The Private Rehearsal (Caught Up In Love: The Swoony New Reboot of the Contemporary Romance Series Book 4)

by Lauren Blakely

  “I look like I’ve just been fucked,” I say.

  “No. That’s how you’ll look later tonight, when this damn event is over, and I can take you out of here and finally have you the way I want,” he says, and an image of later, of him inside me, flashes by, making me hotter. Then he lowers his voice. “The way you want too.”

  “I do. I do want that,” I say, breathless with my need for him.

  “Now press your hands against the mirror because I want us both to watch you as you come,” he tells me, and I do. Then, I hear him unzip his pants, and soon I can feel him press his erection against my backside. God, he feels amazing, and reflexively, I push back, trying desperately to lure him in for more contact. “Please,” I whimper.

  “Jill,” he says, tsk-tsking me. “I promise you, there will be plenty of time for that. But I’ll give you an idea.”

  Then, maybe just to tease me, he slides his cock between my legs, and I nearly scream. It feels so good to have him against me, even for one brief moment, and I am absolutely aching to be filled up by him. But all he gives me is that—a taste, before he returns to that tantalizing way of holding me tight, his hard length against me, taunting me with what I want.

  “Oh, Jill. The things I’m going to do to you,” he says, as if he’s simply musing on the topic.

  “What are you going to do to me?”

  Holding my wrists firmly in place, he dips his other hand inside my panties, and rubs his finger in dizzying circles against me. Then proceeds to tell me what he’ll do.

  Put you on your knees.

  Grab your hair.

  Spread your legs.

  Taste you, touch you, tell you to fuck my face.

  My mind races with images of all we will do, and when he rubs his finger against me, it’s sweet agony. I am burning all over for him, my entire body a delicious ache.

  He slides his finger hard inside me, crooking it, and reaching that spot where he starts to send me over the edge.

  “Oh, God. I can’t wait much longer.”

  “It won’t be much longer,” he says. “Now open your eyes and watch in the mirror.”

  I do as he says. My hair is a wanton tumble, my shoulders rise and fall, and Davis looks like he wants to consume me.

  I can’t form words anymore. All I can manage is a loud moan. He strokes me harder, pushing me closer to release, and all the while, he keeps whispering, a low, dirty growl that sends new shivers pulsating through me, as I race to the edge. “The next time you come, I’m going to be inside you,” he breathes, his strong arm locking me in place, his steel length pressed hard against my back.

  That’s all it takes—those dirty, sexy words he whispers to me, for me, about me, and I am lost in this haze of desire he’s unleashed in my body. An orgasm careens through me, and I shudder violently against his hand. I’m about to scream, when he clasps his hand over my mouth to muffle my sounds.

  “You feel that?” he demands as the waves of pleasure slowly start to fade away. I manage a weak nod, because I am awash in the fog.

  “This is only the beginning, Jill.”

  Then he lets go of my wrists, and I fall into his arms. He catches me, spins me so I’m facing him, then kisses me softly on the forehead. “Do you have any idea how much I love making you come?”

  “I think I have a clue,” I say, with a happy, woozy smile.

  “It is my favorite thing in the world. I love how fearless you are. I love how much you want it. I love the way you let go when I touch you,” he says, returning to a tender voice, his lover’s voice that melts me even more.

  “You should know by now I love everything about the way you touch me,” I say, as I loop my arms around him.

  “I love the sounds you make, how you smell, the way your body responds to me, and, most of all, how you give yourself over to me. But the reason I love all that is because I’m so fucking crazy about you.” Then he stops, takes a beat, and becomes more serious. “Jill, what am I going to do with you?”

  “I thought you just told me what you were going to do with me,” I tease as I lay my head against his strong chest and adjust my dress.

  He cups my chin, so I have to look up at him.

  “No. Not that. What am I going to do about the fact that I’m not just falling for you,” he says, and his eyes never stray from mine. They hold me tight, and I can’t look away, nor do I want to. “I am so completely in love with you that I can’t imagine ever being without you.”

