The Princess and the Porn Star (9 page)

“And now you get to put on the other shoes.”

I closed my eyes and let my head fall forward. “Motherfucker.”

With more help from Quinn, I got into the shoes. I didn’t have as much trouble with my balance today, but my ankle wasn’t happy.

“How’s your foot?” he asked.

“Sore, as expected.”

“You want me to put on some of that stuff he gave you?” Quinn looked around. “I saw the jar here a second ago.”

Pride wanted me to say I could handle it, but I still had a few hours of standing and—gulp—dancing ahead of me, so I said, “You don’t mind?”

“Honey, this is the shit you pay me to do. Now be a good girl and sit.”

I sat.

While Quinn retrieved the jar from the counter where I’d left it, he asked, “Did the cortisone help?”

“It did,” I said. “But it’s only going to do so much when I have to wear those torture devices.”

“Shoes like that,” he muttered, unscrewing the lid on the jar, “you’d need a spinal block to keep your feet from hurting.”

“This from the man threatening to do Riverdance in them just to show me up?”

Quinn snorted as he knelt in front of me. “I didn’t say it would be comfortable.” He gently held my ankle as he smoothed the topical onto my skin. Funny how he was doing the exact same thing Lee had done last night, but it didn’t have anywhere near the same effect. It took the edge off the pain, though, so I sure didn’t complain.

As he put the lid back on the jar, he said, “So I didn’t get to ask, how did last night go?”

Last night. The thought brought a smile to my lips.

Quinn glanced up and did a double take. He straightened. “Rachel Olivia Taylor. You
didn’t
.”

“What?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, madam.” He wagged a finger at me. “You know exactly what I mean.”

I started to get up, and Quinn offered a hand. As he helped me to my feet, I said, “I didn’t sleep with him, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“You say you didn’t.” He peered at me through narrowed eyes. “That grin says otherwise.”

“Quinn, I swear I did not sleep with him. Hand to God.”

He released my arm. “Mm-hmm. Sure you didn’t.” He pointed sharply in the general direction of the soundstage. “I saw how you two were dancing out there.”

I shivered. “I know, but—”

“And your body language and his said if you haven’t boned the bejeezus out of each other yet, it’s going to happen the moment you’re left unsupervised with him.”

I laughed. “Well, I didn’t say I’d have said no if he’d offered, but…”

“I’m surprised he didn’t.” Quinn smirked. “Maybe he doesn’t like bringing his work home with him.”

I threw him a look.

“What?” He batted his eyes.

I rolled mine. “Anyway. I need to get back out there before Jim sends a search party.”

“Yes you do. Oh! And by the way, I had to reschedule your flight this evening. You’re leaving at eight instead of ten.”

“Think we’ll make it?” I asked.

“As long as this fiasco wraps up on time.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I ask again, think we’ll make it?”

“We’ll find a way.” He nudged me toward the door. “Now, shoo. You need to get out there on that set so there’s some chance of finishing up on time. Go, go!”

I laughed and went, carefully but quickly picking my way down the hall in these god-awful heels. I’d made it through the first few hours of shooting. I could make it through the rest.

When I entered the soundstage, Lee was already there.

I’d already seen him today, of course, and had already gotten the
oh my God
and the
Jesus Christ, I want that man
out of my system. I was used to being around him enough I could—

Oh hell.

Maybe not.

White leather. Painted-on, skintight white leather. I’d spent all last night thinking about what it might have been like—and where things might have gone—if he’d kissed me next to my car. And now? Now he was on set and dressed for the video, just like he’d been all morning, except now he was in white instead of black, and my dress wasn’t the reason I suddenly stopped breathing.

I really need to get my head together.

Or get your bad self laid,
I heard Quinn’s voice in the back of my mind.

That thought made me giggle, but I also couldn’t argue with the imaginary Quinn. Not that I had been particularly desperate for sex over the last few months—I was too focused on my music to even notice my sex drive—but now that I was acquainted with Lee…

Lee who turned toward me right then. His lips parted as he gave me a quick down-up-down, and my whole body tingled under the weight of his gaze. My God, what if he touched me? Like, really touched me? Not just through my clothes while we were dancing?

His eyes met mine.

Please, please, please touch me…

I shook my head and looked away from him.

Get it together, Rachel. Quickly.

I didn’t have much time to get it together either. Ten minutes after I walked into the room, Lee and I were front and center on the stage.

And he was touching me. Still through my clothes, still in a position to dance and nothing more, but just the heat of his body against my back was enough to raise my pulse. I’d impulsively gotten extra close to him this morning. I’d taken our staged closeness and turned it into bumping and grinding that was a layer of clothes and a condom away from all-out fucking. That was fine in the heat of the moment, but then there was a break, a pause, and now here we were again, and my body ached for that kind of contact all over again.

Question was, if we danced like that again, was there any way in hell we’d get out of this building without finding out what it was like to give in and fuck?

Lee’s fingers tightened on my hips, subtly pulling me toward him. His chest pressed against my back, and my ass pressed against… Oh, God, if his cock was really as big as it felt when it was rock hard and grinding against my ass, I had to feel it inside me. Somehow or other, I needed to get him alone and naked.

“Everyone ready?” Jim’s voice snapped me out of my dirty daydream.

“Ready,” I said.

“Ready.” Lee’s voice vibrated against the side of my neck.

“Action!” Jim called out.

A second later, the music started. And so did we.

I swiveled my hips. Let my knees bend more. He moved right along with me, like he was either really good at anticipating what I was going to do or was just passively following with no hesitation whatsoever.

