Hooked Read online

  “Huck.”

  Her confusion was evident and I reveled in the fact that I’d finally said something to throw her off, even if it was just giving her my name.

  “Really? Huck? I would’ve guessed something like Michael or John or Winston Buford the Third.”

  “Well, you would’ve been wrong.”

  A delighted smile creased her lips briefly before it was tucked away behind her wicked one.

  “How old are you, Huck?”

  “Twenty-six.” Not the question I was expecting from her. Actually, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but my age seemed to be too tame for her interest. My short answer seemed to appease her, though, because she barreled on to the next question.

  “What’s your favorite sports team?”

  “Why do you want to know that?”

  “Who a man roots for says a lot about his personality. Choose wisely,” she advised.

  “The Baltimore Orioles.”

  I watched as she considered my answer, dissecting it into a million significant pieces.

  “So, you like the underdog.”

  “I prefer a team with history and longevity,” I countered.

  “But still an underdog.”

  “What can I say? I’m a sucker for a challenge.”

  “Hmm.” She studied me, listening to the unsaid words in my answer. She didn’t address them. “What’s your favorite body part, Huck?”

  This was the strangest conversation I’d ever had with a woman. I also knew there were many wrong ways to answer the question she just asked.

  “Yours or mine?” I countered, a laugh rumbling through my chest.

  I expected her to blush, most girls would have. Instead, she merely scrunched her eyebrows and bit the corner of her lower lip, contemplating. She ran her fingers absentmindedly up and down the strap of her bag and I felt my blood heat at the thought of her touching me that way. Anywhere and everywhere. I wasn’t picky.

  “I’m not really sure. He didn’t say,” she mused.

  Now it was my turn to be confused. Who was he and why did he have anything to do with this conversation?

  “Well, since he didn’t specify, it’s your choice,” she finally said.

  I rested both arms across my knee and slowly examined her from head to toe, as if searching for my favorite part on her body. I was certainly happy to take my time cataloguing every square inch of her. Her loose pants hung low on her hips, hinting at a flat stomach that was hidden beneath a white tank top. The bottom of her pants were rolled up to just below her knees and she was wearing a pair of black boots with silver buckles on the sides. Her long red hair was pulled back from her face and I could see bright blue eyes under the frame of her dark lashes. Curving black lines along her skin ducked in and out of her clothing, wrapping around her arms and shoulders. On some girls, tattoos detracted from their beauty. On this girl, the ink accentuated every perfect curve she had.

  She didn’t shrink away from my inspection or try to hide behind crossed arms. She stood relaxed as I studied her and I decided that her confidence was the most attractive thing about her. When I finally finished my slow, smoldering inspection, I permitted my eyes to return to her face.

  “My hands,” I said.

  Her gaze dropped to my hands, clearly trying to puzzle out why something so mundane would be my favorite body part. And why, after fully inspecting her, I chose a body part of my own.

  “Trust me,” I goaded her in a low voice. “They’d be your favorite part, too.”

  Her eyes flicked to my face briefly before they tore a path along my torso as her gaze slowly inched down my chest and across my stomach before settling in the vicinity of my lap.

  “Oh, I seriously doubt that,” she purred. “I can think of some other parts that I might prefer.”

  She was brazenly checking me out, and although I knew we probably weren’t compatible in a hundred different ways, I could feel her personality clicking in place with mine. I could also feel her gaze firmly rooted to the place on my body that most people knew was socially unacceptable to stare at. She didn’t seem to care. Thank God she finally brought her eyes back to mine because I wasn’t sure how long I could control the effect her gaze had on me.

  “I was right, they are hazel,” she said abruptly.

  “Hazel?”

  “Your eyes,” she explained. “I told Jay I hoped they were hazel.” She paused for a moment to stare at my eyes. “Okay. Last one,” she promised, without explaining her ambiguous comment. “This one should be easy. Boxers or briefs?”

