Kissing Under The Mistletoe: The Sullivans (Contemporary Romance) (10 page)

He held out his hand to the slim man with the
bright green eyes. “Thank you so much for agreeing to work with us
on such short notice, Gerry.”

The photographer sized Jack up as they shook
hands. “I’ve never been able to say no to Mary.”

Jack knew exactly how he felt. There were a
dozen questions he should have asked Gerry about the shoot.
Instead, he turned back to Mary. “Did the girls get home all right
on Friday night?”

“It was closer to Saturday morning,” she said
with a little shake of her head, “but apart from leaving a string
of broken hearts throughout San Francisco, they came back safe and
sound.”

Gerry was looking between Jack and Mary with
raised eyebrows when the studio door burst open and Howie and Larry
came in with Allen on their heels.

“You’re more gorgeous than ever,” Allen said
as he kissed Mary once on each cheek. “I’m afraid I can’t stay, but
I wanted to wish you luck, my dear, and thank you again for being a
part of our product launch.”

Mary introduced everyone to Gerry, then
excused herself from the group to go and take care of putting the
finishing touches on her hair and makeup.

Jack and his partners were sitting on the
folding chairs at the back of the set when Mary walked back out
fifteen minutes later. Jack’s heart nearly stopped beating in his
chest as he drank her in. She was dressed in casual black slacks
and a soft red sweater that skimmed over her curves. She had put on
just enough makeup to highlight her features in a beautifully
elegant and simple way.

The campaign they’d decided on was simple and
direct. Mary was not going to play a role for the camera. Rather,
she was going to let the buying public know, via both still shots
and a live-action commercial that they’d be shooting later that
week, that she used the Pocket Planner and loved it. The set today
looked a great deal like her actual living room and kitchen, and
Jack realized it was because she’d brought in some things from
home. A pretty blue-and-white vase of flowers. A sculpture of a
dancing girl. A bowl of fresh fruit.

As she displayed their invention for the
camera, Jack was impressed all over again. She worked nonstop for
hours, not just in front of the camera but behind it, as well, as
she assisted Gerry with his lighting and props. When Larry and
Howie started grumbling about food and drink, Jack suggested they
head out to pick up something for everyone. At the same time, Jack
could see the faint lines of fatigue beginning to appear at the
corners of Mary’s eyes and mouth while Gerry changed cameras.

Standing up and walking onto the set, Jack
said, “Time for a break.”

Gerry sighed in clear relief as he put his
camera down. “I’m going to run across the street for a triple
espresso. Should I bring back one for everyone?”

Jack shook his head. The last thing he needed
right now was more adrenaline coursing through him.

“Thanks, but I’m fine, too,” Mary murmured,
reaching around to rub a kink out of her neck. “I think I’ll just
get off my feet for a few minutes.”

After Mary had left the set for her small
dressing room, Gerry told Jack, “No other model of her caliber and
fame would even consider assisting with lights and makeup like
this. There isn’t another woman like her in the world.”

“You’ve got that right,” Jack agreed.

“I was extremely surprised when Mary called
me about your campaign. She was dead set on leaving modeling, and
no one could get her to change her mind. Not until you came
along.”

“I’m a very lucky man.”

Gerry assessed Jack again with his cool green
eyes before nodding once. “Don’t ever forget it.”

Jack headed over to the small room at the
side of the set that Mary had disappeared into. At first he only
saw the table where Mary had set up a mirror, and her makeup and
hair kit. Just as Gerry had pointed out, she normally had a whole
crew of people working on her photo shoots. Moving deeper into the
room, he saw that she was sitting on a soft chair, rubbing her neck
and shoulders as if they ached.

She turned her head toward him when she heard
his footsteps. “Jack, do you need something?” She immediately moved
to stand, but when he replaced her hands with his own on her
shoulders and began to massage the tight muscles, she sank back
down into the chair.

* * *

Mary knew she shouldn’t let Jack touch her
like this—especially while they were working together—but when it
felt so good how could she possibly muster up the strength to tell
him to stop?

