Exposing Alix

by Scott, Inara

  She held up a hand. “I know. Gentle, kind, shed like mad, and don’t know the meaning of the word ‘guard.’ I am a woman living alone at the end of a secluded road in a fishing village that has a population of five hundred, on a good day. I’m happy with Rex here, thank you very much.”

  He sobered. “Of course. You really need an alarm system of some kind. You’re at least half mile from the nearest house. I could barely find the place, and I had detailed directions.”

  Tiny fingers of awareness danced along her spine at the deep, sensual voice. If anyone resembled a Doberman, this man did. Lean, muscled, ready to attack at a moment’s notice. Though he now looked entirely at ease, relaxed against her ancient furniture, she couldn’t forget the flash of temper she’d seen when he handed her the phone. Ryker Valentine did not want to be here, and all his joking couldn’t erase the sparks that glittered behind those velvety eyes.

  “I assume you got those directions from Gunther. Can I also assume he told you how much I value my privacy?”

  Ryker held a hand over his heart. “He made me swear an oath on my mother’s grave not to share the location of this house, or the name of its inhabitant, with anyone I know.”

  “Yes, well, I hope you take that oath seriously. So let’s get this over with. Why did Gunther send you, and what do you want?”

  He shifted in his seat and took another sip of tea. The water beaded up on the outside of the glass and ran down his hand. Helpless, Alix watched the liquid trail across his skin.

  Ryker set down the glass and rubbed his hands together. “Right, let’s get to it.” The humor melted from his dark eyes. “Gunther’s producing my next film, and there’s a bit more romance in this one than the last. Gunther wasn’t thrilled with the way a few of the love scenes came out. He suggested I hire a consultant.”

  Ryker spit out the words as if they were distasteful. Alix suppressed a smirk. So Gunther thought Mr. Oscar-Nominated Director needed help with his love scenes, did he? She had to admit, Garden of Eden had exposed some serious weakness in that area. It included a single sex scene that most critics agreed appeared to have been appended onto the story for the sole purpose of exposing Ryker’s very attractive behind.

  Alix tried to look vague. “A consultant? What for, exactly?”

  He waved his hands with irritation. “Gunther thinks the sex scenes are too cold, not enough emotion. I think he’s confusing a movie about real life with some romantic fairy tale, but I suppose some people like fairy tales. At any rate, he says you’re the best, and I have to admit, I liked your work. I mean, the script was less than compelling, and your lighting could use some improvement, but overall—”

  Alix lowered herself into an armchair covered with faded yellow-and-blue-flowered upholstery. “Script? Lighting?” she said, steeling herself for what she knew was coming. For some reason she felt compelled to make him say it. “What did you see? What am I the best at?”

  “The best at sex,” he said impatiently. “Gunther showed me Candy Fever and Through the Window. Of course, I’d heard of them but never got around to seeing them before. Not really my thing, you know.”

  “Of course not,” she mocked. “How could it be?”

  “I didn’t mean any offense.”

  Alix narrowed her eyes. She couldn’t tell whether the sincerity in his voice was real. That was an occupational hazard of dealing with actors—you couldn’t trust a word they said. “Look, I’m not sure what Gunther told you, but that was a long time ago. I don’t make movies anymore.”

  He waved as if he expected her to protest. “Through the Window was released two years ago. That’s hardly a long time.”

  “It’s a long time to me.” She avoided his gaze, staring out the window to the tall grasses waving on the dunes that flanked her house. The sky had filled with clouds and the light inside wasn’t the best, but Alix refused to remove her sunglasses. “To be honest, I only made those movies for the money. It’s not something I ever intended to make into a career.”

  He looked around the house and raised a curious eyebrow. “Really? And you stopped making them because you don’t need the money anymore?”

  She bristled. “I had loans. Debts I needed to repay. I’ve got other priorities now.” She glanced away, unable to keep from looking toward the table.

  Ryker picked up on the movement of her head immediately. “Priority one?” he asked. Without a glance in her direction, he jumped up and prowled to the table, his body moving like a cat on the hunt.