  Time stops in a second, and then it unwinds in a flash. Six years unspool behind me, and my blood goes cold. The floor seems to fall out from under me, and I tumble into the past I’ve struggled to break free from.

  Those same words Aaron said to me. His last words.

  I’m barely here anymore. I’ve been kicked back in time to the moment when I stopped feeling.

  Davis presses a finger to my lips. “I have to go back out there and say a few words. Wait for me. I’ll have the car meet us at the front in ten minutes, and you’ll come home with me, okay?”

  I nod, unable to speak, to move.

  Because I don’t want to be loved like that. I don’t want to be loved madly, deeply, and, most of all, I don’t want to be loved without reason.

  Because I know the outcome.

  I know the end, and I’m starting to shut down already.

  He presses another kiss against my forehead, but I’m numb, blindsided by his words. The exact same things Aaron said before he killed himself.

  Over me.

  28

  Davis

  After I finish, I look for her. She is nowhere to be seen. She’s not waiting in the hallway. She’s not in the Terrace Room, and I don’t see her in the Palm Court. I bump into Shelby as she’s heading back inside.

  “Shelby, have you seen Jill?”

  “She ran out of here five minutes ago. She said she had a horrible headache and had to go. And she asked me to let you know for some reason,” Shelby says, then shrugs as if she’s not entirely sure why Jill would want to pass that message on to me.

  “Thanks for letting me know,” I say, wishing my heart weren’t beating fast with worry. But I already know Jill’s done it. The thing she said she wouldn’t do. Run.

  Shelby returns to the Terrace Room, and I’m alone in the hall briefly and I clench my fists then push my hand roughly through my hair.

  “Fuck,” I say under my breath, and turn toward the wall, wishing it were a punching bag and I could slam it several times. I should have known better. I should have known it would be too soon for her. That she’d need to take it slow. But hell, I thought she was right there with me. I could have sworn she was feeling the same things. She nearly said as much when we danced. I grab my phone from my pocket, but as I’m about to call her, I spot my sister walking toward me, her head cocked to the side in question. “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” I answer gruffly. I don’t want to get into it with her, given how she tried to stage an intervention earlier.

  She tilts her head to the side, her eyes demanding an answer.

  “She left, okay?” I admit because Michelle would pry it out of me soon enough.

  “She left?” Her voice wavers.

  “Yes. And would you like to tell me why you told her to stay away?”

  Now she’s steely again as she places a hand on my arm. “You know why, and I don’t regret it.”

  I shrug off her hand and stare hard into her eyes. “What. Did. You. Tell. Her?”

  Her lips are pressed together, her jaw is set. She is the most determined person I’ve ever met. “I told her not to play with your heart,” she says with a fierce protectiveness.

  “And what exactly does that mean?” My entire body tenses, bracing for words I’m sure I don’t want to hear. “You need to tell me exactly what you said.”

  She sighs heavily, as if this pains her as much as it pains me. “I told her if she wasn’t serious about you, that she should leave. That if she was making some kind of
career move or using you that she should get out,” she tells me, and it feels as if she reached her hands into my chest, grabbed my heart, and squeezed. I can’t breathe. There’s a vise around me.

  I drop my face into my hands, shaking my head over and over. “No. That’s not what you said. Please tell me that’s not what you said.”

  She wraps her arms around me, and whispers in a soft, caring voice, “I’m so sorry.”

  But she’s not sorry for what she said. She’s sorry for me. And she should be, because she was right. She was right when she warned me at our dinner. Because this is Madeline all over again.

  I knew better. I fucking knew how this would end, and I did it anyway, against all my better judgment. I took a chance and chucked all my rules for Jill. And for what? To have her turn out to be like the last actress I fell for. Damn all the fucking actresses in the world who love playing pretend more than anything. Who put their careers first. Who move on to the next job without even looking behind at the people they discard.

