Love, Camera, Action

Chapter 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Today was pasta day. A chef was creating made-to-order dishes at a choose-your-own bar with six different types of noodles, four different meats, and fifteen different vegetables. Cali had practically asked for all of them, and now she sat hunched over her food mound, listening to Dan go through the afternoon’s shots while idly wondering if she had chosen a ros é sauce because it was two sauces in one.

She listlessly pushed her fork through her half-eaten pasta because, honestly, how could anyone eat this much food? But also because everything was going great. Like, really well. The crew was calm and relaxed; there was no contact from Howard or Paolo; and she and Jory had found an effective equilibrium. There were no jabs, no snark, no conflict. Only a steady, collaborative stride that kept the day on time and the scenes running smoothly. Cali had even thrown in a few signature shots to push the boundaries of the show, and Jory had been on board with every suggestion.

It was wrong, wrong, wrong.

She had congratulated herself on her maturity for putting a halt to what had been physically brewing with Jory. Well, using the phrase one and done wasn’t the height of adulting, but the energy behind it was. They couldn’t continue down the path they’d started on for all the reasons he’d laid out. They had reputations to protect and needed to focus on the show. Besides, romance for her in general was a hard no.

Cali had never been in a long-term relationship—lots of temporary and dazzling affairs—but nothing permanent. Men were ultimately a drain on one’s resources. She supposed some had good intentions, but she just hadn’t seen any evidence of it. She wasn’t going to allow her ambitions get dragged down by emotional baggage.

A tray clattered next to Dan’s, making her jump. On it was an elegant linguine with tomatoes and fresh basil in a simple olive oil sauce. Even knowing such a grown-up pasta would only belong to one person, Cali was still surprised when Jory pulled out a chair to join them. Not only was he eating, he was eating with her . Well, her and Dan.

Dan threw him a glance. “Nice of you to join us.”

“I thought I’d check in to see if there were any plans outside the usual for this afternoon.” His almost friendly tone was unsettling.

While Dan rattled through the scenes, Cali covertly studied Jory. His attention never wavered from their AD, even while he expertly wound pasta around his fork and lifted it confidently to his mouth with strong, masculine fingers. Fingers that raised a napkin to dab a full mouth she now knew the texture of. A mouth that didn’t need dabbing because food would never dare go anywhere but between those beautiful lips. Jory had probably taken Tuscan pasta deportment lessons while sitting at a café in a white linen shirt by the Mediterranean Sea.

The table had gone quiet. Cali pulled her attention from Jory to see Dan waiting patiently for the answer to whatever question had been asked.

She blinked Tuscany away. “Sorry, what?”

“Is that all or do you have anything else?” inquired Dan.

Jory turned to her with a wide, guileless gaze that could only be interpreted as, “I am your vessel, completely open for any and all of your new and interesting ideas.” Cooperative, servile, conciliatory.

You sneaky, little …

Jory had been doing everything she’d asked that morning. Like, everything. Never a question or a concern or a quibble. He also hadn’t offered an addition or suggestion or enhancement. He’d given her exactly what she wanted and nothing more.

Why was he being so helpful? So gracious? So easy ?

“Do you have anything you would like to add, Jory?” she politely inquired.

“No, I defer to you. Your plans for the day can’t be improved on.”

Dan choked on his salad and rushed to sip his coffee to bury his reaction.

That had to be sarcasm. How could her plans not be improved on? Maybe he was still worried about her calling him out to HR, and so he was fucking with her by not fucking with her. Oh, it was on. He would be the one who was getting fucked with. And nothing fucked with Jory like fucking with his vision.

Cali sat back in a deceptively calm pose, picking up her fork and pushing the tines lightly into her fingertips, summoning her best Bond villain. “Actually, there is something. I want to bring CCTV cameras into the ice-cream-parlor scene.”

A black hole of silence threatened to swallow the table.

Jory cleared his throat. “CCTV cameras? Interesting.” He leaned in on his elbows. “I’m listening.”

Cali fought to keep it chill. “The security style of CCTV cameras will hint that Thalia’s being surveilled and recorded—a Big Brother–type feel. And the gray hues of the footage will juxtapose nicely with the happy pastel colors of the parlor.” Cali watched Jory’s face flatten to neutral. She hated that look. “It’s a departure from the tone you’ve established, but I think it could give a more original vibe. Don’t you?”

