Chance(61)

"Pretty," he says.

I take the compliment along with the gentle touch. He won't be like this in bed. I can sense it already. There's a darkness behind his eyes that promises skill, pleasure and a bite of flashing pain. It's everything I need all wrapped into a six foot four inch, muscular, brown haired, brown eyed stranger.

"Is anyone expecting you?"

My eyes flit across his face pulling nothing from his stoic expression. He's asking if there's a complication waiting for me when the plane touches down at LaGuardia. There's nothing waiting for me here. No one knows that I've run from my life in Boston. I haven't told a soul that the man I loved left me beneath the shadow of an excuse about chasing his own happiness. He'd changed overnight. The once beautiful, confident soul that held me in his arms and promised me a lifetime has been replaced with a cold, distant selfish *.

"No," I whisper the word as if that will lessen the pain that is attached to it. "There's no one."

"I need to make a few calls once we land." His hand dives into an inner pocket of his Armani suit jacket to retrieve his smart phone. "I'll do that while you grab your luggage."

I pull my hands over the smooth denim of my worn jeans. I look ordinary next to him. I'll disappear into the crowds of the airport the moment we depart from the plane. He'll command the attention of many. He wants that. It's part of who he is.

"I don't have any checked bags," I begin before I realize the words sound comfortable and intimate in a way that I don't want them to. "I'll wait outside for you."

He flashes a grin. "You won't run away on me?"

I'm not Parker. Parker, my piece of shit boyfriend, ran away on me. He told me he loved me. He promised me forever and then he ran away.

"I promise I won't." I exhale. "I'll be right there waiting for you."