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Hollywood Confidential—December 13, 2003

“…THE BIGGER THE BUDGET, the better the bang. Or so this reporter believed until I recently viewed a documentary by up-and-coming producer Mallory Woodruff on the U.S./Mexico border war. I, personally, look forward to more from this talented filmmaker. Just think what she could do with a real budget!”

Oh, I don’t know, Mallory Woodruff thought caustically as she downed her second cup of coffee. Pay my rent, maybe?

She refolded the paper and sat back in the bar-style, high-backed chair in the freshly painted new home of her best friend’s pastry shop, Sugar ’n’ Spice. It might be eight o’clock, but she’d need either a whole lot more time, or at least three more cups of Reilly’s coffee to wake up.

“So?”

Mallory blinked Reilly’s pretty face into focus. Or rather tried to. When Layla, another one of their circle of four friends, had woken her from the dead a half hour ago, she’d been afraid something had happened to one of them. In a town where the word “friend” was thrown around with careless abandon, she’d been relieved to find Reilly Chudowski, Layla Hollister and Jack Daniels were the real thing when their paths had crossed three years ago.

But she was veering off course, wasn’t she? The reason she was sitting at a front corner table that overlooked Wilshire Boulevard, when she’d rather be sleeping off the previous night’s pitcher of homemade margaritas, was that Layla had mentioned an emergency. Considering that Layla was marrying hottie ex-plastic surgeon Sam Lovejoy tomorrow, well, she figured just about anything could qualify.

Anything but what she’d just read in the Hollywood Confidential.

“So…what?” Mallory grumbled. “This half a breath meets the criteria for an emergency meeting?”

Layla and Reilly stared at her, looking extraordinarily stunned, while Jack grimaced, unsurprised, and shook his head.

“Is nothing capable of impressing you?” Reilly asked, apparently more than a bit put out.

“Sure.” Mallory reached across the table and took the rest of Layla’s half-eaten sticky bun. “You guys impress me all the time.” She slanted a glance at Jack as she stuck the sweet into her mouth to calm her roaring stomach. “With the exception of you, of course, Jack. You need to find yourself a goal.”

Jack had to be the most attractive man she’d ever laid eyes on. He was Brad Pitt, Robert Redford and George Clooney all wrapped up into one scrumptious package.

Of course, she wished he had the ambition of a drive-thru server.

Jack snatched the paper from her hands. “Hey, I was using that to catch the crumbs,” she protested with a smile.

“You stick so much into your mouth there aren’t any crumbs,” he grumbled back.

Reilly leaned her elbows on the table. “But doesn’t that piece mean you might catch the attention of a major studio? Get that budget the reporter mentioned?”

Mallory made a face and stole Jack’s napkin to clean syrup off her hands. “First off, it’s not a piece, it’s a mention. And in a word—no.”

Layla sighed. “God, you can be so negative sometimes.”

Mallory waved her away even though the comment stung, a little bit anyway. She was a realist, not a pessimist. And the reality was that documentary producers spent the majority of their time applying and interviewing for grants and scrounging for financing and had more sense than to bask in the glow of a few throwaway comments that would reap absolutely zero results.

Of course, it didn’t help her attitude that she was having major problems raising the money she needed to work on her current documentary about the infamous murder twenty-five years ago of a young actress called The Red Gardenia. Forget her rent. Yesterday her cameraman had threatened to walk out on her if she didn’t pay what she owed him for the past month.

She scratched the back of her neck. Then there was that little time limit she’d given herself when she’d first come to L.A. Five years. She’d given herself five years to make it in the city. And obviously she hadn’t made it yet. And that five-year anniversary mark was coming up quickly. Too quickly.

But she wasn’t going to tell Layla that. To do so would be to focus on the negative. Today presented a whole slew of fresh opportunities. And that’s where she preferred to concentrate her energies: the future and all its possibilities.

Well, on that and taking an easy jab at her friend.

“Shouldn’t you be off gaping down someone’s throat or up someone’s colon, Dr. Hollister?” she asked.

