No Sacrifice Read online

  “Mmm, yes, baby…,” Chance murmured after breaking the kiss. He tilted his head, going for Patrick’s neck, and bit down. “Hmm… probably shouldn’t do too much of that.”

  “Makeup” was all Patrick could seem to say, and it was enough for Chance, who latched back onto his neck and sucked hard. Someday, maybe, he could mark Patrick in another way, like with rings, but that was well in the future. Right now, there was a visceral part of him that wanted, needed, to mark Patrick as his somehow.

  When he pulled back, he gave a fierce grin at the very red mark that was likely to be nicely purple the next morning. Chrissy would kill them, making more work for her, but he didn’t care. Instead, he worried about giving Patrick what he needed, helping his lover put the fears away.

  When it was over, he simply couldn’t move. Patrick stayed buried inside of him for a long moment, arms wrapped around him, kisses trailing over his back. He reached back and took one of Patrick’s hands, their fingers threading.

  “Thank you, a ghrá,” Patrick whispered into Chance’s back.

  Chance shifted until Patrick was out, then turned and tugged Patrick into his arms. “You’re welcome, love,” he murmured, dropping soft kisses on Patrick’s face. “How about we get cleaned up and go to bed?”

  “I’d like that. I think I’d like to spend some time just… holding,” he whispered.

  Chance smiled. “Nothing better in the world, baby.”

  Chance had been right. As soon as they’d settled down, he knew he wouldn’t be able to quiet his mind. There’d been enough that night between them to know how Patrick felt about him. He knew who Patrick wanted and loved. And it was what Chance would have to hold on to, the only thing to keep him from going more than slightly insane the next day.

  He knew he’d be watching on the monitors, because even a “closed set” just meant the people wouldn’t be there in person. There wouldn’t be a lot for him to do until they were finished, so he’d be glued to the scene. And he knew, no matter how hard he tried, when Patrick had an orgasm—real or fake—it was going to bother him. He just hoped that when it was over, Patrick would come to him, kiss him, remind him he mattered, that he was the one Patrick loved.

  He wondered, not for the first time, how acting couples did it. He knew there were even porn stars who had steady significant others. He had no idea how they could handle something like that. He wished he knew someone he could ask. This didn’t even involve penetration, and he was going more than a little batshit insane over it.

  He felt Patrick stirring next to him, the slight movements that said his lover couldn’t seem to settle down either. Chance understood them, knew that, despite their loving that night, Patrick was still going to worry. Knowing that Patrick was as worried about it all as he, was the little bit of a reminder he needed. Patrick loved him, didn’t want to share his body with anyone else. It helped, but Chance wondered if this was how it would always be when Patrick faced a sex scene.

  Neither of them would fall asleep for a very long time.

  After dropping Avery off at preschool, Patrick and Chance went into the studio together, early the next morning. Chance left Patrick with a long, thorough kiss at his dressing room, which helped him calm down some, then headed off to check in with Selia. Patrick took a deep breath, did his best to put his worries away, and stepped into the room, to find Chrissy already there. She paged through a fashion magazine of some sort while spinning in the makeup chair. When he shut the door, she looked up.

  “Oh good!” She tossed the magazine aside and stood. “Strip!”

  Patrick snickered. “Sorry, hon, but I’m taken.”

  She laughed and shook her head. “Yeah yeah.” Then she turned serious. “No, really. Strip. That damned tat takes a while to cover.”

  Patrick rolled his eyes but pulled his shirt off and turned to the rack of clothes. He saw Thom already had out the tunic and pants he’d be wearing. He picked up the pants and went into the bathroom to change. It was probably silly, since everyone and their cousin was about to see his ass. But he still wanted to maintain some illusion of privacy and decency.

  A short time later, he was in the chair, Chrissy fussing over the tattoo as usual and grumbling good-naturedly about having to cover it up, when Patrick heard the door open. He couldn’t see who it was until an arm reached around Chrissy—earning it a grunt—to hold out a donut.

  “Oh my God, I love you,” Patrick groaned, taking the sweet.

  Chance chuckled and came around behind them, then leaned in and left a kiss on Patrick’s cheek. “Love you too, baby.”

