Girl Gear 4: Striptease (5 page)

“Right. You aren’t the only one here without a date.” Melanie felt like a fifth or sixth or even seventeenth wheel, standing here, whining about Jess—who
was
only a friend—leaving her in the lurch.
Puhleez!
So far, today’s only bright spot was that she hadn’t paid an ungodly sum of money to a therapist to point out the obvious.

Knowing Chloe had invited him to the cookout, Melanie had retreated to the safety of Jess, who she’d known for ages, at the first sign of danger from Jacob.

That damn tape had seemed like
such
a good idea at the time. But now? All she wanted to know was what in the hell she’d been thinking. And why she hadn’t yet thought of a plausible story explaining the loss of her mind.

“Don’t give me that without-a-date crap.” Chloe waved away a fly buzzing over her bowl of potato salad. “You’ve never hated being alone. Besides, Aiden’s here alone. Kinsey’s here alone.”

“Kinsey’s with Doug,” Melanie countered, watching the couple dunk one another in the pool, splashing
anyone who hadn’t left the deck earlier when they’d dived in.

Chloe shrugged. “Now, maybe. But they didn’t arrive together. Patrick’s here alone.”

“Patrick’s always alone.”

“His choice. I know about fifty women ready, willing but doubtfully able to soothe his weary soul.” Chloe glanced this way and that, canvassing the crowded backyard. “Poe’s alone. Renata’s alone. Well, sort of alone. Aiden’s sticking pretty close. Anyway, just quit your bitching.”

“I’m not bitching. I’m just…bitchy.” A mood unlikely to dissipate until she’d settled on an action plan. One thing was certain. She’d have to play it cool.

Giving Jacob a hint, an inkling even, of her second thoughts regarding the tape would not bode well for their professional future. She had to make as though she’d been in total control. The decision totally disciplined.

Right. Like she’d been able to convince him of that so far.

“Hmm.”

Melanie grimaced at Chloe’s suspicious-sounding tone. “Hmm what?”

Her pointed gaze shifted suddenly back to Melanie. “This isn’t about Jess at all, is it? You’re nervous. Something’s happened.”

“Nothing’s happened,” Melanie answered, yet again being probed and in not a good way.

“You can’t even look me straight in the eye. And you keep watching the gate like you’re waiting for someone.”

Uh-oh.

“Hmm. There’s only one no-show unaccounted for…” Chloe mused.

Melanie took a studiously casual sip of beer.

“Are you waiting for Jacob?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Her friend sucked in a delighted breath. “You’re blushing.”

“It’s the heat.”

“Didn’t I tell you the man was hot? What happened between you two? Tell me everything!” Chloe licked a chunk of potato from the back of her clear plastic spoon and leaned forward avidly.

Melanie winced. “There’s nothing to tell.”

“Don’t give me that,” Chloe began, wagging her spoon, obviously on a roll. “I’m not buying it. When I walked into your office the other day, I had to wave my hand to clear the steam. Good thing I wear contacts.”

Melanie felt her shields go up. “Don’t tell me you’re matchmaking here.”

“Me? Match-make? Not a chance.” The other woman shook her head vehemently. Almost
too
vehemently. “I’ve learned way too much about chemistry, friends and lovers from Eric to think my opinion on how you should run your love life amounts to anything.”

Love life, ha! “I have no love life.”

“Exactly. Or at least, you didn’t used to.” Chloe scooped out one last bite of salad from her bowl and waited hopefully.

“And I still don’t.” Unless having sex with a pole counted.

“You’re blushing again, sugar. Don’t be embarrassed. I can see why you’d want to jump Jacob’s
bones. There’s something about him that you’re not going to get with Jess. Could be just his obvious fling potential and nothing you can work with long term, but a fling might just do you good.”

“You think I need a fling. With a man I don’t even know.”

“Stop being a prude and listen already. I know you, Mel.”

Yeah, I’m a real prude, all right.

