Friends With Benefits (20 page)

Melina Wenham is worried and frustrated. Lately, her boyfriend of six months seems to have lost interest in her. Yes, she knows he’s stressed about his big project at work, but jeez, it seems like he’d rather go solo than have sex with her. Sexy lingerie, a Brazilian…nothing seems to get his attention.

Gavin’s frustrated too. He’s under enough pressure at work, without feeling more from Melina every time he gets home.

Another night, another party, and Gavin is off talking to the boys. Feeling ignored yet again, Melina confides her troubles to an acquaintance, Abby, who suggests shaking him up by flirting with another guy. Hmm. Not a bad idea, except there are no flirt-worthy guys at this party.

Then Abby suggests a different tack—flirt with her.

Could a little girl-on-girl tango be the match that reignites romance with Gavin? There’s only one way to find out…

Warning: Hot girl on girl scene!

Melina was laying there with Kylie’s cousin, both of them naked from the waist up, jean-clad legs twined around each other, kissing like crazy in a heated clinch. Holy fucking shit. Melina and Abby wrenched apart at his words and stared back at him.

His cock hardened painfully in his jeans and he almost put a hand down to it. “Jesus,” he muttered. He shook his head, but couldn’t drag his eyes away from the scene on the bed. Melina’s long blonde hair was mussed and her eye makeup was smudged under her big eyes, round with apprehension. Abby’s hair, too, was just-out-of-bed tousled, both their lips shiny and swollen. He almost groaned aloud.

He should be pissed off, he supposed. After all, Melina was cheating on him. With another woman. But he was so fucking turned on he could have drilled wood with his dick.

“Gavin,” Melina said. Uh, yeah, that was him. Her eyes flicked nervously to Abby. “Um…”

Nobody seemed to know what to say and the silence in the room dragged on painfully. Then Gavin became aware of voices in the hall and he shoved the bedroom door shut behind him, plunging them back into darkness. His eyes had to adjust to the dim lighting and he took a step toward the bed.

“Melina, what are you doing?” he asked again, his voice gritty like sand. What a goddamn stupid question that was. It was pretty clear what she was doing.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, moving out of Abby’s embrace, and strangely, covering her breasts with her arms. Christ, they lived together. He’d seen her gorgeous tits a million times. He watched her swallow hard, lick her lips.

“This is all my fault,” Abby said, sitting up, but not making any move to cover her chest. Gavin tried, he really did, but he couldn’t stop his eyes from flicking over her torso. In the back of his mind, “small but nice” registered vaguely. He jerked his eyes back to Melina’s face. “It’s kind of a funny story.”

He lifted a brow and looked at Abby, forcing himself to look no lower than her chin. “Oh yeah?” If she’d been a guy, he’d be hauling her ass off that bed and shoving his fist into her nose. He blinked, waited.

Abby grinned. “Melina and I were talking and she was telling me how she’s been feeling lately and I had the idea that she should try to make you a little jealous. Just to…you know…make you realize what a hot, gorgeous chick she is.”

He blinked again. “I
know
what a hot, gorgeous chick she is,” he protested. Wait a minute. He looked at Melina. “You were trying to make me jealous?” Both brows shot up.

She nodded, looking embarrassed, miserable, absolutely adorable and utterly fuckable. He adjusted his stance to accommodate the hard-on growing in his pants. “There were no guys around to flirt with.”

“So I volunteered,” Abby said cheerfully.

“Hold on,” Gavin ground out. “This is
not
flirting.” He threw a hand out toward them. “This is
way
past flirting.”

“Things got a little…uh…carried way,” Melina said in a small voice.

Gavin gave his head a shake in an attempt to clear it. It didn’t work. “I…” He stopped. “You…
Melina
.”

“I know.” She pulled her bottom lip in. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” Abby said softly. “You know what, Mel?” She glanced sideways at Gavin. “I don’t think Gavin’s mad. I think he’s turned on.”

He scowled and willed his hard-on to go away. It didn’t. Melina stared at him, Abby smiled. “So?” he growled.

“So,” Abby said, tipping her head. “Why don’t you join us?”

His eyes almost fell out of his head. “You must be joking.”

She shook her head, still smiling, eyes sparkling. “Melina was being very um…brave and…adventurous. Maybe you should, too.”

Incredibly tight-lipped and painfully private, Anthony Phoenix has been known to make lesser women cry. Luckily, Summer Staite is by no means a lesser woman. It’s her job to know his type—rich, handsome, famous and used to getting what he wants. A dangerous, seductive combination. Luckily for her it’s not the man she’s after. It’s his story. A story that’ll earn her the respect she craves—one they tell her is impossible to get.

“They” have no idea how far she’ll go.

With his freight-train vocals, dark intensity and brooding good looks, Anthony is well aware he presents a challenge to the brazen columnist from Stripped Magazine. Yet she intrigues him more than he cares to admit. Beneath her soft, girl-next-door façade, she drips with the kind of sensuality that makes him edgy. High. And completely stupid.

