“Damn, you’ve got a great butt.”

On all fours, Mallory gave Jack a “come hither” look over her shoulder. “And what do you want to do to it, Jack?”

His surprised gaze flicked to her face. “As in?”

She reached back and gave an experimental smack to her left cheek. “Do you want to spank it? After all, I’ve been a very naughty girl.”

And she had been naughty. Jack clearly wanted more out of their relationship, yet she had told him that as far as she was concerned their relationship was nothing more than sex. Even though she knew that wasn’t entirely true.

She heard his low, primal growl as he knelt on the bed behind her. “I don’t know…do you want to be spanked?” he rasped.

“I might be interested in a love tap or two.” Mallory wiggled her bottom and he grasped her hip, his fingers denting her flesh.

She felt a light, stinging smack to her right cheek and gasped.

“Hold still, then, naughty girl, and take your punishment,” he said wickedly. “But don’t worry. I promise I’ll kiss it all better….”

Dear Reader,

Sugar ’n spice and everything naughty has been the theme of the first two books in our KISS & TELL miniseries, and we see no reason to stop now! Not when the two remaining characters, Mallory Woodruff and Jack Daniels, have been indulging in some, um, under the covers activity without telling their friends…or anyone else!

In Just Between Us…documentary producer Mallory Woodruff figures she has the best of both worlds when she and newspaper columnist Jack Daniels become lovers. But when Jack suggests they let the world in on their little secret, Mallory balks, making him feel as if he’s being used simply for sex. What happens when he refuses to give her what she so desires? The battle of the sexes has never been so hot….

We hope you enjoy Mallory and Jack’s sassy adventure! We’d love to hear what you think. Write to us at P.O. Box 12271, Toledo, OH 43612 (we’ll respond with a signed bookplate, newsletter and bookmark) or visit us on the Web at www.toricarrington.com for fun drawings.

Here’s wishing you love, romance and happy reading.

Lori & Tony Karayianni

aka Tori Carrington

Just Between Us…
Tori Carrington

www.millsandboon.co.uk

We wholeheartedly dedicate this book

to our fellow dreamers:

Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their

mind wake in the morning to find that it was vanity. But the

dreamers of the day are dangerous people, for they dream their dreams

with open eyes, and make them come true.

—T. E. Lawrence

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

1

Hollywood Confidential—December 13, 2003

“…THE BIGGER THE BUDGET, the better the bang. Or so this reporter believed until I recently viewed a documentary by up-and-coming producer Mallory Woodruff on the U.S./Mexico border war. I, personally, look forward to more from this talented filmmaker. Just think what she could do with a real budget!”

Oh, I don’t know, Mallory Woodruff thought caustically as she downed her second cup of coffee. Pay my rent, maybe?

She refolded the paper and sat back in the bar-style, high-backed chair in the freshly painted new home of her best friend’s pastry shop, Sugar ’n’ Spice. It might be eight o’clock, but she’d need either a whole lot more time, or at least three more cups of Reilly’s coffee to wake up.

“So?”

Mallory blinked Reilly’s pretty face into focus. Or rather tried to. When Layla, another one of their circle of four friends, had woken her from the dead a half hour ago, she’d been afraid something had happened to one of them. In a town where the word “friend” was thrown around with careless abandon, she’d been relieved to find Reilly Chudowski, Layla Hollister and Jack Daniels were the real thing when their paths had crossed three years ago.

But she was veering off course, wasn’t she? The reason she was sitting at a front corner table that overlooked Wilshire Boulevard, when she’d rather be sleeping off the previous night’s pitcher of homemade margaritas, was that Layla had mentioned an emergency. Considering that Layla was marrying hottie ex-plastic surgeon Sam Lovejoy tomorrow, well, she figured just about anything could qualify.

Anything but what she’d just read in the Hollywood Confidential.

“So…what?” Mallory grumbled. “This half a breath meets the criteria for an emergency meeting?”

Layla and Reilly stared at her, looking extraordinarily stunned, while Jack grimaced, unsurprised, and shook his head.

“Is nothing capable of impressing you?” Reilly asked, apparently more than a bit put out.

“Sure.” Mallory reached across the table and took the rest of Layla’s half-eaten sticky bun. “You guys impress me all the time.” She slanted a glance at Jack as she stuck the sweet into her mouth to calm her roaring stomach. “With the exception of you, of course, Jack. You need to find yourself a goal.”

Jack had to be the most attractive man she’d ever laid eyes on. He was Brad Pitt, Robert Redford and George Clooney all wrapped up into one scrumptious package.

Of course, she wished he had the ambition of a drive-thru server.

Jack snatched the paper from her hands. “Hey, I was using that to catch the crumbs,” she protested with a smile.

“You stick so much into your mouth there aren’t any crumbs,” he grumbled back.

Reilly leaned her elbows on the table. “But doesn’t that piece mean you might catch the attention of a major studio? Get that budget the reporter mentioned?”

Mallory made a face and stole Jack’s napkin to clean syrup off her hands. “First off, it’s not a piece, it’s a mention. And in a word—no.”

Layla sighed. “God, you can be so negative sometimes.”

Mallory waved her away even though the comment stung, a little bit anyway. She was a realist, not a pessimist. And the reality was that documentary producers spent the majority of their time applying and interviewing for grants and scrounging for financing and had more sense than to bask in the glow of a few throwaway comments that would reap absolutely zero results.

Of course, it didn’t help her attitude that she was having major problems raising the money she needed to work on her current documentary about the infamous murder twenty-five years ago of a young actress called The Red Gardenia. Forget her rent. Yesterday her cameraman had threatened to walk out on her if she didn’t pay what she owed him for the past month.

She scratched the back of her neck. Then there was that little time limit she’d given herself when she’d first come to L.A. Five years. She’d given herself five years to make it in the city. And obviously she hadn’t made it yet. And that five-year anniversary mark was coming up quickly. Too quickly.

But she wasn’t going to tell Layla that. To do so would be to focus on the negative. Today presented a whole slew of fresh opportunities. And that’s where she preferred to concentrate her energies: the future and all its possibilities.

Well, on that and taking an easy jab at her friend.

“Shouldn’t you be off gaping down someone’s throat or up someone’s colon, Dr. Hollister?” she asked.

Reilly barked with laughter, then caught herself when Layla stared at her. “Hey, it was funny.”

Layla took her purse from the back of her seat and hiked the strap over her shoulder. “I’m off from the clinic until the New Year. Remember?”

“Ah. Then I amend my previous comment. Both you and Jack need to find some ambition.”

“I have ambition.”

Mallory hiked a brow. “Getting married isn’t an ambition, Lay. It’s death.”

Jack mumbled something under his breath and pushed from the table. “I need a refill.”

“Get me one, too,” Mallory called after him.

Reilly and Layla shared a stare then looked at her.

“Does Jack seem a bit grumpier than usual?” Layla asked.

Mallory scratched her nose. “Not that I’ve noticed.”

“I think he is, too,” Reilly said to Layla.

Mallory shrugged. “Maybe he has a column due or something.”

Layla shook her head. “No…no. It’s something more than that. I can tell. Something’s bothering him.”

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Mallory said. “He’s always fine.”

