Читать книгу High-Stakes Playboy - Cindy Dees - Страница 9
ОглавлениеMarley Stringer crouched in front of the movie camera, checking it one last time, even though she’d already checked it twice. Everything was ready to go. But that didn’t keep her stomach from doing nervous flip-flops. This was her first big break in movie cinematography and nothing could go wrong.
Not to mention she didn’t like flying. She’d arrived at the airport this morning to find that her camera had been taken off the usual helicopter she flew in and mounted on this tiny, two-seat bubble-cockpit-thingie she’d never flown in before. Why the last-minute change to this mosquito of an aircraft, she had no idea. But she had a bad feeling about it. What if the camera mount came loose? Or the helicopter crashed and killed her? Or...
“Ever fly in one of these puppies?” a husky male voice asked from directly overhead.
She lurched, startled, and promptly banged her head into the belly of the helicopter. “Oww!”
Big, tanned hands reached past the spots dancing in her eyes and lifted her to her feet. “You okay?”
“No, I’m not okay,” she snapped, embarrassed. “The damned helicopter whacked me on the head.”
A chest came into view, clad in black leather. An aviator’s jacket. “Bad, bad helicopter,” the laughing voice chided the offending aircraft.
Scowling, she looked up at the face to go with the jacket...and stared. Whoa. Rugged jaw, complete with sexy, dark, whisker stubble. Generous mouth and a dazzling smile. Lean, male-model’s cheeks. Dark, slashing brows. And then her gaze met his. Hoo, baby. His eyes were as black as midnight and so hot she was fairly sure she felt her extremities threatening to catch on fire.
“Are you one of the actors in the movie?” she asked breathlessly. Lord. Where did all the oxygen in Northern California go all of a sudden?
He tapped the name patch over his right breast. “Wings. Pilot. It’s my bird that attacked you.”
She looked back and forth between him and the olive-green helicopter. “You need to take that thing to obedience school before it really hurts somebody.”
His mouth curved up in a sinfully hot smile. “Once I’ve got my hands on her, she’s the soul of cooperation. She does whatever I want, whenever I want it.”
Her gaze riveted on his mouth as he formed the words. She’d bet all the girls did whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it once he had his hands on them. She finally managed to tear her gaze away from his GQ face, and it slid downward past the broad-shouldered leather jacket to the black jeans cupping his family jewels... Please, God, let there be truth in advertising behind that bulging zipper.
Her face did catch on fire then. She tore her gaze away from his fascinating anatomy, but not before she glimpsed long, powerful thighs and black leather cowboy boots.
She stammered, “Where’s Gordon Trapowski? I’m supposed to fly with him today. You’re not him.”
“Gee. Thanks for noticing,” the god replied, as unlike burly, rough Trapowski as a man could get.
“I checked around the hangar,” she elaborated breathlessly, “but he’s not anywhere to be found. Do you know where I might find him?”
“No idea where he’s got off to. He’s going to be flying the combat-drop bird that’s being filmed today, I think.”
Oh. Alarm filled her gut. As much as she disliked flying, she’d come to trust Gordon’s piloting skills over the past few flights with him. He was crude, a chauvinist and an all-around ass, but he was a competent, if jerky, pilot. Apparently, she would be filming him today instead of riding with him. Who was this guy, then?
“Any idea where I can find the cameraman who belongs to this camera?” the new guy in question asked, his voice rich with amusement.
“I’m him. I mean, I’m her. I’m your cameraman. Woman. Camerawoman.” Dammit. Did she have to stutter like a thirteen-year-old talking to her first boy?
“Ready to take a wild ride with me?” he murmured low, his voice charged.
Trepidation rattled through her. She sincerely hoped not. Wild was not high on her list of favorite flavors. That was, not until she’d turned twenty-five and realized abruptly that she was becoming a boring cat lady about to live the same tired routine for the next fifty years.
Hence the shift from early-morning local TV news crew to action-movie camera operator—a choice she was deeply reconsidering right about now. This pilot and all his raw sex appeal were scaring her to death.
