by Christa Wick
She huffed but kept her mouth shut. Unlike a traditional torque, this one had been designed for the science fiction movie as both an ornament and a weapon that came apart in four pieces that, through their collective vibrations, could fictionally level a skyscraper in minutes and an entire planet in less than an hour.
The threaded internal rods that joined the four pieces meant that the piece of jewelry wasn't as flexible as a real one.
"Stop. Let me try the side piece."
She expected another curt, sarcastic response, perhaps him telling her he wasn't an idiot and had already tried them, but he remained quiet. A glance toward his face and then a second look following the direction of his gaze explained his missing reaction.
Declan had just caught sight of himself in the mirror.
His intent stare would have freaked her out because the surface was big enough to show both their reflections, but the appreciative smile on his face was a sure sign he was looking only at himself. No way a guy like that would look that way at a girl like her.
Of course, she couldn’t really fault him for his vanity at what he was seeing. His skin was still shiny from what was left of the oil and the muscled contours of a side view on him worthy of being displayed in the finest of fine art galleries.
Hell, the female talent she worked with admired themselves in the mirror all the time, lots even taking selfies to share publicly. But when any men were caught looking at themselves in the mirror, they were dubbed ego-driven. Bit of a double-standard, that, but what else is new in this strange business?
Returning to the task of removing the torque, she couldn’t figure out why it was giving her such a hard time. "It's like someone took a vise grip to the pieces or something. Weird.”
"Just what are you accusing me of, Mel?"
2
Melanie startled as she did whenever Declan called her ‘Mel,’ which was hardly ever.
Usually, he just called her "wardrobe girl,” which suited her just fine. But hearing ‘Mel’ slip past his lips as he looked at her could effectively make her brain blitz to a total blank for a beat.
Honestly, she’d never liked people shortening her name like that; it’d always sounded masculine. But when Declan did it, it was kind of…cute.
Plus, she knew that he didn't bother learning very many names on set; he hadn't learned her boss's name, for example. Suzanne had dripped pure venom around Melanie for a full week the first time she’d heard him casually toss out a "Mel" in her presence.
"I wasn't accusing you of anything. I’m sure it’s just a strange wardrobe malfunction,” she replied, letting go of him to get a bit of distance between them.
Suddenly, she lost her footing, then lost her balance completely. She windmilled her arms to keep from falling, but it was too late. Too much of her weight was at the edge of the step and she was going down.
Declan's strong arms wrapped around her waist, his hands clasping together behind her back and tugging her toward him until she and the stool were balanced again.
Her breasts and the curve of her stomach pushed against the hard planes of his chest and abdomen. Her pulse accelerated as she stared into the flinty gray eyes and wondered if it would have been less damaging to fall and bust her head open on the floor than to be pressed that tightly against a man like Declan Bain.
"I have a Dremel!" she blurted out suddenly.
The dark blond brows knitted together until he realized what she was saying.
"You are not using a power tool anywhere near my neck, Mel," he responded with a tease of amusement in his voice. "Especially not when you can't even stay on your feet around me—at least not without my assistance."
Her mouth pursed. That wasn’t fair. Despite evidence to the contrary at times when she was around him, she wasn’t a klutz, truly. Her near-fall was a simple matter of physics, the extra wide butt, the narrow step, and other things like gravitational pull that she could have explained to the idiot if she hadn't been sketching in her design book during every science class she'd ever been forced to sit through.
"So you want to reschedule your flight?" she shot back. "Again?"
Whatever mirth had played around his eyes and mouth vanished. Pivoting to his right, he proceeded to her workbench and sat down. Right before he came to a stop, he flicked the backside of the war kilt out so that he sat bare bottomed.
She blinked as she saw part of his fine ass before the thin chain mail settled into place. With her blood pressure instantly spiking, she reminded herself she'd seen it all before in stills from the movie.
"Let's do this," he prompted. "Just stay away from my spine and major blood vessels."
Before she grabbed the Dremel and its rotary blade from her kit, she turned the torque so that one of its three seams was a few inches to the side of his spine. Then she grabbed some scrap leather from one of the bins, doubled it as protective padding then placed it between the piece of jewelry and his skin.
She fished out her safety glasses and put them on. With the Dremel in hand, she slowly touched the fast rotating blade against the seam she had selected. The leather padding was there more to protect Declan against any slivers of metal or the heat generated by the tool because the blade only had to go through a grooved inner rod.
After a few seconds, she stopped and checked how close she was to the center, knowing that she only needed to cut a centimeter or so beyond the mid-point to sever the inner rod holding the pieces together. That left her several centimeters as a safe zone before she would encounter the leather padding.
"You're killing me," Declan growled as she continued to inspect the precise cut she had already made.
Her shoulders bounced in a laugh she tried to suppress. There probably weren't many girls her size who would ever be able to claim that she had made a man as famous or as universally desired as Declan Bain sweat.
"Keep your kilt on," she growled back, a smile he couldn't see plastered across her face.
