Chapter 14
Then
If I used a paper calendar, today’s date would be dogeared, highlighted, and circled in bright red ink, with each day that came before it crossed out with thick magic marker. While I’d never admit it, I’d been looking forward to this day like a kid counting down to Christmas.
Today we were filming the scene where Melody and Holden lose their blushing teenage virginity.
That’s right: We’d finally reached the notorious love scene, the one Ryder and I first discussed weeks ago over lobster rolls at the Seafood Shanty.
We’d met with the intimacy coordinator, both separately and together, so I had a pretty good sense of how the scene was supposed to play out.
That being said, there would almost certainly be some day-of surprises and on-the-fly experimentation.
Like an action sequence, there was choreography to a love scene, and we’d rehearsed the basic steps.
Seeking refuge from the rain, Holden and Melody would take shelter inside an abandoned barn.
Once he found her a blanket to dry off, the two would begin passionately kissing, which would grow more urgent until they began undressing each other, falling into a makeshift bed of hay, and finally, consummating their relationship.
To preserve the barest scrap of our privacy, Ryder and I would be wearing “modesty garments,” which for me meant a flesh-colored thong and nipple covers, and for Ryder, a padded athletic cup meant to serve as a protective barrier during any, er, thrusting.
I wish I could say I handled this conversation with poise and professionalism, but I caught a serious case of the church giggles when Helena, our perpetually unfazed intimacy coordinator, presented Ryder with the glorified banana hammock meant to “cushion his bits and bobs.”
But it’s what Ryder and I discussed last night in a tipsy late-night brainstorm (or “before-play,” as Jase had jokingly coined it), that had my stomach tied in knots.
We were talking through the next day’s plan over a couple glasses of wine at Ryder’s kitchen table, and while he seemed to be fixated on the mechanics of it all, I was more concerned (read: panicked) that my burgeoning feelings for him, which I’d somehow managed to keep at a low simmer, were about to boil over.
“How awkward is it going to be to have Victor and Gene standing two feet away while we make out?” I fretted, referring to our cameraman and sound engineer.
“And what if we make gross slurping noises that are really loud? I hate that in movies. Or what if I have bad breath, but you’re too nice to tell me?
Gah, I don’t know what I was thinking agreeing to this.
Ryder, my dad’s gonna see this.” I rattled off my laundry list of anxieties, covering everything except the real reason I was so nervous: Knowing we’d be nude and dry-humping in a matter of hours was making me short-circuit.
“You’re worried? I’m the one who has to hold it together while a beautiful naked woman grinds all over me. At least you don’t have to worry about your body parts betraying you.”
My cheeks went chili-pepper red, my brain snagging on the word beautiful.
“But that’s not even what I’m most concerned about,” he confessed, shifting in his seat. “To be honest, I’m worried about getting carried away.”
My heart skipped out of sync. “What do you mean, carried away?”
He studied me for a moment, considering, before sliding his wineglass to the side and leaning in, his brandy-soaked gaze locked on mine. “It means, how real do you want this to get?”
Good God. Could he read my thoughts? Adrenaline spiked my blood, my palms suddenly slick with sweat. It felt like a sauna in here. “I—I want it to feel as real as possible,” I stammered. In more ways than one.
His expression was skeptical. “You sure? Because I’m not sure you can handle the level of ‘real’ I plan on bringing to the table.”
I bristled. “Excuse me? I can do anything you can do. I’m a professional,” I said in my prissiest tone.
He smirked, holding up a hand. “Relax, Annie Oakley. You misunderstand me—I’m saying I don’t want to take things so far that it makes you uncomfortable. Why don’t I tell you what I’m thinking, and you tell me if there are lines you don’t want me to cross?”
I managed a nod in answer, mainly because I didn’t trust myself to speak without exposing every thought in my head. So now we had to talk about having pretend sex before we actually pretended to have sex? What kind of fresh hell is this?
“Groping.” He was watching me closely, and I knew I couldn’t get away with feigning nonchalance. At this point, he knew my facial expressions well enough to call my bluff.
But on this one, I shrugged my shoulders. We were playing teenagers losing their virginity; clumsy fumbling was to be expected. “Fine.”
“Tongue.”
Heat started to lick up my spine. “I assumed.”
A lazy smile unfurled on his lips, his dimple deepening, and I braced myself for whatever he had up his sleeve. “Nuzzling.”
