Belatedly she registered that she was staring, that her nipples were once more erect, and that she hadn’t taken a note for five minutes.
This was the last problem she’d expected to have with Dylan Anderson. She hated him. Or, at the very least, she despised the boy he’d once been. The package he came wrapped in shouldn’t make an ounce of difference to her. But—apparently—it did.
It was a fairly shameful discovery to make about herself, and it made her more terse than she’d planned to be when she began her revision of Dylan’s pitch.
“This situation with J.B., Loni’s old school flame. How far were you planning on taking their flirtation?” she asked abruptly.
“I was thinking a kiss. A kiss that Kirk walks in on,” Dylan said.
“I can see how that would be the obvious way to go,” Sadie said. Dylan’s eyes flickered as he registered her subtle put-down. “I think you need to be careful about making Loni look easy. He may be an old flame, but J.B.’s a new character for our audience. They want her to be with Kirk, not J.B. They’re going to see her as a scarlet woman if she kisses him.”
“I don’t have a problem with that. We can redeem her. There are a million ways to do it, especially once the baby is in the picture,” Dylan argued.
“I disagree. I think you can have your cake and eat it, too. Have a close moment between Loni and J.B., but have her back off, explaining she’s too confused to get involved with anyone. Then have Kirk walk in on a later moment that looks damning, but the audience knows isn’t.”
Claudia shot her a searching look before speaking up. “I like both angles, to be honest. I guess the question is, which do we think is more in line with Loni’s character?”
One of the team, Luke, piped up next.
“Loni loves Kirk. She always has. I don’t think she’d look twice at another guy, old flame or not.”
The discussion took on a life of its own and Sadie dared a glance across at Dylan. He wasn’t watching the others, however—he was studying her with a hard glint in his eye.
She looked away from the promise and the threat in his gaze. She could handle him. Of course she could.
DYLAN WAS SO RILED by lunchtime he had to do something or explode with frustration. Dragging his running kit from his bike panniers, he pulled on shorts, tank top and sneakers and took off for a long, soothing run along the Santa Monica beach.
He tried to push Sadie’s triumphant face from his mind as he pounded the sand. The way she’d sat there through the pitch meeting, sniping at him, using her superior knowledge of the show to shoot him down. Not a single word had passed her lips about the level of conflict, emotion and sophistication he’d brought to the stories. He knew he was doing good work. The team was excited, Claudia was excited. But Sadie wasn’t giving an inch.
It was typical of her, but he was going to force her to acknowledge him if it took the full six months to do it. And he was going to fight every battle toe-to-toe with her, no matter how small or insignificant the point. Which was why when the block was plotted this week, Loni was going to kiss her old school flame, J.B. If Sadie wanted to push the issue, they could take things up a notch. He was more than ready to go the distance.
“Hey, Dylan! You trying to outrun the devil or something, you crazy ass?” a voice called from behind him.
Dylan slowed his pace and turned to see his old writing buddy, Olly, approaching red-faced across the sand.
“I’ve been chasing and calling after you for five minutes, you bastard, and you didn’t stop,” Olly said, doubling over as he tried to catch his breath.
“Didn’t hear you. Should have run faster, Olly,” Dylan teased.
“Yeah, yeah. We weren’t all born with stilts for legs,” Olly said good-naturedly, gesturing to his own hairy, stocky limbs disparagingly.
“Don’t tell me you got yourself fired already?” Dylan joked. Olly had famously been fired on the first day of a new job because he’d offended the show’s temperamental lead actress by not recognizing her.
“Working from home on the plot. But thanks for the words of encouragement.”
“Any time.”
They fell into a slow jog as they turned toward the pier.
“How are you enjoying your break, you lucky SOB?” Olly asked.
“Says the man who’s just come off two years of freelancing,” Dylan reminded him.
“Yeah, freelancing—not lying around doing nothing for two months,” Olly said enviously.
“Like that was what I was going to do. Anyway, save your envy gland, my time off is on hold. I took a temporary contract with Ocean Boulevard.”
