Lights, Camera, Kiss Me (Original): Chapter 9
"Warn me about what?"
Thanks to Bex and Daisy for their feedback on this chapter, and to LilianeGrouse for her proof-reading skills. This chapter is dedicated to dutch_treat for the amazing and constructive comments she leaves, which often provide me with food for thought <3
_________________________________________________________
Mac knew she needed to move. Their friends would be here any tick of the clock and the cast of Hart's Valley would get one hell of a shock if they walked in and saw her stuck to her co-star like a limpet. Then, once the shock had worn off, they would call her an idiot. And who could argue with them? She was an idiot. She seemed determined to make the same mistake twice in a row.
Ryan's face was buried in her neck, and her arms and legs were still wrapped around him. The bench was digging into her back but she didn't want to move. She couldn't think of anywhere she'd rather be, but that was too bad for her now, wasn't it? Their quick but passionate union was a one-time-only deal.
Her toes might still be tingling from the most earth-shattering sex of her life, and she might have felt more connected to Ryan than she had to any other human being before, but it was over now. It didn't matter how much she wanted to do it all over again. It didn't matter how much she didn't want to let him go. If she didn't let him go then he would let her go. He would break her heart – a heart which was balanced precariously on the verge of loving him.
Feeling her trying to pull away, Ryan finally untangled their bodies and stepped away from her. For a second she thought he looked just as reluctant to break their connection as she felt – but decided it was her imagination, and even if it wasn't, it wasn't something she should dwell on. She had to hold strong. This couldn't happen again.
She picked up her underwear and slid them back on as she glanced at the clock. Ten thirty-two.
"They're late," Ryan said to her.
"Yep," she agreed, trying but failing to keep her eyes off his body as they both dressed.
She almost cried with disappointment as he put his shirt back on and covered that incredible chest of his. She felt desire tugging at her as her eyes caressed his perfect male body. Crap. Couldn't she at least have some kind of grace period from her Ryan-induced-lust now that they'd just had sex in her kitchen? It seemed not. Two orgasms had apparently not been anywhere near enough to satisfy the craving she had for her co-star.
She startled when Ryan came to stand behind her so he could zip her back up. She shivered as his hand brushed against the sensitive skin on her back. When the zip reached the top of the dress he pressed a soft kiss to the nape of her neck. The slight contact sizzled and desire beat out a vicious rhythm inside her. She moaned softly and he slowly turned her around in his arms. Her breath lodged in her throat as she took in the scorching heat in his gaze.
"We messed up, Mac. I think I want you even more now than I did before."
With that he dipped his head and claimed her mouth with his. Her body melted against his immediately as if it had a mind of its own. His mouth was hot and insistent as he kissed her, as if he were trying to drive all ideas of earlier-on being a once-off from her mind. The feel of his arousal pressing against her made it perfectly clear that he wanted her just as much as before. Dear. God.
This was crazy, Ryan thought. He'd just had her, but one taste of her sweet lips and he was burning up with the need to be with her all over again. He should never have agreed to her once-off idea. Surely she could see now that that decision had been a mistake. There was no way they could shoot the scenes that they needed to for Hart's Valley and keep this thing in check.
She was driving him out of his mind. He'd glimpsed something spectacular in her arms before, and he was desperate to repeat the experience. Their one time had been like the smallest sip of water to a man who was parched from being in the desert for too long. He tilted her head back so he could deepen their kiss, and her little moan shot heat straight to his groin. Far. Out. He was too damn hard.
He needed an ice-cold shower. He needed to cool down before their friends walked in on one hell of a show. He mustered the last remaining shreds of his control, and tore his mouth away from hers.
Mac couldn't stop the little noise of protest from escaping as Ryan pulled away from her, his hand sweeping though her hair as his eyes clung to hers.
"This isn't even close to being done," he told her.
"It has to be. It can't happen again," she told him.
She knew her voice sounded weak. Her words lacked conviction.
"Mac, if we take this thing on set…"
Mac had desperately hoped that surrendering to the desires which fuelled them both would help relieve some of this tension between them, and reduce the impact of having to kiss him on set. But she knew now that she'd been deluding herself. She'd been too caught up in her need to be with him to see that sleeping together once would only make things worse.
The tension between them had been building for a very long time. They'd kept the beast caged for the past year, but giving in had opened the door and now the beast was out. They could never hope to capture it and contain it again. Every searing touch, every hot and fiery kiss they'd shared, was burnt into her memory. He'd left his imprint on her. Her body knew the pleasure his could bring her. She wouldn't be able to stop herself from responding to him, on-set, or off, ever again.
