Bennie shuffled the stack of papers in front of him, reminding Josh of the purpose of their meeting.

“So?” Josh leaned in and tapped the table with both palms. “What have you got for me?”

Bennie handed over the documents.

Two years ago, a few days into shooting his first adult film, Josh had “taken a meeting” with a man from Black Hat Studios. The smooth-as-glass executive had plied him with Johnnie Walker Blue and extended an exclusive contract within thirty minutes of meeting him. Josh, still flush from the fact that someone, anyone, wanted to pay him to fuck, had quickly signed on the dotted line.

The contract meant three years of steady paychecks. It also meant he couldn’t work independently or for any other studios, sell his own merchandise, or make any public appearances without Black Hat Studios’ explicit approval.

That one night had cost Josh thousands in missed royalties alone. He’d asked Bennie last week to meet with the studio on his behalf, try to grease the wheels a little, and see if maybe the higher-ups would renegotiate a year early.

Josh raked a hand through his hair. “A five-thousand-dollar bonus?” He knew the kind of numbers he brought in through merch and appearances alone. “Is this a joke?”

“I know we wanted more, but I had to fight dirty for that much.” Bennie reached across the table to pick up the papers in a white-knuckled grip.

“But why? I’m the closest thing they’ve got to a household name . . . and they come back with this?”

Before the older man could answer, the waitress returned with Josh’s burger, bending from the waist to put down the plate. When Josh didn’t spare her an extra glance beyond a cursory “Thank you,” she huffed and stomped away.

Bennie folded his arms across his ample stomach. “Look, you’re hot right now, but the bigwigs at Black Hat say these new ladies you brought in with the last video won’t stick around. They say your self-proclaimed ‘Darlings’ don’t pay for porn, and definitely don’t fork over for subscriptions. They’ll watch that one video until they get bored and then go back to their cold beds and their colder husbands.

“Besides, you’ve got all kinds of rules about who you’ll work with and what kind of stuff you’ll make. You’re like some monk with your self-imposed code of conduct. Black Hat likes people they can bully.” His agent took a long drink of his soda. “As long as they’ve still got you hooked on the stock agreement, they don’t have a lot of incentive to crack open the old checkbook.”

“I know I’m not a genius, but I’ve seen the numbers I bring in, and they’ve grown steadily for the past year. I’ve got bags of rabid fan mail spilling out of my closet and the back of my car. I’m worth at least three times this much. Even Black Hat negotiates. What aren’t you telling me?”

Bennie mopped his brow with a paper napkin. “Ever since you and Naomi broke up, your stock’s taken a major hit. The domestic fantasy of the two of you together made you more palatable to mainstream audiences, but the powers that be aren’t convinced that a man alone, even a good-looking kid like you, can pull numbers like that as a headliner.”

He grimaced. “I never knew people cared about my personal life.”

“You kidding? You two were like the Brad and Jen of adult entertainment. I thought I’d give a speech at your wedding.”

“What?”

“Forget it. Hey, where are you living now that the old lady kicked you out?”

Josh took a halfhearted bite of his burger. “Found some sublet on Craigslist. Came fully loaded. The only downside is now I’ve got a socialite for a roommate.”

“Yikes. That’s the last thing we need. Look, they said if you want the big dollars, you gotta start doing more of the hardcore stuff. That’s where Black Hat sees the best margins. They want you working in their new extreme division. They’re businessmen who don’t give a damn about your morals. You want more money, you’re gonna have to compromise.”

Josh’s appetite deserted him. He liked sex as much as the next guy. Hell, maybe more, all things considered. But he’d set boundaries when he entered this business and he wasn’t going to abandon them. “It’s never gonna happen.”

Bennie threw up his hands. “I get it. It’s no skin off my nose if you wanna stick to the basics. Take the five thousand and invest it.” He eyed Josh’s burger with more than a hint of interest.

