by Bella Andre
* * *
Mary knew she shouldn’t let Jack touch her like this—especially while they were working together—but when it felt so good how could she possibly muster up the strength to tell him to stop?
But she had to stop it. Jack’s strong, warm hands on her would likely lead to more wonderful, deliciously sensual things.
The kind of more that she had specifically told him they couldn’t do while they were working together.
Oh, but what a struggle it was to make herself slide out from beneath his hands to stand. When she felt she’d removed all desire from her expression, she turned to face him.
“Friday night, I know the boundaries of our relationship got a little fuzzy—” Particularly when she’d been begging him for one more kiss. “—but you were right to leave when you did.”
“It was a hell of a weekend without you,” he said in his disarmingly direct way. “The only consolation was that I knew I’d get to work with you today.” He shook his head, his eyes dark and intense again. “I wish just working with you would be enough.”
Lord, the things this man did to her with nothing but a look and a few simple words. She was tingling head to toe, inside and out, as she made herself take a step away from him.
“It has to be enough, at least until the campaign is over.”
“Tell me why we have to wait. Make me understand why I can’t kiss you again right now when we both know how good it will be?”
She went to take another step back from him, before looking up into his eyes and realizing she had done the exact opposite. Instead of moving further away, she’d gotten closer.
“I made a mistake a few years ago. A big one.” A chill moved over her just thinking about Romain. “And what I learned from my mistake is that we should wait until our relationship isn’t wrapped up in the ad campaign, or tracking how many units are being ordered. Then we’ll both be able to think clearly about things.”
Seeing her shiver, he slid his hands over her arms to warm her. “What I’m feeling for you has absolutely nothing to do with units or ad campaigns.”
She wanted so badly to believe him, especially since her own feelings for him were growing at an exponential rate. His hands on her felt so good, so comforting and arousing at the same time, that her body instinctively shifted closer yet again.
“You’ve worked toward fulfilling your dream for ten years,” she reminded him. “You shouldn’t even consider putting anything or anyone else first right now.”
“Whoever it was that hurt you,” he said in a low voice that rumbled through her, “was an idiot.”
They were just inches apart as she agreed, “Yes, he was.”
“Rumor has it,” he said with a small smile that drew her in closer for the kiss she was trying not to give him, “that my IQ is quite high.”
How could she possibly fight her feelings for him when he didn’t just make her burn but made her laugh, too?
“Is that so?”
“One hundred sixty, and my mother still has the test results to prove it,” he said with a grin. “Although I’ll confess that sometimes I get an idea in the shower and forget to shave because I’m hurrying to get it down on paper.”
She almost sighed out loud at how sweet and cute and sexy it was that his brain worked so fast he could hardly keep on top of normal, everyday things like shaving. Did his socks match, she wondered? But worse even than mulling over his socks was the fact that she wanted to nuzzle against the dark bristles he’d forgotten to shave away that morning.
Trying to keep things light between them—even if she knew she was only delaying the inevitable—she dropped her gaze to his beard-in-the-making. “You look good scruffy.”
“Now that I know you think that, I’ll never shave again.”
She laughed again. “Remind me to look you up in two years to see how long your beard is.”
“All you’ll have to do is roll over in our bed to see that.”
She’d never been with a man this confident—so sure they were meant to be together. And she’d never wanted to kiss anyone this much, either.
In order to distract her lips from the kiss they were dying for, she said his name instead, meaning it as a warning. “Jack.”
He distracted her right back, not with her name, but by saying, “Angel.”
It was an endearment that made her knees wobble every single time.
So when he slid one hand into her hair and another around the curve of her hip to pull her closer, she didn’t have the strength of will to keep fighting this kiss any longer. All it took was the press of his lips against hers to dissolve the fierce reminders of how she’d been hurt before. All her intelligent thoughts vanished, as well.
“Mary, I know you said you were cutting back on caffeine, but I brought you—”
Gerry was halfway into the room by the time he realized she was wrapped around Jack like a teenage girl stealing a kiss from her secret boyfriend when she thought no one was looking.
“Sorry about that, folks,” he said in his easy, seen-it-all way. “I’ll just go take care of that film that needs changing.”
The second Mary heard Gerry’s voice, she should have jumped out of Jack’s arms. Especially given that she shouldn’t have been in them in the first place. But his kiss had made her limbs feel too loose and rubbery to do anything but stay right where she was.
Finally, she gathered up enough self-control to make herself shift away, one inch at a time until Jack had no choice but to let her go. “I can’t believe we were doing that…and that Gerry caught us. Thank God, it was him and not your partners.”
“What if they had seen us? We’re not hurting anyone, or anything, by kissing each other.”
But what if you do end up hurting me?
Mixed into her fear of being hurt again by someone she worked with was the lingering memory of how humiliated she’d been by the knowledge that everyone in her circle knew just how foolishly she’d given her heart…and then been tossed aside. She couldn’t stand for that to happen again, not when she was supposed to be older and wiser.
