by Angel Payne
Like they’d choreographed it, Franzen took a step back to let Zeke move up and continue. “And maybe I talked my sexy bird of a girlfriend into meeting us in LA so she could arrange a friendly visit with her cousin…on the set of the TV show she works on.”
That got a fist pump out of Rhett. “Oh, yeah! Hollyweird, here we come!”
Zeke chuckled, accepting Rhett’s happy offer to knock bottle necks. Franzen and Garrett joined the toast. When the four of them swung expectant stares at Ethan, he somehow got his muscles to function at returning the chink. The action validated his new belief in miracles. How he functioned at all, considering how every blood cell in his body hit a red light at the same time, had to be divine intervention at work.
“Shit, Runway,” Garrett drawled. “don’t let all the excitement eat you up at once, okay?”
Zeke released a knowing snort. “Oh, he’s excited.”
Garrett seconded the laugh. “Figured your mention of a certain cousin might do it.”
Rhett grinned. “You mean the one he tackled into a pile of poof before Hawk’s wedding, thinking she was Hezbollah in heels? Or the one who did a personal GPS trek in lipstick across his face? Oh, wait. That was the same cousin, wasn’t it?”
“Goddamnit,” Franz snapped. “I missed all the good shit, didn’t I?”
“Not all of it.” Garrett scowled. “We finally got the vows in but Sage isn’t settling for the courthouse thing. Soon as the baby’s born, she swears she’s slimming down for the big dress and the Hollywood wedding production again. She wants to go ‘Nouveau Renaissance’ this time.”
“Oh, hell.” Zeke laughed his way around another swig. “Are goldenrod napkins involved again?”
“Not sure. But I told her if I’m wearing pants that button at my knee, I’d better damn well get a sword, too.”
The banter was background buzz in Ethan’s mind. For the chance to see Ava again, he’d hop on a plane to goddamn Antarctica. Okay, Rhett was right; they’d first met because he’d let paranoia into the party and body-slammed her into a mound of wedding fabric—but even that had been perfect. No stupid pretenses. No feigned interest behind a social handshake. Just their gazes, meshed with honesty, awareness…connection. Every breath tangled. Every touch a tiny fire. Every second a new beginning. It was the core of what he craved from being a Dominant—hell, what he was searching for in life—yet seemed his personal Atlantis, a lost nirvana never to be realized.
Until Ava.
Fuck.
He took a long gulp of his beer, medicating his frustration. Summoning the memories back only reconfirmed that everything he’d felt seven months ago was so damn real. And damn it, those kinds of sensations weren’t possible without return ammo. Like the way she’d lingered near him even after he’d pulled her upright from his tackle. The way her eyes danced like the rarest, darkest sapphires when she’d invited him into the forest for those flowers. The way she’d followed him through the trees then begged him to grip her harder when he pinned her against one of them…
None of it added up to the way her radio had gone dark on him since. After Garrett and Sage’s wedding had gone down in a blaze of disaster, including Zeke being zapped with a neurotoxin and Rayna getting carried off by a psychopath with a huge ax to grind, Ava stayed long enough to be sure that Ray was officially out of harm’s way then headed straight for the airport, telling everyone she’d been summoned back to Hollywood by her whack-a-diva of a boss. He hadn’t bought the line for a second. Said diva had only been in the third week of recovery from an extensive nose and lip job. He doubted Bella Lanza was conscious enough to dial the phone let alone capable of a text or email. Ava had fled Seattle for another reason. In the following weeks, the crickets that greeted his calls and texts were ample proof of that reason.
Would seeing her again explain anything? Prove anything?
At first, the hollow walls of his beer bottle were the only response he got. But suddenly, something replaced that fucking uselessness—something besides the anger, the exasperation, the loss. Resolve. It started in the core of his chest but spread out fast, making his extremities flex and his spine straighten. Once it got to his mind, it met up with a new friend: the Dom deep inside who now issued a surprising update. He hadn’t given up on the goddess in the forest. He hadn’t white-flagged it on a second of the desire in her eyes, the need in her kiss, the urgency in her voice when she’d begged him to pin her down harder. He hadn’t let go of the hope that she wanted more from him…had more to give him in return.
