“Don’t laugh.”

“I’m not laughing.” Jax’s lips tugged at the edges, and he was clearly struggling not to smile.

“You’re laughing on the inside.” I crossed my arms and tried to ignore the pungent smell steaming up the van. Jax was driving us back to the hotel, and me?

I was covered in manure.

Maybe it was a good thing. After all, nothing kills a mood like smelling like a stable, and I needed all the self-control in the world after nearly getting carried away back there.

What was I doing?

Jax was a movie star. And I was . . . not. I prided myself on making good decisions, but all my careful rules and boundaries went right out the window whenever I was alone with him. Logic and common sense didn’t exist around him, which is how I ended up doing dumb things like making out with him in a field, nearly running face-first into a cow, and then landing ass-first in a cow pat. It couldn’t have been more embarrassing.

This whole thing with Jax—whatever it was—was a recipe for disaster.

We got back to the hotel and slipped in the staff entrance.

“Penny—” Jax started, but I had humiliated myself enough.

“Nope!” I cut him off. “There’s a hot bath with my name on it!”

I ran to my bedroom, closing the door behind me. I needed to get clean before I could even face myself, and I didn’t even know what I’d need to be able to face Jax again.

A long, hot bath and two tiny bottles of vodka from the minibar did a lot to make me feel better, but I still stayed in my room. I felt like I owed Jax an apology; after all, it wasn’t his fault I freaked out over our bovine friend, but I just couldn’t bring myself to talk to him yet.

My phone buzzed. It was Mia.

“Oh. My. God!” she said, as a greeting. “We just got the pictures of you and Jax, and they are equal parts adorable and scorching hot.”

“Pictures?” I asked before remembering that our afternoon picnic had been interrupted by photographers. I had completely forgotten.

“You haven’t seen them?” Mia demanded. “Get your computer! I need to talk about each and every one of them.”

Even though it was the last thing I wanted to do, I knew that refusing would just make Mia suspicious, and it would be better to go along with it. I hated that I had to lie to Mia about all of this, because what I really needed was my best friend’s advice on how to deal with the situation.

Instead, I went to the website. Jax and I were the top item. And Mia was right. The pictures of the two of us sprawled out on a blanket in the English countryside were both adorable and sexy as hell. Sexy mainly because Jax was in them, and he was giving me a smolder that rivaled that one his character gave Elizabeth Bennet on screen.

But that only served to remind me that he was an actor and he had probably been acting. Except, he hadn’t seemed to be acting tonight. Nope, what I had felt straining against his zipper seemed to be 100% genuine Jax Hawthorne.

“He looks completely smitten with you,” Mia sighed. “I would be jealous, except I’m so happy. You really deserve this.”

“Thanks,” I said, once again hating that I was lying to her.

But was I? It seemed—especially after tonight—that the lines between what was real and what was pretend were becoming blurred. Did Jax really like me? If he didn’t, why would he go to all the trouble of getting us away from the cameras and the press? Why wouldn’t he just try to get our romantic rendezvous captured as well?

I had way too many questions, and not enough answers.

I paused, not sure what I believed. Or what I felt. I wanted so badly to tell Mia, but I couldn’t. So I didn’t. I changed the subject instead, and chatted to her about her latest bad date and her brother visiting town, until finally we hung up around midnight. But those unsure feelings kept me up the rest of the night, and lingered long into the morning. I waited—like a coward—for Jax to leave for set without me, and stayed in my room for a few hours working on Emmy’s business plan. The work was a good distraction, but I knew it was silly of me to hide out in the hotel all day.

I had to face the music.

At least today, it smelled like lavender bubble bath.

When I arrived on set, I headed straight to the craft table, where thankfully Morgan was there, eating like an elephant. If there was anything that was consistent, it was that.

“Hey!” she greeted me warmly. “Heard you and Jax made the papers in the States.”

“Guess so,” I said, grabbing some scones and slathering them with clotted cream.

Morgan patted my hand sympathetically. “You must have seen the other pictures too,” she said. “Don’t worry about it. The press is just full of jealous bitches.”

I didn’t know what she was talking about.

“Other pictures?” I asked.

She winced. “Oh, you haven’t seen?” She pulled out her phone. “I shouldn’t show you,” she said, but pulled up a British tabloid site anyways. “Remember,” she told me, before handing her phone over. “Jealous bitches.”

My heart sank as I looked at what had been posted on the site. They were pictures from set, but not the pretty, flattering ones from the picnic, nope, these were the worst kind of candid shots. Me eating—mid-bite, of course, with my cheeks bulging—or standing to the side of the filming, looking bitchy and bored. There were pictures of me taken from behind—never a flattering angle—and pictures that looked like I was mid-sneeze. Underneath the worst were the headline: “What does Heartthrob Jax Hawthorne see in this Plain Jane American?”

