Stuck
A Secrets and Lies prequel
Ainsley Booth
Contents
About This Book
A poem: The sounds I imagine you make
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
About the Author
Other Books by Ainsley Booth
She's not interested in small talk. Or any kind of conversation, and I'm fine with that. So what if I can't stop looking at her? Wondering what if?
Hazel's not into me. End of story. Until a snowstorm traps us in the middle of nowhere, and the night stretches ahead of us. Maybe we can find a game to pass the time. Something secret and special, and limited to one night only.
THE SOUNDS I IMAGINE YOU MAKE
by Aibhlin Moon
A growly burr
A slow fade into exhalation
A groan
A gasp
* * *
When I’m on my knees
Or above you, head curved low
* * *
Beneath you, shifting
As you pin my arms against the bed
* * *
I would love to wring your pleasure
In a thousand ways
* * *
As the sounds I imagine you make
Get me every time
Chapter 1
Hazel
I’m the last to board the business class car at the front of the train. After carefully stowing my carry-on, I make my way down the car, looking for my seat.
I should have a seat to myself. I always do.
Every trip, apparently, except this one.
I silently groan as I realize I’m in a backwards-facing seat—fine—across from someone else.
Less fine. I don’t want to share my table.
I see a dark head of hair. Masculine hair, as much as one can anticipate that sort of thing. The long leg and big arm overflowing the generous seat is a good warning sign, too. Some slick businessman, it looks like, taking up far too much space in what was going to be my writing cocoon for the next four hours.
Well, I hope he likes silence, because I’m going to ignore the fuck out of him.
He doesn’t look up as I move past and dump my messenger bag on my seat. Coat off, computer out.
And it’s because I have that emotional armour up—I’m focused on ignoring my seatmate and getting my work done—that when I sit down, and his dark gaze locks on my face with a blazing intensity, I don’t react.
We’re strangers. I owe him nothing. In the spirit of the season, I flash a polite but dismissing smile and take my seat.
Headphones up and on. Plug in the cord. Open the computer.
I ignore the weird hiccup in my pulse. Ignore the man, and his searing gaze, which he’s now thankfully dropped.
(Okay, I only know this because I looked up again. For a split-second. Curiosity will kill me as surely as it killed the cat.)
I’m not sure what I’m feeling right now. Deja vu, but not really. A weird disconnect because I’d filled in a generic proto-man as my seatmate when I saw the suit, the arm and leg taking up too much space, the roughly slicked-back, sharply side-parted haircut.
You noticed a lot about his hair. More than I’d realized, and something in my belly quivers.
His haircut doesn’t matter.
His face, his gaze, that unsettling sizzle—none of it matters.
I open my files and give myself a goal. Three more revisions before the porter comes around with the first round of drinks. Then I can close this project and free-scrawl anything I want for my blog. Write drunk, edit sober—advice not meant to be taken literally, but it’s never steered me wrong.
But the words on the screen swim in front of my eyes.
It takes a painfully long stretch of time to get into my task. Two glasses of red wine help with my concentration. Help to slow down my racing pulse and finally, thankfully, crystallize my attention.
An hour later my revisions are done. It’s not the best work I’ve ever done, but it’s entertaining and hot. Good enough. I fire the document off to my editor with a note that I’ll be out of the office for the next four days and would be happy not to get it back for the final pass until after the new year.
Then I sneak a quick glance across the table. At him. He’s still buried in his phone. His hair is ridiculous. He probably spends more on his cuts than I do mine.
When was the last time you got your hair trimmed?
I can’t remember, actually. So he definitely does spend more than I do.
His suit looks expensive. So do his shoes, his tie… I’d rather imagine him in jeans. Fitted ones that hug his thighs. A Henley with the sleeves rolled up, revealing his forearms. Corded, tan from time in the sun. A light dusting of dark hair that looks soft and feels softer.
I can’t help it.
This is what I do. I see people and they turn into sex in my head. It was only in the last few years that I figured out I could actually do something with the super dirty vignettes that form unbidden in my mind.
Jeans, a rolled up shirt. That burning gaze—there’s a lot to work with there.
No words, no explanations. Just a hot sex scene set to a dirty, thuddy beat.
I change the music I’m listening to through my headphones. “No Roots” by Alice Merton works.
We’re in a dance club, yelling over the music, and then, when that proves frustrating, Mr. Searing Gaze takes me—no, not me—takes my character by the hand—no, the wrist, his fingers hot and firm as they manacle around her flesh—and leads her to a nook off a dark hallway.
It’s still too loud to be heard, but that’s not his goal.
He asks with his body—can he touch her? Should he kiss her?
Yes. No. Do it anyway. She leans in anyway and gives him her mouth, her legs, a grind of her sex. He finds her waist, then higher. Her breasts. Her nipples, and then—
The train slows to a halt. I lift my hands off the keyboard, the fantasy word blitz temporarily pausing.
