“You want to get into my pants.”

“Repeatedly.” Jacob grinned.

“You’re talking about having an affair.” Melanie stared at him, not sure what to think.

“Is what we’ve done together so far nice?”

She glanced down, picked at a knotted thread on her linen top. “I’m not sure I’d call it nice.”

“Then call it not-so-nice. But not-so-nice in a way that it’s so hot, so tight, so—” Jacob clenched one hand into a solid fist “—so genuinely real that even if you do go back to the way things were before, nothing will seem the same.”

Melanie looked into his eyes, listened to his voice, loving every second of what he was making her feel. Never in her life had she felt this sort of connection that went far beyond anything she’d ever thought of as sexual. This, this…untamed sense of being ruled by her body instead of the mind, the intellect she’d cultivated all her life. What was wrong with her?

He wanted to continue what they’d started. He wanted to call it an affair.

She said the only thing she could, a very simple “Yes.”

Dear Reader,

I’ve had such a great time with the women of gIRL-gEAR, creating their stories and getting to know these heroines along with the rest of you. After reading the first three stories in early 2002, many of you wrote to ask the fate of the remaining gIRLS: Melanie Craine, Kinsey Gray and Annabel “Poe” Lee. So let’s get started.

In Striptease, we find techno-wiz Melanie Craine dealing with her worst nightmare—a man who challenges her need for order and control while being guilty of the very same thing. Sparks definitely fly—and not only from the video equipment! Striptease defines the concept of high-tech romance!

I hope the wait for Melanie’s story has been worth it. And I hope meeting Jacob Faulkner has you pulling that videocam out of storage to explore all the possibilities it offers! I’d love to hear what you think of Striptease.

Visit me on the Web at AlisonKent.com or gIRL-gEAR.com! And stay tuned for Kinsey’s story, Wicked Games, coming in October, followed by Indiscreet, Poe’s story, in January.

Enjoy!

Alison Kent

Striptease
Alison Kent

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For all the readers who continue to ask

after the rest of the gIRLS. This one’s for you.

A big thank-you to Larissa Estell,

Jill Shalvis and Donna Kauffman for the daily whine fest.

That’s what friends are for!

And to Jan Freed.

I owe you, bud, for fixing the parts I knew

were broken as much as for repairing what I couldn’t see.

A girls’ night at the movies to celebrate sounds like a plan!

The gIRLS of gIRL-gEAR
by Samantha Venus for Urban Attitude Magazine

Samantha Venus, intrepid reporter, insatiable gossip, back at long last with news about our favorite fashion divas. They soon won’t be only our hometown honeys, but national—dare I say international—treasures.

My favorite L.A. production company and my favorite television show hostess with more mostess than most, Ann Russell, will pry out secrets even my bloodhound nose has not been able to divine. And the prospect is just that. Divine.

Even better is this little tidbit Samantha has scooped for all you darlings. Ann and the gIRLS will be baring all, so to speak, for our local Avatare Productions’ deliciously dishy videographer Jacob Faulkner.

This reporter, for one, can only hope for a bit of reciprocal baring. We all know that there is nothing quite as yummy as a man stripped to his bare essentials!

Until that blissful day, dear readers…Samantha Venus signing off for Urban Attitude Magazine.

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

1

June…

MELANIE CRAINE ENTERED the sanctuary of the neighborhood church two blocks from the Hollisters’ home. Three quick steps into the air-conditioned interior and she thudded to a stop.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she muttered, knowing he wasn’t kidding her at all.

What he was doing was ignoring every word of this morning’s phone conversation during which she’d told him—yet again—where she wanted the cameras located for tonight’s taping of Lauren and Anton’s wedding.

Melanie jammed her pocket PC’s stylus into its slot, then zipped the whole device into the pale yellow case at her waist. She was not about to let down the bride or the groom. Especially not after the honor of being asked to handle their wedding video details.

Setting her videographer on the straight and narrow had just become job one.

Her status as gIRL-gEAR’s resident geek gave Melanie the inside scoop on the city’s best in high-tech photographers and video firms. And Avatare Productions had been the obvious choice.

Or so she’d thought until she’d been stuck with the company’s hard-headed, opinionated and—yes, okay—admittedly hunky crew chief.

No doubt about it.

Jacob Faulkner had been put on this earth to ruin her life.

But she’d be damned if she’d let him ruin her day.

Marching down the aisle to the raised dais, she stood on the first step, watching him tilt one of the remote-controlled cameras he’d mounted on either end of the choir box railing.

“Back up about three steps,” he ordered her without looking up.

Melanie took three steps toward him instead. “What are you doing?”

“The job I’ve been hired to do.” Frowning at the camera’s LCD screen, he gestured to a point behind where she stood. “Not forward. Back. About six steps.”

She shoved hands to hips and dug in her heels. She so did not want to fight with this man. Not today. “I thought we agreed the planter boxes were situated in the best spot for filming the wedding party.”

Jacob continued to check the LCD image. “You suggested the planters.” He shrugged. “I considered the suggestion.”

Obviously for about as long as it had taken him to throw it away. She, on the other hand, had checked out the angle at least a dozen times and knew she was right. She tightened both hands into fists.

“Look, I know you’re doing your job, but the bride is one of my business partners and a very good friend. She and the groom have put their trust in me to make this work. I intend to see that it does.”

“The very reason I’m here, sweetheart.” Again he waved her back before bending to check hidden wires and connections. “Six steps is all I need. Think of it as earning that trust.”

Melanie pressed her lips together and held her tongue, an act that required more effort than she’d expected. Why were men so threatened by a strong woman’s input, forget ever taking one’s advice? No. They had to establish dominance and power and all other matters by penis size.

Frowning, Jacob straightened and resumed viewing the camera’s display. “How tall are you?”

“Five-eight, but what my height has to do with anything—”

“Same as the bride. Heels look to be about the same, too. Once you’re in place, I’ll have a better idea of what I’m working with here.”

Shoving a hand through hair that had to look like a mop by now, Melanie gritted her teeth. Compromises rubbed against her grain when it came to boys who thought they were the boss. But this wasn’t about her. This was about Lauren.

So Melanie offered the only concession she was willing to make. “I know you can control the zoom remotely, but I’m worried the cameras are too far off center.”

“They’re not.”

“So you say. I want to see exactly what you’re seeing. Then I’ll decide.”

Blowing out an aggravated breath, Jacob glanced halfway in her direction. “Look. You’ve got control issues. That’s cool. But could you save it for another guy? I’m not really into being whipped.”

Melanie sputtered. Control issues? Whipped?

He straightened suddenly and met her eyes. “Hey, sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Not “Hey, sorry, I didn’t mean that.” She crossed her arms and waited.

He gestured to his camera. “It’s just that there’s no way you can see what I’m seeing, even looking at the same view screen. We’d focus on different things.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I’ve been at this for a lot of years. Time and experience have changed what I see, what I look for,” he said. Then he added, “Besides, you’re a girl. And I’m a guy—a very intuitive type, mind you, but still a guy.”

“Intuitive. Really?”

“Really.” He pressed his lips together in a cocky, bad boy sort of grin before adding, “Kind, considerate and sensitive, too.”

She snorted.

He offered a modest shrug. “Hey, it’s what all the women tell me.”

Bonehead. “Right. You’re not into being whipped.”

Jacob’s mouth quirked. A nice mouth, Melanie hated to notice. His burgeoning smile showed off great teeth and deep dimples, and hinted at a charming sense of humor. Just not enough of a hint to counter the black marks he’d racked up with his control issues remark.

Still…Lauren. Think about Lauren.

“Okay, here’s an idea.” Melanie uncrossed her arms. “Not an order, mind you. Simply a suggestion.” She backed up three steps. “I’ll stand in as the bride for you. You play the groom for me. How about it?”

“Hmm.”

The unholy gleam in his eyes should’ve warned her.

“Sure you don’t want to be the groom?” Jacob asked.

Melanie changed her mind. It was a smart mouth. A smart-ass mouth. There was nothing nice about it. “Yes or no?”

His smile widened. “Three more steps, sweetheart, and you’ve got yourself a groom.”

This man was like no groom she would want, sweetheart. But she went ahead and stepped back to the spot where Lauren would be standing later that night. “Do you work this hard for all your comebacks, or am I just inordinately lucky?”

“I don’t work hard at too much of anything,” he said, making such a minor adjustment to the tilt of the camera that Melanie wasn’t sure whether to believe what he’d just said or the contradiction of what he’d just done.

She preferred to believe her head and keep her distance from this one. His cavalier attitude, whether real or perceived, was totally beyond her ability to fathom—even as she recognized that her own obsessive and occasionally compulsive tendencies weren’t the norm.

Detail-oriented, that’s all she was. And right now, she was cranky. And considering that state of aggravation, she would have loved to believe that Jacob Faulkner was as lazy as he claimed. But she knew Avatare Productions hadn’t come by their reputation employing bums.

And so she didn’t. Believe it, that is. Especially since he hadn’t stopped working long enough to pay attention to much of anything she’d said. “Well, maybe this once you’d make an exception and give it the ol’ college try? I promise it won’t go any further, you making an effort, cross my heart and all that.”