I wanted to cry. Because following the article were hundreds of comments asking the same thing—people pointing out how flat-chested I was, how blotchy my skin was, how ugly my profile was—basically taking all my private insecurities and putting them online for everyone to read and agree with.

“I— I need to go,” I told Morgan, shoving her phone back at her.

She gave me a sympathetic look. “I shouldn’t have shown you,” she said.

“No.” I shook my head. “I’m glad you did.”

“They’ve said worse about me,” she confessed. “And I’ve found that it’s nothing that a stiff drink and multiple orgasms can’t cure.”

Despite my sadness, I laughed.

“Thanks,” I told her, and nearly ran back to the shuttle to take me back to the hotel.

The rest of the afternoon was spent imbibing half of Morgan’s cure-all. I raided the minibar and ordered a dozen chocolate-covered strawberries from room service, which I figured was about as close to multiple orgasms as I would allow myself to get at that moment. Then I took another long bubble bath and hoped that I would feel better.

I didn’t. I felt drunk and full of chocolate, which was not how I wanted to be feeling when I heard Jax return. Foolishly, I had left my bedroom door open, so he poked his head in, finding the extremely sexy sight of me surrounded by the wrappers from the chocolate-covered strawberries and empty minibar bottles. It didn’t help that I was wearing one of the few things I had brought from home that hadn’t been part of the all-expense-paid shopping trip that he had sent me on. So when he came into my room, I was wearing a ratty old Disney shirt and boxer shorts, both of which had attractive smears of chocolate on them.

“Hey,” he said cautiously.

“Hey,” I responded, trying to quickly gather up the visual representations of my shame and general sense of pathetic-ness.

“So . . .” Jax sat on the edge of the bed. “Looks like you had a rough day.”

“It’s nothing,” I told him, sweeping my trash into the garbage bin by the bedside table. “I’m fine now.”

“Uh huh,” he said, picking up a half-eaten chocolate-covered strawberry that had escaped to the end of the bed. “You seem totally fine.” He ate the strawberry.

I didn’t mean to stare, but I did. It was probably because I was kind of drunk, but man, could Jax Hawthorne eat a strawberry.

He didn’t say anything else, just sat there, staring at me as if he could will me to talk.

Annoyingly it worked.

“There are some pictures online,” I told him.

He nodded. “I saw them. Of the picnic.”

I shook my head and picked up my phone. I found the site and thrust the screen towards him. “These pictures,” I said.

He looked at the phone, and his eyebrows went up and then furrowed downward. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Was he realizing that the site was correct? Was he seeing what a terrible mistake he had made in asking me here?

Instead, he tossed it onto the bed.

“That’s crap,” he told me. “They don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.”

“Don’t they?” I asked, throwing up my hands. “I know what I look like, Jax!”

He gave me a long, lingering look. “Do you?”

“I know I don’t look like the models and actresses you’re usually photographed with.”

“So?” he demanded.

“So?” I laughed, and it sounded bitter, even to me. “You know what my parents used to say about me and Paige?”

He gave me a wary look, but I continued anyway.

“They used to tell me that I was the smart one and Paige was the pretty one. And it was true when we were kids, and it’s true now.”

“Bollocks,” Jax told me.

“Bollocks?” I repeated.

He moved towards me before I could do anything. Within a second, his hands were on either side of my hips, his face mere inches from mine.

“You’re fucking gorgeous,” he told me, his voice low and husky.

“Stop it,” I told him, feeling like I might cry.

“Don’t you see how much you’re driving me crazy?” he asked, his gaze darting downward towards his lap.

I followed his eyeline, finding that he was definitely feeling something. His cock was already straining at his zipper. My eyes widened.

“Your parents are wrong. The tabloids are wrong,” he told me. “You’re absolutely beautiful and I want you so much that it’s making my head spin.”

His words were intoxicating and healing at the same time, but a part of me didn’t believe him. Then, he reached up and cupped my chin. The kiss he gave me wasn’t like the others had been. It was sweet and gentle. And I believed him. Everything he said—it was real.

I kissed him back. I couldn’t help it.

At first, the kiss stayed chaste—just our lips pressed together. Then Jax shifted, bringing himself closer to me, and I tilted my head to let him deepen the kiss. As our tongues touched, I moaned. It felt so good—he felt so good.

“You’re perfect,” he murmured, kissing his way down my neck. “Every single inch of you.”

My head fell back as I let him press me back against the bed, his body stretching out over mine. His weight was perfect, pressing against me. His hands went to my hips, his fingers teasing beneath the hem of my old, torn T-shirt.