Jory dabbed his lips again—still, no dabbing required—as though mulling over the idea. Cali knew he was stalling to cover his barely checked horror. CCTV cameras were grainy and stilted and only captured every other second because they couldn’t hold that much memory. Basically, they looked like shit and would destroy the scene.

“How many cameras were you thinking?” Jory’s voice held a faint wisp of hope in it. Maybe he thought that if she asked for one or two he could sabotage them.

Cali shrugged blandly at Dan, who now watched them with great interest. “I don’t know—what do you think, Dan? Fifteen or so?”

Dan’s eyes sparked with mischief, which he quickly shuttered. “We can do that. I think we have three and can probably borrow the others from the Seedlings in Seattle production next door.”

Cali nodded sagely and turned her best faux innocent smile on Jory. “I’ll show you where to put them.”

Jory’s countenance settled into a granite she desperately wanted to crack. She psychically telepathed to him to tell her off, to say the idea was asinine, to advise where she could put the CCTV cameras.

“Great idea. Let’s do it.” He rapped the table with his knuckles and smiled. He smiled. Cali recoiled. What in the god of fuck was going on?

Dan, astute as ever, rose to get out of Dodge. “Let me see if I can source those cameras.”

Jory stood with his plate and raised an eyebrow. “Shall we?”

Cali stood too, loathe to leave her apple pie but unable to back down from the challenge. “Let’s.”

Side-by-side they deposited their dirty dishes into the plastic catering bins and walked out of the lunchroom into the darkness of the studio. It was quiet in the cavernous space. With everyone at lunch there weren’t any tinks or tonks of the crew setting up for the next scene. No clinks or clanks of props being carried to their tables, no shuffles or swishes of cables pulled along the floor. The studio was dead quiet except for the steady plod of Cali and Jory’s footsteps as they continued their TV version of Chicken.

Cali fumed. She was so tired of having to decipher every emotion from people in her life. Her mother was always a morass of feeling, and if Cali couldn’t solve what was wrong on any given day, her mother would chastise her. “Cali, you’re insensitive. Cali, you don’t care. Cali, you’re cold.” Which of course had made Cali even more hyperaware of her mother’s moods, always struggling to head off whatever disaster was coming down the pass.

She had the same problem with Patsy, but in reverse. Patsy carefully hid what she felt behind clever jokes and sardonic quips, but if Cali couldn’t ferret out the downslide, she’d be pulling Patsy out of a ditch that, in a drunken haze, her sister would happily make her permanent home.

Cali didn’t have space for yet another temperamental person, especially not a man who barely expressed one feeling and then poured all of them into a kiss.

Emotional whiplash. That’s what Jory was. The male equivalent of an undeployed air bag in a violent but non-life-threatening accident. This was why she didn’t want a man in her life, outside of the occasional hookup. She was done with guessing.

She stopped deep in the deserted set. “What are you doing?”

Jory turned in apparent confusion. “I’m getting ready for the next scene.”

“You’re acquiescing,” she hissed.

“Not at all. I think CCTV cameras are a great idea. Very original.” Jory’s features could not be blanker.

“They are not a great idea. They are a ridiculous idea. You know that and I know that, yet you’re going along with it. In fact, you haven’t disagreed with me all morning.”

“I didn’t have to.”

She wanted to strangle that neutral tone out of his neutral body with her biased hands. “That isn’t possible. I’ve said things I knew were wrong.”

“No, everything was great.” He put a hand to his heart, slain by her self-maligning.

Irrationally, Cali started to panic, feeling as though she were on the brink of losing something. Something vital. She motioned sharply between them. “ This is not great. You giving in to all my ideas is not great. For anyone. Least of all you and me. Let me be clear: I do not want you to do everything I say. I want your opinions, I want your input, and I want your voice.” Cali’s own voice cracked. The last thing she wanted was an automaton who did her bidding. She wouldn’t deny she had fantasized about him executing her every whim, bending to her every command, but now, with that actuality made real, she was left with a hopelessness she couldn’t explain. Out of all the things that had gone wrong on set, this felt the worst.

“My voice isn’t what’s important right now.”