Reilly barked with laughter, then caught herself when Layla stared at her. “Hey, it was funny.”

Layla took her purse from the back of her seat and hiked the strap over her shoulder. “I’m off from the clinic until the New Year. Remember?”

“Ah. Then I amend my previous comment. Both you and Jack need to find some ambition.”

“I have ambition.”

Mallory hiked a brow. “Getting married isn’t an ambition, Lay. It’s death.”

Jack mumbled something under his breath and pushed from the table. “I need a refill.”

“Get me one, too,” Mallory called after him.

Reilly and Layla shared a stare then looked at her.

“Does Jack seem a bit grumpier than usual?” Layla asked.

Mallory scratched her nose. “Not that I’ve noticed.”

“I think he is, too,” Reilly said to Layla.

Mallory shrugged. “Maybe he has a column due or something.”

Layla shook her head. “No…no. It’s something more than that. I can tell. Something’s bothering him.”

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Mallory said. “He’s always fine.”

Which was an out and out lie. Because she had noticed that Jack seemed particularly irritable and irritating lately. But to admit that might require her also to admit that she knew because when Layla had called he’d been lying in bed next to her with one of his legs covering hers and his hand over her right breast. And she couldn’t do that. Namely because Reilly and Layla would kill her if they ever found out she’d gone back on the promise they’d made three years ago for the three of them to maintain a platonic relationship with the ultra-yummy Jack Daniels. Keep the friendship, ax the sexual complications.

Well, she had kept the promise. For about six hours. Before she’d ripped off his clothes and indulged in fantasies she hadn’t even known she’d fostered.

Mallory cleared her throat. Of course, it had only happened the one night. Well, okay, it had happened another night about three months after that. Then every couple months like clockwork she and Jack would end up taking a wicked tumble. Up until three months ago, anyway. Since then they were either at his place or hers three or four times a week.

But if Layla and Reilly ever found out…

“Remember, I need you guys there by six,” Layla said, getting up from her chair.

Mallory blinked at her. “Need us where?”

“The rehearsal dinner.”

“Oh, yeah. Right.” Mallory pointed at her. “I’ll be there.”

Layla narrowed her eyes. “You’d better be, Mall. The last thing I need is to have to worry about you.”

“Hey, I said I’ll be there, so I’ll be there.”

Jack came back to the table and handed out fresh cups of coffee. “I’ll make sure she gets there on time.”

Layla’s face instantly relaxed. “Thanks, Jack.”

Mallory sighed. “Why is it when he says anything, you guys accept it like it’s the God-spoken truth, but you question everything that comes out of my mouth?”

Reilly smiled at her. “Not everything. Only those things associated with events you’d rather not attend.”

“Like my engagement party,” Layla said.

“Or my reopening two weeks ago,” Reilly pointed out.

“You guys didn’t need me at either place.”

“No,” Layla said, “but we wanted you there.”

It was nice, Mallory thought, how these guys needed her, even if sometimes it was a little suffocating. Didn’t they understand that she was used to looking after herself and only herself? That growing up she’d been so much extra luggage that her mother probably wouldn’t have filled in the lost baggage form at the airport should Mallory have gotten misplaced en route to her latest husband’s apartment/house/condo?

Of course they didn’t understand. Because she’d never really told them about life growing up as Mallory Woodruff. Because to do so would be to dredge up the past. And there was that thing about her liking only to look out on to the future.

“Sorry,” she said blithely.

They laughed.

“Okay, maybe that could have sounded a little more sincere,” she admitted. “But the sentiments are there. The last thing I want to do is hurt any of you.”

Layla leaned over and gave her a hug. “Now that sounded more genuine.”

Even Jack seemed to be looking at her a little too closely. Mallory reached across for his last sticky bun. He moved it out of reach.

Layla smiled. “I’ll see you guys at six. On the dot. Not a minute earlier, not a minute later.”

