Waking Up to You Overexposed - By Leslie Kelly Page 0,78
a Santori male. The men of that family had always been good-hearted.
Honestly, looking back, if Nick had been a jerk about what had happened at the wedding, she might have gotten over her crush a lot sooner and this moment might be a lot simpler. She could tell him to f-off, remind him he’d once laughed at her and added to her humiliation. Only...he hadn’t. Curse the man.
He’d been very sweet, carefully helping her up—once she’d released her thunder-thigh death grip from around his hips. He’d gently wiped powdered sugar and cream off her cheek. He’d helped her pull her dress back down into place without making one crack about her chubby thighs or her panty girdle. He’d pretended she hadn’t practically assaulted him. And he’d helped her back up onto the dance floor and continued their dance. Absolutely the only annoying thing he’d done was to start calling her Cookie.
As her mother often said, he’d been raised right. Just like his brothers. He was every bit a gentleman—a protector—and he’d never given her a sideways glance that hadn’t been merely friendly. In his eyes, she’d always been Gloria’s baby sister—the chubby ballerina who looked like a little stuffed sausage in her pink tutu and tights and he’d treated her with nothing but big-brotherly kindness.
Until now.
Fortunately, though, she wasn’t sweet Izzie the cookie-gobbling machine anymore. He hadn’t seen her for almost a decade...she no longer blushed and stammered when a hot guy teased her. And she no longer even tried to imagine she could have been a ballerina with her less-than-willowy figure.
Once she’d stopped eating pastries and hit brick-shit-house stature at age eighteen, she’d known her future as a dancer would come from another direction than the ballet.
She’d also learned how to handle men.
Now, she was in the driver’s seat when it came to seduction. She’d been running the show with men for years. And it was high time to let Nick Santori know it.
“So, when you offered to serve me...what were you talking about?” she asked, swiping her tongue across her lips. It was a move she’d perfected in her Rockettes dressing room. Men used to come backstage, trying to pick up the dancers and they all went for the lip-licking. God, males were so predictable. She held her breath, hoping for more from this one.
And she got it.
“I’m talking about me serving you with a line and you tipping me with your number. But since it’s crowded and I’m rusty at that stuff, why don’t you just give me the number?”
Izzie had to laugh. If he’d come back with a smooth line, the laugh would have been at his expense—because she doubted there was one he hadn’t heard. But Nick had been completely honest, which she found incredibly attractive.
She also laughed to hide the nervous thrill she’d gotten when she realized Nick Santori really did want her number. That he really was trying to pick her up.
Her...the girl he’d once complained about having to dance with at a wedding. What were the odds?
“I think I’ve got your number.” She’d had it for years.
He didn’t give up. “Use it. Please.”
He meant it. He wasn’t teasing, wasn’t trying to make her blush, wasn’t treating her the way he treated his kid sister, Lottie, who’d been one of her classmates.
Nick Santori was trying to pick her up. Which shouldn’t have been a big deal, but, for some reason, had her heart fluttering around in her chest like a bird trapped in a cage.
“My name’s Nick, by the way.”
No, duh. She was about to say that, then she saw the look in his eyes—that serious, intense look. He wasn’t kidding. He wasn’t pretending they were just meeting.
She sagged back against the wall, not sure whether to laugh or punch him in the face.
Because the rotten son of a bitch had no idea who she was.
2
THE WOMAN HAD flour in her hair. She smelled like almonds. Her apron was smeared with icing and whipped cream. Food coloring stained the tips of two of her fingers.
And she was utterly delicious.
The hints of flavor wafting off her couldn’t compete with the innate, warm feminine scent of her body, which assaulted Nick’s senses the way no full frontal attack ever had. Though they were in a crowded restaurant, surrounded by customers and members of his own family, hers was the only presence he felt. He’d been drawn to her, captured in an intimate world they’d created the moment their eyes had locked.