Here All Along by Crista McHugh

she took the pages of the screenplay and read through them a few times to commit the lines to memory. “Okay, tell me what Karl has in mind for this scene.”
    Gideon took her by the hand and led her onto the set. “I think he wanted Mackinzie to start here by the blackjack table. According to the directions, she sees Colt watching her and approaches him.”
    “I can take it from there.” She closed her eyes and shook out the tension in her body as she let herself fall into character.
    She’d read through the script enough to get a good sense of Rae. The drug lord’s mistress was a complex character, one she would’ve loved to have taken on if she’d still been acting. On the surface, she appeared to be little more than a gold-digging slut, which would probably be the extent of where Mackinzie would take her. But underneath it all was a woman who felt trapped by her situation, a woman who’d come from nothing and had risen to a life of comfort. And yet, a woman who would be willing to risk losing it all, both due to her underlying sense of morality and her growing relationship with Colt. She was a wild card, a double agent, a ruthless and yet tragic character who took a gamble and loses it all.
    When Sarah opened her eyes again, she saw the world through Rae’s eyes. Her posture changed to emphasize her feminine curves. Her head tilted to a coquettish angle that matched the sideways glances she was giving Gideon’s character.
    She met his gaze, and just like that, the set faded. They were no longer Sarah and Gideon. In her mind, they were Rae and Colt. She approached him slowly, swaying her hips with each step, and spoke the first line from the script. “ ‘See something you like?’ ”
    “ ‘Perhaps,’ ” he replied, his voice raw and strained.
    She twirled his tie around her finger, drawing closer to him. “ ‘You should be careful. If you keep staring at me like that, we could get into trouble.’ ”
    “ ‘Depends on your definition of trouble.’ ” His body stiffened until he was almost like a soldier standing at attention, but his eyes burned with desire.
    Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wanted to applaud him for his performance. Colt was an undercover agent charged with infiltrating the cartel. His plan was to seduce Rae for information, never thinking he’d fall in love with the drug lord’s mistress along the way. The struggle to stay in control played out in the tense lines of his face.
    Sarah stayed in character and pressed her body against his, her hand still clutching his tie like a leash. Rae knew she had Colt under her spell, and she was out to break him. Her lips were mere inches from his, teasing him, taunting him, testing him. “ ‘You know what they say about playing with fire. You’re bound to get burned.’ ”
    “ ‘But oh, what a way to burn.’ ” He wrapped his arm around her waist and pressed his lips to hers.
    She knew that according to the script, they were supposed to kiss, but Gideon had always stopped short of those directions when they’d run lines in the past, which was why the kiss startled her at first. Once the initial shock wore off, however, a warm glow of pleasure radiated from where he touched her.
    A faint warning to stop sounded in the back of her mind, but she was too busy enjoying the sensation of kissing Gideon to listen to it. For months, she’d fought to be responsible, to stay in control, to ignore the secret longings of her heart for fear she’d fall into chaos again. She’d almost given in the other night at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Maybe she would’ve if the elderly couple hadn’t interrupted them. But she’d been good for too long. Now she wanted nothing more than to be reckless.
    She released his tie and wound her arm around his neck, threading her fingers through his hair. Gideon took her response as his cue to deepen the kiss, and her pulse quickened. Desire flowed through her veins at the same languid tempo of his lips and