Alison Kent - Striptease

It took him a long moment to decide whether to go or to stay or to answer. A moment during which his expression shifted, his eyes, having darkened, flashed. And his smile nearly brought her to her knees.

He nodded toward the tape she held. “Actually, I brought that for you.”

Melanie watched him go, shrugged, slid the cassette across her desk before curiosity had her shoving it into her office VCR. She turned her attention to Chloe, whose attention was way too rapt.

“I can’t believe you know him,” Melanie said.

At the exact same time, Chloe asked, “Did I interrupt anything? It looked like something steamy was going on between you two.”

“Steamy? Hardly. He’s too annoyingly self-important to inspire steam,” she lied.

“C’mon, Mel.” Chloe narrowed her eyes. “I know you better than that.”

“Okay. He’s cute enough, but nothing was going on. Nothing is going on.”

“He’s more than cute, and you know it. He’s all that stuff dreams are made of.” Chloe backed toward the office door and peered down the hallway in Jacob’s direction.

Melanie found herself itching to do the same. “I think you’ve confused Jacob Faulkner with Eric Haydon.”

“Nope.” Chloe shook her head and motioned Melanie toward the door. “Eric’s a total jock. Jacob’s much more…I don’t know. Provocative. Evocative. I can’t explain it. You tell me.”

“Tell you what? That he drives me totally insane?”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Chloe spoke with the authority of a woman having been there. “Remember Macy’s scavenger hunt? When Eric and I first hooked up? It’s amazing the man lived to learn a single thing about me.”

“Speaking of the scavenger hunt, I really ought to give Jess Morgan a call,” Melanie said, changing the subject like the avoidance pro she’d never realized she was. “I can’t remember the last time I saw him.”

“Right.” Chloe’s huffy inflection screamed, Wrong. “Listen, Jess is a doll. But you’ve never been hosed up with nothing to say when he’s been in the room the way you were just now with Jacob.”

“What’re you talking about? You’re the one who interrupted our conversation.”

“Uh-huh. You couldn’t find your tongue, and I think Jacob’s the cat who had it.”

Melanie shoved Chloe out into the hallway. “You’re as cornball as he is.”

“I knew it!” Chloe laughed. “He gave you that look, didn’t he? That one where his eyes get all dark and your panties melt.”

Melanie shifted from one foot to the other. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You are such a liar. And you’ve obviously forgotten that I knew him way back when. In high school? Half the fun of hanging out with Rennie was getting to see her sexy big brother. Jacob Faulkner is still as sexy as it gets.” Chloe’s grin reached new prurient depths. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and find out if he’s as big as rumor had it.”

“Oh, honestly.” Ignoring Chloe’s snicker, Melanie dropped the subject and headed for the conference room at a brisk walk.

She might as well look no-nonsense and eager to get to the meeting because, after that rumor remark? Her mind was destined to stay in the gutter.

HE WAS SO GOING TO PAY for this! Oh, but he was going to pay! Did he really think two couldn’t play his stupid video game?

And why had she thought she needed to rush home and watch his little film production, anyway? She hadn’t even taken time to work out or shower or eat or unwind with a beer and The Simpsons.

Nope, she’d walked through her front door, tossed her keys and tote onto the table in the entryway and headed straight for the entertainment center and the VCR. Big mistake. That had been an hour ago and still she was fuming.

And so what if she was? She damn well deserved to fume considering she’d wasted twenty good minutes of her very short evening viewing Jacob’s collection of outtakes from the day of Lauren and Anton’s wedding.

The sneaky bastard.

He’d taken every incident where she’d lost her cool, lost her head, lost all semblance of professionalism, and made himself the perfect little movie short of a shrew needing to be tamed.

Like she really needed the up-close, live-action and full-color keepsake of her behavior that day.

Uh, no. She didn’t, and would’ve been quite happy to live her life without the reminder, thank you very much. No wonder he’d laughed in her face this morning when she’d claimed to be self-disciplined.

And now, with this latest stunt, Jacob had guaranteed their relationship would never again be strictly business. Because not only had his video compilation reminded her of their disastrous work-related interaction, he’d caught her off guard with the way he’d managed to digitally capture the lust she’d felt in places other than her heart.

Even while her taped image had complained about the way Jacob had decided to set up his cameras, her eyes had been flashing and brightly focused, her body language signaling her awareness of the attraction simmering between them. An attraction as real as anything in her experience.

An attraction she wished she could toss into the Dumpster with the rest of her trash because, now that he’d be working with her both in and out of the office, the chemistry between them was going to be in the way, getting on her nerves, aggravating her until she did something really dumb.

Like sleep with the man.

The itch was there. A nice itch that she wouldn’t mind him scratching. Except she could hardly sleep with him and work with him. That was a no-no and a no-win. Seeing him on a daily basis meant living with the increased frustration.

And since no one had ever said all was fair in love and sex in the city, she wanted him as hot and bothered as thinking of him made her.

If anyone was going to hold the upper hand here, it was not going to be Jacob Faulkner.

Working up a sweat while adjusting the lights and camera equipment she kept set up in her condo’s spare bedroom, she pressed her lips together, stepping back to eye the layout. At least now, after an hour of pacing and therapeutic scrubbing of toilets and tubs, she’d finally managed to settle on a payback certain to burn off her adrenaline-laced energy.

Yep. Two could definitely play this warped show-and-tell game. She headed for the kitchen, returning with the bar stool she needed as a prop for her sound stage. She might not work as a videographer, but she could just as easily put together a production to suit her needs.

Right now her needs were all about assuaging her pride and about setting her course through the next few sure-to-be-turbulent weeks. She’d have him eating out of her hand, even if she had to play dirty.

And making use of the stripper’s pole she’d had installed in the room for exercise was about as dirty as it got.

She stepped back, checked out her setup. The lights were hot, but working up a sweat wasn’t going to be a problem. It was, in fact, inevitable and a very good thing. Crossing the room’s hardwood floor in bare feet, she moved to the computer station and launched the system’s media player.

She chose a file of dance-appropriate MP3s, adjusting the equalizer until the floor fairly thrummed beneath her feet. And then she smiled. He thought he knew the real Melanie Craine? He thought he’d capture the undisciplined truth? He didn’t know half of who she was. No one did. Even her partners. At times, she hardly knew herself.

She knelt on the floor in front of the light she’d positioned to cast her shadow onto the wall. Her silhouette faced that of the glass sculpture in a mirrored pose, the sculpture she’d brought home from work and placed on the bar stool. The shadow of the pole ran down the wall in a line between the other two shadows.