My fingers fumble with the paper wrapping just as a firm body slams into my side.
“Watch it!” a deep voice booms in my ear.
My feet try to shuffle with the impact, but my balance tips just as I lose my grip on my cookie, dropping it to the ground. At the same time, the weight that was hanging off my left shoulder drops away, ending any hope I have of not falling.
An embarrassing squeak bursts from my lips, and I splay my arms, desperately trying to catch myself.
I wish my eyes would shut, but they’re stuck wide open, watching all the people who are watching me and hoping to witness the klutzy girl wipe out in the airport terminal.
Except I don’t fall.
What has to be a freakishly strong arm encircles my waist and pulls me back against a hard body.
“I got you.” The same masculine voice from before speaks into my ear, only this time it’s quiet. A whisper. A growl. A something.
Swallowing, I let my arms drop and force my body to relax. The need for bracing no longer there.
“Thanks,” I breathe out before I notice that his big hand is splayed across my stomach.
A stranger is touching my stomach. My soft, squishy stomach.
I can only pray that he’s not as attractive as he sounds.
“Don’t be thanking me, Angel.” His hand slides across my tummy to my waist as he moves from behind me to next to me. “If that asshole hadn’t bumped into me, I wouldn’t have knocked into you.”
“Oh, it’s okay. I…” I start to say more, but then my eyes flick up to the tall man beside me, and my ability to form words vanishes.
Holy fuck-me eyes.
I blink.
Scratch that. Holy fuck-me everything.
His piercing blue irises are only the beginning.
A man in a suit, with closely buzzed dark hair, a matching trimmed beard, and shoulders wide enough to sit on, is smiling down at me like he’s truly happy to be inconvenienced by crashing into me.
His lips move.
They’re a shade darker, a shade pinker than his tanned skin.
His lips moved.
“Sorry?” My cheeks heat as I admit I didn’t hear him, even though we’re standing face-to-face.
His smile widens. “Did I hurt you?”
My brain is straight-up short-circuiting because my mind dives headfirst into the gutter, picturing him asking me that when we’re both sweaty and naked—in bed.
“No,” I croak. Jesus, Val. Get it together. “Did I hurt you?”
Did I hurt you?
I want to slap a hand over my mouth. Or crawl under the nearest bench and pretend I’m dead.
The man’s mouth tips into a smirk. “Don’t think a little thing like you could, even if you tried.”
Little?
Is it hot in here?
It’s really hot in here.
The pressure on my back shifts, and I realize his big palm is still there, holding me in place.
He lowers his face.
Is he going to kiss me?
My eyes start to close before they snap back open.
He’s not going to kiss me. This isn’t a Hallmark movie. Or a porno.
He keeps lowering, though, bending down, and my eyes drop to the floor.
Oh, right, my backpack.
And my cookie.
My face heats even more.
Seriously, my brain cannot pick a lane.
I’m blushing over his closeness. Flustered over him calling me little. Self-conscious about how his hand was touching my stomach. Feeling fat over being caught eating a cookie. And just over-freaking-heated over him.
The hand that was resting against my back brushes over my butt as he drops into a crouch at my feet.
And that accidental touch is enough to frazzle me even more.
It’s been way too long if an innocent graze of fingers against my butt cheek is enough to have my core tightening.
I force myself to snap out of my trance and squat down next to him.
“I got it,” I say, but I don’t even reach for the bag. Because I’m too busy staring at his tattooed fingers.
Tattooed. Fingers.
I almost mewl. But thank god I don’t. That’s a level of mortification I don’t think I could recover from.
I love tattoos. There’s something about them that’s just so… hot. So brave.
I’ve always wanted them, but I’ve been too chicken to get one. Afraid the pain will be too much and I’ll cry the whole way through. Or worse, bail after two minutes and end up with half a design.
But this man…
I press my lips together as I watch him pick up my broken chocolate chip cookie and wrap the pieces in the tiny brown paper bag it came in. And I really just can’t stop staring.
His whole hand is tattooed. Fingers, the back of the hand, all of it. And when he reaches for the napkin I also dropped, the bright white cuff of his sleeve pulls back, exposing an expensive watch and more tattoos.
I sway.
“Steady, Shorty.” The hand not holding the cookie grips my elbow.
