Chance of a Lifetime (Anderson Brothers) (5 page)

“What wish?”

“Don’t you know anything about bucket lists? If you complete everything on it with the original list still intact, you get a wish.”

“Ah. Well, let me think on it. I’ll find an appropriate substitute.” The napkin crinkled as he wiped his mouth and hands. She remembered how he’d caught the chili from her chin with his thumb and licked it off, and she imagined herself licking the chili from his face and fingers. Licking his entire body. Licking his…
Stop!
Where on earth did that come from?

It had to be the residual adrenaline from the roller coaster ride or maybe her anticipation of her upcoming fake skydive giving her crazy imaginings. Whatever it was, thoughts like that were taboo and needed to stay relegated to the privacy of her bedroom. The one place she couldn’t inadvertently send the wrong signal and end up in a heap of trouble with an irreparably shattered heart.

Before long, they came to a stop, and Chance handed over her cane. “The owner is a friend of Michael’s, my oldest brother, so you’ll get the star treatment. They’re expecting you. Door is thirty or so feet at ten o’clock. Go fly, Gen. Soar.”

Chapter Eight

C
hance had never experienced an hour this long. Even the night he’d been arrested seemed shorter than this. Maybe because he had dreaded seeing Genny after his night in jail, and he couldn’t wait to see her now. He checked his watch for the hundredth time and resisted texting Michael’s friend to check up on how she was doing. She was a grown woman and only required assistance, not a babysitter. Not that he’d ever considered himself her babysitter. They’d been friends. Best friends.

Well, not anymore. She’d made it more than clear that their past meant nothing to her.

“I’ll be driving Mr. William and Miss Claire to the airport in the morning, and then after that, your oldest brother needs the car to take Miss Mia to her wedding dress fitting,” Jacob said from the driver’s seat.

Chance shook his head. “I never thought I’d see the day Michael got married.”

“He says the same about you, sir.”

That was surprising. “He does?”

“It concerns him that you don’t date.”

Wow. So much for shy, impersonal Jacob. He’d known the guy forever, and he was never one to be direct.

“How do you feel about that, Jacob?”

“I believe you are discerning, sir.”

What the hell did that mean? This guy had driven him around since he was in grade school. “How so?”

“I believe you are the type of man who waits for exactly what he wants and is not satisfied to make do with substitutes while he waits.”

He was speaking in code or some such nonsense. He sat back and stared at the strip of Jacob’s face visible in the rearview mirror. Not one to beat around the bush, Chance pushed further. “What am I waiting on?”

Jacob’s eyes flickered to the left, and he nodded to something outside. “Her.”

Chance followed his gaze, and his heart thumped wildly as Genny emerged from the building, face alight. Yes. It had always been her.

His gaze met Jacob’s brown eyes in the mirror. Was he that transparent? “Have you talked to my brothers about this?”

“No. My limo is like Las Vegas. What happens in Vegas—”

“—stays in Vegas. Yes, yes, I know. I’d like you to stick to that policy, please. She’s not like-minded.”

“You’re wrong,” he said. “She’s discerning, too. And she’s ten steps ahead of you. She always has been.” And with that, he got out to open her door. “This way, Miss Genevieve.”

Chance closed his eyes, memories playing through his mind like a slide show. Yes. Jacob had driven them around all the time, Genny, Walter, and him. To movies, to school, even to toilet paper friends’ houses. That was over a decade ago. He opened his eyes and watched as Jacob guided Gen into the car. A woman who was familiar, yet at the same time, a complete stranger. The woman he’d been told was ten steps ahead of him.

“That was awesome!” she said, plopping down in the facing seat, dropping the cane on the floor. Her hair was a tangled mess and her cheeks pink—a maddeningly attractive combination. “You should have done it with me.” She made a futile attempt to finger-comb her hair. “Is there still some Coke left?”

He passed her what was left of his drink from Nathan’s.

“Oh my God, that was perfect. You were so right. It beat the heck out of jumping out of a plane.” She took a large sip. “There was this huge fan under this net thing and I had to wear goggles and a helmet and what felt like a space suit. The guy said I looked great. Nothing says sexy like a space suit, right?”

“Space suits are my go-to for sexy for sure.” He shifted in his seat, wishing he’d witnessed her skydiving. “I prefer scuba gear, though. You’d rock skintight neoprene, and those flippers drive guys wild.”

