Sweet Sinful Nights(11)
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 f*cking 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 f*cked 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 f*cker. “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 pressed 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.