He finally stepped back from the camera and straightened to his full height, his full breadth, giving her his complete attention and the up-front impact of his grin, his focus and his deep, dark eyes.

Whoa! Melanie blinked, caught again between his actions and words. Not that he’d said anything that registered. Or was doing much of anything at all—at least nothing to merit the two-left-feet trip her heart had just taken.

All he was doing, in fact, was looking at her. Looking into her. Looking beyond her defenses with an intensity that chiseled out a great big chunk from between the bricks of the wall that protected her from bad boys.

“And what’s a promise you make worth, Miss Craine?” He shook his head. “Never mind. With that control thing you’ve got going, you don’t break promises, do you?”

“Of course not.” Control? What control? And forget calling on her usual self-discipline.

She couldn’t even think of a retort, what with flutters of pleasure flitting in and out of her belly. She was not the type of girl taken to mooning over a man’s biceps and pecs and nice tight ass.

Sure, she appreciated beefcake as much as any of the women she worked with, but this…this was not simple appreciation. This was the sort of bone-jumping desire she’d always risen above.

For the life of her, she couldn’t remember why.

Or how.

He started toward her, across the dais and down the first step, the second, his stride lazy and loose, his chest a broad landscape in a black cotton T-shirt, his dark indigo jeans slack on his legs but snug where the waistband rode low.

Nothing had changed from five minutes ago except now he wasn’t looking at her pixilated image but at her flesh-and-bone body. Yet everything had changed for that very same reason, and Melanie could barely breathe.

He was seeing her both mentally and physically disheveled, not to mention at her absolute worst in terms of stress working her nerves. Her attitude was in the toilet. And her drive to mow down anyone in her way had no doubt made quite the unattractive impression.

And yet he still had that look in his eye. A look that spoke of all those unspeakable things that went on in cocky, bad boy minds.

Things she’d experienced only in her imagination since she avoided the type and stuck to men who were safe. Who presented no challenge. Who bored her to tears but shared her work ethic and professional drive.

She lifted her chin and retrieved her pride, then crossed her arms over her middle, hating how body language supposedly revealed one’s state of mind. She felt vulnerable and exposed, and was angry at herself for the weakness. This reaction was not in her man-response repertoire and she did not like being put on the spot.

She especially did not like the sense of anticipation slipping between her clothing and her skin. Too aware, that’s what she was, feeling the fabric against her body in a way that had nothing to do with comfort or fit but was all about sensation and sexual heat.

Jacob stepped from the dais into the aisle, his slow rolling stride bringing him closer, closer still, until he circled around and into her personal space. He moved to stand behind her, breathing, hovering, threatening, giving her cause to wrap her arms even tighter over newly budded nipples. Ridiculous, she thought, the warmth she felt sluicing over her at having him near.

He took another step and reached the groom’s position. The thud of her heartbeat climbed to the base of her throat, and Melanie turned her head slowly. She lifted her gaze to meet his, which was even more disturbing from this distance—really no distance at all.

Oh, no. This wouldn’t do. She was not going to stand here where she could smell a hint of the soap on his skin and the shampoo he’d used and the fragrance of the detergent with which he washed his clothes.

He was way too close, and his T-shirt revealed more than it covered. His stomach was flat, his chest sculpted and hard, his shoulders rounded with muscle, his biceps tightening the fit of his sleeves. He looked down at her from beneath a sweep of black lashes. She looked up and swore she was not going to take off her clothes.

He inclined his head, lifted a dark brow. “So?”

“So…what?”

With a tilt of his head, he gestured toward the dais and the choir box. “The cameras are all yours.”

“The cameras. Right.” Could she be any more of a moron?

And why weren’t her legs longer so she could kick herself in the butt? Or steadier, at least, so she could make it up the two short steps of the dais without falling on her face?

As it was, she’d never been more aware of the swing to her walk, or the shape of her legs from the hem of her short, pale yellow skirt to her matching faux crocodile slides. Even her lemon-chiffon poet’s shirt had become too revealingly sheer.

Her brainstorm to dress early for the ceremony, allowing more time to see to the video details, no longer seemed like the same stroke of preparatory genius. She’d much prefer to be wearing baggy khakis and a huge oversize camp shirt while under Jacob’s scrutiny. What he made her feel was too…itchy and unfamiliar and…real.

But when she reached the choir box railing, she’d never in her life been so glad to be female, itchy or not. Because looking into the LCD screen, she saw things that a real man could never understand about another man’s beauty and carnal appeal.

Hands at his hips, standing where Anton would stand to wed Lauren, Jacob Faulkner looked nothing like a groom, looked insolent and arrogant, looked like a model for DKNY or Calvin Klein. Or better yet, like a brooding hustler chalking a cue, waiting for a sucker to challenge his game.

It was an attitude, an aura, a sense of self more than it was the way he wore his dark wavy hair or the way he appeared to lounge like a lizard soaking in the sun. Melanie blinked, wet her lips and watched his other eyebrow lift in question.

If only she could remember the answer he was waiting for.

“Everything meets with your approval?”

You have no idea. Though, of course, she would never say anything so leading because she knew, any minute now, she’d get over this ridiculous and latent hormone attack. So she nodded, because he’d been right, after all.

The camera angle was perfect. And as hard as it was to admit after jumping to her earlier opinion, the man knew his business as well as she knew hers.

She moved to check the second camera, though really needn’t have bothered. Where the first had shown Jacob from his left side, this one gave her the full treatment of his right. Both sides were equally devastating to her ability to disassociate her body’s response from this man. She didn’t want to react to him in any sort of physical way.

He was annoying and bossy and way too…observant for comfort. All he had to do was stand there and stare at her and he made her unbearably hot. And now, during tonight’s wedding, she’d be sitting in the sanctuary, witnessing the ceremony, her attention drawn from the bride and groom to the cameras, with Jacob looking on.

He’d be sitting in the van in the parking lot. Studying the panel of monitors on which he could so easily watch her. And she would never know if he was looking at her or not.

Melanie ran a hand along the back of her bare neck and into the riot of spiky chunks she’d tamed into curls above her nape. Her gaze moved from the display screen to the floor, to the toe of her right shoe, where her skin, bare and only lightly tanned, contrasted with the yellow. Such a strange thing to notice in the midst of her meltdown.

“This will work,” she finally admitted, because there was nothing else she could think of to say. Not when her thoughts had taken off in directions she didn’t even recognize. Directions that were definitely not refined or genteel, or even logically intelligent. Directions that had her showing him the way to her bed.

She wondered what Jacob would think if he knew she’d undressed him a dozen times already, stripped him where he was standing and taken, uh, matters into her hands. That thought brought a grin; there was no need to wonder. He was a man, and the scenario she’d painted so typical of a male fantasy.

Guys were so simple, really. Wanting nothing more complicated than what it took to keep their urges satisfied. Discounting the fact that it had been a long time since she’d responded to any man the way she’d responded to Jacob, he was no different than the others. She refused to believe he was different.

Except he was. And understanding why would take more than their temporary working involvement. She just didn’t have the time.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, and she realized she still wore a smile.

Then she noticed he was now standing beside her on the dais. She looked at him over the narrow black rims of her funky rectangular glasses. She had to go. She really had to leave. This insanity had gone on far too long. “Funny? Nothing, really.”

“Then why the smile?” He moved closer, forcing her to tilt her head back, making her feel uncharacteristically small and deliciously feminine. “Come on, sweetheart. Tell me. You don’t want me to have to get rough, do you?”

She stepped back an arm’s length. “Sorry. Intimidation doesn’t work with me. But it does raise an interesting question.”

“Shoot.”

“Just who exactly is dealing with control issues here, Faulkner. Me?” She arched a cool brow. “Or you?”

August…

“OKAY, LADIES. Let’s hurry this up. We need to get back to business.”

CEO Sydney Ford’s admonition to the gIRL-gEAR partners had become as much a part of their weekly meetings as had the gossip that precipitated the warning.

But with Lauren so recently back from her honeymoon to Ireland, the seven girls had much catching up to do, multiple trip photos to pass around and many souvenir gifts to unwrap.

Lauren had already given Melanie an extravagant thank-you gift of a bed-and-breakfast weekend for managing the details of the wedding video.

So being handed a tiny box wrapped in silver paper came as an unexpected surprise.

“Lauren, you are totally out of control,” Melanie said, while pulling the tape from one end of the neatly wrapped package. “I didn’t expect you to bring me back anything.”

Sitting to Melanie’s right, Lauren leaned back in the conference room chair like a blue-eyed, blond elf on a mission from Santa himself. A huge marquis diamond glittered from her platinum wedding band when she waved an encompassing hand over the rest of the women in the room. “Just spreading the joy of the season.”

“What season? It’s August. It’s Houston. And I don’t find the combination particularly joyous,” Melanie said, cringing as Kinsey Gray, gIRL-gEAR’s fashion authority, squealed from the other end of the table.

Lauren crossed her legs and admired her wedding set against the background of her cream linen slacks. “The bridal season, of course. A June bride. A July honeymoon. And now an August newlywed. A wife.” Lauren sighed.

Her marriage-induced bliss had Melanie rolling her eyes as she pulled the gift box free from the tape and the paper. “Not trying to burst your euphoric bubble here, but the newlywed part will eventually wear off and you’ll be a wife long past August. At least I hope that’s the plan.”