“You had me at skintight,” she said. “I’m all about being able to feel the landscape.” She ran her hands up her belly to her ribs, stopping under her breasts, which were perfectly displayed in her tight shirt. “The valleys and especially the hills. Maybe we should add a scuba dive to the list.”

Holy shit.
Jacob was right. This was more than just friendly banter. The undercurrent was real and mature and…
damn.
He met the driver’s amused gaze in the mirror. Walter would kill him for the thoughts going through his mind right then.

“Where to, sir?”

Chance shook his head to clear it. “Um, where next, Gen?”

“Columbus Circle. Do you have a change of clothes?”

That didn’t sound good. “No.”

“Mr. Michael leaves a bag with several changes in the trunk. His clothes should fit you. Miss Mia has a bag in there as well.”

“Why do they have clothes in the trunk?” Chance wondered aloud.

Jacob’s only reply was an arch of an eyebrow.

He waved a hand dismissively. “Never mind. Vegas. I get it. You heard the lady. Columbus Circle.”

S
till buzzing from skydiving, Gen had trouble keeping her hands to herself. All this adrenaline made her horny; that and her nearness to Chance was a dangerous combo. Maybe this is why he’d always done crazy things. At least he was all the way on the other side of the limo. She could feel him watching her, though, and the thought of his checking her out made her nipples tighten and her lower body heat. Maybe she should have asked him to leave the privacy divider between the driver and the cabin open so that they weren’t so…alone.

“What are we doing at Columbus Circle? I thought breaking into the pool at midnight was next.” His voice was low and rumbly and sexy as hell. Her plan had completely backfired. Instead of showing him what he was missing, he tortured her with what she’d never have. All thanks to her overprotective big brother and Chance’s misplaced sense of honor or whatnot.

“I skipped that, because it’s something I can do on my own, like number ten.” She shrugged and forced herself to relax against the leather seat to hide the fact that she was wound up as tight as a spring. “I put this back into the schedule because we have time and it’s on the way back to my apartment.”

“Exactly what are we doing there?”

“Running through the fountain, of course. No good bucket list is complete without a run through a public fountain.”

“But of course. How silly of me.”

She heard amusement in his voice and hoped the chilled water of the fountain might cool some of the sexual tension bouncing around the limousine like Ping-Pong balls. Then, a horrible thought hit her.

“Oh, no. We can’t do this. Well,
you
can’t do this.”

“Because?”

“You’re an Anderson. You’ll make the tabloids or something. I read about your brothers all the time.”

“Ah. But you’re overlooking two important points. First, I have no intention of running through the fountain. It’s your list to complete. I’m just here to facilitate your success. Second, I’m the invisible Anderson brother. There is nothing high-profile about me. I don’t do charity balls, or make power deals, or date supermodels like Michael did before Mia. I’m not a homegrown hero with a socialite past like Will. I’m just the little brother nobody notices.”

“God. That sounds pathetic.”

He laughed. “It’s deliberate. I hate that kind of attention. If you want to run through a fountain, I’m happy to go with you. I just wish you had chosen to do this in a month, after it warms up some.”

“Inconvenient, but most things worth doing are.”

He fell quiet for a moment, and she itched to touch his face to read his expression. When they were teens, she kept her fingers on his face so that she could “see” him as he spoke. Touching him now would be a disaster, though. Her fifteen-year-old crush didn’t hold a candle to the adult lust threatening to spontaneously combust inside her now.

“Out of an abundance of caution,” he said, “we should get out a block or more away. Even though I slide under the radar, the limo might draw attention, and a hot woman running through a frigid fountain is certainly noteworthy.” He pushed the intercom button. “Let’s do a drop-off at Lincoln Center instead, please, Jacob.”

Hot woman
. Every cell in her body heated with delight. That’s not something he’d say to someone he still saw as a little girl.

By the time they’d walked the short distance from Lincoln Center to Columbus Circle, Gen was having second thoughts. At fifteen, running through this fountain seemed like such a cool thing to do. At twenty-five, it felt ridiculous.

They crossed the street and entered the circle. “What do you see?” she asked.

