“No, I’ve got something better.” He moved to lean against the counter where she worked, crossing his arms. She didn’t color her hair. The observation came out of nowhere. That deep brown was all natural, and so were the strands of white. He hadn’t seen her wear a hint of make-up since he’d met her. Why that was making him hard was anyone’s guess.
She peeked at him, raising an eyebrow. “What is it?”
Maybe they should skip dinner and go upstairs and devour each other.
“It’s an old theater exercise.” He opted for reason over sex. For a change. “You need to come up with a solid plot and characters for your next book. They need to be gripping and real.”
“Right.” She drew out the word, attention focused on washing and chopping beans to go with their spaghetti.
“So it’s basically improv.” He pushed away from the counter and began looking through drawers and cabinets. “I’ll set the scene for your sultry romance novel heroine to meet her dashing romance novel hero. We’ll play the parts, speak whatever dialog comes to us, and by the time we reach the dessert course, you’ll have a whole story to go off and write in the morning.”
Jo laughed. “I’m sure I’ll have a whole story, all right.”
He answered her doubt with a grin as he pulled open a drawer and found a stash of candles. Perfect.
The next twenty minutes were spent with Jo cooking spaghetti and green beans while Ben did the best he could to create a romantic dinner scene in the dining room around the corner. He had years of experience envisioning scenery and formulating lists of props and set dressings to complete it, but usually someone else brought those visions to life. There was a certain amount of satisfaction in doing it himself.
By the time Jo finished cooking and transferred everything to serving bowls, Ben had devised a character for himself. He waited by the table in the dining room until she got curious enough to stick her head around the corner. Her intake of breath at the candlelit table, draped with a linen tablecloth he’d found in a drawer and some silk flowers that had been in the hall closet, was all the reward he needed for his efforts. Her eyes went wide and danced with excitement as she stepped fully into the room.
“You’re late, Miss Dare,” he intoned, stepping closer to her and turning on every ounce of smolder he could muster.
Jo’s jaw went slack, and she stared up at him. She blinked a few times, the pink infusing her cheeks a total giveaway to her arousal, then broke into giggles. “It’s Burkhart, not Dare, remember?”
“Not tonight, Miss Dare.”
She arched a brow. He was about drop character to explain the rules of improv to her when she tugged her shoulders straight, shook her head, and waved her arms to clear away her first reaction. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I can do this.”
She closed her eyes, drew in a breath, settled her posture as she breathed out, then opened her eyes. They sparkled. They glowed. Ben hardened in response.
“Sorry, Mr…. Rockwell, the delay couldn’t be avoided.” She glanced at the table, then to him with heavy-lidded eyes. “You shouldn’t have gone to all the trouble.”
The sultry, addictive woman that had sighed and wriggled under him as he’d thrust inside of her to the point of losing touch with the world five days ago was back. His cock jumped in reaction, and his heart thumped in recognition.
Keep it together, Benjamin, he warned himself. This is a game. It’s all pretend.
“Billionaires like me don’t like to be kept waiting, Miss Dare,” he scolded her, stepping closer still.
She broke character, dissolving into more giggles. He didn’t. He slipped his arm around her waist, pulling her flush against him. A second too late, it dawned on him that she could probably feel his erection. Yes, the hot spark in her eyes revealed that much. The radiance of that look and the sensation that it went beyond role-playing, caused his blood to pump like an engine in his ears.
He leaned closer, slipping his fingers under her chin to tilt her face up to his. He lowered his lips until he could feel the softness of her breath against them. An electric current of desire ran riot through him.
Just a game. Don’t lose your head.
Every fiber of him wanted her, for real, for keeps. He let his hand drop over the wool of her sweater, stretching his fingers possessively across her backside and pressing her into his hips. He’d played this scene out a hundred times before with dozens of different women, but not once had he been the one to lose himself to the fantasy.
You don’t deserve her. She’s far too good for you. You’ll bring her down with you.