And he wasn’t giving up unless she told him to. With her own lips. Standing face-to-face with him.
He grinned. Somehow he found that harder to envision than their Hummer turning into a Lamborghini.
And once he had Ava in front of him again, he’d get to the truth—even the naked version, if she forced his hand—of why she’d decided to go AWOL on him after what they’d shared in that Washington forest.
“Serenity.” It was more a command than a call, bolstered by his first real hope in seven months. The bar mistress wheeled, cocking brows in a silent you-did-not-just-summon me-like-that, but softened when he twirled a finger toward the table and said, “Round two, please? The good shit again. On me.”
Franzen kicked up one side of his mouth. “You know, Runway, when your morose silences lead to stuff like this, I’m okay with it.”
“Copy me in on that.” Zeke held his fresh bottle high. “So what’re we toasting to, Archer?”
Ethan turned to his battalion mates and leader. His stare was as level as a sniper’s crosshairs. “What else, man? To California.”
“To California!” the other four men bellowed.
After they knocked bottles and took deep drags from their drinks, Franz’s smile grew into a wicked grin. “This should be an adventure. And I’m sure as hell not missing it this time.”
Ethan stepped away from their huddle and paced back out toward the cars. The lights and music of the bar faded a little. He looked up into the sky, where twilight lingered in a special strip between the horizon and the stars. It looked like the universe had scooped the color right out of Ava’s eyes, then painted it there. The indigo hue, a perfect mix of deep blue and purple, held his stare long after he should’ve walked back.
He drilled his gaze hard into that sky and gave it a small smile of his own.
“Adventure,” he murmured. “That might be one way of putting it.”
Chapter Two
“Ava! Damn it!”
The outburst didn’t just pull Ava Chestain out of her mental cloud. It yanked her down, slapped her hard then hurled her around, making sure her self-esteem got slammed against all four walls of the custom dressing trailer. That included the sides with the mini-movie theater and the built-in kitchen.
Fortunately, her self-esteem had learned to laugh this shit off as the usual.
Unfortunately, there was nothing usual about today. And not in any of the best ways.
“Bella,” she mumbled, “Ay. Lo siento. Let me fix it.”
One of the world’s most famous faces, a perfect Sicilian oval centered by a newly sculpted nose, aimed one glaring brown eye at her in the vanity mirror’s reflection. The other eye was covered by the chunk of hair Ava had just teased, prepping it for the woman’s normal style, an updated version of Sophia Loren froth. Trouble was, even Bella’s hair wasn’t the standard order today, and forgetting it was on the same par with unleashing locusts over LA. It never escaped Ava’s mind that though her paycheck was direct deposited from Victory Cat Productions, the real ruler of her professional world was the petite woman who sat in the styling chair with posture that suggested a curling iron had just gotten jammed up her backside.
“Yes. You will fix it.” The woman had carefully picked the burrs from her tone, leaving only the poison-dipped velvet beneath. “Must I remind you that Raven is in grief today? She’s likely not even showered for forty-eight hours. The hair must match.”
The woman sh
uddered. Ava waited, knowing she’d do it again. Bella often spoke about her character on the show as if Raven Ryder sat in the room with them or even like she was Raven herself. Ava actually liked the acting exercise. It was a hell of a lot easier to talk to Raven than Bella.
She was pretty sure that’d be the only time “easy” entered her vocabulary today.
She stole a glance at the clock. Whew. It was barely eight a.m. Rayna, Zeke, and the guys weren’t due for their visit to the set for another hour. She had to shave an additional fifteen minutes off that because they would be early. And though she already had Charlie, work bestie extraordinaire, on standby for the set tour and introductions duties, she wanted to make sure her alibi of having to pick up something from Bella’s house at least looked authentic. That gave her thirty minutes to make Bella’s lustrous hair look like it hadn’t been washed in two days.
She turned and started yanking every tube of product from the hair cabinet. To make sure she wasn’t in the same room again with Ethan Archer, she’d dump a whole salon on the woman’s head.
