by Lucy Score
“Oh, good. You remembered I’m still here.”
They ignored him and, shuffling babies, shook on the bet.
“What’s a unit?” he asked.
––—
Emma let herself in the front door and pried off her shoes, sighing with relief. She could have changed out of them for closing. But Niko’s criticism weighed heavily in favor of an extra hour of torture just to prove she could. Her sisters called her stubborn. Emma preferred to think of herself as strong-willed.
Her feet were tough and so was she, she thought, dumping her bag on the little foyer table she’d added to the cottage’s décor.
Her self-imposed year-long trial period in Gia and Beckett’s guesthouse coincided with the one she gave herself at the brewery. And she was officially sure it was time to start looking for a place of her own in this ditzy, sweet town.
Emma limped into the tiny kitchen where she poured herself a glass of merlot. She’d been worried that the culture shock of leaving L.A. for Blue Moon would break her brain.
It had taken her some time to get used to the little town and its… quirks. But Blue Moon had won her over with its unapologetic weirdness, unpretentiousness, and pride in its oddity. Everyone was welcome here, enfolded into the culture without being asked to assimilate. In Blue Moon, you were good enough just because you existed.
That wasn’t to say that it hadn’t still been a difficult transition. In L.A., she’d go out for drinks with friends after closing. The night was just getting started. In Blue Moon, by the time the brewery’s midnight closing rolled around, the rest of the sleepy town had been shut down for hours.
She took her wine to the window and stared out into the night. She was content here. Maybe a little lonely in the late nights, but that was to be expected. Yet, she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that she was waiting for something. And the only thing she knew for certain was that she’d find it here.
She wasn’t unhappy, Emma qualified. But she also wasn’t the deliriously ecstatic woman Gia was.
She looked out at the main house that rose cool and white in the sliver of spring moonlight. Its gables and elegant trim cast a romantic spell. Within its walls, her sister loved and lived. Is that what she wanted? Emma asked herself. Was she ready to finally call someplace home, finally ready to start her life?
A vision of the devastatingly gorgeous face of Nikolai Vulkov rose in her mind’s eye. That crooked, cocky smile, angular cheekbones and granite jaw. He was exquisite and other-worldly… and he obviously knew it. Emma wondered why, when he looked as he did, he chose a life behind the camera rather than in front of it.
She could only imagine the agents and brands that would quiver with anticipation at that face. Niko was like a joyride. Something dangerous and ill-advised that would make a woman’s system sing until the adrenaline wore off and she had to face the consequences of a bad decision.
Niko was a bad idea, and she was wise enough now not to fall prey to a pretty face again. He was not the stable partner she was looking for. Of that she was sure. And it would be best for her to forget all about him.
With a sigh, Emma sank down on the couch. She pulled her tablet into her lap and dialed her night owl sister on the video chat app.
Eva’s pretty face and disheveled hair filled the screen.
“Hello, fellow night dweller,” Eva said by way of a greeting.
Emma’s little sister wrote mysterious technical manuals for a living and moved around like a vagabond, but Emma managed to catch up with her once or twice a week. It was usually late at night when normal people were tucked safely into bed.
“So, how was your date this week?” Emma asked. The incurably optimistic Eva was always on the lookout for love.
“Ungh.” Eva wrinkled her nose in distaste, inching her reading glasses higher. “He lives with his grandmother as a freeloader and mentioned we should go back to my place to have sex since ‘Gram-Gram is a light sleeper.’” She shoved her hands through her mass of red hair that she hadn’t bothered styling that day.
Emma choked on her wine. “So how was it?” she teased.
“Oh, my God. You’re disgusting!”
“Where do you find these guys?”
Eva rested her chin on her hand. “This one I met in the convenience store. He picked up the iced coffee I’d ordered. I thought it was a mistake and a ‘meet-cute’, but looking back, I think he was trying to steal it.”
“Eva,” Emma sighed out her sister’s name.
