It pisses me off.
It turns me on.
Grayson, in a nutshell.
“Don’t need words for this, do I?” he mutters, grinding his hips into mine. My cheeks heat when I feel the length of his erection through the thin, shredded costume shorts he’s wearing. It calls to mind memories of waterfalls and solar systems and other things far better left forgotten.
“That’s better!” Sloan calls. “But let’s leave alittlesomething to the imagination, shall we? We want them to actually pay to see the good stuff…”
“You heard him. Back off,” I hiss, pushing at Grayson’s shoulders until he eases up a bit. He chuckles lowly as his hands come unglued from cupping my ass cheeks, moving up to rest on my hips in a slightly less erotic position. “Don’t do that again, Dunn.”
“Why?” His voice is a sensual murmur. “Is it making you miss me?”
I snort. “Hardly.”
“Reminding you how good we were together?”
“We were never together. And it was never good.”
“You’re right.” His eyes find mine, an infinite emerald pool of lust. “We were fucking mind-blowing.”
My throat is dry. My palms are sweating. I look away, because I can’t look at him anymore, and find myself the subject of Annabelle’s intense glare. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one left heartsick over Grayson when we flew home from Hawaii. Her brown eyes are narrowed on our interlocked bodies in a stare so lethal, I’m surprised the clipboard in her hands doesn’t burst into flames.
I quickly shift my gaze to the left, past Trey — who is trading flirtatious glances with one of the cameramen — over Harper, who’s hovering on the sidelines with a look of worry twisting her features, and finally to Sloan, who’s making yet another adjustment to his camera lens. I try to ignore the Viking-shaped hole in the crowd. Try to pretend his absence doesn’t make my stomach turn to lead inside my gut.
He didn’t show.
“Can we get this over with?” I call, a touch of desperation in my tone.
Grayson chuckles again, the bastard.
Sloan is adjusting the camera’s aperture. “Yes, yes, I’m almost ready… There, that should do it!” He glances up from behind the lens and cocks his head. “Okay, Kat, I want you to pivot your body slightly to the left. Yes, just like that. Now, reach your hand up and cradle it against Grayson’s chest, just over his heart. Yes, that looks good.” His eyes track the movement of my body as I follow his instructions, an unwilling marionette on strings I cannot control. “Now, Grayson, move your right hand down and rest it on Kat’s hip. And widen your stance a bit. No, not like that — that makes you look constipated.”
A giggle-snort pops from my mouth.
Grayson pinches the flesh of my hip in retaliation.
I flinch in sudden pain and stomp my bare heel onto the arch of his foot.
He only chuckles.
Where are my curb-stomping boots when I need them?
“Angle your right foot back slightly, Dunn,” Sloan calls. “Right, that’s better.”
After nearly ten minutes of minuscule body adjustments, Sloan finally starts snapping photos. He switches lenses several times, barking orders at the tech staff whenever he needs the overhead lighting changed or the wind-fan speed adjusted. Harper and Cassie, the other on-set stylist, dart back and forth between takes, blotting our sweaty foreheads with white sponges, reapplying setting powder to keep our makeup from sliding off as we bake beneath the bright spotlights like buckets of fried chicken at a fast food restaurant.
The shoot takes a small eternity.
Changing positions every few moments, our hands and bodies brush constantly as we pose first one way, then another, my pulse pounding faster and faster as the minutes tick by in his arms. Much as I’d like to pretend otherwise, I’m not entirely immune to the fact that Grayson Dunn is insanely hot. My mind and my heart know that he’s a total asshole; my hormones don’t seem to give a shit.
“Dunn, can we try one with you holding Kat in your arms?” Sloan asks, because apparently he feels the need to take my torture to new heights. Literally.
Up I go — Grayson’s hands beneath my knees, my arms around his neck, like a bride being carried across a threshold. I focus on the cameras, trying to channel Violet, my character, and tune out my own conflicting emotions. The problem is, I’m not sure I can discern the difference between acting and reality anymore.
Beck.
Grayson.