by Vi Keeland
Her eyes widen with the realization that I wasn’t joking.
“Are you really going to?”
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No. The last thing I want is for you to stop.”
“Good. Now let me admire you.”
I step back as if I’m appraising her. Red lace panties, red sweater, and the look in her eyes is all she wears.
“Take off your sweater,” I tell her.
“Don’t you want to take it off of me?”
“Yes. But I want to watch you undress more.”
She nods, and reaches down to the waistband, crossing her hands, and tugging her sweater over her head. She wears a white strappy tank.
“Now the tank.”
She inhales sharply and does as I ask, tossing it into the growing pile of her clothes on the stage. She’s wearing only her matching bra and underwear and she’s a sight to behold in all that red. My eyes roam her body, memorizing her skin, her curves, the way she’s so sexy in anything and nothing. I’m so hard right now it hurts, and I know I’ll be taking care of myself later. Still, I touch myself through my jeans once. “What you do to me, Jill…” I say, trailing off.
Then I stalk over to her and place my hands on her thighs. She quivers as I touch her, and arches her back instantly. I run my thumbs along her inner thighs, and she’s gasping. Then I reach her panties, and trace a finger over the thin fabric between her legs that can’t hide how turned on she is. I circle my index finger across the wet spot that reveals her need to me. She grabs my hair, and tries to pull me closer.
I meet her gaze, and her eyes are fiery.
“Please stop teasing me.”
“I’m not teasing you.”
“You are.”
“I would only be teasing you if I planned to stop.”
She presses her hand against her mouth. “I can’t take it any more. Just touch me. Please.”
“Take off your bra.”
She reaches behind her back, and unclasps it instantly, handing it to me. I drop it on the ground, then cup her breasts. “So beautiful,” I murmur. I lavish attention first on one breast, tugging on her nipple as she moans, then the other, and the noises she makes drive me on.
Then I pull back. “But that’s not what I promised you tonight.”
“I know, and I want what you promised.”
“What did I promise?” I ask in a teasing voice.
“You said you’d go down on me very soon.”
“So is now very soon?”
“Yes,” she says, panting.
“Is now when you want to come on my tongue?”
She closes her eyes briefly, opens them, moistens her lips, and says yes. “I want to come in your mouth,” she says, and her voice is full of reckless desire. There’s something so wild in her, so untamed, as if she wants to be unleashed like this, and wants me to do it.
“Let me see what you look like on my stage with nothing on.”
Jill
I shimmy out of my panties and hitch in a breath. My whole body is vibrating, and I am lit up from the inside out. Every part of me is screaming for him. I’m completely naked on top of the piano and he rakes me over with his eyes, making me feel like I’m the only one he’s ever wanted like this. I don’t know how he does this to me, how he makes me feel charged all over, but I’ve never been this turned on. I didn’t know I could be this turned on, but this man makes me feel like my body belongs to him, like he can bring me places I never thought I could be. Like he can take me way past this reckless longing into some sort of altered state of bliss.
“Jill. Fucking Jill,” he says in a rough voice. He steps closer, curves a hand around my neck, and kisses me gently on the lips, then pulls back to drink me in with his eyes. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. You have to know that. You have to know how beautiful and intoxicating you are to me. And I’m going to bury my face between your legs right now. Spread your legs for me.”
I am aching for him, throbbing past the point of no return. I want him so badly it’s like my desire has become its own life force here in the theater with him. I scoot back on the top of the piano and part my legs, my knees falling open for him.
Then his hands are on my thighs and I cry out. He hasn’t even tasted me yet, and I’m already in heaven with him so near me. He bends down and traces his tongue across all the wetness between my legs. Sparks of sheer pleasure shoot through me, from the center of my body all the way to my fingertips. I loop my hands in his hair, holding onto him and pulling him closer. I want him so badly, I want his mouth, and his tongue, and his lips, and I even want the bristly scratch of his stubble against me. I want every single sensation all over me. But mostly, I want him to quench this burning need in my body, because it feels like I might die if I don’t come. I know that’s not true yet nothing has ever felt more true, because I’ve been reduced to nothing but feelings, to the constant bursts of pleasure that he brings me as he licks me, his moans the sexiest sounds I’ve ever heard in my life as he tastes me, savoring me.
I didn’t even know it was possible to be wanted this much, but Davis makes me feel as if no woman in the world has ever felt like this before, as if all the pleasure cascading through my body is happening for the first time. He flicks his tongue against my clit, and I grab his hair harder and buck against him. Then his lips are on me, kissing me between my legs and it’s beyond amazing the things he can do with his mouth.
Until I learn what he can do with his fingers at the same time. He thrusts two inside me, and my head falls back from the dizzying feel—the softness of his mouth, the roughness of his fingers. He swirls delirious lines with the tip of his tongue, all while fucking me hard and deep with his fingers, and all I can picture is him inside me, filling me up, stretching me. Soon, my world spins off its axis, sending me into a place of pure and absolute bliss, like every molecule and atom inside of me is vibrating, and I’ve never felt more alive.
