by Nicole Helm
Vivvy smiled, pained. “I’ll butt out, but…if anything changes and you think I can help, I will.”
“Yes, of course. Which door is the bathroom?”
Vivvy directed her to the door at the end of the hall and Celia escaped. Escaped Vivvy’s well-intentioned news and very nice concerns.
All of this niceness. People wanting to protect her. Emotions she couldn’t afford, because if she had hope that she could make something work here, if she had hopes for her and Ryan, she risked everything. And it wasn’t worth the risk.
It couldn’t be.
Chapter Twelve
Ryan made it through dinner without snapping, but it was a close one. When Nate had told him Jed had been poking around the airport yesterday, he’d wanted to hurl the bottle of beer across the lawn. He’d already been pissed off enough that Jed was talking to Cathy, but to know Jed had been on Harrington property…
Still, Ryan didn’t let his anger spill over. Losing calm would be counterproductive. Losing calm would be…Hell, it would feel pretty damn good. But now, driving back to his house, in the pitch black, with Celia in the passenger seat, her forehead pressed against the glass, he couldn’t let that happen.
Besides, he and Nate had come up with a plan: Hank would hire two more security guards and they would send out a memo to all involved with the show that if they saw Jed on Harrington grounds they should call the police.
Celia’s phone chimed. She glanced at it, then pressed her head to the glass again.
“Everything all right?”
“Just putting out fires,” she said on a sigh.
He pulled the car into his drive and carefully pushed it into park. He would be patient until she told him what was going on so he could solve it. He was bound and determined to solve everything. Even if he wasn’t sure what everything entailed quite yet. “What does that mean?”
“Don’t worry about it.” She got out of the car before he did, nose all but pressed to the phone as she walked up to the house.
“I am worried.”
“It’s nothing to do with you.”
That hurt. A jab, right in the gut. But whether it hurt or not, she was wrong. He followed her inside and pretended the hurt didn’t exist.
“But I’d like to help.”
“You don’t need to.”
“It was my father,” he said, his voice quiet because if he wasn’t quiet he would yell. Yell at himself for letting this happen. “Jed told your mother you were here, that your leaving ten years ago wasn’t amicable. So it’s my fault you’re paying more. I might not agree with you paying her, but my father made that happen, and that’s my fault.” Sure, he wanted to be pissed at her, at Cathy, at anyone or anything, but the bottom line was he’d brought her here and because he’d done that, he’d given Jed access to her.
And that was unforgivable.
She turned to face him. “Do you think I, of all people, would blame you for something your father did?”
“My father isn’t the one who brought you here.”
“And my mother isn’t the one who told you I’d make Harrington pay if you didn’t give me what you promised me for doing the show.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. Going in circles. Guilt and pain and confusion. He hated this. “What are we doing?”
Everything about her softened. “I thought you always had the answers.” When she said it this time, her tone was…affectionate, not accusatory.
“I thought I did, too.” But the more he was determined to fix things, the more determined he became to make this somehow right, the more it spiraled out of his control. The more he wanted to protect Celia, the more he seemed to cause her more problems.
She touched his hand, her head cocked as she looked up at him. “Maybe, sometimes, there just aren’t any answers.”
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, let his fingertips linger at the soft spot behind her earlobe. He cupped her face, an instinct he couldn’t resist when she was so close, so soft, so beautiful.
She placed her hands over his. “There’s no future for us, but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t find a little present.”
“How do you mean?”
“Maybe we have sex again. Maybe we don’t. I’m not running away this time. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll leave. I have to. But I’ll say good-bye, and maybe when we get the annulment, it won’t feel like unfinished business. Maybe it’ll…heal whatever hasn’t.”
She pressed her lips to his, the second time she’d initiated the kiss, them. She turned him on his head, made everything unequal. Or maybe what she really did was make everything equal, and he sure as hell wasn’t used to that.
Since he was already feeling off-kilter about it, he decided to take control where he could. And that was right here. He strengthened his hold on her face, angled it to his preference, so he could press against her, use his teeth against her lips.
He broke the kiss, edging her back to the couch. “We’re going to say good-bye on my terms this time.”
“I said I’d say good-bye. I didn’t say I’d do it your way,” she said with a smirk.
He gave one last nudge, so her knees gave way to the couch and she was sitting before him. “We’ll see.” A threat, when they already had so many between them, but this one he knew he’d find a way to enact. This one he had no qualms about.
“Haven’t you figured out yet I’m not letting you push me around?” Her words might have been a challenge, but they weren’t a brush-off. Not when her palms were smoothing up his thighs to his belt buckle.
“From where I’m standing, I’m not pushing.”
She eased the metal clasp of his belt out of its hole. “There are different ways to push a person.” She pulled the belt out of the loops of his jeans, dropped it on the floor next to his feet.
“Like blackmail?”
She paused at the button of his jeans and he wished he’d kept that comment to himself because his dick was hard and if she stopped he’d have no one to blame but himself.
