by Jami Alden
“The hell you will. I’ll make my own goddamn choices here, and I’m not putting the woman I love in danger so I can make a better career move.”
She didn’t know who was more stunned by what he’d just said.
For a second his mouth worked open and closed as though trying to recall the outburst. He closed his eyes and thrust his fingers into his hair. In a shaky voice, he said, “That didn’t exactly come out the way I planned.”
“Did you mean that?” Legs suddenly wobbly in her high-heeled slides, Reggie leaned back against the cold tile wall, bracing her hands beside her. The icy porcelain felt good against her suddenly red-hot skin.
He wiped a big hand down his face and sighed. “Yeah, I meant it.”
“Would it kill you to sound happier about it?”
He gave an irritated grunt and shook his head. “This was a complication I didn’t anticipate,” he admitted.
“Well, I didn’t want to fall in love with you either,” she snapped.
“One thing’s for sure, I’m not quitting, and you’re sure as hell not firing me.”
She held her hands up, fingers spread. “Be reasonable. There’s no reason for you to stay with me when I can easily hire—”
He slammed his mouth down on hers, effectively cutting her off. She made a lame attempt to push him away, but within seconds her hands were clawing at his shirt as she sucked eagerly at his lips and tongue.
“I can’t leave you,” he whispered as his tongue trailed hotly down her neck. His mouth slid down to her exposed cleavage, raining hot kisses along the lacy border of her bra. “I don’t give a shit what you say.” He spun her around to face the wall and ran his hands up under her nothing of a skirt. “You’re mine, and I don’t trust anyone else to take care of you.”
Through his pants she could feel the massive bulge of his erection throbbing against her ass. She moaned and ground back against him, knowing this argument wasn’t settled, but physically incapable of pursuing it now.
One big, hard hand slid inside the ridiculous panties and cupped one cheek, and he groaned against her shoulder. “It makes me crazy, knowing every man in America gets to see you in these sexy little outfits.”
She gasped as he tugged the panties down her thighs. Something had to be wrong with her to be this turned on by his rough treatment. But as his fingers sank into the drenched folds of her sex, she couldn’t deny her response.
Panting breath and mingled groans echoed off the tile walls as Gabe unfastened his pants and unceremoniously shoved himself inside her.
He held her hips and thrust deep. She tipped forward, bracing herself with her palms as he began a fast, jarring rhythm. From this angle his cock felt impossibly huge, impossibly hard as he drove inside her.
She bucked back against him, moaning, desperate to take him deeper, harder.
Pressing against her back, he rested his cheek against hers. His hot breath bathed the side of her face as his sweat-slicked skin grazed hers. “Say it, Reggie,” he murmured, sounding almost desperate now. “Tell me you love me.”
“I love you,” she moaned. “I don’t want to, but I love you.”
He came with a harsh cry, jerking and shaking against her as his cock throbbed and surged inside her. His orgasm set off her own, and she pulsed hard around him, kneading his shaft as she came.
Through the roaring of her climax, she heard his harsh whisper. “I love you, too, Reggie. God, I fucking love you.”
He nuzzled against her cheek for a few more seconds before easing from her body.
Vaguely, she heard the toilet flush as he rid himself of the condom he’d produced from nowhere.
Somehow Reggie found the courage to look in the mirror.
“I think you’ll need a touch-up,” Gabe said lightly, but his face reflected over her shoulder was grave.
He was right. Her many coats of lip gloss were now smeared across her face and his. Her hair still looked okay, though, since the activity had only added to the sexy, tousled look the hairstylist had spent over an hour perfecting.
And her face was so red she didn’t think she’d need blush for the rest of her life.
Handing him a paper towel, she washed her hands and wiped at the pink streaks on her jaw while he did the same. “We’re not finished with this discussion,” she said, struggling for a businesslike tone. “Don’t think you can distract me with sex.”
He didn’t reply and silently handed her the frilly panties.
What the fuck was wrong with him? Clearly, he was completely insane, incapable of good judgment when he got within two feet of her.
