Stripped by Edie Harris Read Free Book Online

me nervous.” Her breath, carrying the sweet scent of those caramel candies she obviously loved, had been warm against his chin as she worked the outside corner of one eye. “Not that I should tell you that, but you do. You make me nervous.”
    He had wanted to lean into her touch, the soft bristles of her brush an unexpected sort of caress. “How do I make you nervous?” Nervous wasn’t his intention; aware was. If Fiona felt nervous around him, truly nervous, he wasn’t handling his attraction to her correctly.
    Did I give you any indication I wanted you to make a pass?
    He’d told her he would stop if she asked him to stop, and he meant it.  
    But she hadn’t asked.
    “You’re…I don’t know.” Slender fingers had angled his chin, and his eyes had opened as she dabbed something along his jawline—concealer for his ever-present beard shadow, likely. His gaze had immediately latched onto the side of her throat, and the pulse he’d imagined he saw fluttering there. “Loud. You’re very loud to me.”
    A frown had tugged at his brows as he unintentionally dropped his voice to a whisper. “I’ll be quieter?”
    But she had shaken her head. “No, not like that.” Stepping back, her big gray eyes had locked with his. “It’s just that I can’t ignore you. When we’re in the same room, I can’t pretend you’re invisible.”
    Frustration and triumph had shot through him in equal measure. “That’s only fair, considerin’ I want to kiss you every time I see you. Not that I should tell you that,” he had finished gruffly, echoing her turn of phrase.
    “ What ?”
    “You’re loud to me, too, Fiona.” He had wanted to reach for her, touch her arm, something. Anything. But the crew behind her had started to assemble in anticipation of the end of the break, and touching her then seemed unwise. No, he couldn’t touch her on set, but he wished he could.  
    As she’d gazed up at him, teeth worrying her bottom lip and fingers clenched around a trio of makeup brushes, he had thought she might wish he could, too. That craving had been back in her eyes, a burning she had banked almost immediately as Joanne called the warning. “I can’t do anything about this,” she had muttered as her attention switched to packing the brushes into her bag. “It’s not professional.”
    “There’s not a rule against it.” There might have been a rule against it.
    “It’s not a good idea.”
    “Darlin’, you have to articulate an idea first before decidin’ if it’s good or not.”
    She had scowled, mouth opening as she readied some snappy retort. “Thirty seconds,” the final warning had sounded through Joanne’s loudspeaker. Shooting him a glare—very similar to the one Ryan had gifted Sadie, come to think of it—Fiona had marched off in the direction of the aesthetics station set up a few meters behind Wes’s chair and the computer screens. When she had glanced over her shoulder at him, he couldn’t help but grin, which had caused her expression to darken more than a few degrees.
    Declan really shouldn’t like that glare as much as he did.
    Shooting had recommenced, three repetitious hours of two scenes—one where he and a lovely blonde actress named Yvonne were interrupted mid-playtime by Sadie, and one where Sadie led him into what could only be described as a secret lair, filled with shelf after shelf of dusty leather-bound books and stoppered glass bottles. By the time they had finally gotten both takes right, he had been sweaty and itchy and a button had come loose on his overcoat.  
    Wes had clapped his hands twice, pushing out of his chair. “Okay, we’re good for today, guys. See you tomorrow morning.”  
    Rick had helped Declan out of his coat, examining the wonky button up close as the crew began to pack up for the evening. “We’re going to the cantina tonight, around nine. You in?”
    “What’s the cantina?”
    “The name of the place is actually Lucero, but regulars call it