JUST ONE MORE NIGHT by Fiona Brand Read Free Book Online

unexpectedness of his comment. “I didn’t think you’d noticed.”
    No one else had, including herself. A little breathlessly she made a mental note to go back to clear contacts.
    “And what about these?” he growled. His thumb brushed over one lobe then swept upward, tracing the curve of her ear, initiating a white-hot shimmer of heat.
    He hooked coiling strands of hair behind one ear to further investigate, his breath washing over the curve of her neck, disarming her even further. “How many piercings?”
    Despite her intense concentration on staying in step, Elena wobbled. When she corrected, she was close enough to Nick that she was now pressed lightly against his chest and his thighs brushed hers with every step. “One didn’t seem to be enough, so I got three. On my lobes, that is.”
    His gaze sharpened. “There are piercings...elsewhere?”
    Her heart thumped at the sudden intensity of his expression, the melting heat in his eyes. She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “Just one. A navel piercing.”
    He was silent for a long, drawn-out moment, in which time the air seemed to thicken as the music took on a slower, slumberous rhythm. A tango.
    Nick’s hand tightened on her waist, drawing her infinitesimally closer. “Anything else I should know?”
    She drew a quick, shallow breath as the heat from his big body closed around her. The passionate music, which she loved, throbbed, heightening her senses. Her nostrils seemed filled with his scent. The heat from his hand at her waist, his palm locked against hers, burned as if they were locked into some kind of electrical current.
    She squashed the insane urge to sway a little closer. Wrong man, wrong place and a totally wrong time to road test this new direction in her life.
    The whole point was to change her life, not repeat her old mistake.
    Although, the heady thought that she could repeat it, if she wanted, made her mouth go dry. She hadn’t missed the heat in Nick’s gaze, or when he’d pulled her close, that he was semiaroused. “Only if you were my lover, which you’re not.”
    “You’ve got a guy.”
    She frowned at the flat statement, the slight tightening of his hold. As if in some small way Nick considered that she belonged to him, which was ridiculous. “I date.” Her chin came up. “I’m seeing someone at the moment.”
    His gaze narrowed with a mixture of disbelief and displeasure. “Who?”
    A small startled thrill shot through her at the sudden notion that Nick didn’t like it one little bit that there was a man in her life, even if the dating was still on a superficial level.
    A little drunk on the rush of power that, in a room teeming with beautiful women, she was the center of his attention, she touched her tongue to her top lip. It was a gesture she became aware was an unconscious tease as his focus switched to her mouth.
    Abruptly embarrassed, she closed her mouth and stared over Nick’s shoulder at another pair of dancers whirling past. “You won’t know him.”
    “Let me guess,” he muttered. “Giorgio.”
    Elena blushed at the mistaken conclusion. A conclusion Nick had arrived at because she had deliberately failed to clarify who, exactly, Giorgio was. “Uh—actually, his name is Robert. Robert Corrado.”
    There was a stark silence. “You have two guys?”
    She wasn’t sure if the two tentative pecks on the mouth she had allowed, and which had been devoid of anything like the electrifying pleasure she had experienced when Nick kissed her, qualified Robert to be her guy. “Just the one.”
    Nick’s gaze bored into hers, narrowed and glittering. “So Giorgio’s past history?”
    Elena tried to dampen down the addictive little charge of excitement that went through her at Nick’s obvious displeasure. “Giorgio’s my beauty consultant.”
    Nick muttered something short and succinct under his breath. Another slow, gliding turn and they were outside on a shadowy patio with the light of the setting sun glowing