Gabe walked Reggie down the hall, discreetly checking his fly before they entered the studio.
Like they wouldn’t take one look at Reggie’s face and know exactly what they’d been up to. But she handled the situation with admirable grace, ignoring the speculative looks and settling in the makeup chair like nothing had happened. “I smeared my lip gloss,” she said matter-of-factly.
Natalie looked up as he closed the door, her brow furrowed in concern. Understandable, since he’d practically dragged Reggie out by her hair.
Maybe he should quit. How could he protect Reggie when all he could think about was getting into her pants? The scary part was that even as he’d been tearing off those ridiculous hard-on–inducing panties, he’d known he should stop. But he’d gotten to a point where he didn’t give a shit. Didn’t care about Reggie’s stalker, didn’t care about his professional reputation, didn’t care about anything but sinking hard and deep inside her, staking his claim in the most primal way he could.
And blurting out that he loved her. He didn’t even want to go there right now.
But he couldn’t deny the fierce bolt of joy at the memory of her whispering that she loved him as she came around his cock.
What a fuckin’ mess.
Natalie was walking toward him, biting her cheeks as though trying to hold back laughter. Her gaze kept flashing toward his crotch.
He resisted the urge to check his zipper again as heat flooded his face. Could she tell he was still semihard? He shifted his weight uncomfortably.
“What?” he snapped.
Placing a hand on his shoulder, she stood on tiptoes to whisper in his ear. “You need to clean up.”
He wiped at his cheeks. “Do I still have that lip gunk on me?”
“No,” she giggled, flicking another glance down his front. “You, um, got some body makeup on you I think.”
He frowned down at the front of his shirt, seeing nothing.
“Lower,” she whispered.
Sure enough, there were flesh-colored streaks all over the front of his pants.
She dug in her bag and produced what looked like a giant wet wipe. “You should get that off, makeup can stain really bad.”
“Why the fuck would they put makeup on her ass?” he muttered, swiping at the crotch of his pants.
Great. The makeup was gone, but it looked like he’d pissed himself.
And Reggie, oblivious to it all, sat chatting and laughing in the makeup chair.
One of the stylist’s assistants walked up to her with an envelope in her hand. “This came for you while you were…out,” she said with a sly wink.
“Thanks,” Reggie responded with a wink of her own.
An overwhelming sense of blackness shook Gabe as she tore open the seal.
His gut was screaming bloody murder again. He didn’t know how he knew it, but whatever was in that envelope was Bad with a capital B. He hurried across the room, and his suspicions were confirmed when Reggie dropped the contents of the envelope with a shocked gasp.
“Give me a pair of tweezers,” he barked at the makeup artist, who fumbled in her toolbox and found the pair of purple slant tips.
Gingerly, he picked it up by the edge and placed it on the counter in front of Reggie. As she gazed down, all the color leeched from her face, turning her rosy complexion white and chalky under the many layers of makeup.
&nb
sp; “Son of a motherfucking bitch,” Gabe muttered, unable to keep the violent tangle of emotions in check.
Before him lay an eight-by-ten photo of him and Reggie taken in Santa Fe.
He remembered the exact moment. They had walked out of an art gallery on Canyon Road, and Reggie had been marveling at the collection of horse sculptures made from grass and plaster of Paris. Gabe had been marveling at how hot she looked and had grabbed her and gave her a fierce, tongue-thrusting kiss.
At the time, he hadn’t given a rat’s ass who might be watching his public display of affection. The picture conveyed the mood perfectly, the barely leashed passion of the couple, the way his fingers splayed across her hip in a grip that was both affectionate and possessive.
It would have been a beautiful portrait of a couple in the first giddy stages of love, if not for the deep scratches across the surface, and the word WHORE written in what looked like red nail polish across Reggie’s image.
“How did this get here?” His voice sounded gravelly and strained to his own ears.
The assistant who had delivered it looked nearly as white as Reggie. “The receptionist called. It came from a messenger service.”