“Are you kidding? Anton is stuck with me for years and years to come.”

Kinsey’s squeals grew louder as she scurried to Lauren’s end of the table to deliver a personal hug and thank-you for the delicate Celtic Claddagh pendant draped over her hand. “Lauren, you’re the best. I can’t believe you were shopping for us when you had Anton all to yourself. I never would’ve left the room. Shoot, I’d have kept Anton tied naked to the bed.”

“Who said he went shopping with me? Or that I even let him borrow more than a corner of my suitcase?” Lauren’s grin was as prurient as it was wide. “All he needed was room for a few nice strong silk ties.”

“Don’t listen to her.” Macy Webb, content editor for the gIRL-gEAR Web site, showed off a toe ring and matching ankle bracelet with green stones in their Celtic knot centers. “Anton obviously did the shopping and only let Lauren borrow a corner of his suitcase for her battery supply.”

“Batteries?” The newest partner and current vice president of cosmetics and accessories, Annabel “Poe” Lee, toyed with the white ribbon she’d yet to pull from her gift. “A month alone with Anton Neville and you packed batteries? What is wrong with this picture?”

Melanie worked the paper loose from her present, holding her breath and hoping no one would mention the fact that when Lauren and Anton split up last year, he’d spent those few weeks dating Poe.

And though Melanie hadn’t been along on the group vacation where the two feuding lovers got their act back together, she’d heard through the grapevine that Poe had laid her intentions to pursue Anton on the line—the very wake-up call Lauren had needed.

“Poe, we really are going to have to find you a man.” Still dealing with the initial craziness of launching the gUIDANCE gIRL mentoring program, Chloe Zuniga diffused the bomb. “You’ve clearly been too long without or you would remember how much fun you can have with a man and a vibrator at the same time.”

“Speaking from personal experience, Chloe dear?” Poe’s bow-shaped mouth remained unsmiling even as her dark, almond-shaped eyes glittered brightly.

“Yes, Eric and I have a great sex life, thanks for asking.” Chloe gave her one-time nemesis, now very good friend, a withering look, then blew Lauren a thank-you kiss and fastened a pink quartz bracelet around her wrist. “But I’m talking about Lauren and Anton.”

“Hey, now.” Lauren frowned. “I’m not sure everyone needs to know the details of my married sex life.”

“As if it’s any different than your single sex life,” Macy teased, looping the slender silver chain around her ankle.

“You might want to be careful there, Ms. Webb.” Lauren leaned across the conference room table and arched both shapely brows. “I doubt there’s a ladies’ room in the city that hasn’t witnessed your Mr. Redding dropping his pants.”

From the head of the room, Sydney groaned. “Must we talk about Leo’s…pants?”

“Or his lack thereof?” Melanie pushed her glasses up her nose and laughed. “You need to learn to knock, Syd. That’ll save you from any future, uh, exposure should Macy and Leo decide they can’t wait till they get home.”

“Last year’s open house incident was enough, Mel. I really didn’t need the reminder.” Sydney cringed while draping her new hand-painted silk scarf over one shoulder. “Now, I hate to be the bad guy here, but are we almost finished?”

“C’mon, Syd. How often do we get to marry off a partner?” Chloe asked.

“That’s the first thing I want to talk about. These last few months have been insane with the never-ending showers and the bachelorette party and the wedding and Lauren out for a month-long honeymoon. So…” Sydney paused, made sure she had everyone’s attention “…no more weddings allowed. With, of course, the exception of my marriage to Ray.”

“Sydney!”

“Oh my gawd! Ray proposed!”

“When?”

Sydney waved off the burst of rapid-fire comments. “No date. No date. Just…eventually. But the rest of you can forget it. The company can’t afford but one or two of these extended vacations.”

“Hear, hear,” Melanie seconded.

She pulled the last of the wrapping from her box as, with a twist of her mouth, Sydney went on to add, “And now that Ray has popped the question, I’m calling dibs on the second—”

“Lauren! This is absolutely gorgeous! Oh, Syd, I’m sorry. But this…” Melanie really hadn’t meant to shriek, or to cut off the boss, but she’d opened Lauren’s gift and…and…this was totally unreal! “I can’t believe it. I know this sculptor, and you spent way too much money.”

“No, I didn’t,” Lauren stated, as Melanie turned the frosted-glass figurine over and around in her hands. “I found it in a tiny antique shop. A secondhand place. I don’t think they knew what they had. But I knew you had to have it.”

The female nude was sculpted in the style of Lalique. The piece was absolutely exquisite, the woman kneeling with her hands spread over her belly beneath her bare breasts, her head tossed back and her eyes closed.

Yet it fit in the palm of Melanie’s hand. “You know I’m going to kill myself if I break this before I get it home.”

Lauren grinned. “If it made it safely all the way from Ireland, I imagine you can make it from here to Midtown.”

The rest of the women got up to see the delicate piece of glasswork, oohing and aahing in appreciation, though no one could possibly value the representation the way Melanie did. “This is going to look so good in my shadow box.”

“Do you have nude men in your shadow box?” Poe pinned her black-marble-and-marcasite brooch to the collar of her jade-green silk blazer. “Or do you prefer women?”

Melanie refused to jump at Poe’s bait. “I know this may come as a shock, but I really do know what to do with a penis.”

“I don’t know, Mel.” Chloe got in line behind Poe to give Lauren a hug. “Things might’ve changed since last time you had one. Evolution moves faster than you do when it comes to the mating process. You’re putting in way too many hours at the office to have a love life.”

“Chloe’s right,” Poe unexpectedly added. “All work and no foreplay leads to burnout.”

“Very funny,” Melanie said, though it wasn’t funny at all because the conversation had brought Jacob Faulkner and his, uh, attributes to mind, and she’d thought about him too many times already since the wedding. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll wait for Sydney to get married before I go postal on all of you.”

Her joke fell curiously flat. Looking at the serious faces all around, Melanie realized her friends were truly concerned. How ridiculous! She was fine, though a bit disillusioned.

Her partners seemed to have forgotten the percentages of perspiration and inspiration demanded by success. Besides, someone had to sweat out the declining e-tail market. She, for one, had financial obligations to meet.

Sydney broke the strained silence first. “All right, ladies.” She glanced around the room. “Now that everyone has thanked Lauren properly and been brought up to date on Mel’s familiarity with the male anatomy, I need to give you an update on the documentary in which we’ve been selected to participate. I’ve had the lawyers go over all the release forms, contracts, yadda, yadda, and the ball is finally in motion.”

Kinsey groaned. “Please, Syd. Do we really have to go through with this? I’m not the least bit photogenic and would really prefer not to share that fact with all of America.”

“All of America?” Chloe shook her head. “Sugar, you are way too optimistic. It’s a series on female entrepreneurs, remember? We’ll be lucky to show up on PBS.”

Sydney waited for the silliness to subside. “The producers have contracted a local production company to work with the show’s host, Ann Russell. She’ll be meeting with each of us over the next few days and setting up her schedule for interviews in the office and for the at-home segments, as well. Any questions?”

Sigh. A local production company. Yes, there was more than one. But there was only one best. And even that one had more than one cameraman. But once again only one best. And Melanie knew that when it came to gIRL-gEAR, Sydney Ford never settled for less.

Melanie’s good-mood balloon deflated. She’d known two months ago that the man was destined to cause her grief. She just hadn’t thought the probability of working with Jacob Faulkner again would come so soon. And what had Sydney said? At-home segments?

She rubbed her thumb over the smooth, frosted glass in her hand. “Who’s contracted to do the filming?”

“Avatare Productions.”

Lauren jumped to the edge of her seat. “Hey, they did my wedding video. Excellent choice, Syd. Anton and I finally watched the tape Sunday afternoon and the edits were amazing. Brought tears to my eyes, seeing it all as if it was happening again.”

“I didn’t choose them but after witnessing the crew in action at the wedding and reception, I did suggest to the producers that they request the same cameraman who ran the show.” Sydney frowned. “I never did catch his name.”

“Jacob Faulkner,” Melanie said, and all eyes turned her way.

2

SITTING BEHIND THE DESK in her black-and-white office and feeling uncharacteristically frustrated, Melanie flipped through the catalog of gift items left by the sales rep who’d stopped by the office this morning. The list of possibilities she’d jotted on her legal pad was decidedly short.

She’d promised to get back to him within the week, but knew it wasn’t going to happen. Just like last year, her gOODIE gIRL gift line wasn’t hurting for product. What she was desperate to find was merchandise for gIZMO gIRL’s electronic stock.

Affordable, practical and, yes, admittedly trendy items. So many of the gIRL-gEAR Web site visitors were teens with no source of income save for an allowance or baby-sitting money or, at the most, what they earned working after school for minimum wage.

And Melanie was having the worst time pinning down workable inventory. Her target price bracket meant sales reps offered her cutesy with no substance or functional with no style. She wanted it all. Her customers, no matter their age or earnings, deserved it all. And, she admitted, the challenge of providing it was one of her favorite parts of the job.

Not every girl was completely appearance or fashion conscious, yet plenty were—and were turned off by any design that hinted at boring practicality. And even if there was no consensus on what constituted cool, the pressure to conform was still hard to escape.

