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1
EMERSON
There was something about a man with a British accent that melted my panties. That it was a hundred degrees with the same amount of humidity, melted the rest of me. The Englishman who said good morning and held the door open as I walked out of my air-conditioned building and he walked in, didn’t seem affected by the scorching temps in the slightest.
“Can I help you find something?” I asked when I saw the man stop at the bank of mailboxes. Maybe letting a stranger saunter into the building just because of his nothing-to-do-with-the-weather hotness hadn’t been the smartest thing to do.
“I’m a friend of Niven’s,” he said, not looking at me but peering through the tiny window of the jam-packed box instead.
“Oh, Tommy? Of course, that makes sense.”
He turned to me and cocked his head, but immediately focused his attention back on the mailbox.
“I haven’t seen him for several days.” Hence the overflowing mail. It wasn’t unusual, though. The man who lived at the opposite end of the hall from me was out of town more than he was in. The part that made sense was that Tommy, as I called him, was British too. “Was he expecting you?” I asked as if it were any of my business. Anything, though, to have a reason to keep staring at the man who reminded me of Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond—theGolden Eyeversion.
My penchant for movies made the same year I was born or earlier, meant that most of the men who turned my head on screen were now in their sixties or seventies. The dark-haired hottie in front of me, the one I was admiring from head to foot—the same man who was speaking to me—was closer to my own age.The man who was speaking to me.
“I’m sorry, can you please repeat that?” I asked while, at the same time, trying to figure out why he looked so familiar—the sunglasses and baseball cap he wore didn’t make it easy.
“I said I wasn’t certain of my date of arrival.”
As much as I didn’t want to take my eyes off Mister 007, I glanced at my phone. “Oh! I need to go!” I exclaimed, dismayed to see that if I didn’t leave now, I wouldn’t have a prayer of arriving at work in time for my nine o’clock meeting. “Sorry. Maybe I’ll see you around.”
The man nodded, but didn’t appear to have heard me; James Bond would never have been so rude.
Hoisting one of the three canvas bags I was carrying onto my shoulder, I rushed out of the building just in time to see the number one bus pull away from my corner stop. “Dammit,” I muttered under my breath. What would’ve taken me twelve minutes would now be forty-two; the next bus wouldn’t come for a half hour.
I turned at the exact, right moment to see the man formerly—albeit momentarily—known as my own British superspy leave the building and walk in the opposite direction. I leaned against the lamppost, inwardly swooning at the way his steel-hard ass looked in his trousers, as Tommy would call them. His shoulders were ridiculously broad, and even though he wore a long-sleeve dress shirt, I could see his muscular arms as he moved.But that ass.I could barely bring myself to look away.
Tommy.When had I last seen him? It had to have been at least two weeks. I crossed my fingers that the other Brit’s arrival meant he was back in town. Things ended so awkwardly between us the last time I saw him, and before I had the chance to talk to him about it, he was gone again.
I touched my lips with my fingers, remembering the kiss he and I had shared that night. It had been so unexpected. We’d gone out for dinner several times, but until that moment, it hadn’t occurred to me that Tommy was interested in me. Maybe it was just that I was so out of practice, I missed the signs.
I sighed. My dating slump had lasted longer than I cared to acknowledge even to myself. I was a self-proclaimed nerd, burying myself in global-political grand strategy to the point of exclusion of everything else in my life. Dating—who had the time? Fashion—why bother when the only people who ever saw me were other analysts who also had their noses buried in foreign-policy documents?
My last long-term boyfriend had been a professor, also in the international program, but on the Russian side. We broke up the day I walked into his office to find his associate on her back on his desk, legs spread, skirt around her waist, and panties on the floor, beside him.
It had definitely put me off Eastern European men, but Brits? They were my weakness. Ever since the one night when I decided to act the role of someone far different than who I usually am—someone adventurous, worldly, passionate, and wanton.
I shook my head against the memory. Thinking about the best sex I’d ever had wouldn’t help the ache of not having any in so long get better.
I set my bags down on the sidewalk and rolled my shoulders. I had a long day ahead of me, and starting out thirty minutes late wasn’t going to make it any shorter.
I checked the time on my phone again, and given it hadn’t stood still for me, I contemplated whether it would be better to call a car service and be on time, or my assistant, Paxon Warrick, to tell him I’d be late for the third time this week. Since it was only Wednesday, the car service was probably the best bet, especially considering we had an important meeting scheduled in forty-five minutes.
“Everything okay?” said an English-accented voice from behind me. When I spun around and looked into my friend’s friend’s green eyes, he was elevated right back to superspy status.
Oh my God—those green eyes.I’d never forget them. It had been three years since I last saw them and the man standing in front of me. I wanted to look him up and down, but I wasn’t wearing sunglasses to hide my once-over.Keep your eyes up here, I told myself, focusing on his face.
“I missed my bus. Do you wear contacts?”
He shook his head, cocking it to the side like he had when I mentioned Tommy. “What an odd question.”
“Your eyes. They’re the color of sage after it rains. Not grayish like Dusty Miller.”
Now he looked perplexed. “Who is Dusty Miller?”
“Not who. What. It’s a plant.”
