Now and Then (6 page)

“Hey, can I talk to you for a second, Ford?” Brynn asked in a hushed request as the ballplayers—her friends—joked around about her long-term relationship with the guy from Milwaukee. The guy she’d been with since high school.

Shit.
A boyfriend.

The same boyfriend?

Christ, was that possible? He’d always figured she’d met someone when she’d gotten home after that first semester. That she’d been young and impulsive, and hell, he’d never thought that he was actually the jackass nailing some other guy’s girl.

And yeah, wasn’t that an excellent revelation.

He wished he were numb. Would have loved one of those shell-shocked responses to override his senses, but instead he was completely aware of the raw, wrecked feeling originating in his gut and tearing straight up into the center of his chest.

He hadn’t moved from where he’d come to stand beside her at the pool table, but when Ford looked down into her anxious face, it was like a thousand miles had suddenly wedged between them. Like she was a blur he barely recognized.

“Complicated, huh?” he asked, and then figuring he had a better chance of getting the truth out of these straight shooters than he would from the woman who’d been ready in his bed the week before, he turned to the group and slapped a carefree smile on his face.

“Nah, we didn’t know each other that well.” Apparently. “So, long-term, huh? Must be pretty serious.”

Brynn was tugging at his shirtsleeve, but he needed to hear this.

The blond guy who he was pretty sure had been introduced as a trainer, or maybe he was an assistant—hell if he could keep track—was breaking into Beyoncé moves with his hand up, rotating it forward and back.

“Mr. Mason better put a ring on it.”

Trainer/assistant/whatever guy was working it, doing the dance while the rest of the group laughed it up. Everyone except him and Brynn, who was saying his name more urgently.

Only Ford’s attention had narrowed down to a single sharp point. He leaned forward and laughed, really laughed, before jutting his head at dancing guy. “Did you say Mason?
Fred Mason?
”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Ford,”
Brynn, urged, no longer bothering with discreet.

He grinned down into her gorgeous face, the raw wound at the center of him replaced with a chest-thumping satisfaction more powerful than anything he’d felt before.

He was back in front of Brynn’s dorm, his heart pumping hard as he felt the pull of the mouth that had kept him laughing and guessing the whole day through. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to stake a claim right then and there, because this girl was unbelievable.

Her lips parted on a shuddery breath.

“Fred,” she whispered, leaning toward him—as he leaned back, a laugh punching out of him faster than he could contain it.

“Who’s Fred?” he asked, taking the solid knee to the ego as it came, because of the
way
she’d said “Fred.” Damn, he couldn’t wait to hear “Ford” easing past her lips like that.

“I thought you said your name was Fred. Fred Mason. You totally said your name was Fred!”

Okay, and he loved it that she would actually stand that firmly behind her belief that
he
forgot his own name. Although, the way she’d been getting to him, it was possible.

For the second time that day, he extended his hand, liking how small hers felt when she gave it to him. “Ford Meyers. Nice to meet you.”

Now, standing in this too swank nightclub with Brynn at his side, looking like she wanted to bury her head in a hole, he flagged the waitress and ordered a round of drinks. He’d be staying awhile.

“Oh yeah,
Fred,
” Ford announced, drawing the name out like it was just coming back to him. And looking all too pleased with himself in the process. Looking all too good, too.

She’d never seen him in anything like the charcoal slacks that hugged and hung just exactly right and that black dress shirt he’d left open at the neck. It was strange to see Ford dressed like this. Looking so sophisticated and stylish—though now that she thought about it, even the casual kicking-around clothes she’d seen him in over this last week were pretty stylish, too.

He always looked good. Comfortable.

Tempting.

“I
think
I remember him now.”

Of course he did.

And whether that was a good or a bad thing, Brynn wasn’t entirely certain. Sure, it killed her for Ford to think she’d been involved with someone else when she’d gone back to his apartment the week before. Despite how hard she’d worked to make him believe that was exactly the kind of woman she’d been ten years ago, the idea of him believing it
now
? She couldn’t stand it.

But the alternative?

