Chapter Fifteen #2
She blinked and nodded, realizing how much better she could see. It wasn’t enough that she knew where a photographer might be but enough that she could better appreciate the empty beach around them. They were all alone, with the stars blanketing the night sky. She lay by his side—sort of.
Rhys inched over. “Lift your head up.” He positioned her under the crook of his arm, her head resting on it. “Comfortable?”
She dipped her cheek to the side, staring at his profile. “Do you think we look like a couple?”
“I think we look like you’ve been forced to lie next to me. And like, maybe I smell or something.”
She laughed, scooting closer. “Oh, come on. It usually takes me more than one take to get into the right headspace.”
“That’s a load of bullshit, Jules.”
“How are you so chill about this? Lots of practice taking women onto the beach to look at stars?”
He pointed at a bright spot in the sky. “That small cluster is the Southern Cross.”
“Does that mean yes?”
“Of course not. I’m the one completely out of my comfort zone. I’m lying here with the Jules Lowry—”
“Oh, shut up.”
“A million people would kill to be here right now.”
“Enough. Enough.” She shoved his side.
He captured her hand, locking her fingers with his and resting their palms on the rock-hard plane of his abdomen. His torso shook with silent laughter.
“Seriously, you’re too good at this. Sloane would be proud.”
“Nah.” His arm under her neck fitted her closer.
She leaned against his broad chest until their bodies were locked side by side. They could have fooled the world, as though they’d lain together under countless starry skies.
“You’re the professional. I’ve never acted a day in my life.”
“You’ve acted with me before,” she pointed out, forgetting that he wasn’t the problem right now. She was. She couldn’t relax to save her life.
“When?”
“When you blend into a crowd or on a red carpet.”
“That’s not acting.”
“It is. You make yourself known as much or as little as you want. That’s acting.”
He snorted. “Then let me amend. My usual type of acting with you doesn’t require me to kiss you while snorkeling later this week. What’s a stage kiss like anyway? No tongue?”
She laughed. “Camera angles do most of the work. We have directions. What kind. How intense—”
“Intensity agreements? I didn’t see that in Sloane’s plan.”
Her smile tugged her cheeks. “Then there’s hands and body language. There’s a formula. Palming a cheek or cupping a chin plus a kiss equals intimate. Pulling a shirt and diving into a kiss means urgency.”
“Just like real life. Got it.”
Her eyebrows arched. Rhys grabbed shirts and cupped chins? That’d never happened to her in real life. Not a single damn time had anyone cupped her cheek and kissed her. Never had anyone been so desperate for her mouth that they reeled her in with a yank of her shirt. “That’s not real life.”
He tilted his head toward her. His long lashes framed his midnight eyes as he stared. The scrutiny reignited the rush of nerves that had only just quieted. “It can be.”
Her heart stalled. It simply ceased to work as the oxygen left the atmosphere.
She wanted to believe he was talking about her and him. But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t.
“Sure.” Her voice sounded too breathy. She cleared her throat.
“Stage kisses—any intimate scene, actually—are clinical. They clear the set as much as possible, but there are still so many people up close and personal with everything that’s happening.
The end result always looks so different from how it feels while filming multiple takes. ”
“Do we need an intensity agreement?”
“ Rhys .”
“Sloane gave us an itinerary. Should we map out the kind of kisses? The body language…”
He was laughing when she’d been vibrating. Jules needed to call it quits. She couldn’t do this. She was too exposed, too vulnerable, too curious, and she wanted too much. She rolled away from him. “This is a bad idea.”
He rolled her back. “I’m teasing.”
“It’s stupid. I get it. It’s not going to work.”
“How do you know?” he asked, his hand still holding on to her.
“Because look at us.” Look at her, not him. Not them. Her. “I’m so awkward. It’s like I need practice. Mason Marlow wasn’t cupping my cheek or pulling me into him. I need notes from a script or a director or… I don’t know. Practice.”
Wait. Had all of that actually come out of her mouth? Oh God.
On what planet did that come out of her mouth? “I didn’t actually mean—” Her heartbeat punched against her sternum in a steady beat of Shut up. Shut up. “I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“Look…”
She wanted to puke. Her and her big mouth.
She didn’t know how to dig herself out of this mortifying hole.
Of all the strange situations she’d put Rhys in, this was a showstopper.
Any second, he would jump up, snag his shoes, and haul ass to his bungalow.
Titan would have another bodyguard on-site by morning.
“Please forget I said all of that.” She hoped he didn’t hear the high-key panic screaming through her words.
“Jules… It’s just…”
Fuckballs. She jumped out of his warm embrace and tripped over her shoes.
She couldn’t see them in the dark. Screw it.
She’d leave them. Rhys was such a save-the-day kind of guy that he would make sure her sandals found their way to her bungalow safely.
“I’ll let Sloane know this isn’t going to work. ”
She’d made it two more steps before his arm snagged around her waist. She hadn’t even heard him catch up with her as she trounced through the sand.
“Hold on.” Rhys didn’t let go, pinning her back to his chest and putting his mouth near her ear. “What the hell are you running from?”
“Nothing.” Everything.
“Mason Marlow is an idiot,” Rhys growled. “You don’t need notes or a director or anything.”
“How would you know?”
“I just do.” He twisted her to face him. “And you’re definitely not running off by yourself when there’s some guy we don’t trust lurking around.” He released one hand from her arm and brushed her hair behind her ears. “What just happened?”
She didn’t know. She’d lost her mind. This publicity stunt had recalibrated the way she looked at Rhys, and she didn’t know how to fix it. “I put you in a crap position. I’ve ruined—”
“Look at me, Jules.”
She blinked, unable to stop the threat of tears burning at the backs of her eyes. “Rhys—”
“Look at how miserable I am. Poor me, having to hang out with you.”
“You don’t have to kiss me. Okay? You don’t have to—”
He belted her to him, and his other hand sank into her hair. Rhys took her mouth, and her knees went weak. He tugged her hair until her lips parted, and she groaned into their kiss. His tongue delved past her lips, swirling with hers, dancing.
Excitement prickled down her spine. Arousal flashed through her body. His mouth, hungry and hot, possessed her. She simply existed, melting in his arms, needing more of his touch than she could comprehend.
His tongue teased hers and kick-started her lungs again. Lust ignited in her blood, and jolted from the shock, she wrapped her arms around his strong neck for the best kiss of her life.
Finally, he stole his lips from hers. “Kissing you is not a problem.”
She believed him. And that was the new problem.