Cali seethed. “How could your voice not be important? You are brilliant and innovative, and you are quashing your creativity so I can get my way probably because you’re worried about that kiss!”

Their eyes widened in tandem at the truth of that, but before either could speak, the sound of footsteps approaching ricocheted through the no longer empty studio. Jory opened a random door beside them and whisked Cali inside a deeper darkness.

As her pupils adjusted, she found herself on the tiny set of a dance-club bathroom. The stainless-steel sinks set in black countertops triggered the memory of a night at a rave where, much to Cali’s shock, she’d hooked up with a painfully hot guy in a puny bathroom, much like this one. Her blood had sung with the wickedness of it as he hoisted her up on the counter, pushed her back against the mirror and had his way. But although it had been fun and exciting, she remembered being left wanting after he finished, too inexperienced to know how to ask for more.

Cali shook her head to remind herself she wasn’t twenty-one anymore.

Jory crowded her against the counter, the quiet studio outside giving the room a churchlike quality. The church of sexy bathrooms.

“Why are we hiding in here?” she demanded.

He held up a finger to his lips, standing close and looking off, his ear trained to the footsteps. She still didn’t understand why they had to hide, but the heat of him fogged her brain, and she didn’t have much interest in moving. She took advantage of his distraction to trace the line of his strong neck until it disappeared under his gray T-shirt. His tee was well made, expensive, and classy, while her own came from a thrift store and had a sparkly unicorn playing electric guitar on it. She marveled at how his hinted at solid pecs and a firm torso without completely revealing them. How the muted color brought out his lupine-blue eyes, now entirely trained on her, as though she were a frame he was trying to bring into focus.

As the footsteps faded in the opposite direction, Cali tried to minimize the force of Jory’s nearness by mustering up the frustration she’d been feeling all morning, hoping her whispers sounded formidable and cool as opposed to breathy and turned on.

“Are you doing what I want because you think I’m going to call you out to the union?”

“No, I have great respect for your choices as a director and merely want to fulfill your vision,” he rumbled.

“Then why are you doing this?” She sounded hurt. Damn it. She straightened her shoulders.

Jory put one hand on the counter bedside her, which sexily popped his opposite hip. His scrutiny intensified, and she wondered if she’d fallen into some kind of trap. The door was easily accessible, she could leave at any moment, yet his hungry stare made her feel like a cornered rabbit.

He tapped his finger on the counter, tipping his head down while moving the tiniest bit closer. He lowered his volume to a murmur, telling her a secret. “I’m concerned the conflict we’re having is stirring up inappropriate energy.”

Cali matched his volume while trying to reason out what he meant. “And you think that if the conflict between us simmers down, so will we?”

He drifted his eyes up her arm to her collarbone, where they lingered, his gaze caressing her skin. “I think so, and you said you wanted things to be done, so …” His attention landed on her lips, and she could feel them trembling. “I’m just trying to respect your wishes.”

She shivered. “I don’t want you to sacrifice who you are for the sake of the conflict between us.”

“That’s just it: there shouldn’t be any conflict.” He moved closer. “I should be following your lead. You are the director, after all. And it’s about time I honored that.” His eyes finally met hers, and although his words were deferential, his stare was all predator, his voice no more than a growl. “So, as my director, what do you want me to do?”

Oh, so many things. So many, many things. Things that would firmly go against her one-and-done rule. The rule she’d made up to gain some ground in an argument so very far in the past that she had practically been a different person. The now person, the one in this fake bathroom with a veritable god in front of her, was definitely not done.

“What do I want you to do?” Cali repeated.

Jory slowly nodded. “To avoid conflict.”

“To avoid conflict.”

“And respect your wishes.”

Cali didn’t know what her wishes were. She certainly wished he wasn’t so far away, even though they were only inches apart. She was good at boundaries, good at putting a halt to things when necessary. In a way, it would be irresponsible to go against her instincts by denying herself this possibility to explore their creative relationship further. Plus, he looked so good in that T-shirt, his body crowding hers and ready to spring, like he’d waited all day to get her in a dark corner of a set.

“Do you have an example?” she hedged.

He scanned her body in seeming contemplation, his breath coming faster, his pulse hammering in his neck. She’d gasp at the beauty of him if she weren’t so eager for his answer. “Well,” he said with a hint of gravel in his voice, “if you directed me to put my hand on you, I’d do it.”

