It was scripted, not really Maddie saying the words, but goddammit if it didn’t feel good hearing them in her voice, said to him.

“‘Damn it, Iz.’” He pulled away from her but didn’t turn. He paused, not sure if he could say the next line without choking on it. It was too close to the truth—too close to how he felt about her in real life. “‘I don’t want to love you.’”

“‘Then don’t.’” She tossed the script on the ground and reached for him again, wrapping her arms around his neck. “‘Let me love you.’”

She kissed him. Slowly, tentatively. She had directed him not to pull away, but also not give in to her. She told him to let her seduce him, rather let the character she was playing seduce the character he was playing.

Fuck. That was hard. Because Micah was already seduced, long before Billy Winter was supposed to be.

She licked around his mouth, teasing him, inviting him to respond. With great difficulty he didn’t react. His resistance began to weaken, though, when she sucked on his top lip, gently at first, then with increasing fervor. Soon he couldn’t take it any longer, opening ever so slightly. She took advantage of his weakness and slipped her tongue in, tasting him with long licks. Her hands ran through his hair, her body pressed to him, br**sts heavy against his chest, as she sought deeper access.

She mewled against his mouth and that was when he couldn’t hold out another moment. With a heavy sigh, he put a hand around the small of her back and pulled her even closer, if that were possible. He fell into her kiss, surrendering to the tango of her tongue, filling her with such soul-wrenching passion that he only dared show her under the guise of his character.

He was so lost in her embrace that he startled when she pushed him to the ground, as she had said she would. She straddled him, hitching her short cotton skirt up to expose the beige skin of her thighs. Then, pulling at the bottom of his T-shirt, she coaxed him to sit up so she could remove it.

“Yummy,” she hissed, running her hands up his chest. His skin burned in the wake of her touch, and he recognized they were no longer on script, no longer playing characters, but Maddie and Micah, about to make love in the woods.

He eased his own hands under her cotton tee, wondering for a moment if he should take it off. His desire to see her br**sts as he caressed them won over his need to shelter her from spying eyes. “Lift,” he commanded, and she raised her arms for him as he undressed her. He flung her shirt to the ground beside him and lay back down, reaching to fondle and rub her tits through her thin bra. He paused to gaze at her above him, hair mussed, ni**les sticking up under white lace. She was an angel, gorgeous and heaven-sent. He could look at her like that forever.

Except that Maddie seemed set on more than looking. She rocked her h*ps urgently against the ridge in his pants. “Help me,” she pleaded.

He reached beneath her skirt and found her clit, found her legs already soaked, wet for him. His breath hitched. “Jesus, Maddie.”

“I’m ready for you. Help me with your pants.”

He hesitated, wanting to enjoy her, wanting to feel her clench around his fingers before she clenched around his cock. But her look was insistent, so he complied, undoing his jeans and freeing his penis.

She grabbed him eagerly and positioned him at the mouth of her desire. She slid onto him and he let out a sound that seemed foreign to his ears—half groan, half guttural cry. Fuck, she felt incredible. So tight, and so wet around his na**d cock. Fucking amazing.

She put her palms flat on his chest for support and began to move. Up and down, quickly. Too quickly. Without a condom, he’d come in no time at all. “Slow down, baby,” he urged.

She curbed her speed for about half a second.

“Maddie.” He grasped her hips, attempting to control her rhythm. She wriggled against his grip, maintaining her pace. It was too much, too fast. In one swift motion, he maneuvered her beneath him, pinning her hands above her head. “I said slow down,” he rumbled.

She moaned and he took over, moving in and out of her in long, leisurely strokes. Each pass of his penis against her vaginal walls feeling more exquisite than the last.

“Is this how you like it?” she murmured as he kissed along her jaw. “Real slow?”

He licked at her neck. “I like it slow and sweet.” He nipped her earlobe. “And I like it fast and frantic.” He grinned against her ear. “And I like it when there’s a chance we might be caught.” He pulled his head up so he could look directly in her hooded eyes. “But mostly, I like it with you.”

She moaned again as he pulled himself out to the very tip before plunging in again. “That was very sweet to say,” she said. “And this is very slow.”

“Relax, baby. I’ll get you where you want to go. But I’m not wearing a condom and this is the first time I’m getting to feel you. Let me enjoy you.” He crushed his mouth to hers, resuming their passionate kiss from earlier. Soon their tongues moved frenetically around each other and he could no longer hold back the passion in his thrusts. She quivered as he let his need take over, lunging into her relentlessly. Her h*ps met each drive and then she was clamped around him, shuddering through her orgasm, milking him while he pummeled toward his own release.

And when he came, it was a long, violent eruption that he filled with her name. “Maddie, ah God, Maddie.”

He collapsed on top of her, still inside her, sweaty and out of breath. The words from their scene echoed in his head. “I don’t want to love you.” He almost said them to her again, as Micah Preston this time.

But he didn’t.

He closed his eyes, as if he could squeeze out the L word like he could the light. “You can’t know what you do to me,” he whispered into her hair. “You can’t possibly have any idea at all.”

Chapter Nineteen

Maddie pulled a button-down black shirt out of the closet to drape over her tank top, and glanced at Micah, still half-asleep in the bed behind her.

As if feeling her gaze, he stirred. “What are you doing?” he mumbled.

“Getting dressed.”

“Stop it. Take your clothes off and get back in here with me.”

She grinned. It took every ounce of strength she had not to obey him. Not just because he made her horny as hell, but also because she liked being with him. Loved being with him. No matter what they did. In fact, after two and a half weeks of secret kisses during the day and passionate lovemaking at night, she was beginning to hope the two of them had something that would last beyond the shoot.