Danger Zone (6 page)

Ashley’s voice got stronger as she came back toward the bedroom. Ellie set her glass on the dresser and stepped back. The door opened and Ashley squeezed through. Her wide eyes and open jaw told Ellie she was in serious trouble.

“Oh God. Oh God. What? What is it? He’s not in a Speedo or something, is he?”

Ashley grabbed her arms and held her tightly. “He’s in Armani.” Ashley knew her designer labels. Working with a bunch of high-priced lawyers, she’d seen her share of Armanis.

“What?” Oh, God, why hadn’t she seen this earlier? Of course he wore Armani. He was a Player. It made perfect sense. Any guy who rents a limo for weeks at a time can afford an Armani suit.

“The suit is black,” Ashley continued. “But he’s dressed it down with a black silk shirt.”

Panic rose in Ellie’s chest. “How is that dressing it down?” she hissed.

“No tie. He’s got the shirt unbuttoned and the jacket opened.” Ashley’s fingers squeezed even harder. “Oh. My. God. Ellie. He’s gorgeous. Total drop-dead I-want-to-rip-off-his-clothes-and-do-him-if-you-don’t gorgeous.”

Ellie took a steadying breath to calm her pounding heart and turned toward the bed. “The black dress then,” she said more calmly than she felt. “I’ll wear the black dress and slingbacks.”

“You can wear the slingbacks,” Ashley said, as she scooped up all the clothes on the bed and rushed into the bathroom. “But you have to wear the outfit!” The door slammed behind her and the lock snicked into place.

No way. She did
not
just do that. “Ashley, you lunatic, get back here with my dress,” Ellie hissed at the door.

“Wear the outfit,” her muffled voice whispered. Was she laughing?

“Dammit, Ashley.” Ellie jiggled the doorknob. “I swear to God if you don’t come out of there with my clothes I’m going to hurt you.”

“Wear the outfit.”

Ellie listened harder. “Are you laughing in there?”

A definite giggle/snort erupted from the bathroom. “No.”

“You are going to die. Do you hear me? Ashley?” Ellie growled in frustration and stomped to her closet.

Quinn shoved his hands in his pants pockets and looked around the apartment. Nice place. Spacious. The old-fashioned, two-story complex, nestled in a quiet neighborhood in Sherman Oaks, had surprised him. For some reason, he’d expected something newer, more high-tech. But walking to Ellie’s door he’d realized it was just like her. Unique. Special in its simplicity. The apartment was neat as hell. What a pisser. It would’ve been fun to have something to tease her about at dinner. He really liked teasing her. Liked the way her eyes turned a darker shade of green. Liked how she fought so hard to keep him at a distance when it was only a matter of time before she let him in.

Just standing in her apartment gave him a sense of accomplishment. One step at time. He’d lived his whole life in phases. Had learned to get through the tedious and monotonous by keeping his mind on the grand prize. His freedom. Living his own life on his terms and no one else’s.

Seeing where Ellie lived, the large olive-green chenille sofa and the oak coffee and dining room tables, the big rolltop desk in the corner against the wall—all of it gave him a sense of Ellie. What did her bedroom look like? After a romantic dinner…who knew…maybe—

The door opened and Ellie emerged.

Had he been a religious man, Quinn might’ve dropped to his knees in thankful prayer while he worshipped at the altar of Ellie. A long black skirt hugged her ass and thighs while a turquoise top, belted around her hips, dropped off her shoulder and exposed silky skin. She was a goddess. High heels on top of it.

Quinn pushed back the sudden shot of lust. “Hi.”

“Hello.” She gave him a quick once-over and couldn’t seem to meet his gaze.

“You look…” Beautiful didn’t cover it. Gorgeous was close, but still not the right word. She was—

“I look…what?” Her tentative voice bordered on hopeful.

Finally they locked eyes and Quinn couldn’t keep the grin off his lips. “Stunning. You’re absolutely stunning.”

She flushed and that tiny dimple peeked out and something inside Quinn turned over.

“Are you ready? We’ve got reservations at eight.”

Ellie moved toward him. “Sounds good. Where are we going?”

“I took the advice of my limo driver, Fido, and we’re eating at some new place in Malibu. Lavenders? Something like that. It’s on the water.”

Her eyes widened. “Lavenders is brand-new. You can’t get in there without a reservation, and I heard they’ve been booked since they opened a few months ago.”

The surprise on her face was worth money. He shrugged. “I guess someone canceled.” Or he’d possibly used Wallace’s name—and his sister-in-law’s name—while making the reservation. The phrase
it’s who you know
echoed in his head.

Her perfume hit him as she passed and he closed his eyes, inhaled her scent. His mouth watered at the definite aroma of strawberries. He wouldn’t mind having
her
for dinner, but that hadn’t been the bet. Damn.

Her brows lifted skeptically. “And your limo driver…he’s a dog?”

Christ. He didn’t even know what they were talking about anymore. A dog? Fido. Right. “It’s short for his last name. Fidelo. Fido. He’s a good guy. You’ll like him.”

