by Jae
Amanda lay stretched out on a hotel bed, watching Lorena dress. “I don’t like this. Why can’t I be the decoy?”
Lorena slipped into her high heels and walked over to her. “Because you, my darling,” she bent and pressed a kiss to Amanda’s nose, “have a gambling problem that is pretty much common knowledge. He’d get suspicious if he saw you at a poker table.”
“Don’t think I’ll let you out of my sight for even a second,” Amanda said with a fiercely protective expression.
“I’m counting on it.” Lorena looked down at her. “But don’t worry so much. I can do this.”
“Is the wire in place?” Amanda asked, still not looking happy.
Lorena nodded. “Yeah. But there’s one more thing I need…” She bent and kissed Amanda, who immediately kissed her back. “For luck,” Lorena breathed. She kissed her again and then turned and strode away.
“Cut!” Leonard called. “That’s it! Great work, you two. Let’s take a short break and then shoot the last scene.”
Activity broke out all over the set as lights were adjusted and cameras rolled into new positions.
Amanda and Lorena walked over to Grace. “Nervous?” Amanda asked.
“No. It’s not a dangerous stunt. I think I’d be more nervous about having to do a kiss scene.”
“Oh, yeah.” Amanda nodded vigorously. “I hate those too.”
Lorena elbowed her. “Are you implying I’m a bad kisser?”
“I guess you do all right,” Amanda said, trying for a bored expression.
Another elbow hit her in the ribs. “You didn’t look like you were suffering much a minute ago.”
Grace watched them banter back and forth, wondering if she would be as relaxed if she had to kiss a female colleague. She tried to imagine soft lips against her own, a hint of perfume teasing her nose, silky hair against her skin as she ran her fingers through the short, brunette strands. Uh, short? Lorena’s hair was really long this season, brushing her shoulder blades. Maybe she’d thought of short hair because that was what she was used to—kissing men.
“Ms. Durand?” the stunt coordinator called. “We’re ready for you.”
Grace shook herself out of her daze and hurried over for some last-minute instructions.
Lauren had dredged up her admittedly rusty Spanish vocabulary to get one of her clients onto the cover of a Spanish-language lifestyle magazine. The call seemed to last forever. When she finally got an agreement and put the phone down, it immediately started to ring again.
Frowning, she looked at the caller ID. It was her father. He was probably calling because he needed a ride home from the airport tomorrow morning. She opened her leather-bound day planner with one hand to look at tomorrow’s appointments while she answered the phone. “Hi, Dad. What time do you need me to be at the airport?”
“Uh… You heard already?”
“Heard what? That you’ll be back from Vegas tomorrow?”
“No,” her father said. “I’m not calling because of that.”
Lauren closed her day planner. “No? So you don’t need a ride home from the airport?”
“Not this time. Your mother is picking me up.”
So this was an on phase in their on/off relationship. Lauren had long ago stopped trying to keep track of the status of their marriage. “Okay,” she said and waited to hear what he might want. He’d never called her from a set just to say hello.
“Someone else could use a ride, though,” her father said.
What the heck? Now he thought she was a shuttle service? He should know better than to add more items to her already long to-do list.
Before she could voice her complaints, her father asked, “Grace Durand is still one of yours, right?”
“She’s my client. Why are you asking?” Lauren’s hands went cold. Dread skittered down her spine. “What happened?”
“She got hurt during a stunt.”
Lauren jumped up, hitting her knee on an open drawer. “What…? How…?” She hobbled around her desk without knowing where she wanted to go. To the airport maybe, to catch the next flight to Vegas. Images of broken bones and stab wounds flashed through her mind. What did her father have Grace do? Jump from a moving car? Hang from a burning building? Dammit, she should have read the script. She should have—
“Calm down.” Her father’s voice rumbled through the phone. “It’s not that bad. She’s got a black eye; that’s all.”
With legs that felt weak, Lauren sank onto the edge of her desk. “How could you let that happen?”
“Let that happen?” he echoed. “You know as well as I do that accidents happen on set.”
“Yeah. To stuntmen and stuntwomen,” Lauren grumbled. “She’s an actress doing rom coms, for Christ’s sake, not Tom fucking Cruise! Why did you let her do her own stunts?”
“Because she wanted to. She did just fine.”
Anger throbbed in her temples. “A black eye isn’t ‘just fine’ in my book!”
“Jesus, Lauren. I thought I could avoid some drama by calling you, but it seems—”
“Okay, okay.” Clutching the edge of the desk, Lauren took several deep breaths. So Grace had some bumps and bruises. Not a big deal, right? She was hardly the first actress who’d wrapped up shooting with a few minor injuries. “What do you need me to do?”
“I thought maybe you would want to pick her up from the airport,” her father said. “She handled it like a trooper and didn’t want anyone to make a fuss about her, but I thought she might appreciate seeing the friendly face of someone she knows at the airport instead of a limo driver or—God forbid—her mother.”
So he’d met Grace’s mother. “I can definitely do that,” she said without even consulting her day planner. “When does your plane land?”
