Velvet, Leather & Lace: A Man's Gotta DoCalling the ShotsBaring It All

by Suzanne Forster

  “What else?” she asked, looking out at the empty theater.

  “On the schedule it calls for us to be done the day before the show to allow for rehearsals. That’s six days from now. Five if we don’t start until tomorrow.” He shook his head. “I can’t promise you that last full day.”

  She nodded. “We’ll adjust. Anything else?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Okay.” She sighed. “I guess I just really wanted to hear ‘I can do it, Mia.’”

  “I can do it, Mia,” he said obediently, and made her laugh. He’d always loved her laugh, and though he’d rather she throw herself at him, he’d take it.

  “You, Jake Holbrook,” she said with a full smile, “have just made my day.”

  “Yeah? You make mine, too. Every time you smile at me like that.”

  Her smile faltered. “Jake.”

  They’d been through this before. Him trying to talk her into taking their relationship to the next level. Her resisting.

  Oddly enough, along with her “not into sex” declaration, they’d never both really been available at the same time. When she’d first moved in, he’d wanted to go out with her, but he’d been seeing someone.

  Then when he’d been free, she’d been the one to be occupied.

  Not the case now. There was nothing standing in their way but her own inner struggle. Taking a chance, he stepped closer, then closer still when she didn’t back away. Reaching out, he playfully tugged on a strand of her silky hair. It was the kind of touch she allowed, a touch that kept them on the “friends” level.

  Being friends was nice, and that she trusted him that much meant a lot.

  But he wanted more. He wanted her to understand she could trust him with anything, including a physical relationship. And that she would like that physical relationship, very much. “How about dinner tonight?” he asked, and when she cocked her head and studied him, he smiled. “Yes.”

  “Yes what?”

  “You’re standing there wondering if I have ulterior motives. Sexual ones. I do.”

  She gaped.

  And he had to laugh. “But I’ll control myself. Come on, Mia. We have dinner all the time, why the hesitation now?”

  “It feels different,” she admitted.

  “Because I’m going to do some work for you?”

  “Because you’re looking at me differently today.”

  “I always look at you like this. You’ve just not been paying attention.”

  “I’m paying attention now,” she whispered.

  “Good. So a little food, maybe a glass of wine. A round of poker. Maybe I can make back some of the twenty bucks you won off me last week. What’s it going to hurt?”

  “I have work.”

  “We’ll add work into the mix. Say yes.”

  She stared at him, both of them knowing she had a weakness for food, especially food she didn’t have to put together herself. “Pizza?”

  “We had pizza last week.”

  “I love pizza.”

  “You love anything you don’t have to cook.”

  “Pepperoni,” she said stubbornly. “And I’m in bed by ten. Alone,” she added quickly at the look on his face.

  Not for long, he thought.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THEY WENT OUT. Mia knew Jake would have cooked them homemade pizza but she decided having dinner at the pizza joint on the corner was the wisest move. She was not a dating virgin, not a virgin of any kind and hadn’t been for a long time. She knew the ropes. Don’t be home alone with a man who has sex on the brain. And for whatever reason, Jake so had sex on his brain tonight.

  Her mother had always had a revolving door approach to men. With her dad gone, no explanation, just gone, and no siblings, Mia had had only her mother’s example to grow up on.

  Men, she’d learned, were slaves to their penises.

  Knowing this, Mia herself had chosen the men in her life carefully, picking the opposite of what had drawn her mother. Mia dated highly educated, quiet, calm men. Betas, all of them. The kind of man who didn’t press for too much, who eventually faded away without complaint or a backward glance.

  Jake wasn’t that kind of man. She’d known it from the beginning. If he had a feeling, he shared it. Every emotion and thought flickered across his face and out of his mouth. Subterfuge was beyond him, and so was holding back. He wasn’t necessarily quiet. And he sure as hell wasn’t beta.

