Impulse

by E. B. Walters

  Focus, Jillian. It was just sex. Maybe the best you’ve ever had, but sex nevertheless.

  Chris’ idea was brilliant, but would Lex go for it? She hoped so. He ran a huge corporation with hundreds of workers who wouldn’t mind the best circus performance this side of the Rockies. The best part was her father would not feel like a charity case.

  Lex looked over his shoulder and straight at her. The wraparound sunglasses blocked his eyes, but she felt their effect down to her core. It was as though he was touching her with his eyes. She couldn’t look away.

  A bolt of arousal rippled through her, causing her stomach to tighten and her nipples to pucker. Of course, with all the padding she had on for her next scene, she alone was privy to her traitorous response. His lips lifted in a sexy, half smile. He knew.

  Some men drew attention by the sensuality of their smiles. Others let the wicked twinkle in their eyes speak for them. Lex’s sheer magnificent presence was the first lure. The roguish smile came later. Even now Jillian wasn’t the only female on the set watching him. Watching and lusting. It didn’t matter what he wore. He exuded a potent sensuality women couldn’t ignore.

  Chris blocked Jillian’s line of vision and peered into her eyes. She’d completely forgotten his presence. What had they been discussing? Oh, yeah, her father’s financial woes.

  “Why are you looking at me like that? It’s a brilliant idea.”

  “I’m going to say it again. Be careful with him.” He frowned. “Powerful men like him get away with a lot.”

  She watched Chris walk away, then glanced at Lex. He was getting the grand tour from Michaels, Barbs’ husband. Jillian’s eyes followed them to the storyboard. Lex glanced her way again, and she imagined his eyes flashing with heat.

  He would never hurt her. She’d have to give him the power to do that. That could only happen if she allowed herself to be vulnerable. If she dropped her guard and fell in love with him. She had no intention of doing that. Theirs was a sexual attraction. She would enjoy the ride, then walk away with her heart intact.

  Jillian frowned when she noticed the odd behavior of the females around the set. Some had found a reason to do things or talk to others near his vicinity.

  What the hell was their problem? They’d never seen a hot guy before, or was it his pockets that had them acting like vultures? Shameless bitches! Lex was hers. Temporarily, but still hers. Hadn’t she arrived in his chopper this morning? And wasn’t he here for their lunch date?

  Jillian was about to cross the set to claim him in front of everyone when she remembered she was wearing the ugly wig and the clown makeup from their first meeting. He hated both. Not a morale booster. On top of that, she had on a padded suit for her jump.

  “Does he have a brother? Please tell me he has one, or a distant cousin who looks just like him.”

  Shay. Jillian turned and hugged the actress. Shay hadn’t been at the set since the night of the party at Mrs. Fitzgerald’s. Jillian didn’t have a copy of the script and wasn’t sure whether Shay was done with her scenes or not. In this business, sudden disappearance usually meant your character had been written off.

  “Where have you been?” Jillian asked.

  “Filming a sitcom. I don’t have a big part here, so I only come in for my scenes. So, you and the billionaire have started your rounds in the tabloids.” She made a face, green eyes twinkling. “Sorry I played a part in that, but I didn’t like the things”—she glanced around for eavesdroppers and whispered—“the Wicked Witch of the West was saying. The pool incident aside, you upstaged her that evening.”

  Shay had made it obvious from day one she wasn’t on Team Margo, but Jillian had no idea her feelings were this strong. “As long as I continue being the mystery woman, I’m okay.”

  “Oh, honey.” Shay laughed out loud, drawing the attention of the people around the set, including Lex. “You can’t escape the paparazzi forever. This morning’s paper proves that.” She glanced at the group around Lex. “I like how he looks over here every few minutes as though checking on you. You need to tell me your secret, because he’s smitten.”

  Jillian smiled, but her heart wasn’t in it. “This morning’s paper?”

  She took Jillian’s arm. “Chris is signaling you.”

  “What paper, Shay?”

