door below opened and she glanced back, hoping against hope it was Sam so she could make him get the darned phone for her. Only this wasn’t her five-foot-ten-if-she-looked-up-just-right, whipcord-thin blond bud, come to rescue her phone, but rather a six-foot-something stranger in worn jeans and a white Oxford rolled back at the arms, shouldering through a doorway made too small by his frame.
Head bowed, he called back to someone within the apartment, “Yeah, see you up there in a few.”
Maybe she should warn the guy about the rooftop action. Only before she could figure quite how to phrase it, the head topped with short, disheveled, dark curls tipped back, revealing a set of electric blue eyes that sent a shock straight through the center of her. Her mind whirled and stalled as recognition washed over her in a wave, receding just as quickly.
She’d have sworn she knew him.
“Looks like we had the same idea to catch the sunset,” he offered with an easy smile and a jut of his chin toward the roof as he took the steps at a loose jog, meeting her at the midpoint of the stairwell. “You going up?”
“I think I have to,” she answered weakly, her eyes tracking nervously to the rectangle of open sky at the top of the stairs. “I left my phone when I ran….”
Her phone would be fine. It wasn’t like she’d left it balancing on the rail.
Was it possible they were finished?
“Ran?”
Of course it was possible. Probable? Who knew?
“Did something happen up there?”
“Yeah,” she answered with a shudder as she covered her eyes with her hands. The way they’d started going at it—she’d never seen … never done….
Heat penetrated the fog of her embarrassed shock, radiating from a concentrated point where his hand, wide and heavy, covered her shoulder in a reassuring squeeze. “Go down to Sam. Stay with him.”
And then he was bypassing her on the narrow stairwell, somehow managing to keep all that brawn from doing more than warming the scant space between them. The proximity was unnerving, distracting her even more than the scene she’d witnessed on the rooftop … where this guy was heading … his every step landing like an increasing threat.
Wait. Did something happen?
Oh … no.
Her breath caught.
Oh, no.
“Oh, no! Wait,” she gasped, realizing too late what he’d been asking her.
The eyes that looked back at her as his steps continued were anything but laughing. “Go downstairs. I’ll take care of this guy.”
Take care of—? She watched his retreating back expand impossibly, blotting out the light of the evening sky beyond. “No, really,” she yelped, scrambling up the steps behind him. “You—um—blue-eyed guy—wait!”
But he just held a staying hand behind him as he hit the open access to the rooftop. At best this was about to get extremely embarrassing for both of them. She had to do something—and fast.
“Sex!”
Oh, God, that hadn’t come out right either. Except the guy’s steps slowed and his head cranked around, revealing all that deep blue intensity replaced with confusion. “Excuse me?”
She raced up the stairs behind him, heart pounding—though not due to any sort of exertion from the short flight. Heck, she and Maeve could run a half-marathon on the treadmill if they had a season of Game of Thrones playing in front of them. Her heart had hit double-time due to embarrassment and a desperate need to stop this really protective guy before he tossed someone off the side of the roof.
Swallowing hard, one hand waving around, she looked for a salvation that wasn’t coming. Finally she looked at him apologetically. “They were sort of having sex up there. That’s what happened. I’m sorry … and … um … thank you too—I think.”
She’d never seen eyes change in so many ways in such a short span of time. But this guy’s were like a visual aid for defining “window to the soul.” Everything was right there within them. Shock, relief, amusement, and then a slow-growing interest that tugged at some long-forgotten place inside her.
Something she shook off without more than a second’s consideration.
A fractured cry of the climactic variety split the air between them, setting her cheeks to blaze like the sky beyond.
“Damn,” was his only response, and something about the smacked look on his face struck her as ridiculously funny within the awkwardness of the moment.
“Yeah.” She laughed, covering her ears. “You’re telling me. I think we ought to give them some privacy … but I really need my phone. I’ll bake you a cake if you’ll get it for me.”
Maeve would bake the cake. If she’d been here, none of this would have happened.
“Cake?”
“Please?”
“I’m a tough customer when it comes to cake. My sisters have spoiled me pretty bad. How about this? You go grab your phone and I’ll take care of Team Romance behind us.”
This guy didn’t know what he was missing. But if Blue Eyes didn’t want Maeve’s baking …? Fine with her. This way she got her sunset, her phone and a cake too. Because, now that she was thinking about it, Maeve was definitely going to make her one when she got back in town. “Deal.”
An awkward moment, many murmured apologies and some quiet shuffling later, her defender of public decency stepped up to the rail beside her, resting his forearms over the worn wood as he squinted into the sinking sun. “I’ll admit I was half tempted to pull out a pencil and start taking notes.”
Nichole shook her head, unable to fight the pull at the corner of her mouth.
“What? I would have given you a copy. Though maybe too early for that kind of kink in our relationship?”
Coughing out a laugh, she leaned back, forcibly resisting the draw to lean closer. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“Based on that pretty blush, I’d say definitely. So how about it, Red? Sun’s going down fast.”
“Red?” she asked, mildly disappointed by the moniker that had followed her around half her life. For some unaccountable reason she’d thought—hoped?—no, that couldn’t be right—this guy might be different.
“Blue-eyed guy?” he challenged back, then tapped a finger to his cheek while nodding at hers. “Red.”
For her blush, not her hair.
Such a small distinction, and yet big enough to push a smile to her lips as she followed his gaze to the burned amber glow of the pooling sun. It was beautiful. And, with the mellow notes of Jack Johnson filtering the rush of city traffic rising from the streets below, peaceful.
For long moments they watched, remaining quiet until the last molten drop bled beneath the horizon.
Forearms resting over the rail, muscular back rounded beneath the pull of his shirt, the familiar stranger beside her let out a long, deeply contented breath.
“Wow. That good, huh?” she asked teasingly, anxious to relieve the unsettling intimacy of the moment.
Casting her a sidelong glance, he considered. Then, pushing back to straighten, he shoved his hands into his pockets and met her gaze in earnest. “Yeah, it was.”
“Not a lot of time for sunsets?”
His mouth pulled to the side and his broad shoulders hunched forward. “You know, it’s not that I haven’t seen them. More a matter of being too caught up in everything else going on—where I’ve