Chapter 11
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
“You just moved your head right out of shot.” Sev’s weighty sigh laser-cut through my attempt to pretend Simon and I were the only two people in the room. “Again.”
“What now?” Frowning, Simon sat back on his haunches, fists resting on his hips, like trapping his interpreter between his Tour de France thighs was an everyday occurrence.
All that button undoing and re-doing from getting his shirt off on cue had to be wearing out his fingers, but he’d not complained once.
“Sorry.” Circling my fist over the left side of my chest, I grimaced out the depths of my apology. “Me again.”
By the time we were done here, I’d be jobless for wearing his patience thin, even if we did somehow manage to sell the lie.
Over the top of the camera, Sev’s eyes boggled, wide with disbelief. “You need to stop darting your head up every three seconds like a terrified meerkat and let Simon get on with it. Alright?”
“Right.” My ears throbbed hot. The dream of One and Done left the building forty minutes ago.
Feeling like a right dipshit in my knock-off Calvin Kleins from Surrey Street Market wasn’t helping.
Nor was being primed to rip off probably-actually-Richard Whittaker’s shirt on her signal, like not-so-Magic Mike.
When Richard and Simon had gone at each other not knowing they were being filmed, the afternoon sun had streamed through the single window.
They’d been all golden and sunkissed and spontaneous.
We had a bunch of lamps burning at us from the lighting rig Sev set up in the drizzle-misted window – British summer, anyone?
– and constant directorial suggestions. It wasn’t natural.
“Look Ben. The footage has to be passable as the full original.” Sev tugged an impatient hand through her hair.
“I know you’re trying, but for the twentieth time, we’ve got to get the details and the timings right.
And by we, I mean me. Because you’re cocking this up all over the place.
No offence. I could really use your help on this. ”
Simon squeezed my wrist like he thought I needed reassurance. He wasn’t wrong.
“You’re doing fine.” He was a liar.
“Ach-Evidence does suggest otherwise -em.” Behind the balled fist in front of her mouth, Sev raised an eyebrow. She blatantly thought I’d never had sex in my life.
“Really mature that is.” Mystery of the universe how I actually had.
“Sev.” Even Simon’s patience was whittled clean out of his voice now. “Give us a minute will you? Get a cup of tea and come back in.”
“Why not? Maybe then we’ll be able to get out of here before dinner time.”
Two strides and the study door rushed closed behind her, swerving away from a slam at the last second as it sighed shut against the frame. I still had my shoulders up around my ears.
Right now, this whole plan was glugging away down the pipes because I couldn’t follow simple instructions with a camera pointed at my naked chest. As if I never took my top off down the gym. What was wrong with me?
“Ben.” Simon’s eyes were warm and kind and filled with all the things I knew he’d spent a lifetime perfecting to soothe the anxieties of his most loyal clients. It wasn’t really meant for me. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on?” I was a complete chump.
That’s what was going on. Simon had never been going to be struck with the epiphany we were meant to be together when the camera started rolling and our skin brushed.
I shouldn’t even be here. “Every time I move Sev’s telling me I’m doing it wrong.
” In no universe was I going to be any good at this at all.
“And I’m sorry, but I’m five foot six, not six foot five.
I can’t make my body any bloody longer, and my arm doesn’t bend that way, and—”
I cut myself off.
“And?” Simon prompted.
The words lodged like a stolen digestive biscuit in a solid, horribly dry lump at the back of my throat. What was he, psychic? I’d been going to say something truly pathetic like I’m not sexy, hadn’t I?
“Nothing.”
“I think,” Simon wet his lips, actively trying to torture me, “you might need to get out of your head about all this.”
The day got better. Now he thought I was winding myself up over nothing.
“Oh you’re alright, aren’t you? You get to be—”perfect, handsome as fuck, put together“—you. I’m trying to bend my brain around having a camera shoved in my face while a stressed out camera woman choreographs me dry humping someone who’d never voluntarily kiss me, in the middle of his friends-with-benefits’ ancestral knickknacks! ”
For a full decade, Simon didn’t breathe. It’s possible I broke time itself.
An ugly snort-laugh blurted out and Simon cleared his throat to crush it back in.
“Sorry.” He shook his head, still chuckling. “I shouldn’t laugh. You’re right.”
“Cheers. Great. Thanks.” Wonderful. He agreed with everything. Of course he bloody did.