Before I could react, he’d leaned in and pressed his nose to my neck, softly inhaling, before dragging it upward to the base of my ear. I felt the whisper of his lips on my skin, the sharp nip of teeth on my lobe.
“Biting,” he murmured huskily, and I stopped breathing.
If this was a preview of how things would go tomorrow, I was not gonna make it.
I was the one shifting in my seat now as pressure built between my legs, my internal temperature rising by degrees. I knew what he was up to, but after talking such a big game, I couldn’t wave the white flag. Just how far does he plan to take this?
He drew back slightly, his eyes finding mine again, his mouth hitched in a devious smirk. This is payback for the plane, no doubt about it. He moved his hand to cradle my face, and my throat went so dry a tumbleweed blew across it. “Cuddling.”
I’d been quiet too long, but still I didn’t speak, just stared at him as the room started to shrink, the air between us crackling with electricity. Are we still talking about the movie?
“Hair pulling.” He twisted one of my curls around his finger and lightly tugged on it, and I sucked in a breath. He paused. “Breast play.”
That one snapped me out of my trance. “Breast play?” I sputtered. I was gripping the table so hard, my fingers left permanent indentations in the wood. “What is this, a porno?”
He raised his hands in concession. “Hey, you said real! But if that’s your limit…” His mouth tugged to one side before he leaned in again, his eyes dangerously dark. “But just for the record: If we were actually having sex, I’d be spending a lot of time on your breasts.”
My heart stalled mid-beat, then sped ahead, like a metronome gone haywire.
It took effort to hold eye contact—his gaze was so intense, it stole what was left of my composure.
I was drowning in deep pools of rich chocolate, lost in the rings of caramel like a hypnotic swirl.
He was dying for a reaction, and I couldn’t give him one.
“How about this,” I proposed eventually, and his eyes flared, his upper body tilting toward mine reflexively.
“You have my permission to do whatever feels natural in the moment. Go where the scene takes you, and I’ll do the same.
I trust you to read my cues and pull back if you sense I need some space. Deal?”
His lips twitched. “What if it feels natural to smack your ass?”
“I’ll kill you,” I said instantly.
“So you do have a red line!”
I was so hot and bothered by the time I got back to my room, not even a cold plunge could’ve cooled me down.
I laid in bed that night unable to sleep, restless with nerves and need, drunk on this strange cocktail of stress and anticipation and unfulfilled lust. What would Ryder think if he knew I was mentally mapping the exact number of steps from my bed to his door?
I needed to reel myself in. This was a job, not a date.
I was supposed to fake it, not feel it. This was choreography, not chemistry, and—oh, who was I kidding?
I was using tomorrow’s love scene as a free pass to do what I’d wanted to for so long: kiss him, touch him, taste him.
Lose myself in him. It was my chance to fulfill the fantasy that had been living under my skin since we arrived in Seafolly—or, if I was being honest, since the day we met in that audition room.
In the privacy of my darkened bedroom, I could admit what I refused to face in daylight: I was desperately, utterly, head-over-heels smitten with Ryder Perry. I just needed to know if he felt the same.
With all these competing emotions churning inside me, when I reported to work in the morning, I was so jittery I could hardly stand still. Ryder had texted me to stop by before we were due on set, so as soon as I got out of hair and makeup, I headed for his trailer.
He pulled me inside a few seconds after I knocked and quickly shut the door behind me, and before I could suss out the reason for the cloak and dagger, he produced two shot glasses.
“I know it’s a little early,” he said, pouring from a bottle of clear tequila, “and it’s not a Painkiller, but I figured we could both use something to take the edge off.”
I could hardly disagree.
He passed me mine, and we clinked them together in “cheers” before he tossed his back like water. He made a face at me when I slowly sipped mine. Guess I really am a lightweight.
He licked his lips, grinning at me. “You ready for this, Red?”
I tilted my head. “Red?”
He smiled at me affectionately, like I was an adorable simpleton, like I was missing something obvious. “Your dress, for one,” he said, fingering the detail on the cap sleeve.
There’d practically been an international summit to decide what Melody would wear for this pivotal scene, and I’d fallen in love with the costume department’s final choice: a rich crimson sheath dress, buttoned from neck to hem, with a coordinating floral print trimming the neckline and sleeves.
“And your hair,” he added, reaching up to skim the ends.