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She cut her gaze to the menu, ignoring his keen stare. “I order from a place near my apartment at least once a week,” she said, cursing herself for revealing even one small personal detail. There was just something so darn intimate about the quiet setting, about what felt more like a date than a business meeting, that she welcomed the waiter’s interruption to take their orders. Why could she not stop thinking about being in the basement the night before—just she and Sam—both of them wet, her nearly naked, and then wearing his coat? But she knew. It wasn’t just the attraction between them that had gotten to her. It was the way he’d been protective, the way he’d helped her. He made her want to hand him just a little control, and that frightened her. She’d dared to do that a few times in her life and each time had led her to the wrong place.
They placed their orders, the silent awareness springing back into place the instant they were alone again.
“I have a confession to make,” he said, leaning in closer, as if they weren’t the only ones in the entire back room of the restaurant. As if he knew what she’d just been thinking, and from everything she’d observed about Sam, he probably did.
“And that would be what?” The question croaked from her dry throat.
“With all the Tabitha chaos, I forgot to grab the property listings from my bag in my hotel room.”
His words conjured naughty, inexcusable images in her mind of what might happen if they ended up in his room. And judging from his darkening expression, Sam was thinking the same thing.
Feeling warm all over and desperate to splash some ice on both herself and the situation, Meagan reached for her only defense, her only hope of resisting Sam—words.
Meagan shifted in her seat. “That defeats the purpose of dinner, don’t you think?”
“I guess that depends on whose perspective we’re using,” he said, his blue gaze holding hers.
Meagan’s heart skipped a beat.
Sam continued, “In fact—”
The sentenced dissolved on his lips as the waiter set their plate of egg rolls in the center of the table. Sam exchanged a few comments with the man, seemingly in no hurry to finish what he’d been saying to her. Meagan, whose heart was darn near exploding with anticipation, waited anxiously for the rest of whatever he might have said. Men didn’t rattle her this way, or rather, no man but Sam rattled her this way, or any way for that matter.
The waiter disappeared and Sam took a bite of his egg roll. Meagan wanted to reach across the table and strangle him for being so casual. Instead, she reached for her soda and took a long sip, forcing herself to think through the haze of arousal Sam had created in her, blaming it on pure exhaustion and no rest. She had to be reading into his words, into the energy swelling between them, or he wouldn’t be so nonchalant. He’d moved on from whatever she’d thought he might say, as if it hadn’t been worth saying in the first place.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” he asked, snapping up a second egg roll.
“You plan on leaving me anything to eat?” She scooted the container of hot mustard in front of her, along with a bottle of soy sauce, and mixed them on a plate.
“We can always ask for more, and since I missed lunch, we might have to.”
The prickly exterior she’d erected to protect herself slid away. He’d been there last night with her, then worked all day, and without a complaint or at least one she’d heard. He had to be as tired as she was. She put the sauce between them and set an egg roll on her plate. “You can have the last one. I had lunch, and I plan to do my meal plenty of justice when it arrives.”
He gave her an appreciative murmur and dipped his egg roll into the sauce. “About the properties. One of our best bets is a beachfront house that has everything we need—privacy, size, functionality—at least on paper, that is. Oh, and not only does it have a mother-in-law house, the owner has a second house a half mile up the beach that just became available. You could use that for the crew and general whatever. Both properties would put us slightly over budget, but they might be worth fighting for.”
“Wow,” Meagan said. “It sounds too good to be true.”
“Well, there’s a catch.”
“Of course,” she said. “There’s always a catch.” She motioned with her hand. “Let me have the dirt.”
“The place has been vacant for months, but now that we’re considering it, there’s another interested party.”
“Are you sure the owner or Realtor isn’t trying to manipulate us?”
“I talked with the other party,” he said. “He’s real and he’s eager. He’s even telling the owner the show will destroy the property, referring to the wildness on other reality shows.”
“Surely the owner knows the show will push up his long-term property values?”
“He knows, but he isn’t willing to risk losing the rental income from the other party while waiting for us. He wants a fast answer. As in tomorrow.”
