“He loves you, you know.”
I bit that traitorous bottom lip of mine hard, trying to find that place in my brain where I could be nonchalant, cool and so whatever—it’s just another day in the office for him—no biggie with all of this.
I turned to look up into Mike’s eyes. “I know.”
“Doesn’t make it any easier to watch, though, does it?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “No, it doesn’t.”
Mike sighed. “It’s pretend, Taryn. In this business, actors treat kissing like it’s nothing more than giving someone a handshake,” he said in a hushed voice.
I glanced back at him to see if he was actually serious with that line of made-up bullshit. Somehow I couldn’t equate it so benignly. I kept my voice hushed. “It’s the temptation I worry about, Mike. It’s one thing to admire the apple on the tree. It’s another to take a small taste and tempt yourself with thoughts of what you might be missing.”
“True, but you can’t condemn him for having this be a part of his job. Temptation is all around every one of us, Taryn. Even you are not immune and yet he trusts you.”
I knew I had to learn to deal. It was just a harder concept than I thought, bordering on insurmountable.
“I’m not condemning him, Mike. And I do trust him, but I can tell you that if the situation were reversed, he’d be livid right now.”
Mike scraped a hand over his head.
“Sorry. I’m trying, Mike. Really I am. But I can’t say I’m all right with watching the man I love be so intimate with someone else, fake or not.” I tilted my head in Ryan’s direction. “How would you feel if that were your girlfriend beneath him?”
Mike’s eyes darkened. “I’m not going to lie. I’d probably hate it just as much as you do right now. But I’d also try to remind myself that it takes more than a few hours of filming a fake love scene to build the kind of relationship that you and he have.”
Mike’s penetrating gaze silently shouted, Think about that one, sweetheart.
Filming halted for a ten-minute break. Ryan was still tying the belt of his robe as he rushed over to me.
Silent words passed between him and Mike as he grabbed my hand and hustled me away. We found a private corner and Ryan immediately pulled me into a tight embrace.
His hand held my head to his chest and I couldn’t help but tremble. He kissed my hair and my forehead over and over again.
“At least you get to keep your clothes on in this scene.” I couldn’t stop myself. I was trying so hard to be cool about things, nonchalant and teasingly playful even, but the bitter tone I thought I had under control kept rolling out with my words.
Witnessing a mostly naked Nicole writhe like a wanton whore under my very naked fiancé continued to twist poisonous thoughts around in my head. Ryan didn’t know it, but at 3 A.M. I slipped out of our bed to have a private crying session in the condo’s kitchen.
Agonizing pain from the paranoia of Hollywood and fame separating us one day squeezed my heart again. Besides John Travolta and Will Smith, I could not think of any other famous couples who stayed together for the long, long haul. Even the best poker players wouldn’t bet on those odds.
Ryan leaned over and gave me a quick kiss after we departed out of wardrobe. He draped an arm over my shoulders. “I like this jealous side of you. Makes me feel wanted.”
He had no idea how close I was to freaking out. “You having fun torturing me? I don’t care what you say. Pretend or not, a kiss is still a kiss, especially those designed to sell the illusion for all it’s worth.”
Ryan frowned at me and took my hand. “I told you she tasted awful. There was absolutely nothing about that entire experience that even came close to pleasure.”
Yeah? What happens when the next one doesn’t taste so bad?
Several crew members hustled past us so I kept my voice low. “Well thank God for that.” I laughed at the absurdity, trying to cover up how territorial I was feeling with humor.
He took a long drink from his bottle of water as we walked to the large catering tent. “I know it bothered you to see me doing that sort of stuff with someone else. I don’t know what else to say besides ‘I’m sorry.’ In time, you’ll get used to it. Or you won’t.”
I zipped my hoodie to block the chill. “‘That sort of stuff’ meaning grinding Nicole into the bed as if you were trying to fuck her clear through to the other side of the mattress ‘sort of stuff’? Yeah, that was beyond painful, fake or not.” A frustrated tear formed in the corner of my eye and I swiped it away quickly, hating that my lack of emotional control just flew out of my mouth.
