“Is it always this goddamn cold?” I ask the cashier as he hands me the bottle, pulling my overcoat tighter around my body and popping the collar. It won’t do much to protect me from the driving wind that I’m already preparing to feel the second I step out of the liquor store, but I’ll take anything I can get.

“Cold?” the kid asks, raising one eyebrow. “Where are you from, man? It’s October, we’re barely into autumn yet. Just you wait. It gets worse. And worse, and –”

“Autumn? Oh –”

“You know – fall…” He says, trying to mimic me in what he thinks is an American accent. “This is England. If you wanted sunshine, you should have stayed back home. You know what we get here? One week of sunshine in August, that’s followed by eleven dreary months of drizzle.” He shrugs, “anyway – have a good one, mate.”

“Well you’re a bucket of laughs…” I grin, tucking the bottle of liquor inside my coat so that I don’t have to carry it – and freeze my fingers off. “Cheers… mate.”

As soon as I push the glass door to the liquor store open, the first droplets of rain fall out of the sky. Big, thick, splashes of water – cold, too.

“Great…” I mutter.

It’s a ten minute walk from Pimlico back the apartment Landwolfe rented for me by Vauxhall Bridge. Ten minutes is plenty of time to soak me to the bone… It’s a short walk down by the River Thames, but I’ve got my head down to avoid the rain doing battle with my eyeballs, and I don’t get to enjoy the view. In fact, I don’t get to enjoy much more than a gray cement sidewalk.

But what I see at the front door to Riverbank Tower?

That warms me right up.

I pull my maroon wool scarf tight around my neck. If I’m going to be a bedraggled rescuing hero – I’m going to be a smart bedraggled hero. Fuck, it matches her hair, at least now when it’s dark with rainwater.

“Here, let me take that!” I say, smoothly plucking a plastic grocery bag from Kim’s white-knuckled-soaked fingers. “You look exhausted.”

“Hey –” Kim shouts, thinking – I don’t know what. Perhaps that I’m stealing from her. I would never. Save, maybe, the suite innocence from between her legs. “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought – never mind. It doesn’t matter. Thank you so much!”

I’ve startled her, and I love it. I’ve got her thick lips stumbling already, and I want them slipping over –

Later.

Kim blinks the rain from her eyes, but between the soaking droplets of water and thick strands of hair, I know she can’t see much. Not that there’s much of my face to see, between the scarf and the collar of my coat. Less is more sometimes. You’ve got to make them work for it.

“Come on,” I say, striding ahead, “let’s get you inside. You’re soaked through.”

The glass doors to the smart, expensive riverside apartment block hiss open. The warmth of the perfectly maintained lobby caresses my face, and music tinkles in the background. How the hell a one-time grunt from the Army Rangers ended up in a place like this, I’ll never know. All I do know is that I’m going to make the most of it: all of it.

“You okay, Sir?

The concierge gets up from his desk to help as Kim’s heels clack against the marble floor from behind me. I shake my head – ever so slightly – to warn him away. Kim’s all mine. I want to be the hero she didn’t know she needed. I’m going to be the answer to the question she hasn’t yet asked. She will.

“We’re all good.” He gets the message. He turns away, hiding a grin. I don’t care that he knows what I want to do to Kim. There isn’t a red-blooded man in England who wouldn’t want to do the same; but I’m the one who will get to.

I head for the bank of elevators, quickening my pace so that Kim doesn’t outpace me in her heels. They push up her calves, and she looks goddamn irresistible. I catch up to her, standing just an inch too close, so she can’t help but notice me.

“Didn’t I see you somewhere before?” Kim asks, turning a fraction and scrunching up her face. It’s all kinds of cute. She almost looks like she’s trying to fish a long-hidden away memory from the depths of her mind.

“I doubt it,” I lie through my teeth, plastering a broad smile on my face, “I only just landed yesterday: new job.”

“Hey, me too,” Kim says with a smile, just as the hood of her raincoat falls directly over her eyes. Her cheeks go crimson with embarrassment.

“Coincidence, huh?” I say. I reached down and steal the other shopping bag from her frozen fingers, sliding my own down the back of her hand. She flinches, and looks away. But I catch her eyes darting back at me. I know what she’s asking herself – “did he do that on purpose?”

I love how she can’t bring herself to look at me. I’ve got her off balance, and I’ve barely said hello. This is going to be a delicious pursuit. There’s something about innocence, like Kim’s, that I can’t resist. Sometimes a good girl needs a guy with a bit of bite – and sometimes, it’s true the other way around.

“Yeah,” she whispers, “coincidence.”

Fuck, I love that I’ve stolen the words from her lips.

I walk ahead of her, shopping bag in either hand like some kind of rogue, crusading Wal-Mart greeter. Only one with better shoulders.

“Sorry, mate,” a handyman says, wiping his oily fingers on a stained rag. “Whole system’s bunged up. I’ll ‘ave her sorted in a couple of hours.”

“Ah, crap,” Kim moans from behind me, “these heels are killing me.”

“Ladies first,” I grin, pointing up the stairs. There’s no way I’m resisting getting an eyeful of that ass. Kim’s got curves for days. I’m going to make them mine – but for now, a glimpse will do. That won’t satisfy me forever…

But for now I’ll deal.

“Thank you,” Kim says, walking past me. I get a noseful of a delicious scent – a sweet, floral perfume mixed with the clean aroma of fresh rain. She still hasn’t looked me straight in the face. I love it. It’s a game, like chess – parrying each other’s moves back and forth. Except she doesn’t know she’s playing.