  “One of the tabloids. The National Observer. Haven’t you seen it? One had a picture of the two of you at the airport, kissing. From the looks of things, you picked him up last night. Another showed you driving away, but the last one...” Shay fanned her face. “You must have pulled up on the side of the road to make out because you were steaming up the windows.”

  Jillian’s face burned. Her stomach had dropped to the bottom of her shoes, and now it churned. The stares from people around the set had nothing to do with her arrival this morning. But pictures of her in some stupid magazine, having an orgasm by the roadside... She wanted to crawl somewhere and never show her face again.

  She glanced across the set at Lex, wondering if he knew. The only person who’d known she’d gone to pick him up was Douglas. After Lex’s speech on loyalty, Jillian doubted he’d called the paparazzi. Now that her name and her association with Lex were out in the open, her feud with Margo could take on a new meaning.

  Jillian focused on Shay, who was waving at another actress. “You, uh, don’t happen to have a copy, do you?”

  “No, but there are few around the set.”

  Chris appeared beside them. “Excuse us, Shay,” he said, then cupped Jillian’s elbow. “It’s time for your scene.”

  Jillian fought nausea as Chris led her toward the building. She was about to fly through a glass window while a rigged charge exploded behind her, but all she could think about was stupid tabloid pictures. She started to sweat. The protective gear she wore felt like a furnace. Underneath her costume were a thin Nomex suit soaked in fire retardant gel, a second suit to keep the retardant from evaporating, and spinal and body padding to protect her when she fell.

  “You okay?” Chris asked.

  She nodded.

  “I know Shay is your friend, but the woman gossips too much.”

  Jillian opened her mouth to ask him if he’d seen the papers, but she clammed up. She tried to focus on the task at hand. She looked up at the makeshift two-story building she was about to jump from. Kenny Mittack waved down at them. As usual, his curly blonde hair was unruly and his clothes a little wrinkled, but all she could think about was whether or not he’d seen the papers.

  Stop it. Your head should be on the stunt.

  She blew out air, and Chris misunderstood.

  “It’s okay to be nervous. Just stick to what you did with Kenny during the dry run and everything will go smoothly.”

  Jillian nodded and gave Kenny a thumps-up signal. Kenneth “Kenny” Mittack was Chris’ right hand. Chris usually hired several assistant stunt coordinators, stuntmen, and stuntwomen for each film. Most were new, but a few, like Kenny, were regulars. While Chris was in charge of everyone, Kenny often worked one-on-one with Jillian. He made the tedious preparation bearable by talking about their favorite subject, extreme sports.

  The entire team, which included the pyrotechnicians and the director, had done a detailed briefing of the stunt and rehearsed the scene several times. They’d narrowed the timing between Jillian being pushed off the air ramp platform to simulate the aftershock and the explosive charges detonating down to milliseconds. Still, things could wrong. She shouldn’t be distracted by what she couldn’t control.

  Focus, stay in control, and when in trouble, improvise, she chanted under her breath.

  “Make a clean jump,” Chris said when they reached upstairs. “And, Jillian?”

  She glanced at him.

  “You’ll be fine.”

  “I know.” His faith in her was never misplaced, but this time… Stupid paparazzi.

  Still chanting her rules, Jillian walked to the window and checked on the ground crew. They were inflating the air bag. Her
eyes found Lex where everyone was gathered. The director must have told them to clear the set. He touched a finger to his lips. Jillian blushed and turned to face the others.

  ~*~

  “What’s going on?” Lex asked as they approached the crowd.

  “Jillian is about to jump through that window,” Michaels said.

  Something cold clutched Lex’s gut. “What?”

  “It’s perfectly safe,” Michaels said. “They’re using sugar glass, which looks like real glass but is fragile and breaks easily, and rarely causes injuries. An air bag will break her fall. She’s also wearing a padded bodysuit to protect her from scrapes.”

  None of what Michaels listed made Lex feel better. He looked at the window and felt a little sick imagining her jumping from it. Through the crowd gathering near the building, he could see a team of crewmen and women adjusting a giant blue airbag.

