Love Letters Volume 5: Exposed Read online

  He’d never even entertained the idea of being an actor, but he was in the position of suddenly needing the work—and unless there were fences to mend or horses to shoe, he wasn’t exactly über-employable in the land of sun, sand and silicone.

  He’d take the role. It would give him time to explore the strange urge to stick around and find out why Mack was so damned alluring. She started pacing and ran a hand through her already messy hair and did some lower-lip bitey thing. It made his stomach feel hollow. He curled his toes inside his well-worn sneakers, watching her prowl.

  “Tell me about your dad,” she said.

  “You’ve had a rough day. Why don’t you go home? Get some rest.”

  “Tell me about your dad.”

  “He was a stage actor.”

  “What was his name?”

  Greg’s eyes narrowed. “Foster Redding.”

  Mack’s mouth actually dropped open. “Shakespeare Nights Foster Redding?”

  “The very same.”

  “Life and Other Ways to Die Foster Redding?” She looked pissed.

  “That one’s pretty obscure.”

  “He won a damned Tony award for Wagon Wheel!”

  Greg grimaced. “I had to do the campfire massacre monologue from that over and over one summer for a full week, twice a day as an alternative to being grounded.”

  “You lied to me.”

  “I didn’t. You asked if I acted, and I don’t. Doesn’t mean I don’t know how.”

  “Semantics. This movie is important to me. I barely know you. You flake out, I’m toast.”

  “So I won’t screw it up.” They locked eyes and Greg hoped that she could see the sincerity in his. Part of him was glad they had met, glad he had stumbled into her movie. He had been so inundated with stagecraft by his father that he knew he could do a hell of a job for Mack. He didn’t know why a chance meeting had turned into the sudden urge to prove himself to a practical stranger.

  “I will make this good for you,” he said. “You won’t regret this.”

  “Somehow, I doubt that.”

  He sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Look, let’s just take some time to think this over. We can talk about it at dinner.”

  She hitched her purse higher on her shoulder, stalked to the door and unlocked it. “Here’s the bad news, Mr. Redding—I don’t date coworkers.”

  And then she was gone, and Greg was the one left staring, slack-jawed.

  *

  It was two weeks later, and they were well into filming the next time Greg got the chance to be alone with Mack. Each day that passed, he grew more and more comfortable with the other cast and crew, and he actually enjoyed the script for the sappy tear-jerker of a film.

  The love scenes might pose a problem, since the thought of stripping down in front of God knows who and jumping into bed with the waifish leading lady in front of the aforementioned God knows who made Greg nervous just thinking about it.

  The problem was that he felt guilty about his and Mack’s last argument. He should have been upfront with her. He found her on set late one evening, fiddling with the lens of one of the main cameras.

  “Need some help?” He set his script aside, tossing it onto a couch nearby.

  “No, thank you.” Her voice was flat. He’d worked close by her for the past two weeks, admired her skill and dedication, but as soon as the day’s filming was over, Mack was nowhere to be found.

  “Then maybe you can help me.” That earned him a withering glance out of the corner of her eye.

  “With what?” She turned toward him.

  “I need to run lines. Everyone else is gone. I’m surprised you’re here. You usually bolt.”

  She snorted. “I do not bolt. I have a life outside of this film.”

  “I’m sure you do. Mind helping me run lines, if it doesn’t interfere with your social calendar any?”

  “I’m not a good actress. I guess I’m not as good at faking it as other people.”

  The barb didn’t go unnoticed.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, advancing, “I’m an excellent teacher. You won’t have to fake…anything.”

  He knew he was staring at her mouth. She started to turn away, but he caught her hand, pressed to the front of his chest.

  “Not a thing,” he said, low and raspy, stepping in toward her, their bodies nearly touching.

  She wavered, leaned very slightly into him. “I’m still mad at you.”

