Like it’s a command.
For a long beat we are still, the air crackling in anticipation of what’s next. Unquestionably next. I’m done holding back, and so is he. As the engine starts, I unbuckle myself as his hands frame my face. He sucks in a breath at the first touch, then a low growl escapes his throat as his lips find mine with a hungry kiss that ignites me.
I grab his shirt, loving the feel of his strong, firm chest. My fingers fist the fabric as I pull him closer, but he doesn’t need any direction from me. His hands are in my hair, and his lips are consuming me, his tongue tangling with mine. I’m about to burst from all this sensation—from the masculine way he smells, to the delicious scratch of his stubble, to the fingers that tug on my hair.
He tastes so good that I don’t want to stop. I want to be devoured by him. I want him—no, I need him, desperately need him—to do something about this onslaught of desire that’s become a delicious ache between my legs.
“I want to be under you,” I say, not sure how I formed a coherent thought. All I know is what my body demands. I need the weight of him on me. I need to feel him pressed hard against me. I take off my jacket quickly, tossing it to the floor of the car, and he does the same. Then I slide down on the leather so I’m lying flat, and he moves with me, hovering over me, braced on his strong arms.
“Who needs jackets anyway?” he asks with a wry smile, then returns his lips to my neck, trailing kisses across my skin that make me hot and wet and hungry. “Jill,” he says, and he’s no longer playful. He’s intense and demanding, as he puts a hand on my chin and makes me look at him. “Tell me you think about me.”
I don’t answer. I just breathe out hard.
“Tell me I get you off when you’re all alone.”
I bite my lip, and my nipples harden at the way he’s speaking to me. I want his hands all over me. I want his hands between my legs. I wriggle under him, arching my hips against him. He moves away, so I can’t feel his erection against me, even though I’m dying to.
“Tell me you picture me doing all sorts of things to you.” His hands roam down my chest, and he cups my breasts through my sweater. I nearly cry out, it feels so good, sparks of sheer pleasure rippling through my entire being. “You do, don’t you?”
“Why are you asking me?” I ask in a tortured voice, because he’s tormenting me with his fantastic hands, pinching my nipple between his thumb and index finger, and it’s rough, but it makes me feel alive. It makes this moment feel real. I want to feel every single thing right now. Every real feeling.
“Because I don’t want you thinking of someone else when I make you come tonight.”
“Oh God,” I gasp, and with a quickness that surprises him, I grab his ass and pull him down to me so I can feel what I’ve done to him, so I know I’m not tumbling toward the edge alone.
He gives me a daring look, as if he’s impressed that I snagged the upper hand. But I don’t care about this battle of wills because he’s so hard and it’s all because of me, and I can’t get enough of the friction. I tug him closer, so I can feel the steel length of him against my thigh.
Before I know it, his hands are up my shirt, and he’s unhooking my bra. He squeezes my breasts, and I swear it’s like wildfire racing through me, and I buck my hips against him. “Please,” I say.
“Please what?”
“Do something,” I beg.
“Tell me I’m the only one you’re going to think of when you come undone in a few minutes,” he says, his voice rough against my ear.
“Isn’t it obvious?” I ask through gritted teeth. My frustration provokes the most wicked grin from Davis. I have no idea what he’s going to do to me, but I don’t care. I can’t stand how long it’s been since someone’s hands have been on me. I want to be touched so badly I can feel it deep in my bones, this need.
I need him.
“Say it.”
“I think of you. I think of you making me come. There. Are you happy?”
“Yes. As happy as I plan to make you before I’m done.”
16
Davis
I tug off her sweater as she shrugs out of her tank and bra, then I stop for one brief moment to savor the view. She’s topless, her arms over her head, all beautiful curves and gorgeous flesh, and I want to spend hours on her body, touching and tasting her neck, and her breasts, and her absolutely enticing belly. But she’s already panting, and I can feel the heat between her legs through the denim of her jeans.
I press hard against her with my hand, and she draws in a breath.
“Oh God,” she says, and her voice is rising. She pushes against me, rubbing against my hand in a desperate frenzy. It strikes me that she’s already close. That I could slide my hand inside her jeans, feel her wetness, and bring her to release within a few seconds.
Her face is strained, and her skin is fevered, but her eyes are closed. “Please. Please make me come. Please,” she says and that last word borders on a cry. She’s arching her hips, and she’s fumbling at the button of her jeans. But I need to know she’s with me before I go further. I press both my hands gently, but firmly, on top of hers, quieting her moves.
“Jill. Look at me.”
She opens her eyes. They are wild with desire.
“I’ve got this. I’ll get you there.”
She nods and drops her hands to the leather, letting me take care of her. Her breath is coming fast, but she stays still. I unbutton her jeans, unzip them, and slide my hand between her legs. There is nothing that feels better than this, than her being so ready for me, so turned on that her underwear is damp with her heat. My cock strains against the fly in my jeans, and I want so badly to be inside her, but this isn’t about me right now, or even about me tonight. This is about whatever desperate need is winding up her body.
“You are so wet and hot. This is all for me, isn’t it?”