  I loved that she was so unexpected, so comfortable in her own skin, so unafraid. Everything about this girl turned me on and I had no idea how I was ever going to turn it off.

  “Neither,” I answered.

  She nodded. “I should have known. Boxer briefs,” she guessed, pointing at me. “The best of both worlds.”

  “No, it’s neither. Nada. As in nothing,” I corrected her.

  “Really?” Her eyes dropped back to my lap and I wished it wasn’t actually true, because there was very little to keep her from seeing that my answer was honest and that her gaze affected me a lot more than I wanted it to. “That’s gratifyingly surprising,” she said.

  “It’s also incredibly liberating.”

  “Interesting,” she said, taking time to silently check me out a little longer before her eyes lifted to meet mine again. “Well, nice to meet you, Huck.” She waved as she started walking backwards to where she’d left the other guy sitting.

  “You’re leaving?” I asked.

  “That’s all he told me to ask you,” she explained, a smile teasing at the corners of her wicked lips.

  “I don’t get to ask you anything?”

  “Not tonight, Abercrombie.”

  Abercrombie? What did that mean?

  “I don’t even get a name?” I asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “Will you be back here tomorrow?”

  “I’m at the skate park most Saturday mornings,” she offered.

  “Where’s that?” I asked. I hadn’t been to many places around Venice Beach yet. The first night I ventured down to the Santa Monica Pier to check it out, I’d accidentally stumbled across Old Muscle Beach and the strange, beautiful girl who was now walking away from me. I hadn’t been able to force myself to explore anywhere else yet. I didn’t really want to. She was the only thing I wanted to explore.

  “The skate park is over by the graffiti walls,” she called over her shoulder, pointing to the south end of the beach. “You can’t miss it.”

  “You’ll be there tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Like I said, I usually am on Saturday mornings.”

  “What time?”

  “Whenever I get up,” she answered, flashing me an impish smile.

  I guess I knew what I’d be doing all morning—hanging out at the skate park like a goddamn pedophile. She kept walking without looking back and I watched as she rejoined the guy I’d seen her hanging out with every night so far. I hoped he was just a friend. If not, I was going to have to relegate him to that duty because I definitely wanted to get to know the skater girl better.

  I was hooked.

  — CAT —

  3. ABERCROMBIE

  Don’t look back, I told myself. If I looked back, I’d probably throw myself at Abercrombie’s feet and beg him to take me right there on the sand. He was sexy as hell and there were definitely parts of my body that craved to go back and see if his hands could fulfill the promise he made. Ha! They’d have to be some really talented fucking hands. And I was more than willing to find out, just . . . not tonight. I had plans with Jay and I never broke my promises to him. Especially not for a guy.

  “What did he say?” Jay asked when I returned. He stood up and followed me as I kept walking.

  “Are you ready to go to Mavericks?”

  “That’s a given, but you’re still going to tell me what he said.”

  “Huck. Twenty-six. Baltimore Orioles. H
is hands. Nothing,” I replied, ticking the answers off on my fingers.

  “His name is Huck?”

  “So he says.”

  Jay grinned and elbowed me in the side. “You know what that rhymes with, right?”

  Like I needed the reminder. That’s all I’d been able to think about for the last five minutes.

  Jay watched me closely and then pushed me when he saw the reaction he was hoping for. “You like him, don’t you?”

  “Please. I don’t even know him.”

  “You know enough to be interested, I can tell.”

  I rolled my eyes instead of agreeing with Jay. He was right. As usual.

  “His name is Huck which is perfect,” Jay continued, not bothered in the least that I didn’t answer him. “It’s not stuck-up like Gaylord, not low-life like Scar, not boring like Clark. Huck. It’s unusual. Kind of perfect for you.”

  “You don’t know anyone named Scar,” I pointed out.

  “And he likes the Orioles.” Once Jay was on a roll, he was oblivious to any of my comments or arguments. We stepped up onto the boardwalk and he stopped walking to shake the sand out of his shoes. At least for once, he was too preoccupied to complain about the sand.

