by Vi Keeland
“I’m so glad she’ll grace us with her presence.”
“If we’re lucky, she might even try to reconfigure the blocking,” Shannon says in a deadpan voice as she zips up her coat. The weather forecast earlier today called for snow after midnight. Shannon taps the doorframe, as if an idea just took shape. “Maybe you could nail down some of the blocking tonight when you work with Jill. So there’s no wiggle room.”
I tamp down the mischievous grin that’s forming. I’d certainly thought of that myself, but hearing the suggestion from my stage manager makes my task tonight feel all the more necessary.
“Good idea, Shan. Now go get home so you can curl up by the fire and watch the snow fall.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Maybe we’ll even have a snow day tomorrow,” she muses. “Oh wait. Davis Milo never allows snow days.” She swats me playfully on the arm.
“You don’t allow them either.”
“You got me there. But I learned my merciless ways from you,” she says, then tosses her scarf around her neck with a final flourish. “I’m off into the tundra.”
She opens the door, letting in a cold blast of air. I’m about to close it, when a voice I long to hear calls out, “Hold the door! My hands are full.”
I push back on the door and see Jill practically sprinting down the alley, holding a cup of coffee in each hand. She says a quick hello and goodbye to Shannon as she passes her.
“Good luck with the hair scene, Jill,” Shannon says. “Make sure you guys finalize the blocking.”
“Hair scene. I’m on it,” she answers like a good soldier, following orders.
Jill reaches the door, and holds up the blue paper cups.
“Coffee.”
“I can see that.”
“I got you one,” she says, and there’s the slightest flutter to her voice, as if she’s nervous.
She thrusts a cup at me, and I take it. It’s just coffee but still, I’m dying to break into a grin because it’s not just coffee—it’s coffee from her, it’s coffee for us. It’s a little something she did for our private rehearsal.
“I’m impressed you can run and not spill the coffee.”
“It’s all part of my marathon training. In fact, I teach that skill to the more advanced runners in my coaching group.”
“But of course. Some of them probably even want to learn how not to spill a latte, or perhaps an espresso,” I say with a smirk.
“We’re actually well past the how-not-to-spill espresso training. By the way, do you think you can let me in now?”
I laugh, realizing I’m standing in the doorway and she’s outside, shivering, even with her coat on. I open the door wider, letting her in. I look briefly at the dark sky that’s brighter than usual, a sure sign the clouds are swelling with snow.
“Looks like snow.” I let the door close behind us.
“You better watch out then. I throw a mean snowball. My brothers taught me how to throw.”
“I’ll consider myself duly warned for the vicious snowball attack.” We head down the backstage hallway toward the wings of the stage. As I watch her walk, her coat hitting just below her waist, I imagine her naked again. I love that I know what she looks like without anything on.
I take a drink. The coffee is perfect. Just black. Nothing added to it. Exactly how I like it.
“How did you know?”
“How did I know what?”
“How I take my coffee.”
“I took a wild guess. My roommate has this theory about guys and their coffee drinks,” she says as we reach the stage. She stops at the edge of the curtains.
“A theory about men and coffee?” I raise an eyebrow. “Enlighten me.”
She briefly looks at her shoes, then back at me. “Well, it’s just, she has this theory that the man who orders just coffee is, you know…” her voice trails off, and crimson starts to flood her cheeks.
“Is just what?”
“Just…” She can’t seem to finish the thought.
“You want me to guess?”
She shakes her head, her hair falling in a curtain around her face in the most thoroughly distracting manner. But she seems embarrassed, and the last thing I want to do is push her past her point of comfort.
“Well, whatever the theory is, I will choose to take it as a compliment.”
She raises her face, and meets my eyes. “Thank you.”
“Do you want a tour of all the secret backstage passageways and doors before we start? Or did you check everything out already today?” I offer, hoping she says yes. I want to be able to do something for her that’s special, that no one else can do. To show her more of the things she loves—theater.
Her eyes sparkle. “Secret backstage stuff. Like ghosts?”
“This theater has many, many ghosts. They say the ghost of Hammerstein sometimes watches from over there.”
I point past the stage, to the balcony on the right-hand side.
“Do you think he’s there right now?” she whispers.
“Oh no. He’s far too busy. He only shows up on opening night.”
She laughs, and places her coffee on the floor and unbuttons her coat. She walks to the edge of the stage, leans slightly, then tosses the coat perfectly so it lands on a chair in the second row. Right next to my coat. Then she retrieves her cup.
I tip my forehead past the wings and crook my finger for her to follow me. I take another sip of the coffee then show her the trapdoor in the stage, the steps down to the orchestra pit that also do double duty for quick costume changes in some shows, and the catwalk above with the spotlights.
“But here’s the best part. Did you know there’s a dressing room above the stage?”
She grins widely, as if I’ve just revealed the location to buried treasure. “How did I not notice it today?”
“It’s kind of hidden behind some of the crates with the set pieces we haven’t unpacked yet. The star usually claims it; it’s actually in Alexis’ contract. But it’s still worth a look.” I show her back to the wings, and open a black door that’s painted to match the walls. “Right there. Stairs lead up to it. Like a fire escape.”
