Hunter: Rockstar Romance (The ProVokaTiv Series Book 2) (4 page)

“You are one intense woman, Trinity. Fuck, I think you’re trying to kill me.”

“I assure you, I am not, not until the video is done, anyway,” I said, laughing softly. He still wouldn’t look at me, though, hiding his head while his body was pressed against mine, the sweat gluing our skin together. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” he said.

I lifted my head just enough to trace the scar on his chest with my tongue. Salty. “What’s that from?” I asked. I wasn’t sure why it had popped into my mind at that moment, but it had. So, why not roll with it.

“It’s not a really great story,” Hunter said.

“A clumsy accident?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I was following what he was saying.

“No, it wasn’t an accident. That scar was put there on purpose.”

“By who?”

“No one I want to talk about right now,” Hunter said.

“Okay then,” I said. Of course, his insistence on not talking about it made me so curious. I wanted to know, but I did respect not pushing it. I loathed when people pushed me for information I didn’t want to share—even my besties were aware of that.

“You excited for the shoot to start today?” Hunter asked, rolling over to his side and looking at me softly.

Subject change. OK. “Of course, it’s going to be great. Looking forward to doing my thing, and learning a bit about how the entire process works.” I rolled to my side, too, and leaned forward. My hand reached out, taking a lose strand of his hair and tucking it behind his ear.

“Every shoot is different,” Hunter said.

“Especially this one because I’ll be on it, and Hunter, I’m going to light it up and make that song of yours a hit.”

“The video, anyway, I don’t think you sing on the track. Not last time I checked, anyway.”

“Your cocky talk doesn’t get me riled up,” I said.

“Well, your cocky talk gets me riled up,” Hunter said. I knew what he meant because I felt his erection growing against my thigh. Insatiable!

I never would have guessed how hard it would be remaining focused on the set. I was staring at Trinity, who was dressed to tease in black leather capris, high strappy heels and a bustier that made her chest look even plumper and her waist even smaller. I wanted to actually do her, not just pretend I was because we were on camera. When I’d said I wanted a hot, sexy, on-and-off again video, I should have thought it through a bit better.

“It’s rather fun to suffer like this for the art of the video,” I whispered to Trinity, wanting to tease her a bit.

“Mmm,” she whispered in my ear, sneaking in a slight flick with her tongue that almost dropped me to my knees, “I’m sure you are suffering. That’s quite the hard-on, and those tight pants aren’t covering it up very well.”

“Maybe I need to suggest a wide angled lens,” I whispered back.

“No, I think you’ll be fine,” Trinity replied.

“Ouch, Trin.”

She started laughing, and then walked away, past the fake bedroom of the set and six of the male crew members, who all stopped what they were doing to appreciate her the way I did. Too bad, buddies. That’s mine, for now, at least. She was the best tease I’d ever met, and her performance was Oscar worthy. Or maybe it wasn’t a performance. She was also the most uniquely wired woman I’d ever met. I was surprised at how much I appreciated her—in every way imaginable.

Then she came back, followed by Dara, the director, who came up to us and said, “Okay, this is a hot scene so I need you two to really put the chemistry out there and rev it up. We’re shooting a cold scene right after to showcase that frustration you’re feeling there, Hunter.” She gave me a wink, and fuck if I didn’t blush. “Got it?”

Dara looked at Trinity. “Brighter red lipstick and thicker eyeliner.” Then she yelled for makeup to hurry over and fix it.

“My eyelids are going to start drooping if I have any more eyeliner on them. I swear they’ve used an entire pencil,” Trinity said to me.

“Comes with the territory of being a smoky seductress,” I said.

“Is this the scene where I am crawling across the floor to you while you’re playing the guitar in your chair?”

“That’s the one. You crawling to me, unable to resist me, and willing to do whatever it takes to please me.”

“I interpret it a bit differently. I’m the animal getting ready to consume the unsuspecting prey, pouncing and destroying before you can do anything about it,” Trinity taunted.

“I see you’ve warmed up to the song’s meaning,” I said to her.