That and his vicious attack helicopter.
On a movie set, she supposed she had to expect to be around sexy studs. She just hadn’t expected one of them to actually notice her. Good news was the stick jockey would lose interest in her soon enough. She would hide behind her camera until he hooked up with one of the hot, young starlets roaming around the set and forgot about her.
If her sister, Mina, were here, she would be all over this guy. But then, Archer would be all over Mina, too. He would never have given mousy little her the time of day. Which would have been a relief. Although for once, she wasn’t so sure she wanted this magnificent male specimen to look right past her.
Part of her—the part that didn’t want to end up alone, eccentric and smelling funny—wondered what it would be like to have his hands on her, and do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it.
If only she wasn’t completely jinxed when it came to men. If this poor guy actually took a second look at her, no telling what horrible fate would befall him. Her last almost-boyfriend had nearly died of food poisoning on their first real date. And then there was the guy who found out on a picnic with her that he was deathly allergic to bee stings...
“You didn’t answer my question. Ever been in one of these puppies?”
Startled back to the present, she risked a peek up at the sexy pilot. “I’ve been up with Gordon in a big helicopter with two engines.” Two nice, safe engines. If they lost one, they still had a second one to land with, everybody in one nice piece.
“But you’ve never been up in a fast maneuverable bird like this one?”
“No. Never.”
“Ah. A virgin. Excellent.”
Her jaw dropped. How did he know... Oh. A fast helicopter virgin.
His eyes widened for a shocked instant and then narrowed speculatively. Damn, damn, damn. Please let that be him planning how to scare her in his helicopter. Please let that not be him picking up on what she’d almost given away.
“In you go,” he instructed. He was holding the passenger door for her, and damned if he still didn’t have that thoughtful look on his face. Swearing silently, she climbed awkwardly into the seat. A dizzying array of dials and knobs covered the dashboard in front of her. But then she spied the viewfinder for her camera. Familiar turf. Mounted on a swivel, she pulled the wide metal tube in front of her face and rested her forehead on the rubber face-piece. She felt a little faint.
“Slow down, darlin’. Gotta buckle you in first.”
She jerked her face away from the view box as hands touched both of her shoulders and knuckles skimmed down over her breasts. She lurched in shock at the intimate contact. What the...
Oh. He was feeding the shoulder harnesses down her body. Through her thin T-shirt and thinner bra, her nipples leaped to attention. Of course, his gaze went straight to them and heated up a few hundred degrees more. Did he have to look like a volcano about to blow? Although, in fairness to him, the way her own face heated up as his avid gaze took in her breasts was pretty volcanic, too.
She watched him, practically panting as he reached across her and ran his hands around her hips. They ended up at the juncture of her thighs and commenced fumbling around there. “What are you doing?” she squeaked.
“Seat belt,” he explained smoothly. A metallic click punctuated the word. He yanked at the loose ends of the nylon web strapping, tightening the restraints. Looking straight at her chest, he muttered, “Is that too tight?”
Her chest did feel mashed by the shoulder straps, but she wasn’t about to say so. And wasn’t snug supposed to be good...when it came to seat belts? “It’s fine,” she managed to croak.
He reached over her head to a hook and put a pair of clamshell headphones over her ears. She felt about six years old, the way he was treating her. He even pivoted the microphone down in front of her mouth.
“All set?” he murmured.
“I guess so.” It was considerate of him to hook her in like this and make sure she was secure. But it was deeply unsettling having a man’s hands all over her like that. Her brain said it was bad unsettling, but her lady parts declared it definitely good unsettling. She pressed her knees tightly together and tried to ignore the sudden throbbing in said traitorous lady parts.
He slipped into the left seat and strapped himself in quickly. His hands flew across the dials and switches as he read aloud from the checklist Velcroed to his left thigh. His strong fingers were mesmerizing as they pressed and flicked and twisted the controls.
There was something almost unbearably intimate about having his voice piped directly into her ears as he announced, “Radio check. One, two, three, four, five. How do you copy?” He looked over at her expectantly.
