My Best Friend's Baby by Lisa Plumley Page A

prodded. Bruno was gone and Nick was here and this was
a moment that might never come again.
    "I don't mind," he said quietly.
    She looked up at him, and the amusement
simmered out of her smile, replaced by something a little bit ...
wilder.
    It was all the encouragement he needed.
    Somehow, his hand went to the nape of her
neck instead of the patio door. She tilted her head back, closing
her eyes in the flickering candlelight, and although he meant to
kiss her, all he could do was stare in wonder at how beautiful she
seemed.
    Her hair glowed like gold, bright as the
candles. Moonlight and shadows chased across her face, highlighting
the curve of her cheekbone, the delicate line of her nose, the lush
fullness of her lips. He ached to taste her. Would she taste of
strawberries, or the sweetness of vanilla?
    In the darkness behind them, a warm June
breeze swirled dried bougainvillea leaves through the yard like
whispers. On the same breath of air, Chloe's tropical perfume
wafted toward him, making him groan at the impossibility of
resisting her. Kissing her felt inevitable. It felt right. Nick
leaned closer ... and her eyes opened.
    "Whew!" she cried, fanning herself with her
hand. "Thanks to you, I'm good as new. No more wobblies."
    She grinned broadly and stepped back. He
actually thought he saw her wink at him as she released his arm and
gave him a brotherly shoulder punch instead. "Thanks for helping me
out, Nick. So, how ‘bout that movie?"
     
     
     

Chapter Seven
     
    Her guerrilla platonic-ness tactic
backfired.
    "How 'bout it?" Nick asked, his voice low as
he backed her toward the patio door. He kept his head bent, his
gaze on her lips, and Chloe couldn't have kept her feet from
moving—or her heart from speeding into overdrive—if she'd
tried.
    So much for bravado. Or for turnabout being
fair play. Her flippancy deserted her when she felt the glass door,
smooth and cooled by the air conditioner inside, touch her back.
She jerked involuntarily at the contact.
    "Easy," Nick murmured. His big hand cupped
her shoulder, keeping her exactly where she was. His thumb rubbed
over her shirt, moving slowly as he watched the slide of silk over
skin. He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them and tightened
his hand on her shoulder. "We've got all the time in the
world."
    He meant it to reassure her, she knew.
Somehow, his words sounded closer to a wish than anything else,
though. Funny, because Nick was far too pragmatic a man to rely on
star-lit wishes or fate or anything else he couldn't hold in his
hands and examine.
    Through the patio door at her back,
incandescent kitchen light spilled over his features, making him
seem both familiar and achingly new. This new Nick, this man who'd
touch her like this without even a broken heart and Kahlúa courage
between them ... he was a stranger to her. One Chloe wanted to get
to know better.
    "Time?" she asked, feeling breathless. "Time
for what?"
    "The movie, brainiac." His voice rumbled
through her, teasing and arousing at the same time. "Can't you keep
your mind on the conversation?"
    No. She couldn't. Not with Nick's hard,
muscular thigh wedged warm between her legs, not with his palm
pinning her shoulder to the glass and her heart to the wall. Not
with all his considerable attention concentrated only on her. He'd
moved fast and moved hard, and the feel of his body pressed against
hers made the whole world tilt.
    "It takes a really long time," he
murmured.
    "The conversation?"
    He shook his head, smiling for the first
time since he'd tangoed her backwards. "No, the movie. At the end,
of course, the climax comes quickly—" He traced a path over her
shoulder, then slipped his thumb just inside the neckline of her
shirt. "—but the rest of it moves pretty slowly."
    She was sinking, sinking in this world
turned tilted and hot, and amazingly, Nick was her only anchor. The
warm pad of his thumb stroked along the side of her neck, sending
shivers trembling from her collarbone to her