by Lara Archer
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Author Note
About the Author
Other Books
Wild At Heart Copyright 2015, Lara Archer
Published by Sagitta Press
Cover Design by Kim Killion
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author at [email protected].
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
For more information on the author and her works, please visit http://laraarcher.com/
Chapter One
Nick Turner found himself in a very familiar position: hiking uphill with heavy camera equipment strapped to his shoulders and earth crunching under his boots. And, of course, with his eyes glued to Amber Wakeling’s long, strong, suntanned legs eating up the trail ahead of him.
It was a sight Nick always enjoyed: the strides that showed Amber’s confident energy and zest for life, not to mention the way those legs of hers shot straight up to the swaying, gorgeous, heart-shaped curve of her ass.
He had a whole arsenal of fantasies to torture himself with as they sought whatever destination Amber had in mind for filming on any particular day—New Mexico desert or New York City dockyard, he could adapt for anything.
Today was especially potent, out here on a Colorado mountain, in the pine forest, alone. A perfect early summer day. Not a soul for miles.
No harm in imagination, right?
With a few long strides he could catch her, run his palms up those taut thighs, seize her around the waist and press his mouth into that sweet little space behind her ear. He’d have her breasts in his hands then, and he’d yank her t-shirt up and off. And then he could spin her around and back her up against a tree-trunk, or maybe just coax her to bend forward over a sun-warmed boulder.
He liked the idea of wrapping both her hands in one of his, drawing her arms taut over her head. His other hand would pop the button on her hiking shorts, drag down the zipper, slide the waistband past her hips. He’d yank up her shirt next, have her naked in seconds.
Maybe he’d take his time then, exploring her everywhere with his hands and mouth until she moaned and screamed his name. Or maybe he’d rip open his own button-fly, shove her thighs apart and thrust right into her until he was the one screaming. He’d slide his fingers to the joining of her legs, stroking the way he wanted to, the way he dreamed of, and they could scream together.
Hell. There wasn’t a camera bag big enough to hide the bulge that had started straining the front of his shorts.
But he’d just have to live with it. No harm in dreaming, but there was no way in hell he was actually going to do it.
Amber was his friend, damn it. Not to mention his work partner, in the best creative relationship of his life. Four indie films in four years, with serious Oscar buzz for the last two. For the first time in his life, he felt like the artist he was meant to be. If he messed that up, he might as well go back to plastic L.A. and waste his life shooting car chases.
He was not putting this relationship at risk.
Now Amber glanced back over her shoulder with a grin. “It’s not much more than half a mile from here,” she said, her brilliant blue eyes sparkling. “You gonna make it, cowboy?”
He grinned back. That kind of teasing had become a tradition, too, every time they scouted a challenging location. “Race you to the top!”
And then it was a burst of speed, a tangle of branches and leaves slapping at their bodies, their hips jostling one another as they fought for the lead along whatever narrow path they happened to be following. There were no rules. Her elbows jabbed playfully at his belly, his hands clutched at her ribcage to slow her down. A brief, delicious excuse to touch her.
They were both panting and laughing as they shot out from the woods into a wide, green meadow. It was like leaping into Eden. The sky was suddenly enormous after the canopy of the pines.
“Look at this place! Look! It’s perfect, Nick!” Amber cried, stretching out her arms and spinning as she looked up at the clouds.
He eased the heaviest of the camera bags off his shoulders and looked around. God, yes—it was perfect. Amber had such an instinct for these things. Once the actors arrived, they’d shoot the perfect love scene here: starting with a lush panoramic shot, sweeping around all this greenery, the mountains in the background, still capped with the last of the winter snow. The flowers were so vivid, people in the theaters would swear they could smell them.
“Can you imagine,” said Amber, her tanned arms still reaching for the sky, her cheeks flushed with excitement. “Ruby Torres and Jay Hultensaalt here, starring in our movie? Just think of the sheer gorgeousness of that!” Her golden hair swept around her like sunshine, and the stretch of her arms lifted her breasts in a way that made Nick’s throat go dry.
“It’s already sheer gorgeousness,” Nick said, before he could stop himself. He hastily shifted his gaze off to the horizon. “The setting, I mean.”
Laughing, Amber reached down to pick a stalk of purple lupine, which she tucked behind her ear. She looked dazzling and adorable, a hippie princess. The dusting of freckles across her nose and the crinkles at the corners of her blue eyes—payment for spending so much of her life outside in the sun—only made her more beautiful. She couldn’t have been more tempting if she was trying to seduce him.
Which of course she wasn’t.
Unfortunately.
She was beaming with excitement—but about the movie she was going to shoot, not about him. “The cover girl for People’s 50 Most Beautiful People issue wants another Oscar nod,” she said, “and, cowboy, we’re gonna get it for her! We’re going to get her the damned Oscar!”
Nick smiled back at her. “She’s sure as hell not working with us for the money.”
