He’s still standing there, at least three feet away from me, and yet the heat coming off my body is mortifying. So is the fact that I’ve been staring at him silently for almost six seconds now without saying a word.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asks.
I blink once. Twice. Speak, goddammit. What’s wrong with you, Olivia?
“Sorry,” I manage to choke out. “I… I’m fine. I just… I was…”
“Somewhere else?” he says, helping me out.
I smile. “Right. Yeah. Somewhere else.”
“You don’t mind if I sit here, do you?” It’s a question that answers itself, said with ease and years of obvious practice.
Something tells me this man knows how to get what he wants.
“No, it would be my pleasure. I mean, not that you’re asking to sit with me. What I mean is, it’s a free country, right? Uh…”
He smiles and heat pools low. Between my legs, to be more precise.
“I promise you: the pleasure is all mine.”
2
ALEKS
She looks better than I imagined.
Her cheeks are beet red, almost the same color as her deep auburn hair. The blush spreads when I pull out the stool next to her and sit.
“Long layover?” I ask.
“Yeah. Well, no,” she corrects. “My flight was canceled. I mean, not canceled, but…” She chooses that moment to look at me and promptly loses her train of thought.
“Delayed,” I offer, helping her out with an inward smirk.
“Right, that’s what I meant.” She waves her hand in an attempt at being nonchalant. It almost works, but then her finger catches the handle of her coffee mug. It tips to the side and she gasps, lunging out and saving it just before it tips over.
But it doesn’t save her fingers. A steaming splash of coffee spills over the side, dousing her hand and the table.
“God-fucking-shit-dammit!” she cries out.
I stare at her for a moment before I snort with laughter. The color floods back onto her face as she looks around for something to wipe her hands with. I produce a few napkins from the container to my left and wrap them around her coffee-soaked fingers.
The moment I touch her, she stills. She looks up at my face, watching as I dab the coffee away. She must assume I’m too busy helping her to notice the blatant thirst in her eyes.
But I notice.
I notice everything.
“There,” I say, once her hand is relatively dry. “You’re good. Just a little wet.”
“Thank you for—wait, what did you just say?”
“Your fingers,” I say, just innocently enough that she can’t accuse me of straying too far over the line. “They’re still a little wet. And probably sticky. Until you can take care of the issue.”
“Oh.” She turns towards the taxiing planes so she doesn’t have to meet my eyes. “Yeah. Right.”
Her mortification is palpable. Nuclear radiation levels of embarrassment. It’s making this little run-in so much more entertaining than I had anticipated.
She takes the remaining napkins on the table and tries to sop up the coffee puddled around her mug. “I’m sorry. I’m not usually this clumsy.”
“Somehow, I don’t believe you.”
She turns to me, eyes wide in surprise. Then she catches the obvious amusement on my face. She smiles, and I realize her brown eyes are actually hazel. Shards of green in them catch the light from the window.
She’s prettier than I anticipated, too. But that’s neither here nor there.
Yet.
“I’m not usually this awkward, either,” she adds.
“I don’t think I believe that, either.” I pause, then throw her a lifeline. “Delayed flights are the worst. I’m delayed, too.”
“Oh, yeah? Where are you headed?”
“San Francisco.”
“No way! Are you flying UA523, too?”
“Yes, I am.” I nod. “Looks like we’re going to be stuck here together for a while.”
She sits up straighter, gaining a little confidence as we talk. “I guess so. And of course, this would be the one flight where I forget to pack my sketchbook in my carry-on.”
“Sketchbook? Are you an artist?”
I already know all of this about her, of course, but I feign interest.
“‘Cartoonist’ is my official title,” she says, dipping her head self-consciously. “I freelance, mostly.”
“Interesting line of work.”
“It can be,” she says brightly. “What do you do?”
“A little bit of everything.”
She raises her eyebrows. “That’s an evasive answer.”
“Don’t women like mysterious men?”
Her blush returns. “I don’t know. Depends on the woman, I suppose.”
She bites her lip to hold back from blurting anything else, but she shouldn’t even bother. Because I already know everything there is to know about Ms. Olivia May Lawrence, twenty-five years old, owner of a Bachelor’s degree in fine arts, half a dozen mostly dead house plants, and an addiction to Hot Cheetos. I know where she shops and where she eats. I know when she leaves her home and when she returns. I know when she sleeps and when she wakes, and hell, I’m pretty damn sure I know exactly what she dreams.
So no, the little kiska doesn’t have to say this particular truth for me to know it, too: that she is exactly the kind of woman who likes mysterious men.
Maybe even dangerous ones.
“I’m Aleksandr, by the way,” I tell her, bailing her out.
“Alexander,” she repeats clunkily.
“Try saying it like you’re not so painfully American,” I laugh. “Or we can just go with ‘Aleks.’”
She winces. “Was it that bad? I take it you’re not American.”
“Not by a long shot.”
“You don’t really have an accent, though.”
“I learned long ago to leave that behind.”
“Hm, also very mysterious. You’re really leaning into the whole persona.”
I tilt my head towards her. “Pot, kettle. You still haven’t told me your name.”
“Oh, right,” she laughs. “Liv. Short for Olivia. Not nearly as interesting as your name. But I suppose it fits. I’m not too interesting, either.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
I didn’t expect to be so drawn in by her. She’s an attractive woman. Beautiful, even.
She’s just so focused on making herself disappear that her beauty is not immediately apparent.
Her jeans are high-waisted and well-fitted, but they’re covered by a long, baggy white blouse and a wool sweater that feels better suited to a seventy-year-old man than a twenty-five-year-old vixen.
“I’m going to call you Olivia,” I decide.
Liv is the awkward, insecure girl with an ugly sweater and hot coffee all over her fingers.
Olivia is the woman underneath all the layers. The one I came to find.
“Oh. Uh, okay, yeah, sure. Totally.” She smiles politely, but beneath it is a layer of confusion, like static electricity interrupting the TV show of her life.
She isn’t used to men like me. Enigmas.
I look down at the cup in my hand. “This coffee tastes like cat piss.”