Addicted to Nick by Bronwyn Jameson Page A

sigh as she let herself into Star’s stall. Could she keep a grip on her twitchy fingers that long?
    She waited while the big mare went through her you-can’t-catch-me routine, prancing from wall to wall with a succession of disdainful head tosses. Collaring her was a game of skill, patience and acquired knowledge. “Finished?” she asked when the pirouettes ended abruptly. Timing was everything in this game. With a nimble sidestep, she intercepted a further halfhearted attempt at a pass and slipped the head collar into place.
    â€œReady for some work?” Star tossed her head with arrogant scorn, and T.C. laughed softly. “Silly question, huh? You love to run.”
    As she smoothed her hand down the mare’s neck, a sense of contentment settled in the pit of her stomach. This was why she had chosen this profession, for this simple, elemental feeling. Stooping down, she felt the mare’s near foreleg, checking for heat in the tendon she had injured the previous season.
    â€œLooking good, girl.” Satisfied with the inspection, she straightened to find Star nodding her head as if in agreement. T.C. couldn’t help but laugh. “You are so full of yourself!”
    The sound of her laughter brought Nick’s grooming mitt to an instant halt. It had been like this for days. He would be working away, limber and comfortable, when out of the blue something would ignite his slumbering senses. The soft lilt of her voice as she petted her dog, a wet towel tossed negligently over a laundry basket, the lingering tang of her apricot shampoo.
    Or her laughter, unexpected and unrestrained.
    He ambled over to the open half-door, watched her hands skate lightly over the horse’s glossy coat. Yeah, those hands doing pretty much anything that involved stroking turned him on.
    He cleared his throat. “This one’s Star, right?”
    She turned slowly, unsurprised, as if she had known he was there. “Her full name is Stella Cadente.”
    â€œShooting Star,” he translated.
    â€œYou know Italian?”
    â€œEnough. That name’s a mouthful.”
    â€œIt is.” She smiled. “That’s why we just call her Star.Most of them have some Italian in their racing names and a shortened version for at-home use.”
    â€œMonte?” he asked.
    â€œIs really Montefalco.”
    â€œGina?”
    â€œLollobrigida.” A softly inquisitive expression lit her face. “And I suppose you’re really Nicholas.”
    â€œNiccolo. The Italian version.”
    Head slanted to one side, she considered it, considered him. And he knew he would do anything to hear that name, his full name, on her lips. Please, Niccolo.
    â€œAnd what about you, Tamara?” He drew the name out lushly, saw her hand still on the horse’s flank for an instant before she resumed stroking. Felt his own body pulse. “Why aren’t you Tammy? Or Tara?”
    â€œYou have got to be kidding!”
    He smiled at her melodramatic tone. “Why do you call yourself T.C.?”
    â€œYour guess is as good as mine.” With an abrupt click, she attached the lead and brought the horse to the door. He didn’t open it. He wasn’t letting her out of this quite so easily.
    â€œMy guess is you decided your name was too girly. You thought someone named Tamara should wear pretty dresses and high heels and a perfume that smells like a rich garden party—”
    â€œEnough, already,” she interrupted, but a smile lurked around the corners of her mouth, and when that incredibly sexy mouth smiled it did more for him than any perfume or floaty dress.
    Intent on teasing her embryonic smile to full life, he leaned over the half-door to sniff at her unperfumed throat…and the horse lunged, eyeballs rolling, mouth open.

Seven
    I n a knee-jerk reaction, he hauled her out the door and out of the path of a set of extremely large and not very white teeth.
    â€œHey, what was