Into the Fire - Leslie Kelly [63]
As a professional journalist, he had an obligation to follow through on his promise to J.T. They had a deal. His boss wanted the magazine battle of the sexes to continue, and Nate wanted to write features for Men's World. Personal feelings had no place in the equation at all.
"You're wrong," Lacey finally replied.
"I don't think so."
"Well, like you said, we're going to find out. This past week has been interesting … but not exactly productive. It's time to get to work. We've got three weeks before our deadline."
"I've made a lot of calls, done a lot of phone interviews in the past few days," he said.
"So have I. But we need to go further. Maybe that singles ad idea isn't such a bad one."
Nate shook his head. "Forget it. You're not going out with some guy who responds to a lonely hearts ad."
She crossed her arms and tilted her head. "And why not?"
"Ax-murdering psychos come to mind."
She rolled her eyes. "Do I have to remind you it was your idea?"
"That was before."
"Before what?"
"You know damn well before what," he retorted. "Before last night. Before us."
"Last night has nothing to do with the story, Nate. You made that perfectly clear."
He muttered a silent curse, seeing determination in her eyes. "Lacey, I'm not going to sit back and watch you go out with other men for the sake of a story. Not while we're involved. Do you honestly feel any differently?"
She chewed on the corner of her lip for a second, then finally shook her head. "No, I don't like the idea of me sitting around, twiddling my thumbs, knowing you're out at a club with a bunch of guys on the make."
"So we're agreed," he said with a sigh of relief that she'd seen things his way. "We'll go at it from another angle."
Lacey placed her elbows on the table and rested her chin in the palm of one hand. "There is no other angle. If we're going to write about what men and women really want, we need to be out there, seeing it firsthand."
An idea hit him. "I just thought of another angle. My sister, Kelsey, wants us to appear on her radio show. Did I mention that? She liked the idea of us talking on the air about our battle of the sexes."
"That's a start," she said with a thoughtful nod. "But it's not enough. I think there's only one solution." He was almost afraid to ask. "What's that?" She sat up straight, dropping her hands to the table as if she'd come to a great decision. "Simple. We can't be involved while we write the story."
His jaw fell open.
"Last night was … well, let's say we've done what we've wanted to do since we met. It's out of our systems. The pressure's off. Now we go back to being colleagues and do our jobs."
He snorted. "Yeah, right." Then he noticed she wasn't laughing. "You can't be serious."
"I am totally serious."
"You think last night was it, and we can just forget about it, not want each other anymore now that we've made love again?"
She shook her head. "It's not a question of forgetting. It's simply a matter of … of putting it out of our minds. Keeping focused on the story, not on, well, you know."
Nate couldn't help it—he laughed for a solid thirty seconds. Finally, seeing her glare, he said, "No way. There's no way in hell you can put what happened out of your mind."
"Confident, aren't you?"
"Realistic. You're telling me you can work with me every day for three weeks—talking about sex, interviewing people about sex, being saturated with sex—and not want sex? Hell, I want it just from sitting here having this conversation!"
"Maybe I have better control of my drives than you do."
"Bull," he replied succinctly. "You and I were striking sparks off each other the minute we met. Now that we've explored every inch of each other, had our mouths on each other, done things together I'd never even dreamed of doing with anyone else…" He lowered his voice. "Now that I've been inside you … you really think you can simply turn it off?"
Her eyes widened. Her pretty red lips parted as she drew in a few deep breaths. A blush stained her cheeks, and her tight tank top beautifully displayed the sudden hardness of her