“Have you told them about Friday night, about what happened between us at my house?”
Jack looked more than a little insulted by her question. “Of course I haven’t. I don’t kiss and tell, Mary. What happens between us is private.”
A moment later, Howie and Larry poked their heads into the room. “Hey Jack, Mary, we brought back a sandwich for you both.”
She could easily read the frustration on Jack’s handsome face as she told them she’d join everyone in the common area in a couple of minutes. They all left the room and her hands were trembling as she sat down at her mirror and picked up her hairbrush. A moment later Gerry walked in and closed the door behind him.
“I thought something was going on between the two of you.” Gerry grinned at her in the mirror. “Now, before we start shooting again, tell me everything about that gorgeous man who can’t keep his hands off you.”
As she ran a straightening iron over a lock of hair to get ready for their second set of shots, she had to work to keep her hand steady so she didn’t burn herself.
With another photographer she might have tried to hide what she was feeling. But, with the man who had known her for her entire adult life, there was no point in pretending Jack’s touch had been innocent. Besides, there was a reason Gerry was such a great photographer—he saw things other people didn’t.
“Jack is different from any other man I’ve known,” she admitted.
She knew she shouldn’t say anything more, but she was dying to talk to someone about Jack. She couldn’t possibly have discussed him with the young models she was looking after, not when she was trying to set a good example for them. But Gerry had watched her grow up. First, from behind a camera lens, and then later when they became friends. He’d held her hand and let her cry when her various romances hadn’t ended in happily ever after. If anyone would understand how confused she was right now, he would
.
“The men I’ve been around have always been so self-aware, so conscious of everything they did and said, and especially how they looked. But Jack’s brain is working so fast all the time—he’s so different. He told me that sometimes he doesn’t even remember to shave.”
“Adorable,” Gerry said, echoing her own thoughts.
She sighed. “Agreed, but I still shouldn’t have kissed him just now.”
His eyebrows went up. “Why the hell not?”
“Because we’ve agreed to keep things strictly professional between us for now. As I’m sure you recall, last time I mixed business with pleasure, things went horribly awry.”
Gerry frowned. “Romain Bollinger was a worthless piece of scum. I thought you were over him.”
“Of course I am,” she insisted, horrified that anyone would think she was still pining for that horrible excuse for a man. “I’m just trying to be careful.”
“If that was a careful kiss, I would love to see what a dangerous one looks like,” he teased.
So would I, she thought, despite knowing better. So would I.
* * *
Between the kiss Jack had given her this afternoon and the one from Friday night, Mary knew he had made his intentions abundantly clear. If she couldn’t resist temptation, then she’d just have to make sure not to put herself in its path. She was not a young, naive girl anymore who would melt into a puddle at a few sexy words from a good-looking man. If anything, her experiences with love had hardened her to the point that sexy words were far more likely to put her on her guard.
And yet, all weekend—and then all day today during the shoot—she’d been replaying his sinfully sexy words: Next time you invite me in, I’m going to make love to you.
She didn’t think he had said it to shock her or even to turn her on.
He’d simply said what he was feeling…and what he clearly believed would happen the next time they were alone together in her house.
When she and Gerry finally wrapped the shoot, Howie and Larry got up out of their chairs and showered her with compliments. She tried to be gracious as she thanked them, but at the same time, she wondered where Jack was. Would they think it was strange if she asked about him?
Fortunately, before she could make a lovesick fool out of herself, Howie said, “Jack had to take care of some urgent business back at the garage.” He turned red as he realized what he’d just admitted to her about where they worked. “I mean, our office. But he said for you to call him if you need anything at all.”
Despite the fact that Mary had been reminding herself again and again all afternoon that she and Jack needed to keep their distance, disappointment came swift and strong.
“We’re going to help Gerry get his equipment loaded into his van,” Larry said. “Can we give you a lift anywhere after that?”
She shook her head. “Thanks, but I’ve got some errands to run. I’ll see you both at the commercial shoot in a few days.”
After kissing Gerry goodbye on the cheek, she wound her scarf tightly around her neck and shoved on her hat. Yesterday she’d needed a brisk walk through the city to try to walk off her attraction to Jack. Today, she needed to try to burn through her irritation with herself…and to keep herself away from the phone so that she wouldn’t give in to the temptation to take him up on his offer to call if she needed anything.
Because, Lord help her, she needed him.
* * *
By the time Mary arrived home her feet were killing her, and all she wanted to do was collapse into a bubble bath with a glass of wine and a good book.
So what if kissing Jack again sounded a thousand times better than the bath-wine-book combo? She’d just have to get over it.
It was incredibly comforting to come home to a house full of voices. She was going to miss the girls a great deal when they headed to their respective homes for the holidays.
The scent in the air was one that always reminded her of Italy at Christmas. “You bought a tree,” she exclaimed as she walked into the living room.
Yvette grinned down at her from her perch on top of the ladder. “Surprise!”
