“I don’t want to push you into shots you don’t want, so tell me to back off when I’m out of line.”
“I’m always up for a better idea. You didn’t mind the multiple takes?”
“Not at all. I want to do this right. Like I said.”
“Yeah.” He paused, lost in her steady, green eyes. “Like you said.”
“So, am I giving you what you need?”
Not yet, but I have some ideas…. He cleared his throat. “You’re doing great.”
“Except that extra interview threw us off,” Eve said, evidently listening in. “We have to keep on schedule or the shoot spirals out of control, JJ.”
“You’re so tough, Eve. Mistress Mona could take lessons,” Brody said, trying to tease away his producer’s edginess.
“What’s the deal with Eve and me?” JJ muttered very low.
“Later,” he said softly, then raised his tone to a conversational level. “So now on to condoms, right? I’ll ask the guy about what’s new—materials, shapes, colors, textures—and find out what’s popular these days.”
“Here’s an idea,” JJ said. “What if we also interview women about the features? Cut back and forth from the factory guy describing the item to the users’ take on the feature.”
“That’s pretty arty for Doctor Nite.” He shook his head in mock disapproval. “But we want to stay fresh, right, Eve?” He leaned forward to involve her in the conversation.
“We’d need samples from the factory. And what women would we use?” Eve asked, then answered her own question, clearly intrigued by the challenge. “Privilege has tons of models. It could work. I just wish you’d think of these things earlier.”
“Come on. You know you love to perform last-minute miracles, Eve.” She’d do anything to make the show better. He winked at JJ, who shot him a thumbs-up.
He liked that. It felt like the old days, when the nutty chaos and crazy energy of location shoots had energized rather than exhausted him. It was all due to JJ—her skill, ideas and liveliness. At the moment, despite how distracting she was, he was glad he’d hired her.
BY THE TIME they pulled into the driveway of the Xanadu at close to midnight, JJ was physically and emotionally wiped out. Physically, her shoulders throbbed from all the handheld work and schlepping her heavy tripod—it had better fluid heads for panning.
Emotionally, she’d been on a roller coaster. Bondage School had been surreal, but she’d maintained her professionalism. The condom factory had been fascinating. Then they’d hit the bars and started on the typical Doctor Nite segments, which had bothered her. She’d shot women pretending to be turned on as they unrolled condoms onto bananas from the bartender’s daiquiri supply or onto Brody’s fingers, while Brody made suggestive remarks. All night, women rubbed against him. Two of them flashed boobs at him, nearby men howling like jackals.
Jillian gritted her teeth the whole time. It was her job to go along with the exploitive, offensive aspects of the show. Hell, she was making the show better. She couldn’t help herself.
She vowed to get in the woman’s view wherever she could. Getting women’s opinions of condoms had been a start. Though each conversation deteriorated into flirting with Brody.
That didn’t surprise her. Despite his offensive on-camera persona, Brody charmed her more and more, adding to her confusion. He seemed untouched by fame. Everywhere they went, people demanded autographs, hugs, handshakes, kisses, sometimes full-body humps, depending on the sex and drunkenness of the fan. Brody remained patient and gracious, smiling at the hero worship, signing his name on whatever he was offered—a sodden napkin, tattered bar menu, a bare back or a naked breast.
Plus, she approved of how he worked. He was demanding, quick to dump a setup for something better, no matter how long it had taken to arrange. That was how she worked, too. He asked for her feedback and retook every shot she had doubts about.
The physical closeness was wearisome, too. Man-woman electricity hummed and snapped constantly. But these moments of mind-reading teamwork were the worst, shooting ever more powerful jolts of attraction straight through her.
Shaky from the emotional whiplash of the day—loving her work and hating it, fighting her attraction to Brody and being drawn deeper into it—Jillian was relieved they were done for the night. A tension headache raged behind her eyes.
Brody led the way into the crowded lobby of the Xanadu, decorated everywhere with patriotic-hued bunting in honor of the political convention being held there, and Jillian couldn’t wait to get upstairs and fall into bed.
