Read Online Dead Sexy by Linda Jaivin - Free Book Online Page A

opposable thumbs, after all.’
    ‘Of course I have opposable thumbs. What are you talking about?’
    ‘It’s just that you seem to have such difficulty grasping anything I’m saying.’
    ‘Perhaps I overestimated your adventurousness,’ Johnny replied petulantly, pulling his hands out of her grip and lighting a cigarette. ‘Maybe you should just stay with your fireman.’
    ‘Maybe I should. Maybe I never should have done otherwise. He’s a real man, Johnny, and the measure of a real man, I can tell you now, is not just defined by the dimensions of his penis.’ She’d written that line recently in an answer to one of her readers’ letters. She was quite proud of it. ‘ButJohnny. Two things. You’re taking back these shoes. And you’re giving me back my scarf.’
    ‘Yes, mistress.’ The mischievous gleam had returned to his eyes.
    ‘Johnny.’
    ‘Sorry. But you’re very sexy when you order me around. You should do it more often.’
    Nicola shook her head, yet she couldn’t stop the corners of her lips from curling into a smile. ‘So where’s the scarf?’
    ‘Up in Bent Towers. I have to meet someone after work, but I’ll be free by nine. I’ll meet you at the bar and we can have a drink, then we’ll go and fetch it together and I’ll give you a tour while we’re at it. At least you can see what I do before you drop me out of your life forever.’
    ‘All right.’
    It only occurred to Johnny then that he’d already arranged a rendezvous a little later with Liz. He’d have to call her and cancel.

F or Damien Mann, the night had started with several lines of Bolivian marching powder and then cocktails with Johnny at that flash bar he liked, the one full of posh chicks in Prada. They watched the ferries plugging in and out of Circular Quay as the setting sun scattered gold over the harbour.
    ‘We should probably hoof it,’ Mann said, looking at his watch, ‘if you’re going to set me up in the security roomage and get back here in time to meet your shookie.’
    ‘Shookie?’
    ‘Slut. It’s slangage.’
    Johnny shook his head in wonder. ‘Where do you pick this stuff up?’
    ‘Cleo.
“Shookie” was in a report on, get this, the teen sex gangs of New York.’
    ‘Hold on. You’re saying
you
read
women’s magazines?’
    ‘Mate. They’re better ‘n porn. It’s like peeping into the dressing-room in one of them posh bootiques and listening in on the conversationage. Lotsa young chicks in their undies too. Speaking a shookies.’
    Johnny winced. ‘Look, Nicola isn’t…’ He took a breath and began again. ‘I was thinking that we might kill the cameras tonight. I’m feeling…’ Johnny toyed with the idea of confiding in Mann. ‘I’m actually not feeling too good about it.’
    ‘I am,’ Mann shot back. ‘I’m feeling real good. In fact, I’m getting hard just thinking about all that boofage. You ain’t getting all wussy on me, are ya? Jeez. I thought ya had more ticker than that, Wright.’
    ‘It’s not that,’ Johnny rejoined defensively.
    ‘I bet,’ Da Mann drawled, as though it had just occurred to him, ‘those sheilas at
Cleo
would be real interested in the Johnny and Nicola bondage video. Bachelor of the Year gets down and dirty.’ Mann snickered. ‘Even if they never wrote a word about it, it’d circulate faster than smack up a junkie’s veins.’
    Johnny’s face darkened. He said nothing for a long moment, then he drained his glass. ‘All right, Dazza,’ he said grimly. ‘Let’s go while you can still walk.’
    When Nicola arrived at the bar, Johnny wasn’t there. She looked around uncertainly, and started to walk out when he came racing down the quay. He greeted her with an ardent embrace and eyes so bedroom they might have been furnished on the sixth floor of Grace Brothers.
    ‘Stop it,’ she whispered, embarrassed.
    ‘Stop what?’
    ‘You know what I’m talking about. I told you before. It’s over.’
    ‘What’s over?’
    ‘You know very