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into high gear. He wore silver rings on most of his fingers, and the tattoos on his wrists were bright flashes of color against his monochrome businessman's uniform. I swallowed and forced myself to look at the road. An exit sign for LAX was coming up. How was it that we were already here?
    "You say you think you can handle this job?" he said suddenly.
    "What? Oh. Yeah, I bet I can. I worked as a bartender for years and I hung out with some people that were basically walking drama bombs. They all went off like clockwork, too."
    "I see," he said, but he sounded as though he didn't believe me. Suddenly he reached forward and turned on the radio player. It roared to life, right in the middle of a song I recognized.
    High, beautiful vocals soared over a hard, grinding beat.
    'You came from nothing, nothing came to me, I missed your face as we passed by, in the boundless dark of the sky...'
    “A Dark Moment,” one of the singles off the first album by The Lonely Kings. I recognized it because it wouldn't stop playing everywhere.
    Then Kent Hudson put his hand on my thigh and all my thoughts flew out the window.
    Everything in the world funneled down to that hand. It was huge and warm, splayed across my raggedy jeans, the heat of his palm leaking through the denim and spreading across my skin. He hadn't even bothered to put his hand on my knee. Instead he'd left it on the inside of my leg, mere inches from my suddenly red-hot pussy. My mouth went dry and my body was suddenly paralyzed. What the hell does he think he's doing? my brain demanded.
    My body, of course, didn't care what it was he thought he was doing as long as he kept doing it. The car swerved off the road and down the exit ramp as Kent Hudson slipped his fingers down the swell of my thigh to the hot valley between my legs. I tensed, clamping my legs together, and he chuckled over the pounding din of the music.
    "You see?" he said. "Anything can and will happen to you in this industry. You will be expected to rise to meet the occasion each time."
    But what occasion did he want me to rise to? I wondered. The occasion where a top man in the music industry made an unwanted advance on me, or the occasion where that advance was very much wanted?
    I shot him a glare and saw the smug look on his face. He was trying to scare me.
    My cheeks flared, but I wasn't going to let this bully push me around. I wanted to make him as off-balance and uncertain as I was.
    "I don't understand," I said. "Are you trying to sexually harass me?"
    "I am sexually harassing you."
    "And what do you think you're going to get out of it?" I asked. I forced myself to relax, to set my elbow on the sill of the door, letting my thighs loosen and fall open. The hot private space at the apex of my legs heated intensely, flooded with moisture as Hudson's fingers stuttered and stalled in their bold exploration. "I'm not sure what you're looking for from me."
    I lifted my chin and watched as he pulled up to the airport, still pedal to the medal as he pushed and weaved through the thick, snarled traffic. The hand on my leg grew tense. "I expect you to respond appropriately,” he said at last.
    I might as well come out with it, I decided. "Appropriately how? You want me to come over there and make out with you, or do you want me to fight you off?"
    He snatched his hand away. "What?"
    "You've got me all hot and bothered now," I said. "You want to finish that off, or am I supposed to hate it? I can hate it if you want. Just tell me the right response and I'll do it."
    He snatched his hand away, and though I felt an oozing satisfaction at winning, my body did not feel the same. The loss of his touch was an ache.
    Returning both hands to the steering wheel, Hudson gripped it with white knuckles and kept his eyes on the road, studying it intently. "I wouldn't be paying you to be a whore," he said, bluntly.
    I forced myself to laugh. "Yeah, but you aren't paying me yet," I told him. God, what was I doing? I was being