Merrick: Harlequins MC (17 page)

He fucked her slowly for many long minutes, enjoying her slow climb to the peak of pleasure. Her soft gasps and sighs as she clung to him, the way she moved beneath him, had an honesty to them that turned him on far more than some women’s porn star performances.

“I want you to kiss me when you come,” he whispered as he sensed her approaching rapture.

She was alive with pleasure, his slow steady strokes winding her tight, then tighter still, drawing out her pleasure unlike any time before. Until now, she’d always been in a rush to reach orgasm, but this was better, so much better, and she didn’t want it to end.

She whimpered, then grabbed his face and pulled his lips to hers for a furious kiss, holding him there as she whimpered again, then pulled her face to her neck as she gasped. He smiled into her neck as her deep sexy giggle escaped her. He began to thrust into her harder, faster, driving into her with purpose. She pulled his head from her neck, held it a moment, then pulled his lips to hers again as her back arched.

“Ah, fuck!” she gasped, then giggled, as her orgasm washed out of her. She’d just had two orgasms back to back. The first one was a pleasant little orgasm that had filled her with warmth. The second one was harder, but taken together, they were toe curling.

“You okay?” he teased, pushing in harder and deeper while watching her face. That was the first time she’d ever done anything other than sigh or whimper while orgasming.

She giggled again then sighed. “Yeah. I’ve never had two orgasms so close together before.”

He smiled, pleased with himself. “How was it?”

She giggled again, unable to prevent it. “You cocky shit,” she said before pulling him down for another long kiss. She drank her fill from his lips, then sighed as the kiss slowly dissolved. She grinned up at him, liking the mischievous twinkle in his eyes as he watched her. “Bet you can’t do it again.” He grinned and began to thrust with long slow strokes.

When they fell into another deep sleep, he hadn’t been to give her two more orgasms, back to back anyway, but it wasn’t for the lack of trying.

“What time is it?” Poppy groaned while she stretched and the darkness of sleep fell away.

“A little after seven,” Merrick replied as he flicked her nipple with his tongue. He knew they didn’t have time for anything, but she had some of the best tits he’d ever seen and he couldn’t seem to keep his mouth off them.

“This is going to have to stop,” she sighed, enjoying his kisses.

“What?”

“Fucking all night, then having to get up the next morning.”

He didn’t like the sound of that at all. “You didn’t enjoy it?”

She pulled his mouth from her breast. If he kept that up, she was going to be late for call. “What I’m not enjoying is having to get up so damned early. I still have to go back to my room to shower and change.” She thought about it a moment. “Fuck it. I can wear my close from last night to the set,” she said as she pulled his lips to hers. They were going to have to make this one a quickie.

***

Poppy and Merrick were walking up to the crew as a car, followed by a Los Rio police cruiser, skidded around the corner at the far end of the street and raced toward the camera.

“Cut!” Will called. “Did we get that?”

“Standby,” a man said as he reviewed the footage. “We got it.”

“Okay, next shot. Poppy, good, you’re here. We’re a little ahead of schedule this morning. Go get into makeup. We’ll be ready for you in less than an hour.”

While Poppy was in makeup, Merrick wandered over to the craziest looking car he’d ever seen. It looked like a Los Rio police car from the door handles up, but below there, it was all science fiction.

“Pretty cool rig, huh?” a man dressed in a racing suit said standing beside the car, his helmet and a walkie sitting on the hood.

“Yeah. What is it?”

“Stunt car. Want to see?”

“I’d love to.”

“Tony Wokowski,” the man said extending his hand.

“Merrick Capra. Nice to meet you,” he said, shaking Tony’s hand.

Tony opened the hood of the car, but instead of an engine, there was a rudimentary cockpit with a single, deeply raked seat, gear selector, steering wheel, foot controls, and nothing else.

“Okay…” Merrick said slowly.

“This is where I drive the car. That way the actors can worry about acting instead of driving. The steering wheel in the car is connected to mine with a clutch, so it even turns to match the car’s movement. So long as they don’t fight the wheel it’ll look like they’re driving.”

“I assume the engine is in the back?”

Tony shut the hood. “Yeah, a Chevy 5.7 liter small block. You can see it through the window.”

Merrick peeked in and could see part of the engine extending into the passenger cabin. “I bet this thing is a pig will all that weight in the back.”

Tony grinned. “Not too bad. A lot of the engine is between the axels. We run 5.12 gears. Sixty is about as fast as it will go, but it launches like a mother. It has a lot of negative camber and positive caster on the front and, with the low gearing, I can drift it for days.”

“And all the weight swinging around back there doesn’t screw it up?”

“Nah. Once we get the cameras mounted, the car is pretty evenly balanced.”

“Amazing,” Merrick said.

“Yeah. I’ve got the best job in the world,” Tony said with a grin. Both men looked up as the two cars that had been chasing each other earlier skidded around another corner and raced out of sight. “The drivers in those two cars are my sons. The youngest, the one in the bandit car, is only nineteen.”

“You must be very proud.”

“I am. They’re both going to be better than I ever was. The oldest – he’s twenty-two – will be doing the driving stunts in the next Bond movie.”

“Tony, you ready?”

Tony walked around the car and picked up the walkie. “Ready when you are.”

“Be ready to mount the cameras in five minutes.”

“Roger that,” Tony said then grinned at Merrick. “Time to pay some bills. It’s been nice talking to you, Merrick.”

“Same here,” Merrick said as they shook hands.

Merrick stood back and watched as Tony wormed his way down into the cockpit and buckled in before reaching up and pulling the hood down with a rope.