It was an impossible situation. She didn't want to put her heart in the firing line again, but she didn't know how to deal with this thing between them any longer. Mac thanked her lucky stars when she heard someone knocking on the door. The reprieve from her turmoil, however brief, was extremely welcome. She turned to answer the door, but Ryan grabbed her arm before she could walk away.
"I'll get the door," he told her.
"There's no need. I can get it."
"If you answer the door right now everyone will know what we've been doing."
Mac ran a hand through her hair, feeling it tangle in her fingers. She'd been so caught up in her thoughts that she'd forgotten she probably looked as if she'd just had her wicked way with her co-star. She needed a mirror.
"Okay," she agreed. "Thanks."
Ryan nodded, before leaning in and giving her another quick kiss. "I'm not done talking about this."
Mac walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind her before she leaned against it. It would take very little for Ryan to persuade her to sleep with him again. She wanted to. Okay, that was the understatement of the century. If she closed her eyes it was too easy to imagine herself back in his arms, his mouth on hers, their bodies moving together. The visual was enough to make her breathing ragged, and her body grow ready for his all over again.
She took a deep breath before she crossed to the mirror. Her eyes were glazed over. Her cheeks felt hot and were quite obviously flushed. Her lips looked swollen from his kisses. What she felt – the need that gripped her whenever Ryan was near – was as plain as the nose on her face. Would her co-stars see it? Would their executive producer? How could they not see it when she kissed him on set this week?
Ryan walked as slowly as he could towards Mac's front door, willing his body to chill out and settle down. By the time he opened the door his desire wasn't obvious. Even if it had been, however, the person waiting at the door probably wouldn't have noticed, he acknowledged. Jazz was standing there in the hallway, fidgeting, and when she realized he was the one letting her into the apartment her back went rigid and she scowled at him. What the hell?
"Where's Mac?" Jazz asked him as she walked in.
"It's great to see you too, Jazz."
Ryan frowned when he took in the dark expression on Jazz's face. She was usually one of the most genuinely happy people he knew. She stopped to glare at him briefly, before she walked into the lounge room and took a seat on the sofa.
"Where's everyone else?" he asked her.
"They're supposed to be getting here at eleven. I sent you a message asking you to do the same. Didn't you get it?"
The message was more than likely sitting unopened in his phone. He hadn't been aware of anything other than Mac for the past half hour.
"What are you doing here?" she asked him.
"I arranged this barbecue, remember? Why did you change the time? What's wrong?"
She sat there watching him carefully for a moment. "I came here to ask Mac something, but since you're here I'm worried I already know the answer. Ryan, please tell me there's nothing going on between you and Mac."
Ryan blinked and his mouth fell open. It had been the last thing he'd expected her to say to him. He was normally quick on his feet mentally, but for the life of him he couldn't work out how he should answer her.
"God, it's true isn't it? How could you be so stupid? How could both of you be so stupid? At first I thought there was nothing to it, but then I started thinking about how one of you has been absent at every get-together we've had. I should have seen this earlier."
"What's going on?" Mac asked, behind him. "Where is everyone?"
Jazz sighed heavily. "I told them to get here at eleven. I wanted to get here first and warn you."
"Warn me about what?"
"About this."
Mac held perfectly still as she watched Jazz pull her handbag onto her lap, unzip it, and then extract the Sunday edition of the Women's Daily News. She felt something cold and miserable slide through her as she took in the photo on the cover, and the caption that went with it. It had been taken on Friday night, just after she'd left the restaurant with Ryan, obviously by a passer-by who thought it would be fun to destroy her life and make a quick buck from it.
It was the second time that she'd made the front cover of the Women's Daily News. This time, however, was definitely much worse than the last. The picture showed Ryan's arm around her waist, holding her close, as he whispered something in her ear. And it was more than obvious to Mac just how affected she'd been by his proximity.
Frequent upgrades made to camera phones meant that the desire she felt towards her co-star had been captured with perfect clarity. Mac recognized the signs of her arousal because she'd just seen them a minute ago in the bathroom mirror. She might be able to blame the glazed eyes and flushed cheeks on the alcohol she'd consumed that night, to anyone who might listen, but she knew better.
It was the caption at the top, in big yellow writing, however, that had Mac wanting to climb under a rock and firebomb the Women's Daily News headquarters simultaneously.
It read; "Summer Heat – Is Mackenzie Lauren falling for her leading man? Again?"
Mac couldn't bear to look at Ryan. She didn't want to know what he thought. Even if he shrugged it off, or played it down – it didn't change the fact that the answer to the question was a big, fat yes! And to have that exposed so publicly was just mortifying. She rubbed at the sudden dull throb in her temples.