Stupid enough to let her get into the act…and under his skin.

Startled Summer slammed the fridge door shut and whirled about. Anthony was standing in the threshold watching her. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough to know you’re a true reporter.”

“What?”

He nodded to the fridge. “You going to go through my garbage next?”

Summer let out a huff and flipped her hair behind her shoulder. She didn’t like the implication that she was snooping, even if that was basically was what she was doing. “I was just looking for a bottle of water.”

“Sure.” He dug a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and slipped one out.

Behind him a “No Smoking” sign was bolted to the beige walls. The irony of it sent a smile to crest Summer’s lips. His dark brows dipped in question. “What’s so amusing?”

Summer nodded to the sign.

He cast a glance back at it then shrugged. A wicked smile curved his lips. “Just a suggestion.”

The stone-cold façade he had worked so hard to maintain during their first encounter at the café had cracked, and beneath it Summer was offered a glimpse into his character. She saw darkness, danger, even desire, and it made her insides tighten with anticipation. “I forgot. Rules that apply to everyone else don’t apply to you.”

A devilish smile tipped his lips. “Everybody wants to be a rockstar.”

His gaze was no longer callous and cold as he drank in the sight of her. Her heart beat erratically as he closed the distance between them. It pounded like a jackhammer, ringing in her ears and making her draw a sharp breath as he circled her. He drew so dangerously close she could breathe in the cool, musky scent of his cologne. Her body shook with desire as he closed in on her. It made the words tumble shakily from her lips. “Do you always get everything you want?”

“Do you?” Beneath his dark brows his searing gaze was hungry. As if he were a panther on the hunt and had just spied his next meal.

The thought of him devouring her made her body ache for his touch. And though he was so dangerously close, though she had but to shift her body to press her sex against his, they remained painfully distant. She couldn’t think with him so close. No one had ever looked at her the way he did. It made her feel beautiful, powerful and completely in his control. She wasn’t sure she liked the last of those feelings. She was always in control. Always.

“Yes.” She lifted her chin with the confidence of her words. Had she not been the journalist, had he not been the story, his command of her would have been her undoing. She would have given herself completely and begged him to dominate her. But she wasn’t looking for a lay. What she needed more than she needed him between her legs was his story. “Always.”

“Where’s the fun in that? Always getting what you want.”

“It’s not the act of acquiring what one wants.” She motioned to the dwindling cigarette between his fingers. He twirled it around and offered it to her without hesitation. She brought the tip to her lips and let it linger just a breath from connecting. “It’s the chase that thrills,” she added, then drew off the cigarette.

“And what thrills are you after?” His tongue slipped out from between his slightly parted mouth. He licked his bottom lip and then bit down on the swell as though he was fighting for control of his own appetite. That solitary, absentminded action nearly made her forget what it was she was after. For in that moment the only thrill she wanted was him.

She offered him back his cigarette and took a deliberate step away. She needed space. She couldn’t think with his hot breath fanning over her skin and igniting a long-forgotten desire for the touch of man. It had been too long since anyone but herself had touched her.

Her mind swam in a hundred different directions. He had asked her something, hadn’t he? What the hell was she here for again? “The unattainable story,” she said at last.

Anthony crushed his cigarette into the sink.

He took a step toward her and she in turn took one away.

A wicked smile toyed at the corner of his mouth as he pressed forward again. Again she took another away. He pressed on and she retreated until he caught her up against the wall.

Anthony reached out and Summer held her breath as she waited for him to press his hand against her. But he denied her and pressed his palm flat against the wall beside her instead. “What makes you think I’ll let you expose me in the pages of your magazine?”

“I think—” she lifted her chin defiantly to meet his gaze, “—I wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t some thrill in the idea of being exposed.”

“Maybe.” His mouth was but a breath away from her lips. “Then again, maybe there’s some thrill in the idea of you.”

She drew in the scent of him. There was a calm aquatic note spiced with coriander. The scent drove her near mad with an unquenchable desire. It was instant, hot and caught her completely unaware.

“I’m sure you can take two steps outside this room and find a dozen other girls who’d be more than happy to thrill you.”

“I don’t want a dozen other girls.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Phoenix, they’re ready for you.” Jenny’s voice broke into the room to drown out the frantic beat of Summer’s heart.

Anthony let his hand slide down the wall beside her, nearly grazing her fevered skin. Damned if Summer didn’t long to have it slide down her body instead.

“I won’t give you the story,” he said at length.

Summer shook her head slowly and drew in a deep breath. “Pity.” Against her better judgment she dared to touch him. She laid her palm flat against his chest. His heart thudded erratically beneath her touch and made her ache to press not just her hand but her body against him. Her lips brushed against his earlobe as she breathed a sigh over him. “We could have rocked the world.”

Anthony let out a heavy sigh that bordered on a needy moan as she swept by him.

Summer pulled the backstage pass from her purse. Let it dangle helplessly from the cord. She let loose. It fell into the garbage and landed with a clank against the bottom of the metal can.