“Hey, at least I’m meeting guys. You live in Hot Guy Heaven and have yet to land a sexy farmer or a poetic candle maker. I know Beckett is fresh out of single brothers, but there’s got to be some cousins in that family tree.”
“For your information, I did meet someone today,” Emma tossed back.
“Does he freeload off of his grandmother?”
Emma couldn’t imagine Niko freeloading off of anyone. “Definitely not,” she answered.
“Ill-fitting glass eye that falls out?” Eva asked.
“I’ll make him blink extra hard next time I see him to make sure. You know the guy on the cologne commercial?”
Eva sighed dreamily. “The one who comes out of the water glistening like a Greek god, and he’s wearing those sexy white briefs that you can almost see through?” She closed her eyes and let her mouth spread in a feline smile. “Chest like a linebacker? Biceps perfect for defending damsels in distress?”
Emma nodded. “That’s the one. This guy is cologne commercial hot. I bet women walk into glass doors staring at him. I almost took a header down the stairs looking at him.”
Eva squealed. “More information please!”
“He stops traffic when he walks in the room, and when he looks at you, your heart literally stops.”
“He looked at you?”
“It would have been weird if he didn’t look at me while he asked me out.” Emma allowed herself to gloat just a teensy bit. “Technically, he demanded that I go out with him.”
Eva pressed her hands to her flushed cheeks and then her face lost all its glee. “Why’d you say no?”
Damn. Emma hated being predictable. “Who says I said no?”
Eva rolled those emerald green eyes heavenward. “You always say no. What was wrong with Mr. Perfection?”
“He’s got this whole ‘dangerous, bad boy, player’ thing going. Not my type.”
“You’re bad boy prejudiced,” Eva accused.
“Shouldn’t we all be?” Emma felt her defensiveness kick in. “This guy is an award-winning fashion photographer. He’s probably got a new model on his arm every night of the week. He’s the kind of man who would talk you into dropping your panties in a coat closet at a party, dole out orgasms like after dinner mints, and then never call you again.”
“I don’t think you’re making the point you think you are,” Eva interjected, wistfulness tingeing her tone. “I keep hoping I’m going to call you one day, and you’ll have eloped with someone you met in a rainstorm with a flat tire.”
Emma shook her head pityingly. “You are so weird.”
“Subject change?” Eva offered.
“Definitely,” Emma agreed. “When are you coming in for the wedding?
CHAPTER FIVE
On Saturday nights, Cheryl the bartender had fallen into a routine of kicking Emma out by ten or eleven if the brewery crowd was manageable. Emma didn’t mind putting in the hours, but she also understood the value of not working fifty-hour weeks.
She’d watched her father struggle with the impossible work-life balance of a single parent. He’d had three young daughters and a restaurant to run. Growing up, she’d spent more hours at her father’s restaurant than the family home.
To this day, every time she smelled simmering marinara and fresh basil, she felt awash in childhood memories.
Emma wrestled her gym bag from the backseat of her Escape and swiped her badge through Fitness Freak’s card reader. In Blue Moon, one’s options for late night enterta
inment were limited to drinks at Shorty’s or sweating it out at the twenty-four/seven gym. Inside, the gym was empty. No one else had decided that Saturday night was the perfect time to work up a sweat within the lime green walls lined with weights and machines.
She changed, cued up her workout playlist, and packed up her work clothes. She moved quickly, not that she was in a hurry to get on the rower, but it was just how she lived. Emma did everything at high speed. On busy nights at the brewery, it was a full shift of adrenaline. Even a finely tuned food service machine such as herself could be pushed to the limits on busy nights. No two shifts were ever the same, and that was what she loved about it.
While she ordered the rest of her life around measurable, timely goals, her desire for excitement and chaos, her own dirty little secret, was met in the restaurants she ran.
Emma pushed through the locker room door pulling her hair into a tail when she became aware of another presence.