Melanie had been lucky in that her own early ventures into geekhood had met with moderate peer acceptance. Though she’d promised her two best friends that she was just as excited as they were about cheerleading, she’d ended up blowing off too many practices and had been kicked off the squad.

Her girlfriends had thought she was out of her mind, preferring to spend her time in the career center’s computer lab, but the guys she’d hung with thought she was cool, if a little bit weird. Most were fairly weird themselves, outcasts and loners, but smart as hell. Ambitious, too. She’d liked that about them. Liked it a lot.

She’d enjoyed reaping the experience of their knowledge and sharing her own, as well as showing them up whenever possible—a good little feminist in the making. One as secure in her ability to write a batch file as her cheerleading buds had been in their tumbling skills.

And she owed that confidence to her mother and her grandmother, the two women who’d raised her. They’d taught her not to believe anyone who tried to convince her that it was a man’s world, after all. Taught her that a smart woman never let on that she held the upper hand. Keeping the true balance of power under lock and key made for a much more…satisfying outcome.

Melanie leaned back in her office chair and used the eraser end of her pencil to push her glasses back into place. Grinning solely for her own benefit, she admitted to loving the idea of leading a guy around by the…nose and having him clueless that he wasn’t in charge.

Then she grimaced. To accomplish that feat she’d need a major personality makeover, because she didn’t have whatever that thing was that turned men into mindless mush. She was too in-your-face, and their face wasn’t where most guys wanted a woman to be.

Swiveling her chair to the left, she studied the frosted-glass figurine that had yet to make it to the shadow box in her bedroom. For the moment, it sat on a shelf of the bookcase built into her office wall. The statuette epitomized what guys wanted.

The stylish elegance of Sydney Ford. The sweet femininity of Lauren Neville. The uninhibited nature of Macy Webb. The curvaceous sort of earth-mother figure with which Chloe Zuniga had been blessed.

The very same one Melanie would love to have had if genetics hadn’t predetermined she be built like a board. Well, not a board, exactly. She did have all the requisite spheres and orbs. But where Chloe was lush, Melanie was simply…spare.

She supposed her boyish figure, her left-brain thinking and her reputation for saying what needed to be said made a perfect combination. And if a certain arrogant cameramen had a problem with a woman who knew her own mind, that was too damn bad.

Stabbing the pencil’s eraser at the tip of her nose, she swore she would not sign any of Sydney’s release forms or contracts if Avatare honored her request and assigned the documentary shoot to that annoying Jacob Faulkner.

Uh-uh. No way. Melanie had no desire to spend the next few weeks working in close quarters with a man who had nothing more going for him than the fact that he revved her up, making her want to take his, uh, stick shift for a spin—

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to play with sharp objects? Might poke your eye out, pierce your jugular, jam it up your nose and into your brain. Stuff like that.”

Well, well, well. Nightmares did come true. She swiveled her chair around to face the doorway, where he was standing. No, not standing. Slouching. Lazy as a slug. Gorgeous as a summer afternoon with nothing to do.

Her chest grew tight as she struggled to breathe normally. He wore another black T-shirt today, this one more structured, designer quality, tucked into a pair of khakis that fit him even better than had the dark indigo jeans. His abs were absolutely incredible.

Oh, but life was unfair. He had his arms crossed over his chest, his shoulder against the doorjamb, one ankle over the other and the toe of that black biker boot braced on the floor. She wanted to slam the door in his face only slightly less than she wanted to run her tongue down the center of his torso.

“Don’t move,” she ordered, taking aim with one eye and throwing the pencil dartlike toward him. The point caught him on a downward arc and barely even grazed his chest. “Damn. I was hoping that would fly up your nose and into your brain.”

A videotape held in one hand, Jacob bent to pick up the pencil, straightened and gave Melanie a look that was half smirk and half smile. “I wasn’t sure you credited me with having a brain.”

Slowly, she closed the useless gift catalog. Her concentration had been shot before he showed up. Now it lay gasping on the ground. Even so. He might have been put on this earth to ruin her life, but he was not going to ruin what was left of her day.

Now, now. It’s hardly his fault you can’t get him out of your mind. It wasn’t even his fault for having gotten under her skin, and that was the crux of her problem. She was the one at fault here—a fact she hated facing, a weakness she wanted to deny. She knew better than to be taken in by a cocky, bad boy attitude and a body to make a woman weep.

What had they been talking about, anyway? His total lack of brains?

“Brains I can’t speak to,” she said. “But I can credit you with having a good eye. Perception, placement, nuances of lighting that most people miss. Stuff like that.” She shrugged, figuring she’d just appeased his ego, though she’d only been speaking the truth.

“A rather backhanded compliment, but I’ll take it.” He crossed the office’s trademark deep purple carpet to return the pencil. “Here. In case you want to give it another shot.”

She twirled the pencil between her thumbs and index fingers while pretending to consider, then shook her head. “Bad idea. Might poke an eye out this time. And you need both, considering you’ve apparently been assigned to tape our documentary.”

“I wondered how you’d feel about that.” He balanced the video cassette on its side along the front edge of her desk. “You weren’t too thrilled last time you came face-to-face with my camera. Guess I can’t expect that to have changed.”

“Except for one crucial thing.” She nodded toward the cassette. “Now that I’ve seen Lauren’s wedding video I can’t argue with your skill.” Which was a shame, really, since a verbal set down might get him out of her personal space so she could think. He was way too close, too masculine, too…everything that made him who he was.

Confident. Competent. In total control, she admitted, forcing herself not to sigh. If only he’d shown an inkling of respect for her opinion, her input. But no. Things had to go one hundred percent his way. She stared at him and his ridiculously beautiful eyes—a hazelnut sort of brown hiding behind that dark fringe of coffee-bean-colored lashes. She suddenly wanted a latte in a very bad way.

Melanie blinked, then stiffened her melting spine, noticing how strangely he was staring at her. As if she were an oddity to be studied, or a prospective subject for one of his documentary scenes. Any second he’d discount her skin-and-bones body as a waste of good videotape, her mouthiness as abuse of the audio….

She shoved back her chair, stood and headed for the bookcase, where she slipped the gift catalog into the first in a row of magazine holders. Nerves hummed beneath the nubby taupe sweater she wore bunched at the waist over slim black pants. Nerves solely related to the strain of having to work with this man in a professional capacity when he didn’t know the meaning of the word.

Yes, he got the job done. But the way he went about it—slouching and shrugging on one hand, issuing bossy orders on the other—was going to drive her mad. Madder than the struggle to keep her hands off and her clothes on was making her.

Striving for nonchalance, she turned and waited for his gaze to lift and meet hers. “Why are you here? To deliver an advance warning that you’re back to boss me around?”

“And horn in on your power trip?” He carelessly hitched one shoulder. “Hardly. I’m just doing some preliminary fieldwork.”

“That’s odd.” She leaned back against the bookcase, her hands flat behind her on a hip-high shelf. “You told me you never worked hard at much of anything.”

“So I did.” Jacob left the video on her desk and made his way to stand beside her, leaning one shoulder against the bookcase and tucking his hands into khaki pockets. “Didn’t realize I’d made such an impression.”

And she would make sure he continued in that uninformed state for the next however many weeks he was in and out of the office. “Don’t flatter yourself, Faulkner. I rarely forget much of anything people tell me.”

For a long, drawn-out moment he studied her intently. His expression, brilliantly cutting and sharp, possessed a life of its own, as if he was considering whether or not a response was required. Finally, he reached out, and she thought for a moment he was reaching for her. A ridiculous notion, because he obviously wasn’t, and because that one thought spawned others. And she found herself wondering what she would do if he did.

If he touched her.

If he moved closer, into her space, breathed her air and brushed the curve of her jaw with his lips.

But he didn’t. He picked up the frosted glass figurine behind her instead. He turned it over and around, balanced it on his palm, used his thumb to test the smooth curving surface of the woman’s glass bottom, her breasts, her face lifted to the sky.

Melanie’s fingers itched to take it from him, to return the sculpture to the shelf and move his hands to her body, but she didn’t do the first and certainly wasn’t about to do the second, no matter how quickly her heart tripped or how hot and itchy her skin felt beneath her summer-weight sweater.

She nodded toward the figure. “Lauren brought that back from Ireland. I keep forgetting to take it home.”

“Nice,” he said, before returning it to the shelf. “Why take it home? Why not enjoy it from here?”

“I do,” she admitted, surprising herself and moving her gaze from Jacob’s face to the figurine. “It’s just that I have a collection of this artist’s pieces at home. Keeping the lot of them together seems logical.”

“Do you like his work? Or do you like the work that he does?”

She frowned, shook her head as she looked back at him. “I’m not sure I understand the difference. Or is the redundancy meant to trip me up?”

Jacob took a step closer. “Do you like his eye, his style, maybe the way he interprets emotion in the figures? Or do you just have a thing for naked bodies?”

The way he asked the question, the timbre of his voice, the flash of teasing fire in his eyes made it easy to imagine that his query was more leading and more personal than he’d intended it to be. Then again, he was a guy. What was she thinking? Leading and personal was the name of the game.