He stood out of the way as several crewmembers began affixing several large cameras to the car. He’d been hanging around the crew long enough that he could guess from the cameras placement and angle the left side camera would be filming the passenger, the right side camera the driver, and the center camera was for what he’d heard the crew call a two shot, when both actors were in frame. Now he knew why Tony had gotten into the car so early. With the cameras in place, he had no way to get in or out.

The crew mounting the camera was finishing their task as Blake and Poppy walked toward him. She surprised Merrick by melting into him and giving him a quick kiss. “Wish me luck. I hope I can do this. I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Merrick said.

“Says the guy not getting scared shitless in the car.”

“Want me to take your place? I bet it’ll be fun.”

She giggled. “If only I could. Want me to see if Taylor will let you take a ride after the shot is in the can?”

He grinned. “No, that’s okay,” he said, though he would have liked to try it.

“We’re ready, Poppy, Blake,” one of the PA’s said.

“How do I get in?” she asked when the door didn’t open.

“Though the window.”

“Here,” Merrick said, picking her up as Blake scrunched himself through the window and into the car.

She squeaked in excitement and trepidation as Merrick held her while a PA helped her worm into passenger seat of the car. She buckled her seatbelt. “You two ready?” Tony asked from under the dash. She bent to peer under the dash. If she bent over far enough she could see Tony’s head and shoulders.

“I hope,” she replied.

“Let’s do it,” Blake said with a grin. He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Don’t worry. These guys are expert. You’re safer now than driving on the freeway, and a hell of a lot safer than on the back of Merrick’s bike.”

The Chevy barked to life behind them and Poppy rolled up her window started getting her game face on.

***

Merrick laughed with Will, watching on the monitor as Tony slid the stunt car around the corner, causing Poppy to scream in excitement then laugh hysterically. “That’s why I didn’t roll cameras,” Will chuckled. “Do it again,” he said into a walkie. “And, Poppy, you’re a cool and professional police woman. Try to act like one,” he teased.

Poppy picked up the walkie. “I’m trying, but Tony nearly made me piss myself!”

“Want me to tone it down?” Tony’s voice came over the radio.

“Poppy?” Will asked.

“No. Give me another chance. I just wasn’t expecting that.”

“Let her have it,” Will said. He looked over his shoulder to Merrick. “What do you think? Will she scream again or not?”

He thought about it. “Not.”

“Prepare to roll cameras,” Will said. “We’ll see if you’re right.” He waited until the car was back to the starting mark. “Roll cameras.”

“Speed!”

“Action!”

“There, there, there!” Poppy called, pointing out the window as she hung on, the car slewing around the turn.

“And cut!” Will said. “Reset, let’s do it again.”

“How are you going to be able to hear what she says over the engine noise?” Merrick asked. All they could hear from the in car sound was the roar of the big V8.

“We’ll ADR it in later, along with some better engine sounds,” Will explained as Tony drove back to the starting point and prepared for another run.

“ADR?”

“Automated Dialog Recording. Some people calling it dubbing. The actors will go to a sound stage and say their lines again, and the editor will replace the location sound with the clean sound.”

“So why record sound on location at all?”

Will grinned. “Good question. Some directors don’t. They do everything with Foley, ADR and sound effects, but I think the live sound has a richer, more realistic feel, so that’s what I use when I can.”

“Foley?”

Will chuckled. “A lot of terms, aren’t there? Foley is a bunch of men and women who add all the ambient sounds. Footsteps, the squeak of a seat, the ruffle of a coat, the sound of someone pulling their gun from the holster, anything you need that you didn’t get live.”

Merrick nodded in understanding, once again amazed at all the effort that goes into making a movie. No wonder they cost fifty million dollars to make. “How is that different than sound effects?”

“They’re not, really, but typically sound effects are prerecorded sounds added in later, things like the motorcycle sounds you were complaining about, or gunshots, where Foley Artists actually make the noises live for the shot as they watch it on a screen.”

Will turned his attention back to the car as it pulled to a stop. “Ready? Action!” he said.

Instead of watching the monitor, this time Merrick watched the car slew around the corner, but then it suddenly hooked right and plowed into one the cars parked at the edge of the road, bounce off, and spun across the road to hit another car. The crew stood frozen for an instant, then burst into motion.

Merrick ran for the car, several other Harlequins also running for the accident, as the crew ran after them, several men carrying fire extinguishers. He skidded to a stop on the passenger side of the car. Poppy was sitting there, looking stunned and out of sorts.

“Poppy! Poppy, are you okay?” he yelled, hammering on the window as people began to swarm. She didn’t answer, staring at him as if she didn’t recognize him, so he pulled his pistol and smashed the butt of it into the window. It shattered but didn’t break out, so he hit it again. He ignored the shouts of the crew as some began to pull the cameras off the car while others worked to get Blake out.

“Poppy! Are you okay?” he called as he knocked out the rest of glass on the window and leaned in.

“What? Yeah. I hit my head,” she said softly as she reached up to her temple.

He tried to release her seatbelt, but it was cinched tight and he couldn’t get it to release. He reached to his hip and pulled his knife, slicing the belt.

“Don’t move her!” a man yelled, pushing his way in beside Merrick. “Poppy! You okay? Any pain?” the man asked.

“My head.”

“Anywhere else?”

“I hit my arm on something.”

“Can you feel your legs? How about your back? Does that hurt?”

“What? No.” She started to rise out of her seat but the medic pushed her back.

“Just sit for a moment, okay?”

“I’m okay,” she said as she pushed his hand away and reached for Merrick. “Help me out.”

“Jim! Get over here,” a man called. “Tony’s bleeding.”