need my phone. I’ll bake you a cake if you’ll get it for me.”
Maeve would bake the cake. If she’d been here, none of this would have happened.
“Cake?”
“Please?”
“I’m a tough customer when it comes to cake. My sisters have spoiled me pretty bad. How about this? You go grab your phone and I’ll take care of Team Romance behind us.”
This guy didn’t know what he was missing. But if Blue Eyes didn’t want Maeve’s baking...? Fine with her. This way she got her sunset, her phone and a cake too. Because, now that she was thinking about it, Maeve was definitely going to make her one when she got back in town. “Deal.”
An awkward moment, many murmured apologies and some quiet shuffling later, her defender of public decency stepped up to the rail beside her, resting his forearms over the worn wood as he squinted into the sinking sun. “I’ll admit I was half tempted to pull out a pencil and start taking notes.”
Nichole shook her head, unable to fight the pull at the corner of her mouth.
“What? I would have given you a copy. Though maybe too early for that kind of kink in our relationship?”
Coughing out a laugh, she leaned back, forcibly resisting the draw to lean closer. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“Based on that pretty blush, I’d say definitely. So how about it, Red? Sun’s going down fast.”
“Red?” she asked, mildly disappointed by the moniker that had followed her around half her life. For some unaccountable reason she’d thought—hoped?—no, that couldn’t be right—this guy might be different.
“Blue-eyed guy?” he challenged back, then tapped a finger to his cheek while nodding at hers. “Red.”
For her blush, not her hair.
Such a small distinction, and yet big enough to push a smile to her lips as she followed his gaze to the burned amber glow of the pooling sun. It was beautiful. And, with the mellow notes of Jack Johnson filtering the rush of city traffic rising from the streets below, peaceful.
For long moments they watched, remaining quiet until the last molten drop bled beneath the horizon.
Forearms resting over the rail, muscular back rounded beneath the pull of his shirt, the familiar stranger beside her let out a long, deeply contented breath.
“Wow. That good, huh?” she asked teasingly, anxious to relieve the unsettling intimacy of the moment.
Casting her a sidelong glance, he considered. Then, pushing back to straighten, he shoved his hands into his pockets and met her gaze in earnest. “Yeah, it was.”
“Not a lot of time for sunsets?”
His mouth pulled to the side and his broad shoulders hunched forward. “You know, it’s not that I haven’t seen them. More a matter of being too caught up in everything else going on—where I’ve got to be next, how much needs to get done, what all’s about to get away from me.” He shook his head, a frown darkening his gaze as it held hers. “Been a long time since I’ve been able to slow down and just...enjoy the simple stuff. Too long.”
A few plainly spoken words. Nothing particularly deep. And yet the way he’d said them—as though making a reluctant admission—gave them power enough to penetrate the superficial and resonate within her.
“I get it. The little things have a way of passing you by pretty quickly if you aren’t paying attention. And then, when you finally notice, sometimes all you’ve missed doesn’t exactly feel so small.”
“Yeah, that’s about it.” He laughed then—a brusque, dismissive sound—but even as he did so those deep blue eyes held hers with an almost questioning intensity. “So what’s been passing you by?”
Maybe just this.
She should have looked away. Made light of the two of them standing there. Thrown out a joke or an excuse to put some space between them. Only for the first time in three years she didn’t want the space or the buffer of meaningless banter. She wanted to stretch the moment and all the simplicity it offered—make it last for the both of them.
That was crazy. She didn’t know this guy. Didn’t know anything more than that he’d made some vague reference to a busy life and the desire not to miss out on the simple stuff. And yet there was something about him—an odd sense of familiarity, connection—that made her feel like she did. Made her think about her own life and the simple things she avoided out of fear for the complications they could bring.
“That much, huh?” he asked, breaking into her thoughts with a reminder she hadn’t answered. Laugh lines creased the skin around his eyes as he cocked his head to the side. “Looks like we could both use a few more sunsets.”
“Looks like,” she agreed, all too grateful for the simple reprieve.
* * *
Damn, there it was again. That hot red rising to the surface of her skin. Betraying the woman beneath in all the best ways. He couldn’t get enough, and it was taking the bulk of his restraint not to work her pretty blush for everything it was worth.
