by Janice Sims
“Are you here yet?” she asked anxiously.
He laughed. “Sam and I are downstairs checking in. What are you up to? I’m starved and want to get something to eat before crashing.”
“What’s your room number? I need to shower and dress, but I can meet you in twenty.”
“Sounds good, it’s number 101,” said T.K. “Then you can give me a hello kiss.”
“I’d rather kiss Sam.”
“He’d appreciate that. He hasn’t had a good kiss in ages,” T.K. quipped.
Patrice laughed. “See you soon.”
In the lobby, T.K. closed his cell phone and peered down at Sam. “She wants me.”
T.K. answered the door with a towel wrapped around his waist. Patrice took a sharp intake of breath and tried to pretend she hadn’t been affected by the sight of him standing there nearly naked. They didn’t refer to him as “the body” for nothing. Arm, chest, stomach and leg muscles were beautifully defined. Still a bit damp from his shower, he looked like one of those oiled-up bodybuilders she saw on the beach. “There was no bathrobe in the room, and I can’t find the one I brought with me,” were T.K.’s first words as she walked into the room and he shut the door. “I’ll only be a minute,” he continued as he turned and went into the walk-in closet of the big suite, leg and thigh muscles flexing enticingly.
A beautiful golden retriever approached her, his tail wagging. “Oh, that’s Sam,” T.K. called to her.
Patrice knelt and hugged Sam. He made happy noises as she rubbed his head and scratched him under the chin. “Aren’t you a handsome boy,” she cooed.
T.K. found them on the floor when he came into the room in jeans and a T-shirt. “Can I get some love?” he asked as he reached for her hand and pulled her up.
They hugged tightly. Patrice enjoyed the feel of his hard body cradling hers. She looked into his eyes. God, I missed you, she wanted to tell him, but that would only strengthen his belief that he was going to win the bet. “You look well,” she said, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
“I missed you like crazy,” T.K. told her plainly, not caring one whit about the bet.
“I missed you too!” she cried, and hugged him again.
He bent and nuzzled her neck. “For nine hundred miles, I thought of nothing but seeing you again.”
She melted. She ached to kiss him. Hugging was nice, but there was nothing comparable to a heartfelt kiss—to taste him, breathe him in, feel his tongue enter her mouth and claim hers. She wanted to give herself to him.
When she felt his mouth on the side of her neck, she came to her senses. In the space of five minutes, he had her about to cave in to his desires. Oh, he was good, really good!
She disentangled herself from him and took a couple steps back. “That’s enough, I’m only human. Let’s go if we’re going.” She picked up her purse from the bed where she’d tossed it upon entering the room.
T.K. looked at her with hooded eyes. It was impossible for her to read his emotions at that point, but she was pretty sure he wasn’t pleased. After a moment, he smiled. “This isn’t going to be easy, is it?”
Patrice shook her head, no. “Now, put on your shoes, and let’s go.”
She played with Sam while he sat on the bed. “My plan backfired,” he admitted after he’d gotten one sock on. “In three weeks, I’m ready to surrender and wave the white flag. There is no way I can work with you from late August until late December without kissing you. I’m weak.”
Patrice didn’t move. Sam had turned over onto his back, and she was rubbing his belly. A look of ecstasy was on the dog’s mug.
T.K. envied him.
She waited until he had both shoes on, and then she rose and gave Sam a parting pat on the head. “Good boy,” she said to Sam. She walked over to T.K. and pulled him off the bed. “From now on, I want you to be a good boy.” Her hand was on his chest. “I’d like to rip your clothes off right now and make love to you until we’re both too weak to move. But that kind of behavior would compromise my principles, and I do have principles. My parents raised me right. I don’t jump into bed with someone I’ve known for a month. If you want me, you’re going to have to prove to me that when I give myself to you, I’ll be doing the right thing with the right man. You know my history.”
T.K. liked the fact that she had principles. He was not without them himself. “What has that got to do with a kiss?” he asked.