Because if she was in the same room with him again, she’d want to be in his bed tonight. Correction. She’d want to be tied up in his bed tonight. Yielding to him. Giving herself to him. All of herself. The On switch the man always tripped in her would be on, and this time, she wouldn’t have the option of hopping on a plane before turning it off…if she’d even want to.
You’ve come too far, Ava. Worked too hard to get here. You’re not going to let another cruise dog in camouflage turn your head inside out and your heart upside down just for three hours of passion, a couple of orgasms, and another dead-end hunt for a connection that isn’t possible with a man. Don’t let him in. You can’t let him in.
To water down the panic that threatened a mutiny on her bloodstream, she decided to try and calm Bella at the same time. “So tell me what Raven has to deal with today.”
Bella’s eyes had already fallen heavy. She blinked up at Ava with matching torpidity, a signal that she’d clicked into her “method” by “cloaking herself” inside her character. “The CO has come to tell her that the insurgents have taken Jace hostage.” Jace, Raven’s fiancé, was played by hunky Trent Lake, who’d just been named on a half-dozen Hot Young Hollywood lists. He was also in two studio tentpole movies this summer and was “considering” his renewal offer for the show’s next season, which translated into give me more money or I walk. Which was why Jace was currently in a Middle Eastern prison, fate undecided.
“So they don’t know if he’s alive or dead?” Ava asked it as she combed in a conditioner with an olive oil base. When Bella washed her hair tonight, the strands would be soft as a baby’s butt. Or fall completely out. Sometimes a girl had to gamble.
Bella’s brow furrowed. “No, they don’t. Because of this, Raven is unbearably lost. Rudderless. What will she do without him? She…she wanders through their house. She unzips the wedding dress she still hasn’t worn for him, and she thinks about all their plans for their big day, perhaps never to become real now. She thinks about the babies they wanted to have, the family they wanted to raise, the life they dreamed of sharing…”
Ava stilled her hand. Swallowed hard. “Shit. That’s—um—really good, Bella.” It was the perfect thing for her to hear this morning, too. Nothing like a little make-believe grief to remind her of what real life would be by falling for another military man. A Special Forces warrior, at that.
“You think so?” Bella’s smile trembled a little. Was the woman actually nervous about this?
“Oh, yeah.” She gently squeezed the actress’s shoulders. “It’s going to be really good.”
“Yessss.” Bella pumped her fist. “Emmy nomination, here I come.”
So much for “nervous.” Ava was saved from trying to figure out the proper reaction to that by a brisk knock at the trailer’s door.
“Enter,” Bella called.
Of all the faces Ava expected to appear, Charlie Jenkow’s was not on the list. Though the man dutifully nodded toward their star first, his gorgeous aquamarines locked fast on Ava. Her stomach reacted with a backflip of dread.
“Chaaarrrlie.” Bella extended a hand, wiggling the ends of her fingers as she finished what Chaz called the “Bella Lanza Broken Vibrator Remix” of his name. But he got no pity from Ava about it. He’d been the one to turn up the wattage of delight on his handsome perfection when she’d first used it. Reap the oats you sow, my friend.
Another look at her friend’s face made her mentally take the words back. Charlie’s gritted grin conveyed that her own “oats” were tumbling hard down life’s payback chute. The casual offer she’d made to Rayna last October, inviting her and Zeke Hayes, her new boyfriend, to come visit and tour the set, had ballooned into today: the PR bonanza the network smelled once they realized Zeke was the same Special Forces soldier who’d become Seattle’s famous street vigilante hero from last fall. When Z asked if he could bring along some members of his battalion, the execs were as giddy as ducks around a kid with a loaf of bread.
By the look on Charlie’s handsome face, the ducks were now circling tighter.
“Good morning, Behhhlllaaa.” He tossed the broken vibe song back at Bella like it was the cutest thing in the world. Ava lasered a glare over the head of their giggling star at him. He simply smirked in a wordless version of chill out, wench, method to my madness here.
“What do you want, you shameless tease?” Bella demanded.
