Tall Dark & Handsome

by Amelia Wilde

  He lets out a low, cocky laugh, and every inch of me blooms in response. “I was only looking for ‘you were right,’ but I’ll… take… it.” He punctuates the last words with one stroke each, angling his hips so that he makes contact with my clit every single time.

  It’s too much.

  There’s too much pleasure, too much heat, and it borders on a delicious, destructive pain.

  “I can’t—”

  “I heard you the first time.”

  “I can’t come again—not again.”

  Cannon’s answering grin is all satisfaction, all wicked heat. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  The next movement of his hips makes me implode, a supernova in the bed, and I am free. I am free of everything. Of expectation. Of thought. Of everything except a jagged pleasure that unravels my mind. The moaning—is that me? After that, I’m lost in a sea of sensation—Cannon’s thumbs digging into my hips, pressing me into the sheets, containing me. The length of him, filling me completely, finding all the secret rough pleasure spots I never knew existed. His mouth against mine, hard and teasing by turns.

  The orgasms settle into one sustained wave that ebbs and flows, hitting the shore of me over and over, and the storm that is Cannon reaches a fever pitch. He’s an animal. He’s a lightning strike. And the moment before his release, I sense it in the air, in the tension of his muscles, of the coiled energy.

  He fucks me through his own orgasm, all flexed muscles and hot kisses. My breaths are ragged, loud. He presses another kiss to the side of my neck, collapsing onto the bed next to me as the air conditioning unit rattles and turns on, the cold air as thick as someone dragging his fingers over my ultra-sensitive nipples. I get goose bumps. It doesn’t matter that I’m burning up with him, with what just happened. I shiver nonetheless.

  Cannon reaches down and pulls the sheet over us. Sleep comes next, a dark curtain shading my eyes in the aftermath.

  In the stillness of my mind, a single question falls like a raindrop into still water. It falls softly from my lips. “What now? Cannon, what now?”

  19

  Cannon

  “Look at those fuckers run,” says Matt, who is Wes, who is driving the Humvee stripped down by the set designers and the prop master to make it look filthier, edgier.

  We’ve been filming this scene in the heat of the day, running it over and over from different angles, moving forward fifteen seconds, back fifteen seconds, and all I can think of is Juno.

  I got what I wanted.

  I got her attention. I got that wide green gaze to break open underneath me in bed. I got to rock her world.

  And now I’m the addict.

  She leaves the door to her room open at night, and after she’s done reviewing dailies, I go in and we run through the scene where I destroy her, making her new with every orgasm.

  I’m hard thinking about it, and now is not the time.

  The California sun beats down on the Humvee, and Matt is as dropped into his character as he’ll ever be. It works out, honestly, that I spend half my time daydreaming about Juno’s bed, because this Dayton character is low-key obsessed with Sunny. Probably that’s why they ended up married, even despite all the bullshit that happened later on. There’s considerably less bullshit in the movie—with a two-hour runtime, you can’t fit that much in—but I’ve read up. It almost doesn’t matter we’ve been driving the same loop on the back lot for at least an hour.

  “Kids,” I say, squinting through the windshield like there are actually kids running. There are not. They’ll be filmed separately three days from now, when the schedule can be more tightly controlled.

  “Kids running,” drawls Wes. “But where to?”

  “Anybody’s guess.”

  “Could be running to alert the local cell, or just because an old-fashioned military parade is about to roll through downtown.”

  “Maybe b—”

  I don’t get to say both on this run, because Juno yells “Cut!” and her answer is echoed all through the set.

  Water break.

  It’s been ten days since Juno let down that last wall, and she still must feel like she has to earn it.

  “Water. You guys getting out?” A red-haired assistant leans into the Humvee and shoves bottles of water into our hands.

  Matt sighs. “No.” The assistant disappears. He opens the bottle, drinks a quarter of it, and dangles his arm out the window to offer it back. “She’s a real tyrant, isn’t she?”