Pain radiated through his chest at the thought. He pulled back, pressing his lips into a tight line. Jo’s eyelids were almost completely lowered, the surrender flushing her face far more potent than any drug. She wasn’t acting. He could do anything he wanted to her right now, no matter how depraved, and she would let him. Every bit of power he’d ever lusted after was right there, in his arms, inches away from his lips.
“You must be…hungry,” he hummed, deliberately overdramatic. It was madness to think this was anything other than a game, a great, cosmic joke. He didn’t deserve this sweetness.
Jo blinked, coming to her senses. Confusion flashed through her, followed by a split-second of hurt. It resolved into playfulness, but not before sending a stab of guilt through Ben’s gut. Of all the times and all the people to fall in love with him. Of all the times for him to want to be selfish and take that love and more.
“I am hungry,” Jo murmured. She pulled out of his embrace, stepping to the table with a coy flutter of her lashes. “Spying for billionaires is hungry business.”
Billionaires and spies. Desperate losers and troubled angels. He’d really stepped off the deep end this time.
“Let me help you.” Still in character, Ben moved to the table and held out a chair for her. With a teasing grin, Jo sat. He pushed her chair in, then slipped around the corner of the table and took his seat. “Wine?” He lifted the bottle of red he’d found in a cabinet in the dining room and offered it to her.
“Please.”
Keeping his eyes trained on hers as much as possible, he picked up the corkscrew he’d found earlier and opened the bottle. The cork came out with a satisfying pop. Jo flinched, then grinned, lust and teasing in her eyes. God help him, he was the worst kind of fool for perpetuating this fantasy, but he couldn’t stop.
He picked up her wine glass and poured. An acrid stench wafted out into the glass, along with a few sickening clumps of something black.
“What the hell?” He reeled back, holding the wine glass at arm’s length. They both turned their heads, grunting in disgust, character utterly broken. “What is this?”
Jo stood and reached for the bottle, head turned away. She looked at the label, then snorted. “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I still have this. My cousin, Jeremy, went through a wine-making phase and gave this crap to everyone for Christmas. In 1997.”
Ben sputtered into a laugh, holding the back of one hand to his nose and handing the wine glass to her. “Not the kind of thing a billionaire would have in his wine cellar.”
“No,” Jo agreed, laughing. She rushed the bottle and the wineglass to the window on the far side of the room, set them down long enough to open the window, then threw them both outside. “Hopefully it’ll mellow out enough to deal with by the time the snow melts.”
There was no earthly reason Ben should have found the gesture so sexy, but by the time she skipped back over to the table, resumed her seat, and cleared her throat a few times to get back into character, Ben was on fire for her. And happy. He was actually happy.
Jo took a breath, fluffed her hair, resumed her role and said, “Perhaps, Mr. Rockwell, we should forego the eighteen year old bottle in favor of something that will not taste like rotten vinegar.” She leaned her arm on the table, resting her chin against her hand and batted her eyelashes.
It was all Ben could do not to drop to his knees and propose. He sat, mimickin
g her pose. “Tell me what you want, and it’s yours.” He wasn’t acting.
The flash of worry was back in her eyes. His heart dropped from his throat to his groin to his feet. If he could just conjure the money she needed out of thin air. If he could fill her mind with a thousand story ideas, each better than the next and guaranteed to make her a permanent fixture on every bestseller list. He would cut out his heart and give it to her wrapped in gold leaf if it would make her happy, if he could share that happiness with her. He would do anything to be good enough for her.
She leaned closer, eyes darting to his lips. As he had done before, she paused when they were so close he could drink in her heat. “There’s a new bottle in the pantry, next to the taco shells.”
He fought not to snort with laughter. His cock throbbed so hard that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get up without pain. He wouldn’t be able to stay where he was without pain either. His whole world was pain, and all he wanted to do was kiss her until she laughed and told him everything would be all right.
