“You haven’t?” she asked, breathless.
“Not so much as a kiss.”
“Since...that night?”
“Before that,” I admitted. Maybe I was showing my cards, but this wasn’t a chase to me. She wasn’t another conquest.
Emotions I couldn’t name flickered in her eyes, but the one I recognized with one hundred percent certainty was lust. Yeah, I’d seen that on her before.
“Ask me the third reason,” I whispered.
“What’s the third reason?”
“You want me to kiss you.”
“You’re so certain?”
I nodded. “It’s what you want. Otherwise, your hands wouldn’t be on me,” I repeated her own words from that night.
She blinked, and her gaze dropped to where her hands gripped my waist, her iPad having been abandoned to the table next to her. “Damn,” she whispered.
“It’s up to you, Faith. There’s no pressure.” There wasn’t. If she didn’t want to do it, we’d scrap the idea and stick to the original.
“I don’t want you to kiss another woman,” she admitted, her voice soft, but fierce.
Fucking finally.
“I won’t,” I promised. “It’s you or it’s no one.”
“I’ll do it.” Panic skittered across her features. “But it doesn’t mean anything.”
“Noted,” I said with a smile.
An hour later, I ignored the cameras, the lights, and the actors who milled about the room with glasses of fake champagne. My eyes locked on Faith across the room, standing at the doorway to the balcony.
Logically, I knew the camera only focused on her mouth, her parted lips, her sparkling green eyes as she watched me cross the room toward her. To the viewer, she could be any woman—she could be them. But I only saw her.
Her dress was black, just like the others, but her curves filled it out in a way that made my mouth water, and my hands itched to trace a path from her hips to her bared neck. Her curls were piled on her head in an artful arrangement that left a few strands loose, and while her makeup had been done by the artist on staff, her natural beauty outshone every model Robert had hired. It was the blatant need in her eyes, the look of a woman who was anticipating the touch of her man.
She was here.
She was willing.
She was mine.
Her breasts rose with a breath, her face lifting toward mine as I reached her. There were no cameras, no audience. Just Faith.
I filled my hands with her ass without breaking my stride, and her fingers tunneled into the hair at the base of my skull as I took her straight to the ledge of the soundstage balcony.
My hands cushioned the blow as I pressed her into the marble railing, and my mouth collided with hers.
That first touch of our lips was a shot of pure ecstasy through my system. I growled, and she opened beneath me, pulling me closer. Our tongues met, tangled, and dueled for supremacy.
Gone was the passionate but tame kiss we’d briefly discussed after she’d gotten changed.
This couldn’t be leashed.
My mouth slanted over hers again and again, taking her in the only way I’d allow myself to. She was an addiction in my blood, essential to my very pulse. Her vanilla and pear scent masked the polished veneer of the set, leaving me wrapped up in everything Faith.
Her whimper ripped through me, bringing my cock to full attention, hard and demanding against her belly. She looped her arms around my neck, and her nipples hardened into sharp points where they met my chest.
Kissing this woman was more than divine. More than pleasure. More than primal. It was a promise, and plea, and a prayer of gratitude all in one. It was all Faith.
One of my hands drifted up her back as I leaned her over the balcony railing, letting her feel the strength in my arms. The same arms that would hold her when she was ready. Would take her to the edge of her comfort zone if only to show her the pleasure that waited for her in those same arms. The ones that would let her go if she asked, but would never hold another.
The thought only made me kiss her deeper, drove me to twine my tongue against hers to draw out every ounce of pleasure from this moment. There was no fear, no urge to run, no denial.
I wasn’t claiming her in this moment, she was claiming me, whether or not she knew it.
No other woman would ever compare to Faith, to the fire she sent licking through my veins, fueling my desperation to taste her, to take her, to fuck her until she admitted what her body already knew—I was her match in every possible way.
“Lukas,” she whispered against my lips before kissing me again. She was wild in my arms, all restraint gone, as if she’d allowed herself this one hedonistic moment and was sucking it dry.
