by Lynn, Janice
Maxwell already looked antagonized. And distracted. Twitter-patted, as the ten and eleven-year-old boys he coached would say. That’s when he knew.
She stood in the open doorway.
She being none other than Jessie Davidson.
Despite not really wanting to, he turned.
Long, shiny blond hair haloed her angelic face. Amazing green eyes flashed and a grin played on her full lips that had probably been collagen-filled more times than she could count. Her hands rested on her hips. Hips covered in a slinky black skirt that showed off amazing long legs and sexy feet encased in a pair of killer green heels that matched her shirt. Hot damn.
“You think I have a nice ass and tits?” Her pursed lips twitched.
Hell. How much had she heard?
“For the record,” her hips swayed and her body did an odd bounce that she somehow pulled off to look incredibly sexy. Or maybe it was just that anything the woman did was sexy, because he was sure that bounce would be preposterous on anyone else. “They’re authentic Jessie Davidson and can’t be found in any store catalog.” She winked outrageously. “Although I’m sure they’d be a best seller if they could be surgically replicated.”
Both his and Maxwell’s gazes dropped to her generous bosom. Those were real? He didn’t believe it. He’d be happy to volunteer to find out, though.
No, he wouldn’t.
He needed to stay the hell away from her. She maimed men and took great pleasure in doing so. Real? He looked away and crammed his hands into his slack pockets.
She fluttered her lashes, ran her fingertips over the lapel of her shirt, drawing his attention back to her ample chest. “I can understand why you might think you’d seen them in a wish book, though.”
She had a sharp tongue. And a nice rack. He glanced up, met her flirty expression, and resented that she toyed with him yet again.
“On the clearance pages?” he tossed, determined to take her down a peg or two.
“Not hardly.” Her gaze narrowed, shot daggers, then she turned her full attention to Maxwell. Jessie’s full attention was something to behold. Something to be envied. Coveted. Desired. Feared. “I’m betting that suit didn’t come off any clearance pages, either.” She ate Maxwell up with her eyes, curved her lush lips in his direction. “Very nice.”
Colin didn’t have to look at his boss to agree. Maxwell always wore tailor-made designer suits that fit him to a T. What he didn’t wear was his wedding ring.
“Maria pick it out?” Colin asked, ignoring the niggle that his doing so had little to do with any goodness in his heart.
Maxwell scowled.
Jessie’s eyes cut to him.
Colin pushed his hands deeper into his pockets.
“Maria?” Her plucked brow lifted.
“His wife.”
“Wife?” Her eyes widened, dropped to Maxwell’s bare left hand. “You’re married?”
She had the gall to look disappointed. As if something like a golden band would prevent a woman like her from climbing the career ladder any way she could.
Maxwell shot Colin another displeased look, then nodded. “For ten years.”
“Oh.” Jessie’s lower lip pouted and her eyes strayed to Maxwell’s empty ring finger. She was good. “I missed the part about you belonging to some other lucky woman.”
“Does it matter?” Colin asked, earning another scowl just as J.P entered the room.
Jessie’s eyes met Maxwell’s and Colin’s gut clenched. He’d wanted her to deny it, to say that it did matter, but he’d known her answer without hearing, seeing it on her face.
“Whether or not my boss is married doesn’t really affect my job one way or the other, now does it?” She crossed the room and linked her elbow with Maxwell’s. “Are we going to go over the specifics of Causing a Commotion? Because I have a company credit card in my hot little hands and a shopping trip scheduled for this afternoon that I don’t want to miss.”
* * *
J.P. leaned back in his chair and watched the sparks fly between Jessie and Colin. A month into planning Causing a Commotion and they’d been at each other’s throats the entire time.
If looks could kill, Jessie would be six feet under dirt.
Colin, too.
Hell, if this ache in his hips didn’t ease, he was going to be, too, cause his damned arthritis was killing him.
“Look, you two. We go on air tomorrow, so you’d best get your act together or this show is going to flop and we’ll all be out of work.” This came from Beverly Gilley, a serious looking graying blond production assistant in her late forties. Way too old for his tastes, although almost young enough to be his daughter. She might be pretty if she’d smile. He’d more likely expect aliens to land than for her sour lips to lighten.
He couldn’t recall having ever worked with anyone so uptight and stern. Not even Colin proved as sour as Beverly. What had life thrown at her that made her so Nazi-like? Any moment he expected her to pull out a whip and command the room to behave or else. He closed his eyes and imagined her dominatrix style. It didn’t quite fit, yet there was a steely-ness to her resolve that should have made the image work.
Maybe it was that all his usual dominatrix images featured twenty-year-olds with hour-glass bodies. Beverly had a nice pear shape. Not sexy by his usual definition, but there was something appealing about her rotund bottom.
Everyone in the studio looked at him. What the hell for?
“J.P.,” Jessie called his attention. Apparently she and Colin butted heads. Again. No surprise there. “Please inform this arrogant snob that winning an erotic poetry contest is news and deserves coverage. I want to interview the author and have him read some of his work on air.”
“Erotic poetry?” Where did Jessie come up with this stuff?