I glance out the window, but there’s nothing to be seen. No lights, no town. No stop was announced, and we’re only an hour and a half outside of Toronto. Not quite to Kingston. Maybe we need to let another train pass before we can continue.
The perfect head of hair doesn’t look up.
I take a deep breath and go back to the story, but without the white noise of the train rushing along the tracks, I can’t do it. As if he could hear the filthy words I’m spinning on this side of my computer screen if it were too quiet in our little mini compartment.
Maybe I don’t need to write anything else tonight anyway. I’ve got enough for a Christmas gimme to my blog followers. I’ll polish this up when I get to the hotel, then post it before bed.
Then the train jerks backwards, and my computer skitters off the table between us, sliding precariously towards the aisle.
He catches it deftly, and I stand up, reaching for it. “Sorry.” My heart pounds in my chest, because oh God he’s holding porn about himself, but he doesn’t know that.
“It’s not your fault,” he says, handing it over.
And then the train jerks again, forwards this time, and I tumble back into the leather seat, clutching my laptop to my chest.
He swears under his breath and looks around, then back to me. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” I peer out the window again, but it’s pitch-black out there and bright in here. I can’t see anything. “That was…sudden. Twice.”
“Yeah.” He looks me over, like he’s sizing me up. Both for injuries—and I really am fine—and also for how to handle this new talking thing. I sm
ile tightly and take off my headphones, which had fallen around my neck in the whole yanking forwards and back anyway. He taps on his phone screen, then rolls his neck with a groan. “There’s been a collision up ahead on the tracks.”
“How do you know?”
He turns the phone screen so I can see it. Twitter. “Hashtags.”
I’m not sure why the train staff haven’t said anything. “Maybe it’s just a short interruption to service.”
“Maybe.”
I clutch my computer tighter.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yep.”
“Good. I—” He’s interrupted by the intercom.
“Bon soir…” The announcement was read out in French first, which I don’t speak, so I listened patiently until it repeated in English. “Good evening, ladies and gentleman. We apologize for the sudden stop. We have a delay on the tracks ahead and have received instructions to hold position here for the moment.”
Damn it. He was right. “That’s too bad,” I say quietly, my heart sinking. Of course I hope whoever is in the collision is all right, and this could just be a short delay until they get the tracks cleared.
“I guess, uh…” He gives me a rueful smile, like he knows that I didn’t want to talk, but now we’re talking anyway, so the polite thing to do is do it right. “Can I introduce myself?”
My sinking heart jolts back into place. It’s an odd request, but I like it. I smile. “Sure.”
“I’m Sam. Sam Preston.”
I nod. Okay. Let’s do this. I hold out my hand. “I’m Aibhlin.”
That’s all he gets. My writing nom de plume, and only the first name at that. I don’t give him my last name. I don’t want him to google me with the same speed he found the news about the train stoppage.
“A pleasure, Aibhlin.” He repeats it exactly right, his pronunciation perfect. Aveline. No weird reaction, no questions. His gaze doesn’t leave my face, and his smile seems sincere.
I relax a bit. “Same to you, Sam.”
Then I put my computer in my bag, because who am I kidding? I’ll be too on edge to write more anyway.
And if we’re going to do this, I’m going to do it right.
He gives me another smile. This one is bolder. Inviting, seductive. Do you want to play a game? Flirt instead of work?
I don’t. Not really. I didn’t, anyway.
I glance at his hand. No ring. Means nothing, but I’m jaded now. I always check. “Heading to Ottawa for work?”
He nods.
I pick up the stemless wine glass that holds the remnants of my second drink. “And what do you do, Sam Preston?”
The corner of his mouth pulls up, forming an almost-dimple right at the point. “I’m an investment banker.”
I can’t help it. I laugh. “Of course.”
He gestures down at his suit. “Predictable?”
“Entirely.”
“And you?”
Before I can answer—and who am I kidding, I wasn’t going to anyway—the door between the train cars clatters open behind me.
I turn and look at the steward, who is pushing the drinks cart. Just in the nick of time.
“Sorry about that, folks. I was in the next car over and it took some time to get back. You heard the announcement? We’re going to be here for a bit.”
“What’s the problem?” Sam asks, as if he doesn’t already know from Twitter.
The attendant doesn’t give us a real answer. “A delay on the tracks is all I’ve been told so far.” He gestures to the cart. “Good thing we’re well stocked. Can I get you another drink, miss? And then I’ll be back with dinner service shortly.”
Miss. My lips twitch and I hold out my glass. “Top me up. And keep calling me miss, I like that.”
“Of course.” He gives me a generous pour, then turns to Sam, who so far into this trip has declined service. “And you, sir?”
Sam exhales roughly. “Well, if we’re going to be here for a while, I’ll take a rye on the rocks. Make it a double.”
That’s more like what I expected. Investment banker. Make it a double. There’s something reassuring there. I know what to do with a man like this. Play with him, have my fun. Under no circumstances will I trust him, but that’s all right.
