“Thanks, man,” Jackson Motta, the stunt coordinator, said under his breath.
“No problem. Kid’s some piece of work, isn’t he?”
“I was half-tempted to rig the explosion the way he wanted me to.”
The two men traded grins, and Blake murmured, “If he gives you any more trouble, gimme a holler. I’ll handle him.”
“Be careful. He’s got clout and could get you fired like he did the last consultant.”
Blake grinned. “Nah, not me. My boss went to elementary school with Adrian.”
“Hey, Blake. Got a sec?”
He pivoted instantly at the sound of Olivia’s voice. He strode over to where she stood at the edge of a dive pit and murmured, “For you, I’ve always got time.”
She looked up surprised, and her hazel eyes softened. A grip walked past, laying electrical cable, and she broke the connection of their gazes. She asked in a business-like tone, “If I understand the set up, Jeremy’s supposed to head for the pit across the road, and I’m supposed to dive into this one just as the explosion happens. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Is it me, or is this thing too shallow to protect me from a real explosion just a few yards away?” she asked doubtfully.
“Let’s check it out, shall we?” He jumped down onto the foam crash mat. He held a hand out, and she hopped in beside him. “Lie down with me.” He dropped to his knees and fell flat onto his stomach.
Olivia mimicked him, and the dive pit crackled with sexual tension. Their shoulders brushed, and their faces were no more than a foot apart. Down here, the giant banks of spotlights that illuminated the set didn’t touch them. The night wrapped around the two of them like a flannel blanket.
“Kinda feels like being underneath the bleachers at a high school football game, doesn’t it?” she asked in a hushed voice.
“I wouldn’t know. I was always on the field playing ball.”
“Were you the quarterback?”
“Nah. Linebacker. Captain of the defense.” He added reflectively, “If you were from my home town, though, I’d definitely have taken you under the bleachers.”
She smiled shyly at him. Had there not been dozens of people milling around nearby, any one of whom could poke their head over the rim of the pit at any second, he’d have been damned tempted to kiss her. Or better, to slide his hand into her pants and see if she was as hot for him as he was for her. He had to forcibly restrain himself from pulling her against him.
Focusing on the task at hand, he explained the logistics of the shot. She nodded, listening intently.
“So the energy from the explosion will skip over me?” she asked.
“Exactly. It’s still going to be loud and hot, but not enough to hurt you. You’ll be perfectly safe.”
“What if I don’t want to be safe?” she murmured, almost to herself.
And now the little temptress… Two could play her game. “Why would I blow up the girl I’m planning to make love to very soon?”
Her eyes went wide, and more emotions than he could catalogue or name flitted through her dark eyes.
“Olivia, take your mark!” Adrian bellowed over his megaphone.
She leaped up as though she’d been hit with a cattle prod and disappeared from the hole.
Well, hell
. But then it dawned on him that she hadn’t told him to take a hike.
…
Olivia did her best to listen as Jackson Motta walked her through the sequence of events one last time. Any sane actress would have insisted on a stunt double for this scene. But Adrian wanted close up shots in the middle of the actual explosion, and she had a reputation to build.
She was still reeling from Blake’s parting shot. Making love with Blake Ramsey? Now there was an explosive thought. All that muscle and masculine sex appeal naked and claiming her for himself?
The stuntman finished talking, and she’d hardly heard a word of his briefing. Final places were called. She checked her earplugs one more time. They were snugly in place. Right now, the cameramen would be reporting in over the radios one-by-one that they were rolling.
“Quiet on the set,” an assistant director announced.
“And action!” Adrian called.
“On my count,” Motta announced. “One!” The remote-controlled car started rolling, picking up speed toward Olivia and Jeremy where they stood in the middle of the road. A stunt guy beside Motta used a control box to drive it while the lead stuntman stared at a stopwatch in his fist.
“Two! We are go for detonation.” The car had hit the right speed at the exact right time to place it on top of the explosive charge when the whole thing blew.
“Three!” That was her cue. Olivia turned and sprinted for the dive pit while Jeremy did the same toward the other side of the road. It wasn’t hard to paste a terrified look on her face. A big freaking explosion that would toast her like a marshmallow was about to blow right behind her.