Janeen put on a Christmas record and pulled Mary into an impromptu jig that made her momentarily forget that she wished she were somewhere else, with someone else.
“We’ve got cookies and eggnog, too,” Susan said from the kitchen.
After Mary went into her room to put down her things and take off her heels, Susan handed her a glass so that they could toast each other. “To you, Mary, for taking all of us in and giving us a home away from home.”
Mary hadn’t spent Christmas with her family for the past thirteen years, but tonight she felt as if she was finally part of a family again. As they clinked their glasses together, she was afraid she would spoil the moment by crying, but then Yvette said, “We’re dying to find out how your shoot went today with the gorgeous Mr. Sullivan.”
“It went fine,” she said in her primmest voice.
“Ooh,” Janeen said, not fooled in the least, “you’re blushing.”
Mary lifted her free hand to her face and felt how hot it was. “We’re just business associates,” she protested.
“From the way the two of you look at each other,” Susan noted, “it sure seems like more than just business.”
Mary hadn’t realized they’d been that obvious when she’d invited him inside the other night. But she had just finished dancing with him in the rain, and it had been so wonderful, how could she not have stars in her eyes?
“He kissed me.”
Everyone’s eyes grew big—including Mary’s—at what she’d just admitted.
She was supposed to be setting a good example for the young models, which meant teaching them that it was a bad idea to get involved with a business associate. But her long walk home through the city hadn’t done a darn thing to push away the memory of how it had felt to have Jack’s hands in her hair, his hard heat against her, his delicious mouth pressing against hers.
“I’ll bet he’s a great kisser, isn’t he?” Yvette said with a dreamy look on her pretty face.
This was Mary’s chance to explain to them what a mistake the kisses she’d shared with Jack had been. Instead, she nodded and said, “The best.”
As a group, the girls spontaneously hugged her. “When are you going to see him again?”
“I’ll be shooting a TV commercial for his new invention in a few days. I’m sure he’ll be there.” She hoped her voice sounded more nonchalant than she felt. How on earth was she going to make it through a handful of days without seeing Jack? Especially when he was all she could think about…
“Or, you could call him now and invite him over tonight,” Janeen suggested. “We wouldn’t mind having a gorgeous man in our midst, would we, girls?”
Needing to do something with her hands so that she didn’t pick up the phone and call him right that very second, Mary lifted a sparkly ornament and walked over to the tree to hang it on a branch. “We’ve agreed to keep things professional between us until the campaign wraps up.”
Susan gave her a very knowing look for a nineteen-year-old. “Stolen kisses are the best kind, aren’t they?”
“They weren’t—” she began, before admitting, “Okay, they were stolen.” And Susan was right—his kisses were the very best of Mary’s life. “But they were the last ones I’m going to let him steal until after we wrap up the campaign.”
From the doubtful looks on their faces, Mary knew she looked even less convincing than she sounded.
“Personally,” Yvette said as she lifted her drink to her lips, “I prefer forbidden kisses.”
Mary had been intent on letting the conversation peter out, but now she turned from the tree and pinned Yvette with a laser-sharp gaze. “Who are you having forbidden kisses with?”
Yvette reached into the box of ornaments so that Mary couldn’t see her face as she muttered, “No one,” but it hadn’t been that long since Mary was nineteen, and she knew better th
an most about being headstrong and foolish. Maybe, she thought, she should tell them about her mistakes. But with the Christmas carols playing and their laughter ringing out, she didn’t want to ruin the evening with what would surely sound like a lecture.
Not for the first time since the three models had moved in with her, Mary realized what her mother must have gone through. How did you give advice to someone you cared about without ruining your relationship? And what could you possibly say to get a young woman with the entire world at her feet to listen to your advice without storming out in a huff?
Hopefully, one day when Mary had children of her own, she’d have some of the answers.
Chapter Eight
Over the course of the next few days, Mary not only gave dozens of radio, print and TV interviews about the Pocket Planner, but she and Gerry traveled all through San Francisco taking pictures of her using it in different parts of the city. After the handful of kisses Jack had stolen from her—and especially given how quickly her resistance had fallen both times—Mary knew she should be glad for this break from seeing him to regain her sanity. Before Jack Sullivan had walked into her life, she’d been perfectly fine. Content. Comfortable.
Mary frowned. Was that what her supposedly glamorous, jet-setting life had turned into? Fine, content, comfortable? If that was all she had to show for her adventurous life, had it really been worth turning her back on her old life? After all, she could have stayed in Italy and gotten married to the first boy who proposed and ended up with fine, content and comfortable.
She was so lost in her turbulent thoughts that she walked right into Gerry’s studio and opened the door to his darkroom without paying attention to the red light above the door.
“Shut the door!”
Some photographers were yellers, but not Gerry. In fact, she couldn’t ever remember him raising his voice…until now. Mary slammed the door shut behind her, but Gerry was already swearing over the print he’d lost because of her stupid mistake.