“You know, all the blood effects were made out of chocolate syrup,” I offer.
She flaps her hand, and then makes a shushing noise. And then another sudden zombie attack happens on the screen and she jumps right into my side, her fingers like claws in my thigh. I wrap an arm around her shoulders, amused, and she gradually relaxes, but her hand stays on my leg and her head stays against my shoulder, the sun and cinnamon smell of her filling the air. She’s so intent on the movie, tension rippling through her back and arms, but I’m intent on her. On the way the fading sunlight catches in her honey-brown hair. On the way she fits so perfectly against my body, two halves of the yin and yang symbol slotted back together.
What was I so worried about earlier? I like Devi. I like her. In fact, I’m wondering if I’m maybe falling in love with her a little as we sit here watching this zombie movie in the park, champagne still bubbly on our tongues and her hair spilling over her back and my arm, blowing against my neck and face in the breeze.
I’ve never felt like this, this relaxed and excited and nervous and giddy all at once, even when I was dating Raven, and it’s as if just thinking that lifts a huge weight from my shoulders. What I feel for Devi is separate and apart from what I ever felt for Raven...and so much better.
All of the things I told myself earlier—that my heart wasn’t clear enough to start chasing after Devi, that it would be unprofessional given that we were on a fake first date that we were filming for a porn site, it all blows away in the breeze.
Instead I’m left with this warm certainty, this feeling like a balloon is expanding in my chest. The movie-moment feeling is still here, still achingly, clarifyingly present, and the only thing that should happen next, that must happen next, is me kissing her. Tilting her face up to mine and finding her lips, and kissing her against the backdrop of the movie screen.
I forget about the camera, about the job we are supposed to be doing, about the fact that the ostensible reason I asked Devi to do the project with me was so I could make sure things like our first kiss had chemistry and so I should be making damn sure that I film this—everything is lost except the feeling of my skin against hers as I reach over and slide my hand up the long column of her neck.
I feel her swallow against my hand, and then she slowly turns her head up to me, her amber eyes meeting mine as my hand moves up to cradle her face. Her pupils are massive, huge pools of black rimmed with gold, and her lips begin to part.
“Logan…” she breathes.
I bend my face closer to hers, my heart pounding. “Yeah?”
I never find out what she was going to say because her phone starts vibrating noisily on the plastic lid of the cooler, bzzz, bzzz, while Rihanna’s tinny, digital voice starts singing the opening lines of “Work.”
Devi flushes a deep red and then reaches for her phone, pulling away from me and leaving my body aching with the sudden absence of her touch. A few people on blankets around us look over disapprovingly as Devi fumbles for the silent button on her phone.
“‘Work’?” I ask, eyebrows raised, as she finally succeeds in silencing the call. It still lights up her screen, though, and just as I glimpse the name on the screen, Sinner’s Playpen, she answers me. “It’s my ringtone for business stuff. My agent and other performers and people like that. Hey, are you okay?”
She peers up at me quizzically, her phone still lit up in her lap, and I nod and clear my throat, as I move away under the pretense of getting her more champagne, but really to give myself space.
Sinner’s Playpen is one of the biggest web-only studios out there right now, and if they’re calling Devi, then that must mean either they’re interested in her or her agent has let them know that she’s interested in them, which is only significant because Sinner’s Playpen specializes in hardcore porn. Hardcore het porn. She really is moving wider with her career, not just with me.
Devi will soon be getting fucked by other men.
And the moment I saw that name on the screen, my blood ran hot with the most intense jealousy imaginable, jealousy like acid eating up my veins. And the moment I recognized the jealousy, regret and shame and logic barreled into me. Who the fuck am I to care what other jobs Devi works? I already knew that she was thinking of moving away from the lesbian porn, that’s why I felt like I could ask her to do this project with me, and it would be beyond unreasonable—it would be creepy and insane—to assume that our project would be the only one she would do. She’s got bills to pay, after all, and even if we did have a thing, we would never expect the other not to work. Raven and I never slowed down our careers for each other when we were dating; if you dated another porn star, you both had to respect the job. I would never say that it is an easy thing to do, but what’s the alternative? Leaving a career you enjoy and make a living at? I don’t know when I’ll ever meet someone worth that.