“Can we go up?”
“We can’t go inside. But you can go up.”
She walks up the steps to the top where a small metal balcony looks out over the quiet stage, with the door to the dressing room behind.
“It’s quite a view,” she says drinking in the majesty of the St. James from this hideout spot that few people ever see. She surveys the expansive place as if she’s privy to a gorgeous sunset, and I love watching her reaction because I feel the same. She turns to me, and we’re so close in this tiniest of balconies that I could easily grab her and kiss her and do so many other things to her, with her, for her up above the floorboards, only the stage below knowing our secrets. “Davis,” she says in a low and sexy voice that nearly obliterates my self-control. “Would you go down to the stage? I want to see what it looks like from up here with a person on the stage.”
“Okay,” I say warily. “But I’m not going to perform.”
“I won’t ask you to tap dance or twirl in circles.”
“Good,” I say, then oblige by heading down the metal stairs to the middle of the stage. I’m still holding my coffee, so I look up at her, and hell if she doesn’t look like the most romantic woman ever written leaning on the railing in the balcony, her long hair framing her face, a wistful sigh fluttering from her lips.
It’s a moment that shouldn’t be ruined by words. Besides, she wanted to see how the stage looks, not how it sounds, so I say nothing. I take a drink of my coffee. I wait for her to go next.
Even from this distance, I can see her swallow and exhale as if she’s about to say something that’s hard for her. “Your coffee?”
“Yeah?”
“All the hot guys take their coffee black. So that’s how I knew.”
For the first time in my life, I am speechless. I am reduced to nothing but this buzzing in my b
ones, as if every cell inside me has been dialed all the way up. My skin is hot all over and my body feels like it’s shaking as she turns down the stairs, crosses the stage, and stands in front of me.
I want to crush her against me. I want to smother her in kisses. I want to taste her, touch her, feel her.
Her lips are slightly parted, and if I stare at them any longer, I will be claiming her mouth with mine, pushing her up against a wall and owning her body. So I glance down, and that’s a worse decision.
The red sweater taunts me. Those pearl buttons are beacons calling out to me, and my fingers twitch with the desire to twist hard on one and let it rattle to the floor, then the next, then the next, exposing her breasts to me, so full and creamy.
I scrub a hand across my jaw, then somehow find the will to turn away from her because if I start something now we’ll never rehearse. I won’t be able to stop making her come. I force myself to focus on my job.
“We should probably get to work on that scene,” I say hoarsely.
She raises an eyebrow. “The show must go on.” She walks to stage left then tosses me a look over her shoulder. “As they say.”
I love that she can shift back to this playful side, and it’s one more thing that is going to ruin me.
* * *
There is only an easel on the stage. It’s a temporary one, a fill-in prop from an art supply store. When the show begins, the real easel will be bigger, larger than life in many ways, befitting a Broadway show. But for now, this easel does the trick. It gives Ava a focal point for her work. She has been painting all day, working and reworking her newest piece under Paolo’s direction. The young painter, barely into her twenties, and the world-renowned artist who’s taken her under his iron-fisted wing at art school.
Paolo returns to the studio to check on her progress and finds her a painted mess.
I enter from stage left. Ava doesn’t notice me at first; she’s so engrossed in the work. I am quiet, walking on cat’s feet to her side.
She startles. “Oh.”
“You are…” I don’t finish the sentence. Instead, I make a circular motion around her face.
“I’m what?”
“You’re covered in paint.”
She shrugs. “What else should I be covered in but paint?”
“Your hair is full of paint. It’s getting in the way.”
With one sweep of her hand she brushes her hair off her face, leaving behind an imaginary streak from the paintbrush.
“Oops,” I say, because Paolo feels playful right now.
“It’s on my forehead now, right?”
I nod, then trace a quick line across her forehead. “A bright yellow streak. And your hair is the color of the sun too.”
“I’m a mess,” she says in a sweet, self-deprecating tone.
“Here.” I hold out my hand. “Give me the brush.”
She hands it to me, and I lay it on the easel. “Come with me.”
She follows and we move to the middle of the stage. “Sit,” I tell her.
She bites the inside of her lip then sits cross-legged. I kneel behind her, so the audience will be able to see both of us. “Let’s get your hair out of the way.”
“Okay,” she says, in the softest, sweetest voice.
She leans her head back, closes her eyes, and lets me run my fingers through her hair. I gather her hair at the top of her head, the thick strands laying across my palms like silk waterfalls. I begin weaving one strand into another, then gathering another layer, recreating the French braid I saw her wearing the other day. The one that made me think of a moment of intimacy, when Paolo and Ava come closer together through touch before they kiss in the next scene. A tender moment, where he wants to take care of her, get her painted hair out of her face.
I reach the point in the braid where I’m at her neck, and now I’m simply looping one strand over the other. There are no more lines in this scene until hers at the end, and as I finish I stare at her neck, at the way a vein seems to be beating harder, and then I listen, and her breaths sound like tiny little sighs.
