Reel (Hollywood Renaissance 1)

I did.

Canon’s pleasure fed mine. The taste of him, the blissful agony on his face when his control broke, the rough tug of his fingers in my hair.

I’m lucky he didn’t pull out a chunk of it. This is no time for jokes, but it’s better than fear and uncertainty while I wait for my test results. And if bad jokes don’t distract me, these lines I need to nail down will. I grab the script from my nightstand and try to absorb the words swimming before my tired eyes.

A yawn from Canon’s side of the bed tears my attention from the page.

He props his head in one hand. “I wouldn’t get too attached to that.”

Now that he’s awake, I can touch him, so I run one finger over his high cheekbone and brush across his incongruously long lashes. “Don’t get attached to what?”

“That version of the script.” He kisses my finger and drags himself to sit up against my headboard, swallowing all the space with the breadth of his shoulders. “Verity is doing rewrites.”

“No. I just learned these lines.” I slap the script against my forehead and let it fall to the bed. “Are you kidding me?”

“It won’t be that significant. It needed more emotional pull. The stakes didn’t feel high enough the way it was written originally.”

“And by originally you mean the way I just learned it?”

“Sorry. Them’s the breaks. The script sometimes evolves once we get into it.” He must see the dismay on my face. “We know you’ll be getting new lines. We’ll be patient.”

I look at him disbelievingly. Patient?

“Okay. I’ll try.” He laughs, linking our fingers on the sheets. “But we do slow things down a lot when we shoot on film instead of digital. There will be more rehearsals. More time to nail it because it’s so much more expensive. We can’t afford a lot of throwaway takes.”

I know he meant that to reassure me, but a screw turns in my chest tighter at the thought of less room for error.

“How long did you let me sleep?” Canon reaches for his phone, which goes off just as he grabs it. “You set my alarm?”

“You said you still have things to do, but I also thought it wouldn’t hurt to nap for ten minutes.”

“You wore me out.” He pulls me from my side of the bed to his lap, and I’m completely unresistant, looping my arms around his neck. He palms my hip through the sheet.

“You complaining?” I nip his earlobe with my teeth.

“What do you think?” He tilts his head to capture my lips, deepening the kiss, drawing my tongue into his mouth. The script forgotten, I turn until my legs are spread over him and I’m pressing him into the headboard. The sheet wrapped around my breasts falls away, revealing that they are naked and tight and ready for his attention again.

He kisses down my throat and takes the tip of one breast into his mouth. A jolt of pleasure steals my breath, and my knees tighten at his hips. I slide my fingers into his hair. He groans at my shoulder, traces my spine and kisses my collarbone before pulling back.

“I need to go,” he says, gently setting me off his lap and swinging his long legs over the side of the bed.

I stare at the broad expanse of his back, tapering down to the narrow waist and tight ass. I wish I was a painter and could skillfully commit him to canvas. Or a sculptor like Linh’s father, molding his muscles into clay or chiseled stone. Or even a musician like Monk and could set this feeling to music.

Stay.

It whispers through my head, and I’m so close to asking him, but I don’t want to be the clingy girlfriend who distracts him from work.

Girlfriend.

I’ll have to unpack my giddy feelings about him using that word later.

“I ordered Thai,” I say, watching him slip his jeans on.

He looks over one naked shoulder, a dark brow lifted. “When did you have time? Between the blow job and the climax?”

“Silly rabbit.” I pull the sheets around my breasts and walk on my knees to the edge of the bed, leaning up to kiss his nose. “I ordered as soon as you fell asleep. It should be here in like ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes?”

I nod, even though it might be closer to fifteen. His phone pings, and he grabs it, reading the screen.

“Verity just sent over some rewrites. I may be able to give you the new lines before I leave.”

“That would be awesome. I guess it does pay to date the director.”

His expression sobers and he steps closer, resting his hands low on my hips. He presses his forehead to mine. “I don’t know if I actually said it, but I’m sorry it happened like this. I wanted to shield you from this kind of shit so early in your career.”