And he did as he was told too. Almost kissing my neck but not quite. His breath was warm across the side of my neck, ruffling loose strands of hair and making the tiny hairs stand on end. Every once in a while his lip or his lightly stubbled chin brushed my skin, and if I shivered like that one more time, I was going to be on my butt.

When his erection ground against my ass again, I did shiver like that. My center of gravity shifted a little too far. Cool panic shot through me as my knee buckled, and I was already anticipating the pain and the cracking and the
someone better call 911
when everything but the music stopped dead.

Lee’s fingers dug into my arm, and his other hand was flat against the side of my rib cage, which had kept me from falling farther.

“You okay?”

I blew out a breath as my heart pounded away the residual panic. “Yeah. Thanks.”

He helped me all the way back onto my feet. Even after I was upright, he kept his hand on my side and the other on my arm for an extra second or two before he let me go.

“You two all right?” Jim called up to us.

I looked in the direction of his voice, though the lights kept me from seeing him. “We’re fine. Sorry.”

Get it together. Seriously. You’re going to break your damned neck.

I put Lee out of my mind as much as I could and tried to tell myself he was just another backup dancer. I’d done this before, and I focused on moving to the music, lip-synching to the lyrics and keeping my eyes locked on the camera in front of me.

Except Lee’s hands wouldn’t let me forget.

I’d gotten close before to dancers who were aroused, so I could ignore it when Lee and I moved just right and he’d get hard. I could mostly ignore that.

But not his hands. They weren’t just there, not like any other dancer’s hands would have been. His touch wasn’t strictly business and choreography. When they slid down my waist and almost onto my ass, it wasn’t a mechanical motion for the benefit of the cameras, not when his fingers twitched like that and drew me even closer to his body. He didn’t just hold on.

He wasn’t groping me or being creepy—and I’d had dancers who did—but I couldn’t shake the certainty he was feeling me. Memorizing my body with his hands. As aware of my body heat through my dress as I was of the warmth radiating from his palms. His body. His breath on my neck.

His hands drifted up my sides again, and when they stopped, his index fingers almost grazing the leather-clad undersides of my breasts. I had to fight the nearly irresistible urge to put my hands over his and make him feel my nipples through my dress. I had to fight the desire to find out what it was like to be wrapped up in his arms.

He breathed on my neck, and a second later, the air beside my skin cooled with the rush of a deep inhalation, and I shivered at the thought of him tasting my scent the way I desperately wanted to taste his.

The leather we both wore squeaked and protested with every move we made. Bending a limb. Undulating in time with the music. Brushing against each other. The sound would be edited out of the final video, but it was impossible to ignore now. Impossible not to liken it to a bedframe squeaking or a car’s shocks creaking.

Maybe it was my imagination, but he didn’t seem interested in the tempo or the song. He moved with me, not with the music. And somehow I kept moving to the music, but all my senses and focus were tied up in touching him, feeling him breathe on me. My ankle was killing me, but there was another ache that was even more intense.

The song ended for the hundredth time, and Jim yelled, “Cut!”

Lee and I both exhaled. He let go of me, and we separated a little, but his body heat was still unavoidably
there
.

“That was a great run,” Jim’s voice came from beyond the wall of bright light. “I want to get through the song two more times, and then we’ll move over to the green screen.”

I gave him a thumbs-up.

“Cue up the music,” Jim ordered.

Right then, Lee whispered in my ear, “He did say he wants us to improvise a little. You game for following my lead?”

“Depends.” I swallowed. “What do you have in mind?”

“Just keep singing and trust me when I say I won’t let you fall.”

My heart skipped. “Let me—”

“Quiet on the set!” Jim barked. “Music! Action!”

Oh, fuck…

“Trust me,” Lee murmured. “I promise, I won’t let you fall.”

I believed him, and I trusted him. It was my own legs I wasn’t so sure about.

But then the music was playing, and my mouth and body were moving, and his body moved with me.

I still couldn’t get my mind off his hands. Off the very deliberate path they seemed to follow down my waist to just above my hips. And the way they stopped. And the way he tightened his grasp.

All at once, he spun me around.

My balance teetered precariously, but his arm stayed behind my back. My hand went to his chest, and I locked eyes with him.

Somehow, I kept lip-synching, and thank God I wasn’t really singing, because this heart-pounding adrenaline rush would have cost me any ability I had to carry a tune. Especially when he ran the tip of his tongue across his lips, and I couldn’t help watching his mouth, his mouth that fascinated me, and oh God, I could barely breathe.

His eyes locked on mine. I heard myself singing
“…you ain’t even kissed me…”
and wanted him to.
Now
.

Then he spun me around again, and I was on my own two feet, facing the cameras. The only reason I didn’t fall was his body pressed against mine. Moving against mine. He wasn’t following me anymore. He was leading now, and his hands held my hips so there was nowhere for my ass to be but pressed right up against his erection.

Leather still creaked, but not the leather between our bodies. There was no friction, no motion; it was like we were sharing the same piece of leather. The same skin.

“Cut!”

The music stopped. So did we, but the trembling in my knees didn’t.

“That was brilliant!” Jim shouted from behind the lights and cameras. “Fucking brilliant! Exactly the kind of spontaneity and energy I want to see up there.” He appeared through the wall of bright lights, smiling broadly. “Whatever it is the two of you are doing differently today, keep it up, because the chemistry is spectacular.”

I just nodded, because I was afraid my pounding heart would make it into my voice.