Except.
Except except except.
Except right now, when I can’t force the adrenalized anger out of my blood, when I can’t force my breathing to return to a normal, non-caveman-like state. I’ve never felt this intensely jealous over even just the possibility of a girl I liked doing a scene, and all I want to do is drive her to some beach cabin where we can live forever without either of us ever touching another human being again…and get it fucking together, O’Toole!
I take a deep breath. I’m being a total fucking hypocrite. If I pulled up my calendar on my phone right now, I would see scenes booked for almost every day of the week. How did I have the fucking nerve to be jealous of Devi working when I was planning on screwing seven different women in the next five days?
I clear my throat. “I’m fine,” I say, handing her another full cup of champagne. “Just thirsty is all.”
“Okay,” she says, her eyes and voice full of this gentle implicit trust that I haven’t fucking earned, and fucking hell, that punches me right in the chest.
What is happening to me right now? I need to get my shit together, mentally and emotionally and also spiritually, since spiritual is the only word I can think of to define at exactly what level Devi Dare affects me.
I grab for the camera, because that’s the one thing I know for sure will put me back on level ground. But while I’m turning it on, she touches a hand to my shoulder.
“Logan,” she says. “I just wanted you to know...this is the best fake date I’ve ever been on.”
The sun is setting behind her, painting her in oranges and lavenders, and I can’t help the words I say next, any more than I can help my aching erection or still-hot jealousy. “Me too, but...I guess I just also wish this were a real date.”
Maybe it’s the faint bitterness in my voice or the obvious lust, but her eyes widen and as they do, I realize what a giant fucking mistake I’ve just made. She thinks she’s here as a peer, a colleague, a friend maybe, but I’ve just made it clear that I have feelings for her, and that’s so unprofessional, not to mention dick-ish, and fuck fuck fuck.
“Logan?” she asks.
I have three options. I can run away—pretend I have to piss or something—or I can ignore her and mess with the camera some more. Or I can face her and apologize. And as much as I itch to run away, I turn to face her. “I’m sorry,” I manage. “That wasn’t okay for me to say, and I shouldn’t have said it, and we should just forget it. Can we just forget it?”
Her mouth opens and closes, and she looks away, and I feel even worse about myself, and more unprofessional bullshit pours out from my mouth. “You remember our scene three years ago?”
Her expression shifts, a flash of exposed hope immediately schooled into something closed-off and cautious. She gives me a single nod that, yes, she remembers.
I know what I want to say. I think about it all the time—I think about you all the time. I’ve had a crush on you for three years, and now in the span of two hours, I’ve decided that I’m falling for you.
But my sense of self-preservation finally reappears, and I think quickly, equivocating around
the truth. “I’ve wanted to do another scene with you ever since then.” That’s the truth, at least, if only part of it. “You are so fucking sexy, Devi, and that’s why it had to be you for this project. I’ve been wanting to film with you again for three fucking years.”
If I was hoping this explanation would distract her away from the I wish this were a real date, I was wrong. It doesn’t satisfy her questions, I can see it in her eyes, in the way she gives me another nod as she presses her lips together.
She gives me a thin smile as she turns back to the movie. “I’m happy to be filming with you, too,” she says, facing the screen and not looking at me. There’s a solid six inches of empty blanket between us and she hugs her knees to her chest, as closed off as a person can possibly be to another.
She looks so young again, young and vulnerable. It only makes me more miserable.
