Billionaire on the Loose

by Jessica Clare

  She totally knew how that felt.

  “Well,” Gretchen said, casting a look over at Taylor. “I was going to ask my friend here to give you a tour of the city, but I’m not sure she’s dressed appropriately.”

  Taylor looked down at her shirt. She’d switched from her plain shirt (which went best with her scarf) to the spare she carried. “What’s wrong with this?”

  “Isn’t that a Starfleet uniform?”

  “Well, yeah. You never know when there’s going to be a flash mob of Trekkies. I like to be prepared.”

  Gretchen shook her head. “You are so weird sometimes, Tay.”

  “I think she looks fine,” Loch said. “And I’d be very appreciative if you had the time to show me around the city, Taylor.” He looked at her with those gorgeous dark eyes and she wanted to swoon like a heroine in a book. Seriously, he was that good-looking. It was messing with her head.

  “Gosh, I don’t know,” Taylor said. Her phone was vibrating in her back pocket, a sure sign that texts were incoming, and they probably weren’t happy ones. “I should get back to my apartment soon.”

  Gretchen was giving her a you’re crazy look. “To play your game?”

  “Game?” Loch perked up. “Do you play sports?”

  “Um . . . I play a MMORPG.” Taylor smiled brightly. “It’s almost a sport in that there are teams and things.”

  “A MM-what?” Loch’s eyes widened.

  “MMORPG,” Taylor repeated. Jeez, this guy was a hunk, but did he live under a rock? “Massive multiplayer online role-playing game. And I should be leading a raid today when I get back home.”

  “That can wait, can’t it?” Gretchen gestured at Loch. “You can show him around for a bit, right? Take him to a few of your usual hangouts? Grab a bite to eat?”

  “Well . . .” Taylor bit a fingernail and pulled out her phone. An entire wall of texts from Sigmund scrolled past and the pit of her stomach dropped. She looked up. Loch was watching her, and when she met his gaze, he gave her a slow smile. Oh, Jesus, the man had dimples.

  Even Thor didn’t have dimples.

  “Maybe for a bit,” Taylor said.

  “Shall we go exploring, then?” Loch got to his feet and grinned at Taylor.

  As long as it didn’t involve Sigmund, she was game. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Four

  The moment they got into the city, Taylor felt awkward. She tended to be pretty clueless about people most of the time, but even she knew she was getting strange looks from women on the street. They saw her with Loch, saw her Trek shirt, and couldn’t put the two together. All right, then, time to adjust.

  Gretchen did say to take him to her favorite haunts. So Taylor took him first to her favorite comic shop. Superheroes, Dice & More was a mere cubbyhole of a shop downtown, but it was friendly. She knew all the guys there and they were great. What better place to help Loch make a few friends . . . and get a new shirt for herself? The windows to the store were covered in old, faded comic book posters, and she beamed reassurance at Loch when he looked confused. “Just a pit stop,” she told him. “Then we’ll go get a bite to eat and explore the High Line. Unless you’d rather go to a museum or something?”

  “High Line is fine.” He walked into the shop, peering at a table of bobble heads and statuettes of mostly naked superheroines.

  “You a big reader?” she asked him, winding her way through the narrow shop toward the rack of T-shirts. Most of the black T-shirts were male sizes, but she was pretty sure she’d seen a baby-doll tee last time she’d come in. She found the rack and started flipping through shirts. Captain America, Captain America . . . Thor. The irony of it struck her and she grabbed the shirt.

  “Not much of a reader, no.” He smiled at her, and she felt her knees go weak at the flash of those dimples. “Won’t hold that against me, will you?”

  “God, no.” She beamed back up at him. It felt like she’d been rewarded each time he smiled at her. “I haven’t read much lately, either. Too much going on.” She headed toward the checkout, where Murder Bill was talking with Andrew. “Hey, guys.”

  “Tay!” Bill clapped his hands at the sight of her. “I haven’t seen you in ages! Your pull list is getting enormous. You here to pick up?” His gaze went to Loch and then he looked back at Taylor, frowning. “Bodyguard?”

