Wild at Heart (Walk on the Wild Side #1) (6 page)

“Seriously,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders and staring deep into her eyes. “I felt a little shy about telling you when we had that lunch, but I basically worship your films. Nobody’s allowed to be friends with me until they watch
Junkyard Baby
at least twice. Fucking brilliant. That scene where they jump off the railroad bridge—that kills me every time.”

Despite her awful mood, she felt a spark of pleasure go through her at that, even a little wave of giddiness.
Jake Hultensaalt
made his friends watch her first movie? Made them watch it
twice
? With him laser-beaming her so sincerely and with his hands on her shoulders, she wasn’t quite sure where to look, and stuck her hands in her jeans pockets like an awkward high school freshman. “Um, thanks. You’re—you’re brilliant, too.”

“No, you don’t understand,” he insisted. “Other guys get drunk, they get into fistfights. I get drunk, I start acting out the coffee shop scene from
Buckeye
, doing all the parts. Even the angry nun and the barking dog.”

She laughed. “Really?”

“
Really
. If I start doing it while I’m here and it bothers you, just punch me in the face a couple times, and I’ll stop. Probably. Unless I’m in the middle of Joey’s monologue, because then I’m in some metaphysical transcendent space and I forget I’m even connected to the real world.”

“Oh. Wow.” She couldn’t put together anything more coherent to say than that. Between how terrific he smelled and the effusive praise for her work, her neurons weren’t firing properly at the moment. It felt good—a little bit of a balm to the wound of Nick’s rejection. But a couple more minutes of her staring at him with her jaw hanging open and he was going to decide her past films were a fluke and she was actually mentally incompetent.

Or maybe every woman he talked to looked as gobsmacked as she did, and he didn’t realize anything was wrong with her.

Apparently oblivious to her brain malfunction, Jake looked around at the woods and the mountains, drawing in a deep breath of the pristine air. “Wow,” he said, “this place is beautiful. This is going to be so amazing.” The laser-beam eyes swung back to her, and her heart skipped a beat. Was this guy actually human, or the product of some crazy genetic engineering experiment gone horribly right?

“Wild Mountain National Park,” she said, as if he didn’t already know that.

He smiled cheerfully, gave her shoulders one last squeeze, then let them go. “Is Ruby Torres here yet?” he asked, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet. Energy was practically crackling off of him. “How soon can we get started? I spent the last three months covered in CGI ping pong balls being a superhero lizard beast, and I want something
real
to do!”

Clearly, working with Jake Hultensaalt was going to be fantastic—once she got her cognitive functions back under control.

“Real,” she repeated. “We’re definitely going to get real.”

Jake grinned with the brightness of a supernova.

Amber sighed. Getting real with Jake Hultensaalt was going to be a pleasure. Unfortunately, “real” was also going to involve working with Nick Turner. But she was just going to have to handle that.

* * *

An hour and a half later, Amber had Jake and Ruby up in the meadow, trying to take advantage of the gorgeous weather and perfect light to get the big love scene right.

Getting her co-stars naked together right off the bat was a little tricky, but the next few days threatened to be overcast and possibly raining, so she couldn’t waste the chance to get a good take in the sun. Besides, a little shyness between her leads might capture the characters’ vulnerability in the scene as they took off their clothes and revealed their true selves to each other for the first time.

She and Ruby had scarcely said a word to each other, and Ruby appeared to be as determined as she was to pretend Amber hadn’t seen Ruby sprawled out on Nick’s bed wearing nothing but a pair of false eyelashes and a throw pillow that hid nowhere near enough.

For his part, Nick was bustling about in the meadow, looking very close to his usual self, rigging some reflective screens to send the sunlight just where he wanted it. Though this clearly wasn’t a normal shoot: on any day, he’d have been chatting with Amber, checking in with her, running ideas past her, working as a team. But today he wasn’t talking except for the absolute bare minimum, and he wasn’t making eye contact, either.

Because of the nudity, they had a minimal crew up here with them. The make-up girl and gaffers had done their jobs and left. Only two remained: her AD Onyx, and Eli, their big, woolly-bearded main sound guy, wearing one of his seemingly endless supply of Star Wars t-shirts. Onyx was focused on manning Camera 3, the spikes on her black leather wrist bands warning everyone away, and Eli only liked recording sounds, not making them—he’d happily go for hours without talking—which meant neither one was going to be much help in breaking the awkward silence.

To cap off the awkwardness, Ruby Torres and Jake Hultensaalt were standing ten feet away, wearing little cotton bathrobes for temporary modesty. With nothing underneath them—the clothes they’d hiked up here in were in piles on a boulder off to the side.

Ruby and Jake had met for the second time in their lives this afternoon. Now they were going to have to get naked together. And Amber was going to have to stand there with Nick and watch while Ruby and Jake got it on. Right in the spot where Amber and Nick had gotten it on yesterday, for real.

God, she couldn’t have designed a worse torture for herself if she’d tried.

Well, there was no choice. A film had to get made here. The light in the meadow was absolutely perfect, and they couldn’t afford to waste it.

So Amber straightened her spine. She’d just have to forget she’d ever seen Nick naked. She had to forget he’d been inside her body. Forget how he’d kissed her and held her as if she were precious to him.

Because she wasn’t actually precious to him at all; he’d made that abundantly clear.

“Okay,” Amber said, in her
I’m-totally-in-control-here
brilliant director voice. “Let’s get this party started! The point of this scene is nakedness—and I don’t mean just physically. It’s about emotional nakedness as they bare their bodies to one another for the first time. This is where the lovers really make their connection internally. After hiding from each other for so long.”

Ruby nodded earnestly, looking surprisingly nervous, biting at her lower lip. “Nakedness, right.”