His fingers against my bare skin are somehow grounding, but the use of a second endearment throws me right off balance again.
I didn’t miss the way he called me Angel before. I just couldn’t process it.
No one has ever called me anything other than Val. No one even uses my full name anymore.
“You okay?” The man’s voice is softer now. Less amusement, more concern.
And it’s all too damn much.
Crouched next to each other, we’re closer to the same height. But even like this, he’s taller than me. Wider than me. Bigger than me. And I need to flee. If I spend another moment in his presence, I’m going to melt into a goopy puddle of hormones on the floor. And nobody wants to witness that.
“Th-thank you.” I try to reach for my bag, but he beats me to it. Using the same hand that’s holding the cookie, he hooks the bag with just one finger and easily lifts it.
“You’re welcome.” His gaze flicks to my exposed knees, and I yank at my skirt, pulling it down to cover the extra skin.
He clears his throat. It shouldn’t be sexy, but it is.
I’m tempted to yank my skirt back up, but then the man starts to stand. And his grip on my elbow brings me up with him.
“How much time until your flight?”
“Um, I think I have thirty minutes or so before boarding.”
He dips his chin. “Perfect. Me, too.”
“Perfect?” I ask, but he’s already moving me along with him, his hand on the small of my back again.
“I owe you a cookie and a backpack. Thirty minutes should be just enough time.” His voice is so deep and rumbly it nearly distracts me from his words.
“Backpack?” I’m just repeating words as I let him guide me down the main hallway of the airport.
I’m used to being around tall men. My half brother, King, is practically a giant, and he’s probably only an inch taller than this man. But even with his much longer legs, this man is walking at my pace.
It’s great because I don’t have to jog to keep up, but I still wish I’d left my cute wedges on rather than switching into my tennis shoes before going through security. Because I glance down and—yep—his shoes match the rest of his expensive outfit. Meaning no tennis shoes for him.
“It was a casualty of war.” He replies to the question I already forgot I asked, holding my backpack in front of him.
My mouth opens into an O as I see why it fell off my shoulder. The strap is broken below where the buckle is sewn into the nylon strip, the thick fabric torn straight through.
I blow out a breath. “I’ve been waiting for that to happen.”
“You’ve been waiting for a clumsy oaf to crash into you and break your things?”
I glance up at him and find him looking down at me. My cheeks are still red from the first time I locked eyes with him, so I don’t bother worrying about how much more red they can get. “I’ve had that bag forever. It was bound to fail me sooner or later.”
“Hmm.” He nods, then steers me to turn to the right. “Well, as the party responsible for its demise, I insist on replacing it.”
I take in the name of the store he’s trying to take me to and put on the brakes. “No.”
“Yes.”
“This place is too expensive,” I try to tell him, but his hand doesn’t let up, and he half pushes me ahead of him.
I’ve never even looked at the prices inside this store, but I know a backpack from this place would be literally ten times more expensive than what I paid for my old bag.
Losing the battle, I step into the store and am not surprised to find no one else in here. Because no one else is willing to pay the stupidly high price for the rather plain-looking luggage.
“Afternoon.” The lady behind the counter greets us. “Can I help you find something?”
“No,” I say, just as the man next to me holds up my grungy bag.
“We need a new backpack. Preferably the same size. Maybe with reinforced straps.”
At the last sentence, he cuts his eyes down to mine.
I bite down on a smile, secretly enjoying that he’s teasing me. “I can’t let you do this.”
“You can and you will, Angel.”
I blink up at him.
My thick hair is a little longer than shoulder length, and I have it pulled back into a plain high ponytail. My makeup is probably half melted off my face. And my bright yellow wrap dress is just shy of indecent with how much cleavage the low neckline shows.
There’s nothing angelic about my appearance.
Taking my silence as acceptance, he turns his attention to the display the salesperson has pointed out.
“What color?” the man asks, holding my bag up, showing that there isn’t one the same shade of green.
I sigh. “Black is fine.”
“Gold or silver?” He’s asking about the metal accents, but I’m distracted, noticing that he’s no longer carrying my broken cookie.
Did he throw it away? How did he do that without me noticing?
“Gold.” He answers his own question as his hand slides up my back.
He drags a finger across the thin gold chain clasped around my neck and the tiny heart charm dangling just below my throat.