Which was an out and out lie. Because she had noticed that Jack seemed particularly irritable and irritating lately. But to admit that might require her also to admit that she knew because when Layla had called he’d been lying in bed next to her with one of his legs covering hers and his hand over her right breast. And she couldn’t do that. Namely because Reilly and Layla would kill her if they ever found out she’d gone back on the promise they’d made three years ago for the three of them to maintain a platonic relationship with the ultra-yummy Jack Daniels. Keep the friendship, ax the sexual complications.

Well, she had kept the promise. For about six hours. Before she’d ripped off his clothes and indulged in fantasies she hadn’t even known she’d fostered.

Mallory cleared her throat. Of course, it had only happened the one night. Well, okay, it had happened another night about three months after that. Then every couple months like clockwork she and Jack would end up taking a wicked tumble. Up until three months ago, anyway. Since then they were either at his place or hers three or four times a week.

But if Layla and Reilly ever found out…

“Remember, I need you guys there by six,” Layla said, getting up from her chair.

Mallory blinked at her. “Need us where?”

“The rehearsal dinner.”

“Oh, yeah. Right.” Mallory pointed at her. “I’ll be there.”

Layla narrowed her eyes. “You’d better be, Mall. The last thing I need is to have to worry about you.”

“Hey, I said I’ll be there, so I’ll be there.”

Jack came back to the table and handed out fresh cups of coffee. “I’ll make sure she gets there on time.”

Layla’s face instantly relaxed. “Thanks, Jack.”

Mallory sighed. “Why is it when he says anything, you guys accept it like it’s the God-spoken truth, but you question everything that comes out of my mouth?”

Reilly smiled at her. “Not everything. Only those things associated with events you’d rather not attend.”

“Like my engagement party,” Layla said.

“Or my reopening two weeks ago,” Reilly pointed out.

“You guys didn’t need me at either place.”

“No,” Layla said, “but we wanted you there.”

It was nice, Mallory thought, how these guys needed her, even if sometimes it was a little suffocating. Didn’t they understand that she was used to looking after herself and only herself? That growing up she’d been so much extra luggage that her mother probably wouldn’t have filled in the lost baggage form at the airport should Mallory have gotten misplaced en route to her latest husband’s apartment/house/condo?

Of course they didn’t understand. Because she’d never really told them about life growing up as Mallory Woodruff. Because to do so would be to dredge up the past. And there was that thing about her liking only to look out on to the future.

“Sorry,” she said blithely.

They laughed.

“Okay, maybe that could have sounded a little more sincere,” she admitted. “But the sentiments are there. The last thing I want to do is hurt any of you.”

Layla leaned over and gave her a hug. “Now that sounded more genuine.”

Even Jack seemed to be looking at her a little too closely. Mallory reached across for his last sticky bun. He moved it out of reach.

Layla smiled. “I’ll see you guys at six. On the dot. Not a minute earlier, not a minute later.”

Mallory gave her a military salute, which, she supposed, was apropos given what she wore: fatigues, short black boots and T-shirt that read Three Stages Of Marriage: Lust, Rust And Die. “Yes, sir. I mean, ma’am.”

“I’m going to make you pay for that one,” Layla said.

Considering all that was going on over the next day and a half, Mallory had little doubt that she would.

TWELVE HOURS LATER at Layla and Sam’s rehearsal dinner Jack watched Mallory as if it were the first time he’d seen her. The woman had absolutely no clue how he really felt about her. Of course, it probably didn’t help that whenever they were around Layla and Reilly he had to be so careful to keep his expression neutral. He watched the way Mall’s mouth moved when she talked and wondered why it was he always wanted to kiss her when she was speaking.

For a moment there, the briefest of moments, the agitation he’d been feeling lately dropped away and he was able to enjoy Mallory the woman. For a moment there, she’d emerged something other than the driven, career-minded producer. She’d even seemed a bit human, somehow.

Then the moment had passed and he was left staring at a sexy, dynamic woman he wanted more than any other woman he’d ever met.

A woman who was beginning to irritate him to no end.

That wasn’t normal, was it? Was it possible to want to have sex with someone yet want to kill them at the same time?

“I feel naked,” Mallory was saying to Layla’s stepmother—who looked younger than Layla and not a fraction as smart.

Jack’s gaze took in the simple black slacks and vest Mallory had on. Definitely not naked. But definitely not her usual attire of jeans and a T-shirt bearing an offensive saying on the front, either. How Mallory would ever make it through tonight and tomorrow without being able to express her emotions through her clothes loomed an unanswered question.

Of course Sharon Hollister wore little more than lingerie by way of a pink slip dress, which meant it was unlikely she’d get where Mallory was coming from. For all intents and purposes, Sharon might as well be naked.

Hmm… Jack wondered how much he’d have to pay Mallory to wear one of those dresses….

“If you’ll excuse me, I think my husband’s motioning for me to rejoin him,” the trophy wife with the artificially enhanced lips and unnaturally plump, unmarked brow line said politely. Then she made a beeline for anywhere away from Mallory.

Jack looked over the exclusive room at the Beverly Hills Wilshire Hotel that the Hollisters had reserved for the occasion. In his monthly columns he often criticized the extravagant spending and monetary excesses of the rich, mostly because he had witnessed countless examples of it growing up in the wealthy Daniels family. But he didn’t think Layla would forgive him if he shined his light on her father and stepmother’s desire to dump the annual income of five families into one wedding occasion. Lord knew Layla hadn’t wanted the spectacle. She and Sam had wanted to take off to Vegas for a five-minute quickie wedding in front of an Elvis impersonator.

He looked over to one side of the palm-decorated room, which held just the right amount of tasteful holiday decorations without going overboard. There, Layla talked to what he knew was her real mother, who looked about as comfortable in her surroundings as Mallory purportedly felt. He noticed Mall yet again perform a shimmy, trying to get comfortable in her clothes, and then he took in the other twenty guests. It struck him that no one would miss him and Mallory. If only for a few precious minutes.

He leaned backward and cracked open the door to the service hall. Everyone had already eaten, the rehearsal with the minister had gone off without a hitch, and aside from the female bartender manning the open bar across the room, there wasn’t a single service person in sight.

Jack grasped Mall’s wrist and yanked her back into the corridor with him.

She gasped, instantly trying to break free. “Are you insane?” she demanded, her dark hair curling wildly around her round, kissable face, her light brown eyes almost yellow as they flashed fire at him. Enough fire that he knew she was as turned on as he was by the possibilities their solitude presented. “They’ll see us for sure.”

“So we’ll tell them I needed a cigarette and you came out to keep me company.”

She narrowed her eyes and licked her lips in telltale anticipation as he tugged her down the corridor, found a linen closet, then pulled her inside and closed the door.

Being Mallory Woodruff’s lover usually took a lot of invention and a whole lot of stick-to-itness. Unless she was the initiator, that is. Then all bets were off. All he had to do was hold on for one helluva ride.

Jack looked around for the switch to turn off the light but couldn’t find one.

Mallory didn’t seem to mind as she yanked her vest over her head then started on her slacks. “God, I’ve been itching to get out of these things all night.”

Oh, yeah. But unfortunately she’d have to put them back on way too soon.

When she finally stood in front of Jack wearing nothing but a pair of black panties and bra, he chuckled. It seemed Mallory had managed to get her point across through her clothes. Only tonight she’d done so by way of her naughty black panties. Across the satiny front they read Bite Me.

He gripped her hips and hauled her to him. Biting her was exactly what he planned to do. For starters.