Common sense told her to blow him off, but too much time together loomed in their future, and she was loath to give him any inkling of advantage. “Yes, actually, to both. I like his style, the way he portrays the human form. And, as far as having a thing for naked bodies, I can’t think of anything as compelling as a beautiful nude.”

He didn’t even blink. Didn’t even smirk. Did nothing but ask, “Are you talking art here?”

“Doesn’t the best art imitate life?”

He took a minute to consider the scope of her reply, a minute during which he picked up and fondled the figurine. Yes, fondled, because there was no other word to describe the silky glide of his fingers over the lush glass curves.

Melanie told herself to look away; the words fell on her own deaf ears. And she admitted to the almost painful need to know if he would touch her with half as much awe.

“Is your collection gender specific?”

Melanie’s gaze snapped from his beautifully made hands to his face, which was equally compelling in a purely masculine way. “You mean do I only collect females?” When he gave a single nod, she lifted her chin and answered with a simple, “No.”

“Interesting,” he said, and once again shelved the sculpture.

Now that was curious. “Why is my equal opportunity collection interesting?”

It took Jacob a moment to drag his attention to her. Once he did, however, his focus was complete, and the look in his eyes unnerving. Unsettling. And stirring beyond belief.

“I can’t see many women I know collecting male nudes. Most don’t think a man’s body is much to write home about,” he finally said, and while she couldn’t help but wonder what woman had given him that impression, she wondered more what he’d look like out of his clothes.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“About men’s bodies?” He looked thunderstruck…and that tickled her.

“About bodies in general. You have to appreciate what your camera lens captures, or what you see on a video display.” She ran her fingers through the hair at her nape and nervously fluffed. “I can’t believe that you don’t pay attention to bone structure…muscle tone…angles and contours and curves.”

He shoved his hands back into his pockets, an expression of what seemed to be genuine confusion on his face, as if he had never before evaluated what went into his art. “I don’t pull a shot apart like that. For me it’s more about what the overall concept captures.”

“Hmm.” That surprised her. “I would think you’d take all of those individual things into consideration to get the result you want.”

“Nah.” He grimaced playfully. “Too much work.”

How quickly she forgot. “That’s right. And you don’t work hard at much of anything.”

His nod was a perfect and teasing touché. “And you, Miss Steel-Trap Mind, work much too hard at everything. Am I right?”

First her partners, and now this man who didn’t know a thing about her? “Depends on your point of view. I like to think I have ambition. Commitment. Self-discipline.”

He laughed, a deep rumbling sound as attractive as it was annoying. “Self-discipline,” he repeated, as if savoring a secret joke.

“You find that funny?”

“Yeah. Hilarious.”

Right. Hilarious. She was so glad she hadn’t dipped a toe into the sexual waters and said anything she’d look back on and regret.

“Loosen up, Melanie. If you analyze every detail, take everything so seriously, you’ll end up with an ulcer.”

“Or get where I want to go,” she said. His gaze sharpened. She forced an indifferent shrug. “You said yourself we focus on different things, Faulkner. Different strokes for different folks, and all that. I prefer to steer rather than drift through life. What’s it to you?”

His brow furrowed. “Hell, if you’re so busy fighting the current—” he took a step closer “—how do you expect to enjoy the ride?”

Melanie swallowed hard, resisting the tug of a current, all right. The man’s magnetism was potent, his attention heady, his impression provocative. When he reached to cup a hand around the sculpture where it sat behind her on the bookshelf, her heart lurched.

His gaze cut back and forth between the nude and her face. “So, I’m guessing to you this piece isn’t about the total concept. It’s more about analyzing the details. The woman’s posture. The way she has her hands spread and her fingers flexed to hold herself back.”

Back from what? When he turned to look at her, his eyes seemed to answer the unspoken question, and Melanie’s heart kicked hard in her chest. It shouldn’t have. He was only telling her what he thought she might see. Nothing more. Nothing leading.

Nothing sexual.

“And to you?” she managed to ask.

“To me this is all about interpretation. What the woman wants. What she’s looking for. Waiting for.”

Melanie had to be imagining his suggestion that it was her and not the figurine who was the one looking, waiting. She hadn’t revealed any of those truths in the little bit of time they’d spent together.

And she wouldn’t. Because they weren’t truths at all. “Okay, so, you take in the overall picture. I work my way up through the elements. In the end we both see the same thing, don’t you think?”

“I’m not so sure.” He blinked, his lashes making a slow lazy sweep up and down. “We didn’t see the same thing looking at the view screen the day of the wedding.”

Well, he had her there, didn’t he? Except she’d never told him what exactly it was she’d been seeing. And he certainly hadn’t bothered to share any details about what he’d been looking at when her image had appeared on his screen. Neither had he mentioned anything about where his focus had been while facing that bank of monitors in the van.

She’d wondered about that. The wedding was two months past, and she still wondered if the position of the cameras had anything to do with what they’d been looking at that day. Or if that afternoon had been all about the tension, the same one thrumming between them now like a deep techno beat.

She wanted more than anything to ask him to dance, to hold her close, to slip his hands underneath her sweater and strip her bare. She wanted his hands and his mouth on her body. She wanted to touch him, to smell him, to taste him in intimate ways. And she could barely breathe.

She smoothed the hem of her sweater and took a step closer to him. A step that was so much longer than the distance she actually covered. Screw it. She wanted this. Why was she holding herself back? “Listen, Jacob—”

“Yo, Mel,” Chloe called from the hallway outside the office. “You’re still coming to the barbecue on Saturday, right? I really need your help. And Sydney wants to know—” Chloe stopped short just inside the doorway. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t know you were busy.”

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Divine intervention when needed most. See? They weren’t even yet working together, and she’d already gone mad.

Melanie shook her head. “I’m not busy at all. Jacob, this is Chloe Zuniga. She heads up the gUIDANCE gIRL mentoring program. Chloe, this is the Avatare Productions cameraman who’ll be working on the documentary. Jacob—”

“Faulkner,” Chloe finished. “You’re Rennie’s brother.”

Jacob turned his smile on Chloe. “You know Renata?”

A blond brow lifted. “I know Rennie. Her friends knew better than to call her Renata.”

“Is that right?” Jacob said, and laughed.

That damn laugh again. The echo lingered in the deepest part of Melanie’s belly. She pushed off the wall, away from Jacob, and moved to the front of her desk, hoping that, with distance, the echo would fade. But then he laughed a second time, and she was sunk, wanting him out of her office more than she’d ever wanted him to stay.

Mad as a hatter and Hannibal Lecter to boot.

And then, almost as if Melanie had totally left the room, Jacob turned and gave Chloe his full attention. “Trust me. Renata’s friends still know better. And she doesn’t hesitate to correct them. Even in public. I keep waiting for her to snap and bite off an ear.”

“Is she still in town?” Chloe asked.

He nodded, gestured over his shoulder with a tilt of his head. “Out on the west side, actually. She’s a counselor at one of the Memorial area high schools.”

“I had no idea. All she talked about in school was moving to Arizona or New Mexico to teach.” Chloe frowned, pursing pouty pink lips. “I don’t think I talked to her but once or twice after I was in Austin. I knew she’d planned to take off a year before going to school.”

Jacob nodded. “She did, then went to Baylor and made up for it. Went year-round for five years and earned her Master’s before moving back here.”

“So she never left the state?”

“Nope. Decided she could kick ass and take names here as well as anywhere.”

Lame, lame, lame, Melanie thought, and rolled her eyes.

The other two continued their conversation, leaving her to wonder if she should just abandon her office and give them time to catch up; she obviously wasn’t needed. And just as obviously, she’d been imagining all the tension simmering between her and Jacob. Except she knew that she hadn’t been.

She’d seen his pulse beating there in the hollow of his throat.

She arched a brow. “I hate to interrupt you two, but I’m wondering if what Sydney wants might be something I need to take care of.”

Chloe blinked. “Shit. I mean, shoot. I totally forgot. She wants us in the conference room. You, too, I imagine,” she said to Jacob. “The producer and the show’s host want to meet the rest of us and go over the taping schedule.”

Jacob headed toward the office door. “Give me five. I need to grab my notebook from the van.”

“Hey,” Melanie said, and he turned back, frowning. “I think you’re forgetting something.” She held up and waved the video cassette he’d left on her desk.

It took him a long moment to decide whether to go or to stay or to answer. A moment during which his expression shifted, his eyes, having darkened, flashed. And his smile nearly brought her to her knees.

He nodded toward the tape she held. “Actually, I brought that for you.”

Melanie watched him go, shrugged, slid the cassette across her desk before curiosity had her shoving it into her office VCR. She turned her attention to Chloe, whose attention was way too rapt.

“I can’t believe you know him,” Melanie said.

At the exact same time, Chloe asked, “Did I interrupt anything? It looked like something steamy was going on between you two.”

“Steamy? Hardly. He’s too annoyingly self-important to inspire steam,” she lied.

“C’mon, Mel.” Chloe narrowed her eyes. “I know you better than that.”

“Okay. He’s cute enough, but nothing was going on. Nothing is going on.”

“He’s more than cute, and you know it. He’s all that stuff dreams are made of.” Chloe backed toward the office door and peered down the hallway in Jacob’s direction.

