Act Like It

by Lucy Parker

  Her lashes fluttered open when his weight pressed her into a gorgeously plushy mattress. The silk dress was bunched around her hips. She could feel the coolness of the bedcover beneath her lower back and thighs. Richard leant on one arm, propping his body above hers. Slowly, he slid his free hand up her thigh, following the curves of her hip and waist. He looked down, his eyes intent as he watched the movement of his fingers. Catching hold of the folds of silk, he slid the dress up, bunching it in his hand. Her breath quickening, she arched her back, and he pulled it carefully over her head. She heard the crack of static from her hair as it tugged at the loosened strands.

  His face was so close that she could only focus on one distinct feature at a time. Eyes, the black lashes lowered. The sharp aquiline plane of his nose. His lips, parted and a little thin. Very gently, still focused on the touch of their skin, he laid his palm on her midriff, spreading his fingers wide. He lowered his head and kissed her tummy, right in the hollow between her ribs.

  She was slightly self-conscious about her stomach. She didn’t have the DNA or the will power for visible abs. Generally, she preferred men to pick a direction—up or down—and not linger in the middle region. It was so obvious from Richard’s expression that he found her completely and unconditionally attractive that she let out a slow breath and relaxed in his arms.

  He tugged her legs upward, bending her knees, and kissed the inside of her thigh. His mouth came down to blow warm breath against her expensive knickers—and she gave herself a mental high-five for leaving the Spanx at home again. She didn’t need any Bridget Jones-esque comedy for their first time together.

  Raising her hips, she wiggled the underwear down her legs and sent it flying with a careless flick of her foot. Their hands met on his belt buckle. She grinned up at him, her eyes sparkling and happy, and he touched the pad of his thumb to her lower lip.

  When his body came down on hers again, both of them shivering at the slide of bare skin, she wrapped her arms around his back in a tight hug.

  He lifted his head to look at her. “Okay?” His voice was rough and raspy.

  In answer, she slid her toes up the back of his thigh, lifted her hips and pointedly arched an eyebrow.

  His grin flashed as he adjusted his weight, and his head lowered to her neck.

  Where she had expected a rush of blurred sensations, she received lingering clarity, as if the world had come into focused high-definition. She felt every moment of the hours that followed: the brush of his hair against intimate flesh, the warm suction of his mouth on her neck and her breasts, his soft kiss on the sensitive inner flesh of her upper arm when she reached back to the headboard, his hands—everywhere, it seemed.

  There was one moment when they tried to roll to a different position and he kind of got trapped between her breasts, which was super awkward, but, she informed him kindly, could have been sexy if she’d been flat-chested and he’d been flexible.

  It was worth it for the novelty of seeing him dissolved into laughter.

  She had imagined Richard as a selfish lover, and she was wrong. He demanded, but he gave. He seemed fascinated, enthralled by her, which in turn made her feel intensely desirable. He made her feel far more beautiful than any couture gown or luxury cosmetic could ever do. It was a real beauty—messy, sweaty, intense. And it left her reeling.

  * * *

  Much later, they took a bath. Or rather, Lainie took a bath. Richard hijacked it, and didn’t even have the decency to sit behind her so she could prop herself against his chest.

  “How come you get my cosy self for a cushion, and I have to lean against cold marble?” She threaded playful fingers through his chest hair.

  “My bath,” he said, wrapping her legs across his lean belly so he could tickle her feet, “my cushion.”

  He stretched against her like a slick, satisfied seal, rubbing his wet hair into the curve of her neck. Lainie closed her eyes and dropped her head back. The water lapped at the drooping ends of her intricate hairstyle, most of which had been thoroughly mussed by Richard.

  “What did Harlan Powell want?” she asked.

  Richard traced interlocking circles on the inside of her knee, drawing patterns with soap bubbles. “Mostly to talk about himself. He did mention a possible role in Macbeth next year.”

  “Oh,” she said sleepily. “Good. As Macbeth?”

  “I don’t see myself as the Macduff type, do you?” His hand reached back to cup her cheek, providing a handy pillow against the hard surface of the bath. “I also ran into Eric Westfield, the RSPA vice president.”

