Something akin to a magnetic field emanated from him.

It enshrouded her, energizing her from head to toe. What was it? Charisma? Raw, animal sex appeal? Whatever it was, she could see why he’d become a movie star.

He stared at her, his eyes black pools in the shadows of his face. Even wreathed in darkness like this, he was beautiful.

The zinging between them built until she thought she would explode.

“Say something,” she whispered. “You’re making me nervous.” Not nervous in the way he was going to think, but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

“My grandmother likes you.”

“I like her, too. I bet you I could convince her we’re dating.”

He exhaled a gust of laughter. “You could convince me without too much trouble.”

Ana blinked up at him in shock. Her and a movie star? The notion of the two of them as a couple knocked words completely out of her brain.

She blurted the first thing that came to mind. “Kiss me.”

High-Stakes Bachelor

Cindy Dees

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CINDY DEES started flying airplanes while sitting in her dad’s lap at the age of three and got a pilot’s license before she got a driver’s license. At age fifteen, she dropped out of high school and left the horse farm in Michigan, where she grew up, to attend the University of Michigan. After earning a degree in Russian and East European studies, she joined the US Air Force and became the youngest female pilot in its history. She flew supersonic jets, VIP airlift and the C-5 Galaxy, the world’s largest airplane. During her military career, she traveled to forty countries on five continents, was detained by the KGB and East German secret police, got shot at, flew in the first Gulf War and amassed a lifetime’s worth of war stories.

Her hobbies include medieval re-enacting, professional Middle Eastern dancing and Japanese gardening.

This RITA® Award-winning author’s first book was published in 2002 and since then she has published more than twenty-five bestselling and award-winning novels. She loves to hear from readers and can be contacted at www.cindydees.com.

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Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

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

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Extract

Copyright

Chapter 1

Anabelle Izzolo looked around at the gorgeous young women waiting their turn to go out on the mat and wrestle with a stuntman. At barely five foot two, she noticed how her eyes were at chest height to the mob of leggy, boobtacular, Hollywood-starlet-wannabes who’d shown up for this audition. Crud. She had no business being there. It had seemed like a good idea when she’d signed up for it. But now that the moment was upon her, she felt a giant humiliation coming on.

Thing was, the write-up on the open casting call had been specific in saying that a fight sequence would be auditioned. She was trying to break into the business as a stuntwoman, so a fight was right up her alley. Of course, she wasn’t going to get the acting part, but she was hoping to catch the casting director’s eye and nab a bit part for some stunt work.

Yet another blonde bombshell went out onto the green gym mats and prissied her way through the fight sequence. God, none of the girls could even make a proper fist, let alone throw a decent punch. You had to drive through the elbow and down the arm into the knuckles. Put your weight behind it. Of course, this fight sequence was more about grappling and falling than throwing punches. Still, Ana was embarrassed on behalf of all women to watch the other girls muff their way through fake fighting.

The stuntman and casting director looked bored out of their minds. Whenever a superhot blonde with impressive cleavage came along, they perked up a little. But that was the extent of it.

“Next!” an assistant with a clipboard called.

“Hold up,” the stuntman complained. “I need to piss.”

The casting director huffed. “Make it fast.”

A male voice, familiar to her from movie theaters, piped up. “I’ll take over fighting until he gets back.”

Ana turned, gaping. OMG. Jackson Prescott in the flesh. The star of the movie being cast stepped out of the shadows beyond the stage lights. He was a muscular, bronzed god of a man with sun-bleached hair and golden-hazel eyes that leaped off a movie screen and melted hearts all over the movie-going world. And in person...well, he was even hotter. Squeals, followed by an audible series of sighs, went up from the crowd of starlets. Ana was a little ashamed to realize she’d contributed to the collective swoon.

“Who’s next?” Jackson asked the clipboard girl.

“That would be Number 127.”

Oh. Crap. That was her. Ana lurched forward. She caught her foot on the edge of the raised stage and narrowly avoided face-planting as she stumbled into the wash of down lighting.

“You sure you want to try fighting?” Jackson joked. “Maybe you should master walking first?”

A titter of laughter went up from the Barbie doll brigade, and her face erupted in heat. She opened her mouth to make a clever quip back, but no sound came out. Instead, she raised her hands defensively in front of her and settled into a fighting stance.

“Okay, then,” Jackson murmured. He stepped up to her, and she was abruptly struck by how much taller and more muscular than her he was. The guy had to be pushing six foot four. And he was so pretty she had trouble tearing her stare away from his face. The combination of boyish charm and masculine confidence was mesmerizing, and his eyes were a warm golden-green that almost seemed lit from within.

“Let’s do this,” he rumbled low and sexy.

Her insides twisted with shocking lust that distracted her just as he pounced. She barely dodged in time as his fist flew at her face. Wow, he was fast. The swiftness of the leg that swept her feet to the side caught her by surprise, too, and she slammed to the ground on her back as he jumped on top of her.

Her breath whooshed out on a grunt of shock and pain as she fought to draw the next one. Jackson straddled her stomach, pinning her down with his superior weight.

A brief look of disappointment crossed his face. She was supposed to have swung back at him with her fists and rolled aside before he could land on top of her, but she’d blown the move and let him pin her arms. He looked like he’d already mentally checked her off the list and moved on to the next starlet in the audition. In fact, seeming supremely bored, he went off script and reached down to wrap his hands around her neck as if to punctuate her failure.

But as his fingers tightened around her larynx, panic roared to the fore. Black night closed in on her, and she gasped for air as other big hands tightened around her neck. Dying. She was dying. Helplessness washed over her. She had to find a way to fight off her would-be killer. Had to live—

Fight, Ana. Live. She kicked her right leg up frantically, jamming her toes into the back of his head sharply enough to make him turn her neck loose and block her next kick with his forearm. She dragged in a rasping breath.

Get. Off. Me.

She fought like a tiger, twisting and turning violently between his knees, wrenching an arm free. She threw a punch at his face and connected solidly with his jaw. He lurched back and she tore her other arm loose. She flailed at him like a wildcat, unreasoning rage joining her panic.

He blocked her blows, which flew at him thick and fast, until he managed to catch her left wrist in his right hand. He yanked it over her head. She got in one last body blow with her right fist before he snagged that wrist, as well. He yanked it up, stretching her out flat beneath him. He sprawled on top of her, using his superior weight to physically subdue her.

Not that she went down without a fight. She wriggled and writhed beneath him, seeking a weakness, desperate to throw him off.

A chuckle vibrated in her ear. “Fiery little thing, aren’t you?”

Startled, she froze beneath her attacker—no, wait. Beneath Jackson Prescott. Audition. Movie. Fake fight. Not trying to kill her.

She went limp beneath him, and his big body pressed down on her, overwhelming in its hard planes and bulging muscles. One of his thighs pressed intimately between hers, and his chest crushed her breasts until she couldn’t draw a full breath. His face was about eight inches from hers. And the bastard was grinning down at her.

If sparks could actually fly from a person’s eyes, then they were crackling forth from his, all gold and green and smoking hot, snapping back and forth between the two of them as she glared back at him. She registered disbelief as something deep and unwilling inside her responded instinctively and powerfully to the man’s raw sex appeal.

“Thank you, Number 127,” the casting director called.

With a quick flex of muscular arms, Jackson did a push-up over her and jumped to his feet. “Nice fight.”

Vague shock at having survived the attack washed over her...no, not an attack. Just pretend. She sagged against the mat, emotionally exhausted. She’d made it. She was still alive. “Thank you, Mr. Prescott.”

Memory of that horrible night retreated back into its dark little cave in her mind. The lime color of the green screen set replaced the impersonal blackness of a cold night sky.

“Call me Jackson.” His gaze slid down her body as she lay between his feet, taking in every detail of her appearance with disconcerting thoroughness. He held a friendly hand down to her. Embarrassed, she skipped his hand and jumped to her feet, shooting him a patently fake, everything’s-peachy-keen grin.

“You’re not what I expected,” he commented thoughtfully.

“Um, neither are you. I thought I’d be fighting one of the stunt coordinators. I was hoping to pick up some stunt work.”

“I think you may be destined for more than that,” Jackson replied, his voice a purring caress down her spine.

Ho. Lee. Cow. Was he flirting with her? With a soundstage full of Playboy Bunny blondes to choose from?

“I’ll put in a good word with the producers for you,” he remarked drolly as if it was some kind of inside joke.

She frowned, not sure how to take that. Confused, she dusted off her rear end and headed offstage. The other stuntman returned from the restroom and took Jackson’s place on the mat as the other actresses closed in around Ana aggressively, demanding to know what it was like to roll around with Jackson Prescott.

One especially gorgeous girl hissed, “You think you’re so special getting to audition with Jackson Prescott. This job’s mine and no one’s going to steal it from me.”

Wow. Venom much? Ana sidled away from the nasty woman and slung her cheap nylon gym bag over her shoulder. She turned for the exit, but clipboard girl was right behind her. Ana drew up, startled.

“Is the phone number on your head shot the one Mr. Prescott should use to call you?”

Ana blinked, stunned. “Yes. That’s my cell phone.”

“Keep it turned on,” the assistant murmured under the background noise of the last audition finishing and the mob of auditionees dissolving into chatter.

She nodded at the assistant, uncomfortable. She had no desire to be the flavor du jour for a megastar who would use her and throw her away like a soiled tissue.

“Oh, good. You’re still here.” She looked up to see a handsome man. Early thirties if she had to guess. Shaved head. Nice physique under a tight T-shirt. Was he talking to her? “Hi, Miss...”

