Adam grins in my direction. “Never thought I’d see the day you’d be the married guy calling wifey with words of love.”
I eye him. “You’re next.”
“Not him,” Asher jokes. “Never Adam. He’s immune to ways of the heart. He said so.”
My mind flashes back to the night I met Candace, reliving a night that changed me forever.
It’s raining fucking cats and dogs, which is no finish for a hellish night at the hospital, and one emergency after another. Sleep would be a luxury when I have the ten stacks of paperwork to do that my father handed over to me. That’s what happens when your father is an acclaimed surgeon and you’re just an intern: you get the grunt work. And you drink a lot of coffee.
I whip into the parking lot Halcyon for coffee and whatever bakery item hits my fancy, and the stop is near the door, vacant because some asshole parked over the lines. Well, I’m the asshole that will teach the other asshole a lesson. The rain blessing me pulls back, retreating into the dark sky. I pull my hoodie up anyway, open my door, and step outside.
I’m greeted by a fireball of a pretty woman, her long, dark hair in beautiful disarray, her green eyes blazing.
“What are you doing?” she demands.
Amused by this intrusion, the tiredness seeps from my bones, and I’m fully engaged. “Staring at a pretty lady, it seems,” I say, my tone reflecting my immediate interest.
Her eyes flash with a hint of surprise at the compliment, her temper momentarily cooled, only to fire right back up again. “I can’t get into my car. You parked on top of me.”
“You parked over the line and I didn’t want to get my pretty little head all wet.”
“I didn’t park over the line.”
“You did,” I assure her. “Go look.” I motion toward her car. “I’ll wait here.”
“I’m not going to look. You have to move. I can’t open my door.”
I cross my arms in front of my chest, and at six-foot-five, I peer down at her with my most intense look, my tone serious as fuck, just as I intend. “What are you going to give me if I do?”
“How about I save your manhood from my knee?”
I laugh, low and deep, a laugh I needed for reasons most wouldn’t understand. And crazy as fuck as it might sound, I want to kiss this stranger. I want to kiss her in a bad way. “How about,” I say, my gaze lowering to her mouth, and lingering before it lifts, as I add, “you have coffee,” I pause for effect, “with me.”
There’s more of that surprise in her eyes but it’s replaced with indignation. “Are you seriously bribing me for entry into my own vehicle?”
Thunder roars above us and the rain begins to plummet down again. I don’t even think about what comes next. I catch her hand and pull her close, all her soft curves pressed to my hard body, really fucking hard right about now. I lift her, turn her, and sit her inside my truck where she’s warm and dry and then quickly follow. She scurries to the other side of the vehicle, where she cannot escape because, of course, I’m parked right on top of her vehicle. I don’t want her to escape, either. But I also don’t want her to want to escape. I want her to stay, right here, with me, and I want her to do it because she wants to do it.
“What are you doing?” she demands indignantly, and I can almost feel her heart racing in her chest. Fuck me, mine is too.
“You can’t grab me and throw me in your vehicle,” she exclaims.
I turn to face her, and damn she’s prettier every moment I look at her. And she smells good, like the flowers at the side of my parents’ house my mother frets over. “I was saving you, woman. It’s a mad downpour out there. But if you want me to let you out, I will.”
Thunder crashes again and she jumps, eyes squeezing shut a moment, then lifting to study me studying her. “Well?” I challenge softly, willing her to stay.
“You’re still an asshole.”
She’s adorable and as she stares at me, I feel the heat between us. She doesn’t want to go. And I damn sure don’t want her to go. My lips quirk. “Does that mean the fair maiden wishes to remain in the shelter of my fine vehicle?”
“I should be afraid of you right now.”
I arch a brow. “Are you?”
She blinks, seemingly as distracted and confused right now as I am. I am not a man who gets obsessed with a woman, at all, let alone in five flat seconds. “Am I what?” she asks.
“Afraid of me,” I supply.
“I should be,” she repeats.