Honestly, she'd wondered if he was still in Utah and if she'd see him again when she moved back. But after two years, she figured he'd moved on.
Weirdly, though, he was best friends with her closest friend, crazier that it had never come up.
Once the bathroom was sparkling and nothing else needed cleaning, she put away the products, washed up, and padded to her bedroom, where she applied lotion to her arms and legs as she always did before bed.
The following morning, after a deep, dreamless sleep, Lisa’s day began as it always did—busily. She scrolled through work emails, checking which was the highest priority to answer today while she sipped her first coffee. Next, she reviewed the day’s schedule on her iPad.
Seeing the list of jobs, she knew she’d be tired by the end of the day. But that’s how she preferred it. She wasn’t a woman to sit around doing nothing; her nervous system wouldn’t allow it. Luckily, work had been abundant for several years, ensuring Lisa was consistently busy. She was so busy that she hadn’t gone on vacation for three years, and yesterday was the first day she took off, for Nina’s recommittal ceremony.
After ensuring her gray slacks and simple white-collared shirt appeared tidy in the hallway mirror, she made sure that her long ponytail was still as well-arranged as it had been an hour earlier. She then hooked the red purse over her forearm. Looking less troll-like, with minimal makeup but feeling sassy wearing her favorite perfume, she stepped outside the house and nearly choked on her own spit.
Sitting by the sidewalk on a beast of a motorcycle was a man who her hormones knew intimately.
Ryan Gold had his head turned her way, wearing a black bandana over the bottom half of his face so she couldn’t gauge his mood. From the way she’d stared at him yesterday, she knew he’d aged so well, filling out every muscle in his body to perfection.
But Lisa couldn’t understand why he’d be at her house.
So early.Or at all.
FOUR
Splice
Goddammit.
A hot slosh of heat made his stomach muscles clench.
Lisa Wolfe was still the hottest woman on the planet. He’d always thought so.
It was hard not to be transported back into memories he’d thought he’d long forgotten as he watched her shoulders go up around her ears while she turned away from him to lock the door.
Of all the women he’d known in his twenty-nine years on this earth—and he didn’t want to calculate the numbers—Lisa was the woman he had the most memories with. And none of those memories were bad. But knowing that, there was a weird knot in his gut, and it had been there since yesterday when she pretended not to know him.
Once his brain recovered from the shock of seeing her, he didn’t like the feeling and had been dwelling on it. Splice didn’t hold bad feelings toward any ex, not that he had exes, really. Everyone knew he was the notorious commitment-phobe. When it was time to go their separate ways, the women he spent time with were cool about it. He didn’t lie to any woman. If they wanted to hang out with him, he laid his shit on the table from the get-go. He had no interest in relationships or long-term commitment. If women looked at him as a potential old man, he cut them loose.
No bad feelings on his part.
Until he was dismissed yesterday with anice to meet you.
Nice to meet him. From a woman he’d known a handful of years ago in the deepest, most intimate way a guy could. Unless she’d developed amnesia, Splice knew there was no fucking way Lisa had forgotten him.
Splice braced his feet on the wet road and forearms across the handlebars. He’d long switched off his bike, having been there for half an hour or more. A dog walker had given him a look, as if she thought he was casing the neighborhood. She probably didn’t know he lived only two streets away.Go fucking figure. Was it a coincidence or weird fate he hadn’t even known Lisa was that close?
He probably shouldn’t even be here, but here he was.
Lisa’s steps were sure; each clacked with her heeled ankle boots as she approached him. Splice let his eyes wander from head to toe, not missing out on a detail as his gaze scaled over a woman who’d once meant a whole fuck of a lot to him in his younger days.
She’d kept her trim figure with popping curves. But even if she’d stacked on some needed pounds, Splice knew she’d still be a bombshell. Lisa never overplayed her looks, almost as if she hadn’t realized how spectacularly sexy she was. She was just effortlessly attractive; the reason she’d caught his attention. Her hair was as blonde as he remembered, maybe lighter, swinging in a high, flirty ponytail with wispy side bangs over her forehead. Squinting, her sea-foam green eyes stared at him accusingly. Splice smiled beneath the bandana before pulling it off his face, leaving it around his chin. No one would ever guess she was older than Splice; her appearance was flawlessly beautiful, and she looked no older than thirty.
Unashamedly, his stare ate up her steps, mapping the way her body moved like a runway model, her hips gliding side to side in a hypnotic gait, trying to forget how that banging body felt under his greedy hands.
She stopped in front of him, waiting without a word.
He really liked that patient aspect of her, and it seemed that hadn’t changed. Poise oozed from her steadfast gaze as he watched one of her eyebrows arch toward her hairline.
“You wanna tell me what that was about yesterday, babe?” It wasn’t his finest as greetings went, but those were the words he’d wanted to say. To elaborate, he added. “You pretended not to know me, Lisa.”
Her facial expression changed, and he watched a soft, embarrassed smile split her glossy-looking lips.
