The Interview

by Alice Ward

  Evidently, that luxury was lost to me now because we were a few weeks into seeing one another regularly and this wasn’t the first, third, or even tenth time he’d quietly insisted we remain out of the public eye. I couldn’t shake the nagging concerns anymore.

  He doesn’t want to be seen with you.

  He’s embarrassed.

  You’re a nobody, and he’s a celebrity. He doesn’t want the world to know he’s tied down.

  Except he wasn’t tied down. It had only been a few weeks, and we hadn’t had a conversation remotely close to the “monogamous and devoted” discussion. If he wanted to see someone else, he was perfectly entitled to do so, as was I.

  Then again, if he told me he was dating around, would I be bothered? If he was photographed holding hands or enjoying a romantic dinner with another woman, would I be upset? I was pretty sure I would — no, I was positive I would — but I was also sane enough to realize I wouldn’t have any license to be.

  I was cringing so hard at myself for my rollercoaster of emotions that I wanted to have a long, deep talk aloud just to reason myself back into rationality. Either that, or I wanted to excuse myself from the table and slink away to his bedroom to dive beneath the covers in embarrassment.

  There was something about this man that routinely shoved me back into erratic, emotional pubescence, and I was fairly certain it was his reluctance to open up. Topics I’d always considered standard, if not necessary, to share with a potential partner — like families and childhoods — were strictly kept behind a stone wall and an iron gate with armed guards in the world of Tate. The level of privacy he insisted upon regarding our dating far exceeded anything I’d expected when I started seeing him.

  He was famous. I got that. I knew a normal life as a couple was impossible, and I’d accepted that from the get. But he seemed to operate under the assumption that we needed to behave as hermits, and that mentality was starting to mess with me more than I desired or could tolerate.

  I didn’t want to tell him that, though, and that reservation made me view myself with even more disdain than I already did.

  “Okay.” I chomped on a corner of crusty bread and crunched it into dust before shrugging off the issue like it was no matter. “No Pearl, then.”

  My voice must have given away my muddled feelings because he looked up and met my gaze directly. The thin shadows beneath his pronounced cheekbones faded slightly, and his eyes softened at the edges. “I can arrange for us to have dinner from Pearl here, if you want to try their food.”

  I wasn’t eager enough to try the food to ask him to arrange such a favor, but the expression on his face was one of such hopefulness that he could fix the situation for me that I didn’t want to turn him down. “Sure.” I smiled, appreciating his desire to appease me, even if the desire only extended so far. “You’re sweet.”

  My approval and praise seemed to do the trick. His shoulders relaxed, his lips became full again, and he actually took his first bite in over two minutes. So easy to please, yet so difficult to understand…

  This man was an enigma, and I still wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Part of me, a very large and domineering part, was desperate to solve the mystery of his inherent secrecy for my own peace of mind, but I also recognized how drawn into him I was for the sheer uncertainty he made me feel. I also recognized that my being attracted to uncertainty was about as “epic romance movie” as it could get, but that was neither here nor there.

  Tate leaned into the table and reached forward, lifting his thumb to the corner of my mouth. “Sauce.” I felt his pulse thrumming through his skin into mine, and my heart started pattering in double-time. He had done exactly the same thing on our first meeting at the pizzeria, and the nostalgia of it crushed my waffling thoughts like a freight train careening over a twig.

  I exhaled slowly into his palm. “Thanks.” My stomach flipped, and my foot started jiggling of its own accord under the table.

  He grinned, probably because my cheeks were growing hot and my eyes were not so subtly fixated on his mouth, and I watched him slide his sauce-stained thumb between his lips with exaggerated intent.

  Self-doubt, vagueness, and uncertainties aside, Tate was a magician when it came to temptation. An innocuous gesture like wiping away a sauce glob became foreplay in an instant if he focused his gaze in that suggestive, hooded way and offered me a visual reminder of the things he could do with his hands and mouth. I was still preoccupied with the nature of our relationship, but my body didn’t give a shit about my mind.