  “Wait, baby?” Chrissy asked, blinking at them.

  Patrick looked up and grinned. “Well, I’m baby. He’s a ghrá.”

  “A—what?”

  Patrick laughed. “A ghrá. It’s—”

  “Gaelic,” Chance answered. “For ‘my love.’”

  Chrissy’s eyes widened, and she looked from Chance to Patrick and back again. “So you two are—?”

  They both nodded. “Yes,” Patrick said, looked up at Chance with a huge grin, then took another bite of his donut.

  “Well, ho-ly shit,” Chrissy said and laughed. “I didn’t know you were… wait, weren’t you married?” Her eyebrows dropped in a puzzled scowl.

  “Was, yes.” Chance set a cup of coffee on the counter in front of them. “They split over the summer, and I am now the lucky person who gets to call him boyfriend.” He grinned. “Or baby.”

  Patrick laughed, then gobbled down the rest of his donut. Chance handed him the coffee cup, then squatted next to him. Patrick looked at him, and the nerves over the upcoming scene crept back in. He brushed a few stray strands of blond hair out of Chance’s face, then put his hand down when Chrissy growled at him. “Sorry,” he muttered.

  “You okay, baby?” Chance asked, tilting his head.

  Patrick took a deep breath. “I think I will be. I… well… you know.” He shrugged the shoulder Chrissy wasn’t working on.

  “Yeah, I know.” Chance stood, then leaned in and kissed Patrick again. Patrick let himself get lost in it until he heard a very loud throat clearing.

  “You know, it’s really hard to work on you with you two kissing,” Chrissy grumbled.

  Patrick and Chance broke apart. “Is that because you can’t resist watching?” Patrick asked, and Chrissy hit him with a brush. “Ow!” Chance laughed, and Patrick shot him a look.

  “Come on, I still have Angelo to take care of.” She glared, threatening him with the brush again.

  Chance stood up and stepped back. “I’ll leave you two alone. I’ll see you before the scene, baby.” He kissed Patrick’s temple, then, as he was leaving, said, “Oh, and Chrissy, I’m sorry about the mark on his neck.”

  Chrissy turned to Patrick and scowled. “What mark?”

  Patrick gulped.

  It took entirely too little time for his makeup and hair to be done. Chrissy had, in fact, raked him over the coals about the extra work she had to do, but even with that, it hadn’t taken long at all. He’d rather have had a little more time in the chair, though he knew, intellectually, it wouldn’t have mattered. He wouldn’t be any more ready if his makeup took longer.

  He sipped at his coffee in a chair near the set and waited for Angelo to be finished with Chrissy. Selia had Chance helping with the soundboard and testing something. He’d stopped long enough to kiss Patrick on top of his head, whisper “I love you,” and keep going to get the rest set up for filming for the day.

  Before he was ready, Angelo walked up. “Hi.”

  Patrick gave what he knew was a weak smile. “Hi.”

  “Are you okay?” Angelo asked and took a drink of his coffee. “And, uh, don’t worry. I’ll eat a mint.”

  Patrick chuckled and held up his own cup. “Don’t worry about it. I like coffee too.”

  Angelo grinned. “Good. I’m not human without it in the mornings.”

  “Me either.” Patrick grinned back, shook his head, then took another
sip. “I guess so. Okay, that is.” Angelo nodded. “Chance and I talked about it last night. How are you and Sebastian doing?”

  Angelo appeared to consider his words carefully. “He doesn’t like me being with someone else at all. I know he said he’d be okay, but I think a lot of that was for Chance and a bit of convincing himself. His scene with Rhys wasn’t nearly as involved as, I think, yours and mine is. It took a while because Rhys, apparently, wasn’t… uh… very cooperative.”

  Patrick raised an eyebrow. “Oh really?”

  Angelo shook his head. “No. He kept messing things up. And though they do have a nude scene, their love scene was less… explicit than ours is.”

  Patrick made a sour face. “Lucky them.” He sighed. “I guess I don’t begrudge Sebastian that, though. Did Jack also add sex scenes with you two?”

