Exposing Alix

by Scott, Inara

  She swallowed hard. “My…er…her kiss sets off a fire that neither of you can control. When you look back, all you remember is that she kissed you, and then everything went to black.”

  Ryker’s mouth moved even closer. Alix swayed. Her eyes felt heavy, the weight of his gaze dragging them closed. “And what does the camera do?”

  “Stays framed on their faces. This is where they shut out the rest of the world. Nothing matters but that kiss. Only when they break apart do we cut to a wider shot, bring the rest of the world back in.”

  His gaze flicked from her mouth to her eyes, caressing her with everything but his hands. Just as her body began to scream for more, he straightened abruptly.

  “I like the first part,” he said. “Hate the end. It isn’t true to Jake’s character. Men don’t lose themselves like that. A man like Jake would be thinking about his duty as a cop. He’d be worrying about who might come in and wondering whether he’s ever going to get laid.” He dropped her hand and walked back to pick up the script he’d discarded on the table next to them. “We can give it a try, but I have to be honest with you. I’m not buying it.”

  The heat drained from Alix’s body. Instantly, she was reminded where she was and what they were doing. She had to convince this man, this hot-blooded but strangely cold-hearted man, that romance had a place in his movie.

  And if she hadn’t known it before, she knew it now.

  This would not be easy.

  #

  “Stop!” The frustration in Ryker’s voice matched Alix’s mounting exasperation. “You two remember you’re supposed to be attracted to each other, right?”

  Lena, positioned behind a kitchen counter, raised one perfectly trimmed eyebrow. “I’m just trying to do what you said, Ryker.” She gestured contemptuously toward Jake. “I’m playing him for a fool. Didn’t you get that?”

  “Oh, we all got that, Lena,” Jake drawled. He wore a pair of faded jeans, a tattered T-shirt, and a gun holster around one shoulder. As he stuck his thumbs into the corners of his back pockets, he looked like six feet of muscled, pissed-off cop.

  “You aren’t doing much better,” Ryker said. In contrast to Jake, Ryker wore casually elegant clothes that screamed money and style, from his perfectly tailored shirts to his dark, coffee-colored loafers. After three long days on the set, Alix had never seen Ryker looking rumpled, wrinkled, or sloppy. It was infuriating, actually. Just once, she wanted to see him with a coffee stain on his shirt or an errant wrinkle in his trousers. “You look at her as if she’s a cobra who might strike at any minute.”

  “I’m a cop,” Jake said. “She’s a suspect. I’m hardly going to let down my guard completely.”

  Alix gritted her teeth and tamped down the desire to throttle all three of them. “Can we put that aside for a minute?” she interjected. “You all are focusing on the things that are keeping Hank and Salva apart. I need you to focus on the things that are drawing them together. Lena, look at him.” Alix gestured toward Jake. “He’s in your kitchen oozing pure masculinity and power. You want to think that you’re using him, but deep down, you suspect you might be the one losing control.”

  Jake grinned. “I like that. Pure masculinity and power. Thanks, Alix.”

  Alix smiled back but only for a second. “Don’t let it go to your head. You’re a cop, but you’re also a man. You want her, and you’re not sure how long you can resist. Got it? Enough with the kid gloves. You aren’t scared of her, Jake. You’re wary. There’s a big difference. Now, can we start from the top?”

  Jake and Lena both turned to Ryker.

  Alix held her breath. It always came back to this. Like kids waiting for approval from a parent, when Alix pushed them, Jake and Lena always looked to Ryker for support. And as much as Ryker tried to back her up—and she had to admit that he did try—when it came down to it, he didn’t believe in what she was attempting to do, and the actors knew it.

  Ryker nodded, though to Alix’s eyes, it was painfully obvious that he didn’t believe a word she’d said. “Do it again,” he said.

