Waiting For Nick
Page 15

She began to tremble. One quick shudder that grew and quickened until she was vibrating like a plucked string.
Shame washed over him, a cold gray mist over red-hot lust. Staggered by what he'd done, by what he'd wanted to do, he dropped his hands and slowly stepped back.
Her breath sounded more like sobbing, and her eyes, he noted, furious with himself, were glazed. As he watched, she gripped the edge of the counter for balance, and her knuckles went white.
"I'm sorry, Fred. Are you all right?" When she said nothing, nothing at all, he used his temper to combat the shame. "If you're not, you've nobody to blame but yourself. That's the kind of treatment you're opening yourself up to," he shot at her. "If it had been anybody but me, things would have been worse. I'm sorry I scared you, but I wanted to teach you a lesson."
"You did?" Though her heart was still thudding, Freddie was recovering, slowly. Nothing she ever imagined had come close to being as wonderful, as exhilarating, as the reality of Nick. Now he was going to spoil it with apologies and lectures. "I wonder—" hoping she could trust her legs, she slid slowly from the counter to the floor ''—who taught whom. I kissed you, Nicholas. I kissed you and knocked you on your butt. You wanted me."
His blood was still humming. He couldn't quite silence the tune. "Let's not confuse things, Fred."
"Oh, I agree, let's not. You weren't kissing your little cousin just now, Nick. You were kissing me." Now it was she who stepped forward, and he back, in a reversal of the dance. "And I was kissing you."
His throat had gone unbearably dry. Who was this woman? he wondered. Who was this devilish sprite with eyes full of awareness and knowledge, who was turning him inside out with a look? "Maybe things got out of hand for a minute."
"No, they didn't."
The smile was entirely too smug and female. It was a look he recognized, and on another woman he might even have appreciated. "It isn't right, Fred."
"Why?"
"Because." He found himself fumbling over reasons he knew only too well. "I don't have to spell it out for you." He picked up his neglected coffee and drank it down stone-cold.
"I think you're having a hard time spelling it out for yourself." Empowered, Freddie tilted her head again. "I wonder, Nick, what you would do if I were to kiss you, right now."
Take her, he was certain, without thought or conscience, on the floor. "Cut it out, Fred. We both need to cool off."
"You may be right." Her lips curved again, sweetly. "I'd say you need some time to get used to the idea that you're attracted to me."
"I never said that." He set down his cup again.
"It isn't always easy to accept changes in people we think we know. But I've got plenty of time."
She was standing perfectly still, but he could feel her circling him. "Fred." He let out a long breath. "I'm trying to be reasonable here, and I'm not sure it's going to work." He frowned down at her. "I'm not sure any of this is going to work. Maybe some things have changed, and whatever those changes are, we don't seem to get along as smoothly as we once did. If working together means risking our friendship—"
"You're nervous about working with me?"
No button she could have chosen could have been more effective. Whatever he had made of himself through the years, there was still a remnant of the rebellious young man whose pride was a point of honor.
"Of course I'm not afraid of working with you, or anyone."
"If that's true, then we don't have a problem. Of course, if you're thinking you might not be able to stop yourself from—How did you so poetically put it? Oh, yes, sampling me—"
"I'm not going to touch you again." The gritty fury in his voice only made her smile sweeten. "Well, then. I suggest you make the best of the breakfast you've let get cold. Then we'll get to work."
He was true to his word. They worked together for hours, and he never made any physical contact. It cost him. She had a way, he discovered, of shifting her body, tilting her head, looking up under her lashes—all of which seemed designed to make a sane man beg.
By the end of the day, Nick was no longer sure he was sane.
"That's good, good," Freddie murmured, scanning notes even as Nick played them. "Someone with Maddy O'Hurley's range is going to really kick on that."
"I didn't say this was Maddy's solo," Nick snapped. But that wasn't the point, he thought. The point was that Freddie was reading his mind, and his music, much too clearly. He had an odd and uncomfortable vision of himself as a fish nibbling at the bait. And it was Freddie holding the rod.
"Maybe I was thinking of using it for the second leads. A duet."
"No, you weren't," she said, calmly enough. "But fine, if you want to play it that way. I've got some ideas for lyrics for their number." She slid him a sidelong look. "They don't really fit this music, but I can adjust. Maybe if you pick up the tempo."
"I don't want to pick up the tempo. It's fine as it is."
"Not for the second leads' duet. Now, for Maddy's solo, it should go something like… 'You made me forget, today and tomorrow, if you—'"
Nick interrupted her. "Are you trying to tick me off?"
"No, I'm trying to work with you." She made a quick note on one of the sheets of paper propped up on the piano, then shifted enough to smile at him. "I think you need a break."
"I know when I need a break." He snatched a pack of cigarettes off the top of the piano, lighted one. "Just shut up a minute, and let me work on this."
"Sure." With her tongue in her cheek, Freddie slid off the bench. She rolled her shoulders, stretched as he fiddled with the notes. Changing them, she noted, when they both knew they needed no changing.
He was fighting her, she noted, and realized nothing could have pleased her more. If he was fighting, that meant there was something there he had to defend against. Testing, she laid her hands on his shoulders and rubbed.
His system shot immediately into overdrive. "Cut it out, Fred."
"You're all stiff and tight."
His hands crashed down on the keys. "I said cut it out."