Brooklyn Flame (A Bridge & Tunnel Romance #1)

by Mira Gibson

  When the exit door popped open, Greer was lost in the thought, wishing she had reported the attack. She barely had time to shove the gun in her bag before she sensed someone looking at her.

  Turning and expecting to find Jennifer or Tasha, Greer locked eyes with the guy from the street and the look on his face was one she couldn’t quite read.

  Chapter Two

  His cool green eyes, the specific color of which reminded her of the ivy vines she had stenciled along the archway that separated her bedroom from her studio space just one neighborhood over; his jawline and the angle of his cheekbone, the faint dusting of stubble mapped between, and the mess of dark cowlicks sprouting out from his skullcap, intrigued her, but not as much as the glint in his eyes. Greer knew when a guy was interested in her and this one certainly was.

  The way his left brow cocked upon discovering her out here alone made her heart punch in her chest. He parted his lips and a subtle curl formed at one corner. He was getting ideas, she thought. Ones he shouldn't considering their encounter a half hour ago had been brief and nearly wordless.

  “Do you mind if I smoke?” He asked, indicating the pack of clove cigarettes he was holding in his hand.

  It didn’t sound like a routine overture meant to imply he planned on smoking whether or not she objected, which was what she was used to. But rather his cadence conveyed he would genuinely like to know and would react accordingly. For some reason Greer found this sweet, but suppressed the smile that was threatening to soften the hard shield she was in the habit of wearing on her face, in her posture, two proverbial fists in the air, stomping through life and constantly on guard.

  When her response didn’t come right away or at all, an easy smile spread across his face, and she got a bit lost in its asymmetry, the curl of his lip on the right side exposing a patch of gums, the way his eyes fell to his pack, all of which seemed to say he was aiming for a bit of conversation and might not give up easily.

  “Would you like one?”

  Greer lowered her gaze to his pack, as he flicked a cigarette free. She plucked it out, thanking him in a voice so airy it was merely a breath.

  Gesturing with it, she added, “For my scarf,” then tucked it between her teeth.

  “Oh yeah?” He asked, his brows snapping up in mock challenge. “I do you the favor of retrieving your scarf and in exchange I do you the favor of giving you a smoke?”

  “Something tells me you want company and you’re welcome.”

  She broke eye contact only to lean towards the flame he struck with his lighter, but still managed to catch his eyes flaring with excitement as though her cocky response had in any way resembled flirtation.

  Tilting his head, he said, “Thank you,” in a smooth tone that sent a warm wave fluttering through her stomach in response, stirring her in a way she hadn't been in a very long time. Funny how a guy’s voice could elicit a reaction so beyond her control it could seem like a magic act.

  “What do you think of all that?” He jutted his chin at the door and returned his gaze to her, sucking on his clove and igniting Greer’s imagination as to what other things he might like to suck with those lips.

  She allowed herself a moment to smile, angling her eyes down to drink in the completely unattractive sight of the scarred concrete at her feet in hopes it might sober her up from the effects his charm was having on her.

  “It’s informative,” she said.

  He furrowed his brow at that, perhaps not understanding how art could inform.

  “I dabble,” she went on, a half-hearted attempt at clarifying while also concealing how greatly her life revolved around her sculptures. “So I like to stay informed about what other artists are up to.”

  “What do you dabble in?”

  “Clay.” She flicked her cigarette and added, “Sculpture.”

  “What kind of stuff do you sculpt?”

  “My subjects?”

  “Yeah,” he said, holding her gaze a bit too long for her to entirely buy that he really wanted to know. Again, she smiled to herself and he asked, “What?”

  “Nothing, no,” she stammered. When she met his gaze again, his expression shifted. He was reeling it in - interest? lust? visions of what he'd like to do to her? - and it had her thrown. He was good looking enough, he could easily push harder, be bolder in his intent, and she wouldn’t need too much convincing to go for it, maybe even behave out of character to seal the deal. She found it curious that he seemed to want to be taken seriously. “Sorry, I spend a lot of time alone, cooped up in my studio, and then when I venture out, I realize I’m not fit for human company.”