Ford knowing she’d used the name she’d thought was his to create a fictional boyfriend? Yeah, she’d have some explaining to do.

Only not until Ford stopped grinning like he’d just won the state lottery.

“Someone fill me in on the
Fred
details,” he prompted, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the pool table to get comfortable. “It’s been awhile.”

Brynn buried her face in her phone, scrolling through her calendar and checking email that had been checked days before. Mortification burned up her throat and cheeks as these guys, jocks and grunts and crew she’d known for years, spilled every gory detail.

“—tall and dark—”

Yeah, well there was that.

“—with eyes like ‘melty chocolate’—”

She had not said that. Unless it was that night she learned her lesson about tequila shots. Probably that night. She’d been hungover for two days.

“—scary-smart programmer—”

Right. No connection there.

She was going to die.

“—nicest guy on the planet—”

True. Even if he
was
reveling in her discomfort.

“—legs too long to be able to get anywhere in the back of his car—”

God, this was humiliation of the epic variety. Where was Dr. Who’s TARDIS when she needed an escape? When Ford was shooting her looks as the telling details piled up—bits so specific to him there was no way she could pass them off as coincidence.

“—dates at the arcade—”

“—picnics on the rooftop—”

“—she knew she loved him from the very first day—”

With that last one she’d had enough. She moved to step away but stopped at the feel of Ford’s hand closing around her wrist. He pushed up to his full height and turned his body so he was speaking only to her.

“Sounds like this Fred is some kind of catch,” he said, his eyes locking with hers. “Shame you’re about to break up with him.”

Brynn was gone the second he released her wrist. Pointing to her phone with an exaggerated smile no one seemed to notice but him and then practically running toward a lounge at the far end of the VIP section.

He hung back and asked the chattier one if she’d seriously been with this Fred for that long.

“Yeah, we give her a hard time,” he chuckled, “ribbing her about the guy, because mostly she’s pretty tight-lipped about him. But pour a few drinks in her and she’ll start to spill.”

Ford looked around at a couple of the players who’d fallen into their own conversation. “So these guys. The guys on the team. She’s never—”

He hadn’t even finished the question when he was cut off by a burst of laughter. After a breath, the trainer shook his head. “Not even close, man. Sure, every time we get new blood without a ring on his finger, there’s the usual hot pursuit you’d expect. Brynn’s sexy as all get-out, smart as a whip, doesn’t fuck up, and she can sure as shit hang with the big boys. But no mixed signals with that one. No lead-ons. And hell, half the team thinks of her like a little sister—so she doesn’t get hassled.”

Yeah, he could see how that worked. Why being available might compromise a dynamic she didn’t want to risk. So maybe fabricating a relationship made sense. But the part about using him as the template for this made-up man? Well, all it did was confirm he hadn’t entirely made it out of her head. Like she’d never made it out of his.

And his plan to give her time to get used to the idea of them being together, to wait until she acted on the attraction herself? Not after this. No way.

She’d known Ford would come after her. That he’d give her a couple of minutes’ head start, and then follow.

Which meant if Brynn had been serious at all about getting away from him, she could have.

She could have headed for the front exit instead of the rear lounge. She could have stayed in the ladies’ room instead of pacing back and forth across the communal space waiting—well, yeah. Waiting. For Ford to come for her. To round the corner with his deceptively casual stride, sexily satisfied and totally irritating smirk, and deep-focused eyes that were most definitely the richest, meltiest chocolate brown she’d ever seen…locked on her.

The glowing green butterflies were back, threatening to smash the last of her pathetic defenses to rubble, and again she heard that same whisper sounding from somewhere deep inside her.

Give in.

Ford took another step toward her and, panic flaring, she rebelled.

“I’m not breaking up with Fred,” she announced weakly, matching him with a step back because every irrational part of her was begging her to fling herself into his arms and it terrified her.

Ford cocked his head, continuing his advance. That too confident grin firmly in place.

“It’s time, Brynn. Him in Milwaukee, you here. The long-distance thing is killer. I’m surprised you made it all these years.”

