“L.A. Caveman is a full of hysterical laughs and hot sexual tension… L.A. Caveman brings the fun and drama to extreme heights while building a beautiful romance between the leads.” - Miranda, Joyfully Reviewed
“L.A. Caveman is a well-written, funny, sexy, sweet story that you will enjoy” – Yvette Lowe, Siren Book Reviews
“Crooks definitely has a sultry slow-burning writing style that builds anticipation at each turn of the page” – Zee, Fire Pages
“I laughed, I gasped and I tingled. Ms. Crooks has penned a riveting, funny tale about a woman in a man’s world.” – Seriously Reviewed
Keep it strictly business? Her heart demands something more…
Chapter One
“This is difficult for me. Please know that.”
He bowed his head slightly, which alarmed her more than anything else. But she listened. What else could she do?
“I believe your work is intelligent and humorous, and could even be very popular, at the right magazine. I’m sure you will have the other editors in this town all begging for your editorial services. But unfortunately, Men’s Weekly is no longer suitable for your particular slant. I admire feminists. But your approach isn’t appropriate here any longer.”
Jake Tremere gave Stanna what she supposed was meant to be a reassuring and sympathetic smile. It came across a bit stiff.
Stanna’s gut instinct had vibrated with tension when the much talked-about, mysterious new owner of Men’s Weekly called her to his large but cluttered corner office. The oversized windows offered a panoramic view of the Hollywood Hills, but her eyes were locked with dawning comprehension on the man who’d singled her out of the Men’s Weekly gang and who was now tapping his red pencil on the hardened leather covering his mahogany desk. He made her nervous.
It wasn’t his shaggy golden-brown hair, too ruggedly unkempt for the white dress shirt he had on. And it wasn’t his powerful frame. As the well-built, proud new magazine investor pinned her with an uncompromising stare, a moment of intuition told her exactly what she was about to hear.
“I want you to know there’s nothing personal in this. I’m sorry, but I find it necessary to let you go.”
Let you go. The words reverberated in Stanna’s mind and kept her from concentrating on the rest of the speech being given by the new boss: Let you go let you go let you go. His voice was background noise as she considered those very important words.
Strangely, she felt a keen disappointment that this particular man wanted to be rid of her. Had to be the shock.
He actually thought he could waltz in here, fire the old editor Ian, then fire her, all before unpacking his luggage.
He’d gotten away with axing Ian, which was a crying shame. Everybody missed him and was busy speculating about what kind of boss would make firing the editor his first order of business. Ian was a decent enough man, even if he hadn’t exactly turned the magazine into a pot of gold. He certainly didn’t have a problem with so-called feminists. She owed him for hiring her as a columnist at the Los Angeles-based Men’s Weekly when all she’d had to offer was barrels full of enthusiasm and a great column idea. He’d been more than a boss. He’d been her mentor.
Gone now, fired by this pencil-tapping autocratic man in front of her because there wasn’t enough of a profit. And he thought he was going to “let her go” as well. Perhaps he actually believed that exorcising the feminist would improve the format.
She looked up to discover that Jake had stopped talking and was staring at her. She supposed he was waiting for some kind of response. Tears, perhaps. He would be disappointed. She raised a brow and let her gaze drift to the surface of his desk.
The flat expanse was still piled with full cardboard boxes waiting to be unpacked, and his upper chest and head were framed between two of them. He was handsome, she couldn’t deny that. With his broad shoulders and longish hair, he’d make any woman look twice. And his eyes! The almond-shaped aqua-greenish jewels were set in an outdoorsman’s face. Though they weren’t slanted in any way, they gave a falcon-like impression of cruelty. They were beautiful, and she felt herself flushing slightly in reaction to their steady regard.
Especially when those eyes traveled the length of her body, slowly and arrogantly. Her rose cardigan sweater fit somewhat snugly, offering no protection from his measuring gaze, which insolently roved over her relaxed gray slacks with a practiced look. He did it so casually that she wondered for a moment if he were just taking note of her business-casual attire. No, there was a very masculine approval in his eyes.
And she was pretty sure it wasn’t because he liked her outfit.
She couldn’t believe it: he’d just told her she was out of a job, and yet he had the nerve to peruse her physical attributes. Her body tingled unsettlingly while her mind registered the violation to propriety. He was exactly the type of guy she was trying to reach in her column.
It was going to be a pleasure to inform mister boss man he couldn’t “let her go.”
His eyes finally fell to a stack of papers on his desk and he evened them out in a gesture of finality. His tone was almost gentle. “I take it from your silence that you have a full understanding of my reasoning and no objections to this purely business decision? Fine. In that case, I’ll have your final paycheck mailed–”
“Excuse me,” Stanna broke in. “You can’t fire me.”
The empathy disappeared from his face. Jake’s look of displeasure pleased her. The look was quickly masked and a bureaucratic robot responded in a rehearsed-sounding monotone, “I understand how you feel. It’s difficult and traumatic for these things to occur in one’s life but if you can rise above this minor setback and persevere—”
“No. You don’t understand,” Stanna interrupted softly, noting how the displeasure immediately reappeared on his face. His forehead creased into fierce lines. So, he didn’t like being interrupted.
She smiled. “You can’t fire me. Legally. Unless you want to buy off my contract, which I hope you don’t do because I enjoy working here. Also, it would be expensive for you. Really expensive.”
“Contract. You’re saying you have a contract?” For the first time, Jake seemed slightly uncertain.
“If you’ll consult the company records, you’ll find my three-year contract, of which I still have two more years as the exclusive writer of our ‘Woman’s Word’ advice column. Of course, I also work as copy editor and assist with my share of the administrative stuff, too…” Stanna tapered off into silence as the expression on Jake’s face alchemized slowly into a more serious controlled dislike: first the wide and finely-shaped lips dipped almost imperceptibly at the corners, then that forehead furrowed once more.
He stood. “Please excuse me for a moment.” Reflexively, her eyes skimmed over the hard-muscled figure that revealed itself when he stood. She jerked her eyes away immediately, peeking only when he turned his back. He circled his desk and strode deliberately toward the door. His movements were taut with suppressed energy, and as smoothly confident as any creature in its natural habitat. His khaki dress slacks and the tucked-in white shirt fit so perfectly that the designer might have used Jake’s muscled body type to design them. Stanna thought Jake would probably be just as comfortable in an animal pelt. For some reason, the odd thought intensified her tingling reaction to him.
And directly on the heels of that thought, red danger signals began blinking in her mind. She needed to ditch thoughts like those, pronto.
She called after him sweetly as he walked out of the office, “The records are located in the northeast corner of the floor, in the gray cabinets.” He shut the door firmly behind him—a not-slam that really wanted to be a slam. Stanna grinned.
Why had he bothered to soft-pedal the termination, Jake wondered to himself as he rested the damned file on one knee. He had been so professional about it, to the point of having a slimy taste in his mouth due to some of the corporate-smoothster language he’d used. Not his usual style. Not that any style would have done any good, according to the evidence perched on his knee.
