by Betina Krahn
Her heart pounded in her throat as she exploded off the stool, grabbed him by the elbow and yanked him around to face her. He was grinning broadly now, watching her realize what he’d done and enjoying the way her D cups were riding up beneath her thin knit sweater. She clamped her other arm under her breasts.
“I need a word with you, Mr. Stack. Now!” She hauled him out the doors and into the hall. But the staff and crew collected in the doorway, so she pulled him down the hall…where the floor receptionist stared at them.
Apparently the only place she could have this out with him unobserved was the damned elevator! When she shoved the button, the door miraculously opened. She hauled him inside and hit the stop button as they started down.
Turning her back to him, she pulled up her sweater to bare her dangling bra hooks.
“You undid it, you fix it. You’re not getting out of this elevator until you do.”
“Promises, promises,” he said with a laugh. “You sure you don’t want to just take it the rest of the way off?”
She shot him a fierce look over her shoulder.
“Fasten it.”
After a nerve-racking pause, he refastened the hooks.
She dropped her sweater back in place and whirled on him.
“Look, you’ve made it abundantly clear you don’t want to be here.” She jammed her fists on her hips. “News flash—I’m not crazy about you being here either. But if you think a little personal harassment is going to get you out of your contractual obligations, you’re badly mistaken.”
His sardonic smile disappeared.
Three months of anger and humiliation came boiling up in her.
She raised her chin and stalked closer, sending him back a step.
“This line is too important to fail because of one asshole’s ego.”
He backed another step, and she advanced again.
“Whether you realize it or not, people’s jobs and homes and families are on the line, here. Designers, sound engineers, photographers, production line personnel, wholesalers, retailers, promoters in three cities, merchants in the malls you’ll appear in…In the worst economy in decades, we’ve sunk a million dollars in development costs and hundreds of design hours into producing musical cards, a CD and posters that feature your face and your signature sounds. Not to mention the slice you took right out of the middle of the pie.
“This has to work. I’m not going to let it fail, you hear me?” She punched his chest with a finger. “I am not laying off my people and watching them sink into foreclosure beca-ause—” she had to force out the last part after her voice broke “—because you insist on acting like a horny, out-of-control fifteen-year-old!”
3
NICK WATCHED SAMANTHA Drexel struggle visibly for control. In the midst of backing him into a corner and dressing him down, emotion got the better of her and tears suddenly welled in her eyes. He could see they horrified her. She stiffened, jerked back and flipped the elevator switch to start the car.
Tears. She was angry. And hurt.
And human.
Fiery emotions simmered beneath that daunting corporate cool.
He suddenly had that damned feeling in his chest again—a sliding, sinking sensation that left him feeling confused and guilty for acting like a total asshole in order to get out of obligations he’d entered into freely. He’d taken the CrownCraft money with both hands, feeling justified in thinking it came from some greedy, soulless corporation. But after two minutes in an elevator with Samantha Drexel—who accused him of that very same greed and indifference—he was knocked on his ass by how self-serving his assumptions were. What made him think that the people in companies were any less human or deserving of honorable dealings than he was?
She stood with her back to him, her nose practically pressed against the elevator doors in her eagerness to escape. He watched her swipe at her cheeks and had an overpowering urge to reach out to her…to touch her…to pull her into his arms…to hold her. Stunned and more than a little alarmed by those unprecedented impulses, he stayed where he was, leaning against the wall, trying to figure out what was happening to him.
The instant the doors opened, she charged off. He watched the doors close, battling the urge to go after her, until the elevator, summoned by someone on a level below, started down again.
SAM WAS TOO OVERWROUGHT, too confused by her own feelings to pay attention to whether or not he exited behind her. All she could focus on was putting some distance between herself and Nicholas Stack. What she couldn’t escape, however, was the shocking feeling of being fully alive, of running on all cylinders for the first time in weeks. Despite or because of that humiliating lapse into tears, she felt purged and cleared of the emotional garbage that had been weighing her down.
By the time she reached the studio, she felt so much better. Apparently yelling at one man was as therapeutic as yelling at another.
Several minutes later, just as she was starting to think that she’d really blown it, Stack rolled through the door. His intensity was still there, but his attitude was all business as he approached Halcyon.
When he stepped onto the backdrop again, it was with an acoustic guitar from the prop closet. He asked that the canned music be stopped and then stood with his head back and eyes closed for a moment, gathering himself. There was a deepening silence as he tightened the strings and then began to run a melody line, tapping instead of plucking or strumming. The effect made it sound as if two or three musicians were playing.
He paused long enough to beckon to her. She had no idea what he was up to, but some small, indefinable change in him undercut her refusal. That, and her own curiosity. She hesitated long enough for all to see that compliance with his request was her decision.
When she was settled back on the stool and he started to play, her toes curled inside the classic black Louboutin stilettos she had worn for a boost of playing-in-the-big-leagues confidence.
The lights dimmed and a spotlight appeared out of nowhere. He propped a foot on the rungs of her stool, rested the guitar on his leg and began to coax sounds from the instrument that seemed as if they came from a whole ensemble. It was a potent and utterly unique sound, laced through with Nick Stack’s sensual magic. When he paused to turn her chin so she would look at him, she allowed it, and those big silver-gray eyes of his caused the bottom to fall out of her stomach.