She shook her head, not wanting to laugh. Not wanting to give in to the pull that was growing with every step he closed between them. “What we have works.”

“What you have,” he corrected in that crazy-deep voice of his, “is a handful of memories about what it was like once upon a time.”

Her back hit the wall and her breath caught as Ford took that final step into her space, stopping only when his body was within an inch of her own. When she could feel the heat coming off him, and that pull was so strong it pulsed like an ache through her veins.

“What if that’s all I want? What if it’s all I need?”

His brows drew together, darkening an already dark stare. “Is it?”

It had been.

As it pertained to men in general, she’d been good with how simple her life was. How she didn’t have anyone else to worry about—aside from her immediate family, of course, but that worry never went away. And because it didn’t, the last thing she wanted was some extraneous guy offering his judgment on a situation he would never be able to comprehend—a complicated dynamic she wouldn’t want to explain. A problem that could remain hers and hers alone as long as she kept the walls up and the emotional interlopers out.

But relating to Ford specifically? Fine, there were times when she’d been lonely. When she remembered what it had been like to have Ford’s arms around her and she missed it. Missed that connection and feeling of belonging, of being part of a whole. She missed that sense of the world falling away when he kissed her and she missed knowing he was there for her, even when she couldn’t let him be. And yes, there were times when she’d been desperate for someone to talk to, to lean on. Someone to hold her when the injustice of it all felt too much. When she wished it could have been him almost as much as she was grateful it wasn’t.

Sure, she had friends. Friends like the guys out in the bar. People she joked and chatted with on a superficial level, but didn’t let get too close. Which was for her protection as much as theirs. Heck, even Jet, the one person who knew where she’d come from and what her life had been like. Who knew about Ford. Even with him, she kept the walls between them. Safer that way.

Smarter.

Lonelier.

But mostly she knew better than to give in to something as selfish as loneliness. Mostly she’d been able to convince herself she had everything she needed…until she’d seen him again.

And now?

Ford planted a palm against the wall above her head and leaned in closer still. His mouth and jaw teased through the hair at her temple in that way that made her senseless. His lips rubbed over the sensitive shell of her ear, curving when that betraying little moan escaped and her hands met the hard planes of his chest. “Is
Fred
giving you everything you need, Brynn?”

“Please,” she whispered, no longer sure of what she was begging for.

Using his free hand to cup the side of her face, he brushed the pad of his thumb across her bottom lip in a slow, back-and-forth caress that sent a shot of desire straight through the center of her.

“If he was,” Ford continued, “I don’t think you’d be looking at me the way you are right now.”

“How am I looking at you?” she asked, needing to know what it was Ford saw, when all she felt was confused.

“Like you want me, almost as bad as I want you.”

A weak breath trembled past her lips, taking the last of her resistance with her. Because when he stood this close to her, that ache in her veins, the compulsion to touch him, to feel more than the warm puffs of his breath in her hair, became unbearable.

Ford was right. She needed more.

She wanted it. And maybe, despite the fact that her dad was about to crash back into her life and she was sure to feel it like a grenade, maybe it didn’t have to mean Ford would. Maybe no one had to know they were together. Or if someone figured it out, the fact that Ford was really just an average guy working two jobs to keep up would keep him off her dad’s radar. Maybe she could stop worrying about all the things that might go wrong and just enjoy this one thing that for the first time in too long felt so right.

“Stop thinking so hard, Brynn. This doesn’t have to be anything more than right now.”

Her heart skipped at the possibility. “It doesn’t?”

Ford searched her eyes. “Not if you don’t want it to.”

Want
wasn’t the issue.

“Kiss me, Ford,” she whispered into the scant space between them.

Ford’s fingers delved deep into her hair as he promised, “So good, you won’t remember Fred’s name.”

And then his mouth was coming down on hers in a bruising crush that had her opening beneath him on a needy, ready gasp. This was no tentative kiss. It was no taste.

This kiss was a hot claim that called to every aching part of her. Her hands climbed to his neck, his hair. Her body bowed in a plea to get closer. And when he licked into her, every part of her shuddered with the need for more.

