“Brianne,” Callin repeated. “I like it.”
He said her name in a low, gravelly voice that sent a rush of warmth from her head down through her center. She felt herself blushing again, more deeply this time.
“Callin? Can I help you with something?” Valerie demanded.
Callin smiled at Brianne one more time and then he shifted his focus to Valerie and Brianne could breathe again. She reminded herself of all of the reasons her reaction to Callin was ridiculous. Yes, he was hot, more than just hot, he was—magnificent. Yes, that was the word—but that didn’t change the fact that he was a dragon and Brianne wanted no part in any of that. And then there was the fact that Valerie made no secret of being into Callin, and there was no way Brianne was getting herself mixed up in anything that would make Valerie hate her even more than she already seemed to.
She told herself none of it mattered anyway. She was quitting her job, and besides, it wasn’t as if Callin really felt any sort of attraction to her. He was just being friendly and he probably had this effect on every straight woman he spoke to. But Brianne knew that wasn’t true. She had seen the way he looked at her—like he was hungry and she was the only thing that could curb his appetite.
Just like that, Brianne knew one thing for certain. There was no way she was quitting this job.
4
Callin left his trailer and made his way over to Valerie’s trailer. Immediately two things stood out to him about her trailer. The first thing was that it was big enough that pretty much every actor and actress he had worked with over the last few years would have been happy with it, including himself. The second thing was that it was smaller than his as he was the lead in the movie, and because of that one detail, the trailer could have been made of solid gold and diamonds and Valerie would still be unhappy with it.
He would have offered to swap trailers with her just to keep the peace, but if he did that, then she would expect him to drop everything and fix her problems every time she had one, whether they were real or imagined. He also thought it would be a bit of a kick in the face to whoever had assigned him the larger trailer and he wasn’t in the habit of shitting on the crew on a set and he wasn’t about to start now.
He rolled his eyes, thinking of Valerie and her constant need to be better than everyone else and to have more than anyone else had. He reminded himself he was on his way to her trailer to appease her and make her feel like she was going to fit in here and that rolling his eyes at her probably wasn’t the way to go about that. Still, though, he found it hard to control the eye rolls whenever he thought of her.
It was funny because off set, Valerie, as the pack alpha, was above him, and not once had she tried to make him feel valued. Here on set, he was undoubtedly the star of the show and therefore, he was above Valerie in the pecking order, but rather than lording it over her, he was going to try his best to make her feel welcome here. Even if there were a few sneaky eye rolls.
I guess that’s just the difference between me and Valerie, Callin thought to himself. She’s an entitled brat and I’m not. And I’m not going to start acting like one on set just to make Valerie feel better about the way she treats the pack members. Maybe this will make her see that you don’t have to be nasty to everyone around you just because you’re higher up the pecking order than they are. He doubted it would really work that way, but it was a nice thought and so he kept hold of it for now.
Callin reached the door to Valerie’s trailer. He paused for a moment before knocking on the door. Valerie had someone in there with her, and whoever it was, they sure as hell weren’t having an easy time of it. Callin couldn’t make out the words Valerie was saying—the sound proofing of the trailers was actually pretty good—but he could tell she was angry. She was going on and on, ranting and raving, and for so much sound to be escaping the trailer, she had to be yelling pretty damned loud.
Callin considered walking away from the trailer and coming back at a later time, but he decided against it. Knowing Valerie, there was a fair chance that it was one of the crew she had in there and Callin wasn’t going to stand for her treating them like dirt, not even to appease her ego. If he was wrong and she was on her cell phone or something and this was a personal matter, he would just apologize for the interruption and leave.
The decision made, Callin reached up and knocked on the trailer door. He heard Valerie snap out a muffled “What?” Charming, he thought to himself. Maybe I should go in there and tell her to lose the attitude now before it gets out of hand. He pushed the door open and stepped into the trailer. Before he even looked at Valerie, his attention was caught by someone else.
Someone who made his heart skip a beat and his dragon roar inside of him. The girl he found himself standing face to face with looked like she was in her early to mid-twenties. She had long, slightly curly, dark brown hair, and her eyes were the most beautiful he had ever seen. They were a deep brown color with tiny flecks of gold dotting the surfaces of her irises.
Her skin was a gorgeous olive shade, but he was still able to see that she