“Izzolo,” clipboard girl supplied.

“Miss Izzolo,” he said. Apparently, he was talking to her. “I’m Adrian Turnow. I’ll be directing the movie—”

The rest of what he said faded out as shock rendered her numb. Adrian Turnow in the flesh? He was one of the hottest directors in the business. Every film he worked on was movie gold. Dang. When Jackson Prescott said he would put in a good word for her, he wasn’t kidding!

“—time this afternoon for a test shot? We’d like to see you on camera.”

Her? They wanted a test shot with her? She was just looking for some stunt work. “Um, sure,” she mumbled.

Cameramen were moving around the set, shifting a boom camera out over the green mat and setting up two big cameras on rolling rails along two sides of it. The last of the blondes were filing out. Lighting guys were talking about technical stuff that might as well be Greek to her, and a half dozen people were running around with rolls of extension cord over their shoulders and tablet computers in hand. In short, it was chaos.

A tall, lean, African-American man stepped up to her. “Number 127?”

“That’s me. Although I usually go by Ana,” she replied, flummoxed.

“I’m Tyrone. Makeup. Let’s get you over to my chair and make you smashing for your screen test.”

“Can you tell me what’s going on?” she asked in a small voice as he stared critically at her.

“Callback, sweetie. You blew Jackson’s socks off in your audition.”

“Callback? Me?” The notion refused to compute.

Tyrone smiled warmly as he dabbed her face with bronzing powder. “Great skin. Too pale for the camera, but we can fix that. You’re whiter than Wonder Bread, girlfriend. I bet you blush beet-red at the drop of a hat.”

“Sometimes I blotch, too,” she confessed.

He tsked and instructed her to look up and not blink as he deftly applied eyeliner and mascara. “Your bones and coloring could take a full glamor face and heavy color, but I’ll let you in on a little secret. Adrian and Jackson both go for the natural look. I’m going no makeup with your look.”

“Thanks,” she mumbled behind unmoving lips as he applied lip gloss. For doing a no-makeup look, he sure was putting a lot of makeup on her.

“Take a peek.”

She turned in the chair and looked at the lighted mirror behind her. Whoa. “Is that me?” she breathed. She looked fresh, young...and kind of beautiful.

“It’s not a trick mirror,” Tyrone retorted.

Her shoulder-length blond bob, which was not at all like the current fashion of long, flowing, wavy locks, swung around her face, the tips turning in a bit to frame her jaw. Her gray-blue eyes looked huge, and her lips were just pink enough not to get lost beneath her cheekbones.

“Camera’s gonna love you, baby,” Tyrone said encouragingly.

“Thanks. Let’s hope the director does, too.”

“Jackson’s coproducing this film. You gotta impress both him and Adrian to get this gig.”

Ahh. Hence Jackson’s earlier joke about putting in a good word with the producers. “Got it. Thanks, Tyrone.”

“Go get ’em, kid.”

She stepped out onto the bright green mat and looked around. The atmosphere was electric. She could get hooked on this. Choosing to reinvent her life in the film industry had been a great decision.

A cell phone rang, and she looked up in time to see Jackson Prescott scowling down at his caller ID. He rolled his eyes and moved away from the mat to take the call. She figured it must be a woman to have elicited that look of disgust. Last night’s lay, maybe?

Her stomach dropped in disappointment. It wasn’t like she was ever going to be in his league, though. And if she got a part in the movie, he’d also be her boss. This put him firmly off-limits. She couldn’t recall which actress the tabloids had him matched up with this week. But he went through women like chewing gum.

Clipboard lady from before came over to her. “Hi, I’m Sheila. Adrian’s assistant. The guys want to shoot a combat sequence with weapons. I see from your résumé that you’ve studied kendo, so I assume you’re okay with that.”

Ana had obsessively studied various martial arts ever since the attack two years ago. The fast-moving Japanese form with bamboo swords was, in fact, one of them.

On cue, a kid who must have been with the prop department trotted up to her and handed her a foam club. It looked like driftwood on steroids. She swung the craggy piece experimentally. It had about the same heft as a baseball bat. “It’s heavier than a kendo sword, but I can handle it.”

The brunette moved away, and a man approached her. “I’m Crash. Fight choreographer.”

“Not a reassuring name for a man with your job,” she responded drily.

He grinned. “I specialize in car stunts. But today, I’m gonna teach you a quick fight sequence with that toothpick.”

She paid close attention as he walked her through the choreography until she had the sequence memorized. Gradually, they sped it up to full-out. It was a dance between the two of them, really.

Adrian signaled that he was ready to shoot, and Jackson pocketed his phone. He joined her on the mat and someone passed him a king-size club, which he swung a few times, getting the feel of it. Apparently, he already knew the choreography.

“Places, everyone!” Adrian called. “Quiet on set, please.”

She stepped into the middle of the mat and took up a fighting stance, feet apart and knees bent. Jackson did the same, towering over her. Lord, just being close to him made her heart beat faster. The guy was like a high-powered electromagnet.

“Almost doesn’t seem fair to beat up a squirt like you,” he teased.

She snorted back, rising to the bait. “Big, clumsy lunk. You’re gonna have to catch me first.”

He grinned at her taunt and leaped at her. He was flipping fast for a guy his size. Step. Swing. Dodge, slide left. Spin. Jump. Swing. Swing. She chanted the choreography in her head by rote.

Ka-pow.

Her arm jarred from the impact of her club on Jackson’s face.

“Jackson!” she cried out as he doubled over, swearing. “You were supposed to spin right, not left!”

“Yeah, I got that memo just now,” he muttered in a voice muffled by his hands.

She spied blood dripping from between his fingers. “Medic!” she shouted. Adrian was backing away from Jackson, looking sick to his stomach. No one responded immediately to her shout, and Jackson was bleeding all over the place. A sports trainer in high school, she leaped into action. She whipped off her green camo T-shirt and wadded it up. “Here. Use this to catch blood while I find a first aid kit.”

Good thing she’d worn a camisole under her shirt today. She looked around frantically and spotted a big red cross on the far wall. She raced over to the first aid kit, yanked the briefcase-size metal box down and sprinted back to Jackson.

“What did I hit? How hard?” she asked urgently.

“Nose. Clocked me good.”

“Lemme see.” He was reluctant to take her shirt away from his face, and she had to physically peel his fingers loose. She reached up to gently squeeze the spot she’d hit.

“Youch!” he yelped.

Nothing crunched or wiggled under her fingertips. If his nose was broken and she’d pinched it like that, he’d have howled to the rafters, not just squeaked a little. Crud. She was going to get sued into the Stone Age if she’d just ruined the prettiest face in Hollywood.

“It doesn’t feel broken,” she announced. “But you’ve got the mother of all nosebleeds.” She stuffed his nostrils with gauze and ordered, “Tilt your head back.” She called out to no one in particular, “Is there somewhere he can lie down?”

“My office,” Adrian replied thickly. Guy must get queasy at the sight of blood.

In stunt work, guys got banged up all the time. Cuts and scrapes were all part of a day’s work. She guided Jackson’s hand to her shoulder and followed Adrian’s assistant to the director’s office. His big palm gripped her bare skin lightly, and her bones felt oddly small and fragile under the heat of his hand. A shiver of something unidentifiable ran through her.

“Okay, Jackson. We’re at the couch.” She guided him down to a leather sofa. “On your back.”

“Let me guess, you’ve been dying to get me flat on my back on a casting couch,” he joked.

“Oh, baby, oh, baby, oh,” She intoned as she tucked a throw pillow under his head. Keep it light. Impersonal. He’s a freaking movie star.

“Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”

She took a closer look at his nose. It was swelling across the bridge and turning red. His left eye was puffing shut, too. “You’re lucky that club was covered in foam. Looks like you may still get a shiner, though.”

“Great. A black eye from a girl. I’m never gonna hear the end of this.”

“I’m so sorry—” she started.

He cut her off immediately. “My fault. I wasn’t paying attention and zigged when I should have zagged. I was distracted.”

“That phone call?” she asked sympathetically.

He huffed in obvious exasperation at the memory of the offending phone call. She recognized that sound from countless times listening to guys grouse about their relationships. “Woman trouble?”

He scowled. “You could say that.”

“Anything you want to talk about?” She winced as soon as the words left her mouth. That was her. Ole shoulder-to-cry-on for every guy she knew. They all went to her for advice about chicks. Apparently, having the same reproductive apparatus as their girlfriends made her some kind of expert.

Which was a load of crap, by the way. She didn’t know squat about women. Hell, she hardly knew how to be one, herself. And she had no idea how to do a relationship. It wasn’t like her own past had given her any sterling examples to go by. After the disaster—God, was it two full years ago now?—she’d pretty much sworn off men.

Jackson rolled his eyes. “My grandmother is haranguing me to settle down, find a nice girl and get married. She’s just antsy to get a great-grandkid, and figures that, out of all my brothers and sisters, I’m her best prospect. She’s being a total pain in the ass.”

Jackson Prescott was looking to get hitched? Wow. Talk about an eligible bachelor.

“I don’t even have a girlfriend.” He added, scowling, “No matter what the damned tabloids say.”

Really? Interesting. Oh, get over yourself. He’d never take a second look at you. Aloud, she commented, “You could have an actress friend fake an engagement with you to shut up your grandmother for a while. Or, you could just skip the wife and go straight to the baby. People don’t have to get married to make babies.”

“So I should, what? Pick up some random chick in a bar and get her pregnant to shut up my grandmother?”

She shrugged. This flavor of woman trouble went well beyond her ability to give advice on it.