“And yet…” She flipped the button, unzipped, tugged. “Here we are.”
“Which is where exactly? Something good again? Penis therapy?”
Her laugh was deep and rich and she collapsed back into the cushions of the couch. “You’re talking an awful lot for this to be penis therapy.”
He maneuvered himself on top of her. “Excellent point.” He shouldn’t talk, or think, just do. He dipped his head to kiss her, but before he could meet her mouth her fingertips touched his forehead.
She traced the line of his hair, and there was a strange ache in his chest. The look on her face, relaxed, maybe even happy. Was it wrong to think he was giving that to her?
“I just want you to know…” She swallowed, her eyes darting to his throat before they met his again. Her gaze was fierce. Determined. This new version of herself was somewhere between CeeCee and Celia. “It wasn’t easy for me to leave. It wasn’t a decision I made lightly, and even if I don’t regret what I did, I regret how I did it. And, maybe, with all this other crap in the way, I can see why you’d blackmailed me. God knows, if blackmailing you would have gotten me to the top I would have done it.”
“Trying to rationalize this, babe?” That had to be it, because if it was just honesty… The ache behind his chest sharpened, squeezed.
She sighed, her breath whispering across his neck as she wrapped her arms around him. “Maybe I’m just letting myself have a little piece of myself before I have to put her away forever.”
He pushed his hands into the cushions, leveraging some space between them so he could look her in the eye. “Do you have any idea how sad that sounds?” She was famous and rich, beloved by a million people who didn’t know her, who all loved some pretend person she’d built. And she preferred that over herself? Sad didn’t even begin to describe it.
Her arms fell from their place on his back, injured hurt drawing her eyebrows together. “It’s not sad. It’s just my life. And I’m not sad a
bout it. I’m really not.”
He rested his forehead against hers, because she was undoing him. Every choice, every piece of determined rightness he’d ever had, unraveled by her depressing if suitably glittery life. He wasn’t supposed to let himself care, wasn’t supposed to get wrapped up in showing her that she mattered, that she deserved better than what she’d been given.
But here he was. Wanting to do exactly that.
…
He pressed his forehead to hers and she melted the way she used to. Because she’d always thought that move meant he loved her, that he cared. That he’d never hurt her. Instead, she’d hurt him.
Celia closed her eyes, willed her memories away. She didn’t want to relive. She just wanted to live, period. She wanted to have this moment without Ryan condemning her choices or her life.
She shouldn’t be willingly under him, but his forehead was still against hers, and even with the hurt burrowing around her heart, there was another feeling there, too. One that smoothed out the hurt and kept her from pushing out from under him.
She liked his certainty, his confidence that she deserved more. She didn’t agree, but his belief was comforting. So she nudged his locked elbows, bringing him back on top of her, ankles tangled, thighs and chests pressed together.
She wrapped her arms around him again, pretended that nothing beyond this and them existed and ever would. She could feel their hearts beating an old familiar rhythm. “Make love to me, Ryan.” She traced his hairline again, because she wanted to feel…all of it. With him.
Besides, there were so many consequences and hard things to deal with waiting for her when this was all over, what was one more?
But he was still looking at her, studying her, trying to unlock some answer to some question. She didn’t know what question, and even if she did, knowing the answer would be unlikely. So she let him stare, study, and then finally, finally, he dropped his mouth to hers.
Gentle. Sweet. A reminder of their first kiss behind the slide on the playground of their middle school. Then he moved his mouth to her neck, his tongue touring her collarbone, and it was high school, making out in the back of Dean Wool’s car.
The memories. Him. The care. A potent cocktail trying to show her that she was actually more than Celia Grant. It was an insidious thought, one that could undo everything. But his hands and mouth toured her body, worshipped, and she felt more than just satisfaction and success. She felt cared for.
“Condoms are in the bedroom.”
She pushed against his chest. “Let’s go.” She scurried to her feet, a little off-balance, but Ryan took her hand, his fingers curling into hers. The ache became so bitter and so sweet she could barely breathe.
Before they could get onto the bed, she kissed him. Not with lingering touches or sweetness, but with force so she could concentrate on the ache in her body instead of the one in her soul.
His kisses grew harder, more insistent, and she met them demand for demand. He pulled the oversize sweater off her, tossed it to the ground. Not to be outdone, Celia tugged his shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor. She trailed her fingers down the hard ridges of his chest and abs.
He nuzzled his mouth against her neck, the stubble of his chin scratching the soft skin there. He kissed her bare shoulder, then pulled her bra down and licked from shoulder to nipple.
Heat burned away all the lingering sweet and bitter. Now it was just anticipation and eagerness. She wanted his mouth everywhere, and hers everywhere, and them tangled up so there was no clear idea of who was who or what or when. No memory. No thought. No future trying to imagine itself in her head.
His hands smoothed over her stomach, his mouth latched to her breast. She leaned against the wall for support, to find some kind of anchor. But Ryan’s hands on her hips were more of an anchor than the wall.