Of course Ian hadn’t told him about this. Oh, no. Ian had pulled a fast one on Jake, telling him Stanna was a permanent employee. Permanent his ass. She was, however, contracted. Legally contracted. He couldn’t get rid of her as easily as a firing.
And damn it, after she butted in, interrupting him twice, he’d especially wanted her the hell off his magazine. If there was one thing that bugged him about women, aside from their manipulations, games, cattiness, and general untrustworthiness, it was when they cut him off. That kind of aggression, as far as he was concerned, defined too many modern females: disrespectful and intruding where they weren’t wanted.
He mused that the carefulness of his termination speech might have had something to do with the young blonde’s delicate good looks. She’d seemed so deceptively fragile at first. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her. Rather, he’d wanted to make it easy on her.
Ha.
The only fragile thing about her was her tempting little body. He’d never had a weakness for ballet-bodied blondes, but her slender figure and shiny helmet of straight, just-past-shoulder-length hair were elegant. Pretty. Very different from Jolene.
The memory of his last girlfriend rose like an unwelcome guest in Jake’s head. Dark, curly hair, sparkly brown eyes and voluptuous curves that she’d used to best advantage. Just as she’d used him.
Jake shook his head to rid it of her image.
He’d like nothing more than to warn the poor slobs out there who didn’t know the dangers of twenty-first-century women. He rose to his feet, slapping the file a couple times onto his left palm. The damning file telling him that Stanna’s contentious, self-satisfied presence—he remembered the smug way she’d called after him with the cabinet’s location—would be around for another two years, unless he had a tidy bundle of cash to buy her off. Which he didn’t, of course. His life’s savings, including the small sum that came to him when his parents passed away, were sunk deep into this dark horse of a magazine.
Despite himself, he started feeling the familiar twinge of excitement as he thought of how he was going to turn Men’s Weekly around. Ian had been doing it all wrong, letting the men’s magazine degenerate into a wimpy politically correct rag that hurt nobody’s feelings and bored everybody with be-nice advice and tepid stories.
The previous absentee owner-investors had treated the magazine like their other hands-off investments. From what he’d heard, they rarely even came in the building so long as the investment dollars trickled in. Luckily for Jake, when the profits started looking unreasonably poor to them, they were more than willing to listen to Jake’s offer to take the dying magazine off their hands. It had cost him a fortune, but he knew Men’s Weekly was a winner.
All it needed was a change in how it talked to the men who read it. A firming-up of editorial slant. It was so simple, really, he was surprised that Ian hadn’t thought of it.
Of course men wanted to read about men things from a man’s perspective. They wanted masculine-type advice rather than etiquette lessons. Men want to be real men, they want to understand women, they want to get sex, and they want magazines to show them how. Jake planned to give them that, and Stanna stood in the way with her inappropriate ‘Woman’s Word’ advice column. It wouldn’t do. It was his magazine now, and Stanna, along with rest of the modern world’s too-popular political correctness regarding women, could go take a flying–
“Didn’t like the shape of your file?” asked Michael. The stocky, pony-tailed art director was in his early thirties, the same age as Jake. No one would’ve guessed. There was something of the eternal youth attached to Michael, in a flamboyant, swishy “arty” way. He paused in his stroll down the hallway to flash his white teeth at Jake’s confusion.
“What? Oh.” Jake looked down to see the forest-green hanging file folder with the dirt on Stanna, now crumpled almost to a ball. He smoothed it out, ruefully grinning back at Michael. “I was just thinking about something.”
“Hope it had nothing to do with me,” Michael tossed over his shoulder, along with a wink, and sauntered down the hall. His untucked vibrant Hawaiian print shirt swayed gaily with the movements of his hips. Jake stared after him for a moment or two. Had to be gay. Not that it mattered, in the art department. Then he shrugged his shoulders, amused. His new employees were a varied bunch. So long as they could do their jobs the way he directed, he didn’t care.
Which brought his thoughts back to Stanna. What was he going to do with a feminist columnist on a men’s magazine, when his program for success called for the opposite type of writing?
Fire her, of course, like he had the previous editor. Like excising a tumor, he wanted to cut out the bad and also cut down on overhead. Beautiful simplicity. But it wasn’t to be that simple, he thought as he glared at the offending green file, putting it back in the gray cabinet before he could maim it further.
The ‘Woman’s Word’ advice column would have to stay. Stanna herself would have to stay. And he had nothing to say about it—actually yes, yes he did. Jake narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. He couldn’t fire her, true, but he did have control over her. Over her job, anyway. The editorial content in his own magazine, and the slant he chose for it, belonged to him. Stanna would just have to write in a Men’s Weekly way. Goodbye “Woman’s Word,” hello…”Stan Says.” That had a nice ring to it.
The idea might be so repugnant to her sensibilities that she might voluntarily give up the column in favor of more appropriate duties. Like secretarial. Maybe, if he was lucky, she’d even leave.
Jake realized that he was psyching himself up as it were a ball game, justifying what he was about to do. Which, if he were honest with himself, was to haunt her out of the house. He had a moment’s twinge of guilt, thinking of the slender young girl in her cute pink sweater, waiting in his office.
Then he remembered her smugness, and why she was waiting. He shrugged the guilt off. He strode back down the hall purposefully. Business was war.
Stanna looked up at her new boss leaning against the cluttered desk and wanted to spit into his aqua eyes. “You’re telling me,” she paused to get her breath because her voice was hitching with fury, “I have to have a pseudonym? A guy-name pseudonym? That my column has to reflect your Neanderthal point of view? Forget what’s best for men, and just–”
“As the owner of the company, I decide what’s best for my readers. The column should not be Neanderthal, though I’m not surprised to hear a feminist call it that.” He said the word as if it were vulgar. His mouth was a thin contemptuous line, all traces of empathy gone. A purely ruthless businessman. “I think, if you decide to continue as Stan the columnist…” he paused, seeming to enjoy her cringe, “you’ll need more education on the subject of men’s interest columns. Specifically, what men are interested in. You might want to pick up a copy of Robert Bly’s Iron John. It’s a book about–”
“I know what that book’s about,” Stanna interrupted, barely holding onto her temper. She felt her own lips compressed into a thin barrier against profanity. “It’s about a bunch of guys who wish they were born in a century where it was still cool to carry a club and drag a woman by the hair.” She could see he wasn’t going to respond to her words. In fact, this time the interruption barely made him blink, though she could tell it bugged him. He sat down leisurely, looking dangerously expectant.
She lowered her voice, trying to sound reasonable. She had to convince him.
“Men don’t want that sort of old-fashioned philosophy anymore. They want to know about modern men and women, modern solutions, how to deal with the latest relationship issues of today. I’ve been educating them in the column, giving them the tools they need to be sensitive people.”
“Have you?” His hooded eyes sank over her figure, deliberately roaming the front of her rose-shaded sweater, then flicking back to her face. Heat mounted to her cheeks, probably staining them the same color, she thought furiously. She opened her mouth to really slam him. But he spoke again in the same measured tone. “And is it your vast experience with men that makes you such an expert?”
Her head fell forward slightly, her eyes still locked on his. Had she heard him correctly? There really was no way of misinterpreting that knowing gaze.