  But even if he had been, he’d had a girlfriend when she’d first moved in. And then when he hadn’t, she’d been dating someone. And then he’d spent a summer in the middle of the country somewhere working for one of those charity organizations that build houses for the needy, and she’d spent last summer in Europe working in fashion cataloging gaining more knowledge for VLL, and…

  And it’d never been the right time.

  Mostly because she’d never made it the right time, she could admit now.

  At the pizza place he sat on her side of the booth, his big body taking up more than his fair share of space, apparently not bothered at all by the fact that he spilled into hers. Legs spread beneath the table, a powerful, warm thigh brushing hers, as well as a bicep. She couldn’t have avoided contact if she’d tried.

  And in fact, she didn’t want to avoid it at all. It was an easy excuse to get close to him without leading him on in any way, allowing herself to enjoy the hard strength of him, his overtly guy scent, everything. In fact, he smelled so good, she kept trying to give her nose better access. Once, he leaned across the table to reach for a napkin and she leaned in, nearly pressing her nose against his back to inhale deeply.

  Only he sat back suddenly, nearly squishing her head between his spine and the booth, all because she wanted to press her face to his body.

  And the look on his face told her he knew it. Ooops.

  “You’ve been working night and day,” he said, leaning forward again to reach for the platter of pizza from the waitress, his great abs rippling beneath his white T-shirt as he offered Mia the first slice.

  “Thanks,” she murmured, thinking, Jeez, cool it, you’ve seen him without a shirt. When he’d washed his car, when he’d watered his front yard… Yes, she had reason to know he had a stomach of steel, so what. In fact, his entire body was amazing, with wide shoulders, a sinfully sculptured chest and powerful legs. But his abs, with those ropy muscles defining a six-pack that led straight to his groin, were to simply die for. His last girlfriend had once admitted to Mia that she’d only dated him to get to touch his belly.

  Mia understood the sentiment, and had been tempted, especially knowing that Jake was the whole package, not just a pretty body, but she’d always come to her senses. Dating Jake would be a huge mistake. He meant too much to her as a friend to lose him when their desires waned.

  And they would wane; they always did.

  Still, knowing he’d happily strip them both down to skin and then proceed to touch her with his mouth and fingers, all while driving into her with that body, made her a little breathless, but she shrugged it off. “Maybe I’ve been a little consumed by work,” she admitted. “But once the fashion show’s over, I can take a break.”

  “You won’t.” He loaded two pieces of pizza onto his plate and dug in. “You’re a workaholic and you know it. The last guy you were seeing, what was his name, Chad? Brad? Tad?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Ted.”

  “Yeah, Ted. You had to schedule his phone calls in your Palm Pilot.”

  “So? The last woman you were seeing left you dirty messages in her lipstick on your windshield.”

  He grinned. “So?”

  At the time it’d seemed so tacky, so visible. Annoyingly…arousing. What was it like? she wondered, to let go so much that you could do or say or think anything, and have it accepted? No self-editor, no holding back, no overthinking. Just doing. God, the freedom of that. “I’ll have you know I really am going to take a vacation when this is over.”

  “Where?”
r />   “A beach somewhere, I think.”

  “Tahiti? The Bahamas? Maui?”

  “I was thinking Malibu,” she admitted, and bore his laughter. “It’s not a crime to like my work, you know.”

  “You need to like life.”

  “I do!”

  “Uh-huh.” He took another bite, chewed while looking at her, a knowing smile touching his face. “Let’s see about that. What do you do besides work, besides worrying about your work?”

  “I—” she shot him a dry look “—find other stuff to worry about.”

  “That’s because you’re a little uptight, which given what you do for a living, is amusing all in itself. I can teach you how to relax, you know.”

  She eyed him, all big and cocky. “Maybe I don’t think I need to relax.”

  “Oh, baby, do you ever. But don’t worry, all is not lost.” He tipped his bottle of beer to hers in a toast. “Here’s what we do. Together, we start a new thing.”

