He pressed his forehead hard to the tile, as if pain could ground him, begging for something safe to cling to. Nothing came. Only Liam, tearing him open in silence. Release broke from him fast and violent. The sound that ripped out of his throat didn’t even feel like his own, half snarl and half confession.
The water pounded on and his head stayed bowed, throat aching and skin burning. Nothing washed away; not the hunger, not the shame, not the guilt of wanting someone who wasn’t his wife. What lingered was emptiness, the kind that no amount of water could cleanse.
He didn’t go back to bed. He didn’t sleep again.
***
The next day Jacob sat in his trailer, unmoving for what must have been ten minutes, while the sounds of the busy lot drifted faintly through the thin walls. Boots scuffed asphalt, call times were carried in impatient voices, and gear clattered as it was loaded and shifted from one place to another. The world outside pressed forward while he remained suspended, caught in a silence that seemed to thicken the longer he refused to move.
The shooting schedule rested heavily in his lap. They began filming Monday. Pre-production was almost over, and with it the safety of rehearsal was running out. Soon there would becameras, crew, marks taped on the floor, and nowhere left to hide.
His eyes had already found the place on the schedule where ink circled red around scene twenty-seven. The first kiss—two weeks away and approaching like something inevitable.
He should have been preparing; running lines, settling deeper into character, doing the work he had built his career on. Instead he stared at the glow of his phone, tapping Liam’s name again.
He told himself it was part of the job, that he needed to study Liam’s movements and cadence, the small ways he carried himself, so that he would be ready for whatever energy Liam brought to a scene. The excuse felt paper-thin, even to himself. Nothing more than a cover for what he couldn’t bring himself to name.
He landed on a behind-the-scenes clip, old footage from a set two years ago. It showed Liam grinning like he’d just won a bet, sitting in a makeup chair with a ridiculous hat tilted sideways on his head. Someone off-camera teased him about his inability to get through the word “phenomenon.” Liam groaned, tossing his head back in laughter, his throat exposed and his eyes bright. Jacob paused the frame.
The smile froze on the screen, wide and careless, too damn earnest in a way that made Jacob’s chest tighten. It wasn’t just the grin that pulled his gaze, it was the clean line of his throat, the soft skin exposed as if it was meant for someone’s mouth or hand. Jacob’s own fingers twitched with the urge to leave his mark there, to claim what he had no right to touch. He dragged a hand down his face, forcing his gaze away, but the image stayed, branded behind his eyes.
What the hell was he doing, letting Liam crawl under his skin like this—a boy eighteen years his junior, someone he had no business looking at that way, especially not as a married man.
What he felt for Caroline had always been steady. He’d met her at a charity gala, all confidence and poise, someone who knew how to hold the world’s gaze. He knew, even then, that she was the kind of woman who could give him the secure life he’d always wanted. Kissing her for the first time had been nice and easy, a choice he made and kept making.
With Liam there was no choosing. It was a storm, sudden and merciless, ripping through him whether he opened the door or not.
He tossed the phone away, hitting the couch cushion before bouncing against the armrest and dropping face-down to the floor.
A soft knock came at the trailer door, and Juno peeked her head in. She was assigned to him as talent liaison—somewhere between PA and handler. “Ten minutes to studio B,” she said. “Everyone’s heading over.”
Jacob nodded once, the movement small, before the door clicked shut again. He wasn’t ready for any of this. Not for filming to start in a few days. Not for that pouty mouth. Not for the way Liam looked at him—like there was something worth seeing.
Jacob closed his eyes, frustration burning behind his lids. This was pathetic and he wasn’t a man who indulged in pathetic. He was the one who held everything in place and never cracked. The one who drew boundaries in steel and lived by them. It had to stop here. He forced control back into his own hands, where it belonged. He was Jacob Wolfe and he did not lose control. Not for anyone. Especially not for a man—a boy.
Chapter 9
Liam
They weren’t filming. Something was delayed—lighting, probably—but no one seemed in a hurry to explain. Jacob and Liam ended up behind the trailers, the two of them sitting on the ground against the sun-warmed metal, legs stretched out in the gravel. The shade from a crooked tree made the heat more bearable. The silence wasn’t awkward, just dense with whatever waited between them.
Liam fidgeted with his water bottle, peeling the label into shreds before taking a swallow, the silence pressing in on him until he had to break it. “You ever notice how everything gets weirdly quiet right before something big?”
Jacob didn’t look over. “This isn’t big.”
“You sure?” Liam let his skull thud back against the trailer wall, tilting to look at Jacob. “Feels like something’s about to happen.”
Jacob slid him a glance. “You always this dramatic?”
“Occupational hazard.” Liam’s grin came quick and careless. Then just as fast: “You grow up around here?”
Jacob shook his head. “Stockton.”
“Seriously?” Liam blurted, surprise coloring the word before he could rein it in.
One eyebrow arched. “Why does that surprise you?”
“I don’t know. I just—” Liam shrugged, mouth twitching. “Figured you for a big city guy. New York or LA, something like that.”