I see the handyman’s eyes fall on Kim’s curves, and I shoot him a black look. He gets the message.

I follow Kim up the stairs. My eyes drink in the way her ass swings from side to side. I can’t shake them off it. Her upper body’s covered in an unflattering blue raincoat that looks like it was purchased from a camping store. But her lower body…

“So,” she says in a tone that’s so upbeat I know she’s putting it on, “how long you been in London?”

I already said.

Her skirt’s wet through, and stuck to her body. It’s all I can do to break my gaze from it for a second to get the brainpower to reply.

“Oh my gosh,” Kim says after a second, “how silly of me.

I want to slide my fingers up her back and undo the clasp –

“A day, huh?” Kim says, making conversation. I’m glad for the distraction. I was stuck in a loop of one of my deepest, darkest fantasies. “Have you been to London much before?”

We pass a doorway marked with the number three, and keep going up.

“Sure have,” I say. It’s tough to talk without tripping over my tongue. It feels like someone sealed my lips up with superglue. Don’t look at her ass. Don’t look at her ass, I repeat silently in my mind.

“I’m here on business from time to time. I know my way around…”

“Oh really,” Kim says. “Maybe you could –” She tails off, clearing her throat, and I follow her onto the landing of floor four. “I mean,” she turns to face me, still looking everywhere but my face, “I can take those from here…”

Kim reaches out for the grocery bags, but I jerk them back so her fingers close on empty air. She looks even more delicious from the front. For a second time, her cheeks have gone as red as her hair.

“Really,” I say in a low, seductive voice, “it’s no trouble.” Besides, I don’t add, I’m going this way anyway.

She thanks me in a constricted tone of voice, and I follow her once again. I wonder what she’s thinking – whether she thinks I’m going to invite myself in. I’m wondering the answer to that question myself.

“Funny,” she says as we pass the first two numbered doorways, “isn’t it; the two of us finding each other across the pond like this? So, where are you working ?”

“In the city,” I reply. I can’t wait for the look on her face when I reveal where. “A bank.”

“No way,” she cries, apparently forgetting her earlier nervousness with newfound excitement, “me too!”

We pass apartments three and four.

“No way? Where?” I say. We pass five and six.

“I don’t know if you’ll have heard of it,” she says, “I’m no banker – I’m a programmer.”

I grin. “You know something? Me neither. As long as I get in the way of the bad guys and the money, I’ve done my job.”

Kim slows, finally brushing the hair from her eyes and pulling back her hood. As it falls, her red hair reveals itself like the sun setting on the savanna.

“Well,” she says. “This is me. Thank you so much for all –”

Her nose wrinkles, again.

And again, all I can think is that it’s the cutest thing in the world.

“Where did you say your new job was, again?”

“I didn’t. Landwolfe and –”

"– Co,” Kim finishes for me. “I knew I’d seen you before! That’s amazing. What are the chances?”

“Pretty high, actually,” I grin. “Landwolfe rents out three floors in this building. I was wondering how long it would take you to figure it out.”

Her cheeks color even more. “Oh – damn, now I feel stupid.”

“You didn’t tell me your name,” I say. I know it already, of course. But it’s the only thing I know about her. I stopped the analysts briefing me, because I needed this to feel real. Kim’s my mission, of course. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have fun at the same time.

“Kim,” she mumbles, holding out her hand. I shift the grocery back from my right to my left. “Kimberly Sawyers…”

“It’s a pleasure,” I say. Her fingers are soft and warm, and I want to dip my mouth to them and kiss them. I hold back. Kim’s shy, that much is obvious. She’s either exactly the kind of girl who will respond well to a move like that…

Or exactly the wrong kind. I don’t want to freak her out. I’m pretty sure she’s made of stronger stuff than that. I think there’s a fighter lurking behind that good girl act. But I’m just not certain.

“And you are?”

“Nathaniel Surname,” I smile, “but you can call me Nate.”

Kim freezes, and her face drains of color. It’s even more startling than it might have been, since she was so red a second before. She pulled her hand away. “What,” she croaks, “did you say?”

I don’t know what the hell I said, but Kim looks completely freaked out. I cocked my head to one side. “Nate. Are you –”

“You can go,” she whispers, fishing in her coat pocket for something.

“Have we met?” I ask, nonplussed. I got no idea what’s going on. A second ago, I thought she might melt into my arms, but now? Now I’m just scared she’s going to run headlong as far away from me as she can manage.

I hear the jingle of keys.

“It can’t be,” Kim moans, sounding almost frantic. “You can’t be…”

The hell is she talking about?

Finally, Kim finds her house keys in her coat, and her trembling fingers scratch the metal of the lock. For the first time I can remember, I’m completely lost for words. Usually, I would have an easy retort, or a funny one-liner ready on my lips to fix the situation. But right now, with Kim, my mind’s gone blank.

The last thing I want to do is jeopardize the situation any more.

“What can’t I be?” I ask. I need answers. I need to figure out how this has gone to hell – and so quickly.

“Please, just go,” Kim whispers.

I wince. I know she’s not going to like what I’m about to say.

“I –,” I pause. “I live right here.”

Kim finally sinks the key into the lock, turns it, and disappears inside. I’m left on my own, outside, with her grocery bags still dangling from my fingers.

“What. The. Hell.”