  Lainie’s eyes opened. “And?”

  “Looks hopeful. He wants to have us over for dinner a week from Sunday. Smart casual dress.” Richard sounded amused. “He obviously thinks you’re a stabilizing influence on me, Tig.”

  “Interesting.” She kissed his ear and smiled against his damp neck. “I would never have guessed he was so insightful.”

  Chapter Eight

  London Celebrity @LondonCelebrity. 3h

  Are things getting serious? Sources say “totally infatuated” Elaine Graham and Richard Troy are spending “almost every night together.”

  Lainie’s numerous older brothers were all thick-necked, wide-shouldered, brown-haired and green-eyed. Richard took her word for it that it wasn’t a mirrored reflection of the same large man. To a one, they obviously hated his guts. Compared to the Upper Bidford Women’s Institute, however, they were about as intimidating as Cabbage Patch Kids.

  The children were a different story.

  “Bear¸” said one of the smaller girls. She showed him a dilapidated toy. Most of the fur had been sucked off one ear.

  “Bear,” she said again, more insistently.

  He wasn’t sure what she was looking for by way of a response. To start with, it wasn’t a bear. It was a cat. Possibly a mouse. Less likely, a squirrel. Definitely not a bear. The kid was related to Lainie, so he suspected she wouldn’t appreciate being corrected on that point.

  Gingerly, he took the mystery animal from her. “Cute.”

  The lie seemed to satisfy her. To his relief, one of Lainie’s sisters-in-law appeared with a carton of ice cream and a box of waffle cones, and the little girl took off running. He turned the slightly sticky toy over in his hands, wondering where to put it. Through the hot cycle of the washing machine would be his first instinct.

  “Can I get you a cup of coffee, Richard?” another woman asked, and he glanced up. She was tall, forty-odd and sharp-featured. Victoria, who was married to Lainie’s eldest brother, Ryan. The one who’d attempted to break Richard’s thumb during their handshake.

  “Victoria is a university professor,” Lainie had said in the car, on the way to her parents’ house in Fulham. “She claims to be political, but she’s mostly just stroppy.”

  “Black, thank you,” he said. “No sugar.”

  A healthy shot of whisky wouldn’t have gone astray either. He couldn’t remember if he’d been nervous the first time he’d stepped onto a West End stage, but he couldn’t have been as uncomfortable then as he felt now, at a one-year-old’s birthday party. As was becoming his new state of normal, his eyes sought out Lainie. She was standing talking to Sarah, who’d been refreshingly pleased to see him. The baby propped on Lainie’s hip was wearing a pink headband, so presumably was not the guest of honour, as the name on the birthday cake had been Cooper. She was bouncing up and down again, but her niece seemed to appreciate the rocking motion more than he had when she’d done it to the springs of his Ferrari.

  He’d read an abysmal script a few months ago in which the protagonist had been struck dumb by the apparently sensual sight of his love interest clutching an infant. Watching Lainie sway with the baby, Richard’s main thought was for the welfare of her clothing. These kids had consumed enough food to feed a barracks. It seemed like tempting fate to jiggle one up and down.

  She did look beautiful, holding the baby. She had managed to look beautiful holding a sick bucket. She
was beautiful, in a way that had nothing to do with a perfect smile, or large breasts, or gorgeous hair, and had everything to do with her.

  Although the boobs and hair were a nice perk.

  She looked over at him, smiled that perfect smile, and for a moment he couldn’t fucking breathe.

  He’d played this, onstage and on film, countless times before age had sharpened his features and his reputation had tarnished his character, and he’d been more frequently cast as the villain than the lover.

  He’d had no idea.

  Lainie’s gaze shifted down to his hands, where he still held the revolting stuffed animal. Her smile grew. She said something to Sarah, who also looked at him with amusement, and handed her the baby.

  He could smell her perfume as she came toward him. Her hair brushed silkily against his cheek as she sat down on the couch at his side and rested her chin on his shoulder for a moment.

