Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
SAWYER
What was I doing here? After a few deep breaths, I used the bathroom and tried not to look at myself in the mirror while I washed my hands.
When I emerged, the evidence of our dinner had been cleared from the table, and Lukas waited in the kitchen for me.
Lara was by the back door, her tail thumping against the wall in a slow, steady rhythm.
Lukas always looked so casual and confident, and I always felt like a million wrong puzzle pieces all jammed into one ill-fitting box. He had a fresh bottle of wine in one hand and glasses in the other.
“Mind getting the door?” he asked, and Lara did an almost excited tap-dance.
“Sure.” I opened the door and let Lara take the lead.
She wandered out into the back yard, and I followed, taking in the sight.
I wanted to know everything about Lukas, and I stored up every detail like it was gold.
The back yard was spacious and neatly kept, with the patio he’d mentioned the obvious crown jewel.
I shot him a look. “A little firepit? This thing has a chimney. It could have its own zip code.”
Lukas smiled at me, all cheeky and innocent looking. “It’s not the biggest I could’ve gone, but I didn’t want to go overboard.” He set the glasses down on a table and poured wine into them.
“This is a different wine, but it’s still a red. It’s a bit sweeter.” Lukas handed me my glass and I took it, relishing the way our fingers had to brush against each other for the briefest of moments.
Wine was probably a bad idea. I was already so attracted to him that I could barely see straight, and now we were in the back yard as the sun dipped out of the sky.
Lukas twisted a knob and the fire roared to life.
Yep, I was pretty sure the scene surrounding me could’ve been ripped from any romantic movie.
I lowered myself onto a chair near the fireplace and leaned back, feigning a level of casualness that I didn’t feel. “It’s nice out here. Quiet.”
“It’s a good neighborhood.”
Looking around, I noticed the tall fence. “Lots of privacy.”
“We shoot out here sometimes. I try to protect the neighbors from seeing things they don’t want to see.”
“You film outside?” I looked down and realized that people had probably had sex on the chair I was using. And then I realized there probably wasn’t a surface in his whole house that hadn’t been fucked on and, that strangely made it easier to relax.
“We try to do as many outdoor shoots as the weather allows.”
I wasn’t about to confess that I’d never had sex outdoors. Or in a car. Or any place that wasn’t a bed or a couch, though I did get a hand job in a bathroom once. Instead, I took a large swallow of wine.
“Doing the post-production tick exam must be fun,” I quipped, immediately regretting my snark. It wasn’t Lukas’s fault that I felt woefully inadequate. That was all on me, my lack of experience, my sheltered upbringing, and my not-very-outgoing nature.
Then Lukas tipped his head back and laughed, and I loved the sound and the little wrinkles around his eyes.
He was a little older than me, a little older than the guys I usually went for, but a lot more experienced.
Rather than it being a turn-off, it was the opposite for me.
I understood why he’d had trouble finding someone to do this particular job for him because the more I knew about him, the more he appealed to me.
My crush was one glass of wine away from turning into a full-blown infatuation.
“Outdoor shoots definitely have their own challenges.”
Lara grumbled as she lowered herself down to the ground a few feet away.
“Like what?” I asked, unable to contain my curiosity.
“Weather. Wind can be a bitch if it’s too cold or too aggressive. A nice breeze is fine, but it’s hard to shoot with high winds. They make too much background noise. Lighting can be challenging, especially in outdoor structures like barns.”
“How many barns have you filmed in?”
He swirled his wine around in his glass. “A few. Barns are always popular, and people like the whole roll-in-the-hay fantasy, even though the reality is that hay is itchy and scratchy and uncomfortable as fuck.”
“People do love a good cowboy.”
“It’s the chaps. And the jeans. And the idea that cowboys have access to rope.”
Heat flared in my stomach and climbed up my face. I attributed it to the wine and the fire and not the mental image of Lukas with rope.
“So barns. What other outdoor venues are popular?” If I was going to write this book, I was going to have to push past any discomfort when it came to talking to Lukas about these things.
And it wasn’t so much discomfort as it was just plain old yearning.
Lukas was magnetic. He was easy to talk to, easy to get along with.
He never made me feel like I shouldn’t have complaints or bad experiences because I’d never struggled the way he did.
“Cars. Roadsides. Truck stops. Hiking trails. Poolsides. Tents. Campers. Basically, if you can dream it, I’ve probably done it.”
“Roadsides? Doesn’t that get risky? What if you get caught?”
“It’s all in the power of the camera angle and the editing.
What we do is find a remote road and take a few innocent-ish shots.
