“I’m sorry,” she says between shallow breaths.

I don’t care about my fucking suit. I don’t even care when her hand loses focus and slides back up my body, pulling my head against her. Her neck is warm and thrumming beneath my teeth. Half of me wants to bite her so she comes stumbling out of this room like a screaming sex telegraph, but the other half wants her to leave the room put back together—keeping this perfect little secret after she comes around my fingers with her hands digging into my shoulders and her mouth open in that quiet, soft cry.

After, I slow my touch but don’t pull away. Evie’s eyes are closed, her face tilted up to the ceiling. With my free arm around her, I’m practically holding her up, and this mighty force in my arms somehow feels so fragile.

But I like that about her. I like that when she’s on alert, every tiny bit of her packs a punch.

“We didn’t have time for this,” she whispers again.

“Oh well.”

She pulls her head up, looking at me with unfocused eyes, and grins. “Oh well.”

Evie makes to move back, and I untangle my hand from her underwear, letting her go. She looks at the buttons of her dress, straightening things, running fingers through her hair. With reluctance, I bend, picking up my jacket.

“Thanks,” she says, then bites her lip.

I laugh, and this breaks her grin free. “You’re welcome.”

What the fuck happens now?

She opens her mouth to speak, but a fist bangs on the door and I swear to God all four of our collective feet leave the ground with how much it terrifies us.

“Carter!”

I clasp a hand over my chest. It’s only Jonah, but I think I’ve just lost three years of my life.

I lean over, opening the door. Light from the hallway spills into the dim room and I squint over at him. “What?”

He takes quick stock of the scene before him. “We’re getting some green-screen shots before we move the set pieces into place.” With a little grin, he adds, “Thought you two might want to come out.”

“Is everything okay?” I ask.

“You think I’m a fucking idiot?”

I stare at him wordlessly.

Jonah rolls his eyes and then looks past me to Evie. “You must be the maddening wo-man.”

“You must be the douchebag bro-ther.”

He smiles, delighted. “Carter’s love looks a lot like hate, doesn’t it?”

Evie unleashes her amazing cackle and I reach forward and smack him. “How did you know we were in here?”

Jonah turns, laughing, and heads back down the hall. He calls over his shoulder, “That’s where everyone goes in this studio to fuck.”

chapter nineteen

evie

Monday-morning meetings are going to be an issue.

Carter is sitting across from me, bent head-to-head with Aimee over a spreadsheet. I’m only now taking the time to notice that his hair has gotten a little shaggy in front, but he’s kept it short on the sides and . . . well, I’m quite enjoying it. Today he’s wearing a light blue shirt, and I don’t know if it’s intentional, but the top two buttons are undone, showing a nice hint of his pecs. Unfortunately, now I can’t really blame him for the Evie Blouse Disaster of Late October, because there is no way I am telling him that I can see chest-below-collarbone for fear that he would remove it from my view. His sleeves are rolled up, exposing his forearms, and he’s doing that fascinating trick where he flips a pen over the back of his hand.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

He made me come with those fingers.

Back and forth.

My chest twists a little as I realize how hard I’m swooning, and how far that will take me. Because who knows what is going on between us? We sure haven’t talked about what happened Friday.

After Jonah found us, we left the mixing room in silence. We walked down the hall and found that our presence was completely useless anyway: Jonah and the crew had the shoot under control, and we wrapped right on time.

After only a brief shared look of bewilderment, Carter went to his car, I went to mine, and we left separately. He didn’t call, I didn’t call, and we haven’t made eye contact again. But, thankfully, we haven’t melted back down into petty sabotage, either.

Oh, no.

I’m softening toward him again, which can mean only one thing: my defenses are down. It would probably be wise for me to make a list of all the ways he offends me on a personal and professional level.

1. He’s too overtly sexy for the workplace.

2. He clearly can’t button his shirts. Deleted b/c hypocritical.

3. He

I look up and stare blankly at the fingers flipping the pen back and forth across his hand.

I’ll compile the rest of the list later.

I’m also—and I loathe saying it because I despise the cliché of two girls pitted against each other for the boy—slightly annoyed by Kylie. She’s sitting at the end of the table near Brad’s perch, waiting like all of us for the boss man to appear, but she isn’t even trying to be subtle about staring at Carter. She may or may not be having an affair with Brad, but she definitely wants to bang Carter. I am zero percent on board with this plan, because just before I light his tight pants on fire, I’d like to actually have sex with him.

Maybe that’d get him out of my system.

“How was the Vanity Fair shoot?” Brad asks, strolling into the room, and both Carter and I jump.

“Great!” we exclaim in unison.

Brad narrows his eyes at us, and Carter grins. “It went off without a hitch.”

I nod. “No bumps.”

“Or grinds,” Carter adds, and stifles a grin.

I stare at the table, trying to strangle down my laugh. The giddy thrill of having Carter acknowledge what we did on Friday makes me want to jump on the table and start channeling Missy Elliott.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Brad sit up. “Yeah?”

“They got all the shots they needed,” Carter says. “Everyone left happy.”

“On the whole, I was very satisfied,” I add.

Carter coughs, and the room falls into a heavy silence.

Brad’s steely gaze narrows and he glances back and forth between me and Carter, who are very pointedly not looking at each other. “What am I missing?”