The Princess Finds Her Match by Suzette de Borja

He would have to do some fast convincing to make her recognize there was something worth exploring between them.
    “Where did you learn to dance like that?” Nic was burning to ask her a hundred questions but settled for an innocuous one.
    “Like what?”
    They were still walking aimlessly, past kitschy souvenir stores, sex toy shops, and run-down apartments. She stopped at one of the souvenir stores, surveying the display window.
    “You knew how to move,” he shrugged as if that was self−explanatory.
    “Years of ballet and jazz,” she tossed out, grasping the door handle. Nic saw her jump back in surprise.
    “What is it?” Nic asked, his brow furrowing in concern.
    “I got a shock from the door handle,” she said, laughing self-consciously.
    “Happens to me all the time,” Nic grimaced in sympathy. “It’s the dry desert air. Give me your hand.”
    Lexie did as told and Nic made a show of inspecting it. He swore he felt a different jolt when their skin touched. Then he kissed each finger. “All better?”
    She nodded. “But now I’m scared of touching that door handle.”
    “Leave it to me.” He approached the door, and he saw Lexie observing what he was going to do. He pulled out the bottom end of the front of his shirt, flashing her inadvertently with a view of his lower abdomen. He wrapped it on the door handle and tugged it open.
    Lexie grinned in approval. “Very innovative.”
    He winked and Lexie stepped past him inside the store.
    “Looking for anything in particular?” A thin Asian man was working behind the cashier. He was the only one inside the shop and wasn’t particularly welcoming at half-past eleven in the evening.
    “Good evening. I’m looking for a magnet, please.” Nic noted how polite and old-fashioned she sounded in contrast to the seductive minx she had been earlier at the bar. He mulled over the disparity and decided he rather liked it. Proper in public but sexy as hell in closed quarters.
    The man gestured to a display on the side, looking less stern. He was visibly charmed by her quaint manners.
    As with all females, Lexie had instantly become absorbed in comparing the merits of a roulette wheel magnet to a poker chip magnet. She wanted the poker chip magnet, but it didn’t say Las Vegas in the font she wanted. Nic told her he would buy both for her to put an end to her dilemma, at which she prissily told him it wasn’t the point. Nic rolled his eyes and she wrinkled her nose at him. God, even with the atrocious wig, she was beautiful. Nic left her to debate the merits of each item and wandered to another display cabinet. He called over the salesperson discreetly and pointed to an object that caught his interest.
    Back outside, Lexie had shown him what she had decided to purchase. He chuckled. It was a magnet of a scantily clad Las Vegas showgirl complete with a huge feather headdress. “Very classy,” he quipped dryly.
    “At least it had the font that I liked,” she answered cheekily. “What did you get?”
    “Here.” He took her hand and gave her a small box. She appeared surprised and opened the package silently. Her wide, lush mouth broke into a smile. Inside were earrings nestled on a velvet cushion. Instead of jeweled studs, each earring had a silver dice with black numeral dots on each facet of the cube.
    “Thank you,” she said simply, clearly pleased and touched by his gift. She immediately placed them on her dainty earlobes. “How do I look?” She tucked a lock of fake hair behind a dainty ear. There was uncertainty in those cat eyes.
    Nic had known women far more beautiful than Lexie, but her appeal to him went beyond that. There was something almost unaffected about her. “You take my breath away.”
    She blushed a becoming pink at his rather trite but true sentiment, and Nic fell deeper under her spell.
    And because he couldn’t help it, he murmured, “Don’t I get a thank you kiss in exchange?”
    She wrinkled her pert little nose at him in