  “We already do stuff. Dinner. Games—”

  “I’m talking beyond dinner. Beyond a board game. A night where we go do something, anything, the only rules being it can’t involve work in any way, and you have to enjoy yourself.”

  Oh boy. Trouble with a capital T, because she already knew how much she enjoyed him, and how much harder it would be to resist if he really turned up the charm meter. “I don’t know—”

  He arched a brow. “Chicken?”

  Yes. “Of course not.”

  “Cuz it looks to me like maybe you are.”

  “I’m not,” she said through her teeth. Did he see right through her? “I just want to make sure this is still on the level of friends.”

  “Because heaven forbid it go deeper, right?”

  “I don’t like deeper.” At that fib, she had to lose eye contact, and toyed with the cheese on her crust, pulling it until it popped free, then sucking it off her finger.

  At that, a sound escaped him, a low muttered groan, a curse, and she looked up.

  Jake’s eyes, locked on her mouth, had gone opaque with heat. “I’m your friend, Mia. Always. I care about you and I think you know it.” His voice was silky soft. “But keep sucking on that finger and saying the word deeper, and I’m going to have trouble remembering that friendship is all you want.”

  “What about you?” she whispered. “And what you want?”

  “I can wait. Until we both want it.”

  She couldn’t tear her gaze off his as she thought about her serious resistance to him. It was her biggest fear, that they’d have to stop being friends. “What if I never want it?”

  “Don’t jinx me. More pizza?”

  “Um, yes, thanks.” She blinked at how quickly he could turn her around and mix her up. He ordered her another beer, too, and before she knew it she’d consumed four slices of pizza and her skirt was too snug, and yet somehow she let him talk her into sharing brownies for dessert while they watched an exhibition Lakers game on the big screen.

  “So.” Jake’s strong white teeth flashed when he shot her a grin an hour later. “Not so bad, right?”

  “The pizza was excellent.”

  “Uh-huh. What about the rest?”

  “Beer’s not bad.” She took a sip of hers to hide her smile when he laughed knowingly, low and husky.

  Damn, he was cute. She knew she was crazy to call him cute. It was like thinking a lion was cute, or a leopard, or any wild cat, really, all coiled to pounce on his prey.

  So not cute.

  “The pizza was excellent,” he agreed. “And the beer. And so is the company.”

  She looked into his eyes, prepared to roll hers at his obvious line, but his eyes were nothing but genuine. Reaching out, he wrapped his finger in a lock of her hair, tugging very lightly, reeling her in enough to bring her face extremely close to his. His eyes glimmered. “Let’s do it again when you can manage,” he said softly. “Another evening of no work and fun.”

  “What exactly did you have in mind?”

  “I’ll think of something. Or you can. Date?”

  She stared at him for a long moment, at the strand of hair eternally falling over his forehead and into his eyes, at the mischievous sparkle in his eyes, at the day’s rough growth on his jaw. Damn, he had a quality of irresistibility. “I don’t know—”

  “Just say ‘yes, Jake.’”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  Very quietly he made the sound of a chicken, and she had to laugh. “Fine,” she said, caving. “But it’s your fault then if…”

  “If what? What’s the worst thing that could happen? I fall for you? Done. You fall for me? I can only hope.”

  Before she could say a word to that—and good God, what could she say!—he stood and pulled her up, too.

  She stared up at him, into his eyes, at his mouth. She realized he was looking at her mouth, too, and something deep inside tingled. Surely he wasn’t thinking about kissing her… No.

  But she was thinking about it, all the way home.

  And then proving her wrong at her front door, he brushed his lips to hers in a short, quick kiss that was over so fast she blinked in confusion—even as she wanted more.

  He’d not only thought about it, he’d done it!

  “Night,” he said with an expression that said he knew she wanted another kiss, an expression that said “gotcha, you’re already mine.”

  And standing there, lips tingling, she knew it, too.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MIA STAYED UP way too late sitting at her kitchen table, talking on the phone to her partners at VLL, Samantha and Jamie, each of them frantically working on the million little details that putting on a global satellite show entailed, each of them wondering why they were doing this.