Her mouth went dry. “That’s a bit vague. Directors need to be specific.”

“Good point. Let me show you then.” Keeping his eyes locked on hers, he slid his hand along the counter, slow enough that she could flee if she weren’t frozen like that rabbit suddenly aware of its fate. His hand whispered by her thigh, teased at her hip, and landed firmly on her ass, pulling her into his body.

They both let out a sigh.

“And,” he rumbled on, “if you directed me to squeeze your ass, just a little, like it was my ass to squeeze any time I wanted”—he demonstrated with a firm grope that brought her into even more contact with his hard body–“I would do that. I would do everything I could to fulfill your demands. I’m here to serve you.”

Her focus fluttered down to his full mouth, making her momentarily forget her role in the game he was laying out before her. “You have Chris Pine lips. Only better.”

Jory’s voice came out low as a timber wolf’s on the verge of attack. “I’ve worked with Chris Pine. He’s very easy to light.”

“I bet.”

Jory licked his beautiful lips but remained still. Cali realized he was waiting. Waiting for her direction. Could she do this? It was such a terrible, terrible idea.

“I’m a very demanding director,” she warned.

“I hope so.” He squeezed her ass again, lifting her up on her toes the tiniest bit.

“Okay, then. Bring those Chris Pine lips over and kiss me.”

Jory descended like an alpha claiming his due. Her senses exploded. He sampled her taste, licking into her until she whimpered at the rush. Then he abruptly leaned back to examine the effect.

A little moan eked out of Cali as she stumbled forward to follow his retreating mouth. He caught her elbows in a firm grip, steadying her.

“Did I tell you to stop?” she chastised.

He peered at her with a satisfaction that stole her breath, then snaked a hand behind her back, and crushed her against the marble countertop to take full, hungry possession of her mouth.

She was giddy with the thought she had ignited this passion that lay hidden beneath all that control. It became too much to simply receive and she matched his intensity, meeting each stroke of his tongue, earning a grunt of approval.

His other hand stole across her belly, slowly gathered the hem of her T-shirt in his fingers until the sparkly unicorn disappeared and the curve of her stomach was exposed. His fingers drifted lazily across her skin, just above her jeans and around her belly button, dipping below her waistline with each pass.

She tried to pull her focus back, searching for a direction to give him, to stay in charge of their increasing entanglement, but it was hard to concentrate when Jory’s hand was sliding slowly into her jeans as he scraped his teeth along her jaw, raising goose bumps over her entire body.

He murmured into her ear, “Is this good? I want to make sure I do it right. Do you have another direction for me?” He pulled his hand out of her jeans and went back to her belly.

She whimpered in frustration. Those fingers gave her ideas, but she couldn’t translate them into words. She’d lost her train of thought entirely, lost it to his energy surrounding her, manipulating her. There was something she was supposed to do. Oh yes, taking full control of this very, very sexy situation.

Jory nipped her ear. “I can kiss your neck or pull lightly on your nipples or rub my hardening cock against you. Please, Director. Tell me what you want.”

“ Keep doing what you were doing,” she sighed out.

He lifted his head away from her but kept his hand circling her belly button. “And what’s that?”

He wanted her to say it, reveling in the game, leading it but making it clear she had to ask, to give him permission. She had to stop the passive routine, ask for what she wanted, and leave that twenty-one-year-old girl in the past. “I want you to put your hand down my jeans and draw your finger through my slit where it’s all slippery and wet, and gently, oh so gently, make me come.”

Jory let out a gust of air. “That’s very specific.”

“I like my directions followed to the letter.”

He returned to her mouth, kissing her with a renewed heat as he continued to move his hand in a not so controlled descent, past her waistband and beneath her panties to cup her with a decisive hold. She jolted at the contact and then melted against him, hungry for more. He pushed the heel of his hand against her mound while he slid the tip of his finger along her seam, back and forth, back and forth. He broke from her mouth. “Circles or pulses?”

“Surprise me.”

His teeth found the artery that ran down her neck, and he bit down hard as his finger slid inside her. They both moaned at the contact. He worked deeper into her wet folds, grunting in approval at what he found while his other arm scooped her leg to half boost her onto the counter, splaying her wide.

