nodded firmly and edged off the seat. ‘Editing department it is, then.’
THEY’D spent most of the day at the studio, so it meant they had to spend the next few days digging in. To Cassidy’s amazement it was going pretty well, all things considered.
Will’s guided tour had indeed given her an extra dimension of insight to the logistics of each scene they came up with, and—even though she knew he hadn’t intended it—it had also got her creative juices flowing. When they started getting words down on paper she felt as if she was getting a part of herself back again. It was exhilarating, and it boosted her self-confidence no end. Heck, she was even starting to have fun.
That would be the reason she would cite later for not having seen the danger coming her way before it arrived. Because if she’d been paying more attention…
When they couldn’t agree on what should happen at the end of an action scene, Will came up with the idea that they read the lines aloud. Nothing unusual about that, she had thought at the time. It wasn’t anything new, after all. When they had worked on the first of Nick Fortune’s adventures they’d often acted out a scene before they’d even put words down, and sometimes they’d become so absorbed in the roles they were playing that it had added a dimension to the fictional characters they might never have thought of otherwise.
But back then they’d had a very different relationship. And it never occurred to Cassidy to take that into consideration when they got to their feet with their matching sheets of script in hand, hot from the printer.
Nick and Rachel had got themselves into trouble, and had been arguing about whose fault it was they were in the mess they were. They were minutes away from being tossed off the edge of a cliff by armed terrorists…
‘“I suppose you’re going to kill us now?” That’s what you asked them? Why didn’t you just offer to shoot us too?’ said Will as Nick.
‘Oooohhh,’ laughed Cassidy as Rachel. ‘Believe me if I had a gun right now I’d be more than happy to shoot you!’
She grinned when Will changed his voice to read one of the terrorists’ lines. ‘Would you two shut up? You’ve got about five minutes to make your peace.’ He threw her an all too brief smile before jerking his chin at her to indicate it was her line.
Cassidy lifted her sheet and tried to find where they were. ‘Just make sure he goes first. He’s the one that got us into this mess.’
‘Me? I’m not the one who screamed and gave away our position!’
‘That spider was the size of Moby Dick!’ Cassidy couldn’t help but laugh again at the line. She loved that line. It was her line; she’d thought of it. She was back! What had made her think she couldn’t do this again?
Will became Will again. ‘Which brings us to the part under debate…’
The original idea had been to have Nick and Rachel fight their way out of the situation by distracting the terrorists with increased arguing. Cassidy had wanted it to be Rachel’s idea; funnily enough Will had wanted it to be Nick’s. Will suggested Nick should wink at Rachel, to let her know what he was doing. Cassidy said Rachel was too mad at him to play along with anything he came up with.
Suddenly Will looked at her, with a gaze that made her heart jump out of rhythm.
‘What?’ she asked a little breathlessly.
‘I have an idea.’ He stepped closer. ‘Play along.’
Cassidy turned her head and eyed him with suspicion. ‘What are you doing?’
‘They get to the edge of the cliff. They’re still arguing. Guns at their backs.’
‘Uh-huh…And then…?’
Something dangerous shimmered across Will’s eyes as he closed the gap between them, his deep voice lowering to a husky-edged rumble. ‘Then, just before they’re pushed over the edge, Nick asks for a last request for a dying man…’
‘And that request would be…?’
Will smiled that smile and knocked her on her ear again. ‘He asks to kiss Rachel.’
Cassidy’s eyes widened. ‘He what?’
‘Just for the record, her face looks exactly like yours does right now…’
Somewhere in the foggy haze of her completely distracted brain Cassidy knew it would ramp up the scene to a new level, but that wasn’t what made her heart thunder loudly in her ears and her body temperature rise. No. It was the fact that Will was staring down at her with a darkening gaze.
He wasn’t seriously going to—?
Thick dark lashes lowered slowly as he took the last step to bring his body within inches of hers. And as she swayed a little on her feet he angled his head, his gaze lowering to focus on her mouth. Oh, God. He was. But why? He couldn’t—
Cassidy’s lips reached for his of their own volition when he was less than an inch away, like a flower lifting towards the sun. His mouth was full and firm and hotter than she remembered from the hundreds of times she’d kissed him before, but no less familiar. When his large hands framed her face, she took a deep breath through her nose. When he leaned into her she exhaled against his lips, her heavy eyelids closing…
If anyone had told her a month ago that some time in the very near future Will Ryan would be kissing her again, and she would be feeling it in every cell in her body, she’d have laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of the notion. But he was—and she did.
It was surreal. And at the same time it was like coming home.
Long fingers slid down her cheeks, around her neck and into her hair. The taste of him was on her lips and the heady scent of clean laundry and pure Will was surrounding her. Cassidy forgot about the script, forgot about the fact they were playing the part of Nick and Rachel, forgot about the danger in what they were doing. She forgot all those things.
Instead she dropped her sheet of paper and reached for handfuls of the shirt above his lean waist, while he slipped a hand up to cradle the back of her head, his fingers threading into her hair as Cassidy drowned in the sensations flooding her body.
She’d missed kissing him. How she’d missed it. It was as if her body had been asleep like Snow White’s, and only now, with the right man, was she being kissed back into life. But then no one had ever kissed her like Will kissed her. He could make the world tilt on its axis beneath her feet. Always. From the very first time he’d kissed her. He’d caught her similarly off-guard as they’d walked over the O’Connell Street Bridge in Dublin, after taking photographs of possible locations for a short film they’d been working on for their class. With no warning he had taken her hand, tugged her to him and kissed her. Because he had to, he had told her afterwards. As if it had been as vital to him as breathing or drinking water, or any of the other things a person had to do to survive…
When he slowly drew his lips from hers, her mouth followed his back for the inch she’d closed, her eyes opening wide and searching