To his surprise, Olly stopped in his tracks.
“No way!” he said, looking bemused.
“Yeah, way.”
“That’s so weird. I had a call this morning from their script producer, Sadie Post. She wanted to know if I was available to come in-house. I assumed she was talking about story ed work, but it must have been something else, yeah?”
Dylan clenched his teeth as he processed what Olly had revealed.
Sadie had called Olly that morning to offer him Dylan’s job. Nice. Really freaking nice.
An odd sort of satisfaction gripped him. This was the kind of thing he’d expected from the adult Sadie Post—the grownup version of how she’d operated in high school. It was good to see she wasn’t going to disappoint. And it might—at last—kill off his body’s absurd desire to rub bits with her. At the moment, he couldn’t imagine being aroused by her ever again.
“Hey. What’s up?” Olly asked. “Have I put my foot in it?”
Dylan forced a smile. “Nah. Just more TV bullshit. You know how it is,” he said.
But he brooded on Sadie’s sneakery all the way back to the office and all through his shower. By the time he was dressed again and ready to start the afternoon’s plot meeting, he’d built up a righteous head of anger.
Perhaps if Claudia and Sadie had caught him at any other time, he’d have been able to bite his tongue. But when he bumped into them on his way back to his office to dump his sweaty running clothes, he was in no mood to be fair or circumspect.
“Hey, great meeting this morning,” Claudia said. “I’m really pleased with the way you guys are going.”
“Thanks,” Dylan said shortly. Praise was always nice, but what he really wanted right now was a fight. He eyed Sadie angrily, aching to let slip that he knew what she’d been up to.
“I’m not blowing smoke up your yoo-hoo,” Claudia said, obviously sensing his distraction. “You’ve really hit the ground running. It’s like you’ve been here for years.”
Sadie didn’t say a word, her closed-lipped silence delivering her verdict on his performance. Suddenly the perfect form of revenge popped into his mind.
“I’m glad you feel that way, Claudia,” he said smoothly. “I wanted to run an idea past you.”
He quirked an eyebrow at Sadie before he continued, a nonverbal up yours to cue her in to what he was about to do. She was quick on the uptake, and her back stiffened as she glared at him in outrage.
“How would you feel about producing a feature-length episode for the peak winter period? A stand-alone story that also feeds into our other episodes?”
Claudia’s face lit up. “Hey, I like the sound of that. What do you think, Sadie?” Claudia asked, looking to her friend for her reaction.
Sadie shot daggers at him, her jaw clenched so tightly he could see the muscles working beneath the skin.
He smiled for the first time since Olly had inadvertently let it slip that Sadie had tried to shaft him.
“It was one of those things that just came to me,” Dylan said brightly before Sadie could speak up. “I was out jogging with my old buddy Olly Jones at lunchtime, and it simply popped into my head.”
The look of outrage was replaced with a guilty caught-out expression as Sadie picked up on his none-too-subtle hint. He winked at her. Gotcha.
“I’d have to sound out the network, bu
t there’s no reason why they wouldn’t be keen.” Again Claudia looked to Sadie for her reaction, and Dylan crossed his arms over his chest and waited.
“That all sounds like a really…interesting idea,” Sadie finally said, shaking her head. She looked as though she was spitting out ground glass.
“I know it will add to the department’s load, but you’ve got some ex-story-liners who are happy to fill in on a locum basis, haven’t you?” Claudia asked, clearly taken with his idea.
“Um, yeah,” Sadie said.
“Hey, that’s excellent. I’m really pleased you liked the idea, Claudia,” Dylan said, just to rub it in a little more.
“Definitely. We’ll have to explore it further, of course, but if everything checks out I think we should go for it.”
“Excellent,” he said. Smiling broadly, he lifted his hand in a casual salute. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d better get back to my day job.”
He shot Sadie one last, overly bright smile before he headed off, his eyes delivering the real message: screw you, lady.
