Chapter 1 #2
He considered her, the way a man considers whether a door is worth opening.
“I don’t like being handed things. I’d rather build them, earn them, take them apart and understand exactly how they hold together.
” He paused. “Which means I’m terrible at letting anything happen to me by accident. Including this.”
“This.” She arched a brow, heat creeping up the back of her neck. “And what is this, exactly?”
“You tell me. You’re the one who made the rules.” He didn’t look away, didn’t soften it. “But I sat down knowing I wasn’t getting up until you did, so I’d say it’s already more than either of us planned for.”
She held his gaze, her pulse loud in her ears, and decided two could play at honesty.
She turned her glass again, watching the ice shift, weighing whether to say the next part out loud.
“I was supposed to get married a couple months ago.” Flatter than she intended, the words worn smooth from how many times she’d rehearsed not feeling them.
“Found him in the venue’s walk-in freezer with my best friend.
Twenty minutes before I was supposed to walk down the aisle. ”
He went very still, his jaw setting hard, and for a moment the noise of the rooftop seemed to fall away from their table entirely. “Twenty minutes.”
“Give or take.” She watched for pity and braced against it, but what moved across his face was something with a far sharper edge. “My mother canceled the whole thing while I sat on my bathroom floor in the dress. I haven’t said his name since.”
“He’s lucky he’s nowhere near me.” Low, controlled, but the heat beneath it gave him away completely. “Men like that don’t deserve the warning they get before everything they touch falls apart.”
“That’s a violent reaction from a man who isn’t even allowed to know who I am.
” She said it lightly, but something in her chest warmed despite her, the way he’d gone rigid and furious on her behalf without a single name to pin it to, like her humiliation had become his the instant she handed it over.
“Some things don’t need a name attached to be worth the anger.
” He held her gaze, the fury banking into something quieter, steadier, aimed entirely at her now instead of the ghost in the freezer.
“And for the record, the man was a fool. You don’t put down something like you and go looking for worse in a freezer. ”
The compliment landed somewhere she hadn’t braced for, low and warm and unfair. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know you’ve been holding three drinks you haven’t touched. I know you laugh a half-second after everyone else, like you’re translating the joke into a language you actually feel. I know you came up here to be alone in a crowd, and I know the second I sat down you stopped wanting to be.”
“That’s presumptuous.”
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Took, at last, a real sip of her drink, because she didn’t have a single honest thing to say that would contradict him. “You’re insufferable,” she settled on.
“You’re still sitting here.” He leaned forward, close enough that she caught something clean and expensive on his skin, close enough that the rest of the rooftop dissolved into noise that didn’t matter. “Which is the only fact I’m actually keeping track of.”
She let herself look at him then, openly, taking her time, the pale gold of his hair under the rooftop lights, the close-cropped beard, eyes a shade of blue that had no business being that unfair against his tan.
“You know, for a man who claims he doesn’t waste time, you’re built like someone who wastes a lot of it in a gym. ”
“I run. Lift when I can.” He didn’t pretend he hadn’t tracked the path her eyes just took across his shoulders and chest. “You’re staring.”
“I’m allowed. You confessed to staring at me first.” Her gaze climbed back to his face, slow and deliberate. “Only fair.”
“Fair.” The word came out rough at the edges. “And what do you see?”
“Trouble.” She gave him his own word back, the playfulness gone soft and honest now. “The kind I should walk away from.”
“Then walk.” He said it like a dare, perfectly still, the challenge plain. “I won’t follow you to the elevator. You can have the whole night back exactly the way you walked in with it.” A beat. “Or you can finish that drink with me and see what’s worth more, the rule or the rest of it.”
She thought about it. She actually thought about it, longer than the moment probably wanted, because that was the difference between her and the woman who’d walked into that freezer trusting the wrong man on faith.
She catalogued every reason to stand up.
She’d sworn off exactly this, the fast pull, the man who looked at her like she was the only lit window on a dark street.
She’d handed her whole self to someone once and gotten a freezer for it.
The smart move, the safe move, was to gather her clutch and go find Renee and the saxophone.
