Chapter Three

Well, this definitely wasn’t starting out the way she’d planned.

Instead of a boringly anonymous hotel or even her office, she’d spend the next two weeks working in a stranger’s apartment over a café that challenged her on levels she didn’t quite understand.

Instead of greeting an old friend, the man who’d help her with the biggest challenge of her career, she’d been tossed into a sea of lust.

And now, rather than an easy nice-to-meet you introduction to Sam’s friends, she’d been kicked in the gut with a cacophony of emotions that she couldn’t understand. Oh, she could identify them. Fear, longing, hope, confusion. But she didn’t understand the actual cause, and she definitely didn’t understand what to do about them.

Wait, she supposed.

Just wait until they made sense.

But even as she thought that, Rose bumped into Sam.

“Sorry,” she gasped. “I didn’t realize you’d stopped.”

He took her hand as if to keep her from falling back down the stairs and laughed.

That laugh filled her with something. Something so powerful and energizing and confusing that she could only blink.

Then he pulled her up a step so that she was on the landing next to him. He squeezed her hand, and the feel of his fingers wrapped tight around hers sent tingles through her. The sort of tingles that made her think naked thoughts. Naked, hot bodies tangled together thoughts.

“Welcome to your new home away from home,” Anja said, gesturing to the open door on the right of the landing.

And giving Rose a clear view of why Sam had stopped.

Shock had a way of doing that to a person.

It was a good sized apartment. Living room, a dining nook separated from a cozy kitchen by a jut of countertop. The view outside the window was as good as one could ask in San Francisco, with the Golden Gate framed by sheer curtains. The problem was, even sheer, day-glow orange curtains were guaranteed to make you blink twice.

As if in a trance, Rose stepped around Sam, past Anja’s welcoming arm and into the living area. Eye-watering or not, it was a welcoming space. Welcoming, and something else.

Wondering how many ways she could feel off balance, Rose tried to breathe calmly, even though the air felt as if it were filled with a shimmer of glitter. If she squinted, she could almost make out the color of the shimmers.

Crazy, she realized, shaking her head to dismiss the idea. Her mother had always called her over imaginative, bemoaning her fascination with silly things like magic and fairy tales and energy work. By the time Rose was ten, she’d learned to put away all of that nonsense and to focus her imagination on something useful.

So why was this room bringing that all back again?

It had to be that old lady’s comment about her grandparents, she realized. Her shoulders relaxed, the tension shifting as she made the connection. And now that she knew, she could ignore the silly ideas of energy and magic in the air and focus on reality.

With that in mind and her chin high, she turned to give Anja a warm smile.

“It’s a lovely room.”

“If you say so,” the brunette laughed. “I’ve always thought of it as a bit of kaleidoscope myself.”

“And where better to create a game of fun and adventure than a kaleidoscope.” When Rose glanced at Sam, her lips twitched a little at his stunned expression. Maybe he wasn’t quite ready for working in a kaleidoscope?

Before she could ask, he seemed to shake it off and turned to thank Anja. While he made arrangements with her for meals and talked about getting together to catch up and visit later, Rose wandered the room.

It was unique, to say the least. Like something you’d have seen in a teenager’s room in the seventies, but with an extra kick of woo woo. Images of tarot cards woven into a tapestry on the wall, candles and crystals everywhere, incense burners and hanging glass in the shape of moons all added to the woo.

But they still didn’t explain the feeling in the air. Rose took a second to breathe it in. She’d never felt anything like it, yet it was a familiar memory.

Before she could reach back and find it, though, Anja called out her goodbyes. Manners awoke, Rose hurried back to the door to do her social duties.

Then, suddenly, it was just her and Sam.

Alone.

In this funky apartment.

She stared at Sam, noting the look in his dark eyes, the way his smile stretched those tempting lips. He had the most amazing cheekbones. On a sigh, her gaze drifted to his shoulders, down those biceps and over his chest. Even more amazing than his cheekbones was his body.

She wanted that body.

Rose cringed, wondering what had got into her. She never looked at men like this. She never thought about—much less obsessed over—sex ever before in her life.

Maybe it was reaction to the room? She’d never been around this much faux fur and velour before, either. Could it be some weird sort of allergic reaction?

“Have a seat,” Sam suggested. “Tell me what’s going on in your life, how you’ve been, all that sort of thing.”

Right.

Her life.

Well, her life was a mess.

Since Rose would rather not talk about that, she offered a shrug as she wandered between the fuchsia couch and a vivid blue armchair.

“I’d rather hear about yours,” she demurred. “Or maybe we could talk about this project first, then visit later? That way it’s sort of mulling around in your head from the get go.”

“Sure.” All agreeable smiles and gorgeous looks, Sam dropped into a ladder-back chair next to the drop-leaf table and gestured for her to go ahead. “Go ahead, fill me in.”

Oh, where to start.

As the details of the project filled her head, Rose realized that she might have pinpointed the key reasons for her oddly overactive libido.

“There are two things you should probably know before we get started,” Rose said slowly, trying to find the right words to explain them, and coming up clueless for both.

