by Jamie Craig
Star Attraction
By Jamie Craig
Published by JMS Books LLC
Visit jms-books.com for more information.
Copyright 2021 Jamie Craig
ISBN 9781646566594
Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com
Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America.
* * * *
Star Attraction
By Jamie Craig
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 1
Sunlight crackled where it hit the roof of the studio and reflected off, blinding anyone unfortunate enough not to be wearing sunglasses. Sam Coles was. The summer brilliance of Los Angeles was a lot different than Ohio’s, and if he didn’t want to have a headache by the time he reached the studio lot, he put his sunglasses on as soon as he set foot out of his small bungalow. More than one newsrag had noticed them, commenting that he was shying away from his rising celebrity. Those articles made Sam laugh. He guessed it didn’t sell enough magazines to report one of the newest teenage heartthrobs had light-sensitive eyes.
No headache today. There was even a bounce in his step. As he headed for the soundstage, he sang “Sh-Boom” under his breath, stuck in the catchy melody after hearing it on the radio on the drive over. He was going to be singing it all day now. Thankfully, it was the first day of shooting, and according to the schedule, it was the big party scene at the beginning of the movie. The mood was supposed to be festive. Sam would fit right in.
Someone had propped open the soundstage door, probably to haul in lights or gear, and he slipped into the welcoming darkness, pushing his glasses up into his hair. People milled about, but not nearly the number that it would be later while they were filming. He was early. Good. He liked being one of the first to show. It gave him more time to run his lines so he didn’t flub up once cameras rolled.
“Hey, Sam!”
A perky blonde rushed over from the gymnasium set currently being lit for the party. Her slim skirt hugged her legs, and her navy sweater molded over her breasts. It took a moment while his eyes adjusted for Sam to recognize who it was. Alma something. The director’s personal assistant. Sam slapped on his best smile and strode to meet her, though he already dreaded what was to come. Gordon Palmer picked his aides not by how smart or capable they were, but by how fast they could get on their knees. Alma was a nice enough girl, but during the screen tests, she’d spent all their downtime prattling on about some new candy on the market she was addicted to. Sam had been hoping Gordon would get distracted by a new girl by the time it came to actually shoot.
“Hey, beautiful.” Sam leaned down to brush a kiss across her cheek. She might annoy the crap out of him, but he’d never let on to that in public. “How are things going?”
“Oh, just marvy. Even Gordon’s in a good mood.”
He winked. “That’s because nobody’s here yet to disagree with him.”
Alma giggled. “Well, you’re here.”
“Oh, but Gordon loves me. I’m like the son he never wanted.” He glanced around. “So am I the first actor to show up?”
“Oh, no. Elijah’s already in his trailer.”
The name made him freeze. Slowly, he turned back in Alma’s direction. “Elijah? Gordon ended up casting Elijah McKinley as Jack?”
“Yeah, didn’t he tell you?”
“No, no, I would’ve remembered that.”
More of his shock must have appeared in his voice than he wanted. A tiny line danced between her perfectly plucked brows. “I thought you got on with Elijah at the screen test.”
“I did.” Too well. “But we don’t look anything alike.”
Alma waved her hand in vague dismissal. “Oh, Gordon doesn’t care about that. He thinks it’ll even help. You know. The boy next door duking it out with the dark and dangerous one. He said something about it making him look deep.”
Yeah, that sounded like Gordon rationale. There were probably a few dollar signs in there, too. Elijah was as much a rising star as Sam.
“Did you want to say hi?”
Her question startled him. For a moment, Sam actually debated saying yes. He was going to be spending a lot of time with Elijah over the next month. They were the two principals; they had the heavy-duty emotional scenes to carry. It would be a smart idea to go and properly introduce himself, get to know each other before the first scene.
There was only one problem. A very big one.
Sam couldn’t look at Elijah McKinley without getting a hard-on.
The man was simply beautiful. Black hair, dark eyes that pierced right through you, a sensual mouth that seemed to be in a perpetual pout. He’d taken off his pullover for the screen test so he wore only his undershirt, and his sculpted muscles had practically begged Sam to get on his knees and lick every square inch.
Sam had gone home that night and jerked off to fantasies of doing just that. Then prayed that Elijah wouldn’t get the part. He had no idea how he was supposed to act the part of a disdainful brother. The last thing in the world he felt toward Elijah was disinterest.
“I should probably go over my lines,” he said with an easy smile. “I’ll see him when we get on set anyway.”
Alma accepted his excuse with a shrug. “Okay. You want me to walk you to your trailer?”
“No, I think I can find it.” He headed back to the door. “But send out a search party if I’m not back in an hour.”
His thoughts were on Elijah as he slipped his sunglasses back into place. Rumor had it the other man was queer, but Sam had no way of knowing if it was true or not. Their sole contact with each other had been at the damn screen test. He’d acted friendly but professional, and if he’d noticed Sam’s erection, he hadn’t said a word. That didn’t rule out the possibility of preferring guys, but it didn’t make a difference to Sam. The fact of the matter was, he had to work with him for the next month. Closely.