Ryan stopped abruptly and spoke to Mike. “Can you give us a minute?”
“Sure.” Mike folded his arms across his chest and turned away to give us privacy.
Ryan pulled me off to the side behind some equipment. “Sweetheart, come on. I know it was hard for you to watch. God, I’d never do anything intentional to hurt you like that. I wish you’d realize that there is absolutely no reason for you to feel sad or threatened.”
“I know. I’m sorry, Ryan. I don’t mean to be . . . I’m trying. I really am.” I couldn’t stop the flood of emotion once the damn had been breached. I knew I was being irrational, but I was also willing to bet that most women would go a little crazy after watching their lover fake-fuck someone for several hours.
“You have no idea how hard that was for me. I wonder how you would feel if you had to watch me like that with another man.” I shrugged. “Maybe you’d understand then.”
The glare I received was deadly. “Since you’re not an actress, that scenario better never happen, or you and me . . . we’ll have serious problems.”
I knew I was potentially instigating an argument, but I didn’t care. “Why? Does the thought of seeing me being intimate with someone else make you jealous?”
Ryan’s nostrils flared, a telltale sign he was getting pissed-off, too.
“I’m trying to be confident and secure, Ryan, but it was a new experience and I can’t help but feel betrayed. I am not used to having to share my fiancé, fake or not. It was hard and I thought . . . ah, forget it.”
“Wait, what? How the hell did I betray you?”
I planted a foot. “You did the hand thing with her,” I growled.
“What?”
“When you were . . . you wove your fingers with hers and did the over-the-head thing. I thought . . . I know it sounds ridiculous, but I thought that was mine. Ours. I guess I was wrong.”
“What are you talking about?”
“With Nicole . . . you did the hand thing with her.” I raised my arm up over my head quickly to demonstrate. “I thought that was something you only did with me. When you make love to me, you always tie our hands together. I thought it was special. Mine. Sorry, but it hurts to find out it wasn’t.”
He looked at me like I had lost my mind. Maybe I had. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Forget it. I don’t expect you to understand.”
He groaned. I knew I was frustrating him but yeah well too bad. I had old wounds that left deep scars, too—reminding me never to be foolish with my heart again.
Ryan seized my arm when I tried to wave off the last five minutes. “You’re upset because of the way I held her hand?”
I tried to shrug it off. “Whatever. Apparently it doesn’t mean anything to you, but it meant a lot to me.
It’s like you make us one when we have sex. I thought it was special.” I bumped a small rock with my foot. “It’s not special anymore.”
Ryan cursed low. “Oh, babe. I’m sorry. I didn’t think of that. I didn’t realize.”
“Well, now you do,” I murmured.
He frowned at me. “Tar, despite what you think, it was physically and mentally painful for me to do that in front of you.”
I could hear the sincerity in his voice. I knew he really didn’t mean to hurt me.
“I saw the look on your face,” he went on, “and I thought to m
yself, what if this is the moment that breaks her. What if this is the thing that causes her to bolt. I know you keep thinking that I’m going to fall prey to the Hollywood cliché. That kissing some fucking actress is going to be the final straw that brings the house down. But babe, do you ever consider what I’m feeling? How fucking paranoid I am that the only woman I’ve ever loved is going to run screaming for the hills because of what I do for a living?”
I shook my head. “Never. You’re not the only one who pledged forever here, Ryan. I will keep on fighting for us no matter what.”
I looked him right in the eye, feeling like shit for not seeing his side. “Seeing you like that with someone else made me a little crazy. I think I can handle the kissing. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I can, just please give me a chance to get used to it and I . . . No, I’m positive I can deal with it, but the total nakedness and boob touching and the fake sex? I’m sorry but that—that was just too much for me.”
“I hated it, too.” He took a deep breath, and then nodded, seeming to make some silent decision.
“That’s why I wanted you there, Taryn. You know it’s fake because you watched it get set up.”
