Chapter 330: Black Smoke

He groaned her name but was stopped short by the knock at the door. 

“Mr Cavanaugh, you are wanted on set.”

He cursed and tilted his forehead against hers and laughed. He could feel her shaking beneath him, her silent laughter taunting him. His wry chuckle turned into a groan and she understood what she had done. She froze, trying not to moan and tickle the beast on top of her. 

In appreciation, he gave her a quick peck on the lips. 

“Give me a few minutes!” he shouted towards the door. He rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling. The vixen took the opportunity to sprawl on top of him and cupping his cheeks. 

“We do have a couple of minutes. Time for a quickie?” she teased. He cupped the back of her head, pulling her closer for a much slower and deeper kiss.

“I’m not fond of quickies,” he told her when he pulled away. 

“You’ll just have to get to work with a bad case of blue balls then,” she whispered softly. 

He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed the top of her hair, chuckling. He knew that was exactly going to be the case. A quick run to the washroom was inevitable. 

With that, he quickly put her down on the bed and stood up. His pants had ridden down his waist, so he pulled it up, wriggling his ass in front of her. She slyly inched forward, her arm eerily close to his butt. 

The sudden smack made him jump. He looked at her with shock and saw her start to laugh. He shook his head, wagging his finger in warning as he left. 

He would have to punish her for that later. 

– – – 

Stephen stood at the side of the shooting, watching as Giselle and Cage practiced their scenes on the set. It was something to do with a bomb going off. Usually, when such scenes happened, the explosion happened without the talent on the scene, it was added later on. Otherwise, they were put at a distance from it and given all the security measures so that they do not hurt. This time, they were doing the whole thing separately. The stunts team was checking everything and the young member of the safety crew was teaching them how to act like there would be a bomb going off. 

Giselle and Cage listened with rapt attention because they would need to enact the emotions without the explosion in the background. It had to be perfect so that it looked real. 

The director and assistant director were excitedly chatting with Katherine, who had made her way out of the trailer and planted herself among the people of the set. 

“Don’t worry, the bomb won’t go off, it happens separately,” the assistant director told her. Katherine nodded in understanding. Stephen walked up to them and wrapped his hand around Katherine’s shoulder. 

“Hey, aren’t you going live on your channel in half an hour?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Katherine replied, looking at Stephen suspiciously. “I know that you have a lot of eyes on you and everything, how about Katherine shows her followers around the set, meeting people and chatting with them? Good publicity, don’t you think?”

Katherine didn’t know what the plan was so she kept silent and listened. 

The director wasn’t up for it but somehow, the assistant director persuaded him to do it.

“Don’t shoot the scenes we are doing, but everything else is game. Young people call it spoilers, right?”

“Yeah, they go crazy over behind the scenes content,” Katherine replied nonchalantly. When the crowd dispersed, Katherine took Stephen to the side. She crossed her hand over her chest and gave him a pointed look. 

“What was that about?” she asked.

“We need eyes in the crew. Propel the stalker on to take action,” Stephen shrugged. 

Katherine groaned. “I don’t like doing this,” she protested. 

“It’s just a couple of days. Your channel will go back to normal. You’ll just get more people on your channel.” He placed his palm together and bowed, pleading with her. She huffed. 

“I’m doing this as a favor, you have to pay me back somehow.” Stephen grinned. 

“I’ll ensure Cage gets some valuable time off and sponsor a trip, okay? Treat it as your honeymoon,” he teased. Katherine snorted and shook her head as she walked away. Getting loads of alone time with Cage sounded good after the months that had been spent apart and constantly working. 

It would do their mental health a lot of good. 

– – –

Bella had brought her camera out of the trailer and set it up for the live stream. There were a few minutes left to go, so she prepped everything. She had asked the bodyguards to stay out of the frame if they didn’t want to get internet famous. But they seemed planted in their spot. 

As the stream began, she showed her surroundings and started to talk about how her life was. 

“Okay, my aliens. By popular request, I have finally decided to take you around the set. Maybe we can get a little sneak peek of what is happening in the movie.” She gave a wink. “So, if you don’t want to watch the crew and my lovely bodyguards be irritated with me throughout my rampage around the set, please log off!”

Unexpectedly, more people were coming to watch than expected. Something around four hundred thousand people were watching within the first ten minutes.

She pranced around the set, talking to the crew members and asking questions raised by her audience.

“Ah. What do you think about Cage Cavanaugh? Do you think he is an absolute diva on the set?” she asked a poor female crew member. The girl blushed and shook her head profusely. “Oh, come on-“

Whatever she was going to follow up with cut off as the ground shook. The sound that followed was a large explosion. “Are they already shooting that scene?” she turned to ask no one in particular. 

Everyone was bewildered. 

No, that wasn’t the case. There had been a boom. A very big boom. “Hold on,” she told her audience. 

Her heart was pounding. Something was wrong; she could feel it in her bones. She looked up in the distance, towards the source of the noise and her stomach churned. 

There was black smoke rising up in the distance. The sound of panicked shouts and sirens could be heard in the distance. 

Cage was practicing the scene himself. Her heart leaped to her throat, her eyes prickling as she tried to calm herself. 

“Oh god,” she kept repeating. “I have to go. I’m sorry,” she stuttered, not even looking at the camera. Her voice shook, almost breaking. “I have to go,” she repeated.

She switched off the steam and ran towards the black smoke. Her hand was on her phone, dialing Stephen’s number.