Outside the Lines Read online

  “They can use filters to make it seem like night, but Anna likes to use as much natural ambiance as possible with these kinds of shots.”

  “Hence the rain in the episodes.”

  Ian barked a laugh. “Well, that’s because this is the Olympic Peninsula. If they’d stayed in Hollywood to do Wolf’s Landing, we’d have used up all the water in California while filming the first season.”

  Someone nearby chuckled, and I jumped. Then started again, because Hunter Easton was grinning at us. Holy shit. Hunter lived here, and I should’ve been used to seeing him since it wasn’t like he was a hermit. Came into town with his husband, like everyone else, but I still got tongue-tied around the guy.

  Hunter shrugged. “Be glad it isn’t raining tonight.”

  “Oh,” Ian said, as if running into Hunter Easton was normal, “believe me, I am.”

  Up ahead, there were people milling about a clearing in the woods, setting up a bunch of equipment. Toward one end sat our model on a stand. A woman crouched beneath it, playing with some wiring, and a guy stood nearby with a big fire extinguisher.

  Maybe that’s what made it real to me, the dude getting ready to put a fire out. My pulse ticked up and I stared at the nozzle on the extinguisher. “They’re really going to burn it down.” All that work.

  Ian gripped my shoulder, his fingers warm and familiar, and his thumb stroked against my shirt. “Yup. It’ll be okay. And it’s gonna look great on the screen.”

  Hunter rubbed his hands together. “I’ve been waiting to see this happen for ages.” He gave me a glance, his gaze zeroing in on my visitor’s badge, and held out his hand. “I’m Hunter Easton, by the way.”

  “I know.” I choked out, and somehow I shook his hand. Unlike with Carter Samuels, my throat closed up completely and my mind went blank. What do you say to a guy who wrote the books you love and got lost in? He made Wolf’s Landing.

  Hunter raised an eyebrow, obviously expecting conversation. Probably my name, but I couldn’t get it out.

  Ian came to my rescue, thank God. “This is Simon Derry. He helped me build the miniature set, Mr. Easton.” His hand didn’t leave my shoulder, and his thumb continued its soothing circles.

  “Call me Hunter, please.” He offered Ian his hand. “You’re Ian . . . oh damn it. M-something. We met at the holiday party, but my mind’s a sieve.”

  “Meyers.” There was a wonder in Ian’s voice I’d never heard before. “I’m surprised you remembered.” A touch of red in his cheeks. “I mean, you had to have met a billion people that night.”

  He chuckled. “A couple hundred. But you had an interesting job.” He gestured at the set. “Tell me about it.”

  I trailed along, still tripping in the clouds, as Ian showed Hunter the set and launched into the story of its destruction and rebirth, including how I’d helped him.

  Hunter glanced at me. “So wait, you own that comic book shop next to Howling Moon?”

  Oh, is that how we were known? A touch of anger unstopped my brain. “End o’ Earth, yes.” I cleared my throat of its gravel. “And we were there before Howling Moon moved in.”

  “Si . . .” Ian’s eyes got wide, but Hunter laughed.

  “It’s fine.” He had a sly smile. “Little rivalry there?”

  I shrugged. “No, not on our part. We have limits on what Wolf’s Landing stuff we can carry, though.”

  Like Ian, Hunter seemed taken aback by that. “Really?”

  “Yup.” I tried not to let my laugh get bitter. “Howling Moon’s owner almost laid claim to Ian’s set, because she thought I was building official merchandise.”

  “Well,” Ian said, “to be fair, it is an official reproduction. But not at all merchandise.”

  Hunter rubbed his chin, and I couldn’t read his expression. “So what Wolf’s Landing stuff do you carry?”

  “Comics and books.”

  “That’s it?” He lowered his hand. “Not the collectable card game?”

  I winced. “No—it caused too many issues.” Mostly Marlina giving us grief over selling it, though we could.

  “Wait,” Ian said. “Are you allowed to carry it?”

  “Technically, yes.” They carried it at the big box stores after all. And in supermarkets. “But sometimes you learn that the best thing isn’t always what you want to do.”

