Chapter Two
Jesus. What in the hell are you doing, Galen?
He was leaving in less than twelve hours yet the thought of walking out the door and ending whatever this was before it had a chance to begin was the last thing he wanted to do. It had been a long damned time since he’d felt any kind of spark with a woman, and the electricity he felt when she put her hand on his arm was more than a simple spark. It was a full-blown current.
“Okay,” he said, more than willing to play her game, “no names. We’ll be two strangers having a conversation over drinks.”
“And protecting our alter egos.” She laughed.
“I thought that was a given.”
Her smile brightened, and Galen couldn’t help but stare. High cheekbones, delicate, straight nose. And her hazel eyes were intriguing in their oddness. The green blending into the lighter brown to fuse into a bright coppery tone. Her freckles were adorable, making her look almost too young to be in a bar. He wouldn’t call her beautiful in a traditional sense, more exotic. Her eyes were a little too large and wide, lending her a shy, innocent appearance, and her lips were a bit too full. But damn, the combination was intoxicating.
“So we’ve established that names are off-limits.” She traced her finger along the edge of her glass. “Anything else? I mean, I’d like to know what it is you do when you’re not on superhero duty.”
“Law enforcement,” he said, knowing there was a fifty-fifty chance she’d buy it. Not that it was a lie, but Galen wasn’t in the habit of flashing his U.S. Marshals credentials to impress women. He was more than just his job and he’d dealt with his fair share of vapid badge bunnies over the years. “You?”
Her brow furrowed and she cringed as if embarrassed to say. “Unemployed,” she answered with a sigh. “Fresh out of college with a journalism degree waiting to be put to good use.”
Galen couldn’t help but laugh, and she gave him a look. “Sorry, but you have to admit, your alter ego is a news reporter? Sort of fitting, don’t you think?”
She laughed too, a light, trilling sound that shot through Galen’s blood like liquid fire. “You’re right,” she said. “It’s perfect. And totally not made up.”
“Of course not.” Galen didn’t trust easily. Deception was unforgivable and honesty was his number-one ground rule. But something about this girl made him feel at ease. “Let’s agree, just because we’re not using names doesn’t mean we can’t be totally honest. No bullshit.”
“No bullshit,” she agreed with a nod. “Hometown?”
“Coos Bay,” he said.
“I love it there,” she said. “My dad’s cousin has a house in Seal Rock, we used to drive down to Coos Bay when I was a kid. I bet my small town beats yours, though. I grew up in Cascade, Idaho.”
“Never heard of it,” Galen said with a laugh. “But it can’t be that much smaller.”
“Oh, it is,” she said. “Maybe a thousand people. I’m pretty sure there are more bodies packed into the Lloyd Center on a busy weekend.”
“What do people do to pass the time in Cascade, Idaho?” Galen asked. “Churn butter and mend fences?”
“I said it was a small town, not a pioneer town.” She screwed her face up into a cute grimace. “There’s plenty to do. Ski, hike, camp, swim. Fish and hunt if you’re into it. Soak up the summer sun. There are a couple of lakes, a ski resort, and trailheads everywhere. Hot springs, hidden places that only the locals know about. Lots of tourist traffic in the summer. It’s not so bad.”
“Sounds great,” Galen said. Really, it didn’t seem too different from Coos Bay. Though the economy focused more on balance between commercial fishing and tourism, the town saw its fair share of summer visitors. “I used to fish from the jetty all the time when I was a kid. I still hike when I get the chance, and honestly, I’d rather rough it in a tent than order room service any day.” He’d spent almost every summer in the lush rain forests surrounding Coos Bay camping with his family before his parents had separated. “Siblings?”
“Only child,” she said.
“One older sister,” he countered. “She’s getting ready to open a bakery not far from here.”
“I always wished I had a sister.” Her mouth turned up into a soft smile that melted something inside Galen’s chest. “Do you guys look alike?”
He shrugged. “If I said yes, she’d probably take it as an insult.”
She gave him an appraising look. “If you share the same gene pool, I doubt that.”
Galen smiled at the compliment and took a small step toward her. He didn’t want to come on too strong, but damn, his body all but urged him to get closer. She took a deep breath and slowly raised her eyes to his until their gazes were locked. “Girlfriend?” she ventured, her voice cracking in an adorable show of nervousness.
