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Kisses,

Nicole Snow

I: Tick-Tock (Penny)

It's only ten o'clock in the morning, and I'm completely boned.

No, not in the way I want to be. There's nothing handsome, alpha, or inked about the middle aged doctor rattling off my lab results, and they're not pretty.

I'm sitting in his office, trying to listen to what he's saying, before I ask if there's been a horrible screw up.

Wishful thinking. Dr. Potter, a thin balding man who can't stop giving me the most sympathetic look in the world, doesn't make mistakes.

“Just to confirm, we ran your blood test three times before reporting the results to the CDC, as required under Federal law. There's no mistaking it.” He holds a finger up, as if he's read my mind. “I'm sincerely sorry to deliver the bad news, Ms. Silvers. The fever and sweats you've been complaining about should have already diminished. They won't be back. As for the long-term consequences –“

He stops when I choke up. Long-term...that's really what he wants to call it?

He's just told me my blood test came back positive for the fucking Zeno virus. I'm never going to be a mom.

Not unless I get pregnant next month, which seems about as likely as the wiry old doctor ripping off his face and revealing an Adonis underneath. One who'll wink at me and volunteer to be a donor.

Yeah, nobody's that lucky. And if there's anything I'm sure about today, it's my luck running out.

It's my fault for taking that humanitarian trip to Cuba, where one bad mosquito bite was waiting to change my life forever. I can feel the spot under my elbow where the hot red welt used to be. Biting my lip, I reach down and scratch it, even though there's nothing there anymore.

Hot blood races through my cheeks. I'm shaking. Sixty seconds away from breaking down.

Another embarrassment I don't need while I'm glued to this chair, unable to put as many miles as I can between myself and this hellish consultation.

“Ms. Silvers, please...it's going to be all right,” he says in his best dad voice, reaching over, pressing a reassuring hand down on my shoulder. It's not helping. “If you'll allow me, I'd like to review the positives in your situation: infertility is the only clinically known side effect of Zeno syndrome. You won't suffer anything more dire. Plus everything I've read in the journals lately sounds promising. They're working on a treatment. There's a real chance Zeno induced infertility may be reversible with good time, if the research pays off.”

If? Until now, I've held in the tears. Now, they're coming, wet and ugly and full of angst.

“Easy for you to say!” I sputter. “I never should've taken that trip. I wouldn't have even thought about it if I'd known it meant giving up my chances to ever be a mom. God, if I'd just stuck to Miami for the beaches, gave myself a normal getaway like most people...”

“No. You can't beat yourself up. Besides, Zeno has been working its way into our coastal communities, Ms. Silvers. The CDC report on my desk says as much. A hundred cases in Florida this week alone.” He's still rubbing my shoulder, as if the most boring, detached man in the world can comfort me. “Listen, if you'd like, we can explore what the university has to offer in terms of egg preservation. There's no guarantees, of course, but it's entirely possible –“

“That what?” My voice shakes. “I'll magically find a way to pay a bunch of quacks to stab me with needles, and then pay them ten times more to keep my unborn children in test tubes? I'm a secretary for a third rate company, Doctor. I make fifteen bucks an hour. You might as well tell me I'm about to meet Mr. Right when I walk out this door, have him propose tomorrow, and knock me up by next Friday.”

Potter looks nervously at the wall. His hand drifts off me. Well, at least I'm not the only one here who's embarrassed, not that it's much satisfaction.

He clears his throat, and folds his hands, leaning toward me over the desk. It takes me a second to realize he's eyeing the medical degree on the wall behind me. Okay, maybe I regret throwing the quack word around in front of him. I'm sure he'll forgive me.

“You do have eighteen months before the full effects of Zeno in your reproductive system make the odds of conceiving virtually zero.”

A year and a half. Lovely.

Not even enough time to build up a serious relationship from coffee dates or – God forbid – Tinder. Much less rest assured I've really met the one, the man I want to have a baby with.

And that's assuming I'd have better prospects than the usual idiots I've met before. Like the boy a couple weeks ago, who showed up late to our dinner at an overpriced French place, bearing gifts. Gifts, in this case, being the cheap purple dildo he buried in a bouquet of plastic roses.

It takes real talent to embarrass a girl in public, plus insult her intelligence in one go.

I'm shaking my head, pushing away date nights I wish I could forget, holding in the verbal sting I want to unleash on the entire world, using the doctor as a proxy.

But it isn't his fault, or his problem. Dr. Potter isn't here to listen to my disasters in dating, or fix my non-existent sex life.

He's a general practitioner, not a psychologist, and having an incurable tropical disease means he can't even help with that.