“Sam, that’s insane. We can’t possibly decide that fast.”
The waiter filled their water glasses. “Look. I’m not pressuring you here. I haven’t even seen the place. On the other hand, this property has miles of open beach. You get plenty of room to film, and my team will know if anyone so much as thinks about approaching. And believe me, that’ll be important.” He unrolled his silverware from a napkin. “This damn curse is going to be a problem. We’ve already had several paranormal groups contact us, not to mention the media snooping around, looking for rumors and gossip.”
“‘Damn curse’ is right,” she murmured, sliding her napkin to her lap and picking up her egg roll only to set it back down. “We better be prepared. Once the footage I’m shooting airs, we’re likely to have a three-ring circus on our hands. I hate that the studio is pressing this angle.”
His brows dipped. “I thought you’d be glad for the ratings boost.”
“Not like this,” she said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. At first, I was just relieved to find out we didn’t get cancelled. As the day has gone on, though, I’m not so sure. I worry we’re headed away from the premise of the show and into trouble.”
“Meaning what?”
“My father’s a preacher in a small Texas town—and I’m talking small town like in the movie Footloose.”
“So you’re worried that the show may become offensive?”
“Yes and no. I want to give dance credibility and I think having real talent evolve will give it longevity, while short-term thrills and chills only give a facade of success that ultimately fizzles. The curse falls into that category in my opinion. If we build ratings on the pretense of a curse, what do we follow that with? Will dancing and the personal journeys of the dancers, who we want the audience to passionately love or hate, be enough?” She shook her head. “This curse really is a nightmare I wish I could make go away.”
“I can see that,” he agreed.
“Aside from the staying power issue, I’ve seen how a small group of people can create demons where they don’t exist. It makes people irrational, and irrational can be dangerous.” She took a bite of her egg roll and made a sound of pleasure. “And either this is really good or I’m just really hungry.”
“I wouldn’t know,” he said. “I’m too hungry to be objective.”
“I’m leaning toward thinking it’s really good food,” she said. “I’m hoping the rest of the meal is, as well.”
They ate in surprisingly comfortable silence for a while before he leaned back in his chair. “I’d never have figured you for a small-town girl.”
“Yeah, well, I got out of that small town the minute I could.”
“And then you ended up in L.A.”
“Not immediately,” she said. “I went to school and that led to me producing a news program in Waco, Texas. Some random lucky breaks and I ended up in Dallas at a much larger station. A connection there gave me the chance to pitch this show. And now that I’m here, I don’t want to blow it.”
“Then I say we need to look at this property,” he said. “The right location and security might just silence this curse nonsense. We should go check it out early tomorrow.”
“That’s impossible. I have footage to shoot and get edited.”
The waiter appeared with their food, and Sam paused until he left, before adding, “A busy schedule is all the more reason to secure the right location and move on to other things,” Sam said. “And I might be pushing a bit on this but—”
“No matter how amazing the location is, I don’t have time tomorrow.” She shook her head. “Not unless I can be cloned.”
“I have a key,” he said. “We can go after we finish here if you like. Or I can go check it out and let you know if it’s a waste of time, but if it’s good, you have to find time tomorrow—”
“No,” she said quickly. She wouldn’t be able to make the time, but she also knew this couldn’t be left to someone else to decide. It was too critical to the show. “Tonight. We’ll go tonight.”
For several crackling seconds, they stared at one another, and reality washed over Meagan. She’d just committed to going to a secluded beach house with Sam. She immediately picked up her fork, stabbing a water chestnut.
Sam chuckled and Meagan’s eyes lifted to his. “What’s so funny?”
“The absolute horror on your face when it occurred to you we’d be alone somewhere private. I can have one of my staff take you. Or you can bring along one of your staff members, if you want.”
The offer surprised her. Her reaction surprised her even more, though it shouldn’t have. She didn’t want a chaperone. “You were some sort of Special Ops guy, right?”
“For fourteen years.”
