When the Lights Go Down. Amy Jo Cousins
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in favor of these black boots that laced up the front in a style more reminiscent of a motorcycle gang than Milan.
Heads turned to follow her all the way across the crowded bar as she arrowed a straight line to the empty seat he’d saved beside him. He had a moment to regret the way she drew attention just by moving. Nick was always happier staying in the background. She swung one hip up onto the high chair and held out a hand.
“Ms. Tyler.” He squelched the urge to wolf whistle. That he could dredge her name up from his stunned brain was amazing.
“Nicholas Drake.”
Her low voice was quiet enough that he needed to lean in to hear her. He didn’t remember taking her hand in his, but when she smiled and glanced down to where he still held it, he dropped it and set his wine glass on the bar, happy enough to break contact with her for a moment. He couldn’t think when he was touching her.
At his lifted hand, the bartender stepped over. Maxie leaned forward to order a drink and he caught the scent of her, warm and sweet, rising from the tight knot of hair that was twisted at the nape of her neck. She accepted her own glass of red wine and lifted it to his, her face pale and bare except for the thick smoky smudges around her lashes and the deep crimson of lips that already looked wine-stained.
He tapped his glass against hers with a crystalline ring that he felt in his fingertips. This might be the most dysfunctional business meeting ever, but it was shaping up to be one of the more interesting evenings of his life.
Over the sharply stitched line of her shoulder, the hostess caught his gaze, lifting a graceful hand in the direction of the dining room.
“Our table is ready,” he said. “Shall we?”
She stood up in one flowing motion, swung a large black portfolio he hadn’t noticed over one shoulder, and began walking. He indulged himself with a muscle-loosening shake of the head and shoulders before giving a short bark of a laugh and following her.
The leisurely stare he focused on her ass during the stroll to the dining room wasn’t an indulgence.
He was damn sure it was the entire purpose of a walk like that.
At the table, she leaned the portfolio against her chair and allowed an attendant to slide her into her seat. Somewhere between the server’s spiel about the specials and them ordering their meals, Nick realized he was grinning. He’d stopped wondering if every other diner in the posh restaurant was staring at the woman seated across from him because he was too busy staring at her himself.
“Where’s that riding crop, General?”
She smiled an acknowledgement. “It’s never a good idea to over-accessorize. Besides, I’m hoping for my second chance to make a good first impression.”
“They say you never get one of those.”
“I’m not a big fan of relying on anyone’s judgment other than my own, and mine tells me you’re open to it.”
“Open to what?”
She leaned forward, resting her forearms on the table, and looked at him from beneath lifted brows. Her lips twisted into a close-mouthed smile.
“My second first impression being a good one.”
It was his turn to lean forward. He reached across the table to pick up one of her small, strong hands, currently sporting blood-red fingernails and one twisted-steel ring that looked like it might have been made from barbed wire. He ran his thumb over the dulled edges of the ring and watched her, his hand holding hers.
“Ms. Tyler, you have made about seven different impressions on me already. All I know is that it’s unlikely you’ll make the same one twice.”
To his surprise, she laughed, squeezed his hand and let it go. When she sat up, it was as if she’d flipped a switch, cutting off the invisible electric current between the two of them. The sexual tension was buried, gone in an instant like snapping out of a dream to the sudden blare of an alarm clock. When she shrugged out of her jacket, revealing a simple black sleeveless top that draped elegantly over her small, high breasts, he could see she wasn’t doing it to attract his notice. She reached for her water glass, leaving the wine untouched beside her plate.
“What’s your story, Drake?” Her gaze was direct. Steady. She didn’t lick her lips or run a fingertip down the side of the water-beaded glass in her hand or pull a pin from her hair and slowly shake out the raven waves until her hair hung loose and tangled in her eyes.
Well, damn.
“Tell me why you came to see me.”
From business to sex and back again. Well, he was comfortable with business, always had been, and it was probably the safer choice in this highly public arena, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t miss the divinely sexual Ms. Tyler.
He shook his head and gave up trying to figure this woman out.
Give the lady what she wants.
* * *
Maxie wanted to jump in the icy waters of Lake Michigan.
Sitting across the table from Nick as he described the fateful encounter of his mother, divorced and possessed of far too much time and money, with the young man she swore was the next Sam Shepard, Maxie made a distinct effort to pay attention. Still, she barely managed to catch the gist. That his mother had taken it into her head to back this young playwright and get his work produced was unusual enough. At the level of big theater, as Nick was describing it, that took serious cash or, more commonly, a consortium of investors and a business plan. Not some rich snowbird with a whim, taking the idea of a patron of the arts to new levels.
Nick’s involvement seemed even stranger.
Just the sound of his name in her head was enough to send her stomach into a slow tumble and roll she hoped wasn’t visible on her face. She’d been unable to drive their kiss from her thoughts; it had haunted her through restless, tossing nights until she gave up and went without sleep. But he didn’t need to know that. So tonight, she’d chosen clothes to project a blatantly in control woman.
Exactly the opposite of how she was feeling, which was slightly out of control every time she so much as breathed around the man.
And then when Nick reached across the table and began stroking her fingers, all her best intentions vanished like so much smoke. She couldn’t remember anymore whether he was supposed to respond to her provocation or not, or what she would do with him then. The only sensation she registered was the slide of his thumb over the back of her hand. The pressure of his fingers on her palm. And that was when she knew she’d lost control.
Again.
She shut down.
Turned it off, dropping his hand and every ounce of sensuality in her body, until she might as well have been wearing sackcloth and ashes. The one thing she knew she had mastery over was her work, and if that was the only stability she could find as the edges of the cliff crumbled beneath her feet, then she’d stand firm on that rock and leave the daredevil tricks behind.
It was an act, of course, and she’d been a decent-enough actor way back when, before figuring out she’d rather organize the strings instead of dance to them or even pull them. Good enough at least to get her through one meal with this man.
As long as he stopped touching her.
Then she caught a name in the general flow of words brushing against her consciousness and jerked her attention back to Nick.
“Heitman? What about Heitman?”
Lips pressed together, he looked more likely to throttle her than kiss her. It occurred to her that frustrated sexual tension might not be the best of moods under which to conduct a business negotiation.
Better frustrated than indulged. Maybe.
“How far back should I go?” His voice snapped like a pane of glass broken over his knee. Clearly her mask of polite attentiveness