CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Gannon wasn’t sure who was more surprised to find Paige at his door, him or her.
“Is everything okay?” he asked, certain only a disaster or emergency could have brought her knocking on his door after the brush off she’d given him.
She took a deep breath. “You know, Cat makes such a big deal of her birthday that sometimes I forget it’s yours too.”
He gave her a half smile. “It’s been that way my whole life. I don’t want the fuss, and she thrives on it.”
“Still. It is your birthday.” She produced a cupcake with a lit candle from behind her back.
She’d brought him a chocolate cupcake with a candle for his birthday. The lust he’d been tangling with for weeks ratcheted up another notch, and something else, something warm and sweet, rolled through him.
He leaned in, and closing his eyes, blew out the candle with a puff.
“Did you make a wish?” Paige asked. She sounded a little breathless. He liked it.
“This.” He moved before she could, taking the cupcake from her and yanking her by the shirtfront into him. He laid his lips on hers and felt his body light up. Her soft mouth parted, in shock, in invitation. It didn’t matter. He used the opening to sweep his tongue into her mouth, tasting her leisurely, deliberately.
She fisted her hands in his t-shirt and kissed him back. There was no slow thaw here. There was a spark that started a wildfire. The kiss was a battleground, each fighting for the upper hand. Gannon won, barely, kissing her senseless. Slowly he gentled his lips, brushing them lightly over hers before eventually pulling back.
He was hard as granite for her, and Paige looked as if she’d melt to her knees if he let go of her. Her blue eyes were glassy as they stared into his, searching for answers to unknown questions.
“That doesn’t taste like not interested to me.”
The dazed look vanished and was replaced with a mutinous one. Paige whirled around and stormed down the hall, temper snapping off of her like lightning.
Oh, yeah. It was a terrible idea, but it was happening whether they both liked it or not.
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It was exactly the kind of day that made Gannon hate his job. Cat was hungover as hell. They were shooting around her as much as possible, which forced him into more camera time, which he resented. The weather didn’t help. Early summer in Maine was a clusterfuck. The high winds and spontaneous downpours were wreaking havoc with the tents they’d set up on the family’s uneven front yard and driveway. He was soaking wet and pissed off, and it wasn’t even nine in the morning yet.
The GC, Brunelli, was a decent enough guy and had things under control inside freeing Gannon up to spend an hour or two on his project. When he saw Cat’s designs for Malia’s bedroom, he knew exactly what his contribution would be. He’d sat down and sketched out a canopy bed fit for a princess that had Cat crumpling her plans for a store-bought one. And now he was stuck actually making it.
They were stealing space from an oddly shaped spare bedroom on the second floor to enlarge Malia’s room, giving them the space for a queen size. Carina had mentioned that after chemo treatments, she usually slept in Malia’s room on the floor to make sure the little girl didn’t need anything in the middle of the night. A queen size would give them both a comfortable place to rest, and Malia would—hopefully—grow into the bed and still be able to use it as an adult.
He ran his gloved hand over the cherry two by ten and clenched his jaw. In his opinion, kids shouldn’t get cancer. No one should, but especially not fucking kids.
“Gannon, you’re glaring at that piece of wood like you’re going to break another piece of wood over it,” Paige called from off camera, her tone mild.
He raised his gaze to hers, shoving his pencil behind his ear, and got a little kick out of seeing her blush. That was another reason he was annoyed. He’d kissed her last night with the intention of doing some structural damage to her walls. Instead, she’d greeted him with a cool “good morning” when he arrived on set pissed off and tired from spending the night trying to will away a never-ending hard on.
Somehow it was her fault. He was sure of it, and he was going to make sure Paige knew it, too.
“If you’ve got a problem with how I look when I work, you should point the camera in someone else’s face for the next hour,” he snapped, stalking over to the table closest to the camera in search of the damn tape measure he kept misplacing.
She raised her eyebrows at him, not in surprise, but in frosty judgment. Usually he enjoyed riling her, but this time he was the one getting riled.