  Damn it, why did he have to be so observant? She hurried to follow. “This is private, Mr. Valentine.”

  He fingered a black-and-white picture of a naked woman mounting an equally naked man. The woman had long hair that draped over her breasts. Her partner looked up at her with a mixture of intense lust and complete adoration.

  Alix snatched the picture from Ryker’s hand. “I’m working on a collection of photos, but they’re not ready for viewing just yet.”

  He leaned back, a smirk crossing his lips. “You’ve progressed since your movies. Was the R rating too confining? Is that why you quit?”

  She straightened her back. “I always preferred photography, Mr. Valentine. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of money to be made in photography. But don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of my movies. I made movies about women and men who loved each other. Having sex was an expression of that love. That’s why women enjoyed my movies—because they celebrated something beautiful, sensual, and real.”

  “Right,” he said, yawning, “real love. That’s what they all say. Tell me, Miss Zahn, if you’re not ashamed of it, why does everyone in this town think your name is Daisy? Which, by the way, is a stroke of genius.” He gave a short, mirthless laugh. “No one would ever connect a director of sex movies with the name Daisy.”

  “They weren’t sex movies. They were love stories. And my first name is Daisy.” She gritted her teeth. “Alexandra is my middle name.”

  “Someone actually named you Daisy?” he said incredulously.

  “My mother had an unfortunate obsession with the flower—yet another reason why fifteen-year-olds shouldn’t have children. You think I would make that up?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “It doesn’t matter. As you just demonstrated, people make assumptions about my films, Mr. Valentine. I prefer not to have those assumptions applied to me in person.”

  He leaned forward, close enough that she could feel the warmth of his breath. “That’s too bad. Frankly, I would have been more impressed if you could have just owned up to the whole thing.”

  Alix closed her eyes and counted to ten. “I’m not hiding anything,” she said, keeping a careful hold on her temper. “I’m a private person.”

  “Whatever.” He waved his hand negligently. “I’ll give you one hundred grand, and I’ll double that if we win the Oscar for Best Picture. Sound reasonable?”

  Her mouth fell open. One hundred grand? As in, one hundred thousand dollars? Hurriedly, she worked to regain her composure. “How much?”

  “One hundred thousand dollars.”

  She took a breath. “How long do you expect it to take? I have a book I’m working on, and I need to get back to it.”

  He eyed her shrewdly. “I need at least a month. We could be finished by the end of June, if you can start right away.”

  One hundred thousand dollars for a month’s work? Alix ignored the bit about the Oscar as she feverishly struggled to do the math. She could pay her taxes and renew the lease on her tiny darkroom. She could live on the rest for at least a year, assuming she sold a few pictures here and there in local galleries. A full year to work on nothing but her photographs.

  She could finally finish her book.

  It was a dream come true.

  “Tell me again what you want me to do?” she asked.

  “We’re almost done filming Salva’s Revenge. We did the location work first and are finishing at the Bolvana studio in LA. You work with me on the sex sc
enes. Give me some advice to spice them up or make them romantic or whatever it is you do that Gunther likes.” His jaw tightened, and Alix decided Gunther was a very brave man to piss off Ryker Valentine. “We would shoot together and then look at the dailies and talk about the editing. But make no mistake—I’m the director. You would just be making suggestions.”

  “And the film?” she asked cautiously.

  “Salva’s Revenge is about a woman who believes her brother has been involved in an international money-laundering ring. She’s got to unravel the clues to find out what’s really going on and at the same time throw a bulldog detective off the trail. She starts out using her body to distract him, but along the way, she falls in love.”

  Alix nodded, trying to remain calm for the sake of the hundred thousand dollars that now dangled over Ryker’s head. “So it’s a love story?”

  He grimaced. “It’s an action movie. There’s a romantic aspect, but it’s secondary. The real conflict is between Salva and her brother, and later, between the brother and the cop.”

  “You don’t like love stories, I gather?”

