Once Is Never Enough

“That much, huh?” he asked, breaking into her thoughts with a reminder she hadn’t answered. Laugh lines creased the skin around his eyes as he cocked his head to the side. “Looks like we could both use a few more sunsets.”

“Looks like,” she agreed, all too grateful for the simple reprieve.

Damn, there it was again. That hot red rising to the surface of her skin. Betraying the woman beneath in all the best ways. He couldn’t get enough, and it was taking the bulk of his restraint not to work her pretty blush for everything it was worth.

But he hadn’t come to Jesse’s welcome-home party to pick someone up. In fact finding a woman had been the last thing on his mind.

He’d wanted to go out. Reconnect with friends. Watch a sunset.

After six years of walking through his front door with half his takeout already consumed and heading straight to his back office—where, on a good day, he’d be able to set aside one kind of work for another—he was done. And now, degree in hand, he wanted the straightforward simplicity of knowing he’d put his day to bed and the night was his … finally … to do with as he pleased.

But there she’d been. Looking lost. And, damn, he hadn’t known what. Having raised his four sisters through their teens, he found his mind had a way of going to dark places pretty fast when he didn’t understand what was happening. Thank God he’d been wrong. Only by the time he’d understood where all that vulnerability was coming from—the mad make-out scene which even he had to admit had been pretty intense—she’d made his radar. Registered as more than a collection of pleasing physical attributes falling under the category of female.

And then she’d been standing there, backlit by the cooling sky, looking into his eyes with that thoughtful kind of amazement in hers telling him she got him. Making him wonder if maybe she did.

“Well, would you look what the cat dragged in?” came the first of several raucous calls, derailing his train of thought as a group of the old crew jogged up to the rooftop.

“Sam said you were here, man, but I didn’t dare believe.”

“Dude! No way.”

Laughing brown eyes peered up at him. “All this is for you?”

“So it would seem,” he answered, with a wide grin at seeing so many of the old faces he’d lost touch with. “It’s been a while.”

“Too long?” she asked, a mirthful smile playing across her lips.

“Definitely too long.”

Just then her phone sounded and, holding it up with a little wave, she started to back away. “I’ll let you catch up, then.”

He reached for her elbow. Followed her gaze as it slipped to the point of contact between them, lingered and then returned almost tentatively to his.

“Thanks for the sunset, Red.”

“You too, Blue Eyes,” she offered quietly, backing away as he withdrew his hand, before she took the stairs down to Sam’s apartment.

A solid clap on his shoulder pulled him back to the guys, the laughter, greetings and jibes.

“Damn, Garrett. What are you? Here fifteen minutes and already you’ve got the next victim cued up and ready to go. I bow to you, dude.”

Garrett Carter looked back at the guys he’d gone to high school with and shook his head.

Aw, hell. Not this again.

CHAPTER TWO

PHONE CLUTCHED to her ear, Nichole stopped in the quiet alcove at the bottom of the stairwell, her heart thumping in her chest. “I think I dipped a toe back in the pool.”

“Wait—what? You think—” Maeve’s distracted voice was cut off as her breath was sucked in. “Shut it! You didn’t … Oh, my God—tell. Tell!”

Nichole hadn’t gotten more than a few sentences in when Maeve interrupted.

“Stop, stop, stop. Set the stage, for crying out loud. Details. And, so you don’t waste my time with a lot of trash about the temperature or the number of cigarette butts around the roof, I’m talking about the guy. Hotness ranking. The good kind of dirty or clean-cut? Build and bulk. Distinguishing features. Height. You get the idea. Don’t skimp. Then get to the good toe-dipping stuff … Damn it, why am I in Denver?”

Nichole pulled the phone from her ear and looked at it, suddenly wishing she’d thought to Skype. Maeve sounded like she hadn’t slept in two days and Nichole figured the look on her face as she shot off her rapid fire laundry list of must-know information would be priceless.

“Easy, Maeve.” She laughed into the phone, stepping clear as a large group edged past her, heading for the roof. “How are negotiations on the deal going?”

“The guy, Nikki. Don’t make me beg.”