And since he was in his early thirties, that meant he’d gone into the army when he was a late teen. She wondered why, she wondered…damn it. “Then I’d say you’re experienced enough to protect me,” she said, shoving aside curiosity, refusing to get to know Sam any more than she felt she already did. She knew too much. She liked too much. She didn’t want to like Sam.
She ate her chestnut and dabbed her mouth with her napkin. He was watching her. She could feel the warmth of those blue eyes as surely as if she were looking into them. Finally, when he didn’t speak, she glanced up at him, his inspection too intense to bear, his unspoken thoughts unnerving. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
He chuckled. “I’m not sure what ‘like that’ means, but I was just wondering who’s going to protect me from you?”
6
HE’D BAITED HER, unable to stop himself—expecting the flash in her eyes, and the fierceness of her expression that he found so sexy. And it had worked. For the first time since they’d sat down in the restaurant, she leaned towards him, her full lips close enough that he could imagine kissing them, as she said, “Don’t tick me off and you won’t need protection.”
“You like being ticked off at me and you know it.”
“Why would I like being pissed off at you?”
“At some point I think you thought it kept me at a distance. But seems to me that plan has backfired. I’m here to stay, sweetheart. Now what are you going to do with me?”
“For starters,” she said, without hesitation, “if you call me ‘sweetheart’ again, you’ll be wishing for that protection.”
“I’m willing to take whatever you dish out and then some. In fact, maybe you need to unload on me and get it out of your system.” He lowered his voice, all jest gone, a realization taking form. “Maybe there’s a lot we need to just get out of our systems. Maybe then we can move past…it.” Her eyes went wide, but she didn’t lean back, didn’t immediately reject the idea, didn’t ask what “it” was, because they both knew. “It” was desire, hot and getting hotter by the second.
Sam didn’t know what this woman did to him, but while she worried about him stealing her control, she had all but shredded his. There was something about her. Actually, everything about her worked for him, from how her forehead crinkled when she was thinking, to how passionate she was about her show. Being this interested in a woman wasn’t a comfortable place to be. It wasn’t uncomfortable, either. Just different for him because he couldn’t seem to flip the “off” switch.
Long, sizzling seconds passed and she hadn’t responded to his proposition. He arched a brow at her silence. “No snappy comeback?”
“Maybe it would just complicate things,” she said, clearly talking about sex. “Maybe it would make things worse.”
“My thoughts exactly up until a few minutes ago. But we damn near combust every time we’re together, and it’s only a matter of time before we do. We both like to maintain control, so I say we deal with this on our terms, where we control how it happens.” And, he added silently, I can finally get you alone and try to tear down the walls you’ve built around yourself.
“You don’t know me.” She didn’t sound as if she quite believed those words. “You don’t know what I like.”
“But I want to know. And I’ve known you a while now. I know things you might think I hadn’t paid attention to. Like how you left a small town for a big city and now you’re daring to work for a monster studio who’d eat their own young for ratings. That takes courage. On top of all of that, you’re sitting here with me, alone, knowing exactly where it could lead. So I’d lay my money on you enjoying danger as long as it’s on your terms.” He softened his voice. “After tonight, the cameras and crew will be everywhere.”
“Sam, I—”
“Meagan!”
She inhaled at the same moment he stiffened. Before he could speak, they were surrounded by a group of the crew, who’d deserted the hotel bar for the nearest restaurant. Chaos followed as tables were shoved next to each other, only a few steps away from their tiny corner. One of the cameramen—a hefty thirtysomething guy from Texas, who they all called “Double Dave” for obvious reasons—pulled a chair to their table to talk to Meagan about his “concerns” for the next day’s shots. He then called yet another cameraman over to their table.
Sam listened as Meagan calmed their concerns, and then did enough listening of her own to manage to get her dinner down, while Sam did the same. He was intrigued by her expressions, her mannerisms, her respect for the people who worked for her, and knew it was a sign of just how badly he had it for this woman. She wouldn’t look at him though, and he had to wonder if she was calculating a way to escape his proposition. She was good at running from him despite her obvious interest, and he wondered why.