“Uh, was that for me?” she mumbled.
“I hear you five by five. How about me?” he repeated a little impatiently.
“Well, obviously I hear you because I’m answering you,” she replied testily.
He grinned and, on cue, her stomach did a picture-perfect, double-twisting layout. He responded drily, “The usual response is ‘Loud and clear,’ or a numerical description of volume and clarity, each rated on a scale from one to five.”
“Um, okay. You’re five plus five.”
His grin widened. Swear to God, the guy looked like a male fashion model as he replied, “Roger.”
“I’m not Roger. My name’s Marley.” She knew what roger meant, but she couldn’t resist making him smile again. He gifted her with a big, beautiful one that made her insides melt a little more.
“Hi, Marley, I’m Archer.”
“Archer what?”
“Just Archer. And you’re not supposed to interrupt the pilot in the middle of a checklist. I might miss something important.”
“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to—I’ll be quiet now.”
That million-dollar grin flashed again as he reached up to push and hold a fat button. The big rotor overhead started to turn slowly, and the sound of a jet engine revving up grew louder and louder. Her heart pounded as he completed the engine-start checklist and ran something he called a before-takeoff checklist. He radioed for clearance to lift off. A voice answered, clearing them to proceed on their filed flight plan.
“Sure you want to do this?” he asked grimly.
What was she missing? He was conveying something significant with that dark tone of voice. Something unspoken. A question, maybe. But she had no idea what it was. Confused, she nodded, and then belatedly remembered he might not be looking at her. “Um, roger wilco.”
“Wilco means you will comply. I haven’t given you an instruction to comply with.” A pause. “Yet.” He pushed forward on the throttles with one hand and eased back on the stick thing between his knees with the other.
And just like that, the ground fell away from her feet and they were rising straight up into the air. It was exhilarating. She’d never flown in a nearly all-clear helicopter before. It was like flying inside a bubble. A very thin, fragile bubble. But the visibility was incredible. It was easy to forget she was inside an aircraft at all. She felt as if she was levitating above the earth. Guess she could check that off her bucket list. Not that it had ever been on her bucket list.
The helicopter’s nose dipped slightly and it eased forward, picking up speed, slanting into a turn that took her breath away.
“What’s your last name, Marley?” her pilot—Archer—asked.
“Stringer. Marley Stringer.”
“Nice to meet you. I’d shake your hand, but mine are full at the moment.”
She looked down at his hands, so comfortable and capable on the controls. The kind of hands a girl could put herself into and trust him to know what to do...
Dang, she was getting horny in her spinsterish old age.
“Is Archer your first or last name?”
“Both.”
O-kay. Was he some kind of aviation rock star who only needed one name? “Your parents named you Archer Archer? Did they hate you or something?”
“Something like that.” His eyes went dark and turbulent, and her photographer’s keen eye detected sadness. Regret. Rough childhood, huh?
Trees were streaking by below their feet now, fast enough to make her nervous. She blurted, “Did your folks give you some horrible first name like, I don’t know, Eugene?”
He laughed, a little reluctantly if she wasn’t mistaken. But interestingly enough, he didn’t elaborate on his actual name. Ooh, a mystery. She never could resist those. Somebody in the payroll department for the movie would know his full name. She could stroll over there after they landed...
He interrupted her scheming with “We’ll reach the shoot site in about fifteen minutes. Pretty quickly after we get there, we’ll make our run down the valley. You’ll get one shot at this. My boss reported before I headed out to Minerva that all the pyrotechnics are ready to go.”
“Who’s Minerva?” An ugly spike of regret poked her in the side. Of course this cover-model guy had a gorgeous, confident, sexy girlfriend with an exotic name.
He patted the top of the dashboard. “This is Minerva.”
“You named your helicopter?” Ahh. He’d named it after his gorgeous, confident, sexy girlfriend, then.
He shrugged. “Yeah. I call every ’copter I fly after my grandmother.”
