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After a humming moment, he stepped back. “Exactly what I thought.”
Shivering in the cool air, she risked a look at him. He’d already shoved his longing behind those thick icy walls he summoned so effortlessly, causing her to wonder if she’d ever seen it naked and aching on his face at all.
Maybe it had simply been the reflection of her own.
She flung a glance at the sky until her hazy vision cleared. Once it had, she chanced another look at his face. Taut jaw, hooded eyes. All locked up tight. Whatever she said now, the moment between them was gone.
Did it really matter? If he expected her to bare all with giving nothing in return, he was asking for too damn much.
She’d never let herself look too closely at her interest in him for a number of reasons, the biggest that she’d feared he would laugh in her face. Hot on its heels was that Cory wasn’t the kind of man who would share himself with more than one mistress. He was completely and totally owned by his work.
In his world, she would rank right around the level of a goldfish he forgot to feed until he discovered it floating belly-up three months after it had died.
Sex with Cory was one thing. What he was asking for—a trust that went way beyond an on-and-off snarktastic friendship—didn’t slot neatly into that category. Giving him more without a guarantee of the same would be a mistake she wouldn’t make.
After her mother had left years ago, she’d spent too long using things outside herself to quell her fear at being left again by those who mattered most. She’d found other coping strategies, such as yoga and even feng shui, and had learned how to quiet her mind during times of stress. Inviting Cory to play games with her emotions would be akin to summoning a deadly tornado and then stepping back while he wreaked devastation. Not going to happen.
“Better hold on to your notebook, Santangelo. You’re going to be out here a while waiting for Orion to show up in the night sky at this time. Like a few months.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder before marching inside.
He’d never know the stars had blurred from her tears.
Chapter Five
She could do this.
After Friday night’s disaster, walking into their usual Monday magazine meeting with her head held high took balls, but Vicky had them to spare. If her life had taught her anything, it was that she could handle whatever was thrown her way.
So what if she suffered from recurrent bouts of lust for a man who not only was emotionally unavailable, but was in a whole other league sexually as well? So what if she still had to lean over his desk and pore over photos of daybeds and antique armoires while she tried to breathe through her mouth so she couldn’t smell his sex-potion cologne?
She wasn’t fazed. In fact, she was so unfazed she could turn to face him while he stood at her side and playfully toyed with her starfish necklace as if she didn’t have a single care.
His gaze dropped to her throat—mostly unblemished, though he’d certainly tried to leave his mark—then rose to her eyes. “Arrangements have been made at the Helping Hands donor house on Seeley Drive for a week from Friday. The living room is close enough to what I had in mind for the cover, but there are no Christmas accents yet.”
“Jill, Lorelie, and I will handle decorations.”
“From the store, please.” He tapped his fingers on the side of his desk as he sifted through the photos from their last shoot. “We have an expanded Christmas section from last year.”
“I saw some of the stuff in the storeroom. Thank God the store hasn’t begun decorating for the holidays yet. It gets earlier every year.” She shuddered. “Though that Santa’s toolbox display is adorable.”
He glanced up, a smile playing around his mouth. “That was my idea.”
“Here I thought you were just a pretty face.” She ran her nail under her necklace. “Once you select the bedroom shots you want, we can focus on the cover. I think carrying the country-chic theme through works best, especially with Christmas, but that’s up to you.”
“I told you I’d give you room to work.” His voice was even, though his eyes burned. She didn’t get why until she realized her nervous fingers had strayed to the neckline of her V-neck shirt. Rather than move her hand, as was her inclination, she slid her fingers just that much lower. His nostrils flared. “Stage the cover as you’d like. All I ask is that I’d like you to leave the decorations after the shoot so the house will be decorated for the new owner. Her deployment ends right before the holiday, and I think that’d be nice for her to come home to.”
She swallowed as his words sank in. “Sure.” Surprised at how weak her voice sounded, she cleared her throat.
“We need to wrap up the magazine and put it to bed week after next if we want to meet our deadline. The printer’s already booked tight and if we miss our window, we’re out of luck until December and that’s too late for a holiday issue.”
“We’ll make it. Don’t worry.”
“There’s still outstanding editorial. Some of it yours.”
“On it,” she said cheerfully, glancing down at her watch. “Gotta book soon. I need to go look at paint swatches for the Taylo
r job.”
When he didn’t reply, she looked up to see him staring fixedly at a photo of an old-fashioned slatted bed with a gauzy red canopy. “I knew you’d never go for that shot, but I had to take it. That bed screams homemade carpentry.” Something about those carved bedposts made a girl think very bad thoughts. Maybe of a broad hand gripping them for support while he moved harder, faster. Driving her into the cloud-like mattress, pounding into her until the red canopy fluttered from the force of his thrusts.