“I don’t even like going to bars,” he grumbled.

Shut the front door. “Seriously?” she blurted.

Someone barged in just then with the plastic bag of ice she’d asked for on the way in there. She stole a hand towel from the sink in Adrian’s bathroom, wrapped the ice in it and laid it gently on Jackson’s face. She felt for the guy; she would have no idea how to go about picking up a woman if she were a man.

In an attempt to be helpful, though, she commented, “There are other places besides bars to meet women. I hear there are good pickings in the produce section of grocery stores. Apparently, if you act clueless when a hot girl comes along, she’ll stop and help you.”

Jackson retorted, “I would have to actually be in the market for a girlfriend for that to work.”

Oh. Something way down deep inside her deflated at the news that he wasn’t interested in dating. It was nothing personal, of course. She was just reacting on behalf of her entire half of the species. Jackson Prescott was a hell of a hunk that some woman ought to get to enjoy.

She replied cautiously, “I have to say, I doubt you’d have all that much trouble finding a woman willing to have your baby.”

Warmth uncurled inside her at the thought of holding his baby in her arms, shocking her into momentary silence. Where in the hell did that come from? Had her biological clock just started ticking? Heck, she wasn’t in the market to have a kid any more than he was.

He lifted aside the ice pack to stare up at her. Was that a speculative gleam in his gorgeous eyes? Surely not.

A little panicked at the direction her thoughts were taking, she pushed the big ice bag back down onto his nose, which also had the effect of covering his eyes and taking his distracting hazel gaze off her.

Thoughtful silence was all that emerged from the towel for the next couple of minutes. Then, “What’s your name, 127?”

“Ana. Anabelle Izzolo.”

“You have zilch by way of acting credits, Anabelle Izzolo.”

She didn’t need a box-office giant to point that out to her. She was well aware of her lack of credits. She’d been taking acting classes as part of her plan to become a stuntwoman, but it was hard to get work if you hadn’t already had some previously.

“But the chemistry between you and me is exactly what we’re looking for.”

“For...what exactly?”

“The lead actress in our film. Assuming you can act.”

Lead? Actress? Her mind went completely blank. He was right. She was totally unprepared to do anything like that. But what kind of idiot would she be to say so? Chances like this came along once in a lifetime. Once in a very lucky lifetime.

“I can act,” she blurted, then added hastily, “I bet I could convince your grandmother I was having your baby.”

He started to snort with laughter but cut the sound short with a groan of pain.

“Quit moving around so much. I almost had the bleeding stopped, but now you’ve got it going again.”

“Pushy, aren’t you?”

“No. Just trying to stop a nosebleed. That only makes me sensible,” she declared.

He laughed again, but carefully. “So here’s the thing. We’re going to have to convince the primary investors in the film to go with an unknown leading lady. My name should carry the box office...we’ll have to spin it as the debut of an exciting new star. It could work if we market it right...”

“Am I supposed to know what you’re talking about?”

“Nope. Just keep being you. Oh, and I’m going to need to have supper with you, tonight.”

“Why?” She was immediately suspicious. It probably didn’t help that her last real date...that fateful one two years ago...had started out as a dinner invitation from a big good-looking guy. He’d been the star of the high school football team, and all the girls had swooned over him, too. Ana had kept in touch with him after graduation, as he’d attended the same college as her on a football scholarship.

“Consider it part of your callback.”

The hallway door opened before she could come up with a polite way to turn him down but still get the dream acting job. “How are we doing in here?” Adrian asked from the doorway. He seemed leery of charging in and finding pints of blood spilled on his floor.

Nervous, she jumped to her feet. “Good. I think we’ve got things under control,” she declared with false cheer.

“Thanks for your time this afternoon, Miss Izzolo,” Adrian said politely. “We’ll be in touch.”

Oh, God. The classic Hollywood brush-off. Don’t call us; we’ll call you. She’d clobbered the star of the movie and wrecked her shot at fame and fortune, after all. It had been a fun fantasy for the five minutes it had lasted. Ah, well. Maybe she could still break into stunt work, someday.

She headed for the locker room to retrieve her cheap nylon gym bag and get back to her regularly scheduled life. She threw open the locker door and stared in dismay. Her bag was shredded. As in literally shredded. Her extra audition clothes were in tatters, and what little makeup she had was smeared all over the rags formerly known as the only decent clothes she owned.

What the heck? Who would do a thing like this? And why?

Chapter 2

Jackson had no idea what to do about casting the lead actress part in the film. His gut shouted at him to go with Anabelle Izzolo, the unknown with the wild talent. But just as surely, the movie’s investors were going to want him to go with a more established actress. Someone like Shyann Brooklyn.

The tall blonde had been last to audition today. Although Shyann looked great on film, he doubted there was room for him on the silver screen with her and her ego. She was nasty, self-centered and not all that bright, either. He doubted she would have long-term staying power in the business. A few films from now, after the public got its fill of looking at her, it would dawn on everyone that she couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag.

His phone vibrated. It was a text from his grandmother to call her. Meddling woman. Oh, Minerva was well-meaning enough, but a royal pain sometimes. Too bad he loved her so damned much.

His father, a soldier, had died on active duty, and his mother had drowned in her grief and wasted away on sleeping pills until she’d finally OD’d. Gran had taken in the whole passel of Prescott kids, him, his three brothers and his twin baby sisters, and raised them all. Minerva had married young herself, and his parents had married right out of high school. As a result, Gran was far from ancient and was energetic, nosy and felt within her rights to boss all of them around. She was a classic iron-fist-in-a-velvet-glove type.

And right now, he was ignoring her.

He shoved his phone into his pocket and stepped out into the studio’s parking lot. The blistering California sun slammed into him. The soundstage he and Adrian had built was inland far enough not to catch the ocean breezes that cooled the California coast. But the price had been right on the sprawling piece of property. Beads of sweat popped out on his brow as he threw a leg over his Harley and cranked it up. The powerful engine revved between his legs and, as usual, gave him a bit of a hard-on.

He rolled out of the parking lot and spotted a familiar figure standing at the bus stop in front of the studio. Ana Izzolo looked about ready to burst into flames in the blazing heat. There was one bus in Serendipity, California, and it operated on no discernible schedule. She could be standing there for another hour.

He pulled to a stop in front of her. “Can I give you a lift?”

“I’m okay. I’ll catch the bus.”

“Hop on. It’s hot as hell out here. No telling when the bus will come along.”

“That’s nice of you, but I’m staying in the north end of town. Don’t you live the other direction?”

They were talking Serendipity here. The entire town could fit on a postage stamp. He could go from one end of Main Street to the other in approximately sixty seconds, and that included having to stop at the one traffic light in the whole town. He unhooked his spare helmet from its perch on the backrest and held it out to her. “Hop on.”

She hesitated, but eventually took the helmet from his outstretched hand and strapped it on her head. She slid her leg through the gap between his rear end and the backrest, and settled herself behind him. Abrupt awareness of her hot little crotch nestled against his butt roared through him. Day-umm.

Her arms snaked around his waist, which had the effect of mashing her breasts against his back informatively. Soft. Springy. Resilient. Well, that answered that. Her female assets were real. Good to know. He’d never been a fan of hard and lumpy implants.

You’re about to be her boss. Behave yourself. Nope. His body wasn’t listening to reason. His erection swelled until his jeans were uncomfortably tight. Good thing he was sitting on the bike and not trying to walk.

He twisted the throttle and the Harley leaped forward. Ana relaxed behind him and moved easily with the bike. She obviously knew how to stay centered and quiet on top of one. He didn’t let many women ride with him because they usually threw off his balance. He could hardly tell she was aboard, though, as their bodies moved in perfect unison. Only that sexy female form clinging to the length of his back reminded him she was there.

The farther inland they went, the hotter the air got. It was official. They were in hell. He followed the directions she gave him through the radio-mike between their helmets, and in a few minutes he pulled into a shabby motel parking lot. A few disreputable-looking surfers were just coming back after a day in the water, but the parking lot was otherwise deserted.

“Need me to walk you up to your room?” he asked. His grandmother was a stickler for the niceties and had raised all the kids to be polite.

Ana stiffened against his back. “No, but thanks for offering.” She slid off the bike a little too hastily and he shot out a hand to steady her as she stumbled.

“Dinner, tonight. With me,” he stated.

“No, thanks.”

“That wasn’t a request. Your audition isn’t over yet.”

If she’d been awkward before, she was board-stiff and epically uncomfortable now. Jeez. Did she think he was going to throw her down and rape her on a casting couch? He said defensively, “I just want to talk more. Get to know you. Find the chemistry between us. I’ll pick you up at eight.”

“I’ll meet you at a restaurant,” she countered quickly. “Pick a place.”

“Romaletti’s.” She wanted to have her own ride home, huh? Did she not want to sleep with him or just doubt that he would be interested? Hmm. Intriguing.

She disengaged her arm from his fingers, and he was startled to discover he missed the feel of her skin. He took the helmet she passed him and watched her pull her blond hair out of its ponytail. It swung around her shoulders pertly.

Realizing with a start that he was staring at her, he tore his gaze away from her. For lack of anything else to look at, he eyed the motel. It looked one step up from a crack den. But it was the only low-cost lodging in town. Serendipity was mostly a secret enclave of the rich and famous. It was far enough north of Los Angeles to get out of the rat race, but close enough that a private jet could have a person back in the heart of L.A. in less than an hour.