Somewhere, somehow, I’m vaguely aware of all these sounds I’m making, these wild moans, and pants, as I cry out, and beg him for more and more because I’m racing, rocking against him, reaching for his hair, his shoulders, as I move harder and faster, my breaths erratic as I climb my way to the far edge of desire.
I am devastated by the feelings that wrack through my body.
I am undone. Completely and utterly undone for him.
I call out his name, and it echoes around the theater, reverberating across the walls and crashing all over the empty auditorium as I come on his mouth, his tongue, his lips. He holds tight to my hips, slowing his moves, but still kissing me until I can’t take it anymore, and he pulls away.
My shoulders heave and I pant hard, as if I’ve just finished a race, and maybe I have. Soon, I open my eyes, but I still feel woozy, as if I’m barely grasping at reality, as if I’m still living on the edge of a dream. But he’s here, looking at me, with the same wildness in his eyes that I felt moments before.
“Did you picture that before I did it to you?”
I press my teeth into my lips once then nod, still dazed on the aftereffects.
“You imagined me tasting you? You fantasized about me eating you?”
“Yes.”
“Was it how you imagined it? Coming for me?”
I shake my head.
“No?”
“It was so much better.”
He inhales sharply, and the expression on his face says he wishes he could take me now, yank me off the piano, and slam me down hard on his cock, and fuck me right here, like this.
“Do you want to fuck me?” I say in a voice that’s comprised solely of lust.
“Yes. But I’m not going to.”
Chapter 16
Jill
I wash my hands then dry them, checking out my reflection one last time. My cheeks are still rosy, and I have that just-been-fucked look still. I don’t think that’s going to disappear any time soon, and I’m okay with that. I toss the paper towel in the
trash can, smooth my hands over my red sweater and return to the backstage hallway, then to the stage. I still feel like I’m floating, but there’s another feeling surrounding me and it’s harder to get a handle on.
Nervousness maybe? Chased with a touch of hope? I’m honestly not sure, and maybe that’s because I don’t know what’s going on. I barely even understand who I become around him, how I can spin out of my carefully constructed world of happy-go-lucky, everything-is-fine and transform into this ravenous woman grasping at pleasure as if I need it for my very survival. As if the release I feel with Davis has somehow become as necessary as breath and air.
I move the curtains aside and walk to the piano, trying to compose myself. But into what I don’t know. The actress here for rehearsal? The woman unfazed by her boss? Or the person who doesn’t have a handle on herself?
He’s on the bench, straddling it rather than sitting at it, and he’s swiping his index finger across his phone.
“Texting someone?” Something annoys me about the fact that he’s doing something so ordinary—texting—while I don’t have a clue how to act. I wish I could abort the snottiness in my voice, but it’s too late.
He shakes his head. “No. I’m reading the news.”
“Oh.” Now I feel foolish, but also relieved. I sit down next to him. “Anything interesting going on in the world?”
“It’s snowing, and the government still has a deficit,” he says with that wry smile. I want to reach out and touch his face, trace the outline of his lips. So I do, and he leans into me, like a cat who likes being pet. Then I stop because I want to know more about him. I want to understand him.
“Are you a news junkie or a weather junkie?”
“Both. But in this case, news. I read the New York Times religiously.”
“What else? Do you read books?”
“I have nothing against books. But I would have to say nearly all my reading is the newspaper. Well, the paper online.”
“Cover to cover?”
He nods, and it seems fitting that he’s a news hound. It works for him. It suits him. He seems like a man who wants to understand the world, and so that’s what he does. But I also think there’s more to it. “Do you think you lean towards news so much because you spend your day with make believe?”
His lips quirk up as if he’s intrigued by the question, considering it. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. But yeah, maybe that’s part of it. I spend all my hours constructing the most believable artifice I can, so when I’m not playing pretend, I want to know what’s real.”
Real. There it is again, and the word makes me wince because I’m struggling so much with holding onto real and make believe, and they seem to be seeping into each other.
He fingers a strand of my hair absently and it’s such a sweet gesture, because that’s all it is. It’s not a prelude, it’s not the start of something more. It is what it is. “What about you, Jill? What do you read?”
I take a long but quiet inhale and I stare off at the faraway balcony of the theater. The balcony that will be full of people soon. I flash back to Sunday with Patrick, to how I was paralyzed with some strange fear about answering truthfully. Maybe that’s why I’ve been asking Davis these questions. Maybe I’ve been asking so he could ask me back. So I can test myself. See if I can do it. If I can speak a simple truth.
I look at him, and it doesn’t hurt, I don’t feel like all my words are stuck. It’s easy, remarkably easy to answer.
“Romance,” I say, and it’s as if a piece of my regret floats away when I voice a truth. It feels good, so I keep going. “Racy romance, to be precise.”
A grin tugs at his lips. “Of course you read racy romance,” he says in a flirty, sexy voice. No judgement. No teasing. Just knowing.
“Why do you say of course?”
“Because you couldn’t play this part if you weren’t a romantic. Because I see it in you. Because I see all this passion, all this pain, all this hope. All this sexiness.”
