“You really didn’t know who I was?” he asked, pushing to his feet.

“I would have run the other way. No offense,” she offered belatedly, wondering whether it was possible not to take offense at that.

But apparently he hadn’t. “No, that’s good. I just didn’t like the idea that maybe this was some kind of conquest thing.”

She sat up straighter. “This from ‘the panty whisperer’?”

Garrett froze where he was, jeans pulled over his hips but the fly left open. Bare feet, bare chest … It would have been a calendar-hot snapshot if not for the hard set of his jaw and narrowed eyes.

“You did not just call me that.”

“Well, I mean …”

But then he was up. Stalking the room and back, coming to stop in front of her. “What?” he demanded, thumbs hooked into the front pockets of his jeans, pushing them down just that extra inch in front, showing off a nearly scandalous stretch of skin. “You’re not suggesting I ‘whispered’ you out of anything?”

She tried to bat away the question. In three years she hadn’t even been tempted by another man. And in less than one night she’d fallen flat on her back and practically begged him to follow her down. If that wasn’t some kind of freakish sexual panty magic she didn’t know what it was.

About the Author

MIRA LYNN KELLY grew up in the Chicago area and earned her degree in Fine Arts from Loyola University. She met the love of her life while studying abroad in Rome, Italy, only to discover he’d been living right around the corner from her for the previous two years. Having spent her twenties working and playing in the Windy City, she’s now settled with her husband in rural Minnesota, where their four beautiful children provide an excess of action, adventure and entertainment.

With writing as her passion, and inspiration striking at the most unpredictable times, Mira can always be found with a notebook at the ready. (More than once the neighbours have caught her, covered in grass clippings, scribbling away atop the compost container!)

When she isn’t reading, writing or running to keep up with the kids, she loves watching movies, blabbing with the girls and cooking with her husband and friends. Check out her website, www.miralynkelly.com, for the latest dish!

Recent titles by the same author:

WAKING UP MARRIED

WILD FLING OR A WEDDING RING?

FRONT PAGE AFFAIR

THE S BEFORE EX

TABLOID AFFAIR, SECRETLY PREGNANT!

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

Once is Never Enough
Mira Lyn Kelly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To my brilliant, hilarious, talented, sweet,

beautiful and more-fun-than-fiction children.

You are my real-life Happily-Ever-Afters. I love you.

PROLOGUE

“SO YOU TAKE your reckless adventuring like you take your coffee: lukewarm and watered down?”

Nichole Daniels stared first at the shu mai being jabbed in dumpling accusation from across their small table, and then at the gleaming blue eyes centering her best friend’s face beyond. “Hypothetical reckless adventuring. And, for clarification, I want to enjoy my coffee. Not get hurt by it. So I take it hot, but not scalding. I like it brewed strong, but cut with something creamy to avoid heartburn.”

Maeve snorted. “You cut it with skim milk. Cripes! The whole point of this was to embrace the no-consequences element of a fantasy we weren’t planning to live out. I mean, seriously, I don’t want to be trapped on a deserted island at all. And if I actually was, I’d hope it would be with some kind of mechanical genius who played survival games of the non-cannibal variety in his spare time. But for the purpose of this chatty lunchtime game girlfriends play … in a context separate from reality … for one single night without consequences maybe you’d want something robust … rich … Oh, my God … something topped with whipped cream!”

“Enough, enough.” Nichole laughed, cutting into Maeve’s ramping excitement before the whole restaurant started staring at them. “I get the concept. Honestly, I’m just not interested.”

Maeve narrowed her eyes. “It’s a fantasy. How can you not be interested?”

Echoes of a distant conversation teased through Nichole’s mind—accusations and blame, heartbreak and humiliation, and the fantasy she’d bet her future on revealed for the nightmare it was. Everything she’d lost. Everyone.

She’d been down that road. Twice already. No thanks for a third.

It didn’t pay to pretend. Not even over a dim sum lunch with her best friend.

“I’m just not,” she managed through a stiff smile.

“Hence your overnight-on-a-deserted-island order for a male of unspecified looks who’s safe, honest and can keep up his end of a conversation.” Another jab of the chopsticks. “Lame.”

“Not lame. Maybe my reality is everything I want it to be. How about that? I’ve got a kickass career, a button-cute place in a cool neighborhood and the greatest friends in the world,” she said, batting her eyes at the best of them. “What more could a girl ask for?”

