Follow My Lead (Stepping Up 2)

He drew her fingers to his lips. “I better leave or I won’t let you get dressed.” He started to get up.

“Wait.” She grabbed his arm. “What if you’re seen leaving my room? Sounds like there’s show personnel already going. We’re competitors, Blake. If my station finds out that we, ah… Well, it could jeopardize my show. The studio might think I have your interests, not theirs, in mind.”

“Things would have to go horribly bad for you in all kinds of nearly impossible ways for that to happen, and they won’t.” She started to object and he held up a hand. “But I understand you’re worried and I’ll be discreet. Complain about your phone service and tell everyone I stopped by to make sure Meagan was able to reach you. That way, if anyone sees me leave, you have an explanation.”

“Right,” she said. “Good thinking.”

He glanced down at her bare breasts and back up. “I wasn’t kidding about not letting you get dressed.”

She tugged up the comforter and slid underneath, then smiled. “Go, before I don’t let you, and that would be very bad.”

“Or very good, depending on how you look at it.” She started to object and he leaned in and kissed her. “I’m leaving.”

He pushed to his feet and searched for his shirt, finding it in the hallway. He tugged it over his head and quickly put on his boots before hesitating at the door. He didn’t want to leave and that said a lot, when he normally couldn’t run from a woman’s door fast enough. Of course, they’d had a premature finish, but still…he wasn’t ready to walk away from Darla. Not until he understood what she was doing to him. He resisted the urge to back up and tell her exactly that, or at least frame a plan to end up here after tonight. Dang it, Darla was making him feel every bit the primal man. Some part of him wanted to declare her “mine.” That thought rattled him to the core, and he reached for the door. A cold shower and some stern self-reprimanding were in order—and fast.

6

DARLA SAT ON THE MATTRESS, unsure of what had just happened. He’d left. He’d had no choice. He’d even said he didn’t want to leave. But yet, he had, and they’d made no plans for what came next. Did anything come next? Probably it shouldn’t. Darla liked Blake. She liked him a lot—too much, in fact. History told her that was trouble, especially with a man who’d been trouble in the past. She shook herself, realizing that she should be showering and dressing, but was thinking about Blake when she should be thinking about her job. Grimacing at the man’s ability to distract her, she shoved away the comforter and rushed to the bathroom.

Fifteen minutes later, she’d managed a superfast shower, changed into a clean, dressier pair of jeans and a pale pink blouse. Her hair had been a wild mess, compliments of Blake’s hands. But thanks to a hot iron, her hair was now smooth and orderly. Her makeup had been reapplied, the whisker burns covered. His whisker burns—Blake Nelson’s whiskers. They had felt really good on about every part of her body. How in the heck was she going to face him in a group of people and act like he hadn’t just rocked her world? She didn’t want Meagan or anyone else to think she wasn’t focused on her job.

She grabbed the small pink beaded purse she’d unpacked, filled it and crossed the strap over her head and shoulder, before making her way to the hallway. Darla glanced at Blake’s door. Should she knock? What would she do if the man hadn’t just been half-naked with her? That was pretty hard to think through when being naked with him was pretty darn heavy on her mind—so was every flirtatious second leading up to her being naked. But prior to tonight she’d considered him her competitor—even her enemy. Yet she’d bonded with him on the plane and they had become friends. She didn’t give herself time to reconsider. Darla rushed to his door and knocked, then nervously looked around. Which was absolutely crazy. They’d flown into town together. They could walk to drinks together. She knocked again, more confidently this time, but he didn’t answer. He wasn’t in his room. He’d left without knocking on her door. Okay. So she wasn’t sure what to make of that. The worrier in her could conjure all kinds of trouble that she didn’t need right now.

Darla started walking toward the lounge area, her stomach suddenly fluttering with renewed nerves, which she tried to squash. The process of said squashing wasn’t going well, and by the time she stood at the door of the lounge, she was worse, not better. But when she entered the room, she realized the show was on. A group of about twelve, maybe even fifteen, of the show’s staff sat around a group of tables shoved together in the center of an oval-shaped room. Her gaze moved past the tables, drawn to the ceiling-to-floor windows and the view beyond that, which mesmerized, even calmed, her. The sun and mountains had faded into a pitch-black sky decorated with twinkling stars and city lights.