  “So what if he likes the Orioles? What difference does that make?” I asked.

  “It means he chose baseball over football. Guys who like football know how to crush cans on their foreheads and eat a dozen hotdogs in one sitting. Guys who like baseball know how to round the bases, if you know what I mean.” His eyebrows danced suggestively. “Which just leads me to my next point: his favorite body part. His hands? A douchebag would have gone right for the typical answer, which to be honest is my favorite part of any man’s body anyway. But back to my point: out of everything he could have chosen, he chose his hands. Which means he would rock your world.”

  I laughed. “How could you possibly come to that conclusion?”

  “Because I’m a guy. I know these things.”

  “Sorry to inform you, but you don’t know anything about rocking a girl’s world.”

  Jay dismissed my comment with a wave of his hand. “I’m an expert on guys, we both know that, and I think you need to give this one a chance.” He put his shoes back on and we started walking again. “Did he ask you out on a date?”

  “Not exactly, but I have a feeling he might show up at the skate park.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “He asked if I was going to be back at the beach tomorrow and I told him I’d be at the skate park in the morning.”

  “He was trying to ask you on a date, Cat. Why can’t you flirt and make yourself available like normal girls?”

  “Because I’m not normal and I’m certainly not going to change my entire life for some guy.”

  “No one is asking you to change your life, just change your plans.”

  I looked at him like he was crazy because we both knew he was. Me? Miss the skate park? Not likely.

  “Look, if he comes, fine. If he’s not intimidated and sticks around until I’m finished skating, then maybe I’ll invite him to lunch.”

  “You’re going to be single forever,” Jay lamented.

  I slipped my arm through his and pulled him toward the smell of fried potatoes. “I’m okay with that.”

  And really, I was. I didn’t need a guy to be complete, I was happy with my life just the way it was. On the other hand, I wasn’t opposed to spending a little time with Abercrombie. He was confident, sexy, and intriguing. If he could play by my rules, we might just be able to have some fun for a little while.

  — HUCK —

  4. NAMES

  Saturday morning I woke up way too early. I’d never admit to anyone the real reason I couldn’t sleep, but it might have had something to do with a mysterious girl who wouldn’t tell me her name.

  I made myself a cup of coffee and decided to check some work emails. The last email I opened was from one of my biggest clients, complaining about a problem with their project. I fired off an apologetic response with the promise that I’d take care of the issues, then I sent James, the guy working on the project, a terse email explaining, in detail, what I expected him to do to remedy the problem. His mistakes would put the project at least a week behind schedule, especially with a holiday weekend factored in. Unacceptable. I didn’t care if it was a holiday. He made the mistake, and he had to fix it. Immediately.

  I ran my hands through my hair in frustration. If James didn’t step up to the plate by Sunday, I’d have to ask Maverick to take over the project. Although Maverick was easily the better choice, it was a choice that would make both of our lives a living hell. We just didn’t work well together. To be honest, I didn’t work well with others in general because people rarely lived up to my expectations. The problem with Maverick was that we were both opinionated and strong-willed. Neither of us liked relinquishing control to the other and we usually had very different approaches to solving problems. I could depend on Maverick to get the job done right, but I didn’t like to.

  I took a deep breath. I just had to hope that James could manage to salvage the project because I couldn’t handle dealing with Maverick—not on top of everything else I had going on. I still hadn’t unpacked all of the moving boxes in my new condo.

  The sun was barely up before I was packing a morning’s worth of distraction into my sling bag. I only lived a mile away from the beach and I could have easily jogged the short distance, but I decided to take my time and do a little sightseeing on the way to chase off the last remnants of sleep and frustration.

  As I made my way toward the heart of Venice Beach, my surroundings seemed to shed normal and orderly like a butterfly shedding its cocoon. The clothing became less careful and more outrageous. The people were less reserved and more carefree. Personalities were more colorful, artwork was more plentiful, and the atmosphere was more relaxed.

