Read Online Hot on His Heels (What Happens in Vegas) by Margo Bond Collins - Free Book Online Page A

tonight, he’d been quite sure that kind of woman didn’t exist in real life.
    He’d expected Professor Sadie Quinn to be different. To be more sure of herself. But the more time he spent with her, the more he realized that although she came across as confident, even brash, in her writing, in person she was much more reserved.
    Shy, even.
    When she turned around to glance at him, hands clasped under her chin, smiling so hard it put creases in her cheeks, all of that reserve had disappeared. The fountains flared up in their grand finale, then splashed down until they were still. Sadie clapped as hard as any of the children around them.
    Laughing around the words, she said, “‘Ye soft pipes, play on.’” At the confused wrinkling of his brow, the light behind her grin faded a little, and her back stiffened. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s a quote from ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn.’”
    He nodded. “I thought I recognized it. Keats, right?”
    Some of the joy returned to her gaze. “You read poetry?”
    Taking her hand in his, Jake drew her down the sidewalk toward the escalators leading up to one of the several pedestrian overpasses that allowed them to cross the street. “Not so much anymore. I don’t really have time these days. But I majored in literature in college, so I know the basics.”
    He held out one hand to usher her onto the escalator, placing one hand protectively against the small of her back. It was a tiny gesture, one that he had used countless times with Kamille and his sister, Ivy, not to mention any number of women he had dated. This time, though, at the slight touch, heat seemed to zing through the fabric, almost shocking his fingertips. It was all he could do to keep from jerking his fingers away.
    Sadie’s tiny jump suggested that she had felt it, too. But like Jake, she ignored it, focusing instead on the conversation she had started. “So what do you like to read now?”
    I don’t have time for anything but erotica.
    No. He couldn’t say that.
    But he had to come up with something, preferably by the time they reached the top of the escalator.
    “I read a lot of genre fiction,” he finally managed to temporize.
    “Oh, like mysteries?” As she stepped off the moving stairs, her red dress swirled around the tops of her thighs, revealing their creamy whiteness, and Jake’s mind went completely blank for just a moment as he stared, mesmerized.
    Then the toes of his shoes hit the end of the escalator, forcing him to step forward or fall, and Sadie’s skirt fell back into place, so he was able to pull his attention back to the conversation.
    “Yeah. Mysteries. Something like that.”
    The beautiful college professor seemed unaware of his momentary trance, as she continued to chat about books. “Have you ever read Dorothy Sayers’s mysteries featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane?”
    “Can’t say I have.” I can’t say I’ve read anything but romance novels and newspapers for years now. He would be willing to read anything she put in front of him. In fact, it would surprise him if a number of her students weren’t half in love with her. If they weren’t, they were idiots. As she talked about books, all of her reserve fell away again, and her hands waved in front of her like a conductor directing a symphony.
    Just like a symphony, he realized, listening and making encouraging noises at the right moments. She was threading together words, weaving them together in a composition that, when rendered by her warm, alto voice, was every bit as intricate and detailed as an opera.
    He would have to go back and read her email messages to Jocelyn. Did they have the same quality? Did she always pull her words together into music, or was it something about the night?
    Or maybe my company?
    He shook the thought away. She was a literature professor. Of course she would be at her best when she was talking about books.
    When she came to a halt at the bottom of the down escalator on the