  Hunter had his unreadable face on again. “Obviously not on your part,” he muttered.

  I wanted to ask him what he meant, but Anna breezed into the middle of the set, rapidly firing orders to clear the scene and get everyone where they belonged. Even Hunter moved, obviously not ready to catch hell from Wolf’s Landing’s director.

  I hadn’t realized how much jargon was in the film business, because half of what Anna said made no sense. Eventually, the cameras were positioned correctly and the lighting was right and she stepped back from the monitors she was viewing, then peered through all of the cameras themselves.

  “Do you see how low the cameras are?” Ian whispered into my ear.

  I nodded slowly. “They’re level with the set.” I kept my voice low. Other people were conversing as quietly as we were.

  “Almost. They’re at what would be eye-level. Trick is, the forest behind—the real trees and ferns—also seem like they’re part of the model now.”

  I pulled back and peered at him. “You’re shitting me.” Not as quiet.

  “No,” Hunter said. “It’s how it works. Optical illusion.”

  “Gentlemen?” Anna crossed her arms and stared at us.

  “Sorry,” Ian said. “I was explaining the angles to Simon.”

  Now everyone was staring at me. Great. Maybe the earth would swallow me up like that guy in Season Four. Anna’s stance softened though, and she beckoned me to join her. Both Ian and Hunter nudged me, so I went.

  She led me to a bank of monitors that had been set up under something similar to a camping popup. “These are all the camera angles. They show what the cameras see.”

  And there it was, the sacred grove in the middle of the woods, looking exactly like it had the last time I’d seen it on the show. Except I was standing in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by equipment, and I knew that the set was a model. “That’s . . . It looks like the real thing.”

  “It is the real thing,” Anna said. “You were always working on an actual Wolf’s Landing set.” Her words were mild, which made me meet her gaze, because that was so not the image of Anna Maxwell that I was used to. “It’s magic, but it’s also real. And you helped Ian build it.”

  I stared over at the miniature on its stand and my head felt stretched thin. “This doesn’t happen all that often, does it?”

  “Random people from town finding themselves mixed up in our crazy Wolf’s Landing life?”

  I suppose I was a random townie. “Well, helping out with sets and shit.”

  Her chuckle was more in line with the hard-ass director I’d seen before. “You’d be surprised.” She nodded over to Ian and Hunter. “If you wouldn’t mind, I do have a set to destroy.”

  I headed back. They likely only got one take on something like this. “Um. What happens if—”

  Ian leapt at me and covered my mouth. “Don’t. Don’t say it. The shoot will go off without a hitch.”

  I couldn’t help pressing my tongue against his fingers. His breath caught and there was the flutter of eyelids that meant I’d turned him on a little. He took his hand away. “Later,” he muttered under his breath.

  “Picture’s up!” I didn’t know who yelled it, but everyone shifted to watch the model and Ian pulled me close. “Here we go . . .”

  I hadn’t realized all the stuff they show in movies about films was real, but we got Roll Camera and Camera Speed and the guy with one of those boards that claps down—though after he read out the scene, he didn’t snap it shut—his hand was in the way.

  “Watch the model,” Ian said into my ear.

  “Set.”

  “Action!” Anna’s voice.
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  At first, there was nothing, then a sizzling pop and the whole set exploded spectacularly, with sparks and flames and fire licking everywhere. Elation and sadness rammed into me. There were the torches I’d painted and the moss I’d glued on and the trees I’d helped piece back together—all gone.

  “Cut!” Anna yelled. “Print it.”

  The guy with the extinguisher hosed down the burning set and a collective sigh moved over the crew. A few people clapped. I must have had quite the expression, because Ian stroked the back of my neck. “It’s all right. This is what we built it for.”

  “But—” I hadn’t expected the anguish of loss, the stab of hurt when I peered at the ruined remains. “How do you do this all the time?”

  Ian pressed the side of his body against mine and rubbed between my shoulder blades. “I don’t. A lot of the sets aren’t blown up, but they are taken apart eventually. I’ll need pieces elsewhere, or there’s no space or—any number of reasons.” He gave my arm a squeeze with his other hand, and I realized he was holding me because I was shaking. “It’s all ephemeral. Except for what ends up in the final product on film.”