  “I see you’ve been left in charge of Mister Ed. You should feel privileged. He’s Libby’s favourite.”

  “Mister Ed?” Lazily, he rubbed his nose against her cheek.

  “Ryan used to watch reruns when he was a kid. He told her it would be a good name for a horse.”

  “A horse?” His attention returned to the toy, and he turned it over in his hands. “It’s a cat. I’ll accept a fox at a push.”

  “It’s clearly a horse.” She took it away from him and set it down on the coffee table, next to a naked Barbie doll with a shorn head, one leg and an understandably fed-up expression.

  Victoria came back with a cup in each hand. “Black coffee, no sugar,” she said, handing him one. “Tea with milk and two sugars.” She passed the other to Lainie.

  “Thanks, Vicky.” Lainie took it and sipped, with a grateful sigh. She flicked a glance at him through her lashes. “You’re surviving, then.”

  He swallowed a mouthful of coffee. “Just.” He raised the cup. “Although if one of your brothers helped make this, I should probably check it for traces of strychnine.”

  “Yeah. Sorry about that. They don’t usually behave like the Corleone family. Will set kind of a bad precedent.”

  “Story of his life.”

  She grinned. He watched her narrowly, but there were no shadows in her eyes. Not a hint of lingering anger or regret. From her demeanour, Farmer might have been only a passing acquaintance. The corner of his mouth curved upward.

  Another of the children, a small-to-medium-sized boy, came toddling over with a melting ice cream cone and laid a sticky miniature hand on Richard’s knee. He sighed and looked around for a suitable toy. Mister Ed was obviously private property, and he didn’t want to sacrifice the Barbie. The little boy looked like a holy terror, and her life had obviously been hard enough.

  Lainie came to the rescue with a neon-green foam sword. Her ungrateful nephew whacked her around the ribs with it before charging off to decapitate his siblings.

  Lainie looked at Richard ruefully. “Most of them will be taken off for a nap soon.”

  He wouldn’t mind one himself. He had an entirely new respect for people with kids. They were exhausting. He also questioned the sanity of teachers, nannies and anyone who voluntarily wrangled the little beasts en masse. Naturally high spirits seemed to go into warp speed under the influence of pack mentality. He watched a card game disintegrate into something more like a reenactment of the Battle of Waterloo.

  He’d occasionally wondered if he’d missed something, being an only child. Grievous bodily harm, by the looks of it.

  “Thank you for coming.” Lainie spoke in his ear. He turned to look at her. Her green eyes were level and serious on his. “I do appreciate it. I know this is so not your scene.”

  It wasn’t. He hadn’t met a woman’s family since his university days. And his girlfriend at the time had also been an only child. But this was obviously the centre of Lainie’s world, and he...cared about Lainie.

  He shrugged. “We said we were going to spend the day together.”

  When they’d made plans for their day off, she’d forgotten about the family gathering, but needs must. The rest of the week was going to be packed with performances, meetings and duty appearances, so there wasn’t going to be another chance to spend time with her away from the prying eyes of the public.

  There were no paparazzi here. No pretence.

  Just the vaguely threatening stares of her five hundred brothers.

  One of them dropped into a seat opposite, a half-empty coffee cup in his hand, and Richard sat calmly under his scrutiny. It was the youngest. Cal, the only one with a beard.

  He looked fairly unhappy about the proximity of Richard’s hand to his sister’s thigh.

  Too bad.

  “So,” Cal said, with suspicious civility. “Richard.”

  “Cal,” Lainie returned warningly.

  “Rumour has it you’re a bit of a prick.”

  “Cal!”

  Her brother’s face remained politely enquiring.

  Richard’s lips twitched. “That does seem to be the general consensus.”

  Cal leaned back, frowningly inspecting his jumper, which bore traces of his children’s lunch. “And are you?”

  “I believe your sister has said so more than once.” He smiled slowly, looking down into Lainie’s indignant face. “And I respect her opinion.”

  She shook her head at him. Reluctant amusement lightened her eyes to a gleaming shade of mint.

