The treadmill leveled out and I slowed to a clipped walk for the cool down portion of my final run. It was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other as I prayed my d.i.c.k didn't get any harder.

When the belt beneath my feet finally came to a stop, I all but sprinted across the gym to the locker room and slipped into the first available shower stall.

The spray of cold water slammed into me like a truck and stole my breath away as it soaked into my gym clothes and filled my shoes.

"Get your s.h.i.t together, Porter," I chastised myself as I kicked off my sopping shoes and tossed my soggy clothes into the corner.

Completely ignorant of the frigid stream dousing the rest of my body, my d.i.c.k stayed stiff as steel and pointed accusingly at the shower handle.

Flashes of Holly's creamy skin sliding over every inch of my body played through my mind and I realized there was only one way to resolve the problem of my arousal.

I gripped my disobedient shaft and quickly worked my strokes into a brutal pace. The muscles in my exhausted thighs tightened more with every thrust of my bucking hips.

I felt the deep tightening in the pit of my stomach as my b.a.l.l.s drew up against my body. I lost all control when my thighs finally cramped and my abs seized up to force my o.r.g.a.s.m out of me like a gunshot.

"f.u.c.k!" I yelled as my legs gave out and I dropped to my knees.

The tiles at eye level were covered in jets of my s.e.m.e.n. My vision went fuzzy as my softening c.o.c.k unloaded the rest of its payload into the drain at my knees.

My head spun around at the sound of the shower curtain behind me being ripped open. One of the personal trainers I had worked with on more than one occasion stood there in his gym shorts and company polo. He looked from me to the wall and then back to me before his eyes dropped to my a.s.s and a grin flashed across his face.

"I thought someone was dying," he explained before turning away and closing the shower curtain behind him, "Clean up your mess before you leave, Ryder."

"What the f.u.c.k is wrong with you?" I asked the smug piece of flesh, now napping between my burning thighs.

I reached up and increased the temperature of the water before halfheartedly tossing water at the wall in a sad attempt to rid the shower of any evidence left behind.

How the h.e.l.l was I supposed to sit through an entire meal with her across the table from me? I couldn't even make it through an hour at the gym with her halfway across the county.

"This isn't going to end well," I muttered as the last of my e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n swirled down the drain.

"So this is what a Monday is supposed to feel like."

I had managed to make it to my office without turning around and climbing back under my blankets, but hadn't actually done any work yet. I sat there staring at my computer screen waiting for it to give me instructions on how to do my job.

"Serves you right for actually enjoying your weekend."

My eyes went to the doorway where my favorite member of my support staff was leaning casually.

"Shut it, Mitch. I liked it better when I didn't bother with silly things like days off."

Mitchel Michaelson, gay secretary extraordinaire, pushed himself away from the doorframe and strode into my office like he owned the place. He was one of the three people on the planet who could do so without losing life or limb. The other two were Becks and the man who wrote my paychecks.

"As your executive a.s.sistant, I have to agree with you. More s.h.i.t gets done that way. As a gay man who loves to party on the weekends, I feel like I need to organize a festival to celebrate the fact that Holly Nash does indeed have a life outside of work."

"You're a b.i.t.c.h," I turned away from him and pretended to work on my computer.

"A b.i.t.c.h who's right. Now give me all the dirty details! How was the party? Did you get gang-banged while dozens of creepers stood around the room jerking off and filming it with their phones?"

I deadpanned him. He knew how ridiculous his question was and I wasn't going to warrant it with a response. Instead of balking as I had hoped, he waved a perfectly manicured hand at me and continued.

"Did you at least get to see one of the Princes of p.o.r.n get his freak on? I mean, those parties are pretty legendary. I have this friend whose cousin knew this guy that went to one of them and totally got banged by Roman in the middle of the kitchen. Not a single appetizer was spared from their bout of p.o.r.nographic pa.s.sion. Rumor has it there's a tape of it out there somewhere."

"You're disgusting," it took everything I had not to smile at him, "I imagine there's a reason you came in here beyond just grilling me about the Hale brothers and their s.e.xual practices."

"Nope," he rose from the chair he had draped himself across and made his way back into the hallway, "You should really work on your storytelling, Holly. It'd make my life much more interesting."

The soles of his steel gray Cole Haans snapped sharply on the marble hallway as he sashayed his way back to his desk. Moments later, the phone on my desk lit up and his voice boomed from the speaker, "Your two o'clock is cancelled, your two-thirty has rescheduled to three, and the producer for the new Michael Bay flick wants you to call him as soon as possible."

"Thank you, darling. I'd be lost without you."

"Don't you forget it!" The line went dead.

I absently scrolled through my emails and compulsively rearranged everything on my desk in an effort to convince myself that I was too busy to call the producer. Talking to the people behind the cameras is my least favorite part of the job. I get the scripts, I attend the meetings, I find the faces. That's my job and I'm d.a.m.n good at it. I don't need some overbearing, half-psychotic perfectionist flaunting his budget in my face and telling me how to do the one thing I'm really good at.

