Take On Me. Sarah Mayberry

It was true, to a certain extent—his dyslexia had made him a stickler for research and preparation; it was one of the ways he harnessed his unique way of thinking.

      If he hadn’t spent half the night staring at the ceiling, he’d have been willing to buy his own excuse, too. The truth was, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. Every time he’d closed his eyes, a dozen different images of Sadie flashed across the movie screen in his mind. Those legs. Those velvet eyes. That bedroom hair. The tight black jeans she’d worn last Thursday. The flash of cleavage he’d caught at yesterday’s lunch break. The long, sensuous curve of her neck…

      It had taken a whole week for him to admit it to himself, but he finally had—Sadie Post, poster child for snarky academic bullies, was a bona fide hottie.

      He’d never been the kind of man to have too many illusions about sex and his own desires. He was scrupulously honest with the women he dated, and had never told any of them that he loved them, despite knowing that was what some of them wanted to hear. He wasn’t even sure he believed in love— except in a fictional sense, for the characters he wrote about. And it certainly wasn’t something he was looking for in his own life, not for a long time yet, anyway. But he’d also never found himself in a situation where he was attracted to someone he didn’t even like.

      And he definitely didn’t like Sadie. The past week had been one long extended wrestling match with his new boss. He said black, she said white. Simple decisions became drawn-out discussions, meetings went overtime—work was a war zone, pure and simple.

      Despite all that, the image of Sadie’s long, lithe body refused to leave his mind. He hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since that first day when he’d walked into her office and she’d stood from behind her desk. He told himself that it was irrelevant that parts of his anatomy found Sadie Post appealing. The last thing he was going to do was to lay a finger on her. He might have had sex with women for a lot of reasons over the years but he wasn’t about to stick it to a grade-A bitch like her just because she had great legs and breasts he itched to get his hands on.

      Being so certain on that one point didn’t make sleep come any easier, however, and early this morning he’d finally given up on staring at the ceiling and saddled up his Ducati motorbike for the commute into work. Now he pulled his helmet off and ran a hand through his hair. His eyes naturally gravitated to the lone car in the parking lot, a silver Audi TT convertible. It was a great little car, and he’d toyed with the idea of buying one for a while, but he hated traffic, and the Ducati made short work of L.A.’s world-famous congestion.

      Since TV writers weren’t exactly known for being early risers, he guessed the car had been left overnight. Probably someone had tied one on after work and caught a cab home. Grabbing his satchel, he headed into the building, looking forward to several hours of quiet before the rest of the team descended.

      Swiping his way through security, he moved toward his office. And froze in midstride as he registered that he wasn’t alone. She was standing in the kitchen area, arms crossed in front of her face as she pulled her sweater over her head. It was an innocuous act—except for the fact that the shirt she was wearing underneath clung stubbornly to the sweater fabric. As she lifted her arms, the shirt rode up her body, revealing an expanse of trim, tanned torso and a flash of lacy white bra.

      He couldn’t help himself—he took a step forward, toward her. Then the sweater was over her head, and Sadie was tugging her shirt down and shaking her long blond hair back into place.

      As quickly as that, he was hard for her, his erection straining against the fly of his jeans. He grunted his self-disgust. Clearly, his penis was under the illusion that hell had frozen over, that being the only time he’d consider having sex with his new boss and old enemy.

      She must have heard him, because her head swung up and her eyes widened as she registered his presence. A hand strayed to the hem of her stretchy white shirt, and Dylan guessed exactly what she was thinking. How long had he been standing there?

      His self-disgust at his own lack of control morphed into satisfaction as he saw her uncertainty. He liked her uncertain, wanted to see more of it. Wanted to rock her boat as much as he could, give her a little taste of what she’d no doubt been dishing out to others her whole life. A slow smile curled his lips as he sauntered toward her.

      “Morning, Sadie,” he said.

      Her eyes narrowed, then her shoulders straightened as she squared up to him.

      “Good morning, Dylan. You’re here bright and early,” she said primly.

      “Yep,” he said. Then he let his eyes dip below her face, sliding over those high breasts of hers, discovering the denim miniskirt hugging her hips, lingering on the length of tanned leg on display in between the hem of her skirt and the black cowboy boots she wore.

      His intention was to keep her off balance, encourage her to

      worry a little more about whether he’d seen her impromptu striptease or not. He hadn’t considered what effect his leisurely inspection might have on his nether regions—desire simply wasn’t on the agenda between him and Sadie Post. His body was going to have to suck it up.

      Unfortunately, his body had other ideas. Without any permission from him, his erection grew harder still, throbbing with the need to get closer to the tall goddess standing in front of him.

      Feeling like a hormonal teenager, Dylan moved his satchel ever so casually in front of his groin. The last thing he needed was for Sadie to realize he wanted her. Not that he actually did, of course—but she might get other ideas if she caught sight of the giant boner in his jeans right now.

      His momentary preoccupation had given her time to regroup, and there was no doubt or embarrassment in her eyes now.

      “I’ve got notes for you on last week’s block,” she said, crossing to the coffee machine to collect a mug. “Nothing major, just a few continuity issues we need to clear up.”

      Dylan waited for her to say anything more, like maybe comment on the high tension in the stories they’d crafted last week, or the powerful emotion of Friday’s cliff-hanger moment—a tear-jerker if ever he’d plotted one. But she didn’t. In fact, she appeared to have said all she was going to as she poured milk into her coffee, apparently supremely unaware of him standing there staring at her, willing her to say more.

      “No problems with the Friday cliff-hanger moment?” he asked, immediately kicking himself for fishing. He didn’t need her approval.

      She eyed him blandly, not giving him an inch. “It was fine. I expect you’ll be picking it up for Monday’s episode?” she asked.

      Fine? His cliff-hanger was going to have fans screaming at the TV set, and she thought it was fine? Dylan clenched his hand on his satchel but deliberately matched her innocuous tone.

      “We can discuss it in the pitch meeting at ten,” he said.

      She obviously didn’t like the fact that he hadn’t answered her directly. He saw anger flash behind her velvet eyes, but she quickly put her mask back in place.

      “It will certainly be interesting to see what you’ve come up with,” she said.

      He didn’t miss the challenge in her words. Interesting, his ass. She planned to make this as hard for him as possible. Last week’s pitch meeting had been a polite standoff, but they’d only been warming up. Now, with a full week of push-and-shove behind them, he knew the gloves would be off. He found himself grinning. There was nothing he liked more than rising to a challenge.

      “I’m all for interesting,” he said.

      She narrowed her eyes at him again, then picked her coffee up decisively.

      “I don’t want to keep you from your work,” she said, moving off.

      His eyes instinctively dropped to her butt as she walked away, mapping her sweet curves and the lean muscles of her thighs. The surge of renewed desire in his groin annoyed him so much that he called out after her.