“I’ll be home the day after because we need to reshoot the opening scene, but Ms. Durand’s plane touches down at LAX at eight forty tomorrow morning.”
Lauren wrote it down next to the flight number he gave her. “I’ll be there.”
Lauren paced at baggage claim and checked the arrivals monitor for the tenth time. It showed the American Airlines flight from Las Vegas as having landed at eight forty-five. She checked her wristwatch. It was after nine.
The plane’s other passengers had picked up their baggage already. Now the bustle and noise around her had stopped. Just one lone, silver suitcase made turn after turn around the conveyor belt. Was it Grace’s? Had she been on the plane, or had she for some reason missed her flight?
Lauren pulled out her cell phone to call Grace or her father, but it had no reception. Great.
A commotion behind her made her whirl around.
Grace was coming down the escalator. Paparazzi seemed to appear out of nowhere, snapping away. Some of them pressed much too close, nearly unbalancing Grace as she stepped off the escalator.
Her hands curled into fists at her sides, Lauren rushed over. “Step back,” she shouted. “Give her some space!”
At the sound of her voice, Grace’s head jerked up. A large pair of sunglasses covered half of her face, but it couldn’t hide the expression of relief.
None too gently, Lauren made her way through the crowd of paparazzi, lightly gripped Grace’s elbow, and took the carry-on from her with the other hand. She wanted to wrap her arm around Grace and block her from the flashes going off around them, but she didn’t know if Grace’s jeans and long-sleeved blouse covered any other injuries and didn’t want to hurt her.
Airport security hurried over, forcing the paparazzi back a few steps.
“Not that I’m not glad to see you, but what are you doing here?” Grace asked, her voice low.
“Picking you up.”
“Don’t tell me your father called you just because—”
> “Not here,” Lauren said with a glance at the paparazzi and airport security, who followed them at a slight distance as they headed over to the rotating carousel.
Lauren handed back the carry-on, lifted the silver suitcase off the conveyor belt, and led Grace to the parking garage.
“Where to?” Lauren asked as she pulled onto Airport Boulevard. “Do you need to see a doctor?”
So her father had told Lauren what had happened, and that was why she’d come to pick her up. “No. I’m fine. The set medic checked it out, and I put some ice on it last night.”
“Are you sure?” Lauren asked, glancing away from traffic for a moment to search her face.
“I’m sure. It’s just a black eye.”
“So home, then?”
Grace nodded and turned to see if they were being followed. Thankfully, the airport paparazzi had stayed behind to photograph other celebrities arriving at LAX.
“That means the cottage, right?”
How well Lauren knew her already. Not many other people had guessed that the cottage was her true home, not the mansion in the Hollywood Hills. “Normally, yes. But I’m meeting with George tomorrow, so I think staying in the villa makes more sense.”
Lauren stopped at a red light and looked over. “Can I see?”
Sighing, Grace pulled her sunglasses down just enough so Lauren could see the swollen, discolored skin under her left eye.
“Ouch.” Lauren winced. “Someone nailed you good. What happened?”
Grace pushed the sunglasses back up her nose as Lauren navigated across the intersection. “We were shooting a scene in which the bad guy draws a gun in the casino and takes me hostage. Dumb little rich girl that I am, I try to wrestle the gun from him. Amanda was supposed to dive in and knock him out, but Cody—the actor who played the gunman—moved in the wrong direction, so she hit me instead.”
“Christ. You really need to be more careful.” Lines of worry crinkled Lauren’s forehead. “If the press gets wind of it, can you imagine the headlines? They’ll think Nick beat you up or something.”
Yeah, sure. Grace hid a smile. Keep pretending that you’re only worried for professional reasons. She had already seen the genuine concern in Lauren’s hazel eyes.
“Does it hurt?” Lauren asked.
“It’s a little tender.” She didn’t feel the need to pretend in front of Lauren.
“Want me to stop at a pharmacy to get something for the pain?”
Grace shook her head. “It’s not that bad.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Stop being such a mother hen.” Despite her complaints, Grace had to admit that Lauren’s concern felt good.
Twenty minutes later, Lauren turned right instead of continuing straight ahead toward Grace’s home. She circled the block in search of a parking spot.
“Um, what are you doing? I told you I don’t need painkillers.”
“I’m not getting painkillers,” Lauren said. “Trust me. You need what I’m getting you.” She gave a triumphant cry as another car pulled out of a parking spot on her third trip around the block. After competently maneuvering her Honda Civic into the small spot, she turned to Grace. “I’ll be right back.”
Then she was gone.
Grace craned her neck to see where she was going, but Lauren quickly disappeared around the corner. Grinning despite herself, she shook her head. Lauren Pearce was a force to be reckoned with when she was trying to take care of someone. She let her head sink against the backrest and closed her eyes.
She jumped as, seemingly only seconds later, the driver’s side door was pulled open and Lauren dropped onto the seat next to her. “Here.” With a proud grin, she held out a large chocolate waffle cone with two scoops of ice cream.
Her mouth watering, Grace stared at the decadent offering. “Oh my God, you’re so bad for my diet. You bought me ice cream?”