This moment, she thought, with her body leveraged against his, that growl in his voice and a matching one in hers, too little clothing on him and the scent of his body, would all be incorporated into her mental wank material for the next few months.
Two seconds later, the blade sliced through the last bit of resistance and she immediately took her finger off the button powering the tool.
"Help me make sure the other one doesn't go on as tightly," he said, standing swiftly and grabbing the gold colored version of the prop.
Melanie put the Dremel down and assisted him. It felt strange being that close to him when no one was around. Usually there were at least a couple of people loitering and more breezing by when she helped an actor or actress with their wardrobe. Scents weren't isolated during production. On a regular filming day, she could smell cologne and cosmetics, any catering set-ups nearby, cigarette smoke, production smoke and a thousand other odors.
Right then, all she could smell was Declan, the sweat of his worry mixed with the almond oil they had used for the battle dress promotional shots and a juicy citrus that was probably from whatever products he’d used when he’d showered that morning.
As she put the torque on Declan's neck, he reached for her phone.
"What the hell are you doing?" She snatched the phone to her chest before he could claim it.
"Checking the time."
She huffed, but was just as eager to know the answer. Pressing the power button, Melanie groaned before she responded.
"Three-forty."
Declan jumped to his feet. Part of the front panel of the skirt caught, undoing half of one of the two duct tape hems she had fashioned. Cursing, he lifted part of the panel and removed the rest of that line of duct tape. Letting it fall, he looked in the mirror, shook his head and pulled off the other strip, completely undoing her efforts.
"Fuck it, he's getting fifteen minutes and then I have to go," Declan growled, stalking out of the room and down the hall on bare feet.
Melanie stood as still as a stat
ue, her mind processing what her eyes had just taken in. Shaking her head, she released a disconcerted grunt.
What had been seen couldn't be unseen.
Not when it looked that good.
The man was definitely a "show-er." From some of the more salacious tabloids, he reportedly was a grow-er as well.
If that was true, she couldn't even begin to imagine how big it grew when he had a full hard-on. Whew.
"Snap out of it, Melanie," she scolded herself and reached for her phone.
Swiping through to her contacts, she pressed her roommate's number. When the call didn't connect, she checked her signal bars and sent up her own string of swear words.
Just perfect. Now she had to find a spot where her crappy service would let her make a call out then get back to the changing area, finish up with Declan and put away what she had taken out and probably recite Hail Mary a dozen times if she wanted any chance of making her flight.
If she missed boarding the plane, she would have to cancel the trip because her ticket was non-refundable and she didn't have enough money in her bank account for at least another week to purchase a replacement.
Stepping outside, one foot keeping the auto-lock door from closing, Melanie tried calling her roommate again. She heard the first ring, then the second. By the fourth ring, frustrated tears built along the rims of her eyes.
She had to make the flight and needed Cammie's help.
Five rings...six rings...damn it!
"Hey, roomie, I can't come to the phone right now—" Cammie started before she busted up laughing. "Tell me I had you going there for a second."
"Totally," Melanie lied, her need for a favor overriding her general policy of being honest. "Can you do me a major favor?"
"I don't have to take my top off, do I?"
Melanie laughed. Cammie took her top off for a living. She also never had to empty out her change jar to make rent or walk to work the day after, unlike Melanie. So having to take her top off was never an impediment to getting things done.
"Depends on how late I am getting to the TSA checkpoint," Melanie quipped. "I'm still on set, I didn't pack and I desperately need a ride to the airport."
"How many days?" Cammie asked, her voice turning businesslike. "And casual, formal, mix?"
"Just tomorrow and Sunday," Melanie answered. "Totally casual, but a warm hoodie and some real shoes. It's just me and my mom."
"Oh! So Mz. Winslow is back from England?"
Melanie laughed. After three years of being Melanie's roommate, Cammie still hadn't come to terms with Melanie's otherwise old school mom keeping her maiden name when she married. For an exotic dancer, Cammie could be remarkably old fashioned sometimes.
Of course, exotic dancing was a very old profession—one of the oldest, no doubt.
"Yes," Melanie said. "And she's insisting I come for a visit. I would have put it off, but she sounded so freaking happy I need to make sure something weird hasn't happened."
Sighing, her foot still preventing the door from shutting, Melanie leaned her head against the exterior wall and closed her eyes. She felt like a shit for thinking something had to be wrong with her mom if the woman sounded so happy, but becoming a widow a little more than four years before had made Melanie's bookish, introverted mother even more withdrawn.
Now Nancy Winslow sounded like distilled sunshine—and she'd added two weeks to what was supposed to be a month's stay in England, the dream trip she and Melanie's dad were scheduled to take before he fell suddenly ill.
"Okay, so totes casual," Cammie confirmed. "Basic hygiene and essential makeup only. Tablet, laptop or both?"
"Tablet and make sure my art stylus is in there."
"The little white pencil looking thingie, check. More importantly, condoms or vibrator? Or both?"
"Oh, God." Melanie rolled her eyes. "You're incorrigible. Neither—but don't forget to toss my birth control pills in there, which, thank you, I would’ve forgotten."