“Because a kiss is the prelude to intimacy, and in and of itself, it is intimate.” She gave him a knowing look. “How long do you think it would be before we’d be in bed if we started kissing each other at every opportunity, thrown together, as we are, up here in lonely Wyoming? You know I’m right.”
“You have a point,” T.K. conceded. “But, damn, woman, take cold showers or something.” He put his wallet in his pocket, picked up his car keys and peered down at Sam. “We’ll be back soon, buddy. I’ll bring you a doggy bag.”
Sam barked once and wagged his tail enthusiastically.
He and Patrice left the room. In the hallway, Patrice resumed her argument. “Besides, abstinence is good for you. It builds character.”
“I’ve got enough character,” T.K. told her. “I need more kisses.”
She sighed. “We’re obviously not going to agree on this.”
“Not anytime soon,” T.K. assured her.
“Then the bet’s still on,” she concluded.
“Yes, indeed,” he said as they turned the corner and entered the lobby area.
The next morning the cast and crew, sixty-eight people, gathered in the big conference room at the inn. The director, Mike Whitcomb, a short, stocky African-American in his late thirties who wore his dark brown hair in dreadlocks and had a well-groomed goatee, led the meeting. “The construction crew has finished with the fictional town of Quincy in the Badlands, and tomorrow we will be moving out there in trailers. All of the equipment trucks should be there early in the morning, so we should be able to begin shooting at ten.” He regarded T.K. and Patrice, who were sitting up front side by side. “We’ll be starting with the love scene. Let’s get that out of the way, shall we?”
Patrice was dumbfounded. She was aware that the director chose which scene to shoot based on lighting and based on weather conditions, and it was always his prerogative, but why the love scene first? It wasn’t as if they would be out in inclement weather. According to the script, it would take place in a cabin in the fictional black township of Quincy.
She sighed, hoping T.K., sitting beside her, was just as uncomfortable shooting the love scenes so early in filming.
It turned out, he was. “Mike, what’s your reasoning on shooting the love scene first? I’m sure Patrice and I would both feel more relaxed if it came later on down the line.”
“It’s warm now,” Mike explained. “The weather in these parts drops ten degrees or more with each successive month. As you know, there is no heating on the makeshift sets they threw up to represent the township of Quincy.” Patrice couldn’t believe Mike Whitcomb was blushing. “You and Patrice will be quite scantily clad for the scenes. I don’t want my stars catching cold.”
Everybody laughed except T.K. and Patrice, who looked at one another and smiled regretfully. “Well, you tried,” Patrice whispered to T.K., indicating that she was grateful for his chivalrous efforts.
Soon after, the meeting broke up, and the two of them went to breakfast, which they’d earlier skipped. Over bagels and coffee in the inn’s dining room, T.K. took her hand in his. Their eyes met. “I had them put your trailer next to mine. I hope you don’t think that was presumptuous of me. I want you near so I can look out for you. The area we’ll be going to is about 40 miles west of here. They call it the Badlands, but what they are is wasteland, arid, rocky, hell to hike on and ride on. It’s pretty isolated, so if somebody has an accident, it’s going to take some maneuvering to get them out of there and to help. Of course, they have so-called experts, horse wranglers and other stunt coordi
nators who’re supposed to make the stunts safe for everybody, but I’ve done thirty films and I know accidents happen.”
Patrice was touched by his concern. “I’ll be all right. Don’t worry about me. But it’s nice to know you care. By the way, what happened to Mark? I thought he’d be at the meeting.”
“He only came yesterday to smooth things over with local officials. He’s gone home.”
T.K.’s brown eyes swept over her face. He wanted to tell her he cared about her. Already his mind was in a near panic because tomorrow they were going to have to enact a love scene that, when he’d read it, had made him wonder how he would ever get through it without embarrassing himself. Could he be detached enough tomorrow to hide the fact that even sitting across from her at a table in a dining room he was getting aroused? God, help him.
He’d worked with Mike on several movies, though. If Mike saw that he was getting into trouble, he would call “Cut!” and allow him time to fix the problem.
Patrice smiled at him. “This will be my first love scene in a film,” she said shyly. “I might need your help to get through it.”
