Dead Sexy by Linda Jaivin Read Free Book Online

describing how she grew up in a small town out west, how she’d studied accountancy in Bathurst and come to work at the magazine. He seemed most amused when she confided how she’d got her current job. He prompted her with the occasional question, his hands thoughtfully stroking his glass as she spoke. Nicola tried not to stare at those hands. They were manicured and smooth with long,artistic fingers. He wore his stylish, expensive suit as though he were born in it. She thought of Fox’s broad hands and spatula-like fingertips, and how he looked in his own best suit, handsome but stiff and slightly pained-looking, as though he couldn’t wait till he could shuck it off and get back into a pair of jeans.
    For some reason, though she knew she ought to, Nicola failed to mention how she met Fox. In fact, she neglected to mention their relationship at all, and Johnny didn’t ask.
    Johnny still hadn’t made his move, though his eyes never left her face and she felt as though it was the skin of her neck and not his glass that he was fondling with those fine hands. She willed the hands in her direction, and silently commanded his thighs to press against hers—if only so that she could pull away from them. Her own hands lolled invitingly on the table, her crossed ankles inched forward until they were centimetres from his own. She gave Johnny looks so steamy they could have frothed every cappuccino in every cafe for blocks around—this at least was what Damien Mann thoughtbehind his aviator sunnies as he observed the pair from his table in the corner.
    Johnny seemed oblivious to all the subtle signals she was sending. Nicola wondered if she’d completely misread him. Yet there was the evidence of all those gifts he’d sent, now piled up in a shopping bag by her feet. Or maybe, she reflected with horror, he simply did not find her attractive in the flesh. Perhaps he’d forgotten what she looked like.
Lip
used the photo of a generic thirty-something model, glamorous yet wise in a vacant sort of way, over the column. Suddenly self-conscious of her thighs (‘Thighs of Despair!’) and tummy (‘Shock Photos—Real Women’s Stomachs!’), Nicola flinched. She thought of how Fox had always generously claimed he loved her body just as it was. Fox. What was she doing here with this man, anyway? She felt confused, desperate. Sweat trickled between her breasts. Worrying about perspiration stains—silk was awkward like that—she pinched the fabric of the Chinese-style frock and pulled it away from herself.
    Johnny leaned back in his chair, as discreetlycheerful as a trapdoor spider gazing up at the finger of a small child. ‘What d’you say, Nicola? Would you like to come back with me to my place?’
    ‘Yes,’ Nicola breathed. She felt ridiculously, indefensibly, undeniably grateful.
    When Johnny led her inside his elegant warehouse conversion in Surry Hills, Nicola had to clamp her jaw tight to keep her teeth from chattering, though it was not much cooler there than in the bar.
    Johnny, she realised, looking around her, was a class act. He worked in a respectable and lucrative profession, he frequented the trendiest bars and his style was evident in both his dress and his environs. His split-level flat was airy and light, thanks to a wall of glass bricks. The decor was minimal, yet comfortable, the curvaceous lines and vibrant colours of the designer sofas and tables contrasting with the stark, metallic finishes of the benches and stairwell, with its striking banister of twisted cable. ‘Men You’d Like to Bewith—and the Places You’d Like to Be with Them in!’
    ‘I’m in love with Fox,’ she blurted.
    ‘That’s nice,’ Johnny replied. ‘He’s a lucky man.’ His expression gave nothing away. ‘Can I offer you a martini?’
    She nodded. ‘I promised myself’—Nicola swallowed—‘I promised myself when I got together with him that I wouldn’t, you know,
make love,
to anyone else so long as we were