by Zoe Wildau
Before turning around, she banished the last of the white frothy dream and chastised her speeding heart. She plastered on a smile and started a cheery, “Good morning,” even before she looked at him. When she did, she could see there was little that was going to be good about the morning.
She thought that she had looked bad this morning, but Jake looked worse. Gone was his subtly polished look. Dressed in a plain navy T-shirt and faded jeans, he sat in the chair without looking at her. Although his face was set in its usual bland lines, his eyes were sunken and rimmed with deep, dark circles.
No sense pretending. “Bad night?” she ventured, pulling up a stool to sit in front of him.
Jake looked at her for the first time, but he could have been looking at a stranger. “Spare me the chatter, Pixie.” Without another word, he pulled the T-shirt over his head, uncovering his gorgeous torso, and handed it to her.
Lilly sat still for a moment, folding the shirt, and resisted the urge to match his nasty tone. Setting the shirt aside, she turned back to Jake, considering what adjustments needed to be made. The circles weren’t so bad given his character and the day’s script. For the next week or so, they’d be shooting the extreme close ups of the slaughter of Sofia’s Italian ancestors, led by Allegrezza and a band of bloodthirsty Victorian vamps. If he’d been playing the leading man in a romantic comedy, the rings under Jake’s eyes would have been a near disaster, but she could work with solemn.
She pulled out the protective lotion and picked up Jake’s left hand. He made no move to help her, staring straight ahead. So, it was going to be like this?
Lilly spread the lotion over the back of his hand, circled and squeezed every phalanx, always in the direction of his heart, as Lia Sundquist had instructed. When moving away from the heart, she used light strokes. She took her time massaging in the lotion, occasionally adding some grape seed oil to ensure her touch was continuously smooth. In a gentle effleurage, a soothing, stroking movement, she placed his hand back on the armrest and reached for the other one.
As she worked, she struggled to find the right words to voice her regret for her behavior yesterday, hoping that an apology from her might get them back to a more comfortable working relationship.
“I’m sorry I was so crabby about the arrangements you made to get us home yesterday,” she said rather lamely as she warmed a generous amount of the lotion and oil mixture. She felt when he turned his eyes on her, but refused to look up.
Finishing his hands, she slid her palms over his arms and shoulders, then down his chest and stomach. Jake shifted in the chair, his rigid abdominal muscles rippling under her hands. A picture of Jake pressed between her legs in the dream last night, in the tent on Saturday, clouded her vision.
She squelched the whirling of desire that would have kept her lingering over his torso. This man is one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, she reminded herself. And he already had too much power over her. Her time, her attention. Her job, her future. Her sleep. Her dreams. She would not, could not, turn herself, body and soul, over to him. Oh, but she wanted to.
Kneeling, she picked up one foot after the other, placing them on her lap to rub in the lotion and knead out his arches. When she moved to stand behind him to complete his back, she was caught by his gaze in the mirror.
Gone was the bland see-through look. Jake was staring hard at her, dark and compelling, not bothering to hide his desire, or his anger.
She flushed, her own barely held composure threatening to dissolve. She was swamped by her own feelings of desire, mixed with an equal dose of resentment that she couldn’t just come in here and work like every other normal person.
He could at least pretend to ignore the attraction between them. Isn’t that what a gentleman would do? The thought that she should just quit nearly overcame her.
“Something wrong, Lilly?” Jake asked, with sickly sweet concern, and a mean smile.
His mocking tone caused her simmering fury to flare, but she could hear the rest of the crew milling about in the soundstage. By five-thirty a.m., there would be over one hundred people working, waiting on the cast, waiting on Jake.
Instead of throwing the tray of lotions and makeup at him like she wanted to do, she covered her fury with her own insincere smile.
“No, nothing wrong,” she purred.
Jake narrowed his eyes at her. “Then, by all means, continue.”
She smiled wider as she roughly shoved him forward to start on his back, pushing her knuckles into the sensitive muscles under his shoulder blades, none too gently.
