To Love Jason Thorn (Page 55)

Because I was a good girl like that.

What I saw in his eyes… Everything around us melted away. All the lights, Amelie, Alvin, every single person in the building melted away and it was just us. It was just my Jason and me. Not the movie star, not Jason Thorn whom every woman was salivating for. Right at that moment, he was just mine.

My dream boy.

My childhood crush.

My first love.

My only love.

And now my pretend husband.

An eternity passed.

I bit my bottom lip.

His eyes flared. “Is it that good, Olive?” His eyes held me captive just as much as his body did.

“The best,” I whispered achingly.

Slowly he lowered his head again and captured my bottom lip between his lips. Then I felt his tongue gently licking that said bottom lip.

Please, insert another one of those ‘My body is ready gifs’. Holy moly!

“Place your hands on his chest,” whispered Amelie next to us.

Holy shit! Where had she come from? Had she heard us?

I didn’t even care, just did as I was told. I slid my hands down from his neck, making sure that my fingertips grazed his skin beneath his collar and stopped when I felt his erratic heartbeats.

I heard a few more clicks.

“That was amazing guys. Wardrobe change,” Amelie announced beside us, breaking our connection. I was still in his arms, he still hadn’t let me go, but he eased himself off of me. I swallowed and Jason’s eyes slowly cooled down.

Damn, but he was a good actor.

The same girl came and swept me away for a wardrobe change, which was probably for the best.

The rest of the photo shoot was tamer, and instead of going at it on our own, both Jason and I followed Amelie’s instructions. It felt safer to do so. I got a forehead kiss, and another one on my cheek.

When we sat down for the interview and told them that we were actually married, the looks on their faces were priceless.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Jason

We had a quick dinner where Lucy and Olive managed to make me laugh multiple times with their stories before we headed to the bar where the cast and crew were meeting up. More than a party, it was a way to reconnect with each other and get to know the new people before filming ate up all our time. If Olive was sad that Charlotte couldn’t make it, she didn’t show it, but I could see that something about her friend’s absence in her life was troubling her. I didn’t ask questions.

While Lucy had preferred jeans and some number with a lot of cleavage, Olive was wearing a sparkly, metallic gray skirt with a casual white shirt. Her hair was still damp from the shower she had taken after the shoot and she barely had any makeup on, and she looked perfect in my eyes.

Still reeling from our photo shoot, I was having trouble looking away from her. Every little detail seemed to matter somehow. The way her cheeks were flushed from laughing so much, the way I caught her looking at me under her lashes, the way her eyes sparkled whenever I reached out to hold her hand. It was becoming impossible to not notice every little thing about her.

Impossible to not like everything I was seeing.

I had been forcing myself to sleep in my own room ever since she had cried in my arms before coming on my fingers that night, but my patience was starting to wear thin.

I was seconds away from prying her legs open and taking her for myself. Every innocent look, every innocent touch, every secret smile…everything just pushed us closer to our inevitable.

Chugging down my second beer of the night, I kept track of Olive and Lucy from the corner of my eye. I wanted to give her alone time with her friend because even I could see how much they were missing each other. They hadn’t stop talking ever since Lucy had stepped foot in the car. I hadn’t meant for my schedule to keep her away from her friends, but in my line of work, you got used to not having your freedom.

They were doing tequila shots and chasing them with beers. She didn’t look like she was drunk, and she certainly wasn’t acting like it, but I couldn’t be sure. If they had another round of shots, I was going to interfere. As much as I would have loved to deal with drunk Olive again, I wanted her to be stone cold sober when we got back home.

An hour into the party, a few of the crew members had decided to set up the karaoke machine and proceeded to sing their hearts out, becoming the night’s de facto entertainment. Every now and then, they were hopping back onto the stage to torture everyone’s ears. Other than them, no one else had picked up the mic, which was a blessing if you asked me.

I was sitting at the bar with the assistant director, Tyler Cameron, a guy I had worked with before and respected, when I first heard Olive’s voice through the speakers.

“Hello everyone, I’m Olive.” She coughed and tapped the mic with her finger.

Someone let out a loud whistle.

“I believe that’s your wife, Jason,” Tyler said, looking over his shoulder. He was the first guy at the party that I’d told that we were married. Tyler wasn’t a guy who would repeat it to anyone else, especially after I’d asked him not to.

Wife. Yes. Right. I was married.

I turned in my seat to face the stage. “That she is,” I said, my eyes taking in the curves of her body. Leaning back, I rested my elbow on the bar and took a gulp of my beer.

There was a smile in her voice when she said, “I just lost a bet to my friend Lucy there.” She pointed to a beaming Lucy and got a whistle from her. “So as the loser, I’m supposed to make your ears hurt for a little while. I hope you can bear with me. It’s a slow one, so you should be okay.”

“Is her voice any good? I don’t think I can handle any more screeching for the night,” Tyler said as he gave his full attention to Olive.

“Oh, she’s good. Don’t worry.”

“You look okay, Jason,” he said, eyeing me cautiously before Olive started her song.

I took my eyes away from Olive as she tried to get on the barstool. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“I know better than to believe anything I read in the tabloids, but after all those photos and videos…well, you looked like you were a bomb ready to go off at the wrong move. I’m glad you’re back with us, and if she is the reason…well, good for you.”

Instead of answering him, I grunted and gave all my attention back to Olive.

As always, she hadn’t been able to get on the barstool, so when she started Ed Sheeran’s song “Kiss Me”, she was standing up, one hand wrapped tightly around the mic, the other resting on the barstool.

After a while, when the song pitched higher and her sweet voice charged through the space, everyone seemed to be shocked into silence. Tyler spoke up again. “She seems to be good at a lot of stuff, your wife.”

I nodded; that was all I could manage at that moment.

Somewhere in the middle of the song, after her eyes had finally found mine in the crowd, her voice turned soft and husky as she gently ordered me to kiss her. I held her eyes because I needed that connection since it felt like we were busy falling in love with each other. She was seeing me, and maybe for the first time, I was seeing her too. Her voice called to me as much as her eyes did, but then she hid those beautiful eyes from me, and I found myself crossing the room to get to her.

I wanted her to look at me.

I wanted her to see me when I was kissing her.

And I needed her to kiss me back.

When the song ended and she opened her eyes, I was standing right in front of her. She smiled at me as if she’d known she would find me there waiting for her.