“If she wants money, let her make another rom com with Ryan Reynolds. We’re offering a film worth making. Intelligence, raw emotion, and your eye behind the camera.”
“And the best script you’ve written yet, kiddo.” Calling her “kiddo” always seemed much safer than what he wanted to call her—baby, or something hopelessly sappy like sweetheart, or just plain beautiful.
Kiddo it would have to be. Amber was a very-nearly-married woman, seemingly happy with that wuss lawyer-boy fiancé of hers and their mostly-long-distance relationship, which had lasted since Amber, Nick, and Louis all graduated Oberlin together.
And Nick—well, he was definitely not marriage material himself. Women threw themselves at him, he caught them, made them very happy for a while, then waved them on their way. That was all he was good for. While Amber deserved a home, a real home, and a family and security.
No—he wasn’t ever going to do what he wanted to do with her.
But she wasn’t making it easy for him today.
“Perfect choice, kiddo,” said Nick, trying to keep his mind off the swaying hips and the gleaming eyes. What on earth kind of mood was she in today? Amber was often playful, tending towards the exuberant, and she had a complicated sense of humor, but she usually didn’t try to provoke him. Did she have the slightest clue how much he wanted her?
You’re a professional, he reminded himself. You’re twenty-eight years old, not a horndog teenager anymore. He made himself think serious thoughts about lighting apertures and boom microphones and the chances of catching a hawk or eagle in flight in that opening panoramic shot. “How’d you even learn about this place?” he asked.
She actually batted her eyelids at him, and despite his best efforts at professionalism, Nick’s internal temperature shot up several degrees. “I have my ways,” said Amber, swaying closer still. “Us indie girls are clever about getting what we need.”
Nick took a step back, subtly adjusting the fit of his shorts to ease the increasingly painful throbbing of his cock, which seemed determined to pop open his button-fly. Thank goodness he always wore his shirts untucked and still had one camera bag hanging in front of him—though he found himself wishing they’d brought a couple extra crew members up here to help him keep his distance. Preferably crew members armed with animal-tranquilizer guns.
He shoved a dark lock of hair out of his eyes. He was a few seconds away from reaching out and grabbing Amber around the waist, and seeing how close reality could come to his fantasies—but whatever mood she was in, Amber was not going to like him making a move like that.
Exuberant and playful and unpredictable she might be, but she was loyal to the core to those she loved—including her fiancé.
Her loyalty was one of the things Nick liked best about her.
Nick tried to fix his attention on a line of swaying aspens twenty yards away, and racked his brain for something rational to say. “You sure those spoiled Hollywood stars are going to be willing to hike all the way up here?”
Amber came another hot inch closer, setting the whole surface of Nick’s skin ablaze. “I saw the way Miz Ruby looked at you when we met her for lunch,” she teased, her blue eyes locking with his. “She’d climb Everest if she had to, to get a shot at the ridiculously handsome and oh-so-notorious demon lover Nick Turner.” Amber leaned in and ran a fingertip across his chest. Jesus, she might as well drip a stream of lava across his flesh.
“Amber,” he said tentatively, though his voice had dropped an octave without him willing it, and came out like a growl.
“I’m just teasing, cowboy,” she said, darting away again. “I don’t care how many notches you’ve got on your bedpost, I know you’ve got a heart of gold.”
A muscle clenched in his jaw. Well, it was true enough about his damned bedpost, anyway. He had to do something with all the sexual energy Amber unleashed in him. And it couldn’t be with her.
He was damaged goods in the relationship department—his parents had been actors, with seven divorces between them, and his own coming-of-age happened in the heartless, drunken L.A. club scene. He tried to be honest with women about what he was good for, and he used protection absolutely every time, but that was the extent of his efforts to improve himself. He was a damned good fuck, and everyone knew it. But that was all. He wasn’t capable of more.
Hell, Amber’s parents were still married to each other. Thirty-two years in, and they still loved each other. And talked to their daughter on the phone three times a week. Amber was going to have a life like theirs and a family like theirs, even if Nick had to die to make it happen.
Of course, there was a fairly high chance he was going to die if she touched him again and he couldn’t have her.
Well, small price to pay to keep from hurting her.
“Let’s get some test shots, okay, kiddo?” he said. “Any sense of where exactly we should put the main action?”
Amber gazed around at the vibrant landscape, considering, and then swung around to look at Nick again. An odd spark came into her eye. “You know, it’s just you and me today,” she said, then paused and bit at her lower lip. Was she blushing? Her cheeks looked suddenly pink. Then she smiled again and murmured, “How about you and me just...try it out?”
Nick’s heart thumped. His dirty mind interpreted those words in a way Amber could not possibly mean. “Try it out?” he asked, trying to sound innocent.
“Yeah, try it out.” She was biting her lip again—and she was definitely blushing. “You and me, act out the love scene. See if it’ll work.”