I stop moving for a second, trying to collect myself. I am fighting everything in me that’s dying to touch her. I somehow find the strength to return to character, pulling a rubber band from my pocket, and fastening her braid. She turns around and looks at me.
That’s not in the blocking. That’s not how she did it this afternoon with Patrick. She didn’t look at him. She uttered the last lines while gazing out at the audience, her body language saying how she felt as she leaned into him, showing that she trusted him.
But now, she’s leaning back against my chest, and turning to look up at me. A tiny whimper escapes her throat, before she says, “It feels so good.”
I have no idea if she’s acting. If she’s Ava, or Jill, or both. If she’s acting, she’s so fucking convincing because her face says she’s never been more aroused in her life.
My hands are still on her back, my thumbs tracing the tiny strands at the end of her braid. She doesn’t break her gaze, nor do I. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t what’s happening. But for the first time I don’t feel like I’m in control anymore.
She is.
I stay completely still.
She counters me by shifting closer. “What is happening here?” Her voice is unsteady as she says a line that’s not in the script.
“You tell me,” I say, and I’m not even sure where my own voice is coming from.
She turns around, uncrosses her legs, and mirrors me, kneeling. “You wrote that scene for me, didn’t you?”
I nod. My throat is dry. I can barely speak.
“That day you saw me with Shelby outside the theater, right?”
“Yes.” I swallow. I’m a fucking open book now.
“Did you write it because it makes the show better? Or did you write it for me?”
I close my eyes briefly. I’ve never had an actress question me like this. Then I look at her. “I put the scene in the show because the show needed it,” I answer with as much confidence as I can muster, grabbing the reins from her.
“But you’re also kind of into my hair, aren’t you?”
Now she’s in control in again. My chest rises and falls and she’s looking at me with such a challenging stare, and so much want in her blue eyes. Her breath is staccato, like mine. She raises her hands behind her head, pulling out the rubber band, shaking out her hair, and letting it fall around her face.
I am undone by her.
My hands are twitching to touch her. I am aching to taste her lips.
“Do it,” she breathes out in a voice so low it’s barely audible, but it’s all I need.
I place my hands on her face and cup her cheeks, and she closes her eyes and sighs. Then my hands thread through her hair and I pull her to me, pressing my lips to hers again. I am unable to stay away from her.
Her lips are soft and full and greedy. But I like to lead, so I kiss her deeply, possessively, twining my hands through her glorious hair, as I trace the soft underside of her lips with the tip of my tongue, eliciting the sexiest moan from her that I kiss away. I nibble on her bottom lip, and she gasps. “Davis.”
My name alone sends me into another realm, and before I know it I am tugging on her hair and roaming my mouth down the gorgeous column of her neck, and right before I reach her shoulder blade, I press my teeth to her skin, lightly, but heavy enough to make the smallest of marks.
“Ouch,” she says, but the word tapers off, and the next thing she says is more, in a breathy whisper that turns into a groan of pleasure as I give her what she wants. “Do you know why I want to have my hands in your hair?” I say in a hoarse voice.
“Why?”
“Because I want to pull on your hair as I fuck you. I want to bend you over and take you against the wall, and I want to gather all your hair in my hands and hear you cry out.”
“Oh God,” she moans, and her mouth opens in a gorgeous, perfect O that sends my body spiraling fu
rther into such dark longing for her. “Do you think I’d like it?” she asks, playing along.
“You’d love it. Because I’d always make sure it was good for you. And because you like it a little rough.”
“I think I would too.”
“And I think you’d want me to tell you what to do. To direct you.”
“Yes,” she says, panting, as I bring a hand down to the little pearl buttons on her sweater. “I want to bite these off,” I whisper in her ear, my breath hot on her skin and making her shiver. “But I think you like this sweater. I think you wore it for me. Did you wear it for me?”
I nibble my way down her neck to the hollow of her throat. She gasps out a yes, as I tug on the bottom of her sweater, making room for my hand to slide across her belly. God, her skin is so soft.
“Were you thinking I’d like the way your breasts look in it? That I’d like you in red?”
“Yes.”
She grabs my shoulders, and slams me on top of her, her beautiful body against the floorboards.
“This works too though,” I tease.
She laughs, but then turns serious again. “What else do you want to do to me?”
“I want to go down on you on the piano. I want to lift you up and put you on the baby grand, and push your skirt to your hips and tell you to spread your legs for me,” I tell her, and she responds by opening her legs, and grabbing my ass, so we are in perfect missionary except for that little problem of clothes.
“Do you think I’d do what you say?” she says breathily, as she thrusts her hips against me.
“Yeah,” I say confidently. “I think you’d spread your legs for me, and let me taste you.”
“Do you think I’ll taste good?”
“I bet you taste like sin and heaven at the same time. I bet you taste fucking delicious coming on my tongue.” I look straight into her eyes, and they are full of fire and lust. “And I’m going to find out right now, Jill.”
I offer her a hand and pull her up, bringing her to the piano at stage right. Then I take off her boots, unzip her jeans, and leave them in a pile on the floor. I lift her up and gently lower her on top of the piano.