He was absolutely still, head tilted slightly to one side as if in anticipation of her answer. She didn’t answer right away, offended into immobility and yet finding it difficult to unlock her gaze from his. His tropical-ocean eyes simmered with a strange heat as he added quietly, unsmiling, “You’re an innocent, aren’t you? I should show you just how wrong your assumptions are.”
Her body’s immediate reflex-reaction to his soft words was to tingle warmly. His powerful, mesmerizing eyes; his superbly conditioned body costumed in banker business-wear; his shaggy hair; the controlled edges of his thin, wide lips. The softly delivered sentence. She didn’t blame her body for responding the way it did. She only wished, in that moment, it had selected any other man but the one in front of her who looked so… ready.
First she tore her own eyes from his, as they were no doubt telegraphing her inappropriate, ill-timed desire. Inappropriate, she emphasized to herself. Horrible timing, she added. Calming down from her electric reaction, she wondered for the second time in an hour if her imagination was playing tricks with her.
She had to play it cooler than she felt. She wanted to keep her column the way it was. The last thing she needed to do was give him fodder for thinking of women as irrational and hot-tempered. And yet, she couldn’t be a doormat.
She tried to appear to seriously consider his “show you” comment, raising her eyes to meet his. She tried to look cool. Cold, even. No, she couldn’t sustain cold. He thawed her way too much for her peace of mind. She lifted her chin, ignored her own hypocrisy, and said: “It’s inappropriate of you to hit on me. Please stop.”
The chilly smile Jake bestowed on her made her nervous. “Fair enough, Stanna, but you’ll write what I need written, or else I’ll have to edit your column extensively every week. And by edit, of course I mean rewrite. I’d appreciate it if you’d learn the new editorial policy and implement it immediately.”
“And if I don’t?” Now, why was she goading him? Stanna felt like kicking herself. She had such trouble playing it cool.
Jake smiled, amused. She cared for that smile even less than the chilly one. How could such a good-looking man be such a jerk? His heartbreakingly-shaped but cruel mouth parted to deliver equally cruel words: “If you don’t, then you may find that this magazine becomes an unpleasant working environment for you. I mean that in the most caring possible way, of course.” He looked at her. “Let me be frank. Due to the existence of that contract, we both know that I can’t fire you—unfortunately for the magazine. But the new environment, being so editorially unpalatable for you, might make you want to leave. Or, you may eventually choose to renegotiate your contract. I’d be open to appropriate suggestions. For example, you might have value as a receptionist.”
Stanna felt her control strain. She mentally listed all the things she could sue him for if she were so inclined. Like she had the money for that. Like she even wanted to. Lucky for him, the thought of such a move seemed a desperate and nuclear option—she might win but the victory would bring unsavory consequences. Not to mention it went against her own sense of fairness to sue over salacious words alone. For someone like her, it’d be like running in to tell mommy and daddy that Rickie next door called her ugly. She’d had guy friends all her life and knew how to deal with them. Jake was a guy like any other. Easy to handle. No sweat, no lawyers, no complexity.
Well, maybe a bit of complexity.
Jake watched her with his predator eyes, obviously relishing the thoughtful wariness she was sure showed on her face.
A guy like any other.
Except…
It was one thing for him to say that he had a problem with her work. It was another to engrave the line so clearly between them. He must really dislike her. The feeling was wholeheartedly returned, she decided.
Jake’s condescending voice insinuated itself again. “Consider broadening your horizons about the column. You don’t have the proper equipment to fully relate to men in the most basic physical ways. But there’s always research.” He smiled lecherously, and she had no doubt about what kind of research he referred to.
She stared at his put-on smarmy smile. It didn’t look natural. Was he trying a little too hard, here? She had to wonder.
He pushed his chair back and stood. “Men’s Weekly won’t support your female-cozy columns any longer. Make ‘Woman’s Word’–I mean, ‘Stan Says’–something of interest to men.” He paused, then added, speaking slowly and gently, “Not all of us guys out there are cavemen, Neanderthal or otherwise. We’re just sick of all the overreacting femininazis.” He walked to the door, opening it to indicate the conversation was over.
Game, set, and match to the man in the khaki slacks. This time. Stanna rose, seeking her dignity. She wasn’t going to let him get away with it. She couldn’t. ‘Woman’s Word’ was hers, the column a way to reach men like Tarzan, here. To teach men what she knew they needed to hear: what works with women, and what doesn’t. She wasn’t going to freak out. She wasn’t going to cry, or run away, or anything else he expected. Thanks to her tomboy youth and guy friends, she understood men better than Jake knew.
He would not get away with eliminating her valuable job like so much boot scraping. She controlled the stress-reaction trembling of her mouth with supreme effort.
She mentally commended herself for the easy way she glided to the door, keeping her expression carefully neutral. It was hard to keep it that way when he smugly tossed the words after her: “The Stan copy is due tomorrow.” But she managed. Barely.
Men’s Weekly took up an entire floor in the five-story building, with its advertising department, copy department, and separate dimly-lit and funkily-decorated art department. The shoulders-height partition setup let the departments communicate easily. It also allowed people to drape over them and chit-chat. Stanna liked the friendly camaraderie and teamwork she shared with her co-workers. Despite the separate groupings for departments, everybody truly worked in synch with everybody else. Her few previous post-college work experiences let her appreciate the difference at Men’s Weekly. How lucky she was to work in the glamorous world of magazine publishing. It was a good job she had, especially for a twenty-five-year-old, and she knew it.
At the moment she had a hard time appreciating it. She hurried back to her cube directly. She didn’t want to inadvertently take out her bad temper on anyone. She seated herself in her cube and stared, unseeing, at the computer monitor showing her half-finished ‘Woman’s Word’ column. She’d heard the expression, “cross-eyed with anger” before, but this was the first time she’d experienced it herself. The text on the screen flip-flopped and she figured her eyes were as crossed as they’d ever been.
Bad enough he’d fired Ian and then dictated a column sex change. Worse, though, was that he’d killed a dream: she had, with Ian’s encouragement, coveted the position of “Editor” for herself. Ian wasn’t too many years from retirement. It could’ve happened.
The grizzled old guy, a veteran of dozens of publishing companies all over the country, could be a little out of it, a little too uninvolved with the rag, maybe. But he let her do what she wanted. He used to look at her with a strange twinkle in his pale gray eyes and talk about retiring early to bass fish. He would sometimes talk in his funny faux pirate accent and command her to “look after the ship” after he left, as if he were a boat captain.
What changes she could’ve made in Men’s Weekly! Big changes, moneymaking changes. Most of all, educational changes. She’d fully planned on transforming Men’s Weekly info a progressive, cultural ‘zine that never, ever resorted to woman bashing. But now, with Jake at the tip-top of the chain of command, she wouldn’t get the chance to make those big changes. Instead, he was going full throttle forward with his own.
“You don’t have the proper equipment to truly relate to men, in the most basic physical ways.” That just wasn’t true. Men and women were human beings and basically the same, just with internal versus external equipment. Why did some people make such a big deal out of the plumbing? Those people were wrong.