He and Adrian had chosen the sleepy little town to house their production company precisely because of its laid-back atmosphere and distance from the Hollywood rat race. Not to mention real estate wasn’t sold by the square foot up here or for exorbitant prices. That, and his grandmother’s home was here. He’d just finished fully renovating the place and adding a few bells and whistles to it. Serendipity was where he’d grown up. His roots ran deep in this town.

“Thanks for the ride, Jackson.”

“Anytime, babycakes.” Grinning, he revved the throttle and spit gravel at her with his back tire as he peeled out of the parking lot.

He pointed his Harley back toward the coast and let the wind blow away the misgivings trying to creep into his mind. Was he making a mistake casting someone so naive? Her freshness and innocence would play great in the film, but at what price to her? He would hate to hurt Ana. She was a good kid.

He pulled into the driveway of the sprawling Victorian home he’d grown up in. Technically, he owned the place now, but it would always be Gran’s house. It was gray-blue with white gingerbread trim and moss-green accents, and looked totally at ease in its rocky seaside environment. The recent renovation and expansion had more than doubled its square footage, but the architect had done a brilliant job of blending the old with the new.

For the past few years, he’d only crashed here between movie gigs. But he was looking forward to living here full-time. The Hollywood grind was getting old. He also thought Minerva liked the company, not that she would ever admit it. The twins had left for college, and he suspected Minerva was empty nesting. Not to mention his grandmother was a flamboyant soul in constant need of an audience.

He parked his Harley in the garage next to the white Cadillac he’d bought her for her birthday last year and headed into the kitchen. Steeling himself to face the baby lecture—again—he sighed.

“Hey, Gran.” He paused beside her to drop a fond kiss on her cheek. Still tall and slim at sixtysomething, she was an elegant woman. Beautiful, even now.

“Hello, Jackie. Tea?” She glanced up at him and did a double take. “What happened to your face?”

“Ana—an actress auditioning for a part—clocked me across the face with a club.”

“Oh, dear. It looks like you’re going to have a hooked nose and a black eye. Won’t you make quite the dashing pirate? I assume she didn’t get the part?”

“Actually, we’re thinking about casting her.”

“Well, at least she can defend herself from your advances.”

He rolled his eyes. “The crap in the tabloids about me is not true, Gran. I swear.”

She waved a “whatever” hand at him and pulled the tea bags out of the pot.

“Can I have some of that tea on ice?” he asked.

“Ruins the flavor, dear.”

“Yes, but it’s a thousand degrees outside. And the idea of drinking something hot makes my nose hurt.”

“There’s a nice breeze coming off the ocean. Why don’t we take our tea on the veranda?”

He never failed to be amazed at how it could be twenty degrees cooler on the coast than in town. He picked up the tray and followed her outside onto the stone patio. Sure enough, a cool, fresh breeze dried his sweat in a matter of seconds. He sipped at the tall glass of iced tea Minerva poured for him in spite of her objection to chilling her imported Earl Grey.

“Have you thought about what we talked about on the phone?” she asked without preamble.

The memory of Ana’s declaration that she could fake out his grandmother flashed through his mind. If only.

He took a long pull at the tea before answering with long-suffering patience, “We’ve been over this before. I’m not averse to having a family...someday. But right now, I’m traveling and working too much to sustain a relationship, let alone raise kids.”

“But now that the production company is up and running, you’ll be home more. Have more control of your schedule.”

In theory. He had yet to see that play out in practice. He’d been working day and night with Adrian for the past year getting all the financing and business paperwork set up. He was convinced that it was a good business move to invest a large chunk of his accumulated wealth in a long-term venture like this. But it was a big risk. A big project.

“Tell me about this pugilist actress.”

“She’s a newcomer. Name’s Ana Izzolo.” He searched for words to describe her accurately. “She’s spunky. Fiery. Very un-Hollywood.”

Minerva’s eyes lit with interest. “How old is she?”

“I don’t know. Mid-twenties, maybe.”

“Is she pretty?”

“Of course she’s pretty. We wouldn’t be casting her as a leading lady if she wasn’t. Although she’s not traditional. She’d be a girl-next-door type if she didn’t have...” How to describe the cynical edge he sensed more than saw? He shrugged, and finished lamely, “She has a certain something. She’s compelling.”

Speaking of which, he only had about an hour until he had to leave for their date. And he needed a shower.

“Going out tonight?” Minerva queried.

“Yup.”

“On a date?”

“That’s none of your business,” he retorted.

“And why not?”

“Because I’m thirty-three years old and don’t tell you every detail of my life?”

Her nose went up. “Fine. I’ll find out where you went and who with down at the hair salon tomorrow.”

He stared at her in chagrin. The hell of it was she would be able to do just that. And that would be the downside of small-town life. “If you must know, it’s a working dinner. I’m meeting Ana to talk some more.”

His grandmother pursed her lips. “When do I get to meet her?”

“Uh, never.”

Minerva glared down her patrician nose at him. “Are you ashamed of me?”

He’d forgotten how effectively she could deliver a guilt trip. “No, Gran. I’m not ashamed. This is just work, not true love ever after.”

“Compelling, hmm?” she murmured as he stomped past her toward the house.

Meddling woman. This was getting out of hand. “You don’t have the right to run my life, Gran.”

“I wouldn’t dream of interfering, dear.”

Hah. And leopards didn’t have spots. Even if the leopard was his grandmother and her heart was in the right place. At least she hadn’t played the “I could die at any moment without ever seeing my great-grandchildren” card.

Looking forward to dinner with Ana more than he’d looked forward to a date in a while, he headed upstairs.

* * *

Ana couldn’t say if she was more excited or scared. Both about her dinner date tonight and the whole idea of landing a major movie role. Either way, she was a bundle of nerves as she primped. She did her best not to mess up Tyrone’s awesome makeup job. She wasn’t much into the girlie arts and could never duplicate Tyrone’s artistry.

She chose a pale pink angora sweater and white jeans to change into. They were basically her only decent clothes left after the vandalism of her other audition clothes at the studio earlier.

She tossed her purse over her shoulder and headed downstairs in the gathering dusk. Tonight, she would burn some of the remaining gasoline in her car to get to Romaletti’s and back. If she actually landed this job, money to fill up her car wouldn’t be a problem anymore.

She approached her vintage VW Beetle affectionately. The Bug Bomb and she had been through a lot together over the years. Hopefully, times were looking up for the two of them. And it started with this dinner tonight—

Maybe because she was distracted thinking about Jackson Prescott, or maybe because she simply forgot the first rule of self-defense, which was to be aware of her surroundings, but she didn’t see the attack coming. One second she was reaching for her car-door handle, and the next she was flat on the ground with a heavy body on top of her.

Ohgod, ohgod, ohgod. Not again. And maybe because this reminded her so much of the last time she was attacked, she panicked a little and forgot the second rule of self-defense, which was to make as much noise as possible and attract help, or at least the attention of passersby.

She pushed in silent panic against the gravelly asphalt, trying to turn over. To get her hands or feet free to defend herself. Something hard and heavy slammed into her right temple, and the world went black for a few seconds. She didn’t quite lose consciousness, but she was dazed and had to work to stay conscious, let alone fight back.

Her years of self-defense classes finally caught up with her and one more cardinal rule belatedly registered in her brain: never give up. She struggled weakly beneath her attacker.

“Bitch,” a male voice ground out in her ear, dripping with vitriol.

She fought harder. But trapped on her stomach like this, there wasn’t much she could do. All her martial arts training was negated by her inability to move. Her purse was gone, the mace container inside it useless. The motel’s parking lot had no light in it and was usually deserted, anyway. Fat lot of good noticing all that did her now.

She should have been more aware of her surroundings. But she’d been so caught up in fantasizing about Jackson Prescott that she’d failed to pay the slightest attention to anything around her. She almost deserved whatever happened next.

She didn’t want to die, dammit. And that was when the rest of her self-defense training finally, belatedly, came back to her. She opened her mouth and screamed as loudly and bloodcurdlingly as she could.

Her attacker swore as a door opened nearby. A hand reached for her mouth but she bit the salty palm as hard as she could and screamed again.

“Hey! Are you okay, lady?” somebody called.

“Help!” she screamed.

And that was the last thing she remembered before something slammed into the side of her head again, and she did pass out this time.

Chapter 3

Jackson’s cell phone rang just as he was heading downstairs. He didn’t give many people his private number, so he was surprised when he pulled out the device and didn’t recognize the number on the caller ID. Normally, he would ignore it, but he was in a good mood in anticipation of dinner with Ana.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Prescott?”

“Who’s this?” he demanded.

“San Placido County Hospital emergency room. Are you familiar with a woman named Anabelle Izzolo?”

“Is she all right?” he burst out in alarm.

“There’s been an incident, sir. We couldn’t find any emergency contacts for her, but we did find your phone number in her purse.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes.”

Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap. What had happened? He ran for his motorcycle and flung it out of the driveway like a stunt driver. It was more like a ten-minute drive down to the county hospital under normal conditions, but his five-minute estimate turned out to be fairly accurate. He charged through the swinging doors to the emergency room, helmet still on his head.

“Where is Ana Izzolo?” he demanded of the nurse behind the admissions counter. “Is she okay? What happened to her?”

“And you are?” the nurse asked.

“Jackson Prescott. You called me.” He tore off his helmet and the nurse gasped in recognition. What the hell good was it being a movie star if he couldn’t turn it into preferential treatment now and then?

He leaned forward and murmured low, “I would rather not sit here in the public waiting room until the paparazzi show up. Is there any chance you can take me back to be with Ana and avoid a scene?”

“Of course. Come with me.” The woman stepped out from behind the counter to escort him personally.