“You’re not getting undressed,” she complained as her hands slid over his rear through his slacks then snaked around front to dive into the waist.

“One of us should try to stay as undisheveled as possible.”

“Oh, yeah?” she asked, rerouting her hands to his hair where she proceeded to ruffle the hell out of it. “Explain how a cigarette did that,” she murmured before plastering her full, juicy mouth against his and kissing him like a woman bent on destruction.

“The wind.” Jack worked his fingers under the elastic at the back of her panties until he firmly cupped her sweet flesh.

Mallory was at least a foot shorter than he was, which had proven a challenge in the beginning, but was something he barely noticed now. When they were lying in bed, height didn’t matter.

Now, however, with both of them standing and no available object around to help level the playing field, he felt a crick building at the back of his neck already. As she licked his neck and pressed her womanhood full throttle against him, he also felt on fire with need.

“We’ve got to hurry,” she rasped, unfastening the front of his pants and freeing his rock-hard arousal.

Jack stretched his neck and clamped his teeth together as her fingers encircled him. No matter how many times he felt her touch, it was like the first time all over again. It never failed to amaze him how much control this one little spitfire had over him. He’d wanted her every second of every day for three years. In the beginning, he’d been successful at staving off his attraction to her. At least to some extent. Now he was as much a slave to it as he had once been to drink.

Addictive personality disorder. That’s what an overpaid shrink had told him when he was nineteen, in college, and drunk more than he was sober. In a life where he could rely on few things—his jet-setting parents had been too busy with their social life and traveling around the world for him to form any meaningful bond with them—the whiskey bottle had always been there. Empty? No problem. Twenty bucks bought him another one.

But with Mallory…

With Mallory he felt constantly like a guy staring at an empty bottle wanting more. Except at moments like this. When he could feel her nipples pressing into the middle of his palms. Hear her rapid breathing and whispered orders in his ears. Sense the urgency in her as his own reached a feverish pitch.

Mallory’s fingers squeezed his shaft almost to the point of pain then moved up and down.

He’d have to bite her later….

“Hold onto my shoulders,” he ground out, running his hands over her outer thighs then lifting her so her legs hugged his hips. He immediately felt her damp heat against his straining erection and groaned.

“Condom,” he said. “Back right—”

“Pocket,” she finished, waving the foil packet at him.

She opened it with her teeth, then within two blinks had him sheathed and beyond ready.

Only the position wasn’t as easy as it seemed.

“Back me up,” she said sharply, growing as frustrated as he was.

You would think that they hadn’t had sex for six weeks instead of just that morning.

“You’re a bossy woman, you know that?”

She smiled, her eyes darkening as she stared at his mouth. “I know.” She kissed him. “Do it.”

He did it.

The moment her back met with the smooth wood of the door, she slapped her hands against it, using the barrier to steady herself. He looked down to find her at an accessible angle, her engorged flesh blossoming open and waiting to be claimed.

Dear Lord in heaven, but what this woman did to him.

Jack grasped her hips and fit the knob of his arousal against her tight opening, then stayed there, allowing sweet anticipation to wash over him. This was his whiskey bottle now. Mallory. And this instant right before…

Mallory bucked her hips forward and forced entry, then slid all the way down until her pelvis met fully with his.

Her moan mingled with his groan.

Oh, yes…

“Oh, no,” Mallory whispered, her eyes as big as the dessert plates in the other room.

2

MALLORY SWALLOWED HARD. It wasn’t possible that… There was no way that…

The door to the linen closet vibrated again.

“Hello?” a female voice drifted through the wood. “Is somebody in there?”

“Oh God,” Mallory whispered. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

She moved to put her legs down.

Jack only gripped her tighter.

“Jack, I—” She breathed.

He put a finger over her lips, a decidedly wicked look in his mocha-brown eyes. “Shh.”

He moved inside her. One long stroke that made a moan gather at the back of her throat, leaving her mouth eager to let it loose.

He wasn’t… He didn’t…

He stroked her again, long, hard and deep and her ability to think stopped altogether.

She didn’t care if both Layla and Reilly were standing on the other side of that door. She didn’t care if the L.A. police were about to break it in. All she could concentrate on was how very good it felt to have Jack so deep inside her.

“Oooh, oooh, oooh!” she rasped, trying to gain purchase against the moving door even as her crisis built.

“That’s it,” Jack said, leaning in to suckle her neck. “Come for me.”

And she did.

Her orgasm seemed to stretch on and on and on even as Jack stilled and strained in the throes of his own climax.

After long, heart-pounding moments Mallory blinked open her eyes to stare at the man who had given her more mind-blowing orgasms than any ten men combined. It wasn’t even remotely possible that every time just kept getting better and better, was it?

“Hello?” the voice drifted through the wood again along with a loud knock. “Open the door right this instant.”

Mallory swallowed hard as Jack finally allowed her to slide down his length to stand. Her body shivered at the sensation while her mind slowly grasped the levity of the situation.

Layla and Reilly were going to kill her.

She groaned as she stepped into her panties and slacks and tried to find the way back into her vest. “What are we going to say?” she whispered fiercely to Jack, who was putting himself together with one hand while he held the door closed with the other.

She stared at him as he stared back.

“Why not the truth?”

Mallory’s throat closed off air altogether. He wasn’t seriously considering telling them that they’d been sleeping together, was he?

“Are you insane?” she asked.

“Shh.”

She realized she’d nearly shouted the words.

Jack turned so that his back rested against the wood separating them from the persistent person on the other side of the door. He crossed his arms over his broad and impressive chest, looking a little too cheeky for her liking. “Actually, I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I think it’s about time we let them in on our little secret.”

Mallory’s movements slowed as she turned the vest right side out then yanked it over her head. “Okay, it’s official. You are insane.”

“Why?”

She straightened her top then went to work on her hair. “Come on, Jack. We’ve talked about this. Whatever happened to ‘what they don’t know won’t hurt them’?”

“That’s always been your take on the situation.”

She squinted at him, trying to reconcile the man she’d known just a few minutes before with the man he was introducing her to now. “And your take?”

She figured she was as fixed up as she was going to get and folded her own arms over her chest, facing off with him.

“My take is that I’d like to let our friends—our best friends—know that we’re seeing each other.”

Mallory nearly toppled over. “Seeing each other? Jack, what we do is not seeing each other. What we do is have…sex.”

Was it her, or had he just winced?

She uncrossed her arms and gestured wildly with her hands. “I mean, to be seeing each other, we’d actually have to date. And we don’t date. We’ve never dated. You’ve never called me up and said ‘Hey, what’s say we catch a movie.”’

“I bring over DVDs.”

“And that constitutes a relationship? We don’t even get around to watching the damn movies ’cause we’re too busy having sex.”

Again, a wince.

Oh, no. This was not happening.

Mallory reached around him for the door handle. She needed to get out of this room but quick. She wondered if it was possible for claustrophobia to lie dormant then just spring out and overwhelm the victim in a single moment. “We’ll tell them I…spilled wine or something on my vest and you were helping me find something to clean it up with. And…and…the door got jammed.”

“And what? I blew on the spot until it dried and went away?” Jack stayed put, refusing her exit.

She stared up into his eyes. His deep, dark, wonderful eyes that were now looking at her as if she’d just committed some heinous crime.

