“Car trouble?”

A voice comes out of nowhere, startling me. I straighten, forgetting what I’m doing, and smack my head into the hood, a loud crack seeming to echo around me.

“F*ck,” I hiss out as I rub the sore spot.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you, gorgeous.”

If the accent weren’t a dead giveaway regarding the owner of the voice, the nickname confirms it. Stepping back, my eyes lock onto Anderson’s, a sexy smirk on his lips.

He crosses his arms over his chest, his bulging biceps tugging on the fabric of the black t-shirt. His hair is damp from a recent shower, and it takes every ounce of resolve I have to not fantasize about him in the shower. Tonight, I definitely need to put that vibrator to use.

“What’s wrong with your car?” he asks when I don’t respond, too busy ogling him. It’s impossible not to. He’s the epitome of eye candy.

“It wouldn’t start a few minutes ago.” I tear my gaze from his. “When it finally did, it wouldn’t go over twenty-five miles an hour.”

He gestures toward the engine. “Mind if I take a look?”

“You know something about cars?”

“I can get by.”

I step away, allowing him to take a look under my hood.

The car’s hood. Not my hood.

He bends down, toying with different parts of the engine. My heart rate increases as I watch him check the oil, grease getting on his hands. There’s something oddly erotic about watching a man as handsome as Anderson working on a car, the corded muscles in his forearms straining, his brow creased in confusion.
His broad shoulders pull at the fabric of his shirt, and I’m able to make out the defined muscles of his back. When his t-shirt lifts, it reveals a sliver of olive-toned skin. I wonder if he has that little V at his waist all women seem to lose their minds over. In my fantasy, he most certainly does.

In my fantasy, I even lick the ridges of that V, all the way to his—

“Nothing looks off,” he comments, straightening and facing me.

I inhale a sharp breath, his sudden movement taking me by surprise. I attempt to regain my composure and make it appear as if I hadn’t been checking him out, but the sly grin and nefarious glint in his eyes tell me he caught me.

“Is that right?” I hold my head high, smoothing a hand along my hair, making sure it’s secure in my low ponytail.

“That’s right.” His voice oozes with sin as he advances toward me.

With each step he takes, I take one in retreat, my heart pounding in my chest. It’s been so long since a man has looked at me with this much heat, this much want, this much hunger. This has to be a dream. This kind of thing doesn’t happen in real life. But another part of me doesn’t care if it is a dream. Because it’s the sweetest dream I’ve had in quite a while, and I don’t want to wake up.

When my back hits the side of a Jeep Wrangler parked a few spots from mine, I pray the owner doesn’t choose this second to need his car. Because I have no desire for this to end any time soon. And for the first time in a long time, that’s all I care about. This moment. Not the pain of my past. Not the anxiety of my future. Just right now. Just this ridiculously attractive man looming over me. I told him to have faith we’d run into each other again. Maybe it’s time I have that same faith that there’s a reason we keep running into each other.

“Nora…,” he exhales, angling closer.

I lose myself in his intoxicating scent, a combination of the ocean and fresh rain. “Yes?”

“You…”

“Yes?” I repeat, tilting my chin back.

He draws near, his lips skimming mine. “Need to move.”

His words snap me out of my trance, and I stiffen, blinking in bewilderment.

“I need to get into the glove box.” He nods at the Jeep behind me. “That’s my car.”

“Oh. Right.”