Ryan pulled me into his chest and rubbed his lips over my hair. “One good thing, though, is that I know you’re truly here for me. It just confirms how right this is.”
The tip of his nose brushed against mine as his hand threaded into my hair. Ryan kissed me softly—just a few feather-light touches, before nudging my lips apart with his tongue. I could feel both our desperation and our desire, fueled by the wetness of our mouths and the necessity to convey unspoken messages.
He bit my bottom lip gently, forcing us to stop, then rested his forehead on mine, calculating his next sentence while scanning my eyes for a reaction. “In there, in front of the camera, it means nothing. This, us, this is what’s real.”
“I know,” I whispered, drifting my hand across his shoulder.
“Do you remember when I told you about the girl I used to date, Brooke—the one who came to Maine when I was filming the first Seaside?”
I remembered. The girl he told me about who wanted his agent more than him.
“I was filming a scene where I had to kiss Suzanne and instead of Brooke getting jealous or mad she actually critiqued my performance.”
“So?”
“So . . . I’m wrapped so deep in you that something like how I held Nicole’s hand hurt you. I’ll never do that again now that I know. But I told you I would be envisioning making love to you to get into character.”
I closed my eyes and felt the softness of his face on mine. “It was very convincing.”
He nuzzled his face on my neck and I could feel his regret. It was almost tangible. “It was hard. She really did taste awful. Like, I don’t know. It was just bad.”
I noticed his hesitance, as if he were keeping something from me. “She’s lucky I didn’t kill her like I wanted to,” I said. “You’ll probably get her head cold now.”
Ryan rolled his eyes at me but offered no more on the distaste she left behind. “I really do like this jealous side of you. I have no doubt that your love for me is real.”
I clutched his arm harder. My love for him ran bone deep.
At the end of the week, we were back at the cavernous soundstage, my initiation into a higher level of trust with my fiancé behind us.
Ryan spun on one leg and kicked with deadly accuracy, planting a heavy black boot directly into the chest of the evil villain, Victor Mordorf, sending him hurling through the air. Stunt actor Timothy Hughes landed on his back; the specially designed dining table buckled underneath his crashing weight and folded in half. And then Jonathan yelled, “Cut!”
Next take, Ryan grabbed the front of Victor’s shirt, swinging several right-handed punches. I felt my breath hitch, my pulse quickened, as a twisted attraction in seeing my fiancé kick ass like some barbaric he-man sent intense arousal through my veins. The early morning weight training combined with his rock-climbing instruction was turning Ryan’s body into even more of a chiseled pack of muscle. And at this moment, that muscle looked very lethal—and sexy as hell.
I winced as Ryan performed his own stunt, taking a calculated fall from a return blow to his face. I was so worried about him taking these risks but at the same time I knew he was loving every minute of it.
Ryan tore the string of Christmas tree lights off the fake fireplace mantel on the set, lashing Victor Mordorf to the high-back chair in his parents’ supposed dining room. Anger and hatred rolled and coiled off him as he tied the newly bloodied, dazed actor, wrapping the last two feet of cord around the actor’s throat. Ryan recited his lines, spitting fine mists of fake blood from his lips as he delivered his threats.
Seeing Ryan like this, full of icy hatred and raw emotion, snarling as he bound his captive securely, both fascinated and terrified me. Ryan wore a horrifying mask of bloodlust, letting go of his reserve and completely saturating himself in the role of Chase Sheffield’s tragic life of death and redemption. This is what acting is all about.
It was through our role-play run-through of this same scene in our condo last night that we determined Ryan’s approach to binding someone to a chair with Christmas lights had to be executed in very specific steps. No one really considered how difficult it would be to tie a string of decorative lights into a knot.
Ryan brought this up with Jonathan and the stunt coordinator, Paul Rothham, resolving the choreography before cameras started rolling.