  They walked through the scene two more times before Ryker held up a tired hand. “Look, this isn’t getting any better. Lena, Jake enters the kitchen on your first line, not your second, and I need you behind the counter when he crosses the threshold. Then, just as he starts to speak, you cross left, not right, and end up next to him, not five feet away.”

  Lena rolled her eyes and flounced into place. Jake scowled and took his place offstage. Ryker crossed his arms over his chest and gave them both black stares.

  One could almost see the thundercloud hovering over the set.

  The chance of them producing a romantic interlude in which Lena ended up on the kitchen counter with her legs wrapped around Jake’s waist seemed next to nil.

  “Ryker,” Alix interrupted, “it’s one o’clock. Why don’t we give Jake and Lena an hour off, and you and I can talk about this some more? Maybe we can put our heads together and think of something new to try.”

  They had made some progress over the three days. Not much but some. They’d filmed one scene—the kiss—and it was better than it had been before. Alix had convinced Ryker to allow Jake to show more vulnerability, and they had changed some of the camerawork to bring a woman’s perspective to the scene. Where before the camera had looked at Lena’s body through Jake’s eyes, now they used Lena’s point of view, the camera lingering on Jake’s hands and shoulders and brushing nervously across his gun before settling on his lips. Where Ryker liked to use darker lighting, Alix convinced him to introduce hints of warmer colors for scenes with Lena and Jake together.

  But their progress was painfully slow, and neither Alix nor Ryker was entirely happy with the results. Though she hadn’t figured out how to say it, Alix had realized they could rehearse until they were blue in the face, and Lena could cross left instead of right, and Jake could stop looking like he was kissing a black widow spider, but the scene still wouldn’t work.

  Until she could get Ryker to buy in, nothing else mattered.

  “Finally,” Lena grumbled. “Something that makes sense.”

  Jake glared at Lena. “Can’t you even be civil? She’s trying to save your movie, you know.”

  “Oh, so now it’s my movie, is it? I thought this was all about you,” Lena replied acidly.

  Ryker hesitated for a minute, obviously debating the benefits of spending the hour yelling at the actors versus letting everyone get a little bit of distance. Finally, he turned to Alix. “A break would be a good idea. Take an hour, everyone,” he called. “We’ll start back at two.”

  Jake and Lena wandered off the set together, still arguing. Alix stretched her arms over her head and yawned. Being around the two of them was absolutely exhausting. They bounced off each other with a restless energy that was all the more infuriating because it could have been so powerful had it been appropriately directed. Instead it was wasted on bickering and twisted sexual tension hidden behind a cloud of fear and frustration.

  “So, what did you have in mind?”

  The deep voice startled her, and she dropped her arms abruptly, realizing the bare skin of her stomach was exposed. Three days hadn’t done much to chill the desire that Ryker inspired. If only she could have maintained the outrage he’d stirred up with his initial assumptions about her ability to help, perhaps things would have been fine. But her anger had faded all too quickly. As much as she wanted to hate him, once they settled down to work together, he had become the consummate professional. He treated her with respect, though he clearly disagreed with her suggestions. He focused with single-minded intensity on the movie, as if he could make things better by sheer force of will. He cajoled and intimidated but was never disrespectful.

  For the first time in a long time, Alix was excited to get up and go to work in the morning.

  The problem was her damned libido.

  Every time Ryker bent over and she was forced to view his perfect backside, outlined by those should-be-illeg
al pants, her stomach quivered. When he flashed that ironic smile, the one that seemed to reflect some deep inner humor, she found herself furiously speculating about what was really happening behind his dark eyes. Then he’d touch her hand or stand closer than was absolutely necessary and send her back into a tizzy.

  “Oh, I thought maybe we’d…” Alix struggled to get her mind back to the present. “Maybe we could get outside a little? Go for a walk?”

  “Walk? You mean, leave the studio?” A slow smile creased the hard lines of Ryker’s face. “What a novel concept.”

  “I tend to walk a lot when I’m stuck,” Alix admitted. “But I guess that makes more sense when you live on the beach.”

