Alison Kent – Striptease (страница 7)

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.