“Okay, okay. So he’s definitely one of those men who draws the eye. Kind of magnetic. Over six feet. More rugged than pretty. And there was something about his eyes … When this guy looks at you … I don’t even know how to describe it.”

“Mmhmm … mmhmm. I like it. Keep going.”

Nichole shook her head and chuckled, leaning back against the wall as she laid down what physical details she could before recounting the few minutes they’d shared. When she’d finished, Maeve let out an indelicate cough.

“That’s it? What part of that had your toe anywhere near the pool? It doesn’t sound like you got wet at all.”

Feeling slightly miffed, Nichole ignored the snicker and subtle pun to counter, “I didn’t say I jumped him! It was just a really nice quiet moment that had a very different feel than when I’m hanging out with Sam or you or any of the usual crowd, for example. It wasn’t going anywhere. But there was a kind of sizzly thing in the air, and it definitely had a toe-dipping feel.”

Maeve was quiet a moment, then asked. “So, if there was sizzle, why wouldn’t it go anywhere?”

“Hold on a sec.” Nichole pressed further into the wall behind her, waving quick hellos to a stream of partygoers heading up to the roof. After the stairwell was cleared, she answered, “I don’t think he’s even from around here. I’ve never seen him before. But he knows a bunch of guys I think must be Jesse’s friends. I kind of got the feeling he was visiting from out of town.”

“Hmm … So let’s recap. You’ve got an aversion to commitment. You’ve met a ruggedly hot hunk with whom you share ‘sizzle’ and you think he’s just in town for a visit. It feels like there ought to be an obvious solution here. Like maybe you could have your hunk and eat hi—”

“That’s enough,” she cut in, feeling a renewed burn in her cheeks. “I get what you’re saying. But, no. Seriously, just no.”

Maeve’s sigh was long suffering, and even longer drawn out, but Nichole could hear the smile behind it.

“Fine. Waste this perfectly good opportunity for what sounds like some simple fun without a whole lot of strings.”

Nichole’s brows drew down and her gaze slid up to the rooftop doorway.

No. It had been a couple of minutes. A fleeting kind of connection. That was all.

Another larger group filed past. Following them up, she wrapped her call with Maeve, promising more gossip and snaps from the party as available.

On the roof, Nichole glanced around at what had become a dense crowd. With the way people were pouring into the place now she probably wouldn’t even see him again. Which was good. Because she really wasn’t interested.

Though even as she thought it, she realized she was scanning faces. Her gaze slipping past friends and acquaintances without stopping in an absent-minded search for the stranger who was making a liar out of her even as she stood there.

And then she found him. Nearly a head taller than most everyone around him. That vivid blue gaze locked steadily with hers.

A loud cheer sounded and all attention shifted to the doorway. Jesse had jogged up and was standing with a stunned grin on his face. She’d only met him once before he’d left, two years ago, but she remembered him to be as cool as his brother, who was now pulling him in for a solid hug.

She looked back to where her blue-eyed hero had been a moment before, but within the shifting crowd she’d lost him.

The party was in full swing, the roof packed to capacity, the atmosphere as welcoming as Jesse and Sam’s ever-expanding social network. Garrett had managed to get a couple of minutes with his oldest friend and to secure plans for later in the week before letting the next eager guest at him. He hadn’t been two feet out of the crush before finding her again.

Nichole. That was her name. It had taken him the better part of an hour to pick it out from a nearby conversation, roll it around in his mind and connect it to the woman with the glittering almond eyes and fiery spill of curls, the long legs in dark jeans and the strappy little top with the tiny bow.

Standing within a loose grouping of friends and acquaintances of whom they both seemed to know some, but not all, they’d been talking around each other for hours now. Much as they’d been circling throughout the night. Picking up hints through rapid banter interspersed with old stories and private jokes. Exchanging looks that, within their lifespan of a scant handful of seconds, said more than all the words they’d shared combined … and then moving on.

Only now all those hints, bits and pieces had begun to take shape in his mind, forming the image of a woman he liked. A woman who laughed easily, spoke intelligently and didn’t take herself too seriously. A woman who liked to joke and tease. Who gave as good as she got. And whose unconscious smile did something to him he couldn’t quite put a name to.

