Page 18 of Love At First Fright
Less damn broad,Rosemary nearly admitted.
“You should be skinnier. You’re too…tall. Alfred is meant to be a feeble Victorian.”
“I’m not too tall,” he huffed, stepping closer, “you just lack imagination. You’re stuck with me, Rosemary, whether you like it or not.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
Rosemary was vaguely aware that she was firmly pressed up against the door, and Ellis was close enough that she felt his breath on her face when he spoke. His woodsy scent filled her senses, his figure blocking out the firelight. The near-darkness, the heat of him…it was enough to make a woman think things she shouldn’t be.
Rosemary hoped he couldn’t hear the sound of her heart attempting to thump its way out of her chest.
“I’d like to go to bed now, Rosemary,” Ellis said, tipping his face down to meet her eyes. Sweat prickled on the back of her neck, her palms. The last thing she needed right now was to picture Ellis Finch in his bed.
“Go to bed then.”
He chuckled, low and deep and oddly seductive.
“You’re blocking my way.”
Shit. She’d been standing against the door and all Ellis wanted was to get out of there, away from her. His hand had even been resting on the doorknob this whole time. Rosemary launched off the door sideways, utterly mortified.
“Of course, sorry. You’ll be wanting to go and catch up with Jenna.”
Ellis blinked. “Jenna, yeah. Well, good night, Rosemary, I hope the killer mermaids don’t give you nightmares.”
As he stalked out of the room, Rosemary noticed a small dog hurrying by his heels that she hadn’t spotted before. Its fur glistened silver, and where it caught the light of the fire, Rosemary realised it was translucent.
She felt a brief pang of sadness for Ellis underneath all her dislike for him; she didn’t usually see animal ghosts, and when she did, it was often dogs or cats that had been taken from their owners too soon, and who weren’t ready to leave them. The love between a pet and their owner endured.
Rosemary spent all night tossing and turning, and it wasn’t the jet lag or the killer mermaids that were to blame. In the early-dawn hours, she’d been pulled from a dream where Ellis issued soft commands in her ear, ones that she was more than willing to do. She woke up slick between her thighs, and entirely discombobulated. Rosemary packed in a hurry—her taxi leaving for Hallowvale was in less than an hour—and as she exited her room, she nearly tripped on a brand-new copy of her killer mermaid book lying outside her door. Interesting.
7
When he was in histwenties, Ellis had been able to fall asleep anywhere. Once, during filming for a cheesy action flick about a swashbuckling pirate, he’d taken a nap in one of the stinky old hammocks in the galley.
These days, sleep did not come as easily. Especially after he was all pent up from the day. Yesterday morning he’d never even met Rosemary, and then in the course of one day he had managed to piss her off entirely—and ruin her book. To his British sensibilities, that stung. He supposed he wasn’t entirely free of blame, however—he had goaded her.
He had tossed and turned in bed for what felt like an age, replaying their conversations. Or arguments, depending on how you looked at them. Occasionally, his mind slipped into remembering the way she had blushed in the pool after he’d gently ordered her to get back on the float. She’d seemed…receptive. Nope. Not going there.
Even thinking about her in that way was dangerous. It didn’t matter that she was, on paper, precisely his type when it came to women. Those curves, that hair, would haunt him. Buteven if shewasinterested, which she decidedly wasnot,he shouldn’t even be considering it. He was a good ten years older than her, probably more, and he was “dating” Jenna for the next month at least. There were too many reasons not to, even if a tiny, infinitesimally small, part of Ellis wondered what sound she might make if he swiped a thumb over one of her nipples, and lightly bit her full lower lip with his teeth. Probably the same sound she’d made at dinner when she’d taken a bite of her dessert. A sound that had, God help him, gone straight to his cock.
He’d woken up that morning still distracted by odd dreams of tattooed legs wrapped around his waist. He only stopped feeling distracted when his driver pulled off the motorway, turning down the wide oak-lined drive that led to Hallowvale manor. Somewhere nearby, Fig would be running around his PA, Eva, whom he’d brought to join him for the duration of their stay on set.
That was the good thing about being a celebrity; he could take Fig anywhere he wanted. It was probably the closest to being a diva he got, making sure Fig was able to travel with him whenever he filmed away from home.
Hallowvale Manor was certainly more impressive than the pictures he’d seen online, and it was a beautiful day to be seeing it: the air was crisp and cold, not a cloud in the sky. Surrounded on every side by soft, rolling hillside, the sandy yellow limestone captured the early midday light. The manor, with its turrets and gothic arched windows and huge wrought iron door, looked more like a castle, lacking only a drawbridge. Wisteria and ivy clung to the walls, and off to the side of the manor he spied a rose garden. It was hundreds of years old, built in the mid-1600s, and as they pulled up on the gravel driveway, curving around a cherubic fountain, Ellis looked on in awe at thefront windows of the manor, paned with delicate stained glass. It was the perfect choice for the film; it had an open, inviting warmth in the daytime, but the gothic decoration would appear downright spooky by moonlight.
It wasn’t commonplace to have some of the cast and crew stay on set, but Hallowvale offered a fancy boardinghouse on the edge of the property, called the Gatehouse, where Ellis would be staying. The rest of the crew would be in hotels nearby. It was a long enough drive from London, and they would be doing a fair amount of night shoots, so it was safest for everyone to stay local. Ellis wondered where Rosemary would be set up, given her exec producer and scriptwriter status.
The other cars, one of them driving Rosemary and her assistant, Lyn, whom Ellis had met before on previous films, pulled up beside him. He watched Rosemary as she took in the manor. Her eyes went all glassy, a secretive smile playing out on her lips. He wanted to know what she was thinking. Was Hallowvale everything she hoped it would be? Not once did he notice how her jeans hugged her thighs and ass in a particularly delicious way. In fact, he didn’t even know what she was wearing, that’s how little attention he’d paid her.
Ellis heard a dog barking, and then Fig was by his feet, wagging her tail excitedly and jumping up at him.
“Hi, sweet girl, I missed you,” Ellis said, crouching down to give Fig some love, as she immediately lay down for belly scratches.
“I hope she wasn’t too much trouble,” he said as Eva passed him Fig’s lead. Now that Fig was here, his heart was a little lighter.
