Chapter 7

"I'm wired," she announced. "Aren't you hungry? Want some cookies? I still have plenty." He nearly ignored her as he dug out his keys, then his stomach reminded him he hadn't eaten anything for the past eight hours. And her cookies were a minor miracle.

"Maybe."

"Great." She unlocked her door, left it open, stepping out of her shoes as she walked to the kitchen. "You can come in," she called out.

"I'll put the cookies on a plate for you so you can take them back and eat them in your own apartment, but there's no point in waiting in the hall." He stepped in, leaving the door opened behind him. He should have known her place would be bright and cheerful, full of cute and classy little accents. With his hands in his pockets, he wandered around, tuning out her bubbling chatter while she transferred cookies from a canister in the shape of a manically grinning cow to the same red plate she'd used before.

"You talk too much."

"I know." She skimmed a hand over her spiky bangs. "Especially when I'm nervous or wired up."

"Are you ever otherwise?"

"Now and then."

He noted a scatter of framed photos, several pairs of earrings, another shoe, a romance novel and the scent of apple blossoms. Each suited her, he thought, as perfectly as the next.

He moved over to stand on the opposite side of the counter and helped himself to the cookies she was arranging in a stylish circular pattern.

Jade smiled. "Want some milk?"

"No. Got a beer?"

"With cookies?" She grimaced but turned to her refrigerator. Vincent had a chance to see it was well stocked as she bent down—which gave him a chance to appreciate just what snug black slacks could do for a perky woman's excellent butt—and retrieved a bottle of Beck's Dark.

"Will this do? It's what Damien likes."

"Well then Damien has good taste. Boyfriend?"

She smirked, getting out a pilsner glass before he could tell her he'd just take the bottle. "I suppose that indicates that I'm the type to have boyfriends, but no. He's Lily's Boyfriend. Lily lives just below you in 2B. I was out to dinner with them tonight, and Lily's excessively boring cousin Jason....i was bored to death,ugh"

"Is that what you were muttering about when you came home?"

"Was I muttering?" She frowned, then leaned on the counter and ate one of his cookies. Muttering was another habit she kept trying to break. "Probably. It's the third time Lily has forced me into a date with Jason. He's a stockbroker. Thirty-five, single, handsome if you like that lantern-jawed, chiseled-brow sort. He drives a BMW coupe, has an apartment on the Upper East Side, a summer place in the Hamptons, wears Armani suits, enjoys italian-provincial cuisine and has perfect teeth." Amused despite himself, Vincent washed down cookies with cold beer. "So why aren't you married and looking for a nice split-level in Westchester?"

"Ah, you've just voiced my friend Lily's dream. And I'll tell you why." She wagged a cookie, then bit in. "One, I don't want to get married or move to Westchester. Two, and really more to the point, I would rather be strapped to an anthill than strapped to Jason."

"What's wrong with him?"

"He bores me," she said, then winced. "That's so unkind."

"Why? Sounds honest to me."

"It is honest." She picked up another cookie, ate it with only a little guilt. "He's really a very nice man, but I don't think he's read a book in the last five years or seen a movie. A few selected films, perhaps, but not a movie. Then he critiques them."

"I don't even know him, and I'm already bored." That made her laugh and reach for another cookie. "He's been known to check out his grooming in the back of his spoon at the dinner table—just to make sure he's still perfect—and he can spend the rest of his life, and yours, talking about annuities and stock futures. And all that aside, he kisses like a fish."

"Really?" He forgot he'd wanted to grab a handful of cookies and get out. "And how is that exactly?"

"You know something like." She made an O with her mouth, then laughed. "You can imagine how a fish kisses, which I suppose they don't, but if they did. I nearly escaped without having to experience that tonight, then Lily got in the way."

"And it doesn't occur to you to say no?"

"Of course it occurs to me." Her grin was quick and completely self-deprecating. "I just can't seem to get it out in time and that's the problem. I know Lily loves me, and for reasons that continue to elude me, she loves Jason. She's sure we'd make a wonderful couple. You know how it is when someone you care about puts that kind of benign pressure on you."

"No. I don't."

She tilted her head. "As inconvenient as it may be from time to time, I wouldn't trade it for anything."

"How's the hand?" he asked when he saw her rubbing her knuckles.

"Oh. A little sore still. It'll probably give me some trouble working tomorrow. But I should be able to turn the experience into a good strip."

He picked up the plate. "Thanks for the cookies."

She was entirely too pretty, he thought suddenly. Entirely too bright. And it was abruptly too tempting to find out if she tasted the same way.

That's what happened, Vincent supposed, when you hung around eating homemade cookies in the middle of the night with a woman who made her living looking at the light side of life.

She narrowed her eyes as he headed for the door.

"Hey."

He paused, glanced back. "Hey, what?"

"You got a name, apartment 3B?"

"Yeah, I've got a name, 3A. It's Vince." He balanced his beer and his plate, and shut the door on his way out.