  He smiled, letting out a breathy laugh and told her she was doing fine.

  “They’re love stories mostly,” she said, finally making a shred of sense, or so she thought until she once again caught his eyebrow cocking up like a question mark. “So, okay, I never sculpt an actual couple. But I’ll make a woman, for example, in a tense pose, longing for a part of her she can’t find. Then I’ll make the man she’s pining for, maybe he’s reaching out.” Reading his pinched mouth, she quickly said, “It’s not cheesy. It’s beautiful. I’ll set them across the room from one another.”

  “Beautiful? Sounds sad.”

  “It’s both, I guess.”

  “Why is that the story you tell?”

  Greer fell silent, even though she didn’t want to and tried to pull out of it, but his question resonated so greatly with how she felt, what she thought to herself, asked herself each night before going to bed, waking up, the living statement that both chilled her bones and warmed her skin like a waking nightmare she couldn’t escape. And because of it she had to take a breath to consider for the millionth time why that was.

  As she did, he studied her, not impatiently for an answer, but perhaps because of how she looked arriving at her answer. She was getting the feeling he was enthralled.

  Shrugging and admitting to herself that what she was about to say hadn’t a prayer of living up to either of their expectations, she offered, “Unrequited love; everyone can relate, so why not tell that story?”

  He glanced past her up the alley, but when she looked over her shoulder there was nothing there except a row of dumpsters in the shadows and beyond them a flickering street light.

  “What’s your name?” She asked then drew in a long drag of her clove.

  “Hunter.” He rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to tell me it’s a girl’s name.”

  “I wasn’t going to.”

  “But you were thinking it,” he pointed out.

  “Was I?”

  Indulging her, he stared into her eyes, searching for the truth. “Maybe not,” he admitted after a long moment. “And you’re Greer?”

  His voice hitched up, but it didn’t sound like a question.

  “Yeah, how did you know my name?”

  As if to stir intrigue, he said, “I keep my eye on all the local artists. And I wouldn’t call what you do dabbling.”

  His statement caught her off guard and flattered her at the same time in such a way that scrambled her instincts, but her biggest impression within the five minutes she’d spent in the privacy of sharing a smoke with him was that Hunter, whose last name she didn't know, was a man she might like to spend more alone time with.

  Just shy of slipping into a fantasy inspired by the shape of his lips, the angle of his shoulders, and the wall of his chest beneath his jacket that looked so much like hers she wondered if this was kismet, she was jarred from her reverie when her cigarette singed her fingers, having burned down to its butt.

  Letting it fall, she blew out a sharp stream of smoke between her teeth, and stepped on it, twisting umbers into the concrete.

  Just as Greer was about to succumb to the craving of touching eyes with him, which had surged every time she cut her gaze away, she startled when someone dashing through the alley abruptly shrieked. She didn't so much process it as react without thinking like an animal would to dodge predatory danger. In an in
stant, her shoulders hunched, hand clutching for the gun, gasping and shifting her weight in such bizarre overreaction that Hunter widened his eyes, staring at her.

  It was only a drunk guy streaking through, harmless and wild in his personal thrill for Friday night.

  Greer tried to laugh it off, relaxing and straightening her posture, but she had already given herself away, lingering shell shock from a night gone wrong all too recently.

  She couldn’t get a read on what Hunter might be thinking. She didn’t dare look at him, and she was still desperately forcing a self-deprecating laugh that was starting to sound strained. Letting it die out, she told herself to use her friends as an excuse, head in, find Jennifer and Tasha, and call it quits on this flirtation now that she had blown it.

  But Hunter stopped her. “This isn’t a bad part of town.”

  What he meant was, relax, it’s not a war zone, but she was too embarrassed to bother recovering in order to stay out here with him.

  She turned for the door, but when he asked, “How long have you lived in Brooklyn?” it was just enough to prevent her from disappearing inside.

