Jeremy

Crystal was as fascinating a woman as I had ever met, and I'd been on a good many dates this past year. She knew her math, her data analysis, her statistics, how to run focus groups, how to write surveys, and was passionate about all of it. She knew human nature, was a keen observer, and beneath that new hair color and cut was the most completely beautiful woman, outside and in. Intelligent women turned me on. She turned me on.

She looked different tonight than she had at coffee—softer, more natural. Her eyes were brighter and bigger, her hair straight and so tempting, her lips glossy. I wanted to reach out and run my fingers through that hair. She had a cute habit of brushing it out of her face. I wanted to be the one to do it. I wanted her.

Every minute I was with her, I fell more deeply for her. I was digging myself deeper and deeper in love. My first impression of her hadn't failed me. I was deeper than Ashley gave me credit for—I could see past hair color. Personality, a sense of humor, and intelligence—if a woman has all of those, how can she be unattractive? Pair all of those with Crystal's natural physical beauty and how could any guy fail to be lost when she smiled at him?

The steward cleared our dishes away and left.

"Can I interest you in a stroll in the sightseer car?" I offered Crystal my hand.

"Delighted." She took my hand.

I was in heaven. I led her out of our roomette and along the corridor to the sightseer lounge car. It was already twilight. The planets were beginning to twinkle outside, heralding the stars to come. I had another astronomical-type surprise for Crystal later, on the way home.

The sightseer car had tall windows that reached upward to a second section of windows that curved partway up the ceiling. It made for a slightly more spectacular view than our compartment had, but the main advantage was simply being able to stretch our legs and walk hand in hand.

We were in central Washington, past Olympia, the state capital, and into more rural countryside. Little along the I-5 corridor was completely rural. Which meant fewer lights and more darkness. We paused at one of the windows to watch the dark scenery speed by.

"I didn't think this through," I said, joking. "The scenery would have been more spectacular in the daylight."

She looked up at me. "I don't know. It's pretty nice from where I stand."

I grinned. Her lips looked so damned kissable. Were we rushing things? Was I letting myself fall too hard too fast? Who could say? But it didn't feel that way to me, not in this moment. The night was already zipping by. If only time would travel slower. If only the train would travel faster. Time stands still at the speed of light. If only time would stop and let me have this moment with Crystal for a little longer. The way I felt right now, forever wouldn't be long enough.

Maybe it was a foolish thing to do. Maybe I shouldn't have been so eager. But I couldn't help myself. I slid my hand beneath her hair around the back of her head and leaned down to kiss her. She closed her eyes. Her lips were inches from mine. I remembered the accident scene, the heady feel of my lips on her.

I reined myself in, kissing her softly, tenderly. Then harder and more insistent. I couldn't hold myself back. I wanted her to feel the bad boy in me that wanted her without reason. I wanted her to know the sensitive guy I was, too. I wanted her to see all of me and want me as badly as I wanted her.

I closed my eyes, holding her tightly against me. My lips caressed hers. As I increased the pressure, she opened her mouth to me. The train suddenly lurched and braked.

Momentum carried us forward. Our teeth banged together.

Yeah, very suave, Jeremy. I hadn't botched a kiss this badly since the first time I kissed a girl. Crystal yelped, a squeak that couldn't mean anything good. My eyes flew open.

The train continued lurching as if the engineer was pumping the brakes. We lost our balance. I wrapped one arm around Crystal's waist and caught the wall support between windows with the other, arresting our fall and bracing us as the train lurched again and continued on its way.

As I pulled away, my lip was wet and sticky. I tasted iron, the telltale taste of blood. My lip pulsed with my heartbeat. I touched Crystal's lip. "You're bleeding." Worse than I had to be. I touched her cheek. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" Her eyes were bright. "Why are you sorry? Don't be. You saved me from falling on my butt." She pulled a tissue from her pocket and gently dabbed my lip with it.

I touched her cheek. "You're bleeding, too."

"Am I? On the outside, too? I thought I'd just cut the inside of my mouth." She licked her lip. "I guess I am. Thanks for pointing that out. Now it's going to smart."

"Smartass." I took her hand that held the tissue and tore a piece off so I could dab at her lip. I hated to tell her, but her lip was already beginning to swell. Great. I'd given my date a fat lip.

"Help. Help." The voice was frail and old, soft and barely audible. Clearly in distress. And coming up from the floor near my feet.

I'd been so into Crystal, so worried about her, and so wrapped up in the moment, I hadn't heard the commotion around me. Hadn't been concerned about anyone else. Hadn't even thought to be.

I let go of Crystal. An elderly woman was collapsed at our feet in the aisle. Crystal and I bent to help her at the same time, nearly knocking heads. It appeared I was bound and determined to hurt the date I'd sworn to entertain and protect.

