She tried again. Click. Click. Her car was dead. But it was an excellent car. Almost new. Recently serviced. What the hell?
She popped the hood and the trunk and got out. Rummaged through the odds and ends in the trunk until she found the flashlight, a super nerdy one that she could strap to her head like a spelunker. She grabbed a heavy wrench, just in case something needed banging back into place.
Lifting the hood, she saw the problem at once. The battery cables were ripped off the battery and cut so that they couldn’t be reattached.
Someone had sabotaged her car.
Then she heard them. Men’s voices, low and indistinct, but with an aggressive tone that made her skin crawl. They smelled. Armpit fug and cigarette ash.
Simone straightened and turned, shining her headlight into the reddened eyes of a beefy, thick-faced guy with patchy stubble. The man beside him was taller. Lanky and balding.
She tucked the wrench under her arm and yanked out her phone, backing away, but the first guy darted at her and knocked it out of her hand. It hit the brick wall behind her with a sharp crack and broke apart.
“Shit,” he muttered. “Coulda sold that.”
He followed her, his gag-inducing breath a hot cloud in her face. She waited one more moment ... then whipped the pepper spray out of her pocket.
She blasted him right in the eyes.
He screamed and lurched back, pawing at his face. The taller man froze for a second, then his mouth twisted with rage. He leaped at her with a shout.
She slammed the wrench down across his forearm with all her strength.
He howled. Walloped her with his good arm across the side of the head. The wet street swung up and body-slammed her, knocking out her breath and her senses. Everything went dark.
When her hearing slowly came back, what she saw and heard made no sense.
A huge dark silhouette in violent motion. Arms, legs, moving too fast for her tear-blurred eyes to follow. Kicks and blows. Choked squeals of pain.
She focused on a huge, long-haired man in a black leather coat crouched near her, holding her second attacker, his arm clamped across the tall guy’s throat. The trapped man thrashed, clawing at the powerful forearm that barely let him breathe.
“You laid your hands on her, asshole,” the big guy said. “Bad call.”
The guy coughed, sputtered. “But she hit me with a—oof!”
His voice cut off as the leather-clad man rose and let go suddenly. The guy stumbled, arms pinwheeling.
An enormous leather boot connected with his jaw. He yelped and hit the pavement, sprawled in a puddle.
Suddenly the leather-coat man was beside her, sliding an arm behind her back and propping her up. She realized, dazed, that she was lying in a puddle of rain.
“Hey,” he said. “I saw that guy hit you. You okay? Are you hurt?”
She blinked, dumbstruck. The man before her was unbelievably handsome. Not a hallucination. She caught his scent. Leather, salt, musk. She drew it in again, greedily. “Y-yes,” she stammered.
She did a swift inventory, assessing herself for damage. She was bruised and shaky. Her ear had gotten a sharp, head-ringing whack, but the sensation was fading, driven away by excitement and astonished goggle-eyed gawking.
“How’s your head?” he asked. “Let me look at it. Any bleeding? A bump?”
“I’m fine,” she said, meaning it. “I’m not concussed. I’m really okay.” She looked around for the glasses that had been knocked off her face when she fell.
Her rescuer spotted them before she did and handed them to her. She dug around in her pockets for a tissue to dry them with. Too bad it was still raining hard. She longed to find out if sharp focus made him even more gorgeous.
A sound made them look around. The jaw-kicked attacker was dragging himself onto his knees. In the dim light from the streetlight, he ran a careful hand over his jaw. Then he spat out a bloodied tooth and stared at it in slack-mouthed disbelief.
The other man was rubbing his pepper-stung eyes. “Goddamn fucking cunt!” he howled, lurching toward her.
The man in black leather leaped up and blocked him with an uppercut that sent him flying backward into his companion.
The two men hit the ground together, sprawling and rolling.
“Get lost.” Her rescuer’s low voice was menacing. “And stay lost. Unless you want me to kick you down into the sewer. Got that?”
The men struggled hastily to their feet and broke into a shambling run. The pepper-sprayed guy banged into a street sign, bounced off, and reeled away into the darkness.
