“Let’s see…um, I like country music. Johnny Cash is a god. I hate electric cars, I think they’re dumb. Give me a big dirty pickup truck any day of the week. Oh, and I apparently have a deep-seated fetish for hairy lumberjack types…flannel, jeans, big muscles, big beards…you know what I mean.”
I grinned wider and raised an eyebrow. “Oh, types? As in plural? So do I have to keep an eye on you in here? Are you going to abandon me for some sweet-talking woodsman, like Earl over there?” I gestured to a pretty robust older man who had been a friend of my dad’s. He was a nice guy, but not exactly Reagan’s type…unless she really could look past old and fat to see just the jeans and flannel…as stained as they were.
She looked Earl up and down and back to me. “Oh yeah, baby, you definitely have to keep an eye on me in there. There are so many with potential…dammit, I can’t even fake it. No, I only have eyes for one hairy, bearded, musclebound, flannel-wearing lumberjack,” she laughed, leaning up to kiss me. When we had finished, she added, “That’s you, by the way, if you haven’t figured it out.”
“I might have,” I said with a smile as I brushed her hair with my fingers and felt like we were suddenly the only people in the room.
Until, of course, Jake and his band broke into a Johnny Cash song, “Walk the Line,” and I needed to dance with my princess.
“Come on,” I urged her, scooting out of the booth, taking her by the hand. She protested like crazy but followed me out onto the dance floor.
Jake’s version was much slower, but the words burned into my heart as he held Reagan against me, our bodies swaying gently, giving new meaning to the song.
She sang along softly, her face pressed into the curve of my neck, against my chest. Her legs parted, and she practically rode my thigh as we danced, my heart beating against hers and my cock growing rock hard at the touch of her hands on mine, her flesh against me, her gorgeous voice in my ear.
We were the only two in the room while we danced, even though it was crowded that night, and I felt like the music was just for us, and us alone.
God, how I wanted her, how I lusted for her, and how I was falling for her, falling hard and deep in love.
We danced a few more songs, slowly rocking against each other even when the tempo of the music picked up. I sensed people around us, watching us, and I even heard them congratulate me a few times, but Reagan was the only one in my world right then, the only one who mattered.
She was sweaty and panting by the time we finally broke apart, and she glanced around nervously, smiling. “Oh my god, I think we just dry-humped in front of all these people.”
“They’ll survive, they’ve seen worse,” I laughed, leading her back to the booth. Cold beers were waiting for us on the table, and the beads of condensation felt cool as we gulped them. “I’m sure these walls have seen plenty of dry humpers over the decades. There’s something about the cold weather that makes people run hot.”
“Is that all it is?” she smiled, “the cold weather? So if we were in LA you wouldn’t be this…you know.” She glanced meaningfully at my lap where my stiff cock ached painfully in my tight jeans.
“Oh hell, princess,” I said and leaned close to her, “If we were in LA, we’d be at your place, and I’d be so deep inside of you right now neither one of us would remember how to speak.”
“Oh god,” she moaned, biting her lower lip. “Just a couple more days, that’s what I keep telling myself, but dammit, I feel like just being around you is going to make me explode.”
“I feel your pain,” I chuckled and took another sip of cold beer.
“I’ll be right back,” she said suddenly, and I slipped out of the booth, letting her out. “I have to go to the powder room.”
“I’ll be right here, princess,” I said with a grin, kissing her before she left.
I spent a moment reading the trivia on the beer coaster under my glass. Did you know the first beer was brewed thousands of years ago in the middle east? Yeah, neither did I. The things you learn going out to the bar.
I felt somebody slip into the booth across from me, and before I had time to look up, I said, “That was fast, princess.”
“Oh, is it ‘princess’ now? Not ‘baby’ or ‘honey’ anymore? Come on Aaron, you can do better than that.” My face paled. I knew that voice.
