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Once she’d stopped eating pastries and hit brick-shithouse stature at age eighteen, she’d known her future as a dancer would come from another direction than the ballet.
She’d also learned how to handle men.
Now, she was in the driver’s seat when it came to seduction. She’d been running the show with men for years. And it was high time to let Nick Santori know it.
“So, when you offered to serve me…what were you talking about?” she asked, swiping her tongue across her lips. It was a move she’d perfected in her Rockettes dressing room. Men used to come backstage, trying to pick up the dancers and they all went for the lip-licking. God, males were so predictable. She held her breath, hoping for more from this one.
And she got it.
“I’m talking about me serving you with a line and you tipping me with your number. But since it’s crowded and I’m rusty at that stuff, why don’t you just give me the number?”
Izzie had to laugh. If he’d come back with a smooth line, the laugh would have been at his expense-because she doubted there was one he hadn’t heard. But Nick had been completely honest, which she found incredibly attractive.
She also laughed to hide the nervous thrill she’d gotten when she realized Nick Santori really did want her number. That he really was trying to pick her up.
Her…the girl he’d once complained about having to dance with at a wedding. What were the odds?
“I think I’ve got your number.” She’d had it for years.
He didn’t give up. “Use it. Please.”
He meant it. He wasn’t teasing, wasn’t trying to make her blush, wasn’t treating her the way he treated his kid sister, Lottie, who’d been one of her classmates.
Nick Santori was trying to pick her up. Which shouldn’t have been a big deal, but, for some reason, had her heart fluttering around in her chest like a bird trapped in a cage.
“My name’s Nick, by the way.”
No duh. She was about to say that, then she saw the look in his eyes-that serious, intense look. He wasn’t kidding. He wasn’t pretending they were just meeting.
She sagged back against the wall, not sure whether to laugh or punch him in the face.
Because the rotten son of a bitch had no idea who she was.
2
THE WOMAN HAD FLOUR in her hair. She smelled like almonds. Her apron was smeared with icing and whipped cream. Food coloring stained the tips of two of her fingers.
And she was utterly delicious.
The hints of flavor wafting off her couldn’t compete with the innate, warm feminine scent of her body, which assaulted Nick’s senses the way no full frontal attack ever had. Though they were in a crowded restaurant, surrounded by customers and members of his own family, hers was the only presence he felt. He’d been drawn to her, captured in an intimate world they’d created the moment their eyes had locked.
“You’re name’s Nick,” she said, as if making sure. Her voice was a little hard, her dark eyes narrowing.
Worried she had an ex with the same name, he replied, “I’ll answer to anything you want to call me.”
“Anything?”
He nodded, unable to take his attention from that bit of flour in her hair. He wanted to lift his hand and brush it away. Then sink his fingers in that thick, brown hair of hers, tugging it free of its ponytail to fall in a loose curtain around her shoulders. His fingers clenched into fists at his sides with the need to tangle those thick tresses in his hands and tug her face toward his for a brain-zapping kiss.
She had the kind of mouth that begged for kissing. One that promised pleasure. God, it had been a long time since he’d really kissed a woman the way he liked to kiss a woman. Slowly. Deeply. With a thorough exploration of every curve and crevice.
Recently, his sex life had been limited by proximity and his active status. He hadn’t had any kind of relationship in years. And the sex he had was usually of the quick, one-night variety, where slow, indulgent kissing wasn’t on the agenda.
He could kiss this woman’s mouth for hours.
Nick didn’t understand why he was so drawn to her. All he knew was that he was attracted to her in a way he hadn’t been attracted to anyone for a long time. Not just because she was beautiful under the apron and that messy ponytail. But because of the wistful, lonely look she’d worn earlier that said she didn’t quite belong here and she knew it. Just like the one he’d had on his face lately.
“You’re single?” he asked, wanting that confirmed.
She nodded, the movement setting her ponytail swinging. It caught the reflection of a candle on the closest table, the strands glimmering in a veil of browns and golds that made his heart clang against his lungs.
