Take On Me. Sarah Mayberry

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       Was this foreplay or warfare?

      And, at this moment, did Dylan really care? As he pulled Sadie’s bottom lip into his mouth, he knew their differences didn’t matter. She moaned low in her throat and dug her fingernails into the muscles of his back. He swept a path across her cheek to the sensitive skin beneath her ear, leaving her neck, then biting her. Her hips bucked against his and she slid a hand down his back to grab his butt and drag him even more tightly against her.

      He needed more. He needed skin, had to taste her, know her, have her. He stared down into her glittering eyes, taking in the rapid rise and fall of her breasts as she gasped for breath, the flush on her cheekbones, the tumbled, sexy mess of her hair.

      She was everything he hated in a woman. But he was going to have her or die trying.

       SARAH MAYBERRY

      lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her partner, Chris. As well as penning romance novels, she also writes scripts for television. She has plotted TV births, deaths, betrayals, marriages, first kisses, divorces and innumerable cliff-hangers in both Australia and New Zealand, but for now is content to stick with true love. May it ever run smooth…

      Dear Reader,

      It was inevitable that I’d wind up writing a series of books set behind the scenes of a soap opera – I’ve spent more than three years working in-house for various TV dramas in New Zealand and Australia. It’s a crazy, pressured and often hilarious way to earn a living, and I figured it would be the perfect place for people to fall in lust – and love – with one another.

      Coming up with the heroines for my three stories was equally easy – Sadie, Grace and Claudia just seemed to jump right out of my keyboard, along with their heroic counterparts.

      I hope you enjoy getting a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the way serial drama is produced via Sadie and Dylan’s story. These two stubborn people have some serious ground to cover before they can let go of past misconceptions – but I hope you’ll agree it’s worth the risk.

      I love to hear from readers. You can contact me via my website, www. sarahmayberryauthor. com. And, of course, keep an eye out for the next instalment of the SECRET LIVES OF DAYTIME DIVAS mini-series, All Over You, due out in May 2009.

      Until then, happy reading!

       Sarah Mayberry

      TAKE ON ME

      BY

      SARAH MAYBERRY

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Thanks to all the Shortland Street and Neighbours people who have inspired this book – bits of all of you are in there somewhere. As always, thanks to my faithful readers – La-La, the fabulous Miss Moneypenny and Hanky Panky – and to Wanda, the maple syrup queen, who always knows best.

       Prologue

       Grovedale Senior High Prom, 1994, Los Angeles, California

      SADIE POST STARED at her reflection in the girls’ bathroom mirror. More specifically, she stared at her chest. Her flat, featureless, pancake of a chest. Her mother kept telling her she was a late developer, but Sadie had given up on hoping for late development two years ago. At seventeen, with a chest like an ironing board, she was officially a freak of nature. One day soon, a documentary crew would turn up on her doorstep and she’d be starring as The Girl Who Skipped Puberty. They’d have a doctor and diagrams, and they’d explain how all the stuff that was supposed to go toward breasts and hips in her body had instead been used by Mother Nature to stretch her out to a skinny six feet tall, with no extra to spare for luxury items like curves.

      No wonder Dylan Anderson didn’t know she existed. She’d sat next to him in American Literature for a whole year, and he’d barely glanced her way. The one time he had, she’d been doodling his name all over a page in her notebook, and she’d barely managed to slam it shut before he saw it.

      She bit her lip, thinking about what had happened in class today. He probably knew she was alive now. And not in a good way.

      Why had she suddenly decided it would be good to stand up for herself?

      She knew why. She might not have breasts, but she had desire to spare. In the privacy of her bedroom, she’d mapped the silky smoothness of her own body, discovering what felt good, what felt great, and what made her lose control when she did enough of it. And it was always Dylan’s name she whispered into her pillow when she climaxed.

      The door suddenly swung open and music filtered through into the bathroom as two girls entered, their high heels click-clacking on the tiled floor. They were giggling, their blond heads leaning toward one another as they whispered conspiratorially.

      Sadie stepped back from the mirror, allowing them to take her place. She knew where she fitted into the school food chain. Cindi Young and Carol Martin were cheerleaders—she was an amoeba compared to them. Less, probably.

      She kept her eyes averted as they smoothed on lip gloss and fluffed their hair, finally teetering back to the gym to gyrate some more and send the boys wild with their sexy, curvy bodies and gravity-defying breasts.

      Cindi and Carol and girls like them were why Sadie had done what she’d done today. She knew she didn’t have what it took to get Dylan’s attention the old-fashioned way. And she’d wanted him to notice her so badly. When the opportunity had seemingly fallen into her lap…she’d jumped in, feet first.

      Which was probably why it had all gone so horribly wrong. She hadn’t thought through her strategy enough. Usually, she liked to script important events in her mind first before she tackled them in real life. Of course, in real life, people often diverged wildly from her mental script—but for some reason it helped her feel braver if she’d already imagined a version of the scene in her head.

      She took a deep breath and tried to fluff her blond hair into a semblance of Cindi or Carol’s provocative hairstyles. It resolutely refused to do anything but hang limply by her face, and she finally dropped her hands to her sides. She was stalling. She had to go out there and face him.

      She tried her best smile in the mirror. She had good teeth, small and straight and white. And she liked her lips—they were full and pouty, even more so with some of her mom’s lipstick on. The smile looked okay. She tried a greeting.

      “Hi, Dylan.”

      She grimaced. She sounded way too familiar. It wasn’t as if they were friends or anything. Especially after today. But what were her options? She could hardly call him Mr. Anderson. He’d die laughing.

      “Hey, do you have a moment?” she said instead, trying to sound sure of herself, a woman of the world. Her voice came out all weird and croaky, like Miss Piggy.

      Her eyes dropped to the bodice of her satin gown once more. Who was she kidding? She looked like a kid playing dress-up—a really tall, skinny kid. Why would Dylan glance twice at her when she didn’t even look like a real woman?

      On impulse, she spun on her heel and stepped into the first cubicle. Working feverishly, she plucked again and again at the single-sheet toilet paper dispenser, her hands a blur of motion as she harvested a mountain of paper.

      One nervous eye on the door, she stuffed the tissue down her bodice. It prickled against her skin as she adjusted it again and again until two respectable-looking mounds tented the front of her spaghetti-strapped, knee-length, black satin dress. She turned sideways to the mirror, then spun around the other way. A small smile curved her lips. She looked good. She had breasts! Surfing a wave of confidence, she pushed her way out into the corridor.

      Music