He wanted her.

Not the way he usually wanted his dates. Not for some superficial conversation and perfunctory dinner or drinks that were the means to an end he’d been limiting himself to for as long as he could remember. All he’d had time for. All he could afford. Because he’d spent every spare minute he had on making his construction company top in the city, earning his degree and keeping his four sisters from doing all the things he didn’t want them to do.

Nichole made him want more. She made him curious. Made him want to linger. To take his time and find out if maybe they could have something … uncomplicated. Casual, but real. For a while.

He wanted the rest too. The parts where he pushed that pretty blush to see how deep and dark and far it could spread. The parts where he had her beneath him, all that fiery red hair wrapped around his fists and spilling over his pillow as he pushed inside her body. But when those parts were over, and before they even began, he wanted more. And he wanted it soon.

Laughter subsiding, Nichole sighed, her dark gaze finding his beneath the ashy fringe of her lashes. It wasn’t coy or contrived. Nor the blatant invitation he’d lost interest in back in his twenties. It was contemplative. Heated, but questioning. Enticing in its hint of uncertainty.

Damn, if that didn’t make her all the better.

Around them the conversation had somehow found its way to movies filmed in Chicago and who could name the most. Beneath the titles volleying back and forth, Garrett gave a subtle nod of his head toward the quiet corner of the rooftop where they’d watched the sunset.

Nichole’s slender brows drew together, her teeth setting into her lush bottom lip in the ultimate expression of uncertainty.

It shouldn’t have gone straight to his groin, but it did. At least until he saw her fooling with that phone she carried around. One thumb brushed the smooth screen and—was she … texting?

Immediately he thought of his sister, “using a lifeline” to make some inane decision she didn’t trust him enough to help her with. Was that what this was? Indecision over whether to step over to a corner and talk with him?

Sure, he had every intention of taking it further, but for now—

Wait … What the hell …? She was not holding that phone up to take his picture.

Eyes on the screen, only half listening to an escalating debate over whether the outlying suburbs and thus the John Hughes classics counted, Nichole had been trying to frame the shot when her subject was suddenly front and center—closer than he’d been edging past her down in the access stairwell.

Oh, God. She’d been busted taking his picture to send to Maeve. This was an all-time low.

Her gaze crawling up the towering expanse of Oxford cloth and then creeping over the tantalizing stretch of bare masculine skin at the base of his neck, she forced herself to keep going until she reached the now steely blue of his eyes. Her stomach tumbled into free fall.

“What’re you doing, Red?”

Swallowing past the tight knot in her throat, she shook her head.

What was she doing? Trying to snap a picture of some virtual stranger because she couldn’t account for the reaction she was having to him? Because she couldn’t keep her eyes off him for more than three seconds at a stretch and she needed the judgment of a reliable outside source? Someone who knew her just about as well as she knew herself. Maeve.

So, basically, she was acting like a complete nut-job.

And yet a part of her still twitched with the need to get a photo and hit “send.” It must have been obvious too, because seconds later a hand firmed around her wrist—loose, but uncompromising—and pushed the phone down to her side.

The skin beneath his grasp warmed as though a low charge ran from his hand up through hers. It felt good. Too good. And suddenly all she could think about was how long it had been since anyone had touched her for more than the briefest instant. What a simple pleasure that heated, lingering contact was. And how she hadn’t even realized she missed it.

He was bending close to her ear and his breath washed warm across skin that seemed to come alive beneath it. “Red?”

The air went thin around her as the slow tingle behind her ear began to spread, sliding down her neck, shoulder and arm until it came to mingle with the charge emanating from her wrist.

“I don’t know what I’m doing. Men don’t usually—I mean, I don’t—” Trying to find the words, she licked her lips, watched his eyes darken at the sight. “There’s something about you.”

Maybe it was the way he hadn’t hesitated to protect a woman he didn’t know. Or how he was built like he pounded rocks for a living but could argue international economics as easily as the merits of Leia over Uhura. How he savored opportunities to stop and enjoy the simple stuff. Or how his offbeat jokes made her laugh like she’d known him forever.

