Chapter 2
TWO
“Where are you taking me?” Zane asked, the rumble of his deep voice sending a wave of goosebumps across my skin.
“You’ll see,” I answered.
“If you expect me to follow you home like some kind of lost puppy, you’ve got yourself a deal.”
“Not hardly.” I stopped in front of a secondhand clothing store two doors down from the smoothie shop. Pointing at his hoodie, I said, “That shirt is a crime scene, and I’m not letting you go on with your day wearing the evidence.”
Zane stepped up beside me, close enough for me to catch a whiff of his cologne.
It was the perfect blend of cedar and leather with a hint of citrus.
I couldn’t help but wonder if the sweet undertones I detected weren’t his cologne at all, but rather all that was left of the smoothie I’d spilled on him.
“The only crime I know of is the fact that you still haven’t given me your number,” he said.
Boy, did he ever know how to turn on the bass in his voice at just the right moment.
If he’d said one more word, I’d have been powerless to resist giving him my number.
But that would have spoiled all the fun.
This whole interaction was nothing more than a flirting fling. A one-moment stand. A high noon hookup where we would be keeping our hands and all our other body parts to ourselves.
“Nice try, but look at the sign.” I pointed to the sign above the storefront that read Thrift he’d probably look too good.
“Check it out,” Zane said. “When I rub it this direction, a flower appears.”
I looked over and saw a hot-pink, sequin tulip laid across his chest.
“It’s like magic.” He popped his pecs beneath the shirt with a comical flourish of his arms.
I threw my head back and laughed harder at the bouncing flower than I had at the pineapple disaster that the last shirt had been. “I think it’s a no for magical dancing flower shirts.”
“Um, I think it’s a hard no,” Zane said, hanging the shirt back on the rack.
“Good call.” I pulled out a faded hockey print t-shirt. It had two sticks crossed on the front and a puck flying through the air. I scrunched my nose. “Hockey. Boring.” I shoved it back onto the rack.
“Wait. Let me see that one.”
I came around to his side of the rack and held it up to him. “It’s just not you.”
He grinned down at me. “You do realize that the hoodie you ruined is also a hockey shirt, right?”
I pulled the t-shirt away and looked at his mangled hoodie. “It doesn’t say anything about hockey.”
His jaw dropped and he was speechless for a moment. “You’re kidding, right? It says Bobcats. See the logo?” He pointed at a stylized drawing of a bobcat in the center.
I nodded. “Yeah?”
“The Bobcats are the pro team around here. Don’t tell me you didn’t know that.”
“Okay, I won’t tell you.” I went back to my side of the rack. “I still don’t think this t-shirt is you, though.”
He chuckled, shaking his head. “I guess that means we need to keep looking.”
I gazed down the rack, estimating how many more shirts we’d have to look through before we met in the middle. I’d only just met the man, but already, I didn’t like the distance between us.
“This is it.” Zane’s voice boomed with certainty. “I’ve found the winner.”
“Let me see.”
He shook his head. “No, I want you to get the full effect.”
Then he did something that momentarily stopped my heart.
Zane, aka Smoothie King, aka the most beautiful man I’d ever laid my eyes on took hold of the hem of his pitiful hoodie and peeled it off his body.
After picking my jaw up off the sidewalk, I counted and then recounted the abs on his stomach.
I didn’t know how many abs normal men had, but one glance at his statuesque figure was enough to tell me that he was no normal man.
He even had those muscled ridges that wrapped around uber-buff males’ rib cages. You know, the ones that flex with every twist and turn of their torso? I tried to count those too but lost count, distracted by the spots that started floating around in my peripheral vision.
Breathe, woman!
Had my heart started beating again?
I put a hand on my chest. Yes, it was beating—beating so hard it would be a miracle if Zane didn’t see it pounding beneath my sweater.
Those muscles hugging the sides of his trunk flexed as he pulled his arms out of his sleeves. Talk about a rack of ribs. Yum!
The girls back at the bookstore would disown me if I ever told them what I was thinking. But it didn’t matter. I’d go to my grave believing that this stranger deserved to be on the cover of every romance novel written from now until the end of time. Dash Rapture who?
Zane’s body turned just enough for me to catch a glimpse of his back when he tossed his hoodie on the sidewalk. A gnarly purple bruise stretched across it.
I gasped. “What happened?”
He shrugged. “I took my shirt off?” The question in his voice told me my communication skills might need a little work.
“Your back. That bruise.” Working on my communication skills would have to wait for another day. My brain was only functioning on a two-word-per-sentence level at the moment.
I blamed the abs.
He looked over his shoulder, one hand holding onto it as he tried to catch a glimpse of his back.
Reminding me of an adorable puppy chasing his tail, he turned a three-sixty just for me.
My hand instinctively rummaged around in my purse looking for something to fan myself with.
Apart from the bruise, he was spectacularly perfect.
I shook my head, trying to break loose the words I wanted to say. “Are you in a fight club or something?”
Zane’s easy laughter hit me deep inside, easing my concerns and making me wish I could bottle the feeling it gave me. “Something like that. Now, turn around. I want this to be a surprise.”
“Turn around?” As in, he wanted me to stop taking in the sights he’d so graciously provided?
He nodded and spun his index finger in a little circle, making sure I got the message. I did. I’m not going to lie; my bottom lip might have pouted a little when I turned my back on Zane.
But the few moments he was out of my line of sight gave me some space to think about what was going on between me and this hunky stranger. I shook my head in disbelief. Who would have ever imagined that not caring what anyone thought of you would be a viable flirtation strategy?
I’d always been the librarian type—and not the hot librarian type either.
I didn’t go around wearing tight pencil skirts or blouses with buttons straining to rein in my womanly bounty.
I didn’t sit around on desks with stilettos on my feet and legs crossed while chewing seductively on the earpiece of my glasses.