Calling His Bluff (3 page)

“You’re so right. Sit on this.”

“Thanks.” She scooched the pillow under her butt and propped her arm on the couch.
Manageable. Closer to his face, which was distracting, but much less so than his crotch,
which would have made coherent, non-blushing, non-stammering conversation absolutely
impossible. “Your ex-wife’s lost where?”

He grimaced as he handed one of the glasses of wine to her.

“She’s not lost. In fact, I guess you’d say she found herself.” He took a swallow
of his wine and stared at the glass. “What I said was that
I
lost
her
in the Amazon. That’s where we broke up. She was filming, of course, and I was working
on the scrapbook for the movie.”

Sarah snorted into her own glass at his use of the casual term. J.D.’s “scrapbooks”
as he called them had started out as a private project and become all the rage, first
with the filmmakers in Hollywood and then with the general public. The first scrapbook
had been a gift for his friend, Ben, the director of a small but beautiful documentary
about a Hollywood legend’s relationship with his daughter, who directed him in her
first independent film. The documentary had explored the intense relationship between
father and daughter, actor and director, during the shooting of the film. J.D.’s photos
had captured slivers of private time away from the cameras, intimate moments with
the cast and crew that made you feel like you’d been allowed to peek through a window
on the set.

“I love that you call them scrapbooks,” she admitted and looked up at him. He had
his head propped on one hand and was staring at her with unwavering dark eyes. “That
makes it sound a little less like celebrity gawking when I buy one.”

His grin and chuckle had her stomach doing tiny flip-flops. Her cheeks felt like they
were on fire, though she decided she’d blame that one on the heat of the room.

“It was pure hero worship for me when I did that first one. I don’t think I’d ever
admitted to anyone, myself included, that I wanted to be a photographer until I started
working on that documentary, even though I made my parents pay for all those classes
when I was a kid. But I’d been watching him in the movies my whole life.” He rolled
his shoulders back and looked up at the ceiling. “He was always the good guy, you
know? Even when he was playing an outlaw.” She saw his cheeks lift in a faint smile
at the old memories. “I asked his permission the first time I took his picture. He
laughed at that. The man has twenty cameras on him when he takes the trash out.”

“That was the picture on the cover, right? It’s a beautiful shot.” And it was. He’d
captured the older actor leaning against the rough bark of an oak tree. You could
tell from the tension in his face and the angle of his hips that he was in some physical
pain. But his head was turned slightly away from the camera, as if someone had just
called his name, and his shoulders were thrust back as if he was ready to step forward
and shoulder the mantle of his role once more. “It shows that he’s still the good
guy.”

“Yeah, he is. He’s the whole reason I have a career now. Him and Ben.” J.D.’s attention
shifted back to her. He wrapped his fingers around the neck of the wine bottle and
ignored her protests as he splashed more cabernet into her glass. Droplets of red
wine puddled on the back of her hand where she’d tried to shield her glass. She licked
the rich berry wine off her skin and rubbed her hand against her warm thigh to dry
it.

“What do you mean?” she asked when he didn’t pick up the thread of their conversation.

J.D. seemed to have lost his train of thought. He was staring blankly at her mouth.
When he blinked and lifted his eyes back to meet hers, she saw him reconnect with
the conversation.

“He saw the book I’d made for Ben, my director friend, and he asked if I’d make him
a couple dozen more so that he could give them as gifts to his daughter and some of
the crew. Someone showed it to the director of this historical film that was being
shot, and he called me.” He shrugged. “Everything else just fell into place.”

“And how did this lead to you losing your wife during filming in the Amazon?”

She stretched her arms over her head and recrossed her legs, seeing J.D.’s gaze wander
again as his T-shirt rode up above the sagging waistband of his silky shorts on her
hips. So she was watching as his eyes widened and his mouth fell open.

“Sarah. Tyler. Is that a
tattoo?
”

Shit.
Talk about a reason to blush. She loved the delicate scrollwork of the old-fashioned
ace of hearts playing card that rode her hip, invisible unless she was wearing a skimpy
swimsuit.

