Harder than Steel Page 6

  “Come to think of it,” she said, seizing on it suddenly and chuckling, “I guess I’m kind of glad I don’t work in LA. I’m so used to being on a bike; I can’t imagine trying to chase after someone in a Maserati.” She looked over at him.

  He laughed briefly.

  “Yeah,” he said, and suddenly folded himself forward to stand, taking both their glasses somewhere behind the couch.

  Interesting. Vanessa hadn’t imagined him being proud of an episode like that, but it was exactly that—an episode. Stars’ lives were complicated, but in choosing to act the way they did, they got the attention they were so thirsty for, which encouraged them to act in ways to gain more attention, which just made them even more fame-hungry.

  It was a self-perpetuating cycle, often shrewdly calculated by management teams, and whoever didn’t have the pragmatism to see the whole story from above probably wasn’t equipped to last long. With his most recent box office success, Jax Butler as a narrative had come into sharper focus, and one very palatable to broader audiences—cocky, sometimes abrasive, but ultimately the jerk with a grin you couldn’t help falling for. You had to hand it to his team. Especially whoever was in charge of getting him to look like this on a daily basis.

  “I’m gonna suggest this,” he said, climbing over the back of the couch to stand on the cushions one leg at a time, “and you are absolutely welcome to say no; in fact, I’m pretty sure you’re going to say no, but it will in no way count against you if you say no.”

  She was sure she knew what he was going to say.

  “I am going to have sex. You are welcome to join me.”

  Vanessa threw her head back against the couch and started laughing. When she caught her breath again, she found him watching her calmly, not annoyed or insulted, but curious. That was interesting.

  There were a lot of reasons she could say no, and she could sit here and think about them, but for some reason her brain didn’t really feel like calling them up. It was like the words came to the tip of her tongue but melted right before she was about to think them.

  And when else was one of her assignments going to invite her into their apartment, let alone put up a genuine offer for sex? Sex, with Dirk Masterson’s abs in view. The heat between Vanessa’s thighs was suddenly sharp and unavoidable. She wanted to see where this was going. There would be money in the morning, and maybe later in the week. Joanna Hart was still on her camera.

  “Alright,” she said, affable.

  If he was surprised, it was subtle.

  His bed was unmade and slightly rumpled, but clean. Huge clouds of white down comforter with no cover, the shining stripes in the fabric like something in a catalog. She slipped out of her shoes, and it wasn’t until Vanessa’s fingers touched the button of her jeans that she felt fully aware of the curves of her body, twinging with an anxious need, a definitive arousal. Even her hands sliding over her hips made her abdomen jump slightly. She weighed her nerves against her curiosity and let them drop to the floor. Turning toward the bed, she saw instantly that they’d had slightly different ideas about how this would work.

  He was pulling his shirt up and off, losing the last piece of his clothing.

  Had she been thinking they were going to fuck half-dressed? Maybe that would have made it quicker and easier. Jax Butler didn’t do things in half-measures. She slid her shirt up and over, breasts bouncing slightly with the release, and Vanessa paused at the sight of a fully naked Jax Butler: the view of his bronzed ass cheeks, and there were the columns of abs the camera always lingered on so lovingly—not quite as touched up as she’d always assumed. It felt like she’d just gotten some very good news—not only was this a good idea, she couldn’t believe she’d wasted time thinking about it. People like this actually exist in real life, she thought, and unhooked her bra. Vanessa let it fall near the foot of the bed, and when she looked down, there was a thin scrap of dark lilac fabric and elastic, a remnant of a previous conquest.

  Deciding where to place this thong, in which column, and how to weigh it, she looked up and saw him rolling the last bit of condom over the erection that curved up and away from him.

  “Modern art is all around us,” he said, nonchalant, and pulled back the comforter to slide between the sheets.

  “Come here,” she said, and he hesitated.