“Thanks, so much—” he glanced down at her name tag “—Nurse Simpson.”

“Oh, it’s my pleasure, Mr. Prescott. I loved you in that movie about everyone having to leave Earth.”

“Thanks.” It had been the success of that movie that had led him and Adrian to produce the space Western they were working on right now.

The nurse led him into a tiny vestibule crammed with machines and a big hospital bed. A young police officer looked up as they entered. Jackson’s gaze riveted on Ana, small and pale in the big bed. “How is she?” he demanded. He still had no idea what had happened to her and how serious it was.

The cop answered, “She’s just coming around. Maybe she can tell us what happened. I found her in a parking lot, unconscious.”

Alarm gripped his chest in a vise so tight he had trouble drawing his next breath. “Was she mugged?” Or worse?

“Based on her abrasions, I’d say she was knocked down from behind. A guest at the motel heard her scream and called us. Her purse was still on the ground beside her and her clothes were intact, so it looks like she fought the guy off or scared him away. She’s just coming around. Talk to her and see if she’ll respond to your voice.”

Jackson moved to her side to pick up her hand. “Hey, babycakes. It’s me. Jackson. You’re late for our date.”

Ana groaned. He encouraged her to wake up and talk to him for a few more seconds, and she eventually mumbled, “My head hurts.”

The nurse nodded in approval at him and then unceremoniously elbowed him aside, “How many fingers am I holding up, Miss Izzolo?”

Ana squinted and got the number right. That was a good sign, right? Jackson fretted in the corner he’d been relegated to, where he would be out of the way. If only there was something he could do for her. He felt so damned useless. But he didn’t have the slightest bit of medical training. Hell, he didn’t have training to do anything practical. He could act. That was it. Sure, it had made him a boatload of money, but he figured it was as much a win of the genetic lottery as any real talent he might have. His brothers were soldiers—a helicopter pilot and a Marine officer. Accomplished men with distinguished careers. And he...he was pretty.

Jackson waited impatiently while a doctor came in and peered into Ana’s eyes, asked her a bunch questions, poked her some more and declared her basically unharmed. She apparently had a mild concussion that went with the lump on the side of her head over her ear.

A cop came into the room. Good-looking guy—blond, blue-eyed, deep surfer tan, lanky physique to go with it. Introduced himself as Brody Westmore.

Jackson was deeply relieved when she told the cop she’d been mugged but nothing more. She glossed over the details of the attack and finished by describing screaming her head off and then passing out.

Officer Westmore had apparently already interviewed the motel guest who’d called 9-1-1. Enterprising guy. Surfer cop concluded that, given the timing of the call to the police and their arrival shortly after the scream, her mugger had fled the scene soon after knocking her out.

The cop asked her to check if anything was missing from her purse. A pitifully small amount of cash in her wallet was apparently intact, but her cell phone had gone missing. She was upset about it, but Jackson intervened quickly. “The studio will replace it for you. We’ll need to be able to get in touch with you on short notice.” Or more to the point, he would need to be able to get in touch with her on short notice for his own peace of mind.

The police officer asked, “Ma’am, is there someone we can call to let them know you’ve had an accident? A family member? Spouse?”

Embarrassment flashed through her transparent gaze and she mumbled, “No. No one.”

“I’m the significant other,” Jackson blurted, leaping to the rescue of the damsel in distress. Apparently, he had a heretofore untapped knight-in-shining-armor complex. Not to mention a bizarre possessive streak where Ana was concerned.

She looked startled and the cop looked skeptical until Jackson added defensively, “She was on her way to dinner with me when she was attacked.” He took satisfaction in the way Surfer Cop’s expression fell in disappointment.

The nurse interjected, “Then you’ll be with her tonight, Mr. Prescott? We can’t release her with a concussion unless she won’t be alone.”

Ana struggled to sit up, looking freaked at the idea of spending the night in the hospital. Or maybe she was freaked at the idea of spending the night with him. He frowned. “Of course. I’ll take her home with me. I’ll wake her up every two hours or whatever I need to do.” He’d been in a movie last year where his female costar had to be woken up periodically after a concussion. It had been a plot point that they made love each time he woke her up. Fun couple days of shooting—

The nurse broke his train of thought. “She won’t require anything that extreme. Just keep an eye on her for nausea, vomiting, disorientation, slurring of speech, balance problems, mood changes, restlessness, excessive light or sound sensitivity, or trouble focusing her eyes.”

Well, okay then. He followed the nurse out front to deal with the discharge papers, and he wrote a check for the cost of the E.R. visit. He remembered what it had been like to be a struggling young actor couch surfing and living from hand to mouth between jobs.

After all of the paperwork was taken care of, he headed back down the hall to collect Ana. He wasn’t thrilled to see the cop still there, perched on the end of her bed chatting her up. She was his dinner date, dammit.

“Ready to go home, Ana-banana?”

He caught the glimpse of wistfulness that passed through her expressive eyes before she masked it. It tugged at his heart. An orderly shooed him aside to help Ana into a wheelchair. The cop walked out beside her while Jackson cooled his jets behind the procession. He wasn’t used to having competition for women, and he didn’t particularly like it.

At least he got to put the hot girl on the back of his bike and peel out of the parking lot while the cop climbed into his piece-of-junk Crown Vic cruiser. There was a little justice in this world, after all.

He murmured over his shoulder, “Hang on tight, baby. I’ve got you now.”

* * *

Ana leaned into Jackson’s back and wished desperately that his comment could be true. She was so tired of fighting her own fights and looking out for herself. Particularly since she didn’t seem to be doing that hot a job of it.

His bike accelerated onto the Coast Highway, and it felt phenomenal to breathe in clean, ocean air as the wind whipped past. It had been a scorching-hot day and warmth still lingered in the evening. She reveled in having survived the attack. In having her arms around this man. Euphoria overtook her at having cheated death for real. In her stunt training, she’d done plenty of risky things, but all of that paled before the danger of real life.

“You okay?” Jackson asked over the comm system between their helmets.

She replied, “Um, yes. Why?”

“You tensed up.”

“Oh. Sorry.” She consciously relaxed each major muscle group in her body one by one and let herself flow with the movements of the motorcycle and the man confidently maneuvering along the moonlit ribbon of asphalt.

Jackson pulled into the parking lot of her motel. She slid out reluctantly from behind him, startled by how sexy it felt to rub her body across his like that. His gaze snapped to hers, and for a second, his eyes blazed white-hot. Yowza.

Embarrassed as all get-out, she made a production of taking off her helmet and passing it to him. He stayed seated on his bike for a few extra seconds, securing first her helmet and then his before climbing off the Harley and following her up the stairs to her second-floor room.

Except as they approached her door, she spied something odd about it. The whole thing looked...crooked. Jackson shoved past her abruptly, hooking an arm around her front and simultaneously pushing her behind him and jumping in front of her. What the heck?

“Get back,” he ordered low and hard.

“What’s wrong?”

“Your door’s busted.”

“It was probably like that before—” she started.

“Jamb’s broken. Boot print by the doorknob,” he interrupted. “Stay out here.”

“What?”

He stopped in front of the door and spared her a glare. “You heard me. Don’t come in until I tell you it’s clear.” He used his forearm to push open the sagging door. She frowned until it occurred to her he was intentionally not leaving fingerprints on the doorknob. Sheesh. Paranoid much?

He disappeared into the dark interior of her dingy room. Ignoring his instructions, she stepped into the doorway to see what he was doing. She caught sight of him just spinning into her bathroom in a low crouch. Whoa. Where did he learn a move like that?

That was when her eyesight adjusted enough to really see the interior of her place. What. The. Heck? It was trashed. As in totaled. As in a tornado had shredded the place. Every piece of furniture was knocked over. Every cushion was gutted, and stuffing was all over the place. Drawers were pulled out and thrown on the floor. The TV was smashed. Curtains yanked down off the rods and sliced into rags.

She jumped as Jackson reappeared in the doorway of her bathroom. “I told you to stay outside.” He sounded irritated.

“Is anyone here?” she blurted, her heart pounding.

“No. But if a crook had been in here, you could’ve put yourself in the line of fire and gotten hurt.

She flipped the switch beside the door that turned on the lamp across the room. Nothing happened. What on earth was going on? It was as if someone was targeting her. But who? The only person on earth who wanted to kill her was in jail.

Jackson moved to her side and reached past her to close the broken door as much as it would go. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed a phone number without answering her question. “Hello, I’d like to report a break-in.” He gave her room number and the name of the motel, but he gave the person on the other end of the line his cell phone number.

“I understand, Officer. The room is secure, no one’s injured and I’m taking the owner to a safe location. I’ll have her make a list of stolen property, and when you’re ready to come by and have a look, call me.”

Jackson called the motel’s manager on his cell since the rotary phone in the room was currently in pieces, none of which were still attached to each other or the wall. He pocketed his phone and then asked her, “Did you have anything valuable in the room like jewelry or cash that someone could have taken?”

“No. Nothing like that.”

“Can you think of anything someone might toss your place to look for?”

“No.”

“You got a torqued-off ex?”

“No!”

“How about an ex you didn’t know is pissed?”

“No exes,” she admitted reluctantly.

“None at all?” he blurted, sounding surprised.

Well, wasn’t this just too embarrassing for words? “I don’t date,” she mumbled.

“Why the hell not?”

“This from the guy who has no female friends whatsoever?” she replied a shade defensively.

The manager showed up, blessedly ending Jackson’s uncomfortable line of questioning. The man confirmed that this had been the only room broken into and commenced shooting her suspicious looks as if this was all her fault.

