Meet Cute (Love, Camera, Action #5) - Elise Faber Page 0,37

re-enter my own sphere, stay isolated and safe in the status quo. Keep on pretending for an eternity. Or . . . I could take the universe’s signal that this man, this situation was completely dissimilar from anything I’d experienced before and jump in with both feet. I could pop that bubble, risk getting close, because the circumstances might be different.

Because this man might be different.

But could I?

Risk my heart, my hope again. Because as much as I talked a big game about pretending, the organ was ready to flop over and expose its vulnerable underbelly to this man.

Alarm bells blared, the urge to turn and flee was real . . . but my feet didn’t carry me out of the room.

Instead, I closed the door and walked over to him, stopping a foot from his back as I struggled to find the words. I didn’t have anything sweet or romantic to say, didn’t have anything but the blunt truth.

So, he’d have to handle the blunt truth.

“Yes, I saved you because it was my job, because I would have done the same thing for anyone who was encountering that situation.”

His spine was ramrod straight, the muscles on the backs of his arms standing out in sharp relief when he clenched his hands into fists, and I swore I could hear his teeth grinding.

I kept talking anyway.

“I’m trained to do that,” I said. “I’m the type of person who cannot stand to see someone suffering without doing something about it.” Here, I faltered because he whipped around, his eyes absolutely blazing as they locked onto mine. “But—” I cleared my throat as he stepped closer, my heart thudding, my lips tingling. “But I wasn’t afraid for myself last night,” I whispered. “I was terrified for you, terrified that something would happen to you. Not because of the cameras—I didn’t even notice them until after it was all over. But because I was scared that you would get hurt.”

By the time I finished pushing that out, my lips were parted, breaths coming in rapid gusts, my pulse thundering in my veins.

He didn’t say anything for a long moment.

Then his throat worked, and he rasped out, “Tammy.”

And I did the only thing I could think of. I closed the distance between us, wrapped my arms around his waist, and hugged him tight. “I didn’t—I couldn’t have you think that my actions were strictly about you, because that would be a lie. I am who I am. I help people because I can.” I squeezed tighter, a relieved breath sliding out from between my lips when his arms wrapped around me in turn. “But I’m glad I was there to help you. I’m glad that I could save you, that you didn’t get hurt because . . .”

“Why, baby?” he whispered hoarsely.

The words tumbled out.

“Because I don’t think I want to live in a world where you’re not in it.”

It should have been a ridiculous, overly emotional statement. But I meant it, as scary as that thought was.

His arms convulsed, and I buried my face in his chest, feeling incredibly vulnerable and worried that I might be revisiting stupid with a capital S, but also knowing that I’d spoken the truth.

For better or worse, it was the truth.

Acceptance slid through me as I stood there with my body against Talbot’s, his fingers in my hair, his arms around me, his warm heat surrounding me.

“Thank you,” he whispered, what seemed like an eternity later, his hold loosening, his embrace loosening. His palm came to my jaw again, cupping it in a hand roughened with callouses.

God, I loved it—his touch, that hand—so much that I found my filter completely gone, my next words exploding on an all too easy blurt.

“Your hand isn’t smooth.”

His face registered surprise before his golden eyes were molten. “Swordplay.”

My brows rose. Um. “What?”

“My next film is set in King Arthur’s times,” he said. “I’m a knight.”

Somehow that was absolutely fitting. “Is the armor shining?” I asked lightly, my lips tipping up. “Or dinged and rusty?”

A chuckle that caressed my skin like a thousand intangible fingers. “Hopefully, the first.” A shrug. “But probably, the second.” He shrugged again. “Let’s just say that I’m a knight with some baggage.”

I grinned. “I can’t wait to see it.”

His hand twitched on my cheek, an emotion I couldn’t decipher trailing across his face before it was replaced with something I could. With amusement. “The swordplay?” he asked innocently.

A snort. “That, too.”

He waggled his brows. “But”—more mock innocence