Holy Lord. His lungs were seizing up. “I think we’d better get those test shots,” he managed to choke out, and crouched down to get his lenses out of his main pack.
“Nick,” interrupted Amber, her voice low, vaguely hurt. “Come on.” He felt her hand on his shoulder. “Why not? Am I so much less desirable than all those other women?”
“Less desirable?” He stood up again abruptly, looking at her in astonishment. “Jesus, Amber, did someone slip you a mickey at lunch or something? This is...this is not like you.”
“Maybe it should be,” she said. She brushed the back of her knuckles over his cheek, and he thought he might die from the sweetness of it. His pulse was beating hard, the main pressure of it in his cock. Man, he was on the edge of losing it—and of making the biggest mistake of both their lives.
“Amber,” he said, grabbing her fingers and pulling her hand off his face. “Stop—”
“Nick!” she said, and now her eyes glazed with tears. “Don’t make me beg, Nick.”
“Beg?” He took a step backwards. “C’mon, kiddo—you don’t want this—”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do.” He saw her tense, as if bracing herself for battle. With one quick move, she tugged the strap of his remaining camera bag from his shoulder, and it hit the ground with a slam.
Goddamn—she wasn’t teasing; she really meant to do this. Nick was too astonished to move.
Amber’s hands slid up the sides of his ribs, and she pressed her lush front against the hardness of his stomach and chest, stealing away his ability to breathe. Yet somehow he could still smell her—wildflowers and coconut-scented sunscreen, and the subtle sensuous heady scent of musk that came from the very core of her. And fire burst to life inside him. He willed himself to move away, keep some distance, keep some control, but his cock was throbbing, straining at the leash, trying to get as close to Amber as possible.
“Amber,” he said warningly, “I’m trying to be good here. You’re going to be married in just a few weeks and....”
“Not anymore,” she whispered.
“What?” His head was pounding, scarcely capable of logic. “You...pushed the date back again?”
She was rising up on the tips of her toes, sliding her arms around his shoulders, burrowing her lips into his neck. “Broke it off,” she said against his skin.
“The...the engagement?”
“The relationship.” She kissed at the line of his jaw, her lips the softest, sexiest thing he’d ever felt. “Everything.”
“Amber! Jesus.” He managed to take her by the elbows, push her a few precious inches away from him. He wouldn’t have guessed he was capable of this much self-discipline. “What are you talking about, broke it off? You and Louis have been together forever.”
Her eyes looked suspiciously bright, like tears were about to fall, but all she did was shrug. “Louis is a Yankees fan,” she said, in the same tone she might use to say Louis is a murderer or Louis is a child-molester.
“Yeah,” Nick answered dumbly. “He’s always been a Yankee’s fan. He makes you go to games whenever we’re in New York.”
“I know,” she said. “But it hit me recently what that means: the biggest, richest team in baseball. Fat and safe.”
“The Evil Empire,” Nick mutter
ed. “I’ve always told you that.” This was probably the most ridiculous conversation he’d ever had. His pulse was still thundering, his cock still throbbing with raw need. His gut was clenched so tight a bullet would bounce right off it.
Too bad, because he halfway hoped someone would just shoot him and be done with it.
“Right,” said Amber, “Evil Empire. And I’m more a Cincinnati farm league kind of girl.” One of her hands slid back down his chest, heading straight for his crotch.
He jolted, and would have jumped away, but her hand was too fast, and once it reached its target, the sensation just felt too damn good—she cupped him through the fabric of his shorts, molding her fingers around the fierce bulge of his cock, squeezing. His balls tightened and his hard-on felt ready to rip right through the cloth.
“I want players with heart, doing it for the fun of it,” Amber said. “Not safe. Open to adventure.”
“Amber, no,“ he choked out. “I’m—I’m not the kind of adventure you need.” Lord knows, he was usually more than happy to serve as a woman’s rebound fuck, and he had a great record of making his lovers forget all about the guys they left behind. But he wasn’t going to do it with her, not with Amber.
“Nick,” she was murmuring against his collar bone. “Yes, Nick. You’re exactly the kind of adventure I need.”
“Amber, you’re just—you’re upset. You shouldn’t—you’re not thinking clearly.”
She licked his neck. “I’m thinking perfectly clearly.”
“Well, you’re acting insane.”
He pulled her loose again, and looked very deliberately into her face, meaning to tell her no, no, absolutely no way in hell. But the look he saw in her eyes was so vulnerable, so sad, so totally unlike the blazingly self-confident Amber he was used to, he was too stunned to speak.
“I’m done with Louis,” she said softly. “Back in college, he was so creative—all that theater he did, and the writing, and his radio show. But he’s different now. He hasn’t done any of that in years. All his energy goes into billing more hours and trying to make partner. And I’m...I’m....” She broke off, and he could see her rally herself, force her voice to be more cheerful. “I should have realized long ago that he and I lived on opposite coasts for a reason.”