“You’ve been way too uptight lately. I don’t know what about, though I’m guessing it’s somehow related to the wedding. And,” Chloe continued when Melanie opened her mouth to interrupt, “Macy hooking up with Leo, Sydney finding Ray and this thing with me and Eric.”

How sweet of Chloe to point out that Melanie was one of only two of the original gIRL-gEAR partners unattached. And more than likely the last one, what with Kinsey mooning over Doug all the time.

Melanie glared at Chloe. “Your point?”

“My point is that you work ungodly hours and make no attempt to meet men outside the office, and suddenly this sexy man literally walks into your professional life. It doesn’t make sense to blow off the guy without knowing him better. Now, blowing him is another matter entirely.”

Grinning at Melanie’s dropped jaw, Chloe acknowledged Eric’s beckoning wave with one raised hand. “Give it some thought, Mel. What’s the worst that could happen?”

I’m going to have to face him and pretend like I haven’t done a thing. Like he hasn’t seen a thing. Or at least have a viable lie ready to tell about why I made that damn tape.
Melanie relaxed her white-
knuckled grip on the bottle. “He’s a business associate, Chloe. That’s all.”

Chloe’s exasperated gaze gradually softened. “Okay, sugar. If that’s your story, I’ll stick to it if anyone asks. But when you’re ready to talk, I hope you know I’m a discreet listener.”

“Patient confidentiality?”

Chloe shook her head. “Girlfriend trust. It’s more sacred.”

They shared a warm smile and Melanie forced a swallow of beer past the lump in her throat.

“Um, speaking of business associates…” Chloe let the sentence trail off and nodded toward the backyard gate—

—through which Jacob Faulkner had just walked. Melanie felt heat flush from her collarbone to her hairline. Running her cold longneck over her forehead, she ignored her girlfriend’s chuckle and sympathetic pat.

“Steam,” Chloe said, before going to join Eric at the grill. Melanie tried to look away from Jacob. Tried and failed.

The man needed to be shot on general principle. And because he’d come out of nowhere to complicate her well-ordered life by refusing to fit any of her preconceived notions of how she was supposed to respond to a man. She was supposed to be attracted to his work ethic, his intelligence, not want to drag him to bed.

Melanie upended and emptied her bottle of beer onto the grass, then turned her focus toward Jacob. He’d moved toward the back patio and stood talking to Sydney and Poe. Both women laughed, watching whatever it was he was showing them on a portable
DVD player. Probably the group interview he’d filmed in the conference room on Wednesday.

The same day Melanie had taken his tape home and performed her infamous striptease.

The thought sent her stomach rolling.

The two women stood on either side of him and Jacob towered over them, not just in height but in the totally masculine scope of his body. She tried to study him with a sense of detachment, but all she could think about was the way she’d imagined his hands on her body when she’d brought herself off.

Her knees trembled. Her temperature soared. The sun beat down on her head and she blamed the heat for the dizzying buzz along the surface of her skin. Had he watched the tape? Had he shared it with his buddies and had a good laugh? Had he tossed it into the trash unopened?

No, that couldn’t be the case. That couldn’t be the case at all.

Not with the way he was suddenly watching her, his gaze having come up to meet hers.

With Sydney and Poe staring at the DVD player’s screen, Jacob turned his full attention Melanie’s way. She stood there, alone, feeling strangely more naked than she’d actually been when she’d stripped. And it was all about the way he was looking at her.

Gone was the lazy lounging lizard appearance of not giving a damn. His eyes were bright, his expression determined and intense, as if he had something he needed to say. Something he needed to tell her. A challenge to issue. A dare.

That look answered her question. He’d watched the tape.

And her payback was nothing compared to the one she’d be receiving from him.

“Y
OU WANT COMPANY
?
Or is this seat saved?”

Da-da-dum
went Melanie’s heart into the base of her throat. Ten minutes ago, after being melted by Jacob’s gaze, she’d moved out of the backyard sun and into the patio’s shade. Now, taking one quick breath, she looked up over the frames of her glasses, better prepared for what she would see.

