“Okay,” said Dixon. “Let’s go for a take.”
The cameras rolled. Tyler put the car into gear...then did his argh move. “It’s no good. I can’t just sit here and—” He slapped the steering wheel so hard I jumped. “I want to be with you!”
I felt suddenly sick with fear. Was I about to ruin everything between Ryan and me? Sure, actors accepted it as part of the job. But Ryan wasn’t an actor. “I can’t,” I said. “I’m with Tony. I told you that.”
“And I told you that I don’t care,” said Tyler with a snarl. And suddenly he was leaning across the car, pushing me back into my seat with both hands as his lips met mine. He was different to Ryan. Not quite as hard or powerful in his kisses, but just as confident and assured. A very, very good kisser. His tongue started to tease my lips, tracing the line between them.
I was still wracked with guilt about Ryan, so I tensed up, even turning my head away slightly, but his mouth followed me. In a way, that part was okay—I was resisting just as I was meant to resist.
Now came the hard part. Now I had to look as if I was enjoying it. I didn’t want to, partially because I was worried about how it would look to Ryan, partially because I was worried I might actually enjoy it.
But I had to. If I messed it up, we’d just do another take.
I forced myself to slowly relax. My body slid an inch lower in its seat. My arms, which had flown up to clutch at Tyler’s shoulders, went limp. And my lips flowered open.
For the next hour, I battled to maintain control of my body. I mean, it felt like an hour. It must have been ten seconds or so, but they were long, slow, sensuous seconds, measured in the path of his tongue around my lips. My panting breath turned into deep groans that came from low in my chest. I was trying to make it look real and, somehow, the acting got mixed up with my real responses. I felt my hand clutching at his hair and I wasn’t sure if I’d done that deliberately or not. I’d meant to arch my back a little, pushing back against him, but had I meant to do it that much, so that my breasts pillowed against his chest?
I felt as if I was drunk. Lost in the hot, heady world of his lips. When he drew back, it took me a few seconds to open my eyes.
“I’ve wanted to do that since our first day at the academy,” said Tyler.
I finally opened my eyes, my shock—and lust—written all over my face.
“And CUT!” yelled Dixon. “That’s a wrap for today and that’s a wrap for the pilot! Way to go, everybody!”
There was an explosion of cheering from all around us. Of course—that was it! The filming was done. Ryan and I had made it through the pilot. I had my big shot at stardom and he could go back to the force.
Except, as I found him in the crowd, he was staring at me in absolute fury. And then he turned and stalked off the set, crashing through the doors to the stairs.
Chapter 52
Ryan
Dixon started to say something about the wrap party, but I didn’t stop to listen. The doors were already slamming shut behind me and I was pounding up the stairs. I needed to find something. I needed to find a target, something I could hit and break, or I was going to take it out on Tyler.
He’s just an actor, the rational part of my brain told me. It’s just a job. It doesn’t mean anything.
But the anger was bubbling up inside me like boiling tar.
I stumbled outside, into the police station’s parking lot. Old, rusted patrol cars had been sitting here just a month before, when the station was disused. Now they’d been replaced with the shiny, fake cars we used in the show. They looked like the real thing and they’d fool the audience, but they were just regular cars underneath the paint.
That’s all this was, I told myself. Just fake. They were faking it.
But what if they hadn’t been? What if he’d enjoyed it? What if he’d been getting his rocks off, mauling her. I remembered the guy at the screen test, the one who’d meant to have had my part. He’d been intending to relish every moment of it. What if Tyler was the same, inside, under all his professionalism? Or was I being naive and that’s the way it was with all actors, and the it’s just work was a polite lie they told each other? What if they all enjoyed it and I just had to sit there, as the boyfriend, and take it?
I walked stiffly toward the patrol cars, the air burning like fire in my lungs. And what about the future? The pilot was done, but what about the series? What if the test audience decided Jasmine’s character should wind up with Tyler’s character and not mine? What if I had to stand there, day after day, as she kissed him?
What if they had sex scenes?!
I felt the rage blossom and turn from red hot to white hot. I felt it thundering through every limb, taking possession of me. Almost before I knew it was happening, I let out a roar, swung my fist, and punched through the side window of one of the fake patrol cars. Pain exploded in my hand and I kicked the side of the car as hard as I could. The door panel caved inward.
And then I turned and saw Jasmine, standing by the door to the station. Her face was pale, her eyes huge and scared.
Scared of me.
Instantly, the anger was gone. The shock of seeing her pushed it away. I stepped forward, holding out the hand that wasn’t throbbing.
She’d been walking toward me but her steps became faltering and uncertain. I recognized the look on her face. It was the same look she’d given me when I’d gotten drunk.
I reminded her of someone.
I reminded her of—oh, shit!
I swallowed. “I’m sorry,” I told her. “I didn’t want you to see me like that.” I reached for her.
She stopped. And started to back away.
Hot shame flooded my face. I didn’t know who’d hurt her, but I knew I wanted to kill them. The disgust, the raw hatred I had for those guys was stronger than anything I’ve ever felt. And now she thought I was just like them.
I stopped and, after another few steps away from me, she stopped, too.