“What?” she asked, growing increasingly frustrated with his inexplicable behavior.

And feeling increasingly claustrophobic.

He shrugged his shoulders, his arms still crossed. “It’s simple, Mall. If we don’t tell Layla and Reilly, and I mean come clean with everything, then our relationship—excuse me, the sex—ends right here.”

Mallory’s jaw dropped open. “You…can’t…be…serious.”

He nodded soberly. “As serious as I’ve ever been in my life.”

“Hello!” the voice in the hall grew louder.

If there was one thing Mallory had never responded well to, it was ultimatums. She’d grown up with her mother saying, “Mallory Marie, behave or I’ll send you to live with your grandmother in Portland.” And lately everyone seemed to be throwing around ultimatums. “Pay up your rent or you’re out,” her landlord had told her last week. “Pay me last month’s salary or I quit,” her cameraman had said. “Our foundation needs to have final approval or we don’t grant you the money,” she’d heard just this morning when she was pounding the pavement trying to scare up the money for the cameraman’s salary.

But none of the other ultimatums had made her feel like she might be sick. Standing there looking at Jack, and knowing he was serious, made her heart ache in a way that frightened her.

Despite his words, he couldn’t be serious. He couldn’t be. She didn’t have time for a relationship. She didn’t know where she was career-wise. She’d been in L.A. for nearly five years but didn’t know yet if she had what it took to make it in the dog-eat-dog city. Things had worked so well between them the way they were. And now Jack wanted to change everything.

God, Jack Daniels wasn’t even her type.

She caught the ridiculous thought. She didn’t have a type. But if she did, Jack Daniels would fit the criteria to a T.

Another round of pounding. “I’m going to get security!”

Mallory cleared her throat. She didn’t know what else to say, so she said the obvious. “She’s going to get security.”

Jack stared at her for a long minute. “That’s your answer?”

Mallory’s fear-o-meter shot up another notch. “What? That she’s going to get security?”

“Mmm.”

“Then, yes,” she nodded inanely. “That’s my answer. Because…because…because your question is irrelevant, Jack.”

Her response seemed to stun him enough to allow her to maneuver him out of the way of the door.

She opened it to find that neither Layla nor Reilly were standing outside, nor anyone they knew for that matter. Rather, a woman who was obviously part of the hotel staff looked more than a little hot and bothered that she hadn’t been able to get into the room.

“Excuse me,” Mallory said, pushing past her before the woman could say anything.

Of course, if her need to get out of there quick had anything to do with the tears pricking the back of her eyelids, well, she wasn’t admitting anything.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE FIVE minutes made.

As Jack stood off to the side of the reception room watching the melee unfold before him, he couldn’t bring himself to believe it was the same room he and Mallory had left a short time before. While everyone had been speaking civilly before, smiling, drinking and being merry (well, at least as merry as this mismatched group could get), now clear battle lines had been drawn and the bride’s family and friends were going toe-to-toe with the groom’s.

“It’s off,” Layla said, looking much as Mallory had in the linen closet as she crossed her arms over her chest and stared down her groom, Sam Lovejoy. “The wedding is officially cancelled.”

Sam leaned forward, a tight grin detracting from his handsomeness not at all. “Layla, don’t be ridiculous. We can work all this out after the ceremony tomorrow.” He waggled his brows. “You know, on our way to our honeymoon.”

Layla looked like the dentist had just told her to open wide. “Honeymoon? Honeymoon?” She poked her finger into Sam’s wide chest. “I’ve got news for you, Dr. Lovejoy. There isn’t going to be any honeymoon.”

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that something monumental had happened to bring about current events. Jack was a stickler for details. It’s what made him such a good columnist.

And, he hoped, it’s what would provide him with the ammo he needed to patch everything up here.

He leaned closer to Reilly where she stood next to him, looking as stunned as he felt.

“What’s going on?” Jack whispered.

Reilly glanced at him. “Jesus, Jack, where have you been? World War III has broken out and you didn’t even witness the first shot.”

Jack resisted the urge to pull at his collar as he looked at Mallory across the room. She didn’t appear to know what was going on, either, but she did look ready to jump into the fray on behalf of Layla at a moment’s notice.

Jack became aware of Reilly’s sharpening interest. “Where were you, anyway?”

He shoved his hands into his pants pockets as he watched Layla work to take off her diamond solitaire engagement ring. “Bathroom. What’s going on?”

Someone—one of Layla’s cousins, he thought—turned to shush them. Reilly ignored her and stepped closer to whisper into his ear. “Remember how Sam used to be Mr. L.A. Chop Doc? The crème de la crème of plastic surgeons?”

Jack nodded. “Yes. Then he took on the position of staff administrator at Trident Medical Group where Layla works.”

“Mmm. Well, it seems he doesn’t much like firing people so he told Layla tonight that when they get back from their honeymoon he’s going to reopen his personal practice.”

Jack grimaced. “Ouch.”

“You can say that again. I don’t think Layla’s quite accepted yet that half the breasts in L.A. bear Sam’s hand marks…”

Jack hiked his brows.

Reilly waved her hands. “You know what I mean. Anyway, knowing that he’s going to be creating more of those perfect breasts, along with pert bottoms, sent her careening over the edge.”

Jack rubbed his chin with his index finger. From what he understood, Layla’s self-esteem when it came to body image had suffered greatly in the initial stages of her relationship with Sam. Throw in that she subscribed to the notion that medicine should be available to everybody, while Sam’s personal motto was “let them have breasts,” and, well, you had a tenuous situation at best.

But ultimately they had worked everything out.

Or so he’d thought.

He took in Layla and Sam bickering like a divorced couple. Had the former harmony between them existed only because Sam had given up performing plastic surgery?

Jack felt himself begin to withdraw emotionally from the situation and wishing he could do so physically. To witness this on top of what had happened with Mallory in the linen closet was a little too much excitement for one night.

Reilly quietly cleared her throat. “By the way, did I tell you that Ben and I had a falling out?”

Jack stared at her as if she’d just taken her head off then screwed it back on.

Oh, no.

That did it.

He was leaving.

Now.

Reilly was nodding. “He wants me to close down Sugar ’n’ Spice and come into business with him. You know, change Benardo’s Hideaway to Ben and Reilly’s.”

Jack suppressed the desire to say, “So?”

What was there some kind of relationship virus going around that he didn’t know about?

He began doing the physical backing away he’d longed to just moments ago.

“Where are you going?” Reilly asked as Jack met Mallory’s gaze across the room.

“Um, the bathroom.”

Reilly looked totally confused. “But I thought you just got back from there.”

He absently rubbed his churning stomach. “Yeah. Something like that.” He eyed the door. “Call me when the storm clouds blow over.”

Then he strode from the room as fast as he could without running.

3

“I’M SUPPOSED TO BE AT the church right now,” Layla wailed over the phone to Mallory the following morning. Now that the emotional fireworks were over, apparently the bride was having second thoughts about dumping her groom.

Either that or she was mourning the dress.

“I have the image all laid out in my mind,” Layla continued without any prompting from Mallory, who was hiding under the covers in her bed wishing the world and Layla would just go away. “My mother would be standing behind me fixing my veil. You’d help me put on my garter and make sure I had sexy underwear underneath, and Reilly would be calming any prewedding jitters with caffeine-free coffee and sticky buns.”

