Chapter 3: Blocking the Scene

The recorded "wow" hung in the air between them like a confession neither was ready to make. Claire stared at the blinking red light on the recording equipment, acutely aware that her authentic reaction to kissing Zane was now permanently captured alongside Jack and Fiona's fictional romance.

"We should move on," Zane said, his voice carefully professional despite the flush still coloring his neck. "Chapter sixteen."

Claire nodded, flipping through her script with fingers that weren't quite steady. The pages rustled too loudly in the quiet studio, and she found herself hyperaware of every sound—Zane's breathing, the soft hum of the equipment, the thundering of her own pulse.

Chapter sixteen. The library scene. Where Jack, emboldened by their first kiss, finally tells Fiona exactly what he wants to do to her. In explicit, breathtaking detail.

"There's a problem," Zane said suddenly, frowning at his setup. "The way we have the mics positioned... it's not going to work for the more physical scenes."

Claire looked at their current arrangement—two separate microphones on fixed stands, positioned to capture their voices while they sat across from each other. It was perfect for dialogue, but for scenes that required movement, breathing patterns that mimicked actual physical exertion...

"You're right," she said. "For authenticity, we need to be able to move."

"I have an omnidirectional mic we could use instead," Zane said, already moving toward a cabinet. "Single pickup, more sensitive. We could position it centrally and both work around it."

He pulled out a sleek microphone on an adjustable boom stand, setting it up between their chairs. The new configuration meant they'd be working much closer together, sharing the same audio space, their voices blending in ways that would require careful positioning and timing.

"This will pick up everything," he said, adjusting the height and angle. "Every breath, every movement. We'll need to be more... coordinated."

The word choice felt deliberate, loaded with implication. Claire nodded, watching as he tested the levels, speaking softly into the mic from different positions around it.

"Okay," he said, settling back into his chair, which he'd moved closer to accommodate the new setup. "Let's run through the blocking for this scene. Jack has Fiona pressed against the bookshelf..."

"She's been teasing him all evening," Claire added, consulting her script. "At the dinner party, all those meaningful looks, the way she kept brushing against him."

"Right. So he's been thinking about it all night. Imagining." Zane's voice had taken on that rough edge again, the one that sent heat pooling in Claire's stomach. "When he gets her alone in the library, he can't hold back anymore."

They'd done this kind of scene blocking countless times with other projects, but now, after those kisses, the professional distance felt impossible to maintain. Especially when Zane started reading Jack's dialogue.

"'I've been watching you all night,'" he said, his eyes fixed on the script but his voice carrying intimate intensity. "'The way you kept looking at me, touching me, driving me crazy with wanting you.'"

Claire felt her breath catch. "So he confronts her."

"He backs her against the bookshelf," Zane continued, and now he was looking at her instead of the script. "'I want to know if you've been thinking about it too. About what it would feel like if I touched you the way I've been imagining.'"

"Fiona's been thinking about it," Claire said softly. "She wants him to stop talking and just do something."

"So Jack tells her exactly what he wants to do." Zane's voice dropped lower, more intimate. "He describes how he wants to run his hands over her body, how he wants to taste her skin, how he wants to make her come apart in his arms."

The clinical discussion of character motivation was becoming something else entirely. Claire could see the tension in Zane's shoulders, the way his hands had clenched on his script.

"We need to capture the physicality of it," she said, her voice not quite steady. "The breathing, the movement. If they're pressed together, talking in whispers..."

"We should practice the positioning," Zane agreed. "To make sure the mic picks up both voices clearly."

It was a reasonable suggestion. Completely professional. But when Zane stood and moved around to her side of the microphone, Claire's pulse spiked. He was close enough that she could smell his cologne again, could see the stubble along his jaw that she hadn't noticed from across the room.

"So if you're against the bookshelf," he said, his voice carefully controlled, "and Jack is..."

"Crowding her," Claire finished. "Close enough that she can feel his body heat."