Or saggy shorts.

But a tattoo was
so
not what people expected from her. It was just one little secret thing she’d done
for herself, a reminder of a side of her personality that she kept hidden from almost
everyone. But making a big deal about it would only intensify J.D.’s curiosity. And
right now it was
her
curiosity that needed to be satisfied.

“Duh. A million people have them, Damico.” She tugged the hem of his T-shirt back
down and hoped her casual dismissal would put him off. “The lost wife?”

He tore his gaze away from her waist.

“I thought the director told me it would be the chance of my life. Turns out I should
have heard, ‘I want a chance at your wife.’ Lana’s part was a small one, but I was
happy that we’d be working together for the first time.”

“And the director cast your wife just to get her to come to the Amazon with you and
then hit on her?” Her mouth dropped open. “I mean, I know the movie business is supposed
to be sleazy, but come on. Yuck.”

“To be fair, I don’t think the director even knew we were married. Lana and I didn’t
exactly bring anyone to Vegas with us for the wedding. It was pretty spontaneous.”

“Okay, but surely everyone on set knew the two of you were together.”

“Not exactly.” He sat up abruptly and grabbed the thigh of his uninjured leg with
one hand, kneading it. “Sorry. I get muscle cramps now that I’m using this leg so
much.” He set down his wine glass and bent forward to massage his leg with both hands.
“It was only Lana’s second role, and she didn’t want people to think she expected
any special treatment just because she was married to a hotshot Hollywood photographer.
She’s pretty cool like that. So she asked me not to let anyone know we were married.”

He winced again, and before she gave any thought to what she was doing, she waved
at him to sit back and rest and started to knead the hard knot out of his thigh.

Talk about
whoops.

His flesh was warm beneath her hands, almost hot, even through the thick cloth of
his sweatpants. She could feel the long ridge of his quadriceps muscle flexing beneath
her fingers as she applied pressure to the knot.

Right. Keep talking.

What had they been talking about?

The super cool ex-wife. Right.

“So, you, ah, fell for that one, huh?”

“Thanks. Yeah,” he sighed and leaned back against the arm of the couch. “Well, she
was spending all of her free time in the director’s trailer between takes, but I figured
what was the harm?”

“What was the harm?” she repeated in disbelief. She quit the massage and smacked him
on the kneecap. “Is there something in the water down there that made you stupid?”

“The director’s name is Jane.”

“Ah.” She stared at him, struggling to keep her face expressionless. “I see.”

“Live and learn.”

A heartbeat more and she couldn’t help it. The giggles just spilled up and out of
her throat until she had to cover her face, because each time she glanced at J.D.
he just looked more offended.

“I’m sorry,” she said and snorted as she tried to stop laughing. “It’s not funny.”

“Funny? No.” But his eyes were crinkling up at the corners and he shook his head as
he started to smile too. “Ridiculous? Just a little bit.”

“Poor J.D.” She smiled and hugged his knees sympathetically. “That must have been
pretty painful, your wife sleeping with the director.”

“It was.” He toasted her with his wine glass. “Not quite as painful as when I walked
in on them in our trailer, and then tripped as I was storming out. That’s how I got
this.” He rapped his knuckles against the cast.

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. And even that didn’t hurt as much as finding out my leg hadn’t been set properly,
so it needed to be rebroken and reset unless I wanted a permanent limp.”

“Ouch. Again.”

“Yeah, it’s frigging raining bad luck over here.”

She swigged back a healthy gulp of wine as empathetic shudders made her neck crawl.
“I would’ve kept the limp.”

“Thought about it. And even though the cast comes off in a couple days, it’ll be weeks
of physical therapy before I’m sure I won’t have one. But it did have one good side
effect.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“By the time I was done cursing all doctors, both north and south of the border, I
wasn’t that pissed off at Lana anymore. Maybe she broke my heart, but at least she
only did it once.”

“Cheers to that,” she said and leaned forward to clink glasses with him, although
she would have been happier to hear that he despised his ex and never wanted to hear
her name spoken aloud again.