Or maybe it was just that when his gaze drifted to her hair, she could feel his fingers tightening in it.

Could it be so simple? He made her feel like a woman and made her notice him as a man … when for so long no one else had.

A gravel-rough laugh rumbled from low in his chest and the hand at her wrist loosened, easing into a slow up and down caress over the bare skin of her arm. “There’s something about you too. So what do you say to getting out of here and figuring out just what it is?”

Getting out of here? Her heart slammed to a stop.

That was no toe in the pool. No testing the waters or even taking a tentative dip. It was a full-on, feel-the-rush blast down a water slide—total body immersion into the deep end. And the most frightening thing about it was … as she peered into those brilliant blues … it was tempting as hell.

Where was Maeve when she needed her most?

When she wanted someone skilled in the art of justification and adventurous enough to—?

And then it struck her. She didn’t need Maeve at all. Not only did she know with one-hundred-percent certainty what her friend would want her to do … she knew herself.

This guy was the simple pleasure she’d been missing. He had a connection to and was obviously liked by nearly half the people at the party—so chances were good he wasn’t a serial killer. This was the first time she’d met him, and from what she’d gathered he didn’t live in the area but up north somewhere—so chances were even better this could be something brief. Something quick.

Something in the moment.

Something she wanted more with every second that passed.

A slow smile spread to her lips.

“Okay, Blue Eyes. Let’s go.”

CHAPTER THREE

“LET’S GO.”

Garrett had known even before the words left her mouth. He’d seen the way those soft brown eyes steadied, sensed the change in the air between them, and had felt his own body respond to the first victory.

A quick scan of the rooftop confirmed at least half a dozen sets of eyes on them. Not what he would have preferred, but there was nothing to be done about it now.

“Yeah, let’s go.” Taking her hand, he kept his eyes on hers as they headed toward the stairwell. If she was looking at him she wouldn’t notice the raised brows, wouldn’t worry about the quiet snickers, wouldn’t think about anything but finding a place where they could talk. To each other instead of around each other. There’d used to be a coffee house in the neighborhood he’d heard was pretty popular for the late-night crowd. Perhaps it was time to find out for himself.

At the bottom of the stairs Nichole stopped. “Do you need to say goodbye to anyone?”

“Nah, I’m good.” He’d call Jesse tomorrow. The rest of the guys he’d see soon enough. “You?”

Her mouth pulled to the side as she shook her head and glanced away.

“Are you worried about people seeing us leave together?” He hoped like hell that wasn’t it. While his returning to the party alone would possibly minimize it, most likely the damage was already done.

“I’m twenty-six, not sixteen.” She laughed, sounding more nervous, he was sure, than she’d intended. “It’s just that I’m acting a little out of character here and I don’t want to lose my nerve.”

Damn, she was cute. He rubbed his thumb in a light circle over her knuckle and leaned in conspiratorially. “Lose your nerve for what?”

He’d asked it as a taunt, finding her all too easy to tease and loving the fast rise of red to her cheeks. Only when she turned, head tipping back as her gaze lifted to his, the wild blush he’d been hoping for wasn’t anywhere to be found. Instead a sort of uncertain determination lit her face, making him wonder just what she was struggling with.

Brushing a stray curl from her brow, he caught the quick dart of a pink tongue across the swell of her bottom lip, felt the pull of this thing between them tugging him closer, making him want to take advantage of the empty stairwell, the dim lighting and the mouth that was driving him to distraction.

He needed to get her out of there. Into his b—

No. Not yet. This one was different.

Those soulful brown eyes searched his, the lingering intimacy fraying the tether of his restraint. The soft press of her body against his, unraveling his control.

“My nerve for this,” she murmured, her breath a fluttery rush against his skin an instant before she kissed him—pressed her mouth to his and tasted his lips with the barest flick of her tongue, demolishing the man he’d wanted to be for her and giving rise to the man she’d invited in.

Hell.