“I see more condom opinions dead ahead,” Brody said, motioning toward the lobby bar, packed with people wearing convention name tags. He turned to her, took in her face and hesitated. “Unless you’re too tired?”
“Of course not.” JJ managed a smile, determined to be a trouper. “Lead the way.” She hefted her camera onto her shoulder and followed Brody to a table of four women who turned out to be just tipsy enough to say yes to interviews.
Brian and Bob set up lights and sound while Eve nabbed releases, and in minutes they were rolling.
“Condoms prevent disease and pregnancy. Period,” a blonde in glasses said. “They’re like brushing your teeth to prevent cavities. A necessary pain in the ass.”
“What’s with the ribs and colors?” added a brunette in a chignon. “You can’t feel those teensy bumps and who cares what color it is?”
“And the flavored ones? Forget it,” added a black woman with cornrows, shaking her head so the beads rattled. “They taste like the rubber dams my dentist uses.”
“Plus, they’re like thirty calories each,” added a rail-thin redhead.
“No!” said the blonde. “Not thirty? Aren’t they sugarless?”
“Don’t get fancy, I say,” declared the redhead. “Just make them with no holes. Functional. And, for God’s sake, men, practice. The fumbling has got to go.”
They wrapped the shoot, which she’d enjoyed despite her headache, and the crew disappeared. She noticed one of the women slipping Brody a business card with what looked like a room number on it. Ah, her cue to escape. She was relieved, since she’d planned to ask Brody for an interview after the shoot, but was entirely too tired to try for it. Now it was impossible.
“I’ll head upstairs,” she said, backing away.
“Me, too,” Brody said, half-rising, as if he were leaving, but the women made disappointed noises and she knew they’d keep him longer.
At the gift shop, Jillian had to wait for the sleepy clerk to find her an aspirin packet she could buy, but finally she was in the elevator, relieved to be away from Brody and her growing attraction to the man.
It was ridiculous, she told herself. The man was probably a sociopath. Certainly his TV character was, treating women like enemies to be conquered, sex objects to be preyed upon. The show’s message was “Screw anything in skirts, then run like hell.” She hated that attitude. Meanwhile, she kept reliving the pleasure of his eyes on hers, his hand at her back, his thigh rubbing against hers in the van. What a girl she was.
On her floor, she took the wrong corridor first, but finally found the arrow to her hall. Just around the bend was blessed peace. She would take the aspirin, stretch out with some dull talk show and drift to dreamless sleep.
Except when she turned the corner, there was Brody again, leaning on her door, watching for her, a big grin on his face. He was such a male animal, strong and relaxed against the door, jeans low on his hips, easy in his skin, confident his body would do whatever he asked of it.
Whatever she asked of it. Her weary body went on full alert and she felt tight and wet in a secret place.
Stop that right now, she commanded, as if she could control her body’s fluids and flows and reflexes.
When she got closer, she saw Brody had four liquor miniatures between his fingers and a DVD case under his arm. “What’s up?” she asked, trying to smile in welcome.
“I thought we’d toast the shoot and
check out the footage.”
“How’d you get here so fast?”
“I left when you left.” He nodded at the aspirin bottle. “You have a headache?”
“A bit of one, yes.”
“That my fault? I work you too hard?”
“Of course not. It’s my sinuses. Hotel air is so dry.” She had to lie. No way could she let him know she was exhausted on her first shoot. “I thought you’d be busy. I saw that woman give you her room number.”
“Not brainless enough for me.” He grinned at her, his expression almost fond. She realized this was a perfect chance to get to know the man behind the persona, maybe get that interview. That was her reason for being here, after all.
“I’d love to,” she said, steadying herself against the tingles and heat of her body’s response to the man. “You want to watch that?” She nodded at the DVD under his arm.
“Nah. I’ve got to drop this off with a guy on your floor. It’s a favor for Kirk. When he calls I’ll take it over.”
