On Thin Ice by Susan Andersen Read Free Book Online

night. My costume tore, I’m running late, and I . . .”
    Her eyes reached his face and she felt as if someone had stomped the wind right out of her. Struggling to catch a breath, she stared.
    This had to be Mick Vinicor and Connie was right, he wasn’t handsome. He wasn’t a frog or anything, but his features certainly were nothing to write home about. They were just sort of run of the mill . . . except for his teeth, which were orthodontia perfect and toothpaste-ad white, like something out of the glossies. She backed up a step in order to view him more clearly, her mind racing as she attempted to figure out exactly where his appeal lay.
    Weathered and muscular—masculine wasn’t such an inept description after all, she decided dazedly. He was a presence to be reckoned with, exuding something that was nearly . . . animalistic, even if she couldn’t quite pin down its origin. His hair was brown, his eyes were blue, nothing spectacular about the shade of either. But there was an intensity about him that was palpable as a force field, and it radiated from his eyes, was hinted at by his posture, giving him a vitality that made him seem almost . . . dangerous. But that, of course, was patently absurd.
    Wasn’t it?
    Well, whether it was or it wasn’t, she couldn’t quite see this guy as a business major, but then again the good Lord knew she wasn’t always the most astute judge of character. Just look at her blind defense of Lonnie. She hadn’t been able to see him as a drug dealer, either, and she would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that she’d known his character as well as she knew her own.
    It felt as though she had stood there for an age just gaping at the new manager, but in actuality her assessment was made quite speedily. She noted his height, which was average, perhaps five eleven, maybe six feet. Then she noted his build, and it nearly stopped her heart for an instant. A ridiculous reaction, undoubtedly, but there it was; in spite of the multitude of athletic builds she had seen in her many years on the circuit, she’d never before come across anyone who’d made quite this sort of impact on her. He was wearing a plain old white T-shirt and a pair of charcoal Dockers, and while she wondered in a distracted corner of her mind how he kept from freezing to death in this drafty back hallway, his clothing was certainly nothing she hadn’t seen a dozen times before on a dozen different guys.
    Yet on him they somehow managed to look extraordinary. No two ways about it, the man was built. Wide shoulders, solid chest, well-developed biceps, muscular forearms. Her eyes skimmed past the expensive-looking watch on his wrist to his large hands.
    Her gaze snapped back to the watch. She grabbed him by the wrist and turned it until she could see the face of the timepiece. “Oh, damn!” Dropping his arm she turned to sprint away. “Sorry again about barging into you,” she called back over her shoulder and then laughed when it hit her how demented she must appear to him. First she’d practically bowled him over and then she’d just stood there like a dufus with her tongue all but hanging out while she stared at him. Wasn’t chemistry a grand thing? Skates clattering against her hip, she raced down the concrete passage.
    Mick stood in the middle of the corridor and watched her until she disappeared. Then he slowly followed her down the hallway.
    She wasn’t at all what he had prepared himself for. He’d known she’d be pretty from her picture, but he had expected there to be a hardness about her in real life. Instead it turned out that the black and white photograph hadn’t even done her justice.
    In the flesh she was a warm golden color with touches of rose. Her eyes were pale gray rimmed with darker gray and they contained tiny flecks of gold near the pupils. Her hair was abundant, a black curly cloud that looked wild and