“Yes, it’s great to see you again,” she said, hardly knowing if she was speaking truth or lie.
“Let’s get down to business then,” James said, and for a while Colin and he did most of the talking while Brent leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, and raked his eyes over her, as if he was undressing her again, as if he was drinking her in, cataloguing her hair and its new dark shade, considering her bare shoulders, roaming his eyes over her breasts, landing on her legs. She swallowed, her throat parched again, and took another drink. He’d always loved her legs.
A memory slammed into her of the way he would press his hands on her thighs, spread her open, then tell her to wrap her legs around his shoulders. She’d say yes and give herself to him. Let him take her there. Let him rain pleasure down on her.
A flash of heat tore through her body.
She had to collect herself. She stood up and grabbed her purse. “Excuse me, gentlemen. I need to powder my nose.”
She walked past the hostess stand and around the corner, trying to calm her quickening pulse with steady, measured breaths. She grabbed the handle of the ladies room door, and a hand came down on her shoulder.
She whirled around, coming face to face in the darkened hallway with the man she’d once planned to marry.
“Shannon,” he said. Her name sounded rough on his lips.
“Brent,” she said, doing her best to stay cool in her tone.
“How are you?”
After all those years, after all the pain, this was what they were? Two adults practicing benign civility outside the ladies room? She’d always imagined if she saw him again that she’d punch him. Or fuck him. Never had she thought they’d talk like this. Like they meant nothing to each other. The strained tone lit into her like a fuse.
“I’m fine,” she answered, reminding herself it was better this way. Better to be able to stand near him and manage the basics. Even though the basics were stretching her thin.
“How have you been?”
“Good.”
He stepped closer. She retreated against the wall. Her pulse pounded viciously.
“James told me he was talking to you. I’ve heard of your shows. But I never knew Shay Sloan was you. I guess that makes me a world-class idiot.” He raised his arm, as if he were going to touch her. Muscle memory maybe. The past rearing its head. But he didn’t. He kept his hands to himself, and she was both glad and angry. “But then, I think we both know I’m a world-class idiot.”
She sighed, her heart heavy with his words. Was this his way of apologizing? They were long past apologies. The fact that he was apologizing in some way for not knowing who she was now felt... meaningless.
“Is this a problem? Is it better if we step aside so you can find another company to work with?” she asked, sidestepping his comment, staying focused on the issue at hand. Business, only business. The more she zeroed in on that, the better off she’d be. The less tempted her thoughts would be to stray to days gone by. Because lord knew, with him standing inches away, his strong body so dangerously near to her, she felt as if she were teetering on the edge of a cliff. His mere presence reminded her both of how much she’d loved him, and how goddamn hard she’d had to fight to get over him. “I’d understand if you don’t want to work together given our…” She let her voice trail off.
He shook his head, his eyes still locked on hers. She wanted desperately to look away. Instead, she noticed every detail. The way he swallowed. The line of his jaw. The intensity in his gaze.
The tension that radiated from him.
Her nerves were frayed thin from the battle inside her, from the tug of war waged between heart and body. She was comprised of two opposing desires. Something soft and needy and desperate in her wanted to throw her arms around him and ask how he’d been and where the years had gone. Something hard and angry and bitter wanted to lift a knee and kick him right in the balls, then to slam her fists into his chest and tell him how everything hurt so goddamn much when he’d left her behind.
There was another side, too. A curious one. The one that still wondered what could have been.
Finally, he answered her question. “No, it’s not a problem. I want the best for my business. James tells me you’re the best.”
My business.
Everything inside her snapped. That tight line of tension was severed. Like when a tightrope is chopped in half and the acrobat tumbles wildly to the ring, she let loose. “Guess comedy worked out really well for you,” she said harshly, wanting to slice him with words. “It’s a good thing you put your career first. Since you’re not even doing what was so fucking important to you ten years ago.”
She turned and pushed hard on the ladies room door. But she felt his hand around her wrist, and he yanked her back, spinning her in one quick move, so she was chest to chest with him. She felt his breath on her.
“It did work out well for me. I’m also not the same person I was ten years ago,” he said, then did that thing again—that thing where he undressed her with his eyes, where he fucked her completely with his hot, dirty stare. “And you obviously have become a different person, too.”
He tugged her, pulled her closer. His heart pounded against her breasts. His hand gripped her lower back.
He felt so good that she didn’t resist because her stupid body was stuck in the past, was living ten years ago when he alone was the one who could help her, who could free her, who could erase all the pain in one touch. Then he took away the one pure, true thing in her life in his cruel exit. He took away himself.
She jammed a hand against the strong, firm chest that she knew intimately. The fucker. “I had reasons. Real reasons. Life and death reasons,” she said in a low hiss.
He shut his eyes briefly, then somehow his arms were around her, and this time his touch wasn’t sexual. It wasn’t lustful. It was an embrace. From someone who knew nearly everything about her.
“Are you okay? Are you safe?” he asked in a whisper into her hair.
A tear had the audacity to slip out of her eye. To slide down her cheek, and fall onto his shoulder. It was a Pavlovian reaction. Too many tears had fallen on that shoulder.
