Amy Valenti - Not Your Damn Submissive (Denial #1) (2 page)

He raised an eyebrow
—was that scepticism or respect on his face? “I’ll believe it when it happens.”

I sidestepped, bringing myself out of the tiny space between his aroused body and the dresser behind me, and looked away from him, steeling myself to
leave. As I took a step forward my bare arm brushed his. Electricity zinged through me at the skin-to-skin contact. I turned, or maybe he turned me, and we surged together as if magnetised, his lips harshly connecting with mine, my fingers raking through his hair, his arms tightening around my waist.

Oh,
God!
He kissed as though we’d done this before, confident of his welcome, his tongue stroking against mine over and over. His hard-on pressed against my abdomen, enticing me, and I stood on tiptoe to rub against it, willing the layers of clothing between us away.

So much frict
ion and heat just from a kiss—a kiss I’d sworn I wouldn’t give him. Damn it, he’d worked through my defences so easily, and now he was getting exactly what he wanted. Anger seeped past my arousal and I shoved against his chest, breaking the kiss abruptly.

He still held me
securely; our lower bodies pressed together, and as his cock twitched against my overheated pussy I almost forgot why I was angry. I’d done a number on his hair, and he was breathing hard, just out of sync with my unsteady panting. For a moment I thought he’d drag me into another kiss.
If he does that, you might get drawn in. Then you’ll never get away. What are you—stupid?

Genuine fear sent a fresh adrenaline spike through me.

Before I could draw in a breath to demand that he release me, Callum relaxed his grip around my waist. I tore myself free. He spoke my name and my knees weakened with my need to kneel at his feet, but a surge of outrage at my own failure made it easier to turn and rush out of his intoxicating presence.

* * * *

Callum

For the first time since I’d read the script of this awful
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
wannabe pilot, I’d rediscovered my optimism. Something good might just come of this after all.

Willing my cock under control, I sat back down on the couch and shook my head. In just a few short minutes, that woman had gotten under my skin. Her long hair and large, dark eye
s had drawn my curiosity. Her obvious desire to submit to me had hooked me, but it was her determination to resist her own urges that had really pulled me in.

It was possible she already had a Dom, but somehow I didn
’t think so. It would have been easy to make me back off by telling me she was taken. Instead, she’d said she wasn’t interested, which I would have accepted if she hadn’t been clearly conflicted and just as aroused as I was.

That moment when her willpower had given out and she
’d thrown herself at me… Fuck, she’d been responsive. I’d never experienced a connection like it before, in a vanilla relationship or D/s. If she hadn’t shoved me away I might have taken her right here on the set, and from the way she’d ground against my cock she would have loved every second of it.

Thinking that way wasn
’t going to help me calm down. Sighing, I readjusted my jeans and tried to focus on anything but sex.

Wait.
She’d said she was only here this morning, and was supposed to have the next couple of weeks off work. I would have no way to find her if I didn’t come up with a way to see her again.

I got up and glanced down the hallway
in the direction she’d disappeared, but she was nowhere in sight. She’d probably gone to pick up whatever she was meant to get for her boss, and would be back later…when I was in makeup or filming. By the time I was free to go and look for her, she’d be long gone and I’d never see her again.

Kat was intriguing, but I was going to have to face the fact that spending more
time with her would be impossible.

“
Mr. Connors?” One of the soundstage’s runners jogged up to me, looking breathless. She seemed to have taken her job title literally. “Thank God I found you. Marcia sent me to track you down—”

“
Makeup, right?” I interrupted her, so she could get her breath back. “I’ll head back there now.”

“
I’ll show you the way,” the runner said, obviously not wanting to take any chances that I might go astray again.

I followe
d her out to the makeup trailer where Marcia, a middle-aged makeup artist with a pronounced New York accent, stood with her hands on her hips. “Mr. Connors, if you can’t follow a simple itinerary, I suggest you get an assistant who can.”

“
I’m sorry, Marcia. I lost track of time. It won’t happen again.” I sat down in the chair and held still, waiting for her to begin applying the layers of makeup that would make me paler and more vampire-like.

As Marcia got to work, grumbling under her breath, her words about an assistant sank in.

It might not work, but I had to try.

* * * *

Kat

The early morning shopping spree went smoothly, despite my frazzled nerves, but I found myself caught in crawling traffic on the way back. There’d been some sort of accident, though I wasn’t close enough to see what had happened yet.

I took advantage of the stalled cars in front of me to rest my arms on the steering wheel and use them as a pillow. Since leaving Callum
’s presence, I’d been able to keep operating by way of focusing on the tasks in hand: get to the car, drive to the store, interact with the owner to get what I needed, get back into the car and drive. Now I had to wait for the traffic to go my way, I had nothing to distract me from how dismantled I’d felt in Callum’s embrace.

He
’d been right—something in him
did
call to something in me. And more than anything, I wanted to know if it was possible that something good would come of giving in, of letting him have his way, of submitting. But I’d been down that road and it had only led to bruised ribs, wrenched joints and a torn heart. BDSM was nothing more than an excuse for violence, and I did
not
let violent men control me. Not anymore.

Then why did I feel this pull towards Callum Connors? I
’d known I didn’t want to be around him when I’d heard he was guest-starring, but I’d never imagined he’d have this effect on me. Was I sick in the head? Had what had happened ten years ago broken me?