  I’ve been staring at Juno in the rearview mirror, thinking about how good it’s going to be to get her in the shower at the end of the day… and then into bed. In this moment, she does look slightly tyrannical. She’s barking orders at Maggie, who’s rapid nodding confirms my assumption. As soon as Maggie turns away, she looks down at her watch. Then she claps her hands three times. She’s far enough from the Humvee that I don’t catch every word, but I get the gist: Get the hell back to work.

  “Lot of pressure,” I say neutrally.

  “Still, the water thing?” Matt rolls his eyes. “I didn’t expect to drown filming in the desert.”

  “Nobody’s going to drown. But they will be well-hydrated.”

  Fifteen minutes later, she’s calling cut again because she’s got what she wants.

  “Right on time,” I hear her tell Maggie when I hop out of the Humvee. “Matt? Cannon?”

  The energy is coming off her in waves when we get to her, her hair wild beneath her hat. The fine, sandy locks are tangled around each other in a way that makes me want to take the hat off right now, set her hair free, and feel every one of those knots against my fingers.

  But this is Business Juno I’m dealing with.

  She stands up tall, arms crossed over her chest, and looks from me to Matt. Behind Juno, I can see the other guys coming out of the makeup tent. We didn’t need them for shooting the front scenes, but clearly we’re moving on to something bigger.

  “How are you guys doing? Do you need a break, or…?”

  Juno’s eyes sparkle, though her expression is deadly serious.

  Matt answers first. “Nope. What’s the plan?”

  Her eyes search my face before she answers. “I want to move directly to the main event.” The main event is when the Humvee meets with the special effects. “The light is perfect for it, and if we move now, we’ll be ahead of schedule.” She bites her lip a little bit, her back perfectly straight, and I can see how much she wants this. Almost every movie I’ve ever worked on has had a fucked-up schedule in one way or another, and it’ll be a huge credit to Juno if we can pull this off on time.

  “Fine by me,” says Matt. He might call her a tyrant when the cameras aren’t rolling, but he wants a good reputation more than I do. He, unlike me, doesn’t have a slew of titles already under his belt.

  “Cannon?” Juno looks up into my eyes. She might be the boss in this situation, but the slight pleading note in her voice isn’t lost on me. I feel it in the rush of blood straight to my cock.

  “I can’t turn you down.” I tell her with a grin, and over Juno’s shoulder, I catch the secondary film crew—the one filming for the bonus features. That’s sure to make it into the final cut. I know what I look like with that grin.

  Matt elbows me. “You’re already in the movie, bro.”

  Juno’s eyebrows are drawn together nervously, but she laughs with the two of us as the guy with the Steadicam swings around to get another angle on our conversation. It’s a cinematic moment.

  “Good,” Juno says, leaning deliberately toward Matt and giving him a collegial clap on the shoulder. “Set for the next scene!” Her shout sets a flurry of motion into activity. Matt and I retreat into the makeup tent to make sure we’re flawless, and twenty minutes later, in the beating sun, we’re back in the Humvee that I’m beginning to hate.

  There’s palpable tension all across the set. This is a big fucking moment for this movie, and it’s a moment that Juno has been adamant about getting right. She’s had ex
cruciatingly long meetings with the pyrotechnic team and the special effects coordinators. Four nights ago, I heard her shout through the door, “There’s no room to fuck this up!” That meeting lasted past midnight.

  In the rearview mirror, I watch her running through what’s probably a final checklist with Maggie. Juno nods solemnly, and my heart squeezes. This is a big moment for her, too. Matt rattles his foot against the floor of the Humvee. Outside, the crew calls to each other in terse voices.

  One of the guys in the back pipes up. “If this goes south, it’s been a pleasure working with all of you.”

  There’s a brief bubble of laughter that rises and pops, and then the red-haired assistant motions for Matt to roll up the window. He gives a thumbs-up, and then the countdown begins.

