Follow My Lead (Stepping Up 2)

“Look at Blake!” Frankie ordered.

Darla jerked her gaze back to Blake, looking like a scolded child. He laughed. She glared.

“That’s the anger I want,” Frankie approved. “Closer, though. Closer.”

“You laugh at the most inappropriate times,” Darla scolded. She inched forward, leaving no room for Frankie to complain now that the tips of her high heel shoes were touching the tips of Blake’s shoes.

He could smell her perfume, floral and soft. “Says who?”

“I imagine everyone who’s experienced it.”

“Is that right?”

“It is. Maybe that’s your way of hiding from whatever it is that’s being said.”

“Hiding?” he said. “You’re accusing me of hiding?”

“That’s right. Hiding.”

“Back to back,” Frankie directed. “Backs touching, arms folded in front of your bodies again.”

Darla turned. Blake laughed and rotated, then stepped backward, bringing them into direct contact. The connection delivered a jolt of awareness he’d foolishly been unprepared for. Heat sizzled a path through every nerve ending he had.

“Still laughing?” she challenged with a soft taunt for his ears only. She was feeling it, too—the sizzle. The heat.

Blake lowered his voice, ready to taunt in reply. “I didn’t run into the bathroom and lock the door.” He expected a quick jab back. He didn’t get it.

There was a moment of silence, a thickening of the air, before she said, all signs of taunting gone, “I regret doing that. I regret it a lot.”

The emotion he heard in her confession and radiating from her body language caught him off guard. “Don’t,” he started. “Do—”

“Lean back farther. Both of you,” Frankie interrupted, and the instant they complied, a slew of pictures followed. Another pose, then another. Frankie kept the camera snapping until he sent them to opposite sides of the set to allow his crew to set up props.

A minute or two later, Blake was sitting in an office chair, while she sat on top of a desk, her legs crossed. Her long, gorgeous legs, he noted. “Roll the chair closer to Darla,” Frankie directed Blake. “Darla, I want you to spike that high heel into his chest.”

“No!” Meagan said, laughing. “They have a history with shoes and I’ve already lost one host to an injury.”

“I’ll be gentle,” Darla promised, grinning at Meagan before fixing Blake with a mischievous look. “Though, it’s awfully tempting to give him a little roughing up.”

“Hurts so good,” Blake assured her, motioning to her foot. “Bring it on.” He rolled a little closer to her.

“Wait.” Frankie motioned to several crew members, before giving Blake and Darla his back to huddle with the others. Blake seriously doubted that they were talking about a camera lens, but he knew an opportunity when he saw it.

Blake rolled the chair around so that only Darla could see his face. “About the bathroom—” he started.

“I ran,” she finished for him quietly, glancing toward the others to make sure they still weren’t paying them any mind. “I started freaking out about my job and—”

“And that’s okay,” he said, meaning it. He could barely contain the urge to touch her, but he was all too experienced with the camera to know it too easily captured what you didn’t want captured. “It was an honest reaction to an honest emotion.” Their eyes locked and held for several silent moments. “Honest is what I’m looking for. And I promise you, no matter how much this business defies you believing it, you won’t get anything less from me.”

Surprise lit her expression, her eyes softened from bright to light green. “I believe you.”

Blake felt the warmth of her growing confidence. He’d never wanted a woman like he did this one, and it was all he could do to remind himself that this was a tiny step forward, not more. Not enough. Not yet.

“Let’s go,” Frankie said. “Darla. Spike that heel onto his chest. Gently, please. Save the rough stuff for later.”

Darla’s tongue darted over her red lips. “Later it is.” She pressed her heel to his chest.

Instinctively, Blake’s hand went to her calf.

Darla shivered, and he was pretty sure he shook on the inside. And only from a small, simple touch. Darla’s claim of “it’s complicated” came to his mind and he amended his thoughts. There was nothing simple about what this woman did to him.

“No touching!” Frankie ordered. “You aren’t supposed to like each other.”

“We don’t,” Darla assured Frankie, staring intently into Blake’s eyes.

Blake took his hand away. “Not at all,” he agreed.

Blake had promised himself when he’d ended that phone call with Darla back in Denver that he would take things slow with her from here on out, that he would backtrack and make up for rushing too fast out of the gate and into bed. But as he sat there, her skirt riding high on her toned thighs, her delicate knees opened just wide enough to tease him, his cock mercilessly stretched against his zipper and he knew he was in for a rough ride. Oh, yeah. He was definitely in for the rough stuff later, when he might be the one to walk away from a chance to use those five condoms. Because he would, because he had to, if he wanted more than sex with Darla. And he did, he realized with certainty. He did.