  I thought Jill was different, but really that was a stupid hope, because she did exactly what my sister asked her to do.

  Leave if she didn’t feel the same.

  I hate that I’m standing in this hotel with my sister hugging me, while the woman who doesn’t love me enough is gone. I hate everything about this, and I can’t stand to be here another second.

  “I need to go.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Michelle says.

  And that seems fitting. It’s been the two of us for the longest time, and we have to look out for each other. Because no one else will.

  I turn off my phone on the way to the car. She’s not going to call, anyway, so there’s no point in leaving it on. The driver holds open the door and Michelle slides in first. I follow, though I’d rather another woman be the one joining me as the driver pulls out into the late-night traffic by the hotel.

  I groan and bang my head several times against the back of the seat as I bite off a string of curse words. “This wasn’t how this evening was supposed to go,” I mutter, loosening my bow tie as we drive along Fifth Avenue.

  Michelle rubs her hand gently along my arm. “I know. But this is for the best. You know that, right?”

  I nod. “Yeah.”

  “It’s better that it ended now than later,” she continues, and I’m reminded of why she’s good at her job as a shrink, because she knows what to say. She knows what people need.

  “I know,” I say with a heavy sigh.

  “Why don’t we go somewhere and get a drink?”

  “I cannot think of a better thing to do right now. I need a whole fucking bottle, in fact.”

  “Then a bottle it is.” She leans forward and gives the driver the address of a bar a few blocks away. Then she says to me, “Good thing I know all the best places in Manhattan for drinking and eating. This is the perfect spot to forget about a girl. Want me to call Clay to join us?”

  “Let’s make it a party,” I say dryly, and she calls Clay and tells him his presence is required. I text Ryder, and he says he’s on his way.

  Soon we pull up to the Last Stand on Lexington, and the name is apropos. I toss my bow tie and jacket on the seat of the car, unbutton the top two buttons on my shirt and head inside with my sister.

  The Last Stand is like a railroad compartment, long, narrow, and all bar. There are no cozy booths for intimate encounters, or low-lit nooks where you’d take someone you’d want to touch under the table. This watering hole has one purpose—to get smashed.

  “Glenlivet?” Michelle asks.

  “Fuck Glenlivet. I’ll take a Macallan tonight.” I don’t need anything to remind me of her.

  Clay joins us, along with Ryder, and it’s scotch all around.

  “Only the strong stuff for times like these,” Ryder says, handing me a shot, and the man knows what it’s like to be pummeled by love.

  “Times like these can fuck off,” I say, then down a shot.

  “I’ll second that,” he says, finishing his.

  My sister and Clay follow suit.

  It feels right to be with these three people right now. People I know, people I trust. Soon, I’ve downed my third glass, and my head is feeling fuzzy, and the vise around my heart is starting to loosen as we drink and talk about everything except show business.

  Later, much later, the bartender says it’s last call and far be it from me to deny the Last Stand another chance to pour another drink. We finish off a final round and stumble out into the middle of the night.

  “You guys take my car uptown. I’m going to take the subway.”

  Michelle raises an eyebrow. “In your state?”

  “The subway was made for times like this.”

  On the train, there’s a woman in a nurse’s uniform dozing off a few seats away, a hipster in a hoodie listening to music on his phone, and a skinny guy weaving down the car who’s probably had more drinks than I have. I slump in my seat, the guy in the tux who spoke at the Plaza, who dedicated a song to an actress.

  Who’s heading home well past midnight, in a lonely subway car.

  29

  Jill

  It’s better this way. It’s better this way. It’s better this way.

  I repeat that all night long as I sleep fitfully. I say it over and over in the morning as I run along the West Side Bike Path. I mutter it under my breath as I head over to Central Park.