She gasps as I play with the waistband on her underwear. She starts to thrust her hips up, and I shake my head. “No. I told you. I’ll take care of this.”
My fingers inch their way between her legs, and I slide them once across her.
“Fuck, Jill,” I hiss out. Then I bring my fingers to my lips and lick off her taste.
“Please,” she says, wracked with the need to come right now, and there’s nothing I’d rather do than be the one to satisfy her. She kicks off her boots as I pull her jeans down past her hips then tug them off. My hand is back in the promised land, and she’s deliriously wet. She’s the hottest woman I’ve ever touched and the neediest, and that’s fine with me because this is what I want. Her. This woman. Screw the past. Screw my rules. I don’t care about anything but making her come. I want to send her into never-ending bliss, so I slide two fingers across her, and she moans greedily, as if this is the thing she craves most in the entire world.
“God, it feels so good,” she says in a ragged whisper.
I’ve barely given her anything, but she’s already near the edge. I rub the pad of my thumb where she wants me most, and soon she’s thrusting her hips, and she’s no longer whispering, she’s screaming out, “Oh, God, oh God, oh God.”
That’s it. That’s all it takes. She comes, her entire body rocking against my hand, hips bucking hard and wild. She grabs at me, pulling me to her and kissing me, but she’s so far gone from the orgasm that it’s a supremely sloppy, intensely sexy kiss—because I made her come in seconds flat, and she’s still crying out.
Her voice can really carry, and the sound of her coming echoes around the car, but the driver doesn’t care. Her whole body is trembling as she starts to float down, and soon she opens her eyes and looks at me. Her eyes are dreamy now, and she has a glow that makes her even more beautiful. I want to see that look again and again. I want to be the only one who makes her feel this way.
“That was . . .” she trails off.
“That was what?” I’m pretty certain she enjoyed herself immensely, but I still like hearing it from the source.
“That w
as the fir—” Then she stops. “That was amazing.” And she pulls me in for another kiss that makes my brain go fuzzy from the heady taste of her lips, and the way she smells even sexier after she’s just come. I can barely process what she was going to say, and I’m not sure it matters right now. I nip at her bottom lip, and then break the kiss.
She reaches for me, trying to touch my cock. But I stop her hand.
“What? Why can’t I touch you?”
“Because this was about you.”
“But I want to.”
“Trust me, there’s nothing I want more than for you to feel what you do to me. But I already know you’re the only one I’m thinking of. And I’m not going to let you touch me until I’m certain I’m the only one you want to be touching.”
She gives me a questioning look, but there’s no bending here. I’ve already chucked my one hard-and-fast rule, and now I’m not only caught up with an actress, I’m caught up with an actress who’s told me she’s in love with someone else. Double the obstacles. So I answer her by pulling her close and kissing her forehead softly. “You know it’s true. But you also know that he’s not the one who made you come tonight. I am. So the next time you’re alone, I want you to picture what I did to you. And then I want you to imagine all the things I’m going to do with my tongue when I taste you for the first time. And then you’re going to tell me if it’s as good as you imagined when I go down on you sometime soon. Sometime very, very soon. Because you taste fantastic.”
She shudders, bites her lip once then breathes out, hard. “Yes.”
Then I push her hair away from her ear. “Do you want to come again now?”
She nods against my chest, then whispers, “I don’t know if I can though.”
“You can,” I tell her, and this time I pull off her underwear and she’s completely naked and beautiful as I slide two fingers inside her and she rocks against me, coming apart once more.
17
Davis
Clay holds the punching bag, and I slam a cross into it. Then I administer my best hook. Jab, cross, hook—I repeat this combination, grunting hard, putting everything I have into each punch. I feel the exertion in my stomach and shoulders. I end with a final flurry of hits and cap it off with a punishing uppercut, feeling simultaneously sated and charged.
I finish, and Clay pats the bag once then claps me on the back. I breathe out hard, panting.
“Nice,” he says. “Picture anyone in particular this time?”
“Me? No. Never.”
I don’t think of anyone when I hit. I don’t need to. There’s a store of coiled-up tension already inside me from working so much, so hard, so long. This is simply the release.
“C’mon. Not your least favorite executive producer in the world? Don was a prick to deal with. Tried to pull all sorts of shit with your contract.”
“I know. He’s still a fucking prick. Showed up the other day at rehearsals and told me to go easy on Alexis.”
“I bet you wanted to hit him then,” Clay says, half joking, half knowing me.
I pretend to consider that, as I unwrap my hands. “Hmm. You know, maybe I did. You got me there, Clay.”
We walk over to the water fountain at the boxing gym where we work out. It’s a Tribeca gym, so it’s full of men like us: guys who spend their days working in the shade, who wear white collars and ties, who make deals for a living. But still, it’s more my speed than one of those 24-hour gyms with the cardio machines. I’d rather lift weights and punch the life out of a bag to burn off the day. It’s a habit I picked up when I was younger, and one that helped me deal after I lost my parents.
Everyone grieves differently. My way through the pain was to punch it out. It worked, kept me sane through caring for my sister and sending her off to college. There wasn’t anyone else to look after us—just me.
