My hands were still gripping his arms, my fingers digging into the hard muscle at the bottom of his biceps. I had to do something, or I was going to start tearing his clothes off and I didn’t want that, yet. I wanted, for once, to just be with a guy, before the sex. I looked up helplessly into his eyes.
He seemed to understand. Maybe he felt the same way. He said, “I brought beer.” And he hefted a clinking pack of frosty bottles. “Would you like one?” Or would you like to just go straight to the sex?
I nodded and plucked one from the pack. “I would very much like a beer,” I said, and grabbed a bottle opener and opened one for him, too, and showed him over to the couch.
Sex has always been easy, for me. Easy, like, it’s no big deal. It’s just bodies, doing things. That had always made me feel like the mature one, in a way, giving Karen sex tips when she was ready to finally lose her virginity. I was Jasmine, the sex guru, and I liked that.
With Ryan, though, it was different. I wanted him more than I’d wanted any guy. But I didn’t want to have sex with him, at least not right away. It felt as if it would crush the tiny, fragile thing we had building between us, the slender thread that had the potential to grow to be so much more if we could only let it. I’d never had that with anyone before.
It felt as if everything was turned up to eleven. Maybe because I was trying to avoid sex, everything was super-sexy. The way he sat on the couch, turned to me, the muscles in his shoulders bunched as if he was ready to pounce. The way his hair curled just above his ear. Those clear blue eyes. God, everything about him. And he was watching me in the same way I was watching him. I’d make the tiniest movement with my leg and his eyes would snap to my silken-covered thigh. I’d brush my hair back from my eyes and he’d stare at my auburn curls. I could feel the heat building and building between us, ready to sweep over us both.
I gulped and took a long pull of my beer. Not an elegant, feminine thing to do, drinking beer from a bottle, but I could feel him staring at my throat, my breasts. God, even drinking beer was turning sexy.
You know that phrase couldn’t keep their hands off each other? That was invented for that time on the couch with Ryan. I wanted to sit on my hands to keep from grabbing him.
“Let’s eat the pizza,” I said in a very serious, very determined voice. And he nodded. God, we were like nervous teenagers on a first date. How was that possible? How come I felt like a bumbling virgin again? Because that’s exactly how it felt—it felt as if I’d never had sex, as if, if I did it with Ryan, it was going to be my first time.
And I wanted that first time to be special. To be perfect.
So we ate the pizza and, gradually, we began to talk. About how he’d become a cop, following in the footsteps of his dad and his dad before that. “He’s still alive?” I asked, surprised. I’d been on my own so long that I guess any idea of family seemed alien to me.
Ryan nodded. “Lives in Brooklyn. I see him every couple of weeks.”
There was a tiny pause, just long enough for me to offer my own story if I wanted to. Nick had let it slip that I was from Chicago, and I’d lied and told him that both my parents were dead, so he already knew that much. I glanced up at him and gave a little shake of my head and he nodded soberly.
“Why did you become an actress?” he asked.
I was used to answering that. I got asked it all the time, because it’s like the third question actresses get asked (after have you been in anything I’d have seen and what’s it like to kiss some guy you don’t know?). I opened my mouth, ready to tell him how I’d been inspired by screen sirens of the 50s and how I wanted to create something with a team and all that bullshit—
And I realized I didn’t want to lie to him. Not even about that.
“I thought I’d be good at it,” I said. I flushed and looked at my feet, because it sounded so arrogant. “I just thought it...fitted me.” I looked up, expecting to see raised eyebrows.
But he was just nodding back at me as if that made perfect sense to him. Then he said, “I don’t see how you could have been anything else. Ever since I first met you, you’ve seemed like an actress. The way you walk. The way you hold yourself.”
Now I was really flushing. I went through every day feeling like I was a fake, like, at any moment, all of the real actors and musicians and dancers at Fenbrook were going to turn around and spot me and hurl me out into the street.
He took my hand. “You’re good,” he said simply. “You’re really, really good.”
It meant more to me than any number of reviews, more than getting picked for a part. It made my chest swell up and my throat crumple. And my hand was still in his, my softness against his rough fingers. I looked up into his eyes and I knew that, if I so much as curled my fingers, that was it: he’d grab me and pick me up and carry me through to the bedroom right then and there.
I took a long, shuddering breath. “Look, I want to…” I swallowed. “I mean, I want to...but I don’t want things to move too—”
“You want to take things slow?” said Ryan softly. Whenever he spoke quietly like that, it seemed to make my whole body vibrate. It was something to do with the size of him, and his deep rumble of a voice. It was like a huge bear growling. Gentle, but with power.
I nodded. I could feel my breath speeding up. I was used to giving guys what they wanted. I’d never moved slowly before, never said no. Except when—
And just like that, I was dangerously close to freaking out. The last few weeks had brought long-buried memories back up to the surface and now they were lurking in the darkness, ready to consume me.
He caught my eyes and made a silent shh-ing noise with his lips. “It’s okay,” he told me. “It’s okay. You need to relax.” He paused, thinking. “What would you do to relax, if I wasn’t here?”
“I’d take a bath,” I said without thinking.
