“‘Maybe I should keep it all. Not too many—’”

Maddie jumped on his mistake. “You forgot, ‘Permanently. You know—’”

“Shit. Let me start that again.” He took a step back then walked toward her again as he began the line. “‘Maybe I should keep it all. Permanently. You know, I’ve been thinking. Not too many people would notice if you weren’t around anymore. It would leave less of a headache to worry about dragging your ass with us across these mountains. And I wouldn’t have to be concerned that you’d whore my brother out of his share.’”

“‘Fuck you.’” Yeah, fuck you, she repeated in her head. Fuck you hard and long and—oh no, this was not going well.

“‘Not if you were the last woman on earth.’” Micah closed the distance between them and leaned his arm on the cabinet behind her head. Wow, he was so close, so unbelievably…close. Her eyes travelled to his arm propped near her, his perfectly formed biceps tempting her fingers.

She resisted. Barely. He smelled of coffee and makeup and sweat and something so entirely Micah, causing the warmth between her legs to heat up another couple of degrees.

Maddie brought the script up to her face as if to place a barricade between them. Her next line came out in a whisper. “‘I hate you.’”

She peeked over the top of her blockade and saw Micah curl his lip. His oh-so-sexy-lip. “‘Say that again?’”

“‘I hate you.’” Man, these lines were hitting close to home.

Micah put his other arm up, trapping her. “‘Again. Say it again.’”

“‘I hate you. I hate you. I. Hate. You.’” She lowered the script. Here, Micah was supposed to cut her, um, Heather, off with a kiss. He didn’t though.

That’s a good thing, Maddie reminded herself despite the desire pulsing through her veins.

But he also didn’t move away. He kept her ensnared underneath him. His eyes clouded as though he was conflicted, then they lowered to her mouth and her heart doubled its pulse.

“Uh, that was really good,” she squeaked. “Do you want to run it again?”

“I got what I needed.” His words sounded tight and gruff.

“You did?” The intensity in his eyes, the closeness of his body— Kiss me. Kiss me!

Micah’s eyes cleared. “Almost.” As though he heard her silent plea, his lips covered hers. He plunged his tongue inside her, insisting that she open up to him.

For one brief millisecond, Maddie considered pushing him away. She moved her hands to his chest to do so, but the hard pecs under her palms and the increasing demand of his kiss shattered her will. What was so bad about kissing him, anyway? Ignoring the hundred alarms going off in her brain that told her she wouldn’t think that if she weren’t so distracted by hormones and pheromones and just plain old regular moans—was that her making that sound?—she wrapped her fingers around his shirt to pull him closer.

His hands moved to cradle her face, helping him access the deepest recesses of her mouth. His facial hair burned sweetly against her lip and chin as days of pent-up longing released under his possessive strokes. This—she wanted this, like she wanted nothing else. Had fantasized about it whenever she saw him kiss someone else on screen, tried to remember how his lips had felt, but all of her dreams and memories dwindled in the reality of this. She didn’t care if this was all she got, it would be enough.

That wasn’t true. She wanted more. The fire between her thighs longed to be quenched. She wanted him, naked and inside her on that narrow expanse of bed at the other end of the trailer.

Micah pressed the length of his body against hers and she felt his own desire long and hard against her hip. Yep, still stiff. She moaned, his erection kindling the blaze between her legs. She reached her hands around his neck, drawing him deeper still into their kiss.

He broke his mouth away from hers and circled her nose with his own. With ragged breath he murmured, “You taste so good. Exactly the way I remember.” And then he caught her lips again, his tongue resuming its cavity search.

Through her delirium and the exquisite sensations of his oral probing, she fought to grasp the meaning of his words. Something about her tasting good, which was nice, but also that she tasted the way he remembered.

Um, what?

Maddie pulled her head back, breaking the kiss. “Wait,” she said, halting him before he reclaimed her lips. “You remember?”

Micah smiled and nuzzled his forehead against her own. “How could I forget, Maddie from the party?” He replaced his forehead with his lips, kissing down the side of her face to her cheek.

His touch felt wonderful, electric, and she knew it was only a matter of seconds before she’d be lost to him again. But she wanted to understand. With more strength than she knew she had, she returned her hands to his chest and pushed. “Hold on.”

Micah groaned but stepped back.

She waited until her panting was under control before she spoke, a million questions racing through her head. “I don’t get it. Why did you act like you didn’t remember?”

Micah ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t know. I just did.” She raised a brow, urging him to continue. “I didn’t want you to assume anything.”

“Like assume what?”

“Like…that we’d pick up where we left off. Or whatever.” His eyes shifted with unease.

But she didn’t care if he felt uncomfortable. She folded her arms. “So it’s okay if you wanted to pick things up where we left off, but not if I wanted to?”

“No. Not like that.”

“What if I didn’t want you to assume anything about me?”

“Then you were free to pretend you didn’t remember me. Which you did. Or you could have rejected my advances. Which you didn’t.” He crossed back to her, resting his hands on her elbows. “It’s just…different…for me. I have to be careful with women. Because I’m…you know.”

She shrugged him off. “An arrogant asshole? Or a movie star? Because right now they seem to be one and the same.”

“Maddie…”

She cut him off with an upraised hand. “No, no, I get it. No need to explain. You’re a famous actor.” Could she help it if the word actor sounded like a curse on her lips? “You call the shots.”

“Maddie, you’re blowing this out of proportion.”

“Except I run the camera. So technically, I call the shots. At least I’m calling this one.” She turned toward the door, ready to bolt. The idea that he held all the power irked her. Just because he was famous? No, she didn’t go for that. He was a regular guy like everyone else.

He put his hand up to stop her from walking past, but a knock at his trailer door brought it back to his side. He groaned. “Yes?”

“They’re ready for you on set,” Sam’s voice bellowed through the door.

Maddie glanced back and saw Micah screw up his face in frustration. “Okay. Be right there.” To her he said, “Can we please talk about this later?”

“There’s nothing to say.” She opened the trailer door. Before she left, she turned back to the disheveled man staring after her. “I’ll send your makeup artist. You need a touch-up.”

It took the entire walk back to set for Maddie’s heartbeat to settle to its regular rate. Even then, her head still spun from her Micah encounter.

What the fuck just happened? No, don’t think about it. Think about work.

Except there wasn’t any work for her to do. She’d adjusted her focuses earlier with the stand-ins and Adam didn’t need anything from her at the moment. She watched as Joe walked Heather through the blocking on the log cabin where the scene took place. It was a beautiful location. The aromatic purple grape-like flowers—Maddie didn’t know their name—mixed with the tall green and yellow grasses against the rustic wood of the log home, creating a quite visually appealing setting. It would look good on film. Especially when the ruggedly handsome Micah was added to the scene, leaning back against the rough post of the deck, thighs hard and…