Behind me, the wall vibrated with the sounds of the reception we’d abandoned. Music. Voices. Laughter.
But I was here with Natalya, panting and kissing, and I couldn’t get enough. And I wanted her to feel as good as she was making me feel, so I tugged her skirt up until I could slip my hand between her thighs. I didn’t have to move her panties aside, though—she wasn’t wearing any. I slid two fingers into her tight and very wet pussy, and she moaned, breaking the kiss and letting her head fall beside mine. Had she been this turned on the whole time? Thinking about dragging me away like this?
“My God, you’re so wet,” I murmured.
“So are you.” She moved her fingers faster, as if to emphasize what we both already knew.
It was too dark to see anything, but if there’d been any light, it would’ve been blurry with tears as she drove me closer and closer. Every breath I took forced my ribs against this dress that was suddenly too damned tight—it had fit perfectly in the store, but I hadn’t taken into consideration the rapid, deep gulps of air I’d need when I found myself pressed against a wall with Natalya. The zipper dug into my back, reminding me just how easily we could solve this problem. Draw it down, shake off the dress, lose the bra, and I’d have all the breathing room I needed to survive this, but that meant letting go of Natalya. It meant taking my hand away from her pussy, or Natalya taking her hand away from mine, and no amount of oxygen was worth interrupting this amazing, electric, feverish ecstasy.
I squeezed my eyes shut and held my breath despite the confines of my dress, and suddenly the darkness behind my eyelids was white and the dress didn’t matter because all the air left my lungs and the only reason I didn’t slide down to the floor was Natalya’s body pinning mine to the wall. My knees tried to shake out from under me. My head spun so fast I didn’t know which way was up.
And she just . . . didn’t . . . stop.
A split second before it became too much, though, she did stop. Her fingers slid free, and I remembered my own hand was still on her pussy. As I started teasing her again—fucking her gently with two fingers while the heel of my hand pressed on her clit—she grabbed my arm with one hand. Then the other on my shoulder, and the dampness of her fingers made me shiver. The sweet scent of pussy—hers? mine? both?—drove me wild. Every breath tasted like both of us.
“Fuck,” she whispered, digging her nails into my shoulder. “So . . . good . . .”
“Yeah?” I circled faster, and she whimpered and moved her hand back down between my legs. She started teasing me again, and I pressed back against the wall, just trying not to fall as we drove each other insane. I had visions of the wall collapsing and sending us ass-over-teakettle into the reception hall, but it held. Even as she thrust against my hand like she was fucking me, and even as my knees wobbled and hers buckled, the wall held, and we stayed upright.
“Don’t . . . stop . . .” She trailed off, then murmured something in Russian in between sharp little gasps. She was grinding against my hand so hard it must’ve been painful—just the way she liked it—and then she yelped, shuddered, melted against me. As she’d done to me, I kept going until she started to relax. Then I slowed to a stop, slipped my fingers free, and . . . and we just breathed.
The room was silent now. The air was still. Judging by the slight sting on my skin, her nails had probably left neat rows of little red crescent moons on my shoulder. I was pretty sure a seam had ripped at some point, though I had no idea on whose dress, or if it would be obvious to anyone who looked.
“Jesus,” I whispered. “That was . . .” Insane? Aren’t we at a wedding? Did we really do this? Yes, we did. And it was . . . “Hot.”
“Uh-huh. I’ve been needing to do that since you walked in,” she murmured. “That dress is . . .” She sucked in a sharp hiss as she ran her hand down my side, smoothing the rumpled fabric. “You look so hot like that.”
“You’re one to talk.”
“No wonder we ended up in here.”
“Mm-hmm.”
She licked her lips. “You have any plans after the reception?”
“I do now.”
“Good.” She kissed me again, teasing my nipple through my clothes. “How attached are you to this dress?”
“I’m . . .” I gulped. “It’s . . . replaceable.”
Her grin told me that by the time she was done with me, the dress was going to need replacing. Fine. Totally fine. She could rip this dress to ribbons if she wanted to.
But hurry up before the damned thing catches on fire.
An hour and probably half a dozen orgasms after we got to her place, we collapsed into bed. Lying on our sides, we faced each other, fingers loosely clasped between our naked bodies.
We’d managed to slip out of the wedding reception, escaping right under the studio execs’ drunk noses, and I’d left in Natalya’s car instead of Jeremy’s. He and Scott were right behind us, but the minute we were outside the confines of the country club, we took off in separate directions. Odds were, they were at one of their places and in a similar state. More power to them—they spent enough time apart.
And even if it meant bending some rules and regs, I was alone with Natalya in her bed. I couldn’t imagine any place I’d rather be.
“I think I can sleep now,” she said.
“Me too. My God.” I smoothed her hair. “And I’m sure not going to say no to spending more time together.”
“Neither will I.” She grinned. “It was a nice wedding too. Even before we ditched the reception.”
I laughed. “Think anyone noticed?”
“Who cares?” She brushed a few strands of hair behind my ear. “Let them talk.” She lifted her head and kissed me softly. “I want them all to know I’m fucking you.” Her husky, crass whisper made me shiver.
