The Princess and the Porn Star (3 page)

Holy hell. Sex appeal, indeed.

He was talking to one of the producers, and right at that moment, the producer saw me and gestured over Buck’s shoulder.

Buck turned around.

Oh.

My God.

The camera hadn’t done him any justice. None at all. Even from here, the black leather emphasized his green eyes. He gave me a quick nod and a smile, and damn him, he didn’t look half as cocky as he had in his photos. Just a guy, a regular guy, who happened to be loaded with quiet charisma and a hot body.

There was no pretending he hadn’t seen me. He saw me all right, and he was heading this way, and there was no escaping.

And suddenly my high heels weren’t the biggest threat to my ability to stand.

Chapter Two

Lee

Thank God Olivia was halfway across the room when I first saw her. And thank God there were people, equipment and cords between here and there, because that gave me half a minute or so to get my tongue untied before I reached her.

It wasn’t like I’d never seen her before. Not in person, maybe, but back when she was famous the first time, I’d been a fan. And maybe, just maybe, I’d kind of had a crush on her. At one time. A long time ago.

So when I found out I’d be working with her, I’d fully expected to be a little starstruck, but this? Holy shit.

The pretty-in-pink image she’d had back then was long gone. Her hair was darker now and longer, tied back in a messy ponytail. And that dress. Christ. It was the kind of look that could be slutty or it could be sexy, and on her, it was definitely the latter. Her breasts weren’t falling out of it, and it wasn’t so short it looked like it was meant for someone half her height. Sexy and provocative but tasteful at the same time.

Olivia Taylor had grown the fuck up.

She looked healthier now too. That last year before she fell off the radar, she’d been scary thin and pale. Even before that, she’d always been just thin enough to keep eating disorder and—especially toward the end—drug abuse rumors flying. She was still slim now, but her face wasn’t gaunt anymore, and the way her hips and waist curved inside that dress made my mouth water. And I was going to be dancing with her? With my hands on her while I wore tight leather pants?

God help me.

I stepped around a ladder and over a cord, and there we were.

“Hi,” I said.

She responded with a thin smile and a quiet, “Hi.”

“So you’re Olivia.” I extended my hand. “Buck Harder.”

She shook my hand. “I’m Olivia, yes. Well, Rachel.”

“It’s nice to meet you.”

“You too.” She let go of my hand, and I didn’t miss the hint of a smirk. I was used to that. Price you pay for a stage name like mine. I supposed I could have made things easier by telling her my real name, but that was something I kept guarded. The fewer people who knew Buck Harder was really Lee Peyton, the better.

“So, um…” I cleared my throat and glanced at the half-constructed stage. How the hell was I supposed to make conversation with this woman? Without saying something like,
You’re even hotter in person
or,
Holy shit, you look goood in leather
?

Just before I could open my mouth and make an ass of myself, Jim, the director, broke in. “Oh good. You two have been introduced.” He put one hand on my shoulder and the other on Olivia’s. “Pretty straightforward, what you’ll be doing up there”—with his chin, he gestured toward the stage—“but we’ll also be shooting in front of a green screen. Close-up of your faces. Not too much to rehearse there, though. Mostly just different lighting and camera angles for us.” He smiled at her, then at me. “Isn’t a whole lot for you two to do except lip-synch and dance, but do either of you have any questions?”

Olivia and I shook our heads.

“Good!” He clapped our shoulders, and we both winced. Oblivious, Jim said, “Let’s get this started, then. Everybody onstage.”

As ordered, we headed up to the stage. Olivia went ahead of me and made judicious use of the handrail on her way up the six stairs. I cringed on her behalf; those shoes looked excruciating, and I imagined even the slightest stumble could result in a trip to the emergency room.

She made it onto the stage without incident, though. Front and center, someone had made a small box out of electrical tape on the bare plywood.

“Need both of you in that box,” Jim shouted.

I eyed the box, then him. “You…
both
of us?”

“Both of you.”

The tape square was just big enough for one person to stand comfortably with their feet roughly shoulder width apart. But two? Not so much.

Olivia stood as close to the front of the box as she could. I stayed as close to the back as possible, trying to give her some breathing room. Fat chance of that, though. Even with the balls of her feet on the front and my heels on the opposite side, my chest brushed her back, and her whole body tensed. She stood ramrod straight, drawing as far away from me as her center of gravity would allow.

“They don’t give us much room to move, do they?” I muttered.

She turned her head slightly. “Not really, no.”

“Hands on her waist,” Jim called out from below us.

I didn’t think Olivia could get any tenser. I was wrong.

As I rested my hands on her waist, she sucked in a breath, and every muscle in her body stiffened. I gritted my teeth. It was hard to tell if she was repulsed by me, or if she was just uncomfortable with the entire setup, but either way, it didn’t bode well for much onstage chemistry.

And Jim didn’t help. “Buck, I need you to move in a little closer.”

Closer? Seriously?

I cleared my throat. “Uh, how close do you want me to get? This is about as close—”

“Lean in more,” Jim said. “So you’re almost kissing her neck but not quite.”

Fuck, dude. Really?

Olivia blew out a long breath. Over her shoulder, she said, “It’s okay. If he wants us closer, then…” She tilted her head slightly, offering up more of her neck.

I did as I was told. Thanks to the high heels, I didn’t have to lean down very far to get my lips close to her neck. Well, at least that would be easier on my own neck. I’d already scheduled a massage for tomorrow after the shoot was over, but the less I aggravated that old injury, the better.

“Music’s about to start,” Jim called up to us. “When it does, you know what to do.”

Yeah. I do.
I resisted the urge to adjust my grasp on Olivia’s waist. No point in reminding her where my hands were, even if the leather was already making my palms sweat.

