Now and Then (3 page)

But rather than get down on his knee right then and ask, he rubbed at the back of his neck and offered, “How about I take you back over to the administration building where the tour started and if we can’t meet up with them, I’ll show you around myself.”

Brynn was breathless, her lashes wet from tears of laughter, and that seldom used place in the center of her chest aching for all the things it couldn’t have. She’d ordered a second beer, or a third counting the one she’d had before seeing Ford, but it remained largely untouched thanks to the way the conversation kept rolling between them. They’d talked and joked, finding humor in those few shared months together without dredging up the crummy ending to their story. Ford smugly confessed to breaking their pact about not watching
Lost
without her, updated her on the friends they’d shared back in school, broke her heart with news about the death of his parents, and made her grin with tales of his little sister marrying Sam—which, for the record, she’d totally called ten years ago, and without even meeting them.

He’d kept at it with the game design and even found some success, which was awesome. And while it sounded like he still needed to work as a property manager on the side, it made her happy to hear he’d followed his dreams and achieved his goals.

For her part, she hadn’t been quite so forthcoming. It was easy to talk about work. Tell him about Jet and how he’d actually been the one to get her her first job, interning with the Brewers in Milwaukee. But not how she’d known him from her neighborhood growing up. Or how her choice to work with pro athletes hadn’t solely been based on her love of sports, but on the fact her father and, more important, Timothy O’Shea—the man profiting from her father’s weakness—had a strict no-go policy regarding national sports leagues. Brynn was able to work with some of the highest-paid men in the country and know she’d never get pressed to go to them for a bailout. Too much publicity with those guys. Too many resources. Way too jaded. Which meant too much risk for O’Shea and her dad, and a safe workplace for Brynn.

Yeah, there were things about her family she hadn’t shared with Ford the first time around—the gambling, the debt, the criminal acts. The cops knocking on their door in the middle of the night if they were lucky, someone else knocking if they weren’t.

Untruths she hadn’t cleared up—like her father owning a hardware store instead of just working in one a few months before he’d been fired for stealing. Like her having an awesome big brother who was a little overprotective, instead of the jerk who’d literally sold tickets to her bedroom window when she was sixteen. Like having a loving mother who always put her first, instead of a mother who loved her husband to the point of not being able to protect her own children from his mistakes.

Things she’d been ashamed of growing up and foolishly thought she’d be able to leave behind when she escaped to college with the money her grandfather saved for her. Things she could have told him about now, but honestly, he didn’t need to know.

She didn’t want Ford’s pity. What she wanted was for this man to have a happy memory to remember her by. She’d hated the way she ended their relationship—hated knowing that she’d poisoned all the good between them with that last phone call. With the stupid lie she’d thought would be easier than the truth she’d been too humiliated to share.

So she focused on the good things. The fun stuff.

She laughed, loving the feeling of it overflowing inside her as Ford told her about Sam’s cousin Tony Farrow—that kid she could remember hearing about ten years ago, the mouthy goof who’d made it a daily habit of professing his love for Ava—taking their buddy Mitch Wells to the
Fifty Shades of Grey
opening to pick up women. His pregnant friend, Maggie, and how bad it freaked him out when she’d accidentally rubbed her huge,
hard
belly across his ass. And how he’d had to cheat to beat his sister when they’d been racing to see who could assemble the coming baby’s travel bassinet.

And when the laughter finally eased, slowing and stretching until it became one long sigh, Brynn propped her elbow on the table and rested her cheek in her hand, watching him as he watched her. It was there in the space between them—the connection, the pull from all those years ago. So tempting, she found herself getting a little lost in his eyes, wondering how that dark hair—shorter and neater now—would feel between her fingers after so long, remembering what it had been like to have his kiss and to give in to all the unruly emotions this man brought to the surface.

Just another minute.
Then she’d go.

“Brynn,” he said, his already deep voice deepening even further to a tempting low rumble. Only a ghost of the smile they’d been sharing remained on his lips.

A minute that ended too soon, because she knew that look. And whatever words or actions were about to follow, she had to stop them. This, tonight, had been perfect and she didn’t want anything she’d have to say, any explanation she’d need to make, to ruin it.