  “Quiet on the set!” Juno shouts, and my blood hums through my veins. None of the other movies I’ve been in have ever approached this level of realism, and I have no idea what it’s going to feel like from inside the Humvee. It won’t resemble the real thing at all, but I feel myself zeroing in on those emotions, the shock, the training. We went through this in the week before shooting, meeting with guys who’d been deployed to learn about their experiences.

  Juno appears at the Humvee window, and Matt rolls it down again. He’s hiding his exasperation very well, which is a testament to why he was cast in the first place.

  Her cheeks are pink with excitement when she steps up so her head is level with Matt’s. “I wanted to check in one more time. You’re good with the plan, right?”

  Matt reels it off to her. “We’re on a road that looks close enough to the loop he’s been driving all day. Drive for fifteen seconds, enter special effects, react. We’ll film more reaction shots afterward or tomorrow from a different angle. The explosives won’t even be close enough to need stuntmen.”

  “Great.” Juno nods. “Check in after the take?”

  “You know it.” Matt gives her a coy salute.

  More yelling from Juno from behind the Humvee and the camera moves down into place behind us. This vehicle has been modified with a rectangular hole in the back for the camera crew to shoot through. They’ll do exterior shots with another one entirely. Movie magic.

  In the mirror, I see Juno rise up on tiptoes and lower herself back down, jumping in place in slow motion. Maggie hands her a headset—her connection with the special effects crew—and she presses it over her head.

  “Quiet on the set!” shouts Juno.

  There’s a split second of quiet, and then… a sound.

  “What the fuck?” Matt says.

  I turn around in my seat and look past the guys in the back of the Humvee.

  It happens again and registers in my brain of someone retching. Violently. My own stomach flinches at the noise.

  Juno stares, her mouth open, and then she takes off the headset and throws it at Maggie’s face. Then she sprints out of view in the direction of the camera equipment.

  “Let me guess.” Matt sounds totally bewildered. “We’re not getting this shot today, are we?”

  20

  Juno

  I pace back and forth in the hallway of the hotel, my heart pounding. My room is too confining for the way I feel, which is fucking terrible. Which is responsible. A man could have died today. Because of me.

  I run my hands through my hair, which is probably a wreck, but I don’t care. All that matters is the phone call I’m waiting for. I stare at the screen like a woman obsessed, willing it to ring. Please, let it be good news. For Simon, obviously. Obviously, I would not want him to pay the ultimate price for my ambition. God, I’d never forgive myself if that happened. I would quit filmmaking.

  Probably. I would probably quit. And maybe it makes me a horrible person, destined for the very worst level of hell, but there is a small part of my being that hopes it works out for me, too.

  I hope I haven’t permanently fucked this up. It’s my only chance.

  The door of the hotel room next to mine cracks open and Cannon pokes his head out. My heart skips a beat. He looks slightly rumpled, like he took a shower and then relaxed in his bed, and I would do anything to be relaxing in his bed with him.

  “Come in,” he says as I pace by his door. I keep my eyes glued to the phone and count the number of doors out of the corner of my eye. One, two, three, four, and turn. Cannon is waiting when I get back to his door. “Come in, Juno. It’s late.” His eyes beckon, drawing me in.

  “I can’t. I’m waiting for a—” My phone rings in my hand. “—call. Hello?” I answer before the phone is even pressed to my cheek.

  “Juno, he’s going to be fine.” It’s Maggie, calling from the hospital with Simon. “They’ve got him going on electrolytes, I think they said, and he should be totally fine if he has a day or two to rest up.”

  “Oh, thank God. What does that mean for—” The question is half out of my mouth before I clamp my lips shut.

  Maggie laughs. “For the shooting schedule? We can go over it in the morning. I think we can get Kevin to pinch-hit most of the shots for the next couple days, and we can push the Humvee scene until Simon is back on his feet.”

  I turn my back to Cannon’s door. “Please tell Simon that I am so, so sorry.” If I sound urgent, it’s because I absolutely fucking am. “I was only worried about dehydration out in that heat, and—”

  “I’ll tell him.” A voice on a distant intercom says something behind Maggie. “We’ll meet up in the morning, yeah?”

