Shattered With You

Chapter Three

It was an unusually warm day in March, my tenth day in London, and my twenty-fourth birthday. Since I had no one in town to celebrate with, I spent the day wandering London with my camera. Around lunchtime, I was taking photos of the ducks in Hyde Park—because you can't have too many cute duck photos—and I'd been backing up slowly as I tried to adjust the composition. At the same time, Quincy had been walking down the path toward me, sipping a coffee and talking into his phone. He looked down as I stepped back, and boom, his white-starched shirt was drenched in black coffee.

"Bloody buggering hell," he snapped, then went immediately contrite as I turned around, completely and totally mortified. "Oh, bloody fuck, I'm sorry."

"No, no. It was my fault. I was ... well, actually, I blame the ducks."

"Ah, I thought they might be up to something. They look a bit shady around the eyes."

I nodded sagely, ridiculously pleased that such a ruggedly handsome man shared my sense of humor. "And you see how they're just meandering around now, pretending to be all innocent? But we know. We can see their devious little duck natures hiding right beneath the soft, feathery surface."

I was kidding, of course. Except maybe I wasn't. There's far too much darkness buried just below eye level. I should know. I've watched the shadows rise up more times than I like to think about.

I started to brush away my words, to add something light to the conversation so he would only see the joke and not get an inadvertent peek into something deeper. But then I saw his eyes, and I stumbled. And that's when I knew he understood. This was a man who'd stood at the threshold and looked into the abyss, too.

I shook myself—it was a ridiculous thought. "Anyway, right. I should let you get going. You probably want to change that shirt. Actually, I should have it cleaned for you."

"Shall I take it off, then? Hand it over to you, and we can meet here again tomorrow?"

"I—" He was teasing; I was certain of it. And yet my senses kicked into overdrive as I imagined him unbuttoning his shirt, stepping closer to give it to me. The scent of him. The frisson of awareness as our hands brushed. And then the anticipation as he leaned closer and—

I took a firm step backward. "Maybe I should just write down my number and you can call me with the bill?"

"Why don't you let me buy you lunch and we'll call it even."

"Oh. Well—wait. I think you've got that backward."

His smile shot straight through me, warming me from the inside. "No," he said. "I didn't."

"Oh." I rarely date. I'd had my share of one-night stands, though. Bar pickups. Friend fix-ups.

Most of the time, those encounters were just fine. Nothing special, but more entertaining than an evening with a battery-operated boyfriend.

It was the next morning that was always the kicker. Because no matter how energetic that romp in the sheets might have been, it was never quite right. Never quite what I needed. What I craved.

And what I knew I shouldn't want.

The next morning was always an awkward, silent, stumbling hell. Stilted conversation and that too-familiar tightening in my chest, because the bottom line was that I didn't know how to tell Mr. Last Night that he really hadn't gotten it done.

Not that this coffee-soaked stranger was inviting me into his bed. At least not overtly. But there was an electricity between us that was already snapping and crackling. Go with him, and I was certain that the afternoon would lead into evening, and the evening would lead to sexy hijinks.