His grandmother? That was so sweet! Although he emphatically struck her as the kind of guy who wouldn’t appreciate being called “sweet.”
“She took me in and forced me to get my head together when my mom died.”
“Oh,” Marley said cautiously. But she didn’t have a chance to ask him about it.
“Five minutes to target,” Archer announced in a businesslike tone. He got busy on the radio talking to the film’s DP—the director of photography—and she turned her attention to her camera.
She pulled her viewfinder in front of her face once more. Beside her right knee, a small joystick remotely moved her camera on its nose mount outside. She tested it carefully, and it responded like a charm. Tall stands of pines skimmed past as the helicopter raced across the mountainous Northern California landscape toward the site of today’s shoot. The crew had spent all morning wiring the pyrotechnics and explosions, and it had taken most of the afternoon to position all the tanks, personnel carriers and extras dressed as soldiers. Which was why the director, Adrian Turnow, was having to race to get in this shot before they lost their light.
As it was, she had to adjust the light aperture to capture more of the late-afternoon sun’s lingering rays. The quality of the light out here was extraordinary, though. The sky was a deep cerulean blue, the trees a rich, lush evergreen with gray and blue undertones. And the mountains themselves, the northern end of the Sierras northwest of Lake Tahoe, were dark and forbidding, a few even topped with caps of snow. So stark and majestic. She’d love to photograph them sometime.
The helicopter slowed, topped a ridge, and hovered at the head of a long, narrow valley. Its granite walls were silvery gray, the valley floor a carpet of green. Cattle had grazed this valley for long enough that the trees were mostly gone. It made for a perfect movie battlefield, level and open with sweeping views.
“You good to go?” Archer asked her.
“Yup,” she muttered, her eyes glued to her viewfinder. She’d gone over computer simulations of this valley with the DP and the ground camera crew, and she’d chair-flown filming this sequence in her head a hundred times, but seeing it in the flesh was still different. And once the tracers and fake missiles started firing, all bets were off. It would be up to her to see and adapt to capture the best possible shot on film. The footage she shot today would likely determine whether or not she continued to work on this project.
Adrian Turnow’s voice came over her headset. “I’m turning over control of the shoot to Steve Prescott, head stunt coordinator. Whenever you’re ready, Steve.”
She listened as Prescott got thumbs-ups over the radio from a dozen stuntmen and explosives operators. He was the ex–Marine officer who’d set up this combat scene to be as realistic as possible. And then he started checking off the cameras. Finally, he announced, “Heli-cam?”
“Ready,” she replied as snappily as her knocking knees and trembling hands would allow.
“On my mark, everyone,” Prescott ordered. “Three. Two. One. Go for explosion one.” His orders came hard and fast as wave after wave of gunfire, tanks rolling, soldiers charging on foot, fake missiles, tracer rounds and who knew what else was put into motion. Hundreds of actors, extras and stunt coordinators launched into the complicated ballet that was a big action scene. A dozen cameras rolled, catching the action from every conceivable angle.
Prescott’s voice came on again. “Archer, start your run on my mark. Three. Two. One. Go.”
Beside her, Archer slammed the throttles forward and shoved Minerva’s nose down. The helicopter swooped down into the valley in a stomach-dropping dive that threw the bird at the treetops with dizzying speed.
She felt Archer tense beside her, but her concentration was riveted on her viewfinder. Wow. All hell had broken loose before her. So much was going on she wouldn’t have known where to point her camera had they not gone over it carefully in the simulations. She chanted the sequence in her head. Pan left slowly, zoom fast to the line of soldiers charging. Tank explosion. Hard bank right by the helicopter...
“You’re supposed to bank right,” she mumbled to Archer.
“I’m trying,” he ground out.
A tracer whizzed by wicked close, and although she jerked in surprise, she doggedly held her camera steady. The projectile streaked by dramatically, leaving a trail of sparks and smoke that the helicopter blasted through. That was going to look awesome on film. Good call by Archer to delay the turn.
