TAMING HOLLYWOOD’S BADDEST BOY Page 11

Bailey licks at my face like his tongue is some kind of healing salve, and I groan as I adjust my body to a sitting position.

  “Billie?” Luca questions and puts a gentle hand against my cheek. “Are you hurt?”

  “I don’t think so… I don’t know.” Embarrassment, warranted or not, runs through my face like a hot river. Most of the time, I’m trying to be a pain in the ass, but this was not on purpose. If I’m really injured, I can’t imagine it’s going to be extremely convenient for any of us. “Maybe just help me up?” I ask. He nods, but when I put my hands into his and try to brace myself on my feet, pain shoots into my ankle. “Ah hell, maybe I’m not okay,” I squeal, gritting my teeth against the streaking bolts of agony. Instinct makes me lift all my weight off the offending area and do my best to hobble on one leg.

  Luca puts his arm around my waist, and those big blue eyes of his look into mine.

  “What’s hurt, princess?” he asks with surprising tenderness. For once, the nickname he’s given me doesn’t sound mocking at all. “Is it your leg?”

  I shake my head. “My ankle.”

  “Sit down here,” he says and guides me toward a log, using his strength to ease me down. “Let me take a look.”

  With gentle fingers, he lifts up the leg of my jeans, removes my furry boot, and examines my right ankle.

  And I just kind of sit there…stunned.

  But it’s not from the pain. It’s from something else altogether.

  Am I hallucinating, or is Luca Weaver actually being nice to me right now?

  Luca

  Sticks and stones may break Billie’s bones, but her obstinacy will never falter. I gently prod around her exposed skin with my fingertips, and Billie hisses in discomfort. I can’t blame her. It’s already starting to bruise, and the swelling makes it look twice its normal size. From the top of her petite foot all the way to the bottom of her calf, it’s spreading rapidly.

  “That hurt?” I ask, looking up to search her face, and she nods.

  “Like a real son of a bitch.” Like sugar and spice, her voice and her words are an ironic contrast. That cute little accent of hers could make the world’s worst insults sound adorable. “And I’m pretty sure my cell phone is toast.”

  I snort to myself. Now, that, I don’t feel bad about.

  She reaches out to grab it from the rocks and stares down at the broken screen. “Ugh, the damn thing won’t even turn on!”

  “Pretty sure that phone should be the least of your concerns, princess. It’s not like it was doing you any good out here anyway, but your ankle…probably not a bad thing to have use of.”

  She rolls her eyes toward the sky. “Yeah, but when I get back to civilization, I need the phone more than the ankle. So, really, who can say what’s more important.”

  I can. “The ankle.”

  She sticks out her tongue at me and crosses her eyes, clearly unamused with my unsolicited response. Even with her ankle damn nearly broken, she’s still all sass. I bite my lip to hide my grin and force my gaze to leave the full, pink lips of her mouth and back to her injured ankle.

  God, I’m a real bastard for letting her fall behind. I got so caught up in messing with her that I forgot how easily things can go south out here. And I take my responsibility for her safety seriously. I knew that’s what I was signing on for from the beginning. I wouldn’t have let her come, no matter how hard she fought me about it, if I weren’t prepared for the obligation.

  “I’m sorry,” I say quietly, and she tilts her head to the side in confusion.

  “For what?”

  “For this.”

  “It’s not like you pushed me down,” she replies, a tiny laugh echoing around in the slender line of her throat. “Pretty sure I did this all on my own.”

  Yeah, but I should’ve been looking out for you.

  As I’m examining her ankle, I try to ignore the fact that Billie Harris has insanely cute feet, but it’s a pretty hard task to achieve when one of them is in your hand. Her toenails are painted bright pink, and the now-familiar soft scent of vanilla and honey fills my nostrils.

  I shouldn’t know that scent is from her lotion, but I do. It’s a white bottle with yellow writing, and she slathers that stuff on her hands about every half mile. It’s why the bugs won’t leave her alone, but up until now, I haven’t had even the slightest desire to fill her in.

