Chapter Thirteen
Nikko looked down at the fresh cup of coffee Stacy had slipped into his cup holder. He hadn’t seen her do it, but he knew she had, since no one else had ever bothered to bring him coffee while he worked.
She wasn’t currently in the truck, having been called away by one of the producers just as filming started on the prep work for the day’s challenge.
Nikko took a sip of the coffee and sighed. It tasted…good. A little different, for some reason, but good.
He’d woken on the couch in his office, a blanket covering him, and the smell of fresh coffee tickling his nose. For the first time in weeks he couldn’t feel any pain or even the twinge of it in his thigh. He tossed off the blanket and was surprised for a moment that he wasn’t wearing pants.
With his next breath, the evening before shot a clear bullet of memory across the front of his mind: Stacy’s concerned face staring down at him; Melora’s tears and anger; the heat from whatever Stacy had draped over his legs.
The memory that hit him the hardest, the one that made him drag his hands through his hair and fight for air, was the feel of Stacy’s hands on his leg.
Strong and firm, yet gentle and soothing, he remembered watching her through slitted eyes as she bent over him, her bottom lip tucked under her top one as her hands wove their magic and slid him out of the torture the cramping leg had caused. She was so involved in her task he was able to watch her without her knowing.
The whiskey hadn’t done its intended job to either slake the pain or help him pass out so he wouldn’t feel it. He wasn’t drunk, as Melora accused—not even close—but he’d been on the verge when they’d come into the room.
He’d watched Stacy as she’d ministered to him, so composed, so coolly competent. It occurred to him while her fingers danced across his leg that he wanted nothing more than to see her lose that professional air, watch her come unglued, and know he was the cause. He wanted to see her in something other than the long-sleeved blouses she perpetually wore. He couldn’t understand how she could wear clothes that added to the heat surrounding them every day.
As her hands rolled and kneaded his aching thigh muscles, a picture of her, naked and under him while he pounded into her, watching those gorgeous green eyes flash with heat, raced behind his closed ones. He bit back a moan, fearful she’d know what he was thinking. He’d almost told her the truth when she started apologizing, assuming she was hurting him.
She was, just not the way she thought. If he had told her, she’d probably have run from the room and hopped the next flight back to New York.
A week ago he’d have been thankful for that, would have done whatever he could to make sure she left.
Now, he couldn’t stand to think of it.
Nikko dragged his hands across the stubble on his cheeks. She’d even asked his permission before touching him, as if frightened if she did so without his consent he’d snap at her. Or worse.
Christ. He was such an asshole.
He’d been nothing but a complete jerk to her the entire time they’d worked together, barking at her, acting condescending. It killed him to admit it, but Stacy Peters did an excellent job. None of the little, annoying problems that routinely came up on a shoot were too small or piddling for her to deal with, and she always did so in a quick, efficient manner. The crew adored her. As did the chefs. She had a ready smile and a kind word for each of them, helping in whatever way was needed. Was it any wonder she never smiled at him? She was probably scared if she did he’d give her a tongue-lashing for the effort.
And yet she’d ignored his arrogant stupidity and found it in herself to offer help when he needed it.
“Yeah,” he said aloud, the sound of his voice thick with loathing and disgust in the quiet room, “you’re an asshole, all right.” He dragged his pants on.
Following the smell of coffee to the kitchen, he got his second surprise of the day when he found Melora standing at the stove, flipping pancakes on the griddle. The table was set and the coffeepot was filled to the top of the carafe.
“This is unexpected,” he said, bending to kiss her cheek.
“Yuck.” Her nose wrinkled, making her look all of five years old. “You reek like a bar.”
“And how would you know what a bar smells like, young lady? You’re only fifteen.”
He had to bite back a smile when she blushed.
“What possessed you to make breakfast?” he asked, filling a mug.
She lifted a thin shoulder and concentrated on flipping the pancakes lining the grill. “I thought it would be, like, a nice gesture. You’ve been doing all the cooking, working, plus taking care of me.” She shrugged again and dropped the pancakes onto two plates. “I figured I could, you know, pay it back a little. Give you a break for once.”
A wealth of emotion exploded in his chest as he looked across the table at her.