Only it wasn’t what she’d expected. This time his look was totally laid-back, totally tame, nothing at all like his earlier sizzling expression.

Batty-crazy-nuts.
He was driving her insane. And the trip from here to there was growing markedly short.

“You’re welcome to join me.” She tempered her voice to a cool indifference—two could play this casual game—and inclined her head toward the chaise longue in the porch’s far corner, beneath the awning and out of range of the water splashing from the pool.

“Thanks,” he said, grabbing the chair and moving it closer to hers.

He took his time adjusting the cushions and the footrest, took even more time setting his beer on the deck between their chairs. Once he sat, he didn’t seem the least bit concerned about making conversation. He only wedged the DVD player’s case between his spread legs and leaned back.

And that was it. No more sharp piercing looks. No questions. No movement at all.

Not a single solitary word.

If she didn’t know better, she’d think she was sitting next to a different man than the one whose expression ten minutes ago had nearly singed off her clothes. The bastard was back to basking in the sun, a desert reptile conserving his strength, a chameleon fitting in until the time came to put his clever little tongue to use.

Great.
Just great.

Now she was going to be thinking about his tongue when chameleons were probably not even desert reptiles, and thinking about his tongue was not exactly practicing the self-discipline she’d so recently preached.

But she was at a loss about what to say, what to do, whether or not to be the one to bring up the subject of the tape. And so she said simply, “I met your sister earlier. She seems very nice.”

Eyes closed, he nodded. “She is, except when she’s being a bossy pain in the ass.”

It made absolutely no sense at all, but even closed, his eyes were beautiful. His lashes, his brows, the laugh lines fanning out from the corners that crinkled when he smiled. She wondered how old he actually was. Strange that, here and now, that’s what she wanted to know. It was a safe thought, at least.

Unlike thinking of a chameleon’s long curling tongue.

She swallowed hard. “If Rennie decides to work with Chloe’s gUIDANCE gIRL program, the two of them ought to make some kind of pair. Like minds, albeit bossy ones.”

“Hmm. I only knew Chloe as a kid. She wasn’t all
that bossy, but she definitely seemed to be mad. All the time. About everything,” Jacob said. “I would’ve thought she’d end up in line to receive guidance, not dole it out.”

Melanie nodded, as if in agreement, when what she really wanted to do was scream with frustration. Why were they sitting here talking about work and other women? Why had she dumped her beer on the lawn?

And why the hell did Jacob have to look like an incredibly rich dessert, best avoided but impossible to resist?

Today he wore denim shorts, leather sandals and a plain gray athletic shirt. Ankles crossed, he’d hooked one arm over the chair’s headrest and draped the other across his middle on his very flat, very fit abs.

Melanie wasn’t going to allow her gaze to drift lower. Seeing his forearm and his hand resting at the waistband of his shorts, and seeing his fingers tucked beneath the edge, was already giving her fits.

Between her tight throat, the afternoon humidity and his position’s tempting invitation to climb on top, breathing had become extremely difficult. His body was absolutely remarkable, nearly perfect except for the way his knees slightly bowed.

She was glad for that, glad to see that he was human, after all, because she’d had at least two beers too many and found herself dizzily elevating him to the status of a god.

A long-tongued chameleon sex god.

And that just wouldn’t do.

She cleared her throat and continued to act as if nothing simmered between them but the humid afternoon air. “Chloe seems to have grown out of that. Now if she gets mad, you know it’s for a very good
reason. Or at least a reason she deems good enough. Which, now that I think about it, is why she can seem to be mad about everything all of the time.”

Okay, Melanie. Close your mouth before you get totally stupid.
She was babbling, waiting nervously for the bomb to drop. For all she could tell, the ticking hadn’t even begun. At least Jacob’s ticking. Hers hadn’t let up since he’d walked through the gate.