“Hey! Ow!” Jake protested, hunching away from her.
When he would have gotten out of the chair, she pushed him back down by his shoulders and came to stand in front of him.
“Sit still,” she commanded as if he were ten years old. And he looked it. His mean smile had been replaced by a mulish pout.
In her flat converse sneakers she had no choice but to lean in, and occasionally position herself between his knees as she applied his makeup. It was not her imagination that each time she leaned over to her tray to pick up an application, tube or brush, Jake would tighten his thighs and rub his muscled leg over her hips and stomach.
She tried desperately to ignore him, but faltered when smudging his lips with blackish-red lip powder. As his lips parted for her to touch the soft inner flesh, a craving for his tongue thrusting into her mouth shot through her. She ran her index finger over his bottom lip twice. Jake didn’t hesitate to take advantage of her momentary distraction. Closing his lips around her finger, he gently sucked it into his mouth. She could feel his tongue swirling around the tip of her finger. He’d circled her breasts in just the same way in her sexy white dream last night. Lilly bit down cruelly on her own lip, her nipples so hard that the thin padding of her bra could not hide them.
“Stop it,” she said, pulling her finger out of his mouth. She stood back, resisting an overwhelming urge to touch her lips with the finger that had been in Jake’s mouth. She crossed her arms over her chest and motioned him to stand up so that she could take in the effects as a whole and make any final adjustments.
Jake just sat, his long arms resting on the armrests; his now blood-stained hands dangling off the ends, staring at her.
Looking from his naked chest down to his blue-jeaned legs, she turned pink at her mistake. She usually had him change into his costume pants before she started. How could she have forgotten? With the grotesque nails and his hands covered with makeup and fake blood, he was not going to be able to change his own pants.
At her discomfiture, Jake smiled wickedly, echoing the expression of the Jake in her dream. Holding up his hands, he said innocently, “Now what, Pixie?”
“I could call one of the grips to help you out of your pants,” she offered hesitantly.
Jake looked down at his bulging crotch. “Well, yes, you could, but that would lead to all kinds of misunderstandings.”
The image of Jake’s hard thrusting penis in her palm in the tent Saturday night flashed before her eyes. Lilly gulped and felt her breasts get tighter. Turning away, she walked to the dressing room across the hall to grab the linen costume pants he’d be wearing during filming.
When she returned a moment later, Jake was still seated in the makeup chair. His anger seemed to have dissipated. Clearing her throat, she croaked, “Stand up, I’ll help you.”
The top of her head didn’t even reach his shoulder. She could have rested her forehead on his breastbone as she looked down at the imposing button of his jeans. She stopped with her hand on his pants.
Jake was looking over her head at their reflection in the mirror. She turned to look, too. Jake, aroused, made up to resemble her nightmares, at once thrilled and frightened her.
“Ahh, this is what you see. I can see how it could be a bit intimidating.” He smiled and, although it was made sinister by the makeup and fangs, his eyes were soft and beautiful and – concerned.
When she still didn’t move t
o unbutton his pants, Jake said quietly, “I don’t bite, Pixie. That is, not if you don’t want me to.”
She turned her face into his chest and popped the button on his jeans. Her knees were so wobbly that she thought she might fall. She felt Jake tip his head down and breathe in her hair. The door pounded, “Fifteen minutes, Mr. Durant!”
Lilly jumped back from Jake as if stung, then had to cover her mouth as a nervous giggle threatened. Jake’s own wide gaze crinkled into a smile.
“So you going to help me out here or what?”
“Um… well I can help you with your pants. The… other… you’re just going to have to handle on your own.” Jake looked at his long silvery nails and bloody hands.
“Now that is a buzz kill,” he said.
At the end of the day, she didn’t know what to expect. As was their routine, Mary removed Jake’s makeup while Lilly cleaned up and readied for the morrow. She thought Jake would seek her out after his shower, but he didn’t. He must have left without speaking to her. Just as well, she thought, trying not to feel disappointed. Tomorrow was another gory day, with lots of extra appliances and bloody palettes to prepare. Her new assistant would be starting, too.
