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Chapter One
“A few rounds of sex with some random hottie is not what I need, but thanks for the suggestion. Look, I don’t even know about going out tonight.” Amber Grayson spoke into the small phone wedged between her ear and shoulder as she squinted down the platform into the evening sun. The train was late; she was hot and tired. Weeding through the riff-raff in search of a date required effort and, truth be told, she was experiencing a bit of an emotional and motivational slump in the romance department. So tonight, Amber planned to settle for the kind of satisfaction achieved through a party of one.
Distracted from the call, she looked over the smattering of black silhouettes that milled back and forth, waiting for their own connection to retrieve them from the workday grind and transport them home to the rest of their night and life. A tired looking man in a gray suit shook off his fatigue, dropping his briefcase as a young woman flung herself into his arms. The couple’s gazes locked and wide smiles spread across their faces. Love. Amber turned away. It was a feeling she had never experienced and sometimes being witness to it left her feeling disconnected and alone. She’d dated enough, but never really fallen. Never been consumed. Never known real love.
God knew she’d waited for it. Held her breath, hoping her time would come. But it hadn’t. She’d met men. Nice ones. But no one had been able to compete with the standard she’d set so many years before. Eventually she stopped waiting for the magic and settled for a good time. She was a practical girl.
“Amber? Amber!” the voice from the phone squawked.
“No, no, sorry. I’m still here,” she sighed. “I’m beat, I feel like—” She stared from behind her dark lenses at a figure in the crowd looking directly at her. Tall build, broad shoulders tapering down to narrow hips, sturdy thighs. Her breath caught in her chest and wound tight, straight down the center of her body. That stance. Confident. Familiar. No, it wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be him. She spun around and walked over to a deserted segment of the platform. “—I feel like crap about Eric. He called from New York last night and left a message. I didn’t call him back…” Her mind drifted back to the man on the platform. If the way he stood made her hot, maybe it was time to get out for some sex after all. Still, something about him was so much like…
She’d sneak a quick glimpse and make sure he wasn’t a hallucination. Subtle. Smooth. The guy probably wouldn’t even be there anymore, she thought, biting her lip. In the lamest attempt at nonchalance of all time, Amber turned slowly around and found herself face to chest with the hard planes of Brian Matthers’ imposing frame. She stepped back, mumbling a quick apology as her eyes dragged up to his face. “Jilly, I’ll call you back.”
An easy smile and sea blue eyes sparkled at her, sending chills down her spine and her heart racing.
“Don’t I know you from…somewhere? Abby?” he asked, quirking his eyebrow, somehow making it sound less like a pickup-line than a cashier asking for a price check on tampons.
She wished she were Abby or any other name he wanted to call her. Her brain seemed to ooze into her stomach as she looked at that perpetually cute eyebrow. She knew a lot of girls in high school, women now really, who had wanted to throw caution to the wind because of that very look. Girls like her. Girls who never got the chance.
Her mind slipped into panic mode as she took a mental inventory of what she looked like the last time she’d faced a mirror. She didn’t wear much make-up beyond lipstick, and three hours ago there had still been some color on her lips. Of course, she’d finished a soda and eaten an apple since then. Her blonde curls had been presentable, but that was before she’d stuck a couple of number two pencils in them, twisting the heavy mass into a knot without the benefit of a mirror. Her heart sank.
Shifting a bit on his feet, Brian’s charming smile turned sheepish without actually fading. “I’m sorry, maybe I made—”
“Brian Matthers,” she managed to get out, smiling like a fool. “It’s Amber, Amber Grayson, actually. What a long time. Since high school,” she said more smoothly than she would have expected, considering the way her blood tore through her body.
His cheeks flushed slightly as he shook his head. “Amber? Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve never been good with names. Hope I didn’t call you the wrong one back then.”
She smiled, certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’d never called her anything to her face. Never spoken to her beyond the simple “hi” in passing. They hadn’t been part of the same crowd, but his was the face she’d looked for every day throughout four years of high school. Her stomach did flip-flops when he walked down the hall with the other baseball players and she couldn’t even explain what her body did when she’d watch him stretching out his arms and shoulders after pitching a game.
Brian Matthers was the reason she’d forced herself to leave fantasies behind and learned to live in reality. He had been the one she’d waited for, though he never knew it. The one who stirred such intense emotion in her, she could barely function. The fantasy no one compared to. But she was a woman now, with practical expectations about romance. Her feet were firmly planted on the ground and she would be damned if she’d stand there smiling at him like a lust-crazed schoolgirl without enough brain function to speak.