  “You’re prettiest like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Blushing.”

  He was positively sparkling now, and a wave of tingles washed over me. It suddenly didn’t matter if he was hesitant to be seen with me, if only for the moment, because the reverence in his stare was an unspoken reassurance. The compliment could’ve been a line, but it was so throaty and rich that I didn’t doubt its truth.

  “If you like that, maybe I should hype up my blush game when I’m putting on my makeup.” I smiled teasingly. “I’ve got a rose color that makes me look like I have a wicked fever, but it would probably drive you wild.”

  “I can think of better ways to keep you this shade.”

  His chair squawked in protest as he scooted it back and stood, and the next thing I knew, he was in front of me. His hands took mine to pull me upright, and his lips closed over my lips with startling urgency. I hadn’t realized he was so horny. An erection of granite dented my belly, and his raw, masculine scent mingled with the aroma of spaghetti sauce.

  I pulled back from him slightly, panting and buzzing from head to toe. “I wasn’t done eating.”

  “Still your tongue, Juliet.”

  He swooped down on me again, this time spinning us around to press the small of my back against the tapered edge of the dining table. Like a bolt of lightning, I realized his impromptu seduction wasn’t the product of incessant arousal. He was distracting himself from whatever it was that filled his mind and weighted his mood when I brought up his childhood.

  I probably should have stopped him. Even if I didn’t insist he open up about what bothered him, I still shouldn’t have let him get away with using me as a diversion. But I was craving him too, and a distraction from my own heavy musings didn’t sound like a half bad idea.

  Preferable to spaghetti with a side of forced conversation, anyway.

  His tongue burrowed through my teeth, and I accepted the intrusion with vehemence. My hands found their way into his hair as he ground his clothed cock against me, pushing the table lip painfully into my back. I whimpered from the sting, but I yanked him closer when he started to retreat. The pain was welcome. He groaned with need at my rabid clawing for more, and I was bent backward over the tabletop by his rigid chest.

  When his fingers sidled from hip to thigh where the frayed hem of my shorts dangled, I split my legs reflexively, silently urging him to continue. Warm flesh palmed the underside of my knee, and he hoisted me up until I was sitting comfortably beside my plate. I felt him fiddling with the button and zipper on my bottoms, halting our kiss briefly, and then the pressure loosened around my waist.

  He slipped his hands to my rear. “Lift.”

  I did as I was told, bridging my body just enough to allow him to undress my lower half, and before I even had a chance to adjust to the sudden temperature change on my pelvis, the apex of my thighs was bathed in hot, wet breath. My head rolled back at once, and I threw my hands out behind me to support myself. I accidentally smashed one hand directly into the serving bowl of pasta, but his tongue had begun performing a skillful dance routine, and I didn’t have the capacity to care that I was grabbing saucy noodles.

  My concerns slipped away from me like silk across silk as pleasure started building from my core, spreading outward in an umbrella of sensation, and I didn’t notice my legs hooking over his shoulders until I felt them lift and fall with his rhythmic breaths. Those same breaths wafted onto my fold
s as he teased me, stroking my clit with just the very tip of his tongue in a way that left me shuddering. The utter intensity of the euphoric waves cascading through me was familiar, his trademark, and the familiarity brought to my attention that he’d brought me to this relinquished state many times, but I’d never felt the power of doing the same to him.

  “Stop.” I barely heard my own voice gasp the command, but he froze and looked up at me with raised brows.

  Smearing my messed hand across the napkin I’d discarded beside my plate, I rocketed off the table and fell to my knees in front of him.

  “My turn.”

  His eyebrows lifted even farther, and I was sure I saw defiance in his eyes. He was clearly inclined to maintain control. I didn’t care. I was going to run the show this time. I needed control over something.