  “Should I come down there?” I’m seized with another wave of guilt—about Cannon, about all of it. “I’m sure visiting hours are way over, but maybe—”

  “He’s resting, Juno, and you should be, too. Things happen on film sets, okay? We’ll regroup and move on. You know that.”

  “But I’ve never….” I’ve never fucked the leading man before. I’ve never been this infatuated with a person in my entire life. I have never been so unprofessional while I tried my best to be the strictest person on the set. I want to say all those things, but Maggie really isn’t the right person. “You’re right, Maggie. I’ll see you at breakfast.”

  We end the call and I slump against the door of my hotel room, breathing heavily.

  “Is he going to pull through?” Cannon asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come in here and we’ll find out together.”

  I straighten up, scanning the hallway for any prying ears. None of the doors are open, but that doesn’t mean anything. I jerk my head toward my own door and dig in my pocket for the key card.

  “My door is open, Juno.”

  “Shhh,” I hiss, then go in through my own door and lock it tight behind me.

  Cannon is waiting at the wide-open doors between the two rooms, leaning languidly against the doorframe. He was model-hot before. In fact, a few months before we started casting for Homefront, Tessa texted a picture of him in a slick menswear campaign. In the picture, he wore boxer briefs and a blazer and looked absolutely delicious. Not that I would have admitted it to her.

  “Juno,” he says softly. “Are you all right?”

  I hold up a hand. “Don’t reel me in with that right now.”

  An amused smile plays across his face. “Reel you in with what?”

  I turn to face him, jutting one hip out and not bothering to stop myself. “With that… face.”

  He’s just smiling now. “My face is my face.”

  “This is serious.” My heart beats faster, though it should be calming down with the good news about Simon. “This is serious, Cannon. I could have done major damage out there.”

  He shrugs one shoulder. “There’s an argument to be made that you went a little far with the water breaks, but your intentions were good.”

  “My intentions won’t matter if someone dies. I knew water poisoning was a thing, but I didn’t realize—I didn’t realize how—” My hands tremble. I cross my arms and pin them to my ribs to make the
m stop. “Nothing will matter if somebody dies on set.”

  Cannon considers me. “That would really ruin your plans, wouldn’t it?”

  I meet his eyes through a blaze of fury. “Jesus. Is that what you think of me? That I care about this fucking movie more than a man’s life?”

  “That’s not what I said.” He saunters into my room then, his presence filling the space like he owns it. “I’ve seen you, Juno, and I know that doing this right is strangely important to you.”

  “Strangely?”

  “What’s the significance, really? Is it just that it’s your first big studio-backed movie?”

  “Just? Just?”

  “Hey.” He moves toward me and rests his hands on my shoulders. “I’m asking because I want to know.”

  I take a deep breath and try to control the anxiety beating its wings against the inside of my ribs. “This is my only chance. Not—not my only chance, but it’s the biggest chance I might ever get. To do this.”

  “For a studio?”

  “For anybody.” I step closer to him, closer to his warmth. “This is fucking stupid.”

  Cannon takes two fingers and raises my chin so that I have no other choice but to look at him. “Eyes open.”

  Two words from him, and all my defenses are down. Nearly all of them. “Don’t play with me.”

  “Trust me, I wish I were playing with you right now. But I’m not. I want to see your eyes when you tell me this.”

  “Why would this matter so much?” The laugh that escapes me sounds strange and high. “What matters is that Simon—”

  “You’re right,” Cannon interjects. “He matters. But so do you. You know that, right?”

  “I know, but—”

  “Why is this your big chance, Juno?” For once, he doesn’t look playful, teasing, coaxing. He looks utterly genuine. “What makes you think you won’t be able to pull this off a hundred times?”

  “Whatever I do, it has to be…” I shake my head. The words twist around each other and stick in my throat. “It has to be the best. I can’t just make a movie. It has to be… groundbreaking. It has to be award winning. At the very least, it has to get nominated for something at the Rogers. Otherwise…”