“A statue of Christopher Columbus surrounded by a concrete area ringed by a shallow, circular fountain with jets, divided in thirds by walkways. All in all, I see a disaster waiting for you to come along.”

She laughed. “No. I mean people and obstacles.”

“Woman reading on bench at nine o’clock, cops on other side of street bordering the southwest corner of Central Park at two o’clock, and tourists passing through the circle all over the clock. Good luck.” He ushered her to a bench, and she sat.

“Have you ever done this before?”

“Never. And I don’t plan to.”

She sat and removed a calf-high boot. “This is a stupid idea, isn’t it?”

“Some of the better things in my life have started out as bad ideas.”

Off came the other boot and then her socks. “Like what?” She lowered her bare feet to the cold concrete and gasped.

“Like helping you with this bucket list business.”

She stilled, letting his words tumble over and over in her head. This was one of the better things in his life. Being here. With
her
.

She reached toward him and made contact. Unfortunately, the thing she brushed across felt suspiciously like the zipper fly of his jeans. He hissed through his teeth and took a quick step back.

Yep. Nailed it.
“Sorry.”

She patted the bench next to her, toes curling from the cold. The air moved, and his jacket made the swooshing sound again as he complied. Careful to keep her hands high this time, she felt her way up his arm, over his shoulder, and took his face in her hands, pulling him closer. “The no-touching rule sucks,” she said, not even embarrassed at the husky sound of her voice.

“Agreed.” His breaths came in heated puffs against her skin.

She ran her fingertips over his warm, smooth bottom lip. “I say we ditch that rule completely.”

“You’ll get no objection from me.”

The moment in the limo earlier, sharing hot dogs while still high from the roller coaster adrenaline, didn’t even come close to this.
This
new high point in her life. They were right on the precipice. Lips almost touching, breaths mingling in the electric tension strung between them. She took a shuddering breath, enjoying the heady buzz of balancing on that razor’s edge.

“Kiss me, Gen.”

She hovered a breath away, entire body humming, and didn’t move.

He closed the distance, but this kiss was way different than the encounter in the bar. No slow exploration or warm-up. He thrust his fingers into her hair, tilted her head, and took her mouth with a hunger that rivaled her own. Hot, insistent, purposeful. No gentle caress. Nothing in reserve. This was a get-a-room kind of kiss and it made her toes curl—and not from the cold this time.

He broke away with a groan and rested his forehead against hers, breaths coming in heavy gasps.

Slowly, the world sharpened into focus around her: a car honk, unknown footsteps traversing the circle, a siren in the distance, indistinguishable voices of passersby, the rumble and rattle of cars and trucks on the street as they made their way around the fountain. Somewhere across the street, a policeman blew a whistle in the park.

Chance disentangled his fingers from her hair and straightened next to her on the bench. “You’d better go run through that fountain before we get arrested for public indecency,” he said, still out of breath. “Because one more second like that, and some clothes will be joining your boots on the pavement.”

She laughed.

“Seriously.”

“What do you see?”

“Nothing but you.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“Neither am I.” He ran his thumb over her bottom lip. “What do I see? Your lips are pink and swollen from kissing me.” He grazed his knuckles over her cheekbone. “Your color is high with excitement. Your hair is all a mess because I held on for dear life so I wouldn’t grope you in public.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Your nose is red because it’s chilly.” He stood and pulled her to her feet. “Now, go run your cute ass through that fountain so I can get you back home, where you’re no longer exposed to the cold or to me.”

Chapter Nine

H
e should never have kissed her.
Never, never, never.
Chance paced the length of his bedroom and back again. What had he been thinking? Nothing. That’s when he always got in trouble. When he stopped thinking and felt instead.

“Dammit!” he shouted after another lap of the room. He should have known by now that indulging addiction was reckless and never ended well. And he was as addicted to Gen as he was to adrenaline. He’d accepted that fact while waiting in the car outside the indoor skydiving venue for her. Even the family chauffeur knew.

Not accepting her invitation to come up to her apartment when they’d dropped her off had been the hardest thing he’d done in a long time. Wet from head to toe and wrapped up in his jacket, she looked delicious. He’d imagined all manner of ways to warm her up, none of them in accordance with her big brother’s wishes. But in the end, he’d done the right thing and sent her up alone.