We take as much footage of the surroundings as we can and then we go someplace on private property with a similar sort of woodsy backdrop and finish the shoot there.
The magic happens in the editing after when we make it look like we were on the side of the road the whole time. ”
“Do you hire someone to do that, or do you do it all yourself?”
“I mostly do it myself.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his feet at the ankles.
The sun had dipped below the horizon now, and approaching shadows contrasted with the flickering firelight, making Lukas look almost ethereal.
His short beard looked softer now, and I couldn’t help the way my stare lingered on his mouth whenever he talked.
“I’ve been letting one of the models film and edit recently. I like things done a certain way, so it’s been a challenge to give up that control.”
My cock throbbed. Please, could the earth just open up and swallow me whole? I was painfully hard. All the wine had gone to my head—and my dick—and Lukas was unfairly, devastatingly attractive.
He liked things done a certain way. That line played in my head on loop, and I sipped at my wine in a vain attempt to get myself under control.
“So you do it all now? Edit. Direct. Cast.”
“Everything but star in them.”
Curiosity burned a hole in my ability to contain itself, and I heard myself ask a question I’d been dying to know the answer to ever since I learned he no longer did content in front of the camera. “Why did you stop?”
Lukas’s gaze shifted over to mine. Vulnerability swam in his eyes, and the corner of his mouth quirked up.
“For a lot of years I loved what I did. Even when I had bad contracts, it wasn’t the job that was bad, it was the people.
And I always told myself that I’d stop when it quit being fun.
A couple of years ago, I’d been producing and directing and learning to edit videos better, and I just started to get more invested in the other parts of the process and less invested in being on camera.
” He smoothed a hand down his chest and patted his stomach.
“Plus, now I don’t have to be as strict with diet and exercise to keep a camera-ready body. ”
His comments made me scoff. “Oh, please. As if you would look bad on camera now. You look amazing.” I almost took it back because I didn’t mean to say it, but that would have been far more awkward than just letting the compliment fall into the silence between us.
Oh, God. Did I just flirt with him?
I cleared my throat and took another sip of wine. Whatever I was doing, Lukas seemed to enjoy watching me flounder. His gaze hadn’t wavered from me. The worst part was that I liked the attention. I liked the way I felt when he looked at me, like my insides were light and airy like a fizzy drink.
I liked it too much. Far too much. His undivided attention was a drug I could get used to. Someone as handsome as him shouldn’t be looking at someone like me the way he was. Or maybe I was imagining things through wine-tinted glasses.
“I’m not sure the camera would agree with you.”
“Well, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
” My cheeks were a bed of lava. They were probably so red that astronauts could see them from the International Space Station.
I was keenly aware of how much I wanted to kiss him, to close that infuriating distance between us and see if his kisses tasted as good as I imagined they would.
I knew I had to get out of there before I drank any more wine and did something monumentally stupid—like make a pass at him.
“I should go.” Before he could argue, I pulled up my phone and called an Uber. “I should be able to finish up the next chapter and have it over to you soon.”
I was fucking doomed, I realized. I’d have to hear about his work in the industry.
I’d have to hear about the men he’d had sex with—good, bad, and otherwise.
I’d have to remain professional while I listened to him talk about his sex life.
I was so screwed. There wasn’t enough lube in the world to keep my dick from chafing.
“I’ll walk you out.” Lukas got to his feet, and I started to follow his lead, but the wine I’d drank hit me a lot harder than I’d anticipated. I didn’t think I’d overdone it, but I did have two glasses with dinner and a third outside, which was three more than I usually drank.
In slow motion, I wobbled and lost my balance.
When I tried to regain it, I overcorrected, and then suddenly Lukas was there.
Or I was where Lukas was. I wasn’t sure if I teetered into him or if he reached for me, but I hit his chest with a solid thump.
His eyes crinkled at the corners as he helped steady me with hands on my arms.
“You good?” he asked, not letting me go.
His mouth was invitingly close. He smelled like wine and temptation.
“I’m good,” I promised. Just an inch or two closer, and I could kiss him.
He looked down at me, his eyes hooded like he was tempted too.
The air seemed to crackle between us, and then we both stepped back at the same time, realizing we’d waltzed right up to the line and were on the verge of obliterating it with one ill-advised kiss.
“Are you sure you’re good to go?” Lukas’s forehead creased in concern.
“Maybe water while I wait.”
“Yeah, no problem.” He opened the door for me, and I walked through, completely aware that whatever spell had been cast on us outside had been completely broken, and I didn’t know whether to be relieved or sad.