A car horn blared behind me, and my head shot up. There
were a good few feet of space in front of me now. I hurriedly put the vehicle back into gear and closed the distance, pushing my whirling thoughts to the back of my mind. “Okay, concentrate,” I muttered aloud. “Get the beanbag in there. Take the pictures. File the paperwork. Go home.”

That was a g
ood plan. A sensible plan. A foolproof plan. Right?

* * * *

I got as far as filing the paperwork before the director of the project, Darren Birch, called my name.

“
You’re Kat Armstrong, right? Could I have a word?”

You didn
’t say no to the director, no matter what production you were working on. And the fact he knew my full name meant he’d asked someone else, or worse—looked in my employment records. “Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”

He beckoned for me to follow him and left
the workshop. Cursing under my breath, I hurried after him, hoping like hell we weren’t heading where I suspected we were. Once I caught up with his long strides, he finally deigned to tell me what was going on.

“
I hear you’re at a loose end for the next couple of weeks.”

That wasn
’t how I would have put it. It wasn’t like I was planning to mooch around at home doing nothing. At least, not after the first few days. I had plans with friends, was tentatively planning a trip to the beach for my second week off… But Darren didn’t care about that.

“
I took some vacation time, yes, sir. I’m here this morning to help Cynthia out, but I was planning to go home in a few minutes. Why?”

“
I have a proposition for you.”

Why did I get the feeling this was less a propositi
on than an order? Swallowing my trepidation, I waited politely.

“
As you know, we have a high profile guest star in the pilot episodes of the show.”

“
Callum Connors,” I filled in, my stomach sinking.

“
Callum Connors,” he agreed. “I hear you met this morning.”

I wasn
’t sure how to respond to that. Had someone seen our steamy interlude? Had Callum told someone about it, and the studio grapevine had delivered the knowledge to Darren’s ears? Where the hell was this going? “We did,” I agreed faintly.

“
You seem to have made an impression, and we need to keep him happy. He just hinted to me that he might be willing to feature as a regular guest star or even a cast member if the filming goes off without a hitch and the network commissions
Dark Hearts Broken
for a full season. There are a few things he’s asked for during the period that he’s already signed a contract for that could help that happen. You’re one of them.”

I stopped dead in the middle of the hallway, and a
guy carrying a heavy box had to swerve around me. Darren stopped with me, seeming unfazed.

“
What exactly do you mean, sir?”

“
Callum would need an assistant during filming to keep him on track. Just this morning he went AWOL when he should have been in makeup, because he wanted to look at the sets. And he said you’d be perfect as a stand-in while the pilot is filming. His usual assistant is busy.”

This didn
’t even feel real. Any second now, I’d wake up. “But Sir, I’m not a PA. I’m in set design—”

“
You’re practically Cynthia’s PA. You’ll do fine.”

“
But my vacation—” I protested, already knowing it’d be futile.

“
I talked it over with the executives and HR, and you can have three weeks when he’s done with you. That’s more than reasonable, wouldn’t you say?” There was an edge of steel in his voice that told me this was not a request. I was going to do this job, or I would be fired from the studio entirely. He didn’t have the power to do it, but his mention of HR was enough to convince me he’d cleared it with the people who could.

More than anything, I wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, fuck Callum, and fuck
my damn job. But I genuinely liked the studio and the usual crew I worked with. Not to mention that I needed the money. Two weeks of schlepping for Callum Connors—I could do that, right?

I haven
’t been this hard for a woman in years, you know that?

I was
about to be in deep, deep trouble, and my own lack of willpower would probably be the reason.

I sighed to cover my reaction to the provocative memory and started walking agai
n when Darren did. “If there’s absolutely no way I can refuse, sir, I’ll do it. But I really am not happy about it.”

“
Come on, now. It won’t be that bad. I’m not one of those divas you read about in the tabloids.” Callum fell into step beside us, the fabric of his button-down shirt brushing my bare arm. I moved a bit farther towards Darren, scowling.

“
Like Lorna Doncaster?” the director said with a knowing smirk over my head.

“
God, she was a nightmare to work with.” Callum shook his head. Clearly there was something they both knew about the model-turned-actress that I didn’t, but under the circumstances I wasn’t inclined to chat about it.

We arrived on the set of the main character
’s bedroom, where a cameraman was overseeing some of the set guys pulling out one of the wall partitions. One of the versatile things about sets was that they could be pulled apart to make room for a camera to shoot from a particular angle. As long as none of the shots caught any of the off-set production crew or the director, that was.

“
Ready in ten minutes, sir. Could I grab you for a second?”

The director gave me a false smile.
“Thanks for doing this, Kat. I appreciate it. I’ll leave you two to figure out the best way of working together.”

Before I could say anything else,
he went over to the cameraman who’d spoken, leaving me to stare at Callum. For the first time, I registered he was wearing makeup to make him look vampire pale, but not enough to be off-putting. I would have preferred to be put off.

He smiled.
“So you’re my assistant for a couple of weeks. Thank you. I appreciate this.”

Keeping my face as pleasant as I could and my voice low, I hissed,
“You manipulated him into this, didn’t you?”

“
A little.” Callum shrugged.