I grew up on the same block with Ellis Chambers and Martin Roarke. Ellis was the big teddy bear with a bleeding heart. Martin, the smooth talker, had a temper as red as the hair on his head. Me? I was the scrawny kid who stuttered and wore glasses to correct my lazy eye for most of first grade. Unfortunately, kids didn’t forget, and though I was right as rain by second grade, I’d been labeled “freak,” and that stigma stuck through most of my elementary years. Teased. Bullied. Any time I was separated from my two best friends, the vultures attacked.
When I came home with my first black eye, Dad signed me up for boxing. Best fucking day of my life.
I finished my workout with half an hour on the treadmill, then headed upstairs to my office where I showered and then hit the books.
My mind was not focused on business but on a sweet little dish with killer legs and fuck-me eyes. The woman who’d slammed into me on the street like she’d been running for cover, then kissed me like her life depended on that one desperate, glorious lip-lock.
What was with that beauty? Our paths seemed destined to cross. Was it a sign? Was I supposed to help her in some way? Her boyfriend had been a hot-headed brute. Maybe he was abusive. Maybe I was supposed to teach her to fight. I was a firm believer in fate. Without a doubt, there was a reason she’d been brought into my periphery. After all, CFC was more than just a fight club. When construction was complete, the gym would front my new project, a safe haven for victims of domestic violence.
The thought made me twitchy. What if I couldn’t help her? What if I offered and she blew me off? How could I approach her without coming off as a loon? That was, if I ever bumped into her again.
Shit. Maybe I was making a mountain out of a molehill.
I made my way to the rain-spattered window, made a mental note to call the cleaners, then watched the slow trickle of bodies maneuvering our street below, bobbing in and out of the bakery, loitering outside the antique shop.
A head of blond hair caught my eye, and I laughed. Ellis was headed toward the parking garage around the corner, a raven-haired angel by his side.
“Good for you, buddy. Good for you.”
If ever a man was meant to settle down and raise a brood of rug rats, it was Ellis. The guy had a heart bigger than Texas and the patience of a saint.
Yours truly? I’d always wanted a family of my own, when the time was right. However, I believed a man should build his empire before settling down. Have a solid foundation to offer his wife, then grow his legacy from there, like my father before me, and his father before him. True, I came from wealth, but that wealth came from honest, hardworking men who lived their lives with honor, dignity, and integrity.
“God, family, work,” my grandfather used to say. “Live your life in that order, you’ll be unstoppable.”
I didn’t attend church every Sunday like Granddad had. Hell, I only talked to God on special occasions, but I’d been raised with strong morals, surrounded by a family that loved fiercely and lived modestly. Givers, through and through—to church and charity.
Which reminded me I needed to call St. Johns. Check their needs for the month.
My gut twisted. Seemed wrong to think about church when I couldn’t stop thinking about the taste of that woman’s lips. Or the press of her breasts against my chest. Or the burn her fingers left behind after gripping my neck. Or the way she looked at me.
Fuck. The way she looked at me, like I was familiar, like I was everything.
I rubbed the ache in my temples, sat at my desk, and forced unchaste thoughts from my mind. Then I picked up the phone and dialed the only woman who belonged in my head.
I slipped out the back entrance of the gym. Dirty clouds frowned down at me, mirroring my current mood. Heading toward the parking garage, I joined the rush hour dance, weaving and bobbing between hurried participants of the nine-to-five frenzy. That was the thing I loved most about the Belltown neighborhood—people walked everywhere. Sure, that had a lot to do with the lack of parking space, but everything a person needed was just around one corner or another.
I ditched my coffee mug and was about to pull my buzzing cell out of my pocket when a blur of green caught my eye mere seconds before barreling into my side, knocking me off balance. Something hard landed on my foot.
“Shit. Shit. Shit,” came a frantic voice. “I’m so sorry.” A wild mane of dirty-blond hair whizzed by. “So sorry!”
I looked down to find a nude heel. “Wait! You dropped your shoe.”
The woman stopped, her pink Adidas skidding on the sidewalk. The sexiest “Fuck!” I’d ever heard belted from her lips.
She turned, and her curious gaze settled on my face. Pink cheeks turned crimson. “Oh, crap.”
God damn. There she was again. Swear to Christ, the woman was everywhere. “You.”
“Yep. Me.” She laughed, adjusted her black glasses, and whispered, “The kissing bandit.”
What a beautiful sound, that nervous laugh.
I cleared my throat. Bent to retrieve the stiletto from the ground. “What’s the hurry?”
“Late for work.” She snatched the heel from my finger and tucked it into the bag slung over her shoulder.
She took me in, eyes, nose, mouth, and I knew, deep down, we’d met before, somewhere, somehow. She studied me with recognition, curiosity, and something else I couldn’t quite grasp, but I wanted more of whatever strange connection we shared and, good God, those magnetic gray
