Chapter Twenty-one
The storm had washed away in the middle of the night, leaving behind brilliant blue skies and crisp, clean San Francisco air as Valentina headed into her office on the set. She pulled her laptop out of her bag and put it down on her desk, her skin still tingling from Smith's slow, sweet lovemaking that morning.
He hadn't woken her when he'd come to her bed in the dark, just wrapped her up in his strong arms and held her. She couldn't ever remember sleeping so deeply or so well. Nor could she remember ever waking up so needy, so hungry, so ready to be touched, kissed, stroked, loved by a man.
Their first night together - and all the quickies that had come after - had been about temptation, about discovery, and inescapable pleasure. But this morning, their need for each other had been a demand that neither of them could, or would, deny.
Even now as she thought back to it, their early morning lovemaking seemed more like a dream than flesh-and-blood reality. Perfectly silent, barely moving, they'd come together so naturally, so perfectly. Smith's body fit against hers like he'd been made for her, and she'd been made for him.
She pressed her hand to the hollow of her throat where he'd pressed one kiss after another as she'd arched into him, and felt her heart beating the same rhythm it had beat beneath his lips. Not fast, but with a languid heat that rose more with every slow slide of his body into hers. She couldn't remember what any other morning had been like without him there, could barely imagine a time when Smith hadn't been hers.
The first rays of the sun had broken through the darkness as she'd given herself to him. His mouth had covered her sounds of pleasure, his tongue against hers driving her even higher still, before he'd given himself up to her, too.
All she'd wanted was to stay like that with him forever, to forget the rest of the world existed outside of their own private paradise.
But, she couldn't forget that he had an early call. Knew, too, that she'd need to be on set soon to support Tatiana, on what was sure to be a difficult day. Quite possibly the most difficult one of the entire shoot.
Plus, if Tatiana had seen Smith coming out of her bedroom, the jig would officially be up...and Valentina would have some pretty big explaining to do to the one person from whom she'd vowed never to keep secrets.
She'd thought for sure when Smith had shown up at their house last night that he'd been looking for a showdown, but in the morning he hadn't made her explain any of her swirling, conflicted thoughts. Instead, he'd said, "Today, when Tatiana and I are filming - "
She'd pressed her mouth to his to stop him from saying anything more. Filming sex scenes was part of his job. And since she hadn't managed to keep her walls up around him these past weeks, then she was just going to have to find a way to deal with it, wasn't she?
When she'd finally drawn back from his sinfully delicious mouth, he'd simply smiled his breath-stealing smile down at her, and said, "You make me very, very happy, Valentina." He'd kissed her once more and then was gone a moment later, back to the guest room he hadn't used for a quick shower, and then out the front door a short while after that.
Valentina finally realized she'd been daydreaming with her computer still in her hands for God knew how long, and gave herself a firm mental shove before briskly walking across the parking lot to her sister's trailer. Pausing outside, she took a steadying breath and worked on her smile before knocking.
Her sister opened the door wearing a blue silk robe. Valentina's breath caught in her throat. Tatiana had never looked lovelier, or more fresh and innocent at the same time that her sensuality had been played up with professional makeup and clothes and hair.
"You look beautiful, T."
Her sister bit her lip. "Filming today is going to go okay, isn't it?"
Oh God, what could she do but put her arm around Tatiana, smile as if it were no big deal, and say, "Of course it will. You're two professionals doing your job. You know everyone always says that filming a love scene is not that different from filming a fight scene. One arm here. One leg there."
"You'll be there the whole time, right?"
The set was the very last place in the world Valentina wanted to be today. Just the thought of Smith's mouth, his hands on her sister, had her stomach on the verge of emptying out the nothing she'd eaten. It was a closed set, and only the most essential members of the cast and crew would be there.
"Of course I will," she promised. "And I won't move an inch until you're done." But when she could see that her sister still wasn't totally at ease, she said, "I'm sure it will be just like Smith said - you'll probably feel like all you're doing is playing Twister together." Valentina made herself joke, "Little does he know how cutthroat us Landons are about our Twister games."
