by Early, Mora
She shook her head. “No. This isn’t a budget meeting, just a brief assessment and a welcome for you. There’ll probably be drinks though. Do you want me to call the car?”
Think of her as an assistant. That’s what he should do. Not a wife, even a fake one. Just a personal assistant.
“I don’t think that will be necessary. I’m not planning on getting sloshed at a charity board meeting. But could you move dinner to 5 so I don’t have to eat and run?” He hated rushing a meal and tried to avoid it all costs. It was a necessary evil of the movie business at times, but he planned to enjoy as many leisurely meals as possible before shooting started.
Emma pursed her lips for a moment, and then her expression relaxed. “As long as you don’t mind something quick and simple.”
“That’s fine. Thanks, Emma.” Calm, cool, professional. No indication at all that he’d spent most of the last 5 days thinking about the how it felt when she wrapped her legs around his waist and the noises she made when he sank into her.
And he was hard again. Damn it.
Emma waved him off and was gone, the office door closing behind her. Josh exhaled, long and slow, slumping back in his chair. He covered his face with his hands, scrubbing at his skin, trying to erase the soft scent of her that still lingered in the room. It was fruity and floral at the same time. Lovely.
Not nearly as delicious as the smell of her warm skin or the spicy musk of her wet pussy.
Josh groaned, pushed aside the papers on his desk, and thumped his forehead against the hard wood. No harder than he was right now, of course. He could probably hammer a nail into an ironwood post with the erection he was sporting.
“She’s just an assistant. A work colleague. That’s all.”
From beneath his desk, Chewie gave a soft snort. Even the dog didn’t believe him.
Chapter 2 ~ Save a Chevy
Emma felt more relaxed than she had in days. Maybe months. Her iPad was propped against the pepper grinder on the kitchen island, blaring 80’s tunes. She bopped around the kitchen in her bare feet, hands dusted with flour.
She’d only intended to make a quick dinner, baked chicken and veggies. When Josh had made the comment about moving dinnertime, she’d realized he’d forgotten that Tina, the chef who usually cooked for them, had the day off. Emma should have corrected him. But the kitchen was stocked to the gills and it’s not as if she’d never cooked before. She liked cooking.
Which is how she ended up here, her sweater discarded as the heat from the oven filled the room, dancing across the cool tile floor to Cyndi Lauper while waiting for the chicken to bake. Josh’s kitchen had probably been designed for a professional chef to use, and Emma was hardly that, but she appreciated the layout and all the counter space.
The chicken smelled delicious, though she really had stuck to simple fare. Well, okay. Maybe the biscuits weren’t simple.
She’d chopped up the veggies and potatoes and thrown them in the big dish with the chicken. Then when she’d checked it and smelled the aroma of the chicken and herbs and garlic and carrots and potatoes all mixed together, she couldn’t help but think how perfect it would be with biscuits.
Why it had seemed necessary at the time to make them from scratch, Emma wasn’t quite sure. But they were just about ready to go in. They didn’t have to bake very long either, and they’d be light and fluffy and so delicious. Aunt Margaret may have not been an all-around warm woman, but she’d had a killer biscuit recipe.
“Thanks, Aunt Margaret.”
Emma slapped flour off of her t-shirt. Surrounding the stenciled white outline of an Impala was ‘~ SAVE A CHEVY ~ RIDE A WINCHESTER ~’. The shirt always made Emma grin.
Satisfied her beloved T was in no danger of a gluey, doughey demise, she rinsed her hands. She’d already set the table with everything they’d need but the food. She was chilling a nice bottle of Riesling, one of her favorites, and she’d even scrounged up a frozen cheesecake and set it out to thaw for dessert.
Why are you doing this? The voice in her head hissed in exasperation. It had already pointed out that, with no company expected and much of the staff enjoying a day off, tonight was one night that Emma didn’t have to pretend to be Mrs. Joshua Owens.
Yet, here she was. Baking.
She was cooking because she liked to cook. She was good at it, at least reasonably so, and anything that you could eat afterwards was totally worth the effort it took to create. If she was at home and not here dealing with this crazy fake marriage situation, she’d have cooked for herself for the last 5 nights as well. So there was nothing odd about her cooking, per se.
Cooking for Josh, on the other hand...
Well, she wasn’t. Not really. She was cooking for herself and he just happened to also be eating. That was all. She wasn’t becoming some sort of stereotypical 50’s domestic homebody. She’d been looking into the kind of permits they’d need to obtain in order to film in public locations before she’d started dinner.
Emma was still getting the hang of what exactly it was that Josh did, as a producer. He wanted her to help, and in order to do that, she needed to understand his role. A lot of producers were merely people who invested money. Some were people who were given the credit for other reasons and had very little to do with the actual making of the film.
Not Josh. Josh was a bit like an event planner, except instead of planning a wine tasting for one day, or even a charity golf tournament weekend, he was planning an event that would go on for months. The sheer amount of work involved was a bit staggering.
