Watching You

by Leslie A. Kelly

  The bear reacted, grabbing her by the waist and lifting her onto the table she’d been leaning against. Although he was manhandling her, and frustration made his eyes darken to near brown, he was careful not to hurt her. “Apparently I don’t when it comes to you.”

  He drew in a deep, audible breath, pulling back, dropping his hands. She almost saw the cogs turning in his brain as he regretted the quick lapse into emotion and reined himself in. It was fascinating to suddenly be able to read someone who been so enigmatic a short time ago.

  Their breaths were the only sounds in the room. She saw his jaw flex as he gritted his teeth, and the way his body tensed and tightened. Nothing about his mood or his body language frightened her. She knew the battle being waged was purely inside him. He hated to lose control. She had gotten under his skin, taunted him into reacting without thinking, and he didn’t like it.

  The tension was unnerving, and she wondered if she’d pushed him too far. Perhaps he’d decided she and her sticky breasts were not worth the effort, and he was about to storm out of here, go downstairs, and pick up one of those Hollywood bimbos she mentioned. One whose nipples weren’t superglued to a rubber covering.

  Finally, though, a long, low exhalation eased from his mouth. He rubbed a hand over his jaw and rolled his shoulders back in a slow stretch. He’d gotten back the control he’d so briefly lost. He didn’t head for the door; he merely offered her the slightest smile.

  She almost sighed in relief, at least until he licked his lips, and she saw his smile was the half-quirked, dangerous kind. The gleam in his eyes as he stared down at her was all the warning she needed. Predator.

  This prey again regretted baiting him. But she was also more excited than she’d ever been.

  He lifted his hand and ran his fingertip across the slope of her breast. Though it was only the faintest scrape of skin on skin, and much of his touch was blocked by the tape, she quivered in response.

  “Still think it’s funny?” he asked, bending down to lick along the same path. His tongue was hot and wet, and she wanted to cry as he slid it over her nipples, covered by the hateful barrier, just thick enough to prevent her nerve endings from soaking up the sensation. “Because I, for one, am not amused that I can’t suck you and leave my mark on you.”

  Jess forgot how to breathe.

  Stepping between her parted legs, he pushed her back until she was lying on the table, braced by her elbows. She was quaking now. Unable to say a word, she watched and felt him kiss his way down her front.

  “What about now, Jessica? Still laughing?” he whispered against her midriff.

  “No,” she managed to choke out.

  Oh, no. She was not laughing. And neither was he.

  His warm, strong hands dropped onto her thighs, his thumbs stroking the inside. They began to move up. And up. Meanwhile his hot mouth continued to move down. And down.

  She arched toward what she wanted. Everything within her not already soft and wet got that way at once. She groaned as he dipped his tongue into her belly button, and his thumbs moved under the elastic of her skimpy panties to tangle in the curls between her legs.

  Close. Oh, God, he was so close. She almost screamed with the need for him to move his hand the teeny, tiniest bit. The faintest brush of his fingertips was going to send her into the stratosphere, and she wanted that touch more than she wanted to live until the sun rose.

  As for his mouth…she wasn’t sure she could even take it.

  “Please, Reece.”

  “I like hearing you say my name,” he growled.

  She’d repeat it a hundred times if necessary. Pride was long gone. She didn’t even care that she was nearly naked while he wore a perfect, unmussed suit. It might look wicked to anyone who walked in on them, but she truly didn’t care, she just needed him to…

  As if her own imaginings had brought calamity on them, the door to the room suddenly swung open. Jess had just enough time to gasp and leap off the table. Reece stepped smoothly in front of her, blocking most of her from view, before the overhead light switched on, flooding the interior with bright illumination.

  She peeked around Reece’s broad shoulders. Two men stood in the doorway. One of them was Sid Loman. The gallery manager met her eye, and she swore for a second she saw a smirk on his face. That was probably because of the second man, who held a professional-looking camera. A camera he was using.