People like Jake who perpetuated that way of thinking were dangerous to the idea of basic equality. She’d known the type before. Been friends with some, even. Which was the reason she got hot under her cardigan over Jake’s smug, insufferable, arrogant attitude. It wasn’t right to shovel females into that limiting bucket o’ bimbos. It wasn’t fair.
Maybe he thought his readers wanted a James Bond/Larry Flynt combo. With porn stories and columns about the finer attributes of women who were four feet tall with a flat head—all the better for setting a guy’s beer down, went the sexist joke. Or perhaps a modern-style Conan critique of females’ large versus small rear ends. She could hear the locker-room laughter already. She couldn’t bring herself to write like that. And she shouldn’t have to. ‘Woman’s Word’ was hers!
Especially since she’d offered Ian the column idea even before she was hired. During her interview, she’d pitched the idea with all the enthusiasm her heart could muster, and Ian had been impressed enough to not only assign her the column, but also agree to her ambitious terms for a contract. Three years.
Unfortunately, she was sure the contract wouldn’t protect her column from Jake’s editing each week as he threatened. As the head honcho, he had the right to alter her copy. Her mind, in good journalistic spirit, faithfully documented her feelings about that: Magazine columnist’s head cooks to boiling point and then explodes in a superheated geyser of blood! Magazine’s new owner comments, “That’s what happens to angry femininazis. In our next issue, Men’s Weekly explores this phenomenon in our new replacement column, ‘Stan Says’–with a new replacement writer.”
Stanna ground her teeth together in frustration. She could leave, she supposed. Or become a receptionist. She couldn’t believe Jake had the gall to suggest that one.
She focused on the screen in front of her: her column. She couldn’t give it up without a fight. Getting the column was the biggest achievement of her life. This was a career setback, a big one, but she wasn’t out for the count.
That would let Jake and what he represented win.
And, though she didn’t particularly want to, she could see why he was being so stubborn and blind. It was because the jerk actually believed that junk about her not having the proper equipment. He was misinformed, of course.
About the “proper,” not about her “equipment,” she mused to herself with a flush of amusement that soothed her ruffled psyche. At least she could still make herself grin. She could do lots of things. Including write a snappy column. Ian had thought so too.
She smoothed the wrinkles out of her pants. She wondered if a guy like Jake was even a little bit redeemable. It was possible, she mused. Highly unlikely, but possible.
She stared at the screen for a long time, but no column ideas came to her.
“He sounds like a charmer.” Telly scooped another green grape from the bowl nestled next to her on the antique chaise lounge and dropped it into her lush mouth, Cleopatra-style.
Stanna felt the tension of the workday begin to drain away in the familiar environment of the two-bedroom apartment they shared, but she knew her stiff perch on the edge of their cream-colored couch told her best friend and roommate even more than her tirade.
For her part, Telly stretched out sinuously, catlike. She reposed in a velvety midnight-blue nightgown that was just a touch too fancy for the casual event of two roommates lounging at night. But that was just Telly being Telly.
Stanna herself wore simple cutoff sweatpants and a T-shirt. It was amazing, she thought, that the day’s confrontation hadn’t given her a monster headache instead of just stringing her emotions taut. The single glass of red wine was helping, but after unburdening herself to Telly about her experiences with her new boss, she still felt the urge to vent.
“It’s not just that he wants to make the magazine more profitable. I think he really hates women. The guy had that look in his eyes that says, ‘You are a bug.’” Stanna demonstrated by narrowing her eyes the way she’d seen Jake do, and then exaggerating an affected disdain that made Telly nearly choke on a grape with laughter.
“He probably feels threatened by you,” Telly said when she caught her breath. She smilingly ran one painted-nail finger over her hip and Stanna had no doubt she was thinking of times when she had “threatened” males of the species.
But for all of her obvious charms, she still hadn’t found Mr. Wonderful, either.
Stanna surreptitiously evaluated Telly’s looks: short, spiky blond hair, perfect makeup, voluptuous body. And, of course, excellent taste in clothes.
Very different from her own minimalist makeup style and plain clothing. Her single tribute to face paint was her dark pink lipstick. The lack of other makeup made hers a simple “French” style, she’d read somewhere. Which sounded way more glamorous than she was. She kept her straight, thick blonde hair clean and frizz-free, and that was good enough for her.
Her own body wasn’t as curvy, Stanna thought, still comparing. But Stanna was happy enough with her bod. Since she’d been an adult she’d never been confused for a boy, and no one had ever criticized. Telly was better endowed, maybe, but she always moaned about men gawking at her more generous chest long before they noticed she had a brain.
Stanna considered Telly’s comment that Jake might feel threatened, for all of two seconds, then shook her head. “He’s too in-control for that. Like nothing could faze him.” She stared at a spot in the cream couch and tried to imagine the strong, powerfully athletic man who was her boss feeling threatened. She failed utterly. She was unaware of Telly eyeing her speculatively, with a mischievous smile curving her flawlessly lipsticked mouth.
“You could…” Telly paused dramatically and then continued with the seriousness of a scientist announcing a medical breakthrough, “try tickling him.”
Stanna greeted that outrageous statement with an unladylike snort of laughter. She felt her face completely relax at the thought of tickling Jake. “That would be about as effective as tickling a marble statue.”
Telly paused her hand in mid grape-delivery and raised one thin brown eyebrow theatrically. “A statue? He’s that good looking?”
“Believe me,” Stanna responded emphatically, feeling her face tighten with tension once more, “good looking means nothing when his personality is poison. And this man has RAID running through his veins. Regarding women, anyway. I don’t know how I’m going to work under him for another two years.” What was it about Jake that made her skin crawl interestingly and her muscles tense as if in anticipation of a fight?
“From the look on your face when you were thinking of tickling him,” Telly needled, “you wouldn’t mind working… under… him too terribly much.” Stanna glowered at her roommate, punching a crocheted beige pillow to emphasize her next words. “No! No matter what kind of pheromones he oozes that make me even consider… that… which I have not for more than one second, just for the record… but even if I had…” She paused for a deep breath, trying to compose her words. It was tough, trying to explain why she could never be with Jake, and she wasn’t sure what caused the difficulty.
The man was like some kind of a wicked demon, for crying out loud. Absolutely off limits.
Telly smiled affectionately. “Okay, then. Enough about that.”
Stanna nodded in agreement, waving her hands in the air dismissively, as if to wave away a bad odor. “Who has time for all that drama? My love life is exactly the same as it has been since I moved down here, since we won’t count that ogre-in-residence at work. What about you, speaking of guys? Any fun prospects?”
“Only if you think putting together rare sci-fi monster models for three hours is fun.” In answer to Stanna’s questioning look, Telly grumbled, “Don’t ask. Where, I would love to know,” she paused at the usual moment to let Stanna joined her in the little ritual, “are the really good men?” They gave each other matching lascivious grins. “But, not too good.”
“Hopefully all at home reading my column,” Stanna quipped.
Telly looked at her with interest. “Do you ever get fan mail from them? With pictures, maybe?”