So, Emma was treating this business arrangement just like any other job she’d worked for Picture Perfect, by researching everything she needed to know in an attempt to anticipate what problems might arise before they did.
Just like any other contract? Her inner voice snorted. You don’t make mocha and cook biscuits for other clients.
That was true. She also didn’t live in the same house as her other clients though. If she did, she totally would have made them biscuits.
You lie in bed at night and remember the taste of his skin and the way it felt when he bent you over and slid his cock inside you. That’s not very professional of you.
Emma hissed, suddenly aware that she was holding the pan of biscuits and standing in front of the open oven. The heat had begun to sting her fingers. And her face.
That night had been a momentary lapse, and she was putting it behind her.
Admit it, you want to put him behind you. Again.
She slammed the oven door closed a little harder than she intended and grimaced at the clang. On the iPad, The Human League sang ‘It’s much too late to find, if you think you’ve changed your mind, you’d better change it back or we will both be sorry... Don’t you want me, baby? Don’t you want me?’
Emma spun and slapped at the iPad. “Shut up, Phil. And you too.” Her inner voice remained silent, but she could almost hear a sly snicker.
“Emma?”
Josh stood in the dining room, staring at the table. Emma strode to the table and curled her fingers around the back of her chair. She gave him a half smile. It even almost felt normal.
“Sorry, I was talking to myself. What’s up? The food’ll be ready in about twenty more minutes. Did you want a glass of wine?” She forced her mouth closed before more words came out. What the hell was wrong with her? She was babbling.
“I forgot Tina was off today. You didn’t have to cook.”
She shrugged. She wanted to drop her gaze. Looking into his blue-green eyes only made her remember the way they’d blazed above her as he’d pressed her down into the mattress. Emma’s heart leapt into her mouth. She swallowed it. “No big. It’s just chicken. I didn’t go all Betty Crocker or anything.”
He glanced down at her T-shirt, which still sported faint traces of flour. And then she saw him read it and his brow quirked a bit. “Are you really a Supernatural fan?”
Josh’s tone was genuinely curious and the question was innocent enough
, on the surface. But Emma clenched her jaw at the reminder that he believed she’d lied about everything, including what shows she liked. She wanted to point out that the T-shirt was clearly oft-worn, but she didn’t. Instead, she smiled.
“Nope. You caught me. I scour thrift stores for shirts with in-jokes to shows I don’t watch just so I can fake a love for hot fictional men who hunt ghosts and werewolves, all to mess with your head.” She rolled her eyes. “I need to go check my biscuits.”
“Emma, I didn’t mean...” But he trailed off and rubbed at his chin, unable to say he didn’t mean to question her honesty. Emma flicked her fingers dismissively, although there was a spark of heat under her ribs. Anger, she told herself. Not hurt.
“You can quiz me later about whether or not I ship Destiel or which Meg I prefer, okay? I seriously don’t want to burn the biscuits.”
He didn’t say anything else as she stalked back into the kitchen. Emma was glad. She wasn’t sure if she would have cried, or punched his handsome face.
***
It shouldn’t be as easy as it was. That’s the thought that kept occurring to Josh over dinner. This marriage was fake. Josh didn’t trust Emma. And after her reaction to their wedding night, he wasn’t sure she even liked him. They were putting on a show for the public in general and William Ransler in particular. In reality, they barely knew each other. Pretending to be intimate when they weren’t even sleeping together, pretending to be in love. It should be a struggle. At least for him. Josh was no actor.
So why was it so easy?
“More wine?” He offered the bottle, hovering over Emma’s nearly empty glass. He sat at the end of the long dining table, she sat on his right. Beneath the table her knee occasionally brushed his.
She swallowed a bite of chicken and nodded. “Please.”
Despite the brief moment of awkwardness earlier, once she’d come back out of the kitchen with the basket of freshly baked biscuits and the platter of chicken, onions, carrots and potatoes, Emma had been all smiles. Dinner had proceeded and the conversation had been effortless. Pleasant. Maybe a little superficial, but no more so than a normal dinner conversation.
Josh poured her another half glass of Riesling and then refilled his own glass. “I think you’re right about Emilie. The clip you sent me of her in the French werewolf movie was amazing. I already sent it off to Jess and Riki, told them to get her in ASAP.”
“Great! I bet she’ll nail her audition.” Emma’s smile was wide, her lips glistening slightly with chicken grease. Josh watched her cheeks pinken slightly. “Will we see the audition? Is that something you have a say in?”
“Sometimes. I probably won’t involve myself in this case, since it’s a relatively minor role. I’ll leave it up to my people. I trust them.” He sipped his wine, resolutely not looking at her slick mouth. “But I can ask them to send over her tapes.”
Emma chewed a small bite of carrot and tilted her head slightly. The movement sent a thick strand of hair sliding out of her twist to curl over her shoulder. “That’s not necessary. I’m just glad I could help. I know it’s cutting it pretty close to principal photography.”
“It’s not as big a deal as if would have been with a larger role.” Josh broke off a bit of biscuit. “These are delicious, by the way.” He popped the bite into his mouth and almost groaned as the soft bread dissolved on his tongue.
