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Rubi took out her own phone and tapped into the camera again.
“We’ve got problems with Bolton,” he said as he wandered back to the mat. “I cut him off at the bar and poured him into bed by midnight, but he was still late to the set, isn’t functioning worth his weight in shit, and he’s off-gassing like a diesel truck. He must have gone out again after I left him. I doubt we’re going to get anything workable out of him today. ”
Rubi made her way back toward the wall, leaned against it, and planted one foot to the concrete, pretending to check e-mail. But her mind was in a mishmash of confusion over Wes.
“Yeah, I guess,” he grumbled, “But I’d rather take him out back and beat the crap out of him. Come on, it would make me feel so much better. Please?” He paused and rubbed his closed eyes. “You’re no fun anymore, you know that? I’m short-sheeting your bed, dude. Better plan on staying with Lexi. ”
He disconnected and swore as he slipped the phone back into his pocket. Rubi pressed her lips together to hold back laughter.
On the mat, Wes shook out his arms and started jumping on his toes, warming up for more work. He planted his feet wide and swung his arms across his chest. “Keaton,” he called. “Let’s go, dude. ”
“What’s going on?” Bolton asked, stopping beside Rubi, hands on his hips.
Wes waved him closer. The production staff was trickling back in, camera and sound guys messing with their equipment.
Keaton took the mat across from Wes and brought his fists up like a boxer. Wes mirrored him but spoke to Bolton quietly, with an undertone of steel. “I’m shooting your scenes today. ”
Keaton took a swing, and Wes received the hit like a pro, head whipping, body twisting, feet stumbling. Keaton came at him with an upper cut. Wes’s head snapped up, and he fell back a step.
“I’ll keep the face shots to a minimum. ” Wes and Keaton circled each other. “So get your ass home and sleep off your hangover. If you’re not sober and ready to work tomorrow, I might just take over your whole fucking role. ”
“What the hell?” Bolton sputtered, his face reddening with anger. “Who the fuck died and made you boss?”
“Chamberlin. If you have a problem, take it up with him. ”
Keaton twirled and kicked at Wes’s head. Wes ducked and moved in for a body shot. He was so smooth, so confident. And so freaking hot.
Sex when we want to fuck and friends the rest of the time.
Rubi’s hunger surged to life. How long would that kind of arrangement last? But more importantly, what would happen when it ended?
Keaton crumpled with a grunt, stumbled back, and slammed his body against the concrete. Even standing only a few yards away, knowing it was fake, Rubi’s stomach cramped with each hit.
Keaton swung his arm around Wes’s neck, his handsome face in a grimace as he pretended to choke the life from Wes.
“You want to do all the work, fine,” Bolton said. “I’m still the one who gets paid. ” He turned away from them and covered his dented ego with a superior grin and a swagger on his way out.
Rubi refocused on the mat, just as Keaton hooked his left fist at Wes. Rubi sucked in a breath, but Wes leaned back, gripped Keaton’s arm and threw him. Keaton twisted three times in the air before he hit the mat.
“Now that’s a fucking fight scene. ” Danny straightened, grinning at Rubi. “I’d better get that man a costume. Looks like we’re going to get some real filming done today. ”
Seven
“What is wrong with you?” Lexi frowned up at Rubi from where she knelt in front of her. She held straight pins between her teeth and one between her fingers poised to poke the lingerie Rubi wore. “Did you take espresso shots on your way here? If you don’t stop fidgeting, you’re going to become a pin cushion. ”
Rubi planted her hands on her hips, took a deep breath, and blew it out. That didn’t help the knot at the center of her body, but she managed to find stillness.
“Hands down,” Lexi ordered.
Rubi rolled her eyes and dropped her arms.
Lexi tugged the fabric of the panties at Rubi’s hip. Jax’s rich voice floated up to the loft from where he sat at the desk downstairs in the main studio of LaCroix Designs, Lexi’s couture wedding dress storefront, talking on the phone. Lexi took the extra fabric at Rubi’s hip between her fingers, pinned it, then measured it with the tape measure hanging around her hip and removed the pin, jotting the numbers on a tablet.
“Quarter turn,” Lexi said. “You’re going to make it to see the house day after tomorrow, right?”
Rubi crossed her arms to keep them out of Lexi’s way. “Yes. How many does this make now?”
Lexi shot her a look from her spot on the floor and muttered around the pins between her lips, “Eight. ”
Jax wanted Lexi to move in with him, but his Malibu house was too far from Lexi’s studio to be practical. He’d talked her into looking at houses with him, but the whole thing made Lexi as jittery as Wes made Rubi. In this way, they were similar. Their scare-levels of commitment might differ—for Lexi it was the financial commitment, for Rubi, the emotional commitment—but the fear was the same.
“What’s going on with you and Wes?”