Stanna thought back. “That’s funny… I never thought about it, but I haven’t received even one fan letter from a guy. I got a couple of emails from grateful girlfriends who read the column. They were really positive emails, praising me for keeping up the good fight. Nothing from a guy.” Stanna arched her back, stretching the kinks out, then shrugged. “Guys have trouble asking for directions and remembering anniversaries too. Not their fault if they were raised wrong. Plenty of time for them to thank me later when they see how well my advice helps them in their lives, especially in romantic relationships.”
“I’ve read your column, and I agree one thousand percent,” Telly said. “If my sci-fi friend on Friday had read your column…if any of my recent dates had read your column… my weekends would offer better memories.”
“And mine,” Stanna said. “What’s with our luck lately? My few dating adventures here have been a waste of time, too. Is it a big-city thing, maybe? The guys here are all just freaks?” She shook her head, dismissing the possibility. “No, that can’t be it. But there’s an undeniable problem. The more I hear from you, the more I want to stick to red wine and a good book on Friday and Saturday nights.”
Telly spoke again, reproachful. “You can’t just hide. The dears can’t all be duds. There are good companions out there.”
She sounded to Stanna as if she were trying to convince herself as well, and Stanna couldn’t resist: “The best ones have a lot of fur, cuddle with you on command, and are affectionate and obedient by nature.” Now, why was she suddenly thinking of Jake’s golden chest hair peeking through the V of his white shirt? Shaking her head and smiling, she added, “And if they’re bad, you can give them a good smack.”
Telly whistled. “Careful what company you spout that sort of thing in. If a guy said that, he’d be condemned for a chauvinist pig.”
“Pigs are better, too. Nice, clean pets.”
Bemusedly imagining a pot-bellied pig trotting across her light-brown berber carpet, Stanna rose from the sofa to get some food for her empty stomach. The wine clearly had taken over her brain. “The problem with men—and I’ve said this in my column—is that they’re too traditionally male. It’s the culture. Plus that pesky testosterone.”
“Exactly!” Telly agreed. “Now, why can’t they be masculine without those nasty old side affects? Something ought to be done.” She put her arms out in front of her, palms up, and loudly beseeched an unseen audience, “Somebody do something!”
“How about… governmental deprogramming!”
“A medical study!”
“Female hormones in the drinking water!”
“A woman for President!”
“Penile shut-off switches! They have chemical castration for pedophiles, so it could be done…”
“A cult of modern-day Amazons!”
Stanna suddenly became quiet on hearing that. She paused halfway between the couch and the kitchen, and stared fixedly into the distance. What a neat idea. Women banded together to show that men weren’t the only ones who could kick ass.
“Stanna. You’re getting an idea, aren’t you?” Telly didn’t sound surprised. Living with a columnist, she was used to Stanna’s creative fugues.
Stanna murmured to herself, “Cults are somewhat common, actually. Maybe not of Amazons. I mean, that wouldn’t fly. The image is all wrong, of Amazons killing people. Plus the whole right-breast removal thing sounds a little excessive. But a group of modern women who want good guys instead of the jerks that are out there… it might just get a lot of media attention and volunteers.”
Stanna turned to catch Telly peering at her suspiciously.
Telly tilted her head. “Are you going to start your own little tribe? How hardcore.” She lifted an index finger at Stanna, an I’ve-got-it gesture. “This is because of your new boss, isn’t it?”
“No,” Stanna replied a shade too quickly. “Well, maybe,” she amended, to be fair. “Maybe I just like the thought of Jake Tremere captured by Amazons and being trussed up and hung over a bubbling cauldron ringed by tough chicks. He needs a demonstration that men are not roughly forty feet higher on the food chain than women.”
“Cauldrons and food chains!” Telly giggled. “You know what Freud would say about your edible metaphors? That you want his meat dipped in your cauldron!”
Stanna lunged for the couch and hurled an embroidered pillow at Telly. Telly dodged, still laughing. Freud was a fool, anyway. Just another man who thought with his phallus and thought everyone else did the same. “Ooooh,” she suddenly said, thoughtful.
“More ideas?”
Stanna felt a devilish grin stretch her lips. “Woman’s Word’ just got the word, thanks to Freuddy-poo. And Jake won’t like it at all.”
“Uh, Stanna? Not to state the painfully obvious, but didn’t he tell you to change the ‘Woman’s Word’ column? And, isn’t he your boss?” Telly’s expressive eyes managed to both smile and telegraph her concern.
“He’s the editor, which I would’ve been if he hadn’t darkened my door,” Stanna replied, frowning. Thoughts of food fled her mind. Jake threatened to mangle her column and her career. It was intolerable.
Before she knew it, Stanna was halfway down the hallway. “I’ll talk to you later,” she called back over her shoulder, belatedly. Oh, well. Telly knew she was impulsive and wouldn’t take the abrupt departure personally. Her roomie was probably rolling her eyes with the kind of eloquence and grace only Telly could manage.
Stanna sped to her bedroom and flew to her desk, parking herself in front of Old Reliable. She stroked the keyboard, composing the column in her mind before typing a word. Then she began.
Reviewing the column an hour later, she couldn’t help laughing. Not only was it an amusing column, it worked just fine in letting her new boss know she wasn’t one to be pushed around. She felt so much better now. This was even more fun than drinking wine and talking to Telly, ’cause the tyrant in the corner office would actually read this. It was the opportunity to compose a brilliant rebuttal to his chauvinism, and he had to read every word.
He would recognize himself in her column, since she talked about a testosterone-soaked caveman who made business decisions with his “divining rod.” She hoped it made Jake mad enough to call her into his office again. And this time she’d be prepared. No more being taken by surprise. Now she knew what to expect.
Kind of.
Well, maybe she didn’t hope he called her in. Maybe magazine life could continue on uninterrupted, though, the way it used to be, now that she’d made her point so vehemently. Surely he had better things to do than rewrite one little column. He must have tons of other responsibilities. Running a magazine business doubtless took enormous amounts of time.
He’d just have to wake up to modern reality. It wasn’t fair or appropriate to change her column to be the voice of Neanderthals. It wasn’t good business despite his misguided opinion. He might insist on giving her a man’s byline. “Stan” was the name he’d picked out, she thought with amusement. How many people would even be fooled by the changing of her name?
But rewrite her entire column each week? He wouldn’t have the stamina.
She hoped.
Stanna suddenly wondered what revenge he would have time to take. Might he use his red editor’s pencil on her column? Or might he do something worse? Stanna cherished having a pleasant working environment just like everyone else. For a moment, a shadow of dread passed over her and a calm and reasonable voice within her asked if she knew what she was getting into.
Stanna acknowledged the voice’s point even as she reached for a paperclip to fasten the editorial runsheet to her column. It really was much too late for second thoughts. If it was a choice between being a cowardly doormat and being a strong voice for women everywhere, she’d choose the latter and damn the consequences. She’d taken her stand.
Jake wasn’t going to get his way.
She felt a shiver of anticipation. Wondering at it, she realized she was looking forward to the battle.
Chapter Two
She should’ve gone to bed earlier.