“Jasmine,” I said slowly. “I would never, ever, ever hurt you.”
She just looked at me. Her lip was trembling.
“Ever!” I said desperately.
Her eyes were shining. “Do—-Do I make you like this?”
“No! God, no. You stop it! You calm me down! I—” I sighed, exasperated with myself. “I don’t know what makes me like this. I know it started when Hux died. And I know what triggers it—any little thing.”
“And today it was me,” she said. “Me and Tyler.”
“No! I mean, it triggered it, but it’s not you. It’s not you I’m angry at.”
She swallowed. “Is it Tyler? Are you going to beat him up?”
I closed my eyes for a second, imagining my fists on his face. Yes. Part of me did want that. But I knew it wasn’t the real problem. If it wasn’t Tyler, it would be some other actor in a different show, a different movie. It’s...this life,” I said slowly. I ran a hand over my face, closing my eyes for a second. Things were suddenly coming into sharp focus. I didn’t want to lose her, but I didn’t want to hurt her, either. The look of fear on her face and the pain in my hand had woken me up. “I’m realizing that….” I took a deep breath, coaxing out the words I didn’t want to say.
“What?” There was a new note of fear in her voice.
I opened my eyes. “Maybe I can’t do this.” I stepped closer to her and, this time, she didn’t back away when I reached out and touched her shoulders. “The reason I didn’t ask you out for so long was because you were an actress and I was just a dumb beat cop. Different worlds. And then I thought maybe, somehow, it would work.”
“It can work!” she said desperately.
“I don’t know anymore. You look at things differently. Not just you—all actors. You can separate things out. You can kiss someone and it doesn’t mean anything. You flirt with people...it doesn’t matter to you.”
She was shaking her head. “The flirting was a mistake. I know that now. I was just being—” She broke off abruptly.
“What?” I prompted. “What were you being?”
For a moment, she looked as if she was going to tell me something—something huge. Then she shook her head. “Stupid,” she said. “I was just being stupid. And the screen kisses—they really do mean nothing!”
“But I’m not like you,” I told her. “That’s what you don’t get. You can just turn this stuff on and off at will. I...can’t. I’m not sure I can handle it. I don’t like seeing you with someone else. Even if it is just acting.”
She turned away from me for a second, brow furrowed. Then she looked me right in the eye. “Then I’ll quit.”
I felt my jaw drop. “Quit?! You can’t quit! Acting’s what you’ve always wanted to do! You—you’re Jasmine! You’re an actress! That’s what you do!”
She was shaking her head. “It’s not worth it,” she said. “It’s not worth it if I can’t have you.”
I grabbed her hands, wincing as my own hand throbbed. “I won’t let you do that. No way.”
We stared at each other. Then, as one, we leaned closer and closer. Our foreheads touched and I felt the cool, feminine press of her, just that simple contact calming me inside. I moved back until I could kiss that soft, smooth skin.
“So what do we do?” I asked.
She took a deep breath. “We take it as it comes. We talk about it, instead of tiptoeing around it. Yes, I’ll occasionally have to kiss other guys. Yes, I might even have to do a sex scene with one of them. We...figure it out. Together. Day by day.” She looked up at me. “Do you think you can do that?”
I thought about it and there was really only one answer. “I’d do anything,” I said at last, “if it meant I could be with you.”
And then we were leaning closer and kissing, soft and gentle, reassuring one another. That kiss told me what no amount of words could. She was mine.
“I need to be straight with you,” she said when we broke the kiss.
I nodded and waited.
“I’d be lying, if I said I didn’t enjoy it at all,” she told me. “But that doesn’t mean it means anything. I know it’s not what you want to hear, but being honest is the only way we’re going to get through this.”
I let out a long breath. She was right: it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. But in a weird way, I felt better, because now I knew. There was no suspicion.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
I thought about lying, but she’d been straight with me. “Jealous,” I said. My voice was almost a growl.
She nodded. “That’s not a bad thing.”
“It’s not?”
“I think all actor couples get that. I mean, I think they do. I’ve never done this either, you know. I’ve never had the jealous boyfriend thing. I’ve just heard of it.”
“So how do these other actor couples do it? How do the jealous boyfriends deal with it?”
She leaned closer. “Traditionally,” she whispered in my ear, “I think they kiss the other guy right out of her.”
I jerked back so that I could read her expression. She was serious. And her eyes were blazing with lust.
With a growl, I grabbed her and pushed her up against the car. Then my mouth was coming down on hers, my lips hungry and savage. She gave a low moan as my tongue slipped into her mouth. My hands were on her waist, my thumbs almost grazing the softness of her breasts through her uniform. I could feel her panting into my mouth as we kissed, open-mouthed, and then her head tilted back, exposing her pale throat. I kissed all the way down it, then back up to her mouth, nibbling on her top lip, then returning to the kiss. Her hands were running over my back, tracing the shape of me, and then they tangled in my hair. The jealousy twisted and wrapped around the lust, making it even stronger. It felt as if I’d stolen her back. She wasn’t any other guy’s. She was mine.
When we finally came up for air, she panted, “Better?”
I nodded madly. And, to my surprise, I was grinning. Things were okay again—for now.