“Come on. Some of the stuff they get up to in that division makes my skin crawl. You should have seen the waivers they tried to make Naomi sign.” Under the table, Josh’s hands balled into fists. “Let them loop in some other sap to do scenes with the misguided Midwestern chicks they con into contracts. It’s not gonna be me. They can keep me from working for anyone else, but that contract doesn’t stop me from spending the next year sitting on my ass eating bonbons. I’ve hit my performance quota.”

“I hate to break it to you, but you don’t have to approve.” Bennie rolled up his sleeves. “You know how it is nowadays. No one wants to pay for porn anymore. Not the kind of stuff that’s easy to get for free from amateurs on the Internet. Black Hat wants to invest in a specialized audience. One that’s willing to pay for exclusive content. This is the way of the future. You can’t coast on those dimples forever. Sooner or later, you’re gonna have to ask yourself, do you wanna make real money or not?”

As realization washed over him, Josh’s face turned to granite. “How much did they offer you to convince me?”

Bennie shook his head. “You don’t wanna know.”

Josh extracted himself from the booth.

“Stop it. Don’t be like that,” Bennie said, groaning as if Josh were a child throwing a tantrum. He pointed a French fry at the stack of papers with the offer. “Five K is not nothing.”

Josh pulled enough bills out of his wallet to cover the burger he hadn’t eaten, and an extra twenty to make it up to the waitress for his abrupt dismissal. “Don’t take that,” he said, pointing at the money and practically growling.

Bennie shouted at Josh’s back as he walked out the door, all trace of composure gone. “You wanna walk away? Let me give you a clue, Darling, fucking is the only thing you’re good at, and you’re not as good at fucking as you think. Give me a call when you wake the hell up!”

Chapter six

DO NOT GOOGLE your porn star roommate. No good can come of it.

Clara repeated the mantra every time the quiet of the empty house gave her dangerous ideas.

The knowledge that Josh starred in explicit videos had infected her brain. A contagion with only one cure.

No matter how hard she tried to distract herself, or how many “concentrate” playlists she made, her mind kept floating back to Josh and his great big . . . occupation.

Josh in a skimpy pizza delivery uniform. Josh as a sexy mailman with an extra-large package. The endless possibilities tormented her. She knew porn came in all shapes and sizes. Which kind of videos did Josh make? She could hardly have peppered Jill for details. Porn wasn’t exactly the type of topic one could comfortably discuss with a family member, even an up until recently estranged one, at length.

But despite her overactive imagination, she couldn’t imagine a man that playful as sexy enough to sell.

She supposed Josh did have his moments.

Having dedicated most of her adult life to a field of academia favored by introverts, Clara knew a lot of men who shied away from eye contact. The guys in her doctoral program at Columbia could stare at a painting of a wild orgy for hours but only managed to talk to her left ear at the bar afterward.

Josh didn’t suffer from any such aversion. Holding his stare for too long made her dizzy. Did nature or nurture make him electric?

Even with all the windows open to tempt any trace of cross breeze, and the lights off, she couldn’t get cool. Her bedroom was worse. A blistering inferno without the benefit of a ceiling fan. Everett had neglected to mention the house’s lack of air-conditioning when he offered her free rent. She’d changed into an old cotton nightgown that evoked comforting memories of wistfully journaling in her girlhood bedroom, even if it didn’t quite fit her the same way it had when she was twelve.

She stared at the ceiling and tried to blow a long strand of damp hair off her forehead. Clara mentally recited the reasons that finding out any more information about Josh’s professional prowess would ruin her life.

One, seeing him naked would make it impossible for her to ever speak to him again without spasming into a tornado of awkwardness. Which meant, by extension, she could no longer ask him to reach things off the top shelf of the kitchen cabinets. She’d already stored several bottles of expensive shampoo up there.

Two, she might see something completely reprehensible, forcing her to confront him on the basis of her feminist morals. Those types of interventions had high price tags in terms of both time and energy.

Three, what if he had a weird penis? She supposed he probably didn’t, otherwise they likely wouldn’t have cast him. Did they have some kind of checklist for porn-ready genitalia?

Her mind crept back to unbidden curiosity, shunning all ideas of alternate entertainment, food, or sleep.