Jackson must have picked up the guy’s hostility because when she started to ask the manager if he had another room she could move into, Jackson cut her off with “I’m taking you to my place to stay until we find out who trashed your room.”

“That won’t be necessary—” she started.

“Nonetheless, that’s what’s going to happen. Do you want to grab your toothbrush and some clothes, assuming they aren’t destroyed, too?”

She headed for the closet and gasped as she peered inside. It was just like the locker at the studio. Every piece of clothing inside was in tatters. Even her shoes’ heels were broken off. The rage behind the attack stole her breath away. “Who would do something like this?” she whispered, tears gathering in her eyes and throat.

“Screw the toothbrush,” Jackson said gruffly. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here.”

A sob rattled up out of her chest and escaped.

With urgency approaching panic, Jackson grabbed her elbow and bodily dragged her out of the motel room. A fog descended over her brain, dulling sound and sensation as he led her back to his Harley and installed her on it. He slid onto the bike in front of her and the engine roared to life.

“There’s a hotel at the beach. If you could take me there, I’ll grab a room until I head back to Los Angeles,” she yelled over the engine.

“Negative. You’re coming to my place,” he called back.

“I’m not shacking up with you, Jackson.”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion on the topic. I’ve got plenty of room.” She started to object, but he interrupted. “Someone has to keep an eye on you for a day or two after your concussion.”

The doctor at the hospital had given her some sort of industrial-strength painkiller, and she’d actually momentarily forgotten her pounding headache from before.

“Besides,” Jackson continued firmly, “I’m worried about you. Until we figure out who trashed your place, I want you close by where I can protect you.”

She subsided, speechless. Other people didn’t protect her, particularly big hunky movie stars whom she had giant crushes on. But she had to admit it felt kind of nice to let somebody else worry about things for once. She was wiped out by today’s events. And it wasn’t like she could actually afford to pay for a decent hotel room. That was why she’d been at the crappy motel outside town in the first place. Still, she’d imposed on him too much. If she wasn’t mistaken, he had already paid her hospital bill.

His rich, soothing voice echoed inside the helmet. “Relax, Ana, and let me do the worrying.”

She hadn’t slowed down enough to get around to worrying about herself until he mentioned it. Who had attacked her? Did it have to do with the attack at the studio, or was it just a terrible coincidence that she had been attacked twice in the same day? What the heck was wrong with her? Did she have a giant V for victim on her forehead or something? All of a sudden, mountains of worry crowded in on her, crushing her beneath their weight.

She wrapped her arms around Jackson’s waist and huddled against his back, letting him be her bulwark against all of it for a few minutes. His muscular contours felt solid, real, safe. For just a minute, she lost herself in him. She let him be the only real thing in her universe, which had otherwise been knocked completely off its axis.

His next words came to her as if spoken across a long distance. “I’ve got you, Ana. Everything’s going to be all right. I promise.”

If only.

Chapter 4

Ana tried to relax as Jackson wasted no time whisking her across all six blocks of downtown Serendipity, but she failed. Had her mugger returned to the motel and trashed her room after the fact? Why go to all that trouble and then not take anything? Sure, she didn’t have much, but there’d still been a television and a few personal items the intruder could have stolen.

Jackson guided the Harley north along the coast for a few gloriously beautiful miles. Even the magnificent view of the ocean under the emerging stars couldn’t soothe her jangling nerves. Normally she could sit and stare at the waves for hours on end.

The bike slowed and turned off the Coast Highway into a gated drive. Jackson stopped to punch in a security code on a number pad, and the automatic gate slid back to reveal possibly the most gorgeous house she’d ever seen. It was huge and stately. Elegant. Venerable.

“Whoa. You live here?” she asked over the rumble of his bike rolling up the drive.

“It’s my grandmother’s place. She’s lived here since the seventies. I renovated it for her and built on an addition after my first big movie. She had a health scare last year and I moved back in to look after her. I stay here when I’m not on location.”

“Talk about a sweet crash pad,” she muttered.

He grinned over his shoulder at her as he climbed off the bike in the circular drive in front of the stately double doors. “First time here, you get the grand entrance.”

“Please don’t fuss over me. It makes me uncomfortable.”

The front doors opened and a woman fully as elegant at the house stepped onto the broad porch. “Who’ve we got here, Jackson?” She sounded surprised. Did he not bring women here often, then?

Ana was startled when he looped his arm over her shoulder to lead her forward. “Ana, this is my grandmother, Minerva Prescott. Gran, this is Ana Izzolo. She’s going to be working on the film with me.”

Going to? No “maybe” or “probably”? No “after we check out her screen test we might make her an offer”? No explanation to his grandmother that her room had been vandalized and that was the only reason she was here?

Stunned, she barely heard Jackson’s grandmother say, “I’m so pleased to meet you, dear.” The woman held slender hands out and grasped Ana’s hand warmly. “Do come in. It will be lovely to have company. Welcome.”

Minerva glanced over at Jackson. “Is this the young lady you were so anxious to go have dinner with?”

Anxious, huh? Jackson’s mouth tightened in visible chagrin, and Ana’s mouth twitched in answering amusement. Family had a way of stripping your dignity at the most inconvenient moment.

“Ana was mugged and her place was broken into before she could meet me at the restaurant. She could use some basic toiletries and maybe some clean clothes until she has a chance to go shopping. I’d like her to stay here a few days while we sort out what happened.”

His grandmother exclaimed in alarm, “Goodness! Of course, we’ll take care of her. Don’t you worry about a thing, dear.” Her expression lightened and she clapped her hands together. “Actually, it’s perfect! It’ll give us a chance to get to know each other.”

What a warmhearted woman. Her kindness was really infectious. Perhaps this was where Jackson got some of his famous charm. Minerva never let go of her hand as she drew Ana into a front hallway filled with beautiful woodwork—elaborate crown moldings, dark wood door frames, and the stairs— Oh, my. The staircases, there were two of them, each had to be twelve feet wide and swept upward in arcs, starting on each side of the foyer, to meet in the middle at the top.

“Wow,” Ana breathed. “I’m feeling a little underdressed.”

Minerva laughed gaily. “Never fear. We dress casually here at the beach. You’re about my size. I’m sure we can find something that will fit you.”

Except, of course, that Minerva was a foot taller than she was. Well, half a foot. She was five foot two, and Jackson’s grandmother looked at least five foot eight.

Minerva continued gaily, “I run around in a bathing suit and flip-flops half the time.”

She had a hard time envisioning the elegant woman in anything other than a designer dress as tailored and classy as the one she was wearing now.

“Jackson, why don’t you show Ana around while I speak with Rosie about making you two something to eat. You both must be hungry after such a stressful day. And you never did get your dinner together, did you?”

“Her solution to every crisis in life is food,” Jackson muttered as his grandmother floated gracefully down the central hallway, tsking, to disappear somewhere in the back of the sprawling home.

“Is one the up staircase and the other the down staircase?” Ana asked under her breath.

“Nah. You can go up or down either one. Although, I can say from experience that the left bannister is faster to slide down than the right one.”

“You slid on the bannisters as a kid?”

“Still do from time to time. But don’t tell Gran. She’d yell at me.”

Ana grinned as he led her off the main foyer into a living room with English manor–style cove ceilings and mahogany wainscoting to die for. “This place is stunning, Jackson.”

“Pain in the butt to keep up, though. I keep asking Gran to let me sell it, but she refuses. Says we’ll have to pry her cold, dead body out of here before she’ll go.”

“I’m with her. This place is a treasure. Has it been in your family a long time?”

He led her back across the foyer to another set of double doors, which opened to reveal a library. She gasped with pleasure since she’d always loved books. This room was lined, floor to ceiling, with volumes.

“My grandfather was a movie producer. He bought this place for her as a wedding present. It was decrepit, and they restored it to a livable state. It was built in the 1920s by a silent movie star as a getaway back when this stretch of coast was pretty much deserted.”

“What happened to him?” she asked.

“He died when my mother was ten. Lung cancer. He was a chain smoker most of his life.”

He led her upstairs, and a spacious sitting room stretched toward the back of the house and the ocean beyond. “Gran’s rooms are to the left. I’m in the new wing, this way. Let’s find you a bedroom.”

She could hardly fathom the idea of having to choose between multiple bedrooms. Her upbringing had been modest at best, and rocky during bad times. Rocky also described her parents’ marriage accurately. She wouldn’t go so far as to say she’d had a happy upbringing. It wasn’t like she’d been abused or neglected. But love hadn’t been particularly abundant. It had been...safe. Adequate.

Jackson stopped in front of a door and chuckled quietly to himself. “In here,” he directed her.

The room he led her into was spacious and bright, with huge picture windows looking out over the ocean. The furniture was pickled pine, the fabrics creams and yellows. The view drew her to it and she stared down in awe at the majesty of the ocean and rocky cliffs below. “I can’t see a single house from here.”

Jackson spoke quietly beside her. “I own the land all the way to that point on the right. I bought all the neighboring properties as they went up for sale and knocked the houses down. Restored the coastal habitat.”

Wow. Such wealth was unimaginable to her. First this palatial layout, and now his own movie production company. She was just hoping to get steady work, enough to pay off her student loans and maybe make a modest living in the industry someday, not end up richer than Croesus.

More intimidated than she cared to admit, she asked him, “Is there somewhere I can wash up? And if it’s not too big an imposition, can I borrow a clean T-shirt or something? This sweater’s pretty trashed after I rolled around on the ground in it.”