  I didn’t like ephemeral. I wanted things that lasted. “I don’t think I could do that, watch the work . . . vanish.”

  “But it doesn’t.” Ian let me go enough to walk me toward Anna’s tent of monitors. “Excuse me, Anna?”

  She turned and focused on me and whatever Ian had been going to ask was waved away. “Come take a look at the scene,” she said.

  I watched it again, from multiple angles; the sacred grove being destroyed, just as it had been in the books.

  “In less than a year, a whole hell of a lot of people will gasp and cry at that,” Anna said, “because you helped make it possible to put it on their screen.”

  “And they’ll buy the Blu-ray,” Hunter said, “and make gifs that will play forever.” He’d come up next to us.

  I choked out a laugh. “We’re gonna be a meme!”

  Hunter’s smile turned serious. “How’d you feel when I destroyed the grove in the book?”

  I thought back to that. “Horrible. I mean, you’d been hinting all along.” I sighed and peered at the debris they were now dumping into a big trash bin on wheels. “I get attached to stuff.”

  “Everyone does.” Hunter got this weird smile. “We writers like to exploit that and make you suffer for it.”

  Anna snorted. “Writers are sadists.”

  “So are directors,” Hunter said. “That’s why we get along so well.”

  Anna gave him a look that would have scared me to death, but only made Hunter grin. “Anyone have any questions?” Her voice said she expected all of us to say no, but one question still prodded at my mind.

  “I do.”

  They all stared at me, and Ian gave my arm a gentle squeeze.

  “That guy with the clapper-board thing—”

  “Slate,” Anna said.

  “It’s supposed to snap shut, right?” I mimicked the motion. “But he had his hand in the way. Why?”

  Anna blinked. “Oh!” Obviously, that was not a question she’d been expecting. “To indicate we weren’t rolling sound. The clap of the slate is to sync the sound in production, but with this, we’ll mix the explosions and music in later.”

  That made sense. “Thanks. I didn’t mean to hit you with film 101 questions.”

  She rubbed her forehead. “That was somewhat refreshing. But if you’ll excuse me—”

  Ian pulled me away. “Thanks for everything, Anna.”

  Hunter wandered off toward another group of people, and Ian led me down the path back toward the car.

  “I’m sorry I’m such a fucking dork,” I said. “I shouldn’t have gotten upset or asked stupid questions.” Probably embarrassed the hell out of him.

  He shot me a smile that melted my bones. “You’re not. And you didn’t.” He was still holding onto my arm and his grip tightened marginally. “If I didn’t know that we’d have people tromping up this path behind us, I’d do something very wicked and improper to you up against a tree.”

  I gulped.

  “But we kinda have a no-sex-at-work rule, especially where people can see you.”

  Oh, yeah. Ian wanted me. Just like Lydia had said. “I have a solution for that.” We reached the parking lot where Ian’s Mini was sitting.

  “Yeah?” He was breathless and close and still had a grip on my arm.

  “We could go to your place, and you could have your way with me.” After seeing our work blown up for the greater good, what I wanted most was oblivion, heat, and the tactile knowledge that someone gave a damn about me. I knew it logically, but sometimes, I needed more than words.

  Ian’s hold on me loosened, but his gaze held me like a collar. “Get in the car, Simon.”

  There was something about a vulnerable, submissive man that turned me inside out. That it was Simon tripped up my heart and mind. I drove down the darkened road toward my apartment, my hand on his over the emergency brake handle when I didn’t have to shift gears.

  He’d been pretty close to tears after watching our miniature get blown up, even though that’s exactly what it had been built for. Couldn’t blame him. Intense work for an intense end, and I’d gone home a wreck the first time one of the sets I’d painstakingly built to perfection had been destroyed for the sake of a film. Sorrow still lingered on his features when I glanced his way and light from a stray streetlamp shone on his face.