“I should get going,” she preempted, checking her watch for effect. She choked for real and then, checking again, said, “Oh shit—shoot, darn it,
shoot
—four hours?”

Ford laughed, sliding off his stool and coming around to help her with her jacket. “Guess we lost track of time again.”

Again.
He said it like it was just yesterday and not ten years ago when they’d talked until the coffee shop closed, then moved back to the front stoop of her dorm, where they talked some more until security strolled through whipping that Maglite around at three in the morning. Ford had stood so close, looking down into her face, into her eyes, and she’d whispered his name,
Fred
—yeah, the wrong name as it turned out because the tall, dark, and desperately cute guy in front of her was named
Ford,
not Fred like she’d somehow gotten in her head—killing whatever moment might have been and sending them both into punch-drunk peals of laughter.

But now with Ford standing so close, his big hands running down her arms, maybe it felt like yesterday to her, too. Like that twelve-hour tour of the campus and all the days and nights that followed were
just that close.
Still within reach.

Like taking it would be as simple as turning around within that tight space in front of him so their bodies brushed with the motion, letting her fingers drift against the planes of a stomach that still looked as trim as it had in college, tipping her head back and—

And it was
definitely
time to get out of Dodge.

Pasting on a smile that wasn’t 100 percent sincere, Brynn stepped well out of brushing/drifting/tipping territory and shot Ford a friendly glance over her shoulder.

“This sure was nice, Ford,” she exclaimed, her belly still in turmoil from those freaking jacked-up butterflies and their ceaseless assault.

One dark brow arched at her, but then Ford was nodding, smiling pleasantly, too. “Sure was.”

A light pressure settled at the small of her back, and even through the layers of her jacket, sweater, and shirt the sensation of Ford’s big hand resting there was like touching a broken Christmas light when she was a kid. Slightly shocking and definitely a bad idea to allow to go on. But that low charge running over her skin, spreading warm and slow…she hadn’t been able to resist it then, either.

What were a few steps, right?

Wrong.
Because then they were outside the bar, the chill night air and flurries not doing a thing to cool the heat winding through her veins.

A couple of rapidly chattering women bustled past them, their animated conversation filling up the night before it dropped off as they rushed down the sidewalk together toward the next streetlight.

The fingers at her back flexed, urging Brynn around so she was again facing Ford. Only this time when their eyes met, he was still touching her and—just
wow.
The palm now curved around her waist was waking a simmering sense of anticipation within her she had no right indulging in.

If only it didn’t feel so good.

Drawing a deep breath, she braced for what Ford’s eyes were promising would come next. He would ask for her number and she’d let him down as easily as she could. It wouldn’t be fun and there wouldn’t be any sense of conquest in it, because the only one missing out would be her. And then because Ford was Ford, and most definitely as sweet as she remembered him to be, he’d take her letdown like a gentleman, letting her off easy with a well wish and a smile.

Yeah, she was ready for it.

Only then instead of asking her for anything, Ford—the guy who’d gotten her permission to hold her hand the first time—reached for her, pulling her into a kiss he
took
with the kind of world-rocking finesse she’d never known before. Not even with
him.

She should have stopped him, stepped out of his hold and apologized for giving him the wrong idea, but any gentle put-off she’d had in mind was lost to the decadent sensation of his fingers sliding beneath her hair,
wrapping in it
as he pulled her closer.

Her thoughts scrambled, muscle memory took over, and suddenly she was going to her toes, tipping back for more of a kiss that had most definitely matured with age. For the slow, sinking press of his lips against hers.

Ford licked at the corner of her mouth and she opened to him, gasping around the smooth stroke of his tongue and then meeting him with her own. Melting into the staggering height of him and wanting—God, wanting to hold on to this feeling she hadn’t had in so long for just a while longer.

Another firm thrust into her mouth and her fingers balled into the front of Ford’s jacket, clinging tight. He groaned, deepening the kiss until she was drowning in it. Until the need for air was as insignificant as her rationale for keeping Ford at arm’s length. All that mattered was
more.

