Pete was having trouble breathing. “I don’t know.”
“Why don’t you know?”
He blurted out, “Because I can’t think with you touching me.”
Evan’s grin widened. “Good.”
He moved into Pete’s space, his hand still roving over Pete’s body. He dragged the back of his fingers up Pete’s stomach and then ghosted a thumb over a nipple.
Pete’s heartbeat spiked. His attention narrowed until it encompassed nothing but the feel of Evan touching his skin and the heat pouring from Evan’s body.
He started to say something—he had no idea what—but Evan leaned forward until their lips were a hair’s breadth apart. It shouldn’t have been as hot as it was, considering they’d had a make-out session of epic proportions a week before, but Pete could feel Evan’s breath brushing against his mouth. Evan’s eyes seemed to have some kind of proximity effect. They got more intense the closer he was to them. Pete was dizzy with want within ten seconds.
“Christ, you are so sexy,” Evan breathed. He sounded as wrecked as Pete felt. “You have the most beautiful eyes. Crystal clear, like ice. Sometimes I can’t sleep at night thinking about them.”
Pete forced a laugh, unsure of how else to react, and joked, “That’s quite a line. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you really were falling in love with me.”
Evan paused, then continued as if Pete hadn’t spoken. “You have the best reactions. They’re so intense and honest; it’s irresistible. I love drawing them out of you, turning your brain off and filling your head with nothing but me.” He raked his fingernails lightly down Pete’s chest.
“Kyle,” Pete gasped. He tried to say more but couldn’t. Everywhere Evan touched him lit up like fireworks.
“Like right now, I can tell you’re right on that edge. If I can touch you just right, make you feel good, you’ll give in to it.” He drew a shallow breath. “Tell me what you want.”
Pete made a small, pitiful noise and inaudibly mouthed, Evan.
There was a loaded pause.
Pete sucked in a breath. He might have just crossed a major line. He searched Evan’s face for a reaction: unease, betrayal, maybe even anger. As he watched, Evan’s eyebrows shot up, and his eyes darkened.
Pete started to stammer an apology, but then Evan shoved him none too gently. His back hit one of the palm trees, thankfully not hard enough to send them toppling over. He had just enough time to regain his balance before Evan was on him.
Evan forced their bodies together, pressing his mouth hotly to Pete’s ear as he demanded, “Say it again.”
Pete shuddered from head to toe and whispered, “Evan.”
“Oh fuck.” Evan kissed him with such brutality, his lips bruised. Distantly, he heard Colette shout something that sounded suspiciously like encouragement, as if they needed any.
Evan kissed him like he needed him to breathe, which was funny, because that was the one thing Pete couldn’t seem to do. The bark of the tree scraped his back, and he was hot, much too hot, but all he could focus on was the torturous, hard friction of Evan’s mouth against his. The first sweep of tongue left him weak, and when he parted his lips to let Evan slide into him, he had to grab Evan’s shoulders for support.
Evan shifted up, pushing him harder back like he couldn’t get close enough. Pete matched the movement without thinking, rocking his hips forward. He hissed at the contact. He hadn’t realized how impossibly hard he was until his cock met Evan’s lower belly. Evan moaned against his mouth and pivoted until Evan’s erection nestled insistently against his thigh.
Pete groaned and tightened his grip on Evan’s shoulders. That seemed to spur Evan on, because he rocked them together, and they gasped in unison. It wasn’t nearly enough. Their pesky swimsuits were in the way, and they were just barely dragging against each other, the fabric harsh and their bodies too slippery from water and sweat, but it felt amazing. Pete needed more.
Just as Pete thought he was going to burst out of his skin, Evan slid a hand down and thumbed the waistband of his swimsuit. Pete’s whole body seized up as he waited for him to continue. His thoughts were a silent mantra of Fuck, fuck, fuck, please.
Evan’s fingers dipped below the elastic, caressing his lower belly. “Do you want me to touch you?”
“Yes,” Pete said, barely able to push enough air out of his lungs to form the words. “Evan, please.”
