B01EU62FUC (R) (6 page)

“I know you’re not.” He groaned, pushing her off his lap and onto the couch beside him. “That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. I’ve heard that somewhere.”

She nodded. “My mom used to tell me that all the time.”

“I’m going to be stronger than Superman by the time this weekend is over.”

“I guess we’ll fly back under your own power instead of using a plane? What time will we get back?”

He grinned. “We need to be at the airport by two. We land around nine. I hate that we’re losing time when we get home.”

She rubbed the back of her neck. “Are you going to hate me if I’m still Valerie the Virgin when we get home?”

“Not at all. I’d rather no one knew you were still a virgin, of course, but with your history, I can understand your hesitation.”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

Jesse grinned ruefully. “Does it bother me that my wife is too afraid of sex for me to make love to her? Sure, it bothers me. But I’ll take it as slow as you need me to take it. I understand that you haven’t been treated as you should have been.”

“We have a kissing scene to film on Monday morning. We’re going to be steaming up the cameras this time.”

He shook his head. “That will thrill everyone, but I’m not sure they’ll notice a difference. I’m sure the producers are worried that we’re going to lose some of the magic that’s between us when our sexual tension is appeased.”

“Do you think we will?”

He shook his head. “No, because I don’t think I could ever get enough of you. You’re something else, Valerie Dobson.”

“It’s not Dobson anymore. It’s Valerie Savoy now, remember?”

He grinned at that. “You’re not really going to change your name, are you?”

“I don’t think you have any idea how old-fashioned I really am. I believe that women take their husbands’ names when they marry. I believe in children being raised by their parents, not by nannies. Yes, I’m changing my name. I want your last name on the credits beside my first name.”

He smiled. “I want that too.”

She looked at him curiously. With all the years they’d known one another, he’d never mentioned his family to her. “Tell me about your last name. What was your father like?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. My parents were killed in a car wreck when I was an infant. I was raised by an elderly aunt, who didn’t much care about me, to be honest.”

“I had no idea.” She was shocked that she hadn’t bothered to get to know her friend well enough to know that about him. “Why didn’t I ever ask you that before?”

“You know everything important about me.”

“I do?” Valerie had no idea what he was talking about. What did she know about him that was important?

“What’s my favorite color?”

“Green.”

“My favorite movie?”

“
Star Wars
.”

“See? You know important stuff. The past means nothing. You know who I am today.”

“What’s your favorite song?” she asked, wanting to know as much about him as possible. They were friends, but she was discovering there was a great deal more to know about him.

“You won’t laugh?”

She shook her head, surprised at the question. “Why would I laugh at your favorite song?”

“Well, it’s kind of sappy.”

“I’m a sappy kind of girl.”

“
Don’t Take the Girl
by Tim McGraw.”

She grinned. “I love that song. It
is
kind of sappy, though.”

“But you don’t think I’m sappy, do you? I mean, you know I’m a manly man, who only likes the song for its strong beat, and it has nothing to do with the sappy lyrics.” He winked at her, and she nodded.

“Oh, of course. You would never be sappy. You’re too manly for that.”

He sighed, nodding. “You know me well.”

Valerie nodded. “I’m your wife. How could I not?”

“As it should be.”

CHAPTER 4

A
fter they got back to the set the following evening, Jesse carried Valerie’s suitcase into her trailer for her. They lived in trailers on the lot for three weeks, took a week off and went where they wanted, and then came back for more.

Once he’d set the suitcase down, she looked around. “We haven’t talked about living arrangements.”

He shrugged. “Your trailer or mine? I’m not living apart.”

She smiled at his words and nodded. “That’s my thought. I’ve gotten used to you snoring in my ear.”

He caught her hand and pulled her close, leaning down to kiss her. “I don’t snore. I breathe loudly.”

She snickered at that, clinging to him. “Uh huh. And you don’t sweat either. You glisten, right?”

“Like a pig.”

There was a loud knock on the door to her trailer, and she jumped away from him guiltily. He grabbed her hand and pulled her right back into his arms. “Come in!”