“Four!”
Crap. She wasn’t at the pit yet. She took the running leap she’d been told to, stretching out her entire body toward that dive pit in entirely real desperation.
KABOOM!
The flash behind her was blinding as she slammed into the foam mat, her momentum rolling her onto her back. The noise was incredible. Even through the high-tech earplugs her head felt like it had just been smashed between two giant bricks.
Something heavy and hard rolled on top of her and terror erupted in her as a massive wave of searing heat rolled over the pit. Whatever crushed her took the brunt of it. Panicked, she struggled against the object flattening her.
“Easy, baby. It’s just me.”
Her eyes flew open, and she stared up at Blake in shock. Only a range of about four inches separated them.
“Thought you might like a little moral support down here.”
Ohmigod. “You really are a knight in shining armor, aren’t you?”
He grunted. “Hardly.”
She opened her mouth to disagree, but another explosion ripped through the night.
“Was that planned?” she gasped.
“Yup. Secondary fluids exploding in the car. The oil and hydraulic fluid get hot enough from the first explosion that they blow up, too.”
“Why don’t they all blow up at once?” she asked.
“Different flash points,” he muttered as his mouth drew closer to hers. “Do you really want to talk about the mechanics of explosives right now?”
And that was when the adrenaline hit her. Like a runaway freight train, it slammed into her so hard she didn’t know what had hit her. Her entire body felt as if it was on fire, restless, hungry for…something. She’d nearly died just now, but she was alive. Alive! Exultation soared through her, and she laughed aloud with it.
The square of sky overhead flickered as orange and lurid as the fires of damnation. And Blake Ramsey was the fallen angel of temptation. She’d never wanted anything as much in her life as she wanted him right now.
“God, that was incredible!” She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly on the mouth.
And then he kissed her back.
The heat and impact of that exploding car had nothing on Blake Ramsey. She was surrounded by his own restless heat, his mouth on hers, his tongue plunging carnally into her mouth, and her sucking at him like she planned to inhale him. His body moved against hers demanding acknowledgement and she squirmed back, straining toward him. Toward the mind-blowing lust tearing through her and the promise of slaking it in the hard body crushing hers.
Her hands raked frantically across his back. Her right leg wrapped around his hips to bind him to her, rubbing parts of his that were shockingly hard and demanding against just the right place…
She groaned into his mouth and arched up into him, transformed into a wild thing she barely recognized in the haze of lust pounding through her.
A gigantic hissing noise startled her and she lurched against Blake, terrified.
“Fire truck spraying foam on the car fire,” he muttered.
Laughing, she collapsed back against the mat. “For a second there, I thought it was the serpent.”
“What serpent?” he asked.
“You know.
The
serpent. The one that tempted Eve. You gotta think it ended up in hell—” She broke off as he stared down at her with a perplexed look. “Hellfire. Damnation. Temptation… Never mind,” she muttered. “Kiss me again.”
His mouth curved up in a smile that could only belong to Lucifer. Yup, her analogy was spot on. He was the tempter luring her to come on down to the Underworld.
It’ll be a great time. Stick with me, babe, and I’ll show you a
hell
of a good time…
“Olivia? How are we doing?”
She jolted as Jackson Motta called out from somewhere nearby. Blake rolled off her so fast she was disoriented when Jackson’s face appeared over the edge of the pit.
“Ahh. Got yourself a foxhole buddy, did you?” Motta commented. “Thanks for looking out for our girl, Blake. How’d she come through her first big bang?”
Motta had interrupted what had been about to
become
her first big bang, dammit.
“Like a pro. It was a little hotter in here than I anticipated.”
She all but choked on a crack of laughter. How on Earth did he say that with a straight face?
“Next time we’ll dig a little deeper hole for her, so she doesn’t get burned,” Blake added.
“Got it,” Motta replied.
Blake stood and held a hand down to her. They climbed out of the pit, and he strolled away as if nothing had ever happened. But her insides still jangled. She was as jumpy as if she’d downed a half-dozen espresso shots.