The therapist had cautioned him against suggesting or pressuring her to cook or prepare any food. Her aversion to eating would manifest itself in difficulty with making sound choices and would increase her already high anxiety about having to eat, so Nikko had done all the meal prep. This was the first time since her mother’s death the girl had shown any interest in cooking, something he knew she’d done often before the crash. Because of her mother’s occasional erratic and out-of-control behavior, there were many times Melora had assumed the adult role in their relationship. She’d been the one who’d cooked, paid a bill, or done the laundry in order to keep the household contained and running smoothly.
Nikko hadn’t known the extent of what the teen had had to deal with until the night of the crash, during the fight with Flannery that had led to it.
He wondered at the reason for the change now. Did she think she had to care for him as she’d done for her mother? Had last night’s events proven in her mind she did? He didn’t want to ask, worried she might interpret his question the wrong way. She was still an emotional, dramatic fifteen-year-old and he didn’t want to say anything that would set her off.
But still…
“These look great,” he said. She’d put four on his plate, one on her own. While he slathered them with the butter and syrup she’d put on the table, she cut her own pancake into small pieces and ate it without garnish, a glass of water at her side.
Nikko knew enough not to push, happy she was at least eating.
“Yeah, they do,” she said.
“Mel, I want to talk about last night. Can we?”
She looked over at him and lifted a shoulder again. “’K.”
Nikko took a deep breath, then a sip of coffee. “First of all, I’m sorry for yelling at you, for being such a... well, grouch. I was in a lot of pain from standing so much yesterday.”
“I know.”
“Still, I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I’m sorry.”
Another shoulder lift. “’K.”
“I’m wondering why you called Stacy Peters to come over here?”
Her eyes widened as she stared across at him.
“I’m not saying you did anything wrong. I just want to know why her.”
After a huge sigh, she answered. “I was scared. You wouldn’t answer the door and”—she flipped her hand in the air—“you sounded... I don’t know. Like, weird and out of it.”
Nikko nodded. “But why call her, specifically, and not someone else if you were so worried?”
“Like who?”
It was Nikko’s turn to shrug. “Todd, maybe. You’ve known him for years. Or Jade Quartermaine. You’ve met her a million times.”
Melora’s snort had him biting back a smile. “Yeah, like that was ever gonna happen. Like, never.”
She took a large chug of her water. “I called Stacy because she’s nice. She gets me. She likes me, even though you cut her a new lung that day we went to the airport. And I knew she’d come. She’s that kind of person, despite what you think.”
“Okay,” he said calmly, the warning signs for a dramatic showdown becoming evident in his daughter’s rising voice. “I get that. Thank you.”
Suspicion clouded her eyes. “For what?”
“For calling her. What she did helped. A lot, actually. I don’t have any pain today.”
“Then you need to thank her and not, like, me.” She rose and put her empty dish in the sink, added the griddle, and started washing them.
“You should give her a chance,” she said, flicking a glance over her shoulder at him. “She’s wicked cool and nice.”
Nikko nodded while he sipped his coffee.
Stacy Peters had obviously done something to make such a good impression on his daughter. Melora said Stacy “got her.” He might have been far removed from being a teenager, but not so far that he didn’t understand the meaning behind those words.
Either because she was just a naturally kind person—which he was beginning to think was really the case—or for some other unknown reason, Stacy had accomplished the one thing he’d been so desperately trying to do since his daughter had come to live with him: gain her trust. He knew she loved him, just as she knew he loved her; there was never a doubt of that. But there was some part of her Nikko felt didn’t trust him to stick around.
When they’d split, he and Flannery had decided physical custody was best granted to her. He moved around from project to project, never staying long in one place. Melora needed, as every child did, a stable home base, a place to feel safe and secure.
Flannery’s death had shattered that security for the teen and Nikko knew she was still uncertain whether he’d keep her with him once school started again or ship her off to boarding school while he was working. He was doing everything he could think of to make her see she could depend on him; trust him to stick around.
“I need my laptop for research I’ve gotta do for this stupid book report,” she told him. “Can I have it until you leave?”
Knowing trust went both ways, he nodded.
“You can have it for as long as you need it, Mel. No more restrictions.”