“Okay,” Sam said agreeably, gesturing to the furry couch. Whether for her to take a seat, or to have a laugh, she wasn’t sure. But Rose went with the seat. “Go ahead and fill me in, then we’ll go from there.”

Rose opened her mouth to explain Millicent’s latest demand, but couldn’t quite find the nerve to put that out in actual words. Instead, she pressed her lips together and went with the less embarrassing confession.

“I’ve been having a sort of, well, it’s kind of a...” she took a deep breath and dug deep for her guts. “I’ve been dealing with a sort of a block.”

“Which is why you need me, right?”

Well, that was one reason.

“I’m hoping that with your help with certain story elements and the dialogue, I’ll break through this block,” she admitted. “That the images, the visuals will awaken.”

At his look, she shrugged. “That’s how it feels. Like everything in me is asleep. My creativity, the ability to visualize the colors and graphics and all of the elements that used to come so easily to me.”

“Have you tried breaking through those blocks?” At her questioning stare, he continued, “Meditation, stream of conscious writing, a walk in the park, more caffeine, less caffeine, hot sex, vision boards, playing other people’s games.”

He shrugged.

“Just a few ideas.”

Despite the appeal of exploring the hot sex, she shook her head. “I haven’t tried anything except, you know, trying to push through and work anyway.”

“That works sometimes,” he agreed with an easy nod. “But I find for myself, sometimes I need alternatives to break that block.”

“You get writer’s block?” Rose couldn’t say why that shocked her, but it did. He was so successful, so confident. So strong.

“I think anyone who works in a creative field gets it from time to time. Probably other fields, too. But thankfully enough people’ve had it in our field that we have a lot of options to find a way through.”

Oh.

Rose blinked against the crazy rush of tears, not sure why his words hit her so hard.

“It used to be easier,” she admitted. “I used to create the games that were in my head, so it was always pretty simple to see where I was going and what I needed to do.”

“What changed?”

“Millicent has a very specific vision for the future of Black Magic Games. She’s very, um, passionate about the elements she wants in each game, in every release. And each one has to meet her stringent standards.”

“No wonder you’re blocked,” he grumbled, looking irritated. “You’re trying to create someone else’s story instead of your own. How are you supposed to fit your imagination into her specifications?”

Yeah. Good point.

Rose wet her lips. When that didn’t clear her head, she had to try a couple of deep breaths before she could admit the rest.

“Actually, I do have a few specifics that she wants,” she said, her gaze locked on her fingers as they pleated the fabric of the tablecloth instead of meeting his eyes. “She has a very specific vision for this game and what it needs to include.”

“You’re the one designing the game. Doesn’t that usually mean it’s created to your vision?”

“It used to. But Millicent has her own way of doing things.” Rose glanced up long enough to roll her eyes and give him a grimacing sort of smile. “She pretty much took over the company, shoving her cousins aside. According to her, she holds the money, so the power is hers.”

Rose was oddly comforted by his look of disgust.

“So what’s Millicent demanding now?” he asked, squaring his shoulders.

“Um, well, it’s like this,” Rose said, watching her fingers weaving in and out of the furry fabric of the couch. “She’s done a lot of surveys and studies and marketing research. She said that all pointed to a specific direction that she’s sure will launch Black Magic into a whole new realm of success.”

“Okay.”

Rose knew she was dancing around the subject. So she took a breath and dived right in.

“Sex.”

“What?” Sam blinked twice, as if trying to get the image of her and sex to compute in his brain.

“The story we’re writing together has to include a love story. A love story that includes sex.”

There.

She’d said it.

Now if she could only meet his eyes.

But, with her cheeks as vivid as her name, Rose couldn’t bring herself to look at his face and view the horror she was sure she’d see there.

She was horrified, too.

Of course she was.

But a tiny part of her, the part she was trying to ignore, delighted in the idea of exploring anything that ended in sex with Sam. Even if it was just in a story.

“Let me get this straight,” he finally said. Since his tone didn’t give her any hint of what he was thinking, Rose risked more embarrassment by looking up to watch is face.

Calm.

How could he look so calm?

Maybe he’d been lulled into an emotional coma by the cacophony of color in the room. It was definitely having a weird effect on her.

“Are you telling me that Black Magic is planning to move into X-rated games?”

“Oh, no,” Rose assured him. “Millicent promised it’d be PG13. The sex is supposed to stay tasteful and off screen.”

“Uh, huh. Tasteful off screen sex from a woman who specializes in fairy tale games.” Sam gave an ironic nod. “That makes total sense.”

Not sure why, Rose’s back went up at his easy dismissal of her doing anything sexy.

“I can create a sexy game,” she snapped.

“Can you, now?”

She leaned forward to give him her most smolderingly seductive look—one she hadn’t realized she had in her arsenal. Then she smiled.

His eyes blurred.

Good.

Satisfaction overwhelming her embarrassment, Rose nodded.

“Oh, yeah. I’ll make a game that will knock your socks off. Sex, fantasy and fun, all rolled into one. You just watch and see.”