  But guilty conscience flaring up or not, right now, the priority is her ankle. It’s already bruised and swollen, and I worry she may have broken something. I work quickly to assess her mobility and pain level.

  “Can you wiggle your toes?” She nods and moves them back and forth without any issues.

  “Can you point your toes?” She does, wincing slightly at the action but bearing it.

  “Okay, good. Now try writing the alphabet with them.”

  Billie crinkles her nose. “Say what?”

  “Just try to write the letter A with your toes.”

  “A lowercase A or capital A?”

  Lord help me.

  “Whichever will work just fine, princess.”

  “All right, I guess I’ll try lowercase…” She pauses, then starts up again. “Wait. No, I’ll do capital.”

  I fight the urge to roll my eyes and welcome back a swirl of feelings I’m much more comfortable with than the ones of guilt and affection I’ve been mired in for the last ten minutes. Frustration, aggravation, impatience—these are things I’m familiar with. “Sounds great.”

  Without too much difficulty, Billie moves her toes up, down, and then horizontal.

  “Could you tell it was an A?” she questions. “I can do it again if you want—”

  “I’m not grading your toes’ penmanship, for God’s sake. Just trying to see how much movement you have in your ankle.”

  “Oh.” She blushes, and I’ll be damned if I’m not feeling shit I don’t like again.

  I wonder how that blush would look all the way down her chest…at the top of her pussy…all over the insides of her tiny thighs—son of a bitch, stop, you horny bastard. Focus on the ankle.

  “On a scale of one to ten, how painful was it to do that?”

  “Do what?”

  I sigh as my adrenaline takes a plunge. I am a pinball machine of fucking emotions. “Write your capital A.”

  “Oh,” she says and shrugs. “Not too bad. A two or three, I guess?”

  I prod around on her ankle some more, lightly feeling the bones for anything that appears out of place.

  “I’m just going to rotate your ankle a little. Let me know if it gets too painful.”

  With my right hand bracing her calf and heel, I use my left to move Billie’s ankle tenderly to the left and to the right.

  “That okay?”

  “It’s tolerable. Just feels sore.”

  “Okay,” I say with a satisfied nod, pulling her sock back on for her. “I don’t think anything’s broken. Probably just have a pretty nasty sprain.”

  I stand to my feet quickly, and when she stares up at me with those pretty green eyes of hers, I’m hit with a wave of light-headedness. I close my eyes against the feeling, convinced I must have gotten up too fast.

  “Should I put my boot back on?” she asks obliviously. I open my eyes and look back down at her to shake my head.

  “No, definitely don’t do that. Now that it’s off, we don’t want to force it back on until we get the swelling down. We need to find a way to ice it and let you relax for the rest of the day.”

  “But I thought we didn’t have time to rest yet? You said we had to finish eleven miles today, and we’ve only gone, like, eight.”

  My chest squeezes.

  “You’re hurt, Billie. I might be a hard-ass sometimes, but I’m not a complete asshole.”

  “A hard-ass sometimes?” she questions with a teasing grin, and I shrug.

  “Fine. Most of the time.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” she hums melodically.

  In need of distraction and purpose, I slide my ba
ckpack to the front of my chest and stick her boot inside it.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Getting ready to get us up the rest of this hill so we can find a flat spot to camp for the night.”

  “Get us up the rest of the hill?” she questions on a laugh. “You’re not carrying me up this mountain. There’s no way.”

  “Billie, you can’t walk. And more than that, you shouldn’t be walking. I’m not going to drop you.”

  “It’s not that,” she contests. “I just…between me and both hiking backpacks, that’s too much.”

  “Relax,” I say, kneeling down in front of her, my back toward her. “Just hop on and let me worry about the rest.”

  “Luca Weaver, you are not carrying me,” she denies obstinately.

  I grit my teeth and turn back over my shoulder to look her in the eye. “Billie, for once in your life, stop being so fucking stubborn and just listen.”

  “I’m not stubborn.”