“Yes,” she said quietly, with a nod. “I am. It’s fine. It’s all fine.”
He pulled back, tucked a hand under her chin, and lifted her face. She was so close to him she could trace the outline of his jaw, could run the pad of her finger over his stubble, his unbearably sexy eight-o-clock shadow. She could drag her fingernails through the soft, thick strands of his hair that belonged between her hands. She could look in his eyes as he moved in her, those deep, soulful eyes that understood her. Somehow, he was rough and gentle, he was charming and fierce, and he was funny and dirty. He was the man she’d wanted to spend the rest of her life with.
“Are you sure?” he asked, so much tenderness and worry in his tone.
She gathered herself, and willed that obstinate organ in her chest to stop beating in double time. She ordered her traitorous body to cease trembling just from being near him. “Yes. I’m sure.”
He let her go, and tipped his forehead back to the bar. “I should get out there. They’ll start wondering. See you in a few.”
And he walked away. Like the last time she’d seen him, when he had so easily disconnected from her.
She pushed open the ladies room door, walked to the sink, dropped her hands onto the cool tile and let out the longest, hardest breath. She hoped to hell this was the only time she’d have to deal with Brent Nichols.
When she was near to him like that, she couldn’t think straight. She could only feel. And that was far too dangerous for her heart.
CHAPTER FIVE
Brent couldn’t let her leave.
Now that she’d reappeared in his life and was within the same fifty-foot radius, he had to secure time alone with her. Without James. Without Colin.
A few moments outside the restroom weren’t enough.
On the return from the hallway encounter, he pres
sed his fingertips to his temple, weighing options.
Then he spotted a shimmer of silver on the floor under the table. A long shot, but it was his best opportunity so he grabbed the edge of the fabric as James and Colin were focused on business matters.
An hour later, the four of them held glasses and raised them high. The deal was done—all that was left was the signing of it.
“We’ll draw up the papers this week, and get this show on the road,” James said, then snapped his fingers. “Oh, and Shay, can I get your number, too?”
Brent reined in a grin. James didn’t even know he’d just become his wingman and secured the ten digits Brent had most wanted in the world. As Shannon rattled off her number, James tapped it into his phone, and Brent repeated it in his head. Then James looked at his watch. “And on that note, I have a wife and a two-year-old who likes for his daddy to say goodnight to him. And I believe our friend Colin has a date.”
Brent clapped his business partner on the back. “Get the hell out of here. I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m going to catch up with Miles over at the bar. And Colin, hope the rest of your night goes well, too.”
“Thank you,” Colin said, as he stood up. Shannon did the same.
“It was great chatting with you. I look forward to the partnership with Shay Productions,” Brent said, extending final handshakes to both.
“As do I,” she said, flashing that same, professional smile she’d given him earlier.
As she reached for her purse, his shoulders tensed. He hoped that she wouldn’t realize what she was missing. But she hadn’t noticed all through the meeting, so perhaps she wouldn’t notice now.
The three of them left.
Brent watched Shannon as she weaved her way through the tables to the exit. The black dress looked as if it had been painted onto her luscious body. Those red shoes, with the crazy, crisscross straps, were a beacon, guiding him home to where he wanted to be—between those absolutely, fucking perfect legs that he was dying to feel again. Her soft, smooth skin. Her toned muscles. Her curves. Most of all, the way she used to wrap her legs around him. His hips. His back. His shoulders. His face.
He scrubbed a hand across his jaw as his cock rose up.
Down boy.
Neither his dick nor his heart had forgotten Shannon Paige-Prince. They both worked overtime when she was near.
She turned the corner to the elevator banks. Out of sight. He leaned back in his chair, trying to catch one final look at her. No such luck.
He hated that he had to let her walk away, but if he was going to talk to her again—the way he wanted to—he had to play it smart. After three minutes, he figured she was down the elevator and walking across the lobby, but not yet gone. He texted her.
You left your scarf. Want me to bring it by your office tomorrow or do you want me to bring it down to you now?
He waited.
She might not respond. She might text him now or in the morning. She might simply send a messenger service to pick it up.
His phone buzzed. He slid open the message.
Hold onto it for me.
He stared at the screen for several seconds. What the hell was that? That answer was not in the multiple-choice rubric. He squinted as he reread it, as if that would translate her words into a clue what would happen next.
Ah hell. Maybe tonight wasn’t the best time to talk to her.
He stood up, pushed away from the table, and grabbed the scarf from under his leg. If she wanted him to hold onto it, that was what he’d do. He’d figure out how to meet her alone and talk to her without her brothers being around. Hell, he could probably benefit from some time to plan what he wanted to say to her. She was the last person he’d expected to see tonight, so he hadn’t scripted his lines. How do you apologize for the kind of idiocy he’d perpetrated when he was twenty-one? He’d been young and selfish—he’d wanted everything that was in front of him.
He went to the bar to close out his tab and plot his next steps. He should sit down with his good friend Mindy and ask for her advice. Mindy was as solid and straightforward as they came, but she was diplomatic, too. She’d guide him through this unexpected reunion.
