Role Play (Silhouette Studios)

by Katana Collins

  I opened my mouth to answer, my voice cracking. “I—”

  “You’ve never trained anyone, Ash,” Jude said, cutting me off. I lifted my gaze to him and he blinked, his expression solemn, unreadable. But I knew him. I knew what was behind those eyes. He was throwing me a life raft. He knew how important Brie’s legacy was to her—to me—and in that moment, I could have kissed the man.

  I shook my head no. “I haven’t.” A breath pushed past my lips as I fell back in the chair, relieved for the time being to escape answering the question. Involuntarily, my knee bounced and I squeezed my hand over my thigh to stop the movement.

  Richard looked surprised by that. “You’ve never trained a new submissive? That was one of my favorite things, introducing a new sub to the lifestyle. Showing her the pleasures within pain and submission. Watching it in her eyes as she shifted, gave up control, and fully submitted to her pleasure.”

  The line of my throat was drier than if I had swallowed sand in place of my coffee. I’d never had any desire to train a submissive. That was a little too close to home. None of the sex I’d had in the last five years ever felt like I was betraying Brie. I could fuck every woman in Los Angeles—whether kinky or vanilla sex— and it wouldn’t feel like I was forsaking the love we’d had. But training a new submissive? Introducing a new partner to the life Brie and I had started together? I swallowed, ignoring the buzzing sensation in my sinuses. It would cross the emotional line I had drawn in the sand.

  I shook my head, focusing not on the burning emotion in my chest, but on the cool metal of her ring on my pinky finger. My rock. Both in life and in death. “No. I’ve never introduced a submissive to the lifestyle. And I don’t plan to.” I fuck, I wanted to say. A lot. But I don’t commit. Being a Dominant; feeling the power over a woman… over her pleasure, her pain… was my Xanax. It gave me control in a chaotic world where I had zero of it. It gave me a piece of Brie. It gave me a fake reality where maybe, just maybe, I could have saved her.

  Rich nodded, his expression impassive, revealing nothing. But for a brief moment, his gaze dropped to Brie’s ring. Rich had known me five years ago. Not well, but I had been one of his assistant directors. Did he suspect? Did he know that Brie was in the community back then? No. Her dad, a pastor, made sure that never leaked out. “Ash," Richard said, his voice gentle, quiet in a way I’d never heard it before. "Look, moving on isn't easy. I know—"

  I snorted, shaking my head. "What do you know—"

  "Ash," Richard's voice boomed, rich with authority. "I know."

  Oh. Understanding washed over me like a warm, healing wave, lapping at my toes. Rich knew. Knew like I knew. I could see it in the way his mouth tightened. The way his brown eyes filled momentarily with moisture, then receded with a quick blink. I wanted more details. Wanted to know every painful memory and ask about who Rich had lost. Whoever said misery loves company knew what they were talking about. Five years later, and I was still drowning in pain—and more than anything, I wanted to grab the ankles of other people around me and pull them underwater, too. But instead, I just sat there, listening. Sinking.

  "Experiencing the moment that another person enters this crazy world of ours is empowering and that feeling is indescribable. It’s intimate, more intimate even than sex itself. This movie is all about that process. It’s not about the lifestyle… it’s about the entry into the lifestyle. From a submissive woman’s perspective. Not a Dominant man’s.”

  I stole another glance at Jude who was sitting silently beside me, brushing his pointer finger over his top lip in thought.

  I took another sip of coffee and the hot liquid burned a path to my stomach. “Right. Entry into the lifestyle. That is what we’re portraying with these shots,” I said, gesturing at the monitor with my coffee cup. But I didn’t buy it myself. What Rich had just described? It was nowhere near what I had directed last week in those shots. I cleared my throat, not ready to admit that aloud. “Maybe when you see some of the scenes cut together—”

  “You’re not succeeding,” Richard interrupted. “You think it’s what you’re doing… but it’s not reading that way.”

  “But I’ve been using the script—”

  Richard interrupted again. “Whatever you’re doing isn’t working.”