I want to leave. But there's another horrible question on the tip of my tongue. “So, does this virus affect anything else downstairs? Like my chances of enjoying...you know.”

As if sex should even be on the radar. I've been celibate for so long it shouldn't matter, twenty-three years. Maybe the disease will give me one more reason to keep my V-card.

Dr. Oblivious takes a few seconds to get what I mean. Then his eyebrows shift up. “Uh, no, not at all. You're free to involve yourself with any partner using the usual precautions. There's no risk of human-to-human transmission, Ms. Silvers. Your partners can't catch the disease unless they walk through the wrong mosquito-infested areas at the wrong time, just as you did, and the odds of that happening are exceedingly low.”

Low. Yeah, just like me.

Lucky, lucky me, with my dead love life, boring job, and distant family. Add shattered dreams to the list.

There's nothing to celebrate here. The only place I ever beat the odds was contracting a rare Caribbean virus, destroying my future without even knowing it at first bite.

Why couldn't it have been the lottery instead?

I need to get out of here. I just want to go back to work, punch in my last few hours, and then go home and pull the blanket over my head.

When I'm in my cocoon, I can pretend I never ignored all the half-assed CDC warnings to have a great time in an amazing country that's just opened up to Americans again. I can pretend my junk hasn't just been trashed by a thumb-sized vampire bite, that I'm going to get my shit together, and be an amazing wife and mother whenever the right boy comes along and proves to me he's a man. I can pretend I still have time, more than eighteen months before the sword falls, obliterating the future I always imagined.

And I can pretend the holidays aren't coming, that I won't cry over the dinner table when mom taps my foot with her cane, and asks me why the hell I haven't found myself a boyfriend yet.

“Ms. Silvers?”

“Jesus, just call me Penny, Doctor! That's what everybody else says,” I tell him, giving into the sarcasm pulling me deep into the black pit in my gut. “I read you loud and clear. I get how screwed I am. There's nothing you can do for me, right? Can we be done?”

He doesn't say anything, just turns his face to the small tablet in his hands, and begins scrawling a sloppy signature with his finger. A second later, he hits a button, and the device prints out a tiny prescription slip, which he tears off and hands to me.

“This will make you feel better in the interim,” he says. “Simple pain relievers, on the off chance your fever returns. Until then, it should help minimize your discomfort from our talk today. While your viral load is dropping to acceptable levels, it could be lower. Please be sure to rest, and drink plenty of water.”

If only guzzling water like a desert explorer would flush it all out of my system. I'd drink Lake Michigan dry. It's visible outside his window, behind the Chicago skyline, rippling in grey and gloomy November shadows.

“Thanks,” I mutter, crinkling the paper in my fist as the doctor stands, ushering me out the door.

If I were him, I'd be relieved to see the last of me, too. I'm sure I'm about to become the latest statistic in a medical journal, one more faceless person tracked by the outbreak that's been making inroads in the country thanks to people like me. I should be grateful tropical mosquitoes are the only way it spreads, and so far they haven't found any in the Midwest that can carry it.

At least I won't have to worry about infecting anybody else. Small comfort when I'm out the door, heading for the train so I can get across town, back to the office. Frankly, no one else deserves to have this curse inflicted on them if they can avoid it.

But I'm not thinking about them, the lucky ones. I'm being selfish, focusing on myself, and quietly hating every healthy woman in America who will never have to worry about their biological clock going up in a fireball.

* * *

The worst day of my life gets predictably worse.

By afternoon, my right heel comes apart. I'm distracted, lost in my own head, mourning the babies I'll never hold in my arms because there's not enough time to make them happen. I don't see the small break in the marble floor that trips me, threatens to send me crashing down face first, or worse.

It's a small miracle I catch myself against the banister overlooking the twenty second floor of the Shaw Glass Tower where I work. I just wanted some fresh air and people watching, staring down at the ants in the lobby, anything to take my mind off the bad news, not to mention the mountain of work I still have left for today's clients at Franklin, Harrison, and Hitch.

Spinning, I grip the banister tightly, catching myself before I go over it. I'm crushed by the news about my childless future, but I'm not suicidal.

The pivot turns the small fissure cutting through my heel into a break. I see the end snap off, and go rolling across the floor, coming to a stop against the wall. I swear, walk over, and throw it into my pocket. At least I'm able to hide the damage for the rest of the afternoon, screening calls for the firm, stuffing envelopes, and responding to last minute requests when Mr. Franklin himself walks up and bangs his fist on my desk.

I'm so distracted, I've lost track of time.