“I’m sure they’ll talk.” I licked my lips. “Besides, it isn’t like it was a big secret.”
She laughed. “No, it wasn’t.”
“Even if it was . . . I just don’t care if people know. Or if they talk.”
“Neither do I.”
We held each other’s gaze. Neither of us spoke, and I wasn’t sure what to make of that silence. Or the fact that it was comfortable in its own way. Just like dancing with her, and lounging around watching movies with her, I was perfectly comfortable lying here and—
Movement behind her startled me, and then her black lab landed on the bed and flopped down between us.
“Misha!” She laughed. “What are you doing?”
“He’s okay.” I ruffled his ears, and he panted happily. “He’s cute.”
“A little too friendly for his own good.”
“Friendly isn’t a bad thing.”
“Except when I’m trying to be next to you.”
“Oh, he’s fine.” I leaned toward her to kiss her, and Misha suddenly lurched forward and licked my face. “Oh my God!”
We both collapsed into giggles, and she handed me a couple of tissues to wipe my cheek. After I’d taken care of that, we settled on the pillows again, both petting the dog as his tail thumped my shin.
“He’s going to take up most of the bed, but . . .” Natalya hesitated, searching my eyes. “Do you want to stay tonight?”
My pulse surged up. We’d spent the night at my place a few times, but never hers. Why did that seem to make such a big difference? As if spending a night in my bed and a night in hers somehow sealed us together or made this bigger than it was.
And after that moment on the dance floor, the realization that this was bigger than it was supposed to be . . .
Oh, I knew this panicky feeling well. The feeling that whatever happened next could be a hell of a rush or an unmitigated disaster. The feeling that, disaster or not, something was going to happen. I might say something. Tell her how I feel. Find out if she did—or didn’t—feel the same.
Did it have to happen now, though? Sure, I’d figured it out on the dance floor, and lying here with her drove the point home, but did I have to do an
ything with it right now?
No. This was enough for tonight. We’d ventured into this with a combination of caution and reckless abandon, and I wasn’t sure where this part—where falling headlong into the really complicated emotions—fell into that spectrum. So maybe some more caution was in order. Figure out how I really felt. See how things went over the next few days. Maybe the next few weeks.
I smiled. “Yeah, I’ll stay. Even if he does get in the middle of things.”
She laughed softly and relaxed, as if she’d been worried about my answer. As worried about it as I’d been.
I’d stay tonight. We’d see how things went in the morning. And the rest of the day. And the next time we landed in bed together.
Maybe, when I was sure I had my feet under me and wouldn’t fall flat on my face, then I could take a deep breath.
Look her in the eye.
And tell her I loved her.
When the sun rose the day after the wedding, everyone was dragging their hungover asses back to the set. Even Levi and Carter were there—they were taking a long honeymoon when we broke from filming later in the year. Dresses, suits, ties, high heels—all were a distant memory now as the actors slipped into costume and character, and the crew was back to comfortable clothes and shoes. Aside from a few people stopping to offer congratulations and some good-natured ribbing to the newly married boys, it was business as usual at Wolf’s Landing.
The episode we were currently filming was one of the more sedate pieces in the series. Though that didn’t really say much—Hunter Easton definitely hadn’t written the first several books with a TV show’s budget in mind. And I suspected he’d written the last couple with the budget in mind—specifically to raise Finn Larson’s blood pressure a few notches.
But at least by Wolf’s Landing standards, this episode was pretty mellow, which meant Natalya wasn’t running herself quite so ragged.
Lucky her. I was, as per usual, in and out of meetings, on and off the set, alternating between tearing out my hair and wanting to tear out the other producers’ throats.
Toward midafternoon or thereabouts—I’d lost track of time—I finally had a break. I had more meetings later, but took advantage of my downtime by strolling through each soundstage to see how things were going. If I didn’t keep my finger on the pulse of every episode, I’d get blindsided by crises, so I did everything I could to minimize that. Plus it gave me an excuse to swing by wherever Natalya was working. Even if we didn’t have time to chat, a glance at her was always enough to lighten my mood.
I stopped to check on some last-minute repairs being performed on the interrogation room set—I’d fucking told the bean counters we couldn’t cut corners on building materials—and then paused to survey the room and crew. The actors were playing on their phones or staring at scripts. A makeup artist was putting some finishing touches on a “wound” on Ginsberg’s arm.
And Natalya was chatting with Daniel Moore.
I halted so abruptly, I thought I heard Jeremy stumble behind me. I didn’t look at him, though. My gaze stopped on Daniel and Natalya and didn’t move.
Daniel was new to the cast, playing a small role in the next three episodes before returning in an upcoming season for a recurring role. And wouldn’t his fans lose their minds when they realized his character eventually had a romantic arc with Gabriel? Half the fans would love seeing Daniel and Carter making out on the screen. The other half would probably . . . not.
We’d kept his role under wraps, though. People knew he’d been added to the cast, but his role was a carefully guarded secret. The speculation was already beginning. After all, it had become almost a running joke that everyone attached to Wolf’s Landing was either queer or would be before long.
“The wolves don’t bite you and turn you into a werewolf,” one incensed blogger had said last summer. “They turn you gay.”