  Angelo nodded. “Yeah. We’ve got two more this season than we were supposed to. One including full nudity.” Angelo shook his head. “I guess we should be grateful it’s staying among the four of us, but….” He shrugged. “Anyway, Sebastian is okay with it, mostly. He knows we’re only acting, knows I’m not going to fall in love with you—no offense—so….”

  Patrick chuckled. “Yeah, I think that’s what Chance is focusing on. That I’ll be going home with him.” He sighed. “So, Jack’s notes were conspicuously sparse on this scene. Did you notice that?”

  “Yeah, I did. I don’t know if he wants to keep it open for us… or if he just didn’t want to tell us too much and freak us out.”

  “My money’s on the latter,” Patrick grumbled.

  “Indeed,” Angelo said with a sigh. “We’ll just have to see. First, we have to basically tear each other’s clothes off.”

  Patrick laughed. “That ought to be fun. I saw the snaps.” Patrick glanced up. “Speak of the devil,” he muttered, making Angelo chuckle.

  “Ah, good. Are you ready for your scene?” Jack asked.

  Angelo and Patrick exchanged looks. Patrick took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Good. Let’s get set up.” As they turned and started walking toward the room, Jack handed each of them a copy of the sides. “Here is the general idea of what I think should happen.”

  Patrick glanced down and read over the notes quickly. There was definitely more here than what a “fade to black” called for—a full-on sex scene, in fact—though Patrick was far from surprised by anything, at this point. However, he was surprised by how little was in the notes and at what he’d just heard. “General idea?”

  “Yeah. What I was thinking is that we’ll pick up where we’d left off at the last episode. You and Angelo—that is, Bathasar and Nadir—are kissing. When you stop, Angelo pulls the tie out of your hair. Then you start undressing each other.”

  Patrick glanced at Angelo. He needed to be professional about this, but he did not like discussing this stuff with Jack. “Okay.”

  “You’ll kneel in front of him to untie and remove his pants. The camera will be to your back, but all they’ll see is part of your ass and your back while you pretend to, uh, you know, with Angelo.”

  Patrick looked over at Jack and noticed he looked awfully uncomfortable. “What’s the matter, Jack? Never directed porn before?”

  Jack scowled. “This isn’t porn.”

  “Pretty damned close,” Angelo muttered, but they were getting into place now.

  Patrick glanced around to see a few subtle differences on the set. The bed had a few more silks draped on it, more candles burned on the surfaces, and even…. He leaned in to Angelo. “Dude… are those flowers?”

  Angelo snickered. “Give the man a break. He doesn’t know much about gay men, and whether we like it or not, a lot of our viewers are women. They’d think it was romantic.”

  Patrick blinked but nodded slowly. “That’s true. Though this doesn’t make me feel any better about the rest of this scene.”

  Angelo glanced at Jack. “Me either. Let’s just try for as few takes as possible.”

  “Right,” Patrick muttered and found his mark.

  Luckily, the first part of the scene went fairly smoothly. They picked up with the kiss, which Jack was satisfied with, though Patrick suspected that was only because he was going to make the rest of the scene much more difficult. Patrick was also glad there were very few lines in this part. Then they started in on the clothes.

  “Naked, now,” Angelo growled, and Patrick gave the whimper he was supposed to. Angelo started in on the buttons of Patrick’s tunic, and Patrick worked on Angelo’s at the same time. About halfway down Patrick’s, Angelo was supposed to get frustrated with the buttons and pull the tunic open, but he couldn’t do it and ended up laughing instead.

  They had to reset that four times before they could calm down, and Jack backed them all the way up to the kiss. “Let’s try this one more time, please? We still have a lot left in this scene.”

  That sounded ominous to Patrick, but he turned back to Angelo, stepped into the man’s arms, and locked lips again.

  He’d managed, thus far, to keep calm. There were enough other things happening, even in the closed set, that he hadn’t had a chance to get turned on, which he was grateful for. Especially with the laughter earlier, there wasn’t anything to get aroused over. But now that he was against Angelo again and they were kissing, there was a slight shift in the mood that he couldn’t have put his finger on the origin of, but he felt, nonetheless.