Simone stared after them, speechless. Her mind was blank.
The mysterious man crouched next to her again. Rain dripped over his starkly chiseled cheekbones and down to his jaw. He didn’t seem to notice or mind.
His eyes were intent on her face. His hand came to rest on her shoulder. Through layers of cloth, the gentle contact felt like a bright electric shock, releasing a sweet shiver of goosebumps. Her spine straightened. Her chin rose.
She just stared, not caring how bedraggled she must look. Her mind was empty of such considerations. Even the scary, shocking thing that just happened had been pushed to the side. There wasn’t enough space for that and this man to coexist in the same thought cycle. One thing at a time. Him first. For sure.
He waited. Patiently. A faint smile formed on his sensual lips. It suggested that he’d been through this before. Probably rescued spaced-out women from muggers all the time. He just crouched there and let her gawk, his face spotlit by the flashlight that had somehow stayed on her head.
Self-consciousness came flooding back. Shit. She must look crazy in that thing. She pulled it off. Her crocheted hat came off with it and she tried in vain to smooth down her hair. Her gaze darted around the empty street. Her hands had begun to shake.
“You okay?” he asked again. “I can take you to the emergency room.”
“No,” she said. “I’m fine. Thanks for … uh … that. What you did.”
“It’s nothing. I’m sorry it happened to you. Having trouble with your car?”
“Don’t worry,” she said hastily. “I’ll take care of it.”
He stepped toward the open hood. “Can I take a look?”
She tugged her hat back down over her damp hair. “No need,” she told him. “I know what the problem is.”
His eyebrow shot up. “Already? Really? You do your own car repairs?”
“I’m an engineer,” she said. “I like knowing how machines work.”
He nodded, thoughtfully. Then his gaze was caught by something on the ground gleaming wetly in the streetlight’s glow. The wrench.
“Oh. That’s mine,” she told him.
He picked it up and looked it over. “This is what you used on that fuckhead?”
She nodded.
“I have one just like it,” he said conversationally. “Engines turn me on. I like tearing them apart and putting them back together.”
“You’re a mechanic?”
Her incredulous tone made him grin, which carved deep, beautiful grooves into his cheeks. “What? I don’t look like one?”
No. You look like a sexy movie vampire, a famous extreme athlete, a billionaire rock star. Somehow, she managed not to blurt it out.
He changed the subject. “So what’s the problem with the car?”
“The, ah, battery cables were cut.”
“I see,” he said. “So that’s that. You’re not going anywhere in this car tonight.”
“Nope. I need a tow truck and a taxi. But those guys trashed my phone.”
His face darkened. “Use my phone. I’ll make the calls for you if you want.”
“Thanks, but I still want my phone. Even if it’s in pieces.” She tried to get up, but her legs wobbled and she thudded down into the puddle again.
“Let me help you.” He rose to his feet, bearing her up with him in an effortless anti-gravity surge. She floated up and just kept on floating. At least that
was how it felt. Even the waterlogged skirt that clung to her legs couldn’t weigh her down.
He helped her collect the pieces of her phone. The screen was broken and the battery knocked out, but she found all the parts and slid them into her coat pocket.Then she just stood there. Foolish, half-frozen, and tongue-tied.
“I have a suggestion,” he said. “You’re soaked. There’s a bar down the street. Let’s go in there to warm you up while we call the tow truck and the taxi. I’m Zade, by the way. Zade Ryan.”
She took his hand. The zing that raced up her arm from contact with his warm palm was just like the thrill she’d felt when he touched her shoulder, but a hundred times stronger. “Ah … I’m, ah, Alison,” she lied, on impulse. “Alison Wilson.”
“Alison.” The fake name was a velvety caress coming from his mouth. “Can I buy you a drink?”
Her voice was locked in her throat. A barrier between two warring realities.
True Fact #1: Not smart to go to a skeevy dive bar with a huge guy in black leather who appeared out of nowhere on a dark street corner in a bad neighborhood. In the driving rain. Next to her dead car. Her shattered phone. Even if he had rescued her. Not smart at all.
