Never Standing Still (The Never Duet #1)(13)
I left the top two buttons undone, making the bra just barely visible, but not trashy. Wrapped around her tiny waist were black and brown straps of leather that had silver and brass buckles in the middle, looking haphazard and almost necessary, as if she’d put them there to actually hold her dress up, not just as a fashion statement. The dress wasn’t too short, but she did have a garter belt on under it and the straps came down to latch on to thigh-high stockings that had thick black and brown vertical stripes, paired with brown knee-high boots.
She wore black fingerless leather gloves, and had a long silver chain hanging between her breasts with a compass dangling low. I’d also supplied the hair stylist with white, brown, and black ribbons that had been braided into her hair, like little peekaboos poking out from the back.
She looked soft yet hard, beautiful, sexy and every bit the steampunk princess.
The door opened and Riot walked up the small set of stairs. His eyes found Lexi first, and even though she looked like a punk rock sex kitten, his eyes only stayed on her for a moment before they found me. It was when he saw me that he smiled.
“Riot, what do you think?” Lexi asked, spinning in a slow circle.
Riot looked back at her, but then said to me as his eyes met mine again, “You did a great job.”
“Thanks,” was all I could manage under his appraising eyes.
“Well, I’m headed to the set. See you both in a few,” Lexi said, chipper as ever, exiting the trailer.
“You ready?” I asked, turning back to the rack filed with now-empty hangers and his costume.
“As I’ll ever be.”
I grabbed his hanger and turned back to him, holding it out. “You can dress in the bathroom there,” I said, nodding toward the door behind him. He took the costume from me and went to change. While I was trying to regain my nerves, thrown off balance by Riot and his attention, the door to the trailer opened and Savannah entered.
“George wanted me to let you know he wants everyone on set in fifteen.”
“No problem. Can you do me a favor and do one last check of all the extras? Make sure all their buttons are buttoned and buckles are buckled?”
Savannah laughed. “Yeah, they had a lot of buckles.”
“Yeah,” I said as I smiled. “And make sure to check their shoes. I don’t want anything left undone.”
“No problem,” she said, then made her way back to the set. The bathroom door opened and Riot came out. He’d left his shirt wide open and the sight of his bare chest, even just the small part I saw, was enough to make my breath falter.
“Can I leave my clothes here?” He asked, looking around for a place to leave his bag.
“Uh, yeah, sure. Just put it on the couch there,” I said, pointing behind him.
When he placed his bag on the couch I couldn’t help but notice how well the brown leather pants he was wearing fit his ass. He bent at the waist and I absolutely could not keep my eyes from his rear. When he stood, my eyes darted away and I tried to justify checking him out as part of my job; I had to make sure his pants fit, right?
On set, I watched as Lexi sang and danced, all the while Riot did his job looking sexy in the background. He was wearing some heavy guyliner and, even though I usually wasn’t into the look, his eyes penetrated through the smoke and fog of the set, making it nearly impossible to turn away. Part of Lexi’s choreography called for her to caress Riot, to walk around him trailing her hand over his partially exposed abdomen, and I couldn’t help but want to trade places with her for just one of those takes.
I found myself focusing on unnecessary distractions to keep my eyes from traveling to him, his attraction was that powerful. I was adjusting ties and goggles on extras, checking buttons, Googling ‘steampunk chic’ and not Riot Bentley.
After an hour or so of getting the same sequence from all different angles, George announced we were moving to the bedroom set, and I swallowed hard. I picked up the case I used on sets that had anything and everything I could possibly need on-the-go, sort of like a sewing kit on steroids, and moved with the rest of the crew to the set built just on the other side of the sound stage.
I watched as George gave direction to Riot and Lexi, wondering if he was feeling any splinter of jealousy, telling another man, a younger, arguably more attractive man, to practically dry-hump his girlfriend on a bed.
There was a camera shooting from directly over the bed and as Riot kissed and nuzzled her neck, Lexi sang to the camera about how she knew he only wanted this one night, how she’d do anything to make him stay, questioning what she could do to change his mind. Then, they wanted the steamy shots. George gave direction for Riot and Lexi to kiss, telling them to make it ‘almost R rated,’ but then gave direction about camera angle and tongue usage, making it all seem very unsexy.
I couldn’t keep myself from being uncomfortable. I’d seen people kiss before, but it was something completely different to watch two people kiss like they wanted each other, kiss like there was no one watching, regardless of the cameras and the ban on visual tongue usage.
The music played and they continued to paw and grope at each other, but when George yelled “Cut!” between takes, they pulled away and looked for direction, the two of them acting positively professional. I didn’t know if I’d be able to kiss someone like that, and then make suggestions about lighting and prop placement like Lexi was. Riot was ever-accommodating, tilting his head whichever way the lighting director needed, fixing his blocking to make the cameraman happy, also making sure Lexi was on board with all the touching he was going to be doing, asking her for permission to graze her breast with his hand.