  I laugh. “Yeah, you are. I recognize it well because I am too.” She jerks her head back at my admission, and I shrug. “But right now, you’re also being a pain in the ass.”

  She sighs.

  “C’mon,” I coax. “The sooner we get going, the sooner we’ll be settled for the night so you can ice your ankle.”

  She sighs again.

  “Billie.”

  “Ugh. Fine.”

  She grips her hands around my shoulders and shimmies herself onto my back until her legs are wrapped around my waist.

  And without any trouble, I stand to my feet. She doesn’t weigh that much more than Bailey, and I think he notices because he jumps and dances beside us, wondering why the hell he’s not the one getting the lift.

  “Oh my gosh, this is crazy!”

  “It’s just a piggyback ride, princess. Nothing to get all worked up about.”

  With my right hand, I support her leg and make sure her injured ankle isn’t in an awkward position, and with my left, I keep ahold of her hiking backpack.

  “Please don’t drop me,” she squeals as I move forward to resume our climb.

  The vulnerability in her voice is apparently just enough to influence a promise I know I would never make otherwise. “If I drop you, I’ll read that screenplay of yours.”

  “Oh,” she says and then switches gear. “You know what, feel free to drop me, then.”

  I grin and shake my head. “Hold on tight, Billie. Fines are doubled if you bail on purpose.”

  She laughs. “You know what, Luca Weaver?”

  “What?”

  “You’re not as big of an asshole as I originally thought.”

  For the whole trip, I’ve been annoyed to be figuratively carrying the weight of her inexperience on my back. Now that she’s literally latched on to me like a spider monkey, I’m glad to have her there.

  Thankfully, from her spot back there, I know she won’t see my smile.

  Billie

  When aliens did their earth walk last night, they must have probed the tent next to mine. Seriously. Something crazy is happening, but I don’t know what.

  Maybe there’s something in the air. Or Mercury is in retrograde.

  Or Luca’s body was switched out for the android version when I wasn’t looking.

  I don’t know what it is, but something is different.

  He is different.

  A lot less broody and grumpy, my hiking companion hasn’t been anything but a gentleman since I ate dirt a few hours ago and screwed up my ankle.

  He carried me—and all of our gear—up a freaking mountain.

  He built my tent.

  He managed to find a small stream with ice-cold water and wet a few washcloths to put on my ankle.

  He even fed me dinner—beans and corn again, meh—but I can’t complain with all the five-star treatment.

  I stand up, gingerly putting pressure on my ankle, and extend my hands closer to the fire.

  “How is your ankle feeling?” Luca asks, his eyes locked on the offending body part.

  Thankfully, now that the swelling is down a little, my comfy, cozy UGGs give my ankle room to breathe and don’t press against the bruising too much. They’re also probably to blame for the injury itself since they lack gravely in ankle support, but that’s not worth focusing on right now.

  “Better,” I say through a yawn. “A lot better, actually.”

  “You need to ice it again before you go to bed.”

  “Are you crazy?” I look down at him with a raised brow. “I’m pretty sure it’s cold enough out here as it is. No ice needed.”

  “Billie,” Luca says, his voice all Mr. Serious. “You need to get as much of that swelling down as you can. So, no, I’m not crazy. I’m realistic.”

  Jesus Christ. He’s obsessed with those stupid cold washcloths.

  “Did you take the ibuprofen I set out for you?”

  “Yes, Dad,” I grumble. “And I swear I ate all of my dinner, too.”

  “Good girl.” He winks, and an unexpected little shiver runs up my spine.

  Oh hell. Should good girl sound that sexy coming out of his mouth? No, no, my mind warns. It most definitely shouldn’t.

  “Now,” he continues, “stop being so fucking stubborn and ice your ankle one more time before you go to bed.”

  Sexy thoughts out the window, I groan.

  And then, I start to get an idea…

  “Fine. I’ll do it.” I hold up one index finger. “But only under one condition.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “You let me ask you ten questions about Hollywood, and you read the screenplay.”