Mallory gave her a military salute, which, she supposed, was apropos given what she wore: fatigues, short black boots and T-shirt that read Three Stages Of Marriage: Lust, Rust And Die. “Yes, sir. I mean, ma’am.”

“I’m going to make you pay for that one,” Layla said.

Considering all that was going on over the next day and a half, Mallory had little doubt that she would.

TWELVE HOURS LATER at Layla and Sam’s rehearsal dinner Jack watched Mallory as if it were the first time he’d seen her. The woman had absolutely no clue how he really felt about her. Of course, it probably didn’t help that whenever they were around Layla and Reilly he had to be so careful to keep his expression neutral. He watched the way Mall’s mouth moved when she talked and wondered why it was he always wanted to kiss her when she was speaking.

For a moment there, the briefest of moments, the agitation he’d been feeling lately dropped away and he was able to enjoy Mallory the woman. For a moment there, she’d emerged something other than the driven, career-minded producer. She’d even seemed a bit human, somehow.

Then the moment had passed and he was left staring at a sexy, dynamic woman he wanted more than any other woman he’d ever met.

A woman who was beginning to irritate him to no end.

That wasn’t normal, was it? Was it possible to want to have sex with someone yet want to kill them at the same time?

“I feel naked,” Mallory was saying to Layla’s stepmother—who looked younger than Layla and not a fraction as smart.

Jack’s gaze took in the simple black slacks and vest Mallory had on. Definitely not naked. But definitely not her usual attire of jeans and a T-shirt bearing an offensive saying on the front, either. How Mallory would ever make it through tonight and tomorrow without being able to express her emotions through her clothes loomed an unanswered question.

Of course Sharon Hollister wore little more than lingerie by way of a pink slip dress, which meant it was unlikely she’d get where Mallory was coming from. For all intents and purposes, Sharon might as well be naked.

Hmm… Jack wondered how much he’d have to pay Mallory to wear one of those dresses….

“If you’ll excuse me, I think my husband’s motioning for me to rejoin him,” the trophy wife with the artificially enhanced lips and unnaturally plump, unmarked brow line said politely. Then she made a beeline for anywhere away from Mallory.

Jack looked over the exclusive room at the Beverly Hills Wilshire Hotel that the Hollisters had reserved for the occasion. In his monthly columns he often criticized the extravagant spending and monetary excesses of the rich, mostly because he had witnessed countless examples of it growing up in the wealthy Daniels family. But he didn’t think Layla would forgive him if he shined his light on her father and stepmother’s desire to dump the annual income of five families into one wedding occasion. Lord knew Layla hadn’t wanted the spectacle. She and Sam had wanted to take off to Vegas for a five-minute quickie wedding in front of an Elvis impersonator.

He looked over to one side of the palm-decorated room, which held just the right amount of tasteful holiday decorations without going overboard. There, Layla talked to what he knew was her real mother, who looked about as comfortable in her surroundings as Mallory purportedly felt. He noticed Mall yet again perform a shimmy, trying to get comfortable in her clothes, and then he took in the other twenty guests. It struck him that no one would miss him and Mallory. If only for a few precious minutes.

He leaned backward and cracked open the door to the service hall. Everyone had already eaten, the rehearsal with the minister had gone off without a hitch, and aside from the female bartender manning the open bar across the room, there wasn’t a single service person in sight.

Jack grasped Mall’s wrist and yanked her back into the corridor with him.

She gasped, instantly trying to break free. “Are you insane?” she demanded, her dark hair curling wildly around her round, kissable face, her light brown eyes almost yellow as they flashed fire at him. Enough fire that he knew she was as turned on as he was by the possibilities their solitude presented. “They’ll see us for sure.”

“So we’ll tell them I needed a cigarette and you came out to keep me company.”

She narrowed her eyes and licked her lips in telltale anticipation as he tugged her down the corridor, found a linen closet, then pulled her inside and closed the door.

Being Mallory Woodruff’s lover usually took a lot of invention and a whole lot of stick-to-itness. Unless she was the initiator, that is. Then all bets were off. All he had to do was hold on for one helluva ride.