Goose bumps cover my arms. And they only get worse when he lifts his hand higher, his thumb brushing over my matching tiny gold heart earrings.
When I feel like I’m about half a second away from an overstimulated heart attack, his tattooed hand leaves my body.
He doesn’t even ask more, doesn’t check with me. He just picks up the black bag with shiny gold hardware and carries it to the register.
Knowing I’ve lost, that this bag is getting purchased, I chase after him.
If I can get my card out of my broken bag, maybe I can quickly swipe it through the reader and pay whatever ungodly amount myself before he can buy it.
I really can’t let a stranger pay for this.
He’s already at the counter when I catch up. And it’s like he knows what I’m planning, because when I reach for the front zipper pocket, where my wallet is stored, he lifts his arm and hugs the bag to his chest.
The lady scans the tag, displaying the total on the little screen.
“Oh my god!” I classlessly exclaim before I start to tug on the man’s arm, making a point to ignore the silky-soft suit jacket under my fingers. “Please let me pay for that.” I swallow, thinking of the total. “Or, better yet, just let me keep the broken one. It’s fine.”
It’s not that I can’t spend that amount. It’s just that I’m… frugal.
The man’s dark eyebrow is quirked when he looks over his shoulder at me. “You always this stubborn, Valentine?”
Hearing him say my name, my full name, stuns me long enough for him to hand a card to the cashier.
“How do you…?” Then I look at my backpack that’s hugged to his chest.
Ah, yes. My bright yellow name tag, with Valentine Gandy written in careful letters, is right in front of his face.
A fresh wave of embarrassment floods my system. Something about this man tells me he doesn’t write his name on his luggage. He probably just narrows his eyes at his suitcase, daring it to get lost.
While he finishes the transaction, I stand back and really take him in. His black leather shoes and dark navy suit. The swirling black tattoos peeking out above his collar and crawling up to his hairline on the back of his neck. The way his shoulder muscles round underneath the blue fabric. How I feel so small next to him. But small in a feminine way, not an insignificant way.
Crinkling pulls my attention back to the counter.
The salesperson has removed the bundle of paper stuffed inside the new bag, used to keep its shape. And before I can worry about the man trying to move all my stuff into the new bag, he sets my broken backpack next to the new one on the counter and takes a step back.
“Thank you.” His deep voice says the words at the same time I do, causing him to smile.
Again. And he’s just as startlingly handsome as the first time.
I give my head a little shake. “Why are you thanking me?”
“Because.” He nods his head toward the pair of backpacks. “My mother would kill me if she knew I broke some pretty lady’s bag in the airport and didn’t replace it.” I think my lips move as I silently repeat the words pretty lady, but he doesn’t pause. “She’d also kill me for going through your things, so I’ll let you do the honors.”
I glance back and forth between him and the bags on the counter. “I don’t suppose there’s any way to convince you to return that.”
He shakes his head. “All purchases are final.”
My eyes move to the salesperson, but she’s pretending not to listen. So I don’t know if he’s telling the truth or lying.
I roll my lips together before sighing. “You’re kinda bossy, aren’t you?”
The man laughs, loud and throaty, and I feel it in my bones.
“I’m not sure anyone has ever called me bossy before, but I suppose you’re not incorrect.”
I purse my lips, believing him.
Pretending he’s not watching, I quickly move everything into the new backpack. Silently enjoying all the compartments and zippers and the quality of the material. It’s still a ridiculous price, but at least it’s nice.
Last, I remove the name tag from the old bag and tuck it into an interior pocket. If I’m going to be using this new grown-up bag, I’m going to adopt new grown-up habits.
I pull the final zipper closed and hoist the new backpack onto my shoulder, then turn to face the man. Or rather, face his chest.
I tip my head back. “Thank you again. It was completely unnecessary, but I still appreciate it.”
“Anytime, Valentine.”
I bite my bottom lip. “My friends call me Val.”
The corner of his mouth pulls up as he reaches out and takes the backpack off my shoulder, swinging it up onto his.
I’m so mentally off balance by this whole encounter that I don’t question him carrying my bag. And when he holds his hand out for me to shake, I place my palm against his.
“Dominic Gonzalez.” He closes his fingers around mine. “But my friends call me Dom.”