They were on top of the action now, and deafening explosions rocked the helicopter. Hard to believe these were fake charges. She couldn’t imagine what the real deal must be like. Hell on earth if she had to guess. Her camera mount had inertial stabilizers built into it, so her shot remained steady in spite of the concussions slamming into Minerva.
“Time to turn, Archer,” she called out loudly enough to be heard over the war zone outside.
Columns of smoke rose around them and Archer dropped the bird even lower, skimming across the ground barely above the grass. They buzzed a line of extras dressed as soldiers low enough that some of them hit the dirt in fear of getting brained by the helicopter’s skids. The grunt’s-eye view from her camera was unplanned, but amazing. She went with it, panning across the field of fire and zooming toward the enemy line as Archer raced toward it.
Something exploded directly in front of them, rocking the helicopter violently. They weren’t supposed to get that close to any pyrotechnics! She lifted her face from her viewfinder to glance over at Archer. “You need to pull up higher and turn the helicopter,” she said distinctly. “All I’m going to be shooting in a minute is dirt.”
He didn’t in any way acknowledge her. His concentration was one hundred percent on flying. He looked to be fighting hard with the helicopter controls. Was that normal? She knew pilots tended to be fit, muscular guys. Was this why? His jaw was clenched and his knuckles were white on the controls. As well they should be. Minerva was tearing along only feet above the ground.
“Archer?”
No response.
She glanced outside, and the end of the valley was coming up. Fast. Damned fast. A sheer granite cliff rose in front of them.
“Archer!”
Nada.
“Hey! What’s going on?” She slapped him on the upper arm to get his attention. But it was as if he was on another planet. He ignored her completely. She let go of her camera controls and tried to turn in her seat, but the tight harness stopped her. She ripped at the belt buckle frantically, but to no avail. She was strapped in tight. The mountain loomed directly ahead, and it was getting bigger by the second. She could make out individual trees racing toward them. They were going to slam into the cliff in a few seconds!
“Help me pull,” he grunted.
Shocked, she grabbed the stick between her knees and pulled back on it. It moved a bit as Archer pulled on it, too.
“Harder, Marley. We’re going to die.”
Panic slammed into her as full realization of how much trouble they were in finally registered. Something was wrong with the helicopter, and if they couldn’t turn it in the next few seconds, they were going to crash head-on into that cliff.
She stood on the rudder pedals and pulled for all she was worth on the stick, straining every bit as hard as Archer. It wasn’t working. Frantic, she started shaking the stick side to side in a desperate effort to break it loose.
The stick gave way all of a sudden, slamming her back into her seat so hard she hit her head on the cockpit wall. Archer flung Minerva into a violent turn that slammed Marley against her door next.
The bird banked up onto its side, and all she saw in her windscreen was granite and more granite. They were so close to the cliff that she saw individual clumps of grass clinging to its face. Frankly, she was amazed the skids didn’t scrape the rocks as it turned. The helicopter shuddered as Archer hauled it around, creaking under the strain. He gave a tug back on the throttle, and it moved easily, slowing the bird’s breakneck speed.
As quickly as the crisis had come, it passed. The helicopter flew forward sedately as if nothing had ever happened.
She became aware of somebody shouting in her ears. Steve Prescott. “What the hell was that, Archer? Report to me when you land.” She winced. Archer’s boss sounded pissed.
“Copy,” Archer replied tersely.
Silence, broken only by the steady thwacking of the rotor blades, filled the cockpit. Archer was as pale as snow in the seat beside her in stark contrast to his black leather jacket.
“Are we okay?” she asked in a small voice.
“You tell me,” came the grim reply. He flew low and slow back up the valley toward the airport.
She took stock of the current situation. They were alive. The bird seemed to be responding to normal control inputs. Archer’s knuckles were no longer white. That was all good, right? “What happened back there?”
“Did you get your film?”
“I got a few of the planned shots. Then you went off course.”
His jaw rippled as if he was clenching it, and damned if it wasn’t one of the sexiest things she’d ever seen.