He chuckled. “Single.”
She must be way drunker than she’d thought. Sure, Harper was a lightweight, but never in a million years would she be so brazen with a guy, which forced her to conclude that she’d wandered past being a little tipsy. Still, she wasn’t so drunk that she couldn’t think straight or make logical decisions. Her stomach had been in a constant state of acrobatics for the past hour, and every time their eyes met, Harper broke out into delicious chills. And if their physical chemistry wasn’t enough to have her acting like a smitten high school girl, the easy flow of their conversation was sure doing the trick.
Maybe Sophie was right. Luck was definitely on her side tonight. Not only was her mysterious hero drop-dead gorgeous, he was easygoing, charming, and funny, and had a raw, sexy edge that turned her insides to Jell-O. Add to that the fact that they shared similar interests . . . he was almost too good to be true. Harper knew that she should cut him loose now before he did something to shatter the illusion. In the past, the men she dated had always had a way of disappointing her down the line. She could leave now and chalk it up as a win. The problem was, she didn’t want to leave with nothing more than some flirty touches and witty conversation for the night. She wanted
more
.
“Okay.” Harper cleared her throat and closed the distance between them until her arm brushed his. His muscles stiffened from the contact and his expression burned with an intensity that stole her breath. She drained her glass in a couple of swallows and leaned in toward him, ready to take a leap. “I know where you grew up, that you failed sophomore geometry, and that you love fish tacos. How about your type?” she asked, trying not to sound too breathy. “What sort of woman are you attracted to?”
He pulled back and dragged his eyes from her toes to the top of her head in a way that made her skin tingle as though it were his hands and not his eyes touching her. Then he leaned in and put his mouth close to her ear, causing Harper to shudder with excitement. “Oh, about five-five, long dark hair, killer hazel eyes. I’m particularly fond of journalism majors.”
“Oh.” The word escaped her lips in a whisper.
His hand caught hers, his fingers fluttering against her palm in a way that made her wonder what those talented digits would feel like moving against a softer, more sensitive part of her body. Harper bit the inside of her cheek, worried that she’d give her desire away with some sort of desperate whimper that would send her superhero running at Mach 10 in the opposite direction. This wasn’t like her. She was the cautious one, the logical thinker, the girl who didn’t even go to second base until the fifth or sixth date. She wasn’t a one-night-stand sort of girl, and she’d never gone home with a guy she’d met in a bar. Still, what would it hurt to sow her oats a bit? She was twenty-two years old, for crying out loud. Young enough to be reckless and old enough to know her opportunities to act this way were coming to an end. She didn’t want to look back on this night months from now and regret that she hadn’t lived a little. Screw it. Tonight she was going for it.
For a few moments, they stood there, her hand in his while he swirled a sensual pattern across her palm. Harper’s heart fluttered in her chest, anticipation of what might happen next igniting all of her nerve endings into hyper-awareness. Her breath came in quick little bursts of air as she built up the courage to tell him what was on her mind.
Her hero reached up with his free hand and swept her hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear as he leaned in close. “Let’s get out of here,” he murmured, his lips brushing her ear as he uttered the exact words she’d been dying to say.
“My apartment’s five blocks from here,” she suggested.
He leaned back and smiled, his navy-blue eyes smoldering in their heat. “Perfect.”
After a quick good-bye to Addison and a not-so-gentle let-down for Sophie—who’d requested a few naughty pics as soon as she got him good and naked—Harper was more than ready to get out of there.
“Text or call if you need me,” Addison said one last time. “He’s sexy as sin, but even good-looking guys can be scumbags, Harp.”
“I know, I’ll be careful,” she said. “I’ve got you on speed dial.”
“Good girl,” Addison said with a grin. Out of the three of them, Addison was the most motherly. “Don’t have too much fun!” she called after her.
“Have I taught the two of you nothing?” Sophie shouted at them, her voice still amplified by the amount of liquor in her system. “Wreck that shit, Harp!”
“Right,” she said, giving Addison a look. “Talk to you tomorrow.”
“Bye!” they called in unison, waving Harper out the door.