She waved him into her room, which had been neatened by the maid, scanning for anything she didn’t want him to see. The bathroom mirror reflected her black bra on a hook from when she’d hand-washed it. Whoops. She hurried to snatch it down.
“Black lace…nice,” he said.
“Not that it’s any of your business.”
“I’m interested. Curious. Aren’t you a curious person? Being a documentary filmmaker and all? Don’t you have to be nosy?”
“Yes, actually, I am a curious person.” All her life she’d asked questions of everyone about everything. Her parents, especially her father, used to complain about her nonstop demands for answers. Which made sense, since he had all those affairs to hide. The last thing he wanted to do was say where he’d been and what he’d been doing.
“What is it?” Brody asked, leaning toward her.
“Just thinking,” she said, wishing he weren’t so observant.
“You’re always analyzing. Figuring the angles, working things through in your mind.”
“No more than most people, I don’t think.”
He just looked at her, telling her that she wasn’t like most people and that he liked that about her. She felt warm all over, almost girlish. Ridiculous.
He studied her—hair, face, body—lingering over each feature as if she were a shiny toy he wanted to take apart and put together. Then he smiled, pleased with what he’d discovered.
“So, what will you have, miss?” He laid the small bottles against the back of his forearm like a sommelier presenting a wine for her approval.
“The Grand Marnier, please,” she said. She loved the sweet citrus sting of the orange liqueur.
“Excellent choice.” Brody twisted off the top and poured the drink into a water glass, pouring himself a neat scotch. “Here’s to a great start.” He tinked his glass against hers.
“So you’re not sorry you hired me?”
“How could I be? You caught the rhythm of the show, but you added your signature, made us work harder, too.”
She was inordinately pleased by his praise. “I’m glad. I had fun.” She realized that was true, despite her doubts, despite the subject matter, despite the push-pull of her attraction and disgust with Brody.
“We make a good team,” he said.
“We do.” Her mind slipped to where else they might pair up and snapped off that thought at the root.
Brody’s eyes stayed with her. God, was he reading her mind? She dipped her nose into her glass and sipped, letting the orange aroma fill her head, the alcohol burn gently down her throat and settle in a warm pool in her stomach, which did nothing to ease the heat she felt from Brody.
She looked up and he was still watching her with those riveting chocolate eyes. There was something so male about his face, with its bold nose, dark eyebrows and that strong, square jaw. His lips were nice, too. Full, always moving, ready to laugh or joke or smile or kiss—
Don’t go there.
“Can I use your bathroom?” he asked, sounding like he wanted to break the tension, too. “Gotta check out that bra,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows, joking away the moment.
“I’ll off-load what we got,” she said. Even better, with him out of the room, she could set up her camera to tape whatever conversation they had. Brody had signed her release, of course, and he’d urged her to nab footage on their shoots whenever she saw something she wanted, but she felt uncomfortable taping him secretly. But her watchwords had served her well: Always be ready and film far more than you’ll ever use. She would consider this deep background. Once she saw what she had, she’d decide how to approach Brody about using it.
She tied her hair away from her face to get it out of the way and set to work, first moving the latest footage onto her external drive, then setting up her laptop on the table. She shifted the lamps to maximize the light where Brody would be.
Next, she placed her camera on the bureau, set it at a low resolution to maximize the card space and turned it on.
She’d disabled the red signal—all documentary filmmakers did that to prevent subjects from tensing when they thought the camera was on. The best stuff often came before and after the official interview, when people were relaxed.
Brody, meanwhile, was clunking around in her bathroom. Was he checking out her cosmetics? Strangely enough, the idea didn’t bother her. He had an innocent curiosity that appealed to her. It was something they shared, actually.
She was waiting in her chair with the laptop cued for viewing, when he emerged, trailing wafts of her perfume and maybe her hair spray?
“Find anything you like?” Jillian asked.