Mallory’s brain caught on the word coffee. She threw aside the sheet and pulled herself into a semi-standing position.

It was 10 a.m. and she was only half-awake at best. She moved her cell phone to her other ear and shuffled from her bedroom into the tiny living/dining area of her apartment, then into the closet that was her kitchen, kicking clothes, notebooks, and crumpled pieces of paper out of her way as she went. “So call Sam and patch things up,” she grumbled to Layla, who was obviously heartbroken.

But at least her friend could talk about it. Mallory, on the other hand, had to keep her own relationship woes to herself.

Coffee.

She needed coffee.

She took the stained carafe out of the coffeemaker, eyed the half inch of murky contents, then dumped it down the sink.

“I can’t,” Layla whispered.

“Why can’t you?” Mallory asked, filling the reservoir with water then taking the small coffee can from the pint-sized refrigerator. She popped the rubber top and peered inside at the grounds that barely covered the bottom of the can, then shook it. Enough for one cup. All she needed to see her through to getting to Reilly’s.

“I just…can’t,” Layla whispered into her ear.

Mallory searched through her empty cabinet for filters and came up with nothing but a half-empty package of stale taco shells and an empty jar of peanut butter. She dropped her right hand to her side. “What’s so difficult about it, Lay? All you have to do is pick up the phone, press the speed dial number for Sam, and say ‘hi.”’

Layla laughed without humor. “Excuse me, but if I’m not mistaken, you were at the dinner last night, weren’t you? You saw what happened. I can’t call him!”

Looked like making coffee was out.

“So don’t call him then, I don’t care,” Mallory grumbled.

Silence.

Great. She’d just pissed off her grieving friend. She squinted against the sun slanting in through the kitchen window then closed the stained shade against the glare. Grieving? Layla hadn’t just lost a relative. She’d called off a wedding. Purposely. With full knowledge of what she was doing.

“Filter,” she said absently.

“What?” Layla asked.

Mallory shook her head then trudged back out into the living room/dining room, searching for something, anything she could use as a filter. “Nothing,” she said. “Look, Lay, why don’t you go out somewhere? Go to Reilly’s. That’s where I’m planning to be in twenty minutes. Meet me there.”

A heavy sigh. “Maybe you’re right. I probably shouldn’t be sitting here by myself moping around. And I’ve already done all the canceling that I can. By now everyone knows what happened anyway. If they don’t…well, I guess they’ll find out when they get to the church, won’t they?”

There was a brief knock at Mallory’s apartment door. She stared at the closed and multiple-locked barrier, an image of Jack with an extra-large cup of coffee popping to mind. She wasn’t sure which made her mouth water more. Jack or the coffee. She hurried to the door and threw it open.

Not Jack.

Not even coffee.

Instead, her neighbor Candy Cane stood in the doorway looking well turned out—as usual—in full makeup, teased blond hair, and pink-and-red kimono robe, likely just having returned home from a busy night walking the strip.

“Oh, it’s you,” Mallory said.

Candy flashed her a smile. Somewhere around forty, Candy was a prostitute who never made any apologies about who she was or what she did for a living. Mallory liked that about her.

Unfortunately she was also an early riser; something Mallory didn’t like.

“Sugar?” Candy asked, dangling an empty porcelain coffee cup from one perfectly manicured finger.

“Filters?” Mallory returned.

“Who’s there?” Layla asked over the phone.

“Candy. Just a second,” Mallory answered then dropped the receiver to her side. “I’ll trade you sugar for a coffee filter.”

Candy scrunched up her nose, making her look cuter if that were at all possible. “I don’t touch the stuff. Do you know what it does to your skin?”

“I don’t care what it does to my skin. I just care that it wakes me up.”

Candy shook her head, walked through to the kitchen, got her sugar, then was standing in the doorway again in no time. “Thanks, hon,” she said with a large smile. “And maybe you should think about some of that instant flavored stuff. I like that.”

Mallory shook her own head then slammed the door after her. What kind of person didn’t drink coffee?

Then again, what kind of hooker took in every kind of stray imaginable, both of the animal and human variety?

“Mallory? Mallory? Are you still there?”

Oops. Layla.

She lifted the receiver back to her ear. What had she been saying? Oh, yeah, they’d been discussing meeting up at Reilly’s to help Layla make it through the day of her cancelled wedding. “I’m still here. And what you just said about everyone finding out on their own steam? Well, you sound like the Layla I know and love again already.”

Mallory’s gaze traveled around her apartment. Newspapers, her plastic-wrapped bridesmaid dress, the panty hose to go with it.

Panty hose…

She picked up the square package, a nagging voice at the back of her mind telling her that maybe she shouldn’t. What? she answered. There was no wedding, so she didn’t need them anyway.

She tore open the plastic, yanked out the silky stockings then headed back for the kitchen.

“You always make sense,” Layla said. “I knew there was a reason I called you.”

Mallory grimaced. Whatever that meant. She got a pair of scissors out of a drawer and cut the foot out of one of the stockings. With help from a rubber band, she fastened the makeshift filter to the holder then dumped the coffee grounds in.

“So I’ll see you at Reilly’s in a few, then?” Mallory asked.

“Got it,” Layla confirmed.

Mallory clicked the disconnect button then put the cell down on the counter and stared as the coffeemaker gurgled then spat out her one precious cup of caffeine. Her gaze drifted back to the cell phone. She picked it up and pressed a speed dial number.

ACROSS THE WAY IN Culver City, Jack sat at his narrow kitchen table in a pair of jeans and leisurely drank a cup of coffee, his ten-year-old bloodhound at his feet, the morning newspaper in his hand. As far as apartments went, his wasn’t much bigger than Mallory’s. But it was much better organized. And a great deal neater. If there was one thing he hated about Mallory, it was her housekeeping skills. Or lack thereof.

No good. The negative reflection wasn’t enough to chase from his mind the memory of her face as she reached orgasm in the linen closet last night.

Damn.

He glanced over the paper at the calendar on the wall with the number 26 circled in red indicating the deadline for his January column, then rustled the paper back to block it again.

What was Mallory doing right now?

He frowned. Probably sleeping. Probably thinking everything was still right as rain between them. Probably choosing to forget the entire conversation they’d had the night before.

He rustled the paper again, trying to make himself focus on the words, but he couldn’t seem to link more than two of them together, and two words didn’t make a sentence. Or a whole lot of sense for that matter.

Boomer lifted his head to stare at him with his droopy eyes and then whined.

“What is it, B?” Jack glanced over at the dog’s full food and water bowls, then looked at the newspaper again. Boomer sighed heavily then laid his head back down.

At ten years of age—which was ancient for a bloodhound—the dog was becoming increasingly lazier. If that was even possible. One morning Jack had actually timed him and the dog hadn’t moved in five straight hours. Not to eat. Not to use the dog door to go into the patch of dead grass that served as his backyard to go to the bathroom. Nothing.

He should call the vet and find out if the behavior was normal. Then again, he’d just taken Boomer to the vet for his annual two months ago and everything had checked out fine.

The only time the old hound seemed animated was when Mallory was around.

Jack gave up on the paper altogether and blew a long breath out of his inflated cheeks. If he was going to stick to his threat not to have sex with Mallory again, he’d have to stop thinking every other minute about having it with her.

The phone on the wall rang. He glanced over his shoulder where it was two feet away, then leaned back on the rear two legs of the chair to snatch up the cordless receiver.

