by Cara Nelson
“That has to be so hard for you,” she said, her voice warm with an agony of compassion, quick tears shining in her blue eyes. “Let’s go.”
They rode back to the bowling alley in silence. He reached across the console, took her hand in his, and squeezed it.
“Are you off tomorrow night?” Becca asked him as she pulled in beside his bike and shifted into park.
“I work until seven.”
“Let me cook you dinner.”
He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Okay. Good night.” He slid out of the car, mounted his bike and rode away without another word.
Chapter 5
Becca worked on her audition lines in her sister’s studio and looked up recipes online. Abe had said his name was German, so she decided to impress him with some authentic food from his ancestral home. She settled on red cabbage soup and some kind of noodle thing called spaetzle. She figured she could eat the soup—there even used to be a cabbage soup diet back in the old days, so it must be reasonably healthful. He could have the leftover noodles for his lunch the next day. It made her feel positively wifely, planning a special meal to surprise him.
Becca made a grocery list, taking careful note to get things like caraway seeds and a pound of flour. She had thought you measured flour by tablespoons, but the noodle recipe called for a pound. She looked up the conversion and found out she was making enough spaetzle for fifteen people. Not a confident enough chef to halve the recipe,
Becca resigned herself to making a crapload of German egg noodles and headed for the market. She forced herself to stay away from the hummus and the kale chips—now was not the time to indulge! —and focus on the ingredients she needed to seduce Harrison Abrahemson with a good meal. She found herself wanting to take care of him, make sure he got enough wholesome food to eat and such. Becca was a nester, and he brought out all her sappiest impulses. The man had a high-stress job and he needed a break, needed to let someone help him. She knew in her heart that she was exactly the person to convince him of that.
Once she’d mixed up enough disgusting eggy dough to make approximately seventeen bajillion noodles, she started slicing them and putting them on to boil. While they were cooking, she figured she could shower and get ready. Those little German bitches boiled over and made a huge mess in Hannah’s previously unused kitchen.
Becca was trying not to gag from the sweaty-socks-stink of cooking cabbage while cleaning up the swamp of overcooked noodles, clad only in a towel. That was when Abe knocked on the door. She muttered imprecations as she made her way to the front door and turned the knob, leaving a floury smear on the door.
“Is this a bad time?” He chuckled, taking in her coils of wet hair, the towel that seemed both insufficient to its task of concealment and determined to slide off, and the wad of what might have been pasta in one hand and the roll of paper towels under her arm.
Abe stood in the doorway, a bouquet of sunflowers in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other, looking like he’d stepped out of a magazine ad. She sighed, unequal to the task of greeting him cheerily in such a mess.
“Have a seat,” she said peremptorily, and returned to the kitchen end of the room to continue wiping up.
Abe came up behind her, setting his flowers and wine on the counter and taking the paper towels.
“I can do this.”
“Really?” she asked hopefully.
“Really. Go get ready. I know it’s driving you nuts that I got here before you were ready,” he said kindly.
Becca dashed back to the bathroom and dried her hair, curled her eyelashes, and donned a yellow sundress scattered with tiny blue blossoms. It looked sweet and sunny and reminded her of the flowers he’d brought her. No one had ever given her flowers on a date. She’d gotten a few roses from the audience that time she was in “Our Town,” but that didn’t count. That was business. This was most assuredly personal.
Barefoot, she hurried back to him, her hair a riot of untamed waves streaming behind her as she dashed toward the stove to turn off the burner. The cabbage was beginning to burn.
“Cabbage is mostly water. How could it run out of water and burn?” she puzzled, dumping the smoking, stinking pan into the sink.
Abe was rather unsuccessfully trying to clean the glutinous mess off the front of Hannah’s oven. Becca grabbed his arm and dragged him to a standing position.
“Thank you for the flowers. They’re beautiful. Now let’s have a glass of wine and decide what to order for dinner.”