  “Love is one of the most basic elements of storytelling. I couldn’t make movies if I didn’t appreciate that. But all this nonsense about romance and true love? Stories that are nothing more than fairy tales, masquerading as real life? No, I don’t have much patience for that sort of thing.”

  Alix cocked her head and then looked away. His disgust was palpable. She studied the picture in her hands, knowing he probably thought it was pornography. He wouldn’t understand what she was really trying to capture. What was expressed in the eyes of the people making love. “So what you’re saying is that you’re making a movie that’s a love story, but you don’t believe in love?”

  He grinned, the quick smile transforming his face. “I don’t believe in aliens either, but that doesn’t mean I can’t make a movie about them.”

  Chapter Three

  Ryker stared into Alix’s sunglasses, wishing he could see her eyes, get some hint as to the direction of her thoughts. She frowned, turning away from his gaze to the picture she still held in her hands.

  He glanced back at the photograph, which she immediately tipped protectively toward her body. Her fingers were fine-boned and slender, her wrists narrow. Had he called her a Labrador? He studied her body, remembering the slim backside pointed his direction outside the house. Perhaps he had underestimated what lay beneath the surface of Alix Z.

  She threw the picture down on the table. Ryker resisted the urge to grab it from the haphazard pile in which it had landed. Something about the black-and-white image had been burned into his retina. The scene was captivating, the movement and emotion leaping off the paper. In the moment he had held the photo, he felt the pleasure of the scene, knew those people were as comfortable with each other’s bodies as they were with their own. The woman’s eyes were heavy-lidded, her lip caught ever so slightly between her teeth. The man’s hands rested at her hips, fingers splayed across her flesh.

  Who was Alix Z that she could take something most people couldn’t talk about, much less watch, and make it so unforgettable? Neither of the people in the photograph were exceptionally attractive, but their imperfections only enhanced the scene. They were as far from Hollywood as he could imagine, and yet the image was a hundred times more sensual than anything he’d seen in LA.

  Even if he didn’t believe in the emotion, he couldn’t argue with the visceral impact of her work. Or the fact that his groin tightened just from looking at it.

  “So, do we have a deal?”

  She did not meet his eye, straightening a pile of pictures into a neat stack. He looked back at the table’s surface and realized there were hundreds, literally hundreds of pictures like the one he had picked up. They were all of the same couple, making love in a number of different positions. And they all radiated lust, heat, and a palpable sense of pleasure. He leaned over, unable to stop himself from taking a closer look.

  Alix threw out an arm, brushing him across the chest. “I think it’s time for you to leave.”

  He straightened, surprised at the sudden lurch of desire that the brief moment of contact had elicited. What was wrong with him? He shook his head, suddenly unable to tear his gaze from the woman standing only a foot away.

  “Ryker?”

  He swallowed, paralyzed. At that moment, Alix’s hair caught a hint of sunlight, and something brown and simple transformed into a sparkling display of red and gold.

  She had the most extraordinary scent, he realized, earthy and spicy, like sandalwood and salt water.

  It made him want to lick her neck. Taste the lightly tanned flesh almost entirely hidden by her bulky clothes.

  Unbidden, his hand came out and gently removed the glasses from her face. “It’s hard to talk to someone when you can’t see their eyes,” he said.

  She froze. He felt her jaw tremble as he touched her cheek. Then the glasses came off, and he caught his breath.

  She was extraordinary. Round green eyes and dark lashes, winged eyebrows that reflected the stubborn determination he’d seen in her earlier. Her face was a classic oval, the full lips he’d been watching in perfect proportion to her high cheekbones and smooth forehead.

  He needed to kiss her. It was absurd, likely the combination of a long day, a lot of frustration, and the undeniably exciting pile of pictures on the table beside her. Whatever the reason, the urge was overwhelming.

  And Ryker had never been the sort to deny his urges.

