Chapter 2

Pam walked briskly toward the bus stop. Her day had been borderline unbearable. In an effort to appease Pete and get back into his good graces, she’d agreed to work a double shift. Her feet and legs were numb from the exertion of waiting on customers; the majority of which she was convinced were the dregs of humanity. She longed for a hot bath, soft sheets, and her head cradled in the crook of Fiana’s arm.

The sun was just settling behind the skyline when she reached her destination. A small crowd formed as the time for the bus to arrive grew near. Pam made her way toward the bench. It was laden with people, but she could at least lean against it to take some of the load off her feet and ease a bit of the discomfort she felt while waiting.  An elderly lady eyed her suspiciously while solidifying her grip on her bags and an old man sitting beside her raised his eyebrows seductively. She looked away with disgust. Men were all the same, no matter how young or old.

The squealing of brakes and the smell of fuel and heated automotive grease permeated the air as the bus pulled to a stop. Pam positioned herself in line to get on. The musky scent of the young Asian man standing next to her managed to filtrate the toxic bus smell and capture her senses. Not since her brief attraction to a high school classmate, Thomas, had she reacted in such a powerful way to the scent of a man. Her body tingled from head to toe. She found it pleasurably sensual, yet unsettling.

Pam coughed in an effort to camouflage the reaction that she felt was obvious to all as she stole a closer look at the man. He stood a few inches taller than her. Tall enough that she could wear heels, but still a comfortable height to allow them to look into each other’s eyes. Even under his light weight jacket and loose fitting shirt she could tell that his body was tight and hard. His muscles looked well formed, but not bulky like a body builder or a wrestler.  They looked more like those belonging to a runner or a swimmer. The strong Adam’s apple in his throat moved with every breath he took and his brilliant white teeth flashed alluringly as he smiled at her.

Realizing that she was openly staring, or better yet, ogling, the stranger, Pam quickly climbed onto the bus and rushed to the empty seat in the back. Her face burned scarlet with humiliation at her own actions. What was she thinking? She didn’t even like men! It had to be the musk cologne he was wearing. Yes, that was it. It was the cologne.

Embarrassment consumed her as she watched him make his way toward the back of the bus. She shrunk her body as far down into the seat as she could and stared out of the window, praying that he would pass her by. Her prayers were answered when he positioned himself in an empty seat a few rows in front of her. She couldn’t see him, which was good, but his closeness still allowed her to revel in his sensual scent for the duration of her trip.

His stop was a few blocks before her own.  She watched his feet plant firmly on the pavement as he nimbly hopped off the last step of the bus and it drove off.  She looked away quickly when he turned toward her window and briefly caught her staring at him, but she looked back as the bus drove off, since she was certain he wouldn’t be able to tell from a distance.  His confident swagger lingered in her mind’s eye long after the bus turned the corner.