  Jax moved down the length of the bed and sat in front of her at the edge. Vanessa felt her foot brush against the mysterious fabric on the ground, felt it disappear under the bed and out of sight, and gently wrapped her arms around his neck, sinking onto his lap and warm body, a slight excited shock in the cooled air. He moved to kiss her, but she tilted her head and brushed one hand over the wave of hair at his forehead, combed her fingers through it—real, real, real, she thought, real or styled, it was very soft.

  He settled his lips around her nipple instead, pulling with a gentle pop between his teeth, kneading the other under the pad of this thumb. The hot rush and wet sensation between her thighs was so fast that she broke out grinning into the top of his head, and Vanessa sighed and flexed her knees around his hips. She could feel Jax groan deeply, and his open mouth shifted to the base of her throat and collarbone. Her fingernails ran slowly up the back of his neck and into his hair, etching little circles into the scalp there.

  Jax pressed his arm into the small of her back, drawing her closer, and she felt the head of his cock brush against her opening. Her thighs jumped and squeezed, and Vanessa relished the sensation, rocking into it and gritting her teeth as his arm went taut around her, before sliding straight down, slowly taking his cock and listening to the hiss of breath near her ear.

  Vanessa could feel her lips already tightening around the base of him while she rolled her hips around and down. She leaned in, felt each aching puckered nipple slide along the surface of his chest, his breath on her chin, and then her fingers curled and tightened into his hair and her jaw forced itself down, her muscles gripping him hard as she slid into an orgasm. He moaned, but it was distant—her right ear started ringing when she came out of it. That happened sometimes, her own personal standard of excess pleasure.

  She sat back and eventually realized they were both looking at each other. Close up, and without any tinted town car windows or sunglasses in the way, she could see for the first time that Jax’s eyes were a warm brown with slight flecks of greenish-gold near the middle. He swallowed, his throat flexed up and down with the movement, like a person, and suddenly their faces were just too close, and his hands at the small of her back were too hot, and Vanessa broke off and started digging around for her jeans. She turned her back to give him some privacy, taking far too long to figure out how a button worked while she assumed he was . . . arranging himself, and had to go back over to the bed anyway to find her shirt where it was bunched up on the floor.

  Vanessa steadied herself with one hand against the end of the bed, her legs still weak, and then caught a glimpse of a book splayed, spine up, on the floor. Through the Darkness: Why You Deserve Love Wholeheartedly.

  She stared at it for a moment, a low and strange feeling coming over her. Then the blood came rushing back into her head and the ringing in her ear faded, and Vanessa stood and said brightly, “Right, I guess I’ll see you around, then, huh?”

  Without waiting to hear the reply, Vanessa scooped up her camera, slid back through the window, dropped to the pavement outside, and thought about whether to erase the photo she’d taken of Jax on the couch, smiling unselfconsciously. It was a good picture, she thought, looking at it again. Claudia would want to see it.

  Vanessa hit the delete button.

  Chapter Five

  THEY SAY IT’S a long way to Tipperary, but in my case it’s an even longer road to try to understand yourself. I come from nothing, except I come from everything. The whole history of this great country is written into each strand of my DNA.

  Sure, people make fun of the way I dress, but I’m a reminder to those folks. And myself. The people who built this nation bu
ilt me, too.

  I am America. I am her son, in the truest sense of the word. I am The Patriot.

  And I am at war with myself.

  “Do you read the entire script, or just your scenes?”

  Jax looked up. The woman in front of him was standing in a neat trick of a pose, her hip cocked out to one side and the palm of her hand spread over it; probably a friend had told her it was her best angle. She was young and carefully gorgeous in a curated way, as though she’d studied it through late-night makeup tutorial videos; she had thick honey-caramel hair extensions to go with her nude lip color. He shrugged, and then remembered he was wearing sunglasses and did something with his face to exaggerate a carefree expression.

  “Depends.”

