Panty Dropper (A Sexy Standalone Contemporary Romance) (5 page)

“Jesus Christ,” he breathed, his eyes heavy as he watched, fascinated. I gave one last pull as I released his fingers. “You’re incredible.”

I lowered my leg from the railing and readjusted my dress, back into its proper position.

“Seen enough?” he said.

“Hardly.”

We went back inside settled on the couch, where the untouched food and barely sipped prosecco still sat. A silence fell over us. Not awkward, exactly. Leo looked at me with ease, the lust still present in the curve of his lips but the hunger satiated, at least for now.

“So,” he said, taking a drink. “Think you’ll be taking any more auditions? I just want to be warned in advance. “

“Very funny,” I said, eating some of the cheese on the table. If I was hungry before I was ravenous now.

“I told you I was good with teasing.” A smiled played on his lips, and I couldn’t help but smile back at him. “Tell me more about writing. What kind do you want to do?”

“Fiction,” I said. “Novels. Maybe screenplays,” I added. I hadn’t thought about screenplays until then, but it seemed to please Leo. I wished I could tell him everything, but that was now an impossibility.

“Good,” he said. “Then I can still give you some pointers, and we won’t have to limit our activities to the balcony.”

I laughed. Telling him about writing had been surprisingly easy. I didn’t feel silly like I sometimes did, when people would snicker, “So you wanna write the great American novel?”

When I’d told my ex-boyfriend Paul that I wanted to major in writing, he’d said, “I hope you want to be a teacher, because that’s the only kind of job someone with that kind of degree will ever get.”

It stung me to realize that so far, Leo was nothing like I’d imagined him to be. Right now, in fact, I liked him better than anyone else I’d met since moving to LA.

Still, I had to remember my mission. “Did you always want to be the youngest head of a movie studio?”

“Hardly,” he said. “But I’ve always been driven, that’s for sure.” He stared down at the floor for a moment. “I started out wanting to be a writer.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised.

“Yeah,” he said, laughing. “I wrote this terrible screenplay when I was still an undergrad and submitted it to another studio. I was so full of confidence that I was sure they’d buy it for a million dollars. I didn’t get so much as a rejection. They didn’t even bother.”

“Ouch,” I said. I could totally relate. I’d once submitted an overly wrought short story to a literary magazine. I did get a rejection—an auto-reply from the site’s info box.

“Yeah. If anyone finds out that script is floating around, it’ll be dug up and laughed at by the industry,” he said.

“Well, I won’t tell,” I said. “I don’t really feel like being sued.”

“Sophie,” he said, disappointed. He gave his head the slightest of shakes. “Don’t do that.”

I didn’t say anything. I guessed teasing about the contract was out of bounds. I didn’t want the awkwardness to settle in after such an incredible moment on the balcony, so after a moment I said, “I should probably get going.” I stood up. “Thanks so much for having me over.”

“Of course,” he said, standing up with me. “I’ll walk you to do the door.”

We started across the marble floors, my heels echoing in the large space. Just before he opened the door that led down the hall to what I now realized was a private elevator, Leo said, “Wait. Will you do me a favor?”

I shrugged. “Sure.”

“Stay here,” he said, and went back inside his condo, which is a silly thing to call a place that was more like a mansion in the sky. When Leo came back, he held a stack of papers in his hand. “This script has been floating around the office for months. It’s been read by a dozen executives and ten junior readers but no one can figure out what’s missing. It should be a good story but something is off. Would you read it and let me know what you think? You can write notes on this copy.”

“Yeah,” I said, stunned. “Sure.” One thing I realized in taking this script from Leo Armstrong was that he intended to see me again. That was good—for the magazine, of course.

As incredible as the balcony had been—as amazing as he was with his lips and hands—I decided to use him like he was using me. Mutually beneficial. If a woman wanted to be in his presence, they had to sign away their rights to him. He got all the comfort of doing whatever he wanted in the relationship knowing he’d suffer no consequences.

Eventually, he’d tire of me and unceremoniously dump me like he did every other girl.

Sure, he seemed nice enough right now, but that was because he wanted to sleep with me. As soon as he got what he wanted from me, his true colors would come out and then I’d be nothing to him.

Fine.

That would simply make it easier to do the hit piece that Kait was looking for me to write about him for Crush.

But will you really sleep with him if that’s what it comes to? Sleep with a man you don’t respect, who doesn’t respect you?

I sighed, knowing that this was the worst part of it all.

Sleeping with him was what I was looking forward to most.

“
S
pill it
,” Kait said, practically pulling me into her office. “I want every detail.”

I was surprised to see Alexa and Bethany sitting in Kait’s office. They were all waiting, pens hovering over notepads.

“Grab a chair from down the hall,” Bethany said.