“Hey, you're twenty minutes past quitting time. Go home and get some rest, Penny.” My normally gruff boss flashes me a softer look, before he turns around and heads back into his office. “Looks like you need it.”

Ugh. Finding out I'm Zeno positive is the last thing I need. The second to last is sympathy from a sixty year old partner, especially one whose manners typically match his bulldog appearance. If Mr. Franklin sees how worn down I am, then I must really look like hell.

I gather my things and shut down my computer, dropping a few last envelopes in the mail on the way out. I'm careful heading out onto the windy streets, wrapping my coat tight against the late autumn chill.

I can't wait to get home, curl up on the couch with my cat, Murphy, and watch something that will put Zeno and the babies I'll never have far, far away. Then it hits me that the overfed little lion I call my pet will probably be the only baby I ever have.

I'm wiping my eyes, waiting for the train, trying to hide the hurt. My luck doesn't improve when the doors slide open. Of course, it's more crowded than usual for rush hour.

I'm so angry on the way in, I only catch a glimpse of the man in the corner, but I feel his eyes. They're on me, hard and searching, glued to my back until the inevitable chill courses up my spine. I tuck myself deeper in the standing crowd, gripping the steel pole, hiding from his gaze.

I don't notice him again until he's right behind me. He wastes no time. His fingers graze the back of my coat, just above my butt.

I've always been creeped out by the pervs I've run into in the city's transit system, but they've never scared me like this man.

I'm also pissed. I spin around and shoot him a death glare, lashing out with my fear.

“What the fuck do you think you're doing?” I turn my nose up. I'm not sorry about it when I see him.

He's probably twice my age. Unshaven. Liquor rolls off his breath when he cracks a half-toothless grin. My hand forms a fist that wants to wipe it off his disgusting face.

“Thought you looked lonely, baby. It's a full house here today. Come a little closer. Let's be friends. You're cold, and I've got all the fucking warmth you're ever gonna need.”

His hand reaches for my wrist. Now, I'm really worried.

Run of the mill pervs aren't this persistent. I don't have time to think, or enough space to punch, kick, or scream. I'm stunned by his aggressive, pawing hands. He catches me around the waist, and pulls me against a tiny open space in the wall, away from the steel pole I'd been hanging onto for my life.

Shit. I don't know what to do. I need to make up my mind fast.

This man could be the city's next serial killer for all I know. He's already eyeballing the door, like he's ready to drag me off, into the unknown, threatening to make my crap day so much worse.

Two choices: I can either kick, bite, and scratch with everything I've got, or I can scream bloody murder and hope one of the fellow sardines packed into this metal box will actually help me.

“What'sa matter, baby? You a fighter? My boys like that,” he rumbles, studying my eyes, drunker than I thought. “Don't fret. Don't move. Just listen. Stick with me just a little while longer, girlie, and I'll help you find your way to the perfect –“

“Love! I've been looking all over for you,” another male voice interrupts.

An arm crashes into the bastard whispering weird threats in my ear a second later, knocking him through the crowd. Several people curse and grumble. My perv is gone, replaced by the handsomest six and a half feet of masculinity I've ever seen packed into a suit, a tie, and a long dark jacket.

Eyes as bright and blue as oceans engulf me, set in a determined face with a jaw that looks like it could break fists. Mr. Strange and Sexy replaces the creeper's hand on my wrist with his own, and leads me through the crowd, leaning into my ear with his lips.

“Play along. I caught him eyeing you the second you stepped on,” he whispers. “Follow me. We've got to put some space between us and that man.”

Tingles rush up my back. There's certainty in his voice, like he knows a lot more than I do, and none of it's good. He lays his free hand gently on my back, and doesn't take it off until he has me settled in the only free seat in this car. He stands next to me, hanging onto the pole. He's smiling down at me with his strong jaw and brash blue eyes, utterly unaffected by the restless crowd around us as the train jerks away from its latest stop and resumes its journey.

I don't know whether to breathe, or start sweating all over again. There's no time to decide. I'm paralyzed an instant later, when I hear the familiar slurred voice ring out behind my hero.

“What's your problem, buddy? Butting in like you've got some business with her? Don't think you got any goddamn clue who you're dealing with, and you don't wanna find out.” His voice drops another octave with every sentence, evil and furious.

Oh, no. I grip the stranger's hand tighter, begging with my eyes. Please. Don't let go.

I'll handle this. That's what his eyes say to mine, before he turns to face the perv, speaks a few words, and pats a spot on his hip barely covered by the end of his jacket.

My heart won't stop pounding. I'm afraid because the creeper keeps coming, growling words in the stranger's face, so persistent on a train this crowded.