I take a long cold, swallow of water then grab my gym bag and pull on a sweatshirt as Clay grabs his bag from the other corner. Ryder’s here, crossing the floor to one of the weight benches.
“Any more stairwell encounters?” he asks with a smirk.
“Fuck off.”
He pretends to be mortified. “Behave. Or I’ll call you out on my radio show.”
“I’ll consider myself duly warned.”
He settles in on his bench, and I head out with Clay, the cold January air the perfect end to a workout.
“So is Crash the Moon coming together?”
Clay isn’t just my closest friend from college. He’s my lawyer now too, the best damn entertainment lawyer in the business. He handled all the negotiations with Don Kraftig, once Stillman chose him to produce.
“Going to be the best production to hit New York in years.”
“That’s what I love most about you. Your humble nature.”
“Damn straight. And you?”
“Squeezing money out of all sorts of producers for all sorts of clients like there’s no tomorrow. I’m wrapping up a deal for one of my showrunners for a new network sitcom this week. His fucking agent was a loser. He had to can the agent, so I did it all.”
“Yeah. You’re a modest one too. I’m sure you’re hating doing all that work when you see your hours add up.”
“One of the producers even sent me extra tickets to the Broadway Cares auction in a few weeks because he was so damn happy the contract was finally done. They want you to say a few words about the fundraising efforts Crash the Moon will be doing. You want some extra tickets too? To take Michelle?”
“Sure. She loves going to all those galas.”
“Listen,” he begins, drawing in a breath. “I heard from Madeline’s agent.”
My shoulders tense, habit when her name comes up. “Yeah?”
“Sounds like she’s coming to New York soon,” he says as a cab squeals to a stop at a nearby light.
“That so?” I ask. I think I know what this is about, after Michelle spilled the beans the other night.
“Hasn’t been announced, but her agent just signed her for the lead in the new Steve Martin play that starts rehearsals in a few weeks,” he continues as we walk past early morning runners, focused looks on their faces. “Anyway, I thought you might want to know since the play will be at the Belasco.”
The Belasco Theater. One block away. Michelle hadn’t mentioned that. I am more annoyed than upset. Madeline is the past. I won’t go there again. “I’m a big boy. I can handle it.”
“Hey, Davis? Have you met my friend Davis? He was the guy who was wrecked by this gal in San Diego three years ago.”
But I’m not wrecked anymore. Not by her, at least. She’s in the rearview mirror, and maybe that’s why I’ve been loosening my rules.
“Would it make you feel better if you got her rehearsal schedule so I could plan my day around it?” I joke. “I’m sure you could even get my sister involved, and the two of you can devise new routes to work for me.”
“Just looking out for you, man. Someone has to.”
“I’ll catch you later,” I say, as we reach my loft.
Ava chases Paolo and grabs him before he leaves the classroom.
“I see you’ve changed your mind,” Paolo says with a daring look in his eye, challenging Ava to make the next move.
“I need you, Professor Paolo.”
“Don’t call me professor.”
“What should I call you?”
“Don’t call me. Kiss me.”
Then she cups his cheeks in her hands and kisses him, a long, slow, wet kiss.
It’s a fantastic kiss, full of believable smolder and so much longing. But something’s missing.
Alexis and Patrick pull apart, break character, and look at me expectantly, awaiting notes. This is the tenth time they’ve worked on this scene today.
“It’s still not coming together,” I say.
Alexis sighs audibly. “Well, I flossed and brushed beforehand, so it can’t possibly be my fault.”
“I would never think it your fault that a kiss isn’t
working,” I say, to placate her.
“So what’s the problem, then?”
“I’m trying to figure it out.”
“I’ve never had to work this hard on a kissing scene. The audiences all love my kissing scenes,” she continues in a haughty voice.
“Of course they do.” I hate that she’s right, but she’s beloved by the fans. They have no clue what she’s like to work with. All they know is she’s a force of nature on stage and she possesses far too much of that most precious resource—charisma.
“Are we supposed to kiss all day?”
“Alexis, you make that sound like such a chore,” Patrick huffs. He rarely has a sharp word for anyone, but I’m glad he’s rising to the occasion here.
I wave them off. “It’s not the two of you,” I say as I pace around the studio, trying to work out what’s missing. I rewind briefly to Jill’s audition when she performed this scene perfectly. What was so different about it? I let myself picture her grabbing Patrick, kissing him like her life depended on it—even though the memory is even more grating now that I know she’s in love with him. But the kiss isn’t the problem.
Alexis and Patrick kiss like lovers who’ve been burning for each other.
Jill and Patrick did as well.
So why doesn’t the kiss feel as authentic as it should?
With a flash of insight, I realize the problem doesn’t lie in this scene. The trouble is what precedes it, the moment before she sings “Changed Your Mind.”
“Here’s the issue. There’s no transition. I don’t believe for a second they’d go from all cooped-up anger about her painting style and his teaching, and then go to a kiss. There needs to be a transition. A moment of intimacy, touching but not quite touching before they finally kiss.” I stop pacing. “Thirty-minute break. I need to get out of here.”
The Private Rehearsal (Caught Up In Love: The Swoony New Reboot of the Contemporary Romance Series Book 4) Page 10