  I walked north along the boardwalk, various shops and seedy restaurants to my right and the Pacific Ocean to my left. An army of shoddy street vendors were stationed along the edges of the boardwalk. There was a stand selling colorful sugar skulls next to a table of bright paintings sold by a man with a long beard and paint-splattered jeans. Next to that was a blanket spread out on the concrete with black and white drawings displayed on top. A few stalls down, a man was selling cardboard signs with crude humor and painfully awful drawings. Beyond the cardboard display was a woman in a gypsy skirt selling paper maché ovals painted with the faces of celebrities. Next to her, an older gentleman was selling hand-carved wooden jewelry.

  There was a table of beaded crafts, one of henna tattoos, and even one with obscenities scrawled across paintings of traditional subjects. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. The street vendors of Venice Beach were talented, absurd, awful, thought-provoking, and beautiful—all rolled into one teeming mass of transient creativity. I loved and hated it all at the same time.

  As I continued to walk, I finally saw the graffiti walls the skater girl told me about. She was right, they were hard to miss. A maze of concrete structures stood guard on the sand, covered in bright garish artwork. There were small walls the height of my waist with a huge concrete cone balanced on top. Beyond that, there were taller walls, picnic tables, trash cans, a small building, and trees. Everything was painted with bold, colorful graffiti. Currently, there was an artist armed with a canvas bag of spray paints working on one of the walls. He was painting directly over artwork that was already there. The painting was of a green demon with dollar signs in his eyes, horns on his head, and outstretched arms. An arm painted with the pattern of an American flag was handing the demon a bag of money and a bleeding heart. The artist was spraying the words “The USA is Built on Greed” in shaky, lime-green handwriting.

  Some of the artwork made political statements like the one that was currently being worked on, while others appeared to have no purpose other than to please or horrify. Opening my bag, I pulled out my camera and took some photos of the most
compelling art as I walked around the displays. It totally blew my mind that even the trunks of the palm trees had fallen victim to the graffiti artists. I could have spent hours looking at all of the various nuances of the walls, but I finally noticed the sound of wheels scraping on concrete at the nearby skate park. People were already out there skating even though it was still early.

  Venice Beach never seemed to sleep.

  I could relate.

  Making my way across the beach, I found a spot at the pipe fence along the edge of the skate bowl. It was a huge expanse of concrete right in the middle of the beach. The field of concrete had smooth dips and valleys in a large organic shape. On the far side, there was a metal railing, steps, and other obstacles for the skateboarders to do tricks on.

  It didn’t take me long to find her. Aside from the fact that on some level her presence called out to me like a beacon, she was easily the most stunning skater out there. People of all ages were using the park, but I only had eyes for Ms. Unafraid. Some of the skaters wore helmets, but she wasn’t one of them. Her hair had been twisted into two long braids that hung down her back. She had chalked the ends of her red braids with vivid turquoise and she was wearing a black and white shirt over a black tank top, but it was the blinding power of her smile that trapped my attention and wouldn’t let it go.

  She was standing at the edge of the bowl, talking to another skater . . . some guy with shaggy hair, a winter hat, and a faded plaid shirt. Using her hands to gesture wildly, Ms. Unafraid was pointing to various parts of the skate bowl. I assumed she was mapping out her next run. The guy laughed and said something to her, causing her to shove against his chest playfully before she pushed off the ground with her foot and sank over the lip and into the bowl. She skated up and down the sides, grinding on the lip or doing fancy twists with her body each time she reached the top before dropping back in. I watched her, taking pictures when I couldn’t help myself.

  I could tell the moment that she noticed me because her eyes locked onto me right before a smile exploded across her face. As she approached the portion of the bowl where I stood, her smile hardened in concentration. When she came up the wall in front of me, she kicked the board up in the air, holding it with one hand. She was upside down, gripping the coping with her other hand.