“I like this shirt,” he said against my lips. “What are you wearing underneath it?”

“Nothing,” I told him, and he groaned.

“Can I see?” he asked, his voice low.

I bit my lip and nodded. In an instant, the shirt was gone, flying across the room, and I was naked from the waist up in front of Jax Hawthorne. But if he minded my small chest, his expression didn’t show it. In fact, his eyes got dark and intense as he stared down at me.

“Fuck,” he groaned. “You’re perfect.”

Then he lowered his mouth to my breast. I arched against him, his teeth and tongue teasing one nipple while his fingers plucked at the other. Gripping the blankets, I gasped as sensations flooded through me. It was too much and not enough.

As if he could read my mind, Jax’s hand went lower, spreading across my stomach before dipping downward and catching the waistband of my shorts. He glanced up at me, and I nodded. I wanted this. I wanted him.

He grinned, a sexy grin that was all for me, and my boxer shorts and panties joined my shirt on the floor.

He kissed his way down my stomach, and I gripped the blankets tighter, knowing what was coming next. None of my previous boyfriends had shown much interest in doing what Jax was about to do. And none of them seemed as excited about it as he was. I could tell by the way he adjusted himself in his jeans before dropping to his knees on the floor. He gave my own knees a tug until my feet were dangling off the side of the bed, my center ready and eager for him.

Then he kissed me. There. Right there.

I nearly arched off the bed at the contact. His mouth was hot, his tongue wet, and everything was perfect. He hummed against me, and I could feel it from the top of my head too my toes. My breath was coming in little gasps as he licked and sucked at me, pleasure building like a tidal wave.

I was moaning, my hips thrusting against his mouth, his hands holding me in place. It had never been this way before, and he kissed me over and over again, touching me the way that no one had. Loving me the way no one had. I couldn’t get enough, and my hands found his hair, holding him close as he thrust his tongue inside of me.

I came, crying out, stars exploding behind my eyes as pleasure overcame me.

It took minutes—or maybe even hours—for me to come back down to earth. When I did, Jax was stretched out next to me, his hand against my face. I blinked up at him, and he smiled.

“Hey,” he said, and kissed me.

Like the first kiss, this one was sweet and gentle, and even though I could feel his hard cock against my hip, Jax made no indication that he was expecting us to do anything about it. Instead he just kissed me slowly and languidly.

“Are you OK?” he asked, pulling away. “With this?” he gestured between us.

I felt incredible. Morgan was right—orgasms really did cure everything.

I nodded.

He smiled. “I’m glad,” he said, propping himself up on his elbow. “I think you’re sexy as hell,” he told me. “And anyone who thinks otherwise can fuck off.”

I laughed. This was nice. This was good.

“Are you done for the day?” I asked, realizing it was still early.

He nodded. “I’ve got tomorrow off as well,” he told me, and his smile slipped. “It’s my father’s birthday,” he said reluctantly. ”I’m expected to make an appearance.”

I remembered how little his parents had done to encourage his dream of becoming an actor.

“Do you want me to go with you?” I asked.

He looked surprised. “You don’t have to. It’ll be awful.”

“I don’t mind.”

Jax smiled, almost shyly. “That would be great. Maybe you can distract them enough not to be disappointed in me.”

My heart ached for him. Even though I had never met them back when I was ten, I knew that Jax’s parents had never seemed to appreciate what a great kid they’d had. And from his reaction, it seemed that they didn’t realize what a good man they had now.

I squeezed his hand.

“It would be my pleasure,” I told him.

Of course, the second those words left my mouth, I was reminded that I was completely naked on a bed, while Jax was fully clothed, his eyes growing dark and sensual.

“Your pleasure, huh?” he asked, his hand sliding onto my stomach.

I shivered at his touch.

“Want to take this to my room?” he asked, the tone teasing, the interest evident.

I wanted to. I really, really wanted to. But I was scared. The orgasm was one thing—one very big, wonderful thing—but sleeping in his bed? That felt intimate. Intimate in a way I didn’t think I was ready for.

So I didn’t allow myself to indulge.

“I would.” I yawned dramatically, hoping he hadn’t seen the nervousness in my eyes. “But I’m pretty sure I need to be on my A-game tomorrow, and I don’t want your snoring keeping me up.”

Jax laughed and got out of bed.

“I understand,” he said, before leaning down to kiss me on the cheek. As he did, he whispered in my ear, his voice low and husky. “And when I do get you in my bed, it won’t be my snoring that keeps you up. All. Night. Long.”

With that, he left me, my body hot, my heart pounding, and my brain wondering if all three of us were in big, big trouble.