Melanie found herself itching to do the same. “I think you’ve confused Jacob Faulkner with Eric Haydon.”

“Nope.” Chloe shook her head and motioned Melanie toward the door. “Eric’s a total jock. Jacob’s much more…I don’t know. Provocative. Evocative. I can’t explain it. You tell me.”

“Tell you what? That he drives me totally insane?”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Chloe spoke with the authority of a woman having been there. “Remember Macy’s scavenger hunt? When Eric and I first hooked up? It’s amazing the man lived to learn a single thing about me.”

“Speaking of the scavenger hunt, I really ought to give Jess Morgan a call,” Melanie said, changing the subject like the avoidance pro she’d never realized she was. “I can’t remember the last time I saw him.”

“Right.” Chloe’s huffy inflection screamed, Wrong. “Listen, Jess is a doll. But you’ve never been hosed up with nothing to say when he’s been in the room the way you were just now with Jacob.”

“What’re you talking about? You’re the one who interrupted our conversation.”

“Uh-huh. You couldn’t find your tongue, and I think Jacob’s the cat who had it.”

Melanie shoved Chloe out into the hallway. “You’re as cornball as he is.”

“I knew it!” Chloe laughed. “He gave you that look, didn’t he? That one where his eyes get all dark and your panties melt.”

Melanie shifted from one foot to the other. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You are such a liar. And you’ve obviously forgotten that I knew him way back when. In high school? Half the fun of hanging out with Rennie was getting to see her sexy big brother. Jacob Faulkner is still as sexy as it gets.” Chloe’s grin reached new prurient depths. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and find out if he’s as big as rumor had it.”

“Oh, honestly.” Ignoring Chloe’s snicker, Melanie dropped the subject and headed for the conference room at a brisk walk.

She might as well look no-nonsense and eager to get to the meeting because, after that rumor remark? Her mind was destined to stay in the gutter.

3

HE WAS SO GOING TO PAY for this! Oh, but he was going to pay! Did he really think two couldn’t play his stupid video game?

And why had she thought she needed to rush home and watch his little film production, anyway? She hadn’t even taken time to work out or shower or eat or unwind with a beer and The Simpsons.

Nope, she’d walked through her front door, tossed her keys and tote onto the table in the entryway and headed straight for the entertainment center and the VCR. Big mistake. That had been an hour ago and still she was fuming.

And so what if she was? She damn well deserved to fume considering she’d wasted twenty good minutes of her very short evening viewing Jacob’s collection of outtakes from the day of Lauren and Anton’s wedding.

The sneaky bastard.

He’d taken every incident where she’d lost her cool, lost her head, lost all semblance of professionalism, and made himself the perfect little movie short of a shrew needing to be tamed.

Like she really needed the up-close, live-action and full-color keepsake of her behavior that day.

Uh, no. She didn’t, and would’ve been quite happy to live her life without the reminder, thank you very much. No wonder he’d laughed in her face this morning when she’d claimed to be self-disciplined.

And now, with this latest stunt, Jacob had guaranteed their relationship would never again be strictly business. Because not only had his video compilation reminded her of their disastrous work-related interaction, he’d caught her off guard with the way he’d managed to digitally capture the lust she’d felt in places other than her heart.

Even while her taped image had complained about the way Jacob had decided to set up his cameras, her eyes had been flashing and brightly focused, her body language signaling her awareness of the attraction simmering between them. An attraction as real as anything in her experience.

An attraction she wished she could toss into the Dumpster with the rest of her trash because, now that he’d be working with her both in and out of the office, the chemistry between them was going to be in the way, getting on her nerves, aggravating her until she did something really dumb.

Like sleep with the man.

The itch was there. A nice itch that she wouldn’t mind him scratching. Except she could hardly sleep with him and work with him. That was a no-no and a no-win. Seeing him on a daily basis meant living with the increased frustration.

And since no one had ever said all was fair in love and sex in the city, she wanted him as hot and bothered as thinking of him made her.

If anyone was going to hold the upper hand here, it was not going to be Jacob Faulkner.

Working up a sweat while adjusting the lights and camera equipment she kept set up in her condo’s spare bedroom, she pressed her lips together, stepping back to eye the layout. At least now, after an hour of pacing and therapeutic scrubbing of toilets and tubs, she’d finally managed to settle on a payback certain to burn off her adrenaline-laced energy.

Yep. Two could definitely play this warped show-and-tell game. She headed for the kitchen, returning with the bar stool she needed as a prop for her sound stage. She might not work as a videographer, but she could just as easily put together a production to suit her needs.

Right now her needs were all about assuaging her pride and about setting her course through the next few sure-to-be-turbulent weeks. She’d have him eating out of her hand, even if she had to play dirty.

And making use of the stripper’s pole she’d had installed in the room for exercise was about as dirty as it got.

She stepped back, checked out her setup. The lights were hot, but working up a sweat wasn’t going to be a problem. It was, in fact, inevitable and a very good thing. Crossing the room’s hardwood floor in bare feet, she moved to the computer station and launched the system’s media player.

She chose a file of dance-appropriate MP3s, adjusting the equalizer until the floor fairly thrummed beneath her feet. And then she smiled. He thought he knew the real Melanie Craine? He thought he’d capture the undisciplined truth? He didn’t know half of who she was. No one did. Even her partners. At times, she hardly knew herself.

She knelt on the floor in front of the light she’d positioned to cast her shadow onto the wall. Her silhouette faced that of the glass sculpture in a mirrored pose, the sculpture she’d brought home from work and placed on the bar stool. The shadow of the pole ran down the wall in a line between the other two shadows.

Jacob’s fascination with the female nude had inspired her, had made her want to show him that she was much more than the single fraction of her personality he’d seen. His harping-shrew video of her was totally skewed. As skewed as the sexed-up version she was about to make.

Satisfied with the placement of the shadows, she closed her eyes, splayed her fingers low on her belly and got into the music. Feeling it first with her head and her shoulders, she nodded and swayed to the bass in the beat. She kept her eyes closed as her torso began to move and the first tingling waves of excitement tickled the base of her spine.

Whenever she danced, she forgot everything but her body. Her brain lost all ability to handicap sensation and she melted into what felt like pure liquid motion. She felt that way now, sliding her hands from her thighs to her knees, dipping forward before raising her arms overhead with sinuous grace, stretching high, grasping for something that remained out of reach.

Something like Jacob Faulkner.

Instead she took hold of the pole.

The thought of Jacob brought another tingle, this one centered lower in her body, deep between her legs. Slowly, she got to her feet, shoulders rolling side to side as she pushed up from the floor, her hands sliding high on the pole again. She turned, faced the room and arched her back, tilting up her pelvis and lifting one knee waist high.

Oh, yeah. She loved the feel of her body when she danced. The stretch of muscles, the pull of tendons, the strength in her abs and her arms. So sensual, so…sexy. An arousing awareness of all the things that made her a woman. The very things she wanted Jacob to know.

Swaying to the music’s rhythm, she spun to face the pole and hooked her knee behind it. She secured her hold with one hand and leaned back, the fingers of her free hand brushing the floor before she slowly rolled back up. Her lower body undulating, she twined both legs around the pole, moved her hands to the hem of her cropped T-shirt and pulled it over her head.

She still wore her bra, the lacy push-up cups giving her the figure she wished she had naturally. The figure her mind’s eye pictured Jacob seeing. And wanting. Desperately wanting and aching to touch.

She smoothed her hands up her stomach to her breasts, cupping their light weight and tossing her head back with the pleasure invoked by imagining his hands covering hers. His hands moving to her shoulders and pulling down the straps of her bra.

She left them dangling there and turned to face the wall, taking in the shadowed ridge of material against her arms as her body continued to sway. Oh, but she wished she could see his face when he watched her undress just for him.

While her own nerve endings prickled and teased, she wondered how dark his eyes would grow, how hot they would flash, how long it would take him to get hard. How hard he would get. She wanted to stand behind him, run her hands from his shoulders to his wrists, wrap her arms around his waist and slide her palms down the bulge behind his fly.

Instead, she slipped her fingers between her own legs, pressing and pulling slowly up the front seam of her leggings until she reached the elastic waistband.

Then she began to sweat.

She felt the first buzz along her hairline, the second between her breasts. She imagined the feel of Jacob’s mouth nuzzling her there, breathing in the scent of her skin perfumed with nothing but arousal. Her breathing quickened.

She wanted to cup his head close, to guide his mouth to her taut nipples still covered by padded lace, to thread her fingers into his hair, which she knew had to be the texture of exquisite silk…

…as would be the soft skin between his legs that covered his testicles, and the skin drawn tight along the shaft and over the head of his penis. She moaned deeply in the back of her throat, where she imagined holding him, sucking him.

She wanted to take him as far into her mouth as he wanted to go. Her groan became a desperate whimper and, as she shimmied off her leggings and kicked them into a corner of the room, she imagined her tongue swirling up and down and around his cock.

She was unbelievably wet. The scent of her arousal was musky and mingled with that of the sheen of clean sweat now covering her skin. She stood in nothing but her bra and bikini panties. Even the soles of her feet were damp against the hardwood floor. The music swept her along, the notes reminiscent of the feel of hot sex, erotically potent, electrically charged.