“Good,” I say faintly, pointlessly, and try to turn my attention back to the movie too. Except there’s this new distance between us, this new strangeness, and I can’t tell if she’s angry with me for so obviously being dishonest with her or angry with me for being so unprofessional. For all I know, despite her sweet flirtatiousness, she may look at this as just another job and I’ve just made her extremely uncomfortable by confessing my feelings. I’m like the 1950’s boss ogling his secretary to her.
Shit.
I turn the camera on and occupy myself with filming for the rest of the evening. And even though she’s obviously upset and distant, she turns it on for the camera, smiling and bantering in all the right places. I film her jumping at the movie’s scary parts, toasting champagne with me, lying on her back while I rub her bare feet with one hand. Night of the Living Dead ends and Shaun of the Dead starts, and I get several great shots of her laughing, of her watching the movie with her head in my lap.
But it’s all with the camera on, all for the project.
When I’d plotted out this project, I’d planned tonight to be our first kiss, but I can’t imagine it will happen tonight. I don’t even want it to happen when there’s this weird tension between us...it will have to be later. Another day, when she’s forgotten how I creepily came on to her when we were supposed to be working.
Around midnight, the movie ends and huge floodlights come on, illuminating every blade of grass and tree trunk in sharp, harsh relief. Together, Devi and I pack up our things and I carry them back to the Shelby, making sure I open the door for her when we get to the car.
The drive back to El Segundo is quiet. Devi finds some Halsey on my phone and plays it through the car stereo. The freeway is wide and easy, white light pooling on the concrete, the sky a gentle purple above us. We drive through the city and down to her neighborhood, which is still fairly awake at this time of night.
We don’t talk.
I back into her driveway, putting the car in park, and the ensuing silence has the kind of weight that can collapse bridges.
“I, um.” My voice is loud in the quiet car. “I need to film us saying goodbye.”
“Of course,” she says softly.
I get out the camera and turn it on. “I wish I knew what you were thinking,” I say suddenly, my finger hovering over the record button. “I feel like I’ve made an ass out of myself tonight, and I want to fix it, but I’m not sure how to do that. Can I say I’m sorry again?”
She turns to face me. Her eyes are inscrutable in the dark. “Logan, you told me you think I’m so sexy that you’ve been wanting to work with me for three years. There’s nothing to apologize for.”
“I feel like maybe it was unprofessional, and I don’t want to be the creepy guy hitting on you while we’re supposed to be doing a job, and if you don’t feel comfortable doing the kiss tonight or even continuing--”
“Logan.” Her voice gives me pause, it’s so grave and serious and unlike her. “Please stop. You didn’t do anything wrong, and I don’t want to leave the project.”
“Okay,” I say, heaving a relieved breath. “I still think that maybe we should wait for the kiss. I don’t want it to feel...contrived. Maybe just a goodbye for tonight?”
“Whatever you like,” she murmurs. Is that disappointment in her voice?
I know that it’s disappointment I feel, even though I know it’s for the best. But this is our second aborted kiss, and I don’t know how much longer I can keep myself from kissing her.
I hit record and put the handheld on the dash, aimed so that both of us are in the frame. “Devi, I’m so glad you came out with me tonight. Do you feel like an expert in zombie movies now?”
She gives a little laugh. “I guess you could say that, although biologically I find the entire scenario a joke. Zombies are corpses and their decomposing stomachs wouldn’t be able to metabolize nutrients...and you need nutrients for muscle function. Even if something did reanimate a corpse, it wouldn’t be able to have directed, long-term movement.”
I blink at her. “Wow.”
She shrugs, like it’s no big deal that she just knows all this stuff about metabolic function and reanimation.
“You know, you didn’t mention any of this during the movie.”
“Well...during the movie, I was actually a little scared,” she admits.
“I hope that doesn’t mean I’ve scared you off of another date, though.” I look at her from under my eyelashes (I have damn good eyelashes for a man.) “I really had a good time tonight, and I’d like to see you again, if you’d let me?”
