do like this jealous side of you. I have no doubt that your love for me is real.” I clutched his arm harder. My love for him ran bone deep.

At the end of the week, we were back at the cavernous soundstage, my initiation into a higher level of trust with my fiancé behind us.

Ryan spun on one leg and kicked with deadly accuracy, planting a heavy black boot directly into the chest of the evil villain, Victor Mordorf, sending him hurling through the air. Stunt actor Timothy Hughes landed on his back; the specially designed dining table buckled underneath his crashing weight and folded in half. And then Jonathan yelled,

“Cut!”

Next take, Ryan grabbed the front of Victor’s shirt, swinging several right-handed punches. I felt my breath hitch, my pulse quickened, as a twisted attraction in seeing my fiancé kick ass like some barbaric he-man sent intense arousal through my veins. The early morning weight training combined with his rock-climbing instruction was turning Ryan’s body into even more of a chiseled pack of muscle. And at this moment, that muscle looked very lethal—and sexy as hell.

I winced as Ryan performed his own stunt, taking a calculated fall from a return blow to his face. I was so worried about him taking these risks but at the same time I knew he was loving every minute of it.

Ryan tore the string of Christmas tree lights off the fake fireplace mantel on the set, lashing Victor Mordorf to the high-back chair in his parents’ supposed dining room.

Anger and hatred rolled and coiled off him as he tied the newly bloodied, dazed actor, wrapping the last two feet of cord around the actor’s throat. Ryan recited his lines, spitting fine mists of fake blood from his lips as he delivered his threats.

Seeing Ryan like this, full of icy hatred and raw emotion, snarling as he bound his captive securely, both fascinated and terrified me. Ryan wore a horrifying mask of bloodlust, letting go of his reserve and completely saturating himself in the role of Chase Sheffield’s tragic life of death and redemp-tion. This is what acting is all about.

It was through our role-play run-through of this same scene in our condo last night that we determined Ryan’s approach to binding someone to a chair with Christmas lights had to be executed in very specific steps. No one really considered how difficult it would be to tie a string of decorative lights into a knot. Ryan brought this up with Jonathan and the stunt coordinator, Paul Rothham, resolving the choreography before cameras started rolling.

Fortunately Ryan left out the part where he tortured the shit out of me with his tongue and gave me two incredible orgasms while I was tied securely to a chair with thirty-five feet of borrowed lights from the props master. Those were private details from our rehearsal that no one else needed to know. A grin formed on my lips as I recalled the pricks of painful pleasure the lights made biting into my skin and how being bound and restrained heightened every touch. Yes, I’d like to do that again, please.

Very soon.

I listened to the dialogue carefully. Ryan didn’t want to ad-lib in the middle of the scene, so he had approached the script su-pervisor earlier with the changes we had worked through last night. I was surprised that she and Jonathan approved them. The cadence of the original threat was off, but with the new changes, they flowed and were even more ominous. It just fit better with Chase’s natural reaction in the scene than what was originally written. Ryan delivered it with a master’s ease.

“And cut!” Jonathan pulled the headphones off, circling them around his neck.

He patted Denny once on the back as he backed away from the enormous camera and then turned to me, wearing a broad smile and giving me a thumbs-up. Everyone looked extremely happy with the shot.

I abruptly sat up in my chair. Yes! He nailed it!

Jonathan called Ryan over to the monitors. We watched the scene on the playback reel. “How did that feel, Ryan? You happy with that one?”

Ryan rested his hands on his hips and blew out a relieving breath, staring intently at the small screen. It’s amazing to see what forty-nine seconds could capture. He turned to face me and we gave each other a high-five.

Jonathan beamed, shaking his finger in my direction. “She’s good! Real good! You marry this one and never let her out of your sight!”

His comment surprised me. “What did I do?”

Jonathan admonished my question with a conspiratorial look. “What did you do? Ryan gave credit where credit was due, my dear.

You have a hell of a keen sense for script analysis and direction and you just made that scene a hell of a lot better.” Oh shit. “But Ryan and I rehearsed . . . I only suggested . . .”