When I had organized the crumpled up headshots in the garbage can under my desk, I finally admitted to myself that I couldn't justify putting the call off any longer. If I was going to get to my lunch break at a decent hour, I'd have to get it over with sooner rather than later.

I should've called sooner.

After three hours of being lectured on the importance of the eye and hair color for the leading man and how it was imperative for the leading lady to have an impossibly tiny waist, it was a quarter after two. I had thirty minutes to find food, devour said food, and get my a.s.s back to the office to prepare for the meeting I had at three.

I was nudging my way toward hangry and knew better than to go into a meeting with a potential client in that state of mind.

I had just bent to grab my purse and sprint for the parking garage when Mitch came strolling back into my office with a Styrofoam container in his hands.

He set it on my desk and walked away without a word.

I opened the container to find a BLT on whole wheat bread with a grilled chicken salad on the side.

I mashed the intercom b.u.t.ton on my phone, "Remind me to give you a raise."

If he responded, I couldn't hear him over the sound of the perfectly cooked bacon being crunched between my teeth.

After devouring the entire sandwich and half the salad, I started to feel human again. I stopped shoveling food into my mouth like I hadn't eaten in days and took a more civilized approach to the last half of my lettuce and chicken. I picked up my fork and used that as a shovel instead of my fingers.

I sat back, sated and borderline comatose, as the urge to drink the last of the dressing out of the container dissipated.

"Your three o'clock just called to confirm his appointment." Mitch announced from the doorway, "He's about ten minutes out. Get your life together, wipe the ranch off your face, and for the love of Gaga, buy some granola bars to keep in your purse. You're a scary woman on a good day, but you turn into some kind of angry black hole for food when you're hungry and G.o.d help anyone who gets too close."

"I'll see what I can do. Can you grab me the script for this project? I want to glance through it one more time before I listen to this guy drone on for the next two hours about his 'artistic vision' and how his movie just has to star Angelina."

"And that bulls.h.i.t is exactly why I just guard the door," Mitch spun on his heel, snapped his fingers out to the side, and shook his head. His inner diva always did a h.e.l.l of a job expressing his distaste.

My phone vibrated on my desk as Mitch dropped the miniature ma.n.u.script on my desk.

"Thanks, Snook.u.ms."

"Mmmmhmmm," was the only response I got as he flitted back to his desk.

I decided the text message would be more fun than a read through of a script that was doomed to be completely rewritten at least three times during production.

I'm bringing The Kit to your office on Friday. No time to change at home before your date with Ryder.

I groaned and shoved the phone off the edge of my desk. The three hour phone call and light-speed ingestion of my lunch had driven all thoughts of my impending 'date' with Porter Hale to the darkest corners of my mind. I might have actually gotten lucky enough to forget about it entirely. Then I could have just texted him the day after with a lame excuse about work being too busy and we would have been even. He spills my drink, I let him sit alone in a restaurant for an hour, and we never have to speak again. It seemed like a pretty good pipedream at the time.

Then Becks happened.

Her and that d.a.m.n kit.

She always ruins my fun.

The Kit had made its first appearance at our senior prom. I hadn't intended on going at all. I'd bought a few pints of ice cream and a stack of the latest chick flicks. Then a crazy ginger girl dressed to the nines showed up on my doorstep with a dress and corsage in one hand, and an ominous duffle bag in the other.

"Please tell me we're not burying your date's body already," I had said with a suspicious glance at the ma.s.sive black bag.

"No. He's still alive and well. He took off with your date to do G.o.d-only-knows-what while I try to salvage what's left of your dignity." The duffle hit the floor with a thump and several rattles. I remember feeling like prey caught in the crushing embrace of a human-sized snake as she pushed me down onto the couch and went to work.

A flat iron, round brushes, a blow dryer, dozens of shades of nail polish, eye shadow, lipstick, foundation (both liquid and powder), blush, files, buffers, tweezers, and something in a box that said Summer's Eve tumbled onto my parents' living room floor. Thankfully, the last one went back into the bag almost immediately.

It had taken just over an hour and a half for her to squeeze, tweeze, brush, blow, paint, and primp me into what she still calls 'The Prom Night Miracle'.

It was only the first of many run-ins with The Kit and I wasn't looking forward to another.

I glanced at the clock in the bottom corner of my computer monitor and squared my shoulders. I had five minutes to make myself look presentable and get to the conference room where the meeting was to be held.

Lucky for me, it was right across the hall from the executive restroom I shared with one other casting director.

I slid the deadbolt into place behind me and turned to study myself in the mirror over the sink. I blanched as I realized it looked as if I had decided to drink the ranch out of the container. I'd start there and work my way up.

I quickly wetted a paper towel and wiped the creamy mess away from my lips before digging into my purse for the spare tube of lipstick that years of being around Becks had taught me to carry. I recolored my lips and ran a brush through my slightly disheveled hair.