You might need my help? T.K. thought ruefully. I’m going to need a minor miracle in order to get through that scene tomorrow.
He smiled gently and said while squeezing her hand reassuringly, “Relax, there’s nothing to it.”
“Seriously?” she innocently asked.
“Sure, it’ll be over before you know it. Believe me, after so many starts and stops with all the technical stuff, you’ll be bored out of your mind before it’s over.”
“I want a closed set as much as we can get it!” yelled Mike the following morning. “Only those essential to the shoot need to remain.”
Patrice, standing beside T.K. on the set that was designed to look like the bedroom of a rustic nineteenth-century cabin, was relieved. She watched as thirty people left the area. She was in costume. Extensions gave her a head full of curls. Underneath the frilly red dress, she wore a corset that was cutting off her breath. She was almost eager for T.K. to rip it off her. The dastardly thing had so many fasteners on it that there would be no ripping, though. He would have to carefully remove it, as the script dictated.
When Mike was pleased that he had a closed set, he gestured to T.K. and Patrice. “All right, guys. Let’s get this show on the road.”
Patrice smiled up at T.K. He looked handsome in his marshal’s uniform of jeans, a black denim shirt with Western buttons, his silver badge on his left breast pocket and boots. They’d given him a handlebar mustache that looked authentic, and it gave him a tough, utterly masculine appearance.
There were a few words of dialogue as they entered the bedroom. As Bella, Patrice looked up at T.K., as Bass, and said, “After everything I’ve been through, I couldn’t stand it if you didn’t treat me kindly.” She looked beseechingly up at him. Bass’s expression was tender. In it, she saw that he didn’t regard her as a used woman but something precious.
“I’ll treat you like the angel you are,” he said in his rough yet tender voice. Then they kissed, and Bella held her head back so that he could kiss the lovely lines of her throat.
Patrice’s bosom was pushed up to such an extent by the tight corset that she was afraid her breasts would spill out of it. She concentrated. When T.K.’s hands went to her chest, she told herself, I’m Bella. Be Bella. She isn’t timid. She knows how to please a man and is bold enough to show a man how to please her.
Mike allowed them to move through the script on their own, not saying a thing. It was quiet on the set. In the make-believe bedroom, Bass and Bella were kissing tenderly as if both of them were wounded souls and had to be nurtured. He rained kisses down her throat, ending with his lips on the crevice where her breasts came together in the corset.
Patrice trembled with pleasure. Bella aside, she was turned on by T.K. Bass removed Bella’s corset and her breasts, perfect, heavy and hard-tipped, fell into his big hands. For a moment, T.K. forgot the role he was playing, and he saw only Patrice. He felt as if he were doing something bad, when she hadn’t given him permission to touch her so intimately. Still, that thought didn’t stop the erection that followed.
Bella unbuttoned Bass’s shirt and ran her hands over his smooth, muscular chest. Patrice’s hands touched T.K.’s hardened nipples, and she felt herself growing moist between her legs. I’m not going to make it, she thought, panicking. She closed her eyes, and T.K. kissed her. She didn’t recall a kiss being in the script at this point.
This was no false kiss either. You could tell when an actor was holding back and not putting himself into it. Oh, God, she couldn’t take it. She kissed him back. Then she thought, I get to kiss him! It was like getting a get-out-of-jail-free card. She could kiss him and not be accused of breaking the rules and losing the bet.
She recalled everything from the script, how Bella gestured without speaking, indicating where she wanted Bass to touch her. It was wonderful. In Bella, she’d found free expression. It was almost like making love to T.K. When they mimicked full-on intercourse, there was a thick cloth between them, but they were each naked from the waist up, and their chests were rubbing. What she did for art! They screamed in ecstasy, and it was over. They fell onto the bed, exhausted but satisfied.
Mike yelled, “Cut!”
Patrice grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around her. T.K. remained covered by the sheet, not moving for fear it would be quite apparent that the scene had been a difficult one for him. He prided himself on his control, but this time he’d lost it.
“Please tell me you got that in one take,” he said to Mike.
