Watch Me (Stepping Up 1)

That, he wasn’t letting her do. Sam shackled her arm and pulled her around to face him, and she was close, so close he could kiss her, and damn if he didn’t want to in a bad way. He would have, too, if not for the fact that she was right—the water needed to be turned off.

“Stubborn woman,” he mumbled. “I’ll do it. That’s why I came down here in the first place. That and I saw you rush into the house, and knew you were up to no good.”

Sirens sounded in the distance, and unintentionally, his gaze brushed her very visible, red, puckered nipples beneath the transparent shirt. He didn’t like the idea of the entire fire department getting the same view.

“Sam!” she objected, folding her arms over her chest.

He scrubbed a hand over his face, as if he would ever wipe away the image of those perfect breasts. “Sorry,” he said, meaning it. He didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable—no, uncomfortable was the last thing he wanted to make Meagan feel. “That wasn’t on purpose. It just…happened.” He slid out of the rain jacket he’d put on before coming inside and handed it to her. “Put this on,” he told her, “before a gaggle of firemen make the same mistake.” The idea of that gnawed away at his gut in an unfamiliar, uncomfortable way.

Sam turned away from her, lifting himself on top of the washer and hitting the button to the panel door that Meagan had missed.

She made a surprised sound. “I loosened the door for you.”

His lips quirked, but he didn’t reply. He so enjoyed how easily he ruffled her feathers, even when he wasn’t trying. He cut the breaker to the sprinklers. The water was off. The sound of firemen’s voices and loud, heavy footsteps echoed from the floor above.

He eased to the floor, ankle deep in water. Meagan was thankfully well covered in his way-too-big jacket, but there was something intensely erotic about her in something of his that he couldn’t dismiss.

She slicked her hair back, drawing it away from her face, a face incredibly appealing without makeup, au naturel. And then they stood there.

Water clung to her thick, dark lashes, framing grass-green eyes that swept over his wet studio T-shirt and returned to his face.

More of that sexual tension zipped between them.

“We need you folks out of here,” came a male voice from the stairs, effectively jolting them from the hot little spell spinning around them.

“We’re coming,” Sam yelled, and then to Meagan, “Better late than never, but had this been a real fire, people could have been hurt. I’ll be talking to them about how this happened. In the meantime, one of my guys is already arranging a hotel for everyone.” He motioned for her to head upstairs.

A sudden wave of vulnerability washed across her features. “I ah…considering the firemen and your guys and…well, thanks for the jacket. And for turning off the water.” And then, when he thought they’d made some progress, she proved him wrong, pursing her lips and adding, “But I was about to turn off the water myself. I had it. I was getting it.”

He couldn’t stop the corners of his lips from twitching, despite the certainty that a smile—and most certainly the laugh threatening to escape—would only set him up for a battle. “Of course you would have,” he agreed, playing the cat-and-mouse game she seemed to want him to play—though, damn if he knew who was the cat and who was the mouse half the time. “But I’m here, Meagan. Why not use me?”

Her lips parted slightly at the words. Then her brows knit together, and her hands went to her hips, giving him a delectable glimpse of skin below her breasts. “You’re impossible,” she announced, glowering, before sloshing toward the stairs.

He stood watching her, thinking that the real “impossible” here, was not him, but that either of them believed they were going to be satisfied with this game much longer. She wanted him. He wanted her. And he was going to do something about it. No matter how many washers he had to climb.

2

SEEING SAM AGAIN SO SOON after…well, he’d seen her up close and personal wasn’t something Meagan welcomed. Not even after she’d had access to a hotel bed for a few hours, staring at the ceiling, thinking about his body pressed to hers.

Now dressed in her conservative black skirt and blouse, feeling a mess, as she stepped off the elevator and directly into the studio’s executive offices, she was pretty darn sure she wasn’t going to escape Sam’s presence. Because instantly, as if she had some cosmic radar for the man, a flutter of anticipatory butterflies overtook her stomach. The kind a lover felt for a lover.