“Emotional nakedness,” Amber repeated. “Real authentic human connection. Bodies are there to bring the
souls
together.” She tried not to give the impression that her words were in any way directly ironically at Nick, who pretty clearly didn’t have normal human emotions, maybe not even a soul, at least when it came to connecting with the women he got naked with.

Well, any irony would surely go right over his primitive one-celled primordial-ooze-filled scumbag head.

The worst part of all this was that she’d always liked what was inside Nick. He’d always seemed so smart about everything, and...and
sensitive
, and pretty much the most soulful guy she knew. At least around her. At least before he’d fucked her.

She took a deep breath. Tried to find her center. Tried to tune out everything but the work she had to do. She nodded at Jake and Ruby. “Ready?”

Jake smiled his famous, carefree grin. “You betcha. Let’s get going with the gettin’ naked.” And he dropped his robe in one smooth shrug and revealed the tall, lean, sculpted broad-shouldered body that had landed him that Sexiest Man People cover and all those millions of dollars in blockbuster film contracts.

Sweet Cosmic Mother of Pearl
, he was a gorgeous animal.

And the man clearly had zero fear and zero self-consciousness about exposing himself. He looked as comfortable and confident standing there nude, with his cock on full display in its nest of black curls, as other actors would be in a tux on the Academy Awards red carpet. His expression was relaxed and open, Emotional Availability personified.

But as Jake stood glowing in the sunlight, Ruby Torres seemed to hesitate, fiddling with the belt to her robe as if it were some impossibly intricate knot she had to undo.

Ruby was
nervous
taking off her clothes? After all those music videos wearing little more than glitter and a few carefully-positioned scraps of leather? After that see-through Swarovski crystal gown she wore to the Met Gala? After that sexy thriller she shot last year, about the newly-divorced woman who has an affair with the mentally-unhinged teenage boy next door, featuring all those close-ups of her celebrated booty in a thong?

Not to mention she’d been draped buck-naked over Nick’s bed this morning like a porn star on her coffee break.

But apparently she
was
nervous, because her famously lush lips looked thin and pinched, and her fingers were even shaking a little.

Weird. But okay—just give her a little space. The script was asking a lot from her here.

Amber couldn’t help noticing that Nick kept his eyes pointed away from Ruby, as he tinkered with the settings on Camera 1. Which meant…what? He’d suddenly developed a modicum of sensitivity, and wasn’t going to ogle his latest lover in front of the friend he’d casually fucked yesterday?

Or did it mean he was bored stiff with Ruby already…and maybe making plans to bang Katie, that cute redhead in the Ranger Station gift shop, the one who sold the lariats and hand-carved howling wolves and who’d probably relish a hot night with a handsome stranger?

Probably the latter.

Which made Amber’s stomach tighten like it was going to toss up her breakfast.

“Come on,” Jake said to Ruby, teasingly. “Don’t leave me out here all alone with my backside in the breeze.”

Ruby still had her fingers on the tie of her robe.

“Okay,” said Jake. “You leave me no choice.” He flashed his famous smile, and then started whistling the theme music from that surprisingly sweet male stripper movie he made two years ago. And
oh dear Lord
, he put his hands behind his head, fingers knit together to cup his skull, his elbows thrust out to either side, his biceps bulging, and started a slow bump and grind.

Side to side, pelvic thrust, the muscles of his abdomen rippling as he moved, the deep grooves of his thigh muscles shifting enticingly.

And, oh, Lordy—he
knew
how to move. Every muscle in that strong, lean, naked frame was perfectly coordinated, superbly under control, and it was impossible not to imagine what it would be like to be under the sheets with him, with those marvelous hips swiveling and thrusting.

And why shouldn’t Amber imagine just that? Why shouldn’t she
do
just that, if she wanted? Louis wasn’t there to tie her down anymore.

And Nick certainly wasn’t expecting her loyalty.

The thought of starting something with Jake made her feel just a little bit better—and also managed to make her feel emptier than ever.

She glanced over at Ruby to see if Jake’s sexy dance was working on her. The diva still looked nervous, face half turned towards the ground, but she was watching him too, from underneath her lashes, there was no mistaking that. She was frozen in place, attention riveted.

But she still wasn’t dropping her robe.

Jake brought his swiveling to a halt then, and spread his arms in a “what’s up?” gesture. “Not working for you?” he said cheerfully. “Well, then, on to Plan B.”

He started singing the melody of the
Saturday Night Fever
theme, and with another shift of his pelvis, launched into some 1970’s disco moves, shimmying his hips, shooting out his index fingers in John Travolta style. He looked ridiculous now with his ass flashing and his (admittedly rather impressive) penis bobbing, and he clearly
knew
he looked ridiculous, and that—just as clearly—was the point. He was trying to break the ice.

At least he got a laugh out of Eli the sound guy.

And, holy crap, the red light on Camera 3 was lit, and Onyx had her eye to the lens, filming away. She was also dancing along in time to Jake’s humming, shaking her hips in her black leather booty shorts and fishnets.

Amber stepped over to her hurriedly. “That absolutely, positively does not go on YouTube,” she hissed in an undertone. “Do you understand me?”

“Shh,” said Onyx. “This is for science.”

“
Not on YouTube
.”

“Fine,” Onyx conceded reluctantly, and then lifted one painted-on black eyebrow. “But the Smithsonian is going to want it someday. As an important historical document.”

Amber watched Jake cross one leg over the other and pull off a lightning-fast double spin. The man was
very
impressive. “Agreed,” she said. “Everyone will want it. But you still have to delete it.”

Onyx sniffed. “You have no soul.”

Amber patted her shoulder. “I had to sell it to get these two to agree to do the film.”