Surprise pulled at her mouth, while suspicion danced in her eyes again. “Why not? You were, like, adamant that I couldn’t have unrestricted access. What’s happened to change that?”
Nikko rose with his plate and dropped it into the sudsy water in the sink. With both arms, he pulled his daughter into a hug and kissed the top of her head.
With a chuckle, he said, “Unrestricted access, huh?”
“You know what I mean,” she mumbled into his shoulder, her arms wrapping around his waist. “And you still stink.”
He pushed her an arm’s-length away, cocked an eyebrow, and tried not to laugh. “I’ll go shower, since I’m disturbing your tender senses. You get your laptop and get to work.”
Before he made it to the doorway, he stopped when Melora said, “Daddy?”
He turned around.
“Don’t you need to, you know, watch me for an hour? We just ate.”
Nikko’s heart stuttered in his chest. He wanted to pull her into his arms again and tenderly kiss away all the bad things that had happened to her. Convince her she was cherished; loved.
God knows how she would react if he did, though.
Instead, he tossed her a smile and said, “Nah. I trust you, kid. I always have.”
He wasn’t certain, but he was pretty sure when he walked up the stairs to his room there had been a fine sheen of happy tears pooling in her eyes.
* * * *
The hot, dry air struck Stacy in the face when she stepped out of the makeup trailer, the sun’s glare stinging her already dry eyes. A boulder-sized headache was banging behind her left eye, screaming for relief.
She needed a bottle of water, a fistful of aspirin, and a nap.
In the past two hours she’d dealt with a disgruntled supply manager and a missing order; two crying producers—one because she missed her boyfriend, the other because she had a personality conflict with the chef she was assigned to—and had been raked across the verbal coals and back by a demanding, obnoxious, and diva-channeling Jade Quartermaine, who’d complained about everything from the heat, to the lack of alcohol (again!), and her wardrobe choices.
Stacy’d been able to locate the missing produce order in the back of the supply room where someone had erroneously placed it; listened compassionately to one producer’s personal woes and then gently told her to suck it up or leave; she’d switched the next producer to a different chef, and finally stood silently listening to Jade’s harangue without offering her any consolation.
Lack of sleep, the heat, and the headache now pounding away had her wanting to just run from the ranch and escape.
Just as she started walking toward the main house to find some relief, her walkie-talkie signaled.
“This is Stacy.” She turned her back to the blaring sun and shielded her eyes with the back of her free hand. She really needed to remember to wear a hat.
Sweat dripped down her back as she listened to the latest crisis that needed her immediate attention.
Twenty minutes later, she left the dining hall after making sure the leaking sinks in the kitchen were being seen to and would be fixed before the chefs were due back to start cooking in a little under an hour.
Her headache had intensified, pushed to the front of her head now because she was starving.
Why did she ever agree to this? Did she really want to have her own show so much that she was sacrificing her well-being, her sanity—hell, even the health of her eyes—just to ensure that Teddy Davis lived up to his end of their bargain if she did hers?
The answer, she silently reminded herself, was a resounding yes.
Thankfully, when she slipped through the front door, the main hall was empty. She just wasn’t up to talking with anyone else right now. Her rooms were, blissfully, chilled from the central air that piped throughout the house. She tossed the walkie-talkie on the bed and in a heartbeat shed her drenched blouse, shrugged out of her equally sweaty bra and slacks, and ran the water in her bathroom sink to the coldest temperature she could get it, then splashed it over her face and neck.
Heaven.
She filled the bathroom glass with cold water and then chugged it down in one long draught.
Better. Another filled glass and she grabbed three aspirin from her stash in her toiletry bag.
She really needed to lie down for a few minutes and just allow the meds to do their magic, but lunch break was almost over and she hadn’t been in the production truck since she’d left Nikko his morning coffee.
Wonder if he noticed it didn’t have the full zing it usually did?
As she ran a towel across her wet face and neck, she flexed and extended her fingers. They’d gotten quite the workout last night, but it had been worth it to finally bring him some much-needed relief.
Melora told her he was still sleeping when she’d slipped out of the cabin for their early-morning yoga session. After thanking her again, the girl had admitted she’d been scared to her core when she’d called the night before that something truly had been wrong with him. It was plain to see she worried about Nikko, about his pain. But Stacy could see past the obvious worry and sensed Melora was terrified of what would happen should she lose the one parent she had left.
