Killer Beach Reads
Page 97
She felt like she'd known this man for weeks, months, years. She couldn't believe she'd laid eyes on him barely more than twenty-four hours earlier. Or that she'd be leaving him in less than twelve.
They left the shop hand in hand, and once they were on the sidewalk, time seemed to slow down. They wandered aimlessly, in no apparent rush, past bars and shops and bakeries, most open, some closed for the night. When they reached a corner Huck motioned with one hand to his left, and they waited for the walk signal and then crossed onto a quieter side street that had businesses sprinkled in on the ground floors of what looked to be walk-up apartment buildings. He seemed to know where he was going, and so Nicki asked, "Do you live in this part of town?"
Huck shook his head and glanced down at her. "No. I did, after college. Now I live north of here, kind of on the outskirts of Hell's Kitchen." He paused. "Closer to work."
"Where'd you go to school?" Funny how little she still knew about him, when she felt so comfortable holding his hand and wandering down dark, secluded streets with him.
He laughed and echoed her thought. "I can't believe I haven't told you that yet. I went to Boston University for undergrad and got my master's at Columbia." He squeezed her hand. "It feels like we should know each other a lot better than we do."
"I was just thinking the same thing."
"So you went to Colorado?" he asked. "Did you go there for grad school too or just undergrad?"
"Undergrad," Nicki said. "I got my MFA at California College of the Arts in San Fran."
"That's a long way from the Midwest." She'd told him the basics of how she'd grown up in a small town in central Illinois, in the same house where her parents still lived.
"I like the city," she answered simply. Her statement hung in the air, and she was thinking, probably like he was, that she was leaving this city in the morning and might not see him again. Her heart gave an odd lurch, as if it were shifting positions in her body.
A few seconds later, he slowed, and she noticed they were in front of what looked like an intimate wine bar. Warm light filtered through a plate glass window at the front, and Nicki could see people sitting inside at cozy two-top and four-top tables. As they came to a stop, the black-painted, residential-style door opened, letting out a blast of cool air and a low hum of conversation. Huck reached for the door and held it while a couple exited then opened it wider and ushered Nicki inside.
There was one open table in the middle of the place, tucked along the wall across from the long wooden bar. He led her to it, and they slid onto padded bentwood chairs, their knees almost touching. The round table was so small that if she leaned forward, she could almost reach his lips with hers. She was thinking about that, and probably had been staring at his mouth a few seconds too long, when a waitress stopped by their table with menus. Nicki leaned back, caught off guard, and a smile played at the corners of Huck's lips.
They sat there for at least an hour, him nursing a couple of beers and her drinking pinot grigio, asking each other endless questions and talking about their families, their jobs, their lives. When Huck's meter was about to run out they ran together to his car—or rather, he ran and she hobbled in her strappy shoes—and now at two in the morning they were back in his off-duty Prius, heading toward her hotel.
He had one hand on the wheel, and the fingers of his right hand were laced through hers. "So, how am I lucky enough that a woman like you is single, in my city, and wound up in my car?" he asked, glancing over at her as they sat in another endless line of cars at yet another red light. She'd never seen so much traffic this late at night, but she could barely register that fact with the way he was looking at her.
"How is it possible that a man like you isn't taken already in a city of eight million people?" Nicki shot back. The heat of his fingers pulsed through her body, practically ringing in her ears. Her voice was low, the question rhetorical. They were moving again, and she was starting to recognize the buildings around them. They were almost back to her hotel.
Within minutes, he'd pulled under the portico, and he let go of her hand to put the car in park. He left the engine running and gave her a questioning look.
She glanced away from him, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm in her chest.
"Where's the valet?" she asked after a long moment, her mouth suddenly dry. He'd yet to even kiss her, and she was practically inviting him up to her room.
His sharp intake of breath was an answer to her unasked question, and at that moment the valet appeared at the driver's side door. Huck cut the engine and handed over his keys, and Nicki told the man her room number.
In the hallway outside her door, Nicki paused. "I've never…I don't do this." She stuttered on the last two words. "I'm not really a sex on the first date kind of girl." She couldn't meet his eyes.
"So we'll have to make sure there's a second date," Huck said, his hand on the small of her back as she slipped her key card into the slot and pulled him with her into the room. Before the door even clicked shut behind them, his lips were on hers, soft and warm, perfect.
Whatever happened next, Nicki knew she wasn't letting go of this feeling. Forty-eight hours, twenty-four hundred miles, and one dream job later, her life really had changed—irrevocably.
His lips felt like home.
And she had no idea what to do about that.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stacey Wiedower had barely blown out the candles on her 21st birthday cake when she took her first job as a reporter at a daily newspaper. She later followed her passion to interior design school and spent three years working at a firm with bizarre similarities to the set of Designing Women. Today she funnels that experience into her work as a full-time freelance writer, penning everything from magazine articles to website copy to a bi-weekly column called Inside Design. She also writes romantic comedy, and the zany characters she's met poke their heads into her stories from time to time. Stacey lives in Memphis, Tennessee, with her husband, also a writer, and a son who's inherited their overactive imaginations.
To learn more about Stacey Wiedower, visit her online at:
http://staceywiedower.com
BOOKS BY STACEY WIEDOWER
30 First Dates
Now a Major Motion Picture
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FREE EBOOK
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