  “She’s an amazing stuntwoman, Lex, and Chris is a meticulous stunt coordinator. He goes over scenes, double and triple-checking everything. The detonation will happen after she jumps.”

  Hell! “What detonation?”

  As Michaels explained, Lex started to sweat. If he’d been shitting bricks before, they were now boulders. His chest hurt and sweat pooled on his forehead. He’d braved the Himalayan summit, surfed giant waves in Tasmania, kayaked Siberia’s Bashkaus River, and swam with the great white sharks in South Africa, but none compared to standing at a damned set in Burbank waiting for his woman to jump.

  Lex swallowed, the waiting making him antsy. He didn’t give a rat’s ass that the window was made of sugar glass and that the broken pieces probably wouldn’t cut her. He didn’t like this. He was a businessman and knew that nothing ever went according to plan. Odds shifted. Equipment failed.

  “Does she have protection against fire in case something goes wrong?”

  “There’s fire retardant in her suit, hair, wig… Everything she’s wearing is doused with it.”

  Which meant there was a chance she could catch fire. Fuck. This was worse than he’d thought. Lex tried to focus on the images of Jillian from last night and this morning. The taste of her, the feel of her skin, the sounds she made…

  What the hell was keeping her? The ground crew had stopped fiddling with the air bag. Two teams appeared to be ready with their wide-lens cameras, one on a crane above the building and another below it. Like the first camera crew, Barbs was elevated on a crane and was talking to someone on an ear walkie-talkie, her eyes on the window. He followed her gaze.

  Jillian will be okay. She must. This was her job. He was sure she’d done this countless times. If he panicked every time he thought about what she did for a living, he’d go crazy. It might take a year, ten, or until she stopped doing stunts, but he was going to learn to suck it up and do what he did best—eliminate chances of anything going wrong.

  From his adventures, using top-notch gear and the best equipment money could buy always tilted the odds in his favor. The rest depended on his willpower and the innate need to beat the odds and win. Jillian was a natural fighter, and her confidence said she was good at what she did. That eased his worries somewhat, but he didn’t know what Lander’s budget was or how efficient his equipment was. Now that Lex was in Jillian’s life, he planned to make sure she used the best of everything in her field. Keeping her safe was his priority.

  His phone buzzed. Lex pulled it from its clip, saw the number, and frowned. He’d told his office he didn’t want to be disturbed unless it was an emergency. He walked away from the throng of people and brought the phone to his ear.

  “Paula?”

  “Are you coming into the office soon?”

  “This afternoon. What’s going on?”

  “Call Mr. Roderick, please. He threatened to call every five minutes until you returned his calls.”

  Screw Rod and his tabloids. They had a pact, but he’d broken it. Even in college, Rod would go out of his way to piss everyone off for shits and giggles. He hadn’t changed. He still got bored and found amusement at other people’s expense. If he weren’t a friend, Lex would drag his ass to court.

  The problem was a court battle wouldn’t break Rod. Like Cade and Sloan, Roderick Thorne was a dot-com boomer with way too much money and time on his hands. Worse, battling Lex might just amuse Rod. He might even benefit if his tabloids and online sites got the inside scoop on the hearing.

  “Lex, are you still there?”

  A ripple of anticipation ran through the crew, causing Lex to turn his attention to the scene about to be shot. The people pressed closer, eyes on the window from which Jillian was supposed to be hurtled. “I’ll call him as soon as this scene is done.”

  “Scene? Where are you?”

  “I’ll see you this afternoon, Paula.” Everything Michaels had told him zipped through Lex’s head, but it didn’t ease his worries.

  What if something went wrong? What if the background fire got out of control? What if the compressed air piston below the air ram failed and the explosives went off while she was still on the platform? What if she got thrown too far and missed the air bag? He hated feeling helpless. It wasn’t in his nature to stand on the sideline and do nothing. Where the hell was she? Any more delays and he’d go up there to investigate.

  Seconds crawled by. Hell! He needed a distraction.

