by Nina Lane
One Sunday afternoon, bored and restless with fears of a spelling test the next day looming, I wanted to pretend to be Wolverine taking down Magneto.
“No.” Dean grabbed a soda from the refrigerator and shut the door.
“Why not?” I argued. “You’re not using it.”
He shrugged and went into the family room. I followed.
“Come on, Dean.”
“No.” He threw me an annoyed look. “Leave me alone.”
I knew he was irritated because of something our father had said to him about his grades, but that had nothing to do with me using the Sega.
“Please?” I begged. “Come on. Just for, like, an hour. I want to try and beat your high score.”
He frowned. “No.”
His voice was starting to sound deep, like our father’s. I kicked the leg of a chair, my frustration rising.
“Come on,” I persisted. “I’ll tell Dad you’re not sharing.”
“Go ahead.” He grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. “It’s mine anyway.”
“Why won’t you let me use it?”
“Because.”
“You’re such a jerk, Dean!”
He shrugged, his gaze on the TV. My frustration exploded into a strangled noise. I kicked the chair again and ran upstairs. Dean’s bedroom door was open.
His stupid soccer trophies lined the bookshelf. Science-fair ribbons hung on the walls under San Francisco Giants pennants and posters of Joe Montana. And there, sitting on his desk like the Holy Grail, was the Sega Genesis.
I didn’t think. I just grabbed it with the intention of locking myself in the basement rec room. I hurried from the bedroom, passing the stair railing that overlooked the entryway.
I stopped. Stared down at the tiled floor. And dropped the game console over the railing to crash on the floor below.
The controllers cracked, the plastic broke. I looked down at the smashed game and wondered why that destructive act had felt so good.
“What the hell are you doing?” Dean ran in from the kitchen.
Startled, I looked at him. I didn’t know if he’d seen what I’d done, but he was furious anyway. Fists clenched at his sides, face red.
I shrugged. “Accident. I tripped and it flew out of my hands.”
“What were you doing with it in the first place?” Dean yelled, coming up the stairs. “I said you couldn’t use it.”
“It was just sitting on your desk,” I snapped back. Even though I knew I was in for it, I was glad that I’d enraged my brother. “Stop being such an asshole.”
Dean shoved me. I stumbled back, my hands flying up in defense. Rage pumped through my blood. I hated that he had a Sega and so many trophies. I hated that girls liked him, teachers favored him, and coaches wanted him on their teams. I hated that he didn’t want to battle pirates with me anymore.
“You’re paying for it,” Dean shouted. “When Mom and Dad find out, they’ll make you pay.”
“I don’t care.” I didn’t, either. It wasn’t like I had the money to pay for anything.
Dean stalked toward me. He was so mad he was shaking. He shoved me again, and this time I let my fist fly in return. My punch caught Dean on the side of the head. In less than a second, Dean tackled me, bringing me down. Even as I hit the floor, I knew I didn’t stand a chance.
I tried, though. I’d been in enough scrapes at school. I knew how to fight dirty. I kicked and hit and yelled, trying to get at my brother’s weak spots, trying to land a punch through Dean’s own flying fists.
“What the hell is going on?” our father’s voice thundered. Dean was yanked off me and flung against the opposite wall. “What’s the matter with you two?”
“It’s his fault,” Dean shouted, swiping at his bloody nose.
I pushed to my feet, feeling a grim satisfaction at the evidence showing I’d landed a direct hit.
“What’s his fault?” our father asked.
“He broke my Sega!”
I felt the weight of my father’s gaze. I tried not to squirm. Sweat ran down my back.
“How did that happen?” he asked.
“Archer threw it over the railing,” Dean said, still glowering angrily at me. “Stupid idiot.”
New rage filled me. I lunged at Dean, but my father grabbed my arm in an ironclad grip and pulled me to a halt. I tried to get away, but couldn’t. My frustration exploded.
“You’re an asshole,” I yelled at Dean. “You think you’re better than everyone, that you’re so smart when you’re really just a selfish bastard who—”
My father smacked me. Hard. Right across the face. Pain spread over my whole head.
“You’re the bastard, Archer,” Dean snapped. “And stupid too. You didn’t even know that he’s not your real dad.”
He stabbed a finger at our father then turned and ran down the stairs. My sister Paige stood in the kitchen doorway, white with shock. I knew she’d heard everything.
I couldn’t move. The air seemed thick. It was hard to breathe. I was still sweating. My father didn’t say anything at all.
Cold prickled my skin, along with a horrible, sinking feeling of having just been told something that I already knew. My father released my arm. I stared at the floor. I heard his heavy footsteps going down the stairs. The front door slammed.
It took me a long time to move. I went downstairs. The Sega still lay broken on the tiled floor. I walked to the garden and out to the woods. I climbed the rope ladder and crawled into the tree house, breathing in the familiar scents of rotting wood and oak. I pulled the rope up and closed the door. I didn’t leave for a long time.
Everything changed after that. And everything stayed the same.
