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Waiting patiently for the inevitable appearance of the bounty he hunted, Evan Mariner scanned the new arrivals from his table under the awning of the busy rooftop bar.
The different genders dressed alike on Earth in the twenty-third century, but not so in this time. Watching for Max didn’t stop him from appreciating how Earthers of the twenty-first century apparently encouraged the exposure of long lengths of feminine leg, and the generous baring of skin both above and below abbreviated blouses.
Too bad he was in 2009 strictly on business. Although the woman stepping hesitatingly out of the stairwell tempted him to reconsider. More than one male gaze followed her as she slowly walked to the center of the bar, stopping less than three meters away. The effect of impossibly high-heeled shoes on her shapely legs made his mouth water. A tight skirt hugged a pair of nicely rounded hips, and tiny straps supported a silky shirt above which curling hair the spicy brown color of Etokian d’Geneta leaves was pulled back to bare her shoulders.
She had a small nose slightly tilted at the end and a completely kissable mouth. She looked oddly familiar. Impossible, of course, but intriguing nevertheless.
Apparently oblivious to the attention she’d garnered, she slowly pivoted, scanning the crowd as he had moments before. As she turned her back toward him, all of the blood in his body rushed to his groin. Far more daring than the front, her blouse draped to expose the long indention of her spine, swaying gently as she moved to suggest the tender curve of her waist and what lay hidden below.
He’d always been a sucker for a woman’s back. All of it.
Continuing her slow circle, her gaze finally met his. Her eyes widened.
He grinned.
She turned abruptly and walked straight into a support pole for the awning.
Closing her eyes in humiliation as she gingerly tested her nose for breakage, Del Smythe felt someone put his hand against her bare back, above the droop of the daringly designed blouse she’d been talked into buying, and guide her toward a chair. She sank into it gratefully, quite willing to sit anywhere if it meant she could get out of sight of as many who might have witnessed her idiocy as possible, including the gorgeous man who’d smiled at her.
Especially the gorgeous man who’d smiled at her.
Then she raised her gaze – and met his amused eyes.
Close up, he wasn’t as classically handsome as Kevin; his cheekbones were too sharply delineated, his eyelids too sensually heavy. But his lashes, she suspected, were longer than hers, and as midnight black as his hair. She’d always loved long hair on men, and his swept behind his shoulders. Even the slender braid she could now see he wore on one side, with the tiny beads flashing purple in the variable light of the bar, didn’t detract from his raw masculinity.
Neither did his clothes, which should have, considering they consisted of a loose-fitting, silky black shirt over skin-tight matching pants that clung to every muscle, of which there were a lot, and ended in ankle-high black leather boots. He looked like a sexy cross between a pirate and a ninja.
But his best features, of all the good ones there were to choose from, were his eyes. They were a deep, rich, amethyst. She didn’t think she’d ever, not in her entire life, seen eyes that color.
Then they crinkled as if in laughter and she realized she was staring again. Flinching, she closed her mouth, mortified it had dropped open, and rose to teeter on the ridiculous shoes she’d bought to go with the blouse. She wished fervently he’d move back. Just a few steps, partly so she could salvage the remainder of her pride in a hopefully more graceful exit, but partly so she wouldn’t feel the warmth radiating from his body. Except she had the horrible feeling she was really the one overheating. “Um… sorry. Thanks. Um, I was just looking for an empty table, not a…you know,” she blurted out, and blushed fiercely. No wonder Kevin says I’m better off married to a gay guy. “I’m…um…waiting for a friend.”
Evan wondered if she’d hit the awning support harder than he’d thought. His gesture took in the whole of the crowded bar. “There aren’t any free tables,” he pointed out logically, and leaned around her to nudge her chair a bit closer to the backs of her knees. “You’re welcome to share this one. Unfortunately, I’m waiting for a man.”
Before he could finish explaining, her eyes widened again. “But I thought--” She shut her mouth abruptly and he watched in fascination as she sank back into the chair with an expression of disbelief then, just as inexplicably, resignation. “Figures,” she muttered, as if to herself. “It’s just been that kind of a day.”
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