Tucking the hand still holding hers at the small of her back, he drew a slow breath at that most enticing spot just below a woman’s ear. Let her quiet shudder and sweet scent flood his senses and wreak havoc on his body.

“That’s what you want?” he asked in a low growl, knowing it was but wanting to hear her say it just the same.

“I’ve been worried about avoiding complications so long I think maybe I’ve been missing a lot of the simple stuff too.” She swallowed, heat pouring off her as she finished, “I don’t want to miss this.”

She couldn’t get any better. “Then you won’t.”

Ten minutes later, amid gasps of laughter and lust, Garrett turned the key and Nichole’s front door swung open under the combined weight of their bodies. Spilling into her front hall, Garrett righted them both, kicked the door closed with a sweep of his leg and threw the lock. She backed across the open hardwood, barely a step ahead of him, eyes glittering, lips curved and parted as her breath came in shallow pants.

Her gaze swept the length of him and the now persistent flush of her cheeks deepened, driving the blood hard and fast to his already aching groin. Reaching for him, her slender fingers curved around his belt, pulling until he allowed her to tow him closer. Close enough that he could reach around her, cover the firm curves of her ass with his hands, slide lower still to the backs of her thighs and hoist her up against him.

Her breath caught as her ankles locked behind his back, the soft brown of her eyes going nearly black as her pupils pushed wide.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he groaned, fighting the urge to take her there against the wall.

Nodding distractedly, she went to work on the buttons down the front of his shirt, pushing at the panels like she was revealing Superman’s emblem beneath. And when she answered, “You too,” her eyes glazing at the sight of him, taking a building in a single bound didn’t seem so impossible.

The door to her room was open ahead, and the sight of her neat bed with its delicate lilac print spread made him harder than he could ever remember being. Hell, yes, he was hungry for the sex. For her body. For the pretty pink that tinged her skin and the sounds she’d make when he took her over the edge. He wanted all of that. But this—this anticipation burning through his veins—was for what would come after. For the part that was going to be different. The part he would wait for until he’d wrung every moan and gasp Nichole’s body had to offer out of her.

At her bed, he set her back on the mattress, supporting himself on one arm.

Legs still wrapped around his hips, she looked up at him. “I don’t even know your name.”

He’d opened his mouth to tell her when something in the depths of those deep dark eyes gave him pause. Something excited.

The corner of his mouth kicked up. Lowering his voice to a taunting growl, he asked, “So the question is, do you like it better that way?”

The half-moan, half-gasp that escaped her slender throat was answer enough to just about push him over the edge.

Had he actually thought she couldn’t get any better?

Perfect. This hot, hard, mouthwatering male specimen was her sunset. Her uncomplicated simple pleasure. This was the fantasy she could finally afford to play out. The reckless adventure she hadn’t dared to dream. And, more, it was safe.

Because she didn’t even know his name.

Women didn’t plan forevers around nameless men. They didn’t get the wrong idea. Misinterpret intentions. Or get caught up in dreams that would take them nowhere.

They got a single night sans complications.

This was the one night of wild abandon she’d been unconsciously saving up for for three years. Longer than that if she was willing to look back. But she wasn’t. Not tonight. Not when this moment, right now—as the familiar stranger above her lowered his mouth to the hollow between her breasts—was too good to miss even one second of.

Those blue eyes peered up at her as the corner of his mouth twisted into a mischievous smile. “This little bow here,” he murmured gruffly, “has been begging me to play with it all night.” Then, catching one loose string between his teeth, he tugged until the knot slipped free, taking Nichole’s next breath with it.

She hadn’t thought of the peach cami as particularly sexy, hadn’t consciously drawn attention to herself for years. But at the rough sound of appreciation scraping from his throat as he used his hand to part the tiny expanse of soft cotton between her breasts just that much further, she flushed with the pleasure of knowing it was.

His tongue swirled deep in the hollow there, wetting the skin first and then blowing a cool breath across it after, making her belly turn and twist.

There wasn’t enough contact between them. Not for the way her body was beginning to ache. To heat. To need. He was above her on the bed, his weight supported on one arm and the knees that straddled her thigh.