  Lingering, angling her gaze over her shoulder at him before she stepped through the doorway, she said, “Long enough to know that the craziest person on the train wins.”

  And then she left him, entering the crowded room where music was now booming. As she made her way, weaving towards her friends, Greer didn't know Hunter had stated under his breath, “Crazy like a gun in your purse?”

  Chapter Three

  The temperature outside had dropped during the hours the art opening had droned on. Hunter had stepped out of The Haven while the crowd was still thick, but couldn’t bring himself to walk home. The girl, Greer, the image of her, the real one, the woman he had met in the flesh and not the replica of her he had stared at online for weeks and weeks until this chance encounter, was one he couldn’t shake from his mind.

  She was gorgeous.

  But not by any standard that could be measured and agreed upon across the board. Admittedly, this fact was probably why he felt drawn to her.

  A brutal gust of wind swept down the avenue, stinging the back of his neck where his skullcap and jacket collar failed to meet, and causing him to round his shoulders not that it preserved what little warmth he felt.

  It wasn’t lost on him that he was standing in the shadows and waiting for another glimpse of her like a fucking psychopath, but he was curious about where she might go next. Logic prevailed that she was probably normal and focused and responsible and most likely going to head home when she finally stepped out of Haven, but she had awoken in him a primal urge he knew he wouldn’t be able to control, the part of him that drove his own art.

  Hunter had to know the secrets she might be keeping, the ones that only came out at night.

  But seriously, he wasn’t a stalker, he told himself, but had to wonder if having the thought in the first place was evidence he might be. It didn’t bode well, so he shook the notion from his mind and let the memory of Greer's shape wash over him.

  In a word, she was slinky.

  She had the kind of lean figure that clothes seemed to drip off of, even thoroughly layered garments, bundled and wrapped tight to ward off the dead of autumn, its rigid and deceiving temperatures. Her hair was light brown and spilled over her shoulders in a way that made it easy to envision those shoulders bare, and he nearly let himself go there, but the front door of the gallery banged open. Excited, he locked his eyes on it, eager to watch her tumble out with her girlfriends, but he only saw a tipsy guy in a bow-tie stumbling onto the sidewalk with two friends, who had made even worse fashion mistakes - one in a seersucker suit and his less fortunate friend wearing a fedora.

  Hunter blew on his numbing fingers and wondered if she had skirted out the back.

  He had not pegged her as the type to carry a gun, and he was creative, he had pegged her as a lot of things - soft, bossy in bed, and all the more alluring because of it. He’d gone so far as to imagine her noises, the particular brand of moan she’d let out, enjoying all the things he’d do to her, the degree to which she might arch her back or angle her chin in response to his thrusting. But never had he thought her the sort to venture out and buy a weapon hot off the street. It worried him, yet in the same breath he felt aroused.

  The fashion-don’ts wandered up the street, vanishing into the fog that was rolling in off the East River, and Hunter almost called his invested time a lost cause, but then the gallery door sprang open again, and the subject of his interest stepped onto the street like a gazelle breaking out into a clearing. Following Greer was a cackling Asian woman, whose name was on the tip of his tongue but not nagging enough to wrack his brain for, and a black woman, Tasha Buckley, who he already knew he would not want to mess with.

  Hunter kept to the shadows, watching Greer smile through a parting exchange with her friends, who seemed to be coaxing her to come along, indicating a bar across the street. But she declined, glancing over her shoulder in the direction Hunter figured she planned on heading towards.

  Finally, her girlfriends gave up on her and started off towards the bar. Hanging back and keeping her eye on them, Greer fished around inside her hobo bag and when she pulled her hand out, he half expected to see the gun, but it was only her cell phone.

  She took off along Wythe, walking briskly, her cell in hand. Before she could slip away, jaywalking diagonally across the avenue and tucking down N. 5th, he quickly followed, keeping his gaze trained on the sway in her step, her hips being the central focus of his attention.