  Undoing his pants, I yanked them down with the ferocity of someone morbidly offended. He barely had time to step out of them before I took his cock into my palm and licked from base to tip before taking the head between my lips and sucking gently.

  Tate groaned with the same ragged coarseness he had when we’d kissed. Adrenaline shot through me, and I became hungrier, stroking my lips down his length in its entirety and drawing back up again. His nails scraped the back of my scalp, his fingers curling into my hair. I knew what he was doing — holding my head made him feel like he had authority in my pacing and depth.

  Not tonight, Mr. McGrath. I reached back to tear his hand away. This is my game.

  He snarled, an angry beast demanding his power back, but his dick pulsed against my tongue, and I knew I was winning. The already admirable girth was swelling, filling my mouth and throat. If I’d wanted to, I could’ve brought him to his knees with another minute or two of ministrations, and I was tempted to do just that for the sake of asserting myself in this relationship. But I wanted my own release too, and I wanted it on my terms.

  Swiftly, I withdrew and stood before reaching into his pocket, pulling out the condom he seemed to always keep there. Rolling it down the length, Tate’s jaw tightened as if he was on the verge of speaking, but I didn’t give him time. I turned and bent over the table, reaching back to find his cock. Holding him steady, I thrust myself back, impaling myself on his shaft. A moan spiraled from my throat, matched by the raspy roar that burst from Tate. His fingers locked onto my waist as I drove him into me deeper and deeper.

  “Jesus,” he groaned through gritted teeth, meeting me thrust to thrust.

  Snapping my head back, I met his molten gaze over my shoulder. I wanted to tell him to wait, to hold on until I was ready, but words failed me. I told him instead with my eyes, demanding his restraint. His chin squared, and his fingernails bit into my sides. Deeper, harder…

  My entire body tightened. “Now.”

  Lights popped behind my eyes, and I lost the ability to prop myself upright. My chest flattened against the table, but I wasn’t aware whether my face and hands had clumsily found their way into the dishes or not. I was exploding from behind where Tate continued to slam into me in the midst of his own raw orgasm, and vibrations of pleasure climbed up and down my body. Everywhere, everything was lit with the kind of physical paradise I’d only experienced with Tate, and I couldn’t have been more grateful.

  Awareness floated back to me with the idle calm of a leaf on the breeze. I registered the mess we’d made of our meal, from the marinara handprints to the lettuce leaves spilling from the salad bowl I’d apparently tipped in my ecstasy.

  Tate leaned over me, his chest falling flush against my back, and he wound himself around me enough to take me by the chin. Twisting my face toward him, he brushed my cheek with his knuckles.

  “Such a lovely shade of pink.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Tate

  Three nights. I had spent three nights in a row barely breaching the boundaries of sleep before being wrenched back into the brutal reality of my predicament. Exhaustion was taking over my body and brain, leaving me with dark circles and a persistent haziness, and nothing I did to alleviate the chronic insomnia was helping.

  By the third evening, I’d become so desperate for a restful night that I’d downed half a bottle of liquid sleep aid, but the only difference it made was to make me zone out as I stared alert-eyed at my moonlit ceiling rather than obsessing relentlessly about Sadie. In some ways, lying awake with a blank mind was preferable to analyzing and revisiting all the pros and cons I’d already been over a million times, but it still wasn’t sleep.

  I needed sleep.

  I was so tired that my Concrete makeup artist was starting to remark how little she had to do to give me the harsh, sunken appearance my character bore.

  It was around ten o’clock on the fourth night that I knew I had to pull my last trick out of my sleeve if I was going to have any luck reconciling my internal conflict. I was reluctant, but I was clearly getting nowhere in trying to figure things out on my own. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I swiped through my contacts to the name I sought.

  “Last chance.” I was alone in the living room, but I spoke aloud as if warning someone other than myself of impending danger. “If you do this, you’ll have to make a decision.”

  My thumb ignored my hesitance, and the tinny electronic ringing on the other end of the line cut through my otherwise silent house. I put the phone to my ear and listened for the voice I knew so well to answer.

