Take Two (21 page)

She shrugged. “But doing this scene you might recall other times with her.”

It wasn’t a ridiculous worry. For the most part, love scenes were so clinical and uncomfortable that he rarely became emotionally involved. But it did happen with some actors. Spending weeks, months wrapped in the mind of a character, making their actions believable, and then adding physical contact on top of that—yeah, he’d be jealous if it was her kissing another guy.

At another time in his life, this conversation would have been enough to make him run. But with Maddie, he wanted to work it out. There was no way he could get out of filming the sex scene. But maybe he could make it more tolerable for both of them. “What if there was a way to ensure that I was definitely not recalling her?”

She studied him. “What do you mean?”

“I have an idea.” He sat up, wrapping his arms around her from behind, his face against hers. “Let’s do the scene together. Now. The whole thing through to the parts that are only hinted at and not filmed. And then, I promise you, there will be no way that you or I will think about anything but each other when we’re filming. We’ll be the real thing. Heather and everyone else will only get a lame reenactment.”

“That sounds…” He waited for her to say it was a stupid notion, but she surprised him. “Like a great idea, actually.”

She turned to him, her face lit up with excitement. “Should I start at the top of this page?”

“Yeah. That would be perfect.” She opened her mouth to begin, but he spoke before she could. “I won’t know the blocking until we get on set. So you should direct it. Tell us how we should move.”

“Hmm,” she said, a gleam in her eye. She read the page again and he knew she was visualizing it. His heart swelled at her enthusiasm.

She moved to a kneeling position. “Okay. You start there and walk by me, brushing my shoulder. Kind of rough. Then walk to that spot at the corner of the blanket.” She pointed to where she meant. “Pretend that’s the pump. You can be washing your hands at the pump because this scene is right after you skinned that rabbit, right?”

“Yes,” he said. He adored watching the director’s hat come out. He’d only seen it before in the results—in her footage. Never in actual motion. He could feel her thrill and it excited him. He listened through the rest of her blocking. It would look good if it were being filmed. Beaumont would be lucky to come up with something half as good.

“Places, please.”

He stood and crossed to where she had indicated.

“Wait.” She rose and searched the woods around them. “Are we really going to, you know? Out here? Do you think we’re out of the way enough? To not be caught or anything?”

He couldn’t help but smile at her sense of propriety. He liked that they were just far enough away from the hiking trail that they probably wouldn’t be seen, but were close enough that they could be. “Would you care if we were?”

She gave him a wicked grin. “No. Except that it might invite media into our lives.”

“Yeah, there is that.” He considered. They hadn’t seen anyone all afternoon. “We’ll keep most of our clothes on. It’ll be fine.”

“Well, then. It will be easier if I dispose of these now.” She reached her hands under her skirt and pulled down her panties. She stepped out of one leg hole, and kicked them to the grass.

Fucking hot.

She winked at him, knowing full well what effect her action had on him. Then she turned somber. “Places.” Director hat back on. “Go sound. Camera rolling. And scene.”

Micah closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was Billy Winter—his character. With a heavier step than usual, he walked toward where Maddie stood with the script in hand and brushed past her gruffly.

He continued to the spot she had told him was the water pump. He felt her approach him from behind. Then she spoke.

“‘Billy, why are you so angry?’” She was acting her lines more than when she’d read with him in the past. He knew acting wasn’t her thing, but it roused him that she was getting into this role playing.

“‘Do you have to ask?’” He spun toward her. “‘They’re gonna come for us, Izzie. They got Danny’s print and it’s going to lead them all—’”

She put one hand up to calm him, the other still clutching the script. “‘You don’t know that.’”

“‘I know I have no future anywhere but lost out here on this mountain.’”

“‘Then I’ll be lost out here with you.’” She took a step toward him and reached for his arm. Softly she delivered the next line. “‘I’ll be your future.’”

It was scripted, not really Maddie saying the words, but goddammit if it didn’t feel good hearing them in her voice, said to him.

“‘Damn it, Iz.’” He pulled away from her but didn’t turn. He paused, not sure if he could say the next line without choking on it. It was too close to the truth—too close to how he felt about her in real life. “‘I don’t want to love you.’”

“‘Then don’t.’” She tossed the script on the ground and reached for him again, wrapping her arms around his neck. “‘Let me love you.’”

She kissed him. Slowly, tentatively. She had directed him not to pull away, but also not give in to her. She told him to let her seduce him, rather let the character she was playing seduce the character he was playing.

Fuck. That was hard. Because Micah was already seduced, long before Billy Winter was supposed to be.

She licked around his mouth, teasing him, inviting him to respond. With great difficulty he didn’t react. His resistance began to weaken, though, when she sucked on his top lip, gently at first, then with increasing fervor. Soon he couldn’t take it any longer, opening ever so slightly. She took advantage of his weakness and slipped her tongue in, tasting him with long licks. Her hands ran through his hair, her body pressed to him, breasts heavy against his chest, as she sought deeper access.

She mewled against his mouth and that was when he couldn’t hold out another moment. With a heavy sigh, he put a hand around the small of her back and pulled her even closer, if that were possible. He fell into her kiss, surrendering to the tango of her tongue, filling her with such soul-wrenching passion that he only dared show her under the guise of his character.

He was so lost in her embrace that he startled when she pushed him to the ground, as she had said she would. She straddled him, hitching her short cotton skirt up to expose the beige skin of her thighs. Then, pulling at the bottom of his T-shirt, she coaxed him to sit up so she could remove it.

“Yummy,” she hissed, running her hands up his chest. His skin burned in the wake of her touch, and he recognized they were no longer on script, no longer playing characters, but Maddie and Micah, about to make love in the woods.