  “I do the same. If it didn’t take an hour just to get there, I’d say we should go back to my place.”

  “You live on the ocean?” Alix asked.

  Ryker nodded. “First thing I did when I made a little money—bought a place with private beach access up the coast in Malibu.”

  “Sounds lovely.”

  “I’ll have to take you there some time.”

  Alix’s heart fluttered nervously. She was not going to get involved with Ryker, she reminded herself firmly, steeling her eyes not to linger on his lean hips. His dark eyes grew knowing as she took a half step back. “Uh, sure,” she said, forcing a calm smile. “Maybe when we’re done filming.”

  He chuckled. “Chicken.”

  She felt the color steal into her cheeks. With one word, he put her back into the viewing room with his lips on her shoulder, and her body flushed with heat.

  “Ryker, you’re not…” She trailed off as his eyes flicked from her face to her chest and then back.

  “Alix, did you know that when you blush, you turn pink all the way down to your collarbones?” he said, his voice conversational.

  It occurred to her that going off the studio grounds might not be a good idea after all. “You know, we’ve got a lot to talk about. Maybe we should just stay here.”

  Ryker shook his head. “Wildwood Canyon is only ten minutes away. We won’t have time for a long walk, but at least we’ll get away from that.” He gestured toward Jake and Lena, who were still glaring at each other, even as they grabbed lunch from the catering table.

  “All right,” she said, wishing with all her might that she could take back her hasty suggestion.

  Despite her fears, Ryker didn’t make any further suggestive remarks as they headed out of the studio. With the same casual chivalry he’d shown when they went to dinner together, he opened the door of his car for her, waited until she had seated herself, and then closed it gently behind.

  Alix forced herself to relax into the smooth leather seat of the cherry-red Mercedes. The car had two seats, a sleek mahogany instrument panel, and a long front end. Something about it made her feel like she was driving off to see the premier of a Gene Kelly film.

  The sun bathed her skin in a gentle warmth, and Alix rolled down her window to let the breeze in as they pulled out of the parking lot. She rested her head against the seat and tried not to think about how close Ryker was and how intimate the tiny space between them.

  “What kind of car is this?” she asked, uncomfortable with the silence. “I mean, besides a Mercedes.”

  “It’s a 1960 300 SL Roadster.”

  “Wow,” she said, trying to sound as if that meant something to her.

  He slid her a sideways glance as they accelerated onto the highway. “I don’t really know anything about cars either,” he said. “I just think it looks cool.”

  Alix laughed, and her shoulders slowly relaxed. “I thought all men knew something about cars. Isn’t that programmed into the Y chromosome? Cars and sports?”

  “If so, I may be a double X in disguise,” he said. “I never had much interest in either.”

  “Really? You weren’t quarterback for your high school football team?”

  “I spent most of my youth dodging the police and my stepfather, both of which sent me to the movie theater. By the time I hit high school, I was saving money for acting classes. Sports were for other kids. I didn’t have time.”

  She studied him through her lashes, his profile a mix of hard, rigid planes and a mouth twisted with wry humor. She realized that that combination seemed to define him—darkness and humor.

  “What was your favorite?” she asked impulsively. “Favorite movie, I mean.”

  He shrugged. “It didn’t matter to me. Anything with car chases and explosions, when I was young. My mother dragged me to some of the better films when I got a little older. I suppose my all-time favorite would have to be Citizen Kane, and of course anything by Hitchcock. What about you?”

  Alix considered for a moment. “I can’t say I really have one favorite. That seems to change by the season. I think Ingmar Bergman may be my all-time favorite director, though lately I’ve been partial to Almodóvar.”

  Ryker shook his head sadly. “I should have known.”

  Alix giggled. “Too romantic for you?”

  He snorted. “What do you think?”