  “Did you know pumpkins aren’t vegetables?”

  I grinned despite myself. “That’s good news for all the pumpkin pie lovers out there. Veggies and pastry crust don’t necessarily make for a tempting combination.”

  “So, you’ve never heard of potpie. Or quiche.”

  “Ah, the dark horses of baked goods.” I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. “How are you, Artie?”

  He snickered, then let out a sandpaper cough. “A bitchin’ bakery just opened up around the corner from my house, and my brother is a famous movie star. I’d be a fool to complain.”

  I chuckled for his benefit, but the small breath of humor I’d salvaged from my mood in calling Artie was already leaving me as the double meaning behind his joke stabbed me right in the gut. He had never been a complainer, my little brother, but I knew better than anyone just how much he truly did have to complain about, and just thinking about his ill-fated situation was enough to make me melancholy. Add my troubles with Sadie into the mix, and our phone conversation was destined to be a somber one.

  “I read the review for your show in The New York Times.” Artie didn’t seem to have picked up on my emotional shift, which I was grateful for, because even though I was calling to discuss a problem, I didn’t want him to be affected. “Sounds like you’re kicking ass like always.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve developed a knack for pretending I’m someone else.”

  “Bet you’re missing California already, though, eh?”

  Every time I spoke to my brother since deciding to leave Hollywood and return to the stage, he hinted around at what he considered to be my inevitable return. It had become somewhat of a bit between us, but I meant it every time I shut the notion down. California might have been my home state and the place where Artie still lived, but I couldn’t stand the place.

  “Hardly,” I replied good-naturedly.

  “It was eighty-five and clear today.” Nudge, nudge, nudge. “What was it there, sixty and overcast?”

  I glanced out the nearest window, a massive pane looking onto the city skyline, and relished the muted velvet of the night. “Art, I’ll take a gray New York day over California sunshine every time.”

  “You always were a strange one.” He let out a brief, barking laugh. “So, what’s going on?”

  “Actually, I did call for a reason.” My heart was starting to beat maniacally in my chest, and my mouth went dry. This was it, do or die. “I need to pick your brain about something.”

  “How to perform a perfect step-ball-change?”

  Not that I ever would’ve gone to Artie about
something like that, but I desperately wished that I was reaching out to him for a reason that simple. “There’s this woman…”

  The silence from his end was deafening. I waited and waited for a response, but the lack of one was a response all its own. I cleared my throat and decided to continue without so much as a grunt of acknowledgment.

  “We’ve been seeing each other for a little while.”

  The silence stretched as he seemed to consider this revelation. “How long is ‘a little while?’”

  “A few weeks. Maybe a month.”

  He let out a long, lingering hmm. “You’ve only been dating for a month, and you’re already having a problem big enough to call someone who hasn’t been in a relationship for well over a decade? I gotta tell you, bro, this doesn’t sound promising.”

  “Yeah, but the problem isn’t the relationship.” I closed my eyes and ground the heel of my hand into my forehead. “It’s me.”

  “What’d you do?”

  “It’s not what I did. It’s what I didn’t do… or won’t do… or don’t want to do.” I let out a massive breath, a hefty whoosh. “Or I’m not sure if I want to.”

  Artie clicked his tongue. “You’re being cryptic.”

  “All right, look. She’s asked about me and my childhood, brought up parents and stuff. I think she’s getting irritated that I like to keep a low profile and don’t want to go out in public too much.” The hand holding the phone felt thick and swollen, and I could hear my pulse banging through my wrist. “I think I have to tell her the truth.”

  There was more silence. Even the city nightlife outside my walls seemed to have quieted. I was really starting to loathe being able to hear myself think.

  “I care about her, Art. I don’t want to lose her, and I think I’m going to if I don’t come clean.”

  “It’s only been a month,” he said in a deadpan tone. “How can your feelings be that strong after only a month?”