  This is who I am. I am a girl who runs, and today some of the ladies I coach are running a half-marathon so I am here to cheer them on. I blot out the fact that they didn’t expect to see me at the finish line. I told them I had an event the night before but would be rooting for them from far away. But this is where I should be because there’s no room in my life for anything more. There’s no room in my heart for Davis, or Patrick, or anyone.

  And when I’m alone, I can’t hurt anyone again.

  As the first of my gals cross the finish line, I raise an arm in the air and cheer wildly, as loud as I possibly can. I jump up and down to prove how goddamn happy I am. She sees me and smiles broadly.

  “You did it!”

  She jogs over to me and collapses into my arms, and I hug her.

  “I’m so happy for you,” I say, because I am. I am happy, I am happy, I am happy.

  This is my life. This is safe. Running.

  But after they’ve all crossed the finish line, and celebrated, and had their pictures taken, and high-fived each other, they disperse. Heading home to families. Heading elsewhere. And I’m alone, with this bruised and worn-out heart.

  I leave the park, and though I’m tempted to walk past the Plaza, what would be the point? I can’t have him, I can’t have us, and I can’t bear the reminder, so I walk down Broadway, thinking that I could get lost in the theater district, I could buy a ticket, catch a matinee, and let myself believe that the razzle-dazzle of Chicago or the underground lake in Phantom could take all my cares away. I make a go of it. I buy a nosebleed seat for the matinee of The Lion King, since it’s as far from my life as a show can be.

  For a few hours, I forget about the past. But when the curtain rises and the actors take their bows, I remember that I’ve been there, done that, and still have the empty space in my chest that my tricks and techniques can’t fix.

  I leave and wander downtown, check my phone once, but he hasn’t called, and he hasn’t texted. Not that I expect him to either. He’s not a texter, and I don’t deserve a call.

  I don’t deserve him.

  There is nothing left to save me from what I did this time. By tomorrow I’ll have to woman up and say I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to explain, because I never have been able to explain it. To talk about it.

  I return to my apartment. It’s early evening now, and Kat is curled up on the couch watching You’ve Got Mail, one of her favorite movies. One she made me watch a year ago, and I fell in love with it too.

  “Bryan’s out of town for the weekend,” she says, patting the couch. “Come join
me.”

  I shake my head. “I’m tired.”

  She hits pause on the laptop, and eyes me up and down, taking in my fleece jacket and running pants. It occurs to me that I went to the theater dressed like this. It also occurs to me that I don’t care.

  “Have you been running all day long?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Hey, you don’t seem like yourself. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I don’t believe you, Jill.” She sits up straighter and asks, “Did something happen with Davis at the gala last night?”

  I flinch, but then turn stoic. “No. Nothing happened. It was fine. We had a fine time. I’m beat though. I need to go nap.”

  I don’t nap. I shower, put on pajama bottoms and a T-shirt and settle into my room. I read Aaron’s last letter again and again.

  30

  Davis

  The punching bag swings wildly after my final hit. I’ve been pummeling it for the last hour, but as I unwrap my hands, zip up my sweatshirt, and leave the gym, I feel as if I’m the one who’s been pummeled.

  I’ve somehow made it through the day though, and each one that follows will be easier. I return to my loft, strip off my gym clothes and take a long, hot shower, washing away the remains of the day.

  I pull on jeans and a casual button-down, but don’t tuck it in, then find my phone and dial the nearby Chinese takeout. I place an order, but when I hang up something feels eerily familiar and I can’t quite place it. I furrow my brow, trying to pull the memory to the surface. Then it’s there as I flash back to a few nights ago. When Jill said Chinese takeout was her favorite food. When she also said she thought about us so much it scared her. Then I remember last night on the dance floor when she very nearly told me how she felt.

  “Do you think everyone knows?”

  “Knows what?”

  “How we feel.”

  Those words echo loudly, clanging in my head, reverberating around my whole apartment. Like neon lights blaring on. Like a goddamn marquee in Times Square. The sign that was in front of me the whole time, but I didn’t see it until now.