Whistling quietly, he sauntered back to his team.
SADIE SEETHED for the rest of the afternoon. The sneaking, stinking, slithering snake! The way he’d stood there, cool as a cucumber, pushing her and Claudia around like pieces on a chess board. She wanted to tear him limb from limb.
Her blood had run cold when he’d mentioned Olly Jones’s name. What were the odds? She was the unluckiest woman on the planet. First the wedding, then Dylan turning up on her doorstep and now this—it was almost as though she were cursed. She’d never intended to go through with her stupid plan to oust him—but he’d never believe that, even if she lowered herself enough to tell him so. Which she wouldn’t. Even if it meant she looked like the worst kind of conniving TV backstabber.
It wasn’t only that he’d back-doored her. Even though she had her own personal prejudices where he was concerned, she acknowledged that he’d had a right to be pissed with her about what she’d sort of thought about doing. It was the way he’d gone about getting his own back. So smug. So clever. So in charge. It made her want to kick something—preferably his ass. Her mind kept flashing to how he’d looked as he laid his idea in front of Claudia: dark hair still wet from the shower, color in his cheeks from his run. He’d smelled fresh and powerful and vital. That was the worst of it, really—the whole time he’d been running circles around her, shafting her to her face, she’d been surreptitiously ogling him, measuring his thighs with her eyes, imagining what his chest looked like, flashing back to that time in the showers when she’d seen exactly how well equipped he was to be the school stud.
A brisk knock on her open door brought her head up. Claudia flashed a big grin.
“I’m on my way home, but I thought I’d let you know we’re on for Dylan’s feature idea. I’ve spoken to the network and cleared it with the big guys at our end. How cool is that?” she said, clearly excited at the prospect of taking on such a daring project so early in her reign.
“Fantastic,” Sadie said through gritted teeth.
It was well and truly time to go home, but she stared at her desk for a good ten minutes after Claudia had gone, grinding her teeth and clenching and unclenching her fists.
She hated that he’d come into her world and turned everything upside down. She couldn’t stand what he did to her equilibrium, the way her body reacted when he was close, the way he made her feel young and vulnerable and exposed again.
Abruptly she stood, her eyes narrowing. She knew exactly what she had to do. It was inevitable, probably had been since the moment he’d walked in the door.
She strode into his office unannounced. He was standing beside his desk, packing up his notebook computer for the day. His head came up as she kicked his door shut with her cowboy-booted foot. Grabbing the guest chair, she wedged it under the door handle to ensure they weren’t interrupted.
“You took your time,” he said coolly.
She narrowed her eyes at him.
“God, I hate you. Everything about you. The way you walk into a room and own it straightaway. The way you’re never at a loss. That stupid, cocky smile—God, I really hate that,” she said. All the while, her fingers were busy at her shirtfront, sliding buttons free.
Shrugging out of her shirt, she dropped it to the ground. He stood rock-still, but his eyes dropped to her breasts like heat-seeking missiles.
“You’re not exactly my favorite person, either,” he said, hands going to the hem of his T-shirt.
She planted herself in front of him as he peeled it over his head.
“What you did with Claudia this afternoon—sleazy is being generous,” she said, reaching out to grab a handful of his hard chest.
“Right, ’cause you’re pure as the driven snow,” he said harshly, grabbing her and hauling her against his body. “You just can’t stand it because someone is fighting back for a change.”
“Arrogant pig,” she snapped at him.
“Conniving bitch,” he fired back.
And then his hands were in her hair and he was tilting back her head and sliding his tongue into her mouth with a take-no-prisoners urgency that took her breath away.
4
HE COULDN’T GET ENOUGH of her. The thought raced through his mind as he angled her head farther back, deepening his penetration of her mouth. Her tongue danced with his, countering each thrust with an attack of her own. Her hands curled around his biceps, pulling him closer, and her hips ground against his, the action a pale imitation of what he needed from her right now.