When Tatiana laughed and grabbed her script to sit down with it for a few more minutes, Valentina breathed a silent sigh of relief.
Now all she needed to do was figure out a way to believe her Twister comment was true as well. Valentina had been trying to pretend this day wouldn't come. But ignoring it hadn't made it go away.
When Tatiana had first wanted to be an actress, Valentina had made her sister agree to one hard and fast rule: no matter how big the incentive from a studio or producer, she would never film any sex scenes as a minor. If she couldn't legally drink, she wouldn't take her clothes off in front of a set full of strangers and roll around na**d on a huge screen for millions of viewers to salivate over.
Valentina didn't expect - or even want - her sister to be a little girl forever. On the contrary, she celebrated what an incredibly lovely young woman she had become, despite the pressures from Hollywood to turn her into a carbon copy of every other actress out there.
The only problem with the fact that Tatiana could now order a glass of wine at a restaurant was the fact that sex scenes were no longer off the list.
Valentina also recognized that no one would ever call the sex scene in Smith's movie gratuitous. Rather, it was a crucial part of the plot and character development for Jo and Graham as they moved from friends to lovers.
Still, she had no idea how she was going to deal with watching him make love to her sister. And worse still, considering it had to be one of the most terrifying moments of her sister's career so far, how could Valentina ever forgive herself for caring more about her own feelings than Tatiana's?
When the production assistant came to get Tatiana, thankfully, her sister looked as relaxed as if she were about to film a toothpaste commercial.
Whereas Valentina knew she must look like she was heading in for a root canal...without anesthesia.
* * *
Smith still remembered the first sex scene he'd ever shot. He'd been cast as a bitter son who seduced his father's new wife for revenge. The actress had been ten years older than he and he'd been nervous, yet desperate not to show it. Fortunately, his co-star had been as kind as she was beautiful. Not to mention happily married.
She'd made the experience so easy for him that he'd gone out of his way to make it easy on the co-stars he'd had over the years. Not all of them had wanted to keep things strictly professional, and he hadn't exactly complained during the projects where going from his co-star's screen bed into her real one had been the natural progression of things.
But Tatiana was different. For all of the intense onscreen attraction that they were both manufacturing for their roles, in real life he couldn't imagine actually making love to her. There was less than no chance that anything they portrayed today for the cameras would ever actually happen. It was all fantasy. Nothing more than make believe.
From a screenwriting and directing standpoint, the sex scene was simply part of the story being told. Still, he understood how difficult it was for actors of both sexes to open themselves up in such a physically intimate way in front of a dozen crew members and cameras that picked up even the slightest movements.
Over the past few weeks, he'd made sure to take the scene apart and look at it from every angle. He'd created a shot list that was by far the most technical of any so far. He knew exactly how the scene would play out, that the core deep sensual connection wasn't only coming to its ultimate conclusion between Jo and Graham, but was in fact a new beginning for both of the characters as they realized just how much they needed each other to fully come back to life.
And yet, the truth was that he hadn't been turning the scene into a technical exercise just for Tatiana's benefit.
He'd done it for himself, too.
Sex scenes had never been an issue for him before. Until now...when he'd finally learned the true power of lovemaking in real life.
Because when he touched Valentina, when he kissed the bare skin at the curve of her shoulder, when he slid into her and felt her gasp of pleasure all the way down deep in his soul, sex became something so much bigger, so much more important than just pleasure and orgasms.
He looked up from the notes he'd made in the margins of his script just as Tatiana walked onto the set, with Valentina flanking her from behind. It was difficult to keep his focus on his co-star when his every sense came alive around the woman who had started to mean so much to him, but if there was ever a time he needed to stay completely in tune with the younger Landon sister, it was now.
"Ready for our game of Twister?"