Charlie stepped all the way inside and leaned against one of the leather couches. “Wellll, now that you mention it…the boys from the big office are here for the promo op with the Special Ops team. They got here early and you know how Cameron hates it when they hang and gawk over his shoulder.” He pulled out his best Rico Suave stare, complete with pouting lips and tropic lagoon eyes. “If I bribe you with a skinny caramel latte, perhaps with a daub of whip and chocolate sprinkles, will you come out and dazzle them with your resplendence until the soldier hunks get here?”
Bella psshhed at him. “Resplendence, my ass. I’m supposed to look like I haven’t bathed in two days.”
“You’re resplendently filthy.”
“Porca Vacca.” The starlet threw up her hands. “You could talk the Pope into bed, couldn’t you?”
“Sweetie, Matt Reave is in my bed. The angels sing every night without the Pontiff’s help.”
Ava joined Bella in groans of retaliation. Matt was a smoldering model and witty entertainment show host, making him and Chaz one of the industry’s hottest couples in every sense. That didn’t mean every straight woman for ten miles couldn’t grieve the permanent loss for the team.
But as soon as Bella grabbed her green tea and left the trailer, Ava dropped the humor. She spun on Charlie and grabbed his shoulder. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Your soldier boy friends are here already, that’s what,” he countered. “I had to think fast.”
“Huh?” A look at the clock showed that Z and the guys were nearly thirty minutes early. “Mierda,” she muttered, “that’s just rude.”
“No hon, that’s Special Ops—yummy, over prepared studs that they are.” The Rico Suave face made an encore. “You really sure you want to dash out? I got a nice peek at your Ethan before dashing here. Baby Jesus wept, Chestain. He’s perfect.”
“He’s not my Ethan.” She grabbed her car keys off the vanity. She hadn’t taken anything else in with her. “He can’t be anything except a really good memory from a really weird day, okay?”
“He looks like a spectacular kisser.” Chaz’s mouth curled with sensual intent. “His upper lip’s got more curves than Mulholland Drive. Then there’s that quiet-but-deadly thing in his walk. You know what that turns into under the sheets. And those eyes. And those lashes. Don’t get me started on the shaming the angels for wasting that beauty on a straight boy.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t.” Why had the trailer heated up by ten degrees? Ava shoved past her friend and bounded down the t
railer’s steps. “Where are they now?”
“They’re waiting for me on main set. I’m supposed to give them the fly-over there first.”
“The tour and PR bullshit?”
“Roger dodger.”
“And after that? Still out to the grassy knoll for the photo op with brass?”
“Yep.”
The studio had “grown” a rolling lawn in the middle of the lot for the show, with backdrops that could be changed out to transform it into everything from the hills of Afghanistan to a military base picnic lawn. But the show’s crew had spent so many exhausting hours there that the area got permanently nicknamed after the hill made famous by the Kennedy assassination.
Ava mentally mapped out the lawn’s location in relation to theirs before putting together a fast plan. “Bueno,” she finally said. “I have to make a run over to wardrobe to check the colors of Bella’s outfit for tomorrow. That means I can cut through the hallway in back of main set and bust out the side door. I’ll take the alley behind the New York street mock-up when I’m done.”
“Sounds perf.” Chaz did some tapping of his own. With one finger patting his chin, he drawled, “Especially in light of the massive favor you owe me right now.”
Despite the hammer that’d gone to work on her heart for the last five minutes, she chuckled. “Let me guess. You want that Prada tux as a loaner for the gala with Matt on Saturday?”
“Have I told you lately how smart and gorgeous you are?”
She shook her head. “Save it for Bellllaaaa, you dork.” As they reached the spot where they needed to part ways, she added, “I’ll see what I can do. Wardrobe owes me a few after they left pins in Bella’s gown last week.”
“You’re a gem.”
“And you’re still a dork.”
She nudged Charlie toward the entrance of the soundstage while she made her way toward the back door. As soon as she entered the building, she became part of a beehive. It took a lot of people to make a show like this into a success before the camera lights flashed green. Audio and video engineers. Set decorators and prop handlers. Technical directors and floor managers. For every one of those departments, there was a full crew, too.