  I threw my hands up. As they fell to the armrest of my chair, I leveraged my weight and pushed to my feet, pacing across the room. I fucking hated being wrong. It pissed me off to no end. “Well, what the hell do you expect me to do, Rich? We’re a week into filming. Should we reshoot last week’s scenes?”

  Rich shrugged. “If we recast the movie with Pierce, we’ll need to reshoot some.”

  I blew out a tight breath. The thought of re-filming a week’s worth of work made my stomach turn. Then again, it was for the best: recasting it with Pierce.

  “But either way,” Richard added, “as I said, Pierce isn’t the only factor here. There’s something else fundamentally wrong with the piece—”

  “What am I supposed to do? Go spend the night at LnS… find some newbie submissive and train her just to see what the hell it is you’re talking about?”

  Rich snorted something that sounded half-amused, half-annoyed. “I don’t believe for a second you’re actually up for that. But sure… you could. If you think it’d help. There’s method actors out there… why not method directors?”

  Jude cleared his throat. “Or… what if you interviewed some of the subs at LnS? Asked about their entry into the lifestyle?”

  My eyes clamped shut. “I guess I could do that.”

  Rich nodded. “Then you should also interview a Dominant who has trained subs. I would suggest Jude, but I think you need more separation since you two know each other so well. You need to tell the story from both angles, both POVs.”

  I snorted, shifting my gaze out the window. But I couldn’t even focus on the beautiful view of Hollywood hills. “You really think a couple of interviews is going to completely change my vision for this film?” I asked.

  “It can’t hurt.”

  “But… you think me training a submissive would do more?”

  Rich shrugged. “It’s a moot point.”

  “Pretend for a second that it was an option. What in the hell do you think I would get out of that?”

  Richard lifted his eyebrow. “Perspective.”

  I grabbed the clipboard from beneath my arm, clutching it tightly in my hand, and adjusted the headset against my ear. There was an excitement around the studio today, which only made my stomach sink more. I was letting them down. All of them. If only they knew. If only they knew how disappointed Richard was in us... In me.

  I grabbed my phone and texted my assistant, Raina to get me Pierce Whitley’s agent on the phone as quickly as possible.

  "Ash Livingston, you're needed in wardrobe," a voice echoed in my ear.

  Cupping the earpiece, I spoke into the microphone. "Be right there, uh, Callie."

  "This is Kelly."

  I cringed at her sharp tone. Shit. Off to a good start. It had been four months since we met—passing strangers at a party. Callie—wait, no… Kelly, was just a one-night stand. I thought we were both on the same page about that. Apparently not.

  I sighed. Maybe there were two costume designers on the project now, I thought, picking up the pace toward wardrobe. Maybe Callie and Kelly were the both a part of the wardrobe team. Pushing through the door, I entered the workspace that was filled with lines of clothing like fabric tunnels forming a giant maze.

  I didn't have to go far though, Callie/Kelly was standing there waiting for me, hand gripping her hip and Prada-clad toe tapping against the marble floor. Oh boy. She did not look happy. Please, oh please, let that frown on her face be because of something business related and not because of our history together.

  "I've been told my budget was cut by $80,000."

  Thank God, I thought, a deep breath releasing from my inflated lungs. Those blue eyes of hers—which only sixteen weeks ago had been
so sweet, so alluring—were now like two poison darts attempting to take me out at the jugular.

  "We talked about this in last week's meeting,” I said. “I don't have a lot of sway over this Ca—”

  "Kelly! My goddamn name is Kelly!"

  Fuck. "I know. You didn't let me finish. I was gonna say I don’t have a lot of sway over this caaaaatostrophic budget cut."

  "You know, Ash. I really thought you were different. I thought you were the kind of guy who stuck to his word."

  "My word? What word? We talked about this at the meeting. The eighty-thousand budget cut is not my decision. The producers need us to cut back, and it makes sense that a working-class administrative assistant would be wearing Gap, not Gucci."

  I was used to dealing with high maintenance actors. But a high maintenance costume designer? This was a new one.