My mother, upset and weary, told me she’d made a mistake once and none of it was my fault but that I couldn’t tell anyone. It was a secret. She said Richard West was the man raising me and that he was my father. My father… well, Richard West, treated me with the same detached attention. Paige pretended nothing had happened… like my world hadn’t shattered.
Dean stopped talking to me. Or maybe I stopped talking to Dean. I couldn’t remember. I just knew it had been the beginning of the end.
CHAPTER ONE
KELSEY
HE SAT ALONE AT THE BAR, flipping a coin. His features were shadowed in the light. First he balanced the coin on his index finger, then he tossed it into the air with a flick of his thumb. The coin flashed quicksilver as it spun and dropped into his palm. He flipped it again. It was a rhythmic movement, hypnotic, like the ticking of a clock.
I watched him catch the coin, then let my gaze travel up his muscular arm. An elaborate tattoo curled around his upper right forearm and biceps, but from a distance I couldn’t make out the design.
His profile was sharply masculine, his jaw dark with stubble, his black hair thick and messy. He wore an old navy T-shirt and jeans that hugged his long legs. Though his shoulders were slumped, a tense, restless energy wound through his body, as if he were an eagle poised for flight.
As I watched him, something fluttered deep inside me. I knew men like him. He’d once been like the rough boys from my old Chicago neighborhood, the boys who radiated insolence and defiance. The ones who fought, cursed, and cut school to sneak behind buildings and smoke. The boys who dared each other to shoplift from the Russian shops on Devon Street. The boys who liked me because I was a tough girl who met their challenges without fear.
This guy was no longer a boy, though. Far from it. He was every inch a man, from the rugged planes of his face to his powerful torso and clear down to the scuffed, well-worn boots.
He flipped the coin again, closed his hand around it, and pushed it into his pocket. He grabbed the bottle resting on the counter and tilted his head back to drain the last of the beer. The column of his throat worked as he swallowed. I watched with mesm
erized fascination, not missing a detail, from the curve of his hand around the bottle to the way his lips pressed against the top.
He set the bottle down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He turned. And through the smoky light and shadows, our gazes met.
Oh.
My heart flipped just like the coin—a wild, seamless spin flashing silver. I felt my heart suspend in mid-air for an instant, poised to drop, and I had the sudden, irrational sense that it, too, could fall right into the palm of his hand.
I tore my gaze from his and looked at my drink. The scotch reminded me what the hell I was even doing in a dingy bar on the outskirts of Forest Grove. The crushing disappointment of my entire day effectively pushed my heart back down into place. Or lower. My dark mood was also probably the reason I was thinking silly thoughts about a complete stranger.
I felt him approaching, his presence tangible. My breath grew shallow when I looked up again to find him right beside my booth. His gaze wandered over me, touching on my eyes behind my glasses, up to the dark blue streak in my blonde hair, then back over my face to my mouth.
God, he was such a man. Big and rough-hewn, but with thick-lashed eyes and black eyebrows that softened the planes of his face and made him downright handsome. I could feel the power radiating from him, could sense a purely male appraisal of me raking through his mind. My skin tingled. I saw what he saw—a professional woman in a tailored, gray business suit and silk blouse, drinking alone in a corner booth, as if she were just waiting for him to approach.
Maybe I had been. Though I had avoided men like him for years, at the moment he was a welcome distraction from the series of recent failures that had put my hard-won research project on the skids.
Frustration clawed at me again. I stifled it and tried to match his assessment of me by deliberately sweeping my eyes over his torso. I imagined the rigid muscles and planes of his abdomen beneath his T-shirt. I looked at the corded length of his forearms, the tattoos gliding over the biceps of his right arm—intricate feathers, like a bird’s wing—then back up to his face.
He watched me, a faint smile curving his well-shaped mouth, his gaze a force that I, Kelsey March who knew all about the physics of geomagnetic storms, couldn’t resist any more than I could resist the pull of gravity.
He dug a hand into his pocket and pulled out the coin. When he spoke, his voice was a smooth, deep rumble that settled in my core like a drumbeat.
“Heads… I leave,” he said. “Tails… I stay.”
I swallowed to ease the dryness in my throat. “Do you always let fate make decisions for you?”
“Fate makes better decisions than I do.”
I looked at the coin nestled in his broad hand. My pulse quickened. He balanced the coin on his index finger and flipped it with his thumb. We both watched the coin spin upward.
Tails. Tails. Tails.
Before I could think, I reached out and grabbed the coin out of the air. I closed my fist around it, the edges pressing against my palm. It felt larger than a quarter and heavier, like a silver dollar.
The stranger and I looked at each other. The air between us vibrated with something hot and anticipatory, a ripening awareness of which decision we both wanted fate to make.
Tails… I stay.
I tightened my grip on the coin. My heart hammered. I felt as if I were on the cusp of a free-falling drop, like the steep incline of a roller-coaster that would sweep me off on an exhilarating, wild ride. I met the man’s gaze again.
“You decide,” I said.
He didn’t move. I waited. The noise of the bar receded, leaving us alone together. Then he stepped forward and slid into the booth beside me.