No, that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted his show, his life back. He wanted the prestige and the power he’d lost. Right?
Her hand cradled his knee under the table, and every conflicted, tortured thought flew out of his head. He had to push to his feet to stop from coming right there. He was wearing her brother’s pants, after all.
That thought did the trick, knocking him off the cloud of lust he’d been ready to float away on. He laughed, using all of the acting skill he didn’t have to pretend nothing was out of the ordinary. “I’ll go get better wine. Sorry about that one.”
“It’s no problem.” She blushed like a girl, the spell broken for her too. “I really should have thrown it out before now. But, hey.” She shrugged, a fresh, clean smile spreading across her lips. “Maybe I can figure out how to use an old, spoiled bottle of wine in this book we’re writing.”
“See,” he replied, starting away from the table. “I told you a little improv would get the juices flowing.”
He dashed out of the room before she could take his words to mean more than they did. His juices would be flowing soon if he wasn’t careful. He ducked into the pantry, grateful that it was next to the mud room and the frigid air outside. If he was smart, he would step outside, scoop up some snow, and stuff it down his trousers so he could make it through the rest of the night in one piece.
Because he knew what his problem was now. It was bigger than his reputation being trampled and his career falling apart. Starlets and socialites who knew what they wanted and knew he could give it to them were one thing. Tender-hearted romance novelists who took his breath away and left him raw and bleeding and glad for it were another. And he wasn’t a big enough pig to seduce a woman for his own sake when her feelings were involved. Or were those his feelings?
Until he sorted out his life, and until she was in a better place with hers, he would be every bit the asshole Broadway thought he was if he so much as kissed Jo again.
Chapter Ten
Jo blew out a frustrated breath and finished the sentence she was typing. It sucked. No two ways about it.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered. She leaned back in her chair, twisting to crack her back, then hunched forward and pounded on the backspace key. It wasn’t working. Nothing was working. Two restless—almost sleepless—nights, and she couldn’t keep a single coherent thought in her head.
Two restless nights instead of one, because instead of carrying their little improv exercise beyond the dining room and up to the bedroom to let it play out last night, Ben had pulled away. Sure, they’d enjoyed the rest of dinner, giggling as they slurped spaghetti and polished off a bottle of wine. But after that, before nine o’clock, even, Ben had confessed that his head was still pounding from the adventures of his horrible night before, and claimed he needed sleep.
Not tonight, honey. I have a headache.
It was bad enough that she was acting so far out of character that she wanted to have passionate, reckless sex with a man she hardly knew in the first place, but to have him then deny her that crazy, forbidden fruit?
Jo growled and settled her fingers over the keyboard. She shouldn’t be thinking about it. She should be focusing. Four days had passed since her conversation with Diane about branching out, and she had nothing to show for it but a girl-boner that wouldn’t go away. Not a word on the page. Not even about billionaires and spies and spaghetti dinners. She had half a mind to close this document and open up the tried and true historical she’d started before Frost Square had grown cagey about her optioned book. There wasn’t much chance of selling the fifth book in a series to another publisher now, but the lure of the familiar reached out to her. It was comfortable, it was predictable, it was routine. But as much as she loved her routine, she didn’t need the familiar. She needed the new, the exciting.
She needed Ben. Ben, who hadn’t so much as kissed her goodnight last night, let alone carrying her into the living room in front of the roaring fire, sitting her in one of great-grandfather’s vast, wingback chairs and spreading her legs over the chair’s arms so he could—
“Stop it,” she scolded herself out loud. Although she might have to store away the chair idea for another novel.
She pushed away from her desk and stood. It was January, she wasn’t supposed to be this hot. Neither was she supposed to be this bothered. Taxes were just around the corner. The bill from the tree company still sat on the corner of her desk. She needed to work, needed to write, not to spend all day envisioning all the different ways she and Benjamin Paul—scandal-ridden theater director and all-around bad news life-disrupter—could be doing the nasty on her family’s furniture.