Fortunately Ryan left out the part where he tortured the shit out of me with his tongue and gave me two incredible orgasms while I was tied securely to a chair with thirty-five feet of borrowed lights from the props master. Those were private details from our rehearsal that no one else needed to know. A grin formed on my lips as I recalled the pricks of painful pleasure the lights made biting into my skin and how being bound and restrained heightened every touch. Yes, I’d like to do that again, please. Very soon.
I listened to the dialogue carefully. Ryan didn’t want to ad-lib in the middle of the scene, so he had approached the script supervisor earlier with the changes we had worked through last night. I was surprised that she and Jonathan approved them. The cadence of the original threat was off, but with the new changes, they flowed and were even more ominous. It just fit better with Chase’s natural reaction in the scene than what was originally written. Ryan delivered it with a master’s ease.
“And cut!” Jonathan pulled the headphones off, circling them around his neck. He patted Denny once on the back as he backed away from the enormous camera and then turned to me, wearing a broad smile and giving me a thumbs-up. Everyone looked extremely happy with the shot.
I abruptly sat up in my chair. Yes! He nailed it!
Jonathan called Ryan over to the monitors. We watched the scene on the playback reel. “How did that feel, Ryan? You happy with that one?”
Ryan rested his hands on his hips and blew out a relieving breath, staring intently at the small screen.
It’s amazing to see what forty-nine seconds could capture. He turned to face me and we gave each other a high-five.
Jonathan beamed, shaking his finger in my direction. “She’s good! Real good! You marry this one and never let her out of your sight!”
His comment surprised me. “What did I do?”
Jonathan admonished my question with a conspiratorial look. “What did you do? Ryan gave credit where credit was due, my dear. You have a hell of a keen sense for script analysis and direction and you just made that scene a hell of a lot better.”
Oh shit. “But Ryan and I rehearsed . . . I only suggested . . .”
Ryan shut me up with a quick kiss followed by a playful crack on the ass. “That’s where I’m carving my initials later,” he growled privately to me.
Jonathan was ecstatic. “Maybe one of these days we’ll get to see what kind of performance you inspire him to give when you’re standing on the opposite side of the camera, hey, Taryn?”
>
I adamantly refuted his comment. Ryan, however, seemed to rather enjoy that idea.
“Never say never,” Jonathan advised. “And don’t think your little rehearsal with him the other day went unnoticed. I think you’d be a natural.”
I held my hands up to stop his line of thinking—immediately. “Oh, no. I’m only here to watch.”
“Well, I’d have to argue that,” Jonathan continued, turning to Ryan. “Would you be opposed to us using Taryn in the nightclub shot? I think she’d be a better fit.”
I shook my head so quickly, the blood sloshing in my brain made me lightheaded. Standin was one thing; to be on actual film was another.
Ryan leaned closer. “Which shot?”
A ripple of shock rolled through me next, watching Ryan actually ponder this idea with keen interest. I thought for sure he’d be against it.
When their discussion ended and the attention turned back to me, I had to take a stand. “No. That’s okay. I’m very flattered by your offer but I’m fine right here, staying way out of the way.”
Ryan’s encouraging grins and nods weren’t helping, gesturing with pinched fingers that I’d only be in the shot for a smidgen.
“Nonsense,” Jonathan said firmly. “I have Ryan’s permission, so you must do me the honor of one small cameo.”
That one small request generated a flurry of activity. When the time came, I was swept off to wardrobe, where I was fitted with a pair of ass-hugging jeans and a really cool white flouncy halter top with tiny brown beads that nestled near my exposed cleavage. Instead of me wearing a bra, flesh-toned adhesive lifts were added under my breasts to give them more support. The likelihood of my breasts getting some quality onscreen time seemed to multiply exponentially.
After my makeup was applied and hair fussed with, it was off to the set. Tonight we were on location, having taken over a bar/nightclub outside of Vancouver to film in.
My job? To be part of the background. I hoped to hell I’d be able to blend with the other extras in the scene. The bar was supposed to be packed and Ryan had to squeeze through the crowd to make his next mark. I was one of the bodies he had to squeeze past—that was, until another assistant director told me the plan.