We were on the fourth set, which was supposed to be Royce’s bedroom. It was the ugliest bedroom I’d ever seen, but I guess, back in the thirties, that was what you got. Dark green carpet, horribly wallpapered walls, and a plaid bedspread: that was the décor a bachelor had. Not exactly the sleek Mad Men look I was expecting, but that was why these guys made the big bucks, and I watched YouTube videos on scrapbooking.

I’d also been wrong about the lights. I’d pictured the huge bright spotlights that we’d filmed under. But here, on this set, it seemed almost dim. And instead of five cameras, there were only two. Much more manageable. There was also no crowd of people. The grips and caterers and production assistants upon production assistants all gone, there were only six of us and—in the big room—it felt almost empty. It felt almost, with the dim lights, intimate. And that, for some reason, bugged me. It shouldn’t have. I wasn’t the one on the bed. Carly was. She was the one who’d been giggling like a banshee, even though Don had asked her twice to be serious. And she was the one on her back, naked as the day she was born—no pasties for her—her back arched off the mattress as Cole ran his lips down the center line of her stomach, one of his hands moving up one thigh. My stomach flipped in an unnatural way and I turned away from the bed, my hands shaking as I pushed my hair away from my face.

I felt a silent hand at my back and turned my head, careful not to look at the bed, wanting to cover my ears and drown out the sounds of Carly. “It’s not that bad,” Eileen whispered, her mouth close to my ear. “I promise, your part will be easy.”

I closed my eyes and nodded, pretending, for both her sake and mine, that my performance is what I had been stressing over.

CHAPTER 90

“This part is easy.” Cole rested his hands on either side of Summer’s head, and she nodded. Looked away. He could feel her leg bouncing against the bed. “Congratulations,” he added. “You won.” He smiled, and her eyes moved to his, absolutely no reaction on her face. He shifted a little, uncomfortable, and wondered if he’d missed something. “Are you nervous?”

“No.”

That had to be a lie. First, the evasion eye contact in the car. And now, her mouth was tight, eyes unmoving, her fingers tapped against the side of her legs, an unending rhythm, and he wanted to grab ahold of them. And her legs. Hold her still and make her look into his eyes and tell him what was wrong. Because it didn’t seem like just nerves. It seemed like she was also mad. And over what? She’d won her bet, gotten her way. She should be happy.

“Okay, guys, we’re ready to begin in five. Summer? Cole? You guys set?” She nodded, and he nodded, and then, silence fell, and it was just the two of them. No initial lines. No choreography. They were just supposed to kiss and caress, and she was supposed to give them all of the reactions that would replace the ones that the college chick had done. The sheet between them was thin, but she’d insisted on having it there, as well as her shorts and the strapless bra. He, on the other hand, hadn’t changed from the first shoot, was still wearing the cock sock that had made Summer’s eyes widen, her cheeks turn pink when he’d dropped the robe.

Silence fell on the set, and he stared down at her. There were so few times when he could really stare at her. She often caught him when he did, as if she could feel the weight of it. But in this moment, on camera, he was allowed, and he drank his fill, his eyes dragging from the light brown of her eyebrows to the thick fur of her lashes. Her golden eyes flicked to his, and he said nothing, did nothing, just watched the minute jumping of her pupils, their twitch as they settled. He rested his weight on his knees and one hand, lifting the other to her face. She didn’t look, didn’t react, just stared at him. His fingers soft, he ran the tips of them across her cheekbones and down to her lips, a dark red lipstick on them, typical Ida and nothing like Summer. He suddenly wanted it gone, and opened his mouth, sticking his thumb in and closing his lips around it. Her eyes dropped and she watched as he dragged the digit out, his teeth scraping at the pad. When he gripped her face, his fingertips rough against her cheekbone, earlobe, and jaw, she tensed beneath him. When his wet finger smeared across her mouth, taking the red with it, she opened her lips, and a hard sigh fell from him when she caught his thumb in her teeth, her eyes on him, then sucked it, going deep and then slowly pulling off. His thumb felt a hundred sensations that his cock wanted and—in that moment—there was no one else in the room, everything disappearing but the two of them.

The minute his thumb left her mouth, he dropped down atop her, his hand gripping the back of her head, his mouth crashing onto hers, and he kissed her like he’d wanted to from the start, rough and wild, her tongue fighting back, their kisses missing their mouths as much as they hit them.

Cole grabbed her, rolling onto his back and putting her above him, his hand yanking the sheet down, pulling the clasp of her bra, and the piece was suddenly gone, and her breasts were tumbling free onto him, and he groaned, pulling her down, the soft weight of them against his chest so beautiful, so incredible that he lost his fucking mind. He bit her ear, wrapped his hand deep in her hair, and pulled it tight, his mouth going to her throat, and then he was back to her mouth, and her hands were covering her chest and he remembered the scene, the fucking scene, and rolled back over, shielding her from the camera, his mouth softening as he pulled the sheet back up, his whisper at her ear almost silent. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

She tugged on his hair and brought his mouth back to hers, and he didn’t apologize again.

What happened between them when they touched… it was nothing like Nadia and nothing like the blonde and nothing like every other woman he’d ever had.

And that difference scared the hell out of him.

CHAPTER 91

“This is bullshit! Learn your marks and stay on them!” Cole threw up his hands and glared at me, and sohelpmeGod if there weren’t a hundred people staring at us, I would have his nuts in a vice. A steel one. With teeth.

“You’ve moved the marks five times in the last two hours. Make up your mind and there won’t be a problem!” I pushed on his chest with both hands, and the damn man barely wobbled. This was what I got for neglecting my chores and spending my days prancing around a movie set. Cole stepped closer to me, and his voice dropped.

“Touch me again, and I’ll put you on your damn mark and hold you there.”

I stepped back. When he was that close, something in my body lost control. I thought it would fade. It hadn’t. We’d shot four scenes since our fake bedroom scene. None of them had been sexual in nature, yet I still wanted to hump this man like a dog in heat whenever we were in arms’ reach. It was getting ridiculous.

“Cole, Summer,” Don’s voice rang out. “Let’s take five. Summer, you’re looking a little shiny.” Makeup ran forward, a powder brush in hand, and I looked away from Cole and smiled a polite greeting. We were in the front room of the Frank plantation, lighting crews angled up the grand staircase, beaming a thousand watts of hot light down on us. Mary stuck a Tervis tumbler in front of me with iced tea. I took a sip, careful not to mess up my lipstick. We were on our nineteenth take, hours spent on a simple scene that should have been knocked out easily. Interesting that the quickest scenes we did were the ones that had heat. I didn’t know what that said about us.