But the rule had never been about him. It had been about not handing anyone enough of her to use later, and a man with no name and no number couldn’t use anything at all.
There was a strange, clean freedom in that, in wanting something with a built-in ending, something that couldn’t curdle into betrayal because it would be over by sunrise.
For once she wasn’t being asked to trust. She was only being asked to want. And God, she did.
She set her glass down and held his eyes. “Then take me somewhere quieter.”
Draven left enough on the table to cover the drinks without bothering to check the total and stood, offering his hand.
Sloane took it without hesitation this time, her fingers sliding into his like they’d already learned the shape of his palm.
He drew her up slower than he needed to, until she had to tip her head back to keep his eyes, and neither of them stepped apart once she’d found her feet.
“Where to?” His hand settled at the small of her back as they crossed the rooftop.
“My hotel. Two blocks.” She glanced up at him. “But before we go, I want to be clear about something.”
He waited.
“This isn’t the beginning of anything.” Her voice stayed calm, even if her pulse refused to cooperate.
“No names. No numbers. No promises. No pretending this turns into breakfast and exchanged phone calls tomorrow morning.” She held his eyes.
“We’re two adults who wanted the same thing tonight.
That’s all I’m offering. Whatever it is, it ends when the sun comes up. ”
“And if I wanted more?” he asked quietly.
“Then I’d tell you to find another woman.”
He studied her for a long moment before giving a single nod. “Anything else?”
She almost smiled. “Honesty. If either of us changes our mind, we say so. No pressure. No guilt.”
“Agreed.”
“And discretion.”
Silence settled between them for a beat.
“Still interested?” she said.
“I was interested before the rules.” He didn’t blink. “I’m more interested after them.”
She searched his face one last time, looking for hesitation, arrogance, anything that made her want to walk away. She found none of it.
“Okay.”
He held the elevator door as she stepped inside.
The mirrored walls erased the space between them the moment the doors slid shut.
She kept her eyes on the climbing numbers while he watched her reflection instead, the rise and fall of her chest just a little too quick for a woman standing perfectly still.
“You’re staring again,” she said, not looking over.
“Told you. I’m allowed.” He stepped in, not touching, only close enough that she’d feel the heat of him at her shoulder, close enough that her breath snagged audibly in the small space. “You’re nervous.”
“I’m not used to wanting something this badly this fast.” She turned her head at last, and the look she gave him had nothing careful left in it. “It’s making me reckless.”
“Good.” Lower than he meant it. “I like you reckless.”
The doors opened on the lobby before either of them could close the last inches, and he made himself step back and let her walk ahead into the warm night that smelled like rain still holding its breath.
The doorman nodded without a name. Draven barely clocked him, every scrap of his attention nailed to the sway of her hips two steps in front of him, the way she glanced back to be sure he was still there.
Her hotel sat two blocks down a street lined with palms strung in small white lights, and the walk drew out long and charged, neither of them in any rush to fill it with words when their bodies kept inventing reasons to close the gap instead.
Her arm brushed his. His hand caught the curve of her waist at the crossing, steering her she didn’t need steering, lingering past the point traffic could excuse.
“Can I ask you something the rules don’t cover?” she said.
“You can ask. I reserve the right to lie.”
“When you stared at me for twenty minutes.” She glanced up at him. “What were you thinking the whole time?”
“That you didn’t want to be there.” His thumb traced slow over her knuckles. “That whoever you came with didn’t see it. And that I’d never wanted so badly to walk across a room and ruin a perfectly good plan to keep to myself.”
“And now you’ve ruined it.”
“Thoroughly.” He said it without a shred of regret. “I’d do it again slower if I could.”
“I’ve never wanted to break a rule this fast in my life,” she admitted, breath catching as his hand slid from her waist to ride just above the curve of her hip.
“Which rule?” His mouth was close to her ear now, his voice doing something to her knees that slowed her steps without either of them agreeing to stop.
“The no-names one.” She turned her face toward his, close enough that her lips nearly grazed his jaw. “I want to know what sound you make when I say it.”
“Careful.” His hand flexed at her hip, the warning in his tone doing nothing to hide what the words had already done to him. “Say it like that and I won’t let you stop at just my name.”