Stay on point, Marley. You want to know what just happened and why you nearly died just now. You’re not drooling over the pretty pilot.
“Can you review your footage right now?” he asked. “Those digital cameras have instant playback, right?”
Confused, she jammed her face to the viewfinder and watched the raw footage she’d captured in their wild ride down the valley at weed height. The images looked about like she’d expected for the first part. The boys in postproduction would need to push the light a little in editing, but that was no biggie. And then the footage got interesting. The tracer ripped past. The trail of sparks looked as great as she’d thought it would. And the perspective from so low, moving so fast, was gripping.
And that violent pull-up at the end—the camera had continued to run while they’d fought to break the controls free from whatever frozen state they’d gotten stuck in—was outrageous. Any director worth his salt would be orgasmic over it. Adrian Turnow was all about being as realistic as possible. He was going to love this stuff.
Feeling a little surly that her near-death had resulted in such spectacular footage, and unreasonably ticked off at Archer for getting footage that she would never have gotten herself, she admitted, “Yeah, I got my film.”
“All right, then. Let’s go home.”
She didn’t like that he was blowing off the fact that they’d nearly died mere moments ago. Shouldn’t he be upset? Freaking out at least a little? But he was acting like it was just another day at the office. Like this kind of stuff happened to him all the time.
Well, it didn’t happen to her all the time. And she didn’t like it one bit. He’d scared the living hell out of her back there. The least he could do was apologize or offer her some explanation of what had just happened. But nope. He just flew along, looking around outside and every now and then glancing over at her like they hadn’t just nearly splattered like bugs on a windshield.
The ride back to the airport was dead quiet. Plenty of time for her to consider how flipping close she had just come to dying. A second or two at most. Had the stick not broken loose and Archer managed to haul the helicopter into that violent turn like he had, they’d have crashed into the side of that mountain for sure. Had she not helped pull, not shaken the stick in panic like she had, she couldn’t bear to think about what would have happened.
By the time Archer set Minerva down gently, Marley’s entire body was shaking. Adrenaline surged through her and she felt as though she could flap her arms and fly all by herself. As scared as she’d been before, this aftermath was weirdly exhilarating. She was alive. Gloriously, vividly so. Now that she wasn’t roadkill on a mountain, she supposed it might be described as exciting in retrospect. But she’d about peed her pants when it was happening.
She didn’t know what the hell had happened back there in that valley, but she knew one thing. She’d never done anything that intense in her entire life.
Never again would she listen to the crew’s war stories about near-misses with disaster the same way. Having experienced near-death up close and personal, now she would hear the harrowing reality behind their tales told laughingly over cold beers. These pilots were crazy!
The door beside her opened. Archer reached for her lap. But she looked up at him and made eye contact for the first time since he’d nearly killed them both. His stare was dark. Turbulent. Suspicious, even. Shouldn’t he be apologizing to her in some way for nearly killing her? Shouldn’t she be the one staring accusingly at him? Perplexed at his wary distrust, she moved restlessly beneath the confining seat belts. Trapped. She felt trapped.
Maybe he wasn’t as unaffected by their almost-disaster as he was letting on. Maybe the suspicion bit was just him covering up his own reaction to nearly dying. It wasn’t like she’d had anything to do with the damned helicopter refusing to turn.
His hand stilled, nestled in the junction of her thighs, as his gaze shifted. Heated with fiery intensity as she stared up at him. His stare scorched parts of her that were not at all used to scorching. And all of a sudden any thought of suspicion flew right out of her head.
“Admit it,” he murmured low and rough, “you liked that a little.”
That was nuts. No sane person enjoyed cheating death. Or was he right? The rush of heat between her legs, the hot pulse throbbing there, said he was. She tingled to the tips of her fingers and ends of her hair. Felt restless. Hungry. Alive.
Shocked, she examined this rush of new feelings more closely. Sought out their source. And reeled mentally when it dawned on her that she was attracted to her death-defying pilot.
So this was lust, huh? She finally saw what all the fuss was about.
