Relaxing muscles tensed with cold. Releasing clenched teeth into a sigh of pleasure.
He dropped an arm over his eyes, trying to banish the all-too-vivid images, and groaned. His worries about spending a month alone with his mother seemed laughable compared with the predicament he now faced. Thank you, Sass! He should have kept his big mouth shut. He thought back to the clear-headed resolutions he’d made that morning. Clear-headed but, he now realized, hopelessly naive.
Okay. He could cope with the four weeks in New Zealand. He could cope with having a job for a few days. But Cressa was a whole different problem. He’d seen how she was already taking over the house. There was no way he could allow her to hijack his thoughts, his desires and his precious, fast-disappearing time in the same insidious but thorough manner. He could not—would not—allow his body to betray his mind at this stage.
Distance. It was all about keeping the hell away from her. She’d soon get the message.
CHAPTER SIX
“AND ACTION!”
Cressa hurtled down the hillside, through the forest, at a teeth-rattling speed. Trees, tightly packed on either side, swept past in a blur. Cracks of machine gun fire stuttered overhead and a bomb exploded as she shot by, showering her in earth and leaf mold. Her concentration remained zeroed in on the thin path zigzagging downward in front of her. Tree roots, rocks and rotting logs were the real hazards in this sequence.
She hit her skid mark as Jasper leaped out in front of her, brandishing a hand grenade. Gunning her bike, she whirled and plunged down the new track they’d made, barely discernible in the thick undergrowth of ferns and creepers. Her bike was nearly on its nose as she came to the most dangerous part of the stunt. She had to hit the target launch perfectly to sail out over a small bluff and clear the stream. A couple of inches either way would skew her flight and she’d crash into the water or the unforgiving ground.
She saw the mark Adam had left and hit it square on. The bike lifted and for a second she hovered. Sunlight. Stream. Forest. Weightless and floating. Then every bone jarred as she landed with textbook precision. Or rather, Adam’s precision. He’d mapped out this run to perfection.
She killed the engine and took off her helmet, adrenaline fizzing in her blood. She heard scattered applause from some of the onlookers, and Adam stepped out of the shadow of the trees.
“That wasn’t the speed we agreed on, Cressa.”
Did he have a speedometer in his head? She rolled her eyes. “I landed the stunt. Aren’t you pleased?”
He strode over to her bike and grabbed the handlebars, straddling the front wheel so he could eyeball her. “I’ll be pleased when you learn to take direction.”
“I knew I could do it faster, and I proved that, didn’t I?”
Adam pulled the bike nearer so his face was inches from hers. His voice low and angry. “This isn’t about proving things, to yourself or anyone else. It’s not a game, Cressa. I know for you this is a one-off job, so not that serious, but if you’re wanting to test your personal limits, crap like that, do it on your own time. The rest of the people here are professionals.”
That stung. “I’m a professional!”
“No,” he said, “you’re not. You’re just playing at being one. This time you were only risking your own sorry ass, but if you push the limits when other people are involved, you could endanger them. Got that?”
Of course she wouldn’t endanger anyone. But she didn’t have the chance to defend herself. He’d already backed off the bike and walked away. She hated that. Hated people who had the last word. Except yelling after him would seem, well, unprofessional. In the end, he had the final word, because after just a couple of days on the set, he outranked her. She couldn’t believe how fast it had happened. The first day he was an extra obeying orders; the second day he was chatting to stunt coordinators; the third day he was managing some of the bike sequences. It wasn’t even as though he’d pushed himself forward, but when he talked, they listened.
Initially, Cressa had been pleased, taking an almost proprietary pride in him fitting in so easily. Then she’d had to start accepting direction from him and that had turned out not to be much fun at all. She was used to people listening to her, not the other way round. Plus he had no sense of humor. Her entire life she’d been a clown, but now if she kidded around at work, she got the evil eye. He reminded her of her mother!
Sam, one of the other Valkyrie stuntwomen, strolled over. “Well?”
Cressa did a thumbs-down. “He’s pissed because I went a teensy bit faster than he told me to.”
“Ah, I thought you’d stepped it up.”
“What’s the big deal? I could do it far more quickly. I told him at the time, but as always, he just ignored me.”
Sam punched Cressa on the arm. “Stop whining. You should know by now—if it can be done slower, he’ll do it slower.”
“And if I can do it faster, I want to do it faster.”
“We’re lucky he’s so careful. If we fall in these—” Sam indicated the skimpy Roman-army-style tunics they wore “—we’ll be skinned alive. Come on, let’s get a coffee.”
They dropped the bike off with the other two parked in the shade and made their way up the hill to where the forest finished abruptly. A makeshift camp of trailers, awnings and a few portable toilets had been set up in the field.
Bridget, the third Valkyrie stuntwoman, was doing Sudoku at one of the plastic tables by the food trailer. Sam and Cressa got their coffees and joined her.
“Jeez, these costumes are uncomfortable,” Sam said as she sat down, trying to arrange the blades of the very short, rubberized armored skirt under her incredibly long, slender thighs.
“Tell me about it,” said Bridget, squeezing each side of her ribs to ease her breasts, which were sheathed in the tight faux leather corset. “It’s particularly hard on us well-endowed girls.”
Cressa laughed. “No sympathy here for your endowments, Bid. They’re the talking point of the whole crew.”
It was true. Every male eye was drawn to her assets, which brimmed over the tightly laced top.
“Yeah,” Bridget replied, “but they still aren’t getting me where I want to be.”
Cressa followed her gaze to see Jeremy, the sound engineer, was now fiddling with the boom mike. She’d been pining to catch the shy engineer’s attention for weeks now. Behind Jeremy, Cressa spotted Adam squatting beside the bikes, checking tires and suspension. Secretly, she was impressed by his single-minded professionalism, which ran like steel beneath his seeming affability. Alpha males were usually center-stage guys. Adam simply slipped in and took control.
“Ask Jeremy out for a drink,” Cressa suggested.
Bid sighed. “I tried, but he blushed and stammered out some awful excuse.”
“It’s because he thinks you’re out of his league,” said Sam. “You’re going to have to show him you are interested in his mind. All he sees is you wrestling buff warriors day in, day out. Of course he feels intimidated.” She turned to Cressa and grinned. “I don’t imagine Adam feels intimidated. You have a whole different set of problems there. How’s Operation Texas going at home?”
Sam was older than them and had a predatory approach to relationships. She enjoyed the stalking, the catch. Then she’d walk away in search of a new victim. Cressa found this worldly approach to relationships refreshing, and she was amused by Sam’s good-natured, cynical take on life.
“Better than here, I hope,” said Bid. “Face it. When Adam’s at work, that’s his focus.”
They had quickly picked up on Cressa’s interest in Adam but spoke of it lightly because she hadn’t told them