Jack looked around for the switch to turn off the light but couldn’t find one.

Mallory didn’t seem to mind as she yanked her vest over her head then started on her slacks. “God, I’ve been itching to get out of these things all night.”

Oh, yeah. But unfortunately she’d have to put them back on way too soon.

When she finally stood in front of Jack wearing nothing but a pair of black panties and bra, he chuckled. It seemed Mallory had managed to get her point across through her clothes. Only tonight she’d done so by way of her naughty black panties. Across the satiny front they read Bite Me.

He gripped her hips and hauled her to him. Biting her was exactly what he planned to do. For starters.

“You’re not getting undressed,” she complained as her hands slid over his rear through his slacks then snaked around front to dive into the waist.

“One of us should try to stay as undisheveled as possible.”

“Oh, yeah?” she asked, rerouting her hands to his hair where she proceeded to ruffle the hell out of it. “Explain how a cigarette did that,” she murmured before plastering her full, juicy mouth against his and kissing him like a woman bent on destruction.

“The wind.” Jack worked his fingers under the elastic at the back of her panties until he firmly cupped her sweet flesh.

Mallory was at least a foot shorter than he was, which had proven a challenge in the beginning, but was something he barely noticed now. When they were lying in bed, height didn’t matter.

Now, however, with both of them standing and no available object around to help level the playing field, he felt a crick building at the back of his neck already. As she licked his neck and pressed her womanhood full throttle against him, he also felt on fire with need.

“We’ve got to hurry,” she rasped, unfastening the front of his pants and freeing his rock-hard arousal.

Jack stretched his neck and clamped his teeth together as her fingers encircled him. No matter how many times he felt her touch, it was like the first time all over again. It never failed to amaze him how much control this one little spitfire had over him. He’d wanted her every second of every day for three years. In the beginning, he’d been successful at staving off his attraction to her. At least to some extent. Now he was as much a slave to it as he had once been to drink.

Addictive personality disorder. That’s what an overpaid shrink had told him when he was nineteen, in college, and drunk more than he was sober. In a life where he could rely on few things—his jet-setting parents had been too busy with their social life and traveling around the world for him to form any meaningful bond with them—the whiskey bottle had always been there. Empty? No problem. Twenty bucks bought him another one.

But with Mallory…

With Mallory he felt constantly like a guy staring at an empty bottle wanting more. Except at moments like this. When he could feel her nipples pressing into the middle of his palms. Hear her rapid breathing and whispered orders in his ears. Sense the urgency in her as his own reached a feverish pitch.

Mallory’s fingers squeezed his shaft almost to the point of pain then moved up and down.

He’d have to bite her later….

“Hold onto my shoulders,” he ground out, running his hands over her outer thighs then lifting her so her legs hugged his hips. He immediately felt her damp heat against his straining erection and groaned.

“Condom,” he said. “Back right—”

“Pocket,” she finished, waving the foil packet at him.

She opened it with her teeth, then within two blinks had him sheathed and beyond ready.

Only the position wasn’t as easy as it seemed.

“Back me up,” she said sharply, growing as frustrated as he was.

You would think that they hadn’t had sex for six weeks instead of just that morning.

“You’re a bossy woman, you know that?”

She smiled, her eyes darkening as she stared at his mouth. “I know.” She kissed him. “Do it.”

He did it.

The moment her back met with the smooth wood of the door, she slapped her hands against it, using the barrier to steady herself. He looked down to find her at an accessible angle, her engorged flesh blossoming open and waiting to be claimed.

Dear Lord in heaven, but what this woman did to him.

Jack grasped her hips and fit the knob of his arousal against her tight opening, then stayed there, allowing sweet anticipation to wash over him. This was his whiskey bottle now. Mallory. And this instant right before…

Mallory bucked her hips forward and forced entry, then slid all the way down until her pelvis met fully with his.

Her moan mingled with his groan.

Oh, yes…

“Oh, no,” Mallory whispered, her eyes as big as the dessert plates in the other room.