Struck by Lightning. Christa Maurice

the door.

      Rebecca wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled herself against him. Her breath caught when he closed his arms around her waist, his body warm and hard against hers. He was a lot stronger than he looked. He leaned over her, shielding her from some of the rain and pressed his lips against hers.

      The goose pimples, she informed herself, were from the cool rain. And her hair was on end because of the lightning earlier. She pulled herself tighter against him, shuddering. One of his hands, warm on her skin, slid under the wet cloak of her hair to cup the back of her neck. His fingers tangled into the last dry strands. She dug her hands into his shoulders, straining to somehow get closer. The rain streamed down their bodies, cooling and heating her at the same time. Lightning cracked overhead.

      Rebecca jumped and pulled herself away from him. “Well, that was interesting.” She stumbled back a step. “We’ll have to try it again. At least two more times. Once with just rain and once with just the uniform, don’t you think? In the interest of science.”

      “Anytime,” he said.

      She wondered if he was breathless or if she just wanted him to be. “Great. Next time then. Gotta go, hero.” She spun around and hurried across the street.

      “Hey, I didn’t get your name,” he called as she reached the opposite corner.

      “I didn’t get yours either,” she called back. She had to work very hard to not run down the block. When she reached the mouth of the alley, she looked back. He was standing outside the station watching her. Great, now he was going to know where she lived. She’d just wrecked her best shortcut home.

      She dove into her apartment and leaned on the closed door. There was a lesson to be learned here, and that lesson was, never kiss an unknown guy when lightning might strike anywhere in the vicinity. The electricity in the air unhinged a girl.

      Rebecca shivered.

      That was just… Wow.

      She hadn’t wanted to let go. She still wished she hadn’t. Her skin throbbed with the contact.

      It had to be the storm. Never had she reacted to any man like that. Long ago she’d decided she wasn’t one of those women who would fall madly in love with some Romeo and be floating on air every time he called. Not her style at all.

      And that guy. He was most certainly a Romeo. Charmingly dangerous. Love ’em and leave ’em. She didn’t have time for a relationship. She had to stabilize her income enough by the end of the year so she wouldn’t have to invest in a business wardrobe and wear heels and stockings to the office every day. Rebecca stripped off her dripping clothes and hung them over the shower rod. No way could she walk home along Garfield and Worchester anymore. She’d have to use Market and Belview. A little out of the way, but better than running into the hero again. After she changed into dry clothes and toweled her hair, she settled into the corner of the couch with her sketch pad. She needed to get to work on another sale piece, but she wanted to get a quick sketch of the hero’s face before she forgot it. As if she’d ever forget it.

      * * * *

      Dan watched until she went around the corner. He thought she’d paused before she vanished, but he couldn’t be sure. That far away the light wasn’t great. Heck, the light wasn’t great here. He hadn’t been able to tell for sure if her eyes were blue or gray. Her hair was black and her body was pretty nice under her wet clothes. Slim and lithe. No shoes. Why wasn’t she wearing shoes? He wandered into the dorm where Kevin and Jack were engaged in another serious conversation, which was better than the two of them shouting at one another like they had been last spring. His shoes squished on the floor and he was becoming aware that he was soaked from head to toe from standing in the rain. He dropped onto the foot of Mark’s bunk. “I just had the weirdest experience of my entire life. This chick walked in out of the rain, demanded that I kiss her and then walked away.”

      “That must have been terrible for you.” Kevin sighed.

      Dan tried to fix his gaze on Kevin, but couldn’t focus. He guessed Kevin was trying to be sarcastic, but it didn’t matter. He had to find that girl. She’d said they had to continue their experiment, but who knew if she would ever appear again. “Jack, Kate’s lived in this area for a while. Do you think she’d know her? Black hair, light eyes, hot body.”

      “No, Kate doesn’t socialize in the neighborhood much, and she doesn’t tend to notice hot women anyway.” Jack rested his chin on his fist.

      Dan turned to Kevin. “What about your girlfriend, Kevin? She lives around here.”

      “She’s not my girlfriend.” Kevin growled. “Quit calling her my girlfriend.”

      “Whatever she is, do you think she would know? Jessica? That’s her name isn’t it?” Dan leaned forward.

      “I don’t know. Ask her next time you see her,” Kevin mumbled. He stared at his hands.

      “Yeah.” Dan stood up. “I can ask her the next time I see her.” He wandered out to the locker room to change into dry clothes. As he dried off, he started working his way through the encounter more logically.

      She’d walked in out of the rain. That meant wherever she was going to and coming from, it wasn’t far. In fact, she hadn’t had any shoes on so she couldn’t go very far at all.

      Why hadn’t she had any shoes on? He paused buttoning his shirt to stare at his reflection in the mirror. What kind of girl wandered around the city without shoes? What kind of wild, flirty girl dragged a guy out into the rain to kiss him?

      Back to the walking. She walked in out of the rain and hadn’t been at all impressed with him. Instead, she’d seemed hostile. Challenging. She had slapped down his every attempt to be charming. But at the same time, she’d been staring at him. Studying him. Having a woman study him like that was never a bad thing and usually indicated interest. And ordering him to kiss her really indicated interest.

      But if she was so interested, why did she walk away?

      Dan finished buttoning his shirt and went into the day room where Cap, Mark and Lew were watching TV. Kevin and Jack were presumably still talking about Kevin’s not-girlfriend. “This girl just forced me to kiss her,” Dan announced.

      Cap grumbled. Mark didn’t take his eyes from the TV. Lew turned to look at him. “How did she force you to kiss her?”

      “She ordered me to. None of you guys has seen a skinny girl with black hair around the neighborhood, have you?”

      “No, shh,” Mark hissed.

      Dan looked to see what they were watching. A movie on DVD. An old one, if that was really Jack Lemmon. He grabbed the box off the table. Bell, Book and Candle, with Kim Novak, Jimmy Stewart and Jack Lemmon. Dan watched the screen for a minute. For some reason Kim Novak’s character reminded him of the girl outside. Except she was blond and curvy and a witch. But neither one of them seemed to be much into shoes. He wondered if the mystery girl had a cat too. He dropped the box on the table and walked out to the apparatus bay.

      She’d left puddles on the floor. Drying puddles of purple water. It was proof, at least, that she’d been there. He looked down the block. She had to have stopped at the corner and looked back. It wasn’t that hard to see in the rain. And she’d said they were going to have to continue their experiments. That meant she’d be back, right?

      “What’s that on the floor?” Lew asked.

      “She was dripping wet,” Dan answered.

      “She dripped purple?”

      “I guess the dye in her skirt ran or something.” Dan kept staring down the street. How long had that girl lived right in his district without him noticing her?

      “She went that way?”

      “Yeah. I wonder if she lives up around that corner.”

      “Might. There’s a couple of houses split up into apartments down there. Ask