“I don’t want the car,” I finally responded. “I’d appreciate it if you got mine back.”
He nodded his head toward me. “Understood, Ms. Pinkerton. Enjoy your long walk home.”
My mouth fell open, and I stepped forward, my hand reaching out, a protest on my lips, a trio of actions ignored by the man who pushed through the office’s faux door, the screen door smacking shut behind him with a loud crack.
I let out a strangled yelp of fury and turned to the car, looking at the key in my hand and then back at the vehicle. My hand closed around the key, and I threw it down into the front seat of the car. I tucked my clutch under my arm and pulled one heel off a stocking foot, then the other. With my heels clutched in my free hand, I squared Ida Pinkerton’s shoulders and headed home through the dust.
When my stocking foot hit the edge of the set, reaching mat instead of dust, I stopped, turned back and waited for Don’s voice to boom through the set. It didn’t, and I watched him zoom in a cam, manually circling the car before zooming in on the front seat, most likely the keys that had landed in the front seats. After a long moment, Don looked up from the camera’s monitor. “Cut. I think we got it.”
Cole cracked open the door of the office building. “We good, Don?”
“Got enough. Go catch your plane.” Don nodded at Cole. “Good work.”
Cole nodded at him and grabbed a baseball hat off the back of one of the director’s chairs, pulling it onto his head and walking toward the exit. I watched him leave, my eyes narrowed. The least he could do, after kissing me senseless, was acknowledge me. I felt a general nudge against my elbow and looked left, a mic’d man gesturing toward Don.
“Great work, Summer,” Don said. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
I smiled weakly. “Am I done?”
“For now, yes.” He walked over and flipped through a clipboard. “I’m gonna work with the guys to review this and splice and dice it before Cole gets back. We’re not shooting anything else with you until tomorrow, so feel free to get out of here if you feel like it.”
If I feel like it? I reached up and fished the remaining bobby pins out of my ruined bun. “Sounds good.” I smiled at Don. “Thanks.”
“Hey, thank you! Not many can ad lib, so great work, really. You guys work well together.” A compliment paired with insanity. But this time, when he smiled at me, my return smile was genuine.
I had done a good job.
We had kissed and I had survived.
I had the rest of the day off.
Things could definitely be worse.
CHAPTER 73
Cole sat alone in the cabin on the plane. One of his feet rested on the empty chair before him, his chair slightly reclined and a drink untouched before him. He watched the ice settle in the glass, and wondered what in the hell was wrong with him. The plane dipped slightly, and he glanced forward, the flight attendant smiling brightly at him. He looked back at the glass.
The kiss had been different, so different, from the kitchen. It had been more like the kiss in her bedroom, and that was probably what was nagging at him. When he had been in her bed, and she had rolled over, climbing on his body and kissing him, he had been half-conscious, drugged out of his mind by the experience, his body on autopilot, their kiss just one more ingredient in a decadent dessert. But on that set, by that car, he hadn’t been drugged. He had experienced every sense, every taste, every movement of her tongue. He had relished it, dammit.
Shifting in his seat, he closed his eyes and wondered why he was beating himself up so much over her. He hadn’t thought twice about banging the twins in the hotel room, or the Brazilian on Dillon’s yacht three days after catching Nadia in the act. It wasn’t cheating. Nadia had been photographed a hundred times since with that director; his cock was probably tattooed on her body by now. So what was the problem?
Maybe it was Summer. Maybe it was some ingrained part of him that saw something he didn’t and wanted him to stay away from it. Maybe it was DeLuca and his threats. A piece of ass wasn’t worth losing half of The Fortune Bottle. And that’s all she was—temptation. That was what he needed to remember.
He suddenly thought of Cocky and reached for his phone.
When she answered, she was out of breath, her huffs into the phone completely innocent and completely erotic. He lost his mind for a minute, then found it. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Interrupting something?” she pounced. “You left set an hour ago. I just walked in the door. How could you already be interrupting something?”
He ignored the question. “I forgot to ask you if you’d watch Cocky. While I’m gone.”
“Before I forget, I meant to talk to you about his name.”
“You gonna give me hell for naming him?” He closed his eyes for a minute and massaged the bridge of his nose.
“Cole, I cried like a baby when my first chicken died. I’m not going to make fun of you for naming him. I just think you could have been a little more creative than Cocky.”
He dropped his hand and smiled. “Next pet chicken I get, I’ll let you name it.” He regretted the statement as soon as it fell out. It was too much, pushing their shaky ground too far. But she ignored it, breezing on to a new topic.
“Where are you going?” The question had a naive curiosity about it, and he enjoyed, for a brief moment, their lack of sparring. Enjoyed and also hated it. There was so much familiarity in their battles that he almost felt uncomfortable with cordiality.