And here he was, pacing his apartment with a perpetual boner, shaking and cursing like he was going through DTs. Well, he
was
detoxing, in a manner. He was coming down off a Genny high, which was more potent than any adventure he’d been on or anything he’d experimented with in college.

Walter would be so pissed if he ever found out.

He’d just have to see that he never found out and make sure it never happened again. That was the only solution. Quit cold turkey. That was the most efficient and effective solution.
Efficient and effective.
God. He sounded like his brother Michael.

He couldn’t just go back on his word completely, though. He’d make good on his promise to take her skinny-dipping, but then he was done. He’d assist her the same way he had with skydiving. He’d make sure she was safe and let her do it on her own.

He groaned and adjusted his still-raging erection as he imagined joining her naked in the cold water.
No
. There was no way in hell he was going to get naked anywhere near her. Today at the fountain was evidence enough he was in way over his head. She deserved better than the brief touch-and-go he could offer. As Walter had made clear ten years ago, she needed someone who would keep her out of trouble, not lead her headfirst into unsafe situations, like Chance had done so many times until it backfired and nearly killed her at the harbor.

A knock on his door pulled him back to the present.

It was later than his brothers ever came by. He cracked the door to find Gen grinning.
Shit.
“How’d you find my place?”

The smile dropped from her face, probably from his less-than-welcoming greeting. “I called your office and spoke with your secretary, who remembered me from when we were kids. She put me in touch with Jacob, who seemed more than happy to drop me off.”

Of course Jacob was. He looked over his shoulder at his disaster of an apartment and shook his head. Maybe seeing what a slob he was would convince her he wasn’t worth the effort. But she couldn’t see. Hell, even his
place
was dangerous to her. Obstacles everywhere, as opposed to her tidy, sparsely furnished home.

“Come on in, but do so at your own risk. There’s stuff all over the floor. I never have guests.”

He guided her to the head of the dining table, deftly avoiding a gym bag.

“What’s on the floor?”

“Workout equipment, mainly, and some weapons. I was in a hurry yesterday after I got back from the dojang.” She tilted her head that way she did when she wanted more information. “I’ve been doing tae kwon do for almost ten years.” He shoved the gym bag under a chair with his foot.

She nodded. “Walter mentioned that.”

He picked up his shin guards and pitched them into the bag. “It helps me stay focused. It…takes the edge off.”

“The edge off of what?” Again she tilted her head, but he didn’t oblige. He’d already revealed too much. Instead, he placed two swords in the cabinet while she turned her head to listen. “Hmmm. It sounds like you need to catch me up on your past, Chance.”

He flipped the light off and lowered himself into a chair closest to her. It was easier if he couldn’t see her face clearly. Now that he’d felt her passion, being near her hurt—and not just from his ever-present hard-on when she was around. It was his chest—his heart—that ached the most. Like right after he’d been forbidden to see her all those years ago. “We agreed not to mention the past.”

“We also agreed to not touch, but we both know how that worked out.”

“About that…”

Reaching out, she swept across the table until she found and clutched his hand. “Don’t, Chance.” Her grip was strong. Just like she was. Like he wanted to be. “Please, don’t.”

He closed his eyes, making his experience closer to hers. “I’ll help you with this next task, but I’m not so sure continuing on after that is a good idea.”

“Why?” She moved her hands to his face like she did when they were children to read his expressions. He reveled in her touch.

“You know exactly why.”

Gently, she brushed his closed eyelids. “Because we might kiss again?”

“Yes.”

She adjusted her fingers slightly so that they spanned more of his face. “And that’s a problem because…”

He pulled out of her reach and stood abruptly, the chair scraping across the hardwood floor and almost tipping over behind him. “You know why.”

“No! I don’t! Tell me. Explain it, Chance, because I don’t have a clue why we can’t be friends—why we can’t be more than friends.” The side of her fist came down on the table with a
thud
. He’d never heard her raise her voice before. “We’re grown-up people living grown-up lives.” She took a deep breath and ran her fingers through her hair. “It makes no sense at all to me, so explain it.”

“I made a promise.” And for Chance that meant something. All his life, he’d watched his father break promises to his mom. Had seen her hide her tears and put on a good face for her sons. He’d vowed to never be like that. “I promised your family I’d stay away from you.”

