Chapter 21 #2
“Ready, Bex?” Lars asks. “This couldn’t be easier. You’re just going to stand on the balcony appreciating the view, and after a minute, Theo will come up behind you.”
Theo frowns. “I just walk up behind her? That’s it?”
Lars hitches his shoulder. “Well, you’d walk up behind her the way you would if she were your wife.” He laughs. “Which she is. You know…wrap your arms around her or something.”
Theo and I glance in each other’s direction, but I’m no longer entirely able to meet his eye. We’ve already kissed and held hands and now we’re embracing while I wear next to nothing. By tomorrow Lars will have us in bed, trying out anal beads on each other.
I walk out to the balcony and lean over the rail as instructed.
The trees sway in the breeze, the air is sweet, the temperature that just-right mix of not too hot and not too cool.
It’s pretty easy to appear fascinated by the view because—aside from that tiny hint of Capri in the distance—there is nothing but the deep blue waters of the Bay of Naples, the cliffs on the other side of the peninsula.
I’d enjoy it more if the breeze didn’t keep blowing my robe up, however.
After far too long by myself, Lars calls to Theo. I turn as my husband ambles out, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I just hug her?”
“Take off the shirt first,” Lars says. “Remember, you are theoretically alone with your new wife. We want the viewer to feel almost as if this is their own private moment, as if you aren’t even aware the cameras are here and they are simply hiding in the closet watching the two of you.”
I turn a little more to get a better view of Theo, scowling as he reaches behind him and tugs his shirt overhead and…damn.
Seriously.
I saw this already in Iceland, but for some reason it’s hitting harder today, his lovely skin stretched taut over his rounded biceps and shoulders, the abdomen stacked with muscles and zero percent fat.
Oh, and there’s also a hint of a happy trail that begins just to the north of his shorts.
I suppose that it’s been a while, and the deprivation is starting to get to me, but I still shouldn’t be this focused on a tiny hint of body hair.
Paula quietly murmurs something to Lars and he nods. “Do you have boxers or briefs on under the shorts?” Lars asks.
Theo’s scowl deepens. “Boxers. Why?”
“Because we need you to take the shorts off,” Paula says. “No one gets out of bed and puts on a pair of khaki shorts. Also, our mostly female audience will prefer it.”
Theo mutters something I can’t hear and drops the shorts to the floor, kicking them into the corner. Paula was right: our mostly female audience will definitely prefer this look.
Several inches of the happy trail are now on display, as well as his tan, muscular thighs, lightly dusted with hair.
If he was my actual husband rather than my fake husband, I’d be thinking I was the luckiest woman alive.
If he was my actual husband rather than my fake husband, I’d tell him to continue undressing.
They set up the shot to follow him walking through the room toward me. I’m to face the sea until I hear him.
There’s a strange buzz of anticipation in my stomach for this husband-wife moment we are about to have, one I know he will quietly bitch about and distance himself from as soon as possible.
The curtains move behind me and I turn my head. I was going to smile, but there’s something in his gaze as it travels over me in the robe that has me swallowing instead.
He walks up behind me, I relax against his chest, and his hand wraps around my waist to pull me closer, as if it’s second nature.
As if it’s something he does often. Is he thinking of the complication as he does this?
Does he imagine sliding the back of her robe up and pushing her panties to the side?
Because I’m imagining him doing that to me.
A quiet, desperate noise escapes my chest. His hand grips my hip tight at the sound.
“Perfect,” says Lars. “Now I’d like you to talk about your day. You’ve just woken, there’s nothing planned. What will you do? Don’t force it. Talk to each other the way you normally would, minus the profanity.”
Jon moves closer, holding a boom mic just out of view.
Theo tenses against me. This is the part neither of us cares to do, but I suspect it’s harder on him than it is me, since he’s the kind of person who thinks before he speaks.
“What are we doing today?” I ask brightly. Maybe it’s harder on me. I sound incredibly fake.
“There’s a nice run down the Passeggiata Sorrento I was looking at,” he says. “We need to start training for the marathon.”
Ugh. He can’t stop being responsible, even when he’s pretending to be someone else. I roll my eyes. “That sounds terrible.”
He tucks his head against my shoulder. For a half second I think he might kiss my neck, and I shiver in anticipation.
He’s…far more natural at this than I’d have predicted.
“You’ve got to be able to run twenty-six miles by October, Rebecca.
” It’s something about the way he says my name, his low voice rumbling against my ear, that makes it sound like a promise and a threat at the same time.
Goose bumps climb up my neck.
Man, it would not be all bad, occasionally being Theo’s actual wife.
“How about if we do our own thing for a few hours?” I suggest. “I’ll do something American and you do something British.”
“British?”
“Tea. Beheadings.”
When I catch his low laugh at “beheadings,” I want to run a victory lap around the building. “Is this because you want to do something American like…fire multiple guns at once?” he asks.
“No. I want to do something American like spend money I don’t have on crap I don’t need.”
“That’s not American,” he replies. “That’s female.”
I dig my elbow into his stomach, he releases me with a shocked laugh, and Lars ends the shot, pleased with us for once.
“ ‘That’s not American. That’s female,’ ” I mimic. “Way to make yourself the enemy of our entire female audience.”
He flashes me a cocky half grin and gestures to his broad, defined chest and downward. “Take a long look, wife. I could say a lot worse than that and get away with it.”
I hate that he’s right.