Abe’s arm snaked around her hips and he dragged her up against him. Her head tipped back and their lips met. All of her sappy impulses burned away as the fire of his kiss suffused her limbs with desire. Becca no longer wanted to make him noodles—she wanted to make him moan instead.
“I was trying to make you cabbage soup and spaetzle in honor of your German ancestry,” she explained breathlessly.
“How about I order pizza in honor of your Italian ancestry?”
“I don’t eat carbs or dairy,” she reminded him sternly.
“Okay then, what should we order?”
“Thai spring rolls with ginger sauce,” she responded immediately. He laughed. “Here, I have them on speed dial.”
The order handled, Becca trimmed the sunflower stems and arranged them in a vase she found on top of the refrigerator. They were bright and gorgeous and she loved them. She fussed over them, arranging them this way and that until Abe dragged her away, insisting he was bored.
“I’m here now. Entertain me,” he demanded.
To his surprise, she bounded toward the coat closet, dragged some stuff out, and disappeared into the bathroom. When she emerged in super short cutoff jeans, a white undershirt, cowboy boots and a cowboy hat, he gaped. She was like a walking Daisy Duke fantasy in that get-up, but he had no idea what she was up to. It crossed his mind that a striptease might be in his future.
She played with her phone for a second, set it on a speaker dock, and cranked up the volume on an instrumental country track. Keeping time by slapping her hand on her hip like an invisible tambourine, she broke into song, crooning an old Patsy Cline number.
“I go out walkin’/after midnight/out in the starlight/just like we used to do.” He fished in his pocket for his phone, lit up the display and held it up like a lighter as if he were at a concert, grinning in disbelief as she wound up the song, her wistful voice vibrant with sadness and strength. Abe applauded and she bowed with flourish, tipping her cowboy hat to him.
“Never, ever ask an actress to entertain you if you don’t expect a show.” She grinned mischievously. “I may not be Hannah Largent, but I had voice lessons, too,” she said modestly. “I was in the chorus of Evita once. Not like the real Broadway Evita. Evita in Jersey, but still...I rocked it.”
A knock at the door heralded the arrival of their Thai food and she went to answer the door. Abe grabbed her arm and shook his head.
“You’ll give some poor Thai youth a stroke if you answer the door looking like that. Let me get it,” he teased.
Becca stepped aside, secretly thrilled that he thought her to be dangerously sexy dressed as a cowgirl singer. She got out paper plates and poured the wine into glasses for a carpet picnic. She sat down on the floor by the coffee table and started opening food containers. She slurped a spicy Thai noodle into her mouth illicitly and smiled when he caught her.
“Tell me you didn’t perform that number in a school talent show,” he scolded. “I won second place in my sorority’s Talent Night during rush week when I was eighteen.”
“You should have been stamped with a parental advisory. Were you mobbed by frat boys?”
“No. Of course not. I had a boyfriend,” she said virtuously.
“I hope he appreciated what he had.”
“He didn’t. He turned out to be more into guys than I was,” she said nostalgically. She reached for her phone and pulled up a photo to show Abe. “That’s Nick, the college boyfriend, with his husband Jim and their new
baby, Adriana!” She beamed. “I’m her godmother,” she added proudly.
Abe shook his head. He had never known anyone so warm, so ready to love everyone and everything, so excited to be dumped by a guy and then go on to be godmother of his child. It was dizzying.
While Becca dunked her spring roll in ginger sauce, Abe pushed her hair aside and kissed her neck. When he looked up and met her gaze, his eyes were warm with intent. She’d meant to seduce him with German home cooking when all it took was a cowboy hat. She continued to chew her spring roll until it was gone and took a long pull off her favorite purple water bottle. Then she turned into his arms and kissed him until they were both dizzy, desperate for each other.
Becca pulled away from him.
“Wait, let me go get changed. I have this silky nightgown,” she promised. He shook his head, eyes dark with lust.
“I don’t want to wait for a costume change. This works just fine for me.” Abe’s voice was husky. “Where’s the bed in this place?” he asked, indicating the empty bed frame beneath the window.
