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At the far end, he ducked through a beige curtain that parted in the middle of a mural of a willow tree. He took us into a hallway, then up a flight of stairs. At the top of the landing was another door. Opening it, he disarmed another alarm with a few jabs of his finger before he finally set me down.
Not so much frightened anymore as angry, I scurried back from him. He’d brought me to a loft-style apartment with exposed ductwork, redbrick walls, and dark hardwood floors softened by several large Persian rugs.
My breaths were labored. Barry, however, wasn’t even breathing hard after carrying me all that way, not that I could tell. My hands forming fists, my eyes flashed.
“What’s wrong?” He searched my gaze with heavily lashed eyes that were the same rich brown shade I remembered.
“I don’t even know where to start.” My heart drumming as fast as he used to, I shook my fist at him. “You scared me.” I glared at him, trying not to notice how time had made him even handsomer. “Don’t you remember what I went through? I ... I don’t like being restrained.”
Trembling, I looked away. I loathed being held against my will, a reminder of those bitter memories that I couldn’t forget.
“Fuck me.” Barry was like a wall that slammed to a stop in front of me. “I’m sorry.”
Heat that I couldn’t ignore enveloped me. Slowly, he brushed my ponytail from my front to the back. My tingly response to his gentle touch didn’t soothe me, but added fire to my indignation.
“Did you stop to think that maybe I didn’t want to see you again?” I asked.
He jerked up his stubborn chin. “You wanted to.”
And he was right. Far too many times over the years, I’d imagined seeing Barry again. Since his email, he’d hijacked nearly all my thoughts.
My heart pounding, I drank him in.
His eyes were the same color I remembered, but deeper somehow, wiser, and guarded. His hair was long, pulled back into a ponytail like mine. It was black like before, but not solid black anymore. There were intriguing coppery threads.
His features remained strong. He was better looking as noted. His boyish good looks were gone, hidden beneath a dense coating of stubble.
Barry Evans, my former best friend, was here. Right in front of me. He was all man, and he was breathtaking.
“Right.” He narrowed his gaze, and I noticed the addition of faint crinkles around his eyes. “You’re looking at me like I looked at you when I caught a glimpse of you on that treadmill.”
“You’ve been stalking me,” I whispered and shivered. I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of that.
He shrugged a wide, thickly muscled shoulder. “No, not really. I came back to Southside with the intention of seeing you again. I didn’t expect to run into you while lifting weights, but there you were, doing that weird dance-walking thing you do nearly every morning.” He tilted his head, amusement curving his lips. “You used to have better rhythm. Maybe it’s your set list. What are you listening to?”
“Tempest.”
“Never heard of them.”
“They’re new. They just got a record contract.”
“You discovered them at your bar, I’ll bet.”
“Yeah.” I nodded.
His gaze intensified. “I believe it was meant to be for me to rediscover you again after all this time, Addy.”
He took a step forward while I tried to pretend I didn’t get a full-body tingle just from him saying my name again after all this time in his deeper, raspier voice.
“For us to rediscover each other,” he said. “It was a circle left open that I intend to close, but first I need to hold you. Convince myself you’re real.”
Slowly, cautiously, he reached out while watching my features as if he was afraid I might be repelled by his touch.
I was nervous, but this was Barry. Gorgeous, handsome, and certainly not a boy anymore, but he was still Barry.
Unable to move, I just stared at him and all his manly wonder. His fingers curling firmly around my shoulders, he drew me into him.
The moment my front met his, I exhaled the anticipatory breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. We fit together naturally as if no time had passed. My arms went around his rock-hard waist, while his went around me, higher up. The long fingers of his large hands spread wide over my exercise top, as if he needed to touch as much of me as possible.