He grinned, not seeming the least embarrassed that she’d been aware of his movements. “Just figuring out what makes you smell so good.”
“My perfume.”
“It’s more than that,” he said, heading straight for her.
“My shampoo?”
He got closer. “Nope. Tried those. You smell like my mother’s kitchen when she baked.”
“I smell like a kitchen?”
He took her upper arms and leaned in to sniff her neck, sending chills down her body. “It’s your skin, I think. If you could bottle that…I’d buy.”
“I’ll have to see what I can do.” He was so close and his voice had a low, sexy rumble to it.
“Why’d you tie your hair back?” he asked.
“It gets in my way.”
“I like it better loose. Don’t you?”
She found herself ripping off the band and shaking her hair free, warm against her shoulders. Her heart banged her ribs.
“Yeah, like that,” he said. “It looks so soft. Natural curl? May I?”
“Yes.” She felt uncomfortable under his scrutiny, with the air tightening between them, his gaze so steady on her face, his fingers in her hair, a licking flame crackling in his dark eyes.
What was he thinking? Surely he wouldn’t make a pass. He’d said that thing about not sleeping with crew. They were alone in a hotel room, very close to a bed, and it was very late at night.
What would she do if he kissed her? Kiss him back? Melt into his arms? She wanted to desperately. Her body was such a traitor. Where was her famous self-control when she needed it?
“You going to show me what you’ve got?” he asked softly.
“What I’ve got?” She had the impulse to open her shirt, fling off her bra. So outrageous and so not like her.
But no wonder. The atmosphere of the shoot had fairly dripped with sex. A dozen women had rubbed against Brody, kissed him, run their tongues along his ears, suggested what they’d do to him if he’d let them. Two had showed him their breasts. Watching that, filming it, thinking about it, would naturally make her more aware of her girl-gone-wild side…or give her one.
Get a grip, she told herself. Settle down. How could she be considering such a thing with a man whose entire purpose offended her to her core? The kind of guy who, back when she’d been a fat girl in h
igh school, had made her feel so alone.
“You okay?” he asked, as if he were worried about her. “Are you too beat to do this now?”
“No, no. I’m fine.” And her camera was running, by God, waiting for Brody’s secrets. That was why she was here. “Sit,” she said, indicating the chair where her camera secretly pointed. “Let’s see what we got.” And what I can get.
5
DETERMINED TO STAY in control, Jillian sank into her chair and grabbed the mouse, ready to click through the clips. She’d need to log them all when she had a chance. “Anything in particular you want to see?” Like me naked?
No. No. No.
“Just run through the stuff so I can get the feel of it.”
She let the footage run, moving the Play head every few seconds, while Brody nodded and smiled, commenting here and there. She was pleased with her work, considering she was new.
“You were a good sport tonight,” Brody said, looking at her instead of the footage. “You took it all in stride—the whips and chains, the condoms, the bare breasts.”
“That happen a lot? Women showing you their goods?”
“Are you kidding? After midnight in a bar, all signs of civilization fade.” He smiled, but his eyes seemed to empty out.
Here was her chance to find out if he really loved it as much as he pretended to. “Doesn’t that get kind of…old?”
His lips twitched, but he forced a grin. “How could it? I’ve got women bribing the bellboys to let them into my room to wait for me. I’m a lucky, lucky man.”
“That sounds like something Doctor Nite would say. What about Brody Donegan? What does he think about all that?”
“I am Doctor Nite, JJ. That’s the point.”
“I don’t think it’s that simple.” she said. “I don’t think you’re that simple.”
He just looked at her, but she felt him pull back. “This is starting to sound like an after-sex conversation, doll.”
“And you never have sex with your crew, right?” Her heart pounded way too hard in her chest. She was holding her breath.
“You got it.” He turned back to the laptop. “That’s a great shot,” he said, nodding at the screen, where a curly-haired brunette applied a condom to Brody’s fingers with her mouth. “You got both of us without distortion.”
One-Click Buy: April Harlequin Blaze Page 77