As she unlocked her bike, she saw Mary standing just on the other side of the guard shack waiting for someone to pick her up.
Coasting up next to her, Lilly said, “Hey, Mary, would you like me to wait with you?”
Mary looked up, startled.
“Oh no, you don’t need to do that. You get going.” Mary then hurried off, toward a red pickup truck that had just rounded the corner a short distance away.
Lilly stood for a moment, watching her retreating back. When Mary reached the truck and scrambled in, it made a U-turn and headed back the way it had come.
Mary was an odd duck, she decided, and her smug defensiveness was a bit grating.
Lilly was standing there, knocking her bike between her knees, chewing on her cheek and thinking about Mary when Wil pulled through the gates in the Bentley. He braked next to her and rolled down his window.
“Would you like to throw your bike on the rack, Lilly? I can drop you by your house as soon as I drop off Ms. Nighly and Mr. Durant.”
Sitting in the back seat was Sierra Nighly, dressed in a midnight-blue glittery gown.
Lilly smiled at her, the brittle smile of a woman with a guilty conscience.
“No, thank you, Wil. I could use the exercise.” She hopped up on the seat of her bike and pushed away before Wil even rolled up his window.
Pedaling as fast as her injured ankle would allow, she tried to put as much distance between herself and the studio as possible before Wil reappeared. When she saw the Bentley pull out of the gates through the tiny rear view mirror on her bike, she cut swiftly down a side street.
With the unexpected detour, and slowed by her injured ankle, she didn’t make it home until after ten. She was an emotional wreck. It had been a terrible mistake to let down her guard with Jake this morning. She’d violated every one of her rules of self-preservation, and for what? A fling with a famous playboy who already had a steady girlfriend?
Sitting at her kitchen counter eating an apple with peanut butter, she heard the buzz of a text on her phone. Pulling it out of her bag, she saw it was from Jake.
“What r u doing?” he texted.
The gall, she thought. He had to still be out with Sierra. And she was pretty sure one answer – the wrong one – would land her in his bed tonight. The thought that he’d be out with his steady partner, yet still be texting her, just reinforced what she’d thought all along. She was a novelty. A diversion. Fun to try on for a night or two. Biting back a variety of acerbic responses, she settled on a professional rebuff, and responded, “Trying to sleep. New assistant tomorrow. We’ll see you at 4:30.”
“That could be embarrassing,” he responded. Was he flirting with her?
While she thought about how to respond, another text followed. “See u in ur dreams.”
Oh, how arrogant! “Nightmares u mean!” she couldn’t help but text back.
Five minutes passed with no further texts, so she plugged in the phone to charge and washed her face. After carefully, and uncharacteristically, picking out plain professional looking slacks and a Ralph Lauren collared knit shirt, as much to impress her new assistant as to act as a barrier to Jake’s charms, she checked her phone one more time. Ten minutes earlier, she guessed while she was running water, he had texted in response to her nightmare comment, “Shud I come ovr?”
Oh, crap. She hadn’t responded. That might seem like a yes, or that she was thinking about it. Lilly jumped at a soft knock on her door. No way. He lived at least fifteen minutes away, although in the crazy sports car he could make it in under ten if he hadn’t already burned through his one arrest rule.
She peeped through the spy hole. All she could see was the front of an Armani tux. She looked down at her Scooby Doo tank top and matching sleep shorts. She should just leave him out there. The knock came again, louder this time.
“Hold on!” she yelled a bit too loudly and threw on her short pink fuzzy robe before opening the door. Belatedly, she realized her hair was still held back by an old hairband from washing and moisturizing her face. Pulling it out, she said, “I didn’t expect you.”
“Are you going to let me in?”
“Actually…” she hesitated, but at his frown opened the door wider.