I took the extra chair from Kait’s assistant’s desk and rolled it into Kait’s office, where all three women looked at me as eagerly as children waiting for their birthday presents.

“Kait said you were at Leo Armstrong’s place last night,” Bethany began, once I sat down.

“Must have been some audition,” Alexa smirked.

Shifting in my seat, I licked my lips. “I totally blew the audition.”

“It certainly doesn’t sound like you did,” Kait said, slowly swiveling her chair like a lion circling its prey. “You clearly did something right.”

“How did he get you to his apartment?” Alexa asked. “Like, what was his excuse?”

“Alexa, he’s Leo Armstrong,” Bethany snickered. “He doesn’t need an excuse.”

I had to admit, Bethany was right about that. “He just called and invited me over,” I said. “That was sort of it.”

“And?” Bethany and Alexa asked at the same time.

“And I went. His place is huge. It has its own elevator,” I added lamely.

Alexa and Bethany exchanged looks like they couldn’t believe the boring details I was handing over about a such a huge player. I didn’t feel comfortable at all telling them or anyone else about the balcony incident, and other than that we didn’t exactly talk about too much—at least nothing news worthy. What we did talk about had been clouded by the way he made me—and my body—feel when his hands were on me, something I thought every waking second since.

“Look at her, she’s blushing,” Alexa said.

“You’re holding out on us, Sophie,” Bethany said.

I looked to Kait, knowing she planned to get it all out of me. “Sophie,” she began. “I shouldn't have to remind you already that this story is due in a few weeks. I intend to have it in the next issue. There’s no dragging your feet on this.”

“I understand,” I said, feeling like I was failing already. I wasn’t there to protect Leo Armstrong, no matter how good his fingers felt inside me last night. That’s what he was good at doing, to hundreds of women, probably. I was just another in a never-ending string.

So I told them what I could. I told them what his place looked like. Kait said it could be a good way to show some setting for the piece.

“Sounds like his décor is as sterile and unemotional as he is about his women,” she said. I had just thought it was sleek and modern, but I supposed I saw her point.

I told them how I had to tell him that I wasn’t really trying to be an actress, and that he seemed to believe me and it hadn’t made him suspicious, even when I told him I wanted to be a writer.

“Did you tell him screenplays?” Kait asked.

“Basically,” I said.

She nodded approvingly. “And?” she asked.

“Actually, he gave me a screenplay to read. He wants my opinion.”

“Very good. So a second date, then?” Kait said.

“I guess,” I said. I certainly hoped—for the sake of the story, of course.

Kait eyed me closely. “Did something physical happen?”

I squirmed uncomfortably. I would not give details, but I knew I had to give her something. “We kissed a little.”

“Lucky girl,” Alexa said.

“How was he?” Bethany asked.

“Amazing,” I replied, despite myself. I hated being interrogated like this. It was a violation, but I reminded myself that I’d signed up for it.

“You would be amazing too, if you got as much action as this guy does,” Kait said. “Listen, Sophie, you’re off to a good start. But surely there’s something concrete we can take away from your first evening with him?”

They all watched me closely. My mind spun, trying to think of something I could give them to let me out of their scrutiny. “Oh,” I said, remembering. “He originally wanted to be a writer. He sent a screenplay to one of the studios when he was an undergrad.” After the words leave my mouth, I instantly regret them.

“Seriously?” Kait asked. “Single-minded Leo Armstrong wanted to write? How pathetic.”

“Which studio?” Alexa asked.

“He didn’t say,” I said, hoping they’ll just drop it.

“We have to get a hold of that script,” Kait said. “At least find out what studio he sent it to.”

“Look for the script that contains aliens, explosions, guns and women with no speaking roles,” snickered Alexa.

“Why do all the studio execs think that’s what we all want?” Bethany said. “It’s embarrassing.”

“Alright, that’s enough,” Kait said, shutting up the girls. “Sophie, make sure you write all this down. Keep copious notes and save them to the shared drive so I can see your updates. Got it?”

As I left Kait’s office, I heard the girls fall into another fit of laughter, and the weak part of me felt bad for telling The Panty Dropper’s secret.

Except that’s what I’m being paid to do. Find out his dirty secrets and then expose him for the woman-hating misogynist that he clearly is.

At home that evening, I read through the script Leo gave me for a second time. I’d read it last night when I got home from Leo’s, unable to sleep. Now I went through it again, making notes and gathering my thoughts.

A video call came through on my laptop, and I smiled when I saw who it was.

“Delaney!” I said, seeing my best friend’s freckled face on my screen.

“How’s my L.A. girl?” she asked. “Have you been discovered yet?”

I smiled. “Not yet.”

“Well, hurry up so I can move out there and be your personal assistant!”