It didn’t take a psychologist to discern that the girl’s food issues were directly connected to her mother’s loss. Stacy was smart enough to know anorexia was all about control after having witnessed it, firsthand, when her last hospital roommate had suffered through the disorder.
Melora needed as much help as her father did, and because Stacy hated to see anyone in pain, be it psychological or physical, she felt herself drawn to the two of them more with each passing day.
Her thoughts drifted to, and centered on, Nikko. She hadn’t seen him during the morning session because of all the fires she’d had to put out around the set. Was he angry with her for having invaded his house, his preciously guarded privacy? He hadn’t asked for her help—for anyone’s, really. Would he even mention her assistance when she finally encountered him, or just ignore it? Ignore her?
Stacy was self-aware enough to know that something had changed within her these past few days. Being around Nikko, watching him work and interact with the crew, had been an eye-opening experience. She’d known he was famous for being a control freak on a set, but for the first time acknowledged behavior like his might be a good thing. Watching him give direction, actually seeing how involved he was with every aspect of the filming, showed her how much work was involved in being the head of a show.
And isn’t that what she wanted?
She’d agreed to come here to get her chance at the show of her dreams. This side benefit of watching and learning from a master like Dominick Stamp was something she’d never considered.
And he certainly was pleasant to look at, which she did often while seated behind him in the production truck.
Nikko had the kind of features that when he aged would be described as distinguished and patrician. As her hands had moved up and down his leg, a little jolt of awareness of him as powerful and sexually attractive had pushed up from deep inside, heating her face and neck. She was glad his eyes had been closed so he couldn’t witness how nervous she was.
Or how turned-on.
Thoughts of how it would feel to be trapped within those mighty thighs, imprisoned within their hold, had bolted through her. A few times she’d squeezed a little harder than she’d intended, caught up in the fantasy of how she would feel pressed against the long length of him, losing herself beneath him as he made love to her.
Those thoughts had wormed themselves into her head at various times throughout the morning as well.
Of all the people to have a stupid crush on, why did it have to be the one person who could barely tolerate being in her presence?
Stacy toweled off and was about to get dressed in fresh clothes when a knock sounded at her door.
“Just a sec,” she called as she threw on her robe.
Surprised was too tame a word for what she felt when she opened the door and found Nikko standing in the hallway.
He looked…nervous.
“Mr. Stamp? What’s wrong? Melora? Is—?”
The nerves turned to annoyance in a heartbeat. His brows pulled together over eyes that narrowed as they peered down at her. His mouth tightened at the corners and he inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring with the effort.
“Nothing is wrong. I need to talk to you about something. Can I come in?”
“Um, sure.” She glanced around the room, noting her clothes and underwear were scattered in a discarded trail that led to the bathroom.
She held the door wide for him.
“I was just changing before the afternoon prep started,” she said, gathering up the items. She rolled them into a ball, threw them into the closet, and then swiftly closed it. “It’s so hot out, you know? I’ve been all over the ranch this morning dealing with production problems and I needed to just freshen up a little.”
Realizing she was dangerously close to babbling, she stopped and took a breath. Clasping her hands in front of her, she squared her shoulders, calmed her facial features, and said, “What did you need to speak to me about?”
Nikko took his own breath and for a moment she was fearful he was going to light into her about something.
“I know you’ve been busy all morning. You weren’t in your usual spot when I arrived.”
She was about to tell him about the misplaced produce, but before she could, he continued.
“First, thanks for the coffee. I’m assuming you were the one who put it at my place?”
She nodded.
“It tasted a little different today. Good, but different. Thanks.”
What would he do if she’d told him it was the same blend of coffee, but she’d mixed together half-caffeinated, half-decaf portions so he’d cut back on his caffeine use? Research had told her too much caffeine could exacerbate muscle cramps, and from what she’d seen so far, Nikko was just this side of being a caffeine addict.
Better to keep that bit of info to herself.
“You’re welcome,” she said, simply.
When he ran a hand across the back of his neck and broke eye contact with her, the thought he was nervous again shot through her.
Why? was the question.
“I also want to thank you for what you did last night. For coming over when Melora called you.”