He was glad when she grinned at him. "You bet. Let's do this thing."
When Tatiana went to take her place on set, Smith felt Valentina touch his arm.
"I know you can't go easy on her today," she said, "and that you need to film the scene exactly as you wrote it, but - "
"I'm going to make this as painless as possible," he vowed in a soft voice. "For all of us."
But Valentina wasn't looking at him. Instead, she was staring at her sister's back with such a bleak look in her eyes that he wanted desperately to reach for her, to pull her into his arms and swear to her that nothing that was going to happen on set today had a damn thing to do with what the two of them were building together.
Smith was a heartbeat from doing it, her protests and rules about keeping their affair secret be damned, when her eyes finally met his.
"I trust you with her." She nodded as if trying to convince herself that what she was saying was true. "I really do."
Considering her sister meant everything to her, her trust that he wouldn't hurt Tatiana today meant a great deal to him.
But not nearly as much as it would have meant to know for sure that Valentina trusted him not to hurt her.
* * *
Valentina's hands were clenched so tightly that the skin on her palms was shredded by her nails within minutes of Smith and Tatiana taking their places on the set. But she didn't feel the physical pain, not when she could barely breathe past the tightness in her chest.
Smith said something that had her sister laughing and then, the next thing she knew, the cameras were running and Tatiana was in his arms, his mouth coming down over hers. In that moment that their mouths touched in passion for the first time, bile rose up so high and fast in Valentina's throat that she had to cover her mouth with both hands and swallow hard to keep from actually being sick in front of everyone.
Again and again, the kiss was captured from different angles, but it never got easier for her to watch, never hurt any less to see her sister act like she was melting into Valentina's real-life lover's arms. It didn't matter how many times Valentina reminded herself that it wasn't real, that they were just acting, that their paychecks necessitated the kiss that never seemed to end.
But that endless kiss was better, so much better, than when the scene moved forward...and clothes started coming off as Smith and Tatiana moved together toward the bed in character.
Were it not for the promise she'd made her sister not to move an inch, Valentina would have run as far and as fast as she could. But she couldn't. She had to stay right where she was, with a front-row seat to an onscreen seduction that was more than believable.
She all but forgot how to breathe as she watched Smith-as-Graham gently lower Tatiana-as-Jo onto the bed. His large hands stripped her out of her robe and he reverently stared down at her as though he was seeing beauty for the very first time.
Feeling as though a thousand knives had been thrust into every inch of her skin, Valentina couldn't believe she wasn't bleeding out all over the set. On and on the scene seemed to go, as her sister arched into his touch, as his mouth roamed over her skin and his hands followed everywhere he kissed.
Black spots were starting to dance in front of Valentina's eyes when Smith abruptly lifted his head from her sister's stomach and said, "Cut." It was exactly the splash of cold water she needed, just enough of a break to keep her from sliding off the chair and onto the ground.
A moment later, both actors were off the bed and watching playback a few feet away from where Valentina was sitting.
Even without editing or effects, it was one of the most beautifully filmed love scenes she'd ever seen. Her heart was almost all the way broken in two by the realization that Smith was just as good in bed with her sister as he was with her - when she finally tuned in to the discussion the two most important people in her life were having.
"I need to remember to keep my eyes open in that part, don't I?" Tatiana said. "Otherwise it looks like I'm grimacing rather than having a good time."
Smith nodded. "Our hands are also off here. How about we try this instead?" He moved her hands to his shoulders, then slid his arms around her waist.
Valentina's breath was just catching again when her sister said, "What about my legs? I feel like they're just flopping around down there."
The Director of Photography piped in with his suggestion about the best angle for shooting their lower extremities, and Valentina had a moment of clarity. She was watching the choreography of two bodies on film being done in real time. She'd seen it a hundred times over the years, knew that even in non-sex scenes there was important blocking, but she'd never thought anything of it. Because it hadn't felt personal back then.
And she hadn't wanted to keep one of the actors all to herself.