He eased his own hands under her cotton tee, wondering for a moment if he should take it off. His desire to see her breasts as he caressed them won over his need to shelter her from spying eyes. “Lift,” he commanded, and she raised her arms for him as he undressed her. He flung her shirt to the ground beside him and lay back down, reaching to fondle and rub her tits through her thin bra. He paused to gaze at her above him, hair mussed, nipples sticking up under white lace. She was an angel, gorgeous and heaven-sent. He could look at her like that forever.

Except that Maddie seemed set on more than looking. She rocked her hips urgently against the ridge in his pants. “Help me,” she pleaded.

He reached beneath her skirt and found her clit, found her legs already soaked, wet for him. His breath hitched. “Jesus, Maddie.”

“I’m ready for you. Help me with your pants.”

He hesitated, wanting to enjoy her, wanting to feel her clench around his fingers before she clenched around his cock. But her look was insistent, so he complied, undoing his jeans and freeing his penis.

She grabbed him eagerly and positioned him at the mouth of her desire. She slid onto him and he let out a sound that seemed foreign to his ears—half groan, half guttural cry. Fuck, she felt incredible. So tight, and so wet around his naked cock. Fucking amazing.

She put her palms flat on his chest for support and began to move. Up and down, quickly. Too quickly. Without a condom, he’d come in no time at all. “Slow down, baby,” he urged.

She curbed her speed for about half a second.

“Maddie.” He grasped her hips, attempting to control her rhythm. She wriggled against his grip, maintaining her pace. It was too much, too fast. In one swift motion, he maneuvered her beneath him, pinning her hands above her head. “I said slow down,” he rumbled.

She moaned and he took over, moving in and out of her in long, leisurely strokes. Each pass of his penis against her vaginal walls feeling more exquisite than the last.

“Is this how you like it?” she murmured as he kissed along her jaw. “Real slow?”

He licked at her neck. “I like it slow and sweet.” He nipped her earlobe. “And I like it fast and frantic.” He grinned against her ear. “And I like it when there’s a chance we might be caught.” He pulled his head up so he could look directly in her hooded eyes. “But mostly, I like it with you.”

She moaned again as he pulled himself out to the very tip before plunging in again. “That was very sweet to say,” she said. “And this is very slow.”

“Relax, baby. I’ll get you where you want to go. But I’m not wearing a condom and this is the first time I’m getting to feel you. Let me enjoy you.” He crushed his mouth to hers, resuming their passionate kiss from earlier. Soon their tongues moved frenetically around each other and he could no longer hold back the passion in his thrusts. She quivered as he let his need take over, lunging into her relentlessly. Her hips met each drive and then she was clamped around him, shuddering through her orgasm, milking him while he pummeled toward his own release.

And when he came, it was a long, violent eruption that he filled with her name. “Maddie, ah God, Maddie.”

He collapsed on top of her, still inside her, sweaty and out of breath. The words from their scene echoed in his head.
“I don’t want to love you.”
He almost said them to her again, as Micah Preston this time.

But he didn’t.

He closed his eyes, as if he could squeeze out the L word like he could the light. “You can’t know what you do to me,” he whispered into her hair. “You can’t possibly have any idea at all.”

Chapter Nineteen

Maddie pulled a button-down black shirt out of the closet to drape over her tank top, and glanced at Micah, still half-asleep in the bed behind her.

As if feeling her gaze, he stirred. “What are you doing?” he mumbled.

“Getting dressed.”

“Stop it. Take your clothes off and get back in here with me.”

She grinned. It took every ounce of strength she had not to obey him. Not just because he made her horny as hell, but also because she liked being with him. Loved being with him. No matter what they did. In fact, after two and a half weeks of secret kisses during the day and passionate lovemaking at night, she was beginning to hope the two of them had something that would last beyond the shoot.

But since she couldn’t be sure he felt the same, she desperately wanted to hold on to each moment, including this one.

Unfortunately, she had to leave for location in twenty minutes. “You know I can’t.” She relished in his pout, then leaned over the bed to give him a swift kiss. “So, lover boy, what are you going to do with your day off?”

“Actually…” He paused, stretching his beautiful naked body.

Maddie’s eyes widened as they wandered to the delicious V of his lower torso that peeked above the sheets. She was so distracted she almost missed his answer.

“…with Lulu.”

Lulu? Did he say he was spending the day with his mother? “Excuse me, what did you say?”

“My mother. She’s coming in this morning. Fudge is picking her up from the airport after he drops you off on the set.”

“Oh.” Micah’s mother was flying in. And this was the first she was hearing about it. “Oh,” she said again, straightening.

She turned to the mirror and redid her hair’s ponytail, even though it looked fine already. “How long is she going to be here?” Maddie hoped her voice didn’t sound as choked as it felt.

In the mirror, she saw him sit up and lean back against the headboard. “Today. Then I’m sending her off to a spa in Estes Park first thing tomorrow morning.”

She watched her reflection’s brows furrow. “That’s not very long. You won’t get to spend any time with her.” But what she meant was that
she
wouldn’t get to spend any time with Lulu. And as her interest in Micah was growing exponentially every day, she had a strong desire to meet his mother. She didn’t even know much about Micah’s mother except that she’d been a former actress and that she’d helped push his career. There was so much more to glean from knowing her.

And she wasn’t going to get the chance.

“I have all of today with her. Believe me, that’s enough.”

Realizing that she couldn’t pretend to fuss in the mirror forever, Maddie sat in the room’s arm chair and tugged on her sneakers. Still unable to meet his eyes, afraid he’d see she was upset, she kept her focus strictly on her shoelaces. “How long have you been planning this?”

“Um, a couple of days. I’m taking her to the fundraiser thing tonight.”