Tori Carrington - Just Between Us...

On all fours, Mallory gave Jack a “come hither” look over her shoulder. “And what do you want to do to it, Jack?”

His surprised gaze flicked to her face. “As in?”

She reached back and gave an experimental smack to her left cheek. “Do you want to spank it? After all, I’ve been a very naughty girl.”

And she had been naughty. Jack clearly wanted more out of their relationship, yet she had told him that as far as she was concerned their relationship was nothing more than sex. Even though she knew that wasn’t entirely true.

She heard his low, primal growl as he knelt on the bed behind her. “I don’t know…do you want to be spanked?” he rasped.

“I might be interested in a love tap or two.” Mallory wiggled her bottom and he grasped her hip, his fingers denting her flesh.

She felt a light, stinging smack to her right cheek and gasped.

“Hold still, then, naughty girl, and take your punishment,” he said wickedly. “But don’t worry. I promise I’ll kiss it all better….”

Dear Reader,

Sugar ’n spice and everything naughty has been the theme of the first two books in our KISS & TELL miniseries, and we see no reason to stop now! Not when the two remaining characters, Mallory Woodruff and Jack Daniels, have been indulging in some, um, under the covers activity without telling their friends…or anyone else!

In Just Between Us…documentary producer Mallory Woodruff figures she has the best of both worlds when she and newspaper columnist Jack Daniels become lovers. But when Jack suggests they let the world in on their little secret, Mallory balks, making him feel as if he’s being used simply for sex. What happens when he refuses to give her what she so desires? The battle of the sexes has never been so hot….

We hope you enjoy Mallory and Jack’s sassy adventure! We’d love to hear what you think. Write to us at P.O. Box 12271, Toledo, OH 43612 (we’ll respond with a signed bookplate, newsletter and bookmark) or visit us on the Web at www.toricarrington.com for fun drawings.

Here’s wishing you love, romance and happy reading.

Lori & Tony Karayianni

aka Tori Carrington

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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We wholeheartedly dedicate this book

to our fellow dreamers:

Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their

mind wake in the morning to find that it was vanity. But the

dreamers of the day are dangerous people, for they dream their dreams

with open eyes, and make them come true.

—T. E. Lawrence

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

Hollywood Confidential—December 13, 2003

“…THE BIGGER THE BUDGET, the better the bang. Or so this reporter believed until I recently viewed a documentary by up-and-coming producer Mallory Woodruff on the U.S./Mexico border war. I, personally, look forward to more from this talented filmmaker. Just think what she could do with a real budget!”

Oh, I don’t know, Mallory Woodruff thought caustically as she downed her second cup of coffee. Pay my rent, maybe?

She refolded the paper and sat back in the bar-style, high-backed chair in the freshly painted new home of her best friend’s pastry shop, Sugar ’n’ Spice. It might be eight o’clock, but she’d need either a whole lot more time, or at least three more cups of Reilly’s coffee to wake up.

“So?”

Mallory blinked Reilly’s pretty face into focus. Or rather tried to. When Layla, another one of their circle of four friends, had woken her from the dead a half hour ago, she’d been afraid something had happened to one of them. In a town where the word “friend” was thrown around with careless abandon, she’d been relieved to find Reilly Chudowski, Layla Hollister and Jack Daniels were the real thing when their paths had crossed three years ago.

But she was veering off course, wasn’t she? The reason she was sitting at a front corner table that overlooked Wilshire Boulevard, when she’d rather be sleeping off the previous night’s pitcher of homemade margaritas, was that Layla had mentioned an emergency. Considering that Layla was marrying hottie ex-plastic surgeon Sam Lovejoy tomorrow, well, she figured just about anything could qualify.

Anything but what she’d just read in the Hollywood Confidential.

“So…what?” Mallory grumbled. “This half a breath meets the criteria for an emergency meeting?”

Layla and Reilly stared at her, looking extraordinarily stunned, while Jack grimaced, unsurprised, and shook his head.

“Is nothing capable of impressing you?” Reilly asked, apparently more than a bit put out.

“Sure.” Mallory reached across the table and took the rest of Layla’s half-eaten sticky bun. “You guys impress me all the time.” She slanted a glance at Jack as she stuck the sweet into her mouth to calm her roaring stomach. “With the exception of you, of course, Jack. You need to find yourself a goal.”

Jack had to be the most attractive man she’d ever laid eyes on. He was Brad Pitt, Robert Redford and George Clooney all wrapped up into one scrumptious package.

Of course, she wished he had the ambition of a drive-thru server.

Jack snatched the paper from her hands. “Hey, I was using that to catch the crumbs,” she protested with a smile.

“You stick so much into your mouth there aren’t any crumbs,” he grumbled back.

Reilly leaned her elbows on the table. “But doesn’t that piece mean you might catch the attention of a major studio? Get that budget the reporter mentioned?”

Mallory made a face and stole Jack’s napkin to clean syrup off her hands. “First off, it’s not a piece, it’s a mention. And in a word—no.”

Layla sighed. “God, you can be so negative sometimes.”

Mallory waved her away even though the comment stung, a little bit anyway. She was a realist, not a pessimist. And the reality was that documentary producers spent the majority of their time applying and interviewing for grants and scrounging for financing and had more sense than to bask in the glow of a few throwaway comments that would reap absolutely zero results.

Of course, it didn’t help her attitude that she was having major problems raising the money she needed to work on her current documentary about the infamous murder twenty-five years ago of a young actress called The Red Gardenia. Forget her rent. Yesterday her cameraman had threatened to walk out on her if she didn’t pay what she owed him for the past month.

She scratched the back of her neck. Then there was that little time limit she’d given herself when she’d first come to L.A. Five years. She’d given herself five years to make it in the city. And obviously she hadn’t made it yet. And that five-year anniversary mark was coming up quickly. Too quickly.