But he hadn’t come to Jesse’s welcome-home party to pick someone up. In fact finding a woman had been the last thing on his mind.
He’d wanted to go out. Reconnect with friends. Watch a sunset.
After six years of walking through his front door with half his takeout already consumed and heading straight to his back office—where, on a good day, he’d be able to set aside one kind of work for another—he was done. And now, degree in hand, he wanted the straightforward simplicity of knowing he’d put his day to bed and the night was his...finally...to do with as he pleased.
But there she’d been. Looking lost. And, damn, he hadn’t known what. Having raised his four sisters through their teens, he found his mind had a way of going to dark places pretty fast when he didn’t understand what was happening. Thank God he’d been wrong. Only by the time he’d understood where all that vulnerability was coming from—the mad make-out scene which even he had to admit had been pretty intense—she’d made his radar. Registered as more than a collection of pleasing physical attributes falling under the category of female.
And then she’d been standing there, backlit by the cooling sky, looking into his eyes with that thoughtful kind of amazement in hers telling him she got him. Making him wonder if maybe she did.
“Well, would you look what the cat dragged in?” came the first of several raucous calls, derailing his train of thought as a group of the old crew jogged up to the rooftop.
“Sam said you were here, man, but I didn’t dare believe.”
“Dude! No way.”
Laughing brown eyes peered up at him. “All this is for you?”
“So it would seem,” he answered, with a wide grin at seeing so many of the old faces he’d lost touch with. “It’s been a while.”
“Too long?” she asked, a mirthful smile playing across her lips.
“Definitely too long.”
Just then her phone sounded and, holding it up with a little wave, she started to back away. “I’ll let you catch up, then.”
He reached for her elbow. Followed her gaze as it slipped to the point of contact between them, lingered and then returned almost tentatively to his.
“Thanks for the sunset, Red.”
“You too, Blue Eyes,” she offered quietly, backing away as he withdrew his hand, before she took the stairs down to Sam’s apartment.
A solid clap on his shoulder pulled him back to the guys, the laughter, greetings and jibes.
“Damn, Garrett. What are you? Here fifteen minutes and already you’ve got the next victim cued up and ready to go. I bow to you, dude.”
Garrett Carter looked back at the guys he’d gone to high school with and shook his head.
Aw, hell. Not this again.
TWO
Phone clutched to her ear, Nichole stopped in the quiet alcove at the bottom of the stairwell, her heart thumping in her chest. “I think I dipped a toe back in the pool.”
“Wait—what? You think—” Maeve’s distracted voice was cut off as her breath was sucked in. “Shut it! You didn’t... Oh, my God—tell. Tell!”
Nichole hadn’t gotten more than a few sentences in when Maeve interrupted.
“Stop, stop, stop. Set the stage, for crying out loud. Details. And, so you don’t waste my time with a lot of trash about the temperature or the number of cigarette butts around the roof, I’m talking about the guy. Hotness ranking. The good kind of dirty or clean-cut? Build and bulk. Distinguishing features. Height. You get the idea. Don’t skimp. Then get to the good toe-dipping stuff... Damn it, why am I in Denver?”
Nichole pulled the phone from her ear and looked at it, suddenly wishing she’d thought to Skype. Maeve sounded like she hadn’t slept in two days and Nichole figured the look on her face as she shot off her rapid fire laundry list of must-know information would be priceless.
“Easy, Maeve.” She laughed into the phone, stepping clear as a large group edged past her, heading for the roof. “How are negotiations on the deal going?”
“The guy, Nikki. Don’t make me beg.”
“Okay, okay. So he’s definitely one of those men who draws the eye. Kind of magnetic. Over six feet. More rugged than pretty. And there was something about his eyes... When this guy looks at you...I don’t even know how to describe it.”
“Mmhmm...mmhmm. I like it. Keep going.”
Nichole shook her head and chuckled, leaning back against the wall as she laid down what physical details she could before recounting the few minutes they’d shared. When she’d finished, Maeve let out an indelicate cough.
“That’s it? What part of that had your toe anywhere near the pool? It doesn’t sound like you got wet at all.”
Feeling slightly miffed, Nichole ignored the snicker and subtle pun to counter, “I didn’t say I jumped him! It was just a really nice quiet moment that had a very different feel than when I’m hanging out with Sam or you or any of the usual crowd, for example. It wasn’t going anywhere. But there was a kind of sizzly thing in the air, and it definitely had a toe-dipping feel.”