Studio and audience slowly melted away, leaving only a circle of light in a sea of darkness, inhabited by two. Nick Stack was there with her, serenading her in a different, jazz-like sound, singing about how he wanted her…making her want him.
Something snapped inside her, releasing desires she had hoarded for years. Need unfolded deep in her body and sent tendrils of desire curling around every nerve she possessed. She felt her body going taut, ripening with anticipation as she looked up into his chiseled face.
For one breathtaking moment she glimpsed what true passion felt like. A real, soul-jarring, life-changing need.
Her skin burned where his fingertips had connected with it. The electricity between them settled into a steady, sinuous alternating current that powered the sexy images rolling through her inner senses. All she could think was that she wished he’d stop singing and kiss her. She wanted those lips. That beautiful, decadent mouth. She felt herself gravitating closer, leaning, just inches away…
The music ended, the lights came up and she looked around in dismay at being rudely jarred from that delicious and compelling reverie.
Stack pulled back and set the guitar aside, but she couldn’t seem to move. She felt melted from the center out. A veritable puddle.
Applause broke out from the back, near the door, and he gave a stage bow in that direction. She seized the moment to collect herself, slide off the stool and wobble over to grab her jacket.
She only half heard Halcyon say that he’d gotten some fantastic shots and would see that Nick got proofs, and she vaguely noticed the way people collected around Stack for autographs for “nieces” and �
�nephews.” All she could focus on was him. She stared at his profile…nose just large enough to keep his face from being pretty…sleek cheekbones, squared chin, long lashes, that bold, sexy mouth…
Half of her was snarling snap out of it and the other half was purring like a well-tuned Ferrari.
The big overhead can lights went off, plunging the studio into relative gloom, and she looked up to find Stack coming toward her with his jacket slung over a shoulder. Caught between wanting to take a step back and being tempted to step directly into his path, she avoided both by heading for the doors.
“I need a ride back to the hotel.” He caught up with her and kept pace.
“It’s just a few blocks away. The walk will do you good.” She couldn’t resist looking at him from the corner of her eye. There was a sheen of moisture on his skin, and his tousled hair looked slightly damp. Have mercy. Even filtered through her defenses he was an overwhelming package. “It’ll give you a chance to cool off.”
Again the elevator miracle; the doors opened right away and she stepped in and hit the up button. He followed, and seconds later she was alone in that space with him again, stopped halfway between floors.
Only, he had pushed the stop button this time.
She looked up, feeling her every nerve go on alert as he moved in close, and she gripped the sides of her jacket as if it were a life preserver.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
He had no idea. He just knew that this was more than some appetite that had tagged along with the rock-star persona he’d dredged up. The way she had looked up at him while he was singing, the hunger and promise and challenge in her eyes, he didn’t intend to let Samantha Drexel get away before he had chance to figure it out.
“I’m not the asshole you think I am,” he blurted out, bracing an arm against the elevator wall beside her.
“As my old granny used to say—” she lifted her chin and her voice dropped a third “‘—asshole is as asshole does.’”
“You must have one hell of an old granny.”
“You have no idea.” Those husky tones rattled through him, sliding down the skin of his belly, tantalizing that sensitive territory.
“Not true.” He lowered his gaze to her chest and then brought it slowly back up to her eyes, appreciating every square centimeter between. She was a handful. “I have plenty of ideas.”
And the idea battering his self-control at that moment involved him lowering his parted lips over hers and pulling her hard against his body. He didn’t have a choice, really. He couldn’t not kiss her.
The instant their mouths made contact, a surge of energy rushed through him that momentarily blanked awareness of everything but the warmth and resilience of her lips. He wasn’t aware they were moving until she hit the nearby elevator wall with a soft thud.
His eyes popped open to find her staring at him, seeming a little shocked. Had he misread the way she had looked at him while he was sing—Damn, her lips were soft. When her mouth moved, it took him a minute to realize she was speaking, not kissing.
“Being a great kisser doesn’t mean you can’t be a jerk, too.” The vibrations of her husky whisper set his lips, his whole face tingling.
“It was pretty great, wasn’t it? I’ve wanted to do that since the minute I heard your voice. Has anybody ever told you that you sound like—”
“Lauren Bacall with a chest cold?” she said against his mouth.
“Exactly.” He pulled his chin back to appreciate her flushed face.
She looked into his eyes with an expression that teetered between astonishment and disbelief, but she didn’t exactly seem eager to escape.
“Has anybody ever said no to you in your entire life?”
“Lots of people. In fact, music execs seem to really get off on it.”
“Yeah, well, they must not be female,” she muttered, staring at his mouth and seeming a bit startled that she’d spoken aloud.
With a rumble of amusement he bent to kiss her again, and she lifted her chin to meet him. A tidal wave of heat crashed through him. He suddenly wanted to see Samantha Drexel’s passions break free, to make them break free, in his arms, under his naked body.