“Yeah,” he said, settling the legs of his chair back onto the floor.

“Reilly’s. Quick. Pick me up.”

Jack’s throat tightened. It was Mallory. And she’d just said those five words.

“And bring emergency rations.”

She hung up.

Jack stared at the receiver. True to form, Mallory was acting like last night had never happened.

He shut off the phone then laid it on the table.

He picked the paper back up and shook it out, this time intent on getting something out of it.

He was well into his tenth story when the phone rang again twelve minutes later.

“Are you on the road?” was Mallory’s hello.

“Nope.”

“Jack!” she said. “What’s the matter with you? Get over here, pronto. I don’t have coffee and I’m an inch away from dead.”

“So I’ll call the engraver for your tombstone.”

“Ha, ha. Funny man. It’s too early for funny.”

“It’s ten-thirty.”

“Way too early for funny.”

Jack moved the receiver to his other ear and closed the paper again. Despite what Mallory thought, he did have things he needed to be doing. He’d already spent more than enough time screwing around trying to read the newspaper. But in order to see to the other items on his agenda he had to be reasonably sure he could function properly without thoughts of Mallory intruding on his thoughts every five minutes.

“Jack?”

“Hmm.”

“Oh. For a minute there I thought you’d hung up.”

“Nope.”

“But you’re filling the travel cup and getting your car keys now, right?”

“Nope.”

“But Layla needs us.”

He lifted his brows. “How, exactly, does Layla need us?”

“She needs immediate TLC. She’s waiting at Reilly’s as we speak.”

Jack rubbed his hand over his forehead and eyes and absently thought that he needed a shave.

“It’s going to look suspicious if we don’t show.”

“Take the subway.”

A heartbeat of a pause. “And you?”

“I’ll go on my own.”

“Then that’ll look doubly suspicious because you always drive me.”

He thought of the wreck that sat parked at the curb outside her apartment. “So get your car fixed.”

“You know I can’t.”

What sucked was that he did know.

Jack picked up his coffee cup only to find he’d already drained the contents, then looked down at Boomer who’d lifted his head and seemed to be following Jack’s end of the conversation.

“Give me ten.”

Mallory hung up instantly.

THE NEXT HOUR SEEMED like a lifetime to Mallory, despite the endless supply of lifesaving, strong, hot coffee (the one cup she managed to brew at home had looked like a grease slick was floating on top) and sticky buns. Jack hadn’t spoken to her during the drive over—which was really bad because it meant he was serious about his ultimatum and she didn’t have any idea what to do about that. Layla looked like she’d spent the whole of last night crying and her face was a splotchy mess. And Reilly wasn’t faring much better with her unsmiling expressions and long silences.

Mallory sat up, hating to admit that three sticky buns was at least a half a sticky bun too many. At least the way Reilly made them, which was really big and really sticky.

Then again, it might be the whole relationship thing. She’d spent her entire life watching her mother go from husband to boyfriend to husband again, unable to spend five solitary moments alone. Mallory had always told herself she would never do that. Would never put herself into a position where she was emotionally and financially dependent on a man, or anyone else for that matter.

She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know what you two are so down about. I mean, the way I see it you just dodged the ultimate bullet, Layla.” Her friend cringed. She switched her attention to Reilly. “And, well, you pretty much know I’ve had my doubts about Ben all along, Rei.”

Another cringe.

She looked at Jack who was glaring at her.

“What?” she barked. “What is it about the three of you this morning? I swear, you’re enough to make a corpse be sorry for dying.”

Layla sighed heavily for what seemed like the umpteenth time. “You don’t understand, Mallory.”

“What’s there to understand? I may not be Mensa material, but I’ve been known to rub two thoughts together.”

“You don’t get it,” Reilly said, gesturing with her hands. “Because you’re…single.”

Mallory’s spine snapped upright.

Jack pushed from the table. “I’m going to get some more napkins.”

Coward, Mallory wanted to say.

Instead she sniffed and said, “I’m not single, I’m busy.”

Layla and Reilly looked at her pitifully.

“At least I’m not crying into my coffee like you two,” she said quietly. “God, you guys know how I hate whining. And right now you two are walking, talking poster children for whiners the world over.”

Reilly snapped to. “For someone who claims to be a liberal, you’re awfully opinionated and judgmental.”

Layla agreed. “Is there a single person, group or entity that you haven’t insulted at one point or another?”

Mallory honestly didn’t know what to say.

Layla pushed from the table. “God, you can be so damn cynical.”

“Bitter,” Reilly said. “She’s bitter.”

Jack picked that moment to return to the table. “I’d go with cynical. To be bitter you have to have something to be bitter about. And Mallory’s too scared to live.”

All three women stared at him, shocked.

Making Mallory want to die.

She glanced at her two female friends, wondering what Jack had revealed with his little piece of personal insight. Was what he’d said something a friend would offer up? Of course, it probably was, but when coupled with the fact that he, as a rule, disappeared whenever one of these discussions surfaced, and never contributed anything, his change in protocol was sure to raise some brows.

Interestingly enough, however, neither Layla nor Reilly seemed to catch on.

Reilly pointed at him. “You know something? You’re right.”

Mallory made a face and gathered her backpack. It was chock full of everything a working producer needed.

Now, if only she could find some work.

Actually, not so much work, but capital to work with. Her current subject, The Red Gardenia, was waiting.

The Red Gardenia who haunted her at times when she’d be better off thinking about something else. But there was just something about the subject, about Jenny Fuller, that intrigued her. The similarities in their ambitions, maybe. Whatever it was, this documentary, more than the others, was one she was driven to make.

“Jack, I think it’s time for us to go,” she said.

He leisurely drank his coffee. “Go where? I’m not going anywhere.”

Mallory glared at him, resisting the urge to point out that Layla was watching the interplay with great curiosity. “Yes, we are. You promised to take me to that site for The Red Gardenia, remember?”

He slowly shook his head. “Nope. I don’t recall.”

Reilly narrowed her eyes. “Have you two had a fight or something?”

“No,” Mallory said.

“Yes,” Jack said at the same time.

Layla looked back and forth. “Well, which is it?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Mallory said quickly. “We’ve already kissed and made up. Haven’t we, Jack?”

He didn’t answer her.

Reilly made an uh-oh sound. “Doesn’t look that way to me. What are you two arguing about?”

Oh, was it ever time to get out of there. Mallory grabbed Jack’s arm and virtually jerked him from his chair. “We’d really like to discuss it with you, but from the looks of things you both have enough on your plates already. Don’t they, Jack?”

He looked like he might like to strangle her.

The Red Gardenia had been strangled. Which Mallory really wanted to look into more—if Jack would just cooperate.

“It might help us forget our own problems,” Reilly said.

“Don’t worry. It’s nothing the two of us can’t work out,” Mallory said. “Come on or we’ll be late.” She flashed a smile at her friends. “I’ll call you both later, okay?”

They both smiled at her like they expected those phone calls to fill them in on what they were missing.

Ha! Fat chance.

WHAT WAS IT ABOUT THE woman that got under his skin so?

Jack sat behind the wheel of his ’69 Chevy Camaro Z-28 and watched Mallory walk up and down Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, stopping every now and again to take notes. Today she wore a tight pair of faded jeans and a powder-blue T-shirt that read “Outta My Way or You’re Roadkill.”