The director of the episode they were working on, Steven, opened the door and walked into the trailer. “Well, it looks like you two haven’t lost the sexual tension.”

Jesse grinned. “I don’t think that’ll ever happen. Do you?”

Steven shook his head, laughing. “I just had to see for myself. You both moving in here?”

“I think so,” Valerie answered. “We might end up using mine to live in and his for storage. Who knows?”

“Whatever you two decide.”

“I want my name changed in the credits. It’s Savoy now.”

Steven grinned at that. “Really? You’re taking his name? You know actresses never take their husbands’ names when they marry, right?”

“I’m not anyone but me. And my name is now Valerie Savoy, and I’m kind of proud of the name.”

“I’ll talk to the powers that be. Maybe for the first episode with the new name we can put a heart around it or something cutesy like that. The fans’ll eat it up with a spoon.”

Jesse smiled at that. “Get us some extra publicity for the marriage, would you? We need to do the talk show circuit and do everything we can to show we’re not ashamed.”

Steven frowned at that. “Curtis causing trouble?”

Jesse shrugged. He had talked to Steven while they were still in Vegas, warning him to be on the lookout for the other man. “Not yet. News just really leaked last night though.”

“I saw the Vegas news segment. It’s had thousands of views on Youtube, and your marriage was trending on Twitter this morning. Have either of you made an official announcement to your fans?”

Valerie shook her head. “I haven’t. I didn’t even think of that.” She reached for her phone. “Doing it now.”

She thought for a moment about how to say it before quickly tapping the keys with her thumbs.
@JesseSavoy Love your last name so much that I made it mine. Thanks for sharing it and your life with me. #gotmarried.
She set her phone back down and ignored the constant beeps coming from it. “I think I may need to shut Twitter notifications off for a while.”

“The fans are going to go insane.” Jesse reached for his phone to see how she’d said it and read her words with a grin. He pushed reply and tapped in a response.
@ValerieDobson There’s no one else who I would welcome into my life and my arms so willingly. Glad you’re mine. #gotmarriedtoo.
He set his phone down as it started pinging at him. “Mine too, I guess.” He grinned at her. “Great tweet, by the way.”

Steven looked back and forth between them before clearing his throat. “I’ll leave you newlyweds alone, and go tell the publicity people to get talking this up. They’re going to be so excited to have some real news for the fans.”

Valerie watched him go with a grin before moving closer to Jesse, her hand on his chest. “How did you respond?”

“Oh, you know. I said all the right mushy lovey dovey stuff that the fans will love. All of it true, by the way, but if you tell anyone that, I’ll deny it to my last breath.”

“Oh, of course. Because you’re a manly man and not a sap. I won’t forget that!”

“I’m glad. It’s important people understand the manliness that drives me.”

“It is.”

He backed her up against the wall, his hands going to her waist as he leaned down to allow his mouth to plunder hers. “We need to open the windows and you need to moan a lot. The whole cast and crew need to know what a good lover I am.”

She laughed at that. “So you want me to fake it, huh?”

“If Meg Ryan can fake it, why can’t you? You’re a better actor than she is.”

“You only say that because you’re trying to get in my pants.”

Jesse nodded. “Of course. I don’t even deny it!”

“Soon.”

He took a deep breath. “When you’re ready.”

“Why are you being so patient with me? I don’t deserve it!”

“Yes, you do. You’re the most incredible woman I’ve ever met in my life. You need to open your eyes and see what everyone else in the world sees when they look at you?”

“Which is?”

“Now you’re just fishing for compliments.” Jesse shook his head, taking her hand and leading her to the full length mirror on her wall. “Look at yourself. You have beautiful hair. I want to spend all my time running my fingers through it. Your body is perfect. I wouldn’t complain even a bit if you stripped for me right now.” He stopped and watched her for a moment. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Aren’t you going to strip for me, so I can prove my point?”

Valerie laughed. “Good try.”