He looked down at her chest and his pupils dilated noticeably. Alarmed, she glanced down. The sweater was more shredded than she’d realized and her beige camisole, now gray with dust, peeked through in multiple locations.

“Uh, sure. I’ll go get some clothes for you.” He spun away sharply as if it had just dawned on him he was both staring at and talking to her chest.

Huh. So Jackson had embraced the fact that she was a girl and not just a fight buddy, had he? A foreboding washed through her that his seeing her as a woman would open some doors between them that she didn’t know how to handle.

So what if he noticed she was a girl? He was her boss, for crying out loud.

“Bathroom’s in here. Towels are in that cabinet.”

She stepped into a Victorian bathroom and sighed in delight at the gigantic claw-foot tub sitting in front of the window. Surf crashed into the rocks below, the foam white against the blackness of rocks and sea and night.

“It’s one-way glass so no one can see in here from the veranda,” he informed her. “If you want to jump in the tub, I’ll go get some clean clothes for you.”

“Deal.”

He hesitated in the doorway and she looked up at him questioningly.

He said low, “I’m glad you’re okay, Ana.”

“Me, too. Thanks for rescuing me.”

“I didn’t—”

She cut him off. “Yes. You did. And we both know it.”

His gaze skittered away as if he was embarrassed.

She took pity on him and declared, “Scram. I want to go for a swim in that gigantic tub.”

“Right.” He spun away fast, but not so fast that she didn’t spot the stain of color on his cheeks. Jackson Prescott was capable of blushing? Would wonders never cease?

She poked around the bathroom as the tub filled, and found a new toothbrush still in its wrapper, a hair brush, shampoo and conditioner, and even some simple cosmetics. Wow. Talk about the hostess who thought of everything. Minerva must have brought this stuff in here while Jackson had showed her the rest of the house.

Ana lit the half dozen pillar candles clustered beside the tub, poured some of the bath salts she found into the steaming hot water and sighed in pleasure as she stepped into the tub. She sank up to her armpits in the hot embrace and luxuriated in melting bliss. It was wild to think about how, three hours ago, she had been praying for her life, and here she was now, surrounded by this sartorial splendor. The mental whiplash was a little much to take in.

She refreshed the bath with hot water several times and just couldn’t seem to drag herself out of this perfect interlude. The rhythmic pounding of waves rolling ashore lulled her into the best semicoma ever. How long she sat there just soaking, she had no idea.

The bathroom door burst open.

She plunged to her neck in the water and it sloshed over the side of the tub. “Jackson!”

“Crap! Sorry. Thought you already went downstairs. Clothes. I’ve, um, got some. They’re Gran’s, but she said they would fit you. Sorry. I’ll just put them on your bed....”

“Get out, Jackson,” she said firmly enough to cut across his babbling.

“Right. Out.” But his gaze had riveted on the damned tub. And as tall as he was, he no doubt had a great view of her naked body. Which abruptly felt on fire from pretty much her neck to her toes.

“Go. Now,” she ordered him.

“Sorry. Gone.” Finally, he tore his gaze away from her and spun. He all but ran out of the bathroom and looked so silly doing it she had to laugh. Guy acted like he’d never seen a naked female before. Who’d have thought a hunk like him would be so self-conscious around women? She wouldn’t have guessed it in a million years.

The tranquility of her bath destroyed, she rinsed the last of the soap out of her hair with the detachable showerhead thingie. She stood up to dry off and it felt decadent to stand naked before that huge window with all of nature’s glory right outside.

She glanced down onto the broad stone veranda below and started. Jackson was staring up at her, transfixed. The glass was one-way, wasn’t it? If he’d lied about that, she was going to kill him!

Wrapping a towel around herself fast, she backed away from the window and dried off hastily. Using the blow-dryer she found in the big armoire where the towels and shampoo had been, she dried her hair into its usual shoulder-length frame of her face.

She actually dug into the makeup Minerva had put in the medicine cabinet and applied mascara, blush and lip gloss. Only time she usually wore the stuff was when she had a date, which happened exactly never. Tonight, though, it gave her the confidence boost she needed to go downstairs and face Jackson after he’d accidentally invaded her bath. That had been an accident, hadn’t it?

Naked, she moved out into the bedroom and smiled at the simple navy knit dress laid out on the bed. Its lines were high-end designer all the way. The lingerie lying beside it made her simultaneously blush and sigh with pleasure. Jackson’s grandmother wore silk thongs and see-through lace bras? Go, granny!

She’d secretly wished to own stuff like that over the years, but a combination of no one to wear it for and scraping by so she could pay her college tuition meant she’d never indulged the fantasy.

The sexy lingerie was a decent fit. She was more endowed up top than Minerva, which meant her bra cups ranneth over in a rather spectacular display of cleavage. But it was better than crawling back into her dirty, smelly camisole.

She pulled the casual knit dress over her head and the kitten-soft fabric caressed her body like a whisper. It was snug to the hips and then flared into swirls around her legs. The overall effect was to accentuate her curves until she looked like some kind of sexy vamp.

She stared at herself in the mirror. Who knew she could look so good in the right cut of clothing? Jackson’s eyeballs were going to fall out his head when he got a load of this plunging neckline and bulging boobage. A sneaking suspicion that Minerva had laid out this dress for that exact reason crept into her mind. So. Granny was machinating to throw the two of them together, huh? Fascinating. Jackson wasn’t lying when he’d said his grandmother was pushing him to settle down and start a family.

She wished the woman luck but held out no real hope of Minerva succeeding. After all, Jackson had been a superstar for nearly five years and could have had pretty much any woman on the planet in that time. But he’d never shown the slightest inclination to get married. There was no reason to think things would change at this late date.

Still, she gave the neckline one last downward tug before heading downstairs. Next to the library was a music room with a grand piano dominating the space. On a shelf behind it, she spotted...

Oh, my God. Is that an Oscar? She moved into the room and stopped before the famous statue on the mantle over a huge fireplace.

“I won that for being a coproducer on a documentary last year. I’d like to win another one with the new production company,” a male voice said from behind her.

She whipped around to face Jackson, the skirt swirling around her hips.

His eyes went wide as he stared at her. “Ana, what happened to you?”

Alarm slammed through her. She reached for her hair, her face. “What? What’s wrong?” She hadn’t seen any major bruising when she’d checked herself in the mirror before she came downstairs. Most of her scrapes and scratches were on her arms and hands. Amazing really, considering what she’d been through.

“You’ve got—” He broke off. “You’re—”

Her alarm escalated to panic. “What the hell’s wrong, Jackson? I’ve got what?”

“Uh. Breasts.”

She stared back at him. “I know. But what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he mumbled. “You just look...”

She strode over to him and stared up at him. “You’re scaring me. Tell me what’s going on, right now.”

“Jesus, Ana. Nothing’s wrong. You just look like...a...a woman. A hot one. With great...well...cleavage. That dress... You in it... Christ...” he mumbled.

Oh. She stood down from threat mode, letting out the breath she’d been holding. He’d scared the hell out her for a minute there. A little irked, she said, “I’ve been a woman all day, you know.”

“Well, yeah. But you weren’t wearing stuff like that when we were fighting.”

“The operative word being fighting,” she retorted. “Kinda hard to do that in heels and a French manicure.”

He cleared his throat and finally managed to tear his gaze away from her chest. She owed Minerva a big thanks later. At least the guy had finally figured out she was not only a girl, but a marginally attractive one. For him, that was apparently a big breakthrough.

“How about that tour of the rest of the house now?” she asked.

“Uh, yeah. Sure.”

He guided her through the mansion. It was a fairly simple layout, actually. A series of spacious rooms opened off the original central hall that ran from front to back. She gathered a kitchen was beyond the dining room he showed her and servant quarters were off in another direction. The entire back of the house was new and boasted big picture windows looking out on the ocean. The blend of old and modern was seamless and comfortable.

“There’s Gran on the veranda. Looks like Rosie’s got dinner ready.”

“Rosie?”

“Gran’s housekeeper, cook, companion and second-in-command around here. Be warned, she runs a tight ship. Don’t cross her.”

A tiny, gray-haired woman stepped into the family room just then. “Jackson Prescott. What lies are you telling your lady friend about me?”

“Rosie, this is Ana. And this is the infamous Rosie McKay.”

Wow. She was used to being the shortest person in a room, but Rosie barely reached her nose. The woman must not top four foot ten. But her eyes sparkled brighter than a sparrow’s and she looked ready to take on the world.

“Don’t listen to a thing that boy says about me,” Rosie declared. “Lies. All of it.”

Ana grinned. “I won’t listen to what he says about you if you won’t listen to what he says about me.”

“Agreed. Now head on outside. Supper’s served, and don’t you dare let my famous fried chicken get cold.”

She shooed them out through the French doors. Ana sank into the wrought-iron chair Jackson held for her, acutely aware that from his vantage point he was getting a great look down the front of her dress. She hoped he liked what he saw.

The moon rose as they dug into the platter of chicken and fruit salad. The simple meal settled her stomach and made her feel better. There was just something comforting about home cooking. There hadn’t been a lot of it in her house growing up. She’d mostly fended for herself by the time she was in school full days.

A chill crept into the air, and Ana was chagrined to feel her nipples puckering beneath the thin fabric of the dress and the thinner lace of the bra. God, did she have to go and starting nipping now?

Darned if Jackson hadn’t noticed it, too. He took in the view unabashedly, and darned if Minerva didn’t take in him taking it in, as well. Ana couldn’t be sure, but she thought she caught a hint of a smirk in the older woman’s expression. Schemer.

