Sparked (city2city: Hollywood) Read Online Free

today.”
    Ryan’s head was spinning. He couldn’t quite bring himself to believe she was actually talking with him. “Don’t law students get to go home for break?”
    Her shoulders lifted in a nonchalant shrug. “Kai really likes to study. And our parents are always extra busy over the holidays, anyway.” She didn’t sound unhappy about it. “What do you study, then?”
    “Aural engineering.”
    She blinked those gorgeous eyes, uncomprehending.
    “Aural. A-u-r-a-l. Not oral .” He pointed to his mouth, then his ear, and felt himself smile, the first smile since Jon’s fist had connected with his jaw earlier this evening. “Sometimes people get confused,” he said, echoing her earlier words, and pleasure spread through him to see her return his smile. “It’s the science of acoustics and audio.”
    Her lower lip caught between her teeth as she studied him. He fought not to blush under her scrutiny. “What sort of work do aural engineers do?”
    Okay. So. The way she said that word—“aural”—in her cultured accent was kind of sexy.
    Kind of? Who was he kidding: Her voice was really, ridiculously sexy. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat as blood began to sizzle southward in his veins. “I had an internship with a technology company in Chicago this summer helping design speaker components for cellular phones. Fingers crossed they’ll hire me when I graduate in a few months.”
    “You must be very smart.”
    There was no helping his blush this time, heating from his throat to his hairline as he murmured something decidedly inarticulate. The rocking of the train over the tracks suddenly seemed overloud to Ryan’s ears, the layers of sound amplified again as passenger noise filtered into his consciousness. Laughter, snores, the various coughs and wheezes signifying the snot-infused illness most of humanity caught at the onset of winter.  
    He had always been able to hear things others hadn’t. Not because of any keen auditory sense, necessarily, but because he enjoyed listening. In that typical way of twins, one of them had been a talker, the other quiet in order to make room for the louder personality. Jon, though the younger by three minutes, was the talker. Which made Ryan the—
    “So why are you going to London on Christmas Eve if you came over to visit your brother in Cambridge?”
    His eyes locked with hers, and part of him wished he could tell her, this perfect and perfect stranger, to back off. The holiday had already been destined for trouble even before he’d fought with his brother and had the door to Jon’s flat slammed in his face. Which might be why he found himself saying, “Our parents passed away. This year. It’s our first Christmas without them, and I wanted…I worried—” He broke off with a sigh, but couldn’t tear his gaze from her. “Jon hasn’t taken it well.”
    Her hand found his forearm, rested gently upon it. “And you? How have you taken it, Ryan?”
    He could feel the heat of her touch through his wool coat and the sweatshirt beneath it. Shaking his head, he carefully—tentatively, because what if he was reading her wrong, and this little fantasy would fade to black the second he touched her?—let his hand cover hers. The bumps of her knuckles against his palm brought a sense of unfamiliar intimacy to the moment. “Better. It’s better for me.”
    “But how?” Her fingers tightened on his arm. “I don’t know what I’d do if my parents died. I can’t even imagine.”
    His thumb delved beneath the cuff of her coat sleeve, stroking over the back of her wrist. Her skin was soft and warm, and he wished he was brave enough to lift her hand, put his mouth on that skin.
    He seemed to only be brave in small doses, though, and he’d already used it all up with that first hello, that first touch. “They died in a car accident last January, driving back from dropping Jon at the airport.”
    Her hand moved under his, linking their fingers together, putting