My hand gripped the fabric of her dress at the hip, but something kept me from yanking it up and feeling the wetness I knew gathered between her thighs for me.
I couldn’t do that here.
Not that I didn’t want to, but because of something else…
Her hands fisted in the fabric of my lapels, and I forgot what I was thinking, sinking back into the kiss with full abandon. Hell yes, this was where I was meant to be. Here, with Faith. Losing myself in her taste, her sighs, her needy whimpers.
Here…
My hand hit the balcony railing, and reality crashed through the haze of my desire.
I couldn’t send my hand up her dress because we were being watched. We were being filmed.
Summoning the strength to end what might be the only kiss she’d give me for the foreseeable future, I sucked lightly on her lower lip, then brought us vertical, bracing my forehead on hers as we both struggled to catch our breath.
Her eyes opened, and I nearly lost it again, nearly fell back into the kiss just because I could. She was so damn beautiful, her eyes glazed with lust, her lips swollen from my kisses, her skin flushed with desire.
We stood there, her ass supported in my hands, her face just above mine, staring at each other with a renewed awareness, for what felt like an eternity.
Someone cleared their throat, and the spell broke.
Her eyes widened, and I lowered her slowly to the ground.
“I’d say cut, but you didn’t listen the first four times I told you, so…” Robert’s voice sent Faith’s face straight into my chest. I wrapped my arms around her back, holding her steady while she took in long, steady breaths.
“Damn, I think I’m pregnant,” Robert’s assistant remarked.
“You and me both,” another added.
I kissed the top of Faith’s head, closing my eyes and breathing in her scent while I willed my dick to soften. The last thing the cameras needed was my hard-on. But it was simple math. Faith was in my arms. I was hard.
“Did you get what you needed?” I asked Robert, looking over to the crew.
One fanned herself. Another shifted in her seat. Every single one of them stared at us with a mix of lust and awe.
Awkward.
“Uh. Yeah. That’s a wrap,” Robert said, rubbing his hand over his face. “Unless you feel like going for the HBO audience.”
Faith laughed against my chest and shook her head.
“We’re good,” I said with a forced smile.
My cock hurt.
Faith turned in my arms to face the crew, but kept her back against me, mercifully blocking the view of my erection.
Oh, fuck merciful. All it would take was a simple lift, and I could bend her over the railing, flip her skirt over her delectable ass and bury myself inside—
“Can we get a second?” Faith asked, her voice way steadier than I could even think about being.
“Yeah. Of course. That’s a wrap, ladies and gentlemen, please clear the set!” Robert called out.
I was aware of the shuffling of feet and people, but my main focus was on Faith.
Finally, she stepped away.
Her absence left a chill on my skin.
“I’m...um...going to give you a few minutes,” she said as she turn
ed to face me.
I nodded, unable to do or say anything else. If I moved one muscle, even my lips, I was going to be on her, then in her with my fingers, my tongue, my cock.
“So, you...do whatever it is you need to,” she continued, circling me carefully and moving toward the exit, like prey with a predator. “And I’ll be in the shower. A very cold shower.”
She walked away with shaky steps.
I grinned, despite the pain.
She could play it cool all she wanted, but her body didn’t lie. She was just as affected by that kiss as I was.
I just needed her heart to catch the fuck up.
Chapter 6
Faith
“I’ve told you a thousand times, Faith,” Sawyer said, packing his gear bag as I stood in the open doorframe. “I can’t go for open tryouts. My mom…” he paused over his bag, gloves in hand. After a moment, he shook his head and shoved them into the bag, zipping it up. “Her treatments. I have to stay in Seattle.”
My heart ached for him, for his situation, for the way he sacrificed so much of his life to take care of his mother. My mom was one of my best friends, and family meant everything to me. Which is why I knew immediately I could trust him as a roommate, and even more as a friend.
He threw his bag over his shoulder, his muscles tensing under the weight, but I blocked his way out the door.