“Do you want me to start down at the toes or up at the head … Or should I just start in the middle, ‘cause that region might make my point a little faster.”

“None of the above! Now, stop taunting me with your dumpling or I’m going to eat it.”

Maeve snapped her chopsticks back, popping the shrimp bundle into her mouth with a grin. On finishing the bite, though, her look became more contemplative than teasing. “I’m serious, Nikki. It’s been three years. Don’t you ever get lonely?”

Nichole stared back, the word no poised on her tongue. Only as the seconds stretched, the single word that was the lie she’d been telling herself for all too long suddenly wouldn’t form. Her life was so right—in all the ways that mattered—she hadn’t let herself think too much about those times when the stillness of her apartment left a sort of hollow feeling deep in her chest. Or when the empty chair across her table kept her from using the bay window breakfast nook that was half the reason she’d signed the lease in the first place. But they were there, nonetheless, apparently lying in wait for the right opportunity to glare at her.

Maeve slumped back in her chair. “I should have given you the last shu mai.”

“Please, it’s not so dire as that,” she assured her, starting to stack the plates cluttering the table. “I’m just not interested in another relationship.”

“But what about—?”

The strains of Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher” cut in, signaling a call from Maeve’s brother.

Hallelujah.

With Maeve scheduled to leave town for business the next day, Garrett Carter would probably keep her on the line for the next twenty minutes, reassuring himself she wouldn’t leave the coffeepot on, let anyone—anyone—into her hotel room, or accept candy from strangers in general. Only the reprieve proved short-lived when Maeve thumbed the call through to voicemail.

Nichole reached for her wine as an unholy gleam lit her friend’s eyes.

“I should set you up with Garrett.”

The crisp, fruity vintage burned like acid as it hit her sinuses. Napkin to her mouth, lungs wrestling to expel the alcohol in exchange for oxygen, she choked out a strangled, “What?” Then, wheezing, “I thought you were my friend.”

“I was thinking maybe you could learn something from him.”

“Like what? The most effective antibiotics for treating—?”

“Hey.” Maeve cut her off with a stern glance. “Uncalled for. He’s not so bad.”

Nichole cocked a brow at her. “They call him The Panty Whisperer. I’ve seen his name on the ladies’ room wall. And my mother warned me about men like him.”

Maeve chuckled, a sisterly combination of worship and irritation filling her eyes. “You could be dating Attila the Hun and your mother would be delirious with the whole breathless ‘he’s so powerful’ business. Trust me, she’d take Garrett with open arms.”

Nichole shook her head, knowing it was true.

“And, between you and me, Mary Newton wrote that on the wall to get even with him for putting her off when she offered up the goods. I know you’ve never met him, but Garrett’s actually a pretty decent guy.”

“‘Domineering, hypocritical, arrogant, womanizing, workaholic control freak.’ Gee, where did I hear that from, I wonder?”

Maeve shook her head. “Okay, take it easy. I’m not serious about setting you up. And even if I were he wouldn’t go out with you. He’s got a rule about dating his sisters’ friends.”

Handy. Because Nichole had a similar rule. She’d lost enough friends because of broken relationships. People she’d already considered family—

Fingers snapped in front of her face. “Chill! I told you I was kidding.”

The muscles down her back relaxed. “Your point, then?”

“Just this. Maybe it’s time to dip a toe back into the dating pool. Test the waters and see how it goes. I know in the past your relationships have always been … serious. But they don’t have to be. Look, Garrett’s the only guy I know as commitment-phobic as you. But you can bet he isn’t lonely. He’s proof positive a couple of dates for the sake of some non-platonic company can be just that—a couple of dates. Simple. No big deal.”

Yeah, except the last time Nichole had gone on “a couple of dates” she ended up with a white dress she’d never worn, thousands blown on non-refundable deposits, the very fabric of her life torn asunder and an aversion to fantasies and forever powerful enough to keep her out of romance for three years running.

As it turned out, that fateful “it’s not me, it’s you” speech had been the best thing ever to happen to her.

She’d been lucky to escape a marriage that, despite what she’d believed at the time, would have been a train wreck. Lucky to have chosen Chicago as the city to clean slate her life in. And luckiest of all to have picked the open treadmill next to Maeve’s that Friday that had, in essence, been the first day of the rest of Nichole’s new life.