Oh God,
he tasted good.

And the feel of his fingers in her hair, gently tugging even as his kiss turned ravenous—it was almost too much. It was so good, making her want him so very, very bad.

She couldn’t get enough. Not of the taste of him thrusting hard into her mouth, or the feel of his silky hair sliding through her fingers, or the press of that big body of his pinning her against the wall.

“Ford,” she gasped when he gripped the curve of her ass, pulling her into him in a move that teased more than it satisfied, offering a brush of contact so perfect, it wasn’t nearly enough. Because now that she’d stopped fighting, now that she’d stopped resisting…
she couldn’t stop.
“More.”

His mouth found her ear, his tongue flicking expertly against the lobe before he answered.

“Christ, Brynn. I need to get you out of here. I need to get you alone.”

Yes. She needed that, too—wait—
alone?

“Oh shit—
shoot,
sorry, shoot!” she cried out, cringing behind the shelter of Ford’s blessedly big body from whoever might be standing two feet away…while she’d moaned and groaned and begged and rocked and grabbed with greedy hands and a greedier body.

She could sense the smile stretching above her head before hearing it in Ford’s next words.

“Lose track again?”

She gulped, hard. Because yes. Yes, she had. And in a nightclub where her friends and co-workers could have happened upon them at any time. What was she thinking?

Obviously, she hadn’t been.

She’d been too caught up in the relief of giving in, in the sensation of
everything
bubbling up in her chest and the sweet rush of
yes
burning through her veins. Even now, after a reminder as to where they were, the residual effects of Ford’s kiss were still there screwing with her judgment. Pooling warm and wet, low in her belly. Making her wonder if she peeked around Ford’s arm and there wasn’t anyone there, how far they could get before there was. Or better yet, if there was some protected alcove less than a dozen feet away—because that was probably the limit of the distance she was capable of walking on her jelly-turned knees—where they could hide and kiss just a few more minutes. Kiss the way Ford liked to kiss, with his mouth and his hands and his whole body getting in on the action.

“Brynn,” Ford began, her name sounding like something between a warning and a dare. “You keep rubbing your hands all over me like that, shifting your hips, and I’m going to stop telling myself I’ve got to get you out of here before I do something neither of us will regret.”

Her breath caught, her eyes following the buttons of Ford’s black shirt until she was looking up, up into a face that most definitely was not joking.

One dark brow arched down at her, the corner of Ford’s mouth ticking into what might very well be the sexiest hint of a smile she’d ever seen.

“Or is that what you want?”

She tried to answer, to tell him
no,
of course they should get out of there and as quickly as possible, but her throat was too dry, her tongue clumsy in her mouth.

Ducking his head lower, he spoke into her ear. “Should I back you into that corner a few feet over, use my body to block
most
of the view of what I was doing to you? Of how I’d lifted that sexy-as-fuck skirt so I could slide into—”

“Ford!” she gasped, horrified by the way her hips had pushed just that much farther into his.

“Or pay someone off to let me take you into a backroom, where I’d use my lips”—a light graze to the shell of her ear before he licked at her lobe— “and tongue on you?”

“Who are you?” she gasped in breathless wonder.

The devil was in his dark eyes when he answered, “I’m not
Fred.
”

No, but he used to be.

He met her eyes, let out a low rumbling groan, and shook his head. “Truth? When I look at you, I’m not above either of those suggestions. I want you, Brynn. I want to feel your breath breaking beneath me again and again. I want to see your eyes when I make you come apart. I want to hear you begging me not to stop. And after, when I’m holding you in my arms, I want you to be thinking about how good it was, and not about whether you made a mistake. Whether any of your friends saw. What kind of explaining you’ll have to do.”

Was that even possible? She couldn’t imagine not worrying or wondering when this was done, because deep down, as much as she wanted it, needed it, there was a part of her that still knew it was a mistake.

Her eyes skated away and she tried to ease some of the intensity of the moment. “You want a lot of things, Ford.”

He caught her chin and brought her eyes back to his. “No. Just one. Tonight, Brynn. For tonight, all I want is you.”