Evan’s hand dipped into Pete’s swimsuit, and—
“Cut!”
Evan tore his mouth away and growled, actually growled. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Oooh, touchy.” Colette grinned like the Cheshire cat. “Sorry to break up the fun, boys, but we said we were going to keep this shoot clothed. If I’d let you go any longer, someone would have ended up pregnant.”
The crew laughed. Pete’s face flamed. He felt like he’d been caught in flagrante, which made zero sense, considering he was being paid to be here.
Like you wouldn’t do this for free.
Well. His thoughts were back online, and they had a lot to say.
He edged away, distancing himself from Evan. It was no easy task. Evan was still holding him tightly, and when Pete shifted, he flexed his grip as if to stop him. A second later, however, he dropped his hands, and Pete was able to put some much-needed space between them.
“Are we finished?” Pete was lightheaded and uncomfortably hard. If they did another take, chances were he’d come in his swimsuit—and it was very much his swimsuit now. He doubted wardrobe would want it back after this.
“I can probably make what we have work,” Colette answered. “But I’d rather do another round just to be sure.”
Shit. “Do we have to?” He hated how whiny he sounded.
“I thought you wanted things to add to your portfolio? Unless you think you can use one of the shots of Darko shoving his tongue down your throat.”
He sighed. She was right. “Can I get some water before we try again?”
“Sure. Do what you need to do.” She clapped her hands. “Take five, people. Then we’ll resume. Darko, great work. Your acting gets better every day.”
Evan answered too quietly for anyone but Pete to hear. “It’s not acting.”
Pete didn’t look at him, scared of what he might see if he did. He got off set as quickly as he could without breaking into a run. A refreshments table had been set up along one of the walls. It was covered in sandwiches, coffee, and bottles of water.
He made a beeline for the latter and sucked half of one down in a few gulps. He spent a moment breathing deeply, willing himself to calm down. It was no use. He was still hard. He adjusted his clothing in the front, hoping that would help, but even the brush of fabric against him was too much.
Fuck. He’d known keeping things professional wasn’t exactly an option anymore, but they had crossed a major line today. The shoot had in no way called for sex, or even for them to kiss each other, and yet Pete hadn’t been able to hold back. He couldn’t hide behind Colette’s orders or Heat Wave this time. He’d kissed Evan because he wanted to.
Evan had a way of crawling under his skin and touching all his most tender places. It made him feel vulnerable and euphoric at the same time. And it scared the shit out of him.
He needed to face facts. This wasn’t a typical will-they-won’t-they scenario. In a few weeks, they were going to have sex. And it would be public, not just to Colette, or Yolanda, or the people in the studio, but to everyone with an internet connection. Forever. Permanent. Jaden and Kyle’s first time, immortalized forever on the silver screen. The sooner he stopped romanticizing this, the better.
“Get it together, Griflow,” he muttered to himself.
“‘Griflow’?”
Pete glanced to his left. Evan was standing next to him.
“H-hey,” Pete stammered. “I didn’t see you there.” Shit. That was my real last name. Quick, distract him. “How are you?”
“I think you know the answer to tha
t.” Evan’s smile was pure sin.
Arousal twanged in Pete’s lower belly from that alone. God, he really had it bad for him.
“You ran off fast.” Evan’s tone wasn’t accusatory, but there was a sharp edge to it that raised goose bumps all over Pete’s body. Evan was only a foot or so away, but he was scrutinizing him with laser-like intensity, as if he were trying to read fine print scrawled on Pete’s face.
“I was, um, thirsty.” Pete took a swig as if to prove his point.
“I’m surprised you can think about anything besides that hard-on you’re sporting.”
Pete choked on his water. There was no sense in denying it. Evan had felt the truth for himself, could probably see it now.
He cleared his throat. “It’s a hazard of the job, you know? It happens.”
“Yeah, it does,” Evan agreed. “I know that for a fact.” He tucked a thumb into his waistband, letting his hand rest right next to his groin. Even if he weren’t wearing a tight swimsuit, his erection would have been obvious.
