I moved over to her. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she said in a whisper, but she looked upset.
“Why are you asking if she’s okay?” Aiden said gruffly.
Oops, good point. “How are you feeling?” I asked him. “Can I get you some ice or something?”
“No. But this isn’t working.”
Sierra’s eyes watered, and I jumped in for her sake. “Yes, it was. It looked really hot up until that point.”
Aiden shook his head. He looked better now. He was sitting up straight, not hunched over like before. “What we’re doing is a bit like dancing,” he said to Sierra, and I felt encouraged he was still talking to her. Hopefully that meant he still wanted to make this work. “People dance together without planning every step ahead of time. People in real life, not in movies.”
Ford and Tanner had gathered round, and we nodded.
“But that can only work if one person follows the other’s lead.” Aiden turned back to Sierra. “You need to follow my lead. Yes, we can talk about what we’re doing, but your body needs to be responsive to mine. If I lean one way, about to roll us, you have to keep your limbs loose and let me do it.”
“I know that. That’s what I tried to do,” Sierra said.
Aiden shook his head. “Your muscles were tensed up.”
“I didn’t mean to. I just… I didn’t know what was going to happen next.”
“Can’t you try to just… go with the flow?” Tanner asked. But as far as I could see, Sierra had been trying to do that.
“Maybe she needs to know what the entire scene consists of first,” Ford said.
“Isn’t that what we’re here to work out?” Aiden asked.
“But maybe before you two thrash around on the bed, we should plan out all the positions you’ll be in. Like when we sketch out each part of a fight scene.” Ford looked around. “If only we had a whiteboard here…”
I couldn’t help chuckling at the thought of Ford or Aiden drawing images of stick figures having sex on a big board. “That sounds like the world’s dirtiest version of Pictionary.”
But Aiden had a different solution. “Maybe Sierra could watch once while we run through the scene? That way, she could get the big picture.”
“What are you going to do? Lay on the bed and seduce yourself?” Ford scoffed.
“No, I’m going to run the scene with a stand-in.” Aiden’s eyes glinted as they fell on me. “What about you? Do you freeze up when a man puts his hands on you?”
Before I could answer, two other people did. “No,” said Ford and Tanner at the same time.
Sierra’s hand flew to her mouth as she stifled a laugh. I didn’t know what to say, so I just stood there with my cheeks flushing.
“Whatever,” Aiden said. “Will you do it?”
Half a million objections flew through my mind, but the bottom line was that we were all doing this to help Sierra, so of course I’d do my part. “Yes.”
“Then go to your mark,” he said. As he walked back to his starting position, I heard him mutter under his breath, “And don’t kick me in the balls.”
I took a deep breath, and then Ford called, “Action.”
Aiden strode toward me as I waited by the bed, and all of a sudden, I saw him for the movie star that he was. He’d been a thorn in my side since the day we met. He was one of the two men who’d taken my father away from me. He’d been an annoyance, a surly guy who made it hard for me to focus on starting my new life. Somehow, in that jumble of conflicted feelings, his movie star status had gotten lost. But now it was back with a vengeance.
The man who stalked toward me like a predator to prey was bigger than life. He had that swagger. That arrogance. The cocky, knowing grin. This was the celebrity. The man who made panties go damp worldwide.
As he closed in on me, I could understand why. There were the dark eyes with the dangerous glint in them. The short beard and full lips. The ripples of muscle visible through his open shirt. This was a powerful man used to getting what he wanted.
And what he wanted right now was me. Or, at least, that’s what his character wanted. Either way, my arousal level quadrupled, and I almost forgot the others were watching. And that they even existed. Then he was there, and I could feel the heat from his skin. The sheer size of him made me feel tiny.
He growled out his line and then put his arm around my back, lowering me to the bed.
The mattress was hard—but not as hard as Aiden’s flat stomach. He hovered over me, desire in his eyes. Wait, in his eyes? Or in his character’s?