Page 13 of Smartasses
Not sure where to look without ogling him, she took the safe route and focused on the screen as she walked into his room. “What page?”
“Just pick one with the yellow highlights.” Carter rolled his shoulders, stretched his neck from side to side, and changed his posture on a breath. “All of those are the scenes with the hit woman.”
Watching out of the corner of her eye as he transformed before her, becoming somehow more hulking and brooding, she scrolled through the script. The pages flew across the screen before she stopped on the third section she saw with yellow highlights. Anna had to be the hit woman.
“So show me what you got,” Aubrey read.
The muscle in Carter’s jaw twitched, and he rubbed the back of his neck, the intensity lessening a few notches. “Maybe not that scene.”
“Why not?” She double-checked. Yep, definitely yellow highlight.
“There’s kissing.” He rubbed his palm across his buzzed-short hair. “I didn’t ask you to put you in a weird position or make you uncomfortable. I wouldn’t do that.”
All right, that was pretty stand-up of him, and she didn’t doubt him.
She shrugged. “We’ll skip the kissing then.” She glanced back at the script, surprised she could still make sense of the words because all she could think about now was the kissing parts. “So show me what you got.”
He let out a breath, changing the way he held himself, eyes going darker, harder. “What do you need?”
“You gotta nine?” She looked up at him, pausing a beat. “I hear it’s your trademark.”
Oh my God, that line. Sure, there was a script note that they were talking about a nine millimeter, but that was not a subtle bit of dialogue there. A giggle at the ridiculousness bubbled up inside her, but she fought it off. Then Carter took three steps closer, cutting the distance between them, a cocky smirk curling his mouth and doing things to her panties.
He winked. “That’s what they say.”
Anticipation, light and feathery, brushed across her skin as she looked down at the next line. “Let me see.”
Guns,she reminded herself. They were talking about the weapons of their trade.
Carter strutted over, every step an invitation for trouble. “This is a mutual show and tell.”
Aubrey gulped, digging deep to find the badass inside. “You go first.”
He let out a soft chuckle. No, that didn’t even do it justice. It was more of a touch in sound form, tactile and teasing in just the right ways.
Fuck. That wasn’t fair. He shouldn’t be this good at this because while her mind knew this was play, her body had other ideas—all of which centered around putting that mouth of his to use in ways that didn’t involve talking.
He brushed a stray hair behind her ear, letting his fingers trace the curve of her ear as her nipples puckered against her bikini top.
“‘Darlin’,” he said, his voice a rumble of heady promises. “I believe in letting the ladies finish before I do.”
Yes, please. No, wait. That wasn’t the line. That was an actual thought, prayer, whatever. God, she needed to get laid. She glanced down, got her next line, and what would not be happening after that.
“Don’t you just have all the answers,” she said, her voice breathy as she lifted her chin and moved forward so they were practically touching.
“Not all of them.” Shifting, he plucked the tablet from her hand, setting it down on the tiny desk in the room, and then pressed both of his hands to the wall on either side of her. Dipping his head lower so they were so close their mouths were practically touching, he asked, “Who hired you?”
Did they pause here? Was she supposed to say, “And they kiss”? His gaze dropped to her mouth as she tried to get her brain and her body to do what they were supposed to do when all she wanted was to follow the script. Then before she realized what she was doing, her lips brushed across Carter’s. It was soft and chaste—in other words, not nearly enough for what she wanted or needed right now. She wanted hard and demanding and take-me-right here against the wall.
She broke the kiss at that realization, and the reality of it all hit her. Fuck. They were running lines from a movie script, and none of it had been real. He’d been worried about making her uncomfortable, and she’d been the one to harass him. Shit, I am so the asshole in this situation.
“I shouldn’t have done that. I got carried away,” she said, pressing her back against the wall and wishing like hell she could melt into it. “I’m sorry.”
He kept his hands plastered to the wall but took the half step forward so their bodies were touching. “I’m not.”
“That’s not your next line.” Because that’s a brilliant thing to say at the moment when you’re about to explode from anticipation, Aubrey.
He dipped his head lower, so close, but not nearly enough. “I know.”