She reached back and released the catch of her bra, all too aware that the video continued to capture her every move. Moves she’d never anticipated, spurred on by feelings she’d never expected to experience when she’d set her plan into motion.

She’d gone too far to stop, but she was not about to share the rest of this intimate dance. As the soft ivory satin and lace slipped from her arms to the floor, she took hold of the pole, swinging around and switching off the videotape.

She watched the garment fall in shadow, realizing that would be the last movement Jacob would see. But she continued to watch. To watch and to imagine that Jacob was doing the same. That he was watching, was touching, was the one bringing his hands to her breasts, tugging at her nipples. Oh, how she wished for his mouth.

With her bottom lip caught between her teeth, she massaged and kneaded until her touch became unbearable and her arousal equally in need of relief. She spread her legs, her hips working the music’s rhythm, rocking left, right, pumping forward, back. Bending at the waist, she drew her hands from her ankles to the crease where her hips met her thighs. And then, hooking her fingers into the elastic leg openings, she tugged her panties down and stood there, totally uninhibited and completely nude.

She splayed her hands over her abdomen, sweeping her palms down over the soft line of dark hair until she captured her swollen clit between the tips of her index fingers. She couldn’t help it; she cried out, the pressure sending her close to the edge. But she wasn’t ready to come. Not until she’d imagined Jacob’s deeper exploration.

She reached between her legs, her flesh swollen and bare, soft and sensitive beneath her practiced stroke. This is how I like it, she wanted him to know. Right here, softly, touch me, tease me, circle here, then slip inside. And she did, crying out at the penetration of one finger, then two.

She moved to the music and to Jacob’s imagined caress. Her body responded, and she took herself over, shuddering, shivering, wishing, oh, how she wished Jacob were here to physically finish what his image had started. Instead, she finished herself, released a final trembling sigh and pulled her hand from her body with a last lingering touch.

Several deep breaths later, she doused the hot lights, stopped the music and ejected the tape from the camera. Then she slipped back into her clothes. Jacob wouldn’t be in the office again until Monday, she realized, tugging up her leggings. That gave her time to concoct a clever comeback should he ask her what she was trying to prove.

She wanted to watch the tape, to see what he was going to see, but knew she’d never have the guts to send it off if she witnessed herself baring all. No, she thought, tucking the tape into the padded mailer she’d addressed earlier.

As much as she’d rather have Jacob discover the rest of her personality’s facets one-on-one, he’d made the first move in this sex, lies and videotape business.

Her striptease was simply move number two.

IF NOT FOR THE CHANCE to spend time with Renata, Jacob wouldn’t have come. It was August in Houston, and it was too friggin’ hot for a cookout. Damn fool thing to do, he grumbled, forgetting where he’d put his cajones. That particular forgetfulness made it hard not to be whipped and dragged around by Chloe’s sugary-sweet pleas.

He grumbled again and exited the Southwest Freeway into the historical neighborhood where she and Eric lived. The woman had better make good on her promise of free-flowing beer. That was all he had to say. And Renata damn well better show. Those were the only reasons he was here.

Well, those and the fact that, thanks to Melanie Craine, he’d been walking around for two days now with a World Series bat between his balls. More than once on the way over, he’d had to shift and adjust the goods just to be able to drive comfortably.

The way this group of women stuck together like racked billiard balls, he figured Melanie would be here today. And he had a payback to deliver. In the end, that had been the deciding reason he’d blown off a Saturday afternoon baseball game at Minute Maid Park.

Yeah, that’s why he was here. To even the score.

Not because he couldn’t wait to get a look at what she was wearing and spend the rest of the afternoon trying to get her out of her clothes.

He pushed away the thoughts long enough to navigate the narrow streets without running his truck up onto a curb. He wouldn’t think about Melanie’s amazing body again until he’d parked. He’d think, instead, about a lesser reason he’d come: Chloe’s claim that the party was a bribe to get Renata to join gUIDANCE gIRL as a consultant.

His sister said she never saw him often enough, so Chloe had begged him to come. Not that he minded being used by a gorgeous woman—witness him offering himself for more of Melanie’s games—but Jacob didn’t think his sister needed much in the way of persuasion.

She was an expert at dispensing advice, having done so since grade school when she’d been eight, he’d been eleven and she’d told him to always have extra change for the ice-cream man in case Kelly Sims was broke. Renata, champion of the weak and wounded, crusader for a woman’s right to have her ice cream and eat it, too, would fit right in with the rest of the gIRL-gEAR women.

Even recognizing that female bonding potential, he wasn’t having an easy time figuring out the dynamics of the group. He was hoping today he’d pick up a few clues. Most of his video work didn’t require personal involvement with clients. But this assignment was different.

Documentary or not, if he made this show work, he could write his own career ticket. Any number of NYC-based production companies would wet their proverbial pants after seeing a show of this caliber on his résumé. The inheritance he’d received from his paternal grandmother had allowed him to outfit his own studio and perfect his craft on top-of-the-line equipment. And getting to know the women away from the office would go a long way to making sure the shoot turned out to be his best ever.

He pulled his Explorer Sport Trac in behind a line of two-seaters and sporty status cars parked at the curb. Adding that half dozen to the double row of vehicles running the length of the driveway, he figured this shindig wasn’t the quiet and cozy get-together Chloe had claimed.

Not that he was particularly surprised. He wouldn’t classify anything he’d learned about the seven female friends’ working relationship as cozy. Or as quiet. He had a feeling hair was pulled and mud-wrestling done on a regular basis. Or not. But hey, a guy could dream.

He hadn’t seen enough of their off-site playtime to know that game’s score. The only true playtime he’d witnessed, in fact, had been Melanie’s incendiary striptease. And even then he didn’t know if she’d been the one playing, or if she’d been playing him.

He groaned in defeat. How could a two-dimensional, gray shadow be sexier than a living color peekaboo peepshow? He’d lived in a state of unbearable arousal since watching the tape. What the hell had she been thinking? And why the hell had she turned off the recording like that, right in the middle of his left-handed fun?

Talk about strokus interruptus.

No matter all the reasons he gave himself for showing up at Chloe’s today, the bottom line was that he was here to see how far he could get Melanie to go. He’d spent the morning watching the tape again. And watching it one more time. Not because he’d needed a refresher; Melanie’s shadowed image had imprinted itself on his brain the first time he’d popped the tape into the VCR and hit Play.

He’d watched because he knew he’d be seeing her today. And because he couldn’t reconcile her shadowy seduction with the woman who worked in a black-and-white office and wore work clothes that were dull and ugly and drove him nuts for wanting to strip them away. Especially after that yellow thing she’d been wearing at the wedding.

That outfit had been all he’d seen when she walked through the sanctuary doors and into his camera’s LCD view screen. He’d followed her progress down the aisle and watched the way her body moved, bouncing beneath the nearly sheer top that was as loose and flowing as her short skirt was tight.

The contrast was definitely the sort of which his professional eye took notice. But it was her body underneath that grabbed his more primal attention. That, and the way the heels she’d been wearing did what heels were supposed to do to a woman’s ass and long legs.

For weeks he hadn’t been able to get that image out of his mind, and now that he’d seen her take her clothes off…forget it. The shadowed striptease had turned him on even more than watching her walk down the aisle.

He hadn’t realized how much until he’d been putting together the outtakes in an effort to point out how far over the professional line she’d stepped that day. She’d encroached on his artistic territory, tried to run his show.

He’d wanted her to see that she’d been just plain wrong, that her issues with control weren’t doing her any favors. And he’d always been a hell of a lot better at showing than he’d ever been at telling.

Well, apparently, not this time.

He supposed he deserved the bump-and-grind gauntlet she’d thrown in his face. Melanie had been pissed off enough at his effort to come right back and turn the tables. And she’d done a damn fine job.

The three faces of Melanie Craine just didn’t click. She’d been a witch wearing yellow, a tease in severe office black, a vamp wearing nothing at all. And he was about to get hard again, dammit. So he pushed away thoughts of Melanie and pushed open the gate of the eight-foot cedar fence into Chloe and Eric’s backyard.

The crowd was huge, the pool inviting, the air humid and hot. He wanted a cold beer in a very bad way and he wanted to see his sister, but he didn’t want anything half as bad as he wanted to get his hands on Melanie Craine.

PUSHING BACK LONG STRANDS of curling chestnut hair from her face, Renata Faulkner handed Eric Haydon a plate of burgers ready for the grill.

He was a nice guy, but definitely not a guy she would’ve expected to find living with Chloe Zuniga. Though it seemed time had indeed healed all wounds, the Chloe whom Renata had known had always been too hard-core, bitterly sullen and punk. And here was Eric, amazingly all-American.

Then again, maybe there was more truth than Renata had ever wanted to believe to the theory of opposites attracting. It seemed to be working brilliantly for these two. Her reunion with Chloe might be but days old, yet Renata had seen enough to know her friend had found herself the real deal.

“Hey, thanks,” Eric said, trading her for a platter of burgers just short of well-done. “I see Chloe hijacked you into kitchen detail.”

Renata grinned. “She always was the bossy type. And definitely never one who took no for an answer when she wanted a big fat yes.”

“You’re not telling me a damn thing I haven’t spent a good year figuring out.” Eric dodged another blast of flame and smoke. “She’s a piece of work and then some.”