Of course Ryan's feelings weren't in question. Because they weren't there. He desired her. He liked her as a friend, but there was nothing special about the way he felt about her. And to think he'd been worried about how the headline might read. If she hadn't been off-her-face-drunk at the time, she would have told him that he had nothing to be afraid of – nothing to lose. Meanwhile, she had everything to lose. Everything.
The worst part of all of this was that she'd tried so hard not to repeat the mistake she'd made last time.
"The article is much worse," Jazz told her quietly.
"Then I don't want to read it," Mac said to her.
When the story had broken about her and Danny, she'd tortured herself by reading every insult and speculation that the magazine had thrown out about her. She wouldn't do that this time. She could easily guess as to what aspersions they were casting about her character now, and she didn't need to hear it.
"Maybe you should," Jazz said her. "Blainesworth might."
Mac felt herself pale at the mention of their executive producer. She knew it was a possibility, but she had to hope that he would pass it off as rubbish. Considering her history, and the way he felt about co-stars dating, however, she could be headed straight for his office first thing tomorrow morning.
"He won't pay attention to anything that trivial," Ryan interjected. "He has better things to do than read that crap. And if he says anything, I'll tell him the truth. Mac was drunk. You asked me to take her home. I did. Then I returned to my date."
Ryan was trying to play it cool, but inside he was giving himself a good ass-kicking. He'd been a jerk. Mac's reaction to their executive producer's name, and the magazine cover, had really driven that truth home. He'd felt so helpless as he'd stood there and watched the blood drain out of her face.
Ever since he'd kissed Mac he'd been asking her to give in to this thing between them with little to no regard for what it would all mean for her. He hadn't been thinking with the head on top of his shoulders. He'd been a man consumed with a basic drive, and he'd hardly spared a thought for her, or the situation it would put her in. Guilt clawed its way through him.
She'd told him straight up that one time was all she wanted – that she didn't want to go down the same path that she had with Danny, but he hadn't listened. He'd tried to seduce her into changing her mind.
The headline suggested that she was falling for him. With his strong desire to keep things casual, and the line of work they were in, it could lead to some very messy problems if she was. He was again reminded of the conversation they'd had on Friday night, as he'd tucked her into bed. She'd essentially told him she had feelings for him – feelings that he'd ignored today because he'd wanted to be with her so badly that he couldn't think through the thick fog of lust between his ears.
If he had a lick of decency in him, he'd stop this, just like she'd asked.
"Are you telling me there's nothing going on between the two of you?" Jazz asked.
Ryan looked at Mac, but she was deliberately avoiding meeting his gaze.
"That's exactly what I'm saying," Ryan told her.
Mac's eyes snapped up to meet his. She'd made her decision, and now he was going to respect that. Even if he wanted her more than his next breath – even if he'd felt his whole world tilt of its axis while he was inside of her, this had to be her choice. If they slept together again, it would be because she wanted to – because she felt comfortable to, and because she'd decided she could handle something casual. It wouldn't be because he couldn't keep his hands off her long enough for her to think about what they were doing.
A knock on the door sounded. Mac hurried off to let in whoever was at the door.
"I hope you're telling me the truth," Jazz said to him. "Because you know she wouldn't survive another public heart-break."
* * *
Mac felt Brad's arm slide around her shoulders, as he sat down beside her on the picnic bench at Fawkner Park. It was the perfect day for a barbeque, but her mood would have been better suited to grey skies and rain, rather than the cloudless blue above her.
She felt Brad study her for a moment before he sighed heavily.
"You're letting the article get to you, aren't you?" he asked you.
"I'm trying not to."
"You need to take a cup of concrete, Maccas."
"Pardon?"
"Toughen up. Harden up. Shit like this happens all the time. You can't take it personally. You can't let it get you down."
This was the third or fourth time that the magazine had published something to put her down in the public eye. It sure as hell felt like they had it in for her. She still remembered the first interview she'd had in Melbourne, after she'd been given a small guest spot on Neighbours.
They'd basically called her a dumb hick because she'd made a stupid comment about shovelling cow patties on the farm. It had shaken her confidence terribly, and she hadn't been entirely comfortable in her interviews ever since then. She didn't enjoy being the girl everyone laughed at.
"It feels personal," she told him.
She let her eyes wander over to where Ryan and Matt were at the barbecue, cooking the meat. Jazz and Vanessa were at the Coles down the street, buying tomato sauce. Out of all the things to forget for a barbeque…But her thoughts hadn't exactly been on food the past few days.
"I know it does, but we've all experienced it before. Do you remember when TV's Hot News claimed Vanessa was having a relationship with her female co-star? Or when I had that HIV scare?"
Mac nodded. She did remember that.