How was he ever going to keep this strictly professional?
The questions plagued him for the next two hours. Every attempt he made to run through his lines failed, until he finally gave up and decided that if he didn’t know them now, he never would. It wasn’t like the girls flocked to his movies to listen to what he had to say anyway.
By the time he showed up on set just after eleven, dressed in the crisp suit that served as his costume for the party scene, he was a jangle of nerves. The soundstage was packed, the extras playing partygoers corralled into one corner, gaffers running around with last minute changes. Gordon stood in the middle of the set, staring up at the cinematographer perched on the crane, preparing the opening aerial establis
hing shot, while Alma hovered at the edge, ready to jump at a moment’s notice.
The only semblance of calm was in a small circle of director’s chairs, reserved for named cast members. One of the three was already filled, and not by Eva Del Grande, the actress cast as the love interest coming between the two brothers. She wouldn’t come out until the very last minute; Sam knew that from experience. No, the lone occupied chair held a man with impossibly broad shoulders. His head was bowed, his gaze fixed on something in his lap, and the strip of skin visible between the edge of his closely-cut black hair and the hard line of his coat collar made Sam’s mouth water.
Slowly, he slid his hands into his pockets and discreetly adjusted his thickening cock.
Might as well get it over with.
Elijah didn’t look up until Sam was only a few feet away, but the gaze leveled at him nearly made Sam stop short. It was difficult to tell if Elijah’s eyes were black or brown, though at that moment, they appeared black. And they were unwavering. Like Elijah knew a secret, or sensed some unknown fact about Sam that Sam himself didn’t even suspect. After a beat, he nodded a greeting.
“Fancy meeting you here.”
Sam gave him a crooked grin. “Yeah, they’ll let just about anyone in these days.”
Ambling forward, he kept his hands in his pockets even after he’d passed the chairs. His cock was at full mast. He needed to get it under control before he could even think about sitting down. Though he gazed over at the set, his back to Elijah, he didn’t see the crew putting down the final tapes on the floor to designate the actors’ marks. He saw bodies pressed against each other, dancing in a whirlwind of color and music, sweat rising to skin as the temperature rose. He saw Elijah leaning against the wall like the script commanded, but instead of Eva being the one to go to him, to draw him into the throng, it was Sam.
“Any word on how much longer?” There. That sounded normal.
“Shouldn’t be much longer. Gordon told me twenty minutes, and that was ten minutes ago.” Sam could hear the smile in Elijah’s voice—the same smile that had graced newspapers and magazines throughout the country. “Of course, that probably means it’ll be another hour.”
“Eva will love that.” He glanced back, careful not to turn too much lest his arousal became apparent. He’d been right. Only Elijah could pull off that kind of smile. It could have looked completely false and too calculated, but on him, it appeared utterly genuine. “You ever work with her before?”
“Nah. Almost did a few times, but it never worked out. You’ve done a picture with her, right?”
He nodded. “My first year here. I was still a day player then, but that just means I saw exactly how close she always cut her calls.”
“I’m sure Gordon’ll straighten her out. So, Alma told me you were surprised to hear I got the part.” It wasn’t quite a question, but Sam could hear the curiosity in his tone.
Though he didn’t let his smile falter, inwardly Sam cursed the girl’s big mouth. “Only because I would’ve expected Gordon to call and gloat at me that he landed you,” he answered without pause. “When he didn’t bother telling me who he cast, I just figured it was someone new.”
“He probably didn’t bother telling you because he didn’t bother making up his mind until last week. It got to the point, I didn’t even want the gig, if he was going to jerk me around like that. But I couldn’t pass up the chance to work with the likes of you and Eva.”
The warmth in the casual compliment sent a tingle down Sam’s spine. “Don’t forget the script. We’ve got some amazing scenes ahead of us.”
“Script’s not worth much if you don’t have somebody great standing across from you. I learned that lesson the hard way.”
The tingles licked their way through his groin and down his thighs. His erection wasn’t going anywhere. Every word that came out of Elijah’s mouth just made Sam want to strip to the skin and offer to do anything the other man wanted.
“This shoot should be gold. Of course, we’re going to get stuck in publicity hell when it wraps, but it’ll be worth it.”
“The publicity doesn’t bother me so much. I mean, I’d rather be stuck in publicity hell than not have a movie at all to promote. Besides, I like the company.”
Sam couldn’t help his pleased smile. And he was starting to feel ridiculous standing so far away. Pretending to still be absorbed in what Gordon was doing, he wandered back to take the chair at Elijah’s right, crossing his leg to rest his ankle on his knee as soon as he sat down. The suit pants were baggy enough for the position to hide his arousal.