True Fact #2: He had rescued her.
True Fact #3: It was impossible to look away from him. A diamond stud earring glinted between the thick wet locks of his black hair. The effect was intensely masculine. He wore a metal pendant in the hollow of his collarbone, which caught the light, flashing like a mirror. Raindrops made their slow, loving way along the bold slash of his dark eyebrows, over his cheekbones, his hawk nose, his sensual mouth.
He stood there dripping, pulsing waves of raw sexual energy at her. What in the freaking hell would she do with all of that?
Which brought her around to True Fact #4: She was a repressed, workaholic nerd with no life, and this astonishing man-god seemed to be almost, well, coming on to her. At least she was about ninety-five percent certain that he was. She’d never been great at decoding nonverbal male/female interaction.
Maybe he flirted with every woman he saw. Some men didn’t know any other way to relate to a woman. Maybe this was just him being nice. Could be that the whole thing was just a hopeful fantasy on her part. Maybe she was projecting all this.
Then he smiled down at her. Mmm. Maybe not.
Besides, she’d now inevitably arrived at her ultimate destination, which was True Fact #5. Nobody got out of this world alive.
Tomorrow she had an appointment with Dr. Gregory Fayette. He would give her the final word on whether she’d inherited the gene mutation that would change everything.
If the news was bad, well, rolling around with a red-hot leather-clad bad boy was a bucket-list classic.
One night. No names. No numbers.
Chapter 3
Black coffee for him, black tea for her. Fetch, Zade. Good boy.
He wove his way through the crowd at the bar, feeling like a jackass for carrying steaming stoneware mugs to their booth when everybody else in the place was downing boilermakers, cheap vodka, and beer. The bar was a seedy dive with a neon sign outside that blinked intermittently, but she needed to get warmed up fast.
She could have been hurt. It would’ve been his fault. He had to make amends.
His instructions to those buttheads had been so simple any fool could have followed them. He’d drilled them for different scenarios and been right on hand to monitor the situation. They were supposed to approach her, act vaguely menacing, and then fade away when he showed up. A hint of danger, swiftly averted. Easy.
He hadn’t imagined a scenario where Simone fought back with pepper spray and a wrench. She’d pissed them off. Stung their macho pride. Put herself in danger.
The least he could do was bring her a hot drink.
She was focused on her phone conversation, ignoring his approach. Shaggy, cold-eyed biker types looked him over as he sidled around the pool table and made his way to their booth in the back. He set the cups down on the table and slid into his seat.
Hannah, a fellow Midlander, had told him about Simone when her brother Noah got engaged to her. Ms. Perfect, Hannah called her. Brilliant, beautiful, and cool as a cucumber. Unfailingly polite to everybody all the time, but distant. Chilly.
Based on that, he thought he’d be dealing with an attractive female-shaped popsicle. One who would freeze in shock and stay conveniently in place until he gallantly rescued her, according to his brilliant fucking watertight plan.
That was not this woman.
His mind kept replaying that blow to her head. Seeing her fly through the air and hit the ground hard. Fuck.
She closed her call with the tow company and pushed his phone back across the table toward him. “Thanks for the phone,” she said. “And thanks again for helping me out with those guys.”
“No big deal,” he said.
“It was for me.” Her voice was quietly emphatic.
“Yeah, well. I’m glad to have helped. No honey for your tea, by the way. They were out. Plenty of lemon, though.”
“Sugar’s fine.”
He gazed into her eyes. Beautiful, like the rest of her. Gray-green irises, streaked with gold. She lifted one well-shaped dark eyebrow.
Uh-oh. She was on to him.
“Looking for something?” She took off her glasses, leaned forward, and opened her eyes wide. “I checked myself for signs of concussion already, if that’s what you’re wondering. Took a close-up selfie.”
“You did?” Then he had a photo of those beautiful eyes on his phone to remember her by. Sweet.
“Don’t worry. I deleted it,” she said briskly. “And I’m fine.”
“Ah. Okay.”