Daniel, however, would’ve stunned the hell out of me if he were anything but straight. He’d played a gay man in a film last summer, and the sex and kissing scenes had been convincing, but offscreen, he was as straight as the day was long. When interviewers asked if it bothered him to get physically intimate with another man, he’d shot back that no one ever asked him if it bothered him to play the ruthless serial killer in his previous film.
“Kissing a man raises questions,” he’d said, “but when my character chokes someone with his bare hands and dismembers the body, I get awards.”
He’d worked his way through the ranks of some of Hollywood’s leading women and was forever in the tabloids for breaking up and making up with this or that actress. I didn’t know if he was single or not right now.
What I did know, however, was that one woman on the set of Wolf’s Landing had apparently caught his eye.
He leaned against a worktable where Natalya was making adjustments to a rig. Though she broke eye contact to continue fussing with straps and buckles, she kept glancing at him. And he never looked away from her.
Let those eyes move down the front of her shirt one more time, buster, and you won’t need makeup to look battered and bloody.
Not just because I’d break his arm. Chances were, she’d tear his arm off and beat him with it if she thought his gaze was going somewhere it didn’t belong.
Except . . . except she did catch him a couple of times. Once, he had the decency to look sheepish. The second time, neither of them seemed to acknowledge it either way.
He said something, and she laughed.
From any other woman, it might’ve come across as just a friendly laugh, but Natalya was notoriously stoic. Some of the guys joked—when they were way out of her earshot—that she’d invented the resting bitch face. That smile, though—the one she was doing just now with Daniel—was more than a friendly one. It was that same smile that had made me grit my teeth on the beach when those guys had come up to us.
She flipped her hair out of her face and gave a playful—but much too flirty—laugh before focusing on the rig again.
He smirked as he made another comment. She threw her head back and laughed again.
And my gut clenched even tighter.
I gritted my teeth. Really?
Daniel glanced at his watch and stood. He gestured across the set and shrugged apologetically. She smiled again, said what looked like, “It’s okay,” and they held each other’s gaze for a second before he turned to go.
She watched him for another second. Then she shook her head, laughed to herself, and resumed working on the rig.
Jeremy cleared his throat, reminding me he was there. I turned, and he raised his eyebrows as if to ask if everything was okay.
Yeah. Fine. Great.
I didn’t say anything. Teeth still grinding, I forced a smile as I approached Natalya. “He seems friendly.”
She eyed me. “He is.”
I said nothing.
She cocked her head. “Is that a problem?”
My chest tightened, but I clenched my jaw tighter. We were at work. I was pretty sure I could feel Jeremy cringing behind me. This wasn’t the time or place.
She put the rig down and faced me fully. “Anna . . .”
“We shouldn’t—”
“Or do you mean I shouldn’t?” she snapped.
I glanced around. No one was looking yet, but it wouldn’t take much to start turning heads. “Not here, okay?”
“Then where?” She folded her arms across her chest. “Because ‘later’ isn’t going to cut it either.”
Shit. Just what we both needed. And chances were, she wasn’t going to let the subject drop any more than I would.
“Let’s talk about this in my office.” I gestured around the set. “I’d rather not do this here.”
Natalya’s lips tightened. “Fine.”
Well, fuck. This was going to be fun.
Without another word, we left the set. One of her stuntmen approached her with a question in his eyes, but must’ve thought better of it when he actually looked at her. He stopped, rai
sed his eyebrows, and then turned tail and went the other way. Smart man.
Natalya kicked the door shut behind us, startling the shit out of me. “All right. No one else around. Just us.” She folded her arms again and set her jaw. “What’s the problem?”
“Really?” I glared at her, my chest painfully tight with almost-contained anger. “I just watched you flirting with—”
“Are you serious?” She glared right back at me. “I banter with a man for five seconds, and suddenly—”
“That looked like more than bantering.”
Her eyebrows rose. Then they slowly came down, and her eyes narrowed. “What it should have looked like was none of your fucking business. Because that’s what it was.”
I held her gaze but didn’t speak.
Count to ten, Anna. Don’t flip out. One . . . two . . .
She beat me to the punch anyway. “You do recall that we’re not exclusive, right?”
“Yeah, I do,” I ground out. “And in case you were curious as to why that is, we—”
“Jesus. So should I be jealous if you speak to a woman who’s got bigger breasts than me? Or who’s taller?”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“Isn’t it? How is it different?” She huffed sharply. “Because a man has a penis? For God’s sake, if I’m that desperate to be fucked, Red Hot Bluewater sells strap-ons.”
I glared at her. “You’d ask a woman to do that? To penetrate you like a man?”
“I said if I was that desperate. And for your information, when I have used a strap-on, I like to be on top.” She sneered at me. “How does that work with your insecurity?”
I blinked, her words startling me enough to displace the anger and throw me off-balance. “I—”
“You need to get over yourself,” she growled. “Do you really believe all your own bullshit about me seeing you until a man comes along?”
“It’s not bullshit when it’s happened to me.”
Her lips pulled tight. “That had nothing to do with me. You really think I would use someone the way people have used me?”
Stuck Landing Page 18