Her phone buzzed Bree’s incoming text before Maddie could return the slider. And make you cry.
Maddie’s scowl deepened. Was she really so fragile that she couldn’t sleep with a guy and not have it mean anything? She didn’t have to be. She could sleep with him and not become a weeping willow. Sleep with him and not be affected.
Rephrase that, sleep with him and only be physically affected. An important distinction as she liked the delicious effect he had on her body.
“We’re ready to shoot,” Joe said, interrupting Maddie’s thoughts of her and Micah rolling around in the grassy meadow in front of them, sans clothes. “Places!”
Maddie cleared her head of the ridiculous fantasy she shouldn’t be having in the first place and started toward the camera, toward Micah. She squatted on the dolly at the side of the Adam. “Sound rolling,” Chloe, the sound technician, called from her cart.
Sam stepped in front of the camera and read the clapboard. “Scene twenty-two, take one.”
Adam shifted as he adjusted the camera. Maddie rolled with the dolly as the second assistant moved them along the track, circling into the scene.
Micah began his lines, the very lines Maddie had read with him. As she watched him surrender to his performance, her body tingled. Not just in the usual physically turned-on way, but in the artistically turned-on way. He was really a good actor. She hadn’t paid attention before, trying her best not to notice him on the days since she’d arrived in Colorado. But now she saw it, saw how his whole body took on his character, his voice and movement changing into a persona very different from the man she had swapped spit with less than thirty minutes before. Yet at the same time, he was Micah Preston, more exposed and unveiled than she’d ever seen him.
Holy crap, she was gaga over him.
She let the realization settle as she followed the camera, adjusting the focus at the appropriate times.
Until Micah began walking toward Heather, and Maddie’s chest began throbbing.
Painfully throbbing.
She knew what came next—the kiss—and she didn’t want to see any more, didn’t want to watch Micah’s mouth possess another woman’s. But she had to watch, it was her job. So she did, the ache increasing with each passing second. By the time Micah wrapped his arms around Heather and leaned in for the kiss, the stab of jealousy was so tight Maddie wondered if she was having a heart attack.
Impulsively, Maddie closed her eyes, blocking out the action before her.
“Cut,” Joe called out and Maddie’s eyes flew open, realizing he’d ended before the scene was finished.
Shit. She’d missed her final focus. Shit, shit, shit. She peered up at Adam who was listening to Beaumont on his own headset. He looked down at Maddie questioningly.
“I missed it,” Maddie said softly. This wasn’t like her. She never missed.
“Adam, Maddie?” Joe asked. “What was with that last focus?”
“Miscalculation,” Adam said, not pointing out Maddie’s error in front of everyone. “We got it now. Sorry.”
“Let’s take it again.” Joe’s irritation sounded in his voice. “Reset.”
Dammit, Maddie thought as she helped the second assistant roll the camera dolly back to its starting position on the track. This, this was why she couldn’t get mixed up with Micah Preston. She couldn’t even watch him act a scene with a fellow cast member without being overcome with jealousy. Without screwing up her job—a job that she was usually perfect at. Surely if anything more happened with him, this feeling would only get worse. Right now it was already horrible. Achingly, maddeningly, horrible.
Maddie avoided Micah’s eyes as his makeup artist came in to retouch his lips. She took the free moment to pull out her phone and type a final text to Bree. I’m not gonna jump him.
4 the best. Luvs!
Was it for the best? She thought she’d feel better but her decision seemed hollow. She swallowed hard, stealing herself for the second take of the scene.
“Wait,” Joe said, his right hand lifted in a halting gesture. With his other hand, he pressed his headset tighter against his ear, listening to an order from Beaumont. After a minute, he pointed to Micah. “Micah, Beaumont wants to move your initial mark to here.” Joe tapped a spot on the ground with his toe. “Bruce, the light isn’t hitting the new mark. Can you arm it in, please?”
A lighting adjustment and a change in blocking. She’d have to refocus too.
She took a deep breath as crossed to the mega-fine actor, blushing as she remembered the last time she’d calculated a focus for him.
“Hey,” Micah said.
“Hey.” She didn’t meet his eyes, didn’t ask him to hold her measure, but instead put it on the ground at his feet. She felt rather than saw him pick up the end. “Thanks,” she muttered. She walked the steps back to the camera and wrote down the new measurements, then pushed the button to pull the length in, but it didn’t budge. She glanced back at Micah who still held tightly to the end. Seriously?
She trudged back to him. “Can I have it back, please?”
He crossed his arms, burying the edge against his chest. “Will you talk to me?”
Heather broke into a laugh a few feet away, pulling Maddie’s attention. Her eyes narrowed as she glared at the actress flirting with Joe, still bristling from having just watched Heather make out with her man. Whoops. Not her man. Definitely not her man.
Micah studied Maddie. “What’s with you and Heather? That look could shoot daggers.”
She bent her head, hoping to hide her irrational envy. “Nothing. Can I have my measure?”
“No, that wasn’t a nothing look. That was most certainly something.” He pursed his lips. “Hmm. Anger? No. Jealousy.”
Her cheeks went warm. “My measure, please.”
“Maddie, you’re blushing. You are jealous.” He peered over at Heather and the crew. “You can’t be into any of those guys. At least, I hope not, because you’re way out of their league. Is it…” His face broke into an electric smile. “Are you jealous of her and me?”
She burned with irritation. “Oh my God, you’re so full of yourself.” It was true, but that he thought it was true was downright narcissistic.
“I’m right.” He uncrossed his arms and stroked her chin, the end of the measure held tightly in his other hand. Goose bumps rose on her arms as his finger moved across her skin. “No need to be jealous, Maddie. That was acting. Not like our kiss.”
She couldn’t help herself. She moved her eyes to his crotch where his hard-on was evident. “Looked like it had the same effect.” She meant to insult him with her words, but after she said them she realized she’d just confirmed his accusation. Man, she was so much better with dialogue when she had a chance to write and rewrite. Spitting it out in real time was incredibly more challenging.
Micah chuckled. “You’re adorable when you’re jealous. And this”—he removed his hand from her face and waved it over his pelvis—“is still from you, baby.”
Her insides twisted at his endearment. “I can’t believe I blue-balled you again,” she muttered, mostly to herself.
“Again? Oh, yeah. That night…” His brow rose. “Now if you’re interested in paying me back…” His eyes glimmered with his tease.
They stared at each other for several heated seconds. Then he let go of the end of the measure. It snapped back into the metal compact Maddie held in her hand, but her eyes never left his.
Softly, he said, “Talk to me?”
She clipped the measure on her belt and chewed on her chapped lip, dry from the Colorado environment and the intense assault it had undergone earlier. She did owe him for leaving him unfulfilled the night they met. Of course she wasn’t expected to pay him back, but that evening with him…she’d had a really good time. She’d let loose in a way she never did, and though she couldn’t get involved with Micah Preston, she did appreciate the bold, sexy girl he elicited from her back then.