Evan, who’d been sitting on the foot of her bed, collapsed onto the mattress with an exasperated groan. “Why am I here, Shandi? Why the hell am I even here?”
She plodded out from behind her room divider, a silk screen of Mae West prints. Wearing her ratty chenille bathrobe, she dropped to sit on the hardwood floor in the middle of all the clothes.
“You’re here because A, you have nothing better to do, B, April can’t be here and C, I happen to trust your taste and I need the opinion of an eye other than my own.”
“I’m gouging mine out now, so you’re SOL.”
She picked up a lime leather miniskirt and threw it at him. “And you call yourself a roommate.”
“I call myself male, and I come with the requisite lack of fashion sense.”
“Or—so the rumor goes—you don’t come at all.”
Evan levered himself up onto his elbows again. “Is that a reference to my love life? Because I can assure you that the rumor is wrong.”
“Been taking matters into your own hands again?”
“As often as possible.”
Shandi laughed but stopped short of admitting she shared his pain. Her love life of late was nonexistent and her sex life a figment of her fantasies, her hands and one or two very special battery-operated boyfriends.
She sighed. “If I were going out with you or April, I wouldn’t be having this problem, you know.”
“Right. April and I don’t rate.”
“It’s not that and you know it. It’s just that with the two of you I can be myself.”
Evan heaved an enormous sigh. “This may come as a big shock, Shandi, but guys like women comfortable enough to be themselves.”
“I know.”
“Then be yourself. I can’t imagine any hetero guy with half a brain and at least one good eye not being attracted to you.”
Aww, he was so cute with his compliments…or maybe not! “Now I see why April is so crazy about you. You are one amazing sweet-talker, Evan Harcourt.”
“Shandi, shut the hell up and get dressed.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one trying to be yourself without sending a member of the opposite sex screaming into the night.” Willowy cat’s tail of a filly. Long, tall drink of whiskey and water. Uh-uh. Not tonight.
“Woman,” Evan said with a growl, “I’m about to kick your whiny ass back to Oklahoma.”
“That’s it. As The Donald would say, you’re fired. I’ll just do this on my own.”
“Best news I’ve heard all night.” He smacked his palms to his thighs, pushed up from her bed and stood. “Just no blaming me if anything goes wrong.”
“How can it go wrong?” She gave him a narrow glare. “I’m what every half-witted, one-eyed man wants.”
“And on that extra whiny note, I’m gone.”
“Fine.” She stuck out her tongue, then collapsed onto her back in the mountain of clothes and stared at the ceiling.
She was being childish and she knew it, but stress tended to do that to her. She grew pouty and petulant and always felt better after pitching a fit.
But now it was time to get over it. She sat up and thought about Quentin—what she knew of him, what she hadn’t yet learned, what different impression she might make as his date than she already had as his bartender.
It was time to turn the heat up a notch. But how?
It was when her gaze landed on the short green-and-blue-plaid skirt hanging in her closet that she knew exactly. Ooh, but she loved it when a plan came together!
You have a thing for waifish schoolgirls, do you?
“I THINK I STARTED SINGING in front of audiences as soon as I learned to talk.”
It was Tuesday night, nearing seven o’clock. Quentin was sitting in the elegant boutique hotel’s art-deco lobby, relaxing back in one of the plush leather chairs, waiting for Shandi. At least, he was sitting and he was waiting.
The relaxing part had ceased the minute Mrs. Cyprus had sat down in the chair beside him and opened her mouth. She had yet to shut it.
“In grade school, I actually sang the lead in Annie. Can you believe it? I wasn’t even ten years old and I won the part over children older than I was.”
This was what Shandi had saved him from last night, what he wished she would show up and save him from now. Sure, he could save himself by heading to one of the lobby shops, the restaurant or the bar, even back to his room.
But he had this thing about wanting to be right here to see Shandi walk through the front door. To see her before she saw him. He liked catching her unawares, wanting to weigh the expression on her face as she sought him out. Doing so might not tell him a thing, he mused, frowning as he watched a huge black cat stroll through the lobby, but he wanted those few brief moments anyway.
“The summer before my freshman year in high school was when I caught the notice of my camp counselors. I organized a routine for my backup dancers and sang a medley of Elvis songs. You should’ve seen our costumes.”
He nodded, smiled, then braced his elbows on the chair arms and laced his fingers, tapped his thumbs to his chin. He wasn’t going to give up what he wanted more than anything right now because of the annoying woman at his side reciting her résumé.
He simply tuned her out, shut down the volume, left her running as background noise. Funny how adept he’d become at ignoring what he didn’t want to hear. And how often he had to stop and wonder if he was tuning out what he shouldn’t.
If he was paying attention when he should.
If he’d become too jaded to recognize the difference.
“I studied voice at university. Oh, the raves over my performances. It was the sort of reaction I’d been working toward all my life. And I knew I was on my way. That I’d never get enough.”
She might not have gotten enough, but this one-sided conversation was edging close to more than he was willing to put up with. And he’d just moved his hands to the chair arms to push himself up and make his excuses when the revolving glass doors swung around and there Shandi was.
Or so he first thought. It took a second glance and then a very long and lingering third before he was able to convince himself he was seeing Shandi and not a young girl at whom he shouldn’t be staring at all.
At his side Mrs. Cyprus continued to chatter, remaining oblivious to everything but herself. And that gave Quentin the freedom to focus.
He started at Shandi’s feet, where she wore penny loafers and white kneesocks, both of the sort he hadn’t seen on girls since grade school. And never on a woman he wanted to bed the way he wanted to bed this one. He felt like a complete perv and loved the thrum of arousal stirring in his groin.
He followed the long lines of her legs where they disappeared beneath a green-and-blue-plaid skirt so short it barely covered her ass. And from this vantage point, sitting lower than her hemline, that coverage was questionable.
He was able to see skin and curves and what appeared to be an edge of frilly white lace that had his gut tightening like that of a starving man.
His gaze had reached her white blouse—gauzy and nearly sheer—when she finally saw him. She turned and headed his way, and he sat immobile and watched the gorgeous bounce and sway of her braless breasts.
When she lifted a hand to her mouth, he followed the movement and watched her pull a red lollipop from between her lips. This