He nodded. “Okay. Take a bath.”
I blinked at him. “I’m not sure I’m ready to—”
“Just you. Not me.”
Was he serious? “I can’t just leave you out here and go and—My baths are epic. They take, like, an hour! With candles!”
“That’s fine,” he said. He was still doing that slow, gentle rumble, like warm caramel layered over granite. “You take as long as you need. I’ll wait.”
It was insane. It was rude. I couldn’t just—and yet I had to do something. If we kept sitting out here, I was going to dive on him.
“Okay,” I said at last. And, before I could change my mind, I walked through to the bathroom. It was off a hallway, but close enough to the living room that I could look back through the open door and see him sitting there patiently on the couch. I ran a bath in the old-fashioned, free-standing tub and lit some candles, turning the lights out so that the room was just lit by their flickering glow. And then I thought about undressing.
I looked at the open door. From where he was sitting, he’d only be able to see the foot end of the bath. If I stayed up the other end of the room, I’d be hidden, but I wouldn’t have to shut the door—because shutting the door would be rude, right?
Or was that crazy? Was I just teasing him, leaving the door open? This whole thing was crazy. Who takes a bath in the middle of a date?
But then what part of this relationship was normal?
I slowly took off the dress. Part of me thought, he’s seen you almost naked, anyway. But that had been work. This was real—him and me, alone in my apartment.
My bra hit the floor. My stockings and panties. Then I was climbing in, gasping as I hit the hot water. “I’m in,” I called, feeling like I should update him.
“Good. Feel better?”
He’d known. He’d known how close I’d been to freaking out. I froze. Did he know what had happened to me? Had he guessed, after the gym? My insides flipped over.
Surely not. If he had, he would have run a mile, right? He wouldn’t want to be around me, if he’d guessed that. He just had a vague notion that something bad had happ
ened—that was all. But that had been enough for him to put me first, to make sure I was comfortable even if it meant putting us in two separate rooms.
I looked at the surface of the water. Now that the tension was easing out of me, I didn’t want to be separated from him. But if I invited him in and I was lying there naked, we’d be right back to sex again.
I grabbed a bottle of bubble bath and emptied nearly the whole thing into the water, then went crazy with both hands, whisking the water to make it foam. A rich layer of bubbles quickly formed, and I spread it around like whipped cream on top of hot chocolate until it covered the whole surface of the water.
I cleared my throat. “Do you want to come in?” Then I quickly added, “I mean: in here, not in the bath.”
He hesitated. “Are you sure that’s okay? Aren’t you…?”
“There are bubbles.”
A few seconds later, he appeared in the doorway. I gulped a little as he looked at me. The bubbles covered me completely, but...they were just bubbles. There was no getting away from the fact that I was completely naked, just a few feet away from him.
Had it been a huge mistake? Was it too much, was he going to just kiss me and haul me out of the water and into the bedroom, dripping and gasping? Part of me wanted him to, but a bigger part wanted him to hold back.
He took a long look at me...and stepped into the room.
Chapter 39
Ryan
Bubbles covered her from chin to toes, islands and icebergs of foam that would occasionally break apart to reveal a glimpse of dark water and pale flesh beneath. It was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen. My hands actually twitched, I wanted to grab her and pull her out of that bath so much. No more than ten steps and I could be in the bedroom, throwing her down on the bed.
But she wanted to take it slow and I’d be damned if I was going to push her or hurt her like that bastard had.
I sat down on the corner of the bath and just looked at her. “You’re beautiful,” I told her. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. Did you know that?”
I thought I saw her blush in the candlelight. Most of that fantastic long, auburn hair was hanging over the end of the tub but a few tresses were trailing in the water. “Careful,” I said. “It’s getting wet.”
She looked down. “I was thinking about washing it anyway.”
I wanted to be near her. I wanted—needed—to touch her, even if it was nothing to do with sex. “Let me do it,” I said.
She blinked at me, amazed. Then she gave me a timid smile. “I’d like that.”
I came and knelt by the side of the bath, next to her head. I tried to be casual. I tried not to think about how close I was to her naked body, or how I could just lean down and kiss her.
She slid partway down the bath and then hesitated, looking up at me with huge eyes. We stared at each other and just breathed for a moment, both of us barely maintaining control.
“Go ahead,” I said. “Get it wet.”
It requires a lot of trust, to lie back in the water with only your face above the surface. You can’t hear anything and you’re an inch away from drowning—and on top of that, you’re naked. And yet she did it, pushing the bubbles down the bath so that they wouldn’t get in the way. Her hair fanned out around her head like a halo. She closed her eyes for a moment, luxuriating in the feel of the water. She reminded me of some painting I’d seen once, that woman from Shakespeare who drowned in a river. Utterly serene.
She sat up, water streaming from her hair, and I caught my breath as the water and the bubbles slid down her chest, revealing her pale cleavage and—
The bubbles stuck and held, covering her just before I saw her nipples.
She opened her eyes and looked right at me, and I knew she’d seen that I was looking. I tore my eyes away from her chest.
“Shampoo’s on the window ledge,” she said softly. “The pink bottle.”
