Page 77 of 7 Days and 7 Nights

When he finally signed off, still chortling over his callers’ great escapes, she sprang out of bed and began to pace. She paced for a good twenty minutes, trying to blow off enough steam to ignore the affront to herself and womankind. She knew she should just go back to bed, but the more she replayed the show in her mind, the angrier she became.

When her need to tell him off became too much for her, she threw open her door and stormed into the living room.

“How dare you?” she demanded.

“I beg your pardon?”

Olivia marched up to where he stood in the center of the living room. “What is wrong with you? Have you no concern for anyone else? No sensitivity for other people’s feelings?”

“Olivia, you’re wearing sheep pajamas, and you’re shouting like a fishwife. How do you think that’s going to look to our audience?”

Beside herself with fury, she could hardly acknowledge the merit of his warning. With a hand to his chest, she pushed him backward across the room and out of camera range until his back was flush up against the French doors that led to the balcony.

In the station control room, Charles Crankower, super spider, unfurled his long body from the chair it had been folded into for the last six and a half hours. Quietly, so as not to alert Matt’s producer, who was still clearing up after the show, he panned the camera to frame up the shot he’d discovered earlier. His heart leapt for joy at what came into view.

Matt stood with his back to the balcony doors. Olivia stood facing him with her back to the camera. He could see Matt’s face and its look of surprise. At first, their body language was completely adversarial, all rigid angles and barely leashed tension. But as he watched, Olivia moved closer, and the next thing he knew, she was kissing the hell out of Matt Ransom.

With a big thank-you to the PR gods he’d almost given up on, Charles checked to make sure the live stream was on and the camera was recording.

He would have sold his soul for audio at that moment, but Ben hadn’t turned the boom mic back on after the show and he didn’t dare ask him to turn it on now. There was too good of a chance that the producer would warn the two people framed in stark relief through the camera lens. As he settled in to watch, he reflected that it was too bad he could only see Matt’s face and not Olivia’s. But then he reminded himself that beggar spiders couldn’t be choosers.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Olivia pressed herself against Matt. His physical response was swift and immediate, and for some reason, this made her even angrier.

Surprising them both, she kissed him. Hard. “We’re all the same to you, aren’t we, Matt? Push the right button, kiss the right spot, and voila! Matt Ransom’s ready for action.”

Totally on the offensive and anxious to prove her point, she rubbed her body against his. Once again, his response was immediate and unmistakable.

“So, I guess that happens for everyone, huh? Doesn’t matter who it is, or what’s going on. Is that right, Matt?”

Without giving him time to respond, she bracketed his face in her hands and kissed him again, using her tongue and her teeth and all of her fury.

She suckled his earlobe, ran her tongue down the side of his face, and came back to his lips. “And when I do this, it doesn’t matter that it’s me, Olivia? Will any pair of hands, any lips really do?”

Matt didn’t answer. His erection felt like a slab of marble between them, and as she kissed him, she felt his heat rise until his skin actually became hot to the touch. His look of surprise had been replaced by sharp-featured desire that she wanted to know was only for her. “A woman is a woman is a woman, right?” she taunted. “Can you tell us apart in the dark, Matt? Do you care?”

“Jesus, Livvy.” His arms snaked around her, and his hands cupped her buttocks as he pulled her closer.

Olivia was beyond reason. Somehow she would devour him as he had devoured her and use his own lust to make him admit that what was between them was more than physical. She wasn’t buying his “love the one you’re with” crap a moment longer.

“Do you recognize my touch, Matt? My scent, my voice?”

Focused completely on the man in front of her, Olivia brought her mouth back to his. Her fingers moved to the top button of his shirt, and when they fumbled, she gave in to her impatience and ripped the shirt open, sending buttons flying across the room.

She ran her hands over the smorgasbord of skin. They traveled up his chest to tangle in the mat of dark hair, then followed the dark arrow back toward the waistband of his jeans.

“How about my mouth, Matt? Do you think you’d recognize that?”

She bent her head to circle a nipple with her tongue and drew the hardening bud between her teeth.

Matt’s hands slipped up under her pajama top and over her bare back, skimming, exploring, heating her skin to the same temperature as his. Olivia straightened and twined her arms around his neck. Going up on tiptoe, she pressed against him, fitting herself over the hard swell of his erection.

Desire, hot and insistent, coursed through her bloodstream, in spite of her anger.

She’d just dropped her arms and lifted her fingers to the snap of Matt’s jeans when his hands clamped down on her shoulders, halting all movement. Olivia’s gaze flew to Matt’s face. The look there told her something was horribly wrong. She tried to turn around, but his hands on her shoulders held her in place.

“Don’t move,” he ordered. “I have to figure out what to do.”

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