  Lex punched a number on his phone and brought it to his ear.

  “Who is this? How did you get this number?” Rod barked.

  “What the hell are you doing publishing my pictures in your paper?”

  Rod laughed. “Hey, Fitz. I knew you’d eventually call back. On an unlisted cell no less. How come I don’t have this number?”

  “Because you’re an ass. Call your people, Rod, and tell them to call the vendors. I want every last piece of rag you call a magazine off the racks now.”

  Rod laughed. “Rag? I make my living giving people what they want.”

  “Fix this. I’m not joking.”

  “Come on, big guy. Cade didn’t go ballistic last month when—”

  “I’m not Cade. How the hell did your people know I was arriving last night?” Then he remembered his conversation with Sloan. “Sloan called you?”

  There was silence, then, “Now we’re conspiring against you? You’ve hurt my feelings.”

  “Screw your feelings, Rod. Tell your people to remove them, then call and apologize to Jillian. And whoever told your people about my arrival last night had better be ready for me on Saturday.” Lex hung up, expecting to feel better, but the knot in his gut had only tightened. Jillian still hadn’t jumped.

  Of course, Rod wasn’t going to recall The National Observer from vendors, but he’d feel guilty for a few weeks before going back to being a jackass. Unlike most weekly tabloids, he chose to publish his bi-weekly, giving gossip-happy readers something to read mid-week.

  Lex moved closer to the crowd, noticing it had become quiet. He saw why. Smoke billowed from the windows of the building. Fire leaped and licked the ledges. Each breath hurt as memories from the past flashed in his head. He’d almost lost his brother and sister in two separate fires.

  His hands clenched. Stomach heaved. The urge to close his eyes and shut out what was to follow became overwhelming, but he kept them fixed on the building and held his breath.

  Just when the waiting became unbearable, Jillian came crashing through the window as an explosion rocked the building. The fire shot after her as she hovered in the air. Then he realized something. She was on fire.

  Lex’s heart stopped. The next second, he was bulldozing his way through the onlookers, his eyes on Jillian as she fell. A few people protested. Others saw him coming and moved out of the way.

  “You can’t go beyond this point, sir,” a security guard ordered him and stood in his way.

  “You want to try to stop me?” he snapped, his eyes on the people converging on Jillian with fire extinguishers. The guard was scrawny and several inches shorter than he. Lex could lift him out of the
way with one arm and not break a sweat. A second guard appeared. This one looked like he bench-pressed the Rock of Gibraltar. He would take them both to get to Jillian.

  “She’s okay, Lex,” Barb’s husband said from behind him.

  “How can she be okay? She’s on fire.” He looked above the head of the scrawny guard and tried to find Jillian. The crew had her surrounded, which wasn’t reassuring. “Did you know this would happen?”

  “Yes, but she’ll be fine.”

  “How the hell can you guarantee that? Anything could go… wrong.” His eyes found her as she stood. Her wig was messy and partially singed, her outer suit was ripped and had dark smudges, and her clown makeup seemed greasier than when they’d first met, but he’d never seen a more precious sight in his entire life. The best part was her smile.

  She was okay.

  Relief washed over him. The security guards stepped aside to let Lex through. He closed the gap between them, wanting to check every inch of her body and make sure there were no burn marks. Wrap his arms around her and never let go.

  She looked up, saw him, and the smile disappeared from her face.

  CHAPTER 12

  Jillian had heard Lex’s voice raise in anger, but she hadn’t expected to see the haunted look in his eyes. He searched her face, arms, and body as though looking for injuries.

  “Are you okay?” he asked in a strange voice.

  She nodded. “Everything went smoothly.”

  He grew paler. Obviously that wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear. She reached out and took his hand. It was clammy.

  “Come with me,” she whispered.

  Eyes followed them as they left the crowd and headed toward the trailers. He held her hand in a death grip, but she didn’t complain. Seeing her pull that stunt must have scared him. There were risks with most stunts, but she’d never had a reason to worry.