“Porn,” Colin clarified, looking as if he’d like to snap Jessie’s neck in to. A blind man could see the attraction between the two hosts, but they bickered continuously. There was something to be said for the animosity between Colin and Jessie. It added a whole lot of excitement to the air.
If he could capture that on the show, they’d have a hit. It would be like Bruce Willis and Cybil Sheppard in Moonlighting all over again. Everyone would watch just to see when they figured out what everyone else already knew. That these two would be dynamite in the sack.
Of course, the real catch was making sure Jessie and Colin never figured it out so the magic wouldn’t fizzle. A show’s magic always fizzled once the couple had sex.
J.P. had to get this show off the ground, get ratings that would knock off ole Maxwell’s socks. An attraction between Jessie and Colin could work to his advantage. Or disadvantage. Depending on how he played his cards.
These days J.P. played to win.
“We’ll do it,” he said, earning a smile from Jessie and an exasperated look from Beverly.
Colin stood up, his chair precariously rocking back and forth. Anger emanated off his tense frame. “We are not promoting pornography on the Colin Crandall Show.”
Jessie dramatically rolled her eyes. “There is no Colin Crandall Show, and it’s erotic poetry and very romantic, you lug-head.”
“Romantic my ass.” Colin’s fist clenched and he paced across the room, probably weighing his options if he walked out on his Wolf contract. Colin had no options. Everyone in the room knew it. If he had a single one, he’d have walked on the day J.P. approved Jessie’s Sex Tip of the Day segment. And again when her Juicy Hollywood Gossip Tidbit got approval.
Jessie’s brow arched in defiance and her hands settled on her hips while she waited on Colin’s response.
“Fine.” He looked resigned and shook his head. “We might as well toss in a bit of porn with all the other garbage we’re going to cover. We could probably get some 1-900 number sponsors for that episode.”
“Oh, good idea,” Jessie feigned praise.
Colin didn’t look at her, didn’t acknowledge that she spoke.
J.P. pulled a cigar from h
is shirt pocket and poked it in his mouth. Think Bruce and Cybil. Otherwise, these two would drive him crazy with their bickering.
Colin sat back in his seat. Without any more ado or outburst no matter how extreme Jessie’s suggestion, they finished up the points that needed to be covered prior to taping the rest of tomorrow’s kick-off show. Most of the show’s segments and interviews had already been done earlier in the week. As had most of the next few weeks segments.
The moment the meeting adjourned Colin stormed out of the room without saying a word to anyone.
Jessie took her dear sweet time, chatting with most everyone who remained before heading to the dressing room slash office Maxwell had given her.
Moment’s later, only Beverly remained. “What were you thinking when you decided to put those two together?”
J.P. shrugged. “They make a great team.”
“Are you insane?” she sounded incredulous. “They want to kill each other. I swear, as much as I like Jessie, she purposely tries to annoy Colin. It’s as if she wants to see how far she can push before he’ll snap.”
He didn’t have to explain himself to this woman. “Love, hate, it’s all the same.”
“Now I know you’re insane. Or perhaps you’ve just never been in love,” she said, placing the last of her notes into a worn brown satchel she always carried. Beverly also always wore a fanny pack at her waist and could be counted on in a pinch to have any given needed item. Quite useful despite her dour features.
J.P. shrugged. He’d been called much worse than insane. She was right about his having never been in love. Lust, yes. Love? Hell, he’d had six wives, you’d think he’d have loved, but none of his divorces devastated him. Not like they should have. Love. Like Rob loved Jill. Until watching them, he’d never realized what his marriages lacked. That’s why none lasted. Why it had been so easy to move on to the next woman who turned his head.
Sad that in his sixty-plus years he’d never found what Rob and Jill had. Thank God the boy wasn’t going to grow old alone and miserable. Not that J.P. would ever admit to being either. Not out loud.
Stiff from having sat too long, he eased from the chair.
“I have Ibuprofen if you need it.”
J.P. glared and made a great show of moving effortlessly. He’d express his pain later, when Beverly didn’t eagle-eye him and dig in her fanny pack for painkillers.
“I don’t need no damn pill. For nothing.” He shot her a suggestive look and was pleased that pink flooded her cheeks. “All my body parts work just fine. Better than fine.”
She snorted, gathered her things, and eyed him with those too serious brown eyes of hers. “After six wives less than half your age, I’d guess all your body parts are worn out and beyond anything a pill could correct, but whatever.”
Openmouthed, J.P. watched her petite, pear-shaped frame shuffle soundlessly out of the room. He really didn’t think he liked dour-faced Beverly Gilley, but the woman had a streak of spunk. And nice round hips and buttocks that screamed to be cupped in a man’s palms.
Besides his first two wives had not been less than half his age. The last four, sure, but not the first two. Hell, he’d only been in his thirties back in those randy buck days.
No, he didn’t like Beverly and her smart-assed comment about him being worn out. Why, if she was the kind of woman who attracted him, he’d be tempted to prove exactly how un-worn out he was.
Without one of her fanny-pack produced medicine packets.
Chapter Five
What had she gotten herself into, Jessie wondered while she made her way into the Wolf building on the day of the first show.