  She laughed and tossed the shirt on the counter. “Why would I need a bodyguard? This is my friend, Loch.”

  Bill pulled the shirt off the hanger and rang it up, giving her a wary look. “That guy online still bothering you?”

  Her laugh was a bit too forced. Had she mentioned that to him? She needed to learn to keep her mouth shut. “Don’t be silly. It’s nothing. And Loch is a friend from out of town.”

  “Ahhh.” Bill looked sad for a moment. “A date?”

  “Not a date,” she affirmed, and when he smiled, she smiled back. “Think I can have the store discount on the shirt?”

  “For you, Tay, anything.” Bill winked at her and rang her up. The shirt was seventeen fifty, and she only had fifteen dollars in her pocket, but Bill added the rest to her tab and told her she could pay him next time. She went to the back, changed, stuffed her old shirt in her Hello Kitty backpack, and then headed back out to retrieve Loch. He was chatting with the men up front, though neither Bill nor Andrew looked as if they were enjoying the conversation.

  “We’re heading out to grab something to eat,” Taylor said, grabbing Loch’s arm. Mostly so she could touch his muscles. Mostly. God, she had it bad for the guy. He was just so damn yummy looking. “You guys want to come?” She looked at Andrew and Bill.

  “Can’t. Gotta stay and mind the store.” Bill cleared his throat.

  She frowned. He’d closed up before to go have lunch with her. It wasn’t as if the place was booming with business. Oh, well. “Okay, see you soon, then.”

  She and Loch left, and they were down the street before Loch spoke again. “You do realize both of them have a crush on you?”

  “Huh?” She looked up at him, stopping in her tracks.

  He tugged on her arm and neatly pulled her away from an oncoming pedestrian with a stroller. “Those guys. Both of them panicked when they thought I was your boyfriend.”

  “Oh, they’re just friends.” She waved a hand in the air. “They’re harmless. We go way back.”

  “While you were changing, they asked me what my intentions were and told me not to hurt you.”

  Okay, that was weird. “Your intentions?”

  He pulled her against him, and a kid on a skateboard gave her an ugly look as he moved past. “Yes. I told them I intended to act quite honorable to you.”

  “Oh, that’s a shame,” she blurted. Honorable wasn’t where her thoughts kept heading.

  Loch looked down at her, astonished, and then laughed. “You’re full of surprises.”

  “Am I?” Here she just thought her mouth ran away with her.

  “Indeed.” His arm remained around her shoulders, and she decided she rather liked that. It felt cozy. Almost like a date. “Where are we going now?”

  “Are you hungry? I know a great pub a few blocks over.” They had LAN parties every Saturday night, so she frequented the place and knew all the guys there. “Makes a great burger.”

  He brightened. “Think they’ll have a match on?”

  “A what?”

  “Sports?”

  “If we ask nice, maybe?”

  He chuckled. “Then let us go ask nice, shall we?”

  Flustered at his attention, Taylor let him open the door for her and when they walked in, she was immediately enveloped in the homey atmosphere of the place. A lot of Manhattan restaurants were upscale, but Pub Life was more shabby than chic. The booths were worn, the barstools even more so, and the floorboards creaked when you walked in. The entire place smelled like chili fries,
and off to one side she could see the waitstaff lining up tables for the LAN party later that night. She’d be missing the party, it seemed, and it was just one of many lately that she’d been unable to attend. She couldn’t find it in herself to care, because she was keeping company with a dude who rivaled a demigod and whose dimples made her knees weak and her panties wet.

  And it was rare for a guy to get Taylor’s panties wet.

  She waved at a passing waiter. “Hey, Doug. Can we get my usual?”

  “Tay Tay!” He flung his arms wide and hugged her, dragging her away from Loch’s embrace. “My little Tay Tay in the wind! I haven’t seen you in forever! Are you avoiding us on Saturday nights?”

  “Just busy,” she mumbled, prying herself out of Doug’s exuberant grip. “Work and stuff.”