  Son of a bitch. This intrusion was intentional—a complete setup.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Reece barked.

  “M-Mr. Winchester,” Sid stammered. “Uh, I had no idea anyone was in here. I was giving a private tour of the gallery to a member of the press.”

  The guy wasn’t merely a perv; he was also a crappy liar. The interruption was for his own amusement or financial gain. If the creep hadn’t set this up to try to embarrass Reece, and her—who’d barely given him the time of day when he’d made a few fumbling come-ons—and to make a fast buck from a guy who looked like pure paparazzi, she’d eat her boob tape.

  “The press.” The very word sneered. “Miller, I thought you and I had an agreement.”

  The photographer clicked away, trying to edge around to get a better shot at naked little old her. Jess glued herself to Reece’s back, clinging more tenaciously than the stick-on bra.

  “I had no idea you’d be in here, Winchester,” the intruder said, still photographing.

  “Take another step and you’re going to have to sue me again.”

  The tone was so calm, so reasonable, it took a second for the words to sink in. The photographer had sued him? Why would he have to…Oh. She got it. The two men had tangled before. Physically, she suspected.

  “Don’t do anything you might regret,” Miller said.

  “I never have regrets.” Reece’s calm voice was belied by the rigid tension of his body. He was ready to fight, she could feel it in the flex of his muscles, and hear it in the seething anger disguised by the rational-man conversation. “How much did you pay for your camera?”

  “A lot,” the guy said.

  “I’d like to have one. Maybe I could buy it from you. Would thirty thousand cover it?”

  Jess was so shocked she lurched back, forgetting she was naked but for some tape on her breasts, skimpy panties, and spiked heels. Unfortunately, her legs were still shaky from what they’d been doing before the interruption, and she stumbled. Before she could land on her ass and make this situation go from bad to abso-fucking-lutely mortifying by landing spread eagle on the floor in front of three men, Reece saved her. He swung around, turning his back to the men, and put his steadying hands on her hips. “Are you okay?”

  “Don’t you dare let that man extort you!” she snapped.

  “I don’t like my privacy invaded.” He kept his voice low, intimate, and his eyes softened as he looked down into hers.

  “Seems to me mine is the privacy being invaded.” She glared over Reece’s shoulder. “And, buddy, if you even think about selling naked pictures of me to the tabloids, I will sue your ass so hard you won’t even have time to say the words peddling pornography.”

  “Let me handle this.”

  “He can’t sell naked pictures of people, not if I don’t sign a model release or something.”

  “Do you think female stars who make the mistake of going out without underwear sign releases before their crotch shots spread all over the internet?”

  Oh. Right. Though she never kept up with such gossipy garbage, even she had heard of a few A-listers whose privacy had been so brutally invaded.

  “You’re disgusting,” she said to the cameraman. He was young—early twenties, maybe. She memorized his face for her hit list in case she ever decided to become an assassin.

  “Guy’s gotta earn a living.”

  “Do we have a deal, Miller?” Reece asked, his back still to the other men.

  “I think I could part with this equipment for thirty grand.”

  Reece still didn’t turn aro
und; he was focused only on Jessica. “Done. Put the camera on the table and get out. My office will take care of the payment.”

  Although infuriated by this blatant extortion, Jess didn’t interfere. She also, however, didn’t take her eyes off the photographer as he unlooped his camera from around his neck and placed it down as directed. No way would she trust him not to try to slip out a memory card.

  “If those pictures turn up, I’ll know where they came from,” Reece said, continuing to shield her bare body from anyone else’s view. He sounded calmer, but his arms, to which she clung, continued to flex and bulge with tension and protective anger.

  “They won’t,” the guy said. He nodded at her and smiled. “Nice to, uh, meet you?”

  “Go to hell,” she snapped.

  Offering Sid a shrug, he headed out the door. The manager started to follow, but Reece, his sixth sense apparently in overdrive, barked, “Don’t you move.”

