by Romy Sommer
“I thought you were going big?” he asked, the glint turning into that full-blown, mischievous grin.
No one here but Dominic to see if she snuck the smallest handful of popcorn. She pressed her lips shut, but that couldn’t stop the smell of warm, buttery popcorn from teasing her nostrils. Her mouth watered.
“Was that your sister on the phone? Tell me about your family.” He reached into the popcorn at the same moment she did and she snatched her hand back as if she’d been bitten.
She shrugged, sitting on her hands to stop them straying again. “There’s not much to tell. Typical nuclear family: mom, dad, two kids. End of story.”
“Sounds very normal. So what makes them such superheroes?”
She shrugged, hoping it appeared offhand and not as tense as she suddenly felt. “They’re all first responders of some kind. Cops or nurses or firemen. Jess is a trauma counselor for FEMA and her husband works for FEMA, too. My mother’s a nurse. These days she works with the Red Cross, travelling all over the world from one disaster to the next.”
“And your father?”
“He died when I was 16. Then we moved in with my Gran. She was a nurse in Korea. That’s where she met my grandfather.”
They were all heroes, saving the world in their own ways. All except Nina, who was the only one who’d ‘chased her own self-serving ambitions’ as her mother had so delicately put it the last time they’d been in the same room together.
She was the anti-Sonia.
Dom nodded, seeing way more than she wanted him to see. She tried not to squirm under his gaze.
“Does your sister have children yet?”
Ouch. She shook her head.
“Is she older or younger?”
“Older, by just 18 months.”
He grimaced. “Two years between me and Juliet.”
“I can’t imagine how your mother stayed sane with five children. And something tells me you were just as much work as the other four put together.”
He laughed. “Yes, but I had five mothers. Juliet may only have been a toddler when I was born, but she picked it up from the others soon enough.”
“I noticed.” Though his housekeeper, Hana, came in three days a week, his sisters still babied him. They dropped in unannounced with fresh groceries. Sometimes it was just a note on the kitchen counter. One day there was a calendar page with a date the following week circled in red and the word arthroplasty.
“What’s an arthroplasty?” she’d asked.
Dom screwed up the page. “Nothing.”
Nina stretched now beside him on the couch, her arm brushing against his as she crossed them over her chest. Anything to keep them away from that bowl of temptation. As she turned her head, she caught the flare of interest in Dom’s eyes, a moment before he suppressed it. Hmm…maybe not so unaffected after all?
She couldn’t give in to one temptation, but the other… “My neck is sore. Will you massage it for me?” she asked.
He nodded and sat up straighter on the couch, moving the bowl of popcorn aside. She allowed herself a momentary victory grin as she moved to sit before him on the floor and pulled off her shirt.
His intake of breath was audible. Definitely not as unaffected as he made it seem.
She sat before him wearing nothing but a pair of leggings and her lacy black bra, praying no one would choose this moment to drop by. Her eyes fluttered closed as Dom kneaded and massaged her neck and shoulders. His fingers were warm and supple, strong enough to work out the kinks in her muscles, gentle enough that the usual fantasy began to spin itself through her head. She closed her eyes and let it play against her eyelids.
She knew what he was. She knew he’d had more women than she cared to think about. If scuttlebutt on set was true, sometimes he’d had more than one at a time, too.
But she’d also heard enough from her make-up stylist to know that sex with Dom would be good. Better than good. It could be life-altering.
And considering she and Paul had been nothing more than okay together… she couldn’t quite suppress a needy moan at the thought of just how good that orgasm could be.
Dom jerked his hands off her and she blinked her eyes open.
“It’s late,” he said. “You should get to bed. We have another early start tomorrow.”
Fine. If that’s what he wanted. But she didn’t put her shirt back on when she rose.
As she got ready for bed and set her alarm clock she heard Gran’s voice. Do something that scares you every day.
Gran had encouraged Nina to chase her dreams, to become an actress when everyone else said it was a long shot and a bad idea, and she should stay in college and get a real job.
Nina pulled the bed covers over her head and lay still in the dark, listening for the soft sounds of movement from the floor above, where Dom was also getting ready for bed.
No matter how well he pretended to be unaffected by the chemistry sizzling between them, he wasn’t that good an actor. The same tension that bubbled beneath her skin affected him too, she was sure of it.
Tomorrow she would do something very scary and she’d make a move. If he shot her down again, then so be it. She’d swallow the rejection and put him out of her mind – somehow – and get on with her life. But if he didn’t… she smiled into the pillow. If he didn’t shoot her down, it could be life-altering.
On Saturday morning, Nina only hit the snooze button once before Dom strode into the room and stripped the bed covers off her. “I want you ready to hit the beach in ten minutes.”
“Go away,” she grumbled. “It’s Saturday.”
“You don’t get weekends off, and you’re late again,” he barked, suppressing a grin.
She lifted her head off the pillows and craned her neck to look at the illuminated face of the alarm clock. He didn’t need to look to know what numbers stood there.