If it was going to happen at all, it would have happened last night.
It hadn’t.
Maybe that was the problem. Maybe she needed to march out to the living room, where Ben was on the phone, fishing for anyone in Manhattan that would still give him the time of day, and demand that he do her until she got him out of her system.
Like that was going to happen.
Doomed. Her career, her house, and her life were doomed because she was horny for a bad boy.
The doorbell sounded, shaking her out of her fit of hyperbole.
“Do you want me to get that?” Ben called from the living room.
Jo sighed. “No, I’ve got it. It’s probably Nick, back from his photo shoot without his keys.” Although why he would use the front door instead of the kitchen door was a mystery.
It wasn’t Nick.
Jo pulled open the front door to find a handsome woman in her fifties wearing a sleek, grey trench coat—every hair on her head perfect, her make-up exact enough for a cosmetics ad—standing beside a large, black suitcase and a smaller silver one. A New York cab idled in the background.
Not another one.
“Josephine Burkhart?” the woman asked. Her voice had the crisp, sharp edge of a razor blade.
“Yes?” Jo replied.
The woman looked her up and down, eyebrows twitching in calculation. “Josephine Burkhart,” she repeated, with an entirely different set of inflections. Her thin lips curved in a smile. “You’re not at all what I expected.”
Footsteps thumped quickly into the hall behind Jo. “Yvonne.” Ben’s voice was a half-octave higher than usual. “I thought you were going to take my things down to Sand Dollar Point.”
The woman, Yvonne, turned to wave to the cabbie. He waved back through his closed window, then backed the car up and started down the driveway.
“Author Josephine,” Yvonne said to Ben.
Jo stepped back and gestured for her to come in out of the cold, which she did hurriedly. Ben had to hop out onto the porch to bring in the suitcases.
“I couldn’t figure out which author Josephine, of course, until I was in your apartment packing your things.” Yvonne glanced from Ben to Jo, then back to Ben with a grin. “I didn’t realize you read romance. So many things make sense now.”
&n
bsp; She was sharp, a little too abrasive, and she marched into Jo’s house as if she owned it, but for some unholy reason, Jo instantly liked Yvonne. Even when she unbuttoned and shrugged out of her coat and held it up, as though expecting it to vanish. The woman had balls. Like Jo’s mother.
No, on second thought, her mother would have battled this woman for the spotlight within three seconds of meeting her.
“I’ll take that.” Jo chuckled at the image that thought brought.
“How did you find out where she lived?” Ben asked as Jo hung the coat in the closet.
“Probably the same way you did,” Jo called over her shoulder. She closed the closet door. “You never did explain that, by the way.”
Yvonne blinked at her. “He just showed up at your house?”
“Blind drunk and staggering.” Jo grinned at the mortified expression Ben was trying to rub off his face. “Puked in my bathroom, then I tucked him into bed.”
“Oh, Ben.” Yvonne sighed, shaking her head. “Well, I’m here now, and so are your things.” She paused, rubbing her hands together, and said, “Now. Where is your coffee? Everyone will be here soon, and until the caterers show up, it’ll just be coffee…and whatever treats you might have stashed away.”
“Excuse me?” Jo blinked. Her heart dropped to her knees.
“Yvonne.” Ben crossed his arms, staring at her. “What did you do?”
“Nothing.” She walked further into the house, taking in the hallway and its decorations as she went. “I invited a few people over for supper. Spencer and Tasha and the new baby, and Simon, Jenny, and their little tot. Oh, and Adelaide, and Moira, and Charles Rigley.”
Jo swallowed, her throat not wanting to work. Of all the times to suddenly be throwing a party. She needed to work, needed to write.
“I don’t know if I can host a party right now,” she started, hesitant—no, panicky would be a better word—glancing to Ben.
Catch a Falling Star (Second Chances Book 3) Page 13