  After that she spread out some style sheets for the next catalog and stared at them until her eyes blurred. Finally, still at the table, she fell asleep.

  Only to jerk awake at the sound of her cell phone going off. She sat straight up, papers stuck to her face as she groped for the phone.

  “Mia,” Jane said. “I have a bunch of stuff to go over with you.”

  Bleary-eyed, Mia looked at her watch. Six. In the morning? “Are you in the office already?”

  “Yes.” Jane sounded suspicious. “You didn’t oversleep, did you?”

  She rubbed her face. “Of course not.”

  “You’re on your way? Oh, God, don’t tell me you haven’t left yet. Not with only six days until showtime. If I’m eating, breathing, sleeping this thing, then so are you.”

  “Relax. I’m on my way.” Sort of. She winced at the dawn light streaming through her kitchen window, and clicking off the cell, staggered toward the bathroom and her shower, stripping as she went.

  She loved her job, loved immersing herself in it, but clearly this 24/7 stuff was beginning to get to her. Soon as the show was over, she really would take a weekend at the beach, she promised herself. All she needed was a towel, some sunscreen and the pounding surf for music.

  No cell, no pager. No Palm Pilot.

  Twenty minutes later she was in her car. Jake’s truck was already gone and she only hoped that meant good things for the stage and catwalk. On Highway 5 South, she headed toward downtown, and VLL’s offices. She wanted, badly, to detour to the Greek Theater and take a peek, but she also wanted to give Jake some time to get started without her breathing down his neck.

  Once in her office, things got crazy. Six days and counting until the show, and everything was a blur. Samantha was handling the designers, and Jamie the money end—though he was also a designer—and both would be stopping by the theater later, as well, to see how the stage was coming along.

  Mia just hoped it was coming along.

  She spent hours on their next mail-order catalog, which was due into production, and then more hours on the fabrics and lighting order for the show, and then a frantic few minutes trying to locate some missing shipments. Before she could blink, it was late afternoon. Back in her car, she cranked
the air-conditioning in defense against the one-hundred-degree temp, and headed toward Griffin Park and the Greek Theater. On the way there her cell phone rang nonstop, and her pager went off so many times she could have used it as a vibrator.

  Not that she had the time for orgasms. Not these days. Maybe on her beach weekend. What it meant that she had to schedule her orgasms, she didn’t know. She could just imagine what Jake would say about that.

  And the sexy look on his face as he said it.

  In the parking lot of the theater, she got out of her nice, cool Honda and stepped into the muggy L.A. summer heat that felt like a live, breathing presence. Tossing back the hair she suddenly wished she’d put up, she entered the theater and came up the center aisle the way their guests would in six days.

  Yesterday she’d seen only an empty stage. A beautiful stage, but empty.

  Today, projecting over the orchestra pit and directly down the center, was the frame for what would be the structure of the ancient wonder, a sort of hanging garden with an archway for the models to come through. Far above it, the roofing scaffolding had been extended, so that at dusk they’d flip on the lighting to give the proper mood to the setting. That combined with the lush plants and Greek statues being delivered in three days, and all the miles and miles of black velvet for a backdrop…her heart started pounding. Yes. She came to a stop about ten feet from where the catwalk would be built, wanting to take it all in. She could just see it now—the stars above, the hot night air, the Sizzling Nights.

  “What do you think?”

  She nearly jumped out of her skin at the soft, deep voice in her ear. Jake, of course. Only Jake’s voice could hatch butterflies in her tummy and make her skin tingle without so much as a single touch. She shook her head and clasped her hands tight to prevent herself from whipping around and throwing herself at him in gratitude.

  “Mia?” His warm breath fanned at her temple, and though he still didn’t touch her, she felt surrounded by him, by the heat of him, the strength of him, not at all a suffocating feeling but the very opposite.