Nikolai Vulkov’s leanly muscled frame was ruthlessly banging out pull-ups on the rig across the room. His gaze met hers in the mirror, and he muscled out five more reps before hopping off the bar and turning to grin at her.
“You just made my night,” he said in that throaty voice that served to both irk and arouse her.
Emma didn’t like the flitter of excitement that raced through her at being all alone with the wolf. She debated ignoring him but decided that would only make him try harder. And it was already impossible to ignore him. Dressed in dark mesh shorts and a gray sleeveless tee, he offered a view even Emma couldn’t help but enjoy.
“What brings you to Fitness Freak at this time of night?” She kept her tone polite, but the curiosity was real. If anyone should have Saturday night plans, it was the man before her. She was staring too long, pretending not to admire the sweat-slicked biceps and the hard-muscled thighs.
“My kind and generous hosts have been in bed since nine-thirty. I’m not used to such quiet, early evenings. Especially on a Saturday,” he confessed, swiping his arm over his forehead.
“Ah, the charming culture shock of small town life,” Emma nodded in understanding. “I bet they cooked dinner tonight instead of going out.”
He grimaced. “I’ve never seen anyone in New York use their kitchen for anything other than wine storage and catering space.”
“It’s a whole other world here,” Emma agreed with a half-smile.
Niko took a swig of water and grinned. “There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Her eyes narrowed. “What wasn’t?”
“Having a friendly conversation.”
“I can be friendly,” she argued. “But I can also recognize your type from a mile away.”
“And what type is that?” he asked, stepping dangerously close to her.
Emma watched as beads of sweat trickled hypnotically over the sinewy curves of his shoulders and down his veined arms.
“The type that sees something shiny, plays with it until he gets bored, and then drops it when the next shiny object comes along.”
“So a cat?” he drawled out, amused.
“Look, let’s just get this out of the way, shall we? I’m not looking for anything—” she waved her hand at his spectacular torso, “that you have to offer.”
“Not even scintillating conversation and foot rubs?” He was teasing her and enjoying himself.
“Nikolai, I’m sure you’re a very good time. I’m just not in the market for a temporary good time. So the sooner you stop wasting your time with the flirting, the sooner we can settle into casual acquaintances.”
His eyes narrowed as he watched her. “I find you fascinating.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “It’s because I said I’m not interested. Believe me, the novelty of my disinterest will wear off soon enough,” she predicted.
“What can I say to make you like me?”
To prove that she could shove him as off-balance as he made her feel, Emma took a step closer. “Tell me you don’t do casual.” She felt a sense of satisfaction when he took a step back. “Tell me you’re looking for something long-term. Tell me you don’t date model after model after model because you’re looking for something real.” She advanced on him until she backed him into the eye-searing lime green wall behind him. “Tell me you’ve decided to pack it all in and move to Blue Moon to find a partner in life that will support you, challenge you, and be there for you day after day.”
She poked him in the chest. “Tell me all that without lying, and I’ll not only like you, I’ll ask you out.”
He opened his mouth, closed it.
“That’s what I thought,” she said, smugly. She felt like she’d won a small victory. At least until his hands lashed out, grabbing her by the shoulders. Nikolai spun her around, and now she was the one with her back to the wall.
“I don’t need to apologize for my life choices,” he told her. Their closeness, his dominance, had Emma’s system zinging. He was tall enough that she had to look way up to deliver her glare.
“I’m not asking you to apologize. I’m trying to illustrate our basic incompatibility,” she said snippily.
“Touché.” He grinned down at her, placing a hand on the wall behind her. “Since we’re putting it all out there, I find your distrust of me oddly fascinating.”
Emma let out a groan. “Let’s connect the dots. You don’t do relationships, right?”
Niko pursed his lips in thought. “I do mutually beneficial casual.”
“Good. Fine. Great,” she shrugged, waving a hand. “I only do relationships.”
“So I’m just supposed to give up?” he frowned.