  “On what?” She leaned forward and twisted herself around, presumably to look at the curled-up script pages resting on his knee. It was an art form to be able to stick her boobs in his face without looking like she meant to, her tanned midsection smoothly in line with her white crop-top turtleneck.

  “Whether it’s interesting or not.”

  “So is it? Interesting?” Now she was letting her lips drift slightly open after she finished a sentence, as if they were too big and plush to close. It was sexy, but all a bit theatrical, and he shrugged again.

  “It’ll probably have a different feel when Holland records the voiceover.” He shuffled through the opening pages. Jax admittedly had not read the rest of the movie, but he’d been reminded recently that he had an upcoming scene with the goodest of good boys, and he’d suddenly gotten curious. He had no idea that The Patriot was literally the genetic offspring of America itself somehow, but there it was, in the opening narration.

  Did the Founding Fathers gangbang the Statue of Liberty or something? The hell did that even mean? What a dumbass metaphor.

  The girl let out an indulgent chuckle, or giggle, or something like both.

  “I like the scene you have with Morganna,” she said. “Sorry—that Dirk has with Morganna. It’s so easy to get you two mixed up.”

  He resisted rolling his eyes.

  “Which one? Scene, I mean—I know which me is Dirk.”

  She grinned at him and shook her head, a little chastisement for not catching on instantly.

  “You know,” she drawled. “The big sex scene.”

  Oh, right.

  “I always thought it would be fun to do one of those,” the girl went on, and she traced a finger with reddish-brown nail polish at the tip along his bicep. His skin warmed at her touch. “Writhing around like that must get everybody on set hot, and then you can just disappear off to your trailer for an hour or two. . .”

  “Has anyone seen the AD?” A guy with a sandy blond goatee and headphones around his neck stopped and peered at them. “Sabrina, do you know if Kestner got everyone the new call sheets?”

  “Mmm, I think so,” said the girl, who obviously had no idea what he was talking about and didn’t care. A walkie-talkie on the guy’s belt chirped, and he began talking into it and ran off.

  And then Jax remembered who she was. It wasn’t her hair or nails or even her name, but the perfume she was wearing. Powder and white floral, expensive and too sophisticated for someone her age. She had been wearing it when he’d taken her home from the set of Steel Knight a year and a half before. Of course. The one who could balance her entire body on her shoulders and who apparently enjoyed having the shaft of his cock dragged up and down over her pillowy lips. Or at least enjoyed the way she thought it probably looked to him.

  That Sabrina. The executive producer’s daughter.

  “So,” he said, in a friendlier tone of voice, “What are you doing on set these days?”

  Recognition, or acknowledgement, perked her up a little.

  “Same thing as always,” she said, and perched on the armrest of his chair. “Production assistant. I don’t know why the others are always bitching about how hard it is—it’s a lot of hanging out and watching people set up cameras and lights. Dad says he might let me get into cinematography, but what I really want is to direct, obviously.”

  Obviously. With her graduating with a—he was just spitballing, but it was a relatively educated guess—communications degree, she would be well on her way to owning a media empire before age 30, when she could retire into her golden years with grace, wisdom, and maturity.

  Wow. That was rude—even for him.

  “How’s college?”

  “Oh, you know. Changed my major to film studies.” She wound a strand of hair around one finger. “It’s a lot of sitting around watching weird old movies, and the profs won’t let us have our phones, but it’s okay, I guess.”

  Jax forced his mind to go blank.

  “You wanna get out of here?” Sabrina asked conspiratorially, leaning in even closer to press her breasts against his arm. “I just got a new pink filter attachment for my phone, it’s supposed to be good for skin tones. We could do some early rehearsals.”

  “As much as I like to go method, I should save all my best material for shooting. Besides, once we film it, I’ll be an expert, and you can experience the magic of Hollywood yourself.”

  Sabrina smiled slowly and was about to respond when a quiet voice came up on them both.

  “Hey, Jax. Sorry to interrupt.”