Nina gasped. “Half past eight? How did it get so late? I am so sorry.” She swung her legs out of the bed. “Okay, I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”
“You have five.”
“What happened to the ten minutes you told me I had?!”
“You wasted five of them arguing with me.” He ducked out the door before she could throw anything at him, and headed back to the kitchen to make them fruit smoothies, allowing himself a grin only when her bedroom door closed between them.
He swallowed as Nina entered the kitchen. She stood with hands on her hips, looking like an angry pixie. “I checked my cell phone. It’s not even six yet!”
He unpeeled his tongue from the roof of his mouth and held out a tall smoothie glass to her. “Good, then you have time for this before our run.”
She didn’t move to take it, so he set it down on the counter.
“You should thank me. I finally fixed that problem with your alarm clock.”
“By changing the time?”
He danced out of her reach as she took a swipe at him. “You need to move quicker in a fight. And don’t give away your next move with your eyes,” he advised.
Nina stuck out her tongue at him, then turned her back to lean over the counter as she sipped the smoothie. He had to swallow again.
“Cut-off denim shorts aren’t exactly good running gear,” he managed. Or good for going unnoticed. She’d be causing traffic accidents going out in public dressed like that.
She threw a cheeky smile over her shoulder. “I’ll survive.”
Yes, but would he? Her shorts were so short he didn’t need to exercise any imagination to see the soft, pale flesh of her butt peeking out beneath the denim.
And she wore her glasses again. He’d always had a thing for women in glasses. It was part of the school-marm fantasies he’d enjoyed ever since Ms. Mitchell taught him tenth- grade science. Just as well physics had been his favorite subject or he’d have learned nothing that year.
Noticing how his gaze stroked down her long, bare legs, Nina wiggled her ass. He bit back a groan. She was too damn sexy for her own good, and his corre
sponding hard-on was hugely inconvenient.
It hadn’t taken her long to figure out how to press his buttons.
With all the typical arrogance of a celebrity used to getting her own way, Nina clearly didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. By now, any other woman would have realized this wasn’t going to happen.
She really should find herself a nice man who wasn’t going to sleep with her and walk away. One who would take care of her and be there for her.
Which certainly wasn’t him. He already had four needy sisters. He didn’t need another needy woman in his life.
But that challenge she’d issued still boiled his blood every time he thought of it. I’ll expect you to follow through.
He’d been told he was a natural flirt. And following through on a little fun flirtation and taking it all the way wasn’t usually a problem for him. Nor was he used to being noble around a woman. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep his natural inclinations reined in.
He’d been such a good boy all week. For someone not used to denying himself when it came to the opposite sex, this was killing him. He wanted to flirt outrageously with her. He wanted to ‘follow through’ on the flirtation even more. He wanted to explore her sensitive spots and have her scream for him with a desire bordering on madness.
What was the worst that could happen if he gave in to the urge to scratch this itch? Aside from losing a lucrative paycheck and never seeing her again?
They headed down to the beach for their morning run. It was still too early in spring for any but the most dedicated surfers to be on the beach, and none of them noticed or cared that a celebrity was among them. Catching the perfect wave was a far higher priority. He watched the black figures head out into the surf with envy.
Nina didn’t complain when he set a faster pace than the previous days, and her breathing seemed less ragged than it had earlier in the week, though when they finally stopped for a rest she dropped on the sand as if she couldn’t stand for another moment. He wasn’t sure how much of that was real and how much was simply the usual actress drama.
She stretched out her long legs and arched her back, so he couldn’t help but notice the swell of her ample, firm breasts. His palms ached with the effort not to touch.
He turned away, whistling to Sandy, and they headed down to the water’s edge.
One thing he was pretty sure of now was that Nina was deliberately trying to seduce him. It was a novel feeling to be chased – he was usually the one doing the chasing.
And as he’d told her that first night, he was a man, and like most men he tended not to be able to think rationally when a sexy woman threw herself at him.
Right now his brain had ceased to think altogether and his body was taking over. It was asking questions like ‘Why not?’ and ‘What harm could it do?’
Sure, unlike the other women he dated, he wouldn’t be able to say “thank you” and walk away afterwards. At least, not for another five weeks. But how hard could it be to stay interested in one woman for a few weeks?
It would be like an all-you-can-eat-buffet, and then she’d be out of his life as soon as her training was over. After that, if she got the role in Revelations, she would be out of town for months on end for filming. Enough time for them both to move on.
As far as his body was concerned, this didn’t have to be complicated. And as usual, his head was having a very hard time keeping his body from calling the shots.
Nina propped herself up on her elbows and watched Dom and Sandy frolic in the surf. She had to admit the sea looked calm and unintimidating today. It washed in and out the beach in a hypnotic rhythm.
She couldn’t remember when last she’d felt this relaxed. In spite of the constant physical exertion of the last few days and the constant fizz and sizzle of sexual tension in her veins, she felt as if she were on vacation, as if she’d left the stress of her tanking career behind in her pristine, white apartment. It would still be there when she got back, but for this brief lull it felt good to have fun and find the joy in life again.