“I thought so.” He moved behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. “Look at us together. Millions of people in this country daydream about the two of us getting married, because we have so much chemistry between us.”

She sighed, leaning back against him. She was getting used to feeling his erections pressing against her, but they never failed to make her heart beat faster. “You make me feel like I’m someone special.”

“You are. I’ve never—cared for anyone the way I care about you, Val. I hope you know how fabulous you really are.” He’d almost told her he loved her, but he’d caught himself just in time. She wasn’t ready for the words yet. She wasn’t ready to know that he’d fallen in love with her at their first kiss, that he’d been celibate for four years, dreaming of her every night. No, Valerie wasn’t nearly ready for that knowledge. So he would do what he’d done for the entire time he’d known her, and bide his time. He could wait forever, now that he knew she was his.

She sighed. “You’re too good for me.”

He spun her in his arms, taking her lips with his. “I believe the opposite is true. Men all over the world are going to envy me.”

She laughed. “I expect to get hate mail from women who were convinced you were saving yourself for them.”

He chuckled. “Nope. Just saving myself for you.”

“Yeah, right.” She rolled her eyes at that. She may have never seen him with a woman, but she was certain he’d had them in his life. “No more, though, okay?”

“No more what?” He’d lost her somewhere along the way.

Valerie frowned. “No more women. I’ll do my best to get over my insecurities, but promise you won’t cheat on me before then.”

“I’ve waited four years for you. What’s a little more?”

“Like you haven’t had a woman in your life for four years. You’re crazy if you expect me to believe that.”

He said nothing else about it. He hadn’t even kissed another woman since he’d first met her at the audition. He’d been dating someone at the time, but he’d let her know that it was over between them. They hadn’t been serious anyway.

She yawned. “We need to get some sleep. We have to be up early tomorrow.”

“It’s going to be a long day of filming. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to watch that scene between you and Bob.”

“I married you, not him.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him. “I’m going to go get ready for bed.” She went into her small bathroom, closing the door firmly behind her.

He walked to the bedroom at the end of the trailer, looking at the queen sized bed. It was smaller than the king they’d used in Vegas, but he didn’t see that it made any difference. They’d spent every night completely entwined in each other’s limbs anyway. A smaller bed would just make it easier to stay that close.

He stripped down to his boxer briefs as he waited for his turn in the bathroom. He’d be happy once they could get back to Los Angeles, and she could move into his big house. There would be no waiting for bathrooms there. They had another two weeks of filming on their schedule before they would be able to go back though.

He set it as his goal to wait to make love with her until he could do so in his own bed, in the home they’d share with one another. He wasn’t sure he could hold out that long. If she indicated she was ready in any way, he knew he would be all over her. He liked to think he had more discipline than that, but when it came down to it, he knew that she was his entire world.

When she came out of the bathroom in her shorts and T-shirt, he was sitting on the edge of the bed. She walked to him and stood between his spread legs. “I sure do like seeing you in my bed at night.”

“I’d rather feel you in your bed at night,” he said, waiting for her blush. It came just as he’d expected. “Do you think we’ll ever get to the point that you’ll stop blushing at everything I say?”

She shook her head. “Of course not. I’m going to be an old lady sitting with four grandkids on my lap, and you’re going to wink at me from across the room, and I’m going to blush.”

“Grandkids? That means you plan to have kids someday, which means we’ll eventually have sex. Right?”

She made a face at him. “You know we will. I just need a little more time.”

He nodded. “Think you’ll be ready by the time we get back to LA?”

She thought about it for a moment. She didn’t want to make a promise that she couldn’t keep, but with the passion between them, she knew it would be all she could do to hold out that long. Maybe by then she wouldn’t feel like she was doing something wrong by making love with him.

“I think I will.”

He drew her close. “Let’s plan for that then. I’ll take you out on a nice romantic date, and we’ll let things happen.”

She nodded. “I like that idea.”

“Have you thought at all about moving to my place? Do you have someone you could call to get things moved over now?’

“My agent would take care of it. I’ll call her in the morning.”