Sweet Sinful Nights(20)

       
           


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"I'm not done. I sold it in L.A. to a diamond merchant. And I gave the money to the scholarship fund at Boston Conservatory. The one that put you through school," he said, feeling like a complete pussy-whipped cheeseball. Somehow he'd managed to avoid ever telling anyone what he'd done with the diamond. Not his brother, not Mindy. It just made him sound like a forlorn guy, stuck on a girl.

Even though that was what he'd been back then. And what he still was.

He looked up.

Her mouth fell open. She froze in place. Shit. She must be thinking the same thing. That he was a sad, pathetic guy. He couldn't believe he'd said the wrong thing again. But then he stopped thinking when she rose, stretched across the table, cupped his cheeks in her hands, and pinned his gaze with her sweet green eyes. "That means so much to me."

She kissed him, softly at first, her tongue darting out as she ran the tip of it across his lips, then more roughly, as she gripped his stubbled jaw harder. She kissed feverishly, crushing her lips against his, and he groaned as she led, sweeping her tongue over his mouth, diving deeper, consuming him. A shudder wracked through him from her sheer possessiveness. From the feel of her hands on his skin. She didn't hold back, not one bit. She did everything with passion, everything to the fullest, as she fused her mouth to his. He was reduced to nothing but desire for her as she took a chance-reaching across the table with a basket of bread below her arms, with wine glasses perched precariously on the table, with hundreds of patrons nearby. She didn't care. Nor did he. He was damn near ready to shove everything across the table and forget they were in public.

He heard a throat being cleared.

The waiter arrived with their dishes.

She detached from him, adjusted her top, and smirked just for him. As if they had a secret. Even though it was a very publicly known fact that the two people seated here at this restaurant on the terrace on a June night with the fountains behind them wanted each other badly.

* * *

After the waiter served his fritto misto and her tortellini, Brent broached a subject that had once been a source of friction between them, but then had brought them closer.

"Is your mom still writing to you?" he asked gently, picking up his fork. He watched her, careful not to push too far.

She closed her eyes briefly, her fingers clutching her wine glass. When she opened them, she was the girl he'd known in college, the one who'd relied on him for everything.

She nodded. "Yes. Every few months. She still says she didn't do it."

"She probably always will say that," he said, softly, wanting so badly to erase all her sadness. He'd always wanted to, ever since she'd finally let him in. They'd nearly broken up once in college over this. She'd been so closed off at first about her family, so secretive, and it had driven him mad. He'd wanted to be let in, to talk to her, to help her through her troubles, but she hadn't even told him what it was that tore her apart. He only knew someone kept sending her letters.

That had been one of their worst fights ever. He'd been frustrated beyond words over the way she'd kept him out. She'd been terrified to let him know the full truth about her family. But before the two of them blasted apart into smithereens, she'd confided in him, telling him all the things that weren't in the press, that weren't known simply from growing up in Vegas when it happened. He'd known her as the girl whose mom had killed her dad, but he hadn't been privy to the backstory, the details that didn't make it into the local news.

The full story had shocked him to the core.

His family was so... normal. His parents were still married. They were both retired now and played golf together a few days a week in a swank suburb on the outskirts of the city. He tried to see them once or twice a month, and always visited on holidays. He even baked a pumpkin pie every year for the Nichols family Thanksgiving. There was no drama, no dysfunction, and certainly no murder for hire.

Maybe that was why he'd been able to comfort her when they were younger. Maybe that was why they'd been drawn together on some subconscious level. He'd grown up unequivocally happy, and he had extra doses of it. He had a whole storage closet full of additional happiness, and he tried to bring that to her. Lean on me, he'd told her. He could handle it. He handled all her tears and sadness. He'd do it again if she needed him to. "And have you seen her recently?"

"I went at Christmas with Ryan. She asked if anyone had found the people who did it. Same thing she always says, even though she knows Stefano is behind bars." Then she lowered her voice to a feathery whisper, her tone confessional. "I still check his inmate number every few months. To make sure he's still in prison. It's silly, I know, since he's in for life. But I just like to know he's where he belongs."                       
       
           


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Brent shook his head, reassuring her. "It's not silly in the least to find some kind of comfort in knowing he's locked up."

"It's not like it makes me happy," she said, sadness washing over her eyes. "It just makes me feel as much peace as I guess I can feel."

"You don't have to be happy. You can just... be," he said, and that was what he'd told her in college, too.

She met his eyes, a sliver of a smile forming on her beautiful lips. "I'm happy right now," she said.

And hell if that didn't add an extra gallon to all those stores he had.





CHAPTER TWELVE


After the plates were cleared, Shannon declared the meal a feast. "I knew I asked the right man to get me into this delicious restaurant. It was amazing, and everything I hoped it would be," she said, then launched into a new topic. "I watched a funny video before I met you for dinner."

He raised an eyebrow in question. "I thought you weren't into Internet videos?"

"I'm not. I only watch videos of my dance rehearsals, and I shoot most of those myself. But my friend Ally showed me a video she saw on Facebook. It's this clip of a girl who grinds on her boyfriend in public while his hand is under her skirt, and they don't even try to hide that he's fingering her and getting her off."

"I like getting you off," he said with a naughty glint in his brown eyes.

"You cannot resist segueing back to dirty talk when I'm telling you a story."

"I'm so sorry," he said, placing his palms together. "The story was about a guy making a girl come. Forgive me for thinking about making you come. It's only my favorite thing in the entire world to do."

She shot him a tell me more look.

"It's a hobby I once practiced a few times a day," he added. "One I'm very interested in taking up again."

A ribbon of warmth spread through her chest, both from the suggestion of one of her favorite activities, too, but also from the way he was so quick on his toes, so fast with a joke. The man had always made her laugh. He was handsome as sin and funny as hell, and that combo had been all she'd ever needed. He had filled all the sad places inside her. He'd burrowed into her with his laughter and his wit, replacing her darkness with his light. Tonight, he was firing on all cylinders-his caring, tender side in full force, along with his clever one, not to mention that handsome side. In his jeans and long-sleeved Henley stretched tight across his chest, he was a sight to behold.

"Anyway, back to the video. So the funny part is they had no clue they'd been caught on camera, even though they were totally obvious. They thought they were being quiet and sneaky when he was trying to make her come."

"I could make you come quietly," he said with an easy shrug of his shoulder. "I can make you come loudly, too. I can make you come in pretty much any way."

She scoffed. Not because it was untrue, but because he was so damn sure of himself. "Confident much?"

"Yeah, I am. I have the track record to prove it. You're pretty much the only class I aced in college."

She laughed, looking down at her lap. He was too much sometimes. "Straight As, Brent?"

"Hell no. Higher. I earned A-pluses across the board in your pleasure."

She rolled her eyes. "You're relentless."

He leaned forward across the table, flashing her that cocky grin she'd loved so much. "When it comes to delivering multiple orgasms for you, yes. Relentless is precisely what I am."

She held up her hands. "Fine, fine. You win. You win for being the King of Distraction again. Because I was trying to tell you that watching this video made me think to go looking for videos of you."

He straightened his spine and furrowed his brow. Excellent. She'd regained the thread of the conversation. "You looked for videos of me?"

"I did. I did a little Googling of Brent Nichols."

For a second, he seemed unsure, nervous even. Then he returned to his cool, confident demeanor, leaning back in his chair. "Really? What else did you see?"

She dipped her hand into her purse, and took out the item she'd purchased at the candy store. A lollipop. She unwrapped it, taking her time peeling off the plastic as he watched her. His eyes darkened as she brought it to her lips, gently kissing the sucker.