I can feel it again. The same thing I felt when I sang in our first private rehearsal. As if a fragment of my frozen heart is breaking away, as if the ice I’ve encased myself in is calving off, freeing up a tiny part of me that wants to be known. And it feels good, so more words spill out, like a confessional. “I read dirty stuff. And racy stuff. And erotic romance. And I love books with heroes who talk dirty,” I say as I move closer, and run my fingers along the smooth buttons on his shirt.
“I had a feeling you did,” he says, and he can’t stop grinning.
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“Why would it bother me?”
“I don’t know,” I say with a shrug.
“Do you masturbate when you read your erotic novels?”
“Yes.”
“I would love to watch you sometime.”
My eyes widen with shock. “You would?”
“Of course,” he says, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world, when it never occurred to me he would. Or anyone would want to. “I want to know how you touch yourself.”
My skin is burning again, and if we keep talking like this, I’ll be doing a striptease for him in the middle of the stage. But I can’t seem to resist. I reach for him, trailing my hand through his hair. I love the way his hair is so soft under my fingers. He sighs deeply, and leans close to me, resting his forehead against mine. “Jill,” he says in a low voice.
“Davis,” I say, and that’s all, because there’s nothing more to be said. Then we’re silent like that, quiet for a few moments, and there’s something very comforting about being with him, as the snow falls outside, and we’re inside. But soon I break the silence.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Yes.”
“Did I taste like sin and heaven?”
He nods, then presses his lips lightly to my forehead. “You are my sin.” He brushes them gently against my earlobe. “And my heaven.” Then the barest of kisses on my lips. “And everything in between.”
Then he pulls back, and his expression has changed from the softness of the moment to a steely one. “And I hate that you’re in love with Patrick. I hate it. Because it makes me crazy to want you this much and to know how you feel for him. It makes me utterly insane.”
I open my mouth to say something, to deny it, to ask how he knew it was Patrick. But I stop, because he’s right. And he’s waiting for me to offer a denial, but when no words come, he stands up and turns away from me, his voice suddenly cool as he reminds me why I’m here. “We need to get back to work.”
“Do you want to do that scene again?” I ask tentatively, the words coming out all choppy.
He shakes his head, and waves a hand dismissively. “The blocking is fine. We’ll work on your solos.”
So we spend the next two hours working and nothing more. When we’re done, he holds open the door for the car, but doesn’t join me. And of course, that’s because he doesn’t want anything more from this actress.
* * *
Reeve grunts as he bench presses a heavy set of barbells. He’s working out even more as he preps for his leading role in Escorted Lives.
We’re at his gym in the East Village early the next morning after a run. I do bicep curls with ten-pound weights, to the sounds of dumbbells hitting the floor and machines slamming down.
“How did you know it was real?”
“What do you mean?” He gives me a curious look.
“With Sutton,” I say, as if he should be able to follow the random thoughts that have percolated in my head since my last private rehearsal with Davis.
“Ah,” he says with a twinkle in his eye. “With the complicated, vexing, inscrutable Ms. Brenner.”
“Yeah. How did you know that you were feeling something for real?” I switch to triceps. No flabby chicken arms for me. “Or that she was?”
He pushes the barbell up for one more rep then places it in the rack. He sits up on the bench, elbows on his knees.
“It wasn�
��t easy, let me tell you. She was a tough one. Hard to read. Lots of layers of self-protection there. Took a while before I could really figure out if it was real.”
“And even then she tried to deny it,” I say, remembering when Reeve came to my apartment a few days before my Crash the Moon audition, completely flummoxed over what to do next with her. Before he laid it all on the line for her.
“That’s my woman. She could put up walls like no one I’ve ever seen.”
“Hmm,” I say, as I push my arm back for another curl. If Reeve only knew about my walls. My secrets.
“Is this about Patrick?” he asks, tilting his head to the side and pushing a hand through his brown hair.
“Yeah, of course,” I say quickly. Too quickly. Because my mind isn’t on Patrick at all. But it should be.
“He’s doing that whole let’s-be-friends-first thing?”
“Yep.”
Nearby, a burly man with a worn blue t-shirt that shows off arms as big as tires brings a set of weights to the ground. They clang loudly. “Are you going to go out with him again on another of these,” he stops to sketch air quotes, “Friends dates?”
“I hope so,” I say. Then once more, as if the repetition will make it true. “I hope so.”
Because I do hope for Patrick. I hope that I can connect with him the way I’ve always wanted to. That it can deepen now that he’s a real thing in my life. It has to. Really, it has to.
“What do friends do next?”
“I don’t know. I can’t ask him to dinner. That would feel like a date. And we’ve already done coffee.”
He wiggles his eyebrows as he stands up from the bench. “I know what you can do!”
“What?” I ask eagerly, my eyes lighting up.
“Bowling. There’s that bowling alley in the Port Authority. It’s awesome. It’s two blocks from the St. James so you can go there some evening after rehearsal.”
I nod and smile, liking the idea. Bowling with Patrick. It sounds fun. Easy, low-key, we’ll have a few laughs, we’ll do something friendly. It’ll be the perfect second non-date. And it’ll help me get my mind off all the things that aren’t real. All the things that can’t possibly be real in any way, shape or form. All the things that I don’t know how to fit into my life.