  The flush high on her cheeks heated to an apple-like red. She took a deep breath and I couldn't help it as my eyes drifted to the swell of her breasts, expanding with the inhalation. Hell, I was human, after all. "But that's not what you said the other night," Kelly said, her voice suddenly quiet and sweet in a way that was completely in contrast to her bedroom eyes and the sultry jut of her bottom lip.

  My gaze jerked back to hers and narrowed. "What do you mean what I ‘said the other night’?”

  Her smile curved along her jaw, trailing toward her eyes in a malevolent way that could give Hannibal Lector a run for his money. “You know. The other night. In our private meeting.”

  “We didn’t have a private meeting the other night.” Anger swelled in my chest, growing and swirling like a fireball. Was she trying to blackmail me? Fuck that shit.

  “No…” she said, stretching the word out to be multi-syllabic. “But we could have one. I know I sure wouldn’t mind a repeat.”

  My anger dissolved into a wave of humor as my mouth tilted into a smirk. “You’re offering to fuck me in exchange for getting your budget back?” Well, this was a new one. "That’s not a good idea.” That was a total fucking lie. At the moment, it felt like a great idea. “And it wouldn’t change a damn thing about the budget.” That one? Not so much a lie. I truly had no say over the budget cuts.

  Her eyes narrowed. “You sure about that? I can be very persuasive.”

  I sighed and pinched my fingers against the bridge of my nose. “Babe, you’re good. But you’re not eighty-thousand dollars good. And like I said… I have no control over the budget.”

  Her jaw dropped momentarily before she snapped it closed and her expression sagged into a scowl. As she folded her arms, her breasts pushed even higher toward her chin. Only this time, I didn’t take the bait and peek.

  “You came to us from that streaming series, right? The one with the group of girlfriends who all wore couture?” I asked.

  The muscle in her jaw twitched, indicating I was correct. “Yes. I’m used to standards with my wardrobes.”

  “We have standards here as well,” I said. “Sometimes budgets get cut, unfortunately. It’s how most film sets work.” Yeah, when your daddy isn’t executive producer of the network. I’d heard rumors that she was a trust fund baby and her other stints involved her father in some way. Rich had chosen the wardrobe team on this film, so I could only assume he owed her dad a favor. A huge favor.

  Catching her bottom lip beneath her teeth, she said, “But the first thing people will notice is the actor’s outfits.”

  I sighed. Maybe with the show she worked on that was true, but I sincerely doubted that would be the case here. Even still, this was a weird business. And I certainly didn't want to make an enemy this early on in filming, especially an enemy who had seen me naked and whose name I couldn’t fucking remember for the life of me. “Look, a little advice, if you're willing to hear it.” I waited for her to acknowledge me, which she did with a quick raise of her brow. “Budgets get cut all the time. A really fantastic costume designer creates color palettes first and uses personal relationships with designers and retailers to borrow the costumes. You don't need a big budget to make these actors look good. Most movie-goers can’t tell Haute Couture from Banana Republic. As long as the actors look and feel like their characters in the costumes, that’s all that matters. Let's meet tonight, after filming, and brainstorm.” In an effort to comfort her, I placed a hand on her arm. She had worked for years in the industry. Did she really have no relationships with which to build off of?

  One eyebrow of hers arched even higher toward her hairline, like a parenthesis curving around her brow bone. She glanced from where my hand landed on her arm to my eyes, her red stained mouth curving into a grin. “So, you’re taking me up on that private meeting?”

  Shit. I jerked my hand back to my side and stepped back, away from her. “No… it’ll be in my office.”

  Her smirk widened, her lips somehow becoming fuller like she was pushing them out toward me. I studied her for a brief moment, the way she rolled her shoulders back confidently, her cleavage smooth and milky and her pouty red lips glossed and shiny like a candied apple.

  I turned to leave, nearly plowing into a girl walking up behind me. Stacks of male blazers were draped across her arms so that just a cute button nose and black rectangular glasses framing large, brown eyes peeked out from behind.

  “Oh! I'm so sorry.” She tried to step out of my way, but in doing so, one of her ballet flats flipped off her foot causing her to fall backwards. I caught her just in time around her petite waist, her cotton T-shirt inching its way up to her rib cage. My hand was flat against the soft skin of her abs.