Zane stepped closer, not quite touching but near enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from him. "Like this?"

"Closer," Claire heard herself say. "He's not being tentative anymore."

Another step brought him directly in front of her, close enough that she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. This close, she could see the flecks of gold in his green irises, could see the way his pupils had dilated.

"Now he tells her what he wants," Zane said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Claire's script trembled in her hands. "What does he say?"

Zane looked down at his pages, but his voice when he spoke was addressed to her, not to some fictional Fiona.

"'I want to touch you everywhere,'" he said, his voice rough with barely controlled desire. "'I want to taste your skin, learn every sound you make when you're turned on. I want to make you come so hard you forget your own name.'"

Claire's breath caught. Those were Jack's lines, but the way Zane was looking at her, the intensity in his voice, made them feel like a personal confession.

"'I want to take you right here,'" he continued, his script forgotten now. "'Against this wall, right now. I want to bury myself inside you and make you mine.'"

"Zane," Claire whispered, and she wasn't sure if it was a warning or a plea.

Something shifted in his expression. "Fuck. I meant Claire. I want to take you right here, Claire, against this wall—"

The slip shattered whatever professional distance they'd been maintaining. This wasn't Jack talking to Fiona anymore. This was Zane Miller, voice actor and consummate professional, telling Claire Evans exactly what he wanted to do to her.

Instead of pulling back, instead of reminding him that they were supposed to be working, Claire stepped into the fantasy he'd created.

"Show me," she said, her voice steady despite the fire racing through her veins.

Zane's eyes widened. "Claire..."

"Show me what Jack does next," she said, but they both knew she wasn't talking about the character anymore either.

For a heartbeat, he didn't move. Then his hands came up to frame her face, and he was kissing her again, but this time there was nothing tentative about it. This kiss was hungry, desperate, full of days of accumulated want.

Claire dropped her script, her hands fisting in the front of his shirt as she kissed him back with equal fervor. She could feel his heart pounding against her chest, could taste the desperation on his lips that matched her own.

When he pressed her back against the wall—not the fictional bookshelf, but the actual studio wall—she gasped into his mouth. The sound was caught clearly by the omnidirectional microphone, along with Zane's answering groan.

"We're still recording," she managed to say against his lips.

"I know," he said, but he didn't stop kissing her. Instead, he pressed his body fully against hers, letting her feel exactly how much he wanted her.

The hard length of his erection pressed against her hip, and Claire couldn't suppress the soft moan that escaped her. Every rational thought was disappearing under the onslaught of sensation—his mouth on hers, his hands in her hair, the solid weight of his body pinning her to the wall.

"Tell me to stop," he said roughly, breaking the kiss to look at her with eyes dark with desire.

Claire stared back at him, both of them breathing hard. They were at the point of no return, she realized. Whatever happened next would change everything between them.

The microphone was still recording. Their unprofessional behavior was being captured in digital format, permanent evidence of how completely they'd lost control.

She should tell him to stop. She should step away, suggest they take a break, find some way to salvage their professional relationship.

Instead, she reached up and pulled his mouth back down to hers.

"Don't stop," she whispered against his lips. "Don't you dare stop."

The kiss that followed was even more desperate than the ones before, full of permission and promise. Zane's hands roamed her body, mapping curves through the fabric of her blouse, and Claire arched into his touch, wanting more.

When they finally broke apart, both gasping, the studio felt different. Charged. Dangerous.

"The next scene," Zane said, his voice rough, "it's even more explicit."

Claire looked at him, seeing her own desire reflected in his eyes. They'd crossed a line, and there was no going back. The question now was how far they were willing to go.

"I know," she said, her voice steadier than she felt. "Are you ready for it?"

Zane's answer was to press his forehead against hers, his hands still framing her face. "With you? I'm ready for anything."

The recording light continued to blink red, capturing every word, every breath, every sound of their surrender to the attraction that had been building between them for days.

Tomorrow's editing session was going to be very interesting indeed.