  “Mmmhmm.” He bustled over to the back booth and cleaned off a few old glasses and gave the table a swipe with a rag. “Well, don’t be a stranger, sweetie. Sit your ass down. You going to the LAN party tonight?”

  She gave Doug an awkward smile. “Not tonight! I have a friend with me and he doesn’t do computers.”

  Doug pretended to clutch his chest. “How on earth did you meet our little Tay, then?”

  “Mutual friend,” Loch said easily. He pointed at a TV over the bar, currently set to the news. “Get any sports on that?”

  “I’ll see what we can do.” He winked at them and then wandered off.

  “Another friend?” Loch asked mildly as Taylor slid into the booth.

  “Just a friend. His boyfriend is in my guild.”

  “Ah. And what’s a guild again?” Loch sat down across from her.

  Taylor tried not to look too aggrieved. “You seriously don’t know anything about MMOs?”

  “’Fraid not. I’m not big into computers.” He folded his hands on the table and leaned in. “How come you hide here in the back and don’t sit at the bar?”

  She winced. “I used to, but I get distracted and fall off the stool. Now they try to save a booth for me if they know I’m coming in.”

  He threw his head back and laughed. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “Because you rescued me from when I locked myself into a bathroom earlier?” She tucked her hands in her lap and tried not to fidget. God, he sure was pretty when he laughed like that. And it didn’t feel like he was laughing at her, but along with her. That was nice. Most hot guys just sort of sneered in her direction.

  “That might be it.” Loch grinned at her. “Can I ask why you’re so clumsy? Is it a medical thing?”

  “It’s a distraction thing,” Taylor admitted. She leaned forward and put her chin on her fists. So she was staring at the guy. So what. She could do that, right? He was too pretty not to stare. “I sort of lose track of what I’m doing sometimes and then boom, there goes all bodily function.”

  His mouth crooked up in amusement. “You must really lose yourself in the moment.”

  “Oh, yeah,” she breathed. “I sort of focus in”—she pointed at her eyes—“and wham, everything else fades away.” The look he was giving was more speculative and a bit more sexy than she was used to. Was he trying to turn her statement about focus into something dirty? She squirmed in her seat. “I’m sure it happens to everyone.”

  “Not quite the same,” Loch said, and then the TV over the bar turned to a sports channel. Soccer. He gave a thumbs-up to the bartender, and a moment later Doug came to get their orders. They both got a burger, and Loch got a Guinness, which made her wrinkle her nose. She stuck to craft beer. The drinks arrived first, and she took a swig of her pale ale. Delicious.

  “So do you have a boyfriend, Taylor?” Loch asked as he sipped his beer.

  Oh, mercy. The look he was giving her wasn’t tour-guidey in the slightest. It was down to fuck—DTF. Hoo, boy. And she wasn’t the type to have flings or hookups.

  Well, except for the one time at the Excelsior convention, but she didn’t like to talk about that.

  But Loch? God, Loch was eminently hook-up-able. She could see herself climbing him like a set of monkey bars and having no regrets. Sure, he’d never call her again, but would she even care? He was hot, he was European, and she’d only see him again at Gretchen’s wedding in about six months. Taylor licked her lips. “No boyfriend.”

  As if to remind her of her commitments, her phone buzzed in her pocket. Ugh. Sigmund.

  “Just guy friends. I’m not dating anyone, though.”

  “Not even the chap online?” He took a healthy swig of his beer and watched her with hooded eyes.

  “Never met him, and he’s just a guy that has trouble taking no for an answer.” She locked her fingers around her bottle of beer, clasping it tight.

  “You want me to have a word with him?”

  Her eyes widened, and then she shook her head. “He’s just . . . weird. And going through some stuff. We’re friends online but that’s it. Trust me when I say that there’s not a guy in my life.”

  “Got a feeling that if there was, your friend Gretchen wouldn’t be so eager for us to go out, hey?”

  Taylor laughed, relaxing. “She was pretty obvious about it, wasn’t she?”

  “I’m not sure she knows the meaning of subtle.”