“Perhaps you should bring that up before the cold section,” Trinity said like she really meant it, her raised voice, as if she actually wanted Dara to hear.

“Slower, look up at him, okay now speed up,” Dara was calling out orders to Trinity as I sat in the car, strumming my guitar, and waiting for her to pounce on me. I glanced at her for just a fraction of a second, and Dara screamed, “Cut! Don’t look at her Hunter, you’re self-absorbed, only thinking of your guitar, not her. She’s catching you off guard. Got it?”

“Got it,” I said.

“Good. Okay, 3,2,1, roll.” Dara was silent again, and Trinity and I started to perform as commanded. Again.

“Ouch. Fuck,” Trinity suddenly screamed.

“Cut. What’s wrong?” Dara asked. She was clearly getting annoyed by our imperfections. She was a slave driver, that one.

“There was a rock on the floor, it pressed into my hand. It hurt.”

“Keep it together,” Dara said. “Someone, sweep Trinity’s path to Hunter pronto.”

Everyone was moving quickly and I decided to not move at all. Just one shift, and I could send Dara into a coronary if I wasn’t careful.

“Okay, let’s try this again. 3,2,1, roll.”

I strummed fake chords on my guitar. I didn’t have to look at Trinity to sense that she was close and that her hand would be sliding up my thigh at any second. The instant she touched me was electrifying and even though I was wearing some tight ass pants, the hairs on my legs rose.
Everything
rose.

As rehearsed, Trinity slowly removed the guitar from my hands, and slithered up onto my lap, a complete temptress, pressing in to me, kissing me passionately. Despite having ten sets of eyes on me, I was completely absorbed in how the kiss made me feel. It was so natural, and I naturally wanted more, I wanted to wrap my arms around her and carry her to my bed. Only, that wasn’t the scene.

“Great! Cut,” Dara said. I was starting to dislike Dara. “Now Trinity, get up and smash the guitar. Roll!”

I couldn’t take my eyes off Trinity as she took the guitar I’d been caressing before she was on my lap and smashed it against a table to my right, her eyes wild and her hair even wilder. She loved that part of the acting, clearly, and honestly, I was as drawn to it as freaked out by it. She was like the bad girl, and I was the good guy who wanted to play with fire. Who the hell would have ever thought that I’d think that? Not me.

“Cut!” Dara screeched. “Hunter, what are you doing? Actually, why are you not doing anything? That’s the better question.”

“Sorry. It was happening so fast,” I said.

“Well, at least we have that footage and it’s good. Trinity, turn and stare at Hunter with the smashed guitar in your hands and wait for him to do what he’s
supposed to
,” Dara said.

“Okay,” Trinity said. She looked at me, a half smile on her face, “Ready?”

“I’m ready. Bring it on, psycho.”

The predator licked her lips, Dara called out her commands, and then I started acting out the script. I tried to stop Trinity as she swung the guitar at me and I missed it, as was the plan. Then she flung it across the room—the set—and whirled to grab a pillow from the bed. Trinity started hitting me with the pillow, and it burst open (thanks to some clever cuts) and feathers flew everywhere. She kept going and going, and it was like she was unleashing every bit of anger inside of her on me. Was this real or acting? Was this therapy or performance? I had no clue and without even thinking twice about it, I rushed in on her and started to kiss her, sending her body back onto the bed, pressing mine on top of hers, kissing her. When I looked at Trinity, her eyes were wide open, shocked looking. Still, she played along with what I was doing. I removed one of the white pillow feathers from Trinity’s black hair—such a nice contrast!—and tickled her nose.

“Cut! You improvised, but it was good, really fucking good,” Dara said, rushing up with a flushed complexion. “You two are so believable. Fuck, that was good, real good.”

“You said that already,” Trinity said, looking at her like she was crazy. She was covering for the way she felt when I’d gone off script. She had to be, right? I mean, hell, I was surprised by the way I felt, too.