The effects of sipping wine with Telly then finessing her column until late at night dragged on Stanna. She was foggy upstairs, and her limbs were slow taking orders from her.
She prescribed herself coffee and walked to the Wednesday morning employee meeting. Curiosity filled her about the very first meeting chaired by the new editor. She was even more curious about Jake’s reaction to the column she’d drop on his desk afterward. The anticipation of seeing him again made her smile, a touch nervously.
Stanna warmed her hands on the mug of coffee, enjoying its heat and appreciating the new-coffee aroma wafting back as she strode to the conference room. She might actually have to give Jake credit. He’d already dumped the notoriously bad industrial grind Ian had preferred, and he’d stocked the kitchen with savory Starbucks flavors sometime in the past twenty-four hours.
Stanna pushed her hip against the shining metal handlebar on one of the large glass doors to the conference room. She slipped inside with practiced skill before the door could swing shut and dislodge her coffee.
The room was the largest one on the entire floor, the length of perhaps ten employee cubicles end-to-end. The oversized glass doors fitted into glass wall, and at the other end a floor-to-ceiling window had an uninspiring view of the big brown highrise next to theirs. Sitting at the long wooden table were most of the Men’s Weekly employees. Stanna greeted some of her friends and pulled up a chair near the head of the table. The glass doors opened again and Jake pushed through.
“Ok, let’s get this thing started.” Rather than sitting, Jake nudged his chair further underneath the head of the table and stood behind it, grasping the chair’s back. The glass doors slowly shut, creating a tiny breeze that whooshed past him and over Stanna. She could smell the understated scent of his woodsy cologne along with her coffee. Jake was an uncomfortably insufficient three feet away. He smelled of quality and competence, and pure, raw masculinity. It was disturbing, and she couldn’t help but stare at the man who originated the scent.
Even more disturbing.
He wasn’t looking back at her, but instead presented his strong profile, surveying the others of his staff. He might have been counting, or just interested in seeing all his people gathered in one place.
In all, exactly nineteen employees ringed the long table. They were a varied bunch, with slightly more men than women, all dressed more or less casually or business-casual, as per norm. The publishing industry hosted a relaxed dress code, which the employees in the art department appreciated.
Jake took “casual” to an extreme today by wearing jeans. Was he delivering a visual message wanting to be one of the crew? Trying to set a new standard for casual? Or did he just prefer more laid-back clothes? She didn’t know, but Stanna reluctantly admired the way Jake’s rugged, broken-in jeans hugged his narrow hips. Her angle next to him gave her a hip-height vantage point, and her eyes naturally fell on his pocket-tucked thumb pinning his black button-up shirt to make an open curtain frame for the generously rounded, faded button-fly front. Her breath caught, and she looked for a full, mesmerized second before quickly lowering her gaze, her face heated. She shouldn’t have looked, and looking lower didn’t help much. Now she could see his superbly muscled thigh and calf, and down by the wheels on the chair, the dark leather peek of cowboy boots.
His voice was smoky, melodious. She enjoyed the tone of it for a few moments before lending her attention to the content. She didn’t quite dare look up at his face yet–had he seen her ogling his crotch? She hoped not. What was she doing, anyway, with such thoughts of… of consorting with the enemy.
She scanned her fellow employees instead. They seemed to be hanging on every word Jake said. To be fair, it was interesting, the way he described his decision to buy Men’s Weekly. And his declaration in ringing tones of his commitment to his employees. Very convincing. They were certainly eating it all up. Michael the art director was looking at Jake with something like adoration.
What about the way Jake fired Ian, Stanna thought with some bitterness. Where was all Jake’s so-called employee commitment then, hmmm? A cynical puff of sound escaped her, making some of her nearer co-workers glance at her questioningly. But the disapproving compression of her lips slowly eased as she listened to Jake’s words.
“…and of course some of you must be wondering why your former editor, Ian, had to be let go, and whether there will be any more changes.” Jake turned and looked down to meet Stanna’s startled glance up at him. His mouth momentarily curved in sardonic amusement, then his gaze flicked back over the long table of employees. “The short answer to the first question is, Ian is no longer needed since I am assuming the role of editor. For those of you who are wondering, he was receptive to the idea of an early retirement, and seemed content to accept the terms of the severance package I offered him.”
It wasn’t wholly true, Jake mused. At least not at first. But these people didn’t need to know the gory details of the previous editor’s refusal to accept the termination and his nastiness and threats to Jake. They needed a sense of continuity and confidence in the new leader.
Happily, Ian had finally taken Jake’s more-than-generous severance and left, not without promising Jake he hadn’t heard the last of him. But Jake was pretty sure he had. The sixty-year-old would have to be either wildly greedy or a fool not to realize what a sweet deal he’d received. Especially considering the incompetent way he’d been running the magazine.
At least Ian hadn’t had a contract, Jake thought with a return of bitterness, fighting the urge to look again at his unwanted female columnist. He didn’t want her as a columnist. As a woman, though… He had to admit he did like her impressed expression when she’d looked at his crotch a moment ago. She was pretty enough. Her smooth golden hair fell to well above her small round breasts pushing against her white T-shirt. He remembered how testy she’d been in his office yesterday. Passionate. Was she the type to display the same kind of passion in bed? The unwelcome thoughts made him wonder for a moment if he possessed more than the average amount of healthy male lust, and he moved closer to the chair back in front of him.
Jake opened a manila folder and pulled out some handouts he’d prepared. Handing them to the guy on his left, he said, “Please take one and pass them on. This,” he said, raising his voice to include the whole table, “should answer most of your questions about the small changes I’ll be implementing at Men’s Weekly. It’s an overview explanation with a breakdown by department showing what each of you will be responsible for. Please take a look at it. I’ll discuss this first, then I’ll answer any questions.”
When the diminished pile of handouts got to Stanna, she pulled one from the top and placed the last one, pinch-fingered, in front of Jake. Silence ruled the room. Glancing down at the sheet, Stanna’s eyes widened. There, in title-type at the top of the page, was Jake’s new Men’s Weekly slogan: “GIVING MEN WHAT THEY WANT, WHEN THEY WANT IT.”
Stanna bristled, but on second thought shrugged. It was just marketing. The line could simply be referring to baseball cards. Or something that was totally innocent.
But when her eyes scanned down to her new responsibilities, she knew her problem would be much bigger than baseball cards.
“‘STAN SAYS,’ formerly ‘Woman’s Word,’ is Stanna Whitland’s responsibility. The voice will be a savvy, healthy, hungry heterosexual male who delivers a weekly column on troubles plaguing the modern man: employment, women, finances, women, fitness, women, you get the picture. Surveys say men want to hear about women. This is the magazine’s most regular piece for it. In addition to this weekly column, Stanna’s official responsibilities now include handling the main phone line and acting as receptionist, managing the departmental correspondence (mail, Fed Ex, faxes, memos, etc.) plus any other special projects I give her.”