  “Me?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Pull your dress up,” he said, his voice low, “while I deal with this.”

  He turned slowly, shifting on his heel, providing a concealing barrier for her as he pivoted around to face his employee. His body was broad enough for her to quickly bend down, grab her dress, and yank it up into place. She had the willies just thinking of creepy Sid seeing any more of her than he already had.

  Focusing on shoving herself back into her clothes, she missed the first few words of the conversation, but there was no mistaking it when Reece said, “You’re fired.”

  Sid’s eyes bulged. “You wouldn’t…”

  “I just did.”

  “But you can’t!”

  “Of course I can. You’ll get a month’s severance. Sharon is more soft-hearted than I am, so I suspect you’ll also get whatever commissions are owed to you from tonight. But I want you out of here immediately.”

  Heat washed the older man red, right down to the too-tight collar of his dress shirt. “I’ll sue you for wrongful termination.”

  “You signed a privacy contract,” Reece retorted. “Bringing a photographer up here, to the staff-only part of the gallery, violated it. That’s sufficient grounds for termination.”

  The other man’s mouth opened and closed, then Sid visibly deflated as he realized his catastrophic error. “Look, it was a mistake. You can’t hold me responsible. How was I supposed to know what you were up to in here?”

  Oh, she had no doubt the creep had known exactly what they were up to. Jess’s skin crawled thinking about it.

  Reece, as if knowing she was now covered, walked away from her, stalking toward the other man, punctuating each angry step with an equally angry word. “It wasn’t a mistake.”

  Sid lurched back, but Reece was in his face now, towering over him, so physically intimidating that Jess felt nervous for the perv. But only a little.

  “You were trying to set us up. You hoped to make some quick cash and humiliate a woman who didn’t want anything to do with you.”

  The man’s eyes darted toward her, narrowing in anger. “What has she said to you?”

  “Only enough to make me wonder what other women you’ve harassed.”

  “You need me,” the other man pleaded.

  “I need you like I need a rodent infestation in this building. Frankly, I wonder if there already was one. Were you actually watching us like some filthy rat, waiting for the right moment to walk in?”

  If flames could spew out of someone’s eyes, Reece would be in need of an asbestos jacket. Sid looked enraged as he sputtered. But suddenly, his attention shifted. He cast a quick glance toward the rear corner of the room and visibly calmed down. It was like watching a switch flip as he retreated back into the role of smarmy manager. “I’ll go collect my things.”

  Reece grunted and turned away from the older, smaller man. “Your things will be held for you. You can come back for them tomorrow. Put your keys on the table and go.”

  “But I need…”

  “Do you think I’m stupid?” He swung around again, his anger reigniting. Now it was an almost tangible, electric presence in the room. She suddenly realized Reece had turned his back on Sid to try to let the man get away before his rage could completely engulf him. “Do you think I’m going to leave you free to wander around and worm your way into Sharon’s office so you can download a copy of the security tape from this room?”

  Gasping, she realized what, exactly, Sid might have been looking at before the little smirk. Spinning around, she confirmed her worst fears, noting the small security camera in the back corner, hugging the ceiling. It was just like the ones downstairs that monitored every inch of the gallery floor. She hadn’t even noticed this one when they’d come in. It would have a clear view of every part of the room. Including the table on which she’d been lying, spread out and nearly naked, like a pagan sacrifice.

  The whole truth washed over her. The comment Reece had made about a rodent watching them hadn’t been rhetorical. The disgusting manager and his paparazzi cohort might have borne witness, through the lens, to everything they’d done.

  A cry rose in her throat and threatened to choke her. She had to lift her fist to her lips to hold it in. Jess was not entirely successful. Because, suddenly, something else popped into her mind, and her sob erupted from her mouth in a low, harsh whimper.

  There’d been a moment earlier when Reece had glanced behind him, toward that corner of this room. He’d known the security camera was there. He’d looked at it and had to know it was recording. And he’d still gone ahead and…and…oh, God.