"My girlfriend dumped me," he continued. "It took ages for it to blow over. And what about when Matt's high school friend gave an interview about Matt being a stoner? Or Jazz got nabbed for drink-driving, and she lost her license for a year? The only thing you need to worry about is whether it is true or not, and if it is, what you're going to do about it."
She knew he was indirectly asking her if there was anything to it, but she chose to ignore the question. It was better he didn't know the answer.
"I love acting," she told him instead. "But I hate this. I hate being scrutinized and criticised. They don't know me."
"Exactly. They don't know anything about you. So why would you let anything they say worry you?"
"Because people will see it and think that it's the truth."
Brad looked at her. "So what?"
"What do you mean, so what? Everyone is going to think I'm in love with my co-star."
"So, let us suspend reality for a moment and pretend that everyone believes what they read in those mags – and everyone in Australia now believes you're in love with Ryan. So what? You know what I'm trying to say?"
"I hear you," she told him.
She knew he was right about the fact that she needed to toughen up a bit. It shouldn't really matter what people thought of her if she could do her job and do it well – if she believed she was a good person, and endeavoured to live up to her own code of ethics. And she wasn't the only target here, as Brad had pointed out. No-one had ever been quite so blunt with her before, and perhaps she needed the wake-up call.
The misery she was feeling right now, however, had more to do with the fact that the article had shone a light onto something she had desperately wanted to keep in the dark. The way she felt was her business; her personal, private business. She felt as if someone had read her diary and printed it for everyone to read. The rest of the country had been given insight into the feelings she had for her co-star, before she'd had time to process them...and get over them.
Mac was hoping that Ryan had forgotten the headline on the cover already. Ever since he'd seen the article he'd given her the impression that he was backing right off. Maybe she should see that as something positive. However, she couldn't help feeling as though he was backing off because of what the magazine had suggested, rather than because she'd told him earlier that one time was all she wanted.
She knew Ryan's history, and so maybe she should have expected as much, but the thought that her feelings made him want to run for the hills actually made her heart hurt and her insides feel as if they were twisting inside-out. She blinked several times as she felt the prick of tears behind her eyes.
"Girls are back. Lighten up. They found tomato sauce," Brad said to her, before he nudged her shoulder with his playfully. "Come on, what could be better than this? The sun is shining, it's our day off, and we're surrounded by friends. This is the life, Maccas. Live it. Enjoy it."
Mac nodded and tried to smile as she watched Vanessa and Jazz stroll through the park towards them. At the same time, Ryan and Matt finished up at the barbeque and made their way back to the table. Jazz and Vanessa took a seat opposite her and Brad, and Matt joined them, leaving her shuffling over a little so that Ryan could sit down next to her.
As he sat down his knee touched hers and Mac jumped as if she'd been electrocuted. The man had just been inside her for Pete's sake, but it felt as if she'd just been zapped. Her body was humming – her libido kick-started. She felt her nipples pebble and the too familiar ache ignite low in her belly. Her whole body felt as if it was flushing. She suddenly wished she had a fan. Her cheeks were hot enough to melt ice-blocks.
She piled her plate with food and when her arm brushed along Ryan's, she tried and failed not to remember how strong his arms had been as he'd held her up and taken her. She couldn't eat from excitement. With Ryan sitting next to her, her body was too busy reliving every moment of their one time to think about food.
"Hey, are you okay?" Ryan asked her softly, as she pushed her coleslaw around on her plate.
Did he care? Of course, she told herself. Just because he didn't feel the same way that she did, didn't mean they weren't friends. At least his question hadn't been, 'hey, are you falling for me?'
"I'm fine," she told him.
What had Brad said? This is the life. Live it. Enjoy it. That was what she wanted to do, more than anything. But all she could think about right now was the fact that in less than a week she would be kissing the man next to her on set. She didn't know how she was going to get through that scene. He might have decided to back off, but it didn't change the fact that she was falling for him. And she couldn't stop herself from responding to him.
With the story that had broken about her today, she had no idea if their executive producer would be gunning for her or not, but the timing was bad. Anyone who was looking for something between her and Ryan would be able to see it. She wouldn't be able to hide how he affected her in front of the cameras. Even if she managed to pull it off this time, it wouldn't be the only scene of this nature that they'd have together this season.
She listened as Matt cracked a joke. Everyone laughed, and Mac forced herself to join in. These were her friends. Hart's Valley was her job. This was her life. Now she just had to get past the dreaded sinking feeling in her gut that she was about to lose it all. This is the life. Live it. Enjoy it.
________________________________________________________
I know this chapter was a little heavy. We'll be back in the studio next chapter. If you like the story please vote/comment. Thanks for reading <3