“So, dear. Do you feel like talking about today or would you rather not?”

She shrugged at Minerva. “There’s not much to tell. I walked out to my car to meet Jackson for dinner and some guy jumped me from behind. I didn’t see his face. I fought and screamed, but he hit me in the side of the head and apparently knocked me out. Someone called the police and... I was lucky. Then Jackson came and rescued me from all those medical people and their needles in the emergency room.”

“I did not—”

She threw him a withering look. “We’ve already been over this. You rescued me. I’m grateful, and you can just get over it.”

Minerva chuckled in delight. “Oh, I like her, Jackson.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Stay here as long as you’d like, dear. It’s entirely too much house for one person to rattle around in.”

“What about me?” Jackson complained.

“You’re always haring off to who knows where, and when you’re home you practically live over at that studio of yours. You’re gone more than you’re here.”

Ana grinned. Salty, the woman was. She officially liked Minerva back. They finished the meal with Jackson glaring at his grandmother, Minerva smiling smugly and Ana privately enjoying his discomfort. He struck her as the type who was used to always being in control, always in charge, always self-contained. It was refreshing to know he was a real man with real feelings and not some kind of robot under all that movie-star perfection.

Rosie came out to clear the dishes and Jackson jumped up to help her. He hauled in the heavy stuff while Minerva topped off Ana’s water and refilled her own wineglass.

As Jackson disappeared inside the house, Minerva asked, “How long have you and Jackson been together?”

“Uh, we’re not together. We just met today at an audition.”

Minerva looked visibly startled. Not his style to bring home his casual conquests, huh? Ana added by way of explanation, and in defense of her own morals, “I don’t think he even noticed that I’m a girl until he saw me in this awesome dress.”

“Oh, I noticed,” Jackson groused from the doorway. “Just because I was too professional to make a pass at you when I was lying on top of you in your audition doesn’t mean I didn’t notice.”

Ana gulped as Minerva smiled archly. “She does wear that dress rather well, doesn’t she?”

“Yes. She does.” Jackson’s voice was low and deep. Sexy. Slid across her skin like velvet. “Would you like to see the beach, Ana?”

“There’s a beach around here?”

“I blasted one out of the rocks a while back.” He moved over beside her chair and held a hand down to her. “Let me show you.”

He held out his hand to help her to her feet. She laid her palm in his and started at the heat of him. It permeated her flesh and drew her to him like a moth to a flame.

“Have fun, you two,” Minerva said behind them, her words floating away on the muted roar of the ocean.

“Interfering busybody,” Jackson muttered as he led her to a wooden staircase.

“She means well.”

“She just loves to meddle.”

“She loves you.”

Jackson snorted, but Ana would bet he knew she was right. Narrow steps wound down the cliff steeply. To a normal person, the descent would probably be a little alarming. But after her stunt classes, it was kind of fun to navigate.

They got to the bottom and stepped onto a tiny, secluded beach surrounded on three sides by towering cliffs and on the fourth by the ocean. White sand the consistency of sugar buried her toes. The whole beach probably wasn’t more than fifty feet wide and maybe half that deep.

“It’s perfect,” she breathed.

Jackson looked over at her in the moonlight. “Yup. Perfect.”

She got the feeling he wasn’t talking about the beach. She spoke over the ocean soundtrack. “Your grandmother seemed to think we were a couple. Do you need me to pretend that we are for a while to get her off your back?”

“You’d do that for me?” he blurted.

“Why not? She’s a lovely woman and it would make her happy. I’d love to repay her in some way for her hospitality.”

Jackson frowned doubtfully. “You don’t know her. This could backfire on both of us.”

“How?”

“No idea. But I know my grandmother. If there’s a way to make a fake girlfriend bite me in the butt, she’ll find it.”

Ana grinned. “It’s a good thing I’m not going to take that remark out of context, Mr. Prescott.”

Jackson laughed and snagged her around the waist, pulling her up against his delicious body laughingly. She tensed against him, and he turned her loose instantaneously.

He spun away, shoving a hand through his hair. “God, I’m sorry,” he mumbled over his shoulder. “You were just attacked. Of course you wouldn’t want some guy to grab you....”

“It’s not that,” she responded quickly. It was just that he was so darned gorgeous. So out of her league. So...perfect. And she was so...not. How to put that into words that wouldn’t make her sound like a total dork? She opened her mouth, mumbled incoherently and shut it again.

“What can I do to help?” he asked, steamrolling right over her attempt at an explanation. “Anything. Just tell me what to do. I want to help.”

“I’m fine,” she insisted.

“No, you’re not. You freaked out when I touched you.”

It wasn’t quite that dramatic, but he didn’t seem interested in listening to her protests. If she were more of a shark, she would play on his sympathy and get him to woo her romantically. But lies weren’t her style. “I swear, Jackson, I’m okay. Go ahead. Put your arms around me again and let me prove it to you.”

Very carefully, he stepped close to her.

“How tall are you?” she muttered, craning her head back to stare up at him in the dark.

“Six foot three.”

“Isn’t that huge for a movie star?”

He shrugged and rested his hands cautiously on her waist. “I guess it’s tall. I never have to worry about my female leads being taller than me.”

She smiled a little and reciprocated by putting her hands on his waist. “See? I’m fine.”

“So it wouldn’t bother you if I moved one of my hands up your back like this?” he murmured.

“Uh, no.” Shivers were spreading outward from the slow glide of his fingers, threatening to shatter her into a million pieces. But other than that, everything was hunky-dory.

“Can I cup the back of your neck like this? Your hair feels like warm silk on the back of my hand.”

“Yeah. Sure. That’s, um, great.”

“Do you mind me moving a little closer to you?”

A little closer? His clothes brushed against her dress from her shoulders to her knees. Something akin to a magnetic field emanated from him and enshrouded her, energizing her from head to toe. Dang. What was that? Charisma? Raw, animal sex appeal? Whatever it was, she could see why he had become a movie star.

He stared down at her, his eyes black pools in the shadows of his face. Even wreathed in darkness like this, he was beautiful. It just wasn’t fair. His mouth was less than a foot from hers, and she could taste the fine wine on his breath. She hadn’t been able to drink any of it because of the painkillers she’d been given, but she savored the hint of it, anyway.

The—whatever it was—zinging between them built until she thought she was going to explode. His eyes actually glowed a little as he stared down at her.

“Say something,” she whispered. “You’re making me nervous.” Not nervous in the way he was going to think she meant, but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

“My grandmother likes you.”

“I like her, too. I’ll bet you I could convince her we’re dating.”

He exhaled a gust of silent laugher. “You could convince me without too much trouble.”

Ana blinked up at him in shock. Her? Him? Her and a movie star?

“Talk to me, Ana.”

Her mind was completely blank. The notion of the two of them as a couple knocked words completely out of her brain.

She blurted the first thing that came to mind. “Kiss me.”

Oh, no. Where on earth had that come from?

His head bent down toward hers. “If you’re sure, I won’t say no.” He was actually going to kiss her!

Her stomach leaped and twisted while she tried to think of something clever and casual to say back to him that wouldn’t make her sound like a moron.

His mouth touched hers very lightly. It wasn’t tentative in the least, merely very tightly controlled. Careful. Intentionally gentle. Ana shocked herself by surging up into him like one of the waves pounding the rocks behind her. His lips were as hot as the rest of him, scorching her mouth as they moved restlessly, obviously interested in deepening the kiss, but unwilling to do more.

She opened her mouth hungrily, and when he didn’t act on the invitation, she caught his lower lip between her teeth and bit down on it enough to get his attention.

“Well, then,” he breathed. And then his tongue plunged carnally past her lips. She met his tongue with her own, and they swirled together, wet and hungry.

Her arms looped around his neck, and one of his hands simultaneously slid down her back to the indent of her waist. He dragged her up against him until her toes barely touched the sand. Another kind of heat pressed against her belly, hard and demanding through the zipper of his jeans. He turned to the side, taking her with him, and pressed her back against a wall of cold, hard rock. “You okay?” he asked roughly.

Her entire body strained toward him, toward the fire of his hard body surrounding her. Oh, yes. She was more than okay. Her hands slid down his chest, down to his waist. Tugged at his shirt. Ahh, skin. Her palms flattened against his ribs, sliding around to the slabs of muscle that defined his back. The same muscles that had surrounded her in safety earlier.

He tasted of the wine he’d sipped at the end of the meal, sharp and heady and masculine. His mouth lifted away from hers, then kissed its way across her cheekbone. Across her jaw, her neck. Her shoulder. And then his kisses trailed across her collarbone toward the low neckline of her dress. He nipped at the higher curves of her breasts. And heaven help her, she ran her hands into his hair and pulled his head down to her breasts more tightly.

“I wanted to do this all the way through dinner,” he muttered.

“And I wanted you to do it.”

“The way your nipples puckered up made me crazy....” His teeth closed on one of the offending body parts through her dress, and she gasped at the pinch, her breast arching up into his mouth hungrily.

His hand closed on her rear end, pulling her hips up against his erection snugly. She didn’t recognize the wanton woman she’d turned into all of a sudden. Her right leg wrapped around his hips and he ground his hard-on lightly against her core through that thin little thong that did nothing to dull the delicious sensations exploding through her.

“What are you doing to me?” she gasped under the roar of the surf.

He made an incoherent sound in the back of his throat that managed to convey both laughter and possessiveness. Apparently, whatever it was, she was doing the same thing to him, too.

“You’d better tell me to stop right now, Ana. Or this is going to turn into something more pretty damned fast.”

“Don’t stop, Jackson.”

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