“Peony,” I said, my voice and mood immediately flat at the sight of my smug ex girlfriend seated across from me. “What are you doing here?”
“I think the real question is, what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be making a cheesy TV show right about now? Or did you and one of the desperate sluts from the show decide to sneak out for a night on the town?”
Reagan returned at that moment, and Peony looked her up and down with a burning rage that could have incinerated Reagan right there if Peony had that kind of power. “Speak of the devil,” Peony simpered, and she held out a limp hand to Reagan. As Reagan shook it, confusion flickering across her features, Peony said, “I’m Peony, Aaron’s girlfriend.”
17
REAGAN
I didn’t know if I’d heard the pretty bohemian girl properly, but it sounded like she said she was Aaron’s girlfriend.
“Excuse me?” I replied, “I didn’t catch that.”
“Ex-girlfriend,” Aaron spat. “Emphasis on the ex part.”
“Oh Aaron, did I say girlfriend? Silly me, we were together for so long that I guess it’s just an old habit,” Peony said with a smile that never reached her eyes. She looked at me like she’d love it if a boulder fell out of the sky and landed on me right then. I won’t lie, the feeling was mutual.
“How nice to meet you,” I replied, shaking her hand confidently. I could play nice, and I could fake it with the best of them, so I poured it on thick. “I’m Reagan, Aaron’s friend.”
“Girlfriend,” Aaron snapped significantly. “Reagan is my girlfriend if she’ll have me.”
He looked at me with a crooked smile, the question in his eyes.
I laughed and said, “Okay, girlfriend. I’m Aaron’s girlfriend.”
“Oh really? You must have just met him then. I’ve known him forever it seems, and he’s never mentioned you.”
I felt like I was in a standoff with her, but I didn’t quite understand how to win other than making sure she understood that she no longer had any claims on Aaron. My boyfriend.
Even the thought of it made my heart flutter and my stomach flip-flop. It was under strange circumstances, but he’d called me his girlfriend.
Then again, our entire relationship up to this point had been under strange circumstances.
“We recently met,” I said with a smile, squeezing Aaron’s hand under the table.
“That was fast,” Peony replied. “You have to watch this one, he likes to take his time and then change his mind at the last minute, even after you’ve picked out your wedding dress and planned the dream ceremony.”
“You were engaged?” I exclaimed, unable to contain my surprise. What else did I now know about my new boyfriend? I glanced at Peony and saw her smug smile knowing her arrow had hit its target.
Aaron gulped and sputtered. “Wedding dress? I never asked you to marry me. Reagan, I never asked her to marry me. What the hell are you talking about, Peony?”
I smiled sweetly at Peony, watching her back track after Aaron had cleared it up in one short sentence.
“I’m talking about it being implied, Aaron! Everybody knew we were going to get married. I mean, come on, we even lived together, for god’s sake. We dated for four years.”
“And then you cheated on me, did you forget about that?” Aaron blurted, his face getting red with anger. “You banged some Biologist in my bed.”
“Our bed,” she corrected him, as if that made it any better. It was strange though, getting a glimpse of Aaron’s past. I mean, I’d known he hadn’t been a saint and was no virgin, but being engaged, or almost engaged, and living with a girl for that long? That seemed like somethi
ng he should have told me.
“No, it was my bed. We never lived together, as much as you wanted to make it happen.”
Peony looked directly at me and smiled again, a reptilian smile that made me shudder. “Well, clearly there were different perspectives in our relationship. This is what you’re going to learn about him soon, Reagan. He can’t keep his head on straight or his stories in order.”
“I’m not the one who needs to keep things in order, I wasn’t the one cheating,” Aaron said in a low, deliberate tone. Peony’s eyes widened at that—he did sound dangerous, but I didn’t think he was the kind of man who would ever harm a woman.
And I was sure Peony would have taken this chance to tell me all about it if he had.
“Are we done here?” I asked her in a snotty voice. I was channelling all the bitchy, stuck-up Hollywood wannabes I’d dealt with all these years. It seemed being around people like that actually came in handy at times.
