I stared down at the question list but all of the words blurred together. I’d been up too late last night with Arlen screaming her head off. I sipped my latte and willed the caffeine into my veins. I’d done plenty of interviews with celebrities before. Nothing to worry about. There was a format that these sorts of things tended to follow, and I wasn’t going to stress over it.
At least, I wasn’t until I got there.
I was most of the way down the hall to the room where I thought the auditions were being held. As I turned the corner, though, a door opened in front of me. I held up my hands to stop the door from smacking me in the face, and—
“Ahh!”
I shrieked as the double mocha latte splashed all down the front of my white blouse.
“Ow!” I cried, dropping the cup on the ground and plucking the hot fabric away from my skin. “Ow! Ow! Ow!”
“Are you alright?”
I turned my attention away from my quickly cooling blouse and glared up at the man who was making me even later to my interview.
“No thanks to y—”
My words stopped in my mouth when I saw who it was who was responsible for my shirt being doused in coffee. The man standing over me was wearing expensive leather shoes that shone like ebony. The cufflinks on his wrists sparkled gold. He smelled like expensive cologne, the kind we advertise in the pages of Moi. And the lines of his crisp dark suit led straight up to his eyes.
His piercing, blue-green eyes.
“I—you—you!” I stammered.
“Me. Indeed.”
I stared at his eyes. He was wearing something weird—eyeliner, maybe? It made his eyes pop even more. But that wasn’t the craziest part of all this.
“You work here?” I asked in astonishment. The coincidence was unbelievable.
“Something like that,” the man said. He reached out quickly, calmly. “Come here. We’ll get you cleaned up.”
He took me by the arm and led me down the hallway. I couldn’t resist, even if I had wanted to. His touch was so sure, so possessive, that it made my muscles obey him like a trained automaton. He pulled me sharply into a break room and locked the door behind us. When he whirled around, there was anger in his eyes.
“What are you doing here?” he hissed.
“I’m working! What are you doing here?”
“Me? I work here!” he said, like I was ridiculous for even asking the question. “Did you follow me here?”
To my surprise, he had a heavy British accent. Much heavier than when I’d met him. But his question threw me for an even bigger loop.
“Follow you? What do you think I am, a stalker?”
“Maybe.” He crossed his arms and arched his eyebrows suspiciously. God, he looked even sexier than he had at the coffeeshop.
Coffee. I looked down at my blouse.
“You spilled my latte all over me!” I said. “I was minding my own business—”
“—not watching where you were going—”
“It doesn’t even matter!” I cried, knowing that he was right about that. “You opened the door too fast! And now look at me!”
He looked down at my blouse for the first time, and a wicked smile spread across his face.
“You’re a bit more see-through than the first time I saw you.”
I snapped my head down. My drenched white blouse was sticking to my skin and black bra, showing every curve and mole on my belly.
“Don’t look at me!”
“You’re a bit of a contradiction, aren’t you?” he said, his smile spreading even wider. “Look at me, don’t look at me! Kiss me—”
“Don’t kiss me!”
“Exactly.”
“I never once told you to kiss me!” I hissed.
“No, that’s true,” he said. “But you were thinking it.”
My God, this guy was cocky as hell. I breathed in, then out, gathering my nerves.
“Forget that. What are we going to do about this?” I asked, pulling my coffee-soaked shirt away from my skin. It was starting to get cold, and goosebumps rose up on my arms.
He put his hand on his chin and stroked. Although he must have been freshly shaved from this morning, a bit of shadow was already starting to show on his chin. And his strong fingers looked the same as they had before, caressing his strong jaw. It made my body flush hotly and remember the way those fingers had kneaded the small of my back. How they had threaded through my hair—
“I have a plan,” he said.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Alright, what?”
He unlocked the door and ducked his head out into the hallway, looking back and forth.
“First, give me your blouse,” he said.
“What? No!”
“Come on. It’s not like it’s covering anything right now.”
I frowned, but he had a point. I unbuttoned the front of my shirt and shucked it off. As I looked up, I saw him staring at me. I flushed as I handed over my shirt. He tossed it out into the hallway and closed the door again.
“Now,” he said, “hand me your bra.”
“What?!”
“Damn,” he said, grinning. “Thought I had you there.”
“Wha—what was your plan?”
“To get you completely undressed, for one,” he said. “Then I’d probably get undressed myself, and then—”
“Stop!” I cried out. “Give me back my blouse!”
“No,” he said firmly. “You’ll catch a cold in wet clothes, and I won’t be responsible for that.”
“Fine! I’ll get it myself!” I said. He didn’t move aside for me, and when I reached for the doorknob, he caught my wrist.
I stopped in my tracks, my protests catching in my throat. His hand was hot against my skin, and firm, and it sent my entire body into the memory of two nights ago.
I felt my insides loosening as his thumb stroked the inside of my wrist, just below my palm. The air in the break room turned stuffy, and shivers of desire ran through me. His kiss—the way his lips had seized mine—the way his hands had gripped me the same way—
His face was only a few inches from mine, and I could feel his heat radiating against my bare skin. The scent of his cologne filled my nostrils, and I felt myself growing dizzy.
“Please—” I managed to choke out.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go through with my plan?” he asked. His thumb rubbed insistently, sending a spasm through my core.
How could a man do this to me? A single touch of his hands was enough to melt me, and I felt as though if he let go of my wrist I would fall plain over. I had always laughed at how easily ladies in Victorian novels fainted, but now I felt as though I could faint at any moment. There wasn’t enough air, and his thumb was stroking, stroking…
Yes, I wanted to say. Take off all my clothes, lay me down on the break room table, and fuck me until I forget why I came here in the first place—
I blinked. The interview. I was late for the interview. So late. The time slot was probably almost over by now.
“I’m sure,” I said, yanking my hand away from his quickly. “Please—please let me get dressed.”
He unbuttoned his suit jacket and pulled it off.