For just a moment, I try to pour everything into my gaze, to show her that I actually mean these words, that I’m not just saying them for the show. If things were different and this was our real first date...
Her eyes are gold-dark and soft as she returns my gaze. “I’d like that,” she replies shyly, and my heart leaps once before it remembers that she’s acting too.
“Okay,” I say.
“Okay,” she says back with a smile. She breaks our gaze, reaching down to unbuckle her seatbelt. She puts her hand on the door handle and then looks back at me. The light from her porch is soft and yellow, filling parts of the Shelby with a subdued glow that burnishes her caramel skin into a dark bronze. “For what it’s worth,” she says quietly, “I would’ve still wanted to do the kiss tonight.”
And then the door opens and she’s gone, and I’m staring blankly ahead, the red record light of the camera blinking at the edge of my vision like a silent recrimination, a glaring marker of every second I let Devi walk away from my car with those as the last words spoken.
Because when she said it, she wasn’t using the jaded voice of an experienced porn model, she wasn’t using the affectionate voice of a friend. She was telling me something real, something personal.
Of course she is, you idiot. She wanted to kiss you that night at Vida’s, remember?
I bring the flat of my hand down hard on my steering wheel, frustration surging in me. I wanted to kiss her that night too, and I want to kiss her right now, and there’s no reason that I shouldn’t run after her and show her exactly how I feel, except maybe there is every reason that I shouldn’t do it—
I slam my hand against the steering wheel three more times, a low growl building in my chest. Fuck it. Fuck trying to do the right thing, because there’s only one thing I want to do right now and Devi just told me that she wants it too.
I unbuckle my seatbelt and open my car door in record time, calling Devi’s name as I close the door and walk forward. She is almost to her front porch but stops and turns to face me. “What is it?” she asks, taking a step toward me.
I take a step of my own, not sure what to say, so I just hold out my hand. She looks at it and then up to my face, which I know must be a mess—lust and hesitation and worry and raw attraction. But I see the pulse pounding in her neck, the way her lips part just from looking at me, and she comes forward and slides her hand in mine.
I use it to tug her a little closer to me, playfully, carefully, and then I say, “I’ve been wanting to kiss you all night.” And I
press my lips to hers.
I feel her hand trembling in mine, feel her lips yield to my kiss, and for one perfect, suspended moment, we are kissing the chaste kind of kiss you see on PBS historical shows, the Disney Channel kind of kiss, where it’s just our lips touching, just our hands joined together. It’s pure romance, and I feel very genteel and distinguished as I pull away and she blinks up at me with a dazed smile.
“I guess I’ll be seeing you,” she says, a little breathlessly, and I rejoin with a really articulate, “Yeah,” and then she squeezes my hand and walks back to her door.
And then I’m standing there by the trunk of my car like an idiot, because my lips are still hungry for hers, my body is still clamoring for her touch, and my mind is this churning loop of our date and her amber eyes and our scene from three years ago, and that kiss wasn’t enough, it couldn’t possibly be enough. And then I’m eating up the distance to her front door in long, quick strides; she’s facing the door trying to sort through her jangling mass of keys; I grab her shoulder and spin her around, slamming her back into the door and bringing my mouth down on hers with the kind of ferocity that would terrify most women.
Devi Dare gasps into my mouth, and I step into her, my hands roaming aggressively from her neck to her tits and then finally down to her ass, where I scoop her up effortlessly. She wraps her legs around my waist, and I push her hard against the door, both of us groaning the moment my erection finally presses against the spot where she wants me the most. And then I part her lips with mine and finally, finally taste her, her kiss the same sweet flavor I remember from three years ago, with just a dash of champagne added in.
Her hands are in my hair, pulling hard, and the next thing I know, she’s yanking my head to the side and biting my neck like a vampire, leaving a trail of deep fire from my collarbone to my jaw, and if I was hard before, I’m like granite now, my cock trying to bore a hole through my jeans.
Hot Cop Boxed Set Page 38