Crystal kneeled beside the woman first. "Are you hurt? It looks like you hit your head. Does it hurt anywhere else?"

A bump was rising on the woman's forehead. She was disoriented. All around us, passengers were wrapped up in themselves and their companions. No one besides us paid the woman any attention.

"Ice," I said. "We need to ice that bump on your head. Do you hurt anywhere else? Can we help you to your feet?"

The woman murmured almost unintelligibly. I had to lean in to hear what she was saying.

Crystal translated for me. "She says she's fine. She's shaken up, is all." Crystal asked the woman several questions and ran her hand over her wrists and arms. "Nothing is obviously broken. We need to get her out of the aisle."

The woman was weak and unable to push up on her own. I picked her up and carried her to an open seat, helping her to put her feet up and settling as many travel pillows as I could find around her.

An announcement came on over the speaker system apologizing for the sudden lurching. There had been something on the tracks that shouldn't have been there. I didn't want to know what it was. My guess was that we hit an animal. If it had been human, we would have stopped. If it had been metal, we would have seen debris. More than that, I didn't want to speculate.

Someone had left a glass of ice behind, the remnants of a glass of pop. It sat in a cup holder, stuffed in with a napkin. I grabbed it, dumped the ice into the napkin, making an icepack of sorts, and pressed it gently against the bump on her head.

Crystal was sitting next to the woman, doing a rough triage, asking the woman more questions about what things hurt and where, speaking in a calm, soothing voice. She looked at me as I bent over them. "Her eyes are dilated. She should see a doctor."

"I'm on it." I handed the napkin to Crystal and went off in search of a porter, the conductor, a medic, a doctor, anyone who could help.

Fortunately, I ran into the onboard medic in the next car. He followed me back to Crystal and the woman. We waited while he checked her over, then helped him get her to sickbay, or whatever you call the medic station on a train.

"That was exciting," Crystal said as we walked back to our roomette after.

"Yeah." I was troubled as I let us into the roomette and closed the door behind us.

She took my arm, reached up, and gently touched my lip. "Ouch." She made a show of wincing. "Apparently I don't know my own strength and passion. I gave you a fat lip with the ferocity of my kiss."

I looked down at her and pulled her into my arms. "Is that what you call it?" I touched her lip. "You have a fat lip, too."

"I guess that makes you just as fierce a kisser." She tilted her head. "Romance novels always talk about kisses so hard and passionate they make the heroine's lips puffy."

"Not this puffy, I'm guessing." I angled in for a kiss, going slowly, leery of another bump in the tracks.

"No one kisses as passionately as us, apparently." She touched my lips, took my chin in her hand, and leaned in for a kiss, a very gentle kiss.

It wasn't exactly what I'd originally had in mind, but I was wary of hurting her again. I was no vampire. Now that I'd had a taste of her blood, I didn't want more. I wanted to heal her. Protect her.

My lip still throbbed, but damn, it felt good to be kissing her.

"Is that the best you can do?" she whispered against my mouth.

"Hell no." I hesitated. "I don't want to hurt you."

"Shut up about hurting me and just kiss me." She pressed herself against me and opened her mouth to me.

I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her then. Really kissed her.

We kissed until we lost track of time. I never wanted to let go.

When we finally pulled away, she touched my lip gently again. "Don't ever let yourself believe you're not a great kisser." She had the most beautiful, and devilish, grin.

My breath caught. My pulse raced. "We're dangerous together."

She stared into my eyes. "Are we?" She laughed. "And that's a bad thing?"

Could she actually see a bit of a badass in me?

"By our own admission, we're accident magnets. When the two of us are together, is anyone safe?"

"You're looking at it all wrong." The windows were dark behind her. Shadows and stars raced by outside. "These accidents would happen whether we're there or not. Our presence means help's available. You noticed that we were the only ones who jumped to help that old woman? Everyone else was too busy with themselves and their own."

I nodded. "That's one way of looking at it."

"It's the only way of looking at it." Her smile was swollen, but beautiful. She winced. "The two of us together are twice the help, twice the force of good."

I handed her into her seat. She grabbed her purse, pulled a tube of lip gloss and a small mirror from it, uncapped the gloss, and examined her injury. "I really do have a split lip."

"You were in doubt?"

She smiled and capped the lip gloss again. "I hoped it wasn't as bad as it feels. No amount of lip gloss is going to cover this. You're going to have to live with a date with a fat lip."

"Same for you." I kneeled beside her. "With or without a fat lip, you're beautiful. With a fat lip, you're beautiful and dangerous."

She laughed. "Now I know why you got honors at charm school—you do know how to flatter a girl."