Page 68 of One Life to Loathe

“Um … yes, you do. I heard you the first night.”

“You didn’t say anything.”

He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I didn’t really know what to say. Yesterday was…”

“Different,” I supplied.

“I was going to say awkward, but different is a good word too.” His smile was rueful. “I panicked a bit yesterday. I’m not proud of it or anything. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Don’t.” I pressed my hand to the spot above his heart. I liked feeling the beat beneath my fingertips for some reason. It was nothing I had ever been conscious of before, and yet I couldn’t get enough of it now. “This situation isn’t ideal.”

“I don’t know.” Leo rubbed himself against me. “It feels pretty good to me.”

“That’s the problem. We’re running on hormones.”

He pulled back far enough to stare into my eyes. “Oh, you’re going to get weird again,” he surmised.

“Actually, I’m not.” I leaned in so I could rub my cheek against his. Everything about him felt wonderful. It felt right. That would ultimately lead me down a destructive path, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that. Walking away now wasn’t feasible. “We do have to acknowledge reality, though.”

“I don’t want to.” Leo sounded so whiny I had to laugh.

“I know. It would be easier to ignore reality.” I shifted so I was looking directly into his eyes. “We can’t do that, though. Wehave to be realistic because I don’t want to be so crushed I can’t get out of bed in a month.”

His fingers were gentle when they brushed against my cheeks. “Sam, I don’t know that I can make promises.”

“I don’t expect you to,” I said hurriedly. “That’s not what I mean.”

“Okay.” His lips moved to my forehead, and he brushed a soft kiss there. “What do you want to do then?”

“I want to be honest. That’s the only way this is going to work.”

“I can be honest.”

“I know that this show isn’t your cup of tea,” I started. “I’m guessing that means, if it’s a hit, that you’re going to leave after the first season.”

He hesitated, seemingly surprised that I was getting right to the heart of matters, but he didn’t deny it. “That’s the plan,” he agreed. “I’ll go all out for the press. I’ll come back long enough to end my character. They could try to force me to stay, but we both know they won’t. If the show is doing well, there will be plenty of bigger actors who want to come in as the new lead vampire.”

“That’s pretty much what I figured.”

“I just always had it in my head that I wanted to be an action star. Those were the movies I watched as a kid.”

“So, you want to be Arnold Schwarzenegger?”

He snorted. “I was thinking more like Ryan Reynolds or Jason Statham, but okay.”

“We both know this can’t go anywhere long term,” I said. “We also can’t seem to stay away from each other without being miserable.”

“No, we cannot. Last night proved that.”

“We need to be careful, though.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that we can’t let anybody on the cast know about this.” I gestured between our naked bodies. “It will become a thing.”

“Won’t that be good for the show? I’m being serious. They want us photographed around town together in our downtime, so why wouldn’t this be good for the production?”

“Because it will cause issues … and gossip. Pretending to be fooling around is different than actually fooling around. I don’t want the other cast members constantly speculating.”

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