Pete stared at the fat outline of Evan’s cock for far longer than he should have, his brain moving sluggishly. Knowing Evan was turned on when they were working was one thing, but seeing it when there weren’t any cameras to act as a buffer was different. Real. Raw. He didn’t trust himself to speak without giving away just how badly he wanted.
Evan’s voice took on the deep, rumbling quality of distant thunder. “It seems we both have the same problem. Why don’t we do something about it?”
Goddamn. Pete didn’t need a road map to figure out where this conversation was headed. Just thinking about it made his mouth water.
“What do you want to do?” Pete asked, needing to hear the answer out loud.
Evan reached out and cupped Pete’s erection. “You.”
Pete gasped and pressed into the touch. Evan obliged him, palming him through the damp material. Christ, it felt so good to be touched by him. All the frottage in the world couldn’t compare to the feeling of Evan’s deft fingers finally, finally on him.
Evan’s pupils were so wide, his irises had disappeared. “Do you want me?”
Pete stared at him for a moment before looking nervously around them. “We have to get back to work.”
“That wasn’t a no.”
It sure as fuck wasn’t, but Pete needed to say the closest thing to it that he could manage. “We shouldn’t.”
“But you want to.” Evan slipped his hand into Pete’s clothing. Pete trembled, tense and needy, as Evan’s hand trailed down through his pubic hair, stopping just before where he really wanted it. “You don’t shave?”
“No,” Pete said weakly. “Don’t want to look any younger than I already do.”
Evan licked his lips. “That’s weirdly hot. You have so little body hair, except where it counts.” His eyes burned. “I want to see it. Let me.”
Oh fuck. One more look like that, and Pete wasn’t going to be able to remember why he thought this was a bad idea. “We can’t just fuck in a room full of people. Even on a porn set, that’s frowned upon.”
“I don’t mean here. You could meet me in the men’s room, or we could go somewhere.”
“The shoot isn’t finished yet.”
“Fuck the shoot. Come with me.”
Jesus, did that ever sound appealing. Pete could just picture it, getting shoved into one of the bathroom stalls and having Evan pin him against the wall, fingers and lips everywhere. He wondered if he’d go slow, draw it out, like he did the first time they kissed, or if he’d simply yank Pete’s trunks down, wrap a hand—or God, a mouth—around him, and give him the relief he ached for.
A fresh wave of arousal surged through him at the thought. Evan still had his hand in Pete’s pants, and Pete actually felt himself harden beneath his touch.
Evan must have felt it too, because he glanced down and whistled. “Well, someone likes the sound of that.” When he looked back up, his expression was curiously soft. “Come with me?” He removed his hand and reached for Pete’s, taking it in a loose grip.
Pete sucked in a breath at the strange intimacy of the gesture. Every fiber of his being was screaming at him to say yes, but a voice in the back of his head nagged at him. He’d never handed out a freebie in his life. It’d be one thing if Evan were a hot guy picking him up at a bar, but he wasn’t. He was a colleague. They had to work together for the next several weeks. This could ruin their working relationship.
It could have bigger consequences than that too. If Evan told people that Pete had fucked him recreationally, he might start getting jobs for all the wrong reasons. But was that really what Evan was trying to do? Score a free ride out of him? Pete didn’t want to believe it, and Evan seemed genuine enough, but Pete had been burned by a pretty face before . . . one that looked painfully like Evan’s.
He couldn’t do it. There was too much riding on this. Fucking Evan on the side was asking for trouble, especially while he was still so uncertain about what he wanted from him. He couldn’t risk this job and a mountain of potential sore feelings for a quick fuck.
His resolve solidified even as his dick begged him to reconsider. But what really drove the nail home was Colette’s voice echoing in the back of his head: “There’s still ample time to replace you.”
“I’m sorry,” Pete said genuinely. He pulled his hand from Evan’s grasp. “I don’t work for free.”