How bad could it be? She’d already determined that she knew more than enough about talk shows and had excellent taste.
The Colin Crandall Show had been bad. Not bad bad, just boring bad.
J.P. believed in her.
Maxwell Arnold believed in her.
Elaine, her make-up artist, believed in her.
Beverly Gilley and the rest of the crew believed in her.
She would do this and do a great job.
Even if Colin thought she didn’t have it in her. The ability. The sticking power. The intelligence.
He did think she had great tits and a nice ass. Even if he hadn’t said so since that first day in Maxwell’s office.
Actually, Colin didn’t say much of anything to her or about her. Not unless she provoked it out of him. Otherwise he seemed intent upon ignoring her completely.
Which she couldn’t stand.
Quite simply, Colin drove her mad. Drove her to want to taunt him and tease him. After all, how could he have looked at her with such heat while they danced, held her so snug against his hard frame, and then just freeze her out completely because she was his co-host?
Why? Because the jerk had faked being nice to her.
Oh, she knew Colin wanted her physically. He hadn’t faked that. The heat burned in the way he watched her when he thought she wasn’t looking, the way he avoided touching her at all costs, the way he bristled at her slightest suggestion for the show. He wanted her, but hated himself for it and was determined to give her the popsicle treatment.
Which was probably just as well.
After Jill’s wedding this weekend, she’d be living alone for the first time and the thought loomed over her like an ax waiting to chop off her head.
Yet, she refused to get involved with a man just to keep from having to deal with her inner phobias. She’d done that too often in the past. Found a man to deal with whatever problem she currently faced. Times changed and Jessie changed. She didn’t need a man to deal with her issues.
Instead, she’d slyly suggested having a hypnotist come on the show and address people’s fears. She was going to volunteer in hopes he could rid the clawing panic being alone threw her into. Unfortunately, that show was a couple of weeks away.
She smiled at the security guard she’d met on her first visit, the day Colin commented on her boobs and butt and Maxwell gave her a tour of Wolf. She headed toward the elevator bank and hoped she wouldn’t have to travel up alone.
Everyone at Wolf seemed to genuinely like her. Everyone except Colin. The one person she would work the closest with. Made perfect sense since she never traveled the easy road.
“You look pleased with yourself.” Colin stepped out of no where to enter the elevator with her.
Although seeing Colin always lifted her spirits and eased her current panic monsters of being alone in the elevator, she shot him a purposely fake smile. He created other, more threatening monsters to claw at her psyche.
“Were you waiting to pounce on me?”
“I saw you enter the building, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“No, I was asking if you intentionally waited on me so you could pin me in the elevator.”
His jaw tightened. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean why?”
“Why did you want to be alone with me?” she asked. After all, he’d gone to great pains to avoid her as much as possible for the past month. He looked so exasperated she couldn’t help but tease him. Teasing Colin, watching him get hot beneath the collar, gave her great pleasure. Since she couldn’t act on making him hot elsewhere, beneath the collar was all she had.
Colin tugged on his collar.
She bit back a smile and added words she knew would throw him. “Because we are not going down in an elevator despite my predilection for Steven Tyler and Aerosmith.”
He took a step back. “What?”
Gothcha.
“Aerosmith. The greatest band ever.” Jessie didn’t bother covering her amusement. She liked throwing this man off guard. He needed a little shaking up. A whole lot of shaking up.
Never had she wanted to shake up a man’s world more than Colin’s.
J.P. and Maxwell wanted her to shake him up. They’d given her carte blanche to do so. Actually encouraged her to push Colin’s buttons. Like she needed en
couragement.
“Aerosmith?”
“You heard me.”
“I did not follow you into the elevator to go down on you.” He sounded huffy about it. Too huffy. As if he considered the idea horrific, but not necessarily a foreign concept.
“No?” She raked her gaze over his immaculate clothes. Dark dress slacks and jacket, a cream colored shirt, and a blue tie matching his eyes that was clipped to his shirt by a plain gold tie tack. Did a wrinkle ever dare to muss his clothes? What would he do if she reached out and tousled his always perfect hair? Some day.
“You expect me to go down on you?” She shook her head in mock pity. “I’m sorry, but paying my cab fare and your pathetic attempts to go to third base at Wolf’s anniversary party have not rated you the star treatment.”
“The star treatment?”
“My going down on you.”
“I’ll pass.” But the working of his throat while he swallowed gave away that her words had his mind racing ahead, envisioning exactly what she suggested. Red blotches crept up his neck. Oh yeah, beneath Colin’s collar burned.
“I don’t like second-hand goods that are as apt to be pretending to have a good time as not.”
Ouch. She scowled. “How dare you?”
She lifted her hand to slap him, but he caught her wrist with ease.
“Don’t hit me,” he warned.
She didn’t back down, actually took a step forward, closing the distance between them and locking her gaze with his. Mere inches separated their faces.
“Don’t you insult me or call me second-hand goods.” She struggled to free her hand, rared back to slap him with her left when she couldn’t pull free. She didn’t hit him, didn’t do anything but still her wiggling body. Which left her pressed enticingly against Colin’s hard chest, his hard everything.
