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ss all had working cars, or at least rides. Or money for cabs. None of which I had. Where the hell was the bus? Should I pull out my phone and check if it was even coming?
A car pulled up in front of the bus stop and slowed to a halt, breaking into my musings. My heart sped up double-time in my chest. Even in the dark, in the rain, I recognized that car.
The passenger window powered down, and the face of a man appeared, leaning over the passenger seat. A familiar face with high cheekbones, a scruff of dark beard, and eyes that seemed to look right through me.
“Hey there,” my sexy neighbor said. “Need a ride?”
Two
Olivia
I hesitated. Sure, in my mind I felt like I knew him. But I didn’t know him. I didn’t even know his name. And I was a lone woman at night in a strange city, being asked to get into a dark car.
He seemed to wait, understanding. A car behind him honked, and I took a step forward, my foot splashing into the wet gutter. I leaned in to the open passenger window, trying to juggle my notebooks and not let them fall. I reached out a hand to grip the door. Great—now I looked like a prostitute picking up a client.
“I, um…” I said, and then I stopped.
His hand was resting on the wheel. His left hand. I could see the silver of a watch peeking from his sleeve, and beneath that the ink on his skin, the tattoo he carried on his hand. It was intricate, elaborate, a tangle of elegant lines. And across the top of his hand, just beyond the knuckles, two words were scripted.
No Time.
I’d glimpsed his tattoo, but I’d never been close enough to read it. Now I could, and it stopped me dead. What did No Time mean? What was so important about it that he’d had it inked onto his skin? Who did he think had no time? Him? Why?
I tore my gaze from his hand and raised it to his face. He was watching me from those dark, unfathomable green eyes. He quirked an eyebrow as I watched. “You wanna get wet?” he asked.
My jaw dropped. “What?”
Now a smile touched the corner of his mouth. “You’re getting wet,” he explained. “Is that what you want? If it is, I’ll keep driving.”
His voice, it turned out, was like dark chocolate. Maybe it was the tattoo that decided it. Maybe it was the smile. Maybe it was the fact that I was getting wet. But I opened the passenger door and slid inside.
It was warm and dry. It was a spacious car, like they used to make them, and the seats were refurbished, as comfortable as sofa cushions. I dropped my art pads in my lap as Mr. HDH—I needed to stop thinking of him like that—powered the window up, and I watched the wet night roll by as he drove away.
It smelled good in here. Warm and sort of masculine. I wondered if it was him, and my body relaxed while my heart accelerated into my throat. I opened my mouth to introduce myself but he spoke first.
“I thought you had a car,” he said.
So he’d noticed. “It wouldn’t start,” I said.
“Did it make a noise when you tried?” he asked. The vibration of his voice made my insides shake. “Or just nothing?”
Why was he asking me this? “Um, it made a noise,” I replied. I held out my hand. “I’m Olivia.”
He frowned for a second, looking ahead through the windshield, then lifted his right hand—the one without the tattoo—off the wheel. “Devon,” he said, and shook my hand.
Oh, hell. That hand. It was big and warm, the skin sliding over mine. I felt a shiver when it brushed the base of my palm, right above where my pulse beat. “Nice to meet you,” I managed.
“I’ll fix your car,” he said, letting my hand go and putting his back on the wheel. “I’m a mechanic.”
I clenched my fingers once before I realized what he’d said. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Sure I do,” he said. “You think I’m going to abandon a woman to taking the bus every day?”
“There’s good transit in San Francisco.”
For some reason, that made him laugh quietly. “I’m still fixing your car.”
I had to say it. “I can’t pay you.”