Who are we dealing with? I don't want to find out. I just want him gone.

An announcement comes through the speaker and a couple next to us squeeze by, laughing loudly. I can't hear a thing between the two men. My savior says something, and it must be big, because the older man's eyes go wide. Creeper does a quick turn, barreling through several people toward the door, who give him dirty looks the whole way.

We don't say anything until the train slows at its next stop. His suit feels so soft beneath my fingertips. The sheer quality hits me through my frightened haze.

I have about sixty seconds to wonder what a man like him is doing here, when he looks like he could easily have his own driver.

His suit has more stitches than the ones the partners at the firm wear, and they're millionaires. The man underneath is even better. He's seductively tall, built, and refined. Strength and sophistication brought together in one Adonis. My eyes go to his like magnets when he looks at me again, and he gives me a reassuring nod.

“He's gone.”

I look down, heat flushing my cheeks, ashamed of the sudden attraction I'm fighting. I should just be glad for his kindness, and get ready to go. “Good thing you were here. I didn't like the way he moved on me. Did you really tell him you had a...”

I stop myself, look around, and whisper the last word low underneath my breath. “A gun?”

The stranger smiles. He reaches into his pocket, plucks out a fancy new phone in a leather case that looks like it's lined with honest-to-God platinum trim. Smiling, he holds it up, and taps the screen.

“Worse. I've got a reputation. The man was probably mafia, just so you know. It's satisfying when they run like the bitches they are.”

“Mafia?!” I say it too loudly, and I feel several eyes on me. I'm covering my mouth as more red shame brushes my cheeks.

Strange and Sexy looks up, freezing my eyes in his stark blue stare. “You were about ten seconds from having a syringe stabbed in your thigh so you could be dragged off to the highest bidder. I told him he'd back the hell off my wife, or he'd be seeing the sheriff with a few broken bones. Didn't have to say much to make him believe me. He took off as soon as I said my name.”

Mafia? Sheriff? His name?

Who the hell am I dealing with? I'm reeling so hard, I can't force the question out.

It's just as well. He's looking at his phone, firing off a text message to someone, which dings a second later.

“Is that your wife?” I ask. “The real one, I mean?”

He smirks, looking up over his phone. “I'm blissfully unmarried. Not looking to settle down anytime soon, as a matter of fact. I'm a very busy man.”

Yes, of course he is. His jackass streak is starting to show through his five thousand dollar suit. I don't know whether to be relieved or irked he hasn't suggested I owe him yet for helping me out with some lewd remark.

Then again, if he's really as rich and powerful as he looks, he probably has his pick of high class women lined up each and every night. I hate that I'm wearing my cheapest work dress, grey and black, boring as the office itself. Plus the stupid bandage from my blood test at the clinic is still stuck to my arm.

“What do you do?” I ask, wondering if I'll regret making this small talk.

“Real estate. I'm on my way to a board meeting in the 'burbs right now. Can't beat the train for cutting through rush hour.” He ignores me again, tapping away at his phone.

I have to clear my throat before he looks up again, bathing me in those bright blue eyes. “Funny, you look like you're a few years older than me, but it seems like you can't put that thing down. What's so important? Hot Tinder match?”

I've pegged him in his late twenties, at least. His eyes meet mine, more amused than before, and his kissable lips turn up at my challenge. “Business, love. I'm not done until around midnight most days, but this makes it easier. Thank God for technology, right? There's plenty of time over my late night snack to talk to the next girl I'm going to bang.”

Eye roll time. I remember he's saved my life, though, and hold my sarcasm in check.

“It must get exhausting,” I say, letting my eyes sweep down his massive chest.

Sweet Jesus, that body. It looks like he could hold up his Tinder dates along with half the world on his washboard frame, without breaking a sweat.

My mind goes places it shouldn't. Places off limits. I'm forced to imagine planting my hands on his tree trunk chest, underneath his princely exterior, and riding the patronizing smirk off his lips with everything my hips are worth.

“You get used to it,” he says, narrowing his eyes. He holds out his phone. “Here, I'll let you hold this. Now, tell me all about what was on your mind when you almost wound up a missing person.”

The fun is over. Today's rotten news comes bounding back. I'm biting my tongue, hating he noticed how distracted I was.

Hating it even more that I have to think about the most tragic day of my life. Somehow, a future without kids and a broken heel doesn't seem half bad when I think about the terrible things that could've happened if the perv had done what Strange and Sexy warned me about.

“You know, it looks like you're a fan of keeping your business to yourself. I think I'll do the same.” It comes out more harsh than it should.