Building furniture was an artistic process to him, and doing it front of a camera felt like making porn. He was taking something satisfying and exciting and turning it into a shitty facsimile that gave the audience unrealistic expectations. It was bullshit. He gave her a look that transmitted that message loud and clear.
“We’re going to need you to walk us through the cuts for the headboard,” Paige called out again. This time there was an edge to her voice.
Good. It was about fucking time.
“Well, guess what? I’m not ready to move on to the goddamn headboard. I’m cutting for the frame.”
She crossed her arms, and he bet money she was digging her nails into her palms. “I know it doesn’t make sense to you to shoot out of sequence—”
“No, no it doesn’t make sense to me. I’m making a bed here for a six-year-old with cancer. Why don’t you let me do my job and just shoot reality for once?”
There was a blaze in her eyes, and he wanted to know what was going through her head.
Paige held two fingers to her ear and murmured something into her headset. She paused, listening. “Why don’t you take five, Gannon?” she suggested calmly.
“I don’t need to take five. I need to get moving on this project.”
“Yeah? And we need to wrap up filming this scene so we can stay on schedule,” she snapped back. “Everyone take five.”
No one argued with her order given like the crack of a whip.
Gannon chucked his pencil to the ground and stalked up to her. “Let’s talk,” he said, grabbing her by the wrist and hauling her up the driveway into the house. The place was crawling with contractors and workers. But there was one place no one would interrupt them.
Yanking open the basement door, which squealed in protest, he pulled Paige down the stairs after him. It was a musty, dingy space with concrete floor and a ceiling so low he couldn’t stand straight.
Paige wrinkled her nose and started to speak but, he pressed a finger against her lips. Reaching around her, he yanked the power pack out of the waistband of her shorts and turned it off. Then he did the same to his, tossing them both on top of a large plastic tub filled with wrapping paper.
“What the hell are you doing?” she hissed. There was fire in those blue eyes, and it only served to fan his own flames.
“I’m doing what I’ve been thinking about since last night.” He grabbed her by the front of her windbreaker and closed his mouth over hers with something close to violence. She fought him for half a second before digging her fingers into his shoulders and doing some ravaging of her own.
It was like tasting the sun. An inferno ignited between them and bloomed hotter yet with every stroke and slide of their tongues. He wasn’t sure they weren’t in danger of spontaneously combusting. He let his hands slide over her, over her shoulders and down her back where he cupped her tight ass, holding her against the hard-on that was back with a vengeance. She moaned and cuddled her hips closer to his dick.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. She wasn’t supposed to make him feel like this, out of control and needy. But that didn’t change the fact that that was exactly how she made him feel.
Then she was pulling back and slapping a hand to his chest.
“You can’t just drag me away from work because you’re turned on or pissed off. I’m not into this caveman shit. Got it?” She was mad and turned on, and it was a potent combination. Those blue eyes were glassy with desire, her mouth swollen from his assault, but the rest of her body practically crackled with anger, passion, need.
“Got it.” He nodded, grinning. “God, I’m so into you.”
She growled in frustration and pulled his head down for another kiss. He cupped her ass and lifted her, wrapping her long legs around his hips. She fit against his cock like a key sliding into a lock, and he had to fight the urge to drag her shorts off right here and now.
With the aid of his hands, she grinded against him, sighing into his mouth. Pulling back again, she looked into his eyes. “I am not going to be some kind of red carpet groupie for you.”
His laugh was pained. “Of course not.”
“My personal life is private, and being with you is way too public. I’m wearing a mic at work for God’s sake.”
“That’s understandable.” He slanted his lips over hers. The sexy little whimper she made had him frantic
He didn’t bother breaking the kiss to say her name. “Paige?”
“Mmph?”
“I need to fuck you.”
She pulled back as if he’d told her he wanted to shave her head and “Jesus, Gannon. Not here.”
“I know not here!” Although his dick clearly had no qualms about the location. “Tonight?”
She went rigid and then relaxed slowly, muscle by muscle, in his arms. He looked into her eyes, willing her to say yes, needing her to say yes.
When Paige started nodding he gripped her ass harder. “Tonight?” he said again.
“Tonight,” she whispered.