  “You got that right.” Taylor tilted her beer toward his. “Shall we vow to just be friends and ignore her attempts at matchmaking?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Loch said slowly. His mouth curled again, and there were the dimples.

  Yeah, if she could reach her panties right now, she’d be flinging them off.

  “I’m probably not your type,” Taylor blurted.

  “You’re not. But that’s why I like you. I’m trying to experience new things while in America.”

  “Am I one of the new things you’re going to experience?” The words tumbled from her mouth before she could stop them.

  His eyes widened and he laughed again, a hearty laugh that she just flat-out adored. He just looked as if he was having so much fun all the time. “Evening’s early yet, Taylor. We can see where it goes.”

  “I’m not turning down the idea, of course. I mean, if I was ever going to hit it and quit it, it’d be you.”

  “Thank you for that,” he said gravely.

  She waved a hand in the air. “You know what I mean. Jeez, am I out of beer already? I think I need another.” She waved at Doug.

  “Don’t get drunk on me,” Loch murmured, leaning in. “I refuse to take advantage of a drunk woman.”

  “So I have to be sober if I want to be taken advantage of?”

  He laughed again. “Something along those lines. How about just not sloppy drunk?”

  She winced. “I am a pretty bad drunk.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Very clumsy.”

  “God in heaven, help us all if you’re somehow worse.”

  She wagged a finger at him and they exchanged smiles. Conversation lulled for a moment. Loch watched the screen over the bar, and new beers were brought to both of them. This was nice, Taylor decided. She wasn’t online. She wasn’t raiding or playing a video game and she wasn’t checking her app that let her communicate with her friends that were online. For once in the last few months, she was absolutely in the middle of real life and not in the middle of a game.

  It was oddly relaxing. “So who’s winning the soccer game?”

  “Barcelona, but they just got a yellow card.”

  “I have no idea what that is.”

  His eyes lit up and he began to go on and on about the rules of soccer. Apparently a yellow card was a penalty of some kind and blah blah blah. Taylor just propped her chin on her hands again and watched him talk. He was so stinking handsome. Disney prince levels of handsome. It didn’t matter that he was completely wrong for her and she was completely wrong for him. She could watch him talk all day. His eyes were shi
ning and he was gesturing at the TV and then drawing a make-believe field he was sketching out on the table with a French fry, and she felt like she could watch him for hours.

  Days, even.

  “Get all that?” he asked.

  “Oh, sure.”

  He gave her a skeptical look and tapped her second beer. “You’re not going to get pissed on me, are you?”

  All right, she watched enough BBC to know that pissed meant drunk. “Nope. I can handle my alcohol, thank you. It’d take five or six of these to get me good and wasted.” She shrugged. “Besides, it’s not like we’re driving. We can take the subway anywhere. It runs past all the major hotels.”

  Loch took another sip of his beer. “It run past your place, too?”

  “It’s a block or two away, but not a rough walk. Why?”

  He shrugged. “You gonna invite me up later?”

  “If I did, would you go?”

  He nodded. “In a heartbeat.”

  Her pulse raced at the thought, but it was Taylor’s turn to be skeptical. “Why? It’s like I said before—we both know I’m not your type.”

  Loch grinned at her, and she melted all over again. “That’s precisely why I like you. You’re different than what I expect, but that’s not a bad thing.” He gestured at the pub. “And while I’m in America, I’m determined to expand my boundaries.”

  “Expand your boundaries? You make doing me sound like a science project.”

  He laughed and toyed with his glass. “Not at all. Doing you would be an adventure.”

  “That’s better.” She sat up a little straighter. Adventures were fun, not like science projects. Then she sighed, because adventures made her think about the time she was spending here instead of being online. Her phone had been buzzing all night with incoming texts, and she had no doubt in her mind that Sigmund was probably frantic. It was . . . kind of nice to ignore him, though. She knew she was being bad, but for one glorious night, she didn’t give a hoot. Taylor took another swig of her beer—a light, fruity ale that went down smooth and was a favorite treat she didn’t often indulge in. “I should be going soon anyhow.”