Cali had to touch him. She fumbled her hand across his cock and grasped its mass, weighing it, learning it. Feeling it strain large and heavy in his khakis, squeezing hard as he slid his finger over her clit. She let out a moan as desire flashed through her.

“Shh,” Jory whispered. “Anybody could come by and know you were in here getting your clit stroked.”

His finger teased her, clouding Cali’s cognition as she fought to speak. “By you.”

“They won’t know it’s me.”

“I could let your name slip out on one of my—uh …”

Jory sunk one of his fingers inside her pussy then, and her head fell back on a groan. His lazy thrusts made her bones liquify and her breath quicken, taunting her to keep quiet as he added another finger. She tried to keep her sounds at bay, but when he turned his fingers inside her to rub along that bundle of nerves, her groan became a whimper.

“Shh,” Jory whispered.

His fingers continued their slide as his thumb took up a circle pulse on her clit—he’d opted for both—and Cali was at his mercy. She tried to rebel, to pull it together, but she could barely think, and, at this point she wasn’t sure she wanted to.

Jory smirked, intuiting her inner conflict. “Tell you what? If you keep quiet, I’ll let you come.”

The game flooded back, and with her last shred of dignity, she locked her glassy eyes onto his blown pupils, all the blue consumed. “You’ll let me, eh?”

His smirk blossomed into a smile of appreciation. He leaned in and purred, “Please, Director, may I make you come?”

Cali burbled out, “Oh my God, that’s so dirty,” before his mouth covered hers again.

Cali’s hand tightened on Jory’s cock with little to no finesse, her coordination rocky given Jory’s apparent virtuosity at illicit finger-fucking. She was gratified when Jory huffed at the contact and faltered for a moment. But then he renewed his concentration on her, pulling his thumb away and dragging his fingers out of her core, up to circle her and then slide deep inside her again. He repeated the movement—up, inside, back, again and again in a relentless rhythm.

She was completely in his control, and he knew it. As her body began to contract, he crooned in her ear, “That’s it, that’s it. Come hard for me. Make me feel it.” Cali’s back arched and her mouth opened in a wordless scream, his fingers never stopping their delicious onslaught. “Shh, that’s it. Yeah, baby, that’s it. Shh.”

And then white light exploded behind her closed lids as her body seized, pulsing around his fingers for what seemed like hours, her consciousness traipsing between astral planes while Jory growled, “Fuck yeah. Fuck.”

As her orgasm retreated, she lifted her eyes to find Jory’s dark with a furious heat, a smile of deep satisfaction on his lips while his finger lazily circled her, drawing out every last shudder. All her tension over the last week drained out, and she nearly collapsed against him, an emotion wedging in her throat. He pulled his hand from her jeans, and slid his fingers into his mouth, sucking on them with a satisfied hum.

Still enveloped in her haze, she struggled to pull back from the feelings threatening to spill out of her and put her attention on him. She moved to his cock, with directed intent. “Now you.”

He captured her hand before it landed. “Uh-uh. We have to go.”

She couldn’t grasp what he was saying. “What? Why?”

“The scene’s over.”

Frustration rose in her despite the fact that her body was jelly. She gestured to his hard-on. “The scene’s not over.”

Jory surveyed her with a self-satisfied smile. “ Your scene is definitely over.” He motioned to the sounds of the crew filtering back to set. “We don’t want anyone to stumble in here and get the right idea.” Jory backed away from her and opened the door a crack to check if the coast was clear. He turned back to wink as he slipped out.

Cali let out a frustrated snarl. That wink! Shaky, she turned to brace herself on the counter, catching a glimpse of her disheveled reflection in the mirror. She felt like that twenty-one-year-old girl again, frustrated in a club bathroom. Although, this time, she was the one who’d had the mind-altering orgasm. She flushed with the intensity of what just happened, the utter lush sordidness of it. Dangerous and glorious.

No. Her frustration coalesced into a razor-sharp focus now that her mind was clear of the nuisance that was her burning desire for Jory. This frustration was over the control that had slipped through her fingers and landed firmly in his as he’d sucked her taste from them.

This could not stand.

Cali straightened to her full height, regarding the woman who peered back at her in the mirror. She was a full-grown woman who knew who she was.

And fully-grown Cali Daniels wasn’t finished with Jory Blair.