“Wow. I didn't mean to pry into your business if it's going to upset you,” he says, holding his hands up. “All right. Quick, let's play twenty questions on safe mode before our stops. Mine's coming up in about five minutes. Let's keep the focus on me.”

I don't want to ask him anything. I want to be done, but his firm, mysterious smile has a strange way of disarming me. Sighing, I fidget with his phone in my hands, my finger tracing its cool metal edge.

Holy shit, I think it really might be platinum. I look up, gazing into his eyes, wondering if I'm dealing with the President's nephew, or something.

“You said that man was mafia. How can you possibly know?”

“Told you I'm in real estate, city and 'burbs. Cockroaches are everywhere. Tough negotiators. Boys who hide their dirty money in legit businesses. It'd freak you out to know how far old money, blood, and crime gets you in my industry.” The look on his face says he's completely serious. “Don't worry. I'm not a criminal myself. These hands are squeaky clean.”

He holds them up again so I can see. They're refined, but thick and strong, just like the rest of him. Heat flares between my legs when I think about what they'd feel like all over me. After everything that's happened today, it's wrong on so many levels I can't even count them.

“And where do those hands go when they're not stuck to your phone?” I ask, digging my teeth gently into my lower lip, hoping he won't see.

Fine. If I'm going to lose my head to this silly crush, I might as well go all the way.

He doesn't answer right away. His smile grows wider, and he leans down, reaching above my ear. He pushes a loose lock of hair away so there's nothing blocking his whisper. “These hands are explorers, love. They've been places. Everywhere that makes desperate, redheaded angels like yourself scream.”

Holy hell.

“Desperate?” I'm taken aback, breathlessly forcing it out, failing miserably to hide my reaction. “What gives you that idea?”

He isn't wrong, but I can't fathom why. No man can read my mind. Or did I also put on a sticker that reads 'VIRGIN' in screaming neon caps sometime today? Like, sometime in between colliding with this sexy freak, and finding out any sex I have is probably going to be emotionally and biologically empty, despite waiting my whole life for the right package?

“You want me, love. You want it bad when you've just pulled yourself out of some seriously fucked up shit. If I wasn't on my way to a board meeting, for real, I'd get us a ride at the next stop, bring you back to my penthouse, and eat your pussy until that other heel you're wearing snaps like a twig.”

Oh.

Fuck.

I don't realize my eyes are closed until his hand slowly winds down my neck. When they're open, I'm looking into raw temptation. A man with a face and body offering to take away all my heinous problems for one night.

A man who won't disappoint. I know in every word, every glance, and every breath he delivers.

My fingers tighten on the strange phone still in my hands. “Should we swap numbers?”

“It's only proper when I've saved my damsel in distress, obviously.”

His arrogance doesn't put me off frantically digging through my purse, searching for mine. I don't trust that he isn't instantly going to delete anything I put into my phone the instant he's off this train.

I don't know this man. He could be toying with me. I've heard the way the partners talk about women when they think their doors are closed. The rich, boisterous, bragging talk involving their latest conquests – especially the poor, clueless girls half their ages, totally in the dark about getting fucked behind their wives' backs.

I realize I'm not thinking right now. I'm going to follow through on trading digits, but I need to mull this over. I'm looking for a happy distraction from my problems – not another big fat mistake. Not even a big, dark, and muscular one.

“You mentioned your name...” I say, ripping open my purse and pushing my phone into his hands with the contacts screen open.

“It's Hayden.” He types quickly, staring at the screen.

My lips purse. It's a fitting name, powerful and seductive. I'm amazed there's no lock screen on his phone, allowing me to go straight for the contacts.

“Oh, shit,” he mouths, handing my phone back to me. We share a look, and realize a second later the train is stopped. People bolt down the aisle, brushing past us.

“You've got my number. Sorry, love, I really have to run.” Before I can stop him, he reaches for the little black object laying on top of everything else in my purse.

As luck would have it, the one that isn't his phone.

Nope. He's got my personal diary.

“Hey!” I stand up, wobbling on my busted heel, panic crashing over me before I rush after.

There are too many people talking for him to hear me. He's already stuffed my little black notebook into his pocket, thinking it's his phone. And I'm left holding the speedy bastard's unit in what feels like a ten thousand dollar case.

He's gone.

I've just bought myself another problem. I'm gritting my teeth as I stumble around the seat, struggling to pick everything up I can reach, making sure I don't lose his phone.

I want to kick myself for jumping at the only good thing that's happened to me today, and causing more grief.

But kicking or jumping anything is out of the question. Not until I get myself another pair of shoes.