  When he had offered her scarf back, he hadn’t placed who she was. He only sensed his own magnetic interest in her. In the gallery, talking to other artists and also overhearing a select few who were gearing up to show their pieces in The Phoenix Juried Art Competition, had been when he connected her name with her face. He had seen her image online a few times, but hadn’t scrutinized it like he had the articles explaining her quick rise onto the radar of several art galleries. At the time, he had developed a healthy resentment for the name Greer Langley, if keeping a critical eye on the competition was healthy. Now, he couldn’t believe the coolly sarcastic and beautiful woman he had spoken with behind The Haven was the one woman whose burgeoning career he was aiming to destroy.

  Hunter followed her, but hung back after she turned right onto Bedford Avenue where pedestrians thickened along the sidewalk due to the countless bars and restaurants that were open and would remain so until the wee hours of the morning.

  Weaving through and keeping at a distance to ensure she wouldn’t catch him if she happened to glance over her shoulder, he tapped a clove from his pack of cigarettes and paused only to light it.

  He started off again, as soon as he had it lit, but she was nowhere. His heart punched hard in his chest at his carelessness. He shouldn’t have taken his eyes off her. As he quickened his pace, trying and failing not to clip shoulders with any passersby, he realized she must have skirted down a side street.

  Hunting for the particular shade of her scarf, which he figured would set her apart from the other women hustling up and down the avenue, he slowed up at each cross street and took a moment to scan down it as far as he could see, all the while kicking himself for letting her go and also the fact that he was indulging such an unproductive urge.

  But seriously, he wasn't a psychopath.

  He’d certainly never done this before. And he had to wonder the source of his intrigue. Was it based on the Greer he had just met in person, or the Greer he had previously read about, the one he felt was threatening his standing in the art community? Or was it the reality in-between; the possibility that a hot and personable woman could so easily and inadvertently bump him down the food chain he had worked tirelessly and for so many years to climb?

  What the hell was she doing with a gun?

  Finally, he spotted her about half a block up Lorimer heading east. The wind on Bedford had been mild, but starting down Lorimer he was co
nfronted with a chilling gust that felt like a wall of ice. Despite this, he pressed on and soon Greer paused in front of a wrought-iron gate, which she opened, passing through and latching it closed behind her, before she padded up the stone stoop of an apartment building.

  If she had been fast with the gate, she was even faster with her key, scraping it into the lock and getting inside without so much as glimpsing over her shoulder.

  He paced up the block and checked the building number as soon as it came into view. The tin numbers were nailed in crooked and read: 467.

  Just as he had thought.

  It was a long eight blocks before he got to his apartment on Humboldt Street and it was so cold out that when he reached it, the very sight of the converted warehouse he’d come to call home warmed him.

  After a minute of wrestling with the dead bolt, which never seemed to cooperate, he spilled into the quiet entryway, slapped the heavy steel door shut behind him, and wasted no time jogging up the two flights of stairs that separated the ground level from his lofty studio apartment.

  But as he reached the landing and turned, hooking around to his door, he knew the night wouldn’t be over so easily.

  “What are you doing here?” He asked, catching his breath and hoping she would go away.

  Ashley Moore was the girl every guy wished would pick up her phone after 2:00 am, and more often than not, she did, especially when Hunter was calling. Unfortunately for him, it had been a slow dawning realization that this was not a one-way street. Ashley had been starting to assert as much by pulling seemingly innocent stunts like this one, showing up out of the blue, unannounced and smirking playfully because of it.

  He wasn’t in the mood.

  “I brought beer,” she said, indicating the weighted plastic bag in her hand, which hung in the shape of a six-pack.

  She let out a heaving sigh meant to draw his gaze to her chest, and though the tactic had worked in the past and though he flicked his eyes downward, getting a sense of the pink, low-cut tank that fit her with vacuum packed exactness where her fluffy faux-fur coat wasn’t covering her, there was nothing particularly appealing about Ashley at this very moment.