“I got tired of staring at the door, waiting for it to be broken down by a monster. I dragged the mattress into my sister’s studio. She’s a sound engineer. This was her place.”
“Lead the way,” Abe said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Becca tugged on his hand, glancing back over her shoulder as she pulled him into the soundproof studio and shut the door.
“This place is a little freaky,” he observed, his gaze encompassing the recording equipment, the foam-covered soundproofed walls, the mattress up against the wall and the assortment of sex toys on the bed. Becca took one look at his alarmed expression and started to laugh.
“Note the gift bags and ribbon. I was getting stuff ready for the bachelorette party. Not luring you to my torture dungeon where no one will hear you scream.”
Becca giggled, scooping the variety of novelties into one of the gift bags and dumping it on the floor. She stepped out of her cowboy boots and dropped the hat onto the soundboard to avoid crushing it. There weren’t exactly loads of floor space with the mattress in there. When he didn’t provide any instructions, she started out the way Chris had always told her to. She inched the undershirt up over her flat stomach, her hips rolling in a coy little striptease bump as she slowly slid the shirt up and over her head. Abe shook his head and reached for her again. He’d been standing near the door uncomfortably, but the sight of Becca removing her clothing had spurred him into action.
“I thought you were interested,” she said hesitantly, a little embarrassed. She was too pushy, always had been, she knew that.
“I’m more than interested. But you’re not here to put on a show for me. We’re in this together,” he said against her ear.
He kissed Becca just beneath her earlobe, as he’d wanted to since the day at the coffee shop. She drew back a little, confused. She was used to serving, to pleasing the man she was with. She’d never been with a man who didn’t want her to do all the work, set the scene and provide the enthusiasm. She wasn’t familiar with working together, being a partner. Chris had always wanted her to take off all her clothes so he didn’t have to remove them himself, had wanted her to tell him how amazing he was, how powerful and sexy and irresistible. She felt off balance with Abe.
“I—don’t know how to do this,” she admitted.
“What?” he asked, eyebrows going up.
“Have sex without being—directed.”
“Directed? Like by your director? I’m not in the theater, you know that.”
“I don’t know what you like, what you expect me to do,” she clarified. Abe pulled her into his arms, but instead of guiding her or ravishing her, he hugged her and she felt the laugh building in his chest.
“God, Bec, just be you. What more could any man want?”
He framed her face with his hands and kissed her, nibbling softly at her lips until he felt the tension leave her. He couldn’t imagine why someone who looked like Becca would be nervous at all. Clearly she’d slept with some bossy morons she was well shot of. He saw this as an opportunity to show her a good time. Frankly, when he saw her in the cowboy hat, he was done for.
“Abe,” she said, his hand brushing against her bare stomach and sending a bolt of desire through her.
“Yes,” he said, dipping his head and kissing along her shoulder, her collarbone, lifting her bra strap and sliding it down her arm.
“I want to know what you like,” she said, still uncertain.
“I think I told you a while back that despite all expectations, I like you. There’s really nothing you’re going to do that I won’t like. Trust me.”
Abe thought he had reassured her enough, but she was still unsure of him. He pressed her back onto the bed, coming down over her, and leaned his forehead against hers. If she was used to a selfish lover, he considered it his privilege to surprise her. Kissing her chin, her cheek, her neck, Abe listened, alert for every hitch in her breathing, every gasp that told him what she liked.
Slowly, he discovered that Becca liked it when he stroked a tight circle below her ear with his thumb while he kissed her mouth; she liked soft, deep kisses and the pressure of his thigh between her legs. She pushed her hands up inside his shirt, gripping his lean back as he moved over her. Abe unbuttoned her cutoffs and worked them down over her hips, stripping them off of her. Taking his cue, she unfastened his jeans and pushed them down, letting him kick them away.