“Thanks. Aunt Margaret’s recipe.”
He saw her shoulders tighten a little. “Feel free to tell me to bugger off, but... I didn’t get the impression she was much of a ‘afternoon baking with the kids’ type. From Ben’s information.” Josh watched her face, wondering if she’d answer. And if she did, would it be the truth?
Emma poked at a potato, her slender fingers tight on her fork. “She wasn’t. She was our mother’s aunt, and her husband had died a long time before Todd and I were even born. They never had children. She was used to being on her own. She didn’t really know what to do with us kids. She did her best though, I guess. Passed on her mother’s biscuit recipe, at least. She taught me everything I know about cooking, actually. And sewing. Aunt Margaret had some relatively old fashioned ideas about what kind of things a girl should learn.” Emma’s mouth pulled sideways in a wry smile.
“Oh?” Josh chuckled. “Should I be setting aside my socks that need darning?”
Emma snorted. “I can actually do that, believe it or not. Knitting too, if you’re after a sweater. Do you really have socks that need darning?”
“If I did, I’d just buy new ones, you know.”
She pursed her lips in her librarian pout of disapproval. Josh didn’t even have to ask why. The idea of discarding and buying something new when it could be fairly easily repaired outraged his false bride’s frugal sensibilities. Josh shook his head.
“You sound just like my mother. No wonder you two get along so well.”
“I didn’t even say anything!” Her green eyes went wide and round.
Josh reached over and covered her left hand with his right, leaning forward and whispering conspiratorially. “Emma, sweetheart, you didn’t have to. What you were thinking was written all over your face.”
She stuck out her tongue at him. Josh drew back, laughing, and saw the twinkle of answering merriment in her eyes.
His hand was still on hers. He saw the moment she realized it. Her fingers twitched beneath his palm and her lashes fluttered. Josh couldn’t resist. He stroked along the delicate skin between her fingers.
She shuddered, fingers curling inward like the fronds of a fern. Josh saw her breath hitch. It had been nearly a week since they’d shared a bed. He’d spent most of that time badly wanting an encore performance.
Had she?
His gaze dropped from her unreadable green eyes to her glistening, trembling mouth, to the slightly heave of her breasts beneath her fan girl t-shirt.
Save a Chevy, Ride a Winchester? It had seemed funny before. Now, Josh felt lust grip his spine with a molten hand. He inhaled a sharp breath, picturing Emma riding him. Wearing nothing but the shirt. Rucked up over those sweet, firm breasts while he sucked her pink nipples to hard points.
As if she could see the picture he painted in his head, he saw the stiff buds suddenly poke through the soft cotton fabric. His eyes jumped back to hers. They weren’t touching anywhere but their hands on the table and yet Josh was more turned on than if he’d gotten a lap dance from another woman.
Now, a lap dance from Emma...
His cock leapt at the thought, instantly eager. Slowly, not releasing her hand or her gaze, Josh shifted to the edge of his chair. The movement slid his knee along her thigh and he felt her shift restlessly. But she didn’t draw away.
Josh was inches from her now. She watched him with intense, wary green eyes. He twined his fingers through hers and tugged them gently.
He knew what she’d said, what he’d agreed to. No more sex. But right now, Josh couldn’t, for the life of him, remember why that was the rule. It was absurd!
Not have sex with Emma? Not kiss her and touch her and slide into the warm, wet confines of her sweet body? Ridiculous. Ludicrous. What idiot would go along with that?
It was easy between them. Everything was so easy. Working together. Fooling friends, family, the public. Talking over dinner. Why shouldn’t this be easy too? He wanted her; she wanted him.
Josh drew her out of her chair. Emma let him. He slid her over onto his thigh, released her fingers, and slipped his hand up to knead the back of her neck. She stared at him. He stared back, recalling a video he’d seen of an Indian fakir charming a cobra. But which one of them was the snake?
His cock throbbed against Emma’s soft thigh. She bit her lip, her hands resting limply on her knees, her eyes intent on his face. Josh was mesmerized. He gripped her hip with his free hand, situating her a little better in his lap. They both gasped as her ass pressed into his groin.
She was short enough that even situated as they were, her head was below his. Josh sl
id his hand underneath her hair, palming the back of her skull as he bent his mouth to hers.
Instant heat exploded in him like a wildfire at the touch of Emma’s lips. They were soft, warm, slightly slippery with the chicken grease. She tasted faintly of the herbs she’d cooked with, and the light, tangy sweet flavor of the wine.
Her tongue flicked out to meet his, tentative at first, but then just as frantic as his. Her small hands tangled in the front of his shirt, pulling him closer.
He squeezed her hip before tracing his fingers along the edge of her jeans, toying with the waistband. He flicked the button open, but didn’t delve inside. Instead, he stroked upward, over her smooth belly and the slight bumps of her ribcage. He traced his fingertip along the bottom edge of her bra, barely brushing the underside of her breasts.