Playing With Fire Read Online Free PDF Page B

broadened. “Sure. What’ve you got?”
    Good question. She wasn’t much of a drinker. She thought she had a bottle of cognac someone had given her a few years ago at one of Lauren’s Christmas parties. It had never even been opened. “You like cognac?”
    It must have been the sodium-vapor street lights that made it look as if a reddish gleam came and went in his eyes. “Love it.”
    Through some miracle the valet brought her car around first, closely followed by a big truck that must belong to Sam. She gave him her address and some quick directions. He nodded, then climbed into his truck and waited while she slid into the driver’s seat of her Volvo.
    Concentrating on fastening her seat belt and checking her mirrors helped keep her occupied for a minute or so. But once she was headed east on Third Street, the misgivings came back full force. What had possessed her to invite Sam back to her loft? All right, so she hadn’t been laid in — well, if she stopped to count the months it would be too depressing, but it had been long enough. And fingers and vibrators could only get a girl so far.
    She bit her lip and turned on her signal as she slowed to take the turn into her parking garage. It was part of the reason she’d purchased the loft here and not another, larger one a few blocks away. Street parking in L.A. was a nightmare; at least here she was guaranteed her own spot, as well as a couple of floating ones that were available to guests. The lights of Sam’s Silverado flashed in her rearview mirror as he started down the ramp into the garage behind her.
    The visitor spots were located near the stairwell, so she went ahead and parked in her space and headed over to meet Sam. He climbed out of the truck and clicked the remote for the alarm. His gaze slid past her to the stairs. “No elevator?”
    “What do you think this is, the Ritz?” She reached past him and opened the door to the stairwell. “We do have an elevator, but it’s small, and I don’t like to use it, since it was put it in for people who actually need it. Desmond, on the second floor, is in a wheelchair, and Rosa, who shares the top floor with me, has fibromyalgia and can’t use the stairs. So you get to work off that veal.”
    Even as the words left her lips she worried that her tone might have been too tart, but he gave her another easy grin and started up the steps. Although technically she should have led the way since she was the one who knew where they were going, she didn’t argue. By following him, she got to watch his delectable ass in that fine-fitting pair of jeans going up five flights of stairs.
    After they’d visited her once, people never bothered to ask Felicia how she got her exercise. But Sam didn’t seem winded at all. He stepped aside as he entered the short hallway that separated her loft from Rosa’s.  
    Felicia moved past him and unlocked her door. “Here we are.”
    “Nice place,” he commented, after she flicked on the lights.
    Thank God she’d taken that fifteen minutes to tidy up the loft before she left to meet him at the restaurant. She didn’t think her home would win any awards from Architectural Digest , but she’d tried to keep the furnishings to a minimum — clean, simple pieces that didn’t fight with the good bones of the building or the spectacular view out the windows. Since it was a true loft, the whole space was one enormous room, except for the bathroom, which was located at the end of a short, closet-lined hallway.
    “Thanks,” she said, keeping her tone casual. Now wasn’t the time to tell him how proud she was of her home, of how it was tangible evidence of the success she’d worked so hard to achieve. Better to accept the compliment and move on.
    She found the cognac shoved toward the back on the top shelf of her pantry. Since it hadn’t been opened, she had to struggle with uncorking it, shielding her inexpert wielding of the corkscrew from Sam as best she could. She didn’t own