“The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face”
I’m on my way home after finishing a long day shift at the hospital. Getting comfortable, I send a text to my best friend Kate when my phone slips out of my hand and down onto the floor. Of course, it has to slide down the train aisle out of reach too. Thankfully, being 8 p.m., the carriage isn’t too full. Just as I’m about to get up and search the floor in a desperate last attempt to regain my life, I see him.
As luck would have it, my phone hit a stranger’s black loafer-clad foot. When I look up, I see the handsome man making his way towards me. He is sex-on-legs delicious. I’d already clocked him when he got on the train at the stop after mine. I’m amazed that I’m even coherent enough to notice anyone, given I’ve just finished a twelve-hour shift where I was rushed off my feet all day. I may be dog tired, but my mind is restless, wired, and you guessed it…horny.
Unfortunately for me, my three friends-with-benefits are all otherwise engaged this week. Noah has been on a training course for the week, so there has been no chance of any on-call room hookups. Sean has been out of town for business for the past few days, and Zander has had back-to-back bookings all week. So my options are to let my fingers do the walking, my trusty rabbit toy who—as luck would have it—has run out of juice, or option number three, the delectable man walking towards me.
Ding, Ding, Ding! I pick door number three.
He’s wearing a granite-colored suit, the jacket hanging over his arm which is also carrying a black leather messenger bag. His white dress shirt has the sleeves rolled up, the top two buttons at his neck are undone, giving a slight glimpse of a tanned and toned chest that I just want to lick. I’m in businessman fantasy heaven, and this one is being delivered to me on a plate, or in this case, a rattly, somewhat dirty, Chicago train.
But beggars can’t be choosers.
He catches me ogling him, his pearly-white smile growing larger on his gorgeous face as he gets closer. I give him a slightly embarrassed half-grin back, knowing that I’ve been caught checking him out but also being unapologetic about that fact. He holds his hand out when he reaches my seat, and being the socially awkward idiot that I am, I put my hand out to shake his, feeling absolutely mortified when I realize that he was just trying to hand my phone back.
“Sorry, is this your phone? It slid down the floor from this direction, and you’re one of the only people on the train without a phone or an e-reader in your hand, so I’m taking a lucky guess,” he says with a sly grin, thankfully not laughing at my social ineptitude. Damn, that smile of his could move mountains--or commitment phobias…
“That’ll be mine. Sorry to make you come- all the way down here,” I reply, an uncontrollable blush creeping up my cheeks.
“It’s my pleasure. I don’t mind being given an excuse to talk to a beautiful stranger, on the L, at night, alone…” His words are calculated. He has somehow complimented me at the same time as chastising me for my solo train journey. Now that is talent! I feel a chill run up my spine at the sheer presence of this man and the alpha vibes I’m feeling. They’re not in your face like Sean’s are. They’re more latent…but no less powerful.
“Makenna Lewis, but everyone calls me Mac,” I say, this time actually holding my hand out to shake his.
He looks down at my outstretched hand and drags his piercing caramel-colored eyes down my scrub-clad body, his jaw twitching as he returns his gaze to my face. There’s no denying the blazing heat in his gaze now.
“Daniel Winters,” he replies, taking my hand in his and shaking it once while very deliberately dragging his hand slowly from mine, his fingers running the length of mine as he pulls away. I bite my lip, enjoying the warm tingles traveling up my arms, then down my body to settle straight between my legs.
Holy hell, he’s got game, and it’s a game I want to play.
This man leaves Zander in his wake, and Zander is a professional stripper who gets paid to flirt. And Dr. Noah Taylor… he charms women out of their panties like it’s a fine art.
“Where are you headed tonight? Have you just finished work, or just starting?” he asks, reaching up to hold on to the cabin’s overhead rail while he looks down at me with a raised eyebrow. That move brings my attention to his tailored shirt tightening over his toned biceps, and then I see it. It’s like my eyes are homing beacons looking for the slightest hint of skin. A small part of his shirt has come loose at his waist and has ridden up, giving me a glimpse of a tight set of abs and the smallest smattering of hair leading a trail south below his waistband. Lord knows I’m a sucker for tight abs and a happy trail. Right now I’m the captain of HMS Horny Nurse and Daniel Winters is coming to rescue me.
C’mon, Mac, get it together, you’re drooling, and he’s waiting for an answer.
“Ah work… yeah. I just finished my shift at Northwestern,” I mutter, shaking my head to get rid of thoughts of him shirtless and in my bed.
“Ah, a doctor then?” he asks with a wicked glint in his eye. Maybe he has a doctor fantasy.
“I’m a nurse in the ICU,” I say, the grin on my face getting wider the longer we sit here.
“And how about you? Let me guess.” I look him up and down, lifting my hand to my chin as I study him. “A lawyer? No, wait, maybe an accountant? Nope, not that either. My last answer is an undertaker.” I tilt my head and give him a returning ‘whatcha got for me now’ expression.
He chuckles and I literally stop breathing at the sound.
All of Daniel’s physical attributes are already measuring high on the Makenna scale of hotness, but that laugh...the low baritone timbre that could stop wars, solve world hunger, and cure women of their need for underwear all at the same time...that is the work of the devil. I swear to God, all the man would have to do is lie there and laugh all day, and I swear I could sit on his chest and get off. Looking at him, I think it wouldn’t take me much, anyway. Especially if the promise of him is as good as it seems.
“I’m a stockbroker,” he finally tells me, leaning in and putting his spare arm on the back of my seat. “And I guess none of my sexy nurse jokes will win me any favors with you either, right?” I notice a slight curl of his lips, and realize that he’s not only sexy with a laugh that could make even a nun horny, but he’s funny too.
“Probably not, but you never know your luck in the big city,” I muse.
He nods in agreement. “Duly noted.”
“So, you like to play with money then.” I can’t believe I’m being so blatant with this man. He smirks, and wouldn’t you know it, out they come. Two freaking adorable, cute-as-all-hell divots on either side of his cheeks. He has dimples!
Goddammit! Those will be my downfall.
“I like playing with other people’s money,” he murmurs. His eyes have gone dark now. Money can be fun it seems… then again, so is this little back and forth with Daniel the stockbroker.
“Sounds like fun. What else do you like to do?” Holy shit, Mac! Why don’t you just hump his leg already? Damn, I must need some sleep, or some rabbit relief, or something. I look down and blush again. I may talk a good game, but my blush always gives my self-conscious side away.
“Lots of things.” He pauses for a moment, long enough for me to look back up into those gorgeous eyes of his. My breath hitches when I see him looking back at me like I’m water and he’s dying of thirst. “Candlelit dinners, long walks...sex on the beach…”
He smiles as he says that last thing, especially when my eyes go wide.
Confidence exudes from this man. He’s sure of himself, but not in an overly cocky way. But it’s enough to have me wanting to know what he could do to me, and vice versa. And would it be bad form to jump him on the train to test that theory?
“How about we start with my bed?” I say with a sexy smile and a wink. When he throws his head back and laughs at my brazen suggestion, I simply sit back and watch the show, and by the end of that train ride, I'm ready for a different kind of journey, destination “O town.”
And that is how I met Daniel Winters. It’s also the first day of the rest of my life, I just didn’t know it yet.