His meal completed, Sam pushed away from the table. “I’ll check out that property, and let you know how it looks.”
Meagan quickly shoved her chair back. “I’m going, too,” she said. “None of the rest of this matters if we don’t have a house to shoot in.”
“You’re viewing a property tonight?” Double Dave asked.
Sam’s expression seemed to be questioning her, so she gave the same right back to him?
“We are,” she said in reply to Dave, though, focused on Sam, not the cameraman. “We have to take it or lose it by tomorrow.” She glanced at Dave, and the rest of the group, and then announced the exciting prospect of a new house, and that she’d report on it tomorrow.
The next thing Sam knew, he and Meagan were outside. Their eyes collided the same instant the hot, muggy air slammed into them, and their budding sexual tension expanded around them, while the world shrunk to just the two of them.
“Your vehicle or mine?” he asked, willing his body to calm.
She tilted her head, studying him with such scrutiny that it was his turn to say, “What are you looking at me like that for?”
“I just thought you were the ‘I’m driving’ kind of guy.”
“And I thought you were the ‘I’m driving’ kind of woman.”
“I am.”
He waved her forward. “Well, then. Lead the way.”
She didn’t move. Instead, she stared at him intensely, then said, “You drive. My eyes hurt from editing too much film, and I don’t want you backseat driving.”
“So, you’ll backseat drive.”
“Exactly.”
Sam laughed and barely resisted the unnerving urge to grab her hand and pull her along with him—telling himself that he only needed to touch her once, that this thing was sex and sex only. He motioned her forward. “If we walk around to the side of the hotel, we can go straight to the garage and avoid another crew ambush.”
“Don’t you need to get the property listings from your room?”
“I put the address for this one in my GPS earlier. It’s about a forty-minute drive, so we better hit the road. It’s almost seven now.”
Meagan groaned and they fell into step together. “I have a six o’clock shoot in the morning, and I am going to be hating life when it starts.”
“Then it’s good I’m driving,” he said. “You can nap on the way to the property and back, if you want.”
She stopped.
“What?” he asked again.
“Stop being nice to me. I liked you better when you were intentionally trying to agitate me.”
She meant she felt safer, but he didn’t say it, not when she could back out of their private outing before they ever left. “I simply assumed you required more rest than I do.”
Her hands went to her hips. “Why would I need more rest than you? Because …” She paused, eyes lighting with understanding. “Wow. You just proved that you can bait me at will, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “But you can do the same to me. Don’t even think about saying you don’t know it because we both know you do. We both know how to punch each other’s buttons.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “I guess we do.”
Damn, he wanted this woman. She didn’t even try and play coy with him. He liked that. He liked it a hell of a lot. “Let’s get out of here before we’re cornered. Or worse, before Tabitha returns.”
“True,” she said, her face lit with a warm smile.
At his vehicle, he held the passenger door of his Ford F150 open for her, and she gave him an awkward look. “You don’t have to do that for me. I can get it.”
He pressed his hand to the side of the truck, the distinctly feminine scent of her reaching him. “I’m a soldier at heart. Opening a door for a lady is as natural to me as busting my chops is apparently for you.”
A rich, laugh left her lips. “I don’t imagine many people ‘bust your chops’ easily, so I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“They don’t and I’ll take your acknowledgement of that fact as a compliment.”
A subtle but obvious tension lit between them. “Actually, it is a compliment.” She paused. “Sam. I, well, I’ve given you such a hard time that I think I should tell you how much I really appreciate how you handled the problems on set tonight. Rather than doing what I would have expected—charging in and taking over—you respected my role.”
“And unless there’s an imminent threat to someone’s safety, I always will. My hope would be that if an unfortunate situation like that arises, you’ll respect my role, as well.”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“That means no running into buildings that could go up in flames any second. You wait for me.”
She pursed her lips. “Unless someone is in imminent danger and I can help.”