  "Lucy!" Kelly hissed. "You are holding thousands of dollars worth of garments. If you ruin those, it would take you months to reimburse the loss."

  "It was my fault Kelly," I said. "I wasn't looking where I was going." I stole another glance at the girl—at Lucy—and was awarded with a shy smile in return. That little quirk of her plump, peony-colored lips, and she shifted the blazers to one arm, adjusting her glasses in a way that was so fucking cute and unassuming. It only took a moment for recognition to snake across her features.

  “Mr. Livingston,” she gasped, that smile quivering at the corners. “I’m so sorry—” Her voice was now hoarse, and those sweet lips parted as a sharp inhale caught in her throat.

  Energy swirled between us; something calm and potent. That moment, looking into Lucy’s eyes was a breath of stillness on an otherwise chaotic, crazy set. I wanted to breathe her in, absorb that calm energy she exuded; swallow her shy, quiet demeanor and bathe in it all day long.

  She’s cute. It was Brie’s voice again. Brie would have liked her. That warm feeling surged down to my heart, needling me in a way I both loved and hated.

  Her brows tugged together as I felt my breath catch in my throat. It only lasted a second—our connection. But it was consuming. I cleared my throat, stepping back from Lucy. She didn’t look like she belonged in this business based on what little I’d seen of her shy personality. Her chin dipped lower, and she cast her eyes to the ground.

  I studied her subtle movement. To most people, it would be nothing. But to me? I saw her raw, untapped need—the quick-to-please nature; her innate receptiveness to the hierarchy of Dominant-submissive relationships. Like she could sense I was in charge and not only acknowledged it, but accepted it with that small dip of her head.

  My cock twitched against the zipper of my flat front dress pants.

  That in itself was nothing new. But the tug at my gut; the tightness, and the moment of tenderness I felt for a brief second. That was new. And terrifying. Fuck me. I had to get out of there—and fast. “It was my fault, Lucy.”

  Behind me, Kelly scoffed. “You remember her name, I see.”

  I swallowed a sigh. “I’ll see you both on set.”

  Lucy peeked up over the top rim of her glasses. Those eyes—endless, dark orbs that were wide and wet—latched onto mine, and her pink tongue swiped across her full top lip.

  I have to have her. The thought came before I had the good se
nse to stop it. Dammit. I didn’t discern between women. I loved them all—all shapes, sizes, hair color. But at LnS? I didn’t find many women like Lucy. Even with my seasoned subs, they had their ways of seeking me out. Subtle usually… not like Kelly or most other aggressive women I met at the average bar. But there was something different about Lucy. I tore my eyes away from her and walked briskly out of the room. As I turned the corner down the hallway, I heaved a deep breath, falling back against the wall. The cool, painted walls were chilly against the backs of my sweaty shoulders, and I brushed my fingers over the metal band, closing my eyes and trying to picture Brie's face.

  But for the first time in five years, Brie's eyes weren't what I saw in my mind.

  Chapter Two

  Lucy

  I watched in awe as Ash Livingston left the room. He was nicer than I expected, taller than I thought, and even sexier than he was photographed in all those magazines. Not that I’d have a lot of time to sit there staring at him doing nothing. It was my first job on a movie set—well, a real movie set that wasn’t a student film. Hopefully, the first of many. Most people have to start on B-movies and indie films. But Uncle Richard had insisted I start at Silhouette Studios.

  “Lucy,” he had said, “everyone else is using their contacts and relationships to get jobs here. Why shouldn’t you? Hell, just last week, I got a job for my dog walker’s brother. If I can help out the man who picks up Bruno’s shit for a living, I’m sure as hell going to help my only niece.”

  I had to admit, it was hard to argue with. He gave me the schedule for the year and let me pick the film that most interested me. This script was different than the rest, and it had the most potential for award season. How freaking awesome would that be? If my first ever movie won an Oscar? My stomach flipped at the thought.

  That wasn’t the only reason. The scheduling worked out perfectly; the beginning of pre-production lined up with my graduation from college with only a small four-week lag that I had to wait tables during.