“Oh. Well, she sounded upset, so…” She lifted her hands, palms up.
“She was. Thanks for helping to calm her down.” He lifted his gaze back to hers, cocking his head while he continued to hold her gaze. “And thank you for…helping me. My leg”—he shook his head—“was awful yesterday. Too much standing; too much sitting. I don’t know what, but yesterday was pure torture. By the time we were done I could barely stay upright.”
Compassion poured through her.
“You probably know I was in a car crash? That my leg got pretty mangled?”
“Yes. I’m so sorry. You lost your ex-wife in the crash too, I know.”
He sighed, deep and long. “Yeah.”
Stacy felt saying she was sorry again sounded hollow.
“How does your leg feel today?”
“Amazing,” he said without hesitation. He shook his head, a ghost of a grin trailing across his lips. “I haven’t had a twinge all morning. What you did helped. Considerably, so thank you. Really. Thank you.”
“I’m glad.” Stacy nodded and bit her bottom lip. She weighed what she wanted to say next, not sure at all of what his response would be. “I don’t usually give advice, primarily because I hate getting it. Especially unsolicited,” she said, secretly pleased when his lips lifted, “but can I just offer some?”
He waited a moment before saying, “Go ahead.”
“Please don’t be mad at Melora, but she told me you didn’t keep up with any kind of physical therapy after the accident.”
His grin lessened just a bit. Before she lost her nerve, Stacy quickly added, “I’m not questioning your decision for doing so, believe me. That’s none of my business. But I think part of the reason your leg cramps so much is because you’re not doing anything to strengthen the muscle. You spend most of your time either sitting or standing. Muscles fatigue and start to atrophy when they’re not used and strengthened. They basically give up. When that happens, any movement will cause the cramping and spasms to come back.”
She stopped. From the blank look now settled on his face she couldn’t decide if she’d crossed a line with him or not. She wanted to help, not alienate. Arrogance and stubborn male pride were such staunch blockades, though.
“You sound like you know what you’re talking about,” he said after a few seconds. “Firsthand.”
“In this instance, I do,” she told him. “The pain from muscle cramps is, like you said, torture. The best way to deal with them is to prevent them from happening. That’s why physical therapy is so important.”
After a few moments, he asked, “What do you suggest I do, then, to prevent them from coming back? I can’t just call for a therapist to come out here. The production schedule is tight enough as it is. I can’t make leeway in it just so I can get a massage.”
“You wouldn’t need to. The easiest answer would be to move around more during the day. You stand a lot of it, especially while we’re filming, but you don’t move much.”
“So, what? I need to take a walk? That’ll get rid of the pain?”
He looked so doubtful she wanted to laugh.
“That would be one of the ways,” she said with a quick nod. “The other would be just to simply stretch out in the morning first thing when you wake up and then again right before you go to bed. And try not to stand still so much when you’re directing. You can easily move around in the production space.”
He stared at her, his eyes dark and guarded and filled with doubt.
“You used heat last night. Hot towels. You told me the heat would relax the muscles.”
So, he did remember the particulars of what she’d done. She hadn’t been sure he would.
With another nod, she said, “Warmth actually dilates the surrounding skin, muscles, and tendons. When they’re dilated, they relax. The pain comes from constant flexion, extension, and contraction of the muscle all at the same time, with no relief. Adding warmth and massaging the area helps the muscles unwind and stay that way. Actually, if you had access to a Jacuzzi or hot tub, it would really help. There’s nothing better for cramped muscles than a long, hot soak in pulsating water.”
She gave him an open smile. “As decadent as it sounds, it’s really beneficial. Physical massage is, as well.”
Something in his eyes changed. Warmed. Grew.
He wasn’t looking at her now with his usual aggravated glare, or even the doubtful one he’d given her just moments before. Nor was his expression simple curiosity at her expertise.
No, what was in his eyes was something she’d never expected to see from this man: need.
A stab of unexpected hunger, so piercing and swift, sliced right through her midsection and dropped lower, tickling the area between her thighs.
And the hunger had nothing to do with the fact she hadn’t eaten anything in hours.
Nikko took a step forward, then another, until he stopped directly in front of her.