  “Now, that’s funny.” His responding laugh is a little too amused, if you ask me. “Good one, princess.”

  “I’m serious.” I put a hand to my hip. “Ten questions and the screenplay.”

  He taps his finger against his chin and stares up at me, thinking it over for a few seconds. “Two questions,” he finally rebuts. “And five pages of the screenplay.”

  “Six questions and fifty pages.”

  “Two questions and five pages. That’s my final offer.” He grins and holds out his hand, ready for me to make good on the deal.

  It’s a hell of a lot better than him not reading the screenplay at all, my mind squawks. Now is not the time to quibble, you fool!

  “Fine,” I say, covering my excitement with a bland shrug of my shoulder as I hobble over to shake his hand. “You have a deal.”

  Without hesitation, Luca hops to his feet and grabs another stupid washcloth. “Go ahead and sit your little ass back down,” he says when he makes his way back over to the fire.

  I sigh and do as he says, sitting back down and sliding my boot off my right foot.

  Gently, his fingers slide down my sock until my swollen ankle is exposed, and I squeal when the cold-as-ice material hits my skin.

  “Heavens to Betsy, that’s freezing!”

  “Relax.” He slides a blanket over my lap, ensuring that my right ankle is covered from the cool breeze, and winks. “Only ten minutes to go.”

  “Well, at least I can busy myself with asking you questions, then, huh?” I grin, and he holds up two fingers with an agonized groan, likely already regretting this little arrangement.

  “Only two questions.”

  “Trust me, I’m aware of the deal we just brokered one freaking minute ago. I didn’t get a concussion when I fell today.”

  He laughs. “It’d be hard to tell. Your normal behavior is already so erratic.”

  I hold up a graceful middle finger on one hand and tap my chin with the other. He smiles, content with his little zinger.

  “Okay…first question, what was your favorite movie to act in?”

  His answer is rocket-quick. “Agent Zero.”

  “Seriously?”

  A sly smirk crests his lips as he gets up from his spot across the way, crosses the distance, and sits down on the log beside me. A hum of energy runs through me at his unexpected proximity, but I squ
ash it down with a swallow from my water bottle. “Is that your second question?”

  “No, smartass.” Good feelings fleeing, I snort. “This is my second question…why was it your favorite move to act in?”

  “Hmm…” He pauses for a long moment as he runs his fingers along his beard. “There are a lot of reasons. For one, the director, Lance Lee, is a genius and was amazing to work with. The cast was first-rate, even with such a large ensemble, and that movie was the first and last movie I ever chose for myself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m the one who decided to pursue that script.” He moves his eyes from the fire to meet mine. “Not my parents, not my agent, but me. It was the one and only thing I did for myself when I was still working in Hollywood.” He laughs sardonically. “Which is probably why it went downhill so fucking fast from there.”

  At the mention of Luca’s parents, I rack my brain, trying to remember everything I can about his family history. It’s all a little hazy, but at one point, I’m pretty sure his mom was both his and his sister’s manager. I’m not sure of the details that led to that changing, but I do remember that right before he left Hollywood for good, Robin and Lionel Weaver went through a nasty and very public divorce. It was like the OJ trial of divorce media, and I can’t imagine it would have been easy on any of them.

  I don’t really know what happened to his mom and dad after that, but I know they didn’t stick around. In fact, it’s like everyone but his sister left Hollywood.

  “Not sure if you know this, but Agent Zero still holds box office records,” I say instead of digging into a depressing hole with all of that shit, my lips turning up into a small grin. Maybe a little good news about the one movie he actually loved doing will put him in an amenable mood.

  “Eight years later? Is that right?”

  I nod.

  When his eyes turn soft in thought, and I decide it’s best if I don’t push or pry anymore. Intuitively, I know—both for him and my agenda—now is not the time for more questions.

  And it sure as hell is not the time to hobble over to my tent to get the screenplay out of my backpack.

  Luca needs a moment, and I’m going to respect that. And, with the kind way he’s treated me for the past several hours, I’m surprised to find it’s not a hard thing to achieve.