Mike laughed shortly. “All I need now is a cigarette.”
Patrice was mortified. Had it been that erotic? She thought she had gone someplace else for a minute there, that she had been Bella instead of herself. She was sure that T.K. had lost himself in the scene, too.
“I’m just joking,” Mike assured them. “The scene went beautifully. I’ll take a look at the rushes and let you know if we need a reshoot, but I sincerely don’t think so. Get ready for the canyon scene.”
Patrice went and sat on the side of the bed. She wasn’t ignorant. She knew why T.K. hadn’t moved yet. “Nothing to it, huh?” she whispered accusingly. “That was not a piece of cake. I could have made love to you right then and there. I was totally into you.” She rose, piercing him with a stare. “No wonder actors fall in love on location.”
With an exasperated huff, she stormed off the set.
T.K. sat there a few more minutes and contemplated the scene. She wouldn’t believe him if he told her he’d never before gotten an erection during a love scene. It was all Mike’s fault. Usually the director was yelling, “No, that wasn’t right, do it this way,” or, “Cut,” making the scene mundane. Mike had allowed them to play out the scene and had remained silent. The one time T.K. would have welcomed constructive criticism from his director he hadn’t gotten it. Patrice was going to think he was a horn dog.
Chapter 8
An hour later they were in costumes for the chase scene. T.K. was in his marshal’s uniform, and unfortunately, it was a dress complete with a bustle and corset for Patrice. In this scene, they were running from a lynch mob across the Badlands. The horse wranglers hadn’t appeared yet with their mounts, so they were standing outside arguing about the love scene. “Have you no shame?” Patrice asked, skewering him with her eyes. “You kissed me for real! That was not acting.”
T.K. shrugged. “You kissed me back, so technically I won the bet.”
“I didn’t kiss you back,” Patrice denied. “You said that I had to kiss you when it wasn’t in the line of duty. I kissed you during a scene that was being filmed. So I didn’t break any rules.”
“Tell the truth and shame the devil,” T.K. said with a laugh. “I know when I’m being kissed, and you kissed the hell out of me!”
Patrice gave him a calculated smile. “Prove it!”
But before T.K. could respond, members of the cast
and crew flooded the street around them in the fictional town of Quincy. They fell silent. There was no use in making a spectacle of themselves. Patrice let him know with a cutting glance that she wasn’t finished with him yet though. The horse wranglers brought their mounts, and they climbed onto their backs. It was time to work.
The cinematographer sat on the back of a truck in a specially made seat that would allow him to move around and position himself at different angles from which he could shoot the action, and Mike was on the back of another truck in a similar seat. He shouted, “Action!” and watched as his actors galloped out of town into the Badlands.
Patrice had the first line. Bella grinned at Bass as they fled. “I’m beginning to think knowing you is liable to get me killed!”
Six men on horseback chased them, shooting bullets that whizzed by their heads, barely missing them, but Bella and Bass seemed to be having the time of their lives.
As the day progressed, Patrice found herself actually tiring of being on a horse. While the actors weren’t allowed to do anything that would jeopardize their lives, there was a great need to get as many shots as possible of them atop their mounts. It was dusk before Mike called it a day, and by that time, Patrice’s inner thigh muscles and her butt were sore.
The horse wranglers came and collected the horses, and she and T.K. walked slowly back to their trailers. “Still want to be a movie star?” he joked.
Patrice wanted to rub her pained bottom but refrained. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything else,” she said with forced enthusiasm.
T.K. laughed. “Don’t tell me you’re not sore. I’m aching in places I didn’t know I had.”
“I would pay you to massage my butt for me,” Patrice joked.
“I would pay you to let me,” T.K. returned.
Laughing, Patrice turned to look up into his smiling face. “Who do you think I am, Bella?”
T.K. threw his head back in laughter. He pulled her into the crook of his arm as they made their way to the area where the cast’s trailers were parked. Patrice momentarily laid her head on his shoulder, and then she placed her arm about his waist. He was dirty and sweaty, just like she was, but he smelled heavenly to her.