“Like Mr. Bean. You’d be all British and reserved about it.Would you entirely mind if I inserted my manhood now? Only if it’s convenient. Oh, blimey, bloody ’ell, I just came. I guess we’re done before we started. Right, then. Cheerio.”
“When have you ever heard me say ‘blimey’ or ‘cheerio’?”
“It’s telling that what you object to is the vocabulary I used and not my presumption that you come too fast.”
There’s something indefinably smug in that smirk he attempts to fight. “I think we both knowthatwas ridiculous,” he says, his voice low and full of delicious promise.
Fuck.
I scoot as far from him as I can and curl up in the couch’s corner. “Fine, then you’d just be all chatty, but in the least sexy way.I do hope you’re finding this pleasant. I’m quite near the end. Oh, oh,Avada Kedavra!”
“Wasn’t that the death curse? Are you seriously suggesting I’d shout a Harry Potterdeath cursewhen I come?”
“ ‘God save the queen’?”
“I’m unlikely to shout that either, for several reasons. And I’d probably be too busy thinking,Oh, fuck, what have I just done?to shout anything in the first place.”
I laugh, and he laughs along with me. It’s not so much about what he said or what I said, but the release of some tension between us. Tension that returns the minute Lars waves us in. “We’re ready. If you want to undress beneath the sheet, Bex, that might be easiest.”
My amusement dies so hard and fast it’s as if it was never there at all. I’m about to be semi-naked in bed with Theo, who I’m confident would be demanding and certain andfilthy,and while this is entirely pretend, the fact that I’m wishing it were real makes this awkward.
I climb into the bed and slip off my shirt beneath the covers. It’s a struggle to get out of the bra without flashing the whole crew and I’m sweating and cursing by the time I finally fling it across the room…into Theo’s now bare chest.
He examines it for a moment too long before setting it on a chair behind him and climbingin.
Lars starts issuing orders to the crew. We both lie on our backs while we wait.
“This feels like the morning after a really unfulfilling one-night stand,” I tell him.
“I’d be wondering if I could sneak out without waking you.”
I fight a smile as I turn my head his way. “Fortunately for you, I’d probably still be under the influence of the drugs you’d have had to ply me with to make it happen. I’d sleep for a week straight if I wasn’t already dead.”
“Okay,” Lars says. “I want the two of you to be facing each other with your eyes closed. Then slowly blink open as if you’re only just waking and say good morning.”
We do as we’re told, but when my eyes flutter open, Theo starts to laugh. “What are you doing right now? You look like you’re in a trance or having a seizure.”
“Theo doesn’t know what a human female looks like when she wakes,” I call to the crew. “I’m sure no one is surprised by that.”
Everyone but Theo laughs.
There are two more takes, a whispered conversation between Lars and Paula, and then Lars asks if we can do it again…but kiss.
“On thelips?” I ask with the disgust of a kid who’s just learned how babies are made.
“For fuck’s sake, Rebecca,” Theo sighs. “You’ve had to kiss me several times now. I’d think you’d have mastered your revulsion to some extent.”
He seems genuinely offended. He wouldn’t be if he had a clue what I really thought. “It wasn’t about my revulsion. It was about the fact that we’d have morning breath. You wouldn’t kiss me. You’d just act like you wanted to snuggle until I let you fuck me from behind.”
Theo exhales as if he’s been punched.
“Fine, forget the kiss,” says Lars. “Just snuggle.”
I turn toward the other wall, but Theo doesn’t move an inch. “I need a minute,” he whispers.
“I know you love being in bed with me—all men do—but stop dragging it out.”
I scoot back and press to his chest and…oh fuck,that’swhy he needed a minute.