She hadn’t been tempted to even the merest flirtation since. Not once. And she honestly couldn’t imagine that changing anytime soon.

But, seeing Maeve about to come at her from another angle, Nichole held up a staying hand. “How about this. If I happen to meet someone who actually makes it hard to say no, I promise I’ll give Garrett a call to talk me through The Panty Whisperer’s six-step guide to keeping it casual—”

“Ha-ha. Very funny,” Maeve grumbled, flagging the waitress for their check.

“But until then I’m not dipping my toe in anything.”

CHAPTER ONE

GOOD LORD, WAS THAT a tongue?

Nichole Daniels ripped her attention from the kiss deepening at exponential rates less than fifty feet away and dragged it back to where Chicago’s cityscape reflected the molten hues of the western sky.

Having arrived early to help her friend Sam set up for his rooftop bash to welcome his older brother home from Europe, she’d been stocking wash pails with beer, wine and a myriad other pre-packaged cocktails when the lovebirds had pushed out the door, their breathless laughter dying at the sight of her. With the party scheduled to start—well, right then, for the few minutes before the guests migrated up to the terrace she’d figured the roof would be big enough for the three of them. Only now the evening breeze had picked up, carrying with it whispers not meant for her ears. Private words and promises of the kind of forever she’d stopped dreaming about years ago. The intimacy of their exchange had her feeling like some kind of creepy voyeur.

Boxing up the last packaging to recycle, she eyed the door. Anytime now …

People always showed up early for Sam’s parties. The view from his roof was one of the best in the city for watching the sunset.

A muffled groan.

Awkward.

Tipping the longneck that hung from her fingers for a small draw of the lemony draft, she glanced down at her phone for the hundredth time. She saw a text from her mother, who was checking to see if she had any special plans for the night, so she pushed it aside on the picnic tabletop, making a mental note to call her the next day.

Tonight she wasn’t in the mood for a diatribe on beggars versus choosers, ticking clocks and doing the work to make her dreams a reality. No matter how well-intentioned her mother might be, a guilt-flavored pep-talk wasn’t on the evening’s agenda.

Another gasp. This one edged with unmistakable need—and she hazarded a sidelong glance—

Whoa! Mistake!

She hadn’t just seen … and the hands … and the legs …

Jumping clumsily from the picnic table, Nichole stumbled back and made a beeline for the stairway access.

Eyes on the ground. Eyes. On. The. Ground.

She was halfway down the narrow flight, ready to text Maeve her first report from the party, when she stopped, staring blankly at her open, empty palm.

She’d left her phone.

Her stomach turned to lead as she hesitantly looked back up to the roof. The sunset she could live without. But that phone was her lifeline. All her contacts … appointments … shopping lists … music … Maeve.

She had to go back. Only she really didn’t want to.

Maybe if she gave it a minute or two they’d be done and she’d be able to collect her phone without feeling like she needed to boil her eyes in bleach or start therapy seven days a week to scrub the memory from her mind.

How long had it been already? She didn’t even know.

So accustomed to her pretty little pink-rubber-clad smartphone, who needed a watch?

Okay, this was ridiculous. She was an adult, and her phone was a critical part of her existence. She turned toward the roof, bottom lip parked between her teeth, foot poised to advance—

The door below opened and she glanced back, hoping against hope it was Sam so she could make him get the darned phone for her. Only this wasn’t her five-foot-ten-if-she-looked-up-just-right, whipcord-thin blond bud, come to rescue her phone, but rather a six-foot-something stranger in worn jeans and a white Oxford rolled back at the arms, shouldering through a doorway made too small by his frame.

Head bowed, he called back to someone within the apartment, “Yeah, see you up there in a few.”

Maybe she should warn the guy about the rooftop action. Only before she could figure quite how to phrase it, the head topped with short, disheveled, dark curls tipped back, revealing a set of electric blue eyes that sent a shock straight through the center of her. Her mind whirled and stalled as recognition washed over her in a wave, receding just as quickly.

She’d have sworn she knew him.

“Looks like we had the same idea to catch the sunset,” he offered with an easy smile and a jut of his chin toward the roof as he took the steps at a loose jog, meeting her at the midpoint of the stairwell. “You going up?”

“I think I have to,” she answered weakly, her eyes tracking nervously to the rectangle of open sky at the top of the stairs. “I left my phone when I ran….”