  I wanted to take the pain away, replace it with pleasure and obedience and love. I knew I could get from him two of those—the third he already had from his wife. No matter how much I cared for Simon, how much I loved him, I would never have the permanence he had with Lydia. Oh, I could love him for the long run—I was sure of that—but he’d given that commitment to someone else. We’d never have it. On that drive to my place though, I let myself believe we could.

  I parked, we got out, and I beckoned Simon to me. He came, and though all the light we had was from a dim bulb above the garage door, I saw the focus in his eyes and how he parted his lips. He was giving every bit of himself to me tonight.

  I drew him in and kissed him, a sweet press of lips followed by a taste that could only be described as wanton. I claimed his mouth and pulled his body tight against my own.

  I loved his moans and the way his desire trembled through his body. Hard muscles, harder dick, but so soft and pliable. My Simon. I relented, and he was breathless. “Upstairs,” I ordered.

  He went first, and after we reached the top, I pressed him against the door while I unlocked it. “Let’s see how many of my fantasies I can fulfill tonight.”

  Simon sighed, a sound of sheer surrender. When the door opened, he practically fell into my apartment, but my arm around his waist kept him standing. Soon after, my mouth was on his again, where it belonged, and my fingers bunched his shirt. I hauled Simon across the room until we were at my bed. “I want you to stand here for now. Nothing more.” I spoke against his lips. “No sounds, no roaming hands, only you here, for me.”

  He met my gaze and nodded slightly.

  A thumb against his lips got me a flicker of eyelashes and what looked to be a swallowed moan. Control and obedience. We’d see how long that lasted. I traced fingers down his neck to his collar and worked the first button of his shirt. Then the next, and another, until his button-down hung open, exposing his sweet flesh to my hands and mouth. I pushed the shirt off and freed his hands from the cuffs so that it fell to the floor. A press of my palm over his pecs made Simon waver. When I caressed, then pinched his nipple, he bit his lip and closed his eyes, but he didn’t move much, and he didn’t utter a sound aside from his quickening breath.

  “You know, this makes me wonder if you were ever in a formal D/s relationship.” I met his gaze, but he gave nothing away. “You’re so obedient. Too bad I’m going to break you in the end.”

  A touch of a smile at that, as if he took my words as a challenge.

  We
’d see. I stepped in close, my hands on the top of his jeans, my lips grazing against his. “I’m gonna make you scream, Simon.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. I unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans, and pushed them down over his hips until they dropped around his legs.

  A twitch of his arms and legs, as if he wanted to help the slide, to give me access, to thrust against me. The heat from his skin was delicious, as were his shallow huffs of breath. Cracks in that passive face, with so much lust and desire spilling out from beneath the stillness.

  Passionate, hard, needy Simon. All mine. I’d savor every breath and inch and moan. I’d break him until I had him all, until I consumed him and he stole my heart and we burned like the model we’d made.

  His cock was tenting his underwear and brushed against my thigh. I stroked the flesh above the elastic band before slipping my hands inside to push those off his body too.

  Still not a murmur. His breath caught, but no sound, not even when I held his hips and rocked against him.

  How he fought to stay silent was a fucking masterpiece. His flush face, his eyes screwed shut, and his teeth pressing indents into his bottom lip. Huffs of breath through his nose, and every muscle trembling.

  “You know I’ll win in the end, Si. Might as well give up.”

  He opened both mouth and eyes at that. A smile formed. He was clearly enjoying the game, thinking he was clever and capable, which he was.

  Simon was perfect, but I was an evil bastard at heart. I pressed a kiss to his chest, then slid down his body until I was on my knees before him. When I gazed up, I knew I’d won.

  Shock, elation, and resignation on Simon’s face. Oh, he’d continue to fight, and did, as I took the head of his cock between my lips and tasted the salt in his slit. His thighs trembled when I licked his length and mouthed his balls. Little catches of breath each time I rolled a nut in my mouth. I teased his taint with my fingers and worked lips and tongue back up his length, then swallowed him as deep as I could before I drew back and took him down my throat again.

  Simon moaned, low and guttural, as if I’d drawn the sound out of his soul. His fingers caught in my hair and he rocked into my mouth. “Oh fuck, Ian.”