“It’s all the phoniness of it I hate.” Sam plucked a miniscule piece of lint from his pants cuff and flicked it away. “Nicky, my manager, is constantly making me go out on all these dates. Just so I can get photographs taken in all the right places.”
“Make?” Elijah looked at him from the corner of his eye. “I didn’t know anybody would have to be compelled into dating Connie Sinclair.”
“No, Connie’s actually one of the good ones.” That was true. She was pretty, could string two sentences together that weren’t strictly about fashion or the industry, and knew what discretion was. “She’s just not really my type, but we both do what we have to, to get our faces out there.”
“Yeah. I should probably take a page out of your book. Ernie is always on my case about going out more, finding the cameras. He says I’m not big enough yet to just keep to myself like a hermit. I guess Ernie would know. I certainly pay him enough to know stuff like that. It’s hard, though.” Elijah shifted in his chair, leaning more toward Sam, as though he planned to tell a secret. “I can’t really find anyone who fits my type, either.”
Very, very dark brown, Sam decided. A shade this side of black. That’s what color Elijah’s eyes were. He knew that now, because he couldn’t tear his away from Elijah’s unblinking gaze, sinking into their liquid depths with no hopes of ever emerging.
“So what are you looking for?” he heard himself saying. His mouth was working of its own volition, but he was powerless to stop it. “I know a lot of people around town. Maybe I can help you find someone who’ll convince you to get out more.”
Elijah’s gaze turned thoughtful. “Well, everybody’s looking for somebody attractive, and I tend to go for the blonds. But I want somebody who isn’t just a pretty face. Social events and photo ops are boring enough without somebody who is tedious to be around. You know?”
“Oh, I know. Even the ones who aren’t in the business just want you to look good standing next to them. They seem to forget that we’ve got whole lives outside of the movies.” He chuckled. “Or whole lives inside the movies while we’re waiting for a few seconds of fame. Tomorrow, I’ll haul in a stack of books to keep in my trailer so my brain doesn’t start dribbling out my ears.”
Elijah gestured at the script on his lap. “I don’t usually have time to read on set. I have to go over my lines so nobody realizes I have an awful memory.” He thumbed through the pages absently. “How do you remember everything?”
He shrugged. “Just lots of practice. You know…” A little voice started screaming in the back of his head, trying to distract him from the words that were about to come out of his mouth, but a larger voice, powered by organs more demanding than his common sense, gagged it with a hard slap. “If you want to run lines, I’m more than happy to help.” He grinned. “After all, I’m counting on you to make me look good.”
“You sure? I think that sounds great, but I don’t want to be a pain in your neck.”
“I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t sure.” He was a big fat liar. He wasn’t even in the same country as sure, but the prospect of spending even more time with Elijah was too tempting to resist. “Besides, you might change your mind when you realize what a drill sergeant I am. I’m not keen on improv. Especially when the script is as good as this one.”
Elijah licked his lips, drawing Sam’s attention to his full mouth. “I think a drill sergeant might be just
what I need. To keep me on the straight and narrow. Or the narrow, at least.”
If he’d been looking for confirmation regarding Elijah’s sexual status, Sam figured that was as clear as it was going to get without him shouting, “I like to fuck men!” The relief that fluttered through Sam took him by surprise, though. He hadn’t realized he’d been hoping for that quite so strongly.
“Looks like you found your man then.” He leaned a little closer, lowering his voice as the tilt of their heads gave them a greater sense of intimacy. “The narrow’s my specialty.”
Elijah grinned, and it looked like he was going to add more, but Gordon’s booming voice calling everybody to places made them both jerk back.
“Well, here we go.” Elijah stood, unfolding his long body from the chair and setting his script aside. “Break a leg.”
Sam’s gaze flickered over the way Elijah’s pants hung from his firm ass. When he lifted his eyes back up, Elijah smiled even more broadly. “Same back at you,” Sam said. On a whim, he clapped a hand on Elijah’s back in camaraderie. The tingles from earlier returned just at the brief contact.
It was going to be a very long shoot. But he suspected it would be worth every second.
Chapter 2
Elijah did most of his first four days of shooting with Eva, though Sam was usually on set. Or nearby. Close enough that Elijah was aware of him, at least. Sam had a way of smiling to himself when he thought nobody was looking, and Elijah always wanted to stop everything so he could spend time studying the smile. He also had a way of running his fingers through his hair until Missy, the wardrobe mistress, threatened to tie his hands behinds his back. The image, honestly, did nothing to help Elijah’s concentration. But Elijah didn’t know if Sam had a way of watching him back, because he wore those dark glasses when he wasn’t in front of the camera.
Elijah had to be through makeup and wardrobe by six on the fifth morning of the shoot. Usually, he hated the early morning call-times, and he never understood why the directors insisted on them, except as exercises in sadism. But getting up at four, so he could be to the studio by five, and on the soundstage by six, seemed liked a small price to pay. Because nearly all his scenes that day were with Sam Coles.