Her phone would be fine. It wasn’t like she’d left it balancing on the rail.

Was it possible they were finished?

“Ran?”

Of course it was possible. Probable? Who knew?

“Did something happen up there?”

“Yeah,” she answered with a shudder as she covered her eyes with her hands. The way they’d started going at it—she’d never seen … never done….

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.

CHAPTER 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.

Nichole. 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.

Laughter subsiding, Nichole sighed, her dark gaze finding his beneath the ashy fringe of her lashes. It wasn’t coy or contrived. Nor the blatant invitation he’d lost interest in back in his twenties. It was contemplative. Heated, but questioning. Enticing in its hint of uncertainty.

Damn, if that didn’t make her all the better.

Around them the conversation had somehow found its way to movies filmed in Chicago and who could name the most. Beneath the titles volleying back and forth, Garrett gave a subtle nod of his head toward the quiet corner of the rooftop where they’d watched the sunset.

Nichole’s slender brows drew together, her teeth setting into her lush bottom lip in the ultimate expression of uncertainty.

It shouldn’t have gone straight to his groin, but it did. At least until he saw her fooling with that phone she carried around. One thumb brushed the smooth screen and—was she … texting?

Immediately he thought of his sister, “using a lifeline” to make some inane decision she didn’t trust him enough to help her with. Was that what this was? Indecision over whether to step over to a corner and talk with him?

Sure, he had every intention of taking it further, but for now—

Wait … What the hell …? She was not holding that phone up to take his picture.

Eyes on the screen, only half listening to an escalating debate over whether the outlying suburbs and thus the John Hughes classics counted, Nichole had been trying to frame the shot when her subject was suddenly front and center—closer than he’d been edging past her down in the access stairwell.

Oh, God. She’d been busted taking his picture to send to Maeve. This was an all-time low.

Her gaze crawling up the towering expanse of Oxford cloth and then creeping over the tantalizing stretch of bare masculine skin at the base of his neck, she forced herself to keep going until she reached the now steely blue of his eyes. Her stomach tumbled into free fall.

“What’re you doing, Red?”

Swallowing past the tight knot in her throat, she shook her head.

What was she doing? Trying to snap a picture of some virtual stranger because she couldn’t account for the reaction she was having to him? Because she couldn’t keep her eyes off him for more than three seconds at a stretch and she needed the judgment of a reliable outside source? Someone who knew her just about as well as she knew herself. Maeve.

So, basically, she was acting like a complete nut-job.

And yet a part of her still twitched with the need to get a photo and hit “send.” It must have been obvious too, because seconds later a hand firmed around her wrist—loose, but uncompromising—and pushed the phone down to her side.

The skin beneath his grasp warmed as though a low charge ran from his hand up through hers. It felt good. Too good. And suddenly all she could think about was how long it had been since anyone had touched her for more than the briefest instant. What a simple pleasure that heated, lingering contact was. And how she hadn’t even realized she missed it.

He was bending close to her ear and his breath washed warm across skin that seemed to come alive beneath it. “Red?”

The air went thin around her as the slow tingle behind her ear began to spread, sliding down her neck, shoulder and arm until it came to mingle with the charge emanating from her wrist.

“I don’t know what I’m doing. Men don’t usually—I mean, I don’t—” Trying to find the words, she licked her lips, watched his eyes darken at the sight. “There’s something about you.”

Maybe it was the way he hadn’t hesitated to protect a woman he didn’t know. Or how he was built like he pounded rocks for a living but could argue international economics as easily as the merits of Leia over Uhura. How he savored opportunities to stop and enjoy the simple stuff. Or how his offbeat jokes made her laugh like she’d known him forever.

Or maybe it was just that when his gaze drifted to her hair, she could feel his fingers tightening in it.

Could it be so simple? He made her feel like a woman and made her notice him as a man … when for so long no one else had.

A gravel-rough laugh rumbled from low in his chest and the hand at her wrist loosened, easing into a slow up and down caress over the bare skin of her arm. “There’s something about you too. So what do you say to getting out of here and figuring out just what it is?”

Getting out of here? Her heart slammed to a stop.

That was no toe in the pool. No testing the waters or even taking a tentative dip. It was a full-on, feel-the-rush blast down a water slide—total body immersion into the deep end. And the most frightening thing about it was … as she peered into those brilliant blues … it was tempting as hell.