J.D. snagged her hand when she went to sit back. Braceleting her wrist with his thumb
and forefinger, he rubbed the rest of his fingers against the skin of her arm.

“Enough about my drama. What about you? How’s your love life these days?”

She tugged against his grip, but he didn’t let go.

“Me? Oh, no. I’m off men completely.”

“You too?” He pulled her toward him, and since she was tired of leaning forward, she
slid off the pillow and eased closer to him. “And here I was just thinking of asking
you to climb on top of me.”

“Shut up,” she scoffed and reminded herself that he’d always teased her like this.

Okay, maybe there’d been a little less sexual tension when she was twelve.

Maybe a
lot
less.

“I am not climbing on top of anyone these days. Male or female,” she added in response
to the speculative glint in his eyes. “I am officially a no-climbing zone.”

“Come on, Sarah Bearah—” he winked at her “—Haven’t you ever wondered what it would
be like?” He flipped her palm over and pressed his lips to the crease at the base
of her thumb. She felt the warmth of his breath float over her skin and wondered if
teasing shouldn’t be outlawed even if both people were old enough for consensual sex.

Ever wondered? It felt like she’d spent far too many years of her life wondering.

The breath she’d inhaled what felt like an hour ago burst out of her in a huff. She
shook herself awake from what was essentially a sexual daydream. Time to put a halt
to this little game.

Before she could open her mouth to say a word, a piercing ring blasted from a phone
across the room, followed almost immediately by a click and a recorded message. A
voice like maple syrup poured into the room after a loud beep.

“Sugar, I got your message. Now, get off your high horse and call me so I can say
I’m sorry about Jane, okay? I didn’t fly to Chicago for my health. And are you seriously
planning on staying here? It’s like two polar bears crapped a giant frozen poo and
they built a city on it. I’m so cold my teeth are chattering. Right. So, that judge
you saw in the Dominican Republic? He’s not, in fact, a member of the legal profession.
So, you know, teensy problemo. And since we gotta deal with that, I wanted to talk
to you about Ben’s new project, too. There’s a role that’s perfect for me, and you
know he’ll do anything for you.” The slow sugar drawl dropped to a new level of husky.
“Just like me, baby. Call me, husband.”

The last drawled word seemed to echo through the open warehouse space.

Holy. Shit.
She was holding goddamn hands with Joey Damico, at last, and he. Was. Married.

Of course he was. And to a woman who talked like a frigging porn star. Way to make
a regular woman feel inadequate.

“She’s such a drama queen.” J.D. squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, but he
was sort of grinning with one side of his mouth, like he was more exasperated than
angry. She realized that he was still holding her wrist in his hand. His fingers began
to move against her pulse, which jumped like a rabbit as heat pooled in her belly.
Still, her brain locked onto that one word—
married
—like a heat-seeking missile. “Where were we?”

She tilted her head down and gave him a stern look from beneath lowered brows. “Stop
it. You’re a married man. Maybe.”

“I’m really not. Lana’s sweet—morally challenged but sweet—and the ins and outs of
the Dominican legal system aren’t her strong point. She doesn’t have any idea what
she’s talking about.”

When his fingers stroked higher on her arm to the sensitive skin inside her elbow,
she broke out the big guns, “Stop teasing, or I’ll get my big brother to beat you
up.”

“Hmm.” After a moment, he let go of her wrist with a rueful grin. She scooted back
a bit, needing a little breathing room. On second thought, she leaned forward and
grabbed the wine bottle.

“Tyler would actually kick my ass, wouldn’t he?”

“That’s right,” she said and nodded as she poured. More wine might not be a good idea,
but she’d never been this thirsty in her life. Still, she stopped at half a glass.

“Ah, well. Maybe next time.”

She could have tossed the wine all over him when he winked at her and sat back as
if it was no big deal. When she opened her mouth and the words she was thinking rolled
right out, she realized that any wine, in fact, might have been too much while sitting
half-dressed on the floor next to the man on whom she’d had a massive crush for most
of her formative years. One who’d left town, married some wannabe starlet, and hadn’t
even had the courtesy to get a real divorce.