I pulled in a deep breath through my nose and caught a whiff of both leather and either a faint perfume or the remnants of a sweet-smelling shampoo, and goose bumps prickled to life beneath my clothes. Forget pretending I wanted to kiss her neck. I did want to. I wanted to breathe her in, taste her skin, kiss beneath the sharp edge of her jaw.

Just as well she doesn’t like me,
I thought, willing myself to focus on anything but lusting after her,
or I might be tempted
.

The music started. In a heartbeat, the stiff, tense body in my hands was in motion. In fluid, smooth motion, like the tempo was hardwired into her muscles. Her hips swiveled. One shoulder dipped and came up. Then the other. I followed as best I could, and thank God for years of professionally following women’s leads, because my body instinctively complemented her every move. We probably would have been in perfect synch if not for the constant chorus of
don’t touch her too much, don’t touch her too much, don’t touch her too much
echoing in the back of my brain. Or the lingering stiffness in her, the slight hitch in her otherwise perfect motion, which was all too conspicuously an effort to keep our contact to a minimum.

The music stopped abruptly, and our bodies did too. I kept my hands on her waist, but we separated as much as we could, jumping at the opportunity for some breathing room.

“I need to see more motion.” Jim waved his arms in the air. “I want you two in one place, but I need to see
more motion
.”

“Says the man wearing comfortable clothes,” I muttered.

Olivia snorted. Well, that was a start. At least she had a sense of humor.

Then Jim said to someone, “Cue up the music and let’s start again.” Instantly, whatever minute relaxation that laugh had brought out of Olivia evaporated, and her body was once again stiff and tense against mine.

I tried not to think about the uncomfortable tension between us, and when the music started, I focused on that instead. I hadn’t heard the song before today, but I’d listened to it a few times since I’d arrived this morning. If the rest of the songs were half as good as “You Ain’t Even Kissed Me Yet”, this album was going to sell insanely well. Her sound was so much better than her old stuff. The old music was great, but this? This was unreal. Stronger, bolder; her image wasn’t the only thing that had grown up.

As I moved with her, my body touching—but not touching too much—the woman who’d starred in hundreds of my impure thoughts, I couldn’t take my mind off how much hotter she was in person, and with every motion, the stunning sexiness I held against me threatened to drive me insane. I was going to lose my mind before this day was over. No doubt about it.

I’d accepted this gig because it was a chance to work with Olivia Taylor. That, and how difficult could it be?

Yeah. How difficult. This was nothing like my line of work, and it was a lot more challenging than I’d anticipated. The dance moves were simple, and there was nothing terribly complicated, but when I was on the kind of set I was used to, I didn’t have to concentrate on
not
being turned on,
not
wanting to fuck my partner, or
not
letting her feel the effect she had on me.

“Olivia, you’re too tense,” Jim called out. “Let’s see a little more enthusiasm here, all right?”

She nodded but said nothing.

“Let’s at least pretend we like each other,
capiche
?”

Olivia’s body stiffened even more. I cringed. Nothing helped ease tension on a set like someone pointing it out and asking people to ignore it.

“Hands all over her, Buck,” Jim called out. “Nothing we can’t show on network television, but, you know, improvise a bit. Hands in motion, mouth next to her neck.”

Fuck, dude. Olivia’s spine was ramrod straight, and my stomach turned at the prospect of getting that close and intimate with someone who obviously didn’t want me to. Every vibe she gave off was a loud and clear “back off”, and Jim wanted me to do the opposite.

“You got it, Buck?” Jim asked.

I gulped. “Got it.” I moved in a little closer and murmured, “Sorry.”

Olivia turned her head. “What?”

“Just doing what he’s telling me to.”

Her quiet laugh was as tense as her body. “It’s okay. Director’s orders.”

“True.”

“Sooner we relax and do what he says, the sooner we’re done.”

“Easier said than done,” I muttered.

“Tell me about it,” she grumbled.

Before I had a chance to decide if I was offended or not, the music started again, and Olivia and I were back in motion.

I tried to be in motion, anyway. It was easier to move with someone I wasn’t worried about touching. With Olivia, I only wanted to touch her as much as the director told me because I didn’t want to make her more uncomfortable than she already was. This wasn’t a body language conversation with some girl in a club. Turned out that maintaining distance
and
following her rhythm and motion was a lot more challenging than I thought it would be.

Especially when the way she moved—those hips, oh my God—made me want to get right up against her like I would in a club. It didn’t help that Jim kept asking me to touch her more, and get closer to her, and was just generally torturing the ever-loving fuck out of me. It didn’t help that she jumped every time I exhaled against her neck, and I had to suppress a shiver every time I breathed in her scent.

After a couple of run-throughs, Jim declared it was time for a fifteen-minute break. As soon as my hands were off her, Olivia stepped away from me like we couldn’t separate fast enough, and she didn’t look at me on her way off the stage.

Part of me wanted to be insulted, but could I really blame her? She’d met me ten minutes before we’d gone up onstage. She knew damn well what I did for a living, and that knowledge always had a magnetic effect on women: it either drew them right to me, or it repelled them to the opposite end of a room. Whatever the case, we were stuck working together—
close
together—until at least the end of the day tomorrow whether we liked it or not. There had to be some way to alleviate this tension long enough to get to the end of the shoot without losing our minds.

After I’d thrown back some cold, tasteless coffee, I went looking for Olivia.

I found her near the soundstage door. A well-dressed hipster-looking kid spoke to her, gesturing like he was one of those people who talked with his hands as much as anything. Probably the type who couldn’t form a coherent sentence if his hands were tied behind his back.