Free Jaid Black by One Dark Night

ignored the amused expressions of the passersby as she turned to saunter off.
    “Please,” Thomas said, his voice a bit desperate. “Don’t do this.”
    A momentary pang of guilt lanced through her. She could, after all, empathize all too well with a fellow pistachio aficionado who was out of his stash. She quickly quelled the emotion, forcing herself to remember that the aficionado in question was also the jerk who had humiliated her friend.
    “I wonder what I’ll make with them,” she said tauntingly, turning her head to look at him from over her shoulder. “Ice cream? Pudding?” She tapped a finger against her cheek, pretending to give the question consideration. “Or perhaps I’ll just eat them plain.” A light brown eyebrow shot up. “There’s nothing quite like the sound of popping one from its shell, is there?”
    She could have sworn she heard him whimper.
    Good.
    Nikki smiled in satisfaction. “Have a nice day, Detective.” She sauntered off, her hips sashaying, leaving Thomas to stare after her. “It’s a shame,” she said, turning her head to glance at him one last time, “that you are nutless.”
     
     
    Thomas stared after Doctor Evil, a bemused expression on his face. It really was too bad she hated his guts, he thought, watching those hips of hers defiantly swish back and forth. She had a nice . . .
    He ran a hand over his five o’clock shadow. Come to think of it, she had a nice lots of things.
    Thomas stood there in the middle of the fruit-and-nut aisle, unsubtly appreciating the view of Dr. Adenike’s well-rounded backside until she turned the corner and was out of sight. Blinking, he glanced down, frowning when it again dawned on him that the woman had taken his nuts.
    He grunted. For her sake, she better eat those pistachios plain, he silently grumbled. If word got out that she’d made a pudding of his nuts, there’d be hell to pay.

Chapter 8
    Tuesday, July 15 7:15 P·M·
    What a jerk! she mentally wailed for what had to have been the tenth time since she’d returned from the grocery store. She frowned, the realization that she’d been thinking about the detective ever since their earlier run-in not settling well. She had other things to think about, other men—one man in particular, she reminded herself. She didn’t need to waste any more of her precious free time considering what a colossal ass Thomas Cavanah was.
    Nikki took a deep breath and blew it out as she studied herself in the full-length mirror adjacent to her bedroom’s walk-in closet. She couldn’t remember having ever been this nervous about going on a date before. She felt like she was sixteen again.
    But then, she’d never gone out on a date with a man like Richard before, either. A man who knew everything there was to know about her before they’d even met. Her dreams, her hopes, her aspirations . . .
    Her fantasies. The ones she’d kept to herself for years before having met her FallenAngel .
    The only things he didn’t know about her, in fact, were her last name and where she worked. Deciding that some things were better left a secret until they met and she could verify her suppositions about him in real-time, she had carefully omitted from her emails any references to her last name or to Cleveland General.
    Nikki closed her eyes and breathed deeply, trying to calm her raging nerves. When next she opened them, she gave her looks one last critical assessment.
    The spaghetti-strap black dress she wore was thigh-high and semi-low-cut, showing off what were, in her estimation, her two greatest assets in a purely physical sense—her long legs and her full breasts. The dress was classy and chic-looking. Perfect for coffee and conversation at a trendy eatery.
    Perfect for Richard, whose favorite color on a woman was black.
    Nikki had never dressed to please a man before. This was the first time, and she wasn’t altogether certain how she felt about it. The independent part of herself said to grow up and quit