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

well what I’m talking about.’
    ‘You break my heart, Nicola.’
    ‘Didn’t know you had one.’
    Johnny’s face fell like a soufflé after an oven door had slammed. ‘Nicola,’ he pleaded, ‘please don’t torture me.’
    She’d never heard him sound so hurt. ‘Are you…are you OK?’ she asked, softening. Chastened, she strolled with him up the hill from the bar to the soaring, still empty edifice halfway down Bent Street. The first corporate clients and millionaire residents would be moving in the following week; as of now it was but a sparkling shell. When he pushed on the revolving door and beckoned for her to go first, it struck her as odd that the building was unlocked, but she was too preoccupied to dwell on this anomaly.
    Johnny pulled her by the hand into the lift. Inside, he backed her against the mirrored wall and, after declaring, ‘I need you, Nicola,’ began to rub his body against hers with such intensity Nicola felt like she was being exfoliated.
    ‘I told you, no!’ she protested as they soared towards the twenty-sixth floor. With a grunt, shepushed him off her just as the doors opened. He held out his hand but she kept her distance. They stood staring at each other in the dimly lit corridor.
    ‘Nicola,’ Johnny said in a quiet voice. ‘What if I told you that you remind me of the only woman I’ve ever loved?’
    ‘Johnny!’ For a moment Nicola believed him. Then she shook her head. ‘Give me some credit. That line’s as old as flares.’
    ‘I’m serious.’
    ‘What if I told you that you remind me of the fact that I am engaged? You know, as in engaged to be married?’
    ‘Nicola. Marriage is for life, right?’
    ‘Yeah.’ Nicola’s voice quavered. ‘That’s the theory.’
    Johnny dropped to his knees. Men seemed to be making this a habit around her, she thought. ‘Fox gets you for life. All I want is one night.’ He took her hands in his and gently pulled her down towards him. ‘Please?’
    Even as she thrust her tongue between his lips, Nicola was well aware that the only thingthat ought to be coming out of hers was the word ‘No’.
Lip
had recently run an article called ‘Smartypants!’ that claimed a sign of intelligence was to be able to hold two contradictory notions in one’s head at the same time. Nicola consoled herself with the thought that she had to be a bloody genius.
    ‘Come into my board-oir,’ he said, leading her into a large room dominated by a heavy wooden conference table. Producing candles and candleholders from his briefcase, he lit them and placed them around the room. As he did this, Nicola undressed, her sense of her own suitability for marriage dropping off a little with each additional item of clothing. ‘This is the absolute last time, Johnny,’ she said as her knickers hit the carpet.
    ‘Don’t lose the shoes,’ he replied.
    Johnny folded each item of his own clothing, placing them in a neat stack on the table. He then lay down on his back on the floor and held out his hands to her.
    Liz had gone from work straight to the gym for her boxercise class. She loved her gym. It was full of the most buff and delightful gay boys. As she’d once written, ‘Forget Diamonds! Gay Men Are a Woman’s
Real
Best Friend!’ And the nice couple who managed the place, Micky and Mikey, had even forgiven her for the time she accidentally hurled a dumbbell through the gym’s plate-glass window, though the guy whose car it landed on proved less accommodating.
    As she towel-dried her hair in the gym’s changeroom, she noticed a sign on the mirror: ‘Look after your valuables!’ Liz contemplated the message. What exactly were her valuables? Her job, of course, and her friends—including Nicola—were high on the list. Where did Johnny fit in? She’d been dating him for nearly two months now, ever since that wild night following the office party in December. Yet he remained irritatingly cagey about commitment. He even made her swear that she