Chapter 9
Jenna
I forgot this photo shoot was for bathing suits.
To be fair, they’re vintage-style with a twist and cover a lot more skin than some I’ve worn in the past. Still.
When I walk onto set in a yellow-one piece that is demure in the front and a high-cut thong in back, Penn pushes off the tree he’s been leaning against, a thunderstorm rolling in across his features.
Yup. After an hour in the makeup trailer, I look a lot different than the Jenna who dropped Erin off at school to the deafening squeal of hundreds of kids.
Now, my hair is teased into a windblown style, I’m sporting a smoky, purple cat eye and my body has been buffed to a shine.
Oh, and I’m wearing white cowboy boots for some strange reason.
“Well halleluiah. Finally. The talent has arrived,” crows my manager…sarcastically? He’s had an irritated glint in his eye since I missed my call time and arrived hand-in-hand with Penn. “Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?”
“Couldn’t agree more,” I murmur, planting my hands on the hood of the silver Mustang we’re using as a prop. “Can you give me some context?”
The photographer responds, instead of my manager.
A different man from yesterday, this one sent from Vogue .
“The idea behind the editorial is you’re a damsel in distress who took a wrong turn on the way to the beach and ended up with a broken-down car in the forest. We’ll add smoke coming from under the hood in post.”
“Got it.”
I take a deep breath through my nose and begin to emote, looking stunned, then frustrated.
Scared by my unfamiliar surroundings. After I’ve run the gamut of emotions, I edge into model territory, leaving my expression rather bland, but striking interesting poses, hips angled, eyes distant, wrist cocked. Move. Shift. Angle. Repeat.
“Excellent, Jenna,” praises the photographer.
I know better than to look at Penn while I lay face down on the hood, pressing my cheek to the cool steel, my ass perked up in a teasing pose, but I do. I look at him and witness the lust pouring off his tensed frame. My whole sex contracts like it’s being squeezed in a fist. His fist.
“Wow. Perfect. You’re giving everything to the camera today, doll. Loving it,” the photographer says, lowering his camera. “I’ve gotten everything we need in the yellow suit. We’re ready for the next one.”
“Great,” I say, sliding off the car and landing on my feet.
The faster this photo shoot is over, the faster I can be alone with Penn.
That’s all I want.
“Actually, we’re thinking of going nude for the next series of shots,” Dustin drawls. As if anticipating my protest, he holds up a hand. “They’re going to be tasteful, not gratuitous.”
With a growing lump in my throat, I scan the immediate distance, counting at least fifteen men. “I’m not posing naked.”
“Oh really?” My manager strikes a domineering stance. “Is there any reason you don’t want to capitalize on your behavior last night?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he stresses, holding up his phone to present what looks like tabloid photos, holding it up for the whole crew to see, including Penn.
“You already bucked your good girl image last night by engaging in public foreplay with a lumberjack many, many years your senior, before he carried you out of the bar like luggage. It’s all over the internet. ”
“I don’t care,” I whisper. “I’d be seen with him any night of the week.”
“Isn’t that romantic?” Dustin says, followed by an eyeroll. “Lose the suit, Jenna.”
I shake my head. “I’ll wear another bathing suit, but I’m not going naked.”
“Let’s go, Jenna. Put Hey Betty firmly in the rearview and pose with your tits out.”
One second, my manager is standing on his feet, the next he’s flat on his back, clutching a bloody nose and wailing like a baby.
“You had that coming for a damn long while,” Penn says, standing over him with a face teeming with fury.
“The next one will knock you old cold, motherfucker.” Penn rests his king-sized boot on the man’s chest. “You don’t talk to her like that ever again.
Is that fucking clear? If she says no, the answer is hell no. ”
“All right!” my manager screeches, holding up his bloody hands. “Fine!”
Penn turns to the set, eyeballing everyone in attendance. “There’s no need for all of you idiots to be standing there looking at my girlfriend while she works.” His voice cracks like a whip. “Fuck off and find something else to do.”
“Yes, sir,” a couple of them say, everyone but the lighting guy and a personal assistant to the photographer scattering into the woods and beyond. My manager stays, too, dragging himself to a tree and propping his back against it while he feels for broken bones in his nose.
Penn nods at me, grunts, and goes back to leaning against his tree.
He called me his girlfriend.
I’m lighter than air on my way into my trailer, changing into the next bathing suit, which happens to be a red, high-waisted Dolce & Gabbana two-piece with balcony cups that push my breasts up, making them high and round.
The stylist ditches the cowboy boots and puts me in white satin pumps with a dramatic bow on the toe.
And I’m trying with all my might to focus on the editorial shoot, but there are hot shivers racing up and down my spine as Penn’s actions sink in more and more. He just knocked out my manager.
He demanded respect for me.
He saw what was making me uncomfortable and eliminated it.
“They want some different glam look to go with this one,” explains the makeup artist. “It’s going to take me half an hour to apply. Do you want some water?”
“No, but can my boyfriend keep me company?”
I say it breathlessly, because that’s what I am. I’m lacking in anything resembling breath, my hair follicles buzzing, my heart galloping in my ribcage.
He just knocked out my manager.
He cleared the set so I’d feel more secure.
Penn Holland is my hero.
“Sure,” says the makeup artist with a knowing wink, before opening the trailer door and calling out, “The talent would like a certain lumberjack to join us…?”
Fifteen seconds later, Penn is ducking beneath the low door frame on his way into the trailer, looking at the array of eyeshadow palettes and hair tools like they’re foreign objects. “You good in here, baby?”