But, now that I was calmer, I could feel a twisting worm of uncertainty about next time. My anger had sunk back down inside me, but it was still there. And I wasn’t mad about this kiss, but I still didn’t trust Tyler—not at all. The way he looked at her, the way he reacted to me, his rival. I just knew that, if they had to kiss in the series, this problem was going to come back even worse.
She smiled back at me, still getting her breath back. “Now let’s take a look at that hand.”
I pushed my worries about Tyler away. I’d almost forgotten about my hand. It wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it could have been. The glass I’d punched through had been safety glass and had stayed attached to its flexible film rather than shattering into shards. I wasn’t cut and there didn’t seem to be any broken bones, just some bruising. And my foot felt okay.
I reached up and smoothed a lock of Jasmine’s hair from her face. It’s all going to be okay, I told myself, and I almost believed it.
And then I looked up and saw Dixon watching us from the doorway.
***
I told Jasmine to go ahead and get changed into her street clothes while I talked to Dixon. When she saw the worried expression on his face, she understood.
I walked over to him and he silently led me somewhere we could talk—the evidence lock-up, down in the basement.
Dixon leaned against the metal fence that separated the lock-up part from the rest of the room. “I took a chance on you, big guy,” he said.
“I know.” I looked down at my bruised fist.
“Your captain tried to warn me. Told me you had anger issues, since the death of your buddy. I’m sorry.” He sighed again. “You’ve done a good job. A great job.”
I nodded. I knew what this was leading up to.
“But between the....tension between you and Tyler, and now this...I’m worried I can’t rely on you for the series, if it does go ahead. Once you’re written into the first episode, it becomes very hard to extract you if things go south. What if you smash up the set on the first day of filming? Or hit another actor?”
“I get it,” I said. “The pilot was my audition. I failed.” Funny—back at the screen test, I’d thought the whole idea of me acting was crazy. I’d only cared about making it through the pilot. Now, the idea of never doing this again stung. And the truth was, he was right. Sure, I’d just patched things up with Jasmine, but I still couldn’t control my anger. I knew the same thing was going to happen the next time I saw her and Tyler together. The guy was just so obviously lusting after her, even when the cameras weren’t rolling, and the anger was always crackling and pulsing inside me, ready to explode. It was a lethal combination.
Dixon slapped me on the shoulder, which was almost comical with me being so much bigger than him. “I’m sorry. I like you, Ryan. I like the way you work with Jasmine. And you two are cute together.”
I blinked.
“Oh, come on, like we don’t all know!” He punched me playfully in the arm.
I looked at my feet. “We were trying to be...discreet.”
“Oh, hell, I don’t mind! Chemistry’s always better when the love interests are seeing each other. I was just worried you were going to break up and not be able to even look at each other.” He tilted his head to the side. “Ryan, I’m sorry it didn’t work out. I can send a glowing report back to your captain, tell him how calm and easy to work with you’ve been….”
I heard it in his voice. “...but?”
“But I don’t think it’s going to make any difference. I can help you get back on the force, but until you get rid of this thing that’s eating away at you inside, you’re going to keep getting angry. You need to beat this thing, once and for all.”
With a last slap on the back, he headed upstairs. I was left in the evidence room, surrounded by packets of fake cocaine and rows of fake handguns. My last glimpse of fake cop life, before I went back to the real thing.
I wasn’t ready.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want it. The need to be bac
k on the streets was like a physical ache. But I knew Dixon was right. I couldn’t handle it.
Jasmine had conquered her demons but I hadn’t conquered mine.
Chapter 53
Jasmine
When I got back to my apartment, I started getting ready for the wrap party...and for what would follow it.
I’d already decided that tonight was going to be the night. The bath had been fun and it had shown me a whole different side to a relationship that I’d been missing, trusting and gentle and loving. The time at his apartment, when we’d danced, had shown me that he’d wait as long as I needed him to...but I wanted him now.
I slipped into the new dress Nat had bought me and put my hair into a mass of pre-Raphaelite curls. For my make-up, I went for heavy, smoky eye shadow and wet-look, blood-red lips—very femme fatale. I put on black hold-ups and it was while I was smoothing the nylon up my legs that it hit me that I felt like Jasmine again. I’d slipped out of Emma and back into her.
Her? I mean me.
It was starting to get confusing. Neither one of them felt exactly like me, anymore. They were both vying for control. But tonight, I’d definitely become Jasmine again.
Well, that was okay, right? No guy complains that his girl is too sexy or too confident in bed. Sex was Jasmine’s thing. The thought of Ryan and me together in my bed, my legs winding around him, made me go weak. And I wasn’t just horny, I was excited about showing him something I did really well. It was going to be perfect. After everything we’d been through to get to this point, he deserved something amazing. Sex was what I did. He deserved the full Jasmine Experience.
There was a dark cloud hanging over everything, though. Nick wasn’t home, and there was no sign he’d been home since he’d stormed out of the apartment the night before. I knew that if I went searching for him, my chances of finding him were approximately nil. This time, he wouldn’t want to be found. I checked my phone, but he hadn’t replied to any of my messages. I left more.
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