“Brilliant, Liv,” Adrian cried out as she headed toward him for further instructions. “That look on your face as you launched yourself toward the foxhole—just brilliant!”
That’s what genuine terror did for an actress. “Do you need anything more from me tonight?” she asked dryly.
“No. We’re good. Head on over to your trailer and get some sleep. We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
Several hundred extras were being bused to the set first thing in the morning to play a zombie hoard. Big crowd scenes were always chaotic to shoot. “’Kay. Night, boss.”
“Good job today, kid.”
She was still smiling as she headed into the rows of trailers and RV’s that housed the crew. The smell of meat charring on a grill wafted to her nose and, mouth watering, she headed toward the delicious odor. It led her to a roomy Army tent with the sides rolled up. A bunch of the stunt guys sat on folding lawn chairs hoisting beers and laughing while Jackson Motta and an all too familiar tall, crisp silhouette oversaw steaks on a gas grill. Their easy camaraderie struck her with longing.
“Hey, Miss Harper,” one of the guys said politely.
Blake turned sharply. But his face was relaxed as he smiled at her. “Brewskie?” he asked.
“Yeah, actually,” she smiled at him. “That sounds great.”
One of the stuntmen opened a plastic cooler, pulled out a can of beer, and tossed it to her.
“Thanks, asshole,” she groused, tapping the can to dispel the built-up pressure from throwing it. She knew better than to open it now, unless she wanted to be doused in spraying beer. The guys all laughed.
She sank into one of the folding aluminum lawn chairs and stretched out her legs.
“How do you like your meat?” Blake asked her casually. Too casually.
She grinned up at him. “As close to raw as you can get it.”
“Thatta a girl,” one of the guys laughed. “Knows how to eat a piece of meat properly.”
Her gaze snapped toward Blake, and the smirk in his answering look made her squirm. “That remains to be seen,” he muttered just loud enough for her to hear without the others picking it up.
She mostly listened as the stunt crew traded war stories. Some of the men were ex-military and told actual war stories, and others told hilarious and harrowing tales of stunts gone wrong. Since most of them had early calls in the morning the party broke up in an hour.
“Walk you back to your trailer?” Blake murmured.
Her pulse leaped in anticipation. “Sure.”
The desert night had cooled, and she hugged her arms across herself as they strolled through the trailer camp. They arrived at her door and, always the gentleman, he opened it for her.
“Where are you sleeping tonight?” she asked.
“Jackson’s letting me crash on his couch.”
She looked him up and down and raised an eyebrow. “His couch is six-foot-two?”
Blake shrugged. “I’ll probably pull the cushions onto the floor. It’ll be fine.”
“Why don’t you stay here? I’ve got a king-sized bed.” And what would she do if he accepted her offer? The desert air no longer felt cool as heat sparked between them.
He leaned toward her, and his scent washed over her as he considered her long and hard. “As tempting as that is, you’ve got a reputation to protect. We’re on set, where everyone and their uncle will see who comes out of what trailer in the morning.”
Damn her reputation. “But crappy cushions on a floor? You’ll feel like hell tomorrow.”
“Honey, sleeping on a padded surface in air conditioning with no one shooting at me is pure luxury in my world.”
That brought her back to reality. He was a Marine. She needed a mega-star. She grimaced. Still, she could offer him comfort of the non-mattress kind. “I can’t make you change your mind?”
He tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear. His fingertip circled her ear lightly, and a shiver rippled through her. “Another time. When there’s privacy. And you’re not compromised. It’s the honorable thing to do.”
“So, I just figured something out, Blake Ramsey.”
“What’s that?”
“Honor sucks.”
He melted away into the night, his quiet laughter floating back to her as she stood on her front step and wished for a bunch of sex toys in her trailer to ease the terrible tension thrumming deep within her. No such luck, though. The trailer was nicely tricked out, but not that nicely.
Cursing under her breath, she flopped into her huge, lonely bed and failed entirely to get a decent night’s sleep. Only one thought assuaged her immense frustration. Tomorrow she got to go back to Palm Springs for the night. And one way or another, she’d get Blake Ramsey to go with her.