Jake strolled into her living room, not seeming in a hurry to open the conversation. He perused her film mementos and the montage of Fox Hollow that he’d seen before. Tyler was now happily in possession of the Catillac Cats collage.
Breaking the silence, he asked, “Are you going to do one for Feast?”
“Yes.”
“What will it look like?” he asked casually. He seemed so calm, but the way he paced around the room, sometimes closer, sometimes farther away, felt like he was toying with her. Nervous tension built in her, causing her to chatter.
“It’s something I don’t think about until the end of filming, to see what mementos I can take that would otherwise end up in the trash. Harold left behind the hatchet from the Wyoming shoot, so I did sort of already nab that.” Her confession could get her in a lot of trouble with the studio, but she didn’t think Jake was likely to rat her out.
“I’m worried it might be too gruesome to hang here, though. My niece Anna visits a lot, and I don’t want to scare the pants off her.” At the mention of pants, Lilly’s mind immediately flashed back to the morning, and her cheeks flamed.
Jake studied the Fox montage a bit longer. Turning to her, he asked, “So, who’s the new assistant?”
“Clara Gentry. Phillip has vetted her, so I hope you don’t mind if she sits in with us in the mornings. Her resume is impressive. She’s more on the visual effects and computer graphics side than makeup and applications, so I think we’ll have a lot to learn from each other.”
“No, I don’t mind,” he said. “I think that’s probably a good idea.”
Although she was the one wanting to keep him at a distance, she felt irrationally deflated, which irritated her. She wished he’d leave.
It didn’t help that Jake’s next move was to poke his head in the studio, her Jake room, and flip on the light. She had not dismantled the room since completing the design. Not only had she not taken anything down, she’d added sketches, some in full color of Jake in various imaginary incantations.
Some of them were inspired by her nightmares. Hidden behind the papers tacked on one wall was a full-sized, charcoal pencil drawing of Jake as the beast with black leathery wings and a vastly exaggerated angled face who ravaged her sleep. That one had been hard to draw. She’d almost immediately covered it with more fanciful paper sketches.
Jake walked in and did a full circle. Her nervousness increased as she worried he might start looking behind the tacked up drawings to what lay underneath. After two rotations, he stopped and commented, “If I didn’t know better, I’d thi
nk you were a stalker fan, Lilly.”
“Well, you do. Know better,” she snapped, embarrassed. She had felt stalkery doing all of these. But she also knew they helped her hit her stride with the work, which was obviously good. She didn’t like Jake poking fun at them.
Jake turned to face her. Running his hand through his hair in an uncharacteristic gesture of self-consciousness, he said, “Lilly, I owe you an apology.”
Lilly, still smarting from his stalker comment, thought he was right. He did owe her an apology. “Okay, I’m listening.”
“Since I can’t seem to hide it, I’ll just tell you that I’m stuck on you.”
She raised her brows at the Mayberry word choice. “I don’t understand.”
Jake frowned at her like she was being deliberately obtuse. “When I’m with you, all I can think about is your hands on me, and getting my hands on you.”
Okay. Not so Andy Griffith.
“Hell, even when I’m not with you that’s all I think about.” Jake started toward her but stopped as she took a step backward.
Lilly looked him over in all his finery, wondering where he’d been. Crossing her arms over her chest, she said, “I’d like to hear the apology part.”
Chastened at the rejection, bland Jake made an appearance.
“Well, I’m starting to feel sorry for coming here,” he said.
She hated that sardonic tone, that expression.
She rarely saw Jake in anything that wasn’t hand-tailored, she thought, looking him up and down. Even his shoes. And then there was the famous girlfriend, the Beverly Hills mansion, the million dollar sports car and all of the other trappings of wealth and fame. With everything he could ever want at his fingertips, maybe he just wasn’t one to take no for an answer.
Her nervousness, her exhaustion, her frustration at his persistence, the appalling rudeness of dumping Sierra off somewhere then coming here, caused her to throw caution to the wind.