Flirting Under a Full Moon - By Ashlyn Chase Page 0,19
and you expect me to believe you had so much fun you didn’t realize a whole afternoon, evening, and half the night had gone by? You didn’t hear your phone ring or the beeps that signaled missed messages? What did you do?”
“Good question. What did we do?” Oh, my first date jitters…what did we do?
Angie’s eyes narrowed. “Did that bastard drug you?”
“Of course not!” Brandee was becoming more concerned by the minute, but she didn’t want to worry her poor roommate any more than she already was. “I don’t remember having anything to eat or drink. In fact, I’m starving.”
“Well, I’m relieved. I didn’t really think he drugged you. That doesn’t sound like the Nick we know. So why didn’t you answer your phone?”
Brandee glanced around the apartment and looked for her purse. “I must have left my phone here.”
Now that Angie was up, Brandee switched on the living room light and saw her purse where she usually left it. She wandered over to it and pulled out her cell phone. “Looks like it’s out of juice.”
Angie rolled her eyes. “Well, when you charge it, you can delete my half a dozen messages. Each one is more hysterical than the last.”
Why did I leave without my purse? How did I get in? Every answered question brought up another one. Maybe her camera would fill in some of the blanks. She remembered taking her camera with her. But why?
She opened the closet where she kept her photography equipment. Everything was there except her 35 mm Nikon.
“Where’s my camera? I remember taking it with me…” A partial memory returned. “Oh! I know what happened now.”
Angie had followed her into the living room and looked more concerned than ever. “What? I’m dying to hear this.”
“Nick was holding me. There was a tornado or a microburst. Anyway, my camera flew off my shoulder. If not for Nick, I’d have been sucked up into the wind too. He grabbed me and pulled me over next to a tree for shelter. I must have bumped my head.”
She glanced at her wrists. That must have been what happened to them. He’d grabbed onto her so tightly! Now they were sore. But she only remembered him grabbing one of her wrists. Why were they both sore?
Angie’s tented eyebrows said she was having a hard time with the explanation.
“You hit your head on a tree during a tornado on Boston Common? Did you see any Munchkins? Wicked witches?”
Brandee laughed. “Very funny. No trips to Oz for me. Nick will be coming over later. He can tell me what happened.”
“Nick’s coming here?”
“Yeah.” Brandee did remember one thing. That kiss. She touched her lips and smiled.
“Oh, no. You aren’t falling for Nick Wolfensen, are you?”
Brandee sighed. “You don’t understand. We kissed. It was the most incredible, mind-altering, toe-curling kiss of my entire life…and his. He told me his one-night rule didn’t apply to me. I think he was just as affected by the kiss as I was.”
“Oh. My. God. I don’t believe this.”
Brandee giggled. “Oh, my lucky day… That’s the one thing I do believe. Like you, I was completely skeptical, but he convinced me beyond the shadow of any doubt. He really cares about me, Ange.”
Angie snorted. “Yeah, right. I’ll believe it when I see it.”
At that moment, there was a knock at their door. “What the…who’s coming here at this time of night?”
Brandee strode to the door. “I told you, Nick said he’d be coming by later. He got called away and asked Anthony to see me safely home.”
That answered another question. How she’d managed to get in if she’d left her purse behind. Anthony owned the building, so of course he had a key.
She peered through the peephole and her heart leaped when she saw Nick. She quickly finger-combed her hair and opened the door.
Nick took one long stride into the apartment, grasped her in his arms, and kissed her thoroughly. His kiss had a frenzied quality to it—as if he hadn’t seen her for weeks, or like they’d just been through some kind of life-altering event. Hmmm… Was he that worried about her after the tornado incident?
Angie cleared her throat and the couple parted, but neither of them looked away. He gazed at her with so much longing. If Brandee didn’t know better, she’d say he wanted to make love to her right then and there.
“I don’t believe this,” Angie muttered.
Nick finally turned toward Angie but kept a possessive arm around Brandee’s waist.