  They chatted easily, and Alix forgot about her nerves and fear of being alone with him. Ryker handled the car with careless precision, one hand resting loosely on the gearshift, long fingers tapping idly on the steering wheel. They rode slowly through the stately, residential houses at the edge of Burbank and then turned up a narrow road into one of the steep canyons that led to the Verdugo Mountains. After a mile or so, they turned into the park. A small gatehouse marked the entrance. The road climbed up into the canyon, winding past a number of picnic tables set amid tall sycamores and pine trees, fragrant in the warm afternoon sun.

  They parked in a small lot at the end of the road. Ryker slid on a pair of dark glasses and jammed a dark brown fedora on his head.

  “A fiendishly good disguise,” Alix said, straight-faced.

  Ryker looked at her over the top of his glasses. “You’d never recognize me, right?”

  She laughed. “I never recognized you in the first place, remember?”

  The path was narrow and dusty, hard-packed yellow sand and loose rocks. Alix pulled off her sweatshirt and tied it around her waist, sweat beading up on her forehead as they left the shade of the tall trees and ventured out under the bright sun. The path had been carved into the side of the canyon, steep and winding, with the vista of the city spread out in front of them and the canyon walls rising at their backs. The air was warm and still, birds twittering from steel-gray sage and the hardy, desert vegetation that thrived along the canyon walls. There had been two other cars in the parking lot, but the trail was empty and quiet, save for the crunch of the gravel beneath their feet.

  The studio seemed a million miles away.

  Alix held her arms at her sides, acutely aware that the narrow trail had them practically touching, their bodies mere inches apart.

  “So how are we going to make this work?” Ryker said suddenly.

  Alix cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

  “We’re coming at this movie from opposite sides. How do we bring it together?”

  She paused, surprised that he had brought up the very issue she’d been dancing around. “It’s your movie,” she said carefully. “I’m just trying to do what you hired me to do. I can’t make you believe in something you think is nonsense. On the other hand, if I can’t get you to suspend your beliefs, I’m not sure we’re going to get anywhere.”

  He did not respond. Alix wondered if she had been too direct, but when she dared a look at his face, he seemed thoughtful, not angry. They walked in silence, their shoes crunching on the sandy trail.

  They followed the path until they came to a fork, one route continuing up into the mountains, the other following along the top of a ridge before dipping back toward the road in a series of steep switchbacks. Ryker motioned toward the ridge, and they continued until they reached a small clearing. Alix stopped to catch her breath and then noticed a couple a few hundred yards ahead of them, several switchbacks below
. They were facing each other, and the man held the woman’s face in his hands. Alix stared, instantly captivated by the emotion plainly evident in her eyes.

  “Wishing you had your camera?” Ryker whispered.

  “Hush,” Alix responded.

  The man lowered his head and kissed the woman; it was a long, slow kiss that started with her mouth and trailed down her neck. His arms wound around her body and settled on her bottom. He pulled her tightly against him, and she gave a soft cry of delight.

  Ryker checked behind them and shuffled his feet uncomfortably. “Alix, don’t you usually get permission first?”

  She frowned, eyes not leaving the man and woman. “They’re in a public park. They don’t mind.”

  “Really? I thought—”

  Alix waved him quiet. “Look at how he’s touching her,” she said. “Can you see how he adores her? How he’s completely focused on her?”

  Ryker turned reluctantly back to the couple. “I see that he’s risking being arrested for public indecency. Kids use this park, you know.”

  Alix glared at him. “Look at them,” she ordered. “Look at them and then think about our movie. They are completely lost in each other. That’s what we need Jake and Lena to do. Lose themselves in each other. Can’t you see how she’s yielding to him? How she uses her body to tell him she wants him?”

  The man dipped his face into the woman’s neck and then looked up again to meet her gaze. He murmured something Alix couldn’t hear, but the words hardly mattered. The woman’s eyes shone, and she nodded and smiled. The man trailed the back of his hand along her cheek and then across her breast. Her eyes closed, and she arched her back.

  “Watch him caress her,” Alix whispered. “Watch her respond with her whole body. They are communicating on every level right now, body and mind.”