High-Stakes Bachelor

by Cindy Dees

  She pummeled him with her fists until he captured those with his free hand. He pulled her wrists high over her head and backed her into the closet-size structure she’d jumped off in the first place. Using his body, he pinned her against the wall, effectively immobilizing her.

  Then, in an impressive display of strength, he lifted her by her wrists until her feet literally dangled off the floor and she was face-to-face with him.

  “What is your problem?” he ground out.

  “You are,” she growled back. “You’re a big, clueless jerk who can’t see what’s right in front of your eyes.”

  “Maybe you should give me a little time to take a damned look at it first.”

  “You’re out of time, buddy.”

  They traded glares that could not have been any more fiery if actual flames had shot from their eyeballs.

  “Dammit,” Jackson bit out just before his mouth closed on hers and all hell broke loose.

  What was it about kissing him that made her completely lose her mind? Before she knew it, her arms and legs were wrapped around him while his powerful arms crushed her against him. They didn’t kiss so much as they attacked each other, biting and sucking and smashing lips and clacking teeth. It was wild. Unbridled. Angry. And so passionate she was pretty sure her hair caught on fire.

  “And...cut.”

  Cut—huh? Startled by the male voice nearby, Ana pulled back sharply from Jackson. He looked similarly disoriented.

  “I’m so sorry,” she breathed. “I lost control—”

  “Oh, my God, I love it!” Adrian exclaimed from close enough to make her jump.

  Jackson let her body slide slowly to the floor and she stumbled back from him guiltily. Unable to bear looking at the molten lust in Jackson’s stare, she turned to face the director. “I’m so sorry, Adrian. That was totally uncalled for. I went completely off script. It’s my fault—”

  The director cut her off with a sharp wave of his hand. Jackson started to say something and was cut off the same way by Adrian. She waited apprehensively beside Jackson while the director stared off into space, his formidable mind clearly in overdrive.

  “Yes. Let’s do it,” he declared without warning.

  “Do what?” Jackson asked cautiously.

  “Let’s go with that.”

  “Um, with what?” she asked, cautious in turn.

  “Fight morphing into steamy embrace. This film is gonna be a blockbuster if you can generate heat like that in every scene. We’ll need to tweak the script to account for the fights turned love scenes... Sheila! Get me the script doctor on the phone!”

  The director turned away and left Jackson and Ana staring at one another in shock.

  “What just happened?” she asked in a small voice.

  “No idea. But he’s the boss when it comes to creative decisions. Whatever he wants, he gets.”

  Adrian called over his shoulder. “Sex. I want more sex from you two.”

  Flabbergasted, she looked up at Jackson. He looked positively stunned.

  “I’ve got to go,” he said suddenly.

  And just like that, he strode off the set.

  She was left alone to endure the ribbing of the crew. Which sucked, by the way. No matter how many times she told them it was just acting and they should all grow up, it didn’t seem to have the slightest effect on anyone. The entire crew was hooting with glee over the two of them all but having carnal knowledge of each other on film.

  And no matter what Jackson said, it was her fault. She was the one who’d picked a real fight, and she was the one who’d provoked Jackson until he finally responded in kind. One thing she knew about him: he hated being humiliated. He was never going to forgive her for this. Could she possibly screw up things between them any more?

  The ride home in the Hugster was quiet. Really quiet. As in totally silent. Another thing she knew for sure: she had to get out of the house and away from him, fast. Even if she had to eat and sleep in her car until she found an affordable place.

  Maybe it was her tension with Jackson, or maybe it was just her stress making her paranoia worse than usual, but she got the feeling someone was watching her while they were sitting at Serendipity’s only stoplight. She twisted around in the passenger seat to peer out the back window of the minivan, but it was impossible to differentiate one car from another in the line of vehicles behind them.

  “What’s up?” Jackson asked alertly as she turned back around to face front.

  She shrugged, reluctant to admit her silly fears to him.

  “Why were you looking back there?” he asked. “And why are you still staring at the rearview mirror like it’s going to attack you any second?”

  “Sometimes I get the feeling I’m being watched. It’s no big deal. It’s just heightened nerves after the stuff that happened to me all at once.”

  Jackson went all macho and protective on her, exactly like she’d feared he would. “When do you get the feeling? Have you ever seen anyone tailing you? What times of day do you get the feeling? Does it happen in the same places?” he demanded.

  “It’s nothing. There’s never anyone there, and it’s just a little post trauma anxiety. Stand down, Mr. Commando. It’s okay.”

  “In my experience, intuitions should be listened to—”

  “Not in this case,” she interrupted. “I’m telling you. You’re overreacting.”

  He scowled at her and muttered, “Maybe you’re underreacting.” But thankfully, he dropped the subject.

  Lord, that man could be overpowering when he chose to be. And it was as sexy as hell. She had to get out of here if she was ever going to break free of his spell on her.

  As soon as she got back to her room at the seaside mansion, she started packing her meager possessions. She probably ought to leave behind all the beautiful clothes Minerva had purchased for her, but she didn’t want to offend Jackson’s grandmother, who’d been genuinely kind to her, and who’d gotten a big kick out of Ana wearing the elegant, feminine clothing.

