Playing With Her Heart

by Lauren Blakely

  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 your
self.”

  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.

  “I’m brilliant,” Reeve says, moving to a sit-up bench. “Just admit it.”

  “You’re the most brilliant one of all,” I say as Reeve curls up in a crunch. My phone buzzes. I reach into the pocket of my workout shorts, and for the briefest of seconds, I find myself hoping it’s a text about another private rehearsal. But it’s from Kat, and it’s a picture of a wedding gown she wants to try on this weekend.

  I smile and write back. Can’t wait.

  She’s going to look beautiful when she walks down the aisle to marry the only man she’s ever loved.

  * * *

  Patrick holds the green bowling ball in front of his chest, pausing on the polished wood floor. He bends, his arm swinging gracefully behind him, then in front of him as he shoots the ball down the lane.

  Lifehouse plays loudly in the Port Authority bowling alley, a strange choice. I’d expected a bouncy Katy Perry tune, or even some hair metal from the 80s like Poison. But the guy who runs this place loves his alt pop music, so we’re treated to one of my favorite songs—“Broken.” I’m falling apart, I’m barely breathing mingles with the sound of arcade games and gutter balls, but I push away the sadness in the words, and focus instead on the beat, on the way the band sings of possibilities, of healing, of becoming whole again.

  And on Patrick, as he watches the ball roll in a perfect straight line. Ten pins spill with a loud crash, rattling under the lane.

  Patrick raises his arms high in the air, spins around and smiles widely.

  “Strike!”

  I shake my head, but I can’t mask how impressed I am. There’s nothing he can’t do well. Not only has he landed strikes and spares effortlessly in most frames, he’s a perfect gentleman. No grandstanding in the bowling alley for him. Just a few happy pumps of the fist with each frame.

  “You are a rock star,” I say as I high five him. He’s a golden boy. He’s good at everything. And he’s literally the nicest guy I’ve ever met. He’s like sunshine, and I don’t think anything could ever get him down.

  He waves off my compliment, as if it’s nothing. “Nah. I’m just having fun.”

  I take my final turn, knocking down five pins.

  I return to the scorekeeping table, and I know I’ve been defeated, but I don’t care because it’s been fun. How could it not be fun? Patrick’s not hot and cold. Patrick doesn’t make my brain hurt. Patrick doesn’t confuse me with all his mixed messages. It’s simple with him, and maybe that’s how this will be as we move forward after Crash The Moon—a steady, sturdy sort of thing.

  No drama. No angst. No worrying.

  We train our eyes on the TV screens, waiting for our final scores.

  188 flashes across the black and white monitor under his name. Mine is much lower.

&
nbsp; “You finished with a 102,” he says brightly, placing a hand on my back. “That’s a great score.”

  “It was a good game.”

  “We should get back now or Shannon and Milo will have our heads,” he says, and I flinch at the mention of our director’s name. They’re working with other chorus members, so we had two hours free at lunch and used that time to slip out to the nearby lanes. We leave the Port Authority and head the few blocks back to the theater.

  “You know what would be cool?” Patrick muses as we turn into the alley that runs alongside the St. James. “If we did a movie together someday. I’ve got a few things I’m looking into, and it’d be fun to work on a film with you.”

  “Um, yeah!”

  “But I also think we need to find mini golf somewhere in Manhattan,” Patrick says as we reach the stage door.

  “Randall’s Island,” I tell him, as he holds open the door for me. “There’s mini golf on Randall’s Island.”

  “Then, Jill, that’s exactly what we’re going to do the next time we get together,” he declares as he bounds up the steps and into the hallway. I’m right behind him as we round the corner, but I freeze when I see Davis at the end of the hall, head down and enrapt in a conversation with Shannon who’s holding her clipboard and taking notes.

  He doesn’t even see me, but an icy dread spreads through my bones, as if I’ve been caught. I’m ready to turn around, run, hide. Then I remind myself I did nothing wrong. There’s no reason I can’t hang out with my cast mate. No reason at all. So I tell myself to pick up my boots and put one foot in front of the other and walk on.

  I keep pace next to Patrick, who’s musing about whether the mini golf range at Randall’s Island has one of those crazy, macabre clowns for the final hole, and I force a smile on my face, and then I even manage a laugh, because I’m sure I’ll feel as lighthearted as I possibly can while whacking a small white ball into a clown’s face.