When she stepped out of the bar into the cool night air, Harper half expected her mystery man to be gone. Maybe nothing more than a drunken figment of her imagination or perhaps he’d sobered up enough to hightail it out of there before he had to explain that he’d changed his mind. So when she saw him waiting for her at the curb, the door of a taxi open in invitation, a smile broke out on her face. She knew too much about Tolkien,
Star Wars
, and the personal histories of way too many comic book characters to score a guy like that. And likewise, a gorgeous stranger had never swept her off her feet. Yet, here she was. Too. Freaking. Awesome.
“I take it you’re not much of a walker?” Five blocks wasn’t that far, and he looked fit enough to walk ten times that. Still, she couldn’t resist the urge to tease him.
His lips curved up in a seductive smile. “No. Just impatient.”
She walked to the cab, a silly smile plastered on her face. Hoping she didn’t look too eager—or desperate for that matter—she ducked into the cab and said to the driver, “1410 Southwest Broadway, please.”
Harper’s hero climbed in behind her and closed the door. The quiet was deafening, the air almost too thick. She gathered her courage and turned in the seat so she could face him. Before her eyes could adjust enough to the dark for her to focus, he took her face in his hands and put his mouth to hers.
His kiss was like a deep sigh. The kind of slow, measured release of breath that clears your mind and relaxes you from head to toe. His lips caressed hers, featherlight, almost a tease, pulling back a little when she pressed forward to deepen the kiss. He was maddeningly deliberate in his tactics as his hands slid down from her face, his thumbs stroking upward along her jaw as his fingers wound around her throat. His grip was gentle and for some crazy-ass reason, Harper trusted him to hold her this way. He eased her head to one side and left a searing trail with his mouth as he kissed across her jawline, his nose nuzzling below her earlobe as he nipped lightly at the flesh near her pulse point.
Harper gasped, the light sting of his teeth replaced by the soothing heat of his tongue on her skin. She’d never made out with a guy in a cab before, but the driver could have turned around and recorded the entire thing with his phone and she wouldn’t have noticed or cared. With her eyes closed, there was nothing but this moment, the sensations dancing across her flesh as this unknown man kissed, licked, and nipped at her throat. Her pulse raced in her ears and a deep throb settled between her thighs, her body awakening in a way that she’d never thought possible. Oh sure, she’d had boyfriends, and she wasn’t some giggling virgin, but she’d never come alive with desire like this from something as simple as a kiss.
Upping the ante, he wrapped his arms around Harper’s waist and twisted her around until she straddled his lap. Harper ducked her head in the enclosed space, their position forcing her to lean over him in a way that pressed their bodies even closer together. His erection strained against his fly, pressing against Harper’s core in a way that made her shudder with need. Her lips found his again and this time, she was the one to tease, flicking out with her tongue at his lips. He groaned into her mouth, grinding his hips against her. How the hell long did it take to drive a few blocks, anyway? Because if they didn’t get to her building soon, she’d be naked in the back of this cab and not giving a single shit who happened to see.
This was a night of firsts. Her first time to be roofied—or almost roofied—at a bar. First time to make out in a cab. And her first sexual encounter with a total stranger. As Harper slanted her mouth against his, finally allowing her to deepen the kiss, she knew she’d remember this night for the rest of her life.
The cab pulled to a stop and the driver cleared his throat. When that wasn’t enough to break them apart, he said, “That’ll be five eighty-two.”
Harper was bucked in the air as he dug in his pocket. She broke their kiss only long enough to see him hand the driver a wad of bills that could have been six bucks or sixty for all she knew or cared. And apparently, he wasn’t too concerned either. He pulled her out of the car and took her in his arms, kissing her like he was starved for her. She barely had time to kick the car door shut as the cab pulled out into traffic, and if she hadn’t needed to see where she was walking, she would have kept her lips locked onto his the entire way up to her apartment.
He pulled away, his expression pinched as if it pained him to put distance between them. Twining her fingers with his, he walked toward the entrance of Harper’s building as calm and collected in appearance as Harper was wound-up and shaky. It wasn’t nerves that affected her, but rather the need to resume where they’d left off. She’d never wanted to give over control like she did right now. The consummate control freak, Harper had made the rules in all of her previous relationships. She’d said when. She’d dictated how. Maybe it was because of the anonymity of the situation that she was so ready to relinquish control. And despite that need, it terrified the shit out of her.