“Ben.” Tilting his face in line with mine, he smoothed his thumbs along my eyebrows like that was a perfectly normal, totally acceptable thing to do to your interpreter slash fake boyfriend when he was mostly naked and pinned between your muscled thighs. “Don’t look like that.”
I flinched against the sofa cushions, batting him back. “What are you doing?” Honestly, it would have been less awkward if he’d tried to stick a finger up my bum without warning.
“Trying to get my willing conduit to relax.” Simon’s eyes crinkled warm and wholesome and so fucking amused with himself. Why had I ever called myself that? “Can I try again?”
“I guess.” I had to make a conscious effort not to tense every muscle in my body all at the same time, and just let myself stare up at him.
His hands were cool, his skin taut and dry, and yeah, alright, him pushing away my frown and rubbing circles at my hairline wasn’t, you know, the worst thing in the history of the universe.
“Better?” God, he had nice eyes. Proper stop-your-heartbeat ones.
I muttered something completely shapeless.
Amusement shimmered on his lips, making my pulse drum. “Sounds more like a must try harder to me.”
Oh fuck. Was he flirting? When had anyone looked at me as close as this? Why did he even want to?
“You – uh.” Oh Jesus. If not when we were both mostly naked and he was breaking out the head massages, when was I ever going to tell him I’d like more? “You could definitely try harder.”
“Wow.” Simon double-took, sitting back on his heels. One eyebrow arched coolly. I could have died of exposure from the absence of his body heat against my groin. “Noted. Attempt failed.”
“No!” Crap. “Shit – I meant I wouldn’t mind. If you did, like, want to, you know—”
“Do more, say less?” He twinkled at me, far too amused with himself. “I know.”
“Oh, you bastard!” I shoved his shoulder and Simon laughed hard enough I had to, too.
At least the closed door in the far corner meant no one else witnessed me make a tit out of myself.
Shyness can’t have been why Simon glanced towards it.
He brewed confidence for breakfast. It exuded from his pores like cheap body spray from a sixteen-year-old on a first date.
He’d never worry about who saw what. Except, what was all that nonsense about signing in front of Temp – about me propping him up?
“You’re wrong, you know?” Simon’s Adam’s apple bobbed in the long stretch of his throat, voice notched lower. “About what I want to do to you.” Under the cat-lick of his focus, my skin prickled. “Voluntarily.”
“Oh. Right.”
Too dry, too slow, his thumb brushed my lower lip. I swear the colour of his eyes downshifted three tones.
“Why don’t you believe me?”
All the air went out of the room. It must have done – I couldn’t breathe. Who cared if none of it made sense? Who cared if I was dreaming? I could shut my eyes and brand this moment into my memory.
But how could I believe him? It was Richard he’d wanted; he’d barely even seen me before I shoved myself in his face.
Except as the guy who helped him do his job.
A tool, like the office computer. He didn’t – ever – do relationships.
I’d be an idiot to forget he repackaged the truth every day of his life.
But what if I was the exception?
Something in his eyes said I’d break his heart calling him a liar.
Open mouthed, I grazed the rough whorl of his thumbprint, biting at the fleshy pad. His breathing hitched, tumbling into a huff of a laugh. A flicker of interest twisted into sharper focus on his face. Right now, I was the reason his eyes went molten. Who cared what his lies were? Mine were worse.
Breathless, he leaned back, looking me over like he was planning on a feast. God, yes please.
With fumbling fingers, he slipped the knot of his tie one handed, faster than he’d done it twelve times already for the camera.
This time he held my eye as he trailed the cool silky edge through the wiry tangle of my chest hair.
He watched me judder under the tease of it, and his gorgeous mouth curled into the warmest smile I’d ever seen.
“Ben?” Dropping to the flat of one arm, all tease and electricity, he wet his lips against my ear. “There’s nothing wrong with just sex.”
ASM-fucking-R. I body-stuttered against him.
Up under his bum, my enthusiasm peaked.
He ground down, right against my lower abs and oh god, he was properly glamping in his peacock boxers. Obsessive gym visits for the win.
Instinctively, I tensed, aiming for a bit of corrugation for him to rut against, borderline hyperventilating, trying not to go off hair-trigger. And Simon stopped sharply.
“You alright?”
I crushed my frustration into an aborted groan.
“Yeah.” He shouldn’t give a shit. “Yes. Course I am. You?”