But there’s no weirdness at all on Devi’s face as she opens the door and slides inside. “Nice car,” she says with genuine admiration, running her fingertips along the sleek dash. Her hair is in long beachy waves, tumbling over her shoulders and down to her waist, and she wears the shortest denim shorts I’ve ever seen, exposing long expanses of tanned and toned leg. I follow those legs up from her flat leather sandals, over the elegant curve of her calf, and up to her thighs, those firm slopes of muscle leading up to her juicy ass—which is only barely covered by the shorts.
I see the slightest hint of pink in her cheeks when she realizes I’m staring at her body, but I don’t stop. Instead, I move my gaze up to her chest, where a thin orange tank top drapes low over her chest. She’s wearing a light blue bra, the kind of bra that says first date, the kind of bra that doesn’t anticipate sex but wouldn’t shy away from it either.
She’s this complete package of fun and summer and sex, of the girl next door and the girl of my dreams, and I want to pull her into my lap and kiss her neck while she straddles me. I want to wind my fingers in her hair and leave a trail of marks from her neck to her tits, and then I want to fuck her until she’s trembling with the need for release, and then I want to give it to her...again and again and again. I shift in my seat, my dick now hard and insistent, and I resist the urge to start rubbing it through my jeans.
“See something you like?” she teases.
“Yeah, I do,” I answer honestly. I meet her eyes without a trace of a smile on my face, and that pink flush deepens, and suddenly I am plunged back into Vida’s pool, desperately wanting to kiss her and also knowing I would be a giant tool for doing it.
Get it together, Logan. This is still a scene, no matter how little sex you have tonight, so act like a goddamned professional. Not for the first time since I pitched the idea to Marieke, I wonder what my real motivations are here. This is supposed to be a scene, a fantasy, a fake date, and I told myself if I really wanted it to work, it needed to be with a woman I had chemistry with.
But what if I’m only doing this because I want to be close to Devi?
Because I do want to be close to Devi. A lot.
But how can I be sure that I’m really ready for that, that I’m not going after Devi as part of some rebound agenda? She deserves better than that. She deserves to be sought after because she’s perfect, not because I hate my ex-girlfriend and I hate the loneliness that’s chased me since she left. I want to give Devi what she deserves. I just don’t know if I can yet.
Focus, goddammit. You need her for this project to be amazing and you can’t scare her off.
Tonight is supposed to be our first shoot, our first fake date, and I want everything to be perfect, I want everything to feel real, but I also don’t want to freak Devi out with how real things are inside of me right now. But still. Even just knowing that our project is going to lead to sex, that at some point next week or the week after or the week after that, I will fuck Devi Dare—I feel like my skin is about to combust.
Focus.
I reach over and grab her seatbelt, buckling her in the seat, the backs of my fingers brushing against her breasts as I bring the strap over and down and click it into place.
She shivers.
“We haven’t even started filming yet, and already you’re starting with the foreplay,” she jokes weakly, trying to scrub the goose bumps off her arms.
“I’m always on the clock,” I joke back, equally weakly, hoping she can’t sense the conflicted desire pounding through my veins. I turn my body back to the front, start the car and shift into reverse. Soon, we’re on our way north, driving through the city and towards Pasadena.
“So where are we going?” Devi asks, reaching forward to fiddle with my radio.
“A movie in the park,” I say, a little proud of myself for coming up with this great date idea. “Zombie double-feature: Night of the Living Dead and Shaun of the Dead.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Isn’t Night of the Living Dead really old?”
“Old?” I sputter. “I think the word you’re looking for is classic!”
She giggles at my indignation, and it’s been so long since I’ve made a woman really, truly laugh, and oh my God, I told her there wouldn’t be any sex tonight and how am I going to hold myself to that?
I start talking about the movies to keep myself from saying or doing something stupid (like confessing that I have this crazy thing for her and that I beat off to her porn almost every night.) And by the time we get to the park, I’ve given Devi a forty-five minute lecture about the zombie film genre, ranging from Romero to James Bond to a little gem called Zombie Strippers.
“You should open your own film school,” Devi says as I park the car and pull my camera bag from the back.
“I don’t know enough,” I admit. “I need to go to film school.”
“Then why don’t you?” she asks, sweetly puzzled, and I realize that I don’t have an answer for that, actually. Other than money and convenience and the fear of failure and the fact that when you fall into doing something, it’s so hard to fall out of it. I mumble something about not having enough time, and I’m glad she can’t see my face as I look down at the bag.
“Okay,” I say. “I’m going to start filming now, but don’t worry about what you say or do. I was planning on tonight ending with our first kiss, but I’m not married to that idea, because I think it’s better if the night has its own flow and rhythm and doesn’t feel forced. And remember, I can edit anything out, so there’s no pressure to get this right the first time.”