  He wanted to kiss her. Just once. She had the most amazing mouth, her lower lip fuller than the upper, just perfect for kissing, for smoothing over his neck, for sliding over his stomach on her way to…

  He lifted a hand and chucked her under her chin with curled fingers, rubbing his thumb across her lower lip. Her lips parted.

  “It was stupid, everything happened so fast. But I am sorry. Forgive me.” Did she want him to kiss her? “Say yes, Mack,” he said, his eyes still on her lips.

  “Yes,” she replied. Hot damn. He needed to hear that again.

  “Again,” he pushed. “Say ‘yes, Greg.’” His eyes fixed on hers, the heat in her return stare so direct that he rippled all the way to his toes.

  “Yes, Greg,” she breathed. It was as good as kiss me.

  He dipped his head and his heart skipped for stretched seconds. He brushed his lips across her cheek, coming to rest at the corner of her mouth, where he placed a soft, barely-there kiss. She closed her eyes as he spoke against the corner of her mouth.

  “Good. I didn’t like you being angry with me. I do like the way you say my name.”

  “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

  “Tell me to stop. Tell me you haven’t wanted this since you got into my cab.”

  “I can’t.”

  The butterflies in his stomach formed a troupe of cleat-wearing tap dancers and started practicing a STOMP routine. “Then why haven’t you spared me a word for the last two weeks?”

  “We could get in big trouble.”

  “I like trouble,” he said, and he wondered if she would pull away now, any minute.

  She didn’t do any of it. She reached up and buttoned the undone button at the neck of his polo shirt, smoothing her palm down the front of his chest. He leaned into her. This close, he could feel the heat that radiated from her, and her half-lidded amber eyes were just too pretty to walk away from yet.

  “I wanted to kiss you that first day, in my cab.”

  “That would have been a bad idea.”

  “I want to kiss you now.”

  “That is still a bad idea.”

  “I know. I’m just full of bad ideas.”

  He bent his head and she whispered something, but victory buzzed so loud in his head that he didn’t hear her. Despite a deep-down knowledge that no good could come of this, he was going to actually kiss her. He was going to. Just like…this.

  *

  Mack didn’t know how to push Greg away without wounding his ego, and even if she could, she wasn’t sure she had the willpower to. She had wanted this from the moment they’d met, and damned if she didn’t want it twice as bad right now. He brushed his lips across hers and Mack stood as still as she could, praying that he was a bad kisser.

  No such luck. Mack should have expected his kiss to be like a hypercharged, well-choreographed, mind-meltingly erotic ballet. The man didn’t just kiss. He opened her lips with his own as if they were in bed, as if the wicked things he was doing with the dip and thrust of his tongue were previews of the way he could take her.

  He lifted his hands to cradle the back of her head and she gave in. Hell, it was just one kiss, right? What was the harm?

  Depends on your definition of the word harm. A little voice piped up inside her, one that sounded suspiciously like her conscience. She ignored it and went pliant in Greg’s arms, letting him pull her forward, tip her head back, plumb the depths of her mouth with a desperation that had her weak-kneed. He put his tongue in her mouth and thrust it slowly, licking into her, mimicking a mo
re intimate rhythm, and the suggestion tore straight through her midsection to echo between her thighs. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around him. Returning his languid aggression, she pressed forward, meeting his tongue as it brushed hers, sucking at his lower lip, taking his breath and giving hers back to him in a soft rush of laughter. He growled and wrested control of the embrace.

  “Minx,” he rasped against her lips.

  She laughed lowly back at him, pulling away slightly when he tried to lean in and take her mouth again. His hand tightened at the base of her skull and he walked them back, putting her against a camera rig so he could bring them together—mouth, chest, body. She hummed into his mouth as he kissed her again, tightening her hands on his forearms. He arched closer. As soon as their hips met, she gasped and tore her mouth free of his.