Trust is overrated.
Once we’re alone again, Sam lifts his glass in a toast. “To comfort while we wait.”
I drink to that. “I hope nobody is hurt too badly.”
“Same.” He takes a big swallow, his throat working quickly to down the fiery alcohol. No hesitation. Then he gestures to the window, where it’s started snowing. Big, fat, swirling flakes of white brush against the window. “Maybe the tweets are wrong. Maybe the train is stopped for another reason, like the weather.”
I’d like that. No injuries, no accident that’s ruined a family’s night.
“A storm,” I murmur, my imagination twisting the newly swirling snow into a monster. “Ice demons.”
I love the look of surprise on Sam’s face as his brows hit the roof. “Ice demons?”
“I like it better than an accident three days before Christmas.”
He shrugs. “Fair enough. There you go. So they’ve whipped up a weather system right in front of us? Iced the tracks and now we can’t move forward?”
“Something like that.” I hadn’t meant to say ice demons out loud.
But Sam is rolling with it. “Are they angry at the train for some reason, or are we caught in between a battle between foes?”
And because he’s into the story, so am I. “They could be fighting over a woman on the train? Or maybe it’s one ice demon, and his beloved is on here somewhere. She’s the only one who knows why we’ve stopped. And she’s…” I lick my lips, trying to get it just right. What would she be feeling?
“Torn?”
“Terrified,” I correct him. “This is the end of their story, maybe, and it feels like a life-or-death flight on her part, and now he’s stopped her.”
“She’s scared of him?”
I shake my head. “No. But she’s scared of what he makes her feel.”
He smiles. “So…you’re a romantic.”
“Only on the page.”
“Ah. Touché.”
Sorry to disappoint, buddy. I live in the real world. “How about you?”
He rolls his shoulders back, flexing inside his three-thousand-dollar suit jacket. No, he doesn’t like romance. The jacket, the wolfish smile, the practiced way of offering to buy a woman a drink just to pass the time by—this guy is just as jaded about people as I am. He knows what’s what. “I like the idea of it,” he finally says. “In theory. But I think there’s a solid chance the big scary demon is, in fact, the bad guy. I guess I hope that it all works out in an unexpected way in the end. Maybe the romance is—” He cuts himself off.
I’m not sure what we’re talking about anymore. What happened to dirty flirting?
He immediately looks sideways, releasing me. He’s good. Knows just how far to push, then pulls back. He wants to keep this fun, and frankly, I’m grateful for that. We could be here for hours.
His gaze locks on something—nothing, but he’s pretending—out in the darkness. Beyond the sleeting white stuff, past the tree line.
To our imaginary boogeyman. To the territorial hero, stalking the train out of misguided but romantic affection for a heroine.
“What happens next?” he asks, his voice low enough that this is just for us. The other passengers can’t hear it. “On the page. With this ice demon and his beloved, stuck on the train.”
“She knows the ice demon is upset. And she’s worried that he doesn’t know the strength of his own abilities.” I like the way Sam leans in as I start weaving the story. I don’t want to like it too much, but there’s something about the look in his eye that emboldens me. Like he’ll like anything I say here, I can be as wild as I want with this fantasy tale. “Maybe he doesn’t know that a storm can interfere with travel plans, ca
use car accidents, or down power lines.”
And that’s when the lights in our car flicker and go out.
I don’t gasp. Other people do, further down the train car, and then I hear Sam chuckle.
“That was a neat trick,” he says as he taps his phone, lighting up the space between us weakly. I refocus my eyes on his grin. “What next, storyteller?”
“The ice demon takes a nap and the lights came back on,” I say under my breath, but no such luck. I take a sip of wine. “Our heroine realizes she needs to find a way to communicate with the ice demon.”
“Whoa, hold up, we’ve got a major plot hole.” Sam clears his throat. “With all due respect to the narrator. But how did they fall in love if they can’t talk?”
“Well he’s not always in the form of a giant ice demon conjuring a storm. When he’s not upset, he’s like…seven feet tall and built like a cross between an NFL and an NBA player. And whatever he touches turns a little bit cold. Like he makes you shiver with each stroke, every caress.”
“Sexy,” Sam deadpans. He lifts his glass and takes another big swallow of rye, then wipes his mouth. My eyes have adjusted to the dim light, the entire car dark except for electronic glows here and there. It’s eerie and intimate at the same time.
But more importantly, Sam doesn’t understand the appeal of a sexy ice demon. I re-focus my attention. “You haven’t had enough fun with—”
He reaches across the table and touches my hand. Hidden under his fingers is an ice cube, and the cold press against my skin makes me shiver exactly as I just explained.
“Ice,” I whisper, finishing my thought.
“Tell me more about him,” Sam murmurs, his eyes carefully watching me. “He’s a man?”
Stuck: A Secrets and Lies prequel Page 1