Hearing the sound of Allie coming through the front door, I called out, “I’m in the kitchen.”
She strolled in less than a minute later and headed straight to the counter where she divested herself of her tote bag. We’d both worked all day—me at my office, her at the home of Mason Cleary, the director for her first movie.
I wasn’t even surprised that I’d felt over-the-top territorial about her spending the day at another man’s house. I was able to talk myself down off the ledge for two reasons. First, because Mason was the son of James’s best friend, so he and I were close. That meant I knew Mason was crazy fucking in love with his girlfriend. He talked about Rory as though she’d invented the wheel, and since they’d gotten serious, he refused to take on anything involving a location shoot longer than six weeks. That worked for me since the idea of Allie being gone was already fucking with my head.
“I’m so ready for taco Tuesday,” Allie said excitedly as she came around the counter. “Can I help with anything?”
I wiggled my brows suggestively as I set the knife I’d taken out to chop the tomatoes on the cutting board. “I could use a kiss,” I answered.
I made it like I was joking, but truthfully, I craved her the way an adrenaline junkie craved their next adventure. Although I’d only met her days before, it was wild that I thought about her almost nonstop when she wasn’t with me.
She smiled as she walked into my arms and tilted her head back so that I could kiss her. When our tongues touched, I growled low in my throat. She tasted delicious and felt perfect in my arms as though she’d been created just for me. I wanted her with a ferocity that stunned me. Only when my cock felt like it was in danger of exploding did I force myself to end the kiss.
My balls hadn’t been that blue since puberty, back when I shared a room with three other guys and timed showers were a thing. I’d thought that was torture, but it didn’t hold a candle to how I felt with Allie in my life. The difference was that, unlike puberty, I wanted Allie to stick around.
The sexy pout on her face when I pulled away after kissing the hell out of her was nearly my breaking point. I dropped a quick kiss on her forehead before I stepped back and switched gears.
“I’ve already rinsed the vegetables and set everything out to process them. Can you shred the lettuce and chop the tomatoes? I’ll do the meat and cheese. I already mixed taco seasoning into the sour cream, but I cheated and got store-bought guac. There’s also taco sauce. Anything else you like on your tacos?”
She shook her head as she rolled up the sleeves on her floral tunic, then she washed her hands at the sink. “As long as there’s shredded cheese and ground beef, I’m a happy girl.”
Working in the kitchen with her was yet another new experience for me, and like everything else I’d done with her so far, I liked it. Allie added color and life to things I normally did alone. I’d never have classified myself as being lonely before, but the way I lapped up her company made me wonder if maybe I’d been ignoring how solitary my private life was.
To the public, it seemed like I was everywhere, but the reality was that when I went out it was almost always job-related. I socialized with Liam, Gage, and a few others at our game nights, I had weekly dinners with James, and I hung out with Mason on a regular basis, but other than that, I spent much of my downtime alone.
“How did the writing go?” I asked as I turned the stove on to cook the ground beef.
“Really good,” she said, smiling as she slid a chopping knife into the first tomato. “We spent the entire day script-doctoring the end scene, so it packs more of a punch. I couldn’t be happier with how it came out.”
“Does that mean you’re finished until you leave for Chicago?”
Since I’d never known a scriptwriter, I wasn’t clear on what the process was.
Allie was shaking her head before I finished the question. “Not quite. For the rest of the week, I’ll be working at Paramount. The entire cast is getting together to do two full read-throughs so we can tweak anything else that might need it. Mason says I’ll notice things I want to play with once I hear the actors read the dialogue out loud.”
“I figured that’s what screenwriters did on set,” I said.
“Actually, most screenwriters don’t go on location,” she answered. “I’m one of the lucky ones, and it’s all because Mason has written so many of his own scripts. Officially, I’ll be on set as an advisor.”