Justine Montgomery, daughter of a divorced beauty queen and TV magnate, is a tabloid disaster after her infamous sex tape. She’s so desperate to help save her family’s home she turns to her deal-making dad. Can she prove to him she’s cut out for a career in television or will she lose it all?
Sawyer has his own past and a successful career is his only goal. Seeing Justine fail would mean the promotion of a lifetime, but things get complicated when he develops feelings for her. Suddenly, the lines between work, life, sex, and love are blurry.
They will have to overcome the bitterness of a rejected ex, the controlling actions of her father, and the half-truths they’re telling one another to forge a lasting partnership both on the job and off the clock.
He considered her for a moment, searching her face. “I want to get you out of those expensive clothes.”
She froze and took a jagged breath.
Sawyer slid a hand behind her to pull her ponytail over her shoulder and run the curls through his fingers. “I want to mess up your hair, fist it in my hands while I kiss you until you can’t think.”
As he toyed with her curls, Justine blanked. At that second, she’d have said yes to anything he asked of her. She stood to open her door then turned back, unsure what would come out. “I can’t think right now.”
With a tilt of the head, he leaned in. “I’m going to kiss you anyway.”
A voice in the back of her mind told her she was going to have to practice telling this man no. He pressed her to the wall, sucked at her bottom lip, ran his tongue across it. Heat blasted through her.
Sawyer tugged her through the open doorway. He kicked the door shut and backed her against it slowly. Pale streetlight from outside the window cast them in shadows. The weight of how much she wanted him almost crushed her. They kissed and, despite them both being fully clothed, she felt vulnerable. Naked.
His hands pressed flat against the wall beside her, his breathing as uneven as her own. “Say it.”
“Say what?”
“Tell me you want me. That you think about me touching you, that it keeps you up at night. Tell me it’s not just me.”
“I do.” Her voice came out fluttery.
He ran a hand through her hair, toying with the ends. “I wonder things, like how you sound when you’re excited and…”
She put a finger to his lips, still moist from their kisses. “Stop saying things like that. I don’t want to know because then I won’t be able to stop thinking about you thinking those things.” She tilted her head back against the wall and steadied a hand on his chest. His muscles bunched beneath her fingers. She needed to think. She needed to process all of this and…
He lifted her hand, nuzzling the sensitive skin on her wrist, which sent a quiver down her spine. When she couldn’t take any more, she withdrew it from his grasp. And Sawyer was there, picking up where he left off, with a leisurely, complete, thorough kiss. And, oh, she kissed him back. How could she not? His kiss, it was everything. Like something in her, that had been off her whole life, snapped into place.
Her heart jittered in her chest and propelled her past the desire, past the panic gnawing inside because she wanted more of him. She wanted to touch him and taste him and be filled by him, but even more beyond that.
Lori Sizemore grew up in the mountains of West Virginia and never quite managed to escape them. Lori lives at home with her husband of twenty-plus years and two of her three daughters. She also lives with two dogs, a cat, and five hermit crabs. Yes, five of them. This menagerie and her family keep her busy. She worked in mental health as a social worker for ten years before making the choice to write full-time.