Struggling to regain some semblance of composure, Gabe curtly ordered the assistant to find out where the messenger came from and who ordered the delivery.
He knew the efforts would be futile. Whoever it was could easily have used a fake name and paid with cash.
“Was there anything else in the package?” he asked Reggie softly. She’d recovered some of her color and gave him a shaky smile.
“I don’t know,” she replied, reaching for the envelope before Gabe stopped her.
“Fingerprints,” he said in response to her questioning look. Though he was willing to bet his left nut that when the analysis was done, the only identifiable prints would belong to the messenger, Reggie, the receptionist, and the assistant.
Using the tweezers, he carefully pulled a single sheet of paper from the envelope.
“I see he’s finished with his magazine collage phase,” Reggie observed wryly.
That was one thing he liked about Reggie. She never succumbed to hysterics, even when she was perfectly justified.
Gabe placed the note on top of the defaced photo, leaning over Reggie’s shoulder to read.
You slut. I thought you were different, but you’re not. I didn’t believe you’d let that gorilla thug touch you, but you’re nothing but a filthy slut. I would have loved you, Reggie. Now you have to be punished.
“It’s okay,” Gabe whispered. “I’m not going to let him get to you.” Even as he said it, the words knotted in his throat. How could he possibly promise that? He, who’d let his anger and jealousy overwhelm his good sense to the point he hadn’t been paying attention when the package was delivered. So distracted by Reggie that he hadn’t noticed someone following them in Santa Fe, possibly photographing their every move. Worse, his involvement with Reggie was making the stalker jealous, more aggressive. More dangerous.
The stalker was quickly evolving from a frightening nuisance to a physical threat. And because Gabe couldn’t control his feelings for her, he’d put her in even more danger.
Her small white hand covered his and squeezed. “Don’t. This isn’t your fault.”
Gabe sighed raggedly, wincing as the pressure of frustrated tears pressed the back of his eyes. Christ, he loved her. Trying to comfort him when someone was threatening to hurt her in God knew what vile fashion. “Reggie, you can’t deny I’ve made things worse,” he whispered. “Maybe it’s better if you hire someone else, give the stalker the impression we’ve cooled things off. I can’t have you hurt.”
She laced her fingers more tightly through his, and he realized then that he was shaking with the effort to contain the force of emotions roaring through him.
He wanted to rage, throw chairs at walls, strap on an arsenal “Punisher” style, and hunt down the man who would dare threaten the woman he loved. He wanted to bundle Reggie up and haul her off to an impenetrable fortress in the mountains where he could keep her locked up and safe from the world.
Instead, he swallowed his anger, focusing on her melting brown eyes, her soft hand curled so trustingly around his. “You can’t leave me,” she whispered. “You love me, remember?”
Chapter Fifteen
Somehow Reggie got through the rest of the day. A police officer arrived and questioned the assistant, Reggie, and Gabe and took the photo and note as evidence. Gabe also contacted the detective in San Francisco to make sure he was in touch with the LAPD.
It shocked Reggie how easy it was to get back into the groove of the photo shoot, given the morning’s events. The stalker’s message had shaken her to her core, and she didn’t think she was capable of pasting on a sultry smile for the cameras.
Except every time she looked she saw Gabe watching her with that tormented intensity of his. All at once she could feel his hands on her sweaty skin, feel him grinding deep inside her, whispering how much he loved her.
Each time the thought popped into her head, the photographer would shout, “Yes! That’s the look I want!”
Maybe she was turning into a nympho, when even threats of physical harm couldn’t dissuade her body from throbbing with lust every time she so much as looked at Gabe.
Later that evening, she and Gabe met Natalie and Tyler for dinner to discuss how to manage a major public appearance she had scheduled for the following night.
“I can’t cancel every public appearance, Gabe,” she said as she sipped at her Kirin. They were at a trendy sushi place in West Hollywood. She’d been skeptical when Natalie suggested taking them to one of her “favorite L.A. restaurants,” fully expecting the menu to contain nothing but an assortment of lettuces and corresponding fat-free dressings.