  “How are you doing, dear?” Minerva asked in concern the second Ana showed her face in the kitchen.

  “I’m fine,” she answered as politely as she could. It wasn’t his grandmother’s fault Jackson was an ass.

  “Are you sure? Jackson was pretty worried when he called me today.”

  That stopped her in her tracks. “He called you?”

  Minerva laughed “Can you believe it? He asked me for advice on how to deal with a woman. I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

  “Advice? What kind of advice?”

  Minerva loaded up a plate with turkey breast, mashed potatoes, gravy, a big pile of steamed vegetables and cranberry relish, which was giving off a heavenly orange aroma. “Here, Ana. You’re not eating enough.”

  Her appetite had been off the past few days. Although she couldn’t tell it from her waistline. Rosie was an amazing cook who was going to wreck Ana’s figure if she stayed here too much longer.

  “Do you want to talk about what an ass he’s being?” Minerva asked sympathetically.

  “No. That’s okay. I pretty much expressed my opinion to him earlier.”

  “Just remember, dear. Hate is not the opposite of love. Apathy is. As long as you have passionate feelings of any kind for each other, your love is alive.”

  Hah. The two of them must feel enormous love for one another if the passion between them was the measuring stick. Except Jackson had never once even hinted that he knew what love was, let alone that he felt it toward her.

  Ana carried her plate upstairs to her room and picked at it unenthusiastically. Minerva was right about one thing: she was not over Jackson. She doubted she would achieve apathy where he was concerned for a very long time. If ever.

  She drew designs in her mashed po
tatoes idly with her fork. Was she ruined for anyone else? Like Jackson? After Vanessa van Buren, he was apparently done with love, forever. Would that be her fate, too?

  She’d thought it was a wee bit self-indulgent of him to swear off love for as long as he had. She might even venture to say he was being overly dramatic. But here she was, guilty of acting the exact same way. Of course, in her case, she’d had hang-ups about guys before Chandler ever came along—

  Huh. Was it the same for Jackson? Had his mother’s emotional abandonment and early death given him issues about women before Vanessa had come along to mess with him? It wasn’t like she was going to ask him about it outright, of course.

  Okay, fine. So she needed to start dating again, and Jackson had shown her that she could handle it with the right guy. Too bad she wasn’t the right girl for him. Why did it have to be so darned complicated? Why couldn’t he just return her feelings and be done with it?

  Appetite wrecked, she pushed the plate away from her and crawled into bed. It was barely 8:00 p.m., but she was exhausted by the day’s roller-coaster emotions.

  * * *

  Jackson knocked quietly on Ana’s door. They really needed to talk about what had happened between them on the set. Not that he relished the idea of dragging out their emotions and putting them under a microscope, but it wasn’t as if he had any choice in the matter. Over dinner—which Ana was notably absent from—Minerva had told him in no uncertain terms that if it came to a breakup, she was keeping Ana and the baby and ditching him.

  Dammit.

  He knocked again. Still no answer. Alarmed, he tried the knob and it turned under his hand. He slipped inside the darkened room quickly. She wasn’t so distraught she would do something drastic, was she?

  He looked around frantically until he spotted the long lump of her in bed. Wow. She was already asleep? He moved over to the bedside to stare down at her. In the scant light seeping in around the curtains, she looked like a fallen angel. Her hair formed a halo around her face on her pillow, and he studied her bone structure for a long time. She was a genuinely beautiful woman.

  Quietly, he picked up her plate of cold food and headed downstairs with it.

  “How’s she doing?” Minerva asked him.

  Buttinsky. “Asleep.”

  His grandmother nodded sagely. “Most women are usually tired in the first trimester.” She glanced down at the largely untouched plate of food. “And they’re picky eaters, too.”

  He was half tempted to dump the plate of food over Minerva’s head. Of course, he was also tempted to blurt out that Ana was not freaking pregnant. But there was no need to lash out at Minerva just because he was ticked off at himself.

  Bored, restless and feeling caged, he ended up going to bed early. His only other option was to get stinking drunk, and he had a production meeting with Adrian first thing in the morning. He couldn’t afford to show up hungover.

  But sleeping was a joke. He tossed and turned all night while visions of Ana danced in his head. Working with her. Laughing with her. Making love with her. Even fighting with her.

  She was so different from cool, contained and, ultimately, calculating Vanessa. Ana was plainspoken. Down-to-earth. Real. Totally unlike the string of ambitious actresses he’d serial-dated since Vanessa.

  Was Ana right? Was he stuck in the past? Hell, he doubted Vanessa even remembered his name. Knowing her, she was on her second or third husband by now. Ana emphatically wasn’t that kind of girl. She’d said it herself: once her feelings were given, they stayed given.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t think Ana was great. She was. It was just that he was scared stiff of committing to a forever relationship. There hadn’t been too many forevers in his life. Except for Minerva, of course. But was his grandmother enough to compensate for his missing father, a mother who abandoned him and a cheating, lying ex-fiancée?

  Was there something wrong with him that made people not stick around for him? Or was he the ass who didn’t stick around long enough for anyone else to get a chance to love him?

