“Definitely the rides,” he answered. “One in particular called ‘Hurricane.’ Ninety miles an hour, the bastard flings you around like you’re made of air.”
“Really? I like being flung around.” Claire, you slut. I eyed him as I said the words with a small, flirty smile on my face. Fuck you, shyness. I was not going to succumb to your horrifying embrace. I was going to be me, Claire Landon, the confident little slut I’ve always been. I wanted this man. I would have gladly fucked him right there on the creaky old seat in front of the middle-aged, decrepitly old, and obnoxiously young.
He was that hot.
“Is that right?” His voice turned pensively quiet as he regarded me with a thoughtfulness that was far, far from lustful.
I instantly felt stupid.
Here was a guy who was conversing cheerfully with me. There had never been an underlying meaning in any of his questions, no hinting that he wanted my number or even my goddamn name! If anything, he appeared suddenly reserved.
He looked away from me and at the random faces around us. Then he turned to me again and smiled the most disinterested smile I’d ever seen in my life. If the word rejection had a face, it belonged to this man.
Suddenly leaning into me, he whispered, “You don’t need to do that.”
I blinked at him in surprise. “Do what?”
“You know what.” His grey eyes, barely a foot away from mine, stared into my own, and it was as if he saw everything.
Who was this man?
“You’re incredibly beautiful,” he then added, quietly. Like this was some sort of secret between us. “The kind of beautiful that would pave an easy way for you in life.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Nobody had ever spoken to me like this before.
“And you know that, don’t you?”
“There’s nothing wrong with knowing you’re attractive,” I replied softly.
His lips twitched. “While confidence is sexy, arrogance isn’t.”
My jaw dropped. Excuse me? “I’m not arrogant.”
He smiled at me now, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I see you.”
My heart sped up in my chest. He saw me? What the hell did he mean by that?
“What do you see?” I challenged, half-expecting someone to jump out and tell me I’d been pranked. Because this guy was working my emotions like it was as easy as flipping a switch, and he looked at me as though he could see into every corner of my being.
“You’re broken, and you depend on those looks to give you something you’ve been without. It doesn’t work that way, little lady. And instead of purposely dropping those Skittles into my lap –”
“M&Ms, actually.”
“Next time a simple ‘hello’ would suffice.”
I swallowed a lump in my throat as I replied, “That’s not true.”
“Which part?”
Waiting for me to respond, he cocked his head to the side and settled his eyes on my lips. A part of me wondered if he’d cut the short distance and just kiss me, because lord knows he looked like he wanted to ravage every inch of me.
And dare or no dare, I needed that bloody kiss like a pauper needed money.
“Who are you?” I breathed out in wonder. I’d never dare ask a question like that before, but, damn, I was in a trance and wasn’t thinking straight.
He licked his lip slowly, and something dark passed through his eyes. “Someone that’s no good for you, beauty.”
I swallowed an even bigger lump. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means it would do you no good to know.”
“Why?”
“Your world is too safe.”
I inched a little closer to his face. “What’s so unsafe about yours?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Maybe I do.”
He just stared back at me. I felt a tremor run down my spine. A tight feeling emerged in my chest, and my mind screamed to back away – that I was being drawn into a web I didn’t want to get stuck to.
He was dangerous. I didn’t know how I knew that, I just did. And my naivety made it all the more thrilling. I yearned for excitement in my life. Maybe I just landed on it.
Disrupting our bizarre moment, the train came screeching to another halt. Realization dawned in his eyes as he moved away from me and looked over at our stop.
Then he stood up!
It was like being torn from the bubble we’d allowed ourselves in. Suddenly I remembered we were in a crowded space, and now he was going.
Panic flooded me. NO! I didn’t want him to leave me.
“This is my stop,” he said, looking down at me as he buttoned up the top of his jacket. “It was very nice chatting with you, little lady.”
So that was it? No “what’s your number, little lady?” Seriously?
SERIOUSLY?
I didn’t respond to him, even though he waited briefly for one. When it was apparent my stunned ass had nothing to say, he shot me a nod and ambled off to the doors. I watched in despair as he stood within steps from leaving.
“You didn’t kiss him!” hissed Emily into my ear.
My eyes widened. Skank was right.
Without thinking, I stood up and took off after him, carelessly shoving aside the people in my way. He couldn’t walk out of my life. I wouldn’t let him. He stepped off the train just as I grabbed the sleeve of his jacket. Startled, he looked back. His eyes widened when they met mine.
“I forgot something,” I breathlessly said, standing on the threshold of the train.
“What was that –” I cut him off with a kiss. My hand gripped his collar as I pressed my lips harshly against his. It was a quick – yet long somehow – meeting of the lips that made my heart race and my body tingle. This… this felt different somehow.
To my surprise, he kissed back, moving his soft lips over mine with a lot more delicacy than me. He tasted of mint and all male, and I would have done anything to slip my tongue into his mouth. Dammit, why didn’t I?
I pulled away and smiled.
Wow.
Un-fucking-believable.
“What’s your name?” he suddenly asked. The emotion on his face conveyed an urgency to know. It made my heart constrict and then explode.
“Claire,” I answered just as I stepped back and let the doors close between us.