The florescent light in the conference room gave the white sheet of destiny in front of her an unpleasant glare. Stanna felt her stomach tighten into ball as the shock kicked in. There it was, committed to print for everyone to see and laugh at. Her column, a forum for slobbering over women. And, as if that weren’t enough, he’d made her over into a receptionist too. Receptionist. The lowest rung on the magazine ladder. It was not to be taken seriously. She, Stanna Whitland, had been training under Ian to become the next editor. The highest rung aside from being the owner. They’d gotten along fine without a receptionist by having everyone answer their own phone. What was this all about?
But the moment she asked herself the question, the answer popped into her head. He’s doing it to make you quit.
Her anger coalesced as she stared at the paper in front of her. Scanning quickly, she saw only minor changes to the others’ responsibilities.
Jake was out to get her.
It was the sound rather than the conscious decision to do it that made Stanna realize that she’d torn the paper in two. It seemed to echo in the silence of the room. She became aware that every eye was on her.
Jake didn’t seem surprised. His face held an attentive, alert, expression. She could only imagine what the other faces ringing the table revealed. They were suddenly all peripheral blurs she didn’t want to see.
“Do you have a question?” So Jake was going to play dumb. He exuded the kind of arrogance that made her want to upset his equilibrium, just for the cosmic balance of it.
Her words shot out without any premeditation. “Yes. How did such an ignorant son of a bitch get to be an editor?”
Did I really just say that? Stanna heard gasps around the room. Michael was staring at her as if she’d grown a tall, pointy black hat and sprouted a wart-sporting beak.
Jake’s face hardened, showing displeasure with little change in expression. “If you’re referring to Ian…” His voice warned.
“I’m not.”
“Then you’re referring to me. I will say I didn’t attain this position, or any other worthwhile one, by rudely swearing at my superiors.”
“You’re certainly not my superior. You’re not superior to Ian either. You’re not superior, end of statement. Get over yourself.” The rest of the room had disappeared as far as Stanna was concerned. It was just the two of them. Mano et mano. Duking it out. Maybe she had her “tail feathers in a twist” as her stepfather used to condescendingly tell her. This time she had good cause.
So it was with momentary surprise that she registered how Jake’s next words were directed at the rest of the table rather than at her.
“Please excuse the interruption, but I think we’ve concluded for today. We’ll meet next week at the same time.” Jake dismissed everyone with a calmness she knew he didn’t feel. Too quietly, her fellow workers gathered up their mugs and notes and filed solemnly out of the room. The tension in the air prickled her skin.
She swallowed. They were alone.
“We’ll discuss this further in my office.” Jake gave her a neutral, almost distant glance and began walking toward the door, assuming she’d follow him.
“I’m not going to your office,” Stanna responded, wishing she were more successful in injecting outrage into her voice.
Jake whipped around. “You will,” he snapped, “because I’ve had enough of putting on a public circus.” He stalked toward her, then sideways as he brushed his hair off his face. His movements radiated suppressed energy. There it was, his dangerous side revealed. For some reason she wasn’t surprised or afraid. She’d sensed his animal side and seen too much of his ability to control his temper to be fearful, though the tension she sensed made her almost supernaturally alert. And increasingly uncomfortable.
The scent of his cologne wafted over her again, and she couldn’t help noticing the commanding presence in the way his stride took possession of the room. It was such a masculine body to be so graceful. The ridiculous thought occurred to her that if he were, indeed, in a circus, then he would be the lion tamer. The cats couldn’t help but acknowledge him as their master. It was in the way he stalked.
One arm shot out to point at the clear glass walls, and Stanna blinked.
“Glass is acceptable for design, but it doesn’t offer much in the way of privacy. I prefer privacy when I discipline an employee.”
Noticing the way she bristled, he smiled tightly. “Also, I’d better take this opportunity to tell you that when I ask for something at work, I expect it to happen, right away, otherwise it’s known as insubordination, and I can and will write you up for that.” He turned around again and pushed the glass door without looking back. “Enough write ups,” she heard him say in a low voice, “and maybe a lawyer will let me tear up that contract.”
Stanna sat for a moment, alone and shaken. Her mind cast about for some sort of plan. What had she done? Should she get a lawyer herself? Or get out her contract and rip it the way she’d ripped the handout? Should she get out of the magazine business and try her hand at something more her speed, say, knitting quilts?
No.
The negation came from deep within her. No quilts, no getting out of the magazine biz, and no lawyers. Whatever had begun here with Jake coming and altering her profession and trying to kill her goals, it wasn’t finished playing out yet.
She wouldn’t run, and she wouldn’t beg for help. Strangely enough, she heard her stepfather’s sincere but rough Texan-tinged advisory: Play the cards you’ve been dealt. For once, the domineering voice actually seemed to guide her decision rather than give her something to rebel against.
Besides, she was just plain curious how the situation could get any worse. Surely anything she attempted could only improve the situation?
He seemed to really hate her. It bothered her that she cared. She believed she hated him too. She must. He was mean, he was ignorant, and he was a chauvinist pig.
Of course she’d win.
Stanna rose, resolved to win. She’d even do what she could to repair the damage done. Maybe she’d spoken and acted a trifle hastily. Maybe more than a trifle. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Her face burned with delayed embarrassment from the scene she made. She shouldn’t have gone public with their little feud. It hadn’t helped anybody. Especially her. But as it occasionally did, her temper had gotten the better of her.
She would call on all her reserves of diplomacy, she thought as she swept up the torn paper. She deposited the two pieces in a narrow, mesh-steel trash receptacle tucked discreetly next to the glass doors on her way out. She’d even be humble.
It was too quiet in the industrial-brown carpeted hallway. As if the troops had all retreated to their solitary posts to sift through the morning’s events. Or cowered in their foxholes. No hum of gossip or even radios playing.
It made her uneasy.
She walked, with her head high, toward his lair.
In his office, Jake tossed his briefcase on his chair instead of his desk. Lumped high with half-unpacked boxes and crowded with somewhat organized piles of paper and film to be sorted, the desk seemed to forbid any more items being placed upon it.
That damn contract. Stanna was going to be more trouble than he’d realized. He seriously contemplated firing her despite the contract. What a sweet thought. Unfortunately, an impossible one. Jake stroked his temples wearily and leaned against his desk.
He didn’t need any legal expenses now, not with nearly everything already spent on the magazine.
It meant he was stuck with the little pain in the ass. He pressed the flat of his palm against some paper covering the solid wood of his desk, then hit it. It made a satisfying thwap. She had spirit, which under other circumstances he’d admire. She had some talent, too, he reluctantly admitted. He’d read some of her old columns. Her writing snapped and crackled even with the blame-the-men-for-everything feminist slant.
But she was a hellion in front of his other employees and stubborn about applying his editorial direction. It wouldn’t do. He couldn’t afford insubordination right now, any more than he could afford to buy off her contract. Everything depended on the magazine running smoothly and efficiently, responsive to his direction. He couldn’t allow another tantrum like the one she’d thrown in the conference room.
As if in answer to his unspoken ultimatum, Stanna knocked hesitatingly on his door while pushing it further open. Her demeanor seemed more subdued than before, he noticed. She looked at the floor as she walked quietly towards his desk. Stopping still a good five feet from him, she slowly glanced up at his face. He saw the tension etched in hers. Her pretty gray-blue eyes no longer spit fire. She twitched but stood her ground when he pushed himself away from his desk and strode past her to shut his office door behind her.