Lauren grinned. “It’s just what the doctor ordered.”
“The set medic didn’t say anything about ice cream.”
“What an oversight.” Lauren tsked. “Everyone knows that you need to cool a shiner like that.” She pointed at Grace’s eye with her own ice cream cone.
“With ice cream?”
Lauren lifted one shoulder into a half-shrug. “Whatever works, right?”
“And what excuse do you have for getting yourself some too?”
“None.” Lauren happily swirled her tongue over her frozen treat. “I don’t need an excuse for ice cream. But if you don’t want yours…”
Grace snatched the second cone out of her hand before Lauren could pull it back. “I didn’t say that. Do you know how long it’s been since I last had ice cream?”
“About as long as your last hot dog, I’d guess.”
There was no answer from Grace as she was busy sampling her ice cream.
Grace eating ice cream was quite possibly the most erotic thing Lauren had seen in her entire life. She almost groaned as she watched Grace’s tongue swirl over her cone. The pink tip of her tongue darted out to lick a drop of cream from the corner of her mouth. Then she tilted her head back and moaned.
The sound went through Lauren, making heat pool low in her belly. Oh, God. Maybe getting Grace ice cream hadn’t been such a good idea after all. Something cold dripped onto her fingers. When she wrenched her gaze away from Grace and directed it downward, she realized that her own ice cream was melting while she’d been busy watching Grace devour hers. She licked a bit of her peanut butter cup off her hands.
“God, this is so good.” Grace moaned again. “What flavor is this? I don’t think I’ve had it before.”
Lauren shifted in the driver’s seat. “One is pineapple coconut and the other white chocolate raspberry truffle.”
“Yum. Pretty exotic choice, isn’t it?”
“Would you have preferred something simple, like vanilla?”
Grace gave her a teasing smile. “You think I’m vanilla?”
Lauren nearly choked on a piece of almond. Was Grace flirting? “Uh, no, I just thought maybe you wanted to try something new, since there are so many different ice cream flavors just waiting to be explored.”
“Good guess. When it comes to ice cream, I’m definitely open for experimenting.”
Ice cream. She’s just talking about ice cream. Lauren took a long lick of her cone. It tasted great but did little to cool her down. Not when her mind was busy imagining how sweet and cold Grace’s lips would feel against her own.
“What did you get?”
“Excuse me?” Lauren’s brain had trouble keeping up with anything but the erotic movements of Grace’s tongue.
“Your ice cream. What flavors did you get?”
“Oh. Peanut butter cup and coffee with roasted almonds.”
Grace laughed. “Coffee. I should have known.” She didn’t speak again until she had finished the last bite of her cone, lightly swaying back and forth and sometimes moaning, definitely in ice cream nirvana.
Lauren was still holding her melting ice cream, which was dripping all over her hands. “There are some napkins in my pocket.” She’d stuffed a handful into the front pocket of her jeans before leaving the ice cream store. Studying her hands, she tried to decide which one was less sticky and wouldn’t leave stains on her pants.
“Thanks. I got it.” Grace reached over and pulled one of the napkins from Lauren’s pocket.
Lauren’s breath caught when Grace’s fingers brushed her hip. She nearly dropped her soggy cone.
“Your ice cream is melting,” Grace said while she wiped her fingers on the napkin. “Don’t you like it?”
Drops ran down the outside of the cone, and Lauren quickly licked them off. “I do. It’s delicious.” She peered over at Grace. “Do you want to t
aste?” The moment she’d said it, she wanted to slap herself. God, you really are a glutton for punishment, aren’t you? After suffering through watching Grace eat her ice cream, she’d have to watch her lick her cone.
With a smile that looked a little shy, Grace nodded.
Charmed, Lauren held out her ice cream cone. She was sure that not many people got to see this side of the famous actress.
Grace bent her head and swiped her tongue across the peanut butter ice cream. A moan escaped her. “Oh, wow. That’s really good too.”
“What can I say?” Lauren’s voice sounded a little hoarse. She hoped Grace wouldn’t notice or would think it an effect of eating something cold. “I’m a woman of taste.”
When Grace straightened, she had a little bit of ice cream on her nose.
Lauren’s overactive imagination showed her pictures of her leaning forward to lick it off. Are you out of your mind? “Uh, you have some…” She pointed.
Grace wiped at her nose with the napkin. “Guess I’m a messy eater.”
No, you’re a sexy eater. Lauren held out her cone. “Would you like to eat the rest?” On the one hand, she knew it would only prolong her torture, but on the other hand, she enjoyed the way Grace enjoyed her ice cream way too much to want it to end.
“Don’t you want to finish it?” Grace asked.
“The coffee one is all gone, so if you like peanut butter, be my guest.”
Grace looked back and forth between her and the ice cream. “I really shouldn’t.”
That was what she’d said before taking the second hot dog. Lauren grinned and pressed the cone into her hand. “Enjoy.”
Within minutes, the remainder of her ice cream was gone.
Happily crunching the last bite of cone, Grace wiped her fingers on the napkin again and then touched Lauren’s forearm.