Stacy had to tip her head back to maintain eye contact with him. Hypnotized by the intensity in his eyes, she couldn’t look away from it; didn’t want to.
“Yes,” he said, his breath drifting over her, making her insides flutter like a flimsy curtain battling a sudden breeze. “I remember that. I remember you massaging my leg for some time.” He moved in closer, their torsos just a hair’s width from her breasts scraping along his chest.
“I remember the feel of your hands on my leg. Kneading. Rubbing. Your fingers, gliding along my muscles, up and down. Helping me. Easing my pain.”
“I—I…” She backed up a step and hit the dresser, her spine flattening against it. She braced her hands behind her, the tips of her fingers landing across one drawer. “I’m glad I did. Help, I mean.”
Was that her voice? It sounded as if she’d just run a marathon.
Uphill.
In thin air.
Nikko’s hands rose, slowly, purposefully, and came to rest on the top of the dresser, bracketing her between them, effectively imprisoning her.
With every breath she took now, her torso grazed his.
His knees bumped hers as his head lowered, his eyes never moving from her own.
“Easing my pain,” he repeated softly, as if she’d hadn’t spoken, “and making me…want.” His lips floated a breath above hers, then touched hers once, just a brief buss; a sample; a promise. “Want…you.”
In the next breath he fulfilled that promise by resting his mouth fully against hers. Soft yet powerful, seductive and masterful, his lips glided over hers. Pressed. Savored. Asked.
Stacy answered by relaxing against him, moving into the kiss without thought, without reservation, without worry.
He kissed like a man who knew what he was doing. He demanded nothing of her than to simply let him pleasure her mouth, and yet she poured everything inside her, offered every bit of herself into kissing him back without the slightest bit of hesitation or concern.
He shifted, changed the angle of his head, and lifted his hands from the dresser to cup her cheeks between them. Tipping her head back, her body arched as he deepened the kiss, greedily parting her lips with his tongue then forging between them, overwhelming her, claiming her.
Under the thin robe her nipples came to two hard points as his tongue tugged and wound with hers. He tasted like…nothing she could put a name to. Full-bodied, like the thirty-five-year-old port her father favored after dinner; sweet and refreshing like Grandma’s orange sorbet, her favorite dessert; savory and woodsy like air in a forest after a quick, unexpected downpour.
A fleeting thought that maybe, just maybe, Nikko didn’t dislike her as much as she’d believed flew through her mind.
Her hands developed a will of their own as they danced up his broad, rock-hard chest, and wound around his thick neck to grip his hair. Fisting it, she hung onto the ends as if her life depended on it. As if she’d crash back to earth if she let go.
His fingers drifted along the column of her throat, across her shoulders, down her back, to settle, through her robe, on her butt. Molding his hands to her rounded flesh, he pulled her in closer, folding her into him and letting her know just how much what he was feeling wasn’t dislike.
Not even close.
Except for her thong, she was naked under the silk robe and as his hands glided over the material, whispered over her body, the luxurious feel of the fabric rubbing against her bare skin shot erotic flares all along her spine, straight down to her toes.
While his tongue mated with hers, his hands slipped under the hem of the short garment to cup the bare skin he found there.
As she’d massaged the muscles and sinew over his leg the night before, he returned the favor, squeezing and kneading her butt in his warm, firm grasp. For a heartbeat, Stacy tensed, her gluteal muscles instinctively tightening. The touch of a man’s hands so intimately pressed against her flesh wasn’t something she was used to.
In the next instant, spurred on by the gentle, thorough pressure of his fingers, she relaxed and pushed in even closer, nothing separating their bodies but their clothes.
Nikko slipped one finger under the strip of her thong, tugged it to the side, and with another traced a line down along the cleft between her cheeks.
Her knees buckled when he thrust a knee between her thighs, forcing them to open for him, pressing intimately against her. She could feel the soft denim of his jeans through the tiny wisp of the thong’s lace panel and when he began rubbing his knee across her mound, her insides turned to melting gold.
Good Lord.
Every nerve fiber in the lower half of her body stood straight up at attention. Stacy widened her stance as much as she could. It was then she realized she was standing on the very tips of her toes. Nikko bore most of her weight as she leaned against him.
