Soon it was time to start, and Bee and I found our marks. This moment happened right after Felicity came rushing back from the present day—her glam Victorian makeover courtesy of the Christmas Witch—to declare her feelings. The duke of no boners had admitted he returned them, and so then... the kiss.
Bee’s eyes met my own. She looked as nervous as I felt—although it was probably for less horny reasons and more forfirst real moviereasons. I gave her a quick smile, and she returned it, her dimple flashing in her cheek.
“Action!” Gretchen called, and we began.
“So it’s true? You do love me?” Bee said, stepping toward me. The rustle of her dress was my cue; I stepped forward too.
“My dear Felicity,” I said, in an English accent, “I have loved you since you came crashing into my ballroom wearing your strange clothes. I have loved you since you brought me back to your time and made me try chili cheese fries.”
She reached for my hands, just as we’d rehearsed, her wide green eyes pinned to mine. “I want to stay here. With you.” The words were breathless, ardent, and when she looked up at me like this, I nearly forgot that she was Felicity and I was the Duke of Softpants. I nearly forgot that all of this was fake, and that I wasn’t in a magical Christmas sex dream with Bianca von Honey.
I took her waist in my hand, feeling my cock give a quick kick in my breeches as I did, as if to remind me that we were skating real close to the limit of its endurance right now. “Do you mean it, my love?” I said as the duke, looking down to her high-cheekboned face. I could see the small dent—covered with makeup—where her septum piercing had been taken out. “Do you really want to stay? Even though it would mean leaving everything behind?”
She pressed her hand to my jaw, and my eyelids fluttered closed. I could stay like this forever.
“I mean it, Hugh,” she breathed. Hugh was the duke’s Christian name. “I mean it with all my heart.”
I wasn’t acting when I allowed my stare to drop to Bee’s mouth. And I wasn’t acting when my lips parted in instinctive response. “Felicity,” I said hoarsely. “With you, I understand the real meaning of Christmas. With you, it all makes sense.”
And with that, I dipped my mouth to hers and kissed her.
It was the seminal kiss of the movie, and so it was meant tobe a few beats long. Because #hopechannel, there wouldn’t be any pulling her into me, any cupping the back of her neck to keep her mouth fitted to mine as I explored it, hardly any passion at all, but that was all for the best, as I was barely hanging on anyway. The softness of her lips molding to mine, the way she gave in to my gentle demands . . . it was too much.
Even if it was only a stage kiss. Even if it was something I’d done countless times for music videos. Even if it was something that should be simple, it wasn’t simple at all because it wasBee, and she smelled so sweet, like a warm sugar cookie, and the corseted dip of her waist under my hand felt like sin itself...
A flicker of wet heat drew my attention from her waist back to our kiss. A soft graze of her tongue was followed by another one, and then another one after that—little tastes that had me groaning quietly against her mouth. I couldn’t help it, not in the least, because she was kissing mefor real, her tongue seeking mine, stroking it expertly, and I didn’t think I’d ever been kissed like this, kissed with such delicate skill. I’d never been kissed like I was already in bed with my pants unzipped. Because that’s what this felt like. A kiss made for fucking.
And then, there it was: the collapse of all my gingerbread-infused effort. With a single kiss from Bee, all my control burned away, and my body stirred for her. I was going to have a problem hiding my response after this, but that didn’t stop me from deepening the kiss, from holding her tight as she explored my mouth with a soft, sweet greed.
I’d figure out what was going on later.
But then she broke the kiss, gently. And as she pulled backto look at me with a clear, focused gaze, I realized that she was still Felicity. She was still in the scene. Which meant that the kiss wasn’t real and I still had to be the fucking duke, even though my erection was currently siphoning off all the blood from my brain.
Shit.What was my next line?
Oh, right. “Come, my love,” I said, taking her hand. I was supposed to lead her off toward the ballroom now, but if she moved even a single inch, my hard-on would be visible to the crew and probably to everyone within a five-mile radius. So instead, I kissed the back of her hand and smiled at her. “Let’s find the others and let them know what we learned about the real meaning of Christmas.”
She smiled back at me. There was a hint of a flush on her cheeks, as if the kiss had affected her too, but maybe that was just the makeup or the lights.
“Cut!” Gretchen called. “Okay, fantastic take, you two. Let’s do a few more takes to make sure we’ve got all the angles covered, and then we’ll break and move to the declaration moment.”
A few more takes?
I swallowed, not releasing Bee’s hand until I was able to subtly adjust myself in the breeches, and then I decided I definitely wasn’t going to survive today. Not if she kissed me like that on every take. My Bee Strategy was going to need some major adjustments, or Steph was going to end up with more tasteful arterial bunting than she knew what to do with.
Chapter Six
Bee
It turned out that fucking on camera wasn’t that different from doing other things on camera. Pausing in the midst of a love declaration for lighting adjustments was somehow just as awkward as pausing mid climax for an overhead plane to pass. In some weird turn of events, I was surrounded by more familiar faces than I’d expected, which gave me the boost of confidence I needed to dive into my first scene with Nolan, which was perhaps one of the most intimate moments in the whole script. I found myself actually feeling like maybe I really could forge a career as a mainstream actress. Maybe this wasn’t so out of the realm of possibility. I forced my brain to gloss over the morality clause in my Hope Channel contract that could basically cause this whole move to self-detonateif my secret ever got out. Since Bee was my nickname—and since evenBiancaHobbes wasn’t anywhere except on my lease—I knew anyBee HobbesGoogle searches would come up empty. So hopefully, if there were any Hope Channel viewers who also watched porn—doubtful—they’d think I just hadone of those facesand move on.
Potential morality-clause implosion aside, with Angel and Luca on set, Christmas Notch was feeling more and more like home.
The two of them walked a few steps ahead of me while I scrolled through messages on my ClosedDoors account—mostly very specific requests for my next video. Fruit or vegetables as dildos were always popular. They seemed to fulfill some kind of high school sex ed fetish. Foot videos were simple enough to accommodate and in a practical sense were always very period friendly. But every once in a while there was a message that crossed a line. Sometimes it was something innocent but creepy, like someone who’d seen me out in public and wanted to know if I lived in the neighborhood. And sometimes it was downright violent and grotesque—a stark reminder that to some people my body was nothing more than a vending machine for their needs. Immediate and disposable.
I always reported and blocked both. You could never be too careful in my line of work.
Angel turned back to me over his shoulder. “What do you think, Bee?”