He pulled her full bottom lip into his mouth. She moaned low in her throat and dug her fingernails into the muscles of his back. He swept a path across her cheek to the sensitive skin beneath her ear, laving her neck then biting her. Her hips bucked against his and she slid a hand down his back to grab his butt and drag him even more tightly against her.
He needed more. He needed skin, had to taste her, know her, have her. He pulled back, and she made a small animal sound of frustration. He stared into her glittering eyes, taking in the rapid rise and fall of her breasts as she gasped for breath, the flush on her cheekbones, the tumbled, sexy mess of her hair.
She was everything he hated in a woman. But he was going to have her…or die trying.
“This has to go,” he ordered, reaching for the zip on her skirt.
“You first,” she said, hands homing in on his belt buckle. He was so hard, he felt as though he was going to burst right through his jeans, and within seconds she was sliding a hand inside his boxers and grasping his swollen shaft.
He groaned, his hands reaching for her breasts in retaliation. Imagining how they looked, how they felt, had been driving him wild since the moment he saw her, and he slid his hands over them with a groan of satisfaction. She closed her eyes and bit her lip as he squeezed them firmly before seeking her already-hard nipples with his thumbs.
“Yes,” she whispered, the one word filled with a world of hungry intensity and demand.
Her grip tightened on his erection and her movements intensified. What was left of his self-control snapped. All he registered was need. He had to be inside her. Now. He wanted to possess her, own her, defeat her. He moved forward, pushing her back onto his desk. She went willingly, her legs spreading to accommodate him as he pressed closer. Lowering his head, he tongued her nipple through the lace of her sexy white bra. She responded by increasing her tempo as she worked his shaft and fisting her other hand into the loosened waistband of his jeans to drag him closer still.
Trembling with desire, he raced a hand up her thigh and beneath her miniskirt, spreading her legs wider as he sought the heat of her. He gave a grunt of satisfaction as he found the damp satin of her panties. She was hot and ready for him. Impatient, he slid his fingers beneath the elastic and dipped into the warm, wet velvet between her thighs.
Nothing was going to stop him from conquering her.
SADIE GASPED with satisfaction as he probed her inner lips with knowing f
ingers. She hated him, but she wanted him. She had to have him. She was mindless with need. She was beyond thought, beyond speech. All she knew was that he had something she had to have, and she released her grip on his stunningly hard erection to grasp the other side of his loosened waistband and drag him into place with both hands.
“Now,” she demanded. “Now.”
The gaze he shot her was fierce, devoid of anything except need, but she didn’t care. She wanted only one thing from him—and at the moment that one thing was pressing against her panties, a hard, hot remedy for the desperate ache inside her.
She listened impatiently to the crinkle of a foil packet opening, then he tugged her panties roughly to one side. She felt the first nudge of his hardness against her softness. Then—
She gasped as he filled her, stretched her, almost pushed her over the edge. He was big and thick, and she greedily took him all, quickly adjusting to and then glorying in his penetration. He let out a hiss of satisfaction as he plunged to the hilt, then his free hand slicked up her torso to shove her bra out of the way so he could touch her breasts unhindered.
She wrapped her legs around his hips and crossed her ankles behind his back, ensuring he wasn’t going anywhere until she took what she wanted from him.
And then he began to move. A confident, needful thrusting that exactly echoed her own wants. His head ducked and she closed her eyes and bit her lip as his mouth found her bare breast at last.
So good. It was exquisite torture: the hardness of him inside her, stroking her, the roughness of his tongue on her nipples, the urgency of his hands as they grasped her hips. She ran her own hands up and down his back, relishing the flex and release of muscle as he pumped into her. Tension ratcheted tight inside her, faster than it ever had before. She followed her instincts and closed her eyes, reveling in every sensation as she laved his strong neck with her tongue, tasting his essence. Glimpsing heaven behind the darkness of her closed eyelids, she urged him greedily on.
“Harder,” she demanded, opening her eyes to lock gazes with him. “Faster.”
Take on Me Page 7