Chapter 8
Jacob
It started like a scene; the same words, the same heat.
Only this time, when Jacob touched him, it wasn’t gentle.
Liam’s back hit the wall, a muted thud against plaster.
Jacob’s palm pressed flat beside his head, the other hand closing around his throat—not cruel, just enough to steal his air, to make his breath catch and his body tremble.
Jacob’s voice came low and dangerous, brushing Liam’s ear. “Tell me you want this.”
Liam’s head tipped back, lips parting on a moan, soft and helpless. “Yes.” His voice fractured into a plea. “Please—”
The kiss hit hard, like fire searing down his spine.
Liam’s mouth opened under his, desperate in the way he yielded, in the way his tongue tangled and stroked back.
Jacob wanted to crawl inside him and devour him whole.
Liam clutched at him with frantic hands, fists twisting in his hair, hips arching tight against him.
It was reckless and messy, a kiss that stole air and sanity.
He felt like he was unraveling, falling, and Liam was the gravity pulling him under.
Jacob woke with a gasp, chest heaving. Beside him, Caroline lay with her head turned into the pillows, the peacefulness of sleep softening every line on her face.
Jacob didn’t move. Couldn’t. His body was strung too tight with need, his cock hard and aching in a way that shamed him. Every throb a reminder it wasn’t for his wife beside him, but for Liam—for a man—and the knowledge sat heavy in his chest.
It had only been two days since the staged kiss. It should have been nothing more than rehearsal, yet somehow it had lodged under Jacob’s skin, more real than he would allow himself to admit. Now Liam was there even in his sleep, haunting him with a hunger he couldn’t seem to shake.
Jacob sat up carefully, breath unsteady. The mattress dipped under his weight as his bare feet found the floor. He slipped out quietly, careful not to wake Caroline, carrying the filth of the dream with him into the bathroom. He left the light off—unable to face his own reflection in that glare.
The faucet groaned and water rushed cold.
He bent forward, splashing his face again and again, as if the chill could wash Liam away and erase what fire had written on his skin.
It didn’t work. He lifted his head at last, the moonlight enough to show the mirror’s cruelty.
His face stared back—shadowed, unshaven and wild around the eyes.
“Not real,” he muttered to himself. “You’re not—” His voice caught, the word gay lodging in his throat. He couldn’t force it out, couldn’t even let himself think it.
Clothes came off in sharp movements. He stepped under the shower and turned the handle until the water scalded.
He let it blister down on him, the water hitting his skin like punishment.
He braced both hands against the tile, head bowed under the spray, every muscle strung tight with tension while steam curled thick around him.
He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think of anything else.
God, he tried. Caroline’s laugh. His children’s faces.
The endless lines he needed to memorize.
None of it stuck. Every thought dissolved into Liam—Liam’s pouty lips, Liam’s voice, the way he had moaned in the dream, broken and wanting. Liam, Liam, Liam.
His breath went shallow. His hands trembled against the wall, body tight with need he didn’t want, but couldn’t seem to bury. Somewhere between one shaky breath and the next, his hand drifted down, touching himself—slow at first, then faster, as need eclipsed thought and hunger took over.
He pressed his forehead hard to the tile, as if pain could ground him, begging for something safe to cling to.
Nothing came. Only Liam, tearing him open in silence.
Release broke from him fast and violent.
The sound that ripped out of his throat didn’t even feel like his own, half snarl and half confession.
The water pounded on and his head stayed bowed, throat aching and skin burning. Nothing washed away; not the hunger, not the shame, not the guilt of wanting someone who wasn’t his wife. What lingered was emptiness, the kind that no amount of water could cleanse.
He didn’t go back to bed. He didn’t sleep again.
* * *
The next day Jacob sat in his trailer, unmoving for what must have been ten minutes, while the sounds of the busy lot drifted faintly through the thin walls.
Boots scuffed asphalt, call times were carried in impatient voices, and gear clattered as it was loaded and shifted from one place to another.
The world outside pressed forward while he remained suspended, caught in a silence that seemed to thicken the longer he refused to move.
The shooting schedule rested heavily in his lap. They began filming Monday. Pre-production was almost over, and with it the safety of rehearsal was running out. Soon there would be cameras, crew, marks taped on the floor, and nowhere left to hide.
His eyes had already found the place on the schedule where ink circled red around scene twenty-seven. The first kiss—two weeks away and approaching like something inevitable.
He should have been preparing; running lines, settling deeper into character, doing the work he had built his career on. Instead he stared at the glow of his phone, tapping Liam’s name again.
He told himself it was part of the job, that he needed to study Liam’s movements and cadence, the small ways he carried himself, so that he would be ready for whatever energy Liam brought to a scene.
The excuse felt paper-thin, even to himself.
Nothing more than a cover for what he couldn’t bring himself to name.
He landed on a behind-the-scenes clip, old footage from a set two years ago.
It showed Liam grinning like he’d just won a bet, sitting in a makeup chair with a ridiculous hat tilted sideways on his head.
Someone off-camera teased him about his inability to get through the word “phenomenon.” Liam groaned, tossing his head back in laughter, his throat exposed and his eyes bright. Jacob paused the frame.
The smile froze on the screen, wide and careless, too damn earnest in a way that made Jacob’s chest tighten.
It wasn’t just the grin that pulled his gaze, it was the clean line of his throat, the soft skin exposed as if it was meant for someone’s mouth or hand.
Jacob’s own fingers twitched with the urge to leave his mark there, to claim what he had no right to touch.
He dragged a hand down his face, forcing his gaze away, but the image stayed, branded behind his eyes.
What the hell was he doing, letting Liam crawl under his skin like this—a boy eighteen years his junior, someone he had no business looking at that way, especially not as a married man.
What he felt for Caroline had always been steady.
He’d met her at a charity gala, all confidence and poise, someone who knew how to hold the world’s gaze.
He knew, even then, that she was the kind of woman who could give him the secure life he’d always wanted.
Kissing her for the first time had been nice and easy, a choice he made and kept making.
With Liam there was no choosing. It was a storm, sudden and merciless, ripping through him whether he opened the door or not.
He tossed the phone away, hitting the couch cushion before bouncing against the armrest and dropping face-down to the floor.
A soft knock came at the trailer door, and Juno peeked her head in. She was assigned to him as talent liaison—somewhere between PA and handler. “Ten minutes to studio B,” she said. “Everyone’s heading over.”
Jacob nodded once, the movement small, before the door clicked shut again. He wasn’t ready for any of this. Not for filming to start in a few days. Not for that pouty mouth. Not for the way Liam looked at him—like there was something worth seeing.
Jacob closed his eyes, frustration burning behind his lids.
This was pathetic and he wasn’t a man who indulged in pathetic.
He was the one who held everything in place and never cracked.
The one who drew boundaries in steel and lived by them.
It had to stop here. He forced control back into his own hands, where it belonged.
He was Jacob Wolfe and he did not lose control.
Not for anyone. Especially not for a man—a boy.