Jacob, on the other hand, was stretched out on the lounger looking half-asleep, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. As if he hadn’t heard a word she’d just said. As if he hadn’t received her package, after all. Or watched her strip down to her skin before she’d shut off the camera to finish her fun.

Melanie stifled the groan working its way up her throat. She knew he was pulling her leg. The fact that he was so very good at pretending gave him away. No one could have looked at her the way he had not fifteen minutes ago and then fallen fast asleep.

She glanced toward the DVD player he’d tucked between his legs. Right where she couldn’t help but see it and have her curiosity raised. “Was that part of the documentary you were showing to Sydney and Poe earlier?”

“Yeah. Just a few extra minutes of footage around the office.”

“Could I take a look?” She was dying to see how much of her antagonism—both real and faux—toward Mr. Cameraman here had actually come across on tape.

He seemed to hesitate for a second or two, then said, “Sure,” and sat straighter in the chair, pulling the mini DVD player from the carrier and into his lap. He
loaded one of several stored disks, handing her a pair of headphones he dug from a pocket in the case.

She took them, but lifted a brow in question. He shrugged. “Speakers on the player aren’t worth crap. They’re tinny as hell, and forget picking up the stereo.”

“Okay,” she said, and he plugged them into the audio jack and hit Play before handing her the device.

Setting the compact player on her lap, she adjusted the volume, joining the group interview in progress, thinking as she watched that gIRL-gEAR’s seven female partners really did make for a compelling picture of success.

The host was asking a question of Sydney, and the rest of the women laughed. Jacob had done a great job capturing the group’s comfort level. They knew one another well, and it showed.

The screen suddenly went dark, then turned to snow. Just as Melanie reached up to remove her headphones, the picture came back. But what she was looking at was no longer the office conference room.

No, she was looking at her condo’s spare bedroom, at the white walls and the shadow female figure kneeling on the floor. Through the headphones, she heard the music as clearly as she had the day it had rocked her system’s speakers. Stunned, she continued to watch the train wreck unfold.

She watched herself get to her feet and take hold of the stripper pole, seeing exactly what Jacob had seen. Seeing what she looked like as she danced. As her body writhed. A body that seemed to belong to another woman entirely.

Her shadow looked amazing, tight and fit and curvy. And the dance came across exactly as she’d intended,
voluptuous and erotically wanton, as if the woman performing was in need of a very good time in a very bad way.

It was so much easier to think of the shadow as being that of someone else. Seeing the evidence of her sexuality expressed on the screen, especially while sitting here with what might as well be throngs of people milling around, and with Jacob beside her having watched the whole thing…

What in the hell had she been thinking? How had she managed to be so stupid as to get herself into this mess? She raised her hand and rubbed the ache from her forehead. Oh, if she only had a brain!

And then she heard it, a low moan that she knew was not part of the music or a sound only in her head. No, it was definitely in her ears. And definitely male. And, oh, it was definitely Jacob.

He was talking to her shadow, his voiceover offering a rumbling sort of purring encouragement, punctuated with “Oh, baby, yeah” and a few other guttural, less repeatable comments that left her reeling and weak-kneed and short of the breath she suddenly and desperately needed to breathe.

And then it began, the rustle of clothing, the slide of a zipper, the grunt of primal desire. The throaty growl of a man in need, in pain, in a state of arousal that offered but one option involving a woman or a right or left hand. Jacob, she knew, used his left—a thought that led to all sorts of visual imagining as she continued to listen, continued to watch.

The sound of his breathing grew labored and hard, the sound of his voice took on a hoarse edge, as if he’d passed a point of no return, as if her shadowy striptease turned him on as fiercely as the performance
had her. As if coming was no longer an option but a vital part of staying alive.

The sounds, the words, the tone of his voice…his arousal was obvious—as was his solution. As had been hers. So why were they both masturbating to their sexual fantasies when they were two healthy, driven adults who wanted what the other offered in the way of physical bliss?