Where was Maeve when she needed her most?

When she wanted someone skilled in the art of justification and adventurous enough to—?

And then it struck her. She didn’t need Maeve at all. Not only did she know with one-hundred-percent certainty what her friend would want her to do … she knew herself.

This guy was the simple pleasure she’d been missing. He had a connection to and was obviously liked by nearly half the people at the party—so chances were good he wasn’t a serial killer. This was the first time she’d met him, and from what she’d gathered he didn’t live in the area but up north somewhere—so chances were even better this could be something brief. Something quick.

Something in the moment.

Something she wanted more with every second that passed.

A slow smile spread to her lips.

“Okay, Blue Eyes. Let’s go.”

CHAPTER THREE

“LET’S GO.”

Garrett had known even before the words left her mouth. He’d seen the way those soft brown eyes steadied, sensed the change in the air between them, and had felt his own body respond to the first victory.

A quick scan of the rooftop confirmed at least half a dozen sets of eyes on them. Not what he would have preferred, but there was nothing to be done about it now.

“Yeah, let’s go.” Taking her hand, he kept his eyes on hers as they headed toward the stairwell. If she was looking at him she wouldn’t notice the raised brows, wouldn’t worry about the quiet snickers, wouldn’t think about anything but finding a place where they could talk. To each other instead of around each other. There’d used to be a coffee house in the neighborhood he’d heard was pretty popular for the late-night crowd. Perhaps it was time to find out for himself.

At the bottom of the stairs Nichole stopped. “Do you need to say goodbye to anyone?”

“Nah, I’m good.” He’d call Jesse tomorrow. The rest of the guys he’d see soon enough. “You?”

Her mouth pulled to the side as she shook her head and glanced away.

“Are you worried about people seeing us leave together?” He hoped like hell that wasn’t it. While his returning to the party alone would possibly minimize it, most likely the damage was already done.

“I’m twenty-six, not sixteen.” She laughed, sounding more nervous, he was sure, than she’d intended. “It’s just that I’m acting a little out of character here and I don’t want to lose my nerve.”

Damn, she was cute. He rubbed his thumb in a light circle over her knuckle and leaned in conspiratorially. “Lose your nerve for what?”

He’d asked it as a taunt, finding her all too easy to tease and loving the fast rise of red to her cheeks. Only when she turned, head tipping back as her gaze lifted to his, the wild blush he’d been hoping for wasn’t anywhere to be found. Instead a sort of uncertain determination lit her face, making him wonder just what she was struggling with.

Brushing a stray curl from her brow, he caught the quick dart of a pink tongue across the swell of her bottom lip, felt the pull of this thing between them tugging him closer, making him want to take advantage of the empty stairwell, the dim lighting and the mouth that was driving him to distraction.

He needed to get her out of there. Into his b—

No. Not yet. This one was different.

Those soulful brown eyes searched his, the lingering intimacy fraying the tether of his restraint. The soft press of her body against his, unraveling his control.

“My nerve for this,” she murmured, her breath a fluttery rush against his skin an instant before she kissed him—pressed her mouth to his and tasted his lips with the barest flick of her tongue, demolishing the man he’d wanted to be for her and giving rise to the man she’d invited in.

Hell.

Tucking the hand still holding hers at the small of her back, he drew a slow breath at that most enticing spot just below a woman’s ear. Let her quiet shudder and sweet scent flood his senses and wreak havoc on his body.

“That’s what you want?” he asked in a low growl, knowing it was but wanting to hear her say it just the same.

“I’ve been worried about avoiding complications so long I think maybe I’ve been missing a lot of the simple stuff too.” She swallowed, heat pouring off her as she finished, “I don’t want to miss this.”

She couldn’t get any better. “Then you won’t.”

Ten minutes later, amid gasps of laughter and lust, Garrett turned the key and Nichole’s front door swung open under the combined weight of their bodies. Spilling into her front hall, Garrett righted them both, kicked the door closed with a sweep of his leg and threw the lock. She backed across the open hardwood, barely a step ahead of him, eyes glittering, lips curved and parted as her breath came in shallow pants.

Her gaze swept the length of him and the now persistent flush of her cheeks deepened, driving the blood hard and fast to his already aching groin. Reaching for him, her slender fingers curved around his belt, pulling until he allowed her to tow him closer. Close enough that he could reach around her, cover the firm curves of her ass with his hands, slide lower still to the backs of her thighs and hoist her up against him.

