Fool's Gold (A sexy funny mystery/romance, Cottonmouth Book 2) by Jennifer Skully Page B

roll.
    “Sit.” She gestured to the opposite end of
the couch. “Over there.”
    He plopped down in the middle, next to her,
his knee almost touching hers. “It’s more comfortable here.”
    She looked at him, not the screen, where
Dorothy was doing...something. In the fading light of the evening
sun, Simone’s hazel eyes deepened to a richer shade of green. Her
lip biting had transferred a dash of red lipstick to her front
tooth. She closed her mouth and licked it off, as if she’d known
what fascinated him.
    He slid an arm along the back of the sofa
until his hand touched the gold of her hair. Soft. Silky. Just as
he’d imagined. He took a lock between his thumb and two fingers,
stroking it.
    “What are you doing?”
    Getting lost in the feel of her hair.
    Which was not the reason he’d sat so close.
No, he’d chosen that exact spot because the sun was setting and the
room was darkening, and he’d needed to be close to read the
expression in her eyes when he questioned her. At least that’s what
he’d told himself, so why wasn’t he doing some basic
interrogation?
    She leaned over and snagged the bag of
licorice he’d thrown on the table. “Can I open it?”
    “Sure.”
    She ripped the package, pulled out a whip,
then offered the bag to him. Brax shook his head.
    “I logged onto your website.” That wasn’t
what he was supposed to say. He was supposed to ask a question he
already knew the answer to, a difficult or embarrassing question
about which she might feel the need to lie. To gauge her reaction
and analyze how her brain functioned. He was supposed to administer
a test.
    “Oh.” Her gaze flicked to the TV screen.
“You’re missing the witch.”
    He heard the music and knew the old witch was
riding her bicycle with Toto in the basket. “I’ve seen this
part.”
    She sucked on the end of the licorice, then
bit off a small chunk, chewing as she watched him instead of the
movie.
    He didn’t realize he’d leaned closer until
she put the flat of her hand to his chest and pushed. If she’d used
her finger, he’d have lost it completely.
    “Brax.”
    “Hmm.” He loved the way her lips puckered
around his name.
    “I might write erotica on the Internet, but
I’m not going to lick your ice-cream cone.”
    His ice-cream cone reacted immediately, as if
she’d said the opposite. “Bad choice of words on my part.”
    “It was?” Was that disappointment in her
voice? She bit off two more pieces of licorice and stared at him
thoughtfully.
    “Yeah.” She wasn’t an
ice-cream-cone-on-the-first-date kind of woman. “I don’t know what
came over me.” A lingering heat from reading about sensual massage
had come over him.
    And the dazzle of her smile that had flitted
through his dreams last night.
    She stuck the last bit of red licorice
between her lips.
    He backed off, leaned heavily against the
sofa to run both hands through his hair. Where the hell was his
perspective? It wasn’t just his life that had turned upside down in
Cottonmouth. He, himself, had become topsy-turvy. He was usually
rational, analytical, and focused. His reactions to Simone,
however, had proved anything but. “I’m exceptionally sorry.”
    She hummed beside him.
    “I’m usually more circumspect.”
    Then she started to sing along with the
movie. Slightly off-key, deeper than Judy Garland’s sweet tones,
but Simone’s voice burrowed beneath his ribs and shot up to grab
hold of his heart. Something glistened in her pretty hazel eyes.
The notion gripped him that she wasn’t singing for Dorothy, but for
herself, and she had yet to find her way over any rainbows.
    Maggie had told him as much.
    He stroked the back of her hand with his
knuckles. She hugged her knees to her chest, her bare feet flat on
the sofa, her toes curled over the edge. Then she blinked away
tears.
    He thought she might flick off his touch, but
instead she said, “I love that song.” She glanced at him, as if to
assess his reaction. “I’m a