“Any man I can call Mad Dog is a friend of mine.”

Quinn laughed. Her sense of humor attracted him almost as much as the package it came in. “God, that’s good. I didn’t even think of that one. Mine were more along the lines of Rover, Spot and Rex. So where’d Ashley go? I wanted to say goodbye.”

“Uh.” Ellie faltered for a second. “She…she’s—”

“She’s right here.” Ashley appeared in the bedroom doorway with an armload of clothes and a sweet smile on her face. Oddly, she seemed ready to bolt at any second. “You two have fun. I won’t wait up.”

Ellie flashed Ashley a laser look that went over Quinn’s head. She opened the door and turned back. “Bye, Ash. See you later. Lock your bedroom door tonight. You know why.” She disappeared outside.

“You should try to get a window seat at the restaurant,” Ashley said, before he had a chance to ask if something was wrong. “Elle loves the beach.” A bright smile lit her face.

“Thanks for the tip.” Still a little unsure, Quinn shut the door behind him and spotted Ellie already deep in conversation with Mad Dog. He laughed again at the nickname.

The limo ride passed by in a blur of landmarks. Having been born and raised in Los Angeles, Ellie apparently knew the town backward and forward. She’d either been on location everywhere or knew someone who had. The L.A. history and Hollywood trivia she rattled off the top of her head astounded and entertained him.

Despite being a Tuesday night, the restaurant was packed. Dressed in a striking black gown, the hostess took Quinn’s hint and after his hundred dollar bill slipped into her palm, she led them to a corner table by the window. It seemed as if every male gaze followed Ellie, and Quinn didn’t try to hide the smile on his face.

Candles flickered on tables and huge windows offered a spectacular view of the ocean. Quinn couldn’t have asked for a better start to the evening as they watched the sun set over the Pacific. Seeing the sun in London was a trick in itself, and sunsets there remained practically elusive. Spotlights from the restaurant lit up the beach as the sun finally sunk below the horizon.

A waiter with chiseled features and a movie-star-wannabe look in his eyes took their drink order and left.

Quinn scanned the menu, sat forward and absently rubbed the ache in his right fist. “So tell me about Elle Morgan. How did you get into stunt work?”

She glanced up from her menu and soft candlelight threw shadows across her face. Tipping her head, she played off the subject. “It’s a silly story.”

“Those are my favorite.” He was dying to know anything about her. The more he knew and the more he listened, the faster he’d get in. That much he knew about women.

“It’s like I said at the bar. It was luck, timing and impetuousness.”

She’d used those exact words, which made him feel like just another in a long line of men she’d told this story to. So why was his stomach suddenly a little queasy? The woman was gorgeous. He was kidding himself to think that she didn’t have piles of men she’d left in the dust.

“Let’s take it in sections,” he said. “Tell me the ‘luck’ part.”

She bit her bottom lip, closed her menu and leaned forward. He caught another whiff of her perfume and had to focus on her words. “The luck part was that my parents were out of town so I could go out with Ashley.”

“How old were you?”

“Eighteen.” She’d already told him she’d been in the business for ten years so that made her twenty-eight. His age exactly. She looked closer to twenty-two. “Ashley wanted to go to a new ice-skating rink and they happened to be shooting a movie there that night. People were allowed in, but they’d posted a sign that said if you chose to skate you were giving consent to appear in the movie. That was fine with Ashley and me. We grew up here so we didn’t care. The movie was no big deal. We just wanted to skate.”

“That covers the luck and timing. Go on. I’m all ears.” Oddly enough, it wasn’t just about getting in her pants anymore. This sounded interesting.

“First, you need to know that I’ve always been athletic. I hadn’t ice-skated that much, but it came naturally and I was good at it. They were doing a stunt,” she explained. “It was a Mafia movie… There were a lot of guns and people screaming and falling. The actress in the movie had long blond hair and—”

“And happened to be your size?”

“That too.” She smiled. Her dimple peeked out again and Quinn rubbed his scar a little bit harder to keep from reaching out and taking her hand. The waiter picked that moment to come back with their drinks. Iced tea for both of them.

“Yeah. Okay. And…” Quinn said when the man left.

Her mouth dropped open and she stared at him wide-eyed. “Impatient, aren’t you?”

Quinn sat up straighter and considered that. “Impatient,” he murmured. He’d practically lived his life for his family and not himself, done what he’d been told for as long as he could remember. He’d never been closer to the freedom of choosing his own path—whatever the hell it was—and she was calling him impatient. He nodded. “I guess I am. So what happened?”

She laughed and shook her head. “Well…they were practicing a stunt where the heroine was trying to save her little girl by diving in front of her to take the bullet. Only the stuntwoman fell wrong and broke her wrist. The set medic called an ambulance and the poor lady went to the hospital. The director and producers and ADs were huddled together—”

He almost asked what an AD was, then remembered they were assistant directors.