  He turned and almost had to look straight up to find Joanna Hart’s face above the miles of legs and torso. She was known for being extremely tall, and her male co-stars were almost always filmed standing on apple crates to preserve the illusion that she was dainty and they were strong. There had been a rumor that Joanna had to pass up a couture shoe sponsorship from a company that exclusively made six-inch heels because she would tower over everyone on the red carpet, including anyone who might consider casting her. The result was that she was always the only tan and blonde Hollywood babe who wore flats to every red carpet event.

  “Oh, hey!” He stood slowly and kept one hand on the chair to avoid knocking Sabrina over. There was no shame in putting off a producer’s horny college-age daughter, but landing her on her ass might have consequences.

  “Hey, yeah, hi.” Joanna looked briefly at Sabrina, but nobody moved to introduce the two of them. “I was wondering, uh, if we could . . . you know, talk.”

  “Talk?”

  “Yeah. Um, about our scene.”

  “Ah, right. That.” Jax gave her a mock-serious look.

  “Somewhere private.” Joanna glanced at Sabrina and seemed to see her for the first time, taking in with wide eyes the whole effect of Sabrina’s photo-ready perfection. “No offense.”

  The younger woman rose and murmured something about she’d be sure to see Jax later, sauntering away and making sure her ass cheeks winked at him with every step.

  “Let’s hit my trailer,” Jax said after Sabrina was out of earshot. “And I agree, it’s good to chat about it first, takes the pressure off.” He glanced over at Joanna. “No pun intended. You ever done one of these before?”

  She almost smiled and shook her head.

  “It’s not like the real thing at all. They basically lock down the room and have about five people running everything.”

  “Five people standing there, watching you pretend to squirm around.” Joanna looked across the set.

  “You get used to some weird shit in this industry. One time, when I was filming the donut scene in Kegger at Prendergast’s—Pass It On, the director decided to play nothing but Night Ranger between shots. Not exactly timely. Or sexy mood music.”

  “You got it done, though.” She turned to face him, apparently fascinated. “You pulled it off.”

  “Sure.” Jax grinned. “It’s what I’m known for.” He mimed hitting a rimshot.

  Joanna crossed her arms over her middle and nodded brightly but didn’t say anything. She was nervous—a lot of people were the first time, and with all the mechanics and choppy filming, it could be genuinely tough to act convincingly. It was a given that an actress in a nude scene would refuse to come out of
her trailer, after which would follow an intense negotiation session with the direction team, throwing around the words tasteful and respectful until her fears were calmed or she was flattered enough. Whichever she was looking for.

  He wasn’t entirely sure what Joanna was looking for, if even this little bit of discussion was just going to make her shut down. It occurred to him that the whole thing might not end well. Was it even really his job to try to reassure or walk her through any of this? Had anyone else bothered to talk to her?

  Jax had seen her at the read-through, but that was with everybody on cast, and they hadn’t been sitting near each other. Joanna Hart had an interesting and much-publicized past as a child star in a weirdly contrived schlocky network family sitcom about people living on the Moon where she played a little alien girl in a blue wig.

  Rather than taking the traditional route of hitting puberty and deciding that this momentous occasion needed to be inaugurated with a spin into trashy attention-seeking through sex and drugs, Joanna dropped off Hollywood’s radar for several years. It was just her luck that photos of her moving into an Ivy League dorm surfaced during a dry news cycle, and suddenly the ongoing saga of little Joanie Hart trying to get a double degree in computer science and ancient Classics was on the front page of every tabloid for a solid year.

  Two years in, she left school and then popped up in a supporting role for an independent French feature, playing the physical embodiment of a neural network bound for revenge on the scientists who’d used the system to carry out drone attacks on a children’s refugee camp in the Middle East. It had made the awards circuit, and suddenly Hart was back on red carpet duty and all grown up. Her projects until joining the Card One franchise had all been gritty, realistic action dramas, playing women forced to make desperate choices to stave off the corruption of powerful men who ran the world.