For the Love of Nick by Jill Shalvis Page B

Then he pulled out the sandwich fixings and started working, as if he were an old pro in the kitchen.
    She tried not to notice how utterly sexy he looked concentrating at putting mustard on bread.
    “And as for the strangers part…” He lifted his head and pierced her with a hot, intimate look that curled her toes. “I already told you. I stopped thinking of you as a stranger long ago.”
    She forced her gaze back to the job at hand—food. His long, tanned fingers delicately placed lettuce on the bread. “High school was a long time ago.”
    He nodded, his mouth curving in memories.
    Helpless to resist the lure of the thick turkey he was now layering over the lettuce, she moved closer. “You…haven’t forgotten how horrible it was.”
    “I’ve forgotten nothing.”
    “I’ve never really forgiven myself for those days.”
    “You sure enjoy paying for the sins of others, don’t you?” He leveled his timber-green eyes on hers while he brought his hand up and sucked a drop of mustard off his thumb. “It wasn’t your crowd I dreamed about.”
    “Oh.”
    “Yeah.” A smile grew. “Oh.”
    She looked into his now-mischievous gaze, her heart catching at what she saw in it. “You really dreamed…”
    “Oh baby, you have no idea how many fantasies you headlined for me over those years.”
    She actually looked behind her. “Me?”
    “You.”
    “Well, that’s…” Thrilling. Tantalizing. Terrifying. “Disgusting.”
    Still smiling, he looked unconcerned. “Most high school boys are. And I was all boy.” He went back to the sandwiches, adding cheese.
    “You really had…sexual dreams about me?”
    “Hmm.” He sucked his thumb again, closing his eyes, a fully sensual, passionate creature, enjoying every possible sensation. “Good dreams, too,” he murmured, his voice impossibly husky. “Did I mention I had a great imagination?” His gaze, scalding now, skimmed over her from head to toe, then slowly back again. “And even in my wildest dreams, I never, ever, put you together as good as the reality.”
    He poured her a bowl of soup from the stove, loaded one sandwich on a plate, then dumped halfa bag of potato chips on it. “Enjoy,” he said lightly, gently shoving her onto a bar stool at the counter.
    He turned back to the cutting board and chopped up some turkey and cheese. Then he set it into a bowl and eyed Sadie. “Watch my fingers, dog,” he warned, putting it on the floor.
    Sadie charged at the bowl, and Nick nearly fell over backward, trying to get out of the way.
    Danielle would have laughed, except…he’d fed her dog. Unprompted. Just…fed her.
    “Holy smokes,” he said, still staring at Sadie.
    Sounds of Sadie’s chomping filled the air. Her tail beat the air as she swallowed everything in the bowl in two seconds flat.
    “She likes her food,” she whispered through a clogged throat.
    “She was starving,” he said, sounding horrified.
    “No, she always eats like that.”
    He continued to stare at her, carefully staying out of tail-wagging range, clearly realizing that it was a tail that could slice a man in two. “Wow.”
    Danielle lifted her sandwich to her mouth, then nearly moaned at her first bite. She swallowed hard when he watched her, because there was just something about the way she received his entire,undivided attention that both unnerved and aroused her at the same time. “Nick…”
    “Yeah?”
    “Thank you.”
    He broke eye contact to get his own sandwich, and she took a good second look at him. And a third. Not because he was so beautiful he stole her breath—which he did—and not because she wanted him in a way that made her ache—though that was true, too—but because there was something…
    Being thanked made him uncomfortable.
    Having wolfed down his sandwich, he held up the film canister. “I’m going to go get this started.”
    “Yes, but—”
    “I converted the third bathroom into a darkroom eons ago. I’ll just be down the hall if you need