And a week of living with someone hadn’t been as excruciating as she’d expected, either. Dom let her have her space when she needed it and didn’t object if she didn’t want to talk. With him she didn’t feel as if she needed to be “on” all the time. He’d already seen her at her worst, so she could simply be herself, or as much of herself as she could ever risk being with another person.
She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, the salty, sultry tang of the sea that reminded her of the scent of Dom’s skin, and imagined trailing her tongue across his skin, licking, tasting…
Her eyes flew open.
He was running up the beach toward her, shirt now off, and when he sat, raining droplets on her, he sat close enough that she could feel the energy and vitality radiating off him. Sandy flopped down between them, panting hard, and she reached out to pet the dog.
“What are we doing today?” she asked, trying to stifle the raging lust buzzing through her. And failing.
“How do you feel about horses?”
“I enjoyed the Flicka books as a kid. Does that count?”
He flashed his crooked grin. “At least it means you don’t yet have any bad habits we need to break. We’ll be visiting friends of mine who have a horse ranch near the Santa Monica mountains.”
He leaned on his side, resting on his elbow, his attention focused on her. The space between them shrank until nothing existed but the rise and fall of their breaths. He was all long, lean strength and muscle, and so utterly gorgeous. She watched one large droplet trail down over smooth, solid pecs before she yanked her eyes away, up over his freckled shoulders to his face.
But that was even worse. Because her gaze snagged on his. That emerald gaze pinned her, looked right into her.
She wanted madly, desperately, to lean into him, to kiss him.
Be brave. Do it.
He hadn’t moved away, either.
This was her moment.
But she wasn’t ready. She was still too scared. What if he discovered that she wasn’t as perfect as her on-screen image? What if he saw right through the careful grooming to the girl underneath and was disappointed? What if he rejected her again?
With an effort, she dragged herself out of his enchantment and pushed herself up off the sand. Whistling to Sandy, she raced off down the beach with the wind at her heels.
When she glanced back, Dom had risen too, to give chase. She sped up, not wanting to be caught, not wanting him to look in her eyes and see her desire and her fear and her insecurities.
She didn’t have a hope in hell of outrunning him. Dom caught her up and grabbed her around the waist, swinging her off her feet.
She shrieked, fighting against him, but what chance did she have against a jiu jitsu expert with more than twice her strength?
One thing at least she’d learned these last few days. She shifted her weight, catching him unawares and throwing him off-balance, and they collapsed in a heap on the wet sand, rolling together until he had her pinned beneath him. She looked up at him, eyes wide, breathless with laughter.
This last week he’d touched her a thousand times, but that had been nothing on the searing sizzle between them now. Today her bare legs and skimpy t-shirt were no barrier to the prime male body pressed against hers.
Neither spoke. Neither moved.
Then Sandy was on top of them, licking their faces, all exuberant excitement. Dom rolled off her and stood, extending a hand to help her up. Swallowing bitter disappointment, she took his hand. But when he pulled her to her feet, he caught her around her waist and didn’t let go.
“Why are you running from me?” he demanded.
“I’m not running.”
He looked down into her face and slowly shook his head. “Bullshit.”
She could play the flirt, cock her head, and say something about how much fun it was to be chased. She could make a joke, or lie, or brush him off, or push him away.
She did
none of these. The way he looked at her, he could already read her fear and insecurity. She tried to avert her gaze, but couldn’t. He held her captive. “I could ask the same of you. You’ve been running away from me all week. Don’t you want me?”
His hands slid down from her waist, over her hips, to rest on her butt. With a gentle tug, he pulled her against him. “I want you.”
The hardening at his groin was unmistakable.
“What’s changed then?”
He shrugged. “I still think it’s a bad idea. I’m your trainer. And I’m a cad.” He lowered his head, traced his tongue along the edge of her mouth. “But you are a very hard woman to resist.”
She pressed her lips against his as triumph soared through her. No more fear, only want and need. He kissed her back, both fierce and gentle at the same time, and there was no way he could deny now what he felt. Her hands settled on his ribs, splaying wide over the t-shirt that pulled tight over his abs.
A low hum vibrated through them, growing more insistent. Dom swore and pulled away. Through her daze, she registered that the hum was his cell phone. He ignored it.
“Answer it,” she said.
“It can take a message.”
But the moment was gone. The heat in her body fled in an instant as icy sensation slid down her spine, reminding her where they were. She pulled away, out of his embrace, and he let her.
With a frown, he pulled the still-ringing phone from his back pocket and answered it. The voice on the other end carried loud enough for Nina to hear. “Hi, handsome.”
“Hi, Olivia.”
Nina looked away.
“You free today? You want to come around?”
Great. A booty call.
“I can’t. I’m working.”
“Pity. Tonight, then?”
“I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it. Another time, perhaps.” He cut off the call.
Cold, crazy jealousy rose up from Nina’s stomach. She forced it back. “I don’t want to be a cock blocker. If you want to meet your girlfriend, go ahead.” She said it lightly, careful not to look at him.