  Cal watched them in silence. “Good enough.” He stood up, drained the last of his coffee, and clapped Richard on the shoulder as he passed by. “Welcome to the family. See you in two weeks at the next birthday party.”

  “I’m adopted,” Lainie said. “I share no genes with these people.”

  Richard glanced pointedly through the archway into the other lounge, where her freckle-faced, still partially red-haired father was playing Playstation with the teenagers. He tugged gently on a lock of her own hair.

  Lainie put her hand up to rescue her scalp, her fingers closing over his. “Coincidence.”

  Without thinking, he nodded at the framed photograph on the mantel. “Your sister is indicating otherwise.” He belatedly recalled that she’d almost cried the last time they’d talked about Hannah. It was still a novel experience, keeping a watch over someone else’s feelings.

  Fortunately, her eyes remained clear. Her expression softened as she looked at her sister’s image.

  “That’s Auntie Hannah,” said yet another childish treble, and he looked down at a young girl with a brown ponytail. He was relieved to see that this one had clean hands and looked old enough to entertain herself.

  “She could curl her tongue like me.” She demonstrated. “Can you do that?”

  “Yes, Richard,” Lainie said provocatively. She widened her eyes at him. “What can you do with your tongue?”

  “Are you being gross?” her niece demanded, and Richard snorted. Lainie’s cheeks reddened.

  Taking pity on her, he stuck his tongue out and curled it, to the resounding approval of his younger audience.

  “She could do cartwheels too.” She looked at him expectantly.

  “No,” he said firmly.

  “Yeah, Auntie Lainie can’t do them either.” The little girl looked disparagingly at her aunt. “Mum says it’s because she has a heavy top.”

  Richard bit back a grin. His gaze moved to the...top in question, and Lainie pinched him.

  “She can do some stuff, though,” the precocious child grudgingly allowed. “She can sit on the ground and put her foot right up behind her head.”

  “Can she?” He eyed Lainie with new interest. “That sounds...useful.”

  “I did it once and almost broke my hip,” she replied deflatingly. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

  “He can curl his tongue like Auntie Hannah, Gran,” the little girl said to Rachel, who had come into the room to gather up dirty plates.

  “Is that right?” Lainie’s mother glanced at Richard, and then smiled at her granddau
ghter. “You can take these plates to the kitchen for me, please, madam.”

  He got to his feet, still holding his empty coffee cup. “Let me,” he began, but Lainie took the cup from his hand and a stack of plates from her mother.

  “It’s okay,” she said, nudging him with her elbow. It was a very casual, gentle, affectionate action, which somehow rendered him motionless. “I can do it.”

  Her niece trailed in her wake, holding a single plate and looking martyred.

  Rachel stood looking at the photo of Hannah. Slipping his hands into his pockets, he remained silent.

  “She was a good person.” Rachel turned her head to look directly at him. “So is her sister.”

  He didn’t so much as blink under her steady regard. “I’m aware of that.”

  “Good,” she said, unsmiling. She continued to watch him for several seconds, then nodded and returned to the kitchen.

  He walked over to take a closer look at the family photographs. He was standing near the open door to the hallway, well within hearing range when his name came up in conversation.

  “So, what do you think of Richard Troy, up close and personal?” He didn’t recognise the female voice, but instantly identified Victoria when she responded.

  “He seems to have a few more brain cells than the last walking ego she had in tow. But once again, Lainie takes up with an up-himself actor.”

  “He doesn’t seem that bad.” The unknown woman sighed. “Do you reckon it’ll last?”

  “No.”

  “They do seem pretty into each other.”

  “She seemed to be pretty into the manwhore too.”

  “Vicky...”

  “Besides, do rebound relationships ever last? None of mine did.”

  The voices trailed away and he heard footsteps going up the stairs. He was still standing by the doorway when a trio of kids came tripping through. They were all clutching plastic swords.

  Apparently Lainie’s brothers had dispatched an execution squad.

  One of the two boys looked him up and down. “Are you a pirate?”

  Richard dropped the murderous scowl and resisted a self-conscious urge to touch a hand to his unshaven chin. “No.” His response was curt. “Sorry.”