My breath escaped in one, long rush. An undeniable sense of relief went through me, which was as unnerving as the fact that I’d wanted him to stay. I edged away only far enough to let him sit.
His hip brushed against mine. An electric spark shot over my skin. He rested his arms on the table, and like a magnet my eyes were drawn to his hard forearms, dusted with dark hair, and the elaborate bird’s wing that ended at the crook of his elbow.
I still held the coin, my hand curled into a fist. A faint dizziness filled my head. It wasn’t the alcohol. I’d been nursing my first drink for the past forty-five minutes, and the glass was still half-full. I’d also been watching him since he walked into the bar thirty minutes ago, which accounted for my lack of interest in the scotch. Just looking at him gave me a buzz.
“What are you doing here alone?” he asked.
“Seething,” I said.
“You don’t look like you’re seething.”
I knew I didn’t. The blue streak in my hair was the only thing that made people wonder—otherwise, they only saw a cool, professional woman. Even now, after five hours in a stuffy boardroom fielding questions and accusations from six male executives, I looked composed and unruffled. No one would ever know that an hour ago, I’d been locked in a stall in the ladies’ room, slamming my hand against the door and fighting waves of anger.
“What do I look like I’m doing?” I asked.
“You look like you’re checking me out.”
My heart jolted with a combination of embarrassment and pleasure. It was the truth. I’d been checking him out since he walked in the door. I’d watched him toss his leather jacket onto a coat rack before crossing to the bar. His stride had been long and certain, his movements decisive as he dug in his back pocket for his wallet and took a seat at the bar.
I liked the way he moved. I liked the way he handed the money directly to the bartender instead of putting it on the counter. I liked the way he nodded his thanks and took a drink, the way he rested one booted foot on the bar railing.
Hell. I liked everything about him. That was why I hadn’t stopped staring at him.
He moved closer to me now. I felt the length of his thigh next to mine. I wanted to press up against it, to feel his body heat and the solid bulk of his muscles. The dizziness wound through me again along with a sense of unreality, as if I were no longer smart, sharp Professor March, but a mysterious, sexy woman who picked up men in bars with uninhibited ease.
Men like him.
“What are you doing here alone?” I asked.
“Brooding,” he said.
I smiled. “You don’t look like you’re brooding.”
“I stopped when I saw you.”
Oh.
I hadn’t stopped seething when I saw him. My anger had just shifted into a slow, pleasurable burn that uncoiled in my blood like a plant stretching toward the sun.
He reached out to curl a few locks of my blue hair around his fingers. He studied the strands intently, as if he were making sure they really were blue and not just a trick of the light. When he smoothed them back into place, his fingers brushed across my forehead.
“Pretty,” he murmured.
A flush rose to my cheeks. Despite my knowledge that flirting was second nature to a man like him, I let myself be softened by his admiration. So much better than feeling as if I were clawing my way up a brick wall and falling back on my ass every time I made any progress.
“So what… or who… made you seethe?” he asked.
“A group of SciTech executives.”
“What’s SciTech?”
“A scientific research agency. They took away funding for a project I’ve been working on for three years.”
“Why did they do that?”
“They said my data was inconclusive.”
“Was it?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “But I’m far from finished with it. I needed the funding renewal to conduct more investigations and move into phase two. But they shut down the whole project.”
Frustration churned inside me again, my brain crowding with raised voices, arguments, and my explosive anger that not one of the executives had un
derstood or wanted to support what I was trying to do.
I reached for my scotch and took a swallow, letting the alcohol burn through my chest.
I felt him watching me again, this time with both curiosity and guardedness. As if he were trying to make sense of the woman with the dark blue hair and business suit who was fighting to fund her scientific research.
“What’s the project about?” he asked.
I shook my head. I didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to relive the lengthy, combative meeting that had led to me sitting in a bar, badly needing a drink.
My stomach knotted. I didn’t want to be Professor March right now. Professor March was angry, frustrated, and exhausted. Tomorrow she’d have to face her colleagues and admit that SciTech pulled funding for the Spiral Project. She’d also have to contend with the fact that most of the other professors would be secretly pleased by her failure.
Then she’d have to talk to her grad students, deal with their disappointment, and start the proposal process all over again. After that she’d have to find out how this debacle affected her chances for tenure and a permanent, full professor position at King’s University.
Fuck.
I’d be Professor March again later. Not now. Not with this incredibly sexy man sitting so close to me, everything about him awakening desires that I’d suppressed for years. Desire for the forbidden, for bad boys who radiated danger, for risk-taking and spontaneity and the freedom to do whatever the hell I wanted.
I turned to face him at the same instant I shifted closer, pressing my thigh against his. Heat flowed through me.
“What were you brooding about?” I asked, skimming my gaze from his mouth up to his eyes.
“The fact that fate makes better decisions than I do.”
“But you decided to come over here,” I remarked.
You decided to stay.
He studied me. He had beautiful eyes. Framed by thick eyelashes, his eyes were dark as the earth, as midnight, and flecked with silver, like stars in an endless universe.