Jack leaned his elbow in his open window and sighed. He only wished he didn’t feel like roadkill.

He really couldn’t say what had made him drive her to where she wanted to go. One minute he’d been about to spill all to Reilly and Layla, the next Mallory was giving him directions and he was following them.

He absently rubbed the back of his neck, watching as she approached someone and struck up a conversation, her pen waving in the air as she gestured with her hand. She was good at what she did. He knew that. Her documentaries were edgy and current and offered an unflinching viewpoint that not many filmmakers could capture. The word “real” sprung to mind. Her vision was real. Just like Mallory, herself, was real. Earthy. No nonsense. Sexy as hell.

And an unqualified pain in the ass.

He glanced at his wrist only to find he wasn’t wearing his watch. Which wasn’t surprising, because he usually didn’t wear his watch. That he was even looking to see what time it was said a lot.

Didn’t she understand that he had places to go, people to see?

No, he realized, she didn’t. Because, unlike her, he didn’t lay out his agenda like an open book.

He laid on the horn. Mallory shielded her eyes and looked in his direction while still talking to the woman she’d just introduced herself to. Then she gave him a little wave and returned her attention to her new friend.

Jack was half-tempted to drive away. But he knew he wouldn’t. No matter how maddening it was to watch her curvy little bottom in those tight jeans. Or wonder at the way the light December California breeze toyed with her dark curls. Or stare at the way her mouth moved when she talked.

He forced his attention away and stared instead at the street ahead. Shit. He was in deep, wasn’t he? When he’d thrown out the ultimatum last night, it had begun as a joke of sorts. But once it was out of his mouth, he’d discovered that he’d said exactly what he’d wanted to say.

And was now finding out that not only was he in deep, he was in it up to his elbows.

Not good.

Not good at all.

Especially since he had the sinking sensation that Mallory might never come to her senses and would spend the rest of her life—and his—making him live in a state of limbo.

He searched in the glove compartment for the pack of cigarettes he always kept there. Only he didn’t find them. He pulled down both sun visors, glad when the driver’s side one yielded a crumpled pack with one cigarette inside. He shook it out and lighted it with the car lighter.

Shit.

He filled his lungs with the acrid smoke then slowly blew it out.

Shit, shit, shit.

4

HAD JACK REALLY JUST beeped the horn at her?

Mallory gaped at the old Chevy and at Jack himself. The late morning sunlight caught his dark hair just the right way, bringing out sandy highlights that only lent to his lean, handsome appeal. She swallowed past the sudden tightness in her throat, gave him an irritated wave, then returned her attention to the prostitute she’d just introduced herself to.

Coco Cabana (she’d fought not to snicker) was more than just your average, run-of-the-mill hooker. First off, she had to be pushing fifty, a fact no amount of makeup, exercise or designer clothing could hide.

Second, she wasn’t a woman at all, but a man.

Of course, Coco hadn’t come right out and shared the information. And Mallory guessed that, after sundown, shadows obscured age and gender and Coco would probably be drop-dead gorgeous. But Mallory knew the score the instant she began talking to him.

He…she…whatever…was also the first person among the dozens Mallory had interviewed who knew more about The Red Gardenia than just passing rumor.

Coco lifted a cigarette to her mouth, her nails long, talonlike and blood-red. “Sure, I knew The Red Gardenia.” She rolled her eyes, blue ones enhanced with spidery false eyelashes and blue eye makeup. “We both arrived in L.A. at about the same time.”

Mallory’s heart skipped a beat. But she still didn’t completely trust the extent of Coco’s knowledge. “And her real name was…”

“Jenny Fuller, of course.”

Check.

“And she was from?”

Coco waved her cigarette. “Omaha, I think. Yeah. It was Nebraska.”

Double check.

“Horrible tragedy, that one,” Coco added with a sigh. “She had a future. Could have been a real contender.”

Now that was a different take. Most people Mallory spoke to said that Jenny Fuller had probably gotten what she deserved. That Hollywood had a way of glossing over the details and that a good girl usually wasn’t all she appeared.

Mallory sometimes wondered how much bad a girl from Nebraska could get into in six months.

Jenny Fuller’s story wasn’t all that unusual. People who came to L.A. armed only with their dreams were a dime a dozen. But the aspiring actress—whose claim to fame had been a beer ad that featured her wearing a twenties getup and a red gardenia in her hair—and her unsolved murder twenty-five years ago had come to represent all those forgotten someones whose dreams of stardom had ended, and would end, in tragedy.

Mallory looked back to Coco. She’d been digging for more info of the sympathetic and specific variety for months now. And while it seemed her personal life was in the dumps, her professional life appeared to have just taken a full tilt toward the better.

At least she hoped so.

“Look,” Coco said. “If you’re not going to feed me, pay me, or provide some other kind of amusement, sweetie, then I’m going to have to move on. This is a working day, you know.”

Mallory tried to hide her smile. “Tell me about it.”

Coco reached into her sequined purse, watched as a Cadillac with tinted windows rolled by, then reapplied peach-colored lip gloss that Mallory suspected she could see her reflection in if she leaned in close enough. “My landlord just kicked me out this morning so I need some quick cash to look for a place.”

Mallory pointed her finger at the hooker then back at herself. “You and me both.”

Coco leaned back in order to get a better overall look at Mallory. “Girl, you’ve got to work on your appearance if you hope to get any business.”

Mallory nearly choked. “Strangely enough, talking to you now is working for me.” She flipped her notepad closed and considered the other, um, woman. All she had to do was say the word and Candy Cane would snap up Coco without batting an eyelash. Lost causes seemed to be her middle name. As long as Coco didn’t have any animal allergies, these two people who shared the same vocation would get along famously. “Look, I have a friend in my apartment complex who would be willing to put you up until you find a place. What would it mean to you if I gave this friend a call and checked it out for you?”

“Monetarily?” Coco asked.

“Information wise.”

Coco stared at her unblinkingly. “On The Red Gardenia?”

Mallory nodded.

Coco took three quick drags off her cigarette then picked a piece of tobacco off her tongue as she considered the proposition. “Where’s this place?”

Mallory had her and she knew it.

Yes! Her first real lead in The Red Gardenia case.

Her smile slipped.

Well, it wasn’t really a lead. But it was information that the police didn’t appear to have. Of course, she had to remind herself, her goal wasn’t to actually solve the case, but rather to create a more vivid picture of the young actress who had been murdered twenty-five years ago.

But if she did happen to solve the case…

She shivered all over.

Behind her Jack’s horn blew again.

“Do you have time to go see the place now?” Mallory asked.

WHERE DOES SHE FIND these people?

Jack pulled up outside Mallory’s apartment complex then glanced in his rearview mirror where “Coco” was staring into a round compact repairing his mask. Jack squeezed and released the steering wheel several times. Two large, faded tapestry suitcases were in his trunk. Lord only knew what they held.

Surely Mallory wasn’t going to let Coco move in with her.

“Do you want to come to Candy’s with me, or wait here?”

Jack knew a moment of relief. Good. She was taking the aging transvestite to Candy’s. He tried to make out if Coco’s cleavage was real. Well, not real, but surgically or hormonally enhanced. Oh, yeah, there were real swells there, all right. Then what would that make him? A transsexual? He supposed it all depended on if his original equipment was still intact.

He glanced at Mallory to find her glaring at him.