He shifted again, reached down, and dragged his finger along the heat pouring from her core, now separated and open to his touch.
A guttural moan, deep and filled with longing, escaped in the air as his lips left hers to trail down and nuzzle the sweet spot behind her ear. He tugged the lobe between his lips and bit down, while his wicked and persistent finger dared to dip into the long, wet length of her.
And she was wet.
Drenched, in fact.
His strong, steady finger glided from one end of her to the other, slipping across her flesh and through every defense she had.
A quick thought that nothing had ever felt so good, so god-blessed good as Nikko’s hands on her skin, came to her.
She clutched the ends of his hair tighter, her breaths shallow and fast as his fingers dragged along her, their rhythm timed to perfection with the movement of his tongue in her mouth.
The air around her exploded with the echo of a deep, reverberating groan.
Just as she realized she’d been the one to make the sound, the room was shattered by a blare of static from her walkie-talkie.
“Stacy? Stacy? You copy?”
Nikko jerked his head back, surprise and anger mixing on his face as he heaved his gaze from her face to the device resting on the bed, and then back to her.
A well of boiling heat suffused his half-closed eyes as he gazed down at her. His lips were swollen and kiss-slick-wet, and when his tongue flicked out and ran across his top lip and then the bottom, as if savoring the taste of her, Stacy’s breath caught.
He still had her pinioned against the dresser, one hand caressing the nape of her neck, the other burrowed between her legs.
“Stacy? You there?”
Reality washed over her like a tidal wave.
“I—I have to get that.” She pushed against his chest, tried to slide from his hold.
The man was as solid as a fortress. He stood, stone-still and immobile.
“Please.”
Nikko shook his head a few times, blinked, and then with a jagged oath, slipped his hands from her body, stepped back, and set her free.
Stacy sprinted across the room on unsteady legs to the bed. Her hands were shaking so hard it took two tries before she could activate the respond button.
“This is Stacy.”
She listened, carefully avoiding looking toward Nikko, as one of the set crew told her there were still problems in the dining-hall kitchen.
“I’ll be right over,” she said.
As she ended the transmission, she lifted her head.
Nikko was standing, as still as death, next to the dresser. He hadn’t moved at all during her conversation, except to drop his hands into his trouser pockets.
Mortified beyond anything she could imagine, and more turned-on than she’d ever remembered being in her life, Stacy nervously twined her fingers into the collar of her robe and tugged it tighter across her bare chest where it had almost fallen open.
Jesus, had he seen—? No. She wouldn’t think about that now.
“I need—” She swallowed and tried to slow her rapid breaths. “I need to get dressed,” she declared, summoning up as much calm as she could.
Nikko continued to stare at her, his eyes skimming to where she grasped her robe together, then back up to her face.
“Stacy—”
She didn’t give him a chance to speak. “You need to leave. Now. I have to see to this problem and you need to leave.”
He scraped his hands through the hair at his temples, then dropped them to his thighs. “I—”
“No. Please. Don’t say anything. Just…please. Go. I have to get dressed.”
She bolted across the room, opened the door with more force than she intended, and held it for him.
“Please.”
She was threateningly close to losing what little composure she had left. As it was, her hands were flapping they were shaking so hard, the sound of her knees knocking together, loud in the room.
It was a wonder she could stand upright.
Never in her entire life had she felt so many conflicting and unfamiliar emotions swimming inside of her at the same time, battling her thoughts and will.
Longing blended with confusion, which rammed up against desire and fear.
Thankfully, he heeded her request.
At the door, his eyes raked over her face. “Will you—” He stopped and cupped a hand along the back of his neck. “Are you coming back to the production truck?”
She nodded, staring at the buttons on his shirt. “As soon as I see to this problem.”
His shoulders lifted as a breath hove out. “Okay then. I’ll…I’ll see you in a little while.”
She swallowed and nodded again.
He dipped his head so she was forced to finally look at him. One quick glance at the question in his eyes, and she dropped her gaze again.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she told his collar, bobbing her head. “Fine.”
With a deep, cavernous sigh, Nikko stood tall again and left her.
Stacy shoved the door closed and fell against it, her forehead slamming into the wood as she inhaled a huge gulp of air.
Jesus.
Jesus Christ.