But she had to stop it. Jack’s strong, warm
hands on her would likely lead to more wonderful, deliciously
sensual things.

The kind of
more
that
she had specifically told him they couldn’t do while they were
working together.

Oh, but what a struggle it was to make
herself slide out from beneath his hands to stand. When she felt
she’d removed all desire from her expression, she turned to face
him.

“Friday night, I know the boundaries of our
relationship got a little fuzzy—” Particularly when she’d been
begging him for one more kiss. “—but you were right to leave when
you did.”

“It was a hell of a weekend without you,” he
said in his disarmingly direct way. “The only consolation was that
I knew I’d get to work with you today.” He shook his head, his eyes
dark and intense again. “I wish just working with you would be
enough.”

Lord, the things this man did to her with
nothing but a look and a few simple words. She was tingling head to
toe, inside and out, as she made herself take a step away from
him.

“It has to be enough, at least until the
campaign is over.”

“Tell me why we have to wait. Make me
understand why I can’t kiss you again right now when we both know
how good it will be?”

She went to take another step back from him,
before looking up into his eyes and realizing she had done the
exact opposite. Instead of moving further away, she’d gotten
closer.

“I made a mistake a few years ago. A big
one.” A chill moved over her just thinking about Romain. “And what
I learned from my mistake is that we should wait until our
relationship isn’t wrapped up in the ad campaign, or tracking how
many units are being ordered. Then we’ll both be able to think
clearly about things.”

Seeing her shiver, he slid his hands over her
arms to warm her. “What I’m feeling for you has absolutely nothing
to do with units or ad campaigns.”

She wanted so badly to believe him,
especially since her own feelings for him were growing at an
exponential rate. His hands on her felt so good, so comforting and
arousing at the same time, that her body instinctively shifted
closer yet again.

“You’ve worked toward fulfilling your dream
for ten years,” she reminded him. “You shouldn’t even consider
putting anything or anyone else first right now.”

“Whoever it was that hurt you,” he said in a
low voice that rumbled through her, “was an idiot.”

They were just inches apart as she agreed,
“Yes, he was.”

“Rumor has it,” he said with a small smile
that drew her in closer for the kiss she was trying not to give
him, “that my IQ is quite high.”

How could she possibly fight her feelings for
him when he didn’t just make her burn but made her laugh, too?

“Is that so?”

“One hundred sixty, and my mother still has
the test results to prove it,” he said with a grin. “Although I’ll
confess that sometimes I get an idea in the shower and forget to
shave because I’m hurrying to get it down on paper.”

She almost sighed out loud at how sweet and
cute and sexy it was that his brain worked so fast he could hardly
keep on top of normal, everyday things like shaving. Did his socks
match, she wondered? But worse even than mulling over his socks was
the fact that she wanted to nuzzle against the dark bristles he’d
forgotten to shave away that morning.

Trying to keep things light between them—even
if she knew she was only delaying the inevitable—she dropped her
gaze to his beard-in-the-making. “You look good scruffy.”

“Now that I know you think that, I’ll never
shave again.”

She laughed again. “Remind me to look you up
in two years to see how long your beard is.”

“All you’ll have to do is roll over in our
bed to see that.”

She’d never been with a man this confident—so
sure they were meant to be together. And she’d never wanted to kiss
anyone this much, either.

In order to distract her lips from the kiss
they were dying for, she said his name instead, meaning it as a
warning. “Jack.”

He distracted her right back, not with her
name, but by saying, “Angel.”

It was an endearment that made her knees
wobble every single time.

So when he slid one hand into her hair and
another around the curve of her hip to pull her closer, she didn’t
have the strength of will to keep fighting this kiss any longer.
All it took was the press of his lips against hers to dissolve the
fierce reminders of how she’d been hurt before. All her intelligent
thoughts vanished, as well.

“Mary, I know you said you were cutting back
on caffeine, but I brought you—”

Gerry was halfway into the room by the time
he realized she was wrapped around Jack like a teenage girl
stealing a kiss from her secret boyfriend when she thought no one
was looking.