What? he asked silently.

Then he realized she was piqued because he’d been staring at Coco’s cleavage.

“So?” she asked.

“So what?”

“Are you going to wait here or come with us?”

He considered her for a long moment. He’d been with her for the past two hours and she had yet to breathe one word about last night. In fact, he would have thought she’d forgotten about it altogether if not for the wary shadow he saw in her brown eyes. She’d never been wary around him before.

“None of the above,” he replied.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I’m going home.”

“You can’t.”

Jack turned to look Coco full in the face. “Do you mind waiting outside?”

“Outside? As in outside the car?”

“Is there any other outside?” he asked.

Mallory gaped at him. “I’m sorry, Coco. Domestic issues.”

Mallory climbed from the car to let the aging, questionable prostitute out of the two-door car, then she got back in. He watched Coco walk to stand behind the car, out of earshot.

“You can tell her…him he can take care of his own suitcases from here on out, too.”

Mallory made a sound of indignation. “What’s gotten into you, Jack? You’re being so…rude.”

Well, well, well. Look who was calling the kettle black. “Yeah, well, that’s what happens to a man when the woman he’s…interested in ignores his advances for something more.”

“Are we back to that again?” she asked.

“We never left it, Mall.”

She got out of the car again, then popped her dark head of curls back through the open window. “Stay put. You and I…we need to powwow.”

Powwow? Had she really just said powwow?

But as he sat watching her struggle with Coco’s suitcases, then waddle toward Candy’s, her jeans molded to her pert little bottom, he knew he wasn’t going anywhere.

Damn it.

He picked up his travel coffee cup and put it to his lips only to find it empty.

He grimaced. Was he seeing a pattern here or what?

What remained was whether or not he had the balls to do anything about it.

LATER THAT NIGHT Mallory flopped down on what she thought might be her couch hiding under clean laundry she had draped over it the day before. Of course, the dryer would have to break down in the middle of her load. And she hadn’t had a chance to fold the things and put them away yet. She supposed she might do it now, but…well, as she looked at Jack, other, more important, things came to mind.

Jack stood in the middle of the room, staring down at her while wearing the same expression he’d been wearing all day. At least five times she’d had to talk him out of leaving her to go home. And each time he’d grown sulkier and sulkier.

“Are we done now?” he muttered, his hands fisted and shoved deep into the pockets of his cargo jeans.

Mallory allowed her gaze to drift over him. He was quite a man, this Jack Daniels. Wherever they went, women openly ogled him, making no secret of their interest. Not that Jack paid any attention. He was completely oblivious to the attention he received. And when he did catch wind of it—like when she, Layla and Reilly jokingly threw cat calls his way every now and again—he’d mumble and curse and move out of sight as fast as he could.

Now she watched him shift his weight from his right foot to his left, his present discomfort level rising with the sweep of her gaze from his loafer-clad feet to his snug black T-shirt.

She’d begun the exercise of giving him a provocative once-over to tease him. And while it was working—as she’d known it would—she also found herself getting a little more than turned on.

Mmm…

“Can I leave now?” he said, obviously clenching his teeth.

“Nope,” she said, using the word he’d used on her all day.

His bedroom-brown eyes narrowed. “Mallory…”

“Jack…” she said, reaching for the hem of her T-shirt and pulling it over her head.

She knew he loved to see her undergarments. She might not be a total fashion plate, but just as she took extra care in picking her comment-laden T-shirts, she also took great pleasure in choosing her lingerie carefully. The bra she had on today was deep purple with demi cups and sexy lace edging. She sat up and gave a little shimmy as if trying to get more comfortable, satisfied when his gaze dropped to her cleavage and his pupils instantly took over the color of his irises.

Yeah, baby. Show Mama how much you want her.

Her nipples hardened under his steady scrutiny and she pushed her breasts out even further. They strained against the demi cups and she knew that Jack was wishing they’d just pop right out.

“Mallory…” he said again in warning, though most of the conviction had drained away.

She popped the front button on her jeans, allowing the zipper to slide partway down on its own steam to reveal her matching pair of purple lace panties.

She watched Jack swallow hard.

Mallory tried to formulate her next move, but the truth was her brain was starting to feel a bit muddled and the heat gathering between her thighs was downright distracting. His gaze moved back to her face as if he was searching for some way to combat his growing physical need. So she licked her lips, making sure to do it slowly and provocatively.

“Now,” she said, surprised to find her voice so husky. She’d been going after the effect but even she couldn’t have predicted the outcome. Candy, with her throaty cadence, had nothing on her. “I think we’d better discuss this, um, whole no-sex issue.”

She thought she heard a choking sound, but she couldn’t be sure. But she did know that Jack was looking a little rough around the edges. He nodded. “Yes. I think we should, too.”

She scooted over on the couch, pushed a few items of clothing out of the way, then patted the cushion. “Why don’t you sit down next to me?”

He did nothing for long, silent moments, then he shook his head. “I, um, don’t think that’s such a great idea.”

Mallory smiled. “Why?”

“Because we won’t discuss the sex issue. We’ll be having sex.”

“Exactly what I had in mind.”

“Exactly why I’m staying right where I am.”

She saw his face take on a competitive appearance. Damn. Maybe she could use a pointer or two from Candy.

“Okay,” she said slowly. “Then I’ll come to you.”

Jack seemed so surprised by the proposal that he didn’t move when she pushed off the couch then stood before him, not touching, but definitely close enough to.

Of course, if she had a hope of getting this femme fatale role down pat, she’d have to learn to quiet her own riot of emotions whenever she came this close to Jack.

“I’m not going to kiss you,” Jack said, though his voice was hoarse.

“Mmm. You don’t have to.” She looked at the solid column of his throat. “But you don’t mind if I kiss you, do you?”

He opened his mouth to answer her but she put her palm over his mouth, trapping his words there. Then she tilted her head to press her lips against the front of his throat, then the side, breathing in the fresh scent of his skin, absorbing the warmth radiating from him like a fine musk. He swallowed again and she smiled, blinking her eyes so that her lashes dragged across his skin.

“Come on, Jack,” she murmured, itching to feel his hands on her. All over her. She wanted him to explore every inch of her flesh in that possessive way of his, lay claim to her. But he didn’t budge an inch.

“We are not having sex, Mall.”

She smiled and slowly began kissing her way down to the collar of his T-shirt. She tugged the soft cotton out of his jeans then worked her fingertips under the hem, not stopping until she felt the hard muscles of his abdomen. How he kept in such great shape, she didn’t know. A more inactive man, she’d never met. But whatever he was doing was working. He was a fine, chiseled specimen of male virility. And just looking at him made her want to rip off her clothes and beg for him to sex her.

She tugged down the collar of his T-shirt and ran her tongue the length of his collarbone. Of course, right now it looked like she was going to have to be the one doing the sexing.

Which was all right with her….

Under his T-shirt, she ran her fingertips down his sides, and he shivered. She smiled then started to slide down the length of him. When he would have protested, she chased the air from his lungs by suctioning her lips to his stomach, then sticking her tongue into his navel, which was a delicious innie. When she was finally kneeling in front of him, she easily found the thick ridge straining against the front of his cargo pants, all the while keeping her gaze plastered to his. It didn’t do much to her ego to see his quiet wariness. But there was no denying he was turned on so she pushed ahead.

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