Never in her life would she have believed she’d want a man the way she wanted Jacob Faulkner, a want driven solely by sexual desire, having nothing to do with attributes beyond his body. Her longing wasn’t about his intellect or his ambition. It was all about what he had in his pants.

How absolutely clichéd. How marvelously thrilling.

How totally un-Melanie Craine.

Stopping the DVD while her shadow tweaked at bared nipples with back arched and head tossed back, she unplugged the headphones and returned them to Jacob. Then she ejected the disk and handed him the player. But she slipped the evidence of their joint debauchery into her tote, not yet certain why she wanted it or if she wanted it at all. Just knowing that she didn’t want to give it back.

Finally, having pulled together what she could of her shattered control, she pressed her lips together and glanced in his direction. He said nothing, but was no longer lying back and letting life pass him by. He was quite involved in the moment, reliving the experience along with her, sharing the heat of bodies and imaginations and the dance.

A bead of moisture rolled from his temple in a line to his jaw. His forearms glistened with perspiration. Sweat soaked the neckline of his T-shirt at the hollow
of his throat. They were sitting in the shade of patio umbrellas, in the breeze circulated by the porch fans. Yet Jacob looked as if he was being burned from the inside out.

And Melanie suffered, oh, she ached, she burned, she sweltered in the same consuming heat. She swallowed and said, “Well, that was…quite…”

“Arousing?” Jacob said, and swung around sideways to face her, his legs tucked between their chairs.

“Interesting, at least,” she answered, because he was so close now, and he smelled so good and so clean. She didn’t want to talk about the tape. She wanted to live it. Every moment. To hear him purr. To hear his whisper. To hear those unspeakable words spill directly from his long chameleon tongue.

He leaned over into her space. His lips parted. His eyes flashed…and then he got to his feet. She looked straight ahead as he stood. Her gaze caught on the swell behind the zipper of his shorts; her heart beat so hard she feared her eardrums would burst.

She looked up. He looked down. And he smiled. “I feel like taking a swim. You’re welcome to join me.”

She didn’t answer right away, what with nearly having swallowed her tongue when faced with his fly at eye level. And so he grinned—first with his mouth, crooking up the corners till his dimples showed, and then with his eyes. She swore his eyes were going to be the death of her. They flickered with pure wickedness, sparked with a challenge that teased.

“Be careful, Melanie,” he added, when her silence continued. “Your control is showing.”

He turned and stepped over his lounger, walking away and missing the glare Melanie threw at his back.
Control my ass,
she fumed. If he had half the intuition
he claimed, he’d realize he’d spun her so far out of control she was dizzy from reeling.

Or maybe from the beer. Whatever.

She watched him walk away; her stomach pitched and rolled. She didn’t want him to go. She wanted to go with him. She didn’t want him. She did. And because she seemed not to know anything any longer, she looped the straps of her tote over her shoulder and stood.

She couldn’t believe it; she wasn’t going to stay put and remain seated and sane. She was going to follow the path into temptation. Her toes tingled, a buzzing sensation that weakened her knees on its upward sweep through her body, rendering the backyard conversations as unintelligible as a droning swarm of bees.

She walked through the patio door, into the stainless steel kitchen, and headed for the corner staircase. With each upward step, her stomach tumbled until she doubted she’d ever be able to eat anything again.

Deep breath, Mel. You’re only going for a swim.
Funny, but she already felt as if she were drowning. Anticipation made it so very hard to breathe.

At the end of the second floor hallway, the guest bedroom’s door stood ajar. She’d left her larger beach tote on the bed when she’d first arrived. So now she would simply take her suit into the adjoining bathroom and change. Jacob was more likely than not finished; she’d catch up with him at the pool. End of nervous breakdown.

Except when she pushed the door wide open, she found that Jacob wasn’t close to being finished at all. He was standing at the foot of the bed, his duffel open as he dug inside for his trunks. He was wearing noth
ing but his sandals and his unbuttoned denim shorts. When he realized she was there, he looked up.