  #

  As the Adonis in her living room leaned forward, giving every indication of intending to plant his movie-star lips on hers, Alix shook herself from her reverie and took a quick step back. She didn’t care how beautiful he was, how warm and inviting his skin, how sensual the scent of him. Right now, he was just another hot-to-trot guy who had gotten turned on by her pictures. In a flash, Rex had jumped to his feet and inserted himself between them. Gently, he bumped his nose against Ryker’s knee.

  The famous black eyes shuttered, and Ryker took a quick step back. His hands came up as he shook his head and chuckled, though the sound was a little forced. “Easy, Rex. No need to raise the alarm. I’m not going to touch her.”

  Alix spun around, needing a moment without his image dominating her gaze. She focused on the rag rug by the front door, and the weathered wooden bench that held her collection of newspapers and bottles waiting to be recycled on her next trip to Florence. She took a breath. She could handle Ryker Valentine. She’d known plenty of men like him. He thought, because of her movies, that she’d be an easy lay. He wasn’t interested in the real Alix, and she wasn’t interested in the real Ryker.

  If there was a real Ryker.

  “Rex doesn’t like it when people come too close,” Alix said, trying to sound casual. Flippant. She picked up her iced tea from the coffee table and took a sip, glaring at her hand until it stopped shaking. He was going to think she was one of his sex-starved groupies. She turned back to face him.

  “Does Rex’s mistress feel the same?” he asked.

  “That’s a bit personal, don’t you think?”

  His eyes mocked her, seemingly unconcerned that he’d just tried to kiss her and she’d refused. “You know how tight things get on a movie set. If we’re going to work together, we might as well start getting to know each other now, while we aren’t surrounded by fifty other people having simultaneous crises of epic proportions.”

  He walked over to the thick oak mantel that surrounded the hearth and picked up a five-by-seven print in a pewter frame. As he studied the picture—Alix graduating with her MFA, flanked on either side by Gunther and Elias Laboznikov, her thesis advisor—Ryker’s gaze flicked back and forth between her and the photo. Alix wanted to cross her arms over her chest to protect it from his prying eyes. Even with her bulky clothes, she felt exposed, somehow vulnerable.

  Could he tell she wasn’t wearing a bra?

  “Graduation? You and Gunther must be pretty clos
e, then.”

  “I’ve known him for some time,” she said tightly.

  He waited for a moment, as if expecting her to say something more. When she did not, he continued, “And the other man—Laboznikov, right? I’ve heard he can be a real prick.”

  The last was said almost admiringly. “He’s tough,” she admitted. “But an incredible teacher. I learned a lot from him. Now I don’t mean to be rude, but all this ‘getting to know you’ seems a bit premature. I haven’t decided yet if I’ll help you.”

  “Oh, you will,” he said, still looking at the picture. “Remember? I had you at ‘Labrador.’”

  An unwilling smile teased the edges of her mouth. “I told Gunther I wouldn’t give you an answer until I’d called him.”

  “I’ll let you make that call, then.” He looked around. “You do have a phone, don’t you?”

  Alix grabbed a pad and a pencil from a drawer in the kitchen and handed it to him, careful to ensure that their hands did not meet. “Why don’t you write down your number for me. I’ll let you know when I’ve made a decision.”

  #

  Ryker Valentine left as unexpectedly as he had arrived, without protest or further conversation. As soon as his car—if it could be called that—disappeared from sight, Alix collapsed into her favorite armchair and cradled Rex’s head between her palms. She smoothed the soft skin between his eyes.

  “I don’t have much choice, do I?”

  He whined and leaned his ninety-pound frame against her. Golden eyes looked up adoringly. “You’re a really good faker, you know that? You looked downright fierce.”

  She’d adopted Rex while filming her last movie. She’d been living alone in a small one-bedroom apartment in Santa Monica. It was far enough from the studio that she was able to get some mental distance from the work she was doing, but the long commute led to a lot of late nights, when she felt nervous coming home alone, not knowing what waited inside. Her movies had attracted considerable attention, and though she’d managed to avoid most of it, it only took one nut job to change a person’s life forever. Besides that, on the rare occasion that she had tried to date anyone, Rex had given her comfort that things would never go further than she wanted.