But when he tucked his credit card into his wallet and turned around, he came face to face with his own lack of planning. Time to improvise.
Shannon held out her hand. “My wrap please,” she said, her tone even, her face unreadable. “It’s my favorite.”
“I didn’t think I’d see you again tonight.” He clutched the fabric, as if that would tether her to him for longer. It felt like a lifeline as his heart sped up just from being so close to her. The bar was filling up with patrons, the tables packed, the stools taken. But the hum of the busy Mandarin faded into the background with Shannon there again.
“I’d like the wrap,” she said crisply, the meaning clear. She only wanted the scarf.
“Have a drink with me, please,” he said, opting for honesty first. The last time he’d seen her, he’d played with words. He’d manipulated and twisted them. He’d lied, hoping the lie would win her for good. He’d lost her instead.
She sighed and shook her head. “Brent, I would like to go home. And I would like my scarf.”
“One drink.”
She licked her lips and exhaled but said nothing. In her silence, he sensed an opening. A chance to earn a laugh or two. With complete honesty.
He inched closer. They were less than a foot apart. He could smell her, and her scent was intoxicating—she smelled like honey and spice, completely different than how she’d smelled in college. This was more sultry than the jasmine lotion she wore then. It was heady. It made him high in seconds.
“Please.” It was all he had. “I held onto the scarf to see you again. I saw it on the floor, took it, and hid it. I’m a thief, I’ll admit it,” he said, holding his arms out wide, one hand still gripping the silvery fabric. He wasn’t letting go of the only thing he had that she wanted.
She furrowed her brow. “You took my wrap?”
He nodded. “Yes. You always left them behind when we were together,” he said, stopping briefly when she winced at those words—when we were together. “When I spotted it on the floor, I grabbed it when the guys weren’t looking, and I hid it. I sat on your scarf.” He kept his eyes fixed on her, admitting the full truth even if it made him look like a complete ass.
Her lips quirked almost imperceptibly, but it was enough for him to think that he was gaining ground. He tried to build on it. “It’s a nice scarf. Do you think I could pull it off for a meeting tomorrow with my real estate guys?” He tossed it around his neck and adopted a pouty stare.
She rolled her eyes, and he was ready to declare victory. “You’re the worst,” she said, laughing. “Stop it.”
“You don’t like the way it looks on me?” he continued, deadpan.
“It looks ridiculous on you, Brent,” she said, but she couldn’t stop smiling. “And by the way, it’s a wrap. It’s not a scarf.”
“So…you really like this…wrap?” he said, as he removed it from his neck.
“I do. I like it so much I came back for it.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Only for the wrap?”
“Only for the wrap,” she said, enunciating each word, but the hard edge had evaporated. In its place was something ... almost playful.
“What about a trade then? Wrap for a drink?” he asked, dangling it in the air, the metallic fabric shimmering under the lights in the bar. Vegas had coasted into nighttime, ushering in all the possibilities of the town, all its risks, all its opportunities. As he held the long scrap of material, his whole body felt poised on the edge of something. “You’ll notice I used the proper name this time. Wrap.”
He handed it over. Whatever she decided next had to come from her, not from him holding a piece of her wardrobe hostage.
Time slowed to a crawl as she held his gaze, her green eyes giving nothing away. The straight line of her lush red lips revealed no hints of her intent. Perhaps
she was toying with him. Torturing him. He probably deserved it.
I definitely deserve it.
She raised a finger. “One drink.”
He could breathe again. He’d been granted a reprieve.
“One drink,” he echoed.
He guided her to a quiet table near the corner of the Mandarin, with the city spread out far below them. She sat first, and he was torn between trying not to stare, and watching every move she made. But he’d never been good at looking away from her, and now was not the time to learn new tricks. She crossed her legs, one bare-skinned calf sliding against the other. His breath hitched. Those legs. Those gorgeous, sexy legs. They were his downfall, his weakness, and his complete obsession. They were an altar he’d pray at. He’d spent countless hours caressing them, touching them, and tasting them. If he were an artist, he’d have drawn them over and over. He hadn’t been able to keep his hands off them when they were together. He hardly knew how to keep his hands to himself now.
“So,” he said, breaking the silence between them as he tore his gaze back to her eyes. “You’ve done well for yourself.”
He hated that they were talking like any other man and woman without a history, but he sensed she was something of a wary animal around him, who needed to be coaxed out of the corner.
She nodded. “Thank you. It’s been quite rewarding building the business.”
“It’s very impressive what you’ve done with your company.” He had half a mind to kick himself as soon as he said it. What he wouldn’t give to turn this conversation around to something that mattered. But he was going in cold, navigating without a road map and hoping he wouldn’t crash.
“Can I get you something?”
The waitress had materialized at their side, giving him some breathing room. “We have some fantastic cocktails,” she said, then waxed on about several concoctions. Shannon opted for the house martini and he ordered a whiskey. As the waitress walked away, Shannon folded her hands across her lap, shooting him another closed-mouth smile. “And you’re doing great, too. I’m so pleased that Edge is faring so well.”
Sweet Sinful Nights Page 4