Free High-Stakes Playboy by Cindy Dees Page B

with himself, he watched Marley bolt from the dining room.
    Gordon bit out from beside him, “She ain’t your type.”
    Archer looked up at Trap. She might not be his type, but no way was he turning her over to this brute. Women talked, and Gordon had a reputation in the sack for being a bull in rut. “I already called dibs on her, Gordon.”
    “The hell you did. She’s hot, and I’m goin’ after her.” Trap poked him in the chest. Under other circumstances, Archer might have taken grave exception to such an act. But he had the girl’s attention and Gordon didn’t. He could afford to cut the guy a break and not rip his finger off.
    “I’m turning the Gordon-ator charm on her whether you like it or not, jerkwad.”
    Archer pushed past the larger man nonchalantly, but a frisson of worry tickled the back of his neck. Gordon was right: he wasn’t Marley’s type any more than she was his. Would she actually fall for a guy like Gordon? Was she that naive?
    He had no choice but to save her from Trapowski. And of course, he’d promised Steve that he would try to find out if Marley was behind the sabotage, but that was as far as it went. After he did those two things, he was walking away from her.
    Period.
    * * *
    Marley paced her room in panic. She’d left an SOS on Tyrone’s cell phone, but the makeup artist had yet to respond to her urgent call for help. Tonight wasn’t a gratitude beer with Archer. It was a continuation of that volcanic kiss last night and, good Lord willing,
The Night
. Her first time.
    A knock sounded on her door and she leaped for it, threw it open and all but cried in relief to see Tyrone standing there, makeup suitcase in tow.
    “Hey, girl,” Tyrone said breezily. “A real, live date with Flyboy, huh? You gonna have that screaming-hot sex you promised me tonight?”
    “God, I hope so. I’m so ready to finally...” She broke off. The last rumor she needed getting around the set was that the new camera girl was a virgin. At her age, leprosy was a lesser curse than the big V.
    “Drink this.” Tyrone shoved a glass of wine into her hand. “You need it more than me. Sit, girlfriend. And pay attention. I’m not always gonna be around to turn you into Marilyn the Second.”
    She did watch what he did closely, and Tyrone was generous with explaining the tricks of the trade. But then the makeup artist surprised her by saying, “What’s this I hear about your guy going commando on you yesterday?”
    She frowned.
Huh?
“What are you talking about?”
    “A few of the stunt men were talking about Archer nearly taking their heads off with his helicopter during the shoot. I guess he got way too low and scared the bejeebers out of them.”
    Oh. That.
“I asked him to go lower so I could get a better shot. I was trying to impress Adrian Turnow with my first action scene.”
    “Did you?”
    “I’ve still got a job.”
    Tyrone seemed to accept the explanation but still frowned a little. “The way I heard it, Archer might have a screw loose. He’s fresh out of some heavy combat apparently. They thought it looked like he confused movie combat with the real thing.”
    Was
that
what it had been? The movie had gotten a little too close to reality and he’d busted into real combat maneuvers? Why, then, had the flight controls frozen up? Nah. Archer wasn’t crazy. They’d had a mechanical malfunction. She didn’t think he would be held responsible for that, but she wasn’t sure. She didn’t know a blessed thing about flying, after all.
    Worse, rumors could get Archer fired. Maybe she could redirect the gossip mill a little. She said as casually as she could, “Well, of course I wanted him to fly like it was the real thing. How else was I going to get realistic footage? Everyone knows Adrian’s a stickler for authenticity.”
    “True.” Tyrone brushed her entire face lightly with setting powder. Based on the name, Marley guessed it would keep her makeup from smudging. The makeup artist