I laughed. Delaney and I had been best friends since second grade. She broke down crying when I told her I was moving to Los Angeles, and I’d begged her to come with me. “And do what?” she’d asked. “My family’s business is here. And I’m pretty sure no one in Los Angeles eats frozen custard—or fat of any kind, for that matter.”

Seeing Delaney’s familiar face after too many days of having no one close to talk to made me let out of sigh of relief. “How’s the ice cream business?” I asked.

“It’s custard and you know it.” It was a joke I always made to her. The Day family didn’t sell ice cream—they sold frozen custard, thank you very much. Her family owned a local shop called Day’s, and her father expected Delaney to expand the business from Maine down to New Hampshire, and that was plenty of pressure for a recent college graduate.

“Sell more scoops so you can come visit me,” I said, her familiar face grinning back at me. “How’s business?”

“Who cares? I didn’t call to talk about how egg yolk is basically the only difference between custard and ice cream. You talk. Tell me something exciting,” she said. “What’s it like out there? Is it crazy or what?” Delaney wanted stories of adventures along Sunset Boulevard, swimming in the Pacific, and posh dinners in Beverly Hills. I’d been here just over two weeks and I hadn’t seen any of the familiar sights.

“I hate to disappoint you,” I said, “but I haven’t done much sightseeing. Just been working, trying to figure that whole thing out.”

“Have you made any friends? What’s your roommate like?”

“She’s okay. A dancer, tough, doesn’t like to bullshit or coddle. I’ve hardly seen her since I moved in.”

“Best kind of roommate,” Delaney said. “Come on, Soph. Something must be happening out there.”

She looked at me eagerly, but not in the greedy way the girls in the office had as they waited for my report from Leo Armstrong. Delaney looked at me excitedly because she wanted me to have an adventure. And as she’d said a hundred times since I told her I was leaving our small town, she planned to live vicariously through my adventures.

But I couldn’t tell her about Leo Armstrong. I knew I could trust Delaney with my life, but I hesitated in telling her my big writing assignment.

“The roommate is a little intense. So are the girls in the office,” I said. “What I need is my partner in crime with me to explore the city.”

“And its seedy underside,” she joked. “Does the fact that you haven’t seen the sights yet mean you haven’t met any guys yet either? Or are you already so wrapped up in some Malibu surfer dude that you haven’t had the time?”

“That’s not it at all,” I said. Normally Delaney would be the first and only person I’d call after a night like last night. I was in unfamiliar territory, not being able to tell my best friend about the hottest non-sex I’d ever had.

“I hope it’s not because you’re still hung up on Paul,” she said. “He is a royal prick. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before he cheats on Meredith.”

I perked up. “Paul is with Meredith?”

Delaney cringed. “Sorry. I thought you knew.”

“How would I know? I’m out of the gossip loop.”

“And in a much better place than this, that’s for sure. Listen, Soph,” Delaney said, turning serious. “Make the most of your time out there. I hate the thought of you being in one of the world’s most exciting cities but staying inside your cramped little shared apartment because you’re too afraid to get out there on your own and meet people. Surely your roommate does something other than dance. Oh! She can introduce you to her hot dancer guy friends. They have the best bodies, and are totally uninhibited, too.”

“I know,” I said, guilt washing over me. “You’re right.”

“Don’t let what Paul did to you make you think all guys are like him. Because they’re not. There are good ones out there, too. And we’ll find them—one for each of us.”

As much as I hated it, my mind naturally clicked over to Leo and last night. As far as I could tell, most guys were just like Paul. The only difference between him and Leo—aside from money, success and
GQ
looks—was that Leo made girls sign nondisclosure agreements to try and keep his jerky ways completely secret.

My phone buzzed on my desk. Blocked number. My heart raced, thinking it might be Leo.

“Delaney, that’s my phone,” I told her. “It might be work. I gotta go.”

“Okay, but think about what I said. Get out there and have fun.”

I smiled. “I will.”

“And remember the dancers!”

I told her I loved her then ended the video chat. When I answered my phone, a deep sexy voice greeted me.

“Did you read it?” Leo asked by way of greeting.

“Yes, in fact I did. Twice,” I said.

“Trying to get to the head of the class, are you?” he asked. “Well, young student, I’d like to go over your work. Can I take you to dinner tonight?”

“To discuss the screenplay?” I asked, teasing a bit but also to see if he had more in mind. Last night would hold me over for a while, but not for long. Just hearing his voice made me crave him all over again.

“That, and whatever else might come up,” he said, and my thoughts immediately went south.

“Just tell me when and where.”

“I’ll send a car. Be ready in thirty minutes.”

“You don’t give a girl a lot of time, do you?” I said.

“You don’t need it,” he replied. “I’m sure however you look now is perfect. But, uh, if you are taking requests, where something that shows off those gorgeous curves of yours.”