Brushing close enough by her to touch the sleeve of her silky white shirt, he took control of the meeting by speaking quietly toward her shell-pink ear, “I believe an apology is in order.” He turned and leaned again against the edge of his crowded desk. He folded his arms. “Your dissatisfaction about your new role at this magazine shouldn’t have been expressed publicly. Nor in such a manner.”
Stanna started to respond.
“I’m not finished!” Jake slashed the air with his palm. His voice vibrated with suppressed anger. “You undermined my authority in front of my new employees at our first meeting. You insulted me personally, and you effectively brought an end to a meeting that should have lasted until everyone had a chance to respond with their own questions.”
He could see her lips twist slightly. Distaste for what she was hearing? Too bad. But perhaps she was about to cry. Damn it, he hated it when women cried. He hoped she wouldn’t cry.
He softened his voice. “Stanna, I can’t have you disrupting the magazine like that. Whether you agree with my methods or not, I have to ask you to cooperate.”
“Cooperate with my own destruction?”
Nope, she wasn’t near tears, Jake realized with relief. He began to speak but Stanna held her hand palm out and fingers spread in a stopping gesture.
She visibly restrained her ire. “Please. Okay, I shouldn’t have let my temper get the better of me. Sorry. All right? But when I saw what you did to my position, I flipped out. Anyone would’ve.” She searched his eyes. “You don’t understand,” she said, watching his expression. In a despairing undertone, she added: “I just wish someone like you could understand.”
Jake thought he’d never seen a more angelic entreaty. Her mesmerizing blue-gray eyes were clear and expressive. Her brows arched delicately like angel’s wings. Her white shirt and simple haircut only added to the effect of innocence. It was a compelling picture, and he felt himself responding to it naturally with a surge of protectiveness.
He crushed the impulse. She might morph into Stanna Spitfire any moment, so her angelic act didn’t fool him one bit, he told himself.
“I have to think of my magazine,” he explained, his voice sounding too gentle to his own ears. As a result, his next sentence dripped with menace: “You have a job to do. Go do it.”
“What if I don’t choose to do it the exact way you want?”
Jake suppressed a chuckle at her wheedling retort. What was it about her that messed with his moods until he wanted to slam his fist through a wall one moment, and felt tickled with humor the next? He shook his head.
Stanna raised her chin stubbornly. “You really don’t understand. If it weren’t for you, I’d be next in line for this office, this desk…” Her glance took in the office, then the mountainous pile on the desk. She frowned at it. “Ian told me, often, that I was an editor trainee. Then you came along and fired him. And not just that,” her voice got faster, heated with the ire she clearly tried to control, “you also insult me, demote me, and channel my creative voice into your women-bashing new column. If you knew me you’d know how impossible that is.”
Jake enjoyed the way her chest was heaving. He felt a twinge of guilt. He compensated by modulating his tone for easy listening. “Stanna.” Then what she said sunk in. “You were thinking that you’d be editor?” In retrospect, he probably shouldn’t have sounded so surprised.
And he really shouldn’t have laughed.
Stanna’s expression registered the additional insult, and sure enough, she morphed before his very eyes. She became almost a she-wolf, teeth bared in a grimace and her whirlwind of sudden movement toward him triggering his own defensive measures.
Before even a second had ticked by, they were frozen in a tableau of her firm body halted mid-strike by his imprisoning grasp of her wrist. Somewhere in the back of his mind he noticed the morning sunbeam through his large office window illuminating a rectangle of swirling dust over her left shoulder. The front of his mind, along with the rest of him, was occupied with the woman whose chest now pressed against his.
For a second she remained completely still, as if stunned into immobility. Then he felt the twisting of her wrist as she tried to extricate. He knew she could feel the crushing grip he exerted. She wasn’t getting away until he got some answers.
Answers to questions like how did those angry, pale pink lips taste? The shape of them—delicately bowed, just wide enough and expressive as hell—tempted him to an extreme he shouldn’t be allowing.
When he didn’t let her go, she subsided. To his amazement, she even apologized. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me. That was… incredibly inappropriate. I actually tried to hit you.” She laughed, and he heard the defeat in it. “You should be able to fire me for that.”
Such lovely lips. “I can take reparation another way. If you’re willing.”
“If you mean… do you mean… what exactly do you mean? I think maybe I am willing.” She stared up at him, breathing fast. Her lips curved into a bemused smile.
With her body trembling against his, he didn’t hesitate. Jerking her body tighter against him and inclining his head, he caught a strange expression in her eyes just as he devoured her lips. His free hand rose to grasp a thick handful of the silky hair at the back of her head, sealing the kiss.
His mouth was eating her alive, Stanna thought desperately. And what was worse, she was enjoying it! His lips and teeth teased, but his sliding tongue plundered her mouth in direct ratio to the shock waves that vibrated to the pit of her stomach. The intense pleasure he inflicted turned her legs to spaghetti noodles. She appreciated his strong grip holding her up. Escape was a distraction she immediately forgot.
Plastered against his chest, she reveled in its broad, hard expanse. He must have sensed she wasn’t planning on going anywhere just yet because he released her wrist to gain embrace-leverage and shock her anew with the amazing sensation of the full length of his superb body fitted to the length of hers.
But he didn’t give her mouth any rest. Hot, smooth, and intoxicating, his tongue suddenly thrust in a rhythm that her whole body resonated to. In and in and in again… she’d never been kissed like this before. Her few boyfriends were like slobbering puppies next to this dominating, competent man who held her. Impossible to forget this thoroughly alpha male with his muscled body plastering her to him. Responding shamelessly, she arched against him, moaning deep in her throat.
She nearly purred in satisfaction when she heard him groan too. It was a low rumble, perhaps in response to her sound. One of his hands pressed the back of her shirt and the flesh beneath. The other clutched thick handfuls of her hair, as if he couldn’t pull her close enough. Her response whipped through her, another shockwave of pleasure. Her fuzzed mind tried to make sense of it, but his mouth kept driving all thought away. She leaned into him further, hungry for more.
Their hips bumped the desk, and a small glossy brown block tumbled from its precarious perch atop the cardboard boxes. It struck a small cleared patch of shining mahogany desktop with a thud that effectively drew both their attention. With arms still intertwined, they both stared at the wooden rectangle and the name engraved on the brass front:
Jake Tremere
Editor
At the sight, sanity returned. Her mind managed to make itself heard over the din of sensation.
She pulled from Jake’s grasp even as one nagging, smug little voice inside her head gave a sigh and an admiring two thumbs up.
She focused on a random spot of the brown carpet in front of Jake’s boots and gathered her thoughts. What a fool she’d been making of herself! Probably most women threw themselves at him, but she of all people should’ve shown more restraint. Roughly one hundred percent more.
She smoothed her T-shirt and shook her head. Stepping a safe distance from him, her nerves vibrated with reaction to her own impetuous violence and also his sensuous onslaught.
What had come over her?
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