Always her anchor.
Celia trailed her hand down his stomach, bit her lip as she pushed at his already undone jeans.
When her hand dipped into his boxers, curling around the smooth skin of his dick, he sucked in a whistling breath. She smiled; his hands were no longer steady on her breasts.
“Condom,” he mumbled, turning away.
She made quick work of her pants so that she stood next to his bed in just her panties and disheveled bra while he rummaged around in his nightstand.
Tossing the foil packet onto the bed as he moved, he crossed back to her. Gaze intent. Everything about him intent. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pressed against him, aching center to hard excitement. His hands smoothed down her back, cupped her ass, and then lifted her enough off the floor so that he could push her onto the bed.
He pulled her panties off, his rough hands sparking twinges of excitement. He kicked off his boxers, grabbed the condom. If she had any power over her limbs, she might have offered to put it on, but she felt weighted to the bed. Pulsing with a need she couldn’t take for herself.
And Ryan had no trouble taking care of it himself. Before she even had a chance to get her hand to move, he was kneeling before her, bracing himself over her.
“Celia.”
It was only when he said her name that she realized she’d closed her eyes, that nerves were battering around in her gut. They’d just done this not twelve hours ago, but this time felt different. This was not just distraction. It was not just the past.
It was them. Always.
“Celia,” he repeated.
She opened her eyes to look at him. It was as if he didn’t know what to say, because the pause lingered. It felt as though the weight of the world crawled between them, a really shitty reminder it always would.
Then he grinned. “Get on top.”
Her laugh was relieved as she pushed him onto his back and straddled him. She ran her hands down the soft skin of his shoulders, thought about the solid muscle underneath. He cupped her ass, and pulled her against his thick cock.
Yeah, this.
Without much preamble, she led him inside and set a quick pace that he met thrust for thrust. She focused on the building pleasure, on hitting just the right spot, and of course Ryan still knew what made her shiver, what made the heat building explode.
He kissed the valley between her breasts, guided her hips slower, then faster, so that all she could concentrate on was the sensation of him moving inside of her, his rough palms on her hips, his breath on her neck. Close, so close, she leaned forward, nuzzling into his neck, and let the orgasm wash over her.
Not far behind, Ryan pushed deep inside her, and held her there for a few pulsing moments.
When it was over, and he was lying next to her, breathing quick and uneven like hers, she didn’t want to think about good-bye. She wanted to think about what was possible.
Chapter Thirteen
Ryan watched as Celia squinted at the tube of cinnamon rolls in her hand.
“It is written in English.”
“You think I do my own cooking?” She said it with a flippant smile, but then it died. Faded.
Because it was a reminder of the world she had waiting for her when they were done here. Money and mansions and personal chefs.
And no Harringtons.
“I’ll do it.” His voice came out sounding a little harsh, but he gentled the tone with a smile. A genuine one, because as much as the thought of her real life sobered him, he liked the look of her in his kitchen.
Her hair was wet and tangled. She wore those skintight pants that did amazing things for her ass, and a bright-pink sweater on top. And as much as that wardrobe was A-list celebrity, the hair, the lack of makeup—that was all real woman. All her.
He didn’t think too many people got to see that. So even if she disappeared at the end of the filming, he’d know he had something no one else did. He’d always have some piece of her no one else did.
That had to mean something. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with that something, but he had a few more days to figure it out. He’d take his time, because that meant more of w
atching her lick frosting off her finger.
Every once in a while it would strike him that, technically, she was still his wife. Wife. Mine. He shook the thought away for the third or fourth time. Shook away the weird nerves and even weirder smile on his face. There was nothing special to smile about or get upset about. They’d had sex. Slept in the same bed. Woke up snuggled together.
Had sex again.
Okay, that deserved a smile.
And now they were making some breakfast before heading up to Harrington. He placed the cinnamon rolls in the pan. So what was strange about it? Everything. The hominess. The way he wanted to do this again and again. The way he couldn’t stop looking at her or wanting her.
Yeah, he’d figure this out, and whatever the answer was, at least it gave him this brief flash of “them.” It wasn’t just about her, but seeing himself for what he’d been, too. Single-minded, blinded by his own ambitions and beliefs of what was right. He didn’t know what to do with that information about himself yet, but at least he knew it was there.
He slid the pan into the oven, then turned to find her watching him. Not the way he’d found her watching him this morning. That look had been all about sex. Really fantastic sex.
This look was serious, considering, hopeful. It made her look young and, oddly enough, like the Celia Grant he saw in the movies, only this was real. Genuine. As if part of her actually was Celia.
He didn’t know what to say to that look. Or her in this moment. There was still enough of him off-kilter to feel vulnerable, and like hell he’d have a conversation with her when he was feeling vulnerable.
“You know, I’m not really supposed to eat stuff like this. If I land back in LA with an extra two pounds the tabloids will be all over it with pregnancy rumors or eating my Oscar accolades all the way to Weight Watchers.”