She smiled at him, which momentarily affected his ability to reason.
Then it dawned on him. Fuck a duck. What else had she been doing while his back was turned? His phone was full of unique apps, encrypted messages, secret functions that ordinary smartphones didn’t possess. And for some inexplicable reason, it hadn’t even occurred to him that she could snoop into it. He just had to be a goddamn gentleman. Offer up his unlocked phone, and then walk away from her.
The brain-dead idiocy of that move took his breath away.
“Really,” she assured him. “No head pain. No double vision. No nausea. I’m perfectly fine.”
She’d mistaken his dismay for concern. She took a sip of her tea and smiled at him, studying him serenely. “Mmm,” she murmured. “Warms me right up.”
Full lips, made rosy by the heat of the tea. Calm, level gaze. Zade took a gulp of his scorching coffee. He was up against a woman who could swing a wrench, maybe hack an encrypted phone, and maybe lie through her perfect pearly teeth—unless he was being paranoid.
Too bad he couldn’t just bring her a nice hot cup of truth serum and find out what she was really up to. How much she knew about Luke. And Obsidian.
Patience. He looked at her gleaming pink lips, her brilliant eyes, and flexed his hands under the table. This was a long game, and he was totally up for playing it.
“You look fine,” he said. “But I can still take you to the ER.”
“No,” she said, stowing her glasses in her purse. “Don’t suggest it again.”
“What about the police? You want to report this?”
“No, those guys are long gone. And besides, that’s not how I want to spend my evening.” Her eyes glowed at him over the rim of her cup.
Heat roared in his groin. Whoa. Down. It wasn’t remotely safe to read sexual innuendo into random small talk.
He’d keep it gentle, keep it simple, keep it classy. Keep her close. He didn’t want to take his eyes off her for one single goddamn second. Not after what had just happened out there.
But forget about getting lucky. After a fuck-up like that? No way. Certainly not until he combed through his phone in private looking for her digital fingerprints. And the photo she thought she’d deleted? He was totally fishing that image out of his phone’s deep memory. It was th
ere, and he wanted it.
He could look at those eyes for hours.
Simone pulled off her crocheted cap. Her hair was a long, tousled mass of undulating curls and waves. She was pretty with no makeup. The shadowy fold of her eyelid looked incredibly soft. He wanted to touch it.
Simone—no, Alison. She was Alison tonight. He had to stay on top of that.
She squeezed a wedge of lemon into her tea and he got a heady whiff of lemon peel. The fragrance drifted around her like a tangy cloud. It suited her somehow.
She wiped her fingertips on the napkin, then rested her hands on the table. No jewelry, no nail polish. No-nonsense hands that got things done.
She pulled out her broken smartphone case and pieced it deftly back together. The faceplate had a starburst crack, but the touchscreen actually still worked.
“What were you doing wandering around in that shit neighborhood?” he asked.
Her eyes narrowed. “I tutor a group of kids,” she told him. “We meet at the Mercer Center.”
“Oh. What subject?”
“Science and math. This week, we covered zero. In depth.”
“Huh. Sounds interesting.”
His lack of enthusiasm wasn’t lost on her. Her lips curved. “Zero is a very big deal, numerically speaking.”
He harrumphed. “If you say so.”
She was on a roll. “It just so happens to represent a transformative moment in the evolution of human thought. Zero is very exciting.”
“Okay. That’s good to know. But park your car closer to the Mercer Center next time. It’s safer.”
Her eyes slid away. “I know.” She hesitated, and he heard her heartbeat rev up as if she was scared. “There’s more to it.”
He hadn’t expected her to go all honest on him. He studied her for a moment. “You can tell me,” he said.
“I was, um, hiding,” she blurted. “Someone was following me.”
Alarm jangled through him. “Who? A stranger? An ex? Sorry, didn’t mean to get personal.”
“It’s okay.” She stared into her tea, fiddling with her lemon peel. “It’s my stepdad. He’s very controlling. Sometimes he sends a guy from his security staff to monitor me.”
My Next Breath Page 2