We would be touching each other a lot.
Sex scenes weren’t a new thing to me, they never had been. As a newbie actress on the scene, it had helped that I didn’t flinch at nude scenes or demand a double or other things like an aftercare session with a therapist following any form of close contact snippet. I just got on with it. Generally, the production team would make it as private as possible, limiting who was actually in the room or set with us, and the aim would be to do it in as few takes as possible.
I was confident in my skin, so being nude, or semi-nude wasn’t something that I was precious about, not that I thought I was a supermodel or anything like that, but I didn’t get hung up on my imperfections – most of the time. And sex scenes were just scenes. It was part of the job.
There was one issue with today’s scenes: Gully and I had absolutely no chemistry. So far, we’d only been involved in a handful of scenes together, mainly focusing on lingering looks and a dance where we were meant to have been spellbound with each other. After that scene we’d both found a seat and some coffee and laughed about how much we were having to fake it.
Now we were going to have to really fake it. No foreplay, no fluffer, just straight to a scene on a set in Chatsworth that happened halfway through the series, but we were shooting it now.
I left Siscely and headed over to make-up, waving at Gully as we passed each other. He was on his phone, his make-up already done, dressed in an outfit that I doubted was totally accurate for the Regency period.
An hour later, and I was polished, glowing and dressed in a costume that I was grateful I didn’t have to wear for more than an hour, two at tops, possibly less if Gully and I made sweet work of the first few scenes, and then the dress of pain and torture would be artfully draped over the bedroom floor.
“Ready?” James, the director, shot me a grin as I walked on set. “Remember what I said about that smoulder.”
Gully stood to the side, shirt artfully undone, his trousers designed to make whatever package he had stand out if someone’s eye cared to travel down there. He shot me a look that was more shower than smoulder, designed to do nothing more than make me laugh.
I walked over to him, shaking my head. “Who are you going to pretend I am?” This was how we were getting past the whole non-attraction thing.
He tipped his head from side to side. “Jenna.”
“The model?”
Gully nodded. “The one and only.”
“I thought she was seeing that music producer.”
“She wasn’t on Saturday night.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “What about you?”
“I wasn’t seeing that music producer on Saturday night either.” I smiled innocently.
Gully laughed. “Who am I today?”
That was an easy answer, and one I could share with him. Gully knew how to keep a secret and given that he was never going to target me to be a notch on his bedpost, there was no agenda there.
“Someone.”
He nodded at me as if I was a child who’d just offered a very strange answer. “Someone who?”
“Do you follow football?”
“Yes. Arsenal. It’s built into my bones.”
Shit. Ryan had played for Arsenal. I knew that now because I might’ve spent an hour while I was in the make-up chair googling the shit out of him.
“I’ve been seeing a footballer.”
He looked impressed. “Who? Tell me. I’ll tell you if they’re any good.”
“He is good. I know that already.”
“I meant at football, not fucking.”
I rolled my eyes. “Ryan O’Connell.”
“What?”
“Ryan…”
