Page 9 of Secret Daddies

“More handsome than ever, right?”

I wanted to roll my eyes at him, but I couldn’t help but laugh. There was something about his brazen confidence that was kind of charming, even if I could tell just from the brief time we’d spent together that he would be all kinds of a handful if I wasn’t careful.

“Sure,” I replied, and I was about to turn on my heel and head out of there when, out of the corner of my eye, I realized someone was watching us. Glancing over, I noticed Devon, leaning on one of the large boards that separated this part of the set from the rest of the space, and staring at Lee and me.

And yes, it was totally immature to react to that in any kind of way. If I’d been a grown-ass woman who was mature enough to have totally left my ex in the past, then I would have just finished up right then and there and walked away. But Devon—after all Devon had done to me, after the mess he’d left me holding, didn’t I deserve to get a little revenge on him?

“Actually, just let me…” I murmured, reaching up a hand and pushing a strand of hair behind Lee’s ear. He cocked his eyebrow slightly, but he didn’t complain. I let my fingers trail just down his neck for a moment, pretending like I was checking that everything was in place.

“There, I think that’s you,” I remarked, finally stepping away from him. There was something about the way he was looking at me that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, my body responding to him, even though I knew I should be way more controlled than that. He was just…tempting, that was all. Tempting in a way I knew he shouldn’t be. Tempting in that deliciously off-limits way that someone you worked with could be.

But I knew all too well what happened when you gave in to those attractions, and I was not the kind of girl to make the same mistake twice.

I brushed past Devon as I left the set, pretending like I didn’t notice him at all—but of course, I did. It was like there was some kind of radar strapped to me that alerted me whenever he was around, and there was nothing I could do to turn it off, no matter how much I wished I could. He just lit up something inside of me, something dangerous and demanding, and I couldn’t ignore it.

I could feel him now, staring after me, probably wondering what was going on between Lee and me. And of course, the answer was nothing at all, but that didn’t mean I was going to tell him that. As far as Devon was concerned, Lee and I could be caught up in the midst of some powerful love affair, the same way he and I had been back all those years ago. It might be a lie, but I wanted him to lie awake, tossing and turning, tormenting himself as he wondered if there was more to that touch he’d seen me plant on his co-star than he could possibly imagine.

As I made my way back to the craft table, I felt a grin tugging at the corners of my lips. Yes, I should be better than this—I should be more mature and more adult and more able to contain whatever frustrations had happened between us in the past. Butthis was a movie set, after all—and didn’t that mean that I should embrace a little performance, if it would benefit me in the long run?

And if it would allow me to take a little revenge against the guy who had been stuck in my head for the better part of the last decade?

6

LEE

I pusheda hand through my hair before I opened the door to the makeup trailer. I had waited all day to make sure she was alone in there—and now that I had an hour before my next scene, I intended to make my move.

Ever since I’d laid eyes on the new makeup girl, Maya, yesterday, she had been stuck on my mind in a way that only one thing could exorcise.

Making her mine.

I could already hear my agent inside my head, warning me off doing anything stupid—reminding me, in all the ways she could, that fucking someone on-set would only cause more problems than it was worth, and that I needed to keep my dick in my pants and focus on getting the job done. And sure, she might be right, but that only made the temptation a million times more intense.

It had always been my addiction, getting women like this. I’d lay eyes on a girl and I’d know in that moment that I wasn’t going to able to rest until I fucked her. It was almost as though I could see her in the throes of pleasure in that instant, could hear thelittle moans she would make when she was reaching her release. Hardly the most professional way to approach any interaction, but hey, if it worked, it worked.

Lucky for me, I had signed an ironclad contract with the studio that would make certain I couldn’t be tossed off this project, no matter how many women I went after. The studio had put their foot down after the first movie, telling me that I needed to keep my dalliances with women off-set for the time being. I had been a good boy—I had done just that. But now, with all the stress of this project hanging over my head, and the introduction of a fucking gorgeous new makeup artist, I knew there was only one thing that would ease the tension building up inside of me.

I had grabbed a couple of coffees so I at least had something of a pretense to come see her—pushing open the door, I held one out to her as I stepped inside, and she glanced around from where she had been fiddling with something over on the makeup table.

“Oh, hey,” she greeted me, glancing down at the coffee. “I—do you need something?”

“Thought you could use a caffeine hit,” I replied, nodding down at the cup. “I know we had an early start this morning.”

She blinked at the cup for a moment, clearly baffled.

“Uh, this is…for me?”

“Unless you expect me to shotgun two coffees right here in front of you, yeah.”

She flicked her gaze up to mine, those sharp green eyes meeting mine for a second. There was something knowing about the way she looked at me, as though she could tell what I was here for.But shit, if that made it easier to get what I wanted, I sure as hell wasn’t going to complain.

“Thanks,” she muttered, and she reached for the coffee in my hand, our fingertips brushing together for a moment. She leaned back against the desk, resting her elbow behind her—the motion stretched out her neck slightly, and the slightly-freckled skin that showed over the top of her tee was hard to look away from.

“Why are you acting so suspicious?” I laughed as I leaned up against the door and took a sip of my coffee. “I didn’t poison the damn thing.”

“Because I don’t expect movie stars to be playing coffee boys,” she shot back.

I chuckled. “Yeah, well, I thought it would be nice to welcome you to the set. Given that you just started here, and all.”

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