“Why?” The hurt in her voice turned the air in his lungs to ice. “Why would you do something like that when we were so close? You were my best friend, Chance. My only friend. The only person who would help me do cool stuff.”

He stared over her shoulder at the bag of mountain-climbing equipment on top of the cabinet housing his swords. His gaze slid over to the corner where his skis were bagged for his heli-skiing trip next month, and leaning at the ready was his favorite snowboard. To the left, his scuba gear was organized and prepped for when the whim hit—which could be any time. His body craved adrenaline. Walter was right. He loved danger and didn’t appreciate its lure for Genny, and because of that, leaving had been the right thing to do. It would be the right thing to do right now.

“Because I’m bad for you.” He heard Walter’s voice saying it in his head as he spoke. “Your getting hurt was inevitable. I’m just relieved you didn’t die.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Regardless of how you feel about it, I gave him my word.”

“And you gave
me
your word that you’d help me accomplish all ten items on my list.”

“Nine. You said you had the last one taken care of.”

“Nine. There are only five left then. Four after tonight. Why does your promise to him mean more than your promise to me?”

“It doesn’t.”

“Then you’ll help me.”

“It’s a terrible idea.”

“Yet earlier today, you said that it was one of the best things you’d ever done.”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, resigning himself to keeping the promise he should never have made to her. It would have been better to confess to Walter he’d kissed his little sister and let the fists fly as they may. This was just prolonging the inevitable and probably making it worse for all of them.

G
en waited while Chance made up his mind. His behavior made no sense to her. The stupid promise was made ten years ago. Bad for her? No. What was bad for her was living her life inside safety cones, and she was sick of it. Chance wanted her. She was certain of it now, yet he pushed her away again and again.

For years, she thought it was something about her that had driven him away. Now she suspected it was something inside himself, and there was a lot more to it than a lame promise to her big brother. That kiss at the fountain was the real deal. Passion like that couldn’t be faked.

Her agenda since this whole thing began had done a one-eighty. She no longer wanted to hurt him and show him what he’d missed when he left all those years ago; she wanted to make up for lost time. She wanted to kiss and touch and hold him like she had in her dreams—and in her imagination when she was alone. She wanted him to see her for the woman she had become. She wanted him to help her scratch number ten off her list, finally, after a decade of waiting.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll go through with it, but I want to see the list. Keeping me in the dark is counterproductive.”

“Kinda like being me, huh?”

“You know what’s on the list, so, no.”

He wanted to see the list.
Fine.
She’d show it to him. She pulled it out of the back of her phone case and handed it to him, waiting for his reaction with a smirk.

To her shock, he didn’t ask what to make of it. Instead, she heard him running his fingers across the surface.
Shit.
He could read braille. When had that happened?

“So… Speedboat, slow dance in the rain…”

“Give it back!” She swept her arms in the direction of his voice and made contact with his chest. Grabbing his T-shirt in her fist, she reached for his right arm.

“Play spin the bottle?”

“I was fifteen! Please give it back.”

She had to get it away from him before he read number ten.

“Sleep under the stars…”

That was number nine. She lunged and made a mad grab for the scrap of paper, but only managed to rip a corner off of it.

“Lose it.”

Crap, crap, crap.
She slumped to the floor and buried her face in her hands to hide what was surely the mother of all blushes based on the hot flush crawling over her skin.

“Lose what?”

He could not be that dense.

“Oh…
that.”
He sat down beside her, turned her hand over, and placed the list in her palm.

“I was fifteen,” she said again as if it made a difference.

“I’m sorry, Gen. I didn’t mean to upset you. You handed it to me.”

“I didn’t know you could read braille.”

He tipped her chin toward him with his fingertips and wiped away an escaped tear. “You don’t know a lot of things about me.”

She sniffed. It was wet and gross and embarrassing. A double whammy on top of the read-aloud. He kissed her forehead, and she felt like she had when she was ten and had fallen and skinned her knee. He’d kissed her forehead then, too.

She pushed the clock function on her phone. “Ten fifty-four,” it announced.

“Let’s go,” he said, brushing her hair out of her face. “Time for us to sneak onto some private property and skinny-dip.”

She sniffled again, and didn’t even try to hold back her grin. The prospect of getting naked with him certainly didn’t make her feel like a ten-year-old. Not even a little bit.