Instead of tearing her panties off and getting down to business as she expected him to, Abe kissed her mouth slowly, softly as his hands cupped her breasts, rubbing her nipples until they pebbled hard beneath his fingers. She gave a small gasp, then another, louder one. She moaned loudly with abandon and he stopped what he was doing to laugh.
“Really, Bec?” he asked. “You don’t have to play it up for my benefit. I can tell you’re faking. It’s too fast, too theatrical.”
“I’m an actress. I’m theatrical. Learn to deal,” she grouched, scooting away from him. “Besides, what do you care if I fake?”
“I have no interest in being the only one who enjoys the activity.” He pulled her to a sitting position and kissed her forehead. “We don’t have to do this if you’re not into it.”
She gaped at him. “You’re stopping?”
“If you want to, yeah. Why is that so shocking?”
“It’s just—I don’t know,” she said uncomfortably.
“Not to go all afterschool special on you, but did someone rape you or something?” He asked awkwardly. He had treated assault victims in the ER countless times. This was different, and he was hoping hard that she’d say no, that it hadn’t happened to her.
“Not really.”
“Not really? There’s no gray area there, Bec. Either someone forced himself on you or he didn’t. Which is it?” he asked brusquely, bracing himself for the answer.
“If it’s yes or no only, then it’s no,” she said decisively. “There was a guy, an agent I went out with a few times when I was trying to get into acting right after I dropped out of college. It’s the reason I don’t have an agent, actually. Because when I said no, he said he’d make sure I never found representation. I believed him because I was, I guess, stupid and so I went ahead and sort of caved to the pressure. He still wouldn’t represent me, said I wasn’t good enough and I’d never amount to anything. If you think about it, he was probably right. Anyway, I never even spoke to another agent after him.”
“Aw, shit, Becca—the guy used coercion on you and probably some degree of force. What was he, twice your age? Not that it matters. I mean, a predator is a predator regardless of age, but Christ, didn’t you tell anyone?” he snapped, raking his hand through his hair.
“I was ashamed of myself for giving in to him, for letting him pressure me. For not being good enough. I don’t know. It isn’t something I’ve ever talked about before. And you’re basically making me wish I hadn’t mentioned it,” she admitted, her voice small.
Abe practically tackled her, scooping her into his arms and holding her in his lap.
“You listen to me, Becca. We’re not doing anything you don’t want. Ever. Now tell me what you want to do now. We can go out for frozen yogurt. We can play Scrabble. We can make love. We can go for a walk. Your choice,” he said.
His voice was steady, his dark blue eyes as noble, as honorable as any knight in any fairy tale she could name. When she opened her mouth to answer, a sob escaped and she dropped her head to his shoulder for a second to collect herself.
“I don’t want frozen yogurt. I suck at Scrabble. I’m a terrible speller, plus I’d use my phone to cheat.”
“How about a walk?”
“No thanks. There’s something I’d rather do,” Becca said, suddenly overwhelmingly too shy to say it.
So he kissed her to let her know it was okay. Becca was sometimes brash, sometimes demure, but always, always his. Even as he thought it, Abe winced at the truth of it.
Becca pulled him down on the bed so they were side by side. She brushed his hair back from his forehead.
“You need a haircut,” she told him with impossible tenderness in her voice, and kissed his forehead.
“The only thing I need right now is you.” He answered. She closed the inches between them with a kiss.
Becca took his hand in hers and pressed it against her panties, using his fingers to rub, to stroke. He pushed her panties aside and touched her softly, his fingers gentle in her slick folds. He kept kissing her mouth, one long finger curling inside of her.
He felt her jerk and shudder, her flesh tightening around his hand until she screamed his name. Abe pulled her into his arms and held her until her heartbeat slowed to a more regular pace. She dragged his shirt off of him urgently, trying to pull him on top of her. Her legs parted for him. He shook his head and pulled her into his lap so she could set the pace. She braced her palms against the wall on either side of his head and lowered herself onto him, pushing his pulsing length inside of her.