He lowered his voice. “Meagan—”
She held up her hands. “Yes. Okay. I’ll wait. Probably. I’ll try. And I admit running into the house wasn’t one of my more brilliant moves, but I was afraid the show would go up in flames with the house. Like everyone’s dreams. Everyone who’d hoped this show would change their life would have lost their dream, too. I just couldn’t let that happen.”
Tension curled inside Sam. Somehow, every moment he’d ever shared with Meagan, every thought he’d had, every assumption he’d made, merged into this one instant. And there lay the danger of moving forward with his intention to finally sate his hunger for her tonight.
The morning-after might not deliver the complication-free, tension-easing relief they’d both hoped for, because he simply wasn’t certain that one night would be enough. And he knew combining romance with work never ended well.
Several voices sounded nearby, interrupting their moment. “Come on. We have to go before it gets any later.”
She jumped into the truck, and closed the door behind her. As he rushed to the driver’s side, he tried to talk himself back off the ledge, tried to convince himself not to touch Meagan, to reel himself in before it was too late. Too late? Who was he kidding? He wouldn’t find the “off” switch if his life depended on it.
MEAGAN LISTENED to the engine roar to life with a fleeting realization that she didn’t have her phone or her purse. She’d taken off for their dinner, expecting to stay in the hotel, with nothing in hand. Normally, she’d insist on going back for both.
Instead, she found herself fixated on Sam’s powerful forearms, as he maneuvered the truck out of the parking spot. Everything about Sam was strong and powerful. His hands, his face, and his eyes, when they caught her in one of those penetrating stares.
She wanted him with as much passion as she knew he was wrong for her, which was to the point of complete and utter distraction. Worse—to the point that he was now controlling her with anticipation and fantasy.
Still, it was clear to her that avoiding him wasn’t the answer, for all kinds of reasons. Sleeping with him—well, he’d offered her one night, to get “it” out of their systems. She just had to be certain there were no strings. Then, maybe he was right.
Sam sparked something inside her, consumed her without even trying. His voice, his eyes, his powerful presence, all resonated with her.
Honestly, her attraction for Sam wasn’t going away, nor was he. But would making love with him extinguish the flames between them or cause them to burn brighter? Meagan admitted this had been her concern all along.
So why was she still considering it?
7
MEAGAN STARED AHEAD as the truck exited the garage, resisting the magnetic pull of Sam next to her, of the desire to turn to him, to study him—to slide up next to him and finally, finally, just be with him. The moon dangled low in the sky, like a lamp on an invisible chain, like her unyielding need for this man.
“Rest if you want,” he said. “I’ll wake you up when we get close.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, and sank down low in the seat and closed her eyes. She needed to think, she needed to…she didn’t know. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t know what she needed to do. Her mind raced to the point that she wanted to sit up, wanted to do something, anything. Instead, she pretended to sleep, sensing the shift in shadows as they maneuvered the streets of L.A., her mind playing with images. Sam looking hot. Sam looking hot while he stood in the basement dripping wet.
She forced herself to remember why she needed to concentrate. Sam might misread her, might think he had more claim to power on the set, if they slept together. They’d argue. Everyone would be affected. But then she thought of Sam’s eyes when he’d walked right into the chaos earlier, when his eyes had met hers, when he’d silently asked if he could intervene.
They must have been a good thirty minutes into the ride when Sam said, “I can hear you thinking, Meagan.”
She didn’t pretend she wasn’t awake; in fact, not pretending was a relief. She turned to face Sam. “Did you hear anything that made any sense to you, because I sure didn’t.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“As in—to you?”
He chuckled. It was a low, sexy sound, becoming both familiar and unnervingly likable. “I would be the only person here,” he reminded her.
“Yeah, but I can’t talk to you. Not about…you.”
He laughed louder and cut her a look. “I can assure you with one hundred percent certainty that I know more about me than anyone else on this earth.”
Fine, she’d ask him questions, but not the one really on her mind, which would be, should she sleep with him? “How old were you when you went into the army?”