“You’re going to love it, seeing the world,” he breathed out, his mouth just inches from hers. “I’m going to love seeing it with you, Sherona.”
She nodded, staring at his soul shining from his hazel eyes.
“You made my little world a bigger, more beautiful place, Chance.”
“I feel the same way about you.”
She smiled, warmed by his admission, even though it struck her as a little silly. “Your world? Small? You’ve been to every corner of the globe,” she teased, nipping at his lower lip.
He shook his head, suddenly sober.
“It’s seemed like the tiniest, most hateful trap ever created for the past two weeks, seeing the world without you,” he said.
Her lips parted in surprise. He seemed to take her amazement as an invitation and swooped down to give her another blistering, heartfelt kiss.
* * *
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EXPOSED TO YOU
Available November 2012 from Heat Books
If someone had told her when her alarm clock went off that morning that in a few hours she’d be calmly given the odds of her continued survival, Joy would have rolled her eyes and laughed her fears into the corners of her consciousness.
If someone had warned her that later that afternoon she’d be going down on a gorgeous stranger, she’d have told that person they were certifiably insane.
Wilkie shouted her name as she raced through the din of the makeup room. A photo shoot for movie posters and other promotional materials was scheduled for today. The special effects makeup department was roaring in high gear. Wilkie James looked too busy to chat, so Joy merely slowed her rapid pace. Her friend held an airbrush and was staring intently at a female’s right breast as he turned it pale green, his shaggy, dark brown hair just inches away from a nipple.
“He’s in his lab, angsting for your talent. ‘I need Joy,’ he keeps moaning,” Wilkie imitated, adding a tremble to Seth Hightower’s gruff baritone for comic effect. “He’s been trying to reach you for hours. Where’ve you been, beautiful?”
“Don’t I have a life, or was that all my imagination?” Joy asked, grinning.
“You may have had a life before we began production on Maritime, but that’s all just a dream now, honey,” Wilkie drawled as he moved to the left breast, and his model yawned widely.
That’s all just a dream now.
Wilkie’s careless words struck her with frightening precision. She shrugged off the shadow of dread that hovered at the edges of her mind and walked on, willing the energy from her surroundings to distract her . . .
. . . numb her.
The drama and excitement of a Hollywood film set wasn’t Joy’s typical work world. As an art teacher for gifted high-school students and a painter, she preferred the atmosphere of the classroom or her quiet, sunlit studio at home. Even the clamor and bustle of a Hollywood makeup department couldn’t fully penetrate her dread, however.
Not today.
She felt as if she were moving through a dream . . . something like the brilliant, surreal underwater film director Joshua Cabot was creating for United Studio’s latest blockbuster, Maritime.
She willfully ignored the uncomfortable pounding in her chest and flung open the door to Seth Hightower’s office-studio. She needed to see the familiar, loved, bold-featured face of her uncle; he was the only true family member she still possessed. Seth glanced around at the sound of her tool kit rolling over the threshold behind her.
“There you are!”
“I didn’t get the messages until a half an hour ago. I was at the doctor’s. I came as quickly as I could.”
Seth looked contrite. “I know. Ignore me. I’m in a bear of a mood.”
Joy smiled. Her uncle was a bear of a man in stature, perhaps, but hardly in temperament. At least not with Joy, he wasn’t. He tossed a few tubes of paint and glue into his kit before he straightened, swept down on her from his great height and gave her a quick, affectionate kiss, his shoulder-length dark hair flicking against her cheek. “You’re not even officially part of my staff and I snap at you like an intern. Your mother would have my hide.” Seth focused on her face, his bro