Page 73 of Love At First Fright
He wished he had friends he could have talked about this stuff with, back when he was coming out. But Hollywood was such an isolating place, especially when you didn’t know who you could trust.
Rosemary paused and shut her laptop.
“I can’t believe it. I wrote seven hundred words. In one go.”
“That sounds like a lot.”
“It is for me. It was like I was possessed,” she laughed, “and the words couldn’t come fast enough.”
She sat back on the sofa, looking down at the closed laptop as if it were some kind of marvel. “Thank you,” she said.
“You don’t need to thank me, love, you’re the one who did the writing.”
Rosemary smiled at him, and heat bloomed in his chest. “Still. Thank you. You helped me get the courage to ask for more time, and you gave me the…the brain-space to actually feel creative again.”
“Do you want to go to bed?” he asked, not missing the flash of desire in her eyes.
—
“Ellis, are you awake?” Rosemarywhispered, and a sleep-groggy Ellis felt a soft kiss against his neck. Followed by another, moving lower to his nipple. A sudden sensitive jolt of pleasure went through him as Rosemary bit down gently.
“Very much awake now,” he growled, his hands immediately circling her, pulling her on top of him, kneading her ass.
It was still night, the circular window showing only navy-blue darkness outside. All he could hear was the quiet hum of rain and the hissed intake of Rosemary’s breath as he claimed her breast with his mouth. Her hair tickled his face as she squirmed in pleasure, needily dragging herself across the underside of his already very hard cock, coating him with herself.
“Fuck, you’re so ready for me.”
“I woke up from a dream about you and here you are,” Rosemary whispered in his ear, like a secret. Everything abouther was soft and warm against him, surrounding him with her sweet cherry smell. He wanted to bury himself deep inside her.
He did. Something about this time of night, in the soft slow hours before morning, nothing was real and every touch meant everything. Every sigh, every kiss. This was more than just sex, he knew that now.
Fucking her leisurely, his right hand holding her in place on his cock, the other playing with her clit, Ellis drove his hips upwards, giving Rosemary what she wanted.
When Rosemary arched her back and moaned his name, it was a prayer; when he captured her mouth with his and rolled on top of her, losing himself in the pleasure of her, the way she took him so fucking well, there was something almost holy about it.
In the moonlight her skin looked like a living painting, and he wanted to give her all the pleasure he could. His mind went blank at the sight of Rosemary beneath him, her hair messy, her cheeks flushed, lips swollen from kisses and the look of utter need in her eyes.
It was the kind of thing that you remembered right at the end of it all: proof that you’d lived a life worth living. He buried himself deep into her. His body was made for it, for her.
“Fill me,” Rosemary breathed, shuddering against him, and Ellis let go, pumping his come into her, seeing stars. Even when their breathing began to settle, the sweat on their skin began to dry, neither of them moved. When Ellis shifted himself out of Rosemary, it still wasn’t over.
“Like I said I would,” he groaned, and used his fingers to fuck his come back inside her, needing to give her one more orgasm, needing to hear Rosemary’s voice keening his name. Only then, only then could he clean her skin in the soft steam of the shower, and only then could Ellis carry her back to bed.
27
Rosemary didn’t want to leavethe cosy oasis of the cottage, but moviemaking called, and on Monday morning Ellis drove them back to set. The following week was one of the best of her life. Each dawn, Ellis would rap on Rosemary’s door, and they’d take Fig for a walk, Rosemary pointing out to Ellis all the birds she spotted. The walks helped clear her head, and she often found herself typing down ideas for her next book on her phone while waiting for a scene to start shooting on set.
Several times she’d wanted to tell him about Hank—now that Rosemary had noticed, she couldn’t unsee how he was beginning to fade more at the edges, even as he continued to trot dutifully by Ellis’s side. Rosemary had carried the hagstone around in her pocket, but after chatting more with Dina, she realised she needed to wait for the full moon, otherwise there was no way he’d be able to see Hank. Telling Ellis she could see ghosts was one thing, but she wasn’t about to do it without a way to prove herself.
In the days since they’d returned from the cottage, they’d snuck moments of privacy, but the shooting schedule had beengruelling and long.
They weren’t hiding their relationship, but at the same time they weren’t advertising it. Ellis had told her that while the crew could generally be trusted to not go blabbing to the press, he didn’t want to take the chance. If the news got out before they were ready for it to, Rosemary would be painted as a home-wrecker, the reason that Ellis and Jenna had “broken up.”
They only needed to hold on until Jenna secured the role she was up for, and then Ellis and Jenna would go public about their amicable breakup. Rosemary couldn’t deny that the idea of going public scared her as much as it excited her. How would her day-to-day life change if the world suddenly knew her as someone dating a celebrity? Would it affect her career? Still, for now she was enjoying the thrill of secrecy.
In between scenes, on the Thursday after they’d returned from the cottage, Ellis pulled her into a private room in the manor and kissed her senseless. Afterwards, her lips still swollen and her cheeks flushed, she’d watched from the monitors a scene where Ellis was investigating the old servants’ quarters, ghosts hiding in the corners.
Lyn sidled up to Rosemary just as Vincent shouted, “Cut.”