“C’mon now, sugar. Don’t be talking trash about your woman to her old friends.” Walking up and into the conversation, Chloe smacked Eric soundly on his denim-covered backside. “I’d rather Rennie remember me in my more precious incarnation.”

Renata laughed out loud. “Precious as a sliver of broken glass beneath the ball of a bare foot.”

Her arm snug around Eric’s waist, Chloe arched a brow sharply. “I can see leaving you two alone together is not going to be a good idea. A girl needs to know her secrets are safe rather than being shared for a laugh.”

Eric lowered the grill’s heavy lid, hooking an elbow around Chloe’s neck and gesturing with the barbecue tongs he held in the same hand. “C’mon now, princess. We’re not laughing at you. Only with you.”

“Right.” Chloe ducked out from beneath Eric’s arm and linked her fingers through Renata’s. “We’ll be leaving you now to your manly meat business.”

Eric sulked. “But I thought you liked my manly meat business.”

Chloe rolled her eyes as Renata laughed and let her old friend drag her away. “He’s such a doll. Wherever did you find him?”

“It was one of those six degrees of separation things. I knew Lauren, Lauren knew Anton, Anton knew Eric. Hmm. I guess that’s only three degrees,” Chloe amended, then shrugged and grimaced. “Five minutes. I need five minutes off my feet. I’ve been running like crazy for hours.”

Skirting the newly installed swimming pool, the women settled on opposite sides of the patio’s glass table beneath an umbrella of cream-and-green stripes. Propping her feet on the seat of a third chair, Chloe sighed in relief. “Anyway, Eric and I ended up paired for one of Macy’s gIRL gAMES. The rest, I suppose you can say, is history.”

Renata saw no need to hide her approval. “A period of history I wouldn’t mind studying in the least.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Oh, yeah.” Renata looked toward Eric and smiled. She took a deep breath and shook her head appreciatively. “One of these days I am going to have to get myself one of those.”

“Shopping?” Chloe asked with a laugh.

“Definitely in the market. Though not in any sort of desperate, beat-the-sales-crowd rush.” Settling back into her chair, Renata turned her attention back to Chloe. “I’ve made it this long on my own, and don’t see any need to be stupid.”

“Hey, no one said you had to be stupid, though you’ve got to agree that we’re all entitled to a bit of questionable behavior between here and there. I’ve definitely been guilty of my fair share.” Chloe glanced in Eric’s direction again and Renata couldn’t help but wonder what thoughts were going through her girlfriend’s mind.

She followed the direction of Chloe’s gaze, skipping over Eric and frowning when she caught sight of a guest she couldn’t place from Chloe’s earlier introductions. A guest Renata had a hard time believing belonged.

He leaned against the trunk of the backyard’s massive oak tree, a Shiner longneck dangling from his fingers. His complexion brought to mind the Mediterranean, as did his dark hair, long and loose, hanging in twisted strands to skim his shoulders.

His attitude, however, made the biggest impression, his insolent expression that of the defiant boys Renata saw so often at school. Yet it was more. A sort of wary regard, as if he was protecting his back while keeping a distrustful eye on the enemy camp. She found it hard to look away—a strange response, because she’d never been taken in by the renegade type.

“Who is that?” she asked, nodding in his direction when Chloe looked back to see who she meant.

“Oh. Patrick Coffey, Ray’s brother. You met Ray, right? Sydney’s Ray?” And that was all she said.

Renata wanted to know more. “Hmm. He looks like he’d rather be swimming in the comfort of shark-infested waters.”

“He’d definitely be more at home if he were.” Chloe frowned. “I’d say he’s harmless but I’m not sure that he is. And it’s really a long story.”

“Shortcut it for me.” Now Renata really wanted to know more.

Chloe pulled her feet close to her body and wrapped her arms around her bare knees. “I see you’ve still got that dog-with-a-bone thing going on.”

“A skill that comes in handy for divining deep dark secrets.”

“I’m keeping track here, you know. A month of gUIDANCE gIRL mentoring for every sordid detail.”

“We’ll talk contract issues later. Just tell me about Patrick.”

Chloe rolled her eyes and gave up. “Patrick’s been home about a year now, I guess, after being held by—get this—real-life Caribbean pirates. I kid you not. It was really a rough few years for Ray.”

“And for Patrick, too, I’d think.” Pirates? How out of this world was that?

Chloe shrugged. “I’m guessing so. But since he hasn’t said a word about it, no one really knows.”

“He hasn’t talked to anyone?” This couldn’t be a good thing. “It’s something he ought to consider doing, to an impartial professional if he doesn’t want to talk to his brother.”

“Well,” Chloe began, slowly tightening her persuasive noose, “since he shows up at the office with Ray from time to time, you could make him your first gUIDANCE gIRL subject.”

Renata laughed. “In case you haven’t noticed, Chloe, there’s nothing girlish about Patrick.”

Chloe waved her off. “Yeah, yeah. That’s beside the point.”

“You’re not going to take no for an answer, are you?”

“Not a chance. Not after being subjected to your all-night, Rennie-knows-best sessions in high school.” Chloe’s teasing expression grew serious, her wide violet eyes misty and warm. “You were there when I needed you, and I’ve never forgotten.”

Renata reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “I’m so glad you ran into Jacob. I can’t believe I haven’t been around for so much of what’s happened in your life. I’ve really missed you.”

Chloe squeezed back. “Me, too. And I didn’t even realize that you were probably a lot of what I felt was missing in my life before I found Eric. But now that I have the both of you…talk about the best of both worlds.”

Renata laughed. “Well, I hope you continue to think that way after you’ve worked with me. The kids I deal with? I know better than to involve myself too much in their problems. I have to be able to sleep at night. And that means I end up taking out my frustration on close friends.”

She said it with a quirk of her mouth, thinking back to friends who were now enemies, as well as those who were no longer lovers for that very reason. Then she wondered if she’d learned her lesson, or if she was now putting Chloe into a direct line of not-so-friendly fire by agreeing to work with her.

Chloe only smiled, her lips frosted her trademark pink. “Isn’t that what friends are for? I know I’ve unloaded on Mel more than a few times. She usually smacks me around until my head’s on straight and then we move forward.”

“I guess I’m just giving you fair warning. If I claw your eyes out after a particularly rough day, don’t take it personally.”

“Oh, but clawing is on Chloe’s list of fetish favorites,” said a deep male voice from above her head.

4

THE MAN RUFFLED A HAND over Chloe’s hair, lowering his body into the chair where she’d rested her feet only minutes before. Renata could do nothing but calmly look on and try to remember to breathe.

He stood a good head taller than the other men here, but it was neither his height nor his impressive build that rendered her speechless. Her tongue had been tied by no more than his presence, by that indefinable quality allowing powerful men to command attention with no effort at all.

She did seem to be the only one starstruck, however. Chloe wasn’t the least bit hesitant or shy; she barely let the man get seated before shoving him hard in the chest. He didn’t budge or flinch or even wobble in his seat.

So she shoved him a second time for good measure. “You scare me like that again and you won’t be able to walk for a week, buster.”

All the man did was grin. “You and your cotton candy threats.”

Chloe’s glare finally withered. She rolled her eyes, her mouth twisting into one of her genuinely rare smiles. “Cotton candy, my ass.” Shaking her head, she made introductions. “Rennie, this is my brother, Aiden Zuniga. Aiden, Rennie Faulkner.”

Again, Aiden ruffled Chloe’s hair. This time he earned himself a punch to the shoulder before he turned his gaze and grin on Renata. He rubbed at the spot where Chloe’s fist had made contact. “Renata, right? You went to school with Chloe.”

“Did I know you then?” she asked, knowing full well she’d have remembered this one if he’d been around. That grin. Those eyes. Oh, my. Oh…my. The other Zuniga boys—Colin and Richard and Jay—had been in and out and around the house during those years, but Aiden? No, she’d have remembered him.

Aiden shook his head in answer. “I don’t think so. But then, I wasn’t home very often.”

“You weren’t home ever,” Chloe accused, propping her feet on her brother’s lap. He grabbed her ankle and teasingly threatened to toss her away. “I totally blame Aiden’s abandonment for all my psychological issues.”

One of Aiden’s brows went up. “And, knowing the way your little mind works, no doubt for the national debt, homelessness and Tom and Nicole’s divorce.”

Chloe huffed. “That last one you could’ve gotten to a little sooner, you know. Before I hooked up with Eric would’ve been nice.”

Renata couldn’t help but grin as she returned her gaze to Aiden, compelled to study him more closely while his sister held his attention.

His hair, she decided, had once been blond but had darkened with time to a rich golden-brown. Like buttered wheat toast, or a jug of tea steeping in the sun. His eyes were the dark blue Chloe’s would be if not for her penchant for violet-colored contact lenses. The blue of big sky country, Renata mused, her thoughts spurred by his Wild-West look.

He wore jeans that had been cut from a bolt of denim, but had faded and softened to what she imagined would be the texture of an aged patchwork quilt. His round-toed boots were black, the heels flat, the leather superb. Turquoise snaps closed a short-sleeved white shirt across his broad chest. A silver belt buckle lay flat against his abs.

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