One Night More Read Free

your superhero persona?”
    He brought the bottle to his lips and drank deeply, as if needing a moment to consider her request. When he turned to face her, his navy-blue eyes sparked with mischief. “No self-respecting superhero spills his secret identity. I mean, as soon as the hero’s alter ego is revealed, his heroine inevitably finds herself in danger. You’ve already had a brush with evil once, tonight. If I want to protect you, I really don’t have a choice, do I?”
    Holy crap, Harper didn’t think this guy could be any hotter. She was on the verge of a full-on nerdgasm. Don’t scare him off yet, Harper. Try to rein it in a little . Her stomach performed a three-sixty as she brought her glass to her lips and took a moment to study him. She’d compared him to Peter Parker, but that wasn’t quite right. He didn’t have that boy-next-door quality. His personality wasn’t dark enough to be Bruce Wayne, though his navy-blue eyes possessed a depth and hardness that told her he’d been through his fair share of rough times. Definitely not bumbling enough for Clark Kent, though his dark hair was precisely trimmed and he was clean-shaven. From the way he’d wrenched that guy’s arms behind his back, he could be a cop. Maybe even military? Though she doubted he had ever been as weak and scrawny as Steve Rogers, she could totally picture him as his alter ego, Captain America. Whoever this guy was, he definitely had the body of a superhero. There wasn’t a square inch of him that didn’t look to be chiseled from marble. And even through his button-down dress shirt, she could make out the hills and valleys of sculpted muscle.
    Without thinking, Harper reached out and traced her fingers down his forearm. Yep. Just like marble. “Far be it from me to ask you to reveal your true identity.” She couldn’t believe her brazen behavior. Since when had she become the sly seductress? “But if I can’t have your name, maybe I won’t give you mine.”

Chapter Two
    Jesus. What in the hell are you doing, Galen? He was leaving in less than twelve hours yet the thought of walking out the door and ending whatever this was before it had a chance to begin was the last thing he wanted to do. It had been a long damned time since he’d felt any kind of spark with a woman, and the electricity he felt when she put her hand on his arm was more than a simple spark. It was a full-blown current.
    “Okay,” he said, more than willing to play her game, “no names. We’ll be two strangers having a conversation over drinks.”
    “And protecting our alter egos.” She laughed.
    “I thought that was a given.”
    Her smile brightened, and Galen couldn’t help but stare. High cheekbones, delicate, straight nose. And her hazel eyes were intriguing in their oddness. The green blending into the lighter brown to fuse into a bright coppery tone. Her freckles were adorable, making her look almost too young to be in a bar. He wouldn’t call her beautiful in a traditional sense, more exotic. Her eyes were a little too large and wide, lending her a shy, innocent appearance, and her lips were a bit too full. But damn, the combination was intoxicating.
    “So we’ve established that names are off-limits.” She traced her finger along the edge of her glass. “Anything else? I mean, I’d like to know what it is you do when you’re not on superhero duty.”
    “Law enforcement,” he said, knowing there was a fifty-fifty chance she’d buy it. Not that it was a lie, but Galen wasn’t in the habit of flashing his U.S. Marshals credentials to impress women. He was more than just his job and he’d dealt with his fair share of vapid badge bunnies over the years. “You?”
    Her brow furrowed and she cringed as if embarrassed to say. “Unemployed,” she answered with a sigh. “Fresh out of college with a journalism degree waiting to be put to good use.”
    Galen couldn’t help but laugh, and she gave him a look. “Sorry, but you have to admit,