  Patrick looked up at Angelo when they broke apart, and though the script had called for Angelo to give his line and start undressing Patrick, they ended up kissing again instead. He expected Jack to cut any time, but the call never came. As this kiss deepened, their hands moved over each other’s bodies, and then Angelo groaned softly. And this time, Patrick felt himself react: his cock twitched and started to fill.

  When the kiss ended, they were both panting, and for Patrick, it was only partially acting. He looked up into Angelo’s eyes, and Angelo finally gave his line—“Naked, now”—and they scrambled for the buttons. This time, there was no laughing, no mess ups. This time, it felt almost as if they were as anxious as their characters were.

  It bothered Patrick. He didn’t want to feel this stuff, didn’t want to get turned on by yet another person. He tried to forget about it and focus on what he had to do. Angelo undid the first buttons like he was supposed to, then yanked, and Patrick’s tunic came open. He pushed it off Patrick’s shoulders, and Patrick managed to get Angelo’s open, though his hands didn’t seem to want to work quite right.

  Jack apparently liked it because he let it go, and eventually Patrick shoved the thing off Angelo’s body. Angelo next turned to the ties holding Patrick’s pants shut. That too went pretty well, and then they were down and he was stepping out of them, eyes still glued to Angelo.

  “Cut!” Jack called.

  Patrick looked around, bewildered. “Uh, what was wrong with that?” He blinked up at Angelo, who shrugged.

  Jack approached, frowning. “You’re not supposed to be wearing that,” he said, nodding toward Patrick’s cock sock.

  “What?” Patrick stared at him, not sure he’d heard correctly.

  “I said, you’re not supposed to be wearing that. Do you have one?” he asked Angelo, who nodded slowly.

  “Says who?” Patrick asked.

  “Your contracts,” Jack said, turning around. He picked up two thick stacks of paper from his chair and came back, and Patrick knew what they were before he looked: copies of their contracts. Jack handed one to each of them, with the addendum for the new scenes on top.

  Patrick glanced down at it then up to Jack, who looked smug. Patrick scowled, then went back to the contract and skimmed quickly to find the nudity clause. Sure enough, it was there, in detail—the scenes involved and the complete lack of clothing listed—complete with his initials on the lines. He’d been stupid. He hadn’t read it carefully when Janie sent it to him, and he’d signed off on it. In the end, he’d known he’d do whatever Jack wanted
because he did need the money and couldn’t really afford to lose the role. With a sigh, he handed it back to Jack.

  Angelo also handed his contract back, though he didn’t look the least bit surprised. “I was hoping he’d change his mind,” he muttered to Patrick.

  Patrick nodded, understanding well. Jack was certainly known for that. Patrick turned away, though he knew it was silly—Jack was certainly about to see his cock in all its glory—and took off the sock.

  “Let’s reset to before he takes your pants off,” Jack said, and Patrick nodded, going back to his mark and pulling them on again.

  Once they were tied, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. There really were only a few people there. He and Angelo would get final say on what was actually shown, and the FCC had plenty of limits.

  Finally feeling like he could face it, he opened his eyes and looked up at Angelo. Angelo nodded, and Patrick returned it. Patrick heard the cameraman give the okay, then Jack made his call, and finally Angelo was taking Patrick’s pants off again.

  He knew it was silly to be embarrassed or anything—the only thing they were looking at yet was his ass. But he could still feel their eyes on him. He swallowed the lump and tried to breathe normally, but he was having a hell of a time at it. The only positive to all of this was that he was no longer even remotely aroused.

  Angelo must have recognized his reticence because, contrary to the script, he pulled Patrick in and kissed him again. It was—like the others they’d done—real, and this time quite full and deep. In a vague part of his brain, Patrick registered that Jack hadn’t cut the scene, but he couldn’t think too much about it. He was relaxing, finally.

  When they pulled apart, Angelo nuzzled his ear and whispered, “Better?”

  Patrick gave a positive hum, and Angelo stood up again. Keeping his gaze locked on Angelo’s, he knelt slowly as the script called for, grateful for Jack’s silence, and when he was on his knees, reached up to untie Angelo’s pants. With his heart pounding, he managed to open them, then tug them off. He registered the camera in the background moving as he sat up and leaned in.