  Humiliation poured into her as she remembered how blatant and erotic the interlude had been. She’d been utterly exposed, not only to him, but to the prying eyes of an electronic spy, one to which Sid, Sharon, and who knew who else—maybe the security guy—had access.

  “I didn’t even remember there was a camera in here.” The man smirked. “And I wonder if your guest knew there was one,” Sid said, sounding smug as he lobbed the verbal grenade.

  He had reason to. It had definitely exploded, erupting in the middle of the room and destroying the moment. Exactly as the pig had wanted.

  He left. Reece didn’t try to stop him, didn’t say anything. Neither did Jess.

  She couldn’t speak, could barely think. All she knew was she was standing alone with a man she’d been about to have sex with…the complete stranger she’d fantasized into something he obviously was not. Far from being a hero, a character from one of his movies, the famous director was apparently as much of a creep as Sid. He’d planned to videotape them having sex, and she would never have known. He could have done anything with that tape—kept it, shared it, posted it on the internet. Her life could have been ruined, her career here in Hollywood definitely so. In some respects, she supposed she should thank Sid. He’d stopped her from making the worst mistake of her life.

  Now there was just one thing to do. Walk away from Reece Winchester and pray to God she never set eyes on him again.

  * * *

  For a long moment, Reece stared at the door through which Sid had departed, calling himself ten kinds of fool. He’d handled this whole thing so badly—made mistake after mistake, from the moment he’d laid eyes on her through the security system. The very first day, two months ago, he should have gone downstairs and introduced himself. Looking back, it seemed so logical, so easy, and he would hate himself for a long time for not doing that. It was his own arrogance—his desire to set the stage, to put her in a gown, in jewels, in the rich setting she deserved—that had fucked all this up. He’d been going for the long scene, the payoff moment, not just taking things as they came, putting out his hand and saying hello.

  His brothers said he thought too much. Planned too much.

  Right now, he’d have to say he agreed with them.

  He finally turned to face her. “Jessica, I’m—”

  She responded by slapping him right across the face. Hard. So hard his ears rang. He didn’t react, knowing he’d des
erved it.

  “How could you? Is this your typical seduction routine?”

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “I should have known. You can have any woman who catches your eye…and do just about anything to her. Including secretly taping her, humiliating her, ruining her.”

  “I didn’t do it intentionally.”

  “Are you going to try to tell me you didn’t remember the camera was on?” She sounded the tiniest bit hopeful, but then frowned. “But I saw you look back there.”

  “I knew it was there, and that it was on.”

  She lifted a hand to slap him again. He remained still, ready to let her do it.

  The hand dropped. Instead of lashing out physically, she took a deep breath, lifted her chin, and turned toward the door. She was going to walk out of here without another word.

  He put a hand on her shoulder. “I intended to erase the tape.”

  “Oh, sure you did.” She swung around and glared. “You were carried away, huh?”

  “I swear it. I remembered it was there after it was too late and made a mental note to erase it later.”

  “Don’t bother lying, Mr. Great Director,” she snapped. “I should have realized this was a setup as soon as you admitted you lured me in here after seeing me through the security camera.”

  That sounded bad. Really bad. Sid-the-Creep bad.

  Reece thrust a hand into his hair, frustration making him shake. “Look, those two didn’t see anything except you ducking behind me,” he insisted. “The overhead lights were off when they came in. As for the camera, they couldn’t have seen anything. The video monitors are in Sharon’s office, which was shut and locked. An alarm rings when it’s opened with anybody’s key but hers and mine. Sid gambled on walking in here and catching us.”

  “Doing exactly what we were doing? As if he knew because you do this all the time?”

  “Absolutely not.” He stared at her, silently urging her to believe him. “The point is, nobody was watching, and nobody else would ever have seen that recording.”

  “Until when? Were you going to have a party and invite friends over for a viewing?”