“—trying to figure out what to do next. They still had a ton of work to do. It was their last night at this location and no stuntwoman. Did I mention this was a night shoot?”

He shook his head, but made sure to keep his mouth shut.

She gave him another one of those assessing looks as if testing him, but he held her gaze, determined to show her they had a spark ready to ignite into flame given half a chance. She bit her bottom lip again and Quinn wanted to suck that lip into his mouth and drive his tongue past her teeth for a taste.

Her gaze flicked to her iced tea and she traced the condensation with her index finger. “So, Ashley said to me, ‘Elle, you should tell them you can do the stunt. All you have to do is fall in front of that little girl.’ At first, I was like, no way. I came to skate, I didn’t come to lay flat on my back on the ice all night, but then—”

A quick vision of Ellie flat on her back, with him fully covering every inch of her skin, zipped through Quinn’s head. God, she really was a beauty, with miles of silky blond hair and mischievous green eyes.

Focus. Focus.

“…might be fun. And maybe I could get a few dollars out of the deal too. So I went up to one of the stuntmen—there were a half dozen or so playing bad guys—and I started talking to him and I mentioned that I could—”

Quinn raised his hand.

“Yes?” She smiled, revealing the dimple he craved to see. It stopped him cold until he realized she was waiting for him to say something.

“Isn’t there a stuntman’s union or something? I mean, I wouldn’t think that just anybody could say ‘hey, I can do that’ and be allowed to.”

She nodded. “Yes, there’s a union, but I was already in the Screen Actors Guild.”

“Really? At eighteen? Were you some kind of child star?”

She laughed and the sound settled around him like a favorite tune. “Hardly. My mom dragged me to a few commercial auditions when I was tiny and I booked a couple of spots. I really hated the whole audition process. It was boring and most of those people are so bad with kids. I told her I didn’t want to do it anymore. She pushed for a little while, but…” Ellie pressed her lips together and shook her head. “But things changed and she quit pushing. Anyway…” She met his gaze and continued, “…I told the stuntman that if they were willing to give me a try, I was willing to help them out. He turned out to be the stunt coordinator’s son and he went straight to his dad and the director and pointed me out. Obviously, they caught the resemblance to their lead actress and I’d mentioned to Brett—the son—that I was already in S.A.G. My mom had kept up my dues every year in case I wanted to get back into it and long story over, they gave me a chance.”

“Oh, no,” Quinn said, with a finger in the air. “You can’t just give me ‘story over.’ I want to know about the stunt and the night and—”

The waiter came back and rattled off four different specials. Ellie couldn’t decide between the lobster and the sea bass, and Quinn didn’t care as long as she stayed happy.

“How about you get one, I get the other and we split?” he suggested.

Those dark green eyes sparkled right at him. “That’s sounds extremely tempting.”

Oh, baby.
“I like to tempt.”

She surprised him by holding his gaze. “I’ll bet you do.” Her quiet voice barely reached his ears. The sound was so seductive he got an unfamiliar tingle down his spine. Had a woman ever made him tingle? If so, he had no recollection of it. Her green eyes got darker, the color of moss in deep forest shade. He wasn’t imagining the heat he saw there.

The waiter cleared his throat. God, how long had he been staring at her?

“Sorry,” Quinn said, glancing up. He closed his menu and handed it to the man. “We’ll have the lobster and the sea bass specials.” The waiter took Ellie’s menu and disappeared.

Quinn got back on track. “So the stunt coordinator decided to give you a chance. What happened? What did he say?”

Ellie rested her hands on the table and sighed. “First he wanted to make sure I could skate so I did a couple of laps around the rink. I figured if I really wanted the job I should do something big to land it, so at the end of the last lap, I launched myself in the air and dove.” She laughed. “I was, literally, Supergirl on acid. I have no idea what I was thinking. I landed really hard and slid up to his feet.” Ellie shook her head and chuckled. “He looked down at me and said, ‘Are you okay?’ I said, ‘Sure. Great.’ But I could tell I’d bruised the whole side of my body. God, that hurt.” She laughed again.

“Then he says to me, ‘I make my stunt crew wear pads when they’re doing falls like this.’ He pointed to a corner of the rink and said, ‘I’ll send Brett with some gear. Get fitted in wardrobe, and be back here in fifteen.’”

Quinn sat there, grinning like an idiot. “That’s very cool.”

She snorted. “Yeah, very cool is right. Turns out I was right about where I’d be spending my night. I was sprawled out on that ice for hours. I was miserable and cold and—”

“They paid you, didn’t they?”

“Oh, yeah. You better believe they paid me. They gave me a bump in pay too.”

Nodding, Quinn had his own idea about bumping Ellie. He took a sip of his tea. God, what was his problem? He had a one-track mind when it came to this woman. Everything had a double meaning. Aside from the last six months, when had he ever been out with a woman when sex was “not—repeat not” going to happen at the end of the night? She’d made that crystal clear this morning when he got her number and address. Maybe that explained the innuendo stomping around in his head.