  He made the mistake of letting his mind drift to his and Ana’s on-screen tussle earlier in the day. What on earth had been wrong with him? The second he got his hands on her, all hell had broken loose inside him. All he could think about was getting more, and yet more, of the taste and feel of her. He probably ought to just drag her off to bed and not let her out of it until she got over whatever was ticking her off so bad.

  Yup, that pretty much did him in for sleeping the rest of the night. His raging hard-on wasn’t abating anytime soon. And, short of storming Ana’s room and begging her for some release, nothing was going to help him.

  Sure, he could go take a shower and ease his misery. But there was something fitting about him being in pain, his body rock hard and throbbing insistently. Ana would say he deserved it. And she would not be wrong.

  When dawn began to creep in his window, he was relieved to get out of bed and head out of the house. He severely needed a long ride on his Harley to clear his head before he went in to work.

  * * *

  Ana lay in bed and listened to Jackson’s motorcycle roar out of the driveway at the crack of dawn. Her dreams had been troubled and mostly involved her and Jackson crawling all over each other having gnarly sex, their naked bodies colored bottle-green.

  How had things gotten so messed up between them so fast? If only he was a complete jerk. And if only she didn’t dissolve into a blob of fiery lust every time he laid a finger on her. Maybe she ought to tie him down and have her way with him until he gave up resisting the chemistry between them. If only.

  She made her glum way downstairs for breakfast and was surprised to see Minerva up at the crack of dawn. “What’s got you up so early?”

  “Big plans today, dear. Are you off to work early?”

  “Yes. But I heard Jackson leave already. Mind if I take the Hugster? I’m hoping to do some apartment shopping on my lunch break today.”

  “Not at all, dear. I got the minivan for you and the baby.”

  Ana couldn’t help wincing. Somebody had to convince Minerva that the yogi was a fake and that she was not pregnant, but she wasn’t about to do it. The woman was Jackson’s grandmother. He should be the one to tell her the truth.

  The production meeting between Adrian and Jackson finished about when Ana got done with her usual morning stretching and conditioning workout. The senior members of the crew emerged from Adrian’s office talking shop. In a blatant effort to avoid seeing Jackson, she darted into the women’s locker room to change clothes. She shrugged into her Lycra bodysuit and headed out to the green mat. Jackson was already there, looking thunderous.

  “Meeting go bad?” she asked low.

  “Nah. I just slept lousy.”

  A half dozen stuntmen strolled out to the floor just then and commenced harassing Jackson. Mercilessly. Apparently, in this morning’s meeting, Adrian had screened yesterday’s footage of her and Jackson fighting. He’d said it exactly captured the mood and tone he was looking for in the movie.

  Great. So everyone in the crew who hadn’t caught their performance live yesterday was aware of it now, anyway. How special. Knowing the crew, they would never give it a rest. Even if Jackson’s patience was clearly wearing paper-thin.

  She caught a few jabs, herself, but Jackson was quick to intervene and redirect the banter at himself. She was grateful but also perplexed by the gesture. He was possibly less amused by the ribbing than she was.

  Thankfully, Adrian showed up before long and saved them both from any more teasing. The director asked briskly, “All right. Cameras, are we ready to go?”

  “Yes, sir,” the director of photography replied.

  “Jackson? Ana?”

  “We’re good,” Jackson answered grimly.

  “All right. Places. Quiet on set. Test
shot one of fight sequence two. Roll cameras if you please, gentlemen.”

  Ana gritted her teeth. She really didn’t need an audience of her peers for this. But it wasn’t like she had any choice in the matter. She focused on Jackson’s big body moving toward her, stalking, circling.

  He jumped and she dodged, chanting the step sequence in her head. They stayed on script for a little bit, but every time she slipped through Jackson’s grasp—which was choreographed to happen several times—the frown on his face got more thunderous.

  Finally, his pent-up emotions seemed to get the best of him, and it was his turn to go off script. Whether his feeling got the best of him, or he was just tired and forgot the routine, or he did it intentionally, she couldn’t tell. But all of a sudden, she was trapped in his arms, wrapped in a grip that crushed the air out of her.

  She dropped to her knees, slipping the grip, and it was on. Like yesterday, the fight turned real, and they demolished the breakaway tables and chairs that had been set up to simulate the bar the scene would take place in. They stalked each other, leaping and swinging at one another like savage animals.

  She spied the opening she’d been looking for. She feinted left, he dived right, and she jumped onto his back like she had yesterday. Except this time she anticipated his attempt to flip her over his shoulder and wrapped her legs around his waist before he could throw her off. She didn’t anticipate his flexibility, though, or the way he was able to reach around behind his back and peel her off of him by main force, dragging her around to his front.

  He smashed his mouth down on hers and everything else disappeared. The catcalls and whistles of the crew, the cameras, the set, everything. It was just him. His mouth. His hands. His glorious body.

  All of a sudden, she was crawling over him like she wanted to get inside his green suit. She kissed him with abandon, and he threw himself at her just as freely. Their kiss turned into wrestling, their wrestling into dry humping, their dry humping into an all-out fight. They flowed from sex moves to fight moves and back again seamlessly.