Peony looked taken aback. She adjusted her neckline on the low-cut boho dress she was wearing and shook her head. “I suppose we are, but just know that I did this out of the goodness of my heart. I couldn’t sit by and watch another girl get suckered in by Aaron’s good looks and sweet words. He’s a liar and a dangerous man, and you’ll take that to heart if you want to keep yours from getting broken.”
I sniffed and looked her in the eye. “Well that’s not a problem with me, you see. I don’t believe in guarding my heart from a chance at love. If I was worried about Aaron hurting me to the point of staying away from him, life wouldn’t be worth living. I think I’ll be just fine, thank you.”
“Well good for you,” Peony replied in an icy voice. Her good-natured hippy act was starting to slip. “By the way, you two looked disgusting out there on the dance floor. Everyone was talking about it, you looked like a nasty bitch in heat. Save that for the bedroom.”
“You can leave now,” Aaron growled at her. “You were fine bitching about me and making up stories to make yourself feel better about being a cheater, but don’t you ever say shit about Reagan. She’s off limits to you.”
“You’re a jerk,” Peony snapped, “I hope she fucks around on you as much as I did.”
“You mean more than the once?” I replied cattily, raising my eyebrow. “Now that I’ve seen your true colors, I’d like you to piss off so I can get back out there and ride my boyfriend’s leg like a bitch in heat again. A bitch who’s going to get herself fucked later on by his big, thick dick.”
Peony sputtered, stood up, and flounced away, her long hair and dress flowing out behind her as she left.
Aaron started to chuckle the moment she was gone, this lead to him laughing loudly until I couldn’t help myself, and I joined in.
When we finally settled down, I managed to ask, “What was so funny?”
“Not funny, princess,” Aaron replied and cupped my face in his hands. “You, you’re so goddamned fierce for a Hollywood girl. I love it when your claws come out, my little hell cat.”
“I couldn’t help myself, she pissed me off,” I replied, looking across the pub to where she was sitting with friends and obviously gossiping about us.
“Forget about her, pull your claws back in, and save them for when you’re raking them down my back,” he chuckled again before he kissed me.
When I felt his kiss, everything melted away. All the extraneous nonsense that seemed so important day in and day out faded into the background, and the only thing that mattered was Aaron Remington, my boyfriend, my man, and soon to be my lover.
I would be raking my nails down his back when he made love to me. Hell, I’m not one for dirty talk, but I’d be screaming his name and digging them into his flesh when he fucked me like a sailor on shore leave.
His very presence made me feel dirty, but not in a bad way. More like in a way that filled me up and spilled over until I had no words to describe what I wanted except for the filthiest ones my mind could think of.
We finished up our beers and unfortunately had to get back to Kaslo Lodge. Aaron had an early shoot in the morning, and our contract with him would be void if word got out that he’d spent too long away from the site.
I was the one who had written that part into the contract—it was standard in the industry, but now I was regretting it like nothing else. Who could have known I’d want to sneak the bachelor in our TV show off the site and bang him like a broken door in a hurricane?
If I had just been honest with myself back in LA when we were setting this all up, I could have saved myself a lot of pain.
We snuck into the lodge, closed the door behind us, and started to kiss like teenagers the moment we were inside.
His hands were so huge and strong. They let me know he was there, demandingly present on my body with every single touch. He was so forceful in his urgency, and it thrilled me to no end. My previous boyfriends had always felt lukewarm in their need for me, but Aaron made no bones about it. His lust for me was like a forest fire. It swept us both up in the heat and threatened to incinerate us if we didn’t give in.
“I hate to do this, but Aaron is filming a sunrise scene with Tawny first thing in the morning,” came Melanie’s voice, piercing our happy, beer-fogged make-out session. “But thanks for the footage,” she added and waved the little camera in her hand.
