Three Alpha Romeo

And she’d kissed me back.

“Hey,” she said, tugging at my sleeve. I glanced down, noticing absently I’d lost a cufflink. “Look. They’re moving.”

She pointed, and I could see the guests being led out into a garden area. They were surrounded by black suits. Some of them were still holding their drinks.

“See the first pier that extends outward,” I said. “On the left?”

I watched as she shrugged out of the fur coat, getting ready to run. She had starfire eyes. Dark violet rims fading to sky blue in the center, flecked with daggers of sapphire.

And her eyes were glassy, too. Like there was a thrill of anticipation in them.

“Yes.”

“Meet you down there,” I said, “and—”

She was off like a rocket, sprinting down the embankment in a blur of red. I shook my head in disbelief.

“—and don’t stop for anything…” I said to the empty air.

Six

ANDREA

It was a good half mile to the pier, and all of it was downhill. We cut across a small park, came out next to a row of cars, and followed the curve of the road all the way down to the waterline.

To my surprise, my white knight kept up with me. Most guys certainly couldn’t. For all his strength and size he kept on chugging along, arms pumping, his long legs propelling him all the way to the end.

He arrived there only seconds before I did, skidding to a halt at the edge of the pier. He was barely even winded. I knew right then, he’d had some sort of training.

“Were we followed?” I gasped.

He looked back, shaking his head. “Don’t think so. But you can bet your ass they saw us run.”

A motor started up, and we both whirled. One of the four boats moored to the dock had roared to life, the engine sputtering puffs of thick white smoke.

“That’s our ride.”

The man in the boat was already grinning as we approached. He was roguishly handsome. A bit shorter than his friend, with dark messy hair and a thick beard that tapered down to a point. Where his T-shirt ended, his arms were sleeved with tattoos.

“She almost beat you.”

My sprinting buddy grumbled something unintelligible. He began throwing off lines.

“I would’ve beaten him,” I pointed out. “If I weren’t wearing this dress.”

The man in the boat looked me up and down and laughed. “And she’s barefoot too.”

We all stared down to where my once-sexy stockings were torn away, literally, at my ankles. Wordlessly, my hero unwrapped another rope.

“Randall?”

“Yeah?”

“Fuck off.”

I could sense a tension between them, but also a camaraderie. This was their thing, I could already tell. They stirred each other’s pots. They got off on it.

“This is the fastest boat you could find? Really?”