Her breath caught as her ankles locked behind his back, the soft brown of her eyes going nearly black as her pupils pushed wide.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he groaned, fighting the urge to take her there against the wall.

Nodding distractedly, she went to work on the buttons down the front of his shirt, pushing at the panels like she was revealing Superman’s emblem beneath. And when she answered, “You too,” her eyes glazing at the sight of him, taking a building in a single bound didn’t seem so impossible.

The door to her room was open ahead, and the sight of her neat bed with its delicate lilac print spread made him harder than he could ever remember being. Hell, yes, he was hungry for the sex. For her body. For the pretty pink that tinged her skin and the sounds she’d make when he took her over the edge. He wanted all of that. But this—this anticipation burning through his veins—was for what would come after. For the part that was going to be different. The part he would wait for until he’d wrung every moan and gasp Nichole’s body had to offer out of her.

At her bed, he set her back on the mattress, supporting himself on one arm.

Legs still wrapped around his hips, she looked up at him. “I don’t even know your name.”

He’d opened his mouth to tell her when something in the depths of those deep dark eyes gave him pause. Something excited.

The corner of his mouth kicked up. Lowering his voice to a taunting growl, he asked, “So the question is, do you like it better that way?”

The half-moan, half-gasp that escaped her slender throat was answer enough to just about push him over the edge.

Had he actually thought she couldn’t get any better?

Perfect. This hot, hard, mouthwatering male specimen was her sunset. Her uncomplicated simple pleasure. This was the fantasy she could finally afford to play out. The reckless adventure she hadn’t dared to dream. And, more, it was safe.

Because she didn’t even know his name.

Women didn’t plan forevers around nameless men. They didn’t get the wrong idea. Misinterpret intentions. Or get caught up in dreams that would take them nowhere.

They got a single night sans complications.

This was the one night of wild abandon she’d been unconsciously saving up for for three years. Longer than that if she was willing to look back. But she wasn’t. Not tonight. Not when this moment, right now—as the familiar stranger above her lowered his mouth to the hollow between her breasts—was too good to miss even one second of.

Those blue eyes peered up at her as the corner of his mouth twisted into a mischievous smile. “This little bow here,” he murmured gruffly, “has been begging me to play with it all night.” Then, catching one loose string between his teeth, he tugged until the knot slipped free, taking Nichole’s next breath with it.

She hadn’t thought of the peach cami as particularly sexy, hadn’t consciously drawn attention to herself for years. But at the rough sound of appreciation scraping from his throat as he used his hand to part the tiny expanse of soft cotton between her breasts just that much further, she flushed with the pleasure of knowing it was.

His tongue swirled deep in the hollow there, wetting the skin first and then blowing a cool breath across it after, making her belly turn and twist.

There wasn’t enough contact between them. Not for the way her body was beginning to ache. To heat. To need. He was above her on the bed, his weight supported on one arm and the knees that straddled her thigh.

His tongue made another wet foray across the swell of her breast and then stopped within a warm, teasing breath of her nipple. So close.

Arching into him, she offered the straining bud to his kiss, begging him to push her bra aside and take. But just as quickly he eased back, drawing another wet trail up to her collarbone, her neck and then to the decadent spot behind her ear that had never felt quite so sensitive as this.

“I want you naked, Nichole,” he growled against the spot, making her heart skitter and pound.

“You know my name,” she gasped as his palm smoothed over her belly to the hem of her shirt and pushed it up.

Pulling the gathered fabric over her head, he tossed the shirt aside and stared down at her breasts, covered in a plain cream demi-cup. “And you don’t know mine.”

She swallowed hard.

It shouldn’t have been exciting. She only wanted to think of it as a safeguard, a defense against this man who’d stirred the first response her body had known in three years, and quite possibly the strongest ever. But there was no mistaking the playful taunt in his tone. This was sexy gameplay. Or maybe a second cousin to it. It had to be some relation based on the way the words alone and all their suggestive implications licked at the needy, achy places within her. Places she hadn’t thought existed.

A flick of his finger and the front clasp opened. Another and she was bared to him. The peaks of her nipples tight and straining for a touch only he could give her. And now, watching the way that electric blue glaze zeroed in on them, she didn’t think she’d manage her next breath if he didn’t ease them.

“Naked, Nichole.”

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