  “Wait.” She braced her palms against his chest, squirming to try and put whatever distance she could between the insistent ache at the juncture of her thighs and the very obviously matching state of his own arousal. He pulled away slightly, but he still held on to her, and she brushed at his hands, which he dropped. She took a few steadying breaths and chanced a look at him. He looked as she was sure she did—mussed, swollen-lipped and dumbstruck. Mack had never been kissed by a man who did it with such…obvious intent.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, and her stomach lurched at the slight lack of focus in the breathtaking green of his eyes.

  “We have to stop,” she said, her voice shaking.

  “No we don’t. As a matter of fact, I promise that not stopping will be exquisite for you.” He was staring holes into her, and she clenched her knees together, closing her eyes.

  “I need to get home.” If she didn’t look at him, she was fine. It was those damned eyes of his. Okay, the eyes and the lips and the enormous-feeling erection that was straining the front of his khakis…

  He laughed, low, and kissed her again. She lost the urge to flee. He grabbed for her hand and led her to the couch in the center of the set, which would look perfect on camera for the hero and heroine’s near-love scene. The set was shadowy, with rich, deeply stained wood furniture and the hulking dark couch. He sat in the center of the couch, leaning back. She looked at him askance.

  “Didn’t you hear me?”

  “Don’t you trust me?” He patted the vee of leather between his knees. “Sit.”

  “You have to be joking.”

  “Sit.”

  “In your lap?”

  “Mack.” He had that exasperated edge to his voice, so with a glance around the empty set to make sure that they were alone, she sat down stiffly, her back to his chest.

  “There. Happy?” she said, perching awkwardly, making sure her back didn’t touch him, that the outsides of her knees didn’t fit flush with the insides of his thighs.

  He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back, snugging her up against him. “Close your eyes.”

  She didn’t argue this time, just did what he asked with a big sigh.

  “Let me show you who I really am, how good I can make you feel,” he breathed into her ear. The warmth of his breath against her bare shoulder as he leaned down sent a zip of awareness up her spine. Trouble with a capital T, and she was about to be a willing participant.

  *

  He inhaled slowly. Damn, she smelled good. A long moment passed. He set his fingernails lightly against her wrist on their joined right side, and she let out a breath so slow he almost missed the tremor in it. Almost.

  He tilted his head to see that her eyes were still closed. He smiled and began to run his clawed fingers up the length of her forearm, his nails raking lightly to the inside of her elbow. She jumped slightly, but to her credit she didn’t bolt up out of his lap as if he was on fire, which was a good sign.

  His thumb made soft, slow circles inside the bend of her arm. “Tell me why you run the camera.”

  She laughed. “Because I’m good at it.”

  “Because you like to watch.”

  “You said that once before.” She elbowed him softly. He wrapped his palm around the point of her elbow. She reclined against him at the encouragement and lifted a hand to thread slim fingers around the back of his neck. He dipped his head at the pressure of her warm fingers, his lips millimeters from the soft shell of her ear.

  “I think it’s true. I think you like to stay detached but still be a witness to what happens in front of the lens. I think it excites you to watch, but it’s safer than participating.”

  “You’re analyzing me? The man with the secret background?”

  “I grew up in South Dakota.” He hesitated, his lips hovering. She took in a deep breath and held it. Her pulse beat so hard he could see it making the thin, soft skin just under his lips jump. “Relax,” he whispered, and slowly she let out the breath she was holding.

  “Where did you grow up?” he asked.

  “Georgia.”

  “See? It’s a start. Tell me about the first camera you ever owned.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, darlin’, it has become painfully apparent to me over the past eight months that memories are fleeting, and that you have to revisit things that matter.”

  Mack sighed. “Tell me more about you, first.”

  He pressed his lips to the dip where her neck met her shoulder, bared by her gauzy top. She tightened her fingers in his hair, reflexively. He bit her, lightly.

  “Greg!” she squeaked. She arched against him, and it was her turn to make claws of her hands, digging her nails into the denim at his knees.

  “My dad was gone for long stretches while he worked. My mom never wanted me to be involved in show business. I auditioned because you asked, but I’m staying because it turns out I like it.”