Her hands in his hair, inside his jacket, running over his jeans.

His arms holding her so tight against him, his breath hot at her ear with his deep rumbled warning, “Brynn, don’t count on me stopping this.” His teeth caught her lobe, sending chills skating over her superheated skin. “I’m not the nice guy I was ten years ago.”

She pulled back, meeting his dark gaze.

What a liar. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have warned her at all. “I think you are.”

Which meant she really, really,
really
had to stop.

Ford shook his head. Brynn was so wrong. If he were even close to the “nice guy” he’d been the last time they were together, he would have backed off the second he saw that look in her eyes—the one promising she was about to stake him to the ground in the friend zone. If he was lucky.

Or maybe he would have stopped after that first kiss, backed off long enough to let her decide if she wanted to take it further. But no, he’d ignored all those conflicted signals because he’d meant what he said in the bar. No way was he letting her get away that easy.

He wanted her. And despite all the indecision shadowing her eyes, she wanted him, too. Bad enough to score an R rating on the kiss it took all his “nice guy” reserves to keep from sliding straight into X right there next to the red telephone booth out front of the Pint Pub. And even before that, he’d seen it in her smile and eyes and the way she worried that gorgeous bottom lip between her teeth.

His arms tightened around her, pulling all those soft places he wanted so badly into closer contact. Still not close enough.

“Ford,” she sighed, sounding regretful and needy all at once, her hands clutching at his shoulders and—yeah, that wasn’t pushing happening. “This isn’t a good idea. I’m not—”

A nice guy wouldn’t burrow his face into her neck, intentionally rubbing the light scrape of his stubble against the spot it had taken less than five minutes to rediscover as Brynn’s weakness. A nice guy wouldn’t revel in the gasp that cut off whatever protest she’d been working up to, or exploit that weakness even further by teasing it with his lips, his tongue. His teeth.

“Definitely not,” he agreed. “We could get arrested for the things I’m thinking about doing to you right now.”

Another needy sound, and her head fell back that much more.

Invitation accepted. Gladly.

“Ford, I shouldn’t—”

“I know. You shouldn’t let me hear you make those little breathless sounds.” He burrowed deeper, opening his mouth over that handy little stretch of skin and sucked—but only for a second. Just until she clutched
harder
and shifted her hips against him. “They only make me want to hear them
louder.
”

Forget louder. Whatever that unintelligible sound was she’d just made—gasped—whimpered—hell yes, he’d take it. He’d take it all night long.

Only then she shook her head and pulled back to meet his eyes, and damn it. When she looked at him like that, pleading and half undone, he knew down to his soul there wasn’t a thing he could deny her. Including letting her go, if that’s what she asked for.

Her slim shoulders rose and fell with each ragged breath. She licked her kiss-swollen lips and blinked at the few snowflakes clinging to her dark lashes. “I—I can’t—”

His eyes closed, his head dropping forward until their brows touched.
Fucking nice guy.
He was going to have to let her go. No matter how good that connection had felt. How unique. How
right.

He’d tried, but she couldn’t—

“Ford.” Her fingers slid up his neck, over the sides of his face, and into his hair. “I can’t stop.
I don’t want to stop.
”

She’d gone crazy. Lost all sense. Or at the very least, lost the will to fight what had begun to feel a whole lot like the inevitable. Because it was that kind of pull between them. Insistent and demanding. And once she’d given in to that all-too-persuasive whisper wending through her thoughts—
One night. Why not just one night?—
it was like relief she’d never known buoying every part of her as Ford took her hand in his and, that criminally hot smile stretching wide, began pulling her down the street after him. Fat flakes of snow were drifting around them, catching in Ford’s hair and settling on the shoulders of his down coat. He was walking backward, as if taking his eyes off her would break the spell—maybe it would.

All she knew was she couldn’t look away. Couldn’t do anything but follow and laugh as Ford periodically glanced behind him to check their progress, sigh as he drew her closer to steal a kiss just the other side of “quick,” and moan when that kiss wasn’t enough and she found herself pressed against the bricks of an apartment building on North Honore just before the tracks. Until finally they made it to the gray stone building across from the park.