Waking Up to You Overexposed - By Leslie Kelly Page 0,102
the restaurant, just in case she happened to be the delivery person.
She never was.
But he wasn’t giving up. While at first she’d been a sexy stranger who’d caught his eye, she’d now become something of a challenge to him. He wanted to work his way around her protective wall and see if the smiling, funny girl was still there behind that to-die-for woman exterior.
Maybe it was just as well that Izzie consumed his thoughts by day. Because it made it easier to resist temptation by night. It definitely had on Saturday and Sunday night.
He’d worked at Leather and Lace for a second weekend. This time, knowing what he was in for, he’d been careful to avoid being alone with Rose, the club’s sultry star performer, and hadn’t even exchanged a word with her. Even still, it had been impossible to keep his eyes off her.
Especially when she danced.
Especially when she watched him while she danced.
If she’d made another move on him, he honestly didn’t know that he’d have been able to refuse. So ensuring he was never alone with her was probably a good thing.
Hell, he honestly wasn’t sure why he was resisting. As long as he kept the woman safe, he didn’t see Harry Black being the kind of man who’d have a problem with it. After all, he was married to one of his own former star performers.
And letting off a little sexual steam didn’t have to have anything to do with Nick’s normal, daytime life. In fact, nobody in his family ever needed to know about it. There was no law that said an unattached man couldn’t have sex with a willing woman, just because he was interested in another woman.
One who wasn’t interested in him.
Damn. That’s why he hadn’t done it. Because it was driving him crazy that Izzie wasn’t interested in him.
Frankly, he’d never worked so hard to get a woman’s attention in his life. The fact that Izzie was the woman in question made the whole situation that much more challenging.
She’d been crazy about him once. He’d get her to see him that way again if it was the last thing he did. Even if it meant doing stupid, sappy shit like showing up at her bakery with a handful of flowers.
Like he was right now.
God, how the guys in his unit would laugh to see him, standing on a street corner on a hot August day, holding a brightly colored bouquet he’d bought off a guy on the corner.
“What are you doing?” she mouthed through the glass late Thursday afternoon when he knocked on the locked front door.
“I’m bringing you flowers,” he yelled back. “Open up.”
“Don’t bring me flowers.”
Shrugging, he flashed her a grin. “Too late.”
“I mean it.”
“Like I said, too late. Come on, let me in. They’re thirsty.”
She glared at him. Seeing pedestrians stopping to watch the show, she went a step further and bared her teeth.
Man the woman was hot when she was hot.
“Go away!”
Tsking, he shook his head. Then he looked at the closest woman who’d paused midstep to see what was going on. “Can you believe she doesn’t want my flowers?”
A teenager and her girlfriend, who’d also stopped nearby, piped in together, “We’ll take them!”
The older woman, an iron-gray haired grandmother, frowned. “What did you do?”
Good question. He wasn’t entirely sure. “I didn’t recognize her after not having seen her for ten years.”
The grandmother’s eyebrow shot up. Pushing Nick out of the way, she marched up to the glass, stuck her index finger out and pointed at Izzie. “Take the flowers you foolish girl.” Rolling her eyes and huffing about youth being wasted on the young, she stalked down the street.
Izzie, still practically growling, unlocked the door, yanked it open and grabbed his arm. “Get in here and stop making a fool of yourself.”
“I wasn’t making a fool of myself,” he pointed out. “You were making a fool of me.”
“You don’t require much help.”
Shaking his head and smiling, he murmured, “What happened to the sweet, friendly, eager-to-please Izzie?”
“She grew up.”
She yanked the bouquet out of his hand, stalking behind the counter and grabbing a glass to put it in. Watching her, he noticed the surreptitious sniff she gave the blooms, and the way she squared her shoulders, as if annoyed at her own weakness.
Nick didn’t follow her, tempted as he was. Instead, he leaned across the glass counter, dropping his elbows onto it. “The flowers are a peace offering.”