  “Really?” she said breathlessly, and squirmed in his lap.

  To hell with it.

  “Yes.” He put his hands on her hips and pressed her back into him. He regretted that she faced away, because he wanted to taste the soft, nearly liquid sound of her gasp as her ass met the unmistakable outline of his cock.

  “Only because you like the job?”

  He hurried on, speaking against her throat as he leaned down and put his lips to every soft inch of her neck and shoulder that he could reach. “I like that you’re behind the camera. I like having you watch me. I haven’t stopped thinking about you since that first night,” he admitted. “How you would taste, how you would feel.”

  She rocked against him, bold. He gritted his teeth and lifted his hips to match hers.

  Yes, Mack, he thought, just about as turned on as he could ever remember being. If she kept moving like that he was going to lose it and have her under him in about three seconds flat. “Mack, we…”

  “All about participating, right?” she purred, turning her face and catching his bottom lip lightly between her teeth. He gave in. He slanted his mouth to fit hers and, not caring if he got slapped silly for it, he slid his palms upward, skimming the undersides of her breasts, pressing against her ribcage and downward, to hold her to the renewed movements of his hips.

  She returned his kiss with an urgency that would have been scripted only in an X-rated film. He lifted a hand to her face, which was flushed even in the dimmed light, to hold her still. “Slow,” he whispered, and she smiled against his lips and complied. He took over their initial intensity and mellowed it into a slow, simmering, more languid pace.

  The seconds stretched into minutes. Kissing her in the heavy silence became at once unbearably delicious and just plain unbearable as their only point of connection. He didn’t want her back to him anymore, he wanted her facing him, straddling him. He pressed his hands at her hips encouragingly and she turned in his arms.

  He took her face in his palms and their eyes locked. Her hair was mussed, her lips chapped bright by his own, her eyes unfocused. She was glorious. He was in big, big trouble.

  “What?” she asked, smiling slightly at his scrutiny, starting to pull back.

  “Noth
ing,” he said, rubbing a thumb over her chin. “Nothing important.”

  He brought her up on her knees astride him as he reclaimed her mouth.

  *

  Mack was trying to keep her head detached from the thrumming, tingly rest of her and regain some semblance of control. So far, it wasn’t working out too well. Kissing Gregory Redding was like putting your tongue to a 9-volt battery—she knew it was bad for her, but the zing was just too much to resist.

  The way he’d looked at her when they parted was mind-numbingly heady. She was close to ignoring the bullshit pretense that they couldn’t be involved with each other and skip to begging him to speed up to her damned near inevitable destination—on her back on the slick leather of this very couch.

  The intensity of their kisses ramped up, and she found herself trying hard to catch her breath. Involved with each other? She didn’t need the drama of dating an actor. It was stupid to think of anything beyond the big, hot hands he was using to yank up the hem of her skirt.

  She settled flush against him, and he pulled his lips from hers to murmur his approval. He scooped his fingertips under her thighs and hauled her downward, hard. She rose away and he hauled her back, and they repeated the mock-struggle until she was riding him in earnest, the thin material of her panties no barrier to the rough denim that caged what she wanted, like, now. Jeans and a zipper damp with arousal were not being kind to her throbbing skin. She wiggled her hands between them to sneak open the button on his jeans and work his zipper down, out of the way of her next downslide.

  When the drenched barrier of her underwear came into contact with what should have been the fabric of his, they both gasped and froze.

  “You don’t, you’re not…” She curled her fingers into the wings of his undone fly, her knuckles grazing bare flesh.

  “I never wear underwear.” He shrugged, watched her hands. “And you’re…wet. Very.”

  His lashes came up and then fluttered a bit over those shocking eyes when she lowered herself down against the arc of his distended flesh, pressing his cock against the flat plane of his stomach.

  “Yeah, I am,” she admitted, letting him guide her in resuming their rhythm with a splayed hand against her back. “I guess I forgot what a turn-on grinding like a teenager can be.”