“Sorry about that, folks,” he said in his
easy, seen-it-all way. “I’ll just go take care of that film that
needs changing.”

The second Mary heard Gerry’s voice, she
should have jumped out of Jack’s arms. Especially given that she
shouldn’t have been in them in the first place. But his kiss had
made her limbs feel too loose and rubbery to do anything but stay
right where she was.

Finally, she gathered up enough self-control
to make herself shift away, one inch at a time until Jack had no
choice but to let her go. “I can’t believe we were doing that…and
that Gerry caught us. Thank God, it was him and not your
partners.”

“What if they had seen us? We’re not hurting
anyone, or anything, by kissing each other.”

But what if you do end up
hurting me?

Mixed into her fear of being hurt again by
someone she worked with was the lingering memory of how humiliated
she’d been by the knowledge that everyone in her circle knew just
how foolishly she’d given her heart…and then been tossed aside. She
couldn’t stand for that to happen again, not when she was supposed
to be older and wiser.

“Have you told them about Friday night, about
what happened between us at my house?”

Jack looked more than a little insulted by
her question. “Of course I haven’t. I don’t kiss and tell, Mary.
What happens between us is private.”

A moment later, Howie and Larry poked their
heads into the room. “Hey Jack, Mary, we brought back a sandwich
for you both.”

She could easily read the frustration on
Jack’s handsome face as she told them she’d join everyone in the
common area in a couple of minutes. They all left the room and her
hands were trembling as she sat down at her mirror and picked up
her hairbrush. A moment later Gerry walked in and closed the door
behind him.

“I thought something was going on between the
two of you.” Gerry grinned at her in the mirror. “Now, before we
start shooting again, tell me
everything
about that gorgeous man who can’t keep his hands off
you
.
”

As she ran a straightening iron over a lock
of hair to get ready for their second set of shots, she had to work
to keep her hand steady so she didn’t burn herself.

With another photographer she might have
tried to hide what she was feeling. But, with the man who had known
her for her entire adult life, there was no point in pretending
Jack’s touch had been innocent. Besides, there was a reason Gerry
was such a great photographer—he saw things other people
didn’t.

“Jack is different from any other man I’ve
known,” she admitted.

She knew she shouldn’t say anything more, but
she was dying to talk to someone about Jack. She couldn’t possibly
have discussed him with the young models she was looking after, not
when she was trying to set a good example for them. But Gerry had
watched her grow up. First, from behind a camera lens, and then
later when they became friends. He’d held her hand and let her cry
when her various romances hadn’t ended in happily ever after. If
anyone would understand how confused she was right now, he
would.

“The men I’ve been around have always been so
self-aware, so conscious of everything they did and said, and
especially how they looked. But Jack’s brain is working so fast all
the time—he’s so different. He told me that sometimes he doesn’t
even remember to shave.”

“Adorable,” Gerry said, echoing her own
thoughts.

She sighed. “Agreed, but I still shouldn’t
have kissed him just now.”

His eyebrows went up. “Why the hell not?”

“Because we’ve agreed to keep things strictly
professional between us for now. As I’m sure you recall, last time
I mixed business with pleasure, things went horribly awry.”

Gerry frowned. “Romain Bollinger was a
worthless piece of scum. I thought you were over him.”

“Of course I am,” she insisted, horrified
that anyone would think she was still pining for that horrible
excuse for a man. “I’m just trying to be careful.”

“If that was a careful kiss, I would love to
see what a dangerous one looks like,” he teased.

So would I,
she
thought, despite knowing better.
So would
I.

* * *

Between the kiss Jack had given her this
afternoon and the one from Friday night, Mary knew he had made his
intentions abundantly clear. If she couldn’t resist temptation,
then she’d just have to make sure not to put herself in its path.
She was not a young, naive girl anymore who would melt into a
puddle at a few sexy words from a good-looking man. If anything,
her experiences with love had hardened her to the point that sexy
words were far more likely to put her on her guard.