Rubi’s jitters returned, and she had to fight to keep still. “I don’t know. It’s…maddening. He’s maddening. I keep pushing him away, and he finds all kinds of manipulative ways to get even closer. He’s a conniving little shit. ”
Lexi laughed as Rubi made another quarter turn and Lexi smoothed her fingers across the lace band over Rubi’s hips. “You like him. ”
A little too much girly giddiness filled Lexi’s voice and sent an uncomfortable shiver down Rubi’s spine. “Of course I like him. I wouldn’t hang out with all of you if I didn’t. We’re great as friends, but you know I’m not going to stay with one guy. We both know what happens when I try that. ”
“We know what used to happen. You’re a different woman than you were five years ago. Don’t try to feed me that shit. ”
“It’s not shit. It’s real. And I’m not that different. Even the thought of a week down the line sets off an anxiety attack. ”
“I get it,” Lexi said. “I feel the same thing. Daily. But you work through it. One day at a time. Because a good relationship is worth it. ”
“I’m not you, Lex. ”
She laughed softly, shaking her head. “No, you’re so much stronger. So much smarter. So much…more. ”
The affection in Lexi’s voice warmed Rubi. She thought back to the same loving tone in Wes’s voice and her chest tightened up. Frustration clenched her jaw. She didn’t want to feel like this. She just did. And the lack of control over her emotions added fuel to her self-directed anger.
“He’s suggesting a friends-with-benefits arrangement,” Rubi said.
Lexi’s fingers paused. Her big blue eyes held surprise and disbelief as they lifted to Rubi’s. “Wes?”
“Yeah, that was my reaction. ”
Lexi pushed to her feet and folded a pucker in each bra cup, pinning it. “Okay, corset’s next. ”
Rubi stepped into Lexi’s tiny bathroom and changed the bra and panties for a corset and new panties. Every piece in Lexi’s signature line was done in crimson leather. Buttery soft, thin, embossed crimson leather, and the feel and scent made Rubi high.
She squeezed her boobs into the push-up cups and held the sides as she returned, her high heels clicking over the hardwood floor. She turned her back to Lexi, who tightened the crisscross lacing along the spine. Rubi faced her, and Lexi lowered to her knees again.
“I can’t really see a friends-with-benefits thing working with you two,” Lexi said. “I mean…” She shook her head, shrugged. “Shit, I wish you’d just go for it with him. ”
“That’s your romantic side talking, not your realistic side. ”
“How is that not realistic? You’ve never gotten along better with someone. Never been so close with
a man for so long with such good results. In some ways you two are so alike it’s frightening. In others you’re so opposite you complement each other perfectly. ”
“You’re kinda freaking me out. Can’t you just tell me it’s the stupidest idea ever and leave it at that?”
“I think friends with benefits is the stupidest idea ever, how’s that?”
Rubi closed her eyes and made a supremely frustrated sound in her throat. “You’re right. And it’s not what he wants. I don’t know why he’d suggest it. ”
When she made the final turn to face Lexi again, her friend was staring thoughtfully up at her. “He’s either testing new waters—which is rather obvious by going for you and not one of his typical sweet girls—”
“Hey. ” Rubi laughed out the word.
“You know what I mean. Or…he’s looking to hook up with you because you’re hot, and he wants to tide himself over until he finds another one of those sweet girls to settle with. ”
“True. ” Rubi’s lips twisted in consideration. “I don’t know how I feel about that. ”
“Or”—Lexi pushed to her feet—“he’s as crazy about you as you are about him, and he’s taking what you’re willing to give because a spoonful of Ben and Jerry’s is better than nothing. ”
“Would you stop saying I’m crazy about—”
“If Bolton starts another fight tonight”—Wes’s angry voice pierced the space between the studio’s main floor and the loft—“I’m quitting this fucking movie, dude. ”
“Shit. ” Rubi stiffened. “What’s he doing here?”
“I don’t know. But Jax told me MacKenzie wants him to watch Bolton again tonight. ”
A ribbon of unease followed the lacing down Rubi’s spine. “Not a great idea. ”
“I know this sucks,” Jax said from below. “But MacKenzie had a long talk with him today. He’s promised to be on his best behavior. ”
“Then he doesn’t need a fucking chaperone. ” Wes tossed back.
Rubi stepped up to the railing.
“At least come with me, dude,” Wes said. “Go change and grab Lexi and get a night out. Then you can save him when I’ve got my hands around his neck. ”
“Lexi’s doing the fitting with Rubi, and I’ve got to work up this bid by eight a. m. ”
A slight hesitation, then, “Rubi’s here?”
Rubi closed her eyes and hung her head.
She’d been with him half the day. She’d called it quits when the fight scenes had moved outdoors and he’d practiced the moves with Keaton shirtless—beneath the blazing late-summer sun with sweat slicking his tanned skin. The thought made every cell in her torso ache. She needed some freaking space and had been looking forward to a night of relief from the heat he stirred inside her.
“Where?” Wes asked, the anger draining from his voice. “Upstairs?”