Page 19 of Sin City Dark
Jannie laughed; not everything about Nick Kent had changed. “Sounds like you want to accompany me.”
His eyes widened.
“Still hate gatherings and crowds?”
“With everything I have.” He paused for a moment, and her heart beat a little faster when she realized he was considering.
And suddenly, it became a goal to get him to attend. “Most attendees will have a plus-one. People will ask about my husband. Save me from looking pathetic?”
His eyes sparkled with amusement. “As if you could ever look pathetic.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “OK, then, awkward. He always accompanied me to these things. People know him. I don’t want to answer or have to dodge the inevitable questions.”
She only wanted Nick along as a deterrent. Yeah, that was it.
Jannie watched him tap his middle finger rhythmically on the chair’s armrest. It was a glimmer of the former Nick Kent; she remembered him always doing that when he pondered something. For some reason, that tiny gesture got her going, her heart skipping a beat.
She tore her gaze from that long finger only to focus on his mouth. God, he had such a sexy mouth. She wondered what it would look like without all that hair framing its plump lushness.
Plump lushness?
She mentally rolled her eyes.Way to describe a man’s mouth, Jannie.This man had her thinking like a weirdo. Maybe she needed to switch back from reading romances to reading murder mysteries.
At last, he nodded. “All right then. I’ll go with you. But you owe me dinner right after.”
“Deal.” She started to rise, and he immediately surged to his feet and offered his hand. She took it; sure enough, electricity sparked when he touched her.
Jannie stood as gracefully as she could. He started to pull away as soon as she was standing, but for some reason, she held fast.
He looked down at their joined hands, then trapped her with that stare of his.
His eyes shone with promises of things too hot for her to even dare to name.
His thumb gently stroked her palm, making her shiver.
“Dress code?” he asked in a low voice.
Naked, her mind immediately suggested.
Oh, shit.
This may have been a very bad idea.
CHAPTER 4
Nick
“Well, fuck.”
Nick leaned against the door after it closed behind him.
Jannie Larssen. Blast from his distant past.
If her perfume hadn’t lingered in his nostrils, along with her distinctive scent, which he detected moments after he’d set incredulous eyes on her again, he would have thought he was hallucinating.
Tossing his key card on the side table, he headed for the floor-to-ceiling windows, pausing to grab a green apple from the fruit bowl he spotted on a nearby table.
He sank his teeth into the fruit, savoring the tartness of the juicy Granny Smith while gazing out at the distant mountain range.