“Yes.” I watch his eyes rake my body in the mirror’s reflection. “Can I sit on your lap while she does my makeup?”
He dips his chin with a grunt, and I spring up, wringing my clasped hands under my chin as he fits his huge body into the chair, then I hop into his lap, giggling, my feet swinging freely, two feet off the ground.
Is it too much to want this for the rest of my life?
My big lumberjack strumming his fingers up and down my tummy while the artist paints ruby red lip stain onto my mouth?
When she finishes and my mouth is free, I turn my head slightly to whisper to Penn. “Thank you for what you did out there.”
“Should have done it sooner,” he grumbles, kissing my shoulder.
“No. You bided your time and assessed the situation, because you’re not some childish hothead. You’re a man.”
I want to beg him to come to Los Angeles with me.
To bring Erin, too. After all, his ex-wife lives nearby.
It might even be better for their custody agreement!
But I don’t, because that would be so selfish, wouldn’t it?
Asking him to uproot his life for some actress.
To move away from his home and become my personal shadow who always makes sure I’m safe.
He couldn’t possibly want that job. Especially when he loves working in the forest so much.
“I loved meeting Erin this morning,” I whisper. “Do you think she likes me?”
“No, I think she worships the ground you walk on.”
Hope stirs in my throat. “I understand where she’s coming from. I feel the same way about her father.” The makeup artist has her back turned, so I rub my bottom in his lap. “I worship the ground he walks on and I can’t wait to prove it later.”
Penn grabs my hips to keep me still, his eyes going black in the mirror. “Easy, Jenna. I watched that yellow thong creep deeper and deeper into your ass crack for forty-five goddamn minutes. My stones are beating like a drum.”
“Ouch.” I lean back, licking his stubbled chin from below. “I’m so sorry, Daddy.”
“No, you’re not.”
Another giggle wracks me, but before I get a chance to respond, the trailer door opens and there’s the photographer. “Are you almost ready to…” He trails off, staring at me and Penn in the mirror with a slack jaw. “Oh, this is something . The nymph and the brute. We need to get these two on film.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” says the makeup artist, fanning herself.
“Are you game to pose for a few frames?” the photographer asks Penn. “It could be fun to have you lurking in the background, like a dangerous presence. Oh, I am really vibing with this. How about you, Jenna?”
“I don’t know.” I snuggle back into Penn. “He’s the opposite of dangerous.”
“The manager with the bloody nose begs to differ.”
“But he’s not dangerous to me.”
“Of course not. It’s just a concept. He’s… huge , while you’re so dainty.”
I’m trapped between two inclinations. Not wanting to formally introduce my lumberjack to the world, because he’s mine and mine alone.
While also desperately wanting something to remember him by when I go back to Los Angeles.
“Will you take some pictures with me, Penn?” I ask, meeting his eyes in the mirror. “Please?”
A line ticks in his cheek. “You think I can say no to you?”
“No,” I sing, biting my lip playfully, feeling his sex rise even more beneath my backside. Throbbing in his jeans. “He doesn’t need makeup. He’s perfect exactly how he is.”
“Fabulous,” says the photographer with noticeable enthusiasm, backing down the steps of the trailer. “I’ll go let lighting know.”
Fifteen minutes later, I’m staring down into the engine of the car, bending forward to inspect the machinery with my hands perched above me on the edge of the hood.
I’m highly attuned to my body and its positioning, now that Penn is standing in the near distance, holding the chainsaw he retrieved from his truck.
“Oh, this is incredible. Like a classic horror film. He’s coming out of the mist to claim his sacrifice.
He’s never seen such beauty in all his life and he must possess her.
” The photographer adjusts his angle. “Come closer, Penn. Look at her. You’re going to drag her back to your lair and possess her.
You must satiate the beast inside of you. Oooh, rev the chainsaw.”
Penn does as he’s asked, and I react appropriately, gasping, seeing my pursuer for the first time.
I slam the hood shut, intending to sprint for the driver’s side of the vehicle, but Penn is too fast and now I’m flattened face-up on the hood of the car while Penn looms above me, his jaw tight as he leans over me, inspecting my breasts like they’re merchandise, his hands closing around the curves of my hips.
“Oh wow,” my manager says, albeit reluctantly.
“This is gold on film,” enthuses the photographer. “Don’t stop.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Penn whispers to me.
“Do what comes natural,” I murmur back, molding my hands to his pecs, as if to push him away, but he wrestles my wrists higher, pinning them above my head and causing my back to arch.
Growling over me, his hips wedged between my bare thighs.
“Good,” I whisper. “They want the world to know I’ve grown up.
I want the world to know I can do more than drop one-liners on a sitcom.
” I tease his lips with mine. “You’re helping me do that in a way that finally feels safe. You make everything feel safe.”
He looks down into my eyes. “You make everything feel perfect.”
“Penn,” I whisper, skimming my knees up his sides.
“That’s the shot! Yes! Perfection!”
“Need to fuck soon,” Penn pants, dropping his face into my neck “You’ve got me so stiff in your little bathing suits, baby.”
“Would you rather come in my mouth or my pussy, Daddy?” I whisper.
“ Jesus Christ .” He grits his teeth on a violent shudder. “Please. We need to stop before I cram it in right here in front of all these people.”
“That would definitely make headlines,” I murmur.
“Now, little girl,” he growls into my ear.
“We need a break!”