I grabbed it. It smelled of wild flowers. It smelled of her, one of the many components that made up her wonderful scent. I dumped some into the center of my palm and started to work it into her hair. Shit! I have no idea what I’m doing! There was so much of it! How the hell were you meant to wash this much hair? It formed long, tangled ropes around my fingers. I lathered it up as best I could. Then I moved closer to her, kneeling almost behind her as I started to massage it into her scalp.
I wasn’t ready for the feeling of her head in my hands. My fingers grew slower and slower. The feel of her smooth skin, every time my fingertips brushed her temples, was intoxicating. The room grew very quiet, just the drip of water falling into the tub and the slow rubbing of my fingers in her hair.
“Ryan?” her voice was soft, but it sounded shockingly loud in that darkened, silent room.
“Yeah?”
She hesitated for a moment. “Thank you. For...being cool.”
I nodded. I knew what she meant. She appreciated me not pushing her. She wasn’t ready to explain it all: why she’d pushed me away for so long, why she’d screamed at the gym, who she’d seen on the target at the firing range. “I’ll wash your hair anytime,” I told her.
She laughed, and I could hear the relief in it.
We locked eyes. “Just tell me when you’re ready, and I’ll be here,” I said seriously.
She slowly nodded. Then she swallowed and said. “Um...Ryan?”
“Yep?”
“Can you go outside, now?”
“Why?”
She bit her lip. “The bubbles are bursting.”
I looked down at her body. They were bursting. Rapidly. It was like watching the melting of the ice caps, the white islands shrinking and opening up dark lagoons through which I could see—
“Hey!” she said, mock-angry.
I got to my feet and walked to the door. Keeping my eyes straight ahead was one of the hardest things I’d ever done.
***
When Jasmine emerged, back in her clothes, things felt different between us. It wasn’t that the sexual tension had lessened, or that I’d been relegated into the dreaded friend zone. It was that there was trust, now. If the bath had been a test, I’d passed.
At the door, she pushed me up against it, her hands gripping my t-shirt, and kissed me slow and deep, drawing my head down to meet her. Plundering her mouth with my tongue was like falling into a bottomless well, a warm darkness from which I’d have happily never emerged. When we eventually broke, I was gasping and her voice was ragged.
“Come out with me. And my friends. Meet them.” She said it in a rush, as if she wanted to get it out before she changed her mind.
I nodded. “I’d like that.”
She was still gripping my t-shirt, her body pressed up against mine. I could tell she was battling with herself, willing herself to let go when she didn’t want to. I knew exactly how she felt. I tilted my head down again and rested my forehead against hers. She closed her eyes and we just breathed for a moment, the heat between us so strong we were close to panting.
She suddenly let go and stepped back and pulled the door open, all in one move. I stepped through, she gave me one last grin and then the door was shut.
Outside in the corridor, a slow smile spread across my face. I should have been frustrated. I should have felt like I’d missed out because we hadn’t had sex. But I felt like I’d been given something much more precious, instead.
Chapter 40
Jasmine
I slept like a baby. Not even a half-remembered nightmare.
I told myself it was the long, relaxing bath, but I knew it wasn’t. It was trusting someone, finally. Being around a man and letting myself set the pace and trusting that he’d accept it.
As I did my make-up in the mirror, I turned my head just slightly to one side and, just for an instant, I glimpsed her. Emma. The person I’d so carefully hidden away for years. She was gone immediately and, no matter how I turned my head, I couldn’t get her back. But it was enough of a jolt just to glimpse her.
&n
bsp; What if this could work? What if I could be with Ryan? I’d still only show him Jasmine, but we could take it slow and it could be about more than just sex—the sort of relationship that Emma longed for. I began to do something dangerous. I began to hope. I started to make shaky, barely-held-together plans, my heart like a small, pleading child arguing with its parent—my brain.
But maybe if I just never talk about my past, and I keep him away from Nick….
He’s a cop. He’ll find out.
But he’s been really cool about everything. He hasn’t pushed me at all….
He will. You know he will. You can’t have a relationship where he doesn’t really know you.
But...but but but—
I looked angrily around at my apartment. All the green fabric, the mirrors and boudoir-chic. The things I’d surrounded myself with because they were so Jasmine.
I wanted something that was me.
***
An hour later, I was at a flea market searching through the cheap knick-knacks. Stuff that wasn’t in demand, wasn’t worth anything, was just...old. Jasmine would have looked straight past it and gone to find an imitation pearl necklace or a Betty Paige poster or something. But I found myself picking up an old, baseball-sized globe.
It was scratched and dented, which is why it wasn’t worth much. But it had long-dead place names like Constantinople and Saigon and Bombay. Places that were impossible to visit anymore, which made me want to fly off to them even more. I’d never had the money to travel but, as Emma, I’d always wanted to see the world. Now, a little of that was seeping back into me.
I held up the globe and asked the guy how much.
***
Karen met me at an outdoor cafe not far from the orchestra’s rehearsal space. She still insisted on hauling her cello to lunch with her, rather than leave it in the hall. “I can’t leave it on its own!” she’d said, when I questioned it. Some things didn’t change.
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