God only knew what possessed her to say it, but when she opened her mouth, the words simply tumbled out. “Brian, you’ll have to excuse me, I had such a terrible crush on you in high school. I’m standing here making a complete jackass out of myself.”
She thought she’d die when his eyes widened, but then his head rocked back and the full-bodied laugh of the unquestionably confident erupted.
“That funny, hmm?” she asked, surprised by her sudden ease.
The laughter subsided, retreating into his eyes. “High school? Well, I’m pretty sure I was total pain in the ass back then. Nothing like college and getting a job to put life into perspective for you. If only I’d known you were interested.” Then with a squint and subtle head shake, he retracted. “No. Better, I think, that I didn’t.”
“That bad to the girls? I can’t believe it.”
“Not bad, I hope. Just had my mind on baseball all the time. No attention to anything or anyone else. I have a singular focus problem.”
Amber fought against the urge to look over the body she had longed for, to study the ways Brian had improved from boy to man. The mere thought had every part of her pulling together at her core, dying to be on the receiving end of his singular focus. “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad. But what are you up to now? I take the same train every night and I’m sure I haven’t seen you up here before.”
“A happy accident, I guess. I
normally catch the next one, but I got out a little earlier tonight. I’m working at over at Dyson & Dale. Accounting. Boring. How about you?”
“I’m a programmer for Clybourn Elliot. Not too boring. I like it.”
A rush of hot air and thundering steel pounded by them as the train slowed to a stop. It was the number three. Amber sucked up her breath and, hoping desperately, said, “Well, this one’s mine.”
Brian smiled and gestured for her to step on board. “It’s mine too, but I was going to pretend it wasn’t—to talk to you a little more.”
Amber’s heart pounded against her ribs as he placed the palm of his hand against the flat of her back. Brian guided her to an open seat—a gentleman on public transit. His touch was like liquid electricity, running through her with a jolt and flooding between her legs. She almost thought it couldn’t get any better than this, but the steady pulse in her clit making her press her thighs tightly together was a reminder that it definitely could. Her cheeks flamed at the thought of the many fantasies Brian Matthers had starred in. Being escorted to a seat on the El wasn’t one of them, but she was fairly certain it would be after today.
“So, what’s your stop?” he asked, smiling a little too platonically for her taste.
What was happening to her? Men simply didn’t elicit this kind of full body and mind response from her. But here she was, giddily hoping the man beside her would feel a connection. Would want more. Wasn’t just pleased to see an old familiar face.
She said a silent prayer, begging the lust fairies to accost him at full throttle. Anything to ensure this wasn’t the beginning of some beautiful friendship. Her life was filled with friendships, deep and meaningful ones, but Brian Matthers was someone she could never look at without wanting. It wasn’t possible. “I’m off at Addison, live down a few blocks on Beekman. I picked up the lease from Jill Meyers. She was also in our class.” Amber paused, then unable to resist, she added, “You might remember her as Judy…or perhaps Jen?”
Brian bit his lip, nodding, but Amber just laughed.
“So you like to play, hmm?” he asked with a smirk.
“You’re easy. And yes, I do.” She’d intended it to be a simple statement about goofing off, but when her eyes caught his, they lingered there, lost in all that blue.
Brian tore away first, clearing his throat. “Well, that’s good to know. Good to know. I’m actually the next stop after you. So it looks like I’ve got about,” he rolled up his cuff, exposing dark, well-muscled forearms and a simple sporting watch, “seven, maybe eight minutes to convince you to have a drink with me tonight. Maybe let me take you out for some dinner?”
Her throat was dry as she stared back at him, noticing the slight falter in his smile, as though he were worried she might actually say no. Would straddling him here on the train reassure him? “I’d love to. When did you have in mind?”
“Tonight? Now?”
“Now?” She looked down at her slacks, short sleeve blouse and sensible shoes with dismay. To go out with Brian looking like this would be a crime against sex. Which was where she had every intention of a date with him heading.
As if sensing her trepidation, Brian quickly offered, “I’ve got a car, maybe you would let me pick you up about seven? It’s Friday and it’s been way too long since I had a date. What do you say?”
Amber wanted to say that she didn’t believe for one minute that he had gone more than two hours since his last offer of a blowjob, but something in his expression said he was telling the truth.
Not that it mattered. Her heart had been pounding since the moment he’d called her Abby.
Lifting the flap on her messenger-style computer bag, she pulled out a small notepad and jotted down her phone number and address. Pressing it into his hand, she didn’t want to let go. “So where are we going tonight?”
“My friend owns a bar with a nice restaurant on the side. It’s even got access to a club upstairs, if you like music. Riley’s Place, ever been there?”