Her mouth responded, molding intimately to his as her body sank against him—breasts, abdomen, pelvis, thighs—centimeter by delicious centimeter. By the time her anatomy was introduced fully to his, it was all he could do to stand upright and kiss at the same time. He sucked an air-starved breath. Damn. It felt as if his eyes were crossed!
She leaned to the side and he dropped his arm to let her reach the controls. There was a hum and a lurch as the car started moving again.
When she looked up, her eyes were so warm—big, distracting amber disks with brighter golden rings around their desire-darkened centers. Her face was flushed and her lips were kiss-swollen perfection.
“Let me buy you a drink, Samantha Drexel,” he said, his voice now almost as husky as hers. “Give me a chance to explain.”
She searched his eyes even as he searched hers, and he couldn’t help wondering what she saw. A has-been trying to skate through life on past glories? An aging stud eager to make one more conquest for ego’s sake?
“Don’t say no.” He held his breath, willing those guarded golden eyes to concede, unsettled by how much her answer mattered to him.
The elevator opened to reveal a group of people standing just outside in animated conversation…including Samantha Drexel’s assistant, whose jaw dropped at the sight of her boss being pressed like a panini between the elevator wall and Nick’s overheated body. As the doors closed, an older guy with a graying ponytail leaned along with it to get a better look and burst into a wicked grin.
He felt as much as heard Sam’s groan.
“You’d better make that drink a double.”
4
THE DRAKE WAS THE CLASSIEST, most elegant hotel in town, the place famous politicos and Hollywood royalty stayed when they hit Chicago. Doormen, marble, polished brass and lush carpets…right now it all made Sam feel as if she should be wearing a big scarlet S on her chest. S for sin. Or spectacular, which was undoubtedly what a night with the Prince of Give-It-Up-Baybee would be, if that kiss were any indication. Not that he’d said anything about a night, or about sin either, for that matter.
But she had watched his body move as they exited the cab and thought of how he would look naked and hard, muscles pumped, braced above her. And as they entered the lobby, she couldn’t take her eyes off the flexing of his long, muscular legs beneath those worn jeans and the rhythmic sway of his shoulders. Sex was exactly where this was headed; the certainty unrolled in her like a roadmap.
It was insane. Her sinking inhibitions were clearly pulling her principles down with them. Getting physical with Nick would only compound her mixing-business-and-pleasure issues. On the other hand, she could just hear Tori and Kitty reacting to the news that she’d passed up a mind-blowing bout of pleasure and walked away from a lifelong dream.
Girl, your manhunting license ought to be revoked.
Hell, it was going to be revoked anyway when she came up dateless on Valentine’s Day. So why not enjoy the now?
Her body came alive with anticipation as they passed on the elegant Palm Court where high tea was in progress and opted for the lobby bar instead. By the time he slid into the leather-clad banquette beside her, she had gooseflesh all over her legs and was so tense with suppressed arousal that she practically snapped “gin and tonic” at the waiter.
“You were going to explain?” she said, trying to pull her gaze from his moist, parted lips. Finding that impossible, she focused instead on trying to control her breathing. It was probably bad form to pant all over your girlhood sex god.
He slid an arm along the back of the banquette and leaned in. “I didn’t want to do the shoot,” he said, “because I knew it would be all about my old songs and that’s not my sound anymore. I haven’t been a rocker in a long time. I’ve moved on from all of that. I’m a diff
erent man, with different music.”
“You seem pretty ‘Nick Stack’ to me.” Swallowing, she gave up fighting the pull of his magnetism and let it drag her closer. “Sound like him, too.” She licked her lower lip. “Except…maybe, better.”
“Better?” His mouth drew up on one side, into the most decadent expression she’d ever seen. “How’s that?”
“Fuller. Earthier. More complex.” She squeezed her thighs together to quell the burning ignited between them. “Just more you.”
“More me? You mean, like that last song?”
“Especially that last song.” Her face flamed—from his breath curling over her skin or the memory of what that song had done to her?
“That was my new sound, my real sound. I’ve worked long and hard develop a whole different voice in jazz, and I’m trying to cut a new record deal. Rereleasing that old schlock will only confuse things.”
“I don’t think anyone will be the least bit confused,” she said, her throat tight and her tongue—its mind clearly on another duty—a little clumsy. “They’ll hear Nick Stack’s rough velvet tones and think—”
“Yeah? What will they think?”
His mouth grazed hers, shunting thought onto a sensual side track.
“What I always think when I hear your voice.”
“Which is?”
“‘Do me right,’” she quoted his lyrics, shocked to hear it come so bluntly out of her mouth. “‘Tonight.’”
Sweet Jesus. Had she just propositioned him?
Then he supplied the next line, pouring it between her tingling lips.
“‘Yeah, bay-bee.’”
That unabashedly erotic refrain, half spoken, half sung in the deepest, sexiest part of his range, turned her blood to syrup. The bar, the other patrons, the upscale, old-school propriety of the place—suddenly nothing mattered but her desire for the feel and taste of him.
As their lips collided, the lightning that was produced shattered all the inhibitions holding her back. Her hands flew to his hair; his sank around her waist. She pressed closer, wanting every solid, sexy inch of him against every aching, hungry inch of her.