Internally acknowledging that it had been far too long since she'd needed to worry about contraception, her mind flashed an image of Declan at her. The image was followed by another and another until she was sweating despite all the cool air being sucked past her from the open studio door.
"I'll have to meet you across the street from the studio," Melanie added, dragging herself back to solving her current dilemma. "I can't get you access on such short notice."
"I'll park at Taco Smell and have a crunch wrap and lemonade waiting for you."
"You're the best," Melanie chirped before her lips smacked together in a kiss and she ended the call.
3
Rushing to the wardrobe room, Melanie found the gold mail and torque tossed on top of the silver version. Well, that was quick.
She hadn't been gone the fifteen minutes Declan had said he'd give the photographer, so either the photographer had changed his mind or he'd managed to royally piss off the movie star.
Either way, she needed to get everything put up and hustle her over-cushioned bottom off the lot. The first three outfits were already folded and waiting atop their bins. She put them inside then gathered up the suede boots and leather pants to fold and store. Turning to the chain mail, she swore as she lifted the golden war skirt. Some of the links had locked against one another.
Chewing at her lip, she tried to tease the links into separating. After five minutes, sweat starting to form on her forehead and her fingers cramping, she remembered the torque she had drilled in half. That damage, no matter how necessary, was enough to have Suzanne go into full bitch mode.
"Screw it, I'm already doomed."
She folded the silver chain mail, put it in a bin then tossed the kinked up golden mail on top of it, placed the two pieces of the broken torque plus the gold torque on top, sealed the bin and stacked them on a rolling cart.
Grabbing her gear, she put it on top of the bin, turned the lights off and hurried with the cart down the hall. Turning onto an intersecting hall, she came face to face with the photographer's assistant.
Like her, he was in his mid-twenties, maybe a year older than her twenty-five. She'd seen him on the studio lot a couple of times, usually with someone else's coffee in his hands and a harried look on his face as he tried to make sure he delivered the coffee hot.
The harried look always disappeared when he saw her. In its place, his face almost always contorted into something ugly despite his otherwise attractive features.
You don't belong on a Hollywood lot—period.
That's what the look told her.
And she hated that he wasn’t the only one who looked at her that way.
"Move," she growled, refusing to let him make a bad day even worse.
He turned to the side, his lean body flattening against the wall. Once she was past him with her cart, he tossed a verbal grenade in her direction.
"You don't have to be a bitch about it."
Biting her tongue, she just moved past him.
Forget him. Her next gig started bright and early Monday morning at a different studio, smaller than the current film's studio and she would be working for a soap opera instead of a summer blockbuster. The position was temporary, the regular wardrobe girl was out on two weeks maternity leave, but it would be a nice break to be down in the minors where the egos were a little smaller and the judge-y assholes working alongside her didn't look at her like she needed to be rushed to the hospital for an emergency fat suctioning and stomach stapling.
Shouldering her backpack after hefting the last of the bins onto the storage shelf she rubbed roughly at her face. Internally calling her boss a bitch, snapping at people—regardless if it was warranted—and referencing her, albeit often rude, colleagues as assholes wasn’t her.
Something was wrong with her lately—several somethings, if she were being honest with herself. At the top of the list of her worries was her mom’s extended stay in England. The almost secretive way her mom had discussed her time there during their increasingly short c
onversations. And now the sudden summons back home to Denver.
But, more than that, Melanie knew she was also on edge for one very stupid reason amidst the other reasonable ones.
And that reason was Declan Bain.
She had known working with him was going to be a problem the first time she’d actually gone and Googled his name after starting the gig, something she'd never done with any of the other actors. Before Declan, she’d never once cared to find out which stars had a significant other, what their childhood had been like, or if they had a dog or a cat or neither. Nothing of that sort of thing had ever interested her.
Until Declan.
After three years hopping from wardrobe job to wardrobe job, dressing some of the most famous bodies in Los Angeles and never once developing a crush on any of them, she’d been ill-equipped to process it in the beginning.
Especially since the celebrity in question had the prickly personality of a cactus plant.
Well, at least that was one stress-inducer she could cross off her list for a while.
Thank goodness for small favors.
4
After running through LAX and still coming within a hair's width of missing her flight, Melanie stowed the bag Cammie had packed for her into the overhead bin, kicked and shoved her backpack under the seat in front of her, then collapsed solidly on her butt and closed her eyes.
“Ugh, really?" a feminine voice asked from nearby, the tone pure Valley Girl laced with all the entitlement of the priciest zip codes Los Angeles had to offer.
Melanie cracked one eye open to find a platinum blonde staring at her with a disapproving curl at the left corner of her lips. If forced to guess, Melanie would have put the blonde's age somewhere between fifteen and twenty. The cleavage on display showed ample—really, really ample—evidence of a breast enlargement, but that meant nothing. The more affluent SoCal parents didn't see anything wrong with gifting boob jobs to their daughters for their sixteenth birthday.