Maeve was quiet a moment, then asked. “So, if there was sizzle, why wouldn’t it go anywhere?”
“Hold on a sec.” Nichole pressed further into the wall behind her, waving quick hellos to a stream of partygoers heading up to the roof. After the stairwell was cleared, she answered, “I don’t think he’s even from around here. I’ve never seen him before. But he knows a bunch of guys I think must be Jesse’s friends. I kind of got the feeling he was visiting from out of town.”
“Hmm... So let’s recap. You’ve got an aversion to commitment. You’ve met a ruggedly hot hunk with whom you share ‘sizzle’ and you think he’s just in town for a visit. It feels like there ought to be an obvious solution here. Like maybe you could have your hunk and eat hi—”
“That’s enough,” she cut in, feeling a renewed burn in her cheeks. “I get what you’re saying. But, no. Seriously, just no.”
Maeve’s sigh was long suffering, and even longer drawn out, but Nichole could hear the smile behind it.
“Fine. Waste this perfectly good opportunity for what sounds like some simple fun without a whole lot of strings.”
Nichole’s brows drew down and her gaze slid up to the rooftop doorway.
No. It had been a couple of minutes. A fleeting kind of connection. That was all.
Another larger group filed past. Following them up, she wrapped her call with Maeve, promising more gossip and snaps from the party as available.
On the roof, Nichole glanced around at what had become a dense crowd. With the way people were pouring into the place now she probably wouldn’t even see him again. Which was good. Because she really wasn’t interested.
Though even as she thought it, she realized she was scanning faces. Her gaze slipping past friends and acquaintances without stopping in an absent-minded search for the stranger who was making a liar out of her even as she stood there.
And then she found him. Nearly a head taller than most everyone around him. That vivid blue gaze locked steadily with hers.
A loud cheer sounded and all attention shifted to the doorway. Jesse had jogged up and was standing with a stunned grin on his face. She’d only met him once before he’d left, two years ago, but she remembered him to be as cool as his brother, who was now pulling him in for a solid hug.
She looked back to where her blue-eyed hero had been a moment before, but within the shifting crowd she’d lost him.
* * *
The party was in full swing, the roof packed to capacity, the atmosphere as welcoming as Jesse and Sam’s ever-expanding social network. Garrett had managed to get a couple of minutes with his oldest friend and to secure plans for later in the week before letting the next eager guest at him. He hadn’t been two feet out of the crush before finding her again.
Nicho
le. That was her name. It had taken him the better part of an hour to pick it out from a nearby conversation, roll it around in his mind and connect it to the woman with the glittering almond eyes and fiery spill of curls, the long legs in dark jeans and the strappy little top with the tiny bow.
Standing within a loose grouping of friends and acquaintances of whom they both seemed to know some, but not all, they’d been talking around each other for hours now. Much as they’d been circling throughout the night. Picking up hints through rapid banter interspersed with old stories and private jokes. Exchanging looks that, within their lifespan of a scant handful of seconds, said more than all the words they’d shared combined...and then moving on.
Only now all those hints, bits and pieces had begun to take shape in his mind, forming the image of a woman he liked. A woman who laughed easily, spoke intelligently and didn’t take herself too seriously. A woman who liked to joke and tease. Who gave as good as she got. And whose unconscious smile did something to him he couldn’t quite put a name to.
He wanted her.
Not the way he usually wanted his dates. Not for some superficial conversation and perfunctory dinner or drinks that were the means to an end he’d been limiting himself to for as long as he could remember. All he’d had time for. All he could afford. Because he’d spent every spare minute he had on making his construction company top in the city, earning his degree and keeping his four sisters from doing all the things he didn’t want them to do.
Nichole made him want more. She made him curious. Made him want to linger. To take his time and find out if maybe they could have something...uncomplicated. Casual, but real. For a while.
He wanted the rest too. The parts where he pushed that pretty blush to see how deep and dark and far it could spread. The parts where he had her beneath him, all that fiery red hair wrapped around his fists and spilling over his pillow as he pushed inside her body. But when those parts were over, and before they even began, he wanted more. And he wanted it soon.