“Yes!” Emma hadn’t meant to shout the word, but at least the volume seemed to have gotten her point across. “Sorry. But we’ve just expressed our differing points of view and now we—and by we, I mean you—can start respecting each other’s boundaries.”
The sexy grin that curved his lips sent a warm feeling sliding through her stomach. “Because if I continued to pursue you after you’ve made it very clear that you’re not interested, I’d be a douche.”
“The douche-iest,” she affirmed.
His smile was heart stopping.
“So then we’ll just be friends,” he decided.
“Friends?”
“You know, we’ll talk, we’ll laugh. You won’t throw things at me, and we won’t have sex. It’ll be fun.”
Emma remained skeptical. “In my experience, men and women who are physically attracted to each other never make it as friends.” She realized her misstep immediately and blamed it on his proximity. It was hard to think clearly when over six feet of pure, gorgeous male was looking at her with an underwear-dissolving grin.
“As a gesture of my goodwill toward our fledgling friendship, I’m going to ignore the fact that you just admitted to being physically attracted to me.” He gave her a wolfish look. “I want points for that, by the way.”
“Fine. Five points, pal. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to work out.” She ducked under his arm and made a show of shoving her ear buds in place as she strode over to the rowers. Niko could say the “f” word as often as he wanted, but that didn’t make her body stop reacting so strongly to his presence. She needed some space.
She climbed on the rower, set the damper, and tightened the straps around her feet. And frowned.
Even with ’90s pop blaring in her ears, Emma knew exactly where Niko was in the gym. She’d never met anyone so magnetic, not even Troy, the player who’d played with her heart, and the fact that she was so aware of Nikolai annoyed her. She had made a deal with herself years ago that she’d never again be that girl, falling for a handsome face and pleasure-promising lips that said all the right words.
She reached for the grip and noted the goose bumps that dotted her arms. “Seriously?” She yanked an ear bud out of her ear.
Niko was straddling the rower next to her. “What? We’re friends, and now we’re in the same boat.”
“Cute,” she said
dryly, fiddling with the digital screen readout.
“Your sarcasm is one of the many reasons I treasure our friendship,” Niko said conversationally.
She laughed. She couldn’t help it.
“Friends work out together, you know,” Niko explained.
“Whatever,” Emma sighed and shoved her ear bud back in. The first few pulls served to wake up her arms and legs. Over her music, she could hear the steady whoosh of air being forced through the rower’s fan.
She hit her stride with deep, steady strokes and felt her muscles warm. She tried to focus on the digital readout, not the virile sex god pumping his steel hard legs on the rower next to her.
His pace was faster than hers, which Emma took as a direct challenge.
Together, they stroked side by side, their skin sweat-drenched and flushed with exertion. Next to her ivory paleness, his skin was a dusky gold courtesy of ancestry and recent tropical sun, she guessed.
She couldn’t hear his breathing over her music—now a Joan Jett anthem. But she could watch him out of the corner of her eye. He wasn’t slowing his pace, so she refused to also.
Her breath was coming in ragged but measured gasps as the meters ticked up. Pulling, pushing, reaching. She dug deep until finally, finally she coasted over the two thousand-meter mark. Damn. She’d bested her PR by a full eleven seconds. Maybe Nikolai Vulkov was worth knowing platonically after all?
She glanced over at Niko who looked as if he’d just finished a leisurely walk around the town square. Bastard. He swiped a eucalyptus scented gym towel over his face. “What’s next?” he asked.
“Look, I know we’re BFFs now, but I really do prefer to work out alone,” Emma said.
He paid no attention to her complaint and followed her to the weight rack where she chose a set of dumbbells. It was high-intensity interval night, and she really wasn’t thrilled about having an audience.
Niko grabbed a pair of dumbbells double the weight of hers. “So what are we doing, buddy?”
She crossed her eyes at him in the mirror. “Squat press burpees, pal.”
Emma had to hand it to him. Niko hung with her through burpees, squats, and press jacks. He used the plank intervals to fire questions at her.