“Shit,” I cursed and moaned against Aaron’s lips. “Can he walk me back to my room at least?”
“Ha, no way,” Melanie snorted. “I’ll walk you down, I need to get to bed too.”
“Have you been waiting up for us, Mom?” Aaron asked with a sardonic grin.
“I’ve been up and just happened to hear you drive in,” she replied, shaking her head. “Listen, we’ve got two more days of filming, and then I can close up shop and get this all back to LA to run it through the studio’s final edit and get it ready for air. After that, you guys can go hog wild on each other. I won’t even bother you for help with the final production, Reagan.”
“It’s okay, Melanie,” I replied with a sigh as I stepped away from Aaron. She’d pushed through the happy cloud of desire that had surrounded us and reminded me that this was a job, after all. “I’ll go to bed, you get him up early and kissing on Tawny to make the ladies in the audience swoon and I’ll stay out of your way. You don’t need to film us or wait up for us anymore, I swear.”
“Two more days, princess,” Aaron murmured into my ear as he pulled me close for one last embrace. I melted against his body, feeling his huge arms wrapped around me, making me safe and secure once again.
I felt like Velcro pulling away from him, and I swear I could hear a tearing sound as we let go.
“I only filmed it because I was taking some night shots of the house,” Melanie told me on the way back to our rooms.
“It’s okay, perv,” I laughed. “I get it, anything is fair game in here.”
I flopped into bed the moment I was alone in my room and laid on the sheet, feeling feverish and distraught.
Only a couple days, I reminded myself, but my lips could still feel his mouth on mine, and my thighs were still trembling a little at the memory of his face between them.
I needed him inside of me before I burst. I needed him like a flower needed the rain to blossom, I needed Aaron to make me whole.
* * *
I heard the sound of the vehicles leaving the Lodge first thing in the morning, and I rolled back over and pulled the pillow over my head.
I was once again fighting the battle between professionalism and my growing feelings for Aaron Remington, the sexiest man alive and my ticket to the next level of my career.
I tried to get back to sleep but ended up just tossing and turning. I showered, dressed, and made my way to the editing room instead, where I spent a couple hours hunched over the monitors with a couple of the crewmembers trying to get the best possible cuts of each scene.
It was amazing what we could do with the film we had—I felt like a magician in a way, with all the misdirection going on.
We could have the audience believing there was infighting, sultry encounters in Aaron’s room after dark, and we could even have them believing he was falling in love with a couple girls.
I felt my phone buzz and told the guys I’d be right back. I stepped into the hallway hoping it was Aaron letting me know he was suffering without me as much as I was suffering without him.
Instead, I was faced with my father.
The man I had spent my entire life trying to please and the man who’d spent my entire life denying me his approval.
My hands almost shook as I read the text.
“Like what we see so far, this is going to be a hit. You’ve made me proud, sweetheart. Talk soon, big plans for you when you get back to town.”
My throat felt dry, and my heart stopped beating for an uncomfortably long moment. When it started again, it was erratic, as if I’d been running from something horrifying.
My father had given me his approval and had made it known he had plans for me. I had finally gotten what I’d been after since I was an awkward, chubby little girl competing with supermodels from around the world for his attention.
I laughed and read the message a few times over. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what projects he had planned for me, but the thought of finally shoving my success in the faces of every Hollywood phony who’d ever looked down on me made me feel like crap.
And Nick. Oh man, I hoped Dad would give me a full-length feature, maybe something shot overseas in some exotic locale, just so Nick would read about it and regret ever being a dick to me.
I took a breath, stepped back into the booth, and got back to work with renewed energy.
Aaron was fun, and my feelings for him were real, but my career was about to hit a huge upswing, so I had to focus on the show more than ever now.
He and I could figure out our future once we’d finally figured out what the hell was going on between us.
Until then, I had to bank on what I knew, and I knew the famous Pavel Black was finally proud of me.
And that was as addictive as any drug.
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