Page 32 of Skins Game

He offered her his hand to help her up off the floor, so Nicole reached up and clasped his fingers with hers.

The palm-to-palm touch was a smooth ripple of a shock up her arm and over her skin to the back of her neck, like maybe the stupid security system had electrified the floor and their hands had completed the circuit.

As she stared up into his Mediterranean Sea-blue eyes, his gaze was perfectly level, like he hadn’t felt anything.

She was just imagining things. There couldn’t be any other explanation, right?

A trace of a smile curved Kingston’s lips. “Ready?”

“Uh-huh.”

His strength lifted her off the floor so fast that a tiny part of her brain conjectured that the wind had blown her to her feet, but Kingston helped her settle and said, “Let’s go forage for M&Ms.”

“Sure.”

And yet she was entirely discombobulated and couldn’t figure out what to do.

She was still holding Kingston Moore’s hand, his warm fingers wrapped around hers.

“You steady? You bobbled there,” he said.

“Um, yeah?”

She was still clinging to his hand because she—she—she liked it.

He frowned and tilted sideways to look at her legs. “Did your feet fall asleep while you were criss-cross-applesauce?”

“No, I’m fine.”

He straightened and regarded their hands, where she was still hanging onto him. “You’re sure?”

Her body wanted to flow toward his like he was giving off gravity waves.

But she was still clinging to his hand like a weirdo.

Nicole opened her hand like she was flicking goo off her fingers. “Thanks for the help up!”

Kingston looked at his hand like maybe she’d crushed it. “I’ll arm-wrestle you for the last Snicker bar.”

Hold his hand and strain against his strength, even if she was going to lose the arm-wrestling contest in a flash?Yes, please.“You’re on.”

11

The Snickers

KINGSTON MOORE

The downstairs break room had three round tables beside the kitchen countertop and four huge vending machines.

Kingston perused the possibilities. “Pop-Tarts?”

From behind him, Nicole said, “Absolutely. Should I get the ax from the fire emergency box?”

He straightened and looked back at her. “We don’t need to go ragtag anarchist. I can just use a credit card and buy whatever we need. I’ll put it on this month’s expense report.”

She flopped at one of the tables. “Yeah, better to rob those evil venture capitalists for our supper. Do that.”

“Besides, these machines don’t even belong to the evil venture capitalists,” Kingston said, choking a little because deception had never really been his strong suit. “The sticker in the corner says they belong to and are stocked by Vend-O-Land Limited.”