Then again, Reggie remembered reading somewhere that sashimi was widely hailed by many stars as a favorite diet food.
Gabe drank iced tea, coldly refusing Tyler’s suggestion of a beer with his patented “I’m on the job and don’t have time to dick around” look. “The guy knows your every move. He says he wants to punish you, and you want to go to an unsecured venue where anyone can get close. It’s a bad idea.” He sat back in his chair, as though the matter was closed.
Reggie expected Tyler to defend her case, but he rubbed his jaw pensively and looked at Natalie as though waiting for her opinion.
Weird. Since when did Tyler give a crap what Natalie thought, Reggie thought crabbily. She took another sip of her beer. Clearly, the stress of the day was catching up.
The waiter came over and Natalie started to order, but Reggie jumped in, too hungry to risk letting her dinner get messed up by Natalie’s finicky food habits. After she requested her nigiri combo and miso soup, she nudged Gabe, who ordered a mountain of sushi and a plate of chicken teriyaki.
Tyler graciously motioned for Natalie to order. “I’ll have the sashimi appetizer and a salad, no dressing.”
Tyler glared at her for a split second, then smiled up to the waiter. “She’ll also have an order of unagi, a California roll, and a spicy tuna hand roll. And a regular beer. I’ll have the nigiri combo with tempura, and bring out edamame and gyoza for the table.”
“I can’t eat all that,” Natalie said through clenched teeth. “I’ll blow up like Jabba the Hutt.”
“You ordered one ounce of fish and lettuce,” Tyler snapped. “You can’t live on that.”
Reggie was fascinated, momentarily distracted from her personal safety issues by the interchange between her sister and Tyler.
As far as she knew, Tyler only tolerated Natalie because she was Reggie’s sister.
Now Natalie, who meticulously controlled every morsel of food she ingested, had allowed someone else to order for her. And when the appetizers arrived, she actually ate a pork-filled, oil-sautéed potsticker.
“You’re going to regret this when I get huge,” Natalie muttered to Tyler around the dumpling. “Especially when I already a
te a sandwich today. With mayonnaise!”
“You ate a sandwich?” Reggie said, stunned. “You don’t eat bread.”
“Half a sandwich,” Tyler corrected, expertly wielding the chopsticks to proffer up another dumpling.
Reggie nearly fell off her chair.
Gabe busily chewed his own dumpling, clearly unconcerned by the bizarre interaction occurring across the table.
“Are you a secret chubby chaser?” Natalie said, giving Tyler a look that was positively gooney.
As though she and Gabe didn’t exist, Tyler slid his arm across the back of her sister’s chair and nuzzled his nose into the caramel-streaked hair covering her ear. Whatever he whispered made her emit a squealing giggle and slap him playfully on the shoulder.
Reggie cleared her throat pointedly. “So, Tyler, what do we do about tomorrow? Tickets have been on sale for months.”
Tyler sat up straight, but didn’t remove his arm from Natalie’s chair. “I agree with Gabe,” he said reluctantly. He held up his hand when Reggie opened her mouth to protest. “It’s not safe. People get close to you when you sign their books—what if someone sneaks a weapon in?” He looked to Gabe for confirmation.
“Why can’t we do security checks at the door?” Natalie asked as she nibbled on another soybean pod. “Frisk people and stuff.”
Tyler shook his head, leaning back as the waitress swapped empty appetizer plates for their entrées. “We’re talking tomorrow. That doesn’t give the bookstore enough time to hire a real security force. I’m assuming we’d want something better than the usual rent-a-cops.”
Gabe nodded in agreement.
Reggie chewed sullenly at a piece of yellowtail sushi. “I’m willing to take the risk, so I don’t see why it’s a problem.” She reached out and slid her hand along Gabe’s thigh, reassured by the heat and muscled strength seeping through the fabric of his pants. “I know you’ll protect me.”
Gabe shook his head wearily. “But you’re the only one I can protect. What about Natalie?”