Evan stared at him blankly for ten full seconds, and then his eyes shuttered like doors had slammed behind them. “Ah. I see.” He took a step back, and Pete felt every inch of the distance between them as if it were being yanked from his sinew. “You’d think after the first few times you turned me down, I’d have gotten the message. This really is just a job to you.”
The disappointment in his voice cut Pete to the quick. Baffled, he asked, “Is it supposed to be something else?”
Evan looked miserable. “No. But I’d hoped so.”
Oh fuck. What had he done?
“I mean,” Pete fumbled, “it’s not entirely a job to me.”
“You don’t have to lie. I’m a big boy. I can handle rejection.”
“I’m not lying.” Pete sighed. “Look, I’m obviously attracted to you. Really attracted to you. But I don’t want to risk this—” he waved between them “—because we’re both horny. Okay?” He hated how uncertain he sounded, like he was asking for permission. Was it even possible to be this bad at human interaction?
To his complete shock, a small smile crept over Evan’s face. “What do you think this—” he mimicked Pete’s waving motion “—is?”
Pete stared at his feet. “I don’t know. I’ve never . . .” He stopped short.
Evan’s voice was gentle and probing. “What?”
“I’ve never felt something like this before,” he admitted. “Colette keeps calling it chemistry. I don’t know if that’s the right word for it, though.”
“If you knew what it was,” Evan asked, “would you want to pursue it?”
“I don’t know.” Pete raised his water bottle to his lips just to have something to do.
Evan studied his face with keen eyes. “I wish I could read you better.”
Pete nearly spat out the sip he’d just taken. “What? Half the time I feel like you’re reading my goddamn mind.”
“That’s just body language. When you’re not acting, you’re reserved to the point of being indecipherable, and it’s intimidating.”
“Me. Intimidating. That’s a new one.”
“It’s true. Why are you holding yourself back?”
Pete had no desire to answer that question, but he also didn’t want to lie, so he settled for a different truth. “Colette’s threatened to remove me from the project.”
“What?” Evan looked shocked. “Why?”
Pete shrugged. “Probably because I have a tendency to mix business with pleasure when it comes to you. She thinks I’m not dedicated enough to Heat Wave, that I have other things on my mind. I promised her I’d ge
t my shit together. If I don’t, I’ll lose this job.”
Evan was silent for a long moment. Eventually, he asked, “So, as long as Heat Wave isn’t jeopardized, we can do what we want, right? Colette won’t take you off the project?”
“I guess. That’s not really the point, though.”
“Do you have your phone on you?”
“Um.” Pete glanced at the wardrobe station, where he’d deposited his clothes. “No, it’s in my jeans.”
“Go get it.”
Pete hesitated. “Why?”
“Because we’re going to start small.”
Pete didn’t think he’d ever had so much trouble following the path of a conversation. “I’m confused.”
“Just go get your phone.” Evan shooed him away.
Pete did as he was told. His erection had somewhat subsided, but every step made fabric brush against it. By the time he made it there and back, he was twitchy with overstimulation.
“Here,” he said without preamble, handing his phone to Evan. He hugged his chest and closed his eyes, willing his dick to chill out. He suspected it would if he could just get away from Evan long enough.
He heard the sound of fingers tapping on a screen. After a few seconds, Evan gave the phone back. “All yours.”
Pete took it wordlessly. There was no need to ask what Evan had done to it. That much was obvious. “Want me to call so you’ll have my number too?”
Evan smirked. “If you’d be so kind.”
Pete found the name Evan Darko under his recent contacts and tapped the Call button. As it rang, he studied Evan. “I’m not complaining, but I don’t understand how this is going to keep me from getting fired.”
“It’s not,” Evan said. “In fact, it’s probably a terrible idea. But I can’t stay away any longer either, and I promise I will do everything I can to keep you on this project. I think we can have our cake and hopefully eat it off of each other.” He tilted his head and flashed an impish smile. “I’m in if you are.”
Pete only had a vague idea of what he was agreeing to, but he didn’t hesitate to say, “I’m in.”
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