I had learned a long time ago that, in my line of business at least, less is more. I have good skin, dark, thick lashes, and natural volume to my hair that made blow dryers an unnecessary appliance in my house. If I put the extra effort into being girly, it never failed that the Good Ol' Boys mentality would take over and even the most liberal thinking man would treat me like a coffee fetcher.

Sharp, professional, and b.a.l.l.sy was the way I preferred to come across and it had worked well for me-much to Becks' dismay.

With my proverbial game face in place and a quick glance at my Tiffany's watch, I strode from the restroom without another glance at the mirror.

"Gentlemen!" I said with a smile as I entered the brightly lit conference room, "Let's get this party started, shall we? Can I have my a.s.sistant get you anything? Coffee? Tea? Water?"

Both men politely declined my offer and gestured for me to sit.

"We'll try to make this as painless as possible," the larger of the two men, Tyler Gainsworth, a man I'd worked with a handful of times before, said, "I know how much you love being told how to do your job."

"I appreciate that, Ty."

"I have to a.s.sume that you've read the script at this point," Nathan, the squirrely little red head Ty had introduced via email, interjected.

"Of course," I replied coolly, "I a.s.sume we'll focus mostly on Ashley and John then touch on the seven supporting characters, three female, four male, and then you'll propose a final headcount for extras, am I correct?"

Nathan was clearly new to the business and hadn't quite figured out that these meetings almost always followed the same format. He recovered from his surprise quickly enough and nodded curtly with a tight smile.

"Great," I said, just as tightly, "Let's get on with it. For Ashley, I see someone who appears to be in their early twenties with mid-length blonde hair; wavy, not curly. She needs to have big, green, innocent eyes and pouty lips. Very 'girl next door'. I see Taylor Swift without the tw.a.n.g."

Ty's eyes had lit up as I described his girl. I'd seen it a hundred times before. Whenever a producer finds someone else who can see his vision as clearly as he does, there's a fire that kindles inside them. It's a very dangerous fire that can burn out of control in a flash and completely derail a meeting for hours.

The idea of letting him detain me in an attempt to get out of dinner that night was a tempting one.

Sadly, I'd rather hang myself than be trapped in a room with a producer for any longer than absolutely necessary, so I pressed forward.

"John is a little more the bad boy type with a gentleman's charm. He's got the good looks and he knows it, but doesn't really rely on them to get him where he's going. We need tall. Six foot. Maybe six two. Short black hair and brown eyes. Tan and muscular, but lean as opposed to bulky. Oh, and he needs good hands."

I pulled myself up short at that point before I rambled on to the point of losing them. Tyler was already starry eyed and in love with both a.s.sessments and, by the surprised look Nathan hadn't been able to conceal, he was too.

With the big ones out of the way, I gave a quick run down of the minor characters and got an estimate for the extras head count before rising from my chair and ushering the two of them out the door before they could remember that they think they know what's best.

That was how my entire week went. Meeting after meeting with too many c.o.c.ky, pompous, s.e.xist dimwits who marched into my office to tell me how to do my job and got shut down at every turn.

Friday had finally arrived and as I all but shoved the last team of morons out of my conference room, the entrance at the opposite end of the room burst open to allow Mitch, Becks, and The Kit into the conference room.

"Sit," she commanded.

I briefly considered bolting out the door I had just ushered Ty through and begging him to hit the emergency b.u.t.ton on the elevator between floors. I quickly abandoned the idea when I remembered that Becks is a ninja and would have caught me before I even made it halfway down the hall.

I begrudgingly shuffled my way across the room and unceremoniously dumped myself in the leather chair between them.

Before I could even groan about it, there were twenty fingers in my hair and I swear to G.o.d, Becks was unpacking The Kit with her toes.

"We have just shy of thirty minutes to get her out the door and on her way to The Hills. I've done more with less, but we'll be cutting it close none-the-less."

"Oh honey," Mitch crooned, "I can get a drag queen in full makeup and dress in less than fifteen. I bet we can have her done in twenty-five."

"I hate you both," I grumbled.

There was a queasy feeling in my stomach and the only way I could make it stop was to imagine Porter going through a similar form of torture.

"Christ Almighty, Lorraine!" I screamed at my stylist, "Don't you usually count down before you do that? f.u.c.k!"

She just shrugged her shoulders before dropping the white strip of paper covered with wax and what used to be the hair on my b.a.l.l.s.

"You want emergency appointment, I give you emergency service. No time for counting."

I had been going to Lorraine for all of my grooming needs since I was eighteen, but still had a hard time deciphering her thick Korean accent most days. It might've been the blinding pain that kept me from deciphering the words that came out of her mouth.

My ears were still ringing from her last tug when she dropped the ice pack on my groin with simple instructions even her accent couldn't muddle, "You keep there."

"Yes ma'am." Was my voice an octave or two higher than normal, or was it just me?

I pressed the freezing cold bag to my traumatized s.c.r.o.t.u.m and laid on the table breathing as if I were in labor. There had to be a way I could get them to give me laughing gas before my next appointment.