“Glad it worked out,” I said, suddenly feeling a bit exposed by it all. I wasn’t acting like my typical self—the public persona, anyway. When alone, I actually enjoyed silence, reading the newspaper, or diving into a good mystery novel, especially a Michael Connelly one, they sucked me into the story instantly. Those opportunities were rare, but they kept me grounded and charged. Basically, I felt comfortable and could shed my public image. Trinity made me uncomfortable, and that was startling, but not in a bad way.

“Okay, what’s next?” I asked.

“Go to costume, be quick, and I’ll go prep the footage for us to review,” Dara said. She turned to the crew and stated, “Do not take this set down until I let you know we’re done with all the filming for it, got it?”

One guy, obviously a new guy, asked, “Should we pick up the feathers?”

“Did you not hear what I said?” she replied. “Do not take this set down until I let you know.”

We all walked in the same general direction and I looked in Trinity’s direction and caught her looking at me. “What?”

“That improv, it was kind of hot, you know.”

“It just sort of happened,” I said. That was the truth. I couldn’t even explain how I’d gone from the script, which said I should storm out of the room, to the feeling of urgency to kiss the crazy woman, Trinity in person and Lead Female on the script and synopsis.

“Well, it has me thinking,” she said to me, winking in that way that indicated she was up for some follow-up adventure.

“Me too,” I said. “Hey, you want to go out to eat tonight?”

“Sure,” Trinity said to me. “That should work.”

“Do you have to clear it with your LA mom?” I asked sarcastically, unable to resist the jab.

“It’s called courtesy. When you are staying at someone’s home, you should let them know what you’re up to, just a bit, anyway.”

“Like that night you slept over?” I asked, trying to maintain a straight face.

“I…” Trinity pursed her lips together and then said, “Okay, Brynn was LA mom that day, but I get it.”

“I didn’t know you liked getting told what to do and reprimanded, I’ll have to remember that,” I said.

“Just try it and see what happens, Hunter. Bring it on.”

Then Dara snapped me out of it.  “Oh for fuck’s sake, will you two stop that banter? The camera’s off and we have footage to review,” Dara said.

I looked over at her. I’d completely forgotten she was there. Trinity had found a way to tweak my momentum and mess with my mojo. It was disturbing. And I liked it.

The remainder of the day got completely sidetracked. One minute, Dara was happy with the great footage, and then she gave the orders to take down the current set and put up the next one in the shooting sequence. That was supposed to take about an hour. Three hours later, it still wasn’t done and only then did she say we could call it a day and report in the morning.

“Do you need a ride back home?” I asked Trinity. “Still have some time before dinner.”

“Sure,” she said.

We walked out and I began driving through the crazy streets of LA, a place that seemed to have 24/7 rush hour traffic—everywhere I had to go, at least.

“Anything you’re craving for dinner tonight?” I asked casually. I felt really cautious internally, and it confused the hell out of me.

“Nothing really, maybe some Indian food, something ethnic,” Trinity said. “Do you enjoy that type of food? I don’t even know.”

“I like pretty much anything that isn’t mac and cheese. My family was the struggling middle class family that grew up on the most economical, filling meals that my mom could figure out.”

“I can relate to that, only my mom was cabbage crazy. She must know a hundred ways to make cabbage. Yuck.”

“Agreed,” I said.

“And hand me downs? Were you a victim of those?”

I shook my head. “Yeah, ugly outdated clothes that fit someone else just right but were always a bit off on me.”

“At least guys can pull it off. Girls, not so much. I have clothes from when my cousin Serena was twelve that are still too big for me.”

“You saved them?” I asked. “You’re shitting me.”

“Yeah, I am. The premise is true but I parted ways with those things the second I left the home. Told my mom I was taking them to a thrift store. Really threw them out because I wanted to save future girls from having the trauma of those ugly clothes.”

I burst out laughing. I could so see her doing that. I got why she understood me better. She’d lived it, too. Shit! We pulled up to Brynn’s apartment too soon. I should have just claimed her for the entire day after the shoot. Wasn’t thinking.

“See you at 7:00,” I said.

“Great. Adios,” Trinity said

She took off through the gate and I started to drive away. Everything seemed to get a little darker without Trinity with me. I shook my head,
don’t fall for her.