Read Online Wild at Heart (Walk on the Wild Side #1) by Lara Archer - Free Book Online

!”
    Ruby flinched visibly.
    “Sorry,” said Amber. “Really, that was better. More lively, at least. But it felt a little...um, self-conscious. Like you knew the camera was on you.”
    Ruby blinked at her. “Yeah, well, I do know the camera’s on me.”
    “But your character’s not supposed to know. She’s just living her life, not making a music video.”
    Oh, and that got another flinch.
    Amber tried again. “It’s just that...what you’re doing—it looks a little too...posed. You know, calculated. Fake .”
    Okay, maybe that wasn’t the gentlest way to have put it. But it was true—Ruby was acting sexy, creating a facsimile of desire with the shell of her body. Her fans might be thrilled to see it, no matter what. But Amber needed her to show desire from within .
    “Look,” said Amber. “Just let it flow. Don’t try to make it pretty. Don’t try to force it to be sexy. Be authentic .”
    Ruby nodded, but her face looked stiffer than ever.
    Jake stepped forward then. “Hey,” he said. “Amber, can you maybe give us a couple minutes here? Without the cameras? So Ruby and I can talk?”
    “Sure,” said Amber, motioning to Nick and Onyx to shut everything off.
    Jake led Ruby out of sight behind a boulder, but the murmur of their voices made it clear they were talking intently.
    Onyx punched Eli on the shoulder. “C’mon,” she said. “I need you to…uh, identify some species of toadstools for me.”
    Eli looked alarmed at being addressed by a female. Especially a scary female like Onyx. “I don’t know anything about toadstools,” he said.
    Onyx rolled her kohl-lined eyes meaningfully in Nick’s direction. “So guess.” She grabbed Eli by the elbow and dragged him off down the hill. “Move.”
    Which left Amber alone with Nick.
    Great, so even Onyx could tell there was something off between them, and thought it needed to be fixed. Immediately.
    As if it could be fixed.
    Nick, not surprisingly, was suddenly very absorbed in checking his light meter again. And, oh good God, this was awful. Any other day, she could have talked to Nick about what was happening with Ruby, have him reassure her, or give her a reality check, bounce ideas back and forth. But in the past twenty-four hours he’d gone from being her unfailing rock to being a big pit of quicksand.
    She actually hoped Eli and Onyx would hurry back so there’d be more people there to not talk to, so it wouldn’t be so conspicuous that she wasn’t talking to Nick.
    Nick fiddled with his meter for a few more seconds, but then he looked up at her abruptly. “Hey, kiddo,” he said softly, his eyes kind of hooded like he knew she wouldn’t want him looking at her. “Can I offer some advice?”
    Her stomach jumped. And then twisted.
    Advice. Oh, yes, she definitely wanted advice from Nick Turner right about now.
    But, actually, given how badly things were going with her actors, she couldn’t exactly afford to turn it down. “Sure,” she said tightly. “Shoot.”
    Hesitantly, Nick looked her in the eye. “Don’t take this wrong, but...ease up a little, okay? Ruby’s feeling a lot of pressure right now, I think, and you being hard on her’s not helping her relax.”
    “Ruby?” she said. He thought she was being hard on Ruby ? And just like that, the hot seething ball of jealousy she’d managed to tamp down thus far burst into flame. “Ruby needs help to relax? Well, I really think that’s more your department than mine, cowboy. What do you say we all go back down to the cabins for a couple hours and you help her get the tension out?”
    And Nick’s face went hard and dark, and now Amber’s stomach turned into a lump of